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


To: sea_biscuit who wrote (428171)7/16/2003 9:18:51 PM
From: SecularBull  Respond to of 769670
 
If it keeps 1, non-military U.S. citizen, safe then so be it.

~SB~



To: sea_biscuit who wrote (428171)7/16/2003 9:25:43 PM
From: Sully-  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670
 
The time frame of another year or so seems appropriate. I
don't consider their presence there as being stuck. Freeing
an oppressed people is a noble thing & we're willing to
risk our troops so that these decades long oppressed people
can taste freedom.

Seems you are the isolationist. In today's world, that
assures more 9/11 type terrorist attacks.



To: sea_biscuit who wrote (428171)7/16/2003 10:45:17 PM
From: Skywatcher  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670
 
Maybe Cheney ISN'T stuck in the white house for a year!
Cheney Under Pressure to Quit Over False War Evidence
Anger grows on both sides of Atlantic at misleading claims on eve of Iraq conflict
By Andrew Buncombe and Marie Woolf
The Independent

Wednesday 16 July 2003

Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq,
faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build
the case for war.

He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy
uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear program be included in George Bush's State of the
Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.

Mr Cheney was also accused of knowingly misleading Congress when the administration
sought its authorization for the use of force to oust Saddam Hussein.

The allegations against Mr Cheney have come most vocally from a group of senior former
intelligence officials who believe that information from the intelligence community was selectively
used to support a war fought for political reasons. In an open letter to President George Bush,
the group have asked that he demand Mr Cheney's resignation.

In a further development, it was reported in an Italian newspaper today that an African diplomat
offered Italian intelligence services documents relating to Saddam's alleged attempts to buy
uranium in Africa.

The report in La Repubblica, largely based on unidentified Italian secret services sources, also
linked a theft at the Niger embassy in Rome during the 2001 New Year's holiday to the affair.

La Repubblica, quoting a source from Sismi, the Italian military intelligence service, said that in
late 2001 or early 2002, M16 obtained the documents. The source implied that Italian colleagues
provided the information to British intelligence officials.

"There were several meetings, at a higher level, almost always in London," the source was
quoted as saying. "Despite this positive climate, we don't know if it was the English who passed
on that stuff to the CIA. It's rather probable."

The source, La Repubblica reported, said the Italian Foreign Ministry had raised "strong
objections" and "protests" about the information provided by Italian intelligence.

The paper published what it said were copies of four documents used to bolster the claim that
Saddam was trying to buy uranium.

In January 2001, the Niger embassy reported a theft occurred while the mission was closed
during the New Year's holiday, the paper said. Little was missing – a watch and three small
bottles of perfume. Drawers were overturned, closets were opened and paper was all over the
place.

As the clamor for a full inquest into the African uranium claims grew on both sides of the
Atlantic, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was accused by MPs of lacking "credibility" after he
admitted knowing a month before the war that documents making the assertion were forgeries.
Mr Straw said in a statement he had known that letters given to the UN nuclear agency, the
International Atomic Energy Agency, about the Niger claim were fake as early as February.

Mr Straw also claimed that the Government's case for military action was not based on
"intelligence reports".

Labour MPs, including Tam Dalyell, the father of the House, asked why Mr Straw had not told
MPs that the documents were fake in advance of the vote to approve military action on 18 March.
"He now says the Government knew it was a forgery in February. Why didn't he tell us before
Parliament voted for war?" he said. "Also if the case for war is not based on intelligence, what is
it based on?"

Last night the Labour-dominated Foreign Affairs Committee asked Mr Straw to reveal what he
knew about the Niger claim.

Donald Anderson, the committee's chairman, wrote to Mr Straw asking him when the CIA first
questioned the Niger connection, and why ministers had not admitted earlier that there were
doubts about the claims. The committee also asked whether the CIA had questioned any other
claims in the September dossier on Iraq's weapons.

The letter, signed by 11 MPs of all parties, called on Mr Straw to confirm The Independent's
report that technical documents and centrifuge parts found at the home of an Iraqi nuclear
scientist in Baghdad had lain buried for 12 years. The letter also asked Mr Straw to reveal when
he knew that the former US ambassador Joseph Wilson had found claims about Niger-Iraq links
to be false.

Last week the White House admitted that the claim that Iraq was seeking "significant quantities
of uranium from Africa" - based on faked documents provided by the Italian intelligence services -
should not have been included in President Bush's speech of 28 January.

In Washington there is no conclusive proof that Mr Cheney was responsible for insisting that
the claim be made in the speech. But there is clear evidence of Mr Cheney's interest in the
alleged Niger deal. Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador, said he was asked by the CIA to
go to Niger and investigate the claim in a request from the Vice-President's office. Mr Cheney's
chief of staff, Lewis Libby, has admitted that during a briefing from the CIA "the Vice-President
asked a question about the implication of the report".

There have been reports from CIA officials that in the months before the war Mr Cheney made a
"multiple number" of personal visits to its headquarters in Virginia to meet officials analyzing
intelligence relating to Iraq. "[He] sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was
desired from here," one senior CIA official told reporters.

The CIA director, Mr Tenet, said he accepted responsibility for approving the speech but said
his officers had only "concurred" with White House officials that by naming the British
Government as the source of the Niger claim it was "factually correct". Britain has stood by the
claim, saying it has evidence in addition to the Italian documents
CC