WMDs were found in Iraq...

• WMDs were found in Iraq... - sm
  • The truth about WMDs in Iraq... - sm
  • What's listed here for Iran-Iraq War time - were supplied by
    • Mustard and Sarin Nerve Gas... - sm
      • US used mustard and nerve gas in Fallujah. - Pot calls kettle black? sm
        • According to Aljazeera??? - nm
        • Here is a link for you saying differently... - sm
      • Did you notice the date? Have you checked out - the govt reports and the...sm
        • My point is, that many here have said nothing ever found... - sm
  • LOL! It isn't April Fool's Day yet! - Marmann
  • Did you finally emerge from your coma? - These links are so old....sm
    • Here are the links again... - sm
  • Oh, puhleeze - Dubious MT
  • You must be really bored....LOL - Just the big bad
    • And what does that make you? - smm
      • mildly amused - Just the big bad
        • I just look under my son's bed - historian

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http://www.discovery.org/blogs/discoveryblog/2008/01/truth_about_wmd_in_iraq_uncove_1.php

CBS' Sixty Minutes devoted most of its Sunday program to one revealing story, an account of the remarkably productive seven month long interrogation of Saddam Hussein by FBI agent George Piro, an Arabic speaking American of Lebanese descent. According to the way the story was handled on the air and in the CBS online account of it, as well as the way the international press picked it up, the big news was that Saddam got rid of his WMD in the 1990s, but refused to prove it--even when threatened by U.S. attack. The reasons, he said, were that he feared revealing Iraq's weakness to its real enemy, Iran, and that he needed the perception of WMD to maintain his prestige at home. He also believed that the worst that President George W. Bush would do to him was to drop some bombs, the way President Clinton had done in 1998.

But that story, interesting as it might be, is not altogether new. Moreover, it does not compare to the golden news nugget lodged deep within the Sixty Minutes segment; namely, that Saddam expressly told Piro that he had planned to restart the WMD program in all phases--"chemical, biological and nuclear"--within a year after the lifting of U.N. sanctions. The 9/11 attacks and the reactions to them set back his plan, but didn't eliminate it.

This stated intention of Saddam constitutes fresh justification for the American-led invasion in 2003. Had the United States accepted the view that Iraq lacked WMD and no longer posed a threat, it would have been only a matter of time before new WMD efforts by Iraq were undertaken. And, once the West had stood down in 2003, the second round of WMD development would have been far harder to stop. By now--in 2008--Saddam could well have had the WMD he wanted all along. Iran, meanwhile, would have been given urgent incentive to move forward more quickly on its own WMD program. The Bush Administration knew all this, but now we have a report of Saddam himself confirming it.

There is little reason in this case to doubt either the veracity of Piro or the candor of Saddam. Certainly in its Sixty Minutes program, CBS and reporter Scott Pelley, demonstrate complete faith in Piro and the FBI reports. The FBI, says the CBS story, rates the Piro interrogation as one of the top achievements of the Bureau's past 100 years of existence. If, then, the Piro interrogation can be trusted, Saddam's plain statement that he had planned to construct WMD again also must be credited. In fact, it is credited in the Sixty Minutes program. However, it also is completely played down there, both in the program itself and in the CBS news account derived from it. The press stories that covered the program followed CBS' lead and lede. Most press stories that I found online omitted altogether Saddam's statements that he had always planned to restart his WMD program.

How could CBS News step on its own big story, and produce a minor story instead? Perhaps the answer is that for over five years now CBS and most Western media have followed the liberal party line has discounted President Bush's concerns about WMD, judging them either a deceit or a delusion. The American president was either malign ("Bush Lied, People DIed") or a dunce. As a third option, charitable interpreters on the left (and some on the right) have described Bush as sadly misinformed by his intelligence services and led to make the tragic mistake of invading Iraq. It took a long time, with day after day of news twists, but variations on these views finally suffused public opinion and persuaded a majority of Americans against the wisdom of the Iraq War. Who can doubt that those views are largely responsible for Bush's relatively low public approval ratings and his difficulty mobilizing public and Congressional support for prosecuting the war?

To showcase its program properly, Sixty Minutes would have led with something like this: "Revelations from a six month long FBI interrogation of Saddam Hussein conducted before his trial indicate that while the Iraqi dictator lacked weapons of mass destruction at the time of the American and Coalition attack in 2003, he fully intended to restart his WMD projects as soon as U.N. sanctions against Iraq were lifted. After months of elaborate interrogation by an Arabic speaking FBI agent, Saddam candidly acknowledged his plans. It would seem now that the US may well have had ample reason to attack Iraq, after all, though not for the exact reasons emphasized at the time."

Instead of that kind of news story, Scott Pelley leads Piro--an appealing, intelligent FBI agent of the kind that brings great credit to the bureau--on a somewhat rambling review of the extensive mental and emotional seduction of Saddam. Piro is presented as the FBI agent operationally in charge of Saddam's interrogation, but he clearly was part of a large team. The saga told on TV ruminates on such matters as Saddam's distrust of Osama bin Laden, the problems the FBI has finding Arabic speakers, and the terrible poetry Saddam wrote in prison and the way Piro flattered him about it. Then it turns finally to the gassing of the Kurds in 1998, a genocidal act for which Saddam told Piro he took personal responsibility and pronounced "necessary".

Only then does CBS have Pelley drop in this little handgrenade: "In fact, says Piro, Saddam intended to use weapons of mass destruction again someday.

"'Saddam had the engineers. The folks he needed to reconstruct his program were still there,'" FBI agent Piro reports.

"'That was his intention?'" asks Pelley.

"'Yes.'

"'What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?'

Answers Piro, "'He wanted pursue all of W.M.D. (sic)'

"'He wanted to reconstitute all of his W.M.D program--chemical, biological, even nuclear?'

"'Yes.'

And that is all there is of that!

As a matter of news judgment, I submit that if Saddam had told Piro that he really had no plans to start a new WMD program after the old one was dismantled, that would have been played up big by CBS and the mainstream media. But the fact that he said the opposite has been all but buried. The whole Piro interrogation of Saddam cries out for much more extensive coverage and maybe a Congressional hearing. Eventually, the whole story would make a fine documentary showing how the Iraq War, bad as it has been, probably spared Iraq and the world a much worse fate.

Meanwhile, even the conservative media seem to be missing the significance of this story. Most are simply ignoring the Piro interrogations altogether. The conservative online news service, NewsMax.com, does write about the CBS program, but mainly to take credit for having had it before CBS, citing an article from a new book by Ronald Kessler (The Terrorist Watch: Inside the Desperate Race to Stop the Next Attack, Crown Forum books). NewsMax relegates Saddam's stated intention to reconstruct his WMD program to a minor theme in its story, the major theme of which is the fascinating interrogation project itself.

Am I alone in recalling the weight put on the WMD issue when we invaded Iraq? I remember, in fact, thinking that the WMD threat should not have been forced to carry so much of the argument, since it was only one of several reasons to remove Saddam (e.g., his continued threats to his neighbors, his provocative attempted assassination of former President George H. W. Bush, his financial support of terrorism against Israel, his succor for assorted terrorists-on-the-lamb, and especially his many violations of the Gulf War truce terms). Most of these reasons, alone, would have constituted a justifiable casus belli. But, largely for diplomatic reasons at the United Nations, the threat of WMD was emphasized. Later, after the investigation, that threat seemed to be discredited and with in, in many eyes, the whole justification for the war.

I'll bet the FBI and its agent George Piro have very good knowledge and memories on the subject. So, undoubtedly, does George W. Bush.

Everything they did is suspect - all under layers upon layers of secrecy. If it was correct, legal and moral - WHY DID THEY HIDE IT?

(I can't understand why they must keep lying.)

Lawmakers Cite Weapons Found in Iraq

Thursday, June 22, 2006; A10

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.

We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons, Santorum said.

The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.

The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

-- Dafna Linzer

I see where Perle and Rice take exception to some of his statements, but that's all I could find.  And I guess that would expected as they do have to protect themselves.  Also, it's very hard to find opinions that do not have a noticeable right or left slant.  If anyone out there has suggestions on middle-of-the-road, non-politically-sided information sites please let me know.

My point was how many people have to step forward and report that the White House manipulated the truth before it gets addressed?  How many can you dismiss as saying they had a book to sell, or they were protecting their careers, etc.?  At what point does some of what they are saying (Clark, Tenet, Powell to name a few) become believable?

An eagle-eyed reporter for the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, noticed something missing from Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., lapels.

"You don't have the American flag pin on. Is that a fashion statement?" the reporter asked, at the end of a brief interview with Obama on Wednesday. "Those have been on politicians since Sept. 12, 2001."

Catch David Wright's report tonight on "World News with Charles Gibson."

The standard political reply to that question might well have been, "My patriotism speaks for itself."

But Obama didn't say that.

Instead the Illinois senator answered the question at length, explaining that he no longer wears such a pin, at least in part, because of the Iraq War.

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

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"Instead," he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

In Iowa, some Obama supporters applauded the candidate's fashion statement. Said Carrie Haurum of Waterloo: "He doesn't need to wear that flag on his lapel. He wears it in his heart."

But talk radio and cable news quickly pounced on the issue.

"It just shows you he's not ready for the big time," conservative Laura Ingrams opined on Fox News.

Said Sean Hannity: "Why do we wear pins? Because our country is under attack!"

The Obama campaign declined to expand on the senator's statement. Spokesman Bill Burton said, "His comments speak for themselves."

But, Obama responded to the mini controversy.

"I'm less concerned with what you're wearing on your lapel than what's in your heart," Obama said Thursday while campaigning in Independence, Iowa.

"You show your patriotism by how you treat your fellow Americans, especially those who serve. And you show your patriotism by being true to your values and ideals. And that's what we have to lead with, our values and ideals," Obama said.

Of course, if he had said that in the first place, he might have avoided any controversy.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml

I'm forwarding this to Alan Combs, Greta Van Sustern (sp) and Bill O'Rielly.  Thanks.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

AIKEN -- The 6-year-old Aiken girl who'd been dead for up to 14 hours before being taken to a hospital was beaten to death, authorities said Thursday.

And the woman who called Chaquise Gregory her life and her baby is being charged with homicide in the child's death.

1 / 2

Special

Aiken County Department of Public Safety officers lead a handcuffed Kathy Salley away from her residence in the 500 block of Abbeville Avenue. She is charged with homicide by child abuse.

Aiken police arrested Kathy Salley, 26, at her Aiken home Thursday evening and booked her into the Aiken County Deten¤tion Center.

She'll be charged with homicide by child abuse this morning, Aiken Public Safety Sgt. David Turno said.

Police arrested Ms. Salley on an outstanding warrant for fraudulent checks to get her in jail, he said.

An autopsy found that Chaquise, who'd moved to a home in the 500 block of Abbeville Avenue in Aiken with Ms. Salley in May or early June, died from a severe beating, he said.

Authorities had already revealed that Chaquise had been dead between 10 and 14 hours when Ms. Salley took her to an Aiken hospital June 23.

"That's all we can tell you," Sgt. Turno said. "I do not believe they're going to go into the full evidence of the case, but we do know it was from a severe beating."

Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton said he couldn't release many details about what killed Chaquise, except that the beating "caused some internal-type malfunction in the body that caused her death."

Mr. Carlton said there were no drugs found in the child's system, but "there were some older injuries that we're looking into that may or may not have been related to previous abuse."

The autopsy found no broken bones, but there was evidence of past breaks.

Mr. Carlton said the initial results indicate that the child was not sexually abused, but he would not rule it out completely.

She was not molested "that I'm aware of at this point," he said.

Capt. Maryann Burgess, who has been the investigator in the case, said she can't say how many others may have been involved in Chaquise's death or what charges they face.

"We know where they are," she said.

She said investigators also have not been able to verify that Ms. Salley had legal custody of Chaquise, which she claimed.

If convicted of homicide by child abuse, Ms. Salley faces between 20 years in prison and a life sentence.

In an interview with The Augus¤ta Chronicle on June 27 - five days after Chaquise was pronounced dead - Ms. Salley denied any wrongdoing in her death. Ms. Salley said she'd raised Chaquise since she was 3 years old.

"She was the only child I could ever have," she said, and questioned how the girl's biological family could think she was responsible.

Ms. Salley hinted that another person living with her and Chaquise - and who m she said she'd left the child with the night before - may have had something to do with the little girl's death.

"I can't point fingers when I don't know what went on in this house while I was gone," she'd said.

According to preliminary autopsy results that were released soon after her death, Chaquise had been dead between 10 and 14 hours before Ms. Salley took her to Aiken Regional Medical Centers.

Capt. Burgess said the additional autopsy results she received Wednesday led to Ms. Salley's arrest.

Ms. Salley told The Chronicle that authorities found bruises on Chaquise's arm and bottom, and cigarette burns on her shoulder and back.

Mr. Carlton said investigators are still trying to determine whether those marks were cigarette burns.

"It's just a tragic incident that was visited on a defenseless child," Mr. Carlton said. "And if the allegations are all true, then we certainly hope that the law and criminal justice system will be the defender of this child's rights."

It supposedly was a mistake, and it's been changed.  Unfortunately, the groups involved in complaining about this are much less than credible, and it's impossible for me to just take what they say at face value.  I don't believe they're above just inventing propaganda just so they can blame it all on the immoral liberals.

If it truly was a mistake, it was a stupid mistake, and I'm glad they fixed it.  It's too bad that I just don't know who I can believe and who I can trust any more.

From an obscure site called Rogers Cadenhead.  The remainder of the stories, from the LA Times, etc., did not include anything about U.S. Troops protecting the Hezbollah sympathizers. 

Actually I was looking for a physician name and this came up with their name on it.... Got to looking at it and you can put in a name, zip code, etc. and it will show you who has financially supported different candidates...... the link I'm putting here has "jones" just as a general name.

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=jones&fname=&search=Search

I would.  I just don't view the whole concept of abortion as funny in the least, and I find jokes about it, in any capacity, to be especially sick and demented. 

Rachel Maddow doesn't even know what the movement is all about and doesn't care to find out. She makes a big joke out of it, all the while ridiculing and making an a$$ out of the people who are going to participate and only because Fox News will be there to cover it.

I think she needs to come down to earth.

Because I am infinitely quizzical about most things and the rising cost of healthcare was on my mind, I did a little browsing and came across this document:

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm

Now keep in mind this is information compiled is from a think tank funded by some of the biggest corporations, including insurance corps for the betterment and furtherance of the regressive conservative ideal, so I was rather surprised to see these numbers so beautifully printed in black and white. 

It shows exactly how much we are paying for healthcare in the United States and it is rather astounding.  Far more of our GDP, about 15.5% (the highest in the world) goes to healthcare.  Almost double that other industrialized nations that have socialized healthcare. 

I think this is a pretty good argument against a free market healthcare system being the most efficient and the best, it is just the most expensive and at the rate it has been exploding, it is going to increase the number of uninsured. 

Why is it so expensive?  Because the insurance companies are pacing the market.  Some things should just NOT be included in the free market enterprise, and healthcare is one of them.  We get sicker and the insurance companies get fatter.