U.S.: Sudan plant sample contains VX nerve gas precursor [Level of secrecy 'unprecedented' 1998]

CNN ^ | 8/24/98 | Jamie McIntyre

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A senior U.S. intelligence official told CNN on Monday that a soil sample from the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory destroyed last week by U.S. missiles has tested positive for a chemical that is "one step away" from deadly VX nerve gas.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

August 6, 1998: Lewinsky Testifies Before Starr Grand Jury

 

August 7, 1998: Terrorists Bomb U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania

August 17, 1998: Clinton makes televised admission concerning Lewinsky

August 20, 1998: Clinton orders bombing in Sudan and Afghanistan...
...Monica Lewinsky testified before the federal grand jury and described how
the president had encouraged her to continue denying the relationship and to
submit a false affidavit.

 

August 22, 1998: Taliban: Rise up, Muslims - By Amir Shah, AP 

---

 

(A year later - July 1999) The Boston Globe, on the 25^th, said, “The 6-year-old boy watched intently as his father dusted off his favorite possession, a leather-bound scrapbook of Osama bin Laden, pausing at a photo of the Saudi dissident with a semiautomatic rifle tucked in the folds of his trademark white robe. ''Osama!'' his son squealed excitedly. ''That's me!'' The boy, whose name was changed to Osama last year, is one of hundreds of Pakistani children named for bin Laden since Aug. 20, 1998 - the day the United States launched missile strikes against alleged terrorist camps run by the Saudi millionaire in eastern Afghanistan. The attack sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world. But the response was particularly heated in Pakistan, which sends thousands of Islamic guerrillas to similar training camps in Afghanistan. ''I love his bravery and gallantry,'' the boy's father, Niaz Ali Salar, said of bin Laden. ''He boosted the morale of Muslims throughout the world.'' The local leader of the radical Barelvi sect of Muslims, Salar said he hoped his son would ''live up to his name'' and lead the war against ''the enemies of Islam.'' In Mardan, a crumbling tobacco center 75 miles east of the Afghan border, Islamic priests deliver diatribes against ''evil America'' during Friday afternoon prayers.

~~~

In Pakistan, few buy Washington's vilification of bin Laden, whom it accuses of masterminding the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of two US embassies in east Africa and several other terrorist attacks. ''He's a man on the run, whose only friends are the Taliban. How can he be a threat to the world's most powerful nation?'' said Sahib Zada Khalid Jan Binuri, head of Pakistan's most influential Islamic seminary. ''It's all spin control. If America tells me, `You are a terrorist,' what can I say?'' Link

---

Character counts.

"We've said all we are going to say"

[Peach]

The administration will take care of it. All of it.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmn.

No word from the democrat Senators about impeaching Clinton for THIS bit of ACTUAL lies and "falsified intelligence."

By the way, there NEVER WAS any international approval to invade Kosovo - which was NOT a threat to the US ... but WAS NEEDED to promote Hillary's image as a "savior of the children" who "cares" prior to her NY Senate race - and immediately after Bill's impeachment. No UN ok either....

By the way - The carefully pruned administration stories of "tremedous bombing results" in Kosovo were also proved 92% false - the Serbs were able to "spoof" and decoy almost every bomb dropped. We ended up blowing up wood and rubber mockups of trucks, tanks and radars that cost less than the bombs we dropped.

[Robert A Cook PE]

"Sources say that at least two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff office did not learn of the attacks until President Clinton announced them Thursday afternoon.

Another lie - sort of.

Clinton deliberately didn't tell ANYBODY responsible on the JCS prior to the launch of these cruise missiles.

No wonder the military was "secretive" aboutthe results then - H**L - they didn't know where they went, whant the actually hit - nor how effective the missiles were.

And we don't know how many civilians were killed either.

But the democrats don't care! (It was Clinton's duty to lie and conceal sources after all.)

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Good to see you, Robert. It seems the only sensible response to the loony left these days is - belly girl...or one of those secret energy beams from outer space Dennis Kucinich discovered (shhh!). (^;

More on the mostly-sympathetic press responding to the secretive WH - 10 days after Monica's grand jury testimony, 9 days after the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists, 4 days before the Clinton admin. bombed Sudan and Afghanistan:

Fifty-Seven Ways To Say "No Comment"
In which Mike McCurry defeats the White House press corps.
By David Plotz
Posted Sunday, August 16, 1998, at 12:30 AM PT

One of the weirdest and most pernicious side effects of Flytrap has been the relocation of the White House to an alternative universe, a place where up is down and down is up and everything is the opposite of what it should be.

In the Flytrap universe, there is a White House counsel (Charles Ruff) who can't counsel, a presidential confidant (Bruce Lindsey) whom the president can't confide in, a presidential wife who acts like a lawyer, a president who acts like a criminal defendant, and a former intern who has more power than any of them.

The most public manifestation of the bizarro White House is Mike McCurry. He has become a spinner who can't spin, a presidential press secretary who can't talk to the press or the president about the only issue they care about.

Here, as evidence, are the notes I managed to scrawl during yesterday's White House press briefing. (The speaker is McCurry unless otherwise indicated, and the subject is Flytrap.)

The president has answered all questions.

It's clear there is nothing more to say.

I am not going to add anything.

I don't have anything to add. [twice]

You played a semantic game yesterday. I am not playing that game today.

You played a semantic game.

That has been asked and answered.

I just said I was not prepared with any information.

The same questions were asked yesterday.

The answer is the same answer. It is the same answer the president gave July 31.

We don't know.

I obviously don't have any information.

I don't have any information.

I just don't have an answer.

I don't have an answer to that.

That was asked and answered.

That was asked and I don't have the answer.

I don't have any answers.

The lawyers have not passed on any answers to us. We have passed on the questions, and they have said they would take them under advisement.

I am not making any news today. I made that clear.

I don't have any information.

I don't know.

We don't have anything to talk about. (To which tart Helen Thomas responds: "We do have something to talk about, but you're not talking about it.")

Sam, we have been through that.

I have not said anything.

I have not talked to him about this.

I have not talked to the president about it.

I have made it clear I have nothing to say on that subject today.

Quizzing McCurry is like playing tennis against a mattress. In half an hour of questions, reporters manage to glean nothing--not a single picayune detail--except the obvious fact that Clinton's lawyers have barred any public discussion. Among the subjects McCurry has no answers about: whether the president will address the nation Aug. 17, whether any of the logistics of his testimony will be revealed, whether he will answer all questions from Starr, whether Starr is coming to the White House, whether McCurry has talked to Clinton's lawyers, whether McCurry has talked to the president, whether "completely and truthfully" means the same thing it did at yesterday's press briefing, whether Harry Thomason is prepping the president, whether Thomason is staying at the White House.

(Throughout McCurry's litany of refusal, Sam Donaldson seethes, periodically interrupting with shouts of "Why are you denigrating us?" and "It's not a game!")

Ican't decide whom I feel sorrier for, the reporters without stories or the McCurry without answers. The assembled reporters have to ask questions, but they know he can't answer them. McCurry has nothing. For fear of subpoenas and legal bills, the press secretary simply can't talk to the president about Flytrap. He is in the impossible position of interpreting and reinterpreting exactly the same two public statements Clinton has made on the subject of Flytrap ("that woman" in January and "completely and truthfully" in July). He is otherwise a blank. The result: a farce, a mockery of discourse, an embarrassment to the press secretary and the press corps.

(McCurry may be obliged by ignorance to stiff-arm reporters, but that doesn't mean the White House is inattentive to the media. As the New York Times and Washington Post report this morning, Clinton advisers are busy testing how the press and public would respond to a limited mea culpa.) (For more on the utter cynicism of this latest White House PR ploy, see FRAME GAME: White Flag.)

When everyone eventually tires of this thrust and parry. McCurry adjourns the briefing and disappears into the West Wing. Deputy Press Secretary Joe Lockhart, who will succeed McCurry as press secretary next month, remains behind. (Lockhart, I had noticed, spent the entire briefing doodling red squares on his pad.)

Lockhart has learned well from his departing boss. I eavesdrop as Donaldson and Thomas corner the deputy press secretary. I can just hear Lockhart's soft, patient voice. "We get asked the same questions every day. You know as well as I do why we can't answer. ... Of course I haven't spoken to him. If I had discussed it with him I would be running up $50,000 a day in legal fees and be in front of that grand jury."

As I leave a few minutes later I still hear Lockhart, now pinned by another group of reporters: "I don't know. ... I don't know."

"Flytrap Today" The complete chronicles. Slate

[Born Conservative]

Slick Willy bump for later.

[FairOpinion]

Great find!

[Grampa Dave]

This is a great find.

Let me give you a little suggestion.

Find a server that you can store this data on. It will disappear if you don't.

[L.N. Smithee]

Thanks for some needed historical perspective. In the words of Montgomery Burns, "EX-cellent!"

[L.N. Smithee]

I will NEVER forget the press conference after Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" speech. Over and over again, Mike McCurry answered questions about Slick's specific language and the wiggle room that they contained with these six words: "I will not parse the statement."

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

one of hundreds of Pakistani children named for bin Laden since Aug. 20, 1998

.... Hear tell that Adolf was popular in some places in 1942.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

Good advice, Grampa Dave. The Slate article's already gone.

Doing research on John Edwards a few years back was a trip. It was as if someone was following my posts with a link 'eraser'. Dems are the party of censorship and slavery.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

8 KEY QUOTES ON U.S. STRIKES AGAINST TERRORISM [August 98, Sudan, Afghanistan]