"Intelligence Failure"

[Ravenstorm]

Skewed Reports (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41454-2004Jul10.html)

It seems that we can now eliminate the term "intelligence failure" and instead use the phrase "deliberate and blatant fairy tale".

Of course, I totally believe that the CIA, fully on their own initiative, decided that 2003 was a good year to invade Iraq, decided to make it happen and then manipulated the Bush administration into doing so. What other explanation could there be?

Raven

[Ravenstorm]

Damn registration...

Raven



CIA Skewed Iraq Reporting, Senate Says

By Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 11, 2004; Page A19


Last August, a small team of Senate investigators trying to determine how U.S. intelligence assessments of Iraq had failed went looking for answers in a place where the Bush administration believed there were not any: the offices of U.N. nuclear inspectors in Vienna. The inspectors had determined, before the war, that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program.



During the secret, day-long meeting at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the congressional sleuths focused on aluminum tubes the CIA had said Iraq was seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. It was that claim that led the CIA to conclude that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

The U.N. teams had investigated and rejected that claim, much to the anger of the White House. But others, it turned out, had rejected it, too. When the Senate investigators left Vienna that day, they took back to Washington the names of U.S. intelligence community analysts who never agreed with the CIA's claims and, in many cases, refuted them.

The information, some of which is included in the extraordinary critique of U.S. prewar intelligence efforts released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, reveals the extent of the CIA's determination to keep alive the Iraqi nuclear issue long after it had been thoroughly rebutted both inside and outside the agency. The report also exposed the true nature of the CIA's relationship with U.N. inspectors whose determinations about Iraq's nuclear programs ultimately prevailed.

Contrary to public statements from outgoing CIA Director George J. Tenet and other senior officials, the CIA had not provided U.N. weapons inspectors with all of the best information it had on possible weapons locations in the run-up to war, according to the report.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice told Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), a member of the intelligence committee, two weeks before the U.S. attacked Iraq in March 2003, that "United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high- or medium-priority weapons of mass destruction, missile, and UAV-related site the U.S. Intelligence Community has identified."

The committee report characterized that statement and others as "factually incorrect." Of the 148 suspect sites identified by the CIA before the war, 67 were shared with the United Nations.

Not only was the CIA keeping information from the inspectors -- whose reports on Iraq's weapons would greatly influence international support for the war -- its rationale for deciding what information to share with them was "subjective, inconsistently applied and not well-documented," according to the Senate report .

The teams led by Hans Blix, director of the U.N. effort to find chemical, biological and missile programs, were stunned by how little the CIA seemed to know about suspected sites, according to a Senate source familiar with the investigation. Senate investigators interviewed Blix and the head of intelligence analysis for the U.N. inspection teams whose headquarters were in New York.

Among the details that have not surfaced in the report but were shared with Senate investigators, was that requests by the U.N. teams to interview Iraqi defectors who were providing public accounts of Iraq's weapons programs were flatly denied, according to foreign diplomats associated with the investigation. Also, nuclear inspectors were not given information on any new sites at all -- mostly because the aluminum tubes made up the extent of the CIA's nuclear case.

The CIA was convinced the tubes were to be used in centrifuges that could enrich uranium for use in a nuclear weapon. But other U.S. intelligence analysts and the IAEA produced substantial evidence that the tubes were for conventional rockets that Iraq was allowed to possess under U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Senate report shows that when the CIA put together its intelligence on the tubes, it withheld some evidence that did not accord with its conclusions, circulated other data in ways the Senate said was "at minimum, misleading," and tried to tilt ostensibly independent consulting reports toward the conclusion that the tubes were evidence of a nascent Iraqi nuclear program.

Speaking Friday, John E. McLaughlin, the acting CIA director, said the agency's error was to write reports "without sufficient caveats and disclaimers where our knowledge was incomplete."

The bipartisan Senate report, however, depicted something more troubling: an agency that knowingly skewed its reports to fit its convictions about an Iraqi nuclear threat.


"Who could have believed that about our intelligence community, that the system could be so dishonest?" said David Albright, an expert on Iraq's nuclear establishment who has close working contacts inside the U.S. government. "People were not only not told the truth, they were given half-truths. . . . The evidence was stacked deliberately."



Much of the Senate's narrative centers on an official identified in the unclassified report only as a "centrifuge analyst" in the CIA's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control, or WINPAC, which was established to provide U.N. inspectors with information about Iraq's programs.

WINPAC analysts gave briefings to U.N. inspectors about potential weapons sites and were enormously influential because they provided their assessments to inspectors and policymakers. Among them was the centrifuge analyst, on whom the Washington Post reported last August and identified only as "Joe."

The Senate report said he was the principal author of a CIA analysis from April 10, 2001, excerpted in Friday's report, which said that the tubes "have little use other than for a uranium enrichment program" to build the core of a nuclear warhead.

That was flatly incorrect, and an Energy Department intelligence unit explained why in detail the following day in a report titled, "Iraq: High-Strength Aluminum Tube Procurement," according to the Senate report. It said the tubes were "only marginally large enough" for use in uranium enrichment and had other specifications "not consistent with a gas centrifuge end use." The rotor casing would be only one of many parts required for a centrifuge, yet "we have not seen related procurement efforts."

The Energy Department report did not identify any such rocket program specifically. But on May 9, 2001 -- much earlier than previously known -- the Energy analysts did exactly that. "Further investigation reveals," the Energy analysts said, that Iraq had bought tens of thousands of identical tubes in the 1980s and 1990s -- 900mm long, 81mm in diameter, with walls 3.3mm thick -- to build a rocket called the Nasser 81. U.N. inspectors had counted 66,737 of the tubes on the ground in 1996.

The Post reported last August that U.S. intelligence officials serving with U.N. inspectors in Iraq documented the Nasser rocket program in early 2003.

The Senate report reveals that Joe and other CIA officials knew about the Nasser rocket program nearly two years earlier.

Yet throughout 2002 and 2003, long after learning that Iraq built tens of thousands of rockets using essentially identical tubes, the agency told policymakers the tubes were not suitable for rockets and could not be intended for a rocket program.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, after a two-day marathon of CIA briefings, used precisely that argument before the U.N. Security Council in February 2003.

One CIA argument was that the high-strength aluminum alloy in the tubes, known as 7075-T6, was needlessly strong and expensive. Its officials did not reveal, even when asked specifically by analysts at other departments and the IAEA, that at least two NATO munitions -- the U.S. Mark 66 rocket, or Hydra, and the Italian-built Medusa -- used the same alloy. CIA officials reported numerous times that the Iraqi tubes had specifications far more precise than any U.S. rocket, another argument Powell repeated.

In fact, the Senate committee found, the Pentagon has 25 pages of specifications for its Mark 66 rocket tubes, with considerably finer tolerances.

Defense Department rocket engineers told the Senate committee that CIA analysts rebuffed them when they said the tubes resembled an Italian rocket casing. One engineer said the CIA analyst "had an agenda" and was "trying to bias us."

The tube debate continued for 18 months.

On Sept. 16, 2002, Joe sought expert support in preparation for the CIA's most extensive analysis, titled "Iraq's Hunt for Aluminum Tubes: Evidence of a Renewed Uranium Enrichment Program." He hired consultants to conduct "spin tests" on the tubes to determine whether they could withstand the extraordinary rotational speeds required for enrichment of uranium in its gaseous form.

In interviews for this story, present and former U.S. government officials with direct knowledge described details not cited in the Senate report. Joe gave the job to two engineers with ties to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Andrew Szady and Joseph Dooley. He instructed them to conceal their work from the Oak Ridge Field Intelligence Element, a major repository of expertise on Iraq's nuclear infrastructure.

"It was meant to be done independently," said one source involved in the events. In a single day, Joe reported, Dooley and Szady succeeded in spinning a tube to 60,000 rpm and concluded the tubes were well-suited as centrifuge rotors.

What Joe did not report was that the great majority of spin tests led to failures of the tubes. An Energy Department analysis, conducted after the CIA was twice forced to disgorge more test data, concluded that none of the tubes demonstrated sufficient strength for long-term operation in a centrifuge.

Szady and Dooley, reached at their homes, declined to be interviewed.

[pennywise]

Maybe they just decided that 2003 was about the right time to take care of a murderous bastard whom they, for political reasons, left in power a decade or so ago? Unfinished business is a real bitch. Now if they would just leave Kim Jong Il to rattle his saber and move on to the Sudan Id say it has been a good couple years. Too bad African intervention is only considered necessary if the country has a) resources we cant get cheaply elsewhere b) communist leanings (still? maybe, we will see) c) a large white population.

[xShadowMerchantx]

Originally posted by Ravenstorm
Skewed Reports (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41454-2004Jul10.html)

It seems that we can now eliminate the term "intelligence failure" and instead use the phrase "deliberate and blatant fairy tale".

Of course, I totally believe that the CIA, fully on their own initiative, decided that 2003 was a good year to invade Iraq, decided to make it happen and then manipulated the Bush administration into doing so. What other explanation could there be?

Raven


It couldn't be that daddy bush couldn't get the job done the first time so baby bush had to come in and finish the job.

Couldn't be that the CIA is just the scapegoat for bushy.

[Latrinsorm]

The CIA sounds an awful lot like a certain Left Wing Hero (that I'll bet most left wingers don't like) we've been talking about recently.

[Valthissa]

On another note...it now appears that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium from niger....the source for that is the French, not the faked documents. Oh, and Wilson has been somewhat exposed as, um, duplicitous in his investigation.

It also baffles me that some on left can convince themselves that Iran wants nuclear weapons, Korea wants them, Pakistan wants them, etc. - but Iraq? no way, why would we think they had a nuclear weapons program?

I'm expeting all of the major newspaper that ripped the administration over Bush 'lying' during the state of the union to print front page retractions. Well, probably not.

Did I mention that I don't think I can vote for Bush?

C/Valth

[pennywise]

Just as an aside, it seems that I was incorrect in my assumption that the US would not wish to involve itself in internal African affairs in the Sudan region(a mistake I made by relying on past actions).

It seems that some congressmen are very interested in the area, and said congressmen are not of the party nor the region that I would have expected.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200407080001.html

[Kefka]

<<On another note...it now appears that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium from niger....the source for that is the French, not the faked documents. Oh, and Wilson has been somewhat exposed as, um, duplicitous in his investigation.>>

Source please?

[imported_Kranar]

<< On another note...it now appears that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium from niger.... >>

This news is ancient and was already disproved long, long ago.

[Kefka]

Well, I was thinking he found some new source and not the same “Meet the Press” September 14, 2003 article that was already proven false.

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Kranar
<< On another note...it now appears that Saddam was trying to acquire uranium from niger.... >>

This news is ancient and was already disproved long, long ago.

ummm, no - maybe a little research before a quick post might have served you better...

one thing about this certainty....

it's often uncertain...

try Mark Steyn in Chicago Sun-Times

if you don't like that (and other's you can find with a minimum amount of effort) I'll give you some more.

C/Valth

[imported_Kranar]

<< ummm, no - maybe a little research before a quick post might have served you better... >>

Keep your snide comments to yourself, thanks.

<< ummm, no - maybe a little research before a quick post might have served you better... >>

The issue of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Niger was cited in Bush's State of the Union address and has been proved incorrect, long... long... ago.

[Edited on 7-12-2004 by Kranar]

[imported_Kranar]

To further this, the White House has acknowledge that the documents that cited that Saddam sought uranium in Niger were bogus, falsified documents. The documents never even came from the CIA, they came from British intelligence sources and weren't verified at the time that Bush made the his State of the Union address.

The White House actually made this statement.

[Edited on 7-12-2004 by Kranar]

[imported_Kranar]

Here's an article for more information.

This is really old news by the way... Almost a year old, I'm sure you could even find the White House's official debunking of this information on their website.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/25/eveningnews/main560449.shtml

[Parkbandit]

While the White House did state that the information they received was indeed incorrect.. I did hear that there was new information linking Saddam to uranium.

Old news and old information is not what is being discussed by Valthissa.

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Kranar
<< ummm, no - maybe a little research before a quick post might have served you better... >>

Keep your snide comments to yourself, thanks.

<< ummm, no - maybe a little research before a quick post might have served you better... >>

The issue of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Niger was cited in Bush's State of the Union address and has been proved incorrect, long... long... ago.

you're not getting it.

I'll post snide comments as I feel appropriate. I hope they don't get in the way of any of my attempts at communicating

Parkbandit is on to something.

try the news on the upcoming Butler report.

I learned long ago that when one even thinks that they might be wrong the best course is to research first, talk later (and that is not intended as a snide comment).

C/Valth


[Edited on 7-12-2004 by Kranar]

[imported_Kranar]

<< While the White House did state that the information they received was indeed incorrect.. I did hear that there was new information linking Saddam to uranium. >>

The information about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium in Niger is old and anyone who has any clue about Niger and Iraq would know better than that, it's why the CIA always had doubts about the report to begin with.

Niger officials falsified the documents, Niger's Shi'a population makes up 99.5 percent of the Muslim's in that country, that in itself makes them an enemy of Iraq right off the bat.

Sure some people here and there might think that Saddam was seeking uranium from God knows who... and sure, it's even possible that he was. The point is that there is no evidence to support it and asking to prove that Saddam Hussein wasn't seeking uranium is like asking me to prove that Leprechauns don't exist. The level of substantiation about Saddam and his nuclear ambition is equal to the level of substantiation that a child has about ghosts living in his basement. There simply isn't credibly evidence to support it, and because of that it shouldn't be regarded as a strong case or used as an arguement.

[Valthissa]

ok

it is elementary that you can't prove a negative.

please keep an open mind, read some newspapers over the next few weeks. If it turns out I'm right Bush is still a terrible president, The CIA was still wrong on most of it's so called pre-war intelligence, and you're still the board administrator here at my favorite site to waste a few minutes between working on yet another presentation for the board....

as for Saddam and his nuclear ambition, well, you seem to have reached a position that is not open to discussion. You could ask yourself, knowing his previous military behaviour, why wouldn't he want such weapons?

C/Valth

[Kefka]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/11/election.day.delay/index.html

Uh oh. Plan E is being worked on.

[Back]

What do you brits have make of all this?

Blair is getting it bad. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/15/britain.iraq/index.html)

[Hulkein]

Liberals in his government who just want to slander him, no matter if its the truth? Same as here.

Three independent commissions, two here, one in Britain. All had liberals on the panel, all came back with the same conclussion. It was simply intelligence failure, no coersion or anything else people may whine about.

[Edaarin]

I'd make a joke about the thread title and Bush, but I'm sure Leno has made the same joke a hundred times in the past two weeks.

[Back]

Originally posted by Hulkein
Liberals in his government who just want to slander him, no matter if its the truth? Same as here.

Three independent commissions, two here, one in Britain. All had liberals on the panel, all came back with the same conclussion. It was simply intelligence failure, no coersion or anything else people may whine about.

So no one made a mistake? No one is responsible? No one is accountable? Thats BS.

Here we have possibly the largest fuck-up in the 21st century, and you claim its liberals wanting to slander people?

"intelligence failure" is a nice way of saying major fuck-up, just like the words "mistreatment", "abuse" and "scandal" have all replace "torture."

[Edited on 7-15-2004 by Backlash]

[Hulkein]

I believe intelligence failure means that there were mistakes made across the board by those who collect the intelligence for a living.

[Edited on 7-15-2004 by Hulkein]

[Ravenstorm]

Originally posted by Hulkein
I believe intelligence failure means that there were mistakes made across the board by those who collect the intelligence for a living.

A mistake is an accident. No mistakes were made. The committee found there was deliberate, intentional deception involved. Nor is the committee finished looking into whether it was 'encouraged' by the administration.

Raven

[vigilante]

It's newspeak, dangerous newspeak in my opinion. I don't care which side one is on politically, to generalize and euphemize with words that dehumanize and almost mechanize agencies, treating them like computer programs ...

Allows for ALL accountability to be thrown out the window. George Orwell was on to something...

[Back]

Orwell was so on to it. So was Nietzsche and Marx.

The conservatives aren't looking to good right now. They seem to want to blame everything on everyone else. And, despite what they think, everyone else is not some group of people out to get them. Everyone else is the rest of us who aren't in that small cluster of people who don't want anything to change.

[Valthissa]

for those interested in what the senate actually said:

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf

there's plenty of meat in here for anyone that's not actually in the intellingence community.

C/Valth

[Back]

Sun Tzu was so much less wordy. And nothing was blacked out of his book.

[Back]

The C.I.A.'s conclusions on the issue of a possible Iraq-Qaeda link largely mirror those of staff investigators of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. That panel's staff reported last month that there did not appear to have been a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda and that there was no credible evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

link to article (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/10/politics/10REPO.html)

Bush and Cheney STILL insist otherwise. Who are they trying to fool?

While I'm at it, lets throw this into the mix.

Again, I'm not suprised. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/16/politics/16abus.html)


Many Democrats and some Republicans, like Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona, have pressed to push ahead to get to the bottom of the abuses. Senator Collins supported further hearings, saying, "I think there are some serious unanswered questions."

Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said the Pentagon approach seemed to have "slowed things down rather than speed things up." He said the Senate found itself in the awkward position of having to wait for reports that it needed as the basis for hearings.

But House Republicans and, privately, some Senate Republicans say Mr. Warner, by holding more hearings, would only hand Democrats an explosive campaign issue.

Whats absurd is how this administration gets away with trying to cover everything up right in front of our faces. Its insulting.

[vigilante]

"Whats absurd is how this administration gets away with trying to cover everything up right in front of our faces. Its insulting. "[/quote]

The absurdity will continue as long as this administration is allowed to use the threat of denied access as a way to intimidate reporters who have shown evidence that might in any way run contrary to their own.

I put most of the blame on the Press itself. They don't have to tolerate it. I just hope they won't allow themselves to be lied to twice. Even the conservative National Review noted, the Bush administration has "a dismaying capacity to believe its own public relations."

The Press needs to assume the role of watchdog - as the Founders intended. No more Mr. Nice guy!:mad:

[imported_Kranar]

<< George Orwell was on to something... >>

George Orwell never ceazes to amaze me. I mean, I thought his political predictions would have expired with the end of the Cold War, but you read some his essays such as Politics and the English Language, and it's incredible how true his thesis remains today, especially given this war against Iraq.

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.

Politics has become a mechanized process, speeches given by politicians honestly seem like they were built upon templates whereby all the speech writers had to do was fill in some variables and voila. The danger is that these templates are being used over and over and over, drilling the same messages again and again. President Bush never had to present any evidence to most Americans to convince them that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Even assuming that Iraq DID have such weapons or DOES have such weapons right now, the President never had to provide any credible evidence that they did. All he had to do was repeat it over and over and over, and eventually most of America believed it was true before going to war.

Now that the war is coming to an end, all President Bush has to do is repeat a different message over and over and over, and the same people who submitted previously, will submit once more.

As I said, this argument is made irrespective of whether the message is true or false. The only point being made here is the argument that politics is a mechanized process and people are becoming a part that machine.

[vigilante]

After your well-thought out post, Kranar, I revise my position somewhat. I blame the press and the people. You are quite right. We've become the proverbial chicks in the nest, waiting for our next regurgitation (without question).

[Edited on 7-16-2004 by vigilante]

[Edited on 7-16-2004 by vigilante]

[Kefka]

They may just take Inhofe's position on Abu Graib

"Sen. Inhofe (R-OK): First of all, I regret I wasn't here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it's better that I wasn't because as I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.

The idea that these prisoners, they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents, and many of them probably have American blood probably on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."

[Hulkein]

Originally posted by Backlash

Bush and Cheney STILL insist otherwise. Who are they trying to fool?



.... No, they don't. They say there was a link between Iraq and Al-qaeda, which there is. They never said a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.

PS. I wait for no regurgitation, I'm just happy there is one less genocidal maniac running a country in our world. That's all.

[Edited on 7-16-2004 by Hulkein]

[vigilante]

Originally posted by Hulkein

Originally posted by Backlash

Bush and Cheney STILL insist otherwise. Who are they trying to fool?



.... No, they don't. They say there was a link between Iraq and Al-qaeda, which there is. They never said a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.

PS. I wait for no regurgitation, I'm just happy there is one less genocidal maniac running a country in our world. That's all.

[Edited on 7-16-2004 by Hulkein]

I can definitely see your point. However, I will not accept the cost of American lives that have been instrumental in bringing him down. This is a sad, sad precedent.
We should only assume the role of world cop in the face of a clear and present danger.

Heck, Kim Jong-Il is far more dangerous than Saddam Hussein ever was.

[Ravenstorm]

Originally posted by Hulkein
.... No, they don't. They say there was a link between Iraq and Al-qaeda, which there is. They never said a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks.

Cheney /strongly/ implied there was. Recently. He took a stand counter to what the committee said. And when he was called on it and asked if he had information the committee did not, what was his response? "Probably."

Of course, that was just pure bullshit as this phantom information was requested and lo and behold, nothing came of it. it didn't exist. So just another lie trying to salvage their case against Iraq.

Raven

[Back]

Who claimed responsibility for 9/11? Or, at least, who is it highly likely to be responsible?

Saddam? Wrong. Bin Ladin? Right. Bin Ladin is the so called main man behind Al Queda.

Now, link Saddam to Al Queda, and what do you have in theory? Guilty by association. Don't give me that run-around crap about not meaning 9/11. Al Queda is 9/11, and any way they can link Saddam to Al Queda means they can link him to 9/11.

Read the news. Saddam discouraged his people to associate with them. There is far more going on over there than we will ever know, just between the Arabs. Do you even comprehend how much more history they have than us?

You know where Bin Ladin is from. You know where most of the 9/11 crew is from. They hate the Saudi Patriarchy as much if not more than they hate the US. Why?

[Edited on 7-17-2004 by Backlash]

[imported_Kranar]

<< Read the news. Saddam discouraged his people to associate with them. There is far more going on over there than we will ever know, just between the Arabs. Do you even comprehend how much more history they have than us?

You know where Bin Ladin is from. You know where most of the 9/11 crew is from. They hate the Saudi Patriarchy as much if not more than they hate the US. Why? >>

This is actually all connected.

Iraq and Al Qaida have always been enemies, infact, Al Qaida existed originally to be an enemy of Iraq.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Saudi's obviously paniced because Iraq had the strongest military in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia feared that Iraq would attack them. Bin Laden, who was considered a hero amongst Saudi's for liberating Afghanistan from the Soviet Union, offered to fight against Iraq and defend Kuwait.

Hussein was a great admirer of Stalin, his moustache is infact a tribute to Stalin. Bin Laden, on the other hand, obviously despised the Soviet Union and in particular despised Stalin, so ideologically Hussein and Bin Laden were enemies from the get go. Saudi Arabia rejected Bin Laden's offer and instead not only invited the U.S. to fight this war, but even funded over 25 billion dollars. When the war was over and the U.S. remained in Saudi Arabia, that's when Bin Laden turned against the U.S. and declared them an enemy. Prior to that, Bin Laden was VERY close allies with the U.S. having received billions of dollars in equipment and also in money which was used to help recruit and support operations to fight off the Soviet Union.

So yeah, most people when they think of the Middle East, think the whole place is just the same where everyone thinks the same and does the same thing. Iran or Iraq... well heck, the names only differ by one letter, and they both have these so called Muslim's living there (who obviously think and live the same way, right) so surely they gotta be really similar countries. Not many look upon it to read a bit about the history of the Middle East, how or why it is in the state that it is (which was only put in this state after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in World War I). To most... the Middle East is just where a bunch of the same people hate the U.S. for some weird and very bad reason.

Oh sorry... they hate the U.S. because they hate freedom, atleast that was the reason I heard in the news.

[Valthissa]

The Senate report is a mixed bag concerning Iraq/Al Qaida connections.

(see the link I posted earlier - the Iraq/Al Qaida section starts around page 320)

It is certainly clear in the report that there is no (read that as none, zero) evidence of cooperation on the 9/11 attacks. It also states that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida beginning in the early 90's. Perhaps "the enemy of my enemy is my friend' was a strong enough reason for the relationships as outlined in the report.


C/Valth

[Back]

Freedom is slavery.

Thanks for that insight. You didn't even mention the other party that plays a big part in this.

The cycle continues.

[Back]

Originally posted by Valthissa
The Senate report is a mixed bag concerning Iraq/Al Qaida connections.

C/Valth

Is that the PDF you posted last night? I took it, read the index, went to page 83 and it was all magic markered out!

Thats how my year has been going. :crie:

[imported_Kranar]

<< It also states that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida beginning in the early 90's. Perhaps "the enemy of my enemy is my friend' was a strong enough reason for the relationships as outlined in the report. >>

Early 90s...

Al Qaida's enemy = Iraq
U.S. enemy = Iraq

Infact, Al Qaida's friend = U.S.

What exactly is it you're trying to say?

[Back]

Then there is that whole nasty Afganistan/USSR thing. Hmm...

[imported_Kranar]

<< Then there is that whole nasty Afganistan/USSR thing. >>

It makes it really hard to figure out what you're talking about when you neither include the quote you're replying to, nor do you really make any point that has to do with anything that was recently posted.

I like orange juice. Honest.

[Latrinsorm]

Originally posted by Kranar
I like orange juice. Honest. Dude. Between this and the tying shoes thing, :(

[Back]

Originally posted by Kranar
<< Then there is that whole nasty Afganistan/USSR thing. >>

It makes it really hard to figure out what you're talking about when you neither include the quote you're replying to, nor do you really make any point that has to do with anything that was recently posted.

I like orange juice. Honest.

Sorry, I can't be bothered to spell it out for everyone. I'm trying to run a chat room also... yeesh.

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Backlash

Originally posted by Valthissa
The Senate report is a mixed bag concerning Iraq/Al Qaida connections.

C/Valth

Is that the PDF you posted last night? I took it, read the index, went to page 83 and it was all magic markered out!

Thats how my year has been going. :crie:


yes.

the PDF is the actual Senate report. It's amazing to me what can be printed in the newspaper characterizing what this report says. It contains so many tidbits and contradictory statements that the only real conclusion I can come to is that the CIA is completely incompetent.

C/Valth

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Kranar
<< It also states that there was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaida beginning in the early 90's. Perhaps "the enemy of my enemy is my friend' was a strong enough reason for the relationships as outlined in the report. >>

Early 90s...

Al Qaida's enemy = Iraq
U.S. enemy = Iraq

Infact, Al Qaida's friend = U.S.

What exactly is it you're trying to say?

I'm trying to say the report doesn't support the blanket assertion that there was no (choose word carefully here - talks, contact, meetings, co-operation) between Iraq and Al Qaida.

I base my opinion on having read that section of the report. You might disagree with that assessment, or with what the Senators say (it's more likely you'll disagree with my conclusions).

C/Valth

[Back]

Originally posted by Valthissa
I base my opinion on having read that section of the report. You might disagree with that assessment, or with what the Senators say (it's more likely you'll disagree with my conclusions).

C/Valth

I'll have to dig through it, but honestly, how can you accept it with so many pages having been censored?

The reason why I brought up Sun Tzu was because he talks about spies as being an integral part of any successful campaign. Without having read that report, which I will do at some point, my impression so far is that the CIA took the word of some anti-baathists for face value and went ahead without having anyone IN Iraq to corroborate the information.

Sun Tzu even makes a remark about a successful war being humane. His book must not have been on the White House reading list.

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Backlash

I'll have to dig through it, but honestly, how can you accept it with so many pages having been censored?

The reason why I brought up Sun Tzu

I don't accept the report, but it's the best source of information (it's source material, not a NYT opinion coulmn, or a Fox babbling head, etc.) about the actual 'intelligence' surronding Iraq.

on Sun Tzu...a few years ago it very popular (VERY POPULAR) as reading for executives...I got my fill of seminars and training sessions explaining the relavance of Sun Tzu to modern business

a tangent...the above made me recall fondly a computer game about China, romance of the three kingdoms (original version), which inspired me to read the book.

one last thing, on July 22nd the event should occur at work that will free me from working so fucking much. My post frequency should return to it's normal once every few months...

C/Valth

[Edited on 7-17-2004 by Valthissa]

[Soulpieced]

one last thing, on July 22nd the event should occur at work that will free me from working so fucking much. My post frequency should return to it's normal once every few months...

.

Gasp! Val swore.

[Valthissa]

Originally posted by Soulpieced


Gasp! Val swore.

her darker half, sweets ;)