On 8/4/06, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It is in the first Key Judgment on page 5 of the report (page 9 in Acrobat). The first two sentences read: "We judge that Iraq has continued its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program in defiance of the UN resolutions and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions; if left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapons program."
A program is not a weapon, just a plan to get rich is not money. You're reading it the way you want to, not using the meanings it makes clear. Do realize how very, very carefully they pick the language in these reports? Who and how many people review it (which actually is classified)? Where it says "weapons," if it mean "weapons of mass destruction," it would have said so. Maybe you think this is nitpicking... but this is an intelligence brief for the president and security council, they are very, very precise in what they say. If they weren't, then how would the consumers of the report know when they are talking about ordinary weapons, which Iraq certainly had, and WMDs? Even if you stretch the implications of the intelligence as much as you would, then it still doesn't present a foundation for what the administration said to justify the war. And more to the point of this thread, it doesn't provide a foundation for all the b.s. that so many people STILL think was true when we attacked. I think that's about enough for me on this. It's bad enough to live with whatever responsibility I have for this mess. I'm not going to demand that you take your head out of the sand, but I think that's just where it is. -- Nick Arnett [EMAIL PROTECTED] Messages: 408-904-7198 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
