Iraq admits on the brink of nuclear weapons

Post #67,455 by marlowe 12/9/02 9:00:18 AM Reply	Iraq admits on the brink of nuclear weapons [link\|http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/64044.htm\|Would they admit this much if they could possibly deny it?] Excerpt: December 9, 2002 -- A top adviser to Saddam Hussein admitted yesterday that Iraq is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. "We have the complete documentation, from design to all the other things," Lt. Gen. Amir al-Saadi told reporters in Baghdad. "We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb nor tested it." Details of the nuclear program are included in Iraq's 12,000-page declaration to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Saadi said. He insisted that despite knowing how to build a nuke, Iraq has not done so. [usual blithe denials snipped] I say: Let's not give them the chance. Now, why would they even admit this much? In order to show how honest Saddam is? It's twelve years too late for that. Only those who want badly to believe can possibly stretch credulity that far. Not even Al Gore can manage it. I think they had no choice. That the US had the goods on this particular item, and the Iraqi regime guessed this. Which means they'll only lie when they think they can get away with it. "What must it feel like to lose an election to a retarded monkey?" - Andrew Sullivan "The US party calls in mortar fire on the enemy positions. The UN party stands up, climbs over the lip of the trench, and recites Robert\ufffds Rules of Order as it approaches the machine-gun positions." - Lileks [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html] With luck: [link\|http://pascal.rockford.com:8888/SSK@jbf~W~x49RjZfyJwplqwurpNmg0PAgM/marlowe//\|http://pascal.rockfo...mg0PAgM/marlowe//]
Post #67,489 by Brandioch 12/9/02 10:29:34 AM Reply	Once again. You have a bit of trouble with the definitions of words, don't you? "on the brink"? By that usage, just about every country in the world is "on the brink" of developing nukes. Sure, they don't have the material or the capability, but they have the notes. Yet you're still unable to say when we're going to invade even after all your postings about how inspectors are finding violations in Iraq. If any of your posts were genuine, Bush would have ordered the invasion.
Post #67,502 by Simon_Jester 12/9/02 10:54:12 AM Reply	Now wait a minute... Iraq claims they're "on the brink". But wasn't Marlowe the one showing us articles/evidence that showed Iraq was "on the brink" 5+ years ago? Isn't this a "Duh"?
Post #67,531 by Brandioch 12/9/02 11:37:18 AM Reply	Perpetually, "on the brink". I seem to recall him also posting about, oh, 6 months ago that Iraq was only 6 months away from a nuclear weapon. And that we HAD to invade IMMEDIATELY or they'd develop one and use it on us. But THIS TIME it's for sure that they're only 6 months away! Now we REALLY have to invade IMMEDIATELY.
Post #128,415 by Simon_Jester 12/1/03 11:49:41 PM Reply	Then again, maybe not... Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say. Before that first Gulf War, the chief of the weapons program resorted to "blatant exaggeration" in telling Iraq's president how much bomb material was being produced, key scientist Imad Khadduri writes in a new book. Other leading physicists, in Baghdad interviews, said the hope for an Iraqi atomic bomb was never realistic. "It was all like building sand castles," said Abdel Mehdi Talib, Baghdad University's dean of sciences. Seven months after a U.S.-British invasion toppled Saddam's Baath Party government, Iraqi scientists have grown more vocal in countering Bush administration claims, used to justify the war, that Baghdad had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons development, and that it once was a mere six months from making a bomb. At best, Khadduri writes, it would have taken Iraq several years to build a nuclear weapon if the 1991 war and subsequent U.N. inspections had not intervened. [link\|http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Bombmakers\| Source ] 6 months away, eh?
Post #128,455 by jb4 12/2/03 9:20:09 AM Reply	More of that "Cheyney Intelligence" (which, as is becoming increasingly clear, is an oxymoron....) jb4 "There are two ways for you to have lower Prescription-drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper ... or you can elect me President." John Kerry
Post #128,458 by marlowe 12/2/03 9:43:38 AM 12/2/03 10:09:33 AM Reply	So we allegedly had several years... and no way of knowing. I for one am glad we didn't take that chance. Particularly since we don't even know your sources have got it right. Two things we know for a fact: 1. Saddam was actively pursuing WMDs. 2. In Ba'athist Iraq, pretty much everybody lied to everybody else. But, wait a minute... Does this include dirty bombs? Aren't they supposed to be much easier to make? We know he had all the ingredients for that, including the delivery system, because... [link\|http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/Iraq/2003/06/05/104390-ap.html\|we actually found the stuff.] I think it's safe to say he was six months away from a dirty bomb. And it's not at all farfetched - even now - that he was six months way from an A-bomb. ---------------------------------------------------------------- DEAL WITH IT. "If I may be candid for a moment, and let's see you try to stop me..." - Jay Conrad Levinson Compromise is for suckers. Seeking a middle ground is what led to 9/11. "I do not want to be admired by scumbags and liars and wife beaters. I want to be admired by good and decent, intelligent and just people, and in order to achieve this I need to do things that make me despised by their opposites." - Bill Whittle Never mind all the mass graves. Where's the nerve gas? [link\|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html\|http://www.angelfire...arlowe/index.html] Edited by marlowe Dec. 2, 2003, 10:09:33 AM EST Expand All History
Post #128,479 by bepatient 12/2/03 11:44:45 AM Reply	Re: Then again, maybe not... Well if all of these lies were on official documents and being fed up the chain of command...our intel might have been good enough to get all of these documents and believe, essentially, what Sadam himself believed...that these things were being accomplished. So then, now you are telling me our intel is bad because we were seeing all of the same official documents that Sadam himself was seeing. I'm gonna have to work this one out....because you're saying that intel that got us info from the highest level of Iraqi government...whcih would in any intel circles be called >great< intel...is actually bad intel because the official documents (that were believed by the official government in place at the time) were lies. Lies that were so good that even their own government couldn't figure them out. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #128,485 by Simon_Jester 12/2/03 12:35:51 PM Reply	Keep working it... because bad sources are a given in the intelligence world. Every professional expect that. And there is the possibility that our intelligence sources were getting what Saddam was getting - believing everything. But I don't think so.... I still think that certain sources became gospel without their info being fully vetted and verified. Example: [link\|http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/10/22/hamza.cnna/\| Khidhir Hamza ] Dr. Khidhir Hamza was educated in the United States, then was deceptively persuaded to return to Iraq by Saddam Hussein, where for over 20 years he was forced to work at developing an atomic weapon. In 1994, he defected to the U.S. Embassy in Hungary. Dr. Hamza now works as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy, and is the author of "Saddam's Bomb Maker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda." He came up with some interesting [link\|http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A32095-2003Feb5¬Found=true\|theories...] Afterward, this odd, portly pair -- Perle the Washington insider, Hamza the former paladin of Saddam's palace -- get down to the details. They delight in swapping the latest intelligence about how Iraq may have modified aluminum tubes to enrich uranium. I think he's the primary source for all of our Nuclear intel on Iraq. Trouble is...was he telling us the truth, or what we wanted to hear? Were there other sources? Certainly. Imad Khadduri left Iraq in 1998, for example. And certainly they confirmed that Saddam was interested in Nuclear Weapons and efforts were undertaken to hide some equipment and stuff. But - did anyone ever full check on Hamza's story? If not, why not?
Post #128,488 by bepatient 12/2/03 12:55:09 PM Reply	Not quite... ...what I see here are 2 >inside< sources...each telling us there were programs in place...and if the other report is correct, we have internal official documents that verify the statements of these 2 >inside< sources. It became, then, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Our "defectors" tell us about weapons programs, internal government sources also tell us about them. This is part of vetting intel...multiple unrelated sources describing the same information and programs. At that point, taking this to the Pres would no longer be considered "stovepiping"...its passing along verified and vetted intelligence. Granted the intel may have been (or >was<) incorrect...but it was information that was not only believed by our intel community...but by host country government as well. It would be very hard at ANY point, >>>if this is the case<<<, to lay blame on anyone in the US government for making decisions based on this intelligence. For all that Sadam knew, he >had< a nuclear weapons program. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #128,493 by jb4 12/2/03 2:06:36 PM Reply	Something not entirely clear These two defectors are telling us the things that were in reports that they themselves generated. Hmmmm... And (at least) one of those defectors had a serious axe to grind with Boo-foo...perhaps enough that, by manipulating the intel (or, more accurately, continuing to manipulate the intel), he could goad the Most Powerful Nation in the World to smite his own personal infidel. Hmmmm... After all, these people are rocket scientists! And feeding the same laundered and/or manufactured data to a frother like Perle is most assuredly not beyond his capability, now is it? Certainly something to consider...we went to war as a personal vendetta by some Iraqi rocket scientists. Hmmmm... jb4 "There are two ways for you to have lower Prescription-drug costs. One is you could hire Rush Limbaugh's housekeeper ... or you can elect me President." John Kerry
Post #128,510 by Simon_Jester 12/2/03 5:09:22 PM Reply	Bzzt...sorry... ...what I see here are 2 >inside< sources...each telling us there were programs in place...and if the other report is correct, we have internal official documents that verify the statements of these 2 >inside< sources. nope..you don't have 2 inside source each telling you that there were programs in place. You have 3 (actually more) sources telling you that programs were in place. Furthermore, all but one of them are telling you that programs were destroyed. Furthermore, your fairly good source tell you that they went to ENORMOUS lengths to hide whatever evidence/data they had of their program. This is all valid evidence. You have one source telling you that they're working on programs RIGHT NOW. (None of the others did - and I've got one who said they never worked on it afterward and were lying in their reports to Saddam.) Now, Saddam is probably not a nuclear scientist. So evidence given to him should probably fool him pretty easily. However, our CIA/NSA/DSA guys SHOULD have nuclear weapons expects...and any evidence that would go to Saddam should go to them as well. Now, if they were fooled, I MIGHT believe you...but I haven't seen any evidence of that (and I have a hard time believing that). In fact, I've got evidence that they weren't easily fooled -- the Niger Uranium document, for example. Nevermind other intel such as material movement that can be used to assist in determining whether or not a person is telling you the truth. So, either the Iraqi Scientists fooled everyone (including our trained experts)....even to the point of ignoring the one Iraqi Scientist whom has been yelling all along that Iraq didn't have a nuclear program. Or a select group (Richard Perle) ignored evidence to the contrary and listened to an apparent single source to support a position he had already taken. And I still haven't seen any evidence that anyone has attempted to verify this source was legimate.
Post #128,513 by bepatient 12/2/03 5:41:52 PM Reply	I'm just extrapolating from what I saw here. But, I see I misread the initial revival post of this thread...that apparently states that the lying stopped after the first war. In which case my wondering aloud about self-vetting intel is all bullshit anyway :-) So in the immortal words of Roseanne Rosannadanna... "Never mind." If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #128,515 by Simon_Jester 12/2/03 6:01:09 PM Reply	Nyah...just goes to show... That ol' Lt. Gen. Amir al-Saadi was probably not a nuclear scientist and believed what his scientists were telling...(probably because he would've killed them if that didn't say what he wanted them to say.) Apparently some of our Generals (who are probably not nuclear scientists) believed these same scientists. I'm glad we've got smarter Generals, right?
Post #140,784 by Simon_Jester 2/9/04 7:20:32 PM Reply	More stuff - DIA claimed defector not reliable.... An Iraqi military defector identified as unreliable by the Defense Intelligence Agency provided some of the information that went into United States intelligence estimates that Iraq had stockpiles of biological weapons at the time of the American invasion last March, senior government officials said Friday. [...] Intelligence officers from the D.I.A. interviewed the defector twice in early 2002 and circulated reports based on those debriefings. They concluded he had no firsthand information and might have been coached by the Iraqi National Congress, the officials said. That group, headed by Ahmad Chalabi, who had close ties to the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney, had introduced the defector to American intelligence, the officials said. [link\|http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/politics/07INTE.html\| NY Times ]
Post #129,612 by Simon_Jester 12/8/03 10:41:42 AM Reply	Interesting memo... [link\|http://www.msnbc.com/news/1002223.asp\| MS-NBC ] THE MEMO, obtained by NEWSWEEK, suggests that the INC last year was directly feeding intelligence reports about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to terrorism to one of Cheney\ufffds top foreign- policy aides. Cheney staffers later pushed INC info\ufffdincluding defectors\ufffd claims about WMD and terror ties\ufffdto bolster the case that Saddam\ufffds government posed a direct threat to America. But the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have strongly questioned the reliability of defectors supplied by the INC. For months, Cheney\ufffds office has denied that the veep bypassed U.S. intelligence agencies to get intel reports from the INC. But a June 2002 memo written by INC lobbyist Entifadh Qunbar to a U.S. Senate committee lists John Hannah, a senior national-security aide on Cheney\ufffds staff, as one of two \ufffdU.S. governmental recipients\ufffd for reports generated by an intelligence program being run by the INC and which was then being funded by the State Department. Under the program, \ufffddefectors, reports and raw intelligence are cultivated and analyzed\ufffd; the info was then reported to, among others, \ufffdappropriate governmental, non-governmental and international agencies.\ufffd The memo not only describes Cheney aide Hannah as a \ufffdprincipal point of contact\ufffd for the program, it even provides his direct White House telephone number. The only other U.S. official named as directly receiving the INC intel is William Luti, a former military adviser to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich who, after working on Cheney\ufffds staff early in the Bush administration, shifted to the Pentagon, where he oversaw a secretive Iraq war-planning unit called the Office of Special Plans.

Welcome to IWETHEY!