Inexplicable Actions on Iraqi WMD

For President Bush successfully to confront the growing nuclear threat posed by Iran, he will need a credible military option like the one he had earlier in confronting Iraq and Saddam Hussein. To be credible, that option would also require the solid backing of the American people along with the Congress. Securing that backing now could pose a problem. Many people currently believe that Iraq was not allied with al-Qaeda and that Iraq had no WMD. Even worse, Bush’s adversaries have asserted that Bush knew there were no WMD and, still worse, that he deliberately lied to mislead us into a war with Iraq. If widely believed, this charge will undermine Bush’s credibility in confronting Iran.

Public opinion is already turning sour on President Bush because of our ongoing difficulty in Iraq. In addition the president’s poll numbers are below 40% for multiple reasons, including his failure to secure our borders, his failure to control spending, and his perceived failure over the Katrina hurricane, among others. His insistence on pursuing the Dubai U.A.E. ports deal, despite the strong opposition of 80% of the American people and most of Congress, has further eroded his support. If we need to disarm Iran by military means, can President Bush still mobilize sufficient political support to launch another major war? Will his opponents refrain from exploiting his political vulnerabilities to the maximum for their own political advantage?

Much depends on his credibility with the American people. In a previous article, three major issues were raised that required answers. (“Nagging Questions About the War in Iraq”, a 05-29-05 article, archived on www.MiddleEastSolutions.com ) The three issues were: What was Saddam hiding from the arms inspectors? What did Saddam ship to Syria just prior to the war? What weapons did Libya’s Colonel Khaddaffi relinquish to America? It seemed strange that the Bush Administration declined to answer these questions and thereby refute the charges by his critics.

Since that time more information has surfaced supporting the belief that Saddam Hussein indeed had WMD and moved them elsewhere, probably to Syria, just before the war.

On February 17, 2006, a meeting was held, sponsored by www.intelligencesummit.org. At that time a translation of audio tapes made previously by Saddam Hussein, was made public. The tapes indicate that Saddam Hussein did indeed have WMD and revealed how he fooled the weapons inspectors. Excerpts from a story, Embarrassing questions for Bush, by Rachel Ehrenfeld & Alyssa Lappen of 2/27/06 on WorldNetDaily.com follow.

“In the second week of February, several government agencies – handling national security issues – began a massive campaign to disrupt and discredit a major counter-intelligence conference whose participants and speakers included former and current top U.S. and foreign government, security, defense and intelligence officials and experts.”

“The Feb. 17, 2006 conference in Arlington, Va., was organized by the Intelligence Summit, a young, private, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, headed by former U.S. prosecutor John Loftus. Since its planning began a year in advance, the conference attracted hundreds of government officials, security analysts, intelligence, counter-terrorism officers and corporate executives to speak and attend hundreds of sessions over three days.”

“Ten days before the conference was scheduled to begin, the organizers announced that tapes of Saddam Hussein's cabinet meetings discussing Iraq's WMD and nuclear weapons would be released at the conference. Immediately thereafter, the listed participants begin to receive telephone calls, e-mails, faxes, and even telegrams from anonymous "friends" in several U.S. government agencies, strongly advising them against attending.”

“The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., confirmed two days before the conference began that the tapes were authentic. Yet, the intimidating e-mails and telephone calls from government officials to conference participants only intensified. This is puzzling especially since the tapes confirm the early statements of the administration regarding Iraq's possession of WMD.”

In another intelligence revelation ex Iraqi General Georges Sada recently published his book Saddam’s Secrets. He explains how Saddam moved his WMD to Syria, with Russian help, just before the war.

“If you thought Saddam Hussein was merely a threat….. then you have no idea! In this astonishing expose, Iraqi General Georges Sada exposes Saddam’s plans to destroy Israel, hide weapons of mass destruction, and control the Arab world. Georges Sada was one of Saddam’s top generals and foremost military advisors, yet he defied Saddam Hussein and lived to tell about it.

In his eye-opening expose, General Sada shares his bizarre yet amazing journey as an insider to one of history’s most sinister regimes.

“As much as General Sada’s book discloses secrets that only those closest to Saddam would know, the motivating force in his own life is no secret. He is a modern-day Daniel in a spiritually volatile land, and yet he rose to the top of his field and became one of Hussein’s most trusted advisors--because Saddam knew Sada would always tell him the truth.

As an eyewitness to history, Sada paints a painfully truthful picture of Hussein and his country that is at once personal and alarming, truthful and compelling, candid and sobering. It is a story guaranteed to send shock waves around the world!”

Only one of Saddam’s many audio tapes has been translated (after years of being ignored) and authenticated, and it supports claims that Saddam did indeed have WMD. There is also General Sada, a former Iraqi Air Force General and his first hand testimony. Despite this new information there is no rush to seek the full truth. Meanwhile the belief persists that there were no WMD in Iraq and that President Bush lied.

“Who'll Let the Docs Out? Bush wants to release the Saddam files but his [national] intelligence chief [John Negroponte] stalls.

By Stephen F. Hayes” 03/20/2006, Volume 011, Issue 25 of the WeeklyStandard.com

On February 16, President George W. Bush assembled a small group of congressional Republicans for a briefing on Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley were there, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad participated via teleconference from Baghdad. As the meeting was beginning, Mike Pence spoke up. The Indiana Republican, a leader of conservatives in the House, was seated next to Bush.

"Yesterday, Mr. President, the war had its best night on the network news since the war ended," Pence said.

"Is this the tapes thing?" Bush asked, referring to two ABC News reports that included excerpts of recordings Saddam Hussein made of meetings with his war cabinet in the years before the U.S. invasion. Bush had not seen the newscasts but had been briefed on them.

Pence framed his response as a question, .... “ There are 3,000 hours of Saddam tapes and millions of pages of other documents that we captured after the war. When will the American public get to see this information?”

Bush replied that he wanted the documents released. He turned to Hadley and asked for an update. Hadley explained that John Negroponte, Bush's Director of National Intelligence, "owns the documents" and that DNI lawyers were deciding how they might be handled.

Bush told Hadley to expedite the release of the Iraq documents. "This stuff ought to be out. Put this stuff out." The president would reiterate this point before the meeting adjourned. .....

Negroponte never got the message. Or he is choosing to ignore it. He has done nothing to expedite the exploitation of the documents. And he continues to block the growing congressional effort, led by [Rep. Pete] Hoekstra, [the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee] to have the documents released.

Officials involved with DOCEX--as the U.S. government's document exploitation project is known to insiders--tell The Weekly Standard that only some 3 percent of the 2 million captured documents have been fully translated and analyzed. No one familiar with the project argues that exploiting these documents has been a priority of the U.S. intelligence community.

The Russians declared early in the U.N. process that they preferred inspections to war. Perhaps we now know why. Still, it is notable that at precisely the same time Russian intelligence was training Iraqi operatives, senior Russian government officials were touting their alliance with the United States.

This one tape shows deep Russian involvement in training Iraqis and supporting Saddam Hussein even after 9/11. Despite President Bush’s clear request to release this information to the American people John Negroponte, and the intelligence community, continue to evade and delay carrying out the President’s request. Three years after the war only 3 percent of captured documents and 12 hours out of 3,000 hours of Saddam’s tapes have been processed, suggesting willful blindness. As mentioned earlier certain U.S. officials launched “...a massive campaign to disrupt and discredit a major counter-intelligence conference....” It seems that they do not want to embarrass other governments such as Russia. (Note that in recent days there has been some movement to release more of this information but the quantities are massive requiring laborious, time-consuming, translation and analysis.) Additional information about WMD continues to emerge. See the following link: http://www.intelligencesummit.org/news/frontpage1.php

It is astonishing and troublesome, but not new, that the bureaucracy can get away with running its own foreign policy in opposition to that of the president. This action, by un-elected officials, weakens America and emboldens our enemies as we confront a highly aggressive regime that may possess nuclear weapons and the inclination to use them against us.

Many people currently believe that Iraq was not allied with al-Qaeda and that Iraq had no WMD.

They believe the steady stream of lies that have been pounded at them by the traitorous media. Tell the big lie often enough and it becomes fact to uncritical individuals.

Hi Jim, Iran has maintained funding ties to every Islamofascist organization that has become public.

It has harbored fugitive terroroists from Afghanistan and Iraq. It has supplied arms and explosive ordnance to Shiite private militia.

This is the true nature of Iran, a sponsor of international terrorism,and our president should establish a laundry list based on actual intelligence info. and publish it.

It will probably require that at least one of our coasts to glow in the dark before we are willing to admit that the world is not made of people with our best interests in mind.
I can only be thankful that those are generally not red states.

"It is astonishing and troublesome, but not new, that the bureaucracy can get away with running its own foreign policy in opposition to that of the president. This action, by un-elected officials, weakens America and emboldens our enemies as we confront a highly aggressive regime that may possess nuclear weapons and the inclination to use them against us."

How difficult it is to win when the dems and our enemies work from within our own government to further the destruction of America.

President Bush will do what is right and will not operate via polling.

Once again, the left does not understand how to lead.

Could it be that the release of these documents is being delayed so they will have more of an effect on the November elections?

Tell them to read this article on translations

Saddam Targeted American Assets For Terrorism: Case Closed Jveritas translation confirmed

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1611895/posts

No amount of documentation will be believed by the dems or the sheep who believe the MSM. Apparently, if it's in the news that "Bush is bad", 60% of people will fall for it.

"It will probably require that at least one of our coasts to glow in the dark before we are willing to admit that the world is not made of people with our best interests in mind. I can only be thankful that those are generally not red states."

it would lower the numbers of those opposed to war against "Islamic fundamentalism". Not because they would suddenly have their minds changed, but because there would be fewer of them.

Yet over a month after all this info is out there the story is....... the president DESTROYING a person telling lies in the NYT by 'leaking'.... (GASP) his wife's name!

Its really frustrating to have to continue to listen to moronic sophistry from condescending pundits on TV still acting so totally out of phase.

They ignore the terror connections and the mass graves and the chemical weapons found and hints of where others might be... they say no WMD, and not only that but Bush intentionally lied, and not only that but he did to get oil rich for his buddies and Halliburton, and not only that but he is actually a moron and robot Dick Chaney is pulling his strings, not only that but Chaney is actually controlled by the J00000000000Z.

Its mind numbing how people can see SOOOOO MUCH that isn't there, while being SOOOO BLIND to what is.

But isn't it true that Negroponte had to stall in order for the administration to create these documents and falseify the audio tapes in order for Bush to make the case for Iran?

/sarc off

They believe the steady stream of lies that have been pounded at them by the traitorous media. Tell the big lie often enough and it becomes fact to uncritical individuals.

I've watched them lying without so much as a qualm for over two years. I have a feeling it's going to come around and bite them and I can't wait to see that.

The Iraq I see in reality and the one I see on the news bear little resemblance to each other.

For example, they're back to the civil war myth again. They trot that out and give it a try every chance they get and they've been doing it since late '03.

Well, Bush could utterly destroy the "No WMD" crowd with one prime-time speech - but to do it he would have to lay the blame squarely on Vladimir Putin. As yet, he has been unwilling to do that.

He has done nothing to expedite the exploitation of the documents.

Other than put them out on an official US military website, where anyone can read and translate them. Government and military translators have more time critical work I would expect.

However the Pajamahadin, and others of our ilk, are moving into that breach. The MSM could, if it wished, but it doesn't and it won't.

From the article: "Many people currently believe that Iraq was not allied with al-Qaeda and that Iraq had no WMD. Even worse, Bush’s adversaries have asserted that Bush knew there were no WMD and, still worse, that he deliberately lied to mislead us into a war with Iraq."

And yet again, no mention of the non-compliance by Saddam of the UN Resolutions which were the first and foremost reasons for this war. President Bush and our allies did not have to "prove" anything other than the fact that Saddam was in non-compliance and refused to cooperate. Saddam was given a choice, and he made one.

"Its really frustrating to have to continue to listen to moronic sophistry from condescending pundits..."

and late night comedians. Until the White House gets a competent spokesperson and puts forth a coherent message, it is much easier to accept the sound bites: Bush is a boob, Bush doesn't care about Katrina victims, Bush leaked, Bush lied, no WMD's, war for Halliburton, oil buddies, tax cuts for rich friends, Iraq civil war, plight of the Palistinians, etc.

I am getting tired of trying to set the record straight with my "friends". They would all gladly vote for the "peace and prosperity" of another Clinton (or any democrat) administration.

It grinds you down.

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