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To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/11/2003 12:38:56 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq Task Force Unable To Find Any Weapons Looks to be a very important article. Whether wmds are ever found in Iraq or not, this one says far too few troops were devoted to the search and thus raises the question as to whether the Bush administration took its own line about wmds seriously. There are several quotes in here which are interesting. 1. Here's the initial frame and the results: Leaders of Task Force 75's diverse staff -- biologists, chemists, arms treaty enforcers, nuclear operators, computer and document experts, and special forces troops -- arrived with high hopes of early success. They said they expected to find what Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5 -- hundreds of tons of biological and chemical agents, missiles and rockets to deliver the agents, and evidence of an ongoing program to build a nuclear bomb. Scores of fruitless missions broke that confidence, many task force members said in interviews. 2. Army Col. Robert Smith, who leads the site assessment teams from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, said task force leaders no longer "think we're going to find chemical rounds sitting next to a gun." He added, "That's what we came here for, but we're past that." 3. Interviews and documents describing the transition from Task Force 75 to the new group show that site survey teams, the advance scouts of the arms search, will reduce from six to two their complement of experts in missile technology and biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. A little-known nuclear special operations group from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, called the Direct Support Team, has already sent home a third of its original complement, and plans to cut the remaining team by half. "We thought we would be much more gainfully employed, or intensively employed, than we were," said Navy Cmdr. David Beckett, who directs special nuclear programs for the team. 4. Team members explain their disappointing results, in part, as a consequence of a slow advance. Cautious ground commanders sometimes held weapons hunters away from the front, they said, and the task force had no helicopters of its own. "My personal feeling is we waited too long and stayed too far back," said Christopher Kowal, an expert in computer forensics who worked for Mobile Exploitation Team Charlie until last week.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/11/2003 4:34:27 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

Saddam issues chemical weapon order, claims US March 19 2003 Iraq's field-level commanders have been given authority to use chemical weapons on their own initiative in a US led war to topple Saddam Hussein, Pentagon officials said today. But chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix said today that if Iraq had chemical or biological weapons, it would probably refrain from using them against attacking US troops. Intelligence reports indicated Saddam has given them authority to use such weapons without any further directives from the Iraqi leadership, Pentagon officials said. "We continue to receive reports supporting the assertion that there is a high risk the Iraqi regime would use chemical weapons at some point during any conflict," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. It was the first explicit statement from the US Defence Department discussing the chemical weapons risk. President George W Bush and other US officials say Iraq's stocks of chemical weapons include the deadly nerve agents sarin, cyclosarin and VX and a mustard agent like that first used in World War I. Saddam has repeatedly denied having chemical or biological weapons, though Iraq has acknowledged developing both before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. US officials say they believe Iraq's chemical weapons are under the control of the Republican Guard, Saddam's best trained and most loyal troops. A large part of those forces are concentrated in and around Baghdad, where US officials are concerned that fighting involving chemical weapons could kill many Iraqi civilians. Most of Iraq's chemical arsenal, officials say, is in artillery shells and rockets that have a range of about 20 km or less. Pentagon officials said it was unclear what rank of Iraqi officers had been given the authority to order chemical weapons use. Coalition troops awaiting invasion orders have chemical protection gear and equipment that can detect clouds of chemical agents up to five km away. American tanks and armoured vehicles have filters designed to keep the troops inside safe from the deadly agents. Anticipating the possibility of chemical combat, US troops have trained extensively on operating in a contaminated environment. Blix told a news conference that Iraq was "capable of building warheads" to carry toxins, but it was an open question whether it had the weapons. The main constraint was not technical but political, Blix said. "World public opinion, which they study quite a lot, is feeling in large measure that going to war is too early. "That scepticism would turn immediately around if they used chemical or biological weapons," he said. US President George W Bush warned the Iraqi forces in a televised speech late yesterday not to obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction. "War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished," Bush said. It would be no defence for an Iraqi soldier to say he was following orders. Asked if he expected the Iraqis to use chemical or biological weapons, Blix replied: "The first question is, do they have them?" He noted that the Iraqis had never used biological weapons on the battlefield although they had used chemical weapons. "We have not seen delivery means, but they are capable of building the delivery means," he said. "If the weapons are there - and I am not saying they are - and if they have the delivery systems - and I am not saying they do - they would be capable of using them," Blix said. Bush had urge the Iraqi military not to "fight for a dying regime". Asked what would restrain a doomed regime, Blix replied: "Some people care about their reputation even after death." AP and AFP This story was found at: smh.com.au

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/11/2003 4:47:18 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Bush's WMD Search: No Full Speed Ahead by David Corn Why has it taken so long for the Pentagon and the Bush administration to seriously search for weapons of mass destruction? At a Pentagon press conference yesterday, Stephen Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence, noted that prior to the war the Pentagon had compiled a list of about 600 suspected WMD sites. "As it stands now, we have been to about 70 sites that we were looking to cover," he said, adding that US military teams had also visited another 40 that were not on the original list. This hardly seems like an anti-WMD blitzkrieg. It's been nearly a month since Baghdad fell, and most potential WMD sites have not been visited. Moreover, Cambone reported that the Pentagon was still at work assembling what it is calling the Iraq Survey Group, which will be sent to Iraq to search for individuals, records and materials related to WMD. This unit will be composed of 1300 experts and 800 support staff. But the hunt for WMD will only be one of its tasks. Its mission will also include uncovering information related to Saddam Hussein's regime, his intelligence services, terrorist outfits that might have had a presence in Iraq, any connections between the regime and terrorist organizations, war crimes and POWs. Cambone emphasized that the Iraq Survey Group's WMD responsibilities will be "only a part" of this "very large undertaking." And this unit will not begin to arrive in Iraq until the end of May. Before the war, President Bush and his lieutenants repeatedly said that the United States had absolutely no choice but to move quickly against Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from passing WMD to anti-American terrorist groups like al Qaeda. But the Pentagon has not been acting as if it took the threat of WMD transfers seriously. If there were WMD present in Iraq and there were terrorists in Iraq shopping for WMD and Saddam Hussein was an al Qaeda "ally" (as Bush said during his speech on the USS Lincoln), then it would seem that the White House and the Pentagon should have been damn scared that, as a result of the war, these terrorists would have the chance to grab WMD-related material and skedaddle. Certainly, it would have been reasonable to assume that if Saddam Hussein believed his final hour was approaching he would be more likely to greenlight a hand-off of WMD to al Qaeda. Yet the Bush White House and the Pentagon seem not to have planned for such contingencies. They have been geared more toward finding evidence of WMD (which would help Bush justify the war) rather than thwarting the threat supposedly posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Why was the Iraq Survey Team not assembled by the start of the war and ready to rush in as soon as possible in an attempt to locate and secure these items that menaced the United States? The war, after all, came as no surprise. And the news from Iraq has not been encouraging. Looters cleaned out Iraq's nuclear facilities long before US investigators reached them. Were they only scavengers who unknowingly grabbed radioactive material posing health and environmental dangers? Or were some terrorists looking for dirty-bomb material? In either event a fair question, for Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other administration and Pentagon officials is, why didn't you try to secure these sites immediately? On May 4, Barton Gellman in The Washington Post reported that a specially-trained Defense Department team was not dispatched to the Baghdad Nuclear Research facility until May 3, after a month of "official indecision." The unit found the site--which was the home to the remains of the nuclear reactor bombed by Israel in 1981 and which stored radioactive waste that would be quite attractive to a dirty-bombmaker--ransacked. The survey conducted by the team, Gellman reported, "appeared to offer fresh evidence that the war has dispersed the country's most dangerous technologies beyond anyone's knowledge or control." Sometime in mid-April, US Central Command had sent a detachment to guard the gate to the facility. But for two weeks--until the special team arrived--this security detail allowed Iraqis who claimed to be employees of the research center to come and go. The detachment had no Arabic speaker and could not question those entering and leaving. Nor was it able to handle the looters, who some days numbered in the hundreds. A mile away, the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, where UN inspectors in years past had found partially-enriched uranium, was also looted. There have been other signs that the Pentagon's anti-WMD effort has been less than intense. In April, two of the four mobile exploitation teams (known as METs), equipped and trained to assess suspected WMD sites, were reassigned to investigate war crimes. And on May 6, one of the METs that had been searching for WMD spent the day in the bombed-out and flooded secret police headquarters in Baghdad looking for one of the oldest copies of the Talmud in existence. Finding and preserving antiquities is all well and good, but what about those chemical and biological weapons that Bush claimed could be turned over to terrorists at any given moment? Should any of the METs have been diverted from that mission, while at least 500 of the suspected sites were still unexamined? As this MET searched for the seventh-century Jewish text (which it never found), it was also looking for records related to weapons of mass destruction. And it did, according to The New York Times, uncover one such document: a 2001 memo from an Iraqi intelligence officer reporting an offer to sell Iraq uranium and other nuclear material. But the memo said the bid was declined because of the "sanctions situation." Was this evidence that Iraq actually had been to some extent minding the UN sanctions? Who knows for sure? The discovery of what the Pentagon says might be a bioweapons lab has drawn far more attention. The administration, after weeks, may have finally found one piece of evidence that backs up the UN presentation made by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in which he declared that Iraq--no doubt--had WMD. But even if more vestiges of WMD are unearthed, that will not excuse or justify the irresponsible delays in the WMD search-and-secure operations. Bush has not been forced to explain the slow pace of the WMD search or the lack of prewar planning on this crucial front. Fortunately for him, the Democrats have spent more time howling about his tailhook-enabled photo-op speech on an aircraft carrier (which has caused the news channels to show the Top Gun-ish footage over and over). But at the May 7 White House briefing, press secretary Ari Fleischer was pressed on whether the United States failed to act to prevent weapons of mass destruction (if they existed) from being dispersed. The exchange was illuminating. Question: Ari, everybody's getting into this trap a little bit about whether WMD will be found, which may not be the issue, because, A, you may not find them, they may have been destroyed, whereas the president said they may have been dispersed, which raises the question that they could have somehow been spirited out of the country by terrorist groups and the like. What information do you have about that eventuality happening? I mean, isn't it presumptuous to presume that the American people are safer when you can't account for whether weapons have been taken out of the country or weapons materials have been taken out of the country? Fleischer: Well, I think the real threat here came from a nation-state headed by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen who showed they were willing to use weapons of mass destruction before....That's the basis for saying that people are safer. If you're asking the question, on what basis does the president conclude people are safer, that's the answer. Question: I thought the concern was [weapons of mass destruction would] fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. Wasn't that the rationale? Fleischer: Well, I'm continuing. The president said that the removal of the regime has diminished the threat and increased our security, and I think that's unquestionable. It was, after all, the regime that used weapons of mass destruction in attacks previously. Of course we always have concerns about any place that has weapons of mass destruction passing them along. But given the routing of the Iraqi regime, it certainly makes that much harder to do.... Question: I know that, but you're making these pronouncements without answering the direct question, which is, what does this administration know about not only what has been found -- you're still checking -- but what weapons materials or actual weapons may have been taken out of the country? Fleischer: Well, we don't have anything concrete to report on that. Precisely. And the White House has not had much to report on its efforts to prevent WMD-related material from being given to or snatched by terrorists. The risk identified by the White House before the war was not, as Fleischer suggested, that Saddam Hussein would use WMD against the United States, but that he would slip them to terrorists who would do so. Now Fleischer is saying the danger to the United States is less because the fellows who would arrange a WMD hand-off are out of commission. But can he claim that such transfers have not occurred during or after the war? He definitely could not honestly state that the US military has acted assiduously to prevent this sort of nightmare scenario. In fact, the destruction of the command-and-control structure for whatever WMD material might have been in Iraq only increased the likelihood that this dangerous stuff could end up in the mitts of evildoers. On April 10, Fleischer remarked, "As I said earlier, we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. This is what this war was about and is about." Yet the Bush administration woefully under-planned. If only the White House had paid as much attention to the WMD search as it does to photo-ops. Then perhaps the American people would actually have reason to feel safer. Published on Friday, May 9, 2003 by The Nation

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/12/2003 1:24:04 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Respond to of 281500

"The question before was, where are Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons? What is the question now? That is what we are trying to sort out." One thing analysts must reconsider, he said, is: "What was the nature of the threat?" Yup! That is what I've been asking too...and this is from an intelligence analyst. I am not impressed by the "it got looted out" argument. Firstly, they should have been able to find trace amounts in the labs. But more importantly, if the bio-chems were looted out, how come there have been no accidents so far? You would think if there was enough danger to go on a preemptive war, then some of these massive amounts of bio-chems would have contaminated the populace by now. Incidently, if it had been Blix that would have produced such results and was pulling his team out, there would have been massive outrage in Washington to have his head on a golden platter.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/20/2003 2:35:47 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The Missing Evidence by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, 5/19/03 The Honorable Kofi Annan, Secretary General The United Nations (via fax) Dear Mr. Secretary General, We are former intelligence officials who have served many years at senior levels of the US intelligence community. As the role of intelligence on Iraq assumed critical importance over the past several months, we established Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) as a collegial body to monitor the unfolding of events. Our first analytic paper was a same-day commentary on Secretary of State Colin Powell's performance at the UN Security Council on February 5. Six papers on related subjects have now been issued, three of which have taken the form of Memoranda for the President. We have had no response from the White House. We turn to you now because it has become inescapably clear that the issue of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq remains a most urgent one. We see no viable alternative to renewed UN involvement if this key issue is to be dealt with effectively. This letter is an appeal to you and Security Council members to pursue that objective with a renewed sense of urgency. As we applied the rigorous evidentiary standards of professional intelligence analysis over recent months, we were inclined to place reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in the "unconfirmed" category. However, the assertions of President George W. Bush and his senior advisers were so categorical--and their assurances so insistent--that it seemed reasonable to assume that they were in possession of more compelling evidence than that which had been made public, and that prudence therefore dictated giving them the benefit of the doubt. In doing so we found ourselves in step with most Americans, including some who are highly experienced in these matters--former UN inspectors David Albright and Jonathan Tucker, for example. We find it deeply troubling, therefore, that two months after US and British forces invaded Iraq no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Statements by those close to the Bush administration have served to compound the confusion. On April 10, for example, Defense Policy Board member (and former Deputy US Representative to the UN), Kenneth Adelman, predicted that such weapons would be found "pretty soon, in the next five days." He now concedes that the situation is "very strange," and suggests that Saddam Hussein may have launched "a massive disinformation campaign to make the world think he was violating international norms, and he may not have been." US Gen. Tommy Franks has said the search for weapons of mass destruction may take a year. We assume that the international community will find this unacceptable. It became painfully obvious in the weeks following the invasion of Iraq that the US did not know the location of any weapons of mass destruction. Nor, at the outset, was the US able to pinpoint and take into custody those Iraqis who do know. This has now changed. A former chief UN inspector for weapons in Iraq noted last week that the US now has in custody four top Iraqi officials who "know exactly what the facts are," adding, "We need to know what they are saying." Intelligence analysts rarely confess to being perplexed. We confess. We are perplexed at the US refusal to permit the return of UN inspectors to Iraq. From an intelligence point of view, Washington's decision to bar the very people with the international mandate, the unique experience, and the credibility to undertake a serious search for weapons of mass destruction defies logic. UN inspectors know Iraq, know the weaponry in question, know the Iraqi scientists/engineers who have been involved, know how the necessary materials are procured and processed; in short, they have precisely the expertise required. Barton Gellman's detailed account of the abortive two-month search by US forces in Iraq ("Odyssey of Frustration," in yesterday's Washington Post) should remove any lingering doubt that the US needs all the help it can get. We are particularly troubled by reports of looting and thefts at Iraqi nuclear facilities. UN prerogatives regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq offer a way out of this mire. Security Council resolutions requiring that UN inspectors certify that Iraq is free of such weapons before economic sanctions can be lifted can continue to play an important role. Indeed, it would be folly to attempt to resume normal economic activity while weapons of mass destruction remain unaccounted for. Just last week the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, warned that such weapons may still be in the hands of Iraqi "special units." The draft Security Council resolution being promoted by the US, however, makes no reference to the mandated UN role in weapons certification. Thus, at the Security Council deliberations this week, the stakes--for the UN, for the spread of weapons of mass destruction, for the international community as a whole, and for the Middle East in particular--could not be higher. It is understandable that you and other senior UN officials are unwilling to take at face value the intelligence reporting offered by the US on Iraq, particularly since the detailed assertions by Secretary Powell on February 5, by and large, have not withstood close scrutiny. Particularly distressing to us as intelligence professionals has been the revelation that some of the most important evidence cited by Secretary Powell, and by the president himself, was based on forged documents. You will agree, certainly, that this is a starkly different state of affairs than that which obtained during the Cuban missile crisis 41 years ago. Then war was averted through peaceful means partly because of widespread trust in the integrity of US intelligence collection and analysis. Trust is a fragile commodity. The success of diplomacy leans heavily on it. If trust is squandered, all suffer. Today, as veteran intelligence officials, we cannot stand by in silence as US credibility is in danger of being frittered away. This will be the inevitable result if previous US government assertions based on "solid intelligence" concerning the existence of serviceable weapons of mass destruction in Iraq remain without credible substantiation. Only the return of UN inspectors to Iraq can determine on behalf of the entire international community the credibility of the intelligence upon which the US/UK invasion of Iraq was based. Accordingly, we strongly encourage you to continue working toward that end. The restoration of an internationally sanctioned inspection and verification regime would be a giant step toward resolving lingering ambiguities. Equally important, it would ensure a stable foundation for the security of the next government in Iraq. We have found it somewhat awkward to write you in this vein, but the urgency of the situation leaves us no alternative. We take no joy in sharing our confusion over our government's policies. We appreciate your efforts and those of other member states to carry out the UN's mandate on Iraq and to assert UN prerogatives. The long-term credibility and role of the UN will be strengthened as you redouble your efforts to meet this formidable challenge. We shall fax copies of this letter to the current members of the Security Council, including the US delegation. Respectfully yours, Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe, NM William Christison, Santa Fe, NM David MacMichael, Linden, VA Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA Steering Group Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity The VIPS can be reached at: vips@counterpunch.org counterpunch.org

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/29/2003 3:00:43 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

The case for war is blown apart news.independent.co.uk Independant, UK, By Ben Russell and Andy McSmith in Kuwait City, 29 May 2003 Tony Blair stood accused last night of misleading Parliament and the British people over Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and his claims that the threat posed by Iraq justified war. Robin Cook, the former foreign secretary, seized on a "breathtaking" statement by the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that Iraq's weapons may have been destroyed before the war, and anger boiled over among MPs who said the admission undermined the legal and political justification for war. Mr Blair insisted yesterday he had "absolutely no doubt at all about the existence of weapons of mass destruction". But Mr Cook said the Prime Minister's claims that Saddam could deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes were patently false. He added that Mr Rumsfeld's statement "blows an enormous gaping hole in the case for war made on both sides of the Atlantic" and called for MPs to hold an investigation. Meanwhile, Labour rebels threatened to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for the cardinal sin of misleading Parliament - and force him to answer emergency questions in the House. Mr Rumsfeld ignited the row in a speech in New York, declaring: "It is ... possible that they [Iraq] decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict and I don't know the answer." Speaking in the Commons before the crucial vote on war, Mr Blair told MPs that it was "palpably absurd" to claim that Saddam had destroyed weapons including 10,000 litres of anthrax, up to 6,500 chemical munitions; at least 80 tons of mustard gas, sarin, botulinum toxin and "a host of other biological poisons". But Mr Cook said yesterday: "We were told Saddam had weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. It's now 45 days since the war has finished and we have still not found anything. "It is plain he did not have that capacity to threaten us, possibly did not have the capacity to threaten even his neighbours, and that is profoundly important. We were, after all, told that those who opposed the resolution that would provide the basis for military action were in the wrong. "Perhaps we should now admit they were in the right." Speaking as he flew into Kuwait before a morale-boosting visit to British troops in Iraq today, Mr Blair said: "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists. "We have already found two trailers that both our and the American security services believe were used for the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons." He added: "Our priorities in Iraq are less to do with finding weapons of mass destruction, though that is obviously what a team is charged with doing, and they will do it, and more to do with humanitarian and political reconstruction." Peter Kilfoyle, the anti-war rebel and former Labour defence minister, said he was prepared to report Mr Blair to the Speaker of the Commons for misleading Parliament. Mr Kilfoyle, whose Commons motion calling on Mr Blair to publish the evidence backing up his claims about Saddam's arsenal has been signed by 72 MPs, warned: "This will not go away. The Government ought to publish whatever evidence they have for the claims they made." Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "No weapons means no threat. Without WMD, the case for war falls apart. It would seem either the intelligence was wrong and we should not rely on it, or, the politicians overplayed the threat. Even British troops who I met in Iraq recently were sceptical about the threat posed by WMD. Their lives were put at risk in order to eliminate this threat - we owe it to our troops to find out if that threat was real." But Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "I think it is too early to rush to any conclusions at this stage; we must wait and see what the outcome actually is of these investigations." Ministers have pointed to finds of chemical protection suits and suspected mobile biological weapons laboratories as evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological capability. But they have also played down the importance of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Earlier this month, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, provoked a storm of protest after claiming weapons finds were "not crucially important". The Government has quietly watered down its claims, now arguing only that the Iraqi leader had weapons at some time before the war broke out. Tony Benn, the former Labour minister, told LBC Radio: "I believe the Prime Minister lied to us and lied to us and lied to us. The whole war was built upon falsehood and I think the long-term damage will be to democracy in Britain. If you can't believe what you are told by ministers, the whole democratic process is put at risk. You can't be allowed to get away with telling lies for political purposes." Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, said MPs "supported war based on a lie". He said: "If it's right Iraq destroyed the weapons prior to the war, then it means Iraq complied with the United Nations resolution 1441." The former Labour minister Glenda Jackson added: "If the creators of this war are now saying weapons of mass destruction were destroyed before the war began, then all the government ministers who stood on the floor in the House of Commons adamantly speaking of the immediate threat are standing on shaky ground." The build-up to war: What they said Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons George Bush, Us President 18 March, 2003 We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003 Saddam's removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003 Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit Tony Blair 28 April, 2003 It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary 28 May, 2003

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/29/2003 3:23:36 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Is there anything left that matters? By Joan Chittister,OSB, 5/27/03 nationalcatholicreporter.org This is what I don't understand: All of a sudden nothing seems to matter. First, they said they wanted Bin Laden "dead or alive." But they didn't get him. So now they tell us that it doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man. Then they said they wanted Saddam Hussein, "dead or alive." He's apparently alive but we haven't got him yet, either. However, President Bush told reporters recently, "It doesn't matter. Our mission is greater than one man." Finally, they told us that we were invading Iraq to destroy their weapons of mass destruction. Now they say those weapons probably don't exist. Maybe never existed. Apparently that doesn't matter either. Except that it does matter. I know we're not supposed to say that. I know it's called "unpatriotic." But it's also called honesty. And dishonesty matters. It matters that the infrastructure of a foreign nation that couldn't defend itself against us has been destroyed on the grounds that it was a military threat to the world. It matters that it was destroyed by us under a new doctrine of "pre-emptive war" when there was apparently nothing worth pre-empting. It surely matters to the families here whose sons went to war to make the world safe from weapons of mass destruction and will never come home. It matters to families in the United States whose life support programs were ended, whose medical insurance ran out, whose food stamps were cut off, whose day care programs were eliminated so we could spend the money on sending an army to do what did not need to be done. It matters to the Iraqi girl whose face was burned by a lamp that toppled over as a result of a U.S. bombing run. It matters to Ali, the Iraqi boy who lost his family — and both his arms — in a U.S. air attack. It matters to the people in Baghdad whose water supply is now fetid, whose electricity is gone, whose streets are unsafe, whose 158 government ministries' buildings and all their records have been destroyed, whose cultural heritage and social system has been looted and whose cities teem with anti-American protests. It matters that the people we say we "liberated" do not feel liberated in the midst of the lawlessness, destruction and wholesale social suffering that so-called liberation created. It matters to the United Nations whose integrity was impugned, whose authority was denied, whose inspection teams are even now still being overlooked in the process of technical evaluation and disarmament. It matters to the reputation of the United States in the eyes of the world, both now and for decades to come, perhaps. And surely it matters to the integrity of this nation whether or not its intelligence gathering agencies have any real intelligence or not before we launch a military armada on its say-so. And it should matter whether or not our government is either incompetent and didn't know what they were doing or were dishonest and refused to say. The unspoken truth is that either as a people we were misled, or we were lied to, about the real reason for this war. Either we made a huge — and unforgivable — mistake, an arrogant or ignorant mistake, or we are swaggering around the world like a blind giant, flailing in all directions while the rest of the world watches in horror or in ridicule. If Bill Clinton's definition of "is" matters, surely this matters. If a president's sex life matters, surely a president's use of global force against some of the weakest people in the world matters. If a president's word in a court of law about a private indiscretion matters, surely a president's word to the community of nations and the security of millions of people matters. And if not, why not? If not, surely there is something as wrong with us as citizens, as thinkers, as Christians as there must be with some facet of the government. If wars that the public says are wrong yesterday — as over 70% of U.S. citizens did before the attack on Iraq — suddenly become "right" the minute the first bombs drop, what kind of national morality is that? Of what are we really capable as a nation if the considered judgment of politicians and people around the world means nothing to us as a people? What is the depth of the American soul if we can allow destruction to be done in our name and the name of "liberation" and never even demand an accounting of its costs, both personal and public, when it is over? We like to take comfort in the notion that people make a distinction between our government and ourselves. We like to say that the people of the world love Americans, they simply mistrust our government. But excoriating a distant and anonymous "government" for wreaking rubble on a nation in pretense of good requires very little of either character or intelligence. What may count most, however, is that we may well be the ones Proverbs warns when it reminds us: "Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks the truth." The point is clear: If the people speak and the king doesn't listen, there is something wrong with the king. If the king acts precipitously and the people say nothing, something is wrong with the people. It may be time for us to realize that in a country that prides itself on being democratic, we are our government. And the rest of the world is figuring that out very quickly. From where I stand, that matters.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/29/2003 3:46:04 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Iraq weapons dossier 'rewritten' A dossier compiled by the government on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction was rewritten to make it "sexier", a senior British official has told the BBC. The claim - hotly denied by Downing Street - came as Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first Western leader to visit post-conflict Iraq. Published last September, the dossier warned that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to activate his biological and chemical weapons in just 45 minutes. But the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has suggested that the weapons might have been destroyed before the fighting began. The intelligence official told the BBC the dossier had been "transformed" a week before it was published on the orders of Downing Street. He said: "The classic example was the statement that weapons of mass destruction were ready for use within 45 minutes. "That information was not in the original draft. It was included in the dossier against our wishes because it wasn't reliable. "Most things in the dossier were double source but that was single source and we believe that the source was wrong." He said "most people in intelligence" were unhappy about the changes because they "didn't reflect the considered view they were putting forward". But the official said he was convinced that Iraq had programme to produce weapons of mass destruction, and felt it was 30% likely there was a biological weapons programme. He said some evidence had been "downplayed" by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix. But Iraqi scientists captured during the war had not provided much information as yet, he added. Responding to the BBC report, Defence Minister Adam Ingram rejected suggestions that the US-led coalition had effectively gone to war on a false pretext. He said the allegation that Downing Street had demanded changes to the dossier was untrue. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The war was fought on the basis of all of the allegations, much of which was substantiated, not just by a security document produced by our security services, not concocted by Number 10 or under pressure from Number 10 to produce it in a particular way... "[It came from] their best knowledge and their best assessment of what they could declare into the public domain, based upon the knowledge of what was out there. Not one word of the dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies Downing Street "The whole world knew what Saddam Hussein was up to in terms of the weapons of mass destruction and that's why we prosecuted the war and that's why we were right." This was echoed by senior sources inside the British intelligence community, who told the BBC on Thursday night that the heads of every agency that contributed to the dossier were satisfied with its contents. They were nervous, however, that this was the first time secret material had been used in this way to support the government's case so publicly, the sources added. Mr Ingram accepted that the suggestion that Saddam had weapons which could be used within 45 minutes was based on a single source. But he said the "jigsaw was beginning to come into place" as the search for weapons goes on. Mr Blair has said he is still absolutely sure that weapons of mass destruction will be found. "Rather than speculating, let's just wait until we get the full report back from our people who are interviewing the Iraqi scientists," he said on Wednesday. Propaganda Downing Street said: "Not one word of the dossier was not entirely the work of the intelligence agencies." The BBC report said the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee is to conduct an inquiry into the UK Government's claims about Saddam Hussein's regime. Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said the report added weight to rumours that the intelligence services were unhappy about the way their evidence was being used. Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who opposed the war with Iraq, called for a Commons statement on the claims. The new questions over the dossier came as CBS reported that the bunker that the US attacked in the hope of killing Saddam Hussein at the beginning of the war never existed. The American network quoted US Army Tim Madere, who is in charge of inspecting key sites in Baghdad, as saying there was no trace of a bunker or of any bodies at the Dora Farms. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2003/05/29

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/30/2003 1:05:39 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Comments Revive Doubts Over Iraq Weapons Friday May 30, 2003 By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European critics of the Iraq war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official playing down Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the conflict. In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited ``bureaucratic reasons'' for focusing on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal and said a ``huge'' reason for the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia. ``For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,'' Wolfowitz was quoted as saying. He said one reason for going to war against Iraq that was ``almost unnoticed but huge'' was the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power. Those troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden. Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar. However, those goals were not spelled out publicly as the United States sought to build international support for the war. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. The failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive weapons stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat. Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began. On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war. ``Believe me, it's not for lack of trying,'' Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. ``We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.'' The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership. In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat. ``It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war,'' Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. ``Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it.'' Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. ``It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?'' he told The Associated Press. In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility. ``The charge of deception is inescapable,'' the newspaper said Friday. In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons. ``The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' `` Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. ``It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place.'' During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday he has ``absolutely no doubt'' that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. ``Have a little patience,'' Blair told reporters. Wolfowitz was in Singapore, where he is due to speak Saturday at the Asia Security Conference of military chiefs and defense ministers from Asian and key Western powers. He told reporters at the conference that the United States will reorganize its forces worldwide to confront the threat of terrorism. ``We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military posture worldwide, including in the United States,'' Wolfowitz said. ``We're facing a very different threat than any one we've faced historically.'' guardian.co.uk

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/30/2003 11:15:42 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Tenet Defends Iraq Intelligence CIA Chief Rebuts Allegations of Pressure From Administration Before the War By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, May 31, 2003 washingtonpost.com CIA Director George J. Tenet took the unusual step yesterday of publicly defending the agency's intelligence on Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons, amid growing criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated what it knew about Iraqi weapons programs to advance the case for going to war. The statement by Tenet was a rarity for a director of Central Intelligence, who normally does not react publicly to criticism about intelligence matters except during testimony before Congress. It underscored the ferment building within intelligence agencies because U.S. forces in Iraq so far have not uncovered any proscribed weapons. Three complaints have been filed with the CIA ombudsman about the administration's possible politicization of intelligence on Iraq, an intelligence official said. He would not describe the substance of the complaints. One senior administration official said CIA analysts have complained they felt pressured by administration policymakers who questioned them before the war about their assessment of Iraq's arms programs. "Our role is to call it like we see it, to tell policymakers what we know, what we don't know, what we think, and what we base it on," Tenet said in a statement released by the CIA. "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong." Tenet's statement came in response to the release on Thursday of a "memorandum" to President Bush posted on several Internet sites by a group of retired CIA and State Department intelligence analysts. The analysts said there is "growing mistrust and cynicism" among intelligence professionals over "intelligence cited by you and your chief advisers to justify the war against Iraq." The group, which calls itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, said the failure to find weapons of mass destruction after six weeks of searching "suggests either that such weapons are simply not there or that those eventually found there will not be in sufficient quantity or capability to support your repeated claim that Iraq posed a grave threat to our country's security." The group called on the president to allow United Nations inspectors to return to Iraq, saying, "If the U.S. doesn't make undisputed discoveries of forbidden weapons, the failure will feed already widespread skepticism abroad about the motives for going to war." It added that intelligence in the past had been "warped for political purposes but never before has such warping been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorize launching a war." A senior intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the intelligence agencies' estimates on Iraq, saying, "We were careful about language, and it's not fair to accuse the analysts for what others say about our material." But he added that only Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's Feb. 5 speech at the U.N. Security Council, in which Powell made the administration's case for going to war, was reviewed by the intelligence agencies in detail and backed by detailed intelligence. "We can't police what others [in the administration] say," the official said. Asked about the controversy yesterday, Powell urged patience while the CIA and Congress look into the matter. "There are always people who come after the fact to say this wasn't what was presented to you, or this was politicized or this wasn't," he said. "Let people look into it, let people examine it." Speaking as he arrived in Krakow, Poland, yesterday, the president dismissed charges that the administration has not proved its case that Iraq had proscribed weapons programs. He cited the discovery last month of two trucks in Iraq that U.S. intelligence officials said appeared to be designed as mobile biological weapons production facilities. "For those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them," Bush said. The House and Senate intelligence panels have called for reviews of the administration's handling of information on Iraq's weapons programs. Tenet, at the urging of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, also launched just before the war an internal CIA review of how the prewar intelligence stands up to what U.S. teams in Iraq discover in their weapons searches, reviews of Iraqi documents and interviews with Iraqi weapons scientists. In the months leading up to the war, senior administration officials, including Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell, cited Iraq's alleged possession of biological and chemical weapons, and its nuclear weapons development program, as a central justification for unseating by force the government of Saddam Hussein. But opponents of the war -- some from inside the government, others from outside -- expressed concern that the administration failed to make its case about Iraq's weapons programs, as well as the country's alleged ties to al Qaeda. Opponents focused much of their criticism on a Pentagon intelligence analysis unit established last year by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was among the administration's most prominent advocates for invading Iraq. Tenet's statement yesterday suggested that he is concerned the criticism is getting out of hand, and could threaten the credibility of the country's intelligence system. A senior administration official said that during the run-up to the war, the CIA's Iraq analysts had been questioned by administration policymakers, including Cheney. But the official added, "There is nothing wrong with them sitting down with analysts and asking them questions about how they know this or that." Over the past year, Cheney has made "multiple trips to the CIA on many different subjects, including several times on Iraq," Cathie Martin, a Cheney spokeswoman, confirmed yesterday. Cheney, in an Aug. 26, 2002, speech that launched an intensive administration campaign to build support for going to war, said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, added a new voice to the mystery of Iraq's weapons yesterday when he said that he, too, is surprised that no chemical weapons have yet been found. Speaking in a teleconference call from Baghdad to reporters in Washington, Conway said he "truly thought," based on intelligence he had been given before the war, that chemical weapons had been distributed to Iraqi Republican Guard units whose commanders had authority to fire them. "It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered weapons . . . in some of the forward dispersal sites," he said. Conway said that U.S. military commanders, at the tactical level, used their best guess that chemical weapons might be used against them, and "we were simply wrong." "But, he added, "whether or not we're wrong at the national level, I think, still very much remains to be seen." The Pentagon has dispatched a 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group to Iraq to take over the weapons search and intelligence analysis that have been carried out by specially trained military units associated with the Army and Marines. Those units are being incorporated into the survey group or being withdrawn. Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the group's leader, told reporters yesterday he believes weapons will be found. "This is not necessarily going to be quick and easy, but it's going to be very thorough," said Dayton, who leaves for Baghdad on Monday. In another development, Brent Scowcroft, chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, has begun an inquiry into how the charge that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium oxide for nuclear weapons from Niger -- based upon apparently forged documents -- got into a presidential speech last year. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week asked the inspectors general of the CIA, Pentagon and State Department to investigate the matter.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97898)	5/31/2003 2:25:45 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims Secret transcript revealed Dan Plesch and Richard Norton-Taylor Saturday May 31, 2003 The Guardian guardian.co.uk Jack Straw and his US counterpart, Colin Powell, privately expressed serious doubts about the quality of intelligence on Iraq's banned weapons programme at the very time they were publicly trumpeting it to get UN support for a war on Iraq, the Guardian has learned. Their deep concerns about the intelligence - and about claims being made by their political bosses, Tony Blair and George Bush - emerged at a private meeting between the two men shortly before a crucial UN security council session on February 5. The meeting took place at the Waldorf hotel in New York, where they discussed the growing diplomatic crisis. The exchange about the validity of their respective governments' intelligence reports on Iraq lasted less than 10 minutes, according to a diplomatic source who has read a transcript of the conversation. The foreign secretary reportedly expressed concern that claims being made by Mr Blair and President Bush could not be proved. The problem, explained Mr Straw, was the lack of corroborative evidence to back up the claims. Much of the intelligence were assumptions and assessments not supported by hard facts or other sources. Mr Powell shared the concern about intelligence assessments, especially those being presented by the Pentagon's office of special plans set up by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Mr Powell said he had all but "moved in" with US intelligence to prepare his briefings for the UN security council, according to the transcripts. But he told Mr Straw he had come away from the meetings "apprehensive" about what he called, at best, circumstantial evidence highly tilted in favour of assessments drawn from them, rather than any actual raw intelligence. Mr Powell told the foreign secretary he hoped the facts, when they came out, would not "explode in their faces". What are called the "Waldorf transcripts" are being circulated in Nato diplomatic circles. It is not being revealed how the transcripts came to be made; however, they appear to have been leaked by diplomats who supported the war against Iraq even when the evidence about Saddam Hussein's programme of weapons of mass destruction was fuzzy, and who now believe they were lied to. People circulating the transcripts call themselves "allied sources supportive of US war aims in Iraq at the time". The transcripts will fuel the controversy in Britain and the US over claims that London and Washington distorted and exaggerated the intelligence assessments about Saddam's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme. An unnamed intelligence official told the BBC on Thursday that a key claim in the dossier on Iraq's weapons released by the British government last September - that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes of an order - was inserted on the instructions of officials in 10 Downing Street. Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, admitted the claim was made by "a single source; it wasn't corroborated". Speaking yesterday in Warsaw, the Polish capital, Mr Blair said the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in the dossier was "evidence the truth of which I have absolutely no doubt about at all". He said he had consulted the heads of the security and intelligence services before emphatically denying that Downing Street had leaned on them to strengthen their assessment of the WMD threat in Iraq. He insisted he had "absolutely no doubt" that proof of banned weapons would eventually be found in Iraq. Whitehall sources make it clear they do not share the prime minister's optimism. The Waldorf transcripts are all the more damaging given Mr Powell's dramatic 75-minute speech to the UN security council on February 5, when he presented declassified satellite images, and communications intercepts of what were purported to be conversations between Iraqi commanders, and held up a vial that, he said, could contain anthrax. Evidence, he said, had come from "people who have risked their lives to let the world know what Saddam is really up to". Some of the intelligence used by Mr Powell was provided by Britain. The US secretary of state, who was praised by Mr Straw as having made a "most powerful and authoritative case", also drew links between al-Qaida and Iraq - a connection dismissed by British intelligence agencies. His speech did not persuade France, Germany and Russia, who stuck to their previous insistence that the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq should be given more time to do their job. The Waldorf meeting took place a few days after Downing Street presented Mr Powell with a separate dossier on Iraq's banned weapons which he used to try to strengthen the impact of his UN speech. A few days later, Downing Street admitted that much of its dossier was lifted from academic sources and included a plagiarised section written by an American PhD student. Mr Wolfowitz set up the Pentagon's office of special plans to counter what he and his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, considered inadequate - and unwelcome - intelligence from the CIA. He angered critics of the war this week in a Vanity Fair magazine interview in which he cited "bureaucratic reasons" for the White House focusing on Iraq's alleged arsenal as the reason for the war. In reality, a "huge" reason for the conflict was to enable the US to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia, he said. Earlier in the week, Mr Rumsfeld suggested that Saddam might have destroyed such weapons before the war.