CONGRESS'S Secret Saddam Tapes

New York Sun ^ | February 7, 2006 | Eli Lake

[IrishMike]

"The House Permanant Select Committee on Intelligence is studying hours of audio recordings between Saddam Hussein and his top advisors that may provide clues to the whereabouts of Iraq's WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION. The committee has already confirmed through the intelligence community that the recordings of saddam's voice are AUTHENTIC, according to it's chairman, REP. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, who would not go into detail about the nature of the conversations or their context." " The audio recordings are part of new evidence the House Intelligence Committee is piecing together that has spurred Mr Koekstra to reopen the question of whether Iraq had the BIOLOGICAL, CHEMICAL and NUCLEAR weapons American weapons inspectors could not turn up." They were provided to his committee by a former Federal prosecutor, John Loftus, who says he received them from a former American military intelligence analyst.

[Coop]

The pathetic thing is that Colin Powell heard these tapes and he KNEW too, but chose to distance himself from President Bush.

Where'd you get that from? Source, please?

[StarCMC]

"see no evil hear no evil" congresscritters

Nah -- they're to busy on the doing no evil. / sarcasm

[nuconvert]

There have been a couple of articles posted on these tapes and how slow the translating has been of the tapes and also the translating of millions of documents seized.

[Ma3lst0rm]

The WMD question is one that has the potential to seal the doom of Democrats. I'm sure the Bush administration has more than enough ammo to sink them the question is why haven't they did it yet? It may be shrewd calculation or it might be because they don't want to be forced to deal with Syria yet. I'd be wary if I were the left, the trap has been set.

[rodguy911]

Like minds. Like I often say the next terror attack comes to us courtesy of your Democrat Party. It's all on their shoulders. They have proved they want nothing to do with the WOT unless it makes them look good. They are nothing better than traitors, IMHO.

[Coop]

We have Gen. Georges Sada, Saddam's # 2 man, who testified before our "see no evil hear no evil" congresscritters and told them what they should have already figured out, that 56 flights of a gutted 707 and 747 were made from Iraq to Damascus all carrying WMD's,poisonous gas.

He wasn't his #2, and he's selling a book. While I don't doubt the story, I do doubt some of the details (like the above flights). I wouldn't hold this guy up as a litmus test.

[b4its2late]

Bring 'em out. It'll make this inquisition in the Senate, led by Specthole and bouyed by VP Graham, look pitiful (which it is).....

[rodguy911]

for sure.

[Coop]

Gosh Coop - 13 posts and no one's saying there are no WMD's!! Is this a record??

I think they're all kicking and scratching over on one of the NSA surveillance threads.

[StarCMC]

"Facts are stubborn things. " -Ronald Reagan

[mware]

Damn it to hell. Don't those idiots know that the president has allowed himself to take a beating on the issue of no WMD. Knowing that the information would eventually lead us to them.

Now these fools release it in time for Syria to hide them yet again.

[Coop]

There have been a couple of articles posted on these tapes and how slow the translating has been of the tapes and also the translating of millions of documents seized.

Oh, I've read a lot of stuff on the tapes and slow translation. The new nugget for me was the one week between delivery of said tapes to Congress and the re-opening of Intel's WMD investigation.

[rodguy911]

You just asked the $64,000 question, lots of us would like to know why. As well as the border, the budget a few other out of character things we have been doing. I support GW 1,000% but sooner or later you have to face up to reality on some issues.

[bonfire]

Apparently, there's no such thing as "traitor" anymore. Words can't even describe how I feel about them. Did you watch the FISA hearings yesterday? Gonzales should have walked out.

[tiki]

I don't know about this. I'm not getting too excited yet.

[kabar]

The chairman of the House intelligence panel said he is frustrated with the American intelligence community's lack of curiosity on following up these leads, particularly the story from Mr. Sada. "I talked to one person relatively high up in DNI, and I asked him about this and asked are they going to follow up, and he looked at me and said, 'No we don't think so.' At this point, I guess you guys don't get it.

"I am trying to find out if our postwar intelligence was as bad as our pre-war intelligence, " Mr. Hoekstra said.

US Intelligence has a vested interest in downplaying this information. Laurie Mylroie's Bush vs the Beltway details how the career bureaucracies at State and the CIA have again and again discounted intelligence that Saddam had WMD and links to AQ.

[Coop]

By the way, I incorrectly thought you made a simple error on the title. I was rather dismayed to see a journalist and newspaper editor used "Congress's".

[rodguy911]

It's hard to judge any of this without being on the scene yourself, which is near impossible. But, I know he was very high up in I believe Saddam's air force and rumors are he talked Saddam out of attacking Israel, which if true is a very gutsy thing to do. Short of giving him a polygraph, he did a lot of t.v. interviews, I heard many of them including an hour with Monica Crowley on WABC, he seemed like the real thing, maybe he fooled about a dozen or so journalists.

[SuziQ]

I read somewhere that the WMDs are in Syria... Saddam tansported them there just before the war on passenger planes. No idea if this info's valid...

You probably read it here on FR. There was a thread last week about one of Sadaam's generals having just written a book saying just that.

[Semper Paratus]

I bet Rockefeller didn't leak these!