Yet more fodder for the “Bush lied, people died” camp. Sadly at this point it seems people are so jaded that this doesn’t even rate as a major headline on the NY Times webpage.
The State Department’s intelligence branch, which was not invited to take part in the initial review, [had previously] disputed [claims the trailers were for biological weapons].
But it had not previously been known that a majority of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s engineering team had come to disagree with the central finding of the white paper: that the trailers were used for making biological weapons.
Another government official from a different agency said the issue of the trailers had prompted deep divisions within the Defense Intelligence Agency. The official said members of the engineering team had been angry that the agency issued the joint white paper with the C.I.A. before their own work was completed.
Truth is so overrated. We should just have the govt. fix things for us and tell us whatever is necessary to get that done. Then we can just live our lives innocent of the knowledge of what they have to do to keep us safe and happy!
Yeah, they need weather balloons in Iraq. I’ve got your forecast here for the next month:
Hot, with a sandstorm in the afternoon.
Yeah, Saddam was already disarmed. That’s why he let all the inspectors in with unfettered access and didn’t violate UN resolution 1441. How come none of you ‘bush lied’ people ever question anyone elses words, like those from a murderous dictator named Saddam?
So, uh, are mobile hydrogen generating facilities for weather balloons common?
They must be in England, because there seems to be an abundance of hot air there. Unfortunately their prime minister, the only man with a backbone, is powerless to stop the rampant release and burning of said hydrogen fuel into the atmosphere.
You know nothing about British politics - the man has no backbone, nor any other type of content beyond soundbites.
I said it before and I’ll say it again - some guy comes over says a few words you want to hear and he becomes your greatest hero - you don’t see any more than that.
OK, I guess maybe we were confused by some sort of transatlantic conversion. We’ve not switched to metric, so bear with us. In America we think people who stand up for what they believe even if that goes against popular opinion “have backbone”. But I guess by your defenition it means pussing out under the weight of popular opnion, in America we call that being “spineless”. I hope that clears things up.
Yeah, you’re a little confused all right. It’s nothing to do with backbone when you make up tall tales to get your way. It was absolutly shameless the way the American public was manipulated to prosecute this war.
Yes, because Blair being big on crushing muderous dictators sorted out problems in the Commonwealth (argueably much more our business) with Zimbabwe - oh wait… he didin’t. I guess there wasn’t enough backbone to go around.
I find you assertion that these politicians were driven to war on pure motives laughable. Your love of Tony Blair not knowing a jot about him also laughable.
More news on the Iraqi imminent “threat”. Those tubes that could “only” be used for uranium enrichment centrifuges, turns out that they were exactly the same alloy and the exact same dimensions down to the millimeter to a rocket that we knew the Iraqis were building:
experts from U.S. national laboratories reported in December to the Energy Department and U.S. intelligence analysts that Iraq was manufacturing copies of the Italian-made Medusa 81. Not only the Medusa’s alloy, but also its dimensions, to the fraction of a millimeter, matched the disputed aluminum tubes.
Gas centrifuge experts consulted by the U.S. government said repeatedly for more than a year that the aluminum tubes were not suitable or intended for uranium enrichment.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others continued to describe the use of such tubes for rockets as an implausible hypothesis, even after U.S. analysts collected and photographed in Iraq a virtually identical tube marked with the logo of the Medusa’s Italian manufacturer and the words, in English, “81mm rocket.”
Will anyone ever believe in a US president’s statements again? I view everything coming out of the Bush adminstration with extreme distrust at this point.
Will anyone ever believe in a US president’s statements again?
Yes. People are sheep.
In America we think people who stand up for what they believe even if that goes against popular opinion “have backbone”
Unfortunately in this case, like every other one, it’s rather less about humanitarian policies and rather more about making kissy-kissy noises against Bush’s posterior. While demonstrating the aforementioned backbone with an ever expanding portfolio of lies and coverups that would make Mulder moist. Stuff him.
BTW–The Washington Post reported on both the trailers and their weather balloon usage and the non-nuclear utility of the tubes back in late June, citing CIA and State Department sources. Just added to let y’all know that the Post is kicking everyone’s ass in coverage of all things Iraq both good and bad.
Also, there’s the stupid post in this thread about “who you gonna believe, a murderous dictator or our President?” Hey tellyawhat: why don’t I believe neither and trust two independent sources in two separate US agencies who both (according to a copyrighted story from the Washington Post on July 11th, 2003) informed the President of the comparatively benign nature of the steel tubes as well as the so-called “mobile labs”.
I’m starting to believe the “Saddam was convinced by all his underlings he had a nonexistant weapons program, and Bush was convinced by all his underlings that Saddam had a weapons program, and tomorrow night’s meeting at the docks needs to address the issues of a totalitarian government’s ability to control the flow of information…wait, we’re not at the docks yet” theory more and more every day.
“At this point”? Does that imply a 180 from your previous stance(s) on the Bush administration?
Just wondering about this general trend I see, that mixed in with the left’s more valid questions about Bush’s handling of Iraq there simply MUST be all this (empty) rhetoric of disillusionment. As if anyone on the left ever had a childlike trust in the American government, especially a Republican administration. As if our “credibility” with the rest of the world was a function of anything other than how much other nations/groups thought they stood to profit from our actions.
