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

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (412496)	6/7/2003 6:20:40 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 769667

The US gov't did believe a Japanese attack was likely. No question. There were 2 important questions whose answers were unknown, though: Where? And When? The Phillipines had long been and continued to be considered the likeliest targets. In fact, the war plans that had been drawn up for war with the Japanese did assume the Phillipines would be the first target and were concerned with protecting them. (In spite of that, that great American war hero, Douglas McArthur, was thoroughly unready when they were finally attacked- -the day AFTER Pearl Harbor). Pearl Harbor was considered an impossible target - until the attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto by the British on Nov. 12, 1940. Even then, many top US brass considered it impossible that the Japanese could duplicate the technology needed for shallow-water torpedoes. Even given that they could, though, the majority still considered an attack on the Phillipines more likely. It seems you have the facts about that. Someone's "facts". Yeah, I produce facts. You produce speculations. But what is true is that the FBI had custody of a German spy who told them that he had on orders taken pictures of pearl that he knew were for the japanese. The FBI also knew that Japanese Embassy staff were taking pictures of Pearl Harbor. And other places. So where was the attack coming? And when? There's another even more telling fact here, though- -an apparently missing one. US Naval Intelligence had broken into the Japanese diplomatic code. They intercepted and decoded a message to the Japanese Embassy in Washington telling them that a long message would follow in 12 parts. They were to decode it- -and them destroy their code books and machines. That's an ominous sign. But it still didn't tell where the attack was coming. As a precaution, the Navy Dept. sent a "war warning" to the Phillipines and Hawaii. Bad choice of words- -that's non-standard terminology. It doesn't tell the field commanders what to do or what to expect. In Hawaii, fearing sabotage, the Army Air Force bunched its planes to make them easier to guard- -exactly the wrong strategy for aerial attack. The missing piece was "East Wind Rain". Those words were to be included in a weather forecast by Radio Tokyo on the eve of weather. This was known from previous intercepts. It has never been proven that in fact those words were broadcast. However, on 12/6/1941, one of the messages to the Japanese embassy in Washington instructed them to break all ties to the US at 1 PM Eastern time- -7 AM Hawaii time. That's when the attack on Hawaii began. The trick is that it was not known that Hawaii was the target. Timeline: decades.com You can speculate all you want. I'm sure Ray Duray will be happy to join you in promoting a conspiracy theory- -if you wish to totally destroy your credibility. Maybe FDR did know the Japanese would attack Pearl. I don't see how, but maybe so. I don't see that you can prove that, though. And a charge like that requires proof. I'm sure you must appreciate how unlikely it is I would end up being a defender of FDR. Did he expect a Japanese attack? He probably considered it a distinct possibility. Did he know when and where? No.

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (412496)	6/7/2003 7:49:17 PM
From: DavesM	Respond to of 769667

The fact is, that the Pentagon issued a message to Pacific Commanders warning that War was Imminent about a week before the attack. The military commanders of Pearl, made a mistake in their analysis of where the greatest threat came from (maybe, because they accepted the racial stereotypes, that the left made about Asians - as fact). But if you want to put President Bush at the same level as FDR... I can live with that. re:"This should have been a warning alone. Plus the other warnings they had. "

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (412496)	6/7/2003 10:33:44 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769667

OPERATION ROCKINGHAM: Twisting the Truth, Torturing the Times sundayherald.com Revealed: the secret cabal which spun for Blair Investigation: By Neil Mackay BRITAIN ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq. Operation Rockingham, established by the Defence Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defence in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD programme and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down. The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter, the former UN chief weapons inspector, and a US military intelligence officer. He knew members of the Operation Rockingham team and described the unit as 'dangerous', but insisted they were not 'rogue agents' acting without government backing. 'This policy was coming from the very highest levels,' he added. 'Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasising reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.' Ritter and other intelligence sources say Operation Rockingham and MI6 were supplying skewed information to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which, Tony Blair has told the Commons, was behind the intelligence dossiers that the government published to convince the parliament and the people of the necessity of war against Iraq. Sources in both the British and US intelligence community are now equating the JIC with the Office of Special Plans (OSP) in the US Pentagon. The OSP was set up by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to gather intelligence which would prove the case for war. In a staggering attack on the OSP, former CIA officer Larry Johnson told the Sunday Herald the OSP was 'dangerous for US national security and a threat to world peace', adding that it 'lied and manipulated intelligence to further its agenda of removing Saddam'. He added: 'It's a group of ideologues with pre-determined notions of truth and reality. They take bits of intelligence to support their agenda and ignore anything contrary. They should be eliminated.' Johnson said that to describe Saddam as an 'imminent threat' to the West was 'laughable and idiotic'. He said many CIA officers were in 'great distress' over the way intelligence had been treated. 'We've entered the world of George Orwell,' Johnson added. 'I'm disgusted. The truth has to be told. We can't allow our leaders to use bogus information to justify war.' Many in British intelligence believe the planned parliamentary inquiry by MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee will pass the blame for the use of selective intelligence to the JIC, which includes senior intelligence figures . Intelligence sources say this would be unfair as they claim the JIC was following political instructions. Blair has been under sustained criticism following allegations that intelligence on the threat from Iraq was 'sexed up' to make it more appealing to the public. The rebel Labour MP and Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, said he would raise the Sunday Herald's investigation into Operation Rockingham in the Commons on Thursday and demand an explanation from the government about selective intelligence. Ritter has also offered to give evidence to parliament. Both the MoD and Downing Street refused to comment on Ritter's allegations about Operation Rockingham, saying they did not make statements on intelligence matters. British and American intelligence analysts have also come forward to dispute claims made by President Bush that two military trailers found in Iraq were bio-weapons labs. 08 June 2003