Posted on 12/08/2002 5:33:09 PM PST by geedee
I agree! But I get the impression that you are of the opinion that to post on this forum, one must be in lock step with our President and his policies. You should just think about that for a moment. I voted for Bush. I am a Republican. But I am an American first. And in America, we have the freedom and liberty to think for ourselves....and even to disagree over political ideas as you have eloquently stated above. If that makes me a "disruptor", then we have a different idea on what being American is. By the way....you know anybody that lives in Kansas???
60 Minutes Dismissed, But Iraq Was “Tantalizingly Close” to Nuke
The day after 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon mocked President Bush for the supposedly baseless claim that in 1991 Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime was only six months away from building a nuclear weapon, Simon’s CBS News colleague Mark Phillips marveled at how an Iraqi official “admitted there not only were plans to build a nuclear device, the Iraqis were tantalizingly close to having one."
Phillips checked in from Baghdad and ominously began his December 9 CBS Evening News story: "The Iraqi declaration now being analyzed in Washington and elsewhere has put a new sense of urgency into the inspection process. Not just because of what was in the documents, but also because in describing their illicit weapons history the Iraqis bordered on boastfulness. In a surprisingly frank and brash admission, the man who has run Iraq's prohibited weapons programs admitted there not only were plans to build a nuclear device, the Iraqis were tantalizingly close to having one."
General Amir al-Sa'adi, Iraqi presidential advisor: "We haven't reached the final assembly of a bomb nor tested it, so if you want to follow that, there's no guarantee that you will succeed. It's for the IAEA to judge how close we were."
Now contrast that to the derisive tone, dismissive of any imminent treat from Iraq getting nukes, taken by Bob Simon on the December 8 60 Minutes, as recounted in the December 9 CyberAlert:
In a Sunday night 60 Minutes story, CBS News reporter Bob Simon contended that the Bush administration has exaggerated the threat from Iraq by selectively and misleadingly citing reports of Saddam Hussein’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon....
MRC analyst Brian Boyd took down what Simon claimed on the December 8 60 Minutes. Simon’s first example:
"It's generally assumed that Saddam does have chemical and biological weapons, but is he also on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb as the President says he's tried to do in the past?"
George W. Bush, date not noted: "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access a report came out of the Atomic, the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need."
David Albright: "There is no such report as far as I know."
Simon: "Physicist David Albright was a weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s and now directs a Washington think tank called the Institute for Science and International Security. He says contrary to what the President claimed, neither the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, nor any other investigative body has ever reported that Iraq was only six months away from the bomb.”
END of Excerpt of earlier CyberAlert
For how Simon contradicted an August CBS Evening News story by David Martin, how the time frame cited by Bush was an accurate estimate according to a 1991 IAEA report and how Simon had at least twice previously made clear his personal disagreement with Bush’s Iraq policy, see the December 9 CyberAlert: http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20021209.asp#2
Simon’s promotion from Middle East correspondent to 60 Minutes has an up side: Phillips and not Simon is in Iraq where Phillips seems a bit more interested in reality than potshots at those trying to protect the world from Saddam Hussein.
I am adding to comments about the CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon. I work in Israel. We heard about the "JUST ASKING" question that ran in the New York Post's PAGE SIX last week, on Sept. 29/04: "WHICH married male network news veteran who specializes in foreign assignments has been having an affair with a female Columbia grad about 10 years younger than his daughter? Former classmates spotted the young woman with him at the Essex House more than once, and say he visited her at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville over the weekend." The key part is that he specializes in foreign assignments. I am sure it is Bob Simon. The CBS 60 Minutes show he is on is also broadcast in Israel so he is well known in Israel. About a year ago I saw him at a Jerusalem hotel with a young American woman. When I made a remark about it to someone I know in the hotel's management office he said the hotel staff knew she had been staying with Bob Simon in his hotel room there for weeks. I recognized her because she worked in our office. I am sure she must be the same "female Columbia grad" that the NY Post referred to because I remember that she went to Columbia University in New York before she came to Israel. Her name is Maia Ridberg and she is probably only about 24 years old (and you know how old Bob Simon is.) She said she left her job in Jerusalem to go traveling and I later heard that she returned to the United States to start at the University of Virginia. I did not know that Bob Simon was married until the NY post published that last week. That weekend the NY Post referred to was Yom Kippur. That is disgusting that they cheated on his wife even on Yom Kippur. Like many of you we have long thought that Bob Simon is irresponsible in his reporting about the mideast but now it is clear that he lacks integrity as a man as well.
I am adding to comments about the CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon. I work in Israel. We heard about the "JUST ASKING" question that ran in the New York Post's PAGE SIX last week, on Sept. 29/04: "WHICH married male network news veteran who specializes in foreign assignments has been having an affair with a female Columbia grad about 10 years younger than his daughter? Former classmates spotted the young woman with him at the Essex House more than once, and say he visited her at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville over the weekend." The key part is that he specializes in foreign assignments. I am sure it is Bob Simon. The CBS 60 Minutes show he is on is also broadcast in Israel so he is well known in Israel. About a year ago I saw him at a Jerusalem hotel with a young American woman. When I made a remark about it to someone I know in the hotel's management office he said the hotel staff knew she had been staying with Bob Simon in his hotel room there for weeks. I recognized her because she worked in our office. I am sure she must be the same "female Columbia grad" that the NY Post referred to because I remember that she went to Columbia University in New York before she came to Israel. Her name is Maia Ridberg and she is probably only about 24 years old (and you know how old Bob Simon is.) She said she left her job in Jerusalem to go traveling and I later heard that she returned to the United States to start at the University of Virginia. I did not know that Bob Simon was married until the NY post published that last week. That weekend the NY Post referred to was Yom Kippur. That is disgusting that they cheated on his wife even on Yom Kippur. Like many of you we have long thought that Bob Simon is irresponsible in his reporting about the mideast but now it is clear that he lacks integrity as a man as well.
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