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  1. #1
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default More evidence that Iraq war was predetermined

    visit-red-300x50PNG
    New leak shows secret Iraq war plans
    By Peter Graff /

    Reuters

    LONDON - U.S. President George W. Bush and Prime

    Minister Tony Blair were determined to topple Saddam Hussein at least nine months before they launched the war in

    Iraq, documents leaked in a Sunday newspaper say.

    The secret documents could have a late impact in the election

    next Thursday, in which Iraq -- and whether the prime minister told the truth about his case for war -- has emerged

    as a last-minute issue in the final week of campaigning.

    Blair has always maintained that he did not commit to

    war in Iraq until after Saddam was given a final chance to abandon banned weapons, and that "regime change" was

    never his aim.

    But the Sunday Times printed what it said were secret minutes of a top level cabinet meeting

    held in July 2002 to discuss Iraq, nine months before the invasion.

    According to the minutes, Blair spoke to

    his cabinet explicitly in terms of toppling Saddam.

    "If the political context were right, people would support

    regime change," Blair is recorded as saying. "The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether

    we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."

    Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said

    the case for war was "thin" because "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than

    that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

    Straw proposed giving Saddam an ultimatum to allow in U.N. weapons

    inspectors, provoking a confrontation that would "help with the legal justification for the use of force."

    Spy

    chief, Sir Richard Dearlove, fresh from a trip to Washington, had concluded that war was "inevitable" because "Bush

    wanted to remove Saddam through military action", and "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".



    Blair ordered his chief of defence staff, Sir Michael Boyce, to present him with war plans later that week, the

    minutes said.

    IRAQ SLOW TO EMERGE AS ELECTION ISSUE

    Although many in Britain opposed the war, it has been

    slow to emerge as an election issue because both Blair's Labour party and the main opposition Conservatives backed

    it.

    But the Conservatives have used the case Blair made for war to attack his credibility. And they are hoping

    some of the traditionally left-leaning Labour party's supporters will abandon it for the anti-war third party, the

    Liberal Democrats.

    Polls show Blair is likely to win a third term in the election, although his huge

    parliamentary majority may shrink.

    But he has been careful to say he believes the result could still be in

    doubt. In an interview with the Observer newspaper, Blair warned anti-war voters against making a protest vote.



    "There will be people who will feel very, very strongly over Iraq. But if they vote Liberal Democrat in a seat

    where the Conservatives are second, it is not policy on Iraq that will change -- it's the policy on the economy, on

    the health service, on schools, on the minimum wage," he said.

    The Sunday Times document was the second major

    Iraq leak to emerge in the final week before the election. Last week Channel Four news leaked advice to Blair in

    which the attorney general raised doubts about whether the war was legal.

    Blair's Downing Street office

    declined to comment on whether the minutes leaked to the Sunday Times were genuine, but said the meeting took place

    before the U.N. Security Council resolution that provided the basis for Blair's case for war. "This was before the

    decision to go down the U.N. route, and before resolution 1441 on which the attorney general based his judgment," a

    spokeswoman said. "The circumstances therefore quickly became out of date."
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  2. #2
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    ...not that there wasn't

    enough evidence about that already. Oh, and there's this article too, which gives a slightly different twist:



    http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/

    story.jsp?story=634702
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  3. #3
    Phero Enthusiast phersurf's Avatar
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    Default

    All you have to do is go to the

    horses mouth.

    Go to the website for "The Project for the New American Century" and do a little search and

    you'll see that invading Iraq was decided on by the Neo-Cons back in the mid

    90's.

    http://www.newamericancentury.org/index.html

    For those that don't know, The Project

    for... is a PAC created by William Kristol with much input from Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton (ring a bell?), Robert

    Kagan, Gary Schmidt.

    They spell it out in black and white that they were waiting for a "New Pearl Harbour"

    so they can justify an invasion of Iraq.

    They did a great job, too. More than 60% of the Ameican population

    STILL thinks that Iraq was responsible for 9/11!

  4. #4
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    The PNAC was actually

    discussed in some depth last Summer in this forum, in the "foreign policy of the Bush administration" thread.



    But yeah, that's the central philosophical document of Neo-Con foreign policy, no question. For example, the

    State of the Union Address was full of this philosophy, but just barely under the surface.

    In short, the PNAC

    presumes that it's just OK to go and forcibly establish U.S.-friendly (i.e., friendly to U.S oil companies and

    other powerful multinational corporations) countries anywhere we want; anywhere that it's in our "best interest" to

    do so.

    Even a lot of Democrats (notable recently was Bill Maher) try to argue that the "fact" that Iraq is a

    budding democracy (...maybe!) justifies our having invaded it. This is PNAC-type thinking. Almost no one outside the

    U.S. buys it. But shamefully, a suprising number of folks here do.
    Last edited by DrSmellThis; 05-03-2005 at 01:18 AM.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  5. #5
    Phero Pharaoh a.k.a.'s Avatar
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    Last months issue of “The Ecologist”

    had a breakdown of the top ten corporations that are profiting off this occupation.
    Lockheed Martin is #1 with

    $21.9 billion in pentagon contracts. Their share price has tripled since 2000. Lockheed’s VP, Bruce Jackson, is one

    of the founders of PNAC. He also helped draft the Republican’s foreign policy platform for the 2000 presidential

    campaign.
    We all know about Cheney’s connections to Halliburton. He’s another founding member of PNAC and

    Halliburton ranks #4 with $10.8 billion in contracts.

    Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
    Give truth a chance.

  6. #6
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    That was disturbing.

    It

    will be interesting to hear the spin the British government puts on this. I guess they'll say the Iraqi police were

    terrorists.

    It's a shame anyone would feel embarrassed about calling a conspiracy a conspiracy. There is no

    other remotely logical way to explain our invasion of Iraq, and quite a few other things about this administration.

    That's what it was and is. Criminals exist; they are far from nice; and sometimes, they rule countries. It is

    eminently reasonable to be suspicious of the neocon motives. As soon as you start looking at it that way, everything

    makes sense -- all the facts. That is what separates a cold harsh grip on reality from paranoia.

    Having said

    that, we do need quite a bit more information on this incident.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  7. #7
    Moderator Mtnjim's Avatar
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    " Having said that, we do need

    quite a bit more information on this incident."

    Good luck!!!
    Know how to spell cover up??

    Remember,

    some of the "fringe" articles I posted talked about US troops doing the same thing. What was that old saying about

    smoke and fire??
    Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
    --Lazarus Long

  8. #8
    Moderator belgareth's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Mtnjim
    " Having said

    that, we do need quite a bit more information on this incident."

    Good luck!!!
    Know how to spell cover

    up??

    Remember, some of the "fringe" articles I posted talked about US troops doing the same thing. What

    was that old saying about smoke and fire??
    Neither would surprise me. I keep hoping that the cardinal rule

    of conspiracies will kick in. The more people involved the greater the likelihood of somebody talking.
    To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

    Thomas Jefferson

  9. #9
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    A number of people have

    already started talking and leaking information, as regards the war and Bush being Hell-bent on invading from the

    get go. The same goes for Abu-Graib and torture policies. Any number of people have started to talk about that

    too.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  10. #10
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default CIA intel coordinator for Iraq confirms Bush lied us into war

    http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/0

    2/10/iraq.intelligence/index.html

    The Bush administration "used intelligence not to inform

    decision-making, but to justify a decision already made," Pillar wrote. "It went to war without requesting -- and

    evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq."

    [emphasis mine]Though Pillar himself was responsible for coordinating intelligence assessments on Iraq, "the first

    request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war,"

    he wrote.
    "Cardinal rule for conspiracies", anyone?
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  11. #11
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default Senior policy official notes indicate Rummy had sights on Iraq on 9-11

    http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0

    ,,1716842,00.html


    ...Here again, all the evidence points to one conclusion, as expressed in the title of

    this thread. By this time, I'm very confident that every scrap of evidence that comes out in the future will say

    the same thing:

    We. Were. Lied. Into. A. Predetermined. War.

    But man, some people are slow to catch

    on!
    ***
    Blogger bares Rumsfeld's post 9/11

    orders

    Julian Borger in

    Washington

    Friday February 24,

    2006

    Guardian

    Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the US defence secretary,

    Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes

    taken by one of them.
    "Hard to get good case. Need to move

    swiftly," the notes say. "Near term target needs - go massive - sweep it all up, things related and

    not."


    The handwritten notes, with some parts blanked out,

    were declassified this month in response to a request by a law student and blogger, Thad Anderson, under the US

    Freedom of Information Act. Anderson has posted them on his blog at

    outragedmoderates.org.


    The Pentagon confirmed the notes had

    been taken by Stephen Cambone, now undersecretary of defence for intelligence and then a senior policy official.

    "His notes were fulfilling his role as a plans guy," said a spokesman, Greg

    Hicks.


    "He was responsible for crisis planning, and he was

    with the secretary in that role that afternoon."


    The report

    said: "On the afternoon of 9/11, according to contemporaneous notes, Secretary Rumsfeld instructed General Myers

    [the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff] to obtain quickly as much information as possible. The notes indicate

    that he also told Myers that he was not simply interested in striking empty training sites. He thought the US

    response should consider a wide range of options.


    "The

    secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time, not only Bin Laden. Secretary Rumsfeld later

    explained that at the time he had been considering either one of them, or perhaps someone else, as the responsible

    party."


    The actual notes suggest a focus on Saddam. "Best

    info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit SH at same time - not only UBL [Pentagon shorthand for Usama/Osama bin

    Laden]," the notes say. "Tasks. Jim Haynes [Pentagon lawyer] to talk with PW [probably Paul Wolfowitz, then Mr

    Rumsfeld's deputy] for additional support ... connection with

    UBL."


    Mr Wolfowitz, now the head of the World Bank, advocated

    regime change in Iraq before 2001. But, according to an account of the days after September 11 in Bob Woodward's

    book Plan of Attack, a decision was taken to put off consideration of an attack on Iraq until after the Taliban had

    been toppled in Afghanistan.


    But these notes confirm that

    Baghdad was in the Pentagon's sights almost as soon as the hijackers struck.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  12. #12
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default In today's New York Times: Another authenticated British memo, of Blair-Bush meeting

    Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British

    Adviser Says


    By

    DON

    VAN NATTA
    Jr.
    LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of

    [URL="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo"]Iraq[

    /URL], as the United States and

    Britain pressed for a second



    United Nations
    resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to

    Saddam

    Hussein
    was blunt: Disarm or face war.
    But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was

    inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister

    Tony

    Blair
    of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international

    arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr.

    Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
    "Our diplomatic strategy had to be

    arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote

    in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
    "The start

    date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president.

    "This was when the bombing would begin."
    The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the

    Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State

    Colin

    L. Powell
    was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a

    threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.
    Although the United States and Britain aggressively

    sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly

    that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.
    Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum,

    which was circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair's most senior aides, had not been made public. Several highlights

    were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by a British lawyer and international

    law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the

    memo.
    Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in its entirety. While the president's

    sentiments about invading Iraq were known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an unfiltered view

    of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely confident.
    The memo indicates the two leaders envisioned a

    quick victory and a transition to a new Iraqi government that would be complicated, but manageable. Mr. Bush

    predicted that it was "unlikely there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic

    groups." Mr. Blair agreed with that assessment.
    The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister

    acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding

    any before the planned invasion, Mr. Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal

    to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or

    assassinating Mr. Hussein.
    Those proposals were first reported last month in the British press, but the memo does

    not make clear whether they reflected Mr. Bush's extemporaneous suggestions, or were elements of the government's

    plan.
    Consistent Remarks
    Two senior British officials confirmed the authenticity of the memo, but

    declined to talk further about it, citing Britain's Official Secrets Act, which made it illegal to divulge

    classified information. But one of them said, "In all of this discussion during the run-up to the Iraq war, it is

    obvious that viewing a snapshot at a certain point in time gives only a partial view of the decision-making

    process."
    On Sunday, Frederick Jones, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said the president's

    public comments were consistent with his private remarks made to Mr. Blair. "While the use of force was a last

    option, we recognized that it might be necessary and were planning accordingly," Mr. Jones said.
    "The public

    record at the time, including numerous statements by the President, makes clear that the administration was

    continuing to pursue a diplomatic solution into 2003," he said. "Saddam Hussein was given every opportunity to

    comply, but he chose continued defiance, even after being given one final opportunity to comply or face serious

    consequences. Our public and private comments are fully consistent."
    The January 2003 memo is the latest in a

    series of secret memos produced by top aides to Mr. Blair that summarize private discussions between the president

    and the prime minister. Another group of British memos, including the so-called Downing Street memo written in July

    2002, showed that some senior British officials had been concerned that the United States was determined to invade

    Iraq, and that the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush administration to fit its

    desire to go to war.
    The latest memo is striking in its characterization of frank, almost casual, conversation by

    Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair about the most serious subjects. At one point, the leaders swapped ideas for a postwar Iraqi

    government. "As for the future government of Iraq, people would find it very odd if we handed it over to another

    dictator," the prime minister is quoted as saying.
    "Bush agreed," Mr. Manning wrote. This exchange, like most of

    the quotations in this article, have not been previously reported.
    Mr. Bush was accompanied at the meeting by

    Condo

    leezza Rice
    , who was then the national security adviser; Dan Fried, a senior aide to Ms. Rice; and Andrew H.

    Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. Along with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blair was joined by two other senior aides:

    Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff, and Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide and the author of the Downing Street

    memo.
    By late January 2003, United Nations inspectors had spent six weeks in Iraq hunting for weapons under the

    auspices of Security Council Resolution 1441, which authorized "serious consequences" if Iraq voluntarily failed to

    disarm. Led by

    Hans

    Blix
    , the inspectors had reported little cooperation from Mr. Hussein, and no success finding any

    unconventional weapons.
    At their meeting, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair candidly expressed their doubts that chemical,

    biological or nuclear weapons would be found in Iraq in the coming weeks, the memo said. The president spoke as if

    an invasion was unavoidable. The two leaders discussed a timetable for the war, details of the military campaign and

    plans for the aftermath of the war.
    Discussing Provocation
    Without much elaboration, the memo also says

    the president raised three possible ways of provoking a confrontation. Since they were first reported last month,

    neither the White House nor the British government has discussed them.
    "The U.S. was thinking of flying U2

    reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in U.N. colours," the memo says, attributing the idea

    to Mr. Bush. "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach."
    It also described the president as saying, "The

    U.S. might be able to bring out a defector who could give a public presentation about Saddam's W.M.D," referring to

    weapons of mass destruction.
    A brief clause in the memo refers to a third possibility, mentioned by Mr. Bush, a

    proposal to assassinate Saddam Hussein. The memo does not indicate how Mr. Blair responded to the idea.
    Mr. Sands

    first reported the proposals in his book, although he did not use any direct quotations from the memo. He is a

    professor of international law at University College of London and the founding member of the Matrix law office in

    London, where the prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, is a partner.
    Mr. Jones, the National Security Council

    spokesman, declined to discuss the proposals, saying, "We are not going to get into discussing private discussions

    of the two leaders."
    At several points during the meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, there was palpable

    tension over finding a legitimate legal trigger for going to war that would be acceptable to other nations, the memo

    said. The prime minister was quoted as saying it was essential for both countries to lobby for a second United

    Nations resolution against Iraq, because it would serve as "an insurance policy against the unexpected."
    The

    memo said Mr. Blair told Mr. Bush, "If anything went wrong with the military campaign, or if Saddam increased the

    stakes by burning the oil wells, killing children or fomenting internal divisions within Iraq, a second resolution

    would give us international cover, especially with the Arabs."
    Running Out of Time
    Mr. Bush agreed that

    the two countries should attempt to get a second resolution, but he added that time was running out. "The U.S. would

    put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would twist arms and even threaten," Mr. Bush was

    paraphrased in the memo as saying.
    The document added, "But he had to say that if we ultimately failed, military

    action would follow anyway."
    The leaders agreed that three weeks remained to obtain a second United Nations

    Security Council resolution before military commanders would need to begin preparing for an invasion.
    Summarizing

    statements by the president, the memo says: "The air campaign would probably last four days, during which some 1,500

    targets would be hit. Great care would be taken to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Bush thought the impact of the

    air onslaught would ensure the early collapse of Saddam's regime. Given this military timetable, we needed to go

    for a second resolution as soon as possible. This probably meant after Blix's next report to the Security Council

    in mid-February."
    Mr. Blair was described as responding that both countries would make clear that a second

    resolution amounted to "Saddam's final opportunity." The memo described Mr. Blair as saying: "We had been very

    patient. Now we should be saying that the crisis must be resolved in weeks, not months."
    It reported: "Bush

    agreed. He commented that he was not itching to go to war, but we could not allow Saddam to go on playing with us.

    At some point, probably when we had passed the second resolutions — assuming we did — we should warn Saddam that he

    had a week to leave. We should notify the media too. We would then have a clear field if Saddam refused to go."


    Mr. Bush devoted much of the meeting to outlining the military strategy. The president, the memo says, said the

    planned air campaign "would destroy Saddam's command and control quickly." It also said that he expected Iraq's

    army to "fold very quickly." He also is reported as telling the prime minister that the Republican Guard would be

    "decimated by the bombing."
    Despite his optimism, Mr. Bush said he was aware that "there were uncertainties and

    risks," the memo says, and it goes on, "As far as destroying the oil wells were concerned, the U.S. was well

    equipped to repair them quickly, although this would be easier in the south of Iraq than in the north."
    The two

    men briefly discussed plans for a post-Hussein Iraqi government. "The prime minister asked about aftermath

    planning," the memo says. "Condi Rice said that a great deal of work was now in hand.
    Referring to the Defense

    Department, it said: "A planning cell in D.O.D. was looking at all aspects and would deploy to Iraq to direct

    operations as soon as the military action was over. Bush said that a great deal of detailed planning had been done

    on supplying the Iraqi people with food and medicine."
    Planning for After the War
    The leaders then looked

    beyond the war, imagining the transition from Mr. Hussein's rule to a new government. Immediately after the war, a

    military occupation would be put in place for an unknown period of time, the president was described as saying. He

    spoke of the "dilemma of managing the transition to the civil administration," the memo says.
    The document

    concludes with Mr. Manning still holding out a last-minute hope of inspectors finding weapons in Iraq, or even Mr.

    Hussein voluntarily leaving Iraq. But Mr. Manning wrote that he was concerned this could not be accomplished by Mr.

    Bush's timeline for war.
    "This makes the timing very tight," he wrote. "We therefore need to stay closely

    alongside Blix, do all we can to help the inspectors make a significant find, and work hard on the other members of

    the Security Council to accept the noncooperation case so that we can secure the minimum nine votes when we need

    them, probably the end of February."
    At a White House news conference following the closed-door session, Mr. Bush

    and Mr. Blair said "the crisis" had to be resolved in a timely manner. "Saddam Hussein is not disarming," the

    president told reporters. "He is a danger to the world. He must disarm. And that's why I have constantly said — and

    the prime minister has constantly said — this issue will come to a head in a matter of weeks, not months."
    Despite

    intense lobbying by the United States and Britain, a second United Nations resolution was not obtained. The

    American-led military coalition invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, nine days after the target date set by the president

    on that late January day at the White House.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  13. #13
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default Author of "Lawless World" interviewed on Cheney's preexisting Iraq obsession

    According to an administration official, Iraq

    appears to have been Cheney's primary foreign policy concern immediately after the 2000 election, to the virtual

    exclusion of other issues in early administration briefings: Here is a direct video link, regarding Cheney's pre

    9/11 jumpstart on

    Iraq:

    http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Hardball-Sands

    3.wmv


    Here is an alternate link, where you have to scroll down a little

    bit:

    http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/03/28.html#a76

    93


    For those curious about the facts and details surrounding the early planning for the Iraq war, I again

    recommend the book, "Lawless World", by David Sands.

    And for a little more historic perspective, here is the

    neocon letter written to President Clinton demanding immediate military action to implement regime change in Iraq.

    It was signed by current administration members Richard Armitage

    John

    Bolton
    , Donald

    Rumsfeld
    ,

    and Paul Wolfowitz. It
    demonstrates that their intention to invade Iraq goes

    back to at least 1998. I was reminded of it again, as someone was passing it around my

    gym:

    http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclinton

    letter.htm
    Last edited by DrSmellThis; 03-28-2006 at 04:01 PM.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

  14. #14
    Doctor of Scentology DrSmellThis's Avatar
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    Default

    Ex-CIA agent says WMD

    intelligence ignored Reuters



    Fri Apr 21, 5:39 PM ET

    The CIA had evidence

    Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction six months before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion but was ignored by a

    White House intent on ousting Saddam Hussein, a former senior CIA official said according to CBS.
    Tyler

    Drumheller, who headed CIA covert operations in Europe during the run-up to the Iraq war, said intelligence opposing

    administration claims of a WMD threat came from a top Iraqi official who provided the U.S. spy agency with other

    credible information.
    The source "told us that there were no active weapons of mass destruction programs,"

    Drumheller said in a CBS interview to be aired on Sunday on the network's news magazine, "60 Minutes."
    "The

    (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer

    interested," he was quoted as saying in interview excerpts released by CBS on Friday.
    "We said: 'Well, what about

    the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'," added

    Drumheller, whose CIA operation was assigned the task of debriefing the Iraqi official.
    He was the latest former

    U.S. official to accuse the White House of setting an early course toward war in Iraq and ignoring intelligence that

    conflicted with its aim.
    CBS said the CIA's intelligence source was former Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and

    that former CIA Director George Tenet delivered the information personally to President George W. Bush, Vice

    President Dick Cheney and other top White House officials in September 2002. They rebuffed the CIA three days

    later.
    "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the

    policy," the former CIA agent told CBS.
    U.S. allegations that Saddam had WMD and posed a threat to international

    security was a main justification for the March 2003 invasion.
    A 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, to which the

    CIA was a major contributor, concluded that prewar Iraq had an active nuclear program and a huge stockpile of

    unconventional weapons.
    No such weapons have been found, however, and U.S. assertions that they existed are now

    regarded as a hugely damaging intelligence failure.
    But Drumheller, co-author of a forthcoming book entitled "On

    the Brink: How the White House Has Compromised American Intelligence," rejects the notion of an intelligence

    failure.
    "It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it's an intelligence failure," he told CBS. "This

    was a policy failure."


    Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is

    expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or

    delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

    Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights

    reserved.
    DrSmellThis (creator of P H E R O S)

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