[Ayelbourne]

Rumsfeld: WMD May Still Be Found In Iraq


His possibilities:

- Banned arms never existed. ("I suppose that's possible, but not likely")

- Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March.

- Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden.

- Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started.

- "small quantities" of chemical or biological agents may have existed, along with a "surge capability" that would allow Iraq to rapidly build an arsenal of banned weapons. ("We may eventually find it in the months ahead.")

- The issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may have been a charade" orchestrated by the Iraqi government.

- Saddam was "tricked" by his own people into believing he had banned weapons that did not exist.


That would seem to cover just about any eventuality. Can you think of more?

I can think of one that he missed:

- Fairies stole the WMD and left Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf in their place as a changeling.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by Ayelbourne:
- Fairies stole the WMD and left Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf in their place as a changeling.

ROTFLMAO!

[villalobos]

The best part

"Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and other Democrats on the committee reminded Rumsfeld that in September 2002 he said "we know" where weapons of mass destruction are stored in Iraq.

Explaining that remark, Rumsfeld told the panel that he was referring to suspected weapons sites, but he acknowledged that he had made it sound like he was talking about actual weapons.

The remark "probably turned out not to be what one would have preferred, in retrospect," he said."

I guess it depends on what the meaning of 'know' is....... Pathetic.

villa

[eklipse]

Ratiocination \Ra`ti*oc"i*na"tion\, n. [L. ratiocinatio: cf. F. ratiocination.]
The process of reasoning, or deducing conclusions from
premises; deductive reasoning.


Heh - you learn something new every day.....

[Ayelbourne]

Originally posted by eklipse:
Ratiocination \Ra`ti*oc"i*na"tion\, n. [L. ratiocinatio: cf. F. ratiocination.]
The process of reasoning, or deducing conclusions from
premises; deductive reasoning.


Heh - you learn something new every day.....

I never say "no" to a little alliteration, plus I needed an good "R" word and I don't get many chances to use that one. I suppose I could have used this one:

ru·mi·na·tion, n.
- The act of pondering; meditation; a calm lengthy intent consideration
- The act or process of chewing cud.

Either definition could apply, depending on your point of view.

[Ayelbourne]

Does anyone else besides me remember when there was this alleged evidence that was "very compelling", the secret material they showed to Blair to get him on board? I remember that, at the time, they said it was unfortunately too sensitive to make public.

Has that evidence ever been made public, e.g. was it part of Powell's U.N. presentation? What happened with that?

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Ayelbourne:
Has that evidence ever been made public, e.g. was it part of Powell's U.N. presentation? What happened with that?

They smoked it.

[Ayelbourne]

Originally posted by eklipse:
They smoked it.

Heh...

Actually, the more I scour the online news archives, the more I believe I may be thinking of when Blair was allegedly shown evidence linking bin Laden to the September 11th attacks.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, they haven't bothered to go public with that either.

[eklipse]

Originally posted by Ayelbourne:
Heh...

Actually, the more I scour the online news archives, the more I believe I may be thinking of when Blair was allegedly shown evidence linking bin Laden to the September 11th attacks.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, they haven't bothered to go public with that either.

Yes, this is perhaps the most worrying consequence of the WMD fiasco - if world leaders are conclusively proven to have lied and manipulated the world's populace, it throws a hell of a lot more 'facts' and 'solid evidence' into suspicion.

Was Iraq the first (and hopefully the last) 'intelligence failure' or 'mass deception', or have there been other incidents that have thus far been left unexposed?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by Ayelbourne:
Does anyone else besides me remember when there was this alleged evidence that was "very compelling", the secret material they showed to Blair to get him on board? I remember that, at the time, they said it was unfortunately too sensitive to make public.

Has that evidence ever been made public, e.g. was it part of Powell's U.N. presentation? What happened with that?

Published on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
Intelligence Chief's Bombshell: 'We Were Overruled on Dossier'
by Paul Waugh

The intelligence official whose revelations stunned the Hutton inquiry into the death of government scientist David Kelly has suggested that not a single defense intelligence expert backed Tony Blair's most contentious claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

As Mr Blair yesterday set up an inquiry into intelligence failures before the war, Brian Jones, the former leading expert on WMD in the Ministry of Defense, declared that Downing Street's dossier, a key plank in convincing the public of the case for war, was "misleading" about Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological capability.

Writing in today's Independent, Dr Jones, who was head of the nuclear, chemical and biological branch of the Defense Intelligence Staff until he retired last year, reveals that the experts failed in their efforts to have their views reflected.

Dr Jones says: "In my view, the expert intelligence analysts of the DIS were overruled in the preparation of the dossier back in September 2002, resulting in a presentation that was misleading about Iraq's capabilities."

He calls on the Prime Minister to publish the intelligence behind the Government's claims that Iraq was actively producing chemical weapons and could launch an attack within 45 minutes of an order to do so. He is "extremely doubtful" that anyone with chemical and biological weapons expertise had seen the raw intelligence reports and if they were made public, it would prove just how right he and his colleagues were to be concerned about the claims.

Downing Street was triumphant last week when Lord Hutton ruled that Andrew Gilligan's claims that the dossier was "sexed up" were "unfounded". But Dr Jones's comments are bound to boost the wider case of the BBC and others that the dossier failed to take into account worries of intelligence officials.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, revealed for the first time yesterday that he would not have supported military action against Baghdad if he had known that Iraq lacked weapons of mass destruction.

Acutely aware of the American inquiry into the war, Mr Blair said that a committee of inquiry would investigate "intelligence gathering, evaluation and use" in the UK before the conflict in Iraq. Lord Butler of Brockwell, the former cabinet secretary, will chair the five-strong committee which will meet in private. The Liberal Democrats refused to support the inquiry because its remit was not wide enough.

Dr Jones was the man whose decision to give evidence in public electrified the Hutton inquiry as he disclosed that he had formally complained about the dossier, which was subsequently followed in February last year by the so-called dodgy dossier.

The Government attempted to dismiss his complaints as part of the normal process of "debate" within the DIS and claimed that other sections of the intelligence community were better qualified to assess the 45-minute and chemical claim. But today Dr Jones makes clear that he was not alone and declares that the whole of the Defense Intelligence Staff, Britain's best qualified analysts on WMD, agreed that the claims should have been "carefully caveatted".

Furthermore, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which allowed the contentious claims to go into the dossier, lacked the expertise to make a competent judgment on them.

Dr Jones makes clear that it was John Scarlett, the chairman of the JIC, who was responsible for including the controversial claims in the executive summary of the dossier that was used to justify war. It was Mr Scarlett's strong assessment that allowed Alastair Campbell to "translate a probability into a certainty" in Mr Blair's foreword to the document, Dr Jones adds.

He says that he foresaw at the time of the Government's dossier in September 2002 that no major WMD stockpiles would be found. He made a formal complaint about the dossier precisely to avoid himself and his fellow experts being cast as "scapegoats" for any such failure. In his article, Dr Jones warns that intelligence analysts should not be blamed for the lack of any significant finds in Iraq and points out that it was the "intelligence community leadership" - the heads of MI6 and MI5 and Mr Scarlett - who were responsible for the dossier. It would be a "travesty" if the DIS was criticized over the affair, he says.

Dr Jones complains that he and others were not allowed to see vital intelligence supporting the 45-minute claim and chemical production claim. But he reveals that he has discovered from a colleague that the raw reports from the ground did not meet his and others' concerns about the wording of the JIC's assessments. It also turns out that the Deputy Chief of Defense Intelligence, Tony Cragg, did not see the supposedly clinching intelligence and took on trust assurances from MI6 that it was credible.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, announced a wide-ranging review of intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, chose not to support the inquiry.

The Government yesterday finally slipped out its response to the Intelligence and Security Committee's report last autumn on the intelligence case in the run-up to war. For the first time, it conceded that it "understands the reasoning" for the committee's criticism that the presentation of the 45-minute claim in the dossier "allowed speculation as to its exact meaning", including the firing of WMD on long-range missiles. But the Government pointed out that it had not linked the claim to ballistic missiles.

[GG Allin]

Originally posted by eklipse:
They smoked it.

Oh LOL snicker burp snort chuckle fart

[GG Allin]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Published on Wednesday, February 4, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
Intelligence Chief's Bombshell: 'We Were Overruled on Dossier'
by Paul Waugh

And we still have people running around saying that they had no idea there would be no WMD. It is a LIE. It is a circus. The Bush Admin et. al. knew that by the time the truth was found they would have already produced the treasure of the century. Powell is the token black man. Rice is the token black woman. They are the sacrifices.

It doesn't even matter to Bush whether he wins a second term! The money he and his cronies have made off this will last the rest of their lives.

It is a MASSIVE tax-payer swindle. PERIOD. It is about massive corporate corruption of the Federal Government by defense contractors and oil companies. And we are taking it in the ass.

[FeLiZeCaT]

Personally, and I mean NO disrespect to anyone, but, I wonder, really, how come, we are still listening to these guys.

I have seen better B-movies than that.

Are we masochists that we have to do some sort os self-brainwashing to make sure these guys are constantly contradicting themselves?

Or is it that we feel so helpless that we do the only thing we believe we can do: talk?

Sometimes I wonder if we are not self-entertaining ourselves in our illusions...

We have those illusionists blinding us with a very badly executed trick, we know they still get our money, our lives, and yet, we watch and talk about it...

This seems such a strange situation...

It is like a very very bad dream.

I wish we could all wake up and be able to forget the whole thing. But how can we do that, when facing those horrible clowns who cannot care for human life?

This is utterly disgusting. I do not care whether they were democrats or republicans; I just cannot believe we are letting this go with not so much than a blink of the eye.

If they were able to sacrifice so many people (adult, children, soldiers) for petty reasons, what is OUR value to their eyes?

[GG Allin]

Originally posted by FeLiZeCaT:
This is utterly disgusting. I do not care whether they were democrats or republicans; I just cannot believe we are letting this go with not so much than a blink of the eye.

If they were able to sacrifice so many people (adult, children, soldiers) for petty reasons, what is OUR value to their eyes?

I think some of the people who post and read this forum have no intention of letting them get away with this with there political careers anyway. I hope that we have all learned a valuable lesson about what it means to participate in a Democracy.

I just do my small part letting the people I talk to know how I feel and dropping little bits of carefully chosen information. You know, things that cut through all the nonsense. Such as informing people that the Bushes are part of the Carlyle group. Dick Cheney at Halliburton. Bush at Harkin. Reminding people why we really went into Iraq.

People have to be reminded. Look at the effort the Jews have made to keep the Holocaust so fresh in our minds.

Also we have to be proactive. When we are talking to friends or relatives who may be watching TV or talking politics we have to be ready with the information. And we have to call people on what are obvious distortions of the truth.

[Face Ache]

Originally posted by FeLiZeCaT:
Sometimes I wonder if we are not self-entertaining ourselves in our illusions...

We have those illusionists blinding us with a very badly executed trick, we know they still get our money, our lives, and yet, we watch and talk about it...

This seems such a strange situation...

It is like a very very bad dream.

I wish we could all wake up and be able to forget the whole thing. But how can we do that, when facing those horrible clowns who cannot care for human life?

Stop comparing the US to Nazi Germany!

Oh wait! That was me.

Sorry. Carry on.

[gadster]

Originally posted by GG Allin:
<snip> Such as informing people that the Bushes are part of the Carlyle group. Dick Cheney at Halliburton. Bush at Harkin. Reminding people why we really went into Iraq.<snip>

I trust you also remind them to GO AND VOTE!

[GG Allin]

Originally posted by gadster:
I trust you also remind them to GO AND VOTE!

Of course. I have friends that tell me they will now vote which-ever way I tell them. Knowledge is power. Keep the pressure on.

Email lists are a great way to get information out. I belong to quite a few lists and I forward the good stuff. They may not read all of them but every bit helps.

BTW CBS is going to run Bush's medicare ads but not MoveOn's medicare ad. Just like they wouldn't run their super-bowl ad.

[gadster]

Originally posted by GG Allin:
Of course. I have friends that tell me they will now vote which-ever way I tell them. Knowledge is power. Keep the pressure on.

Email lists are a great way to get information out. I belong to quite a few lists and I forward the good stuff. They may not read all of them but every bit helps.

BTW CBS is going to run Bush's medicare ads but not MoveOn's medicare ad. Just like they wouldn't run their super-bowl ad.

Bastards. But so predictable. So much or Free Trade and Freedom of Speech. You are from Iraq, right?.