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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tonto who wrote (3531)	2/21/2004 9:04:45 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

The intelligence failure after Bush took office is the primary reason for 9/11. When Clinton ws in office, the US intelligence worked very closely to track and damage the terroist network worldwide. It is interesting to see how groups like the Iranian Resistance Group and others (Oh gosh, not Ahmed Chalabi) have a better intelligence operation than the US intelligence. And the Bushies would like to take the credit for Gaddfi's actions and they credit that to Bush's military adventure in Iraq and his "pre emptive" doctrine. And no matter how much they try to discredit Kerry for his vote on the CIA in the Senate, this interesting article says it all about how ineffective our intelligence has been. And yes, blame Kerry's vote, right. Yeah right. Libya and Iran: a Great Nuclear Intelligence Failure? Sat February 21, 2004 03:49 PM ET By Louis Charbonneau VIENNA (Reuters) - While Western intelligence policed the globe to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, a Pakistani company that specialized in enriching uranium offered its expertise to interested buyers in glossy brochures. One pamphlet from Khan Research Laboratories (KLR) featured a picture of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, against a background of missiles, rocket launchers and the mountains where the Islamabad government conducted its 1998 nuclear tests. "The main focus of our expertise/service is on the promotion of joint ventures for the manufacturing of advanced defense weapons/equipment," said a brochure, seen by Reuters. Libya, Iran and North Korea knew where to shop for sensitive nuclear technology in a marketplace that stretched across Europe into Africa, the Middle East and Asia, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog and some Western intelligence agencies have said they were in the dark until recently. "This was a massive intelligence failure," a non-aligned diplomat told Reuters. "Where was the intelligence?" One source said Khan was not a figure on the arms trade-fair circuit and that his company's advertising "was circulated but not through legitimate channels." But a Western diplomat recently told Reuters the United States "had its eyes on Khan for a long time" and also knew about a Malaysian facility that was building centrifuge parts based on Khan's blueprints for Libya's nuclear program. In early February, Khan admitted in a televised confession that he and other KRL scientists had leaked nuclear secrets. The International Atomic Energy Agency and Western diplomats said his top nuclear customers were Iran, Libya and North Korea. FAILURE OF GOVERNMENTS Several diplomats and analysts said the Libyan and Iranian nuclear programs highlighted the failure of governments either to gather proper intelligence, or if they did have intelligence, to give it to the IAEA. "Remember that it wasn't the CIA or MI6 that uncovered the Iranian enrichment program, it was the NCRI," said a diplomat close to the IAEA, referring to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a coalition of exiled opposition groups that Washington considers a terrorist organization. In August 2002, the NCRI said Iran was hiding a massive underground enrichment facility at Natanz, a facility Tehran eventually declared to the IAEA. Khan and several nuclear "middlemen" arranged for the illicit sale of sensitive atomic technologies that slipped past supposedly strict national export controls to countries under embargo. Thanks to this, Libya was able to pursue an aggressive, covert nuclear weapons program under the nose of the IAEA. Diplomats said it was Khan who provided Libya with the centrifuge technology and weapons designs. They say he appears to have sold many of the same things to both Tripoli and Tehran. Intelligence sources say Khan sold Pyongyong the same enrichment technology for North Korean missile technology, which prompted Washington to slap sanctions on the KRL. While Tripoli never managed to build a weapon or even enrich uranium, an IAEA report released on Friday said Libya developed the know-how to make a small amount of plutonium, the ingredient used in the atom bomb the United States dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The IAEA only learned about Libya's arms effort in December, when Tripoli said it was scrapping its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs and invited U.S., British and international experts to help it disarm. The IAEA report said prior to Libya's disclosure "it had no actionable intelligence" to go on, despite suspicions raised by numerous analysts over the years. "It is a disturbing sign that Libya was able to accumulate materials and technology without the IAEA or apparently U.S. intelligence being aware of these developments," Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Reuters. "The United States and other countries should share more intelligence with the IAEA," said David Albright, former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). "TIP OF THE ICEBERG" Iran has admitted to concealing the full extent of its nuclear program for decades and buying technology on the black market. But it rejects U.S. charges it is secretly developing nuclear weapons and promises full transparency in the future. The IAEA is expected to release a report on its inspections in Iran in the coming week. Diplomats said it would detail Iran's continued failure to declare potentially weapons-related atomic equipment to the U.N. agency. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Khan was a key player but was "the tip of an iceberg" in the atomic "supermarket" for states wanting the bomb, a network he said spanned the globe. Questions also remain about the possible involvement in governments in the black-market network. The KRL logo sports the words: "The Government of Pakistan." Khan has said he leaked weapons secrets without the knowledge of the Pakistani government. But diplomats who follow the IAEA find this hard to believe. "Signing contracts with governments and international agencies? It's hard to believe Pakistan's government didn't know what he was up to," said one Western diplomat. reuters.com

To: tonto who wrote (3531)	2/21/2004 9:51:19 PM
From: TopCat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

>>>Huh? Obviously you did not work in finance.<<< tonto, Actually, Lizzie is a "Management Consultant." Told me that just a little while ago on another thread. Her profile, however, says she is a director of software engineering. Me thinks she lost her job in software and she thinks it was outsourcing that caused it....therefore, she really has only one platform that she is "running" on. Given that she posts all day on SI, I have to conclude that she doesn't have many "management" clients and I do wonder if she would actually look for a software job instead of spending all day blaming it on Bush that she lost her last one....whether she might find one again. :-) TC