Reply #8: I just got done reading it [View All]

[andino]

It was an interesting time line of the 2 nuclear reasonings for the war. The yellow cake papers and the tubes. Come to find out that the administration KNEW that the tubes COULD HAVE BEEN used for missiles way before the war started. As a matter of fact they cite that the inspectors found out that they WERE being used as missiles.

Of note are the paragraphs listed here:

QUOTE
The inspectors found no trace of a clandestine centrifuge program. On Jan. 10, 2003, The Times reported that the international agency was challenging "the key piece of evidence" behind "the primary rationale for going to war." The article, on Page A10, also reported that officials at the Energy Department and State Department had suggested the tubes might be for rockets.

The C.I.A. theory was in trouble, and senior members of the Bush administration seemed to know it.

Also that January, White House officials who were helping to draft what would become Secretary Powell's speech to the Security Council sent word to the intelligence community that they believed "the nuclear case was weak," the Senate report said. In an interview, a senior administration official said it was widely understood all along at the White House that the evidence of a nuclear threat was piecemeal and weaker than that for other unconventional arms.

But rather than withdraw the nuclear card - a step that could have undermined United States credibility just as tens of thousands of troops were being airlifted to the region - the White House cast about for new arguments and evidence to support it.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked the intelligence agencies for more evidence beyond the tubes to bolster the nuclear case. Winpac analysts redoubled efforts to prove that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa. When rocket engineers at the Defense Department were approached by the C.I.A. and asked to compare the Iraqi tubes with American ones, the engineers said the tubes "were perfectly usable for rockets." The agency analysts did not appear pleased. One rocket engineer complained to Senate investigators that the analysts had "an agenda" and were trying "to bias us" into agreeing that the Iraqi tubes were not fit for rockets. In interviews, agency officials denied any such effort.
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I think that it is important to note that most in the administration KNEW that the nuclear claims were false and STILL went to war with Iraq. If this is the claim that the NYT is making then they sure set out a great article to do it in.

At the same time they listed Kerry and Edwards in the article as having the ability to ask "the tough questions" but did not. I would just like to remind the NYT that neither Mr. Kerry nor Mr Edwards is a nuclear weapons expert. And I am sure that if they knew of the errors that they would have done something. But then again nothing really happened when Bob Graham raised questions about the intel.