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

To: American Spirit who wrote (467206)	9/30/2003 12:05:40 AM
From: Dan B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "But it(Iraq war) has certainly drained all our resources, especially Arab-speaking intel operatives from much more Al Qaida infested areas of the world. You cannot debate that." Why not, it is blatantly false as written. Resources have remained spread throughout the world, and likely are being deployed fairly wisely where they do the most good. Re: "You also cannot debate that it's drained away most of the money and manpower we needed to finish Afghanistan, find Osama and protect our homeland" Also surely blatantly overboard and false as written. Just THINK man, you are writing in the deep end, and your paper is soggy. What "gross mistake" do you see? Democrats and Republicans alike believed Saddam was working on WMD's and/or terrorist plots, and they are probably correct, and they believe they are probably correct to this day. I believe they are correct too. Only establishing that Saddam has loved America just fine since the Kuwait war, will make your case. It ain't gonna happen, and as Dick Gephardt believes, going to Iraq remains the right move. Re: "The rich need to start paying. Only they can afford to." LOL. Dan B

To: American Spirit who wrote (467206)	9/30/2003 12:13:26 AM
From: Doug R	Respond to of 769670

Homeland Defense Funding Plundered for Iraq For those who believe that the Iraq War was a major detour from the War on Terror, there is excellent evidence for it if any investigative reporters wanted the story. Major funding for anti-terrorism science programs in the US, already appropriated and given out in contracts, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, has been diverted to Iraq funding. The US is as vulnerable today to a dirty bomb as it was on September 10, 2001. But a high-tech program that would allow the detection of neutrinos could have made us safer. That program has been mothballed for the time being by Tom Ridge; it is being alleged by my correspondent that the money is going instead to prop up the fragile US presence in Iraq. I received the following from a source I consider impeccable. It is appalling. "An angry scientist at one of the national laboratories gave me some (non-classified) insight into how the Iraq war is being financed. The Department of Homeland Defense allocated half a billion dollars to a project called the Tri-Lab Initiative, which offered grants to teams at Los Alamos, Sandia, and White Sands for homeland defense research. Proposals were made, ranked, and granted funds. For example, something called VLAND would have used techniques developed for the purest of pure science--neutrino research--to create truck-sized neutron detectors to detect hidden nuclear weapons. Apparently, the contracts were signed because new staff was hired. But the money never came, and the responsible Homeland Defense officials stopped replying to calls and emails. The labs have been paying the new staff out of normal Department of Energy funds intended for pure scientific research. The homeland defense projects that were funded are doing nothing. The only exception are projects funded by the Air Force, but the national laboratory scientists prefer civilian funding due to concerns about academic freedom. Clearly, what has happened is that funds intended for other purposes have been diverted to pay for the Iraq war. None of this is classified, but government scientists are prohibited from using government resources--i.e., their computers or their email account--to make it public." juancole.com