Amos in response to your post 05 Aug 08 - 01:31 PM

Point 1:
"New Book Says Bush Committed Impeachable Offense"

Now that headline should have told you something Amos – This is nothing more than an advertisement.

Point 2:
"An explosive new book by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist alleges President George W. Bush committed an impeachable offense by ordering the CIA to create a forged document showing a link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization al-Qaeda to create a "false pretense" for war."

Ah it has now changed from the book "saying" that Bush committed an impeachable offence, to only alleging that he had done so.

Point 3:
"The White House had concocted a fake letter from [the director of the Iraqi intelligence service] to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001," reporter Ron Suskind writes in his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. "It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President's Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link."

If this was indeed the case Amos does Ron Suskind offer any explanation at all as to why this letter was never used? I take it that it was never used or brought to the notice of the public, any member of the Senate, or any member of the House of Representatives?

Mr. Suskind and people such as yourself Amos and your "pal-de-jour" Dennis Kucinich have been spouting about the Administration's eagerness to implicate Saddam Hussein and Iraq with Al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. Which of course we all know is rubbish because various members of this self-same administration tell us within days of the attacks taking place that Iraq has definitely got nothing to do with the attacks – That is a matter of record Amos.

Here is what Vice-President Dick Cheney said about it:

September 16, 2001 Meet the Press:
Russert: "Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?"
Cheney: "No."

March 24, 2002 Meet the Press:
Russert: "Iraq's Saddam Hussein. When we spoke on September 16, five days after the tragic day of September 11, I asked you if any evidence of linkage between Saddam Hussein and Iraq and al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. At the time you said no. There's an article in The New Yorker magazine by Jeffrey Goldberg which connects Iraq and Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda. What can you tell me about it?"
Cheney: "I've read the article........With respect to the connections to al-Qaeda, we haven't been able to pin down any connection there."


From the September 8, 2002 Meet the Press:
Russert (After showing Cheney a re-run of the September 16th 2001 interview) asked: "Has anything changed, in your mind?"
Cheney: "Well, I want to be very careful about how I say this. I'm not here today to make a specific allegation that Iraq was somehow responsible for 9/11. I can't say that. On the other hand, since we did that interview, new information has come to light. And we spent time looking at that relationship between Iraq, on the one hand, and the al-Qaeda organization on the other. And there has been reporting that suggests that there have been a number of contacts over the years. We've seen in connection with the hijackers, of course, Mohamed Atta, who was the lead hijacker, did apparently travel to Prague on a number of occasions. And on at least one occasion, we have reporting that places him in Prague with a Senior Iraqi Intelligence Official a few months before the attack on the World Trade Center. The debates about, you know, was he there or wasn't he there, again, it's the intelligence business."
Russert: "What does the CIA say about that? Is it credible?"
Cheney: "It's credible. But, you know, I think a way to put it would be it's unconfirmed at this point."
   
Now then Amos, if "The White House" had done what Mr Suskind has alleged they did wouldn't this have been the perfect time to introduce this letter? I would have thought so, but they did not – possible explanation being that no such letter exists

Point 4:
"Furthermore, Suskind alleges that the Bush administration knew Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction nor was the country an imminent threat, which is what the March 2003 invasion was predicated on."

Amos please note the "alleged" again. That "Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction", well it is true that a few people (very few in fact) were stating this as being their opinion. But even they did not know that for certain. As to what Saddam Hussein and Iraq had in terms of WMD, WMD materials, delivery systems and ongoing research and development programmes, the only hard evidence to go by came from UNSCOM's last report in January 1999, plus some relatives of Saddam's who blew the cover on the Iraqi VX programme, they subsequently returned to Iraq and were promptly murdered on the orders of Saddam Hussein.

Point 5:
"The director of the Iraqi intelligence service informed the White House "that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq – intelligence they received in plenty of time to stop an invasion.

They secretly resettled [the intelligence official] in Jordan, paid him $5 million – which one could argue was hush money – and then used his captive status to help deceive the world about one of the era's most crushing truths: that America had gone to war under false pretenses," Suskind writes says."

Now let's get this right Amos, one man comes bimbling out of Iraq at the eleventh hour and tells you everything is alright and that Iraq has no WMD, after UNSCOM, two relatives of Saddam Hussein and your entire intelligence network tells you differently and you believe the one man and disregard all other information? Ever heard of deliberately spreading disinformation? Thank God you are not the President of the United States of America responsible for the security and well-being of your country.

I would have thought that as an educated man capable of critical analysis you would have listed all that was "alleged" and all that "could be argued" in order to weigh up the likelihood of any of this being true. But no, you did not, all this supposition and clear evidence to the contrary allied with all that was "alleged" and all that "could be argued" all of a sudden was parlayed into becoming – "one of the era's most crushing truths" – Utterly preposterous Amos.