Curveball comes clean: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression." ... When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "
Yes."
posted by unSane
on Apr 2, 2012 -
82 comments
Now they tell us. Neocon hindsight is 20/20. War architect
Richard Perle on invading Iraq, 2002: "We have no time to lose, and I think the president understands that and it's probably taken too long already, but I don't think it'll be much longer... Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.... Now,
it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." Four years later: "If I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies'... Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."
posted by digaman
on Nov 3, 2006 -
105 comments
Last March, the White House put numerous Iraqi government documents online, hoping to "leverage the internet" to find evidence of Saddam's nuclear potential. After questioning from the
New York Times this week, the site has
now been shut down, as it has been revealed that the Bush administration, by publishing the information,
may have publicly published detailed information on how to build atomic weapons.
Right-wing bloggers, many of whom have been discussing the documents all year, have seen the
sunny side of the news,
claiming the real issue of the potential distribution of nuclear plans (which were dated pre-1991) is the "proof Saddam had a nuclear program."
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Nov 3, 2006 -
55 comments
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA: She was the chief of operations of the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq, in charge of gathering information on Iraq's supposed WMD programs, according to a new article in
The Nation based on David Corn and Michael Isikoff's new book,
Hubris.
On his weblog, David Corn says, "She was an undercover officer in charge of running critical covert operations." Also, in the summer of 2001, "word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq."
posted by kirkaracha
on Sep 5, 2006 -
31 comments
Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
So much for Karl Rove's claim that it's wrong to think of U.S. voters as [
uninformed and gullible.] Or "There are practitioners of politics who hold that voters are dumb, ill-informed and
easily misled, that voters can be manipulated by a
clever ad or smart line," Rove said. Previously discussed
here. Thank you
Fox News.
Remember the
2003 study (PDF) by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy (PIPA)? It found that "Fox News viewers were "significantly
more likely to have misperceptions" about the Iraq war than all other media consumers."
Also the study found that "[t]hose who receive most of their news from Fox News are
more likely than average to have misperceptions." For instance, of the "three key misperceptions" -- which the study listed as "the beliefs that ... links between Iraq and al-Qaeda have been found, that WMD have been found in Iraq and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq."
posted by ArunK
on Aug 6, 2006 -
97 comments
WMDs? Sorry if this is double post or newsfilter, but fox news is claiming that
WMDs were found in Iraq. Is it ethical to state as truth that which was been unconfirmed by anyone but one person? Depending on how this pans out, this could continue the shift of approval that started last week.
posted by klik99
on Jun 21, 2006 -
111 comments
Hans Blix speaks. (RealPlayer) Hans Blix gave a recent interview with BBC Radio 4 in which he indicates that UN weapons inspectors were on the verge of private interviews with witnesses to the destruction of Iraq's WMD stockpiles shortly before the Bush administration forced inspectors to leave.
"I think that it would have been desireable for us to have more time. . . I think that the Iraqis were actually beginning to try to do cooperation of substance, and they were almost frantic to do so. . ."
In
his report to the UN on March 7th, 2003 Blix said UN inspectors were on the verge of inspecting a site where much of Iraq's WMDs were disposed and that
"The investigation of the destruction site could, in the best case, allow the determination of the number of bombs destroyed at that site."
Did the Bush administration "rush to war" in order to prevent the fatal undermining of their justification for war?
posted by insomnia_lj
on Oct 12, 2004 -
48 comments
Banned weapons and WMD parts were shipped out of Iraq after the US forces took power according to the UN. At least thats the best I can make of this article. Does this really say that the UN is upset at us for shipping out of Iraq the exact things they previously said were not in Iraq?
posted by soulhuntre
on Sep 7, 2004 -
73 comments
Federally Funded Science Fiction. The CIA announced today that next month's final report on Iraq's weapons program under Saddam Hussein will mostly encompass an analysis of what they believe Iraq would be like through 2008 had Bush not invaded the country. Because when you want accurate, detailed analysis of the future of Iraq's weapons, you turn to the group that
got it completely wrong during the present.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Aug 20, 2004 -
27 comments
Making the case for a smoking gun:
All the dots connected, and
where'd all these dots come from anyway? inthesetimes.com does a great job of pulling from many diverse resources to debunk the "everyone thought he had WMD" arguement, and washingtontimes.com gives an excellent refresher on pre 9/11 Iraq strategy.
"The Doctrine of pre-emption becomes inoperable without unimpeachable intelligence accepted by all as the coin of the realm."
posted by y6y6y6
on Aug 4, 2004 -
35 comments
Head US WMD Hunter Gives Up After stepping down, Mr Kay told Reuters news agency that he did not believe there were any large stockpiles of such weapons in existence in Iraq.
Mr Kay is being succeeded by former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer.
Earlier this month, Mr Duelfer said he believed the chances of finding chemical or biological weapons in Iraq now were close to nil, the BBC's Jon Leyne in Washington reports.
Woo-hoo?
mrmanley? Time for that Right-wing apology!
posted by Perigee
on Jan 23, 2004 -
62 comments
France, stung by Libyan WMD deal, admits US policies showing results Ok. Agreed. You don't like Bush. And the French government does not like Bush. But here is what the French now say about Libya: [...] The media, which have long criticised the US war and invasion of Iraq, grudgingly allowed that that conquest had borne fruit in terms of putting pressure on other countries Washington considers "rogue states" or part of an "axis of evil"[...]
posted by Postroad
on Dec 22, 2003 -
72 comments
Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.
If this is true, is he in trouble for saying it?
posted by bas67
on Dec 17, 2003 -
32 comments
John Dean's analysis of the administrations case for War. "What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony."
posted by thedailygrowl
on Jul 18, 2003 -
73 comments
Dissent in the ranks. US Secretary of State Colin Powell was under persistent pressure from the Pentagon and White House to include questionable intelligence in his report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction he delivered at the United Nations last February, source:
US News and World Report Magazine.
According to the report, the draft contained such questionable material that Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring,
"I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."
posted by CrazyJub
on May 31, 2003 -
76 comments
U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed "Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi." The marines are looking, but they
can't find a damn thing. So... were Bush and company played by the INC, or were the American people played by Team Bush?
posted by owillis
on May 30, 2003 -
21 comments
U.S. says Iraq may have junked toxic arms Thus spake Rummy in a speech. We know they have them. If we can not find them it is because they got rid of them. But that still means they had them at one time, right?
Question: what are those top scientists and Bath party members telling their captors wherever they are being held for questioning? Or is too important to reveal too.
posted by Postroad
on May 28, 2003 -
64 comments
Where did those chemical and biological weapons come from? ”According to the December declaration, treated with much derision from the Bush administration, U.S. and Western companies played a key role in building Hussein's war machine. The 1,200-page document contains a list of Western corporations and countries -- as well as individuals -- that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades.”
I’ve always been surprised that this type of report doesn’t get more attention. During the UN hearings I half expected the Administration to level with the world and simply say: ”We know they have the stuff because we sold it to them.”
posted by peebo
on Mar 26, 2003 -
32 comments
Remember that whole drone "cover-up"? Here's the plane. The prototype of Iraq's smoking gun WMD threat. Constructed of balsa wood and duct tape, it says Allahu Akbar (God is great) on the side. And, well, they were probably half right. While it's not really a gun, it probably does smoke -- it uses lawn-mower-style two-stroke engines. Washington Post story
here.
posted by condour75
on Mar 13, 2003 -
38 comments
UN finds no banned weapons - that's a relief. Now the only "weapons of mass destruction" in the current debacle are owned by the US i.e. 27 stealth bombers, capable of completely destroying much of the world in just a few seconds.
posted by scotty
on Dec 26, 2002 -
47 comments
Down the memory hole! An eye-opening comparison of how the various media outlets reported the removal of U.N. inspectors from Iraq back in the day
(1998) with today
(2002, and itchin' to fight).
posted by Dirjy
on Oct 25, 2002 -
16 comments
This may not make as effective a sales pitch as "weapons of mass destruction," but with two oil men in office, it can't be ignored as a possible ulterior motive to war in Iraq. Am I a cynic or should we be asking if this "preemptive" war is really about what they are saying it's about?
posted by karlcleveland
on Sep 23, 2002 -
7 comments
