News and Views you don't have to lose:
Bush Threw Us a 'Curveball'
He lied about the Iragi bio-weapons threat
05 April 2005 --
Last October, just weeks before the presidential election, the acting director of the CIA was suppressing a report to Congress that was potentially embarrassing to President Bush's campaign. The report had been completed by the CIA's own independent inspector general four months before the election, yet the agency rebuffed Congress' request that it be made public.
Now, thanks to last week's release of another report, that of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, we learn that the embargoed CIA report centered on the outrageous case of a Iraqi informant known by the code name, "Curveball."
It was Curveball, an Iraqi chemical engineer who defected, who was the inspiration for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's statements before the United Nations that the U.S. knew Iraq possessed mobile bio-weapons labs. The CIA had long harbored strong doubts concerning Curveball's veracity. The foreign government holding him had even informed the U.S. that the Iraqi exile was a "fabricator" who had suffered a "nervous breakdown" and was "crazy."
CIA Director George Tenet provided the basic briefing and final vetting of Powell's disastrously false presentation of the case against Iraq. According to the commission's report, Tenet was working with Powell the night before the U.N. speech when he spoke on the phone to a high-ranking CIA official who warned him not to rely on Curveball's information. That warning had been issued by others in the agency, but Tenet claims that he cannot recollect hearing it.
After the occupation of Iraq in spring 2003, the massive U.S. Iraq Survey Group confirmed that Curveball was either hallucinating or lying, finding no WMD or WMD facilities. It turns out the informant wasn't even in Iraq at the time he claimed to be working on biological weapons.
The Curveball case was definitively closed when the CIA gained access to the Iraqi defector in March 2004 and categorically repudiated his story. That was half a year before the U.S. presidential election, however, and clearly the White House didn't want the CIA inspector general to blow the whistle and embarrass the president as he fought for his political survival.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040505J.shtml
The lies leading up to the claim that Iraq possessed mobile bio-weapons:
OCT 1, 2001: Anthrax attack It promoted government programs in countermeasures to deal with biological terrorism and the attack was directed against top Democrat leaders.
___________________________________________________________________
Comment: Could this anthrax attack been used by some person or persons to increase the FEAR FACTOR and the public support for a preemptive war against Iraq?
Rep Jim McDermott pointed out that then there was/is smallpox, ...and the Bush administration encouraging vaccination... and ratching up the level of anxiety.
___________________________________________________________________
Judicial Watch charged, and the White House has now confirmed, that the anti-anthrax drug Cipro was distributed to White House staffers on September 11 (2001), nearly four weeks before the first anthrax attack was made public.
Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch said, in a press statement, “We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or underway.” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that the drug had been distributed “in the early hours of September 11,” before the exact nature of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington had become clear.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jul2002/anth-j20.shtml
Bush said in a speech to religious broadcasters in February (2002) as he built the case for war against Iraq. "Chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained," he declared. "Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He's a threat to the United States of America."
http://www.eriposte.com/war_peace/911/911.htm
Sept 11 thru 24, 2002: Threat level raised to orange for the first time: Aschcroft said, "Al Qaeda cells in several South Asian countries have been accumulating explosives since January and may be planning car bomb or other attacks on US facilities". ," President Bush said at the Afghanistan Embassy in Washington. "We have no specific threat to America, but we're taking everything seriously," he said.
September 26, 2002: Bush did not seek CIA approval before charging that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes.
The claim, was made twice by President Bush, in a September 26, 2002 Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a "Global Message" issued Sept. 26 , the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq "could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001557.php
In fact the CIA told the British that the claim was garbage when a draft of the dossier was given to the Americans on September 11, 2002. So before it was published on September 24, the CIA was on record to the Brits that the claim was bogus. Yet the White House went ahead and used the claim after its own intelligence agency had debunked it to the Brits.
In fact, Bush used the claim not once but three times in a span of four days. In addition to the Ari Fleischer press gaggle on the 24th, the claim was also used in a September 26, 2002 in the Rose Garden with congressional leaders, and again in a September 28, 2002 radio address. So Bush again ignored the assessment of his own intelligence service to make claims based on British intelligence he had not seen.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/000438.php
(Summer, 2002) The D.I.A. report, which was classified, was leaked. (see note below on OSP) and in a detailed account, the London Times described how the defector had trained with Al Qaeda terrorists in the late nineteen-nineties at secret camps in Iraq, how the Iraqis received instructions in the use of chemical and biological weapons, and how the defector was given a new identity and relocated.
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-19-03/discussion.cgi.56.html
September 12, 2002, United Nations Address : Bush: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
Iraq presents "a very significant potential threat to our country," said Senator Evan Bayh (Democrat of Indiana). The Iraqi dictator, he said, "possesses chemical, biological, and some day will possess, if events are allowed to run their course, nuclear weapons."
Hussein, Senator John Warner (Republican of Virginia) said, "does not need them to retain his power within Iraq, but in all likelihood will use these terrible weapons to project that power, to intimidate other states in the region, and potentially one day for use against us as well."
Bush: "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio AddressOctober 5, 2002
Bush: "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio SpeechOctober 7, 2000
The intelligence arm of the US Air Force was never convinced that Baghdad had developed drones capable of effectively distributing chemical and biological weapons as the White House claimed. But the Air Force dissent, attached to a classified report in October 2002 on the Iraqi threat, was kept secret even as the President publicly made the opposite case in the fall before a congressional vote on the war resolution.
Bush was more qualified in his major Oct. 7 (2002) speech in Cincinnati, mentioning al Qaeda members who got training and medical treatment from Iraq. The State of the Union address was also more hedged about whether al Qaeda members were in Iraq, saying "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases... [which] could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." ...."(Source: Washington Post, 20 July 2003)
(Summer 2002, one month after DIA classified info leaked) A team of C.I.A. agents went to interview the man with their own interpreter. “He says, ‘No, that’s not what I said,’” the former intelligence official told me. “He said, ‘I worked at a fedayeen camp; it wasn’t Al Qaeda.’ He never saw any chemical or biological training.” Afterward, the former official said, “the C.I.A. sent out a piece of paper saying that this information was incorrect.
The Pentagon's "Office of Strategic Influence" relied heavily on information provided by Iraqi defector and leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmad Chalabi. He has provided the White House with reams of intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs that has been disputed. Chalibi provided the interpreter used in getting the false information in this DIA classified report.
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-19-03/discussion.cgi.56.html
On Oct 8, 2002, Pres. Bush said: "We have experienced the horror of September 11. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing -- in fact they would be eager -- to use a biological, or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
___________________________________________________________________
Comment: Note the Congress voted on the sort-of resolution/declaration of war in 16 October 2002.
___________________________________________________________________
President Bush suggested in February 2003 that the NIE said that Iraq could launch drones with germ weapons from ships at sea and use them to attack the US.
The US Air Force intelligence's dissent, attached to a classified report in October 2002 on the Iraqi threat stated: "The Director, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, U.S. Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing U.A.V.'s primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (C.B.W.) agents," the declassified version of the estimate notes. "The small size of Iraq's new U.A.V. strongly suggests a primary role for reconnaissance, although C.B.W. delivery is an inherent capability.
Christian Westermann, an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and a top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons, told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform to the Bush administration's views.
Office of Special Plans (OSP) was not the only Pentagon unit set up to contradict official intelligence estimates. As recently reported by Mother Jones magazine, a separate, unnamed Pentagon intelligence unit operated out of the office of Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for American Enterprise Institute (AEI), to serve as a Pentagon consultant and founding participant of the unnamed, secret intelligence unit
The purpose of the unit was to scour reports from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and other agencies to find nuggets of information linking Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, and the existence of Iraqi WMD.
http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2004WMD2.htm
Note: "Office of Strategic Influence" now the Office of Special Plans leaked the information to the New York Times last September (2002). They stated that, that Iraq's attempt to purchase aluminum tubes were part of a clandestine program to build an atomic bomb.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=572
Just days before President Bush's State of the Union address in January, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, described the intelligence as not only convincing but up-to-date."It is a case grounded in current intelligence," he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, "current intelligence that comes not only from sophisticated overhead satellites and our ability to intercept communications, but from brave people who told us the truth at the risk of their lives. We have that; it is very convincing."
Bush: We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." No such aircraft has been found in Iraq.
Bush "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."...claimed Iraq had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development program... "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
State of the Union AddressJanuary 28, 2000
Powell repeated the charge in his February 4, 2003 speech to the U.N. However, no chemical weapons were used, nor found on the battlefields under the control of defeated Iraqi units.
On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council: "We know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection." ...Powell claimed that "Most U.S experts think they [aluminum tubes] . . . are used to enrich uranium." {4}
Powell also declared Iraq had "550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents."
In a February 8, 2003 Weekly Radio Address, President Bush stated: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tell us he does not have."
Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the NationMarch 17, 2003
March 17 thru Apr 16, 2003: Threat level raised to orange and activates Operation Liberty Shield: "While al-Qaida remains the principal concern, we are also concerned Iraqi state agents, Iraqi surrogate groups or ad hoc groups or disgruntled individuals might choose to use the time period as well to launch attacks against the United States or against our coalition partners," said Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
19 March 2003, US military invades Iraq.
Poll results:
Bush's job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done by the Republican-controlled Congress, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken April 4-6 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040805G.shtml
Americans by 53%-34% say they disapprove of Bush's handling of the Schiavo case. Congress' rating on Schiavo is worse: 76% disapprove, 20% approve.
By more than 2-to-1, 39%-18%, Americans say the "religious right" has too much influence in the Bush administration. That's a change from when the question was asked in CBS News/New York Times polls taken from 2001 to 2003. Then, approximately equal numbers said conservative Christians had too much and too little influence.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040705L.shtml
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose
He lied about the Iragi bio-weapons threat
05 April 2005 --
Last October, just weeks before the presidential election, the acting director of the CIA was suppressing a report to Congress that was potentially embarrassing to President Bush's campaign. The report had been completed by the CIA's own independent inspector general four months before the election, yet the agency rebuffed Congress' request that it be made public.
Now, thanks to last week's release of another report, that of the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, we learn that the embargoed CIA report centered on the outrageous case of a Iraqi informant known by the code name, "Curveball."
It was Curveball, an Iraqi chemical engineer who defected, who was the inspiration for then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's statements before the United Nations that the U.S. knew Iraq possessed mobile bio-weapons labs. The CIA had long harbored strong doubts concerning Curveball's veracity. The foreign government holding him had even informed the U.S. that the Iraqi exile was a "fabricator" who had suffered a "nervous breakdown" and was "crazy."
CIA Director George Tenet provided the basic briefing and final vetting of Powell's disastrously false presentation of the case against Iraq. According to the commission's report, Tenet was working with Powell the night before the U.N. speech when he spoke on the phone to a high-ranking CIA official who warned him not to rely on Curveball's information. That warning had been issued by others in the agency, but Tenet claims that he cannot recollect hearing it.
After the occupation of Iraq in spring 2003, the massive U.S. Iraq Survey Group confirmed that Curveball was either hallucinating or lying, finding no WMD or WMD facilities. It turns out the informant wasn't even in Iraq at the time he claimed to be working on biological weapons.
The Curveball case was definitively closed when the CIA gained access to the Iraqi defector in March 2004 and categorically repudiated his story. That was half a year before the U.S. presidential election, however, and clearly the White House didn't want the CIA inspector general to blow the whistle and embarrass the president as he fought for his political survival.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040505J.shtml
The lies leading up to the claim that Iraq possessed mobile bio-weapons:
OCT 1, 2001: Anthrax attack It promoted government programs in countermeasures to deal with biological terrorism and the attack was directed against top Democrat leaders.
___________________________________________________________________
Comment: Could this anthrax attack been used by some person or persons to increase the FEAR FACTOR and the public support for a preemptive war against Iraq?
Rep Jim McDermott pointed out that then there was/is smallpox, ...and the Bush administration encouraging vaccination... and ratching up the level of anxiety.
___________________________________________________________________
Judicial Watch charged, and the White House has now confirmed, that the anti-anthrax drug Cipro was distributed to White House staffers on September 11 (2001), nearly four weeks before the first anthrax attack was made public.
Larry Klayman of Judicial Watch said, in a press statement, “We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or underway.” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said that the drug had been distributed “in the early hours of September 11,” before the exact nature of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington had become clear.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jul2002/anth-j20.shtml
Bush said in a speech to religious broadcasters in February (2002) as he built the case for war against Iraq. "Chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained," he declared. "Secretly, without fingerprints, Saddam Hussein could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists or help them develop their own. Saddam Hussein is a threat. He's a threat to the United States of America."
http://www.eriposte.com/war_peace/911/911.htm
Sept 11 thru 24, 2002: Threat level raised to orange for the first time: Aschcroft said, "Al Qaeda cells in several South Asian countries have been accumulating explosives since January and may be planning car bomb or other attacks on US facilities". ," President Bush said at the Afghanistan Embassy in Washington. "We have no specific threat to America, but we're taking everything seriously," he said.
September 26, 2002: Bush did not seek CIA approval before charging that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes.
The claim, was made twice by President Bush, in a September 26, 2002 Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a "Global Message" issued Sept. 26 , the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq "could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001557.php
In fact the CIA told the British that the claim was garbage when a draft of the dossier was given to the Americans on September 11, 2002. So before it was published on September 24, the CIA was on record to the Brits that the claim was bogus. Yet the White House went ahead and used the claim after its own intelligence agency had debunked it to the Brits.
In fact, Bush used the claim not once but three times in a span of four days. In addition to the Ari Fleischer press gaggle on the 24th, the claim was also used in a September 26, 2002 in the Rose Garden with congressional leaders, and again in a September 28, 2002 radio address. So Bush again ignored the assessment of his own intelligence service to make claims based on British intelligence he had not seen.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/000438.php
(Summer, 2002) The D.I.A. report, which was classified, was leaked. (see note below on OSP) and in a detailed account, the London Times described how the defector had trained with Al Qaeda terrorists in the late nineteen-nineties at secret camps in Iraq, how the Iraqis received instructions in the use of chemical and biological weapons, and how the defector was given a new identity and relocated.
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-19-03/discussion.cgi.56.html
September 12, 2002, United Nations Address : Bush: "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
Iraq presents "a very significant potential threat to our country," said Senator Evan Bayh (Democrat of Indiana). The Iraqi dictator, he said, "possesses chemical, biological, and some day will possess, if events are allowed to run their course, nuclear weapons."
Hussein, Senator John Warner (Republican of Virginia) said, "does not need them to retain his power within Iraq, but in all likelihood will use these terrible weapons to project that power, to intimidate other states in the region, and potentially one day for use against us as well."
Bush: "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio AddressOctober 5, 2002
Bush: "The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio SpeechOctober 7, 2000
The intelligence arm of the US Air Force was never convinced that Baghdad had developed drones capable of effectively distributing chemical and biological weapons as the White House claimed. But the Air Force dissent, attached to a classified report in October 2002 on the Iraqi threat, was kept secret even as the President publicly made the opposite case in the fall before a congressional vote on the war resolution.
Bush was more qualified in his major Oct. 7 (2002) speech in Cincinnati, mentioning al Qaeda members who got training and medical treatment from Iraq. The State of the Union address was also more hedged about whether al Qaeda members were in Iraq, saying "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda "Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases... [which] could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." ...."(Source: Washington Post, 20 July 2003)
(Summer 2002, one month after DIA classified info leaked) A team of C.I.A. agents went to interview the man with their own interpreter. “He says, ‘No, that’s not what I said,’” the former intelligence official told me. “He said, ‘I worked at a fedayeen camp; it wasn’t Al Qaeda.’ He never saw any chemical or biological training.” Afterward, the former official said, “the C.I.A. sent out a piece of paper saying that this information was incorrect.
The Pentagon's "Office of Strategic Influence" relied heavily on information provided by Iraqi defector and leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmad Chalabi. He has provided the White House with reams of intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs that has been disputed. Chalibi provided the interpreter used in getting the false information in this DIA classified report.
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-19-03/discussion.cgi.56.html
On Oct 8, 2002, Pres. Bush said: "We have experienced the horror of September 11. We have seen that those who hate America are willing to crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent people. Our enemies would be no less willing -- in fact they would be eager -- to use a biological, or chemical, or a nuclear weapon. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
___________________________________________________________________
Comment: Note the Congress voted on the sort-of resolution/declaration of war in 16 October 2002.
___________________________________________________________________
President Bush suggested in February 2003 that the NIE said that Iraq could launch drones with germ weapons from ships at sea and use them to attack the US.
The US Air Force intelligence's dissent, attached to a classified report in October 2002 on the Iraqi threat stated: "The Director, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, U.S. Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing U.A.V.'s primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (C.B.W.) agents," the declassified version of the estimate notes. "The small size of Iraq's new U.A.V. strongly suggests a primary role for reconnaissance, although C.B.W. delivery is an inherent capability.
Christian Westermann, an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and a top State Department expert on chemical and biological weapons, told Congressional committees in closed-door hearings that he had been pressed to tailor his analysis on Iraq and other matters to conform to the Bush administration's views.
Office of Special Plans (OSP) was not the only Pentagon unit set up to contradict official intelligence estimates. As recently reported by Mother Jones magazine, a separate, unnamed Pentagon intelligence unit operated out of the office of Douglas J. Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for American Enterprise Institute (AEI), to serve as a Pentagon consultant and founding participant of the unnamed, secret intelligence unit
The purpose of the unit was to scour reports from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and other agencies to find nuggets of information linking Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, and the existence of Iraqi WMD.
http://www.basicint.org/pubs/Research/2004WMD2.htm
Note: "Office of Strategic Influence" now the Office of Special Plans leaked the information to the New York Times last September (2002). They stated that, that Iraq's attempt to purchase aluminum tubes were part of a clandestine program to build an atomic bomb.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=572
Just days before President Bush's State of the Union address in January, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, described the intelligence as not only convincing but up-to-date."It is a case grounded in current intelligence," he told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, "current intelligence that comes not only from sophisticated overhead satellites and our ability to intercept communications, but from brave people who told us the truth at the risk of their lives. We have that; it is very convincing."
Bush: We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." No such aircraft has been found in Iraq.
Bush "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."...claimed Iraq had the capacity to produce 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 25,000 liters of anthrax and 500 tons of sarin, mustard gas and VX nerve agent. He said Iraq also had 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical weapons, plus several mobile biological weapons laboratories and an active nuclear weapons development program... "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
State of the Union AddressJanuary 28, 2000
Powell repeated the charge in his February 4, 2003 speech to the U.N. However, no chemical weapons were used, nor found on the battlefields under the control of defeated Iraqi units.
On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council: "We know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection." ...Powell claimed that "Most U.S experts think they [aluminum tubes] . . . are used to enrich uranium." {4}
Powell also declared Iraq had "550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents."
In a February 8, 2003 Weekly Radio Address, President Bush stated: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tell us he does not have."
Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the NationMarch 17, 2003
March 17 thru Apr 16, 2003: Threat level raised to orange and activates Operation Liberty Shield: "While al-Qaida remains the principal concern, we are also concerned Iraqi state agents, Iraqi surrogate groups or ad hoc groups or disgruntled individuals might choose to use the time period as well to launch attacks against the United States or against our coalition partners," said Homeland Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
19 March 2003, US military invades Iraq.
Poll results:
Bush's job approval is at 44 percent, with 54 percent disapproving. Only 37 percent have a favorable opinion of the work being done by the Republican-controlled Congress, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken April 4-6 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040805G.shtml
Americans by 53%-34% say they disapprove of Bush's handling of the Schiavo case. Congress' rating on Schiavo is worse: 76% disapprove, 20% approve.
By more than 2-to-1, 39%-18%, Americans say the "religious right" has too much influence in the Bush administration. That's a change from when the question was asked in CBS News/New York Times polls taken from 2001 to 2003. Then, approximately equal numbers said conservative Christians had too much and too little influence.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040705L.shtml
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes. MY NEWSLETTER has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is MY NEWSLETTER endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose
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