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To: abstract who wrote (60494)	1/11/2004 9:30:56 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

Clinton believed Iraq had WMD Fri 9 Jan 2004 AFP - Former US president Bill Clinton said in October during a visit to Portugal that he was convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction up until the fall of Saddam Hussein, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said. "When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime," he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC Noticias. Clinton, a Democrat who left office in 2001, met with Durao Barroso on October 21 when he travelled to Lisbon to give a speech on globalisation..... news.ninemsn.com.au

To: abstract who wrote (60494)	1/11/2004 9:33:02 PM
From: abstract	Respond to of 65232

Interesting Poll: American Family Association, Promoting Traditional Family Values. afa.net I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and "civil unions." 32.23% 263,152 votes I favor legalization of homosexual marriage. 59.87% 488,832 votes I favor a "civil union" with the full benefits of marriage except for the name. 7.91% 64,568 votes

To: abstract who wrote (60494)	1/11/2004 9:58:50 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

STATEMENT BY DAVID KAY ON THE INTERIM PROGRESS REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE IRAQ SURVEY GROUP (ISG) fas.org Powell Says Kay Report Confirms Iraq Defied U.N. Res. 1441 usinfo.state.gov Statement by Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet on the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction odci.gov Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths odci.gov Strategic Choices, Intelligence Challenges Robert Hutchings Chairman, National Intelligence Council odci.gov Iraqi Mobile Biological Warfare Agent Production Plants odci.gov <font size=4> ....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=5> ....The fact of the matter is, Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction, and programs for weapons of mass destruction, and used weapons of mass destruction against Iran and against their own people. That's a fact. <font size=4> Now, that's back in 1988 when they used it against their own people. But throughout the '90s, when they had every opportunity to come clean, make the declarations, and get right with the international community, they had the chance to respond to every one of those UN resolutions during the '90s, when they were threatened by President Clinton in 1998 with a bombing and they still didn't come clean, and then they caused the inspectors to have to be forced out of the country, there is, I think, a solid case that has been made to many governments by their intelligence agencies, and that has been the consistent view of UN inspectors and of the United States intelligence community, that this was a danger we had to worry about. Now, in terms of intention, he always had it. And anybody who thinks that Saddam Hussein, last year, was just, you know, waiting to give all of this up, even though he was given the opportunity to do so, he didn't do it. What he was waiting to do was see if he could break the will of the international community, get rid of any potential for future inspections, and get back to his intentions, which were to have weapons of mass destruction. And he kept the infrastructure. He kept the programs intact. <font size=5> Where the debate is, is why haven't we found huge stockpiles, and why haven't we found large caches of these weapons. Let's let the Iraqi Survey Group complete its work. There has been the movement out of some of the individuals from the group. I presume that their particular job is finished. But 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.... <font size=3> state.gov

To: abstract who wrote (60494)	1/11/2004 10:01:07 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 65232

Check this out... sfgate.com ______________________ Clark says he's vindicated by O'Neill book By KATE McCANN Associated Press Writer Sunday, January 11, 2004 ©2004 Associated Press (01-11) 17:09 PST MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark says a book by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill vindicates what he has said all along about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. While rallying campaign volunteers Sunday at his Manchester headquarters, Clark praised O'Neill for "The Price of Loyalty," which contends the United States began the war on Iraq just days after President Bush took office -- more than two years before the start of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. O'Neill was fired by Bush in December 2002. Clark first met O'Neill when Clark worked at the White House during the Ford administration, and calls him a man with "100 percent, rock-solid commonsense judgment." "When he writes that the Bush administration is planning and exchanging documents on how to go to war with Iraq as soon as they took office, that just confirms my worst suspicions about this administration," Clark said. In Clark's book, "Winning Modern War", which came out in November, the retired Army general traced the plotting of the war in Iraq back to 1996, when he says a group left over from the first Bush administration recommended that Israel focus on removing Saddam from power. Clark goes on to write that in 1998, the group of 20, which included Donald H. Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, now Defense Secretary and Deputy Defense Secretary, respectively, wrote a letter to President Clinton, asking him to "aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." "We went to a war in Iraq we didn't have to go to," Clark told a group of supporters. "I'm calling on the Congress of the United States to fully investigate exactly why this country went to a war it didn't have to fight." Clark said he was in the Pentagon immediately after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and heard officials joking that, "'if Saddam didn't do it, he should have, because if he didn't, we're going to get him anyway."' ©2004 Associated Press

To: abstract who wrote (60494)	1/12/2004 8:34:49 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 65232

AN O'NEILL HOAX? What's this document that former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill claims he found showing elaborate post-Iraq war planning prior to 9/11? Could it be something else entirely? andrewsullivan.com Lid Blown Off O'Neill/Suskind Hoax Laurie Mylroie sent out an email about Paul O'Neill's appearance on 60 Minutes last night; she notes what appears to be a major error in Ron Suskind's book, which casts doubt on the credibility of both Suskind and O'Neill. Here is the key portion of Mylroie's email: <font size=4> "In his appearance this evening on '60 Minutes,' Ron Suskind, author of The Price of Loyalty, based to a large extent on information from former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill, made an astonishing, very serious misstatement. <font size=3> "Suskind claimed he has documents showing that preparations for the Iraq war were well underway before 9-11. He cited--and even showed--what he said was a Pentagon document, entitled, 'Foreign Suitors for Iraq Oilfield Contracts.' He claimed the document was about planning for post-war Iraq oil (CBS's promotional story also contained that claim): cbsnews.com. <font size=4> "But that is not a Pentagon document. It's from the Vice-President's Office. It was part of the Energy Project that was the focus of Dick Cheney's attention before the 9/11 strikes. "And the document has nothing to do with post-war Iraq. It was part of a study of global oil supplies. Judicial Watch obtained it in a law suit and posted it, along with related documents, on its website at: <font size=3> judicialwatch.org Indeed, when this story first broke yesterday, the Drudge Report had the Judicial Watch document linked (no one at CBS News saw that, so they could correct the error, when the show aired?)" What Mylroie says about the "Foreign Suitors" document is correct. The Judicial Watch link still works as of this morning, and as you can easily see, the document, dated March 5, 2001, has nothing to do with post-war planning. It is merely a list of existing and proposed "Iraqi Oil & Gas Projects" as of that date. And it includes projects in Iraq by countries that obviously would not have been part of any "post-war" plans of the Bush administration, such as, for example, Vietnam. <font size=4> So Suskind (and apparently O'Neill) misrepresented this document, which appears to be a significant part of their case, given that Suskind displayed in on 60 Minutes. It would not be possible for anyone operating in good faith to represent the document as Suskind did. But the truth is even worse than Mylroie pointed out in her email.<font size=3> The CBS promo linked to above says that this document "includes a map of potential areas for exploration. 'It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,' says Suskind. 'On oil in Iraq.'" True enough; there is a "map of potential areas for exploration" in Iraq here. But what Paul O'Neill and Ron Suskind don't tell you is that the very same set of documents that contain the Iraq map and the list of Iraqi oil projects contain the same maps and similar lists of projects for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia! When documents are produced in litigation (in this case, the Judicial Watch lawsuit relating to Cheney's energy task force), they are numbered sequentially. The two-page "Iraqi Oil Suitors" document that Suskind breathlessly touts is numbered DOC044-0006 through DOC044-0007. The Iraq oil map comes right before the list of Iraqi projects; it is numbered DOC044-0005. DOC044-0001 is a map of oil fields in the United Arab Emirates. DOC044-0002 is a list of oil and gas development projects then going on in the United Arab Emirates. DOC044-0003 is a map of oil fields in Saudi Arabia. DOC044-0004 is a list of oil and gas projects in Saudi Arabia. <font size=4>So the "smoking gun" documents that Suskind and O'Neill claim prove that the administration was planning to invade Iraq in March 2001 are part of a package that includes identical documents relating to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Does Paul O'Neill claim the administration was planning on invading them, too? Or, as Mylroie says, was this merely part of the administration's analysis of sources of energy in the 21st century? There is only one possible conclusion: Paul O'Neill and Ron Suskind are attempting to perpetrate a massive hoax on the American people. <font size=3> powerlineblog.com