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

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (52254)	10/10/2004 1:43:47 PM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Message 20624243

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (52254)	10/10/2004 3:02:39 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 81568

Iraq: Tubegate By Philippe Boulet-Gercourt Le Nouvel Observateur Hebdomodaire Week of 07 October 2004 Look out: major scandal. Those who have been persuaded for a long time that the White House lied about Iraq will perhaps shrug their shoulders, but it's one thing to suspect, another to prove. The huge article published in last Sunday's "New York Times", equivalent in length to six pages of the "Nouvel Observateur", is a turning point in the investigation of the American decision to invade Iraq. At the center of the argument are the famous tubes Saddam Hussein sought to procure for himself, some of which were intercepted in June 2001 in Jordan. According to the White House, all the evidence pointed to these tubes being designed for the production of uranium enrichment centrifuges. It was these tubes that allowed Dick Cheney to assert that "Saddam has started up his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons again." It was these tubes that "couldn't really be used except for nuclear armament programs," according to Condoleezza Rice. It was these tubes that, finally, "most American experts consider are intended for use as rotors in centrifuges to enrich uranium," Colin Powell claimed in his sadly famous presentation to the UN. The "New York Times" has good reason to denounce these lies today: at the time, it took them up and ran them, an error all the more serious given that the nuclear threat was the most important argument the Americans advanced to justify the invasion. Now, what does this inquiry demonstrate? That the tubes, which corresponded exactly to the specifications for Iraqi rockets, were unusable for centrifuge production; that the certainty of the CIA, which judged the opposite, was essentially supplied by the expertise of a single minor analyst whose presentation at the International Atomic Energy Agency was described as "embarrassing and disgusting" by the Vienna experts; that other very sharp experts from the Energy Department even before the June 2001 interception, had, repeatedly, proclaimed their doubts loud and clear, going so far as to assert that if the Iraqis really wanted to use those tubes for centrifuges, "we should give them to them"! Most seriously: neither Cheney, nor Rice, nor Powell - and consequently, Bush - could be unaware of this disagreement among the experts, nor of the extremely strong and detailed arguments put forward by the Energy Department. Consequently, it has been proven today that they all lied, not only by omission, but by defending a thesis they knew to be contested by the best American experts. It is difficult to imagine a more harmful scandal one month away from the election.

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (52254)	10/10/2004 3:03:24 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 81568

Terror Fears Only Card Bush Has To Play By Helen Thomas The Boston Channel.com Wednesday 06 October 2004 Cheney still bluffing on Iraq, 9/11 connection Someday, President George W. Bush may have to explain why he really went to war against Iraq. But you won't hear it with his re-election at stake and his credibility on the line. Public opinion polls continue to show a tight presidential race, which suggests to me that voters have devalued the importance of credibility in top government officials. How else can one make sense of the fact that the president continues to do well in the polls despite the total collapse of his credibility about the reasons for invading Iraq? This credibility problem was on full display Tuesday night during the spirited debate between Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John Edwards, his Democratic rival. During the 90-minute encounter, Cheney made it eminently clear that the administration has only one card to play in this campaign -- terrorism. By keeping the country scared, the administration hopes to be safely ensconced for another four years. To his credit, Edwards quickly zeroed in on the administration's dishonest propaganda line that we invaded Iraq because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. These words that Edwards directed at Cheney should be emblazoned on every wall: "Mr. Vice President, there is no connection between the attacks of Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 commission has said it. Your secretary of state has said it. And you've gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There is not." Amen. Administration spinners, from Bush on down, have cleverly tried to make that convergence, ever more desperately as the original rationale of Saddam's mythical weapons of mass destruction has gradually disappeared over the horizon. The final nail in the WMD coffin came Wednesday when yet another White House-ordered weapons search came up empty. Charles A. Duelfer, appointed in January after David A. Kay found no WMD in Iraq, is the latest weapons hunter to come home skunked. I wonder if Bush will send yet another searcher in hopes of satisfying this administration obsession. No WMD and no links between Saddam and 9/11 leave Bush and Cheney adrift on an ocean of spin and stubborn insistence that, well, the world is better off with Saddam in jail. It would be funny if it were not so tragic. Cheney, a hawk nesting nicely in a well-feathered administration, can't let go of his Saddam-9/11 rant even though Bush himself has said there were no links. To those of us who have watched the Bush administration mush these two themes together, it was refreshing to hear Edwards tell Cheney Tuesday night that he was "not being straight with the American people." Meantime, two administration leading lights have thrown the White House in a tizzy with their recent statements about the war and Saddam. L. Paul Bremer, former U.S. administrator in Iraq, told an audience in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., on Monday that the Bush administration had failed to provide enough occupation troops in Iraq. Asked about Bremer's statement, White House spokesman Scott McClellan simply reiterated that the president took his advice on the troop situation from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the military commanders in the field. Rumsfeld was in more hot water -- as if he needed any more trouble -- for telling the Council on Foreign Relations in New York that he had "not seen any strong, hard evidence" of links between Saddam and the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11. (Dick Cheney, please note.) But big men can recant, especially when the White House apparently phones to rebuke them. Bremer later backtracked and said there are now sufficient troop levels in Iraq. And the Pentagon said Rumsfeld was misunderstood. Too bad these men cannot speak English. The White House was so rattled by this bam-bam that it issued a statement several hours before the vice presidential debate proclaiming that "there were disturbing similarities" between Saddam and the al Qaida before the war. It's no wonder the administration is trying to hold the line on the fleeting reasons for going to war with so much at stake. After all, the voters could decide they were misled. -------

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (52254)	10/10/2004 3:05:04 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 81568

rudepundit.blogspot.com well said CC

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (52254)	10/10/2004 5:12:00 PM
From: sea_biscuit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

More "wonderful" news from Dumbya's "valley of peace".... 10/10/04 Reuters: Group Frees 10 Turks After Company Quits Iraq -TV Iraqi kidnappers have released 10 Turkish hostages they had held for over a month after their Turkish employer said it would leave Iraq, Al Jazeera television said on Sunday 10/10/04 heraldm: Terrorist groups offer rewards for kidnapping soldiers, residents South Korean troops and citizens in Iraq have been told to maintain a high-alert level following intelligence that terrorist groups, including one linked to al-Qaida, have offered a reward for kidnapping Korean nationals. 10/10/04 DoD Identifies Army Casualty Staff Sgt. Michael S. Voss, 35, of Aberdeen, N.C., died October 8 near Tikrit, Iraq, when his convoy vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device and small arms fire 10/10/04 DoD Identifies Army Casualty SGT Andrew W. Brown, 22, of Pleasant Mount, Penn., died October 8 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained on October 1 when his patrol vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device 10/10/04 Reuters: Iraq's Green Zone Turns Redder by the Day over the past year, and especially in recent weeks, life in the Green Zone has grown steadily more precarious..."It's definitely getting riskier," said one British official who lives and works in the zone but declined to be named. 10/10/04 WaPo:For Marines, a Frustrating Fight The Marines' opinions have been shaped by their participation in hundreds of hours of operations over the past two months. Their assessments differ sharply from those of the interim Iraqi government and the Bush administration... 10/10/04 Reuters: Update - Blasts Kill Up to 18 Two blasts killed up to 18 people, including an American soldier, in Baghdad on Sunday hours before Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived to gauge efforts to calm violence ahead of January elections 10/10/04 KRT: Mahdi Army threats now felt by civilian workers The letters are turning up on more front doors every day: Quit your job, or, in the name of Allah, we will kill you, burn your home and slaughter your family. 10/10/04 AP: Clashes flair in Iraq Sunni unrest Clashes broke out yesterday in Ramadi, another centre of Sunni resistance west of Fallujah. U.S. troops traded gunfire with insurgents in at least three neighbourhoods of the city 110 km west of Baghdad 10/10/04 wkyt: Kentucky Soldier Injured in Iraq Ryan Hobbs...was riding near Baghdad in was hit Wednesday by a car bomb that injured his face. 10/10/04 AFP: Turkish driver kidnapped, another wounded in north Iraq ambush A Turkish driver was taken hostage and another injured when their convoy was attacked near the restive city of Baiji in northern Iraq on Saturday, a police officer said. 10/10/04 wmich: WMU gearing up for influx of injured soldiers For the first time since the Vietnam War, blindness and low vision experts, including those at Western Michigan University, are gearing up for an influx of newly blinded veterans, this time from Iraq 10/10/04 AP: Donald Rumsfeld Visits Troops In Iraq Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld greeted U.S. Marines at a dusty air field in Iraq's western desert Sunday morning, telling them it was unlikely the United States would pull out any troops before Iraq's elections in January 10/10/04 AP: U.S. Soldier Killed in Iraq Attack A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded Friday when their patrol was attacked with a homemade bomb, the U.S. command said in a statement. 10/10/04 cjtf7: Soldier Killed by Car Bomb Blast One Task Force Baghdad Soldier died of wounds received when a vehicle-borne explosive device detonated in eastern Baghdad on Oct. 10 about 7:15 a.m. 10/10/04 iribnews: 4 killed, 2 wounded in Baghdad blast At least four people were killed and two wounded Sunday in an early morning rocket or mortar attack near the Oil Ministry in the Iraqi capital, according to medical sources, police and a correspondent at the scene 10/10/04 AP: Two explosions rock Iraqi capital, eight reported dead A large explosion hit outside a police academy in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, killing eight people, officials said. 10/09/04 AP: U-S, Iraqi troops detain suspected insurgents in northern Iraq The U-S command says U-S and Iraqi forces have detained 17 suspected insurgents after foiling a car bomb attack in Mosul 10/09/04 AP: U.S. Jets Target Terrorists In Fallujah American warplanes struck a building in rebel held Fallujah where the U.S. command said leaders of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terror network were meeting early Friday. 10/09/04 Sapa-AP: Red Crescent building blown up in Iraq Insurgents blew up the Iraqi Red Crescent Society building in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on Friday, the United States military said in a statement. There were no reports of injuries.