This article appeared front page in today's (10-08-02) St. Paul Pioneer Press (Knight-Ridder Newspapers).

Now they have something they can't ignore, and it would be unconscionable to proceed with a vote before getting to the bottom of this. This sort of coercion to cook intelligence in support of the administrations war plans not only subverts the public interest and everything the government claims to stand for, it is probably a prosecutable offense.

Everybody please forward copies of this article to members of Congress. Make sure they all get it. Insist that Congress suspend action on the resolution until they investigate this matter fully. Don't take "maybe" for an answer. They can't vote on something that's based totally on lies!

Article link:

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/4233943.htm

Article:



St. Paul Pioneer Press

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

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Posted on Tue, Oct. 08, 2002



Misgivings run deep over Iraqi invasion

Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — While President Bush marshals support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.

These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses — including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network — overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.

They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews with Knight Ridder.

They cited recent suggestions by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network are working together.

Rumsfeld said Sept. 26 that the U.S. government has "bulletproof" confirmation of links between Iraq and al-Qaida members, including "solid evidence" that members of the terrorist network maintain a presence in Iraq.

The facts are much less conclusive. Officials said Rumsfeld's statement was based in part on intercepted telephone calls, in which an al-Qaida member who apparently was passing through Baghdad was overheard calling friends or relatives, intelligence officials said. The intercepts provide no evidence that the suspected terrorist was working with the Iraqi regime or that he was working on a terrorist operation while in Iraq, they said.

In his Monday night speech, Bush said that a senior al-Qaida leader received medical treatment in Baghdad this year — implying larger cooperation — but he offered no evidence of complicity in any plot between the terrorist and Saddam's regime.

Rumsfeld also suggested that the Iraqi regime has offered safe haven to bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

While technically true, that too is misleading. Intelligence reports said the Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, a longtime Iraqi intelligence officer, made the offer during a visit to Afghanistan in late 1998, after the United States attacked al-Qaida training camps with cruise missiles to retaliate for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But officials said the same intelligence reports said bin Laden rejected the offer because he didn't want Saddam to control his group.

In fact, the officials said, there's no ironclad evidence that the Iraqi regime and the terrorist network are working together, or that Saddam has ever contemplated giving chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaida, with whom he has deep ideological differences.

Fearing retribution, none of the dissenting officials, who work in a number of different agencies, would agree to speak publicly. But many of them have long experience in the Middle East and South Asia, and all spoke in similar terms about their unease with the way that U.S. political leaders are dealing with Iraq.

All agreed that Saddam is a threat who eventually must be dealt with, and none flatly opposes military action. But, they say, the U.S. government has no dramatic new knowledge about the Iraqi leader that justifies Bush's urgent call to arms.

"I've seen nothing that's compelling," said one military officer who has access to intelligence reports.

Some lawmakers have voiced similar concerns after receiving CIA briefings.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said some information he had seen did not support Bush's portrayal of the Iraqi threat.

"It's troubling to have classified information that contradicts statements made by the administration," Durbin said. "There's more they should share with the public."

In his Monday night speech, Bush stressed that if Saddam gained control of radioactive material no bigger than "a softball" he could build a nuclear weapon sufficient to intimidate his region, blackmail the world and covertly arm terrorists. But a senior administration intelligence official notes that Saddam has sought such highly enriched uranium for many years without success, and there is no evidence that he has it now.

Other examples of questionable statements include:

•Vice President Dick Cheney said in late August that Iraq might have nuclear weapons "fairly soon."

A CIA report released Friday said it could take Iraq until the last half of the decade to produce a nuclear weapon, unless it could acquire bomb-grade uranium or plutonium on the black market.

•Also in August, Rumsfeld suggested that al-Qaida operatives fleeing Afghanistan were taking refuge in Iraq with Saddam's assistance. "In a vicious, repressive dictatorship that exercises near-total control over its population, it's very hard to imagine that the government is not aware of what's taking place in the country," he said.

Rumsfeld apparently was referring to about 150 members of the militant Islamic group Ansar al Islam ("Supporters of Islam") who have taken refuge in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. One of America's would-be Kurdish allies controls that part of the country, however, not Saddam.

Current and former military officers also question the view sometimes expressed by Cheney, Rumsfeld and their civilian advisers in and out of the U.S. government that an American-led campaign against the Iraqi military would be a walkover.

Iraqi commanders, some officials warned, could unleash chemical or biological weapons — although the American military is warning them they could face war-crimes charges if they do — or U.S. airstrikes could do so inadvertently.



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This story was reported by Warren P. Strobel, Jonathan S. Landay and John Walcott of the Washington Bureau.