<div>There was no intelligence "failure" on Iraq WMDs before the 2003 invasion. "Orchestrated deception" is a more accurate phrase.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>A well researched analysis of the campaign of deception of the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq is at the URL below:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/">http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/</a></div>
<div>-----------------</div>
<div>At the URL below is my Vision2020 post discussing the pending Iraq invasion from Jan. 20, 2003. I knew then based on my research that the intelligence regarding Iraq WMD cast credible doubt on the extent of and danger to the US posed by alleged Iraq WMD in 2003:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2003-January/000218.html">http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2003-January/000218.html</a></div>
<div>-----------------</div>
<div>In response to what I think is an obscurantist view of the intelligence evidence available to the public before the 2003 Iraq invasion, I wrote a response to Chas (whoever they are... they don't sign their full name to their posts) on Vision2020, Jan. 26, 2008, presenting evidence that the Iraq intelligence on WMDs was not fundamentally faulty, but was known before the invasion to shed doubt on the Bush administration's claims. There was a deliberate propaganda campaign to manipulate and fabricate intelligence to justify invading Iraq:</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-January/051236.html">http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2008-January/051236.html</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Chas wrote:<br> </div>
<div>
<div class="content">
<div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Our mental<br>filters sorted the <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> news to match whatever "truth" we had already<br>
decided. None of, of course, were in a position to know anything, but<br>we spouted our opinions anyway. </blockquote><br>
<div>My analysis of the <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> threat posed by <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> and Saddam in late 2002 early 2003 was based on credible statements from <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> weapons inspectors and those working in intelligence on this subject. These sources presented evidence that there were serious doubts about any significant <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> capability for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The Bush administration depicted the <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> threat from <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> at a high probability and immanent (the repeated warnings of the "mushroom cloud over American" made by Bush, Condi Rice, et. al.), justifying an invasion based on the dangerous doctrine of pre-emptive war. It was argued we could not let diplomacy, weapons inspections, sanctions, economic engagement, military containment etc. be the approach to the <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> problem, due to a dangerous immanent threat to US national security from <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> WMDs. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>The US in 2002 before the invasion was engaging in ongoing military flights over <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> air space, conducting bombing runs on military related facilities, and enforcing the protectorate for the Kurds in the north, so the situation in early 2003 clearly involved an ongoing military containment of Saddam. <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>'s military was in a shambles after they were repelled from Kuwait, and the economic sanctions, weapons inspections and military containment were keeping <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> from rebuilding its weapons capabilities. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Of course no one could state with certainty that <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> was not hiding <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> capability. But the Bush administration's push to invade <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> was based on "evidence" of various kinds that has been exposed to be fabricated or sourced from unreliable testimony, questionable evidence that was filtered through the Bush administration's already assumed goal of invading <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>, a goal Bush expressed before the 9/11 attacks:<span></span> </div>
<div> </div>
<div><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. <br><br>"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11. <br>
<br>"From the very first instance, it was about <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>. It was about what we can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed." <br>
<br>As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. <br>
<br>"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" says O'Neill. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap." <br>
<br>And that came up at this first meeting, says O'Neill, who adds that the discussion of <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later. <br><br>He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. "There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, 'Plan for post-Saddam <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>,'" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> in January and February of 2001.
<hr width="50%">
Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>'s oil wealth.<span></span> <br>
<br>He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration. <br><br>"It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions," says Suskind. "On oil in <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>." <br>
------------------------<br> </div>
<div>Here are two of the well credentialed sources I read in 2002, <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> weapons inspector Scott Ritter (former Marine intelligence officer who voted for Bush in 2000) and UN 2002-3 (in <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> months before the invasion) weapons inspection team leader Dr. Hans Blix, which should have led anyone investigating this subject to doubt the Bush administration claims of a high probability of significant <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> capability in <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> that posed a national security risk to the USA:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Pitt, William R. <i>War On <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know</i> 2002, Context Books, New York. <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=1893956385" target="_blank">ISBN 1-893956-38-5</a> </div>
<div> </div>
<div>Quote from former <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> weapons inspector Scott Ritter:</div>
<div><br>
<p>There's no doubt <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span>'s weapons of mass destruction capacity has been verifiably eliminated... We have to remember that this missing 5-10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat... It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in its totality doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited... We can't give <span class="" id="st" name="st">Iraq</span> a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously, we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capacity worthy of war. (page 28)<span></span> </p>
<p>-------------------</p>
<p><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/09/wirq09.xml" target="_blank">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/09/wirq09.xml</a></p>
<p>Dr Blix headed the UN team searching for Saddam Hussein's weapons from November 2002 until they were pulled out in March 2003 on the eve of war.</p>
<p>The inspectors warned the UK and US governments that there was no "smoking gun" evidence of weapons caches. London and Washington were also told that Iraqi weapons unaccounted for might well no longer exist.</p>
<p>He said the British and American intelligence services placed too much weight on what Iraqi defectors told them. He also blamed the "spin" then given to the information.</p>
<p>-------------------</p>
<p><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2004/nf20040326_0596_db028.htm" target="_blank">http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/mar2004/nf20040326_0596_db028.htm</a></p>
<p>Blix lays part of the blame for the White House's fervent belief in the continued existence of Iraqi <span class="" id="st" name="st">WMD</span> on intelligence failures, which he describes as "monumental." But he mainly fingers the arrogance and apparent resolve of Administration hawks -- including Vice-President Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and weapons inspector David Kay -- to ignore evidence that didn't support their policy objectives. <br>
-------------------</p>
<p><span class="" id="st" name="st">Vision2020</span> Post: <span class="" id="st" name="st">Ted</span> <span class="" id="st" name="st">Moffett</span></p>
<p><span class="" name="st">------------------</span></p>
<p><span class="" name="st">More discussion of the Iraq WMD propaganda is in the article below:</span></p></div></div>
<p><span></span>By Francis T. Mandanici</p>
<p>Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on April 18 concerning her involvement in the claims that the Administration made prior to the war that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons. Chairman Henry A. Waxman of that committee in a <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/documents/20070409102522.pdf" target="_blank">letter to Rice dated April 9</a> has asked Rice to testify as to whether she knew why President George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union Address cited forged evidence about Iraq's efforts to procure uranium from Niger and whether she knew before that Address about the doubts that the CIA and State Department had raised concerning the veracity of that uranium claim. Waxman has also asked Rice to explain her January 23, 2003 op-ed article. In that article entitled Why We Know Iraq Is Lying, which Rice wrote when she was the National Security Advisor for President Bush, she stated that Iraq had lied in its prewar declaration to the United Nations about weapons of mass destruction because Iraq's declaration "fail[ed] to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad."</p>
<p>In a report that I have written that is based on a review of the public record and entitled <a href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/downloads/uraniumreport.pdf" target="_blank"><em>The Uranium Grounds For Impeachment And For A Special Counsel: A Report To Congress</em></a>, I note that during the pre war period of January 20 to 29, 2003, Administration officials publicly stated at least five times that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon. A few days later on February 4 the American government turned over to the UN the documents in support that claim. During that nine day period not only did President Bush make such a claim in his State of the Union report to Congress but he also made the claim in another report to Congress that he was required to submit pursuant to the resolution that Congress had passed in October 2002 that authorized him to start the war. In addition to Rice's op-ed article, then Secretary of State Colin Powell and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made similar public statements that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon. Vice President Richard Cheney's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, was in charge at the White House for producing papers arguing the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Vice President Cheney's office viewed attacks on the Administration's uranium claims as a direct attack on the credibility of Vice President Cheney.</p>
<p>The uranium claims were false. Prior to the war UN weapons inspectors in Iraq found no weapons of mass destruction nor found any evidence that Iraq had sought uranium as the Bush Administration had claimed. In early March 2003, the UN stated that the documents that it had received that allegedly supported the uranium claim were forgeries. A few weeks later President Bush started the war. After the start of the war, the Iraq Survey Group issued a report to the CIA Director stating that Iraq did not possess a nuclear device, had ended its nuclear program in 1991, and that there was no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991.</p>
<p>The uranium claims that President Bush and his officials made were not only false but also fraudulent since when they made the statements they intended to deceive Congress and did not mention all the warnings that the American Intelligence Community had issued about the weakness of the claims, which if revealed would have made the uranium claims worthless. A few months prior to the Administration's uranium claims CIA officials in October 2002 not only informed Rice but also her deputy Stephen Hadley that the evidence on the uranium claim was weak. CIA Director George Tenet personally told Hadley that President Bush should not make the claim because the reporting on it was weak. In January 2003 prior to any of the statements, the State Department told the CIA that the documents behind the uranium claim were probably a hoax and a forgery. Prior to the State of the Union Address the CIA told the White House that it had several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence on the uranium claim in the draft of the State of the Union Address. The White House then changed the draft to cite the view of the British government that Iraq had sought uranium without mentioning the concerns of the CIA. Furthermore, as reported in the press, the National Intelligence Council issued a memo to the White House in January 2003 that stated that the uranium claim was baseless. Also the National Security Council in January 2003 believed that the nuclear case against Iraq was weak. </p>
<p>The motive for making the false and fraudulent uranium claims prior to the war was to scare Congress into believing that Iraq was a nuclear threat and thereby thwart any efforts by Congress to repeal or modify the Congressional resolution that had empowered President Bush to use military force in Iraq. After Congress passed the war resolution in October 2002, Iraq allowed UN weapons inspectors to reenter Iraq but by January 2003 the UN inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction. At the time of the above uranium claims in January 2003, there was pending a Congressional resolution filed January 7 that sought to delay the start of the war to allow the UN inspectors to finish their inspections. Also 130 Members of Congress on January 24 sent President Bush a letter basically requesting that he agree to any request by the UN for further time to finish weapons inspections. On January 27 the UN's chief nuclear weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, publicly stated that UN inspectors had found no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program and he basically asked for a few more months to finish weapons inspections because he said such inspections "could help us avoid a war." </p>
<p>To overcome the fact that UN weapons inspectors had not found any weapons of mass destruction and therefore Iraq was not a nuclear threat, the Administration resorted to the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theatre not because there was a fire but to create panic and fear. President Bush and his said senior officials twisted the untrue uranium reports into unquestioned evidence that would scare Members of Congress into believing that Iraq was an imminent nuclear threat because it was secretly seeking the fuel for a hidden nuclear bomb. </p>
<p>As mentioned in my report, under the statute 18 U.S.C. § 1001 it is a felony to make false and fraudulent statements to Congress. Under the statute 18 U.S.C. § 371 it is a felony to conspire to defraud Congress, which includes conspiring to obstruct its functions, such as the function that Congress had prior to the war to consider whether to repeal the war resolution or modify it so as to delay the start of the war at least until UN weapons inspectors finished their inspections. Under the law in order to show that a defendant had knowledge that his or her statements were false or fraudulent it is not necessary to produce direct evidence. Considering the nature of fraud, the law allows such knowledge to be proven by circumstantial evidence.</p>
<p>My report provides the circumstantial evidence to prove that President Bush knowingly made false and fraudulent statements to Congress and thereby violated 18 U.S.C. § 1001; and that he, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rice, Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld knowingly were involved in a tacit agreement to make false and fraudulent statements to deceive Congress into believing that Iraq was a nuclear threat and thereby they violated 18 U.S.C. § 371.</p>
<p>Rice will have a difficult time explaining to the committee that although intelligence officials had told her that the evidence on the uranium claim was weak she still made the claim in her op-ed article, and furthermore despite that warning to her President Bush still made the uranium claims in his reports to Congress, which were reports that Rice as the President's National Security Advisor would have been involved in preparing. In light of my report and the public record, Rice will have difficulty explaining that what she did was not fraudulent and therefore not a crime.</p>
<p>Even if Rice ignores the committee's request to testify, the public record contains enough evidence of criminal conduct to prompt the committee to request the Justice Department to appoint an outside Special Counsel pursuant to the Department's current regulations, 28 C.F.R. §§ 600.1-7. In September 2005, forty Members of Congress asked United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate whether the Administration's false and fraudulent uranium claims violated the above criminal statutes. Six months later Fitzgerald responded that he did not have the authority to investigate the matter. Since we now know that the Administration was lying and why it was lying, the time has come for Congress to demand that the Justice Department appoint an outside Special Counsel.</p>
<p>------------------------------------------</p>
<p>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</p></div></div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 12/3/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Sunil Ramalingam</b> <<a href="mailto:sunilramalingam@hotmail.com">sunilramalingam@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span></div>
<div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">
<div>He's also continuing to tell the lie that Hussein wouldn't let in the inspectors:<br><br><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/120108c.html" target="_blank">http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/120108c.html</a><br>
<br>The article above documents some of the other times he's said this, and I can't get over how he repeats it. It's absolutely amazing, and he doesn't get called on it.<br><br>Sunil<br><br><br>> To: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
> From: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:thansen@moscow.com" target="_blank">thansen@moscow.com</a><br>> Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 13:35:19 +0000<br>> Subject: [Vision2020] Say What?
<div><span class="e" id="q_11dfdc1704828f7a_1"><br>> <br>> "The biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the <br>> intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the <br>
> line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam <br>> Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration; a lot of members in <br>> Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on <br>
> Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the <br>> same intelligence. And, you know, that's not a do-over, but I wish the <br>> intelligence had been different, I guess."<br>
> <br>> - George W. Bush<br>> <br>> <br>> <br>> Seeya round town, Moscow.<br>> <br>> Tom Hansen<br>> Moscow, Idaho<br>> <br>> "For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist <br>
> Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go <br>> to work."<br>> <br>> - Roy Zimmerman<br>> <br>> <br>></span></div></div></blockquote></div>