[Sam Hill]

 

2003 Iraq Forum Online June 14, 2003 Washington, DC Iraq Forum Home Program Schedule | Program Report (PDF: 173K) 2002 Iraq Forum Online

The Iraq Forum online is packed with a list of presenters, their photos, brief biographies and links to their audio presentations at EPIC's 2003 Iraq Forum. In some cases, you will find links to written transcripts and visual slide presentations. You can listen to the entire 2003 Iraq Forum including presenters and discussion by clicking here. EPIC hopes this event will continue to stimulate learning and discussion throughout the year and with it, a better situation for Iraqis and U.S.-Iraq relations.

 

 

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address
EVENING KEYNOTE LECTURE

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in inner city Washington D.C. Hear Ray McGovern now.Or download and listen.

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV served as a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 until 1998. From 1988 to 1991, Ambassador Wilson served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. As acting Ambassador during "Desert Shield," he was responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the release of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before the launching of "Desert Storm." Ambassador Wilson graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972. He has been decorated as a Commander in the Order of the Equatorial Star by the Government of Gabon and as an Admiral in the El Paso Navy by the El Paso County Commissioners. He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children. Hear Ambassador Joe Wilson now.Or download and listen.

This is from a cached page on Google, which is why there are so many highlights.

http://tinyurl.com/dpg7l

[Albertafriend]

Re: #13: Please note date- June 14, 2003 -- one month before Novak's article.

Note also bio on Wilson -- "He is married to the former Valerie Plame."

When was this put on the web?

[Enchante]

It becomes obvious that this "Iraq Forum Online" is not some impartial and objective group but rather a far-left activist group, co-sponsored by "Voices in the Wilderness" and other far-left groups which worked hard to try to end sanctions long before the 2003 Iraq War. Thus, Joe Wilson was pals with the far-left 'movement' to undermine US policy and end sanctions (thus ending all economic containment of Saddam's WMD efforts) before he ever emerged as the public face of the "Niger uranium" issue.

A review of both the 2002 and 2003 programs of this group shows that it considers itself the 'movement' (activist, not academic) to first end sanctions and now end the US 'occupation'..... thus undermining Wilson's pretence that he was coming forth against the Bush administration as some dispassionate objective professional.... the previous year's (2002) event characterized the group as part of the "anti-sanctions movement" and it is led by a leader and co-founder of "Voices in the Wilderness"--

http://vitw.org/who_we_are/

And let's not forget that the previous (2002) "Iraq Forum Online" featured none other than the infamous Scott Ritter who was far into moonbat-land by that time.... and look at the list of far-left sponsoring groups -- and the fact that the 2003 "Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address"

Evening Public Lecture: A State of the Movement Address PEACE in IRAQ: VISION and CRITIQUE of the US ANTI-SANCTIONS MOVEMENT
Kathy Kelly, Co-Founder, Voices in the Wilderness Hear Kathy Kelly now. (23:06 min)

Ilham Heather Al-Sarraf, Ph.D., Iraq Civil Action Network Hear Ilham Al-Sarraf now. (21:00 min)
Scott Ritter, Retired Marine Captain, former UNSCOM Chief Weapons Inspector

Hear Scott Ritter now. (21:55 min)

Listen to the discussion. (25:56 min)
Listen to the Closing Remarks. (7:12 min)

Co-sponsoring Organizations: Arab American Institute, American Friends Service Committee, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Focus on American and Arab Interests and Relations (FAAIR), Friends Committee for National Legislation, American-Arab Anti-Descrimination Committee, American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, Church of the Brethren Washington Office, Mennonite Central Committee USA-Washington Office, Muslim American Society, NETWORK, Pax Christi, Peace Action, Veterans for Peace, Voices in the Wilderness, and Women's Action for New Directions. For a chronological view of the 2002 Iraq Forum, with additional talks and speakers including Scott Ritter, Louis Fisher and Kathy Kelly, see the Iraq Forum Schedule.

[Fedora]

I typed up a summary and partial transcript of the audio of Wilson's lecture from that site, which I'll post here for reference. I transcribed some of the more interesting quotations directly; the rest is summarized in outline form. The numbers in time format (xx:yy) indicate the number of minutes and seconds into the audio where the quotes indicated are found.

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I. Wilson's lecture:

A. Opening chit-chat

B. Niger

[1:25: "Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did."]

C. Critique of Bush's four reasons for going to war with Iraq

[Includes statements: 5:13: "Now here in the United States on September 11, 2001, we suffered the lost of two buildings in New York and severe damage to one building in Washington and we suffered the loss of roughly 3,000 lives. In Iraq during the Shock and Awe bombing campaign, we now know that over 3,000 Iraqis were killed. . .and Lord knows how many buildings in downtown Baghdad and elsewhere were destroyed. . .how can we possibly assume that the anger that we felt when 3,000 of our fellow citizens were killed is not going to be felt in spades--not just in Iraq where 3,000 deaths represents to the relative population 10 times the number of deaths we suffered in our terrorist attack; or throughout the rest of the world. . .Of course we didn't find any terrorists when we got to Iraq, just as we haven't yet found any weapons of mass destruction, though on that score I remain of the view that we will find chemical and biological weapons, and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons--not surprising if you live in a part of the world where you do have a nuclear-armed country, an enemy of yours, which is just a country away from you.". . .]

D. Argument against military intervention as means of liberation

[Includes statements: 14:05: "But I do know. . .that in order to have a liberation strategy, you have to have people who are willing to fight for their own liberation. Otherwise you will never get that liberation bounce that Ken Adelman promised us--that Richard Perle promised us, when he said that Iraqis would be cheering us from the rooftops at our marching in there." 15:52: "Evidence of that can be found in the Habbaninya gold market today. The price of gold jewelry in Habbaninya is cheaper than it is anywhere else in the world. And that is because the middle class has had to liquidate all their assets. In Iraq, like in many other parts of the world, people keep their assets, their wealth, in gold. . ."

E. Critiques results of war

[Includes statements: 19:00: "And even our military--and I speak to a lot of them; I used to be the political advisor to the commander in chief of US Armed Forces, Europe and I still have contacts in the command--even some of our military officers were absolutely dismayed at the slaughter they were inflicting upon poorly-trained, poorly-equipped Iraqi conscripts on the way up there."]

F. Predictions