Yet you lie, and can't provide proof, Buck Mulligan. You lie. Your
arrogant ignorance is a warning to all of us that talk is cheap and
proof is rare. You lie or are as dumb as a post.
http://www.c-span.org/iraq/ritter.asp
RITTER SPEECH TO IRAQI PARLIAMENT
Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter re-read an address delivered
to the Iraqi Parliament on September 8, 2002.
TEXT OF FMR. U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR SCOTT RITTER'S ADDRESS
September 8, 2002
Former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter has said that
Iraq should allow the immediate and unconditional return of UN weapons
inspectors. In an address to Iraq's National Assembly on 8 September,
Ritter said the US was using the "rhetoric of fear" to justify an attack
on Iraq although there were no hard facts to substantiate its
allegations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction or supported
terrorism. He said Iraq should counter US threats by adopting a "more
welcoming posture". He also proposed a confidence-building mechanism
based on the use of an honest broker to oversee the work of the
inspectors and Iraq's compliance with their work, since Iraq had
legitimate reasons to distrust inspectors after previous teams had been
used by US and UK intelligence services to gather information on Iraq
outside their mandate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
Downing Street Memo
The "Downing Street memo" (occasionally DSM, or the "Downing Street
Minutes"), sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the
"smoking gun memo",[1] is the note of a secret 23 July 2002 meeting of
senior United Kingdom Labour government, defence and intelligence
figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct
reference to classified United States policy of the time. The name
refers to 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British prime minister.
The memo recorded the head of MI6 as expressing the view following his
recent visit to Washington that "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through
military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But
the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It also
quoted Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying that it was clear that
Bush had "made up his mind" to take military action but that "the case
was thin", and the Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith as warning that
justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml
Bush Sought 'Way' To Invade Iraq?
O'Neill Tells '60 Minutes' Iraq Was 'Topic A' 8 Months Before 9-11
Jan. 11, 2004
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is the main source for an
upcoming book about the Bush White House, "The Price of Loyalty." (CBS)
Play Video
* Ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill speaks out for the first time
about the Bush Administration. He reveals to 60 Minutes the President\'s
case for war, tax cuts and relations with his staff.
* In a new book, ex-Treasury Sec. Paul O\'Neill blasts President
Bush - and also claims that an Iraq War was planned months before 9-11.
Gretchen Carlson reports on why O\'Neill is breaking his silence.
(CBS) A year ago, Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's
Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's
policy on tax cuts.
And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security
Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.
"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein
was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that
going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight
months before Sept. 11.
"From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we
can do to change this regime," says Suskind. "Day one, these things were
laid and sealed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_forgery
The Niger uranium forgeries refers to falsified classified documents
initially revealed by Italian intelligence. These documents depict an
attempt by the regime of Iraq's Saddam Hussein to purchase yellowcake
uranium from Niger during the Iraq disarmament crisis.
On the basis of these documents and other indicators, the governments of
the United States and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq had
attempted to procure nuclear material for the purpose of creating what
they called weapons of mass destruction, referred to as WMD, in defiance
of United Nations sanctions.
In late February of 2002, the CIA sent Ambassador Joseph Wilson to
investigate the claims himself. Wilson had been posted to Niger 14 years
earlier, and throughout a diplomatic career in Africa he had built up a
large network of contacts in Niger. Wilson interviewed former prime
minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, who reported that he knew of
no attempted sales to Iraq. Mayaki did however recall that in June 1999
an Iraqi delegation had expressed interest in "expanding commercial
relations", which he had interpreted to mean yellowcake sales.[4]
Ultimately, Wilson concluded that there was no way that production at
the uranium mines could be ramped up or that the excess uranium could
have been exported without it being immediately obvious to many people
both in the private sector and in the government of Niger. He returned
home and told the CIA that the reports were "unequivocally wrong."[5]
The CIA retained this information in its Counter Proliferation
Department and it was not passed up to the CIA Director, according to
the unanimous findings of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's
July 2004 report.
http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Life-Emerald-City-Vintage/dp/0307278832/re
f=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205993249&sr=1-1
From The New Yorker
This revealing account of the postwar administration of Iraq, by a
former Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, focusses on life in
the Green Zone, the American enclave in central Baghdad. There the
Halliburton-run (and Muslim-staffed) cafeteria served pork at every
meal--a cultural misstep typical of the Coalition Provisional Authority,
which had sidelined old Arab hands in favor of Bush loyalists. Not only
did many of them have no previous exposure to the Middle East; more than
half had never before applied for a passport. While Baghdad burned,
American officials revamped the Iraqi tax code and mounted an
anti-smoking campaign. Chandrasekaran's portrait of blinkered idealism
is evenhanded, chronicling the disillusionment of conservatives who were
sent to a war zone without the resources to achieve lasting change.
From Publishers Weekly
As the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post, Chandrasekaran has
probably spent more time in U.S.-occupied Iraq than any other American
journalist, and his intimate perspective permeates this history of the
Coalition Provisional Authority headquartered in the Green Zone around
Saddam Hussein's former palace. He presents the tenure of presidential
viceroy L. Paul Bremer between May 2003 and June 2004 as an
all-too-avoidable disaster, in which an occupational administration
selected primarily for its loyalty to the Bush administration routinely
ignored the reality of local conditions until, as one ex-staffer puts
it, "everything blew up in our faces." Chandrasekaran unstintingly
depicts the stubborn cluelessness of many Americans in the Green
Zone--like the army general who says children terrified by nighttime
helicopters should appreciate "the sound of freedom." But he
sympathetically portrays others trying their best to cut through the red
tape and institute genuine reforms. He also has a sharp eye for details,
from casual sex in abandoned offices to stray cats adopted by staffers,
which enable both advocates and critics of the occupation to understand
the emotional toll of its circuslike atmosphere. Thanks to these
personal touches, the account of the CPA's failures never feels
heavy-handed. (Sept. 22)
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/trudy_rubin/20080316_Worldview_
_Bushs_mess_will_snare_the_next_president.html
Bush's mess will snare the next president
By Trudy Rubin
Inquirer Opinion Columnist
On the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, Americans should
be holding the administration responsible for its record in Iraq.
I use the word should advisedly. Many people will argue that it is
useless to rehash the past. We are where we are. Let's focus in
presidential elections on who best can handle Iraq's future.
But Iraq's future cannot be divorced from U.S. policies that led to the
devastation of that country. Tens of thousands (or more) of Iraqi
civilians and thousands of U.S. soldiers did not die because of mistakes
made by Martians. They died because of gross White House errors in
planning the Iraq war and stunning incompetence after Baghdad fell.
The Iraq options of the next president will be thoroughly circumscribed
by the administration's actions. That's true whether the president is
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain.
Future Iraq policy will have to deal with the following legacy: The Bush
team dismantled Iraq's social fabric and institutions (already degraded
by Saddam Hussein), but had no plan for rebuilding. It failed to provide
postwar security, which enabled criminality to flourish and al-Qaeda to
set up cells that had not been there before.
The Bush team pressed Iraqis to adopt a constitution and an election
system that exacerbated sectarian divisions and created a weak,
dysfunctional central government. This system ensured the domination of
religious parties in a country that was once secular.
And Bush policies guaranteed that Iran would become the most powerful
player in Iraq. Two weeks ago, Iraqi leaders rolled out the red carpet
for Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who gloated that he could
travel freely around Baghdad while the U.S. president can only make
stealth visits.
These policies will haunt the next president, whether Democratic or
Republican.
--
Billy
Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/
