Mystery unfolds over hunt for WMD in Iraq (Major Friday News Dump!)

[sabra]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050902/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_the_wmd_story_2

Mystery unfolds over hunt for WMD in Iraq

The Associated Press

(AP) — Beneath the giant dome of a Baghdad palace, facing his team of scientists and engineers, George Tenet sounded more like a football coach than a spymaster, a coach who didn't know the game was over.

"Are we 85 percent done?" the CIA boss demanded. The arms hunters knew what he wanted to hear. "No!" they shouted back. "Let me hear it again!" They shouted again.

The weapons are out there, Tenet insisted. Go find them.

Veteran inspector Rod Barton couldn't believe his ears. "It was nonsense," the Australian biologist said of that February evening last year, when the then-chief of U.S. intelligence secretly flew to Baghdad and dropped in on the lakeside Perfume Palace, chandelier-hung home of the Iraq Survey Group.

"It wasn't that we didn't know the major answers," recalled Barton, whose account matched that of another key participant. "Are there WMD in the country? We knew the answers."

* - vote it up on Yahoo!

[sabra]

1. more...

In fact, as President George W. Bush took office 25 months later, the CIA was reporting, "We do not have any direct evidence" Baghdad was rebuilding its WMD programs.

But Baghdad was on Bush's mind

...

The Bush administration then sent Charles Duelfer — like Kay a senior U.N. inspector from the 1990s — to take over the arms hunt. He arrived in time for Tenet's secret visit and palace pep talk on Feb. 12, 2004, but, like Kay before him, Duelfer could find no sign of WMD.

...

Barton said CIA officers in the Iraq Survey Group insisted that its reporting should not discredit the mobile-labs story "because that contradicts what Tenet has said." They also wanted the report to suggest the tubes might have been for centrifuges, although Duelfer's experts concluded otherwise.

[BlueJac]

19. Kick

:kick:

[JoFerret]

2. Interesting source for the story

.

[sabra]

3. ironic?

[sabra]

4. kick

:kick:

[bluestateguy]

5. Maybe they'll throw in the Abu Grahib photos too

Would be the perfect time.

[sabra]

7. I know!

and it's falling through the cracks here :-(

[sabra]

6. much more:

For now, in the summer of 2001, Iraq was back-page news. But Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, assured an interviewer, ``Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen.'' By summer's end, in the traumatic aftermath of Sept. 11's terror, he was in the crosshairs.

On the day after Sept. 11, the talk in the White House Situation Room was of ``getting Iraq,'' says former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard A. Clarke. Clarke's memoir says an insistent Bush ordered him to look for ``any shred'' to tie Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks - even though U.S. agencies knew al-Qaida was responsible and Iraq wasn't linked to the terror group.

[stevedeshazer]

8. kick

How convenient. :grr:

[sabra]

9. no doubt!

down the memoryhole it goes...

[Debi]

10. Crazy to run this article now

:crazy:

[sabra]

11. way too obvious...

[dad]

12. We should just make a forum called Friday news dump

There's something or other coming out every week

[Ernesto]

31. Good call dad!............ n-t

[alfredo]

13. Its got 5 recommendations.

Great story. We need to keep our eye on the ball. NOLA is bad, but we must not let other scandals disappear.

[sabra]

14. I agree completely! eom

[funnymanpants]

15. best story yet on this subject

The Bush defenders often claim that Bush didn't lie, since Clinton and other officials also thought Saddam had WMDs. I followed the WMD issue very closely and looked at all the details, and I knew specifically that Bush did lie in several instances.

This story exposes all those lies in an easy-to-follow narrative. Everyone should copy this article to their desktops and bookmark it to answer the bogus claims that Bush didn't lie.

[sabra]

16. the truth is coming out! I can feel it :-)

[msgadget]

17. C'mon, VOTE this damned thing up!

How the hell could it not be 5 stars?

:kick:

[damntexdem]

18. This is in line with what Scott Ritter said recently in Dallas.

Of course, the news doesn't generally get to the public. I'm glad to see it on Yahoo.

But look at how low it is rated. I can't put in my own rating because damn Yahoo has my account screwed up: I can successfully change my pass word, but I still get 'invalid password' messages when I try to use it.

[Dervill Crow]

20. Lots of people reading but very few commenting.

Even though the rating is low, it's awesome that the idiot repugs who normally post their comments at Yahoo are speechless. :rofl: :woohoo: :rofl: :woohoo: :rofl:

:kick:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

21. Tenet apologists...

Time to chime in.


Big :kick:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. "Tenet apologists"?? You mean those people that have never trusted....

...the version of events waved about by the NeoCons and their supporters?

"Tenet bellowed"? Right. Sounds exactly like Tenet's style over the last thirty years.

[me b zola]

22. .

:kick:

[bluestateguy]

24. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT WMD IN IRAQ

We have our own mass destruction on the Gulf Coast.

Pull out of Iraq now. Let the "insurgents" have it, and let's fix our own problems here at home. No more imperial wars of conquest.

[donco6]

32. This was on page 8 of the Denver Post.

Without the Hurricane, I wonder if it'd made it to . . . page 7?

[Blue_Tires]

25. kicked/nominated n/t

[BQueen]

26. kick - had to go to pg 2 to check if this was posted.

I'm going to put up a "vote this up" thread on the Yahoo story, still only at 2.5 stars.

[TankLV]

27. Isnt' that special! Saddam disarmed 13 YEARS EARLIER!

Well, maybe all this is coming out now because they are at last seeing thru the bullshit and seeing bunkeboy for the first time.

Last time nobody could believe he was so incompetant - they REFUSED to believe - in spite of all the evidence all around them.

It is a very severe disconnect.

But now, with them standing there naked in their CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE!

They try to spin it, but it won't work this time around.

The evidence is overwhelming and CONFIRMS their worst suspicions of WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW!

So now, they are going back and their mind is finally letting them see without the blinders on.

[leesa]

28. Wow. Truth. What's the trick?

[ngGale]

29. Kick....

n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

30. kick