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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: abstract who wrote (60424)	1/9/2004 9:21:38 AM
From: Murrey Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

ab, you're old enough (at least so I suspect) and have been around the porch enough that some of us kind of know you. My question. Why do you keep going back to the same old argument that you know will not be won by either you or Tim? It seems to me, that you could vent your outrage with Bush and his administration more productively elsewhere. JMHO, of course!;-)

To: abstract who wrote (60424)	1/9/2004 10:47:42 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

"The administration of United States President George W Bush "systematically misrepresented" the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), three non-proliferation experts from a prominent think tank charged on Thursday." Which "prominent" think tank? Let me guess. A liberal one. Please thoroughly read everything these experts have to say on the matter. They will answer most of your clear mis- perceptions & clearly establish that Iraq retained its WMD programs until Saddam was removed from power. It will prove conclusively that Saddam was in egregious violation of the Gulf War Cease Fire Agreement & all 17 UN Resolutions. Saddam posed a genuine threat to the stability of the region & with his ties to terrorists, he was a threat to the world. Once you've read these documents, I'll be glad to discuss any remaining concerns you may have....... STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP fas.org Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet odci.gov Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths Stu Cohen is an intelligence professional with 30 years of service in the CIA. He was acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was published. fas.org Strategic Choices, Intelligence Challenges Robert Hutchings Chairman, National Intelligence Council (with emphasis on #2, #4 & #5) odci.gov Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants odci.gov CIA Statement on Recently Acquired Iraqi Centrifuge Equipment fas.org Arms transfers to Iraq, 1973-2002 projects.sipri.se

To: abstract who wrote (60424)	1/9/2004 10:47:55 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 65232

<font size=4>(Jan 7th, 2004) SECRETARY POWELL: The fact of the matter is, Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, and programs for weapons of mass destruction...... That's a fact..... ....I am confident of what I presented last year. The intelligence community is confident of the material they gave me; I was representing them. It was information they presented to the Congress. It was information they had presented publicly, and they stand behind it. And this game is still unfolding..... .....I knew exactly the circumstances under which I was presenting that speech to the UN on the 5th of February: the whole world would be watching, and there would be those who would applaud every word, and there would be those who were going to be skeptical of every word. That's why I took the time --- -- I took the time to go out to the agency and sit down with the experts. And anything that we did not feel was solid and multi-sourced, we did not use in that speech......<font size=3> state.gov

To: abstract who wrote (60424)	1/9/2004 11:20:28 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

"Secretary of State Colin Powell reversed a year of administration policy, acknowledging Thursday that he had seen no “smoking gun [or] concrete evidence” of ties between former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida." That is an obvious distortion. And keep in mind Powell is the Secretary of State, not the CIA or from any of the intelligence gathering agencies. If you don't understand the difference, you won't understand how it helped the author deceive readers & give the appearance of credibility to the distorted passage you posted. Now please read what actually transpired verbatim. Then read the information provided below from our intelligence agencies that Colin Powell is not part of. Please note that at the time of his speech to the UN last year, this information was classified & Powell could not talk publically about it. Saddam did have ties to terrorists, including Al Qaeda. He financed them, harbored them & trained them. The articles below clearly establish this as fact. The horsechit "imminent threat" comment posed to Powell below is factually refuted below as well...... QUESTION: <font size=4>Do you think that there were ways other than war to have handled this threat and that the -- that it was not an imminent threat to the United States? SECRETARY POWELL: My presentation on the 5th of February when I talked to this issue made it clear that we had seen some links and connections to terrorist organizations over time, and I focused on one particular case, Zawahiri, and I think that was a pretty solid case. There is not -- you know, I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did. <font size=3> Were there other ways to solve this problem? I think the President gave the international community every opportunity to solve this problem another way. The international community gave the Iraqis 12 years to solve this problem any other way. The President took the case to the international community and said: For 12 years, you have been defied. What are you going to do now? It's time for us to act. And the President, after a reasonable period of time -- inspectors were still being thwarted, we got an incorrect, ridiculous declaration from the Iraqi Government in response to Resolution 1441 -- and after waiting a sufficient period of time, the President decided he had to act because he believed that whatever the size of the stockpile, whatever one might think about it, he believed that the region was in danger, America was in danger, and he would act and he did act. And he acted with a large number of countries who felt likewise, and he acted under the authority that we were absolutely sure we had because we negotiated it that way in UN Resolution 1441. state.gov <font size=4> The U.S. government's secret memo detailing cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.<font size=3> Message 19506425 Message 19509006 Message 19524653 <font size=4> Over the weekend, the Weekly Standard published a "top secret U.S. government" memo detailing more than a decade of intelligence indicating an operating relationship between Al Qaeda (search) and Iraq. The Pentagon has since confirmed the memo's authenticity, but it has been almost entirely overlooked by major media. <font size=3> Message 19524519 <font size=4> ARE AL QAEDA'S links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq just a fantasy of the Bush administration? Hardly. The Clinton administration also warned the American public about those ties and defended its response to al Qaeda terror by citing an Iraqi connection.<font size=3> Message 19619772 <font size=4> The Saddam-Osama Memo (cont.) A close examination of the Defense Department's latest statement.<font size=3> Message 19524655 <font size=4> Two blockbuster magazine articles last week revealed evidence that Saddam's spy agency and top Qaeda operatives certainly were in frequent contact for a decade<font size=3> Message 19534084 <font size=4> The evidence of an Iraq/al-Qaida connection hasn't gone away. Prague Revisited<font size=3> Message 19534201 <font size=4> An Intelligent Democrat . . . <font size=3> Message 19569702 <font size=4> The 'imminence' spin<font size=3> Message 19469570 <font size=4> A Brief History of The Imminent Threat Canard <font size=3> Message 19469610 <font size=4> Sorting out the "imminent threat" debate This from a group of like minded liberals<font size=3> Message 19508187 <font size=4> The Times Misfires (Again) on Bush's "Imminent Threat"<font size=3> Message 19612762