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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (10932)	5/19/2004 9:03:15 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 20773

WMD spin machine ready for its final trip out to the scrap heap: Lies were fed to CIA on Iraq, Powell says David E. Sanger, New York Times WASHINGTON Secretary of State Colin Powell has said for the first time that he now believes that the Central Intelligence Agency was deliberately misled about evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing unconventional weapons. He also said, in his comments on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" on Sunday, that he regretted citing evidence that Iraq had mobile biological laboratories in his presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003. ...But on Sunday, Powell argued that the CIA itself was misled, ...On Sunday, Powell hinted at widespread reports of fabrications by an engineer who provided much of the most critical information about the labs. Intelligence officials have since found that the engineer was linked to the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group that was pressing President George W. Bush to unseat Saddam. Taken with past admissions of error by the administration or its intelligence agencies, Powell's statement on Sunday leaves little room for the administration to argue that Saddam's stockpiles of unconventional weapons posed any real and imminent threat. "Basically, Powell ... "... is out there publicly saying this now because he doesn't want a legacy as the man who made up stories to provide the president with cover to go to war." . The New York Times iht.com

To: Dale Baker who wrote (10932)	5/19/2004 9:40:42 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

That's amusing in a sick and twisted sort of way. I always enjoy a black comedy- which is what this administration is turning in to.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (10932)	5/19/2004 9:37:57 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Recently I discussed this with another technologist friend: I proposed that if someone wanted to kill NASA, what would they have to do? Well, they'd make NASA's mission as unrealistic and improbable as possible. See notes denoted by []. Basically, somebody, we shall call him Mr. "B", would do what Dubya did in December, 2003. Mr. B would create anticipation of an announcement of a "return to the moon". There was a story widely floated at the time that such an announcement would come in December, around the 17th in time for the anniversary of Kitty Hawk.[1] After this came and went, Mr. B'd announce another mission, grander than the one floated in December. At this juncture, a small increase in budget is allocated to study unproven, diplomatically inflamatory, if not fanciful technologies.[2] We shall discuss what happens to tiny $1 billion dollar budget manipulations a little later in this analysis. Remember when that was real money? $75 billion a year in Iraq sort of outshines all other budgetary excess. Projected NASA budgetary outlays for the next 20 years is only $300 billion. What should be done next? Well Mr. B could decide that the next target should be any engineering effort that has actually worked and provided a high return on investment. The Hubble telescope will be allowed to wither in favor of the new "manned space exploration" scheme.[3] However, some value minded engineers proposed a robotic mission[4] but despite the proposal, Mr. B's administration continues to talk about a manned mission being out of the question, ignoring the inexpensive and viable robotic mission. Even the Europeans jump in saying that they can do it.[8] BTW, not every scientist in the space industry thinks that you go to Mars via the Moon.[11] It's just not an energy efficient path. A mission like this just doesn't make sense, unless you want to kill NASA's funding.[5] Now let's get back to that $1 billion dollars of seed money[2] Mr. B sought. What happened to that? Well, funny you should ask. It turns out that NASA has trouble detailing the whereabouts of $565 billion[6] and that $1 billion[2] that was added, probably just seems to disappear (and won't appear on the missing list until after the election!) In fact, independent auditors PricewaterhouseCooper reported that "NASA couldn't adequately document more than $565 billion — billion — in year-end adjustments to the financial-statement accounts, which NASA delivered to the auditors two months late. Because of "the lack of a sufficient audit trail to support that its financial statements are presented fairly," concluded the auditors, "it was not possible to complete further audit procedures on NASA's September 30, 2003, financial statements within the reporting deadline established"[6] Remember, in January our hypothetical Mr. B might boost the budget and saying he'll get us all to Mars via the Moon. While it started that way[7], what really would transpire is that we find nobody wants to go anywhere except in near earth orbit with heavy weapons or into space with interceptors and NASA, the space faring agency, slips back into budgetary obscurity. Again, the announcements of such a grand plan have in them the seeds for their own destruction. The adding of nukes[9] to space is considered very provocative to most nations, and a violation of international treaties. But due to Mr. B's superb sense of diplomacy, he could snub [10]the Chinese who have demonstrated considerable prowess with their own manned space missions. Mr. B might even say he wants to build nations, but if wanted that, it seems that he might try including the Soviets and Chinese in our space exploration. If Mr. B wants to be a wartime president, he could start circling nukes over former enemies heads and stirring up hornets nests that have been the location of tribal and religious rivalries for thousands of years. When Mr. B has successfully weaponized NASA, making it complicit with the DoD, that other great sucking sound Mr. B loves to hear, it is dead. No longer is NASA the lead civilian space technology coordinator for the U.S., but rather a PR arm of the DoD. Rather than bringing us closer to world peace with the ISS and Hubble, NASA now brings us closer to the nuclear brink with Prometheus. [1] spacedaily.com [2] cnn.com [3] database.aura-astronomy.org [4] msnbc.msn.com [5] chron.com [6] cfo.com\|\|\|1,00.html [7] space.com [8] wired.com [9]http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/nuclear_power_030117.html [10]http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/04/28/bc.space.china.reut/ [11] news.bbc.co.uk