retired_ks reddy

Wasn't the 45 minute claim based on a missile hitting Israel/Cyprus? Hardly outlandish.

retired_the gizmo

yeah, the iraqis kicked out the weapons inspectors because they thought the cia had infiltrated the group. which in fact they had.

I also still see nothing in there that constitutes mobile labs on rails and 45 minutes from destruction and tubes and yellow cake and all the other bullshit that was sold to us.

if we were going to go to war because the iraqis were dragging their feet and didn't like our intelligence agents imbedded in their un inspections teams, then we should have sold it to the people that way.

somehow I think we both know that wouldn't have been quite as successful. which is why you're evading the subject and talking about bullshit from the 90's instead of the constant stream of lies and deceit from 2001 on.

retired_the gizmo

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3466005.stm

no. amazingly enough it was left openended in every draft so people could read the worst into it without the government needing to compound their lie.

retired_ks reddy

It was, as you said, destroyed because it was a weapons facility. A clear breach of the treaty Saddam had signed.

I said weeks, you said years, Ritter said months. He's just the great compromiser, ain't he?

And is this Ritter stating war was not the answer:

"In his letter of resignation, Ritter said the Security Council's reaction to Iraq's decision earlier that month to suspend co-operation with the inspection team made a mockery of the disarmament work. Ritter later said, in an interview, that he resigned from his role as a United Nations weapons inspector over inconsistencies between United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154 and how it was implemented.

The investigations had come to a standstill, were making no effective progress, and in order to make effective progress, we really needed the Security Council to step in a meaningful fashion and seek to enforce its resolutions that we're not complying with.[3]

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq"

retired_ks reddy

Shame the CIA didn't do a better job infiltrating them, isn't it? The average Ali in Iraq may have been spared a lot of unpleasantness. And Saddam was accusing them of spying from the start - he never intended to comply with the treaty. And 12 years is a bit more than 'dragging one's feet'.

FYI I advocated a second invasion to kill Saddam from about 1996 when he started shooting at our planes. He was gagging for it.

retired_ks reddy

Cyprus and Israel were the only 'western' targets he could range. Only took a little knowledge and clear-headedness, sadly lacking in both sides during the run up.

retired_ks reddy

*should say in all 3 sides during the run up. Maybe 4 if you include the French.

retired_the gizmo

and if we had invaded in 1996 that might have meant something.

I'm already bored of this thread. your pedantic arguing and constant changing of subjects to meet whatever it is you want to talk about is tired.

this was about then-current intel being shaped by the executive branch in 2001/02. you want to talk about 96, start your own ****ing thread. otherwise, keep on the ****ing topic.

retired_ks reddy

And it's me who's changing the goalposts?

retired_the gizmo

(Bob) BRADLEY (of 60 Minutes): [In October 2002,] the CIA had made a major intelligence breakthrough on Iraq’s nuclear program. Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister, had made a deal to reveal Iraq’s military secrets to the CIA. Tyler Drumheller was in charge of the operation.

(Tyler) DRUMHELLER (CIA Chief of Clandestine Operations in Europe): This was a very high inner circle of Saddam Hussein, someone who would know what he was talking about.

BRADLEY: You knew you could trust this guy?

DRUMHELLER: We continued to validate him the whole way through.

BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

BRADLEY: Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister. He was taken aback by what happened.

DRUMHELLER: The group that was dealing with preparations for the Iraq war came back and said they’re no longer interested. And we said, “Well, what about the intel?” And they said, “Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.”

BRADLEY: And if I understand you correctly, when the White House learned that you had this source from the inner circle of Saddam Hussein, they were thrilled with that.

DRUMHELLER: The first we heard, they were. Yes.

BRADLEY: But when they learned what it was that he had to say, that Saddam did not have the capability to wage nuclear war, weapons of mass destruction…?

DRUMHELLER: They stopped being interested in the intelligence.

BRADLEY: The White House declined to respond to Drumheller’s account of Naji Sabri’s role, but Secretary of State Rice has said that Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister-turned-U.S. spy, was just one source, and therefore his information wasn’t reliable.

DRUMHELLER: They certainly took information that came from single sources on uranium, on the yellowcake story and on several other stories that had no corroboration at all, and so you can’t say you only listen to one source, because on many issues they only listened to one source.

BRADLEY: So you’re saying that if there was a single source and that information from that source backed up the case they were trying to build, then that single source was okay, but if it didn’t, then the single source was not okay because he couldn’t be corroborated.

DRUMHELLER: Unfortunately, that’s what it looks like.