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 TheOneYouKnow
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 Re: Kay: WMD never existed  [Re: Xlea321]
#2281349 - 01/28/04 03:36 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Watching Kay testify today, it seems that he is saying, basically, that it's the fault of the intelligence programs that we had incorrect intelligence, not that anyone in the administration lied about it. These are the same intelligence organizations that led Clinton to believe that Iraq was still producing, storing and hiding WMD's, and that didn't manage to stop 9/11. Kay also said that he supported the war in Iraq, despite the findings.
I'll make my final statment about the Iraq war, as pertaining to the WMD. We know that Iraq, at one time, had WMD, because we sold/gave them to him. We know that he used them. We know that he would not allow weapons inspectors into certain areas, then banned them altogether, despite him signing an agreement NOT to do that. Everything else from there is based on intelligence reports that may be faulty, but from what I've said in the "we know" sentances, it doesn't appear as if he was trying to destroy them. If he truely did destroy them, he should have allowed inspectors in. If he did destroy them without allowing inspectors (just for the fun of watching the sanctions starve his own people), then our intelligence relating to the events was incorrect.
Now, for Bush. I don't think that Bush told lies when he was stating the danger of the WMD's, he was only going on the best intelligence that we had at the time. If that intelligence was incorrect, that is a sign of how we need to have our intelligence organizations working more closely with each other and developing the ever-crucial (and missing piece in the middle eastern intelligence picture) humint. Bush gave teh clearest picture he could with the intelligence that he had. He certaintly wasn't making this up, because it's the same intelligence that the organizations have presented to past administraions.
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Phred
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Here's a transcript of Kay's opening remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee today. The bolding is my own emphasis. From:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/28/kay.transcript/index.html
As you know and we discussed, I do not have a written statement. This hearing came about very quickly. I do have a few preliminary comments, but I suspect you're more interested in asking questions, and I'll be happy to respond to those questions to the best of my ability.
I would like to open by saying that the talent, dedication and bravery of the staff of the [Iraq Survey Group] that was my privilege to direct is unparalleled and the country owes a great debt of gratitude to the men and women who have served over there and continue to serve doing that.
A great deal has been accomplished by the team, and I do think ... it important that it goes on and it is allowed to reach its full conclusion. In fact, I really believe it ought to be better resourced and totally focused on WMD; that that is important to do it.
But I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future.
Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.
Sen. [Edward] Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.
I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war -- certainly, the French president, [Jacques] Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD.
The Germans certainly -- the intelligence service believed that there were WMD.
It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.
We're also in a period in which we've had intelligence surprises in the proliferation area that go the other way. The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years on, that we underestimated. And, in fact, we didn't discover it. It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country who pointed the international community at the location.
The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that.
There's a long record here of being wrong. There's a good reason for it. There are probably multiple reasons. Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don't have free and open societies.
In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of [U.N.] Resolution 1441.
Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities -- one last chance to come clean about what it had.
We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material.
I think the aim -- and certainly the aim of what I've tried to do since leaving -- is not political and certainly not a witch hunt at individuals. It's to try to direct our attention at what I believe is a fundamental fault analysis that we must now examine.
And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation.
As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.
In the course of doing that, I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance.
And never -- not in a single case -- was the explanation, "I was pressured to do this." The explanation was very often, "The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it."
And each case was different, but the conversations were sufficiently in depth and our relationship was sufficiently frank that I'm convinced that, at least to the analysts I dealt with, I did not come across a single one that felt it had been, in the military term, "inappropriate command influence" that led them to take that position.
It was not that. It was the honest difficulty based on the intelligence that had -- the information that had been collected that led the analysts to that conclusion.
And you know, almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that.
We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that.
The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis.
And like I say, I think we've got other cases other than Iraq. I do not think the problem of global proliferation of weapons technology of mass destruction is going to go away, and that's why I think it is an urgent issue.
And let me really wrap up here with just a brief summary of what I think we are now facing in Iraq. I regret to say that I think at the end of the work of the [Iraq Survey Group] there's still going to be an unresolvable ambiguity about what happened.
A lot of that traces to the failure on April 9 to establish immediately physical security in Iraq -- the unparalleled looting and destruction, a lot of which was directly intentional, designed by the security services to cover the tracks of the Iraq WMD program and their other programs as well, a lot of which was what we simply called Ali Baba looting. "It had been the regime's. The regime is gone. I'm going to go take the gold toilet fixtures and everything else imaginable."
I've seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that.
The result is -- document destruction -- we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
But I do think the survey group -- and I think Charlie Duelfer is a great leader. I have the utmost confidence in Charles. I think you will get as full an answer as you can possibly get.
And let me just conclude by my own personal tribute, both to the president and to [CIA Director] George Tenet, for having the courage to select me to do this, and my successor, Charlie Duelfer, as well.
Both of us are known for probably at times regrettable streak of independence. I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it. I have had absolutely no pressure prior, during the course of the work at the [Iraq Survey Group], or after I left to do anything otherwise.
I think that shows a level of maturity and understanding that I think bodes well for getting to the bottom of this. But it is really up to you and your staff, on behalf of the American people, to take on that challenge. It's not something that anyone from the outside can do. So I look forward to these hearings and other hearings at how you will get to the conclusions.
I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service -- certainly many of you -- than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual.
I told Sen. [John] Warner [chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee] earlier that I've been drawn back as a result of recent film of reminding me of something. At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, the combined estimate was unanimity in the intelligence service that there were no Soviet warheads in Cuba at the time of the missile crisis.
Fortunately, President Kennedy and [then-Attorney General] Robert Kennedy disagreed with the estimate and chose a course of action less ambitious and aggressive than recommended by their advisers.
But the most important thing about that story, which is not often told, is that as a result after the Cuban missile crisis, immediate steps were taken to correct our inability to collect on the movement of nuclear material out of the Soviet Union to other places.
So that by the end of the Johnson administration, the intelligence community had a capability to do what it had not been able to do at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.
I think you face a similar responsibility in ensuring that the community is able to do a better job in the future than it has done in the past.
pinky
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Phred
Fred's son
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TheOneYouKnow writes:
We know that Iraq, at one time, had WMD, because we sold/gave them to him.
Incorrect. The US didn't provide VX or mustard gas or ricin to Hussein. He did get his hands on anthrax cultures which were traced back to US companies, but any veterinary college in the world can get its hands on anthrax cultures.
pinky
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 silversoul7
Chill the FuckOut!
Registered: 10/10/02
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Phred]
#2281613 - 01/28/04 05:53 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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From what I've read, although we didn't necessarily sell the weapons themselves to Saddam, we apparently sold him military technology.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!
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1) No WMD
2) Bush doesn't care about oppressed people (see Isam Karimov)
3) Saddam wasn't involved with 9-11
Any other justification you use for this war is just a weak excuse. Which one of you pro-war guys is going to just admit that the war in Iraq wasn't worth the lives, money and resources we've used on it??
Jesus Christ, no one will make fun of you or rub it in your face. If they do, i'll take your side. Just admit it already.
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Phred
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2281699 - 01/28/04 06:36 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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I have said repeatedly (at least two dozen times already) in this forum that I remain unconvinced that it was the right thing to do for the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, the US and others to depose Hussein by military force at the time they did. However, the reasons I remain unconvinced differ from yours.
But let's take your points one by one --
1) No WMD
No ready to use stockpiles of WMDs have yet been discovered within Iraq's borders, true. This leaves the unsettling question of just what happened to them unanswered. It has been well documented in numerous places that the destroyed quantities which can be accounted for through verified inspections don't match the quantities Iraq was known to have. What happened to the rest?
Hopefully, Hussein destroyed them all secretly. But perhaps he didn't.
2) Bush doesn't care about oppressed people
Let's presume for the sake of argument that he doesn't. This doesn't change the fact that at the very least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were routinely brutally oppressed (i.e. imprisoned -- including children -- and raped, tortured, murdered) throughout Hussein's reign. Now they are not oppressed. This fact remains true whether Bush repudiates Karimov tomorrow or not.
3) Saddam wasn't involved with 9-11
And neither Bush nor any member of his cabinet has ever said he was.
We all realize by now you would prefer that Hussein still held the reigns in Iraq. He doesn't. Deal with it and move on.
pinky
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Phred
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: silversoul7]
#2281714 - 01/28/04 06:40 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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silversoul7 writes:
From what I've read, although we didn't necessarily sell the weapons themselves to Saddam, we apparently sold him military technology.
Then what you read (sources, please) is incorrect.
The US sold him no missiles, tanks, artillery, rifles, ships, helicopters, night vision goggles or ammunition. There have however been reports that during the war with Iran, he obtained information from satellite surveillance (and apparently not just from the US) which was of use militarily.
pinky
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Phred]
#2281730 - 01/28/04 06:45 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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For someone who remains unconvinced that we did the right thing, you sure do a lot of apologizing for Bush and Co.. Fair enough though.
I am glad that Saddam is out of power, but I don't think 500+ US lives(so far), 1,000's of Iraqi lives and the BILLIONS of dollars that we've spent on this war(that could have gone towards defending us against a REAL threat) was worth it. IT WASN'T OUR BUSINESS! We are not the policeman of the world, and if we are, let's stop finger fucking with Pakistan and the other scum bags.
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Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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Phred
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2281790 - 01/28/04 07:11 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Learyfan writes:
For someone who remains unconvinced that we did the right thing, you sure do a lot of apologizing for Bush and Co.
As I said, my reasons for being doubtful about the correctness of the action differ from yours -- or at least from the ones you normally mention, including the three listed in this thread. Bush and Company have done enough actual things to piss me off that I don't need to spend time on imaginary ones.
IT WASN'T OUR BUSINESS! We are not the policeman of the world...
Now you're getting closer to my position.
The Iraqis should have been left to deal with Hussein on their own. If they couldn't assassinate him or overthrow him... well... too bad so sad but that's their tough luck. Nothing to do with the US. Let France help them out. Or Germany. Or Russia. Or one of their neighboring countries.
Similarly, the US had no business being in Korea or Viet Nam or Somalia or Bosnia or Kosovo or Liberia or even for that matter invading Hitler's Europe in 1944.
Just as the US is not the world's policeman (that's the UN's job), neither is it the world's Santa Claus. For the same reasons the US should stay out of conflicts in other countries, it should stop all foreign aid to other countries.
I'll go further than that and say the US should withdraw from the UN and tell it politely it has a year to find new headquarters. The UN can certainly get along just fine without the US. It gets along just fine without Switzerland, after all.
Think of the reduction in problems there'd be if the had US stayed out of the UN and never given a dime in foreign aid. Try to imagine the incalculable benefits to the quality of life of the average American if trillions of dollars hadn't been wasted on aid (both military and economic) to ungrateful countries. It boggles the mind.
pinky
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silversoul7
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Phred]
#2281832 - 01/28/04 07:35 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
pinksharkmark said:
silversoul7 writes:
From what I've read, although we didn't necessarily sell the weapons themselves to Saddam, we apparently sold him military technology.
Then what you read (sources, please) is incorrect.
The US sold him no missiles, tanks, artillery, rifles, ships, helicopters, night vision goggles or ammunition. There have however been reports that during the war with Iran, he obtained information from satellite surveillance (and apparently not just from the US) which was of use militarily.
pinky
http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorbkgd/howsaddam.html
Ok, so it turns out that "military technology" were considered "dual use" and included computer databases, helicopters, surveillance cameras, chemical-analysis equipment, and bacteria cultures, all of which Saddam used in rather devious ways. Also, certain documents suggest that we sold him tanks using Egypt as a sort of "middle-man." It also seems that the U.S. knew damn well that Saddam was using chemical weapons, and was concerned about this only insofar as it prevented them from providing Saddam with more overt means of support.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Phred]
#2281988 - 01/28/04 09:35 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Well then I learned something about you today. Our positions are exactly the same. I hink the bottom line is that it wasn?t our business, and so do you.
It amazes me that you have come to the conclusion that Bush needlessly sent our young soldiers to die and be crippled, used up precious resources, spent billions of dollars, strained relations with other countries and you still defend him. Why would you defend such a man?
Oh let me guess, you think he had............ good intentions. 
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Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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silversoul7
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2282054 - 01/28/04 09:57 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Why would you defend such a man?
Although I'm zealously anti-Bush, I believe that the truth is all-important, and even a dangerous warmonger like Bush should be defended when people make false accusations towards him.
I often will even play devil's advocate against people whose views are similar to mine, but they have their facts mixed up.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Learyfan
It's the psychedelic movement!
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: silversoul7]
#2282079 - 01/28/04 10:02 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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What false accusations have been made?
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Mp3 of the month: Sons Of Adam - Feathered Fish
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silversoul7
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2282101 - 01/28/04 10:09 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Learyfan said:
What false accusations have been made?
Well, I have seen recently that I am guilty of it myself. I falsely accused the U.S. of selling WMD's to Iraq, when in fact there is no record of this having happened. Of course, that wasn't Bush I was talking about--it was Reagan. Come to think of it, at the moment I can't think of any false accusations made against Bush by any of the people here, except for maybe the whole "Bush knew" stuff, which isn't necessarily false, but is jumping to conclusions with insufficient evidence.
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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire
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Xlea321
Stranger
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: silversoul7]
#2282508 - 01/29/04 12:17 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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For a full history of the enormous arms shipments the US sent to Iraq read the book "Spiders Web". Interesting technique they used - "selectively lift restrictions on third-party transfers of US military equipment to Iraq". Covert shipmentts were being sent through Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even Kuwait throughout the 80's.
"The government found third parties and private channels for our weapons shipments. I call this our "dirty policy". This was consistent with covert operations at the time. False fronts were used a lot" - Howard Teicher, NSC.
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Xlea321
Stranger
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These are the same intelligence organizations that led Clinton to believe that Iraq was still producing, storing and hiding WMD's
No, that won't wash enimapryt. That's why no-one in their right mind goes to war on the basis of woolly, wholly inaccurate "intelligence". Not to mention there were many, many people including Scott Ritter who were stating quite clearly Iraq was "at least" 98% disarmed back in 1998.
Not to mention Colin Powell himself saying in 2001 that Iraq had been contained as far as WMD were concerned.
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Phred
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2282537 - 01/29/04 12:24 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Learyfan writes:
It amazes me that you have come to the conclusion that Bush needlessly sent our young soldiers to die and be crippled, used up precious resources, spent billions of dollars, strained relations with other countries and you still defend him. Why would you defend such a man?
You seem not to grasp my point. While I personally remain unconvinced it was correct to depose him by force at this time, I admit that my politics are not mainstream at all, and a very large majority of people would describe them as radical. The thing is, I cannot, despite my own opinion on the timing of the war, honestly describe the decision to remove him last year as an unreasonable one.
Hussein was undeniably a murderous psychopath. He undeniably had chem and bio weapons, had used them on both Iraqis and non-Iraqis. All the major intelligence agencies in the world were convinced he still had them. He supported various terrorists and terrorist organizations. He signed a ceasefire under false pretences.
Was it unreasonable to presume he would continue to kill Iraqis? Nope. Was it unreasonable to presume he was still trying to develop nukes? Nope. Was it unreasonable to presume some of the chem and bio weapons he was known to have and which remain unaccounted for to this day could end up being used outside Iraq's borders? Nope.
If any reasonable person can see the above, then how can I as a reasonable person castigate Bush and Blair and the rest for choosing the course of action they did? I'm not defending Bush or Blair or the rest. I merely point out that there were very valid reasons for taking Hussein out. In my opinion, those reasons were outweighed by my isolationist leanings. But I can certainly see that not every reasonable person would think my reasons were sufficient for leaving him in power.
Now let's backtrack a bit. You said:
...Bush needlessly sent our young soldiers to die and be crippled...
"Needlessly"? Depends whose needs you refer to. The amount of US soldiers dead and crippled is a tiny tiny fraction of the number of people Hussein killed and crippled. I imagine the Iraqis who would have ended up dead or crippled if Hussein had remained in power feel their needs have been satisfied.
If you mean "needlessly" from the point of US citizens, may I point out the same can be said of Kuwait, Viet Nam, Korea, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and the invasion of Hitler's Europe, to name a few. If you condemn Bush, you must condemn every US president in power for pretty much every war the US has ever been involved in, including World War One.
....used up precious resources....
Oh, please. Bombs and bullets and warcraft, once made, are no longer resources. It makes no difference from a resource point of view if they are blown up or sit in an armory.
...spent billions of dollars...
The amount spent on the Iraq invasion are a teeny tiny fraction of the trillions of dollars the US has wasted over the years on truly useless shit. At least there was some benefit to someone in this case.
...strained relations with other countries...
Who cares? I certainly don't. I've already stated my belief the US should withdraw from the UN and kick their headquarters out of the country. I imagine that might tend to strain some relations.
Why would you defend such a man?
Unlike some, I am able to separate the man from the policies. The policy of regime change in Iraq was a reasonable one. It should have been done in 1991 while he was on the ropes, since the UN coalition was there anyway.
pinky
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Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Learyfan]
#2282550 - 01/29/04 12:26 AM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Bush needlessly sent our young soldiers to die
He certainly did. Even Colin Powell didn't think WMD were a threat in 2001. Clearly the entire thing was a propaganda fantasy pushed by the neocons who have gained control of the white house and wish to pursue their fanatical ideology. Even the human rights groups have stated there were no mass killings going on in Iraq at the time of the invasion. Bang goes another neocon lie.
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luvdemshrooms
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Re: Kay: WMD never existed [Re: Xlea321]
#2331620 - 02/13/04 04:18 PM (20 years, 2 months ago) |
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Friday, Feb. 13, 2004 11:08 a.m. EST
Blix to NewsMax: 'I Stand By WMD Claims'
Former U.N. Iraq chief arms inspector Dr. Hans Blix told NewsMax, from his home in Stockholm, Sweden, that he still stands by his claim that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein may in fact have had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) shortly before Operation Iraqi Freedom.
NewsMax reported on Feb. 10 that Blix had made such a claim in a report sent to the UNMOVIC (U.N. Monitoring, Observation, Verification and Inspection Commission) College of Commissioners on March 6, 2003.
The Blix report was submitted just two weeks before the start of the U.S./U.K.-led coalition invasion.
Several Bush administration officials have insisted that numerous intelligence agencies outside the U.S. and U.K. believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMD, in clear violation of U.N. sanctions.
In a CNN interview on Tuesday, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice specifically cited the Blix report as just one of many examples to justify the White House assertion that Saddam posed a threat to U.S. national security.
In a BBC interview last Sunday, Blix called the WMD assertions by the U.S. and U.K. "insincere" and commented that both President Bush and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair should have been more forthcoming to their citizens.
Blix, contacted again on Thursday by NewsMax, said he still stands by his claim on Iraq's possible possession of WMD shortly before the war:
"It is correct that we had strong suspicions that anthrax could remain [in Iraq]. There is some difference between strong suspicions and assertions. ... Compare it with the language from the other sides [U.S./U.K.]."
Reacting to the Blix comments, one U.S. diplomat at the U.N. explained: "What were we supposed to do? Wait till he used it and killed thousands?"
Blix believed.
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You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
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The_Red_Crayon
Exposer of Truth
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your actually quoting a news story from newsmax. They are pretty infamous for their political biasness. I dont think a conservative is gonna believe anything they hear off the liberal media.
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