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 : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (23100)	7/23/2003 8:14:57 PM
From: laura_bush	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Monsieur Duray: Of course it's your bidness, kind sir. I am assuming that you live in the United States. As you know, I keep a very low public profile. I tend to speak through others only when allowed and tightly scripted, which is pretty much the identical situation with George. So I will provide to you some news reports that contain obvious clues, shall I say, as to the personality and interests of my husband. George pays attention only when dollars for his campaigns can be harvested. All of our friends in the government are the same way, like Tom DeLay. Otherwise, George stays in the basement playing Free Cell or pumping iron. Or napping. I read a great deal. I like to read international media reports, such as this one from the Middle East. arabnews.com Merci beaucoups for your kind interest in the thoughts of the First Lady. lb

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (23100)	7/23/2003 8:18:37 PM
From: laura_bush	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

My husband's nose is growing. But no one cares. Here is an excellent link I found today in the media outside the United States. thestar.com lb

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (23100)	7/23/2003 11:03:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The 16 Words Weren't Just a Data Point ___________________________________ by Derrick Z. Jackson Published on Wednesday, July 23, 2003 by the Boston Globe IN THE incredible Shrinking War, impending planetary doom shrivels into dull data points. The White House is now frantically trying to convince Americans that President Bush did not conduct a mad experiment. The experiment was Bush's State of the Union claim on Jan. 28 that ''the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.'' That sentence came in the homestretch of saying that Iraq was ''assembling the world's most dangerous weapons.'' The sentence was part of building the case that ''the gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.'' Since then, it has been learned that Bob Joseph, a weapons expert for Bush's National Security Council was told by Alan Foley, a weapons expert at the CIA, that the uranium line should be taken out of the speech because it lacked credibility. Joseph got Foley to agree to pin the statement on British intelligence. This was despite the fact that Foley, according to news reports of a Senate closed-door hearing last week, told Joseph that the CIA warned the British that it doubted the credibility of that intelligence. The intelligence has since been determined to be a forgery. On top of that, the White House, in an attempt at credibility control, last week released eight pages from last October's 90-page classified National Intelligence Estimate. The White House released the documents to show that most American intelligence agencies believed then that Saddam had a ''continuing'' and ''expanding'' nuclear weapons program. But the report also included a major objection by the State Department that was buried in the annex of the report. State Department intelligence called the uranium claims ''highly dubious.'' An equally hard boomerang for the White House was the admission by administration officials that neither Bush nor National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice read the intelligence estimate in its entirety. Neither read the annex. A senior White House official told reporters that Bush was ''briefed'' on the report, but ''I don't think he sat down over a long weekend and read every word of it.'' You might think that a president facing a decision to go to war, a war that has now claimed about 230 American lives and killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and soldiers, might have gone a little deeper than a briefing on his best intelligence. Bush has shown no capacity for reflection, especially after he said on Oct. 7, 2002, ''Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.'' Nine months later, the uranium claim has become even more radioactive, driving the whole White House mad. Bush is now ironically blaming the CIA for not pushing hard enough to keep the 16 words out of Bush's speech. Bush's top officials are now whining that the 16 words never mattered. ''We're talking about a sentence, a data point,'' Rice said. ''... The 16 words have been taken out of context. It's been blown out of proportion.'' ''It was not the basis for the intelligence assessment by the intelligence community with respect to the development of the nuclear programs in Iraq. That was not critical to it at all,'' said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. ''Too much is being made out of this single statement,'' said Secretary of State Colin Powell. ''... there is quite an overstatement and quite an overreaction to this one line. The president wasn't in any way trying to mislead.'' The 16 words were no mere data point on Jan. 28. In fact sheets of ''key initiatives'' that the White House handed out for press consumption the day of the State of the Union address, the White House emphasized that Saddam ''recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, according to the British government.'' If it were a mere data point, it would not have been included as one of the key reasons why one of Bush's ''key initiatives'' in the address was to ''Disarm Saddam Hussein.'' It was the primary excuse Bush needed so he could say a week later, ''We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons. It was a primary excuse to say in March when he told Saddam that the war would start in 48 hours that ''the danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.'' To justify war, Bush concocted the most scary scenario on the planet. With every new revelation, his credibility shrinks into an invisible data point. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. ### commondreams.org