Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (191732)	7/15/2006 12:54:52 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

You read Arabic, do you? Maybe you should publish translations of these documents. I'm sure the WSJ will publish them. Do you read Swahili? Gosh.. maybe we need to get some translators over there, y'think?? What a incredibly stupid thing for you to say Sam.. We have hundreds of people translating these documents into English. The "DOCEX" operation of ISG was one of the largest budget items for the program and I worked with these folks each and every day. And while ISG no longer exists, the DOCEX program goes on. They have scanned literally over 25 million documents. Translation takes time and it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, or trolling for diamonds in the dirt. And I mention that accounting slip because I believe there is nothing classified about it (and I'm not detailing the items).. It was simply a receipt for items purchased and the purpose for which they were purchased. But, IMO, there is nothing circumstantial about someone actually spending money to purchase items intended for a terrorist act. There's simply no supposition or uncertainty involved. It's an act that substantiates terrorist activities. It's the difference between someone verbally conspiring to commit an act of terrorism and actually acting upon that desire by procuring the material necessary. Your claims are, shall we say, a little implausible, since surely the Bush admin would be allowing third parties to see and publish these documents so that all of us would then apologize to them for saying they had only unsubstantiated allegations from Chalabi and like minded individuals on links between Al Qaeda and Saddam. What you don't understand is that each document that is "triaged" has to have a report written on it and then it is published to the intelligence community for analysts to review and evaluate. But the fact is that the intelligence community does not have sufficient analysts available to deal with the deluge of information and frankly, the focus for most of them is NOT what Saddam's ties were to Al Qai'da, but in tracking down and dismantling the CURRENT Al Qai'da network. So many of these documents fall by the wayside since the Senior Analysts don't want to be perceived as playing politics and getting involved in the whole debate about Iraq's previous ties to Al Qai'da. The other issue is that when they find such a document detailing the personal involvement between Iraq and Al Qai'da, they won't release the information because they are either waiting to actually have the person (subject) in detention, or hope to develop further information without that "subject" become aware that we possess this information. Hawk