Baghdad's Looting That Wasn't

[island911]

An interesting read. link

[HarryD]

Look next to the obits for this story in your local paper!

[widebody911]

Originally posted by HarryD
Look next to the obits for this story in your local paper!

I find it hard to believe that only 33 pieces were taken. If so, the Iraquis would do well to take some lessons from Americans about looting.

But, while you're on a Bush high:

10 Appalling Lies We Were Told About Iraq

By Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
June 27, 2003

"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the
world
with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
? George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.


There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every
day
since the start of the war. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," and lists
the
names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour
of
duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthal J. Smith, age
21,
of Allendale, South Carolina.


The young, late O.J. Smith, almost certainly named after the legendary
running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero
became
a fugitive in a double-murder case. Now his namesake has died in
far-off
Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19,
"disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave
danger."


Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war
and
nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their
existence,
nor any sign they were deployed in the field.


The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is
belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of
administrative
deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the
Bush
administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in
fact, almost never told the truth.


What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens
of
outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year
in
what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of
everybody:


LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength
aluminum
tubes and other equipment need for gas centrifuges, which are used to
enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." ? President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in
Cincinnati.


FACT: This story, breathlessly leaked to and reported by Judith Miller
in
the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department
of
Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not
be
used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of
the
tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic that, "You had
senior
American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this
aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television.
And
that's just a lie."


LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." ? President
Bush,
Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.


FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already
knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by
some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had
been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was
no
longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the
story
is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the
New
Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about
aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly."


LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear
weapons."
? Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."


FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA
reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons
program.


LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts
between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." ? CIA Director George
Tenet
in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that
evening's
speech by President Bush.


FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam
and
al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing
relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun
the
intelligence180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it
suggested.


LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in
bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists
could
allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any
fingerprints."
? President Bush, Oct. 7.


FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin
Powell
told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern
Iraq.
To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to
be
outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.


LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a
growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used
to
disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are
concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned
aerial
vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." ? President Bush,
Oct.
7.


FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6000 miles
from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program
wasn't
much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't
a
"manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"?


LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have
chemical
and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that
they're
weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control
arrangements have been established." ? President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in
a
national radio address.


FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces,
there
are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in
the
field, or anywhere else during the war.


LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile
of
between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to
fill
16,000 battlefield rockets." ? Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5
2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.


FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive
stockpile has been found, but, as previously reported on AlterNet, our
own
intelligence reports show that these stocks ? if they existed ? were
well
past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder.


LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around
Tikrit
and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." ? Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.


FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east,
west,
south or north, somewhat or otherwise.


LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN
prohibited." ? President Bush in remarks in Poland, published
internationally June 1, 2003.


FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck
trailers
that the CIA claimed were are potential mobile biological weapons lab.
But
British and American experts ? including the State Department's
intelligence wing in a report released this week ? have since declared
this
to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony
Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said
they were, facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the
British
themselves.


So, months after the war, we are once again where we started ? with
plenty
of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which
O.J.
Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the
blame
for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was
fine, it was their abuse of it which was "faulty."


Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on
impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering
his
resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound
more
like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while
promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search
for
"the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how
long
it takes."


On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked
plane
slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange
call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House
position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got
to
say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to
be
connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim
Russert. "I said, 'But I'm willing to say it, but what's your
evidence?'
And I never got any evidence.'"


And neither did we.


Christopher Scheer is the managing editor of AlterNet.org. He can be
reached at feedback@alternet.org

[speeder]

I read the link. And talk about an un-biased source, it's the New York Post! Owned by none other than R. Murdoch, who owns that other bastion of unimpeachable truth, FOX NEWS!!

That story is proven BULL*****, but in a paper w/ headlines that refer to all Palestinians as "goons", and parrot Bush administration slogans in "news stories", WTF would you expect? I place that asswipe rag somewhere next to The Globe and News of the World in the journalism food-chain.

[tabs]

Hearst's newspapers started a war..."Remember the Maine"...The Spanish American war of 1898...we got Cuba, Puerto Rico, The Philiphines, and Guam... out of that one... and went on to form the sovereign country of Panama in order to build the Panama Canal a couple of years later

So boyz why don't you start complaining about that...and whats new under the sun??? Pleazzee gimme a break...

What ticks me off with you whiners is that you take the benfits of lifestyle that America offers you, yet you disclaim any responsibility for the ****y things that our government (as all govts do) has to do to keep those benfits coming. You bite the hand that feeds you. You should be glad that you live in America and not in some third world cesspool where a third of the population can be murdered overnight by some tinpot dictator or wipeout by famine or plague.

[speeder]

Tabs, What is lost on you and your ilk is the fact that the main benefit of living here is supposedly the ability to speak freely against the government and prevent the type of tyrany that we are currently experiencing, (Patriot Act 1&2, leaders who lie/make up reasons to start wars while domestic economy burns, etc., etc.). America did not ever become a nice place to live due to the contributions of people like you, whose attitude seems to be, "stop whining and let the guys behind the curtain do their thing. Trust them, they know what's best".

Actually, with your viewpoints on political leadership and citizens' role in dissent, you would have survived quite nicely in Saddam's Iraq, or any other number of dictatorships. While your fellow citizen's heads were being chopped off in the town square, the choppers would say, "who is that dude watching us chop? Oh that's just Tabs, he's a good old boy. Other than some incoherent internet rambling, mostly pro-government, he never makes a squeak. We need to keep him around as an example".

[WOODPIE]

speeder

Bravo and Amen

Ed

[tabs]

To be as wise as serpents and meek as lambs...

U should read the History of the United States....after the founding Fathers who largely put it all on the line... self interest and behind the scenes manipulation is what has driven this country....wake up and stop living in LALA land...nothing is different now than 50 or 100 years ago...John Toland...who is a best selling author of books and an authority concerning WW2 and WW1...has come to the conclusion that F. D. Roosvelt knew that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor, and that he allowed it to happen...talk about gross manipulation and deceit... so don't tell me Bush is doing anything different than anybody else who wields power...and to get to having that kind of power your not going to be a saint....It's the way of the world since time immemorial. It's called politics...


PS: Or maybe it's just called being "Street Smart"

[island911]

Originally posted by speeder
. . .. Oh that's just Tabs, he's a good old boy. Other than some incoherent internet rambling, mostly pro-government, he never makes a squeak. We need to keep him around as an example".

Nice. . .triviallize & personally attack Tabs. Though, speeder, I'm not sure this makes YOU look too good. I mean when it come to considering the many subtleties of geo-political maters, tabs eclipses you. It's like your stuck in a 1980's liberal rhetoric loop.

[island911]

. ..also speeder, you set out to 'question' the valitity of the article implying the source is less than credible.

Yet Thoms article from AletrNet.org seems to get an "impartial-pass" from you.

Yes, with front page articles like;

-- EnviroHealth:Can Greenpeace USA Get Its Mojo Back?

-- DrugReporter:Medical Pot Users Get Burnt

-- Personal Voices: Sodomy and the Supremes

. . .I'm sure this is an impartial source.

I guess your hawkish eye missed this. . . . or does " " mean you're blind? :P

[WOODPIE]

It's funny to use FDR as an example to justify immoral weilding of wealth and power. That's just the way it is, huh? Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

FDR might well have had knowledge of the impending sneak attack; that has been talked about for a long time. FDR also had knowledge of government's contract with the society it governs. He instituted and insinuated the government into business and society as never had been done before, evoking a deepfelt resentment and hatred from the well-heeled of the day, who felt "their" country had been given over to socialism.

Short of the recent tax cut and the hoped-for trickle-down benefits that will (not) result, I see no initiative from Bush that tells me he has any "contract" with anyone other than his own creme-de-la-creme part of society.

In the final analysis, a man's motivation is historical footnote fodder compared to his accomplishments. I don't know why that is; it's always been that way. Doesn't make it right, though.

Ed

[speeder]

I'm sorry Island, it's just that people who refer to political dissenters as "whiners" bring out the sarcasm in me.

And I don't quite see the problem w/ the headlines you have mentioned, should Greenpeace and medical pot not be written about, (or read about), in the press? Clarify yourself a little.

As for Murdoch and his ass-wipe rag, he puts those commies to shame who hand out propaganda papers on the street, he could give biased reporting lessons to anyone. I think that when you post links to sources like that on this board you have surrendered your right to question anyone else's bias, don't you?

[speeder]

Oh, and the story that you have provided a link to was discredited long ago, I was aware of it when it appeared and the source of it, (U.S. military officer, can't remember the branch), not even the right wing is standing behind the "only 33 pieces" story. You need to keep up w/ the info flow there, my friendly adversary.

[island911]

Originally posted by speeder
. .
And I don't quite see the problem w/ the headlines you have mentioned, should Greenpeace and medical pot not be written about, (or read about), in the press? Clarify yourself a little.
. ..

Well at least you admit your ignorance on this.

To give you some insight (Clarify a little.) :

1) The "issues" (topics) that are choosen to be brought forth (by a "news" source) speaks volumes about their agendas.

2) How the question or headline is phrased speaks volumes about their agendas.

For example, two sentences that could be said to be asking equal questions:

Is speeder a brain numbed liberal moron?
-or-
Is speeder a political savant, with acute insight of the republican short-falls?

Both could be said to be asking the same question, if it wasn't for a little thing called "sub-text."

Something tells me you canread sub-text just fine. . .so now, really. . .you're going to say that the headline:
"DrugReporter:Medical Pot Users Get Burnt"
doesn't have any bias?

[speeder]

Well, all it means to me is that people who use marijuana for medical reasons, (such as to ameliorate the effects of chemotherapy in cancer patients), are S.O.L. because of a recent court ruling? Or that they are getting "burnt out" from smoking pot?

I guess that I must be a "liberal moron", (is there any other kind?), , I am not with you on this.

If you are unwilling to acknowledge that The Post is entertaining but jack-assed level journalism, you are truly not a person that I can have a discussion with. I also object to calling anyone a moron on this board, even in your "just giving an example" way, , I have resisted doing this for years here.

[turbo6bar]

If things are going so badly with our "moron" of a president, what are you going to do about it? Walk the talk.

Regarding the economy, what goes up must come down. Did you really think the boom times of the 90s was going to last forever? Do you really think the government has a lot to do with the economy? I feel the consumer has the biggest effect on the economy.

Jurgen

[speeder]

Jurgen, I agree that what goes up generally comes down, especially if the thing going up is fueled by speculation and greed, not actual production, as is often the case.

That said, I did not mean to change the focus of the thread to economics, I was refering to people's need and obligation to speak out against their government when they disagree w/ it, even after terrorist acts that seem to have cowed the public in a way very advantagous to current leaders.