[Rhodes22-list] Politics - WMD

[3drecon at comcast.net]

Bill,
   In all fairness, you should also post the comments of former Pres Clinton, John Kerry and other prominent Democrats who said much the same things.

    Remember, I didn't think we should have gone after Iraq either.  Frankly, we should have paid off Saddam and used him and his army to fight the terrorists.

Philip

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> 

> Brad, 
> 
> Getting desperate, are we? 
> 
> The Bush administration got the United States into this war by claiming 
> Iraq had actually built nuclear weapons: 
> 
> ?We do know, with absolute certainty, 
> that he is using his procurement system 
> to acquire the equipment he needs 
> in order to enrich uranium to 
> build a nuclear weapon.? 
> 
> Dick Cheney 
> Vice President 
> September 8, 2002 
> 
> and 
> 
> ?We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted 
> nuclear weapons.? 
> 
> Dick Cheney 
> Vice President 
> March 16, 2003 
> 
> The documents referenced in the New York Times were posted on the web by 
> the Bush Administration in an effort by Republicans to flush out more 
> documents to support administration claims. 
> 
> The documents posted were all captured during the 1991 Gulf war. No one 
> said Iraq wasn't trying to build WMD prior to the first gulf war. It 
> was the current administration that claimed Iraq had actually built 
> nuclear weapons after the first Gulf war, and that the United States had 
> to invade Iraq in order to find them. 
> 
> There has not been one shred of evidence to support administration 
> claims that Iraq tried to build nuclear weapons between 1991 and 2003. 
> 
> The point of the Times story was that this administration, which is now 
> running on a "we can protect America better" platform, is posting plans 
> for building nuclear weapons on the Internet in a last ditch effort to 
> try to justify false claims that Iraq was building nuclear weapons just 
> prior to our invasion. 
> 
> Now Republicans are trying to claim that documents they posted, which 
> detail how to build atomic bombs, refer to Iraqi attempts to build 
> weapons after 1991. 
> 
> You guys must think everyone else is really stupid. 
> 
> Bill Effros 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Brad Haslett wrote: 
> > You gotta love the intelligentsia at the New York Times. No doubt, 
> > this was 
> > supposed to be a hit piece on the Bush Administration. Perhaps they 
> > outwitted themselves? An analysis and the original article from today's 
> > newspaper is attached. 
> > 
> > Brad 
> > 
> > --------------------- 
> > 
> > *Shocker: New York Times Confirms Iraqi Nuclear Weapons Program 
> > *11/02 10:39 
> > 
> PM> 5N2Y=> 
> > 
> > When 
> > I saw the headline on Drudge earlier tonight, that the New York Times 
> > had a 
> > big story coming out tomorrow that had something to do with Iraq and 
> > WMDs, I 
> > was ready for an October November Surprise. 
> > 
> > Well, Drudge is giving us the scoop. 
> > And if 
> > it's meant to be a slam-Bush story, I think the Times team may have 
> > overthunk this: 
> > 
> > *U.S. POSTING OF IRAQ NUKE DOCS ON WEB COULD HAVE HELPED IRAN... 
> > 
> > NYT REPORTING FRIDAY, SOURCES SAY: Federal government set up Web site 
> > ? **Operation 
> > Iraqi Freedom Document 
> > Portal* 
> > * ? to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the 
> > war; detailed accounts of Iraq's secret nuclear research; a 'basic 
> > guide to 
> > building an atom bomb'... Officials of the International Atomic Energy 
> > Agency fear the information could help Iran develop nuclear arms... 
> > contain 
> > charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building 
> > that 
> > the nuclear experts say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the 
> > Internet and in other public forums... 
> > 
> > Website now shut... Developing... * 
> > 
> > I'm sorry, did the New York Times just put on the front page that 
> > *IRAQ HAD 
> > A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AND WAS PLOTTING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB*? 
> > 
> > What? Wait a minute. The entire mantra of the war critics has been "no 
> > WMDs, no WMDs, no threat, no threat", for the past three years solid. Now 
> > we're being told that the Bush administration erred by making public 
> > information that could help any nation build an atomic bomb. 
> > 
> > Let's go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND 
> > DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM. 
> > 
> > I think the Times editors are counting on this being spun as a "Boy, did 
> > Bush screw up" meme; the problem is, to do it, they have to knock down 
> > the 
> > "there was no threat in Iraq" meme, once and for all. Because obviously, 
> > Saddam could have sold this information to anybody, any other state, 
> > or any 
> > well-funded terrorist group that had publicly pledged to kill millions of 
> > Americans and had expressed interest in nuclear arms. You know, like, 
> > oh... 
> > *al-Qaeda.* 
> > 
> > The New York Times just tore the heart out of the antiwar argument, 
> > and they 
> > are apparently completely oblivous to it. 
> > 
> > The antiwar crowd is going to have to argue that the information somehow 
> > wasn't dangerous in the hands of Saddam Hussein, but was dangerous 
> > posted on 
> > the Internet. It doesn't work. It can't be both no threat to America 
> > and yet 
> > also somehow a threat to America once it's in the hands of Iran. Game, 
> > set, 
> > and match. 
> > 
> > UPDATE: The article is up 
> > 
> here> &en=1511d6b3da302d4f&hp=&ex=1162530000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print> 
> > 
> > . 
> > 
> > Having now read it, I can see that every stop has been pulled out to 
> > ensure 
> > that a reader will believe that posting these documents was a strategic 
> > blunder of the first order. 
> > 
> > But the story retains its own inherent contradiction: The information in 
> > these documents is so dangerous, that every step must be taken to 
> > ensure it 
> > doesn't end up in the wrong hands... except for topping the regime that 
> > actually has the documents. 
> > 
> > (By the way, is it just me, or is the article entirely devoid of any 
> > indication that Iran actually accessed the documents? This threat 
> > that, "You 
> > idiot! Iran could access all the documents!" is entirely speculative. 
> > If the 
> > government servers hosting the web site have signs that Iranian web 
> > browsers 
> > accessed those pages, it's a different story; my guess is somebody 
> > already 
> > knows the answer to that question.) 
> > 
> > I'm still kinda blown away by this paragraph: 
> > 
> > Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in 
> > the 
> > 1990's and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure 
> > Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf 
> > war. 
> > *Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the 
> > verge of 
> > building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.* 
> > 
> > Is this sentence referring to 1990, before the Persian Gulf War? Or 2002, 
> > months before the invasion of Iraq? Because "Iraq is a year away from 
> > building a nuclear bomb" was supposed to be a myth, a lie that Bush 
> > used to 
> > trick us into war. 
> > 
> > And yet here is the New York Times, saying that Iraq had a "how to 
> > manual" 
> > on how to build a nuclear bomb, and could have had a nuke in a year. 
> > 
> > In other news, it's good to see that the New York Times is firmly against 
> > publicizing sensitive and classified information. Unless, of course, 
> > they're 
> > the ones doing it. 
> > 
> > ONE LAST THOUGHT: So Iraq had all the know-how, all the plans, all the 
> > designs, "charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb 
> > building." Unless they were keeping these documents around as future 
> > material for paper airplanes, all this stuff constituted a plan of action 
> > for some point in the future; but to complete creating these weapons, 
> > they 
> > would have needed stuff. I don't know an exact list of what they would 
> > have 
> > needed, but articles like this 
> > 
> one> reignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3597>give 
> > 
> > a good idea. Sounds like you need a firing mechanism (the right kind 
> > of 
> > firearm would suffice), some fairly common industrial equipment like a 
> > lathe, material for the bomb casing, some fairly common conventional 
> > explosives, all of which would have been easy to get in Iraq. Oh, and, of 
> > course, the nuclear material itself. 
> > 
> > They would have needed something like... um... you know... what's that 
> > stuff 
> > called? Oh, that's right. 
> > 
> > *Yellowcake.* 
> > 
> > But we know Iraq would never make an effort to get yellowcake. Joe Wilson 
> > had tea with officials in Niger who said so. 
> > 
> > --------- 
> > November 3, 2006 
> > U.S. Web Archive Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer 
> > 
> > By WILLIAM J. 
> > 
> BROAD> ad/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 
> > 
> > 
> > Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a 
> > vast 
> > archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush 
> > administration 
> > did so under pressure from Congressional 
> > 
> Republicans> republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org>who 
> > 
> > had said they hoped to "leverage the Internet" to find new evidence of 
> > the prewar dangers posed by Saddam 
> > 
> Hussein> ein/index.html?inline=nyt-per>. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons 
> > experts 
> > say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of 
> > 
> Iraq> aq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>'s 
> > 
> > secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The 
> > documents, the 
> > experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb. 
> > 
> > Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York 
> > Times 
> > asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A 
> > spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the 
> > site 
> > had been suspended "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate 
> > for public viewing." 
> > 
> > Officials of the International Atomic Energy 
> > 
> Agency> national_atomic_energy_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, 
> > 
> > fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear 
> > arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the 
> > agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of 
> > anonymity 
> > because of the issue's sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency's 
> > technical 
> > experts "were shocked" at the public disclosures. 
> > 
> > Early this morning, a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American 
> > ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte 
> > about the Web site. 
> > 
> > The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, 
> > equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts 
> > who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the 
> > Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give 
> > detailed 
> > information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering 
> > explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs. 
> > 
> > "For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very 
> > irresponsible," said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of 
> > classification 
> > at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation's nuclear arms 
> > program. "There's a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are 
> > secret and 
> > should remain so." 
> > 
> > The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the 
> > Web 
> > site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about 
> > chemical weapons, United 
> > 
> Nations> ed_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org>arms-control 
> > 
> > officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave 
> > information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by 
> > causing respiratory failure. 
> > 
> > The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative 
> > publications 
> > and politicians, who said that the nation's spy agencies had failed 
> > adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the 
> > March 
> > 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale 
> > and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence 
> > committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents 
> > ? most 
> > of them in Arabic ? would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. 
> > Hussein 
> > had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the 
> > invasion. American search teams never found such evidence. 
> > 
> > The director of national intelligence, John D. 
> > 
> Negroponte> egroponte/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
> > 
> > had resisted setting up the Web site, which some intelligence 
> > officials felt 
> > implicitly raised questions about the competence and judgment of 
> > government 
> > analysts. But President Bush approved the site's creation after 
> > Congressional Republicans proposed legislation to force the documents' 
> > release. 
> > 
> > In his statement last night, Mr. Negroponte's spokesman, Chad Kolton, 
> > said, 
> > "While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted 
> > documents, the material currently on the Web site, as well as the 
> > procedures 
> > used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site 
> > becomes available again." 
> > 
> > A spokesman for the National Security 
> > 
> Council> onal_security_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org>, 
> > 
> > Gordon D. Johndroe, said, "We're confident the D.N.I. is taking the 
> > appropriate steps to maintain the balance between public information and 
> > national security." 
> > 
> > The Web site, "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal," was a constantly 
> > expanding portrait of prewar Iraq. Its many thousands of documents 
> > included 
> > everything from a collection of religious and nationalistic poetry to 
> > instructions for the repair of parachutes to handwritten notes from Mr. 
> > Hussein's intelligence service. It became a popular quarry for a 
> > legion of 
> > bloggers, translators and amateur historians. 
> > 
> > Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in 
> > the 
> > 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure 
> > Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian 
> > Gulf 
> > war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein's scientists were on the 
> > verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away. 
> > 
> > European diplomats said this week that some of those nuclear documents on 
> > the Web site were identical to the ones presented to the United Nations 
> > Security 
> > 
> Council> rity_council/index.html?inline=nyt-org>in 
> > 
> > late 2002, as America got ready to invade Iraq. But unlike those on 
> > the 
> > Web site, the papers given to the Security Council had been extensively 
> > edited, to remove sensitive information on unconventional arms. 
> > 
> > The deletions, the diplomats said, had been done in consultation with the 
> > United States and other nuclear-weapons nations. Mohamed 
> > 
> ElBaradei> lbaradei/index.html?inline=nyt-per>, 
> > 
> > the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which ran the 
> > nuclear part of the inspections, told the Security Council in late 
> > 2002 that 
> > the deletions were "consistent with the principle that 
> > proliferation-sensitive information should not be released." 
> > 
> > In Europe, a senior diplomat said atomic experts there had studied the 
> > nuclear documents on the Web site and judged their public release as 
> > potentially dangerous. "It's a cookbook," said the diplomat, who spoke on 
> > condition of anonymity because of his agency's rules. "If you had 
> > this, it 
> > would short-circuit a lot of things." 
> > 
> > The New York Times had examined dozens of the documents and asked a half 
> > dozen nuclear experts to evaluate some of them. 
> > 
> > Peter D. Zimmerman, a physicist and former United States government arms 
> > scientist now at the war studies department of King's College, London, 
> > called the posted material "very sensitive, much of it undoubtedly secret 
> > restricted data." 
> > 
> > Ray E. Kidder, a senior nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore 
> > National 
> > 
> Laboratory> awrence_livermore_national_laboratory/index.html?inline=nyt-org>in 
> > 
> > California, an arms design center, said "some things in these 
> > documents 
> > would be helpful" to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and 
> > should 
> > have remained secret. 
> > 
> > A senior American intelligence official who deals routinely with atomic 
> > issues said the documents showed "where the Iraqis failed and how to get 
> > around the failures." The documents, he added, could perhaps help Iran or 
> > other nations making a serious effort to develop nuclear arms, but 
> > probably 
> > not terrorists or poorly equipped states. The official, who requested 
> > anonymity because of his agency's rules against public comment, called 
> > the 
> > papers "a road map that helps you get from point A to point B, but 
> > only if 
> > you already have a car." 
> > 
> > Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a private 
> > group at George Washington 
> > 
> University> eorge_washington_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>that 
> > 
> > tracks federal secrecy decisions, said the impetus for the Web site's 
> > creation came from an array of sources ? private conservative groups, 
> > Congressional Republicans and some figures in the Bush administration 
> > ? who 
> > clung to the belief that close examination of the captured documents 
> > would 
> > show that Mr. Hussein's government had clandestinely reconstituted an 
> > unconventional arms programs. 
> > 
> > "There were hundreds of people who said, 'There's got to be gold in them 
> > thar hills,' " Mr. Blanton said. 
> > 
> > The campaign for the Web site was led by the chairman of the House 
> > Intelligence Committee, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan. Last 
> > November, he and his Senate counterpart, Pat Roberts of Kansas, wrote 
> > to Mr. 
> > Negroponte, asking him to post the Iraqi material. The sheer volume of 
> > the 
> > documents, they argued, had overwhelmed the intelligence community. 
> > 
> > Some intelligence officials feared that individual documents, 
> > translated and 
> > interpreted by amateurs, would be used out of context to second-guess the 
> > intelligence agencies' view that Mr. Hussein did not have unconventional 
> > weapons or substantive ties to Al 
> > 
> Qaeda> da/index.html?inline=nyt-org>. 
> > 
> > Reviewing the documents for release would add an unnecessary burden on 
> > busy 
> > intelligence analysts, they argued. 
> > 
> > On March 16, after the documents' release was approved, Mr. Negroponte's 
> > office issued a terse public announcement including a disclaimer that 
> > remained on the Web site: "The U.S. government has made no determination 
> > regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual 
> > accuracy of 
> > the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, 
> > when 
> > available." 
> > 
> > On April 18, about a month after the first documents were made public, 
> > Mr. 
> > Hoekstra issued a news release acknowledging "minimal risks," but 
> > saying the 
> > site "will enable us to better understand information such as Saddam's 
> > links 
> > to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and violence against the Iraqi 
> > people." He added: "It will allow us to leverage the Internet to enable a 
> > mass examination as opposed to limiting it to a few exclusive elites." 
> > 
> > Yesterday, before the site was shut down, Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Mr. 
> > Hoekstra, said the government had "developed a sound process to review 
> > the 
> > documents to ensure sensitive or dangerous information is not posted." 
> > Later, he said the complaints about the site "didn't sound like a big 
> > deal," 
> > adding, "We were a little surprised when they pulled the plug." 
> > 
> > The precise review process that led to the posting of the nuclear and 
> > chemical-weapons documents is unclear. But in testimony before 
> > Congress last 
> > spring, a senior official from Mr. Negroponte's office, Daniel Butler, 
> > described a "triage" system used to sort out material that should remain 
> > classified. Even so, he said, the policy was to "be biased towards 
> > release 
> > if at all possible." Government officials say all the documents in Arabic 
> > have received at least a quick review by Arabic linguists. 
> > 
> > Some of the first posted documents dealt with Iraq's program to make germ 
> > weapons, followed by a wave of papers on chemical arms. 
> > 
> > At the United Nations in New York, the chemical papers raised alarms 
> > at the 
> > Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, which had been in 
> > charge 
> > of searching Iraq for all unconventional arms, save the nuclear ones. 
> > 
> > In April, diplomats said, the commission's acting chief weapons 
> > inspector, 
> > Demetrius Perricos, lodged an objection with the United States mission to 
> > the United Nations over the document that dealt with the nerve agents 
> > tabun 
> > and sarin. 
> > 
> > Soon, the document vanished from the Web site. On June 8, diplomats said, 
> > Mr. Perricos told the Security Council of how risky arms information had 
> > shown up on a public Web site and how his agency appreciated the American 
> > cooperation in resolving the matter. 
> > 
> > In September, the Web site began posting the nuclear documents, and some 
> > soon raised concerns. On Sept. 12, it posted a document it called 
> > "Progress 
> > of Iraqi nuclear program circa 1995." That description is potentially 
> > misleading since the research occurred years earlier. 
> > 
> > The Iraqi document is marked "Draft FFCD Version 3 (20.12.95)," 
> > meaning it 
> > was preparatory for the "Full, Final, Complete Disclosure" that Iraq 
> > made to 
> > United Nations inspectors in March 1996. The document carries three 
> > diagrams 
> > showing cross sections of bomb cores, and their diameters. 
> > 
> > On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, "Summary of 
> > technical 
> > achievements of Iraq's former nuclear program." It runs to 51 pages, 18 
> > focusing on the development of Iraq's bomb design. Topics included 
> > physical 
> > theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, 
> > diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New 
> > York and 
> > their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do. 
> > 
> > Last week in Vienna, Olli J. Heinonen, head of safeguards at the 
> > international atomic agency, expressed concern about the documents to Mr. 
> > Schulte, diplomats said. 
> > 
> > Scott Shane contributed reporting. 
> > __________________________________________________ 
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