Sunday, September 15, 2013

You Can Have These Back Now.

Now this is interesting.

Of course, as the article suggests, this story could be BS.  Yet at the same time, it does bear monitoring as the suspicion regarding the whereabouts of Sadam Hussein's WMD arsenal upon our arrival in Iraq was never truly resolved.

I especially like the part questioning the brilliance of the "smartest man in the room" as regards this Syrian situation.  I'd say it goes equally for his entire foreign policy, even beyond the Middle East. 

24 comments:

Feodor said...

"...was never truly resolved."

That's funny.

Asharq Al-Awsat ain't talking about yellowcake, dufus.

Feodor said...

Or a mushroom cloud.

Marshal Art said...

What's funny is how I never knew yellowcake was an ingredient of chemical weapons. I don't believe that the concern regarding WMDs Hussein had was strictly over nukes.

Feodor said...

What you believe will remain in constant shift so that you never have to be aware of how wrong you are.

"The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly Saddam can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Condoleezza Rice

Feodor said...

Colin Powell at the UN:

"Since 1998, [Saddam's] efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring the third and last component, sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium. Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes..."

Feodor said...

And Bush's 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union citing evidence for his desire to go to war with Iraq:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Which was a lie.

Stan said...

According to the CIA, they were expecting WMDs in the NBC category -- Nuclear, Biological, or Chemical. And the story that Saddam Hussein had transported his chemical weapon stockpile to Syria before the American invasion came out last year (before Syria used any such weapons).

What I'm wondering about is what America is doing right now. According to Reuters, the primary fighters against the Assad regime in Syria is Al Qaeda, and the U.S. is arming them. I'm trying to figure out how that works in my head -- arming the folks who have done so much damage to America and seek to do more. Is this a new "Fast and Furious"?

Marshal Art said...

This is but one article I could have selected that speaks to the "lie" regarding Hussein, his nuclear intentions, and from whom he tried to acquire yellow cake. The left, like feo, cannot bring themselves to let this "lie about a 'lie'" go, so determined are they to support an incompetent president and continue to besmirch one that wasn't as stupid as they hoped he was and needed him to be.

Craig said...

I noticed that others in the blogosphere are suggesting that this latest "accomplishment" justifies the Nobel that P-BO received. I guess I would have thought that the bombings and stuff would have negated the Nobel, but...? It's amazing that the some on the left are so desperate that they are once again giving P-BO credit for something that hasn't actually happened yet.

Feodor said...

I cannot imagine, Marshall, how many lies you have to tell yourself - and how many lies people like you have to write down and keep swallowing - in order to be who you are.

From the AP article you love: "Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said."

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25546334/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/t/secret-us-mission-hauls-uranium-iraq/#.UjjnGRY1FSU

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/08/uranium-in-iraq/

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/yellowcake.asp

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/u/uraniumyellowcake.htm#.UjjnARY1FSU

Marshal Art said...

Of course you can't imagine it, feo. I don't tell myself lies.

You, on the other hand, lie as a matter of policy, being a false priest and all. You begin by riding that false lefty horse regarding those 16 words of Bush. It was not confirmed by anyone, ever, that the British report was false. You lefties hang your hat on Joe Wilson's laughable report, but no one of significance does.

Then, you try to make the story about the Iraqi yellowcake supplies being used by the Bush admin to support the premise that Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear ambitions. You even offer four links, but none of them make that case at all.

And of course, nothing in my post even refers to yellow cake or nukes at all, but concerned itself with chemical weapons, which, as Stan notes, were among the forms of WMD which were of interest before the Iraq invasion.

And BTW, you could have doubled your total of links and if they all basically use the same sources, really only counts as one. Nice try.

Feodor said...

You want to make Bush look good by lying.

1) Chemical weapons were not the Bush administration concern since Clinton and the international community had managed a no-fly zone for years.

2) So, to invade, Bush et al had to find a trumping argument.

3) Iraqi nuclear weapons production working from yellowcake from NIger were the lie they raised.


And you say, "It was not confirmed by anyone, ever, that the British report was false."

And you critique me for repeating the same source.

Newsflash, Fartshall: Bush's 16 words, George Tenet's CIA intelligence and the British "finding" come from the same source: forged documents reported by Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare...

the Italian Military Intelligence agency that was shut down in 2007.

LIes, lies, lies, repeated lies and all based on the same corrupt and forged documents from a small corner of a cancelled branch of "intelligence."

Kind of like your smarts.

Perri Nelson said...

Feodor's revisionist history is amazing. The "16 words" were not a lie. They were a statement about what British intelligence said, and they were entirely accurate in that respect.
Further, chemical weapons, and their documented use against the Kurds were among many reasons for the war, which also included multiple violations of the "no fly zone" attacks on U.S. personel, violations of the terms of the ceasefire agreement from the first Gulf War and more.

http://perrinelson.com/2007/4/26/650.aspx

Perri Nelson said...

Those 16 words were confirmed in London newspapers by the way, by officials in the British government.

As for yellowcake.. it was the sense of the Senate that Joe "Plame Game" Wilson's report bolstered the notion that Saddam had sought yellowcake from Nigeria, albeit unsuccessfully. That was never about whether he had obtained it, but whether he had tried to.

Perri Nelson said...

The first reportsof the story about WMDsbeing transported to Syria came out just weeks before Saddam's regime was toppled. It was largely ignored except by Newsmax and World Net Daily though.

Perri Nelson said...

One final thing. The link in my post to the Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolutionof 2002 is dead. In its place I offer the following CURRENT live link:

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/html/PLAW-107publ243.htm

Marshal Art said...

Hi, Perri! Good to "see" ya!

I've often linked to an AmericanThinker article by Randall Hoven, which compares the facts against the leftist rhetoric regarding the Iraq invasion. He refers to the Resolution and links to other facts as well. But, since it appeared at AT, it is automatically disqualified from leftist consideration.

Another important fact that the feo's of the world conveniently ignore is that all the Dem Bush-haters in Washington were all calling for Hussein's ouster or were whining about what an incredible threat he was. They all spoke of the threat of WMDs in his hands (Kerry, Clinton, Dean to name a few). In typical fashion, they all changed their tunes when Bush was in office actually doing something about it.

Feodor said...

"The White House has said repeatedly over the past eight days that the estimate was one of the reports that they relied upon as evidence that Iraq had a global program to get an atomic weapon in the president's State of the Union speech.

"This report was supposed to be the gold standard of our intelligence about Iraq," said one senior administration official. Asked why the agency backed away from it days after it was circulated, the official replied, "Who knows?"

C.I.A. officials explain the discrepancy by saying that classified intelligence reports sometimes include information that does not necessarily rise to the level of certainty required of a public address by the president. The report contained a footnote that made clear that there were doubts at the State Department about the uranium evidence.

"It's one thing to have information in a classified document with caveats and footnotes, and another to have the president flatly assert something," an intelligence official said."


So, why did the President say it? It was a great way to manipulate public opinion to support the war. Induce fear. And so he lied.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/16/international/worldspecial/16INTE.html

Feodor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Feodor said...

As for the Senate - Clinton and Kerry include - they are among the few million Americans to whom the Bush Administration lied: tailoring the intelligence of other countries, withholding the doubts within our own. When many Senators - Clinton and Kerry included - determined that they had been lied to... they recanted their support.

That's what honest people do.

That the majority of these people were Democrats, well, what can I say.

Feodor said...

And, BTW, Powell's speech laying out evidence for the UN was not about chemical weapons.

But then maybe you two don't get the difference between chemical and biological. Given your extremist ideologies.

Marshal Art said...

The Dems to which I referred were all calling for Hussein's overthrow during Clinton's presidency.

Marshal Art said...

And BTW, you haven't proven Bush lied. In fact, you lie to say that he did. His actions were an attempt to nip Hussein in the bud after years of nothing but talk. He made the call to go with intel he had rather than, like, say Obama, wait until there is no threat to his presidency by acting one way or another. So typical of your kind to suggest the worst about the man as if all your accusations were certain at the time. And you dare speak of lying.

Jim said...

rather than, like, say Obama, wait until there is no threat to his presidency by acting one way or another.

You mean like the OBL raid?