How conflicts between the Administration and the CIA marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.

The New Yorker ^ | 10/20/03 | Seymour Hersh

[Gothmog]

I checked out the thread you linked to the Krugman article and checked the Krugman 'story' itself. He does mention Kristof, but I didn't see anything about his attending the Dem Senate 'policy' conference. Am I blind or dense? Establishing Kristof at that conference would be something, so any help you can offer I would appreciate, thanks.

[Gothmog]

That's clearer, thanks for pointing out Kristof being ID'd in the article I posted, ha ha ha. Like an idiot I was searching all the other posts and articles looking for Kristof. Thanks for paying more attention than me, ha ha ha.

[Gothmog]

I'll take the bet, but only because it's for a dollar. Not much to lose, but if either of us finds out he was, that would be very useful. We win either way. Maybe I should do some sort of search for news reports at that time for clues as to what the meeting was supposedly about.

Why would they invite Wilson, who just 'casually' mentioned his until-then secret intelligence report to partisan Dems?

Would they have invited him to discuss Rx drug reform? Taxes? Housing? Unemployment? Good question for the press. why was Wilson invited if not to leak supposedly secret CIA info to partisan Democrats.

I'll bet you Sen. Schumer was there, and that's why he became the point man over the summer to push for an 'official probe' to get the ball rolling so the 'scandal' could be used by the 'mainstream' press.

[Gothmog]

Thanks for looking. I don't have many resources other than Google and Ecola and some subscriptions, but maybe I can think of something. I've got to go until tomorrow, but I'll think on it (local library, maybe).

[piasa]

I missed this article by Sy Hersh but I don't know if you have seen it or not.

[piasa]

One Iraqi émigré who has heard from the scientists’ families is Shakir al Kha Fagi, who left Iraq as a young man and runs a successful business in the Detroit area. “The people in intelligence and in the W.M.D. business are in jail,” he said. “The Americans are hunting them down one by one. Nobody speaks for them, and there’s no American lawyer who will take the case.”

(* My note: Poor Sy, citing Shakir al-Khafaji- the guy who is caught up, like Samir Vincent, in the Oil for Food scandal for taking oil voucher bribes from Saddam Hussein.)

Not all the senior scientists are in captivity, however. Jafar Dhia Jafar, a British-educated physicist who coördinated Iraq’s efforts to make the bomb in the nineteen-eighties, and who had direct access to Saddam Hussein, fled Iraq in early April, before Baghdad fell, and, with the help of his brother, Hamid, the managing director of a large energy company, made his way to the United Arab Emirates.

(* My note: So, why didn't the UAE turn him over to us later on? Or was he safely in Europe's liberal arms by that time?)

Jafar has refused to return to Baghdad, but he agreed to be debriefed by C.I.A. and British intelligence agents. There were some twenty meetings, involving as many as fifteen American and British experts. The first meeting, on April 11th, began with an urgent question from a C.I.A. officer: “Does Iraq have a nuclear device? The military really want to know. They are extremely worried.” Jafar’s response, according to the notes of an eyewitness, was to laugh.

(* My note: why d we let an eyewitness take notes? How many people do we let get in on these things?)

The notes continued: Jafar insisted that there was not only no bomb, but no W.M.D., period. “The answer was none.” . . . Jafar explained that the Iraqi leadership had set up a new committee after the 91 Gulf war, and after the unscom inspection process was set up. . . and the following instructions from the Top Man —“give them everything.”

(* My note: Explain again why there was harassment of inspectors, bribery, and generally no cooperation whatsoever on Iraq's part again?)

The notes said that Jafar was then asked, “But this doesn’t mean all W.M.D.? How can you be certain?” His answer was clear: “I know all the scientists involved, and they chat. There is no W.M.D.”

(* My note: Ah. I see, he knows because of aled hearsay.)

Jafar explained why Saddam had decided to give up his valued weapons: Up until the 91 Gulf war, our adversaries were regional. . . . But after the war, when it was clear that we were up against the United States, Saddam understood that these weapons were redundant. “No way we could escape the United States.” Therefore, the W.M.D. warheads did Iraq little strategic good.

(* My note: Not even for a little bit o' blackmail against Iraq's neighbors?)

Jafar had his own explanation, according to the notes, for one of the enduring mysteries of the U.N. inspection process—the six-thousand-warhead discrepancy between the number of chemical weapons thought to have been manufactured by Iraq before 1991 and the number that were accounted for by the U.N. inspection teams. It was this discrepancy which led Western intelligence officials and military planners to make the worst-case assumptions. Jafar told his interrogators that the Iraqi government had simply lied to the United Nations about the number of chemical weapons used against Iran during the brutal Iran-Iraq war in the nineteen-eighties. Iraq, he said, dropped thousands more warheads on the Iranians than it acknowledged. For that reason, Saddam preferred not to account for the weapons at all.

(*My note: Sure he did! </sarcasm>

There are always credibility problems with witnesses from a defeated regime, and anyone involved in the creation or concealment of W.M.D.s. would have a motive to deny it.

(*My note: Ya think? Particularly a guy who fled - and was allowed to flee Iraq before the war to avoid being netted by the US or perhaps killed by the regime to cover their tracks?)

But a strong endorsement of Jafar’s integrity came from an unusual source—Jacques Baute, of the I.A.E.A....

(* My note: Hersh seriously wants us to accept Jaffar as credible because a French hack in the AEIA endorses his integrity? This, knowing France's history of supporting Hussein to make arms sales?)

[Fedora]

Thanks!

[First_Salute]

bttt

[piasa]

Jafar had his own explanation, according to the notes, for one of the enduring mysteries of the U.N. inspection process—the six-thousand-warhead discrepancy between the number of chemical weapons thought to have been manufactured by Iraq before 1991 and the number that were accounted for by the U.N. inspection teams. It was this discrepancy which led Western intelligence officials and military planners to make the worst-case assumptions. Jafar told his interrogators that the Iraqi government had simply lied to the United Nations about the number of chemical weapons used against Iran during the brutal Iran-Iraq war in the nineteen-eighties. Iraq, he said, dropped thousands more warheads on the Iranians than it acknowledged. For that reason, Saddam preferred not to account for the weapons at all.

Well, that's funny, Jaffar, considering that the New York Times reports in October 2014 that we found 5000 chemical warheads that you and the liberals "in the CIA" claimed weren't there.

NY Times Reveals Secrets of WMD Cover-Up In Iraq http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3215332/posts