Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (19597)	3/12/2003 3:36:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 25898

A troubling flaw in the case for war Editorial The Virginian-Pilot © March 11, 2003 It was a bad weekend for President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program. One of the administration's most persuasive pieces of evidence has emerged as a fake. While the revelation may not deter a war, it makes more difficult the task of winning U.N. Security Council support and of reassuring Americans who question the necessity of war. Bush's proof of efforts by Iraq to restart its nuclear weapons program was based on details of Iraqi officials' travels to Africa to buy enriched uranium. The information was uncovered in documents provided by British intelligence. President Bush has recited these details in major speeches since last fall describing the threat posed by the Iraqi dictator to Americans. But after examination by the United Nations and independent experts, the documents were confirmed to be not just forgeries, but crude fakes, with mismatched names and titles of officials. ``We fell for it,'' one American official involved with the documents told The Washington Post. Another crucial part of Bush's proof of Saddam's nuclear aspirations -- aluminum tubes for centrifuges to enrich uranium -- also was rejected by the International Atomic Energy Agency's director, Mohamed ElBaradei, in a presentation to the Security Council. In arguing for a possible war to disarm Saddam, the president claimed in his speech to the United Nations last fall and in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address that Iraq has made ``several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.'' And a crucial element of Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations hinged on Iraq's purchase of the expensive 81-mm tubes with thin outer coatings. But the IAEA had reached a preliminary conclusion in January -- ignored by the administration -- that the tubes were more suitable for conventional rockets than centrifuges. The IAEA's five-man team of centrifuge experts, four of whom are American and British, later agreed, stating that the tubes' coatings actually pointed strongly toward their intended use as rockets rather than for enriching uranium. There's a much stronger case that Saddam still has chemical and biological weapons. No one should downplay the significance that vast quantities of deadly VX nerve gas and anthrax remain unaccounted for. But the nuclear argument has been Bush's most frightening linchpin against Saddam; the dictator's supposed attempts to acquire nukes has been one of the most compelling reasons for war. The thought of Saddam with a nuclear weapon to use or sell to terrorists brought many reluctant Americans to Bush's side. Last spring, for example, Congressman Randy Forbes, in appearances in his Hampton Roads district, said that Hussein already had or would soon have a nuclear-tipped missile that could kill millions of Americans within a matter of minutes. But the president's rationale for war, based on claims that emerge as false, or on others, such as the Iraq-9/11 link, which have been strained from the start, call into serious question the notion that Iraq poses an imminent threat to America. None of this is likely to change the president's mind. Last Thursday night, in a press conference, Bush made clear he believes that Saddam is a threat to the safety of Americans and that the president is bound by his constitutional duties to make sure the threat is eliminated. His concern is genuine and his convictions firm. It is troubling, nonetheless, that such an important argument for war would fray so close to the start of an invasion. It makes the entire enterprise seem all the more precarious. This wouldn't be the first time America has gone to war on the basis of faulty information. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the sinking of the Maine catapulted us into the Vietnam and Spanish-American conflicts. American and Iraqi lives shouldn't be put at risk to eliminate a threat that the facts don't fully support. pilotonline.com

To: PartyTime who wrote (19597)	3/12/2003 7:50:40 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 25898

George Bush is much smarter than his critics, that's for sure. If you want to know what's going to happen in the future just listen to Bush and disregard all the other noise and you won't go wrong. ...Anatole Kaletsky, writing in the London Times, says: Why, then, do I suddenly believe that war is, after all, inevitable — and that the fighting will begin by the end of the month? The simplest answer is that George Bush has said so. Since the day this crisis started, the best way to judge what would happen next has been simply to listen to the White House, ignoring all speculative comments and interpretations from media pundits, international leaders or even subordinate US politicians such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. denbeste.nu