Iraq Weapons 'unlikely To Be Found'

AND THE FINGER POINTING BEGINS...

RICE BLAMES CIA:

CIA Approved Iraqi Uranium Claim -W.House
Fri July 11, 2003 07:40 AM ET
ENTEBBE, Uganda (Reuters) - The CIA approved in advance President Bush's accusation in a speech that Iraq had sought to acquire nuclear material from Africa, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.

CIA BLAMES UK:

CIA Asked Britain To Drop Iraq Claim
Advice on Alleged Uranium Buy Was Refused
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 11, 2003; Page A01

The CIA tried unsuccessfully in early September 2002 to persuade the British government to drop from an official intelligence paper a reference to Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa that President Bush included in his State of the Union address four months later, senior Bush administration officials said yesterday.

EDIT:

Bush points finger at CIA
Deutsche Welle, Germany - 1 hour ago
The White House has blamed the US Central Intelligence Agency over
a false accusation that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. ...


Number 10 defends uranium claim
BBC News, UK - 3 hours ago
Downing Street says it stands by claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa
despite reports that America asked the UK not to publish the allegation. ...


Scapegoat City
Slate - 3 hours ago
By Holly Bailey. The Washington Post leads with word that the CIA,
four months before President Bush's State of the Union address ...

we really don't want any friends do we? All of europe hates us for being so lone rangerish, so we go and blame everything on our one allie. We really are assholes.

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Originally posted by mogadishu@11 July 2003 - 19:41
we really don't want any friends do we? All of europe hates us for being so lone rangerish, so we go and blame everything on our one allie. We really are assholes.

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Not you mate just Bush

How dare that asshole pass the buck to Britain when British Troops are still dying in Iraq.

Neil.

It gives me no small pleasure to watch these flunkies squirm...aparently, fleischer's basic spin is that it wasn't a central reason for going to war, so incompetence, if not outright fraud, is excusable. I wish they would have pointed out before they went to war which pieces of evidence were primary. we may never know.


White House tries to end 'frenzy' over Iraq-Africa line
Fleischer: 'The bottom line has been gotten to.'
From Dana Bash
CNN Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON (CNN) --Attempting to stop what he called a "media frenzy" over the president's disputed State of the Union claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday the line was not a major part of the U.S. justification for war.

"This revisionist notion that somehow this is now the core of why we went to war, a central issue of why we went to war, a fundamental underpinning of the president's decisions, is a bunch of bull," Fleischer told reporters Monday.

Echoing an argument used Sunday by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Fleischer said the claim was only one component in a broad argument for deposing Saddam Hussein.

Friday, Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet accepted responsibility for allowing the line to stay in the January 28 State of the Union address, but many Democrats say the White House still has explaining to do. (Full story)

Fleischer indicated the White House does not intend to find or disclose answers.

"The bottom line has been gotten to," he said.

Fleischer was peppered with questions about who in the White House put the line into the speech, and who knew of intelligence agencies' concerns about the claim.

"The president believes the vetting process here did not serve the White House," was as far as Fleischer would go in answering those questions.

"The president also believes the issue of whether or not Saddam sought uranium from Africa was not a central matter," he said.

Referenced British reports
The president referenced British reports in his State of the Union address, and Fleischer said that because the British government stands by its intelligence, "it still may be fact."

The White House has confirmed intelligence officials successfully excised a line in the president's speech in Cincinnati last October about Iraq seeking nuclear material from Niger.

Fleischer sought to explain why that was taken out, while the reference to Africa remained in the State of the Union.

"The reference that the CIA recommended be taken out of the Cincinnati speech was a very specific to the country of Niger and to the quantity of uranium that Iraq sought from Niger. ... The language in the State of the Union says 'sought uranium from Africa,' not just Niger, because there was other reporting from other countries beyond Niger," said Fleischer.

Many Democrats are accusing the White House of misleading the American people in the State of the Union address.

Fleischer attributed that to a "media frenzy" because of the media misinterpreting the reason for going to war in a way that "puts it in the center of the decision. .... That was not the reason we went to war. Whether or not [Saddam Hussein] sought uranium from Africa, he was still reconstituting his nuclear program."

It seems to me that a very important point is being missed.

Obviously, both the British and US governments knew that no WMD would be found (at least not until they have been secretly imported). And other neighbouring countries also knew this.

So why was WMD used as the excuse for going to war?

There is only one possible answer, that this was a message to other countries:
Behave as we tell you or we will accuse you of having your own/hiding Iraqi WMD and you will get the same treatment.

This has already happened to some extent with Syria and Iran, how far is it going to be allowed to continue.

Quote:

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Originally posted by lynx@14 July 2003 - 20:28
So why was WMD used as the excuse for going to war?

There is only one possible answer, that this was a message to other countries: Behave as we tell you or we will accuse you of having your own/hiding Iraqi WMD and you will get the same treatment.

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lynx, I think you're right that the USA is making an example out of Iraq, knowing that Iran and Syria in particular will listen. but I think you are missing an obvious point -- they needed *some* sort of excuse, and as a tenuous as the WMD one is, i can't really think of another thats better, simple human rights violations would be so patently selective that they probably couldn't have gathered any kind of coaltion at all.

Bush has once again missed a golden political opportunity.

I read in a editorial yesterday that Tony Blair is held in higher esteem in the US than Bush is ( I think the source was a Pew report). Part of the reason for this is Blair's ability to acknowledge that many issues are complex and multi-sided. Bush is much more a "black and white" sorta guy.
That very mentality is what got Bush into his current quagmire. He was unequivical during his State of the Union address and now his own words are coming back to haunt him.

If he was a halfway savvy politician, he could have said " Well, it looks like we f*cked up, I'm going to find out what happened and fix it. Meanwhile , as President I must take full responsibility for this mistake."

Instead we get childish finger pointing and the assignation of blame to hapless underlings.
The White House is now going through such ridiculous contortions trying to minimize the infamous "16 words" that they make Clinton's asking for the definition of the word "is" look bush-league (sorry, I couldn't resist).

Bush has squandered the highest ( and most totally undeserved) public approval rating in history, and I won't be at all surprised if he goes down in flames ( a military analogy he would no doubt approve of) in the next election.

Americans won't fall for his Top Gun macho posturing twice.

Quote:

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Originally posted by clocker@14 July 2003 - 22:47
Bush has squandered the highest ( and most totally undeserved) public approval rating in history, and I won't be at all surprised if he goes down in flames ( a military analogy he would no doubt approve of) in the next election.

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and, thanks to shrub, many commentators have opined that the USA has squandered all of the goodwill the world felt for them in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. somehow, they've managed to go from a victim empathized and supported by just about everyone in the world save radical islam, to perhaps the greatest level of anti-americanism ever. its really amazing, in a sick and unfortunate way.

how not to win friends and influence people.

EDIT:

but i have to admit, if shrub can pull of a palestinian state by 2005, thats going to go a looooong way to reconciling right-thinking people everywhere to the snafu that is gulf war II.

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Originally posted by myfiles3000+14 July 2003 - 22:26--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (myfiles3000 @ 14 July 2003 - 22:26)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-lynx@14 July 2003 - 20:28
So why was WMD used as the excuse for going to war?

There is only one possible answer, that this was a message to other countries: Behave as we tell you or we will accuse you of having your own/hiding Iraqi WMD and you will get the same treatment.

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lynx, I think you&#39;re right that the USA is making an example out of Iraq, knowing that Iran and Syria in particular will listen. but I think you are missing an obvious point -- they needed *some* sort of excuse, and as a tenuous as the WMD one is, i can&#39;t really think of another thats better, simple human rights violations would be so patently selective that they probably couldn&#39;t have gathered any kind of coaltion at all. [/b][/quote]
Ah, no, I didn&#39;t miss that point at all.

I was saying that there were plenty of other &#39;excuses&#39; they could have used, but those would have applied to Iraq (or rather Saddam Hussein) only, so the &#39;message&#39; to other countries would not have been there.

I actually think that if they had attempted to remove Saddam for the human rights violations, there would have been few if any protests from other countries (who, as a western politician, would stand up and try to support Saddam for that).

And they were also violations of UN mandates.

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I was saying that there were plenty of other &#39;excuses&#39; they could have used, but those would have applied to Iraq (or rather Saddam Hussein) only, so the &#39;message&#39; to other countries would not have been there.

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Um, like which would those be, that Iraq had a monopoly on?&#33;

Quote:

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I actually think that if they had attempted to remove Saddam for the human rights violations, there would have been few if any protests from other countries (who, as a western politician, would stand up and try to support Saddam for that).

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do you know how many nations are equally guilty of HR violations as Baathist Iraq? I don&#39;t, but I&#39;d hazard a guess in the dozens. It includes all of the arab nations that the US would like to get rid of. But the justification for war wasn&#39;t based on HR issues, it was WMD. You seem to think that the elimination of WMD was an end in itself...