[Dr. Frank fan]

Interesting, but they would have trumpeted this by now if this was true.

What makes you think so?

What is "trumpeting", exactly? Here's the ex-no 2 under Franks and he's saying this publicly. Is that not "trumpeting" it? Or what?

And if it's not true, he must be lying. Why do you think he is lying?

[Fred Fighter]

You wrote:

" What is "trumpeting", exactly? Here's the ex-no 2 under Franks and he's saying this publicly. Is that not "trumpeting" it? Or what?

And if it's not true, he must be lying. Why do you think he is lying?"

Good questions.

Addressing motive first:

He's promoting a book. The more publicity he gets the
more he can expect the book to sell and so the more
money he makes.

His statements provide support for one candidate running
for president. My observation has been that people often
misrepresent facts and slant their statements, e.g. lie
when the false impression so created favors a particular
political candidate.

So there are clear motives. So what? Everyone has
motives to lie.

There was plenty of information published about caravans
leaving Iraq for Syria immediately before and during the
invasion. Taken on its face, this is rather unremarkable.
The Russian envoy left in one such caravan
that was fired upon (by mistake one hopes) by US
forces. Whether or there were WMDs in any of those
caravans remains speculation unless one has an
intelligence source that had access to the contents.

Now, let us consider his sources as to the contents
of those caravans. We don't know what his source say
because he didn't say. Could it be that his sources
are classified? If so, the observations and conclusions
are also classified, until and unless official statement
is released.

I do not want to accuse the General of the unauthorized
release of classified information. What is left as the
best explanation is that he was speculating. I'd be
more than hesitant to call speculation 'knowing for
a fact' but I'm pretty conservative about that sort
of thing.

--

FF