Posted on 02/21/2006 5:38:24 PM PST by kellynla
WMD: The quote above is that of a former UNSCOM member after translating and reviewing 12 hours of taped conversations between Saddam Hussein and his aides. So what's on the covers of Time and Newsweek?
Funny thing about dictators and tyrants: Very often they are meticulous record keepers. The fall of the Third Reich, the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein's Iraq all produced treasure troves of information. In Iraq's case, there were so many documents and records that even now only a small fraction have been translated and analyzed.
Among them are 12 hours of conversations from the early 1990s through 2000 between Hussein and his top advisers. They reveal, among other things, how Iraq was working on an advanced method of enriching uranium, how Iraq was conspiring to deceive U.N. inspectors regarding weapons of mass destruction and how these weapons might be used against the U.S.
The tapes were officially presented Sunday by former FBI translator Bill Tierney to a private conference of former weapons inspectors and intelligence experts in Arlington, Va. Tierney is an Arabic speaker who worked in the mid-1990s for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), the agency responsible for overseeing Iraq's disarmament.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
I wish people would actually get the facts on the port deals, instead of running around acting like the sky is falling. The Dems are probably having orgasms watching all the emotional hysteria and the railing against Bush around here.
Thank God, that Bush is standing firm and saying to hell with political pandering when he knows he is right on this one.
BTT
Does that miserable lying hag Maureen Dowd know about this? Let's get her comment...
Thanks for the ping ...just got home. Bush was right and so was I. :)
If we ever reveal this knowledge, and the names of those who went for the honey, the UN will immediately condemn the US for not revealing this knowledge immediately. Bush won't even miss a beat, as he shouldn't.
If they're here, does that somehow negate the responsibility of the federal government to prevent more from arriving, or weapons that they might use against us from arriving? I agree the biggest threat is Rats' election, but the reason that is a threat at all is that we are fighting a war on Al Qaeda. Whether Bush fights them overseas now is irrelevant if we lose an American city to terrorism because he won't focus on the purpose of that fight by protecting American cities with simple measures like denying our enemies easy access to strategic entry points. Isn't the purpose of fighting overseas to prevent terrorism here? Why does the White House not see that it is just as important to secure our ports and borders as it is to take the battle to the enemy?
Really, so if the UAE company buys these ports, they will not be responsible for the security of them? I guess "buying" doesn't really signify the interest in property that I thought it did. Who knew? Maybe Clinton was right about the meaning of "is." /sarc
"The next terrorist target is any upcoming U.S. election. And their strategy is to get democrats elected."
So knowing that, why would the White House go and paint a big fat bullseye on itself like this?
"They could have allready done us in, if that was their plan."
So your reason for considering this no big deal is that they could have screwed us already if they wanted? I sure hope that you don't work as an FBI investigator looking for spies. "Oh, sure, he's not really who he claims to be, but he hasn't hurt us, so let's just leave him in charge of our translation." Only these folks ARE who they claim to be--a corporation based in an Al Qaeda supporting state.
I wouldn't put the Saudis or French in charge of our ports either.
I know am repeating what I have said on another thread.
Some many have failed to see the value of this sale with the United Arab Emirates. Since this country will have huge sums of money invested in these port facilities, they will have a huge stakes in their security. We have insured this security through the investment of the United Arab Emirates' money. When they benefit, we will benefit.
The United Arab Emirates would be the last to let someone sabotage a port facility if it meant the loss of billions of dollars. Why do the conservatives have a hard time understanding this simple point?
"Cooperation from Europe on the Iran issue is much more important right now then opening old wounds and wasting political capital on proving the WMD issue."
This is still an issue that needs more information. I agree that this is not a political point that will help Republicans.
We need to get all the facts before we rush to judgement.
Look, I can see that the whole impetus for this is the MSM making the GOP look bad on defense to negate the GOP advantage on security. They'll bang this drum until it breaks.
But Bush sticking with this is going to make it worse. It will make it seem like he's all for foreign ownership of our ports. The average American knows this is a bad idea, no matter the free trade uber alles theory of the globalist GOP, no matter how much more efficient it is to have shipping specialists running the container ports.
The problem is that the GOP is winning because Americans believe this is a nation, not some subdivision of Earth, Inc., and as a nation, we need to defend ourselves. The biggest advantage America has had in the past in defending itself, outside of sheer geographic separation, has been its industry and largely because of its ability to trade freely to support that industry. Letting other countries get into a position to influence this and potentially clamp down on it, whether it's China in Panama running the canal, or the UAE in our ports, is a mistake.
But, while true, it's somewhat beside the point. The manager of the ports can easily make sure that certain containers are not inspected, and in fact maybe never show up on the paperwork. All sorts of ways an infiltrator, a sleeper from the UAE for example, could create mischief at a port. This was something of a problem with the Brits, since they have so many residents and citizens who are ethnically and religiously on the wrong side of this divide.
"We need to get all the facts before we rush to judgement."
Agreed, but we still need to view them with a pronounced bias toward national defense, over efficiency or expense, when it comes to these sorts of things. My libertarianism stops at the water's edge.
Now that's the best point an opponent of this plan has made here all day. Very well done, you've got me thinking, and that's the whole point.
They aren't "buying" the ports themselves, those will still belong to the respective port authorities. What they bought was the company that currently has the contract to manage those ports.
I'm not worried about the UAE as a whole, it is a state owned company after all. But I'm more concerned about individuals who might in the future be put in the positions in the management of even a single port. They could be devout Whabbies.
Any group who gets as crazy over a few cartoons as that bunch, bears watching, and very very closely at that.
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