Posted on 08/04/2002 12:27:24 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:56:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
A political drumbeat is building from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill in support of a pre-emptive military strike against Iraq, but Bush administration officials are split on how to proceed and on whether Congress must first approve an attack.
While Bush officials have assured key lawmakers no U.S. attack on Iraq will occur before the November elections, the issue has moved center stage as the administration seeks to establish a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, al Qaeda.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Huh? You're not making any sense. What's your point? Strikingly, even though the White House just confirmed to us that 9-11 operational commander Mohammed Atta flew to Prague to meet with Iraqi intelligence before knocking down the World Trade Center -- something they've known for ten months -- we still haven't laid a hand on Saddam Hussein. This very strongly supports my theory.
Second, Steven Hatfill, who is taking a public beating, would have to be in on the ruse, or the Feds would be leaving themselves open for lawsuits and perhaps criminal action after the ruse has been revealed. Of course, if the ruse is never revealed, we will never know and that is the beauty of conspiracy theories.
My assumption is that Hatfill is high enough up the food chain to understand the big picture. Notice he's not giving interviews. Just kicking back with his girfriend, on $150K paid leave. If Rosenberg is right, he's not talking to the press because he's guilty. If Rosenberg is wrong, then there has to be some other a reason why he's not talking to the media, despite this storm of negative publicity. His silence strongly favors either Rosenberg's theory or my theory, but it doesn't do much for anybody else's theory.
My theory is the mirror image of Rosenberg's because we're both responding to the same elephant in the room: the fact that the government is stalling us on the source and meaning of the post-911 anthrax threat campaign.
There are numerous other reasons to "stall", to use your term, like clean out Afghanistan of al-Qaeda and Taliban first, rally any potential allies, plan operations and logistics for war and its aftermath etc.
Of course the Bush Administration wants to link 911 and the anthrax attack to Saddam Hussein in order to justify a regime change by force if necessary.
There is no need for the elaborate ruse now involving, as you suggest, the complicity of Steven Hatfill in his own destruction. There is no need to justify "stalling" and no need or in fact desire by the Administration to risk its credibility by deliberately lying to the American people and the world at the very time it is asking the same to believe its arguments and gain its support for a regime change in Bagdad.
There is no complicity of Steve Hatfill in his own destruction, in case you hadn't noticed. There is only complicity of Steve Hatfill in his $150,000/yr paid vacation. That is all.
They are not lying. They have said over and over again, Steve Hatfill is not a suspect, no evidence has been discovered to implicate him in the anthrax killings, no source for the anthrax, foreign or domestic, has been excluded, and no arrest or murder charges are imminent against Steve Hatfill, or anybody else for that matter. It is you who are not listening. Just like you are meant to, you will talk about Steve Hatfill over the office water cooler tomorrow: "Oh, yeah, they're on to him -- the dogs sniffed him out." Just as you followed the Pavlovian cues when Bob Woodward was telling us the Feds were gonna pin it on Idaho rednecks. Just as you followed the cues when we were told the anthrax was "probably natural" in origin, and Bob Stevens could have got it from a mountain stream. That's okay. When you pick up on these cues, you're actually being a good citizen. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Let me ask you to state a position, so I can be clear on where you stand. The question is with respect to the White House's confirmation this week to the Los Angeles Times that 9-11 operational commander Mohammed Atta flew to Prague last year to meet with an agent of the Iraqi government. Here are three mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive possibilities. Tell me which you favor:
To understand the anthrax story, you need to understand the Prague story. To understand the Prague story, you need to understand the anthrax story. Until you understand both, you are truly clueless as to the real nature of Bush's War on Terrorism.
It has long been known that Saddam Hussein has WMD and uses them as a deterrent (blackmail) against attack. It has long been known that the U.S. is unprepared for a biological attack. A regime change in Iraq, possibly by force, is the stated policy of the Bush Administration, which raises the risk of an attack using WMD i.e. the Samson syndrome. It is self-evident that the possibility of a final war with Saddam Hussein requires time and preparation.
There is no need for the deliberate and elaborate conspiracy in the anthrax investigation, with which you seem to be obsessed. In fact, in terms of credibility it is counter-productive.
That the FBI's anthrax "investigation" is nothing but a stall is blindingly obvious. Bush knows where the anthrax comes from, and has known for ten months now, just has he has known for ten months that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague. He told Mueller to stall the public, and Mueller is following orders.
Saddam Hussein rearranged the New York skyline last September, and came within a hair's breadth of destroying the White House and the Capitol on the same morning. He backed it up with a credible threat to kill millions of Americans and cause the total economic loss of cities like New York and Washington, DC, should Bush point the finger at him. Right now, we are defenseless against that. Despite having known for years of the potential for this kind of blackmail -- as you point out -- we didn't prepare for it, we didn't engineer Saddam's removal, and now we're f*cked. That is the motivation for the stall. Like, d'uh! How dumb can you be, not to see this now?
THIS IS NEXTBut, I take it you are going to take me up on my offer then? I've got $1,000 says the Hatfill will never be charged with the anthrax murders, and that the "investigation" of Hatfill is a PR exercise only. Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is, or not?
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX
YOU CAN NOT STOP US
ARE YOU AFRAID?
Rather than try to keep up the stall for another two or three years, which is what we would need to achieve full civil defense preparedness, I have a feeling Bush is going to lay all cards on the table so the entire world understands the situation. I don't believe we will attack Iraq any time soon, because of the potential threat. But, if Bush lays it out, it's going to be very obvious to everyone in Iraq, or friendly to Iraq, that eventually the conflict will come to a head and Iraq is gonna lose -- big time. Bush hinted at this the other day, saying that Saddam should remember that he is a very patient man. In that situation, the pressure on the Iraqis to remove Saddam and lock him up and throw away the key will be intense, and that is the safest way out of this impasse. Nobody wants to die for Saddam Hussein. Nobody in Iraq wants Baghdad turned into another Nagasaki.
The cost of doing things this way, as opposed to keeping up the stall until we actually feel we can act with impunity, is that it will involve an admission that America is still basically powerless to strike back at Saddam without an unacceptable downside risk -- like millions dead, New York City and Washington rendered essentially uninhabitable, etc. No doubt there will be PR ploys to keep that off people's minds as much as possible, but if we point the finger at Saddam for 9-11 and don't hit him immediately, people are going to figure it out. If you are in the market, I would recommend getting out now, because it's going to go into the toilet when the standoff becomes public, unless Bush can pull off a miracle. Nevertheless, keeping up the charade for years has too many dangers of its own: that was Clinton's strategy, remember?
But let us admit that these decisions involve an extraordinarily fine balancing act, with innumerable trade-offs -- of which the terrible injustice of forcing Steve Hatfill to take a paid vacation from his $150,000 job with the DOJ in order to buy another few weeks of news cycle is about as significant as a gnat's fart in a hurricane.
No, because I have never said he was the guilty party.
"Despite having known for years of the potential for this kind of blackmail -- as you point out -- we didn't prepare for it, we didn't engineer Saddam's removal, and now we're f*cked. That is the motivation for the stall."
Given the course of action and the potential consequences, 'stalling' is likely a prerequisite. There are many obvious practical reasons to do so. A deliberate deception is not needed.
Do you believe Bush thinks the anthrax comes from a rogue government scientist?
For me it is less a matter of what Preseident Bush believes than what he can convincingly demonstrate. I don't believe last autumn anyone 'knew' who did it. The FBI may even still be in the process of including and excluding evidence.
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