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 : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (382469)	3/31/2003 12:09:23 AM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Like I said, LOL, the only disaster I've seen is whatever goes on in that which in others would be called a brain. Mush in the void.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (382469)	3/31/2003 12:44:44 AM
From: Krowbar	Respond to of 769670

WHO LIED TO WHOM? by SEYMOUR M. HERSH Why did the Administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program? Last September 24th, as Congress prepared to vote on the resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to wage war in Iraq, a group of senior intelligence officials, including George Tenet, the Director of Central Intelligence, briefed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq’s weapons capability. It was an important presentation for the Bush Administration. Some Democrats were publicly questioning the President’s claim that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction which posed an immediate threat to the United States. Just the day before, former Vice-President Al Gore had sharply criticized the Administration’s advocacy of preëmptive war, calling it a doctrine that would replace “a world in which states consider themselves subject to law” with “the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the President of the United States.” A few Democrats were also considering putting an alternative resolution before Congress. According to two of those present at the briefing, which was highly classified and took place in the committee’s secure hearing room, Tenet declared, as he had done before, that a shipment of high-strength aluminum tubes that was intercepted on its way to Iraq had been meant for the construction of centrifuges that could be used to produce enriched uranium. The suitability of the tubes for that purpose had been disputed, but this time the argument that Iraq had a nuclear program under way was buttressed by a new and striking fact: the C.I.A. had recently received intelligence showing that, between 1999 and 2001, Iraq had attempted to buy five hundred tons of uranium oxide from Niger, one of the world’s largest producers. The uranium, known as “yellow cake,” can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors; if processed differently, it can also be enriched to make weapons. Five tons can produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a bomb. (When the C.I.A. spokesman William Harlow was asked for comment, he denied that Tenet had briefed the senators on Niger.)..... .....Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said. One senior I.A.E.A. official went further. He told me, “These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped. At the level it reached, I would have expected more checking.” The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office. It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake.... .....On March 14th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally asked Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, to investigate the forged documents. Rockefeller had voted for the resolution authorizing force last fall. Now he wrote to Mueller, “There is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” He urged the F.B.I. to ascertain the source of the documents, the skill-level of the forgery, the motives of those responsible, and “why the intelligence community did not recognize the documents were fabricated.” A Rockefeller aide told me that the F.B.I. had promised to look into it. newyorker.com Del

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (382469)	3/31/2003 9:29:55 AM
From: Johannes Pilch	Respond to of 769670

C'mon playa! Let's not exaggerate the thing. The war is certainly no disaster, Elizabeth-- not yet, at least. A war-disaster is having a massacre of a large number of our troops or some other sort of catastrophic event on the theatre. Nothing like that has happened - not even close. The very worst of it has been that we've lost a precious few of our kids (and very precious they were). That the Iraqis do not view us as liberators seems a bit of a mixed bag. Some Iraqis appear pleased, others appear to fight from fear, still others apparently wish to maintain the status quo. America has not yet learned that, at best, you can only rent a muslim and even then you ought not trust them.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (382469)	3/31/2003 9:35:01 AM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 769670

1. war will last a few days, "shock and awe" No one ever said this. 2. We've taken umm qusar We have. The port is open. 3. We've taken Basra The Brits have it surrounded. Have not levled the place to spare civilians. 4. Iraqis will view US marines as liberators Plenty of evidence this is exactly the case. 5. We will find WMDs, the place is littered with WMDs Right now we are fighting a war. The search for WMDs will follow. 6. Iraqi regular army will not fight for Saddam For the most part, they have not....its been irregular forces doing most of the fighting. 7. Iraqi citizens will rise up against Saddam at the first opportunity.... and on and on and on As soon as they are assured we will not let thm down this time...and who can blame them. Fact: The US forces have moved to the gates of Baghdad within one week with very low casualty rate. Calling the war a disaster is more evidence of demolib pinheads' ability to stare reality in the face and deny it.....