Iraqi exile group fed news media false information

Miami Herald/Knight Ridder Newspapers ^ | 3/15/2004 | JONATHAN S. LANDAY and TISH WELLS

[JohnGalt]

I am concerned about the anti-patriotic men who would attempt to dupe their own countrymen.

I am doubly concerned that Wilsonians like yourself really don't care about the means only the execution of the policy, dreamed up in Think Tanks funded by pornographers like Murdoch and Ivy League classrooms where the geeks hung out because they were too girlish for football and hockey. It shows utter contempt for not only democracy but the institutions of our Republic.

[roses of sharon]

Remember, Saddam was our friend...he never had WMD...he never used WMD....he had no means to create them...he had no money to make them....he had no science to make them...he never had nuke material...Israel never destroyed Saddams nuke plant...he never fired on Israel...he never invaded his neighbors...he never threatened Israel, other Arab nations or the US....he never fought a war with the US...he never signed a surrender agreement...he never agreed to document his WMD distruction....he never attempted to kill a US President....he never murdered his people....his sons never murdered their people....he wanted a diplomatic relationship with the US....he and his sons hated OBL...OBL hated Saddam and Sons....he and his sons had NO common interests with Islamic terrorists....he never paid Islamic terrorists....or harboured Islamic terrorists...he hated Islam....he never shot at our planes in the no-fly-zones...he did not threated the US after 9/11....

Saddam and Sons were innocent and completely sane, and simply wanted to become a part of the international community.

[LibFreeUSA]

-"Remember, Saddam was..."

It's amazing what the 'critics' are forced to either DEFEND or IGNORE or both (I don't know which is more dangerous), in order to VALIDATE their criticism on this intelligence crap!

You have correctly stated all of them!

[El Gato]

Another defector told one interviewer that the aircraft fuselage on which Islamic extremists received training in hijacking belonged to a Boeing 707 and was quoted in a later story as saying that it came from a Russian-made Tupolev.

What difference does it make? When US Marines captured Salman Pak, the fuselage was there, just as the informers said it was, just as UN inspectors said it was, and as the satellite imagery no doubt showed it was and it was not from a 707. There were also a blown bus, 3 old train cars, and other evidence of use as terrorist training facility. See this AP article from nearly a year ago.

The place was also crawling with non Iraqi "fighters", that is terrorists, who tried to engage the Marines, although by the time the Marines captured the place, they were no longer there (of course not, since they had come out to engage the Marines, some are probably still around killing civilians, Westerners as well as Iraqis) The capture was mentioned just last night on the History Channel's "one year later" series on the invasion of Iraq.

[billbears]

You know after actually watching Chalabi on 60 Minutes the other night, it boggles my mind that a war was called for based on anything this man said. And after reading this list of what he claimed, it's even further amazing that anyone with half a brain cell would continue to believe him. I wonder, when whoever is still looking 20 years from now (probably still at our expense) and still doesn't find anything, will they still believe?

That defector complained in The Washington Post column that CIA interrogators in Ankara had treated him "dismissively" earlier that week.

Perhaps because those that are actually involved in intelligence moreso than PNAC talking points were able to see through him?

[JohnGalt]

If that is what the TV said then it must be true...

[JohnGalt]

Were the people, bright clearly capable men like Cheney, Perle, Feith... that allowed Chalabi to influence the process duped or were they willing dupers?

If they were duped the should resign out of respect for the institutions of our country but if its the latter, then what we are talking about is the supreme act of anti-patriotism and disrespect for the nation. No matter what, Watergate was a Third Rate burglary, but this was the process by which the nation went to war we are talking about, not a re-election battle. I cannot fathom simply saying so what without even asking for a simple remedy like a ceremonial dismissal or resignation.

Most likely this stuff will fade after 11/2004 and the focus will become geopolitics which important court historians will debate and write papers and secure government appointments when a Blue or a Green gets elected. The Tonkin Gulf incident and the fact that FDR knew a Pearl Harbor was coming but did nothing to prepare Hawaii become mere footnotes to the "big picture" the court historians will be paid by the New York publishing houses to publish.

And yet perhaps with God's grace academics will say 20 years from now, that here, "after a century of expansion by military conquest, the empire ebbed. The American people, for a variety of reasons, mostly economic, decided it wasn't worth it." Our generation will have accomplished what the three previous, (dare I say longer?)were unable to do in their lifetimes and perhaps they will even say that it was the GenXers who are the rightful heirs of the Republic the forefathers planned.

[meema]

Yes, roses, he was all of those things, but the President has an obligation to sell the war on those things. Not on what he did use. If he believed all the PNAC stuff, then he should tell us, and heads should roll. And we all know who helped screen and pick all those high placed officials...
It is not a crime to be misled...even a President can have that happen to him. But then he needs to clean house.
Because even I knew a long time ago that the administration was telling 'stories', and allowingg suvh stories to be passed around. My daughter-in-law, with whom I live, believed Sadaam was behind all this stuff. Every time I hear or think of the phrase, 'Smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud', I feel a chill and then ANGER. Because a large portion of the public believed them.
My family couldn't hardly believe that I was against the war against Iraq, until I explained what was happening. Talk about being SAD! I still hoped that W would take the bull by the horns, and explain to the people. I thought he had more than enough courage...
I was (past tense) so proud of him.
I haven't read the whole thread yet, but my thanks go to John Galt for his honest posts.

[El Gato]

If that is what the TV said then it must be true...

The only part that "the TV" said, was about the foreign fighters. And it wasn't just "The TV", but a Marine General, saying that. The rest was just from the first article that I can across. I'm sure there were others, I know there were several written before we had boots on the ground there. Where are your stories indicating that there was no fuseloge, no blown up bus, no foreign fighters?

[JohnGalt]

The CIA knew about the "fuselage" in Salman Pak since the late '80s. As they did then, and as they do now, they have found no evidence suggesting the location was the terrorist training ground the INC dupers and the porn magnate's tv station told its viewers.

[roses of sharon]

Go to the WH website, read the Pres speeches, he said it all, re-shaping the middle east, tyranny, regime change passed by the US congress in 98, democracy, terrorism, ect.

The WMD argument was used before the UN, to see if Saddam would produce documents on his distruction of them, ie, South Africa. Blair insisted on UN resolutions, Cheney resisted, for fear of giving Saddam time, he was right of course.

If you choose to believe that the exile group, made up of hundreds of professionals, world-wide intell, ie, Iran, SA, Israel, UK, Dems, Repub, liberals, conservatives, and hundreds of others all lied and misled for 12 years straight, and believe Saddam and Sons, you would be depending ENTIRELY on the predictability of a madman, and the future actions of his sons.

This Administration was prudent not to do so. The immoral policy of containment, that consigned millions to tyranny for decades was un-sustainable.

Your claim of the Administrations "stories", is un-founded.

These "stories" were also told by Sen Bob Graham, Democrat, Chairman of the Intell Comm, on 9/11. In Time mag. 9/24/01

He said there is "some evidence" that SH was involved, evidence that is "credible enough that you can't take Iraq off the list".

Dem Sen Jay Rockefeller, on 10/10/02, "There is UNMISTAKABLE EVIDENCE that SH is working agressively to develope nuclear weapons....if he is able to obtain fissile materials.....we have underestimated SH capabilites in the past...it's not just a future threat, he has existing bio and chem weapon capabilities today and tomorrow...he is working on delivery with aerial vehicles to use against our US forces and facilities in the ME...he could make available WMD to terrorist groups, 3rd parties, which have contact with his gov, who could bring them to the US,...9/11 showed us we cannot wait for a SMOKING GUN...I believe SH is an IMMINENT THREAT...AND AFTER 9/11 THAT QUESTION IS INCREASINGLY OUTDATED...Saddams' WMD threat is documented & his capabilites and intent are documented...to insist on futher evidence could put Americans at risk...do we want to take that chance?"

This Senate floor speech was not given by a "cabal" member or a neo-con.

The UK's independant comm. had a press conf, (c-span), of their findings on the "yellow-cake" "story", under hostile questioning, they said they saw the intell, and it was good intell, more that just the word of some exiles.

The Administrations fear of WMD was evident by the military's use of suits during the run to Bagdad. You say those fears were false, in hindsite. In time hopefully we will know.

Dem Senator Bob Kerry, said recently, "I think Iraq is going well, it breaks my heart when anybody dies, but we liberated 25 million people, it puts us on the side of democracy in the Arab world. Twenty years from now, we'll be hard pressed to find anyone who says it wasn't worth the effort, this is not just another democracy. This is a democracy in the Arab world."

We can agree to disagree on the Iraq war, on containment, on trusting Saddam and his Sons after sanctions are lifted, is one thing.

But to claim conspriacies, lies, ulterior motives, and to imply that Bush,Blair,Rice,Powell,Rumsfeld,Cheney, and hundreds of others with no history or reputations of corruption, suddenly turned mendacious, devious and sinister, and that Saddam and Sons were innocent, is illogical and un-serious.

This is not a sitcom to be resolved in a 1/2 hour.

Nor can conclusions be reached in a serious manner in an election year. But, political courage is not lacking in Bush, or he would not have taken out Saddam.

[goldstategop]

A hit piece against Iraq's democrats. Why, how dare they make fools of the partisan media! And hell hath no greater fury than a partisan media that finds itself being outfoxed in the public relations battle by its adversaries.

[JohnGalt]

Can you name one source anywhere that claims that Saddam and his sons were innocent?

Or is that just a canard you cynically invented to fill the vacuum of logic in your drive to see the execution of a Trotskyian project to rebuild a region of the world?

[JohnGalt]

Another Chalabi Republican.

[roses of sharon]

LOL, cut the drama John, it does not work with me.

[JohnGalt]

So a canard.

Pretty thin gruel.

[roses of sharon]

Get help.

[JohnGalt]

The Left has a long history of reducing their disagreements with the Right to mental illness.

[roses of sharon]

www.jewsruletheworld.com

[JohnGalt]

First you allege mental illness, and now, I assume, you are alleging antisemitism.

I can only assume you are a woman so I will try to be as polite as possible, but that is pretty pathetic.