On 8/3/06, jdiebremse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
All are quotations: We judge that Iraq has... chemical and biological weapons. (5)
Weapons, yes. But don't be misled into thinking this means weapons of mass destruction. The NIE makes it clear that it does not. Since inspections ended in 1998 Iraq has... energized its missile
program and invested more heavily in biolgical weapons; in the view of most agencies, Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. (5)
But there was no evidence or judgement that Iraq had any WMDs or any weapons that posed an immediate threat. As has been pointed, out, the NIE said just the opposite, that there was little chance that it posed a threat. If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad [JDG -
i.e. Nigerian yellowcake] it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year. Without such material from abroad, Iraq would probably not be able to make a [nuclear] weapon until 2007 or 2009. (10) Iraq retains approximately two-and-a-half tons of 2.5 percent enriched uranium oxide, which... could... produce... about two nuclear weapons. ...Iraq could divert this material - the IAEA inspects it only once a year - and enrich it to weapons grade before a subsequent inspection discovered it was missing. (24-25)
Could... might... in the future... This is not what the administration said to justify the war. They said that Iraq had WMDs, that they knew where they were, that we'd find them as soon as we invaded, etc., etc. Webster's defines "imminent" as "ready to take place; especially: hanging threateningly over one's head." Cheney 8/26/2002 "What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness." Rumsfeld, 9/18/02 "Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent - that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons." Rumsfeld, 9/19/02 "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." State of the Union Address – 1/28/2003 "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." "U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents." "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." Bush - 10/2/02 "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency." Bush – 10/7/2002 "Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at [past nuclear] sites." Cheney - 3/16/2003 "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Rumsfeld - 9/19/02 "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq." Bush 10/2/02 "The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency. . . . It has developed weapons of mass death" Bush - 10/3/02 "There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is." Bush - 11/1/02 "Today the world is...uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq." Bush - 11/23/02 "The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands." White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett - 1/26/03 Asked, "is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests," replied "Well, of course he is." White House spokesman Scott McClellan - 2/10/03 "This is about imminent threat." Rumsfeld - 3/25/03 "The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed." Ari Fleisher - 5/7/2003 Asked "Didn't we go to war because we said WMD's were a direct and imminent threat to the U.S?"; responded, "Absolutely." Now that you have read this, surely you cannot still believe that the administration's arguments for the were supported by the intelligence. How do we deal with this? An easy answer would be to blame conservatives and run to the left. But blame has never healed any wounds. I think that somehow we have to acknowledge what really happened, take responsibility for it as a nation (rather than blaming one political faction), talk about it, memorialize it and seek to identify whatever good might come out of it. I don't think that our military power can redeem the error, but I do believe the error can be redeemed. We can't start to do any of that until we can acknowledge what happened and what it meant to each of us. Nick -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
