Failure to find banned weapons is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration, with several influential lawmakers saying on Friday that they believe the White House had hyped the Iraq threat

The Bush administration should have heeded Mark Twain’s advice: “When in doubt, speak the truth.” But it didn’t, and thought it could fool people into believing that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, had links to Al Qaeda and was even involved in the 9/11 attacks on the US. This, of course, was rubbish, tripe of the highest order, as many of us had been saying for months. The truth, however, will out sooner or later. And the expletive deleted has finally hit the fan.

On Friday the ranking Democrat on the US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee warned that President Bush’s contention that America went to war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to rid the country of hidden biological and chemical weapons “could be the greatest intelligence hoax” of all time. And it’s not only Democrats that are saying this. So are Intelligence Committee members from Bush’s own Republican Party.

Representative Jane Harman, Democrat-Ranco Palos Verdes (Los Angeles County), has sent a letter, along with Representative Porter Goss, Republican-Florida, the Intelligence Committee chairman, to CIA Director George Tenet asking him to explain what “intelligence” led spy agencies to believe Iraq had stocks of the banned weapons or that Al Qaeda operated on Iraqi territory.

“US credibility is at stake,” Harman told reporters on Friday. “Especially if there is an interest in another military adventure, we need the facts.”

The congresswoman said intelligence briefings about weapons of mass destruction she received in the committee were a major reason why she had voted for last October’s war resolution in the House of Representatives.

The underlying implication was that had it not been for such briefings, Harman might well have voted against the resolution. The same could probably be said of other US lawmakers, many of whom must now be thinking they were conned into voting for the war resolution.

To add to the Bush administration’s embarrassment, the top US Marine commander in Iraq said on Friday that US intelligence was “simply wrong” in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash biological or chemical weapons against America forces during the war.

“It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons,” Lt. General James Conway, commander of the First Marine Expeditionary Force, said from Baghdad in a teleconference with reporters in Washington.

“It’s not for want of trying,” he continued. “We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.”

Conway said, “What the regime was intending to do in terms of its use of the weapons, we thought we understood, or we certainly had our best guess, our most dangerous, our most likely courses of action that the intelligence folks were giving us. We were simply wrong.”

His comments are likely to further fuel concern in Washington that the prewar intelligence in Iraq was flawed at best and an outright lie at worst.

Amid the mounting criticism, CIA Director George Tenet took the unusual step of issuing a statement on Friday denying that the agency’s assessments on Iraq were politicised.

“Our role is to call it like we see it — to tell policymakers what we know, what we don’t know, what we think, and what we base it on,” Tenet said.

His remarks were intriguingly reminiscent of Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s comments at a Pentagon press briefing during the height of the war, when he observed, “There are things we know. There are things we don’t know. Then there are things we know we don’t know and things we don’t know we don’t know.”

Even this example of Rumsfeldian doublespeak pales into insignificance, however, compared to the spin that Major General Keith Dayton, the director of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency’s human intelligence service, tried to put on the US’ failure to find any weapons of mass destruction.

Dayton, who will head a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for proscribed weapons, said in a press briefing on Friday that it was possible that Iraq “deliberately misled” US intelligence agencies, making them think that weapons were being produced and deployed even as they were secretly being destroyed.

So now we are being asked to believe that Iraq wasn’t secretly producing weapons of mass destruction but secretly destroying them, though why on earth it should have wanted to resort to such subterfuge Dayton was unable to say.

In fact, the US’ failure to find even a shred of evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction only confirms what the Saddam Hussein regime had been saying all along in the months before the war — that it didn’t have any.

Failure to find banned weapons is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration, with several influential lawmakers saying on Friday that they believe the White House had hyped the Iraq threat or was misled by the intelligence community.

No such doubts seemed to assail White House spokesman Ari Fleischer at a press briefing on May 29, when a reporter asked, “Is the President satisfied with the intelligence he got before the war? Because now one Cabinet officer is saying that they (the Iraqis) buried the weapons; another said they destroyed them; and another said they — what’s the President’s view on all this?”

Fleischer replied, “The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that is borne out by the fact that just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the two trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That’s proof perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target.”

Reporter: “We go to war for two trucks?” Fleischer: “I’m sorry?” Reporter: “You would go to war from the finding of two trucks?” Fleischer: “Well, I don’t think it’s anything to dismiss. Iraq had, contrary to their protestations to the United Nations, trucks for the purpose of producing biological weapons. They said they didn’t have them, they got caught — proof-perfect that they had them.”

This whole exchange sounds like a scene from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.

But if there is already “proof-perfect” evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, would Fleischer, aka Ari, the evasive, care to explain why the Bush administration has now decided to send in a new team of more than 1,400 experts to search for evidence of such weapons?

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-6-2003_pg3_8

..."The fecal matter has hit the Air Recirculating Device".

Splatty-ty splatty-ty splat.

Oooh! Disgusting.

What a mess.

Another scandal with no teeth.

Prior to the war, there were no UN countries (including France, Germany and Russia) taking the position that Iraq did not possess WMD's. That's why several of the predominately Islamic countries in that area allowed the US to station troops there, to rid the area of the threat Saddam's Iraq. There was no effort on the part of Saddam to positively admit he had no WMD's. Even the 13,000 page document outlining weapons he did possess was inaccurate and left of weapons which were found by inspectors.

"Hype" means "exaggerate." As used by those who were prepared to let Saddam remain in power, it is prelude to a harsh accusation: "You lied to us. You pretended to have evidence that you never had; you twisted dubious intelligence to suit your imperialistic ends, so we were morally right and you were morally wrong."

Never mind the mass graves now being unearthed of an estimated 30,000 victims, which together with the million deaths in his wars make Saddam the biggest mass murderer of Muslims in all history. Never mind his undisputed financing of suicide bombers and harboring of terrorists, from al-Qaida's Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi to the veteran killer Abu Nidal (the only "suicide" with three bullets in his head, dispatched in Baghdad probably because he knew too much.)

And never mind our discovery of two mobile laboratories designed to produce biological and chemical agents capable of causing mass hysteria and death in any city in the world. Future discoveries will be dismissed as "dual use" or planted by us.

No; opponents of the removal of this genocidal maniac now accuse President Bush and Prime Minister Blair of a colossal hoax. Because he didn't use germs or gas on our troops, they say, that proves Iraq never had them. If we cannot find them right away, that means they don't exist. They believe and would have us believe that Saddam sacrificed tens of billions in oil revenues for no reason at all.

A strong majority of Americans believe he did have a dangerous program running, as he did before. Long before the CIA dispatched agents to northern Iraq, Kurdish sources were quoted in regards to the terrorists operations of Ansar al-Islam, whose 600 members included about 150 "Afghan Arabs" trained by al-Qaida; after our belated bombing, some escaped to Iran.

As reassured Iraqi technicians and nurses come forward and as Baathist war criminals seek to save their skins, we will learn much more about Saddam's terrorists connections and his weaponry. It took seven years to catch Eric Rudolph and 18 years to catch the Unibomber; the location of Saddam and Osama bin Laden won't remain a mystery forever.

The biggest intelligence misjudgment of Gulf War II was that the 50,000 elite soldiers of Saddam's well-trained, well-equipped Special Republican Guard would put up a fierce battle for Baghdad. Our military plan was based on this cautious assessment. Prior to the war, there were Kurdish leaders telling our military planners that Saddam's super-loyalists would quickly collapse. Had we believed the Kurds, we would have sent fewer combat troops and more engineers, civilian administrators and military police. But the CIA and the Pentagon had no way of being certain that the information about the Republican Guard's poor morale and weak discipline was accurate. With thousands of lives at stake, optimism was not an option. Sensibly, we based our strategy on the greater likelihood of fierce resistance. That decision was as right when made as it was mistaken in retrospect.

So, as the crowd that bitterly resents America's mission to root out the sources of terror whips up its intelligence-hoax hype, they need to remember the wise "mistake" we made in overestimating the fighting spirit of Saddam's uniformed bully-boys.

When weighing the murky evidence of an aggressive tyranny's weapons, President Bush and PM Blair were obliged to take no chances. The burden of proof was on Saddam. By his contempt, he invited invasion; by its response, the coalition established the credibility of its resolve. There was no "intelligence hoax."

I really don’t care to take a lot of time refuting Brigg’s trash because it is mostly warmed over PR Crap that has already been thoroughly discredited. However I thought I would do just enough to demonstrate that it is just that PR B.S. and clutching at straws to hold onto some sort of a justification for what was done to Iraq.

Of course defenders of the Bush Junta are taking what little justification they have left for the War to take Iraqi Oil and are spinning it as Rearview justification for their War. Never mind the thousands of dead and even more thousands of people who are crippled or maimed for life, the scars left by fear panic and famine, that Baghdad is still without power or order and that as yet none of the claims of massive hoards of Weapons of Mass Destruction® (The White House 2001) have yet been found to have existed anywhere other than in the febrid lies told to justify the War.

Truly the Mass Graves of Thousands of dead being uncovered can only be described as a crime against humanity. However, before this is ceded to the Murderers of the War Party as a justification for their “Bully little War” let’s take a closer look. Who are the dead in these Charnel Pits? Shiite Muslims who were killed after Gulf Massacre I when George Herbert Hoover (Poppy) Bush encouraged the Shiites to rebel implying that the U.S. would be there to support them in their revolt against Saddam. Then he withdrew the support and left the lightly armed Shiites facing Saddam's Troops who then slaughtered them. A grotesque betrayal by Bush I of a revolt that he had encouraged and said he would support.

Never mind the hysterical shrieks of the War Party as their faces cloud up and the point an accusatory finger proudly announcing “We found TWO count them TWO” Trailers full of Laboratory equipment and WE KNOW, despite the equipment being incomplete, and containing no traces of Biologicals, that they were Mobile Biological Laboratories of Death. George told us so and that settles it.

Proof of Bush WMD is Trailer Trash: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/02/1054406134772.html

Quoting from another Thread http://la.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/60752_comment.php#61668 :

“(1) According to the CIA, we are missing the required additional trailer or trailers which must be "equipped for growth media preparation and post-harvest processing and, we would expect, have equipment such as mixing tanks, centrifuges, and spray dryers."

(2) There is no biocontainment system to safeguard the scientists or technicians who worked inside the trailer from exposure to deadly germs.

In other words, it looks a bit like "Oh, here's a stainless steel tank. Such a tank can be used as a fermentation vessel (among many other things). Germ production requires a fermentation vessel. Ergo, a germ factory. Now, where are all the other goodies we need for a germ factory? Umm, errr, well we haven't found the other truck yet; and of course the Iraqi's wouldn't bother to protect their workers..."

Once again the rest of the world is laughing up their sleeves at the US - this really goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. “

A few good articles analyzing the lies and disinformation presented to justify this unprovoked war of aggression to steal Iraqi Oil:

CIA admits BW trucks could have other uses: http://www.dailykos.com/archives/002879.html

Evidence and Deceit How the Case for War Became Unstuck: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Rangwala_Iraq-WMD.htm

Insiders say US “cooked up” war intelligence: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=79&art_id=qw1054370701462B262&set_id=1

When Lying Pays Off

The Fabrications of the Neo-Cons: http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05092003.html

Quote from the above article: “Why does the Bush administration lie so much? It is mainly because Bush's Svengali-like political adviser, Karl Rove, has taken to heart the advice of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Rove has lived by this tenet throughout his political career.”

“The Government lied to you.

It cannot be denied any more, the government lied to you to start a war of conquest. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush, Powell, et. al. knew going in there were no weapons of mass destruction. Powell knew he was lying to the United Nations. Blair has been outed for ordering re-writes of the Dossier to help Bush with the lie. All those who questioned the lie were right to do so. Chrétien was right. Schroeder was right. Chirac was right. Blix was right. Michael Douglas was right. Michael Moore was right. Tim Robbins was right. Susan Sarandon was right. Sean Penn was right. Bob Graham was right. Cynthia McKinney was right. Jeff Rense was right, Daniel Hopsicker was right, Justin Raimondo was right, I was right, and the millions of activists that marched in the streets around the world were right. There was valid reason to doubt.

Those who believed the lie and promoted it, they were all wrong to the point of complicity. Blair was wrong. Rush Limbaugh was wrong. Jim Robinson was wrong. O'Reilly (who recently stated that anyone who did not agree with him was an idiot) was wrong (and an idiot). Clear Channel was wrong. ABC was wrong. NBC was wrong. CBS was wrong. Fox News was wrong. CNN was wrong. The dozen pro-war activists who made certain they stood between the press cameras and the anti-war activists were wrong. The local presstitute who marched right past an anti-war demonstration to report on one of Clear Channel's staged pro-war events was wrong. And all of those who reviled, smeared, and attacked those who have in hindsight been prove to be right, were wrong.

If you believed the lie about the weapons of mass destruction, then congratulations, you have been made a total fool before the eyes of the rest of the world. Forget "Polock" jokes, the new fashion rage will be "dumb American" jokes. Like the dumb Americans who actually DID tape up their houses with sheet plastic and duct tape and nearly suffocated to death. Or the dumb Americans who actually believed Iraq still had a credible military after a decade of crippling sanctions.

Those who were wrong will never admit it, of course. They will scream that those who saw through the lie are just being un-American or unpatriotic. But it is not an act of patriotism to believe the government when it lies to you, it is the act of a fool and a coward, because the government does not have a legal or moral right to lie to the people. Check out the Constitution. Nowhere in there is the government explicitly granted the authority to lie to the people who pay the costs for all that the government does, good or bad. When a government lies to the people, it acts unconstitutionally and illegally and is no longer the lawful government. It therefore cannot be an act of patriotism to believe the government when it lies. It is the act of a traitor to support the lies of an unlawful government.” - Michael Rivero

The facts are that this war was predicated on lies, executed on lies and the only remaining justifications are lies.

Brigg you are furthering LIES, SPIN, and PROPAGANDA. Nothing more.

dingo's in overload. Everyone stand back.

Truth is, the WMD's were there, no country ever denied they were there, and they are either still there or have been moved.

It's only going to be a matter of weeks, maybe less, until any Congressman or woman or newspapers trying to make an issue of this is going to realize it's a bunch of nothing going nowhere and you'll never hear of it anymore.

You may still hear of it at his place since it's full of leftists/anarchists and the We-Hate-Bush-At-All-Cost crowd, but I predict that 6 months from now, probably even less, this won't even be a topic of significant discussion here. Mark it! December 1, 2003, the WMD question won't be getting much play here. You heard it here first.

What dingo's pushing is LIES, SPIN, and PROPAGANDA, and the American public will recognize it for what it is and dismiss it just as quickly, as well they should. The whole things a silly consideration for immature people, exactly the kind of thing to which Indymedia types flock. The rest of us have more important issues with which to deal.

"Truth is, the WMD's were there, no country ever denied they were there, and they are either still there or have been moved."

Unsubstantiated Allegation

For more about logic, see:

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/nonsup.htm

"It cannot be denied any more, the government lied to you to start a war of conquest. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Bush, Powell, et. al. knew going in there were no weapons of mass destruction. Powell knew he was lying to the United Nations. Blair has been outed for ordering re-writes of the Dossier to help Bush with the lie. All those who questioned the lie were right to do so. Chrétien was right. Schroeder was right. Chirac was right. Blix was right. Michael Douglas was right. Michael Moore was right. Tim Robbins was right. Susan Sarandon was right. Sean Penn was right. Bob Graham was right. Cynthia McKinney was right. Jeff Rense was right, Daniel Hopsicker was right, Justin Raimondo was right, I was right, and the millions of activists that marched in the streets around the world were right. There was valid reason to doubt."

Unsubstantiated Allegation

For more about logic, see:

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/nonsup.htm

"What dingo's pushing is LIES, SPIN, and PROPAGANDA, and the American public will recognize it for what it is and dismiss it just as quickly, as well they should."

Unsubstantiated Allegation

For more about logic, see:

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/nonsup.htm

"Brigg you are furthering LIES, SPIN, and PROPAGANDA. Nothing more."

Unsubstantiated Allegation

For more about logic, see:

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/nonsup.htm

"The whole things a silly consideration for immature people, exactly the kind of thing to which Indymedia types flock."

Unsubstantiated Allegation

For more about logic, see:

http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/nonsup.htm

>What dingo's pushing is LIES, SPIN, and PROPAGANDA, and the American public will recognize it for what it is and dismiss it just as quickly, as well they should.

Yep! That's what I said. Just sit back and watch and see if it happens. That'll be "subtantiated allegation" or "unsubstantiated allegation" in action.

-------------------------

faker/KOBE,

I, for one, appreciated what you do here. From your posting under various conservatives names, to "Way to go! When we conservatives....." to "Fox News" to KOBE SBM "We hat Muslims. Join us.", to "Take your meds", to "debate coach" (which I am proud to say you got from me), it's all doing this board a great service. Whenever some misguided leftist/anarchist comes here and sees that you've spammed the place, it's an instant turn-off. Thank you for all you do.

And now, I leave you room below this posting to do what you do best: Spam.

Watch out! Faker/KOBE's hiding underneath your bed. You're nuttier than a fruitcake.

Man, you're nuttier than a Planter's factory. Please keep posting. You're quite entertaining.

I like nuts. Big fat hairy ones bouncing on my chin.

Poor, little brigg.

That was really me, you idiot!

It was me, you raghead!

You're an imbecile.

I'm the faker, you camel-fucking head queen!

No doubt about that.

I'm glad we got that straight, you homo.

...trying to hide something, so I just backtrack the thread

to find out what was covered up. The more vicious or

sick the spam, the more sensitive the post.

It's buried so good you'll never find it bitch.

P.S. Can you come over and lick my dumper tonight?

Your anti-psychotic medications are ready.

than the shock they give me at the hospital.

by the doctor when I'm not cooperating.

when I'm rockin' the table

while he's operating!

May I drink your menstrual blood?

Fuck all you little whining bitches and the horses you rode in on!

May I drink your menstrual blood?

asdgasdfgasd

The KOBE crowd have no brains and no class.

Lose the argument Spam the Thread.

No Class.

Like your Fearless Fuhrer.

So what are you barking about?

If he had none, why didn't Saddam prove it to the inspectors?

You yabbos always say he was cooperating with them...why didn't he show 'em?

Why did the report he submitted make no mention of the 1,000 liters of anthrax even Hans Blix said he had?

You guys claim you didn't support Saddam. But your every effort to make this war look unjustified makes you look like you support him.

You just can't admit a good thing when you see it, because you're blinded by your ideology....and your hatred of all things republican.

And Saddam being gone is a good thing.

Whether you like how he was gotten rid of or not.

"The burden of proof was on Saddam."

yeah prove a negative to these fascists who wouldn't

fucking care if christ said it.

"yeah prove a negative to these fascists who wouldn't

fucking care if christ said it."

Hypocrite - (see Spackel) Someone who's already made up their mind claiming that others have already made up their mind.

In addition to actually believing that the real Diogenes made those posts, I also believe in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

I'm mentally unstable.

...this will amaze some people and gratify the rest." - Mark Twain