[Vision2020] Deceptions of War Defended

[nickgier at adelphia.net]

Greetings,

A feeble attempt to ignore and rationalize deceptions by the Bush administration with regard to the war in Iraq has been posted on this list.  Adelphia e-mail will not allow me to type my response in bold or italics, so forgive me the full caps, but perhaps it will help the information to penetrate a few thick skulls.
 
Re:  Atta in Prague,  What American intelligence agencies?  And do you have proof that Cheney was specifically aware of this determination prior to making his assertions?
 
second point:  Did Bush/Cheney not have other intel sources advising them otherwise?  Could you provide dated quotes from either man, post commission report?

THE ATTA MEETING HAS BEEN SUBSTANTIALLY AND WIDELY DISCREDITED AND IT WAS CHENEY IN PARTICULAR WHO CONTINUED TO REPEAT A FALSEHOOD MANY TIMES AFTERWARDS.  THE AGENCIES WOULD HAVE BEEN EITHER THE FBI OR THE CIA OR BOTH.
 
Point 3:  How do you know that Saddam's government didn't respond to Bin Laden's request?  That doesn't sound like the sort of dialog one might engage in openly.

THIS IS FROM HIGHLY ACCLAIMED BIPARTISAN 9/11 REPORT.  WE SHOULD TRUST THEM AND NOT AN ALREADY DISCREDITED ADMINISTRATION.
 
4)  Are you saying that this 2002 team of inspectors was IN Iraq, freely conducting their mission, when Bush made his July declaration?

NO, YOU HAVE NOT READ THE PIECE FROM CONSORTIUM NEWS CORRECTLY.  EITHER OUT OF IGNORANCE OR DECEPTION, BUSH CONTINUES TO DENY THAT THE UN INSPECTORS WERE IN IRAQ DOING A THOROUGH JOB FROM NOVEMBER, 2002 UNTIL FEBRUARY, 2003, WHEN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, NOT HUSSEIN, TOLD THEM TO LEAVE BECAUSE WE WANTED TO BOMB THE SHIT OUT OF THE COUNTRY.
 
5)  I assume you meant to refer to the 911 commission?  If so, so what?  The fact that some bureaucratic commission failed to confirm it, does not prove that the alleged meeting Bush referred to did not take place.

GO AHEAD AND DIS THE 9/11 COMMISSION AND MAKE A FOOL OF YOURSELF.  THERE WERE REPUBLICANS ON THIS COMMITTEE!
 
6)  When and where did Bush/ Cheney make these assertions after Rummy's declaration?

ON JUNE 15, 2004 (check CNN.com) BUSH DEFENDED THE LINK EVEN THOUGH BOTH RUMSFELD AND TENET HAD DENIED IT.
 
6)  Cheney should have known "full well" that Zarqawi was not then in Iraq.  Why?  Why are you surprised that captured documents failed to confirm a connection to Baghdad  Is it not possible that certain documentation was either destroyed or never existed at all?  The absence of proof does not disprove.

A REPORTER FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE WAS ON SITE WITH HIS INTERPRETER WHEN THE CAMP WAS RAIDED.  THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS HAVE BEEN SEARCHED OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS--NO LINKS, NO NOTHING.  THE ONLY EVIDENCE OF ZARQAWI'S PRESENCE IN IRAQ WAS A MEDICAL VISIT LONG BEFORE THE WAR.
 
7)  Why is Bush automatically presumed wrong, while the Atomic Energy Association is presumed right?  Could you site dated examples of specific statements made regarding Iraq's supposed nuclear capabilities?

BECAUSE BUSH REFERRED TO THE IAEA IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE!  AND IN ANY CASE I WOULD TRUST THEM RATHER THAN A DISCREDITED ADMINISTRATION AND A PRESIDENT THAT CANNOT KEEP MORE THAN THREE THOUGHTS IN HIS HEAD AT A TIME.
 
8)   "that they could find......."   Well that gives one pause.   Can you understand how, given Iraq's history of nuclear production to which you refer, this administration and congress might regard reports of continued activity as requiring action?  Did congress, by authorizing the use of force, not second the administration's concerns?  Is it fair to laboriously heap all this blame at Bush's feet?

IT IS WIDELY KNOWN AND SUBSTANTIATED THAT THE UN INSPECTORS ESSENTIALLY SHUT DOWN ANY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS.  THE SECOND TEAM OF INSPECTORS CONFIRMED THAT BEFORE BUSH KICKED THEM OUT, AND IT WAS LATER CONFIRMED BY ALBRIGHT AND HIS HUGE TEAM.  NO NUCS, NO PRE-NUCS, PERIOD.
 
9)  "most likely....."      Again that nasty pause.   And what experts?  Isn't it possible that Bush may have been advised otherwise by other experts?  Perhaps a consensus was arrived at after consulting several...... who knows for certain?

NO ONE IS NOW CLAIMING THAT THESE ALUMINIUM TUBES WERE FIT FOR THE ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM.
 
10)  Is David Albright a nuclear scientist?  How is he specifically qualified to make such a determination?

HE WAS QUALIFIED ENOUGH THAT BUSH SENT HIM TO CHECK OUT WMDs IN IRAQ AFTER THE INVASION.  BUSH PRAISED HIM.
 
11)  I don't know that I find the potential for a brief and necessary tap on my phone line to be unreasonable in a post 911 environment.  I trust that these folks will by and large direct their curiosities toward appropriate targets.  How can we demand protection from our government when we deny it the sometimes gritty tools it may need to deal with murderous sociopaths.

YOU TOTALLY MISSED THE POINT OF DECEPTION.  BUSH SAID HE WAS NOT DOING INTERNAL SPYING AND NOW WE KNOW HE WAS!

12)  Not necessarily a contradiction.  The administration couldn't provide ALL it's intel re: Iraq to the congress.  Yet what WAS provided did lead to a consensus in favor of action.

YES, ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE WAS PROVIDED AND EXAGGERATED: DRONES THAT WOULD BE DELIEVERING WMDs OFF THE COAST OF MIAMI.  WE NOW KNOW THAT THESE DRONES WERE MODEL AIRPLANES WITH THE PLAYLOAD OF A SMALL CAMERA.  MIAMI BEACHES ARE NOT SAFE FROM SURVELLIANCE! 

13)  Memo from where?  And how was this meeting "secret" if it was detailed in a lengthy memo?

DID YOU MISS THE STORY?  THE BBC GOT THE MEMO AND RELEASED IT.  JUST BECAUSE A MEETING IS SECRET DOES NOT MEAN THAT MINUTES WERE NOT TAKEN.  IN THIS CASE MINUTES WERE INDEED TAKEN.
 
14)  Did the administration "cook" the intel on Iraq?  The jury is still out. 

NOT ONLY COOKED BUT STILL SIMMERING WITH THE OCCASIONAL SPUTTER FROM A PRESIDENT THAT IT IS EITHER LYING OR DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON.

My original post is below.

Nick Gier

Greetings: 
 
Most of you have already seen this, so this is for Ed/Dick/Tony residing out 
their in their own fantasy land. 
 
I've chosen these examples because they were widely reported in most media 
outlets, including the Washington Times and Fox, and can verified by simply 
googling the date and topic.  I will be happy to provide other documentation if 
needed. 
 
I thank Sunil for one more bullet that I've added about UN inspectors. 
 
If odd symbols come up on your screen, you can read this at 
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/deceptions.htm. 
 
THE DECEPTIONS OF WAR: 
THE COOKING OF INTELLIGENCE ON IRAQ 
By Nick Gier 
 
President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are busy defending themselves against 
the charge that they deceived the American people about the reasons for going to 
war in Iraq.  Sorting through my thick Iraq file, I’ve come up with following 
examples of outright deception. 
 
•      Cheney continued to repeat an alleged meeting between 9/11 hijacker 
Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi agent in Prague in 2001, even though American and 
European intelligence agencies said the report was false. 
 
•        The bipartisan 9/11 Commission reported that there was no 
“collaborative relationship” between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but Bush and 
Cheney blithely continued to make these charges. 
 
•         Cheney claimed that Osama bin Laden requested “terror training from 
Iraq,” but he failed to mention that Saddam’s government fail to respond to that 
request. 
 
•    "On July 14, 2003, Bush claimed that Saddam Hussein had barred United 
Nations weapons inspectors from Iraq when, in fact, they were admitted in 
November 2002 and given free rein to search suspected Iraqi weapons sites. It 
was Bush who forced the U.N. inspectors to leave in March 2003 so the invasion 
could proceed" (Consortium News, April 14, 2006) 
 
 
•         On February 8, 2003, Bush claimed that “an Al Qaeda operative was sent 
to Iraq . . . for help in acquiring poisons and gases,” but the 9/11 Report 
could find no evidence for this. 
 
•         Even though on June 17, 2004 Defense Secretary Rumsfeld stated that 
Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was “not Al Qaeda,” Bush and Cheney continued to 
state that he was.  Early in 2004 CIA chief George Tenet told a Senate committee 
that there was no connection between Zarqawi and Saddam let alone Al Qaeda. 
 
•        The day after the 9/11 report was released Cheney claimed that Zarqawi 
“ran [a] poisons factory in northern Iraq out of Baghdad,” but he should have 
known full well that Zarqawi was not in Baghdad and that this camp was not under 
Saddam’s control. When it was taken over by U. S. troops, captured documents 
revealed no connection to Baghdad.  Zarqawi now heads the main terrorist 
organization in Iraq because of the turmoil of the U.S. invasion, not because 
Saddam invited him there. 
 
•        Before the war the Bush administration kept repeating dire predictions 
of Saddam’s nuclear weapon capacities, but a December, 2002 report of 
International Atomic Energy Association stated that Saddam was telling the truth 
about his own nonexistent weapons program. 
 
•      The Bush administration ignored the fact that the first team of UN 
inspectors destroyed all Iraq’s nuclear facilities that they could find.  Bush 
and Cheney also belittled the second UN team’s report of no new plants, and they 
dismissed Joseph Wilson’s report that Saddam was not buying uranium from Niger. 
 
•       With regard to the aluminum tubes that Saddam had ordered, the Bush 
administration chose to sell the idea that they could be used to centrifuge 
uranium, even though experts advised that their thickness most likely indicated 
that they were to be used for rockets. 
 
•       On December 8, 2002, former U.S. weapons inspector David Albright 
appeared on “60 Minutes”and stated that the aluminum tubes could not be used to 
enrich uranium. He concluded that Bush administration was “selectively picking 
information to bolster a case that the Iraqi nuclear threat was more imminent 
than it is, and in essence, [to] scare people.” 
 
•      On April 20, 2004, Bush promised the American people that he would not 
spy on anyone without a court order, but now we know that his government has 
been wiretapping American citizens since the 9/11 attack. 
In February, 2006, former CIA official Paul R. Pillar, writing for Foreign 
Affairs stated that Iraq "intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions 
that had already been made." 
 
Bush and Cheney sometimes defend themselves by saying that they are privy to 
information that others don’t have.  At the same time they declare that Congress 
voted for the war on the basis of the same intelligence they had.  They 
obviously cannot have it both ways. We now find is that most of the information 
not shared was contrary to the view that Saddam was a threat to the U.S. 
 
In the fall of 2002 Bush kept telling us that we wanted to avoid a war in Iraq, 
but a July 23, 2002 memo detailing a secret meeting of British officials 
demonstrates that Bush had no desire to go to the UN, or give UN inspectors 
another chance to disarm Hussein.  Here are the crucial passages from this memo: 
“Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the 
conjunction of terrorism and WMDs.  But the intelligence and facts were being 
fixed around the policy.” 
 
There should be no question that the Bush administration did in fact cook the 
intelligence on Iraq.  The result has been an Iraq in far worse shape than 
before, the recruitment of new terrorists and insurgents where none existed 
before, and the unnecessary deaths of 2,100 Americans and tens of thousands of 
Iraqis. 
 
Some Bush supporters have a mantra that goes something like this: “It’s better 
to fight terrorists in Baghdad rather than to fight them in Detroit.”  During 
the Cold War millions of innocent people in the Third World died because both 
sides chose to fight in some else’s country.  When will people in distant 
countries stop dying because of our misguided foreign adventures? 
 
Finally, think of how more secure our country would be if the billions spent in 
Iraq had been used to repair our crumbling infrastructure, protect our ports, 
search air cargo, and secure our nuclear and chemical plants.