60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)

Subject: 60 Minutes tonight
From: kendall
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 06:39 PM

Do they dare tell the truth about that diversion called war in Iraq?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Blackcatter
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 06:42 PM

Well, of course they will. The problem isn't that the truth is out there, it's that most people don't care.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 06:44 PM

What is "truth"?is this BS? who are "they"? do we care?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: open mike
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 07:34 PM

60 minutes is an in-depth news show in the U.S.
and yes, we care.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 08:00 PM

I think you will get more depth from NPR and the various news program---and here in NYC we are lucky to have the likes of a Brian Lehrer for in depth interviews---no rants.   And YES we do care or at least we should.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Cruiser
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 08:25 PM

I am watching the Richard Clark interview now. If you get a chance watch it. Mr. Bush was focused on Iraq as a terrorist threat, not Al Qaeda.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Mar 04 - 09:33 PM

It was quite an indictment.   But doesn't it come down to what you believe??

Once again, we're talking about FAITH.

It opens the can. Then it shakes some of the contents out. Is it a can of worms? We will see.

Fascinating

Though.

Whatever!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 12:36 AM

Can someone post a precis of what occurred? I don't get much TV.

A

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 01:04 AM

There's lots about it on google news, Amos, but here's a short bit:



NEW YORK : A former White House anti-terrorism adviser has accused president Bush of ignoring terrorism threats before the September 11 attacks and of making America less safe.

Richard Clarke, Bush's top official on counter-terrorism who headed a cybersecurity board, told CBS "60 minutes" in an interview he thought Bush had "done a terrible job."

"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11," Clarke told CBS.

Clarke, who was an adviser to four presidents, says in a book to be published next week that the US should have taken out Qaeda and its training camps in Afghan long before the attacks of 9/11, for which the militant network was blamed.

"I think the way he has responded to Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he's done after 9/11, has made us less safe," Clarke told CBS.


Clarke is already being attacked, supposedly because he worked for Clinton, too, and basically said Clinton dropped the ball. I think I'd reserve judgement until I read his book and research it more.

Just for fun, take a look at Democratic Underground.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 11:23 AM

The WHite House is issuing floods of persuiasive denials, but I kind of think that Clarke is speaking sooth.

A

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 02:33 PM

I saw the interview with both Clarke, and Clarke's boss in the Bush White House.

Clarke definitely came across as MUCH more credible.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 02:59 PM

Here is the BBC version.

This includes a (RealPlayer) video clip, in which Clarke says "US soldiers went to their deaths in Iraq thinking that they were avenging 911, when Iraq had nothing to do with it." And asked if this meant they had gone to their deaths in vain Clarke replies "Not that they died in vain. They died for the President's own agenda."

I imagine that people who want to vote for Bush will find some way to rubbish this, or ignore it.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: DougR
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 05:50 PM

Ho hum. Another disgruntled former staffer, another book that will probably set him up for life. Clarke is upset because Bush wouldn't let him run the country, and particularly would not call a cabinet meeting when HE thought one should be held.

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:07 PM

Watched 60 Minutes. Got it on tape.

Bush:   "Find me a connection between the 9/11 attack and Iraq."
Clarke:   "Mr. President, there is no connection."
Bush:   "Find one. Saddam. Iraq."

Following day—

Bush:   "Well?"
Clarke:   "Mr. President, we are unable to find any connection whatsoever between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks."
Bush:   "Wrong answer! Look again!"

And there was another equally damning conversation Clarke spoke of. Leslie Stahl interviewed a spokesman for the White House who denied that the conversation ever took place. Lesley Stahl said, "but we have confirmation from two sources that say the conversation did take place, and that you were there at the time." The guy hesitated for a moment, then repeated his denial, but the two-second look of shifty-eyed horror on his face was priceless!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:20 PM

Didn't I say so? "..people who want to vote for Bush will find some way to rubbish this..."

If critics weren't part of the system, they don't know what they are talking about. If they were part of the system, they are disgruntled ex-employees. If they are still part of the system, but talk out of turn, they are traitors or Walter Mitty characters, like the late Dr David Kelly. What's left? I suppose Bush could put his hand up and say "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet" - but then of course it'd show what a fine and honourable man he was.

True Believers are pretty impressive really - in all parties, in all countries. But sometimes they must have a really hard time keeping the faith. Reminds me a bit of the old-time Communists when people insisted on spreading these stories about Stalin...

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: John Hardly
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:26 PM

I've long said that Bush is going to lose this Nov. I still think that's true, but the interesting part of the 60 Minutes last night was the Ed Bradley story on al Queda. I think the graphic reality presented of an irrationally wild Islamic terror machine did more to make America think twice about voting Democrat than the First 40 Minutes of 60 did in convincing new people not to vote for Bush.

The Clark revelation was more of the same ol' same ol' -- cheerleading to the Bush haters, and nothing we haven't read here on the 'cat ad nausuem.

The Bradley piece reminded the very few undecided that may have watched it that terrorism is scary and evil as hell. and I think it probably awakened the long-held knowledge that Democrats don't believe it's a threat to us -- and even if it becomes one, they won't deal with it.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:42 PM

Are there really people who actually think that Al Qaeda isn't hoping that Bush will be elected for a second term?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:56 PM

There's lots of damfool Democrats in this here town who think they're more likely to be killed by a drunk or enraged automobile driver, or by one of the local meth-heads, for instance, than they are by a terrorist, just because that's the way it's been so far.

But if the terrorists do become more of a threat we know what to do all right; we'll attack some country that has more targets than the country where the terrorists actually are holed up.

clint

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: harvey andrews
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 06:58 PM

The truth rolls like thunder.
Will the lightning strike Blair?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: kendall
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:05 PM

Disgruntled ex employee? dont you wish, Doug. The man refused to make up a link between Al Queda and Hussein so Bush could go to war, and when his 30 years were up, he retired.
He servered under three republican presidents and one democrat, what does that tell you?

Doug, what do you think of Bush's refusal to debate Kerry?
"             "            " refusal to appear before the whole commission? he wants to appear, in private, to only the two flunkies that he hand picked.
Condo Rice also refused to appear in public.

COWARDS!!

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:11 PM

Some sad thoughts re: this topic. We may well be the choir when it comes to the hopeful departure of Bush from our scene. However, while having lunch with some people today our discussion evolved to the Democratic Pres. candidates.   We asked the waitress---and then some other people at random---the names of some of them. They never even heard of Kerry---and the others were in that same category.   

So--sadly---our unnoficial poll makes me think that TV ads will influence the general public just like they buy products from ads.   I hope I am wrong---but I am reminded of a book of many years ago written by an early TV exec. wherein he used the term "...The Great Unwashed" for the viewers who lap up everything the boob tube can offer.

ONe cute story though---one of the respondents to my comment ---don't you think that ,physically at least, Kerry looks Linolnesque replied---"...what the hell are you talking about anyway?"   I doubt he even knew who I was talking about.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: harvey andrews
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 07:18 PM

And isn't that the real problem with democracy? Everybody gets the vote. So no matter how much you read, think, discuss, argue...your one vote gets cancelled out by a waitress who's never heard of one of the candidates? I know the knee jerk reaction to that is..yep, that's democracies strength. But might it not be its weakness?
Maybe the vote should be something you have to qualify for by more than age..like the driving test, a little work involved so its something you value and use with discretion and knowledge?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:11 PM

Was it Kerry he hadn't heard of, or Lincoln? Or neither?

Actually that similarity is why I think the man would be well advised to grow a beard, the same way Lincoln was advised to. Anyone know any similarly persuasive 11 year-old girls?:

Hon A B Lincoln...

Dear Sir

My father has just home from the fair and brought home your picture and Mr. Hamlin's. I am a little girl only 11 years old, but want you should be President of the United States very much so I hope you wont think me very bold to write to such a great man as you are. Have you any little girls about as large as I am if so give them my love and tell her to write to me if you cannot answer this letter. I have got 4 brother's and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband's to vote for you and then you would be President. My father is going to vote for you and if I was a man I would vote for you to but I will try to get every one to vote for you that I can I think that rail fence around your picture makes it look very pretty I have got a little baby sister she is nine weeks old and is just as cunning as can be. When you direct your letter direct to Grace Bedell Westfield Chatauque County New York

I must not write any more answer this letter right off Good bye


Grace Bedell

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: open mike
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:11 PM

there was a news story last night on world link t.v. showing that the Iraq "news" was manufactured at a media center in Quatar. And when reporters asked pointed questions about conflicting information, they
were "dismissed". Reports from the "imbedded" reporters were sent to this press headquarters.But they were only toreport on certain scenes . they were not allowed to give details of certain stories such as "friendly fire" casualties, and the "rescue" of the injured female private.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:19 PM

"Another disgruntled former staffer..."

Would it be correct to assume that any statements by "satisfied current staffers" which might happen to say the kind of things Bush would like said will also be dismissed by Doug for the same kind of reasons?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:31 PM

I guess my other post never arrived.   

In response to Harvey---I had said that he was correct except that his thoughts might creat other problems---think Poll Tax and other restrictions to eliminate voters.

Computerized voting can also be a fright given that there is no paper trail. The incumbents can surely find "geeks" to negate any voting.

I suppose the question---once again is---will the end of Dubyas term become a Landlord/Tenant dispute over the White House.

Bill Han

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Mar 04 - 08:56 PM

Yeah, bad day fir Bush. Like he cares. Just remember two things:

1. The one with the most money wins 94% of the time and.....

.....2. Diebold.....

Hate to tell ya all but we're in for 4 more years of stupidity, corruption and lies.

Bobert

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 07:21 AM

"The Clark revelation was more of the same ol' same ol'..."

I have to disagree. The term "national security" has been misused and abused by our political leaders for so long, it has nearly been rendered meaningless. The real danger from that is this very example: of the country's top counterterrorism expert not being believed, because he is accused of being 'political'.

What this man is saying is that we might have been able to prevent 9/11, if the Bush White House hadn't been so mired down in their own ideological agenda. And that Bush invading Iraq as response to 9/11 is akin to if Roosevelt had invaded Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor.

These are the most serious charges levelled at the administration since he took office, by the highest ranking official yet. Despite the Democrats desire to impeach Bush for parking tickets, this charge truly does rise to the level of needing to be investigated as high crimes et al.

The testimony to the 9/11 commission should be interesting. As the Washington Post's correspondent who has been following the counterterrorism story for nearly a decade pointed out in yesterday's edition, despite the virulence of the Bush machine's attacks against Clarke, they have not refuted a single fact. Just disagreed over the interpretation of the facts.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 07:47 AM

And from today's story in the Washington Post, there is this:

"Although some Republican leaders defended the White House and joined in denouncing Clarke, others expressed concern that the former aide's accusations would compound a recent fall in Americans' perception of Bush's honesty that began with the flawed charges about Iraq's weapons and the understatement of the costs of Bush's prescription drug initiative.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said he believes the White House has to respond directly to Clarke's allegations rather than question his credibility. "This is a serious book written by a serious professional who's made serious charges, and the White House must respond to these charges," he said."

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:04 AM

And then there is the White House's refusal to let Condoleeza Rice testify publicly before the 9/11 commission. Are they claiming national security? No, they are not. They are "citing constitutional prerogatives" according to the Post.

And even former President Carter, breaking with the tradition of former presidents not criticizing sitting presidents, had these scathing remarks about Bush, Blair, and Iraq:

"That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," Carter told the Independent newspaper of London, where the Clarke allegations were causing new trouble for Prime Minister Tony Blair, a Bush ally. Carter said Bush and Blair "probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence."

There is no doubt that these are the most damning, most serious charges ever levelled against Bush. You can't just dismiss former presidents remarks like Carter's, as partisan politicking in a presidential campaign, because former presidents don't play that game.

An estimated 16 million people watched the Clarke interview on 60 Minutes, which contradicts the claims above that no one is paying any attention to this story. To the election, no--people aren't paying attention. There is no need for them to pay attention to it right now. But at least 16 million Americans are most definitely paying attention to this story.

And finally, here is this revealing fact about the story, again from the Post:

"The (Bush) campaign's defense strategy was that although Clarke could not be roundly refuted on the facts, enough doubt about the issue could be raised by portraying him as reckless and partisan."

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:09 AM

Re Don Firth's post above, here's what Clarke himself said about it:

"Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'

"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."

Now taking out all the opinion regarding what Mr. Clarke THOUGHT was being said you arrive at the following (Immediate aftermath of 911 remember):

BUSH: 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.'
CLARKE: 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
BUSH: "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.'

Now considering the circumstances (which were pretty earth shaking) my take on that is that I have asked somebody to do something specific, pursue a line of enquiry that will connect or eliminate a prime suspect. That person then comes back and tells me that it has been looked into previously and can be dismissed (i.e. in as many words he is saying that he is not going to do what I have specifically requested him to do). If I thought my original request was reasonable, I would certainly come back, letting that individual know in no uncertain terms what I fully expect of him and his department. In the above exchange G. W. Bush did no more, and no less, than that.

On the final report, the report of the conversation (Clarke/Bush) that Don's got taped did not take place according to Clarke, who goes on to say that he does not even know if the President saw the final report.

But one thing I do remember was that very shortly after the attacks of 911, Colin Powell on interview clearly stated that Saddam Husein and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with those attacks.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:18 AM

What is your point Teribus?

There is this depiction of Clarke, in a different article in today's Washington Post:

"Most acquaintances do not regard him as a partisan. Clarke was viewed as a hawk and "true believer" by many within the Clinton administration, and Clarke himself says he is an independent who is registered as a Republican.

"You can't accuse him of being passive or too liberal on foreign policy," said Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA official who worked with Clarke in the Reagan years. "He's very abrasive and aggressive and pushes his point of view very hard."

Now, is that the description of a Kerry dove? I think not.

These are damning charges, and as many are beginning to point out, these charges demand answers from the White House, not scurrilous, ad hominem attacks on the messenger. It is ESPECIALLY important that this book be released before the elections in the US in November. Yet, that is just what the White House, through it's inferences that the timing of the book's release is politically motivated, seems to be suggesting. That criticism of the president's handling of the war on terrorism should be withheld from the public until after the election.

Sorry, but that ain't gonna fly.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:26 AM

BTW, I do agree with the Bush administration's assertions that Clarke's book is politically motivated. It should be. The Bush administration's response to 9/11 was political, and so was it's invasion of Iraq without provocation. Political acts all.

What these charges are not though, is partisan.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:36 AM

So - You can't just dismiss former presidents remarks like Carter's, suggests GUEST, 23 Mar 04 - 08:04 AM.

Damn right you can if what he states is absolute bullshit.

Point Number 1:
"That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11,

Guest, or Jimmy Carter, please provide evidence that Bush, or Blair, EVER stated that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

Point Number 2:
"claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,"

At the time the world and his dog fully believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, having been told so by UNSCOM and the Iraqi's themselves, please do not forget that.

Point Number 3:
Carter said Bush and Blair "probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence."

In any given situation you run with what intelligence you have. Intelligence is rarely, if ever, "certain"; 100% reliable; 100% verifiable. Just because it may happen to be "uncertain" does not mean that you disregard, or ignore it. If you would, then you would be the biggest fool in creation.

Oddly enough it was under Carter's stewardship, that the biggest blow to US intelligence was struck - from within. The policy decision to abandon efforts to improve and develope human-intel links on the ground in favour of technological-intel, was accepted and adopted by the Carter administration. That decision once made meant that in quite a large chunk of this planet the intelligence agencies of the United States of America went blind, deaf and mute.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:37 AM

And finally, this one from today's Post:

"In a broader context, Clarke sounded concerns expressed by (former Bush Treasury Secretary) O'Neill and John J. DiIulio Jr., the former head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives: that Bush is running an insulated White House driven by conservative ideology and politics. DiIulio, the first former Bush official to publicly criticize the president, said in a 2002 magazine interview that "it's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

The most damning criticism of this president and his administration, is coming from his own people.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:47 AM

Teribus, you do love your crackpot theories. I'm not going back out onto the internet AGAIN to prove to you that Bush administration officials, including Bush, routinely made deliberately misleading statements that the American public interpreted to mean that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.

There is plenty of "proof" out there from impeccable sources, including verbatim quotes of Bush administration officials' remarks in this regard, and it has all been reproduced here before.

You just refuse to accept that there was an orchestrated effort on the part of the Bush and Blair administrations, to mislead their governments, other governments, the UN, and the public, about the war on terrorism, and the intelligence used to justify a profoundly bad choice to invade Iraq, setting off an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks, and damning Europe, Israel, and the US to what will likely be decades of terrorism against us from Islamic terrorists.

They will move beyond Iraq, as the bombings in the wake of the invasion of Iraq has shown. They can and will take it to our homelands. What these two leaders have unleashed, is a world war three scenario, complete with the blackmarket nukes from "our friend and ally" Pakistan.

But some head in the sand types, like yourself and other conservative hawks, just can't face up to the facts: you were wrong in the way you said the war on terror should be prosecuted.

Dead wrong, for far too many people, who are the victims of these misguided policies, from 9/11 to 3/11.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 08:55 AM

My point GUEST 23 Mar 04 - 08:18 AM, was that, under the circumstances, what Richard Clarke was asked to do by the President was reasonable, rational and logical.

By the bye, has anyone asked Mr. Clarke, who else he, and his department were asked to check out?

As to timing of publication, Richard Clarke has just retired, he has written a book based on his view of things, he obviously wants it to sell, so now, probably affords him the best publicity possible. All of those factors however, does not guarantee that what he has said in that book is the whole story.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 09:47 AM

GUEST 23 Mar 04 - 08:47 AM

Crackpot theories? I specifically asked you to come up with one documented instance of either President Bush, or Prime Minister Blair laying the blame, or responsibility, for the attacks of 9/11 at the door of Saddam Hussein.

On the other hand I have given you a specific instance of an extremely senior official in the Bush Administration coming out, very shortly after those attacks, with a clear statement that Saddam Hussein was NOT responsible.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 09:49 AM

It also doesn't mean that what he has said is untrue, or sour grapes.

Not even the Bush attack dogs are refuting the facts in Clarke's book. They are attacking his character. That should send off all the alarm bells, in matters this serious.

As I said, this should be political. The public has a right to know if they have been misled into war, and if the president and his men (even the ones in skirts) have intentionally spun the intelligence to further their political agenda.

We have the right to know that, and to vote accordingly on those issues.

Damn right, it's political.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 09:51 AM

No Teribus, I won't give you the proof. It has already been provided to you, numerous times in this forum, and you simply refuse to accept it. So there is no point in presenting it again and again and again, now is there?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 09:56 AM

Fuck it. Here it is Teribus. Took me two seconds to google it. This is but one of tens of thousands of hits on the subject.

No Proof Connects Iraq to 9/11, Bush Says
By Greg Miller *
Los Angeles Times
September 18, 2003

President Bush said Wednesday that there was no proof tying Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attacks, amid mounting criticism that senior administration officials have helped lead Americans to believe that Iraq was behind the plot.

Bush's statement was the latest in a flurry of remarks this week by top administration officials after Vice President Dick Cheney resurrected a number of contentious allegations about Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th," Bush said in an impromptu session with reporters. He contended, however, that "there's no question that Saddam Hussein had Al Qaeda ties."

Bush's comments were his most direct on the issue to date. He drew a clear distinction between alleged Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda and the lack of evidence of Iraqi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. That is a distinction administration officials did not emphasize in the months before the war. The issue has come to a head amid recent polls showing that most Americans believe — despite the lack of evidence — that Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stressed Wednesday that Bush administration officials never claimed any Iraq-Sept. 11 link. McClellan's assertion appears to be factually correct, but many administration critics, including some in the intelligence community, said it was also somewhat misleading.

A reading of the record shows that while senior administration officials stopped short of accusing Hussein of complicity in the attacks, they frequently alluded to the possibility of such a connection, and consistently cast the relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda in stronger terms than many in the intelligence community seemed to endorse.

Even Bush's remarks Wednesday were challenged by lawmakers and other officials who have reviewed the White House's prewar claims and have access to the underlying U.S. intelligence. Responding to Bush's statement, Sen. John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said any alleged ties between Hussein and Al Qaeda "are tenuous at best and not compelling." And while he agreed that administration officials never made an explicit connection between Iraq and Sept. 11, Rockefeller said the White House "led the American public into believing there was a connection in order to build support for the war in Iraq."

The issue, which had been dormant for several months, has been revived in recent days by a number of factors, including a fresh effort by the White House to shore up support for the increasingly costly military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq by casting the operation as a part of the response to Sept. 11. In a speech last week, Bush described Iraq as the "central front" in the war on terrorism, even though few in the counter-terrorism community described it as such before the U.S. invasion.

In his appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press," Cheney vigorously defended every aspect of the war, saying the administration's prewar claims about banned weapons held by Iraq would be proved true. He argued that Iraq was the "heart of the base" of the terrorist threat that culminated on Sept. 11. "If we're successful in Iraq then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11," Cheney said.

The White House has been on the defensive for months over the failure so far to find banned weapons in Iraq, which has fueled criticism that the administration hyped the threat posed by Hussein. Perhaps fearing that Cheney's comments might trigger a new public relations problem, the White House has moved quickly in recent days to clarify its position on Iraq and Sept. 11.

Bush's remarks Wednesday followed nearly identical comments by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday that the administration had no evidence tying Hussein to Sept. 11. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice also spoke on the issue Tuesday, saying on ABC's "Nightline," "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9/11." Recent administration statements, however, have prompted new questions about whether the White House contributed to and capitalized on public perception that Iraq was involved in the attacks.

Polls over the past year have shown that a persistent, perhaps even growing, majority of Americans believes Hussein was somehow involved. The latest, an August survey by the Washington Post, found that 69% of Americans believed Iraq was "likely" behind the attacks.

Polling experts say the numbers reflect the strong animosity many Americans have felt toward Hussein since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "The American public has always been prepared to think the worst of Saddam Hussein," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. "They think he's a dangerous guy, and he comes from the Mideast, where the people who are dedicated to hurting us come from, and [their belief that he was behind Sept. 11] is less conviction than, 'Yeah, probably.' "

Asked whether he believed the administration contributed to that perception, Kohut replied: "Well, they didn't have to hint very much to have Americans draw that inference. I don't know if people were already there [in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11], but they were prepared to go there really quickly."

Though Bush and his top aides did not say directly that Hussein took part in the Sept. 11 attacks, they often combined the two subjects in speeches and interviews leading up to the war. In a key speech in Cincinnati in October, the president said: "We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade." After Hussein's regime was toppled, Bush reinforced the perception of a link between the two in his May 1 speech aboard an aircraft carrier off San Diego, saying, "We've removed an ally of Al Qaeda."

Critics argue that such juxtapositions encouraged people to tie Hussein to Sept. 11. "It was the close association in the same thought, the same sentence, that led to that incorrect conclusion," said Greg Thielmann, a former senior intelligence official at the State Department who retired last year. "And I think it was done with great skill and deliberation."

The administration also seized on shards of evidence that seemed to suggest Iraqi complicity in the attacks, evidence that has since come into serious question. In perhaps the most important example, Cheney has repeatedly cited the allegation that the ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta, met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague several months before the attacks. "It's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April," Cheney said in an appearance on "Meet the Press" three months after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The CIA says it can find no evidence that such a meeting took place. The FBI says that financial and other records indicate that Atta was in Florida when the meeting allegedly took place. Nor has the account been supported by information from the Iraqi agent, who has been in U.S. custody for several months. "If we had gotten confirmation that there was such a meeting, I think you would know," a U.S. official said Wednesday.

Cheney raised the issue of the meeting again Sunday, saying: "We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don't know." To be sure, there is evidence of some contact between Hussein's government and Al Qaeda. An Al Qaeda affiliate, Abu Musab Zarqawi, operated from Baghdad, where a cell he controlled orchestrated the killing of a U.S. diplomat last year, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Al Qaeda detainees in U.S. custody have told interrogators "that there was some training of Al Qaeda types offered by Iraq, and perhaps received," a U.S. official said. There are also reports of contacts between Iraqi agents and Al Qaeda operatives in Sudan dating back a decade or more. But none of the senior Al Qaeda operatives in custody, including Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, nor any of the senior Iraqi officials being detained, have described significant cooperation between the two, according to intelligence officials. "Nobody has alleged that Al Qaeda was working hand in glove with Iraq," the U.S. official said.

White House Quotes Past and Present
[Compiled by Times researchers Cary Schneider and Joan Wolff. Sources: Facts on File, news reports.]

President Bush

Oct. 14, 2002: "After September the 11th, we've entered into a new era and a new war. This is a man [Hussein] that we know has had connections with Al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use Al Qaeda as a forward army."

Sept. 17, 2003: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had Al Qaeda ties. We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the Sept. 11" attacks.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

Sept. 26, 2002: "Yes, there is a linkage between Al Qaeda and Iraq."

Sept. 16, 2003: "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe that I could say that" Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice

Sept. 25, 2002: There "have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of Al Qaeda going back for actually quite a long time."

Sept. 16, 2003: "And we have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9/11. What we have said is that this was someone who supported terrorists, helped train them."

*Times staff writers Maura Reynolds and Paul Richter contributed to this report.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:29 AM

Brilliant GUEST 23 Mar 04 - 09:56 AM,

Here it is - All summed up in the following:

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stressed Wednesday that Bush administration officials never claimed any Iraq-Sept. 11 link. McClellan's assertion appears to be factually correct.

FACTUALLY CORRECT - Do those two words mean anything to you Guest?

Now what was it that Jimmy Carter was wandering the globe telling anyone who wanted to hear:

"That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11,"

Thank you very much Guest, please by all means run with opinion and theory, I am perfectly content with the facts of the matter.

For my own part having followed this topic from the start can clearly and honestly state the following:

1. I do not consider that I have at any time been deliberately lied to, or misled.

2. I have been under the impression, formed within days of the attacks of 9/11, that the current American administration firmly believed that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government had absolutely nothing to do with those attacks.

3. That the United Nations and member states firmly believed that Saddam Hussein and his Ba'athist regime did possess WMD and had programmes active in the development of those weapons and of delivery systems to employ them.

4. That under the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein was necessary and justified.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:40 AM

"Ten days in, it was all about Iraq'.

Paul O'Neill, speaking about 'George' meeting 'with the principals of this national security council for the first time'
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 10:45 AM

FYI... 'George's' first NEC session was held on the afternoon of January 30th, 2001. Iraq was the main topic of discussion.
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:20 AM

Ah, so the Great and Wonderful Oz claims something that is factually correct cannot also be deliberately misleading?

Bullshit.

The American people did not come to believe that Iraq and Saddam were responsible for 9/11 for no reason. They came to believe that because the Bush administration told them it was "possible, even probable".

That is deliberately misleading the country into war. But hell Teribus, don't take my word for it. I mean, there must be a reason why all the major media keeps publishing these stories.

The bare majority of Americans don't yet feel they were lied to or misled by the Bush administration--but those numbers are changing fast. Why? Because once they get this information, they do what any reasonable person would do, which is to change their minds to fit the facts, not a predetermined political ideology, which is what you cling to Teribus, despite all the facts being presented.

The Bush and Blair administrations deliberately manipulated the facts to suit their political agendas, which was to persuade the world that they had legitimate reasons to invade Iraq. They did not. The truth is coming out, and the truth that is coming out is that you Teribus, along with the Bush and Blair administrations, are wrong.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Amos
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:31 AM

Teribus, it boggles my mind that you can rest in the comfortable belief that the POTUS has not once lied to you. The clique in the White House have falsified almost every important issue. Just boggles my mind.

But, hey, that's what makes the world an interesting place, innit. You and Dougie hold fast to that sense of security, as it seems to suit you.

Me, I think he's lied to me at every hand, non-stop, to a pathological degree.

A

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:40 AM

No Amos, it doesn't boggle the mind. Teribus is an ideologue. He isn't swayed by new information, because his mind gets made up once, and for all time, regardless of the facts that emerge later.

And actually, what should boggle the mind is how many ideologues just like Teribus there are voting. They make up their minds once, and for all time. There will be many people who will not change their minds about the conduct of the Bush and Blair administrations, even when their own administration's experts come out and say the Bush and Blair administrations manipulated and spun the intelligence to fit their political agenda.

Which HAS happened in both countries. Personally, I fault the media and it's acquiesence to the media titans and kings (including in the now infamous case in Britain over the BBC & WMD constroversy) insistence before the war, that the Blair and Bush administration stories were not only not to investigated independently, but that they shouldn't even be challenged, despite all the red flags that were sent up in the lead up to the war.

The media establishment is colluding with the political establishment, to further the agenda of the wealthy elites in Europe and the US. The only reason why France, Germany, and Russia weren't on board was because they weren't getting a piece of the action.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:05 PM

Oops... make that NSC will ya? "National Security Council" Sorry.
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:26 PM

1441 explained

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:32 PM

Yeah, what GUEST says about the T-Bird. We all know his tactics. Whenever he is cornered he pulls out his tried and true defense of assigning the one who has cornered him a danged lengthy homework assignment. But if you do the homework assigment then he finds the tiniest of details and thrie to get you to focus on them... It's just the same diversionary song and dance routine time after time...

Now he trying to revise recent reports and discoveries that with the exception if T-Bird and the Bushites, the entire *sighted* population now understands to be facts in the case. I love listening to Scott McClelland. He dose the exact same thing and when that doesn't work he just glosses over the question with non answers...

Now I'd just like to bring up one small point. Lets go back to before the invasion of Iraq. What was going on? Were folks just standing around supporting an invasion? Well, heck no they weren't. Millions took to the streets in cities across the US and in hundreds of cities around the world. Our European allies warned the US not to invade Iraq. The UN inspectors were doing their job. The US could not get the UN behind invading Iraq... I mean, had I been president, I'd have been mighty sure that every "t" was crossed and "i" dotted but we all now know that wasn't on any imporatnce to the Bush folks...

Now they are having to expalin themselves and I guess for folks like the T-Bird the explainations are just as believable as the lies he believed before the invasion. We tried to tell him then and he wouldn't listen then either. Meanwhile, most of the world sees what is going down here and it does not shine a credible light on the Bush administration...

And the more stories they come up with the less credible they look... And I might add, those who parrot the new story lines.

Bobert

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 01:37 PM

Krugman's column in this morning's NYT offers a few more bits of evidence that weren't covered in 60 Minutes. Snippets offered below.

Lifting the Shroud
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 23, 2004

From the day it took office, U.S. News & World Report wrote a few months ago, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government. After 9/11, the administration's secretiveness knew no limits — Americans, Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do." Patriotic citizens were supposed to accept the administration's version of events, not ask awkward questions.

But something remarkable has been happening lately: more and more insiders are finding the courage to reveal the truth on issues ranging from mercury pollution — yes, Virginia, polluters do write the regulations these days, and never mind the science — to the war on terror.

-snip-
On "60 Minutes" on Sunday, Mr. Clarke said the previously unsayable: that Mr. Bush, the self-proclaimed "war president," had "done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

-snip-

Of course, Bush officials have to attack Mr. Clarke's character because there is plenty of independent evidence confirming the thrust of his charges.

Did the Bush administration ignore terrorism warnings before 9/11? Justice Department documents obtained by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, show that it did. Not only did John Ashcroft completely drop terrorism as a priority — it wasn't even mentioned in his list of seven "strategic goals"-- just one day before 9/11 he proposed a reduction in counterterrorism funds.

Did the administration neglect counterterrorism even after 9/11? After 9/11 the F.B.I. requested $1.5 billion for counterterrorism operations, but the White House slashed this by two-thirds.

Oh, and the next time terrorists launch an attack on American soil, they will find their task made much easier by the administration's strange reluctance, even after 9/11, to protect potential targets. In November 2001 a bipartisan delegation urged the president to spend about $10 billion on top-security priorities like ports and nuclear sites. But Mr. Bush flatly refused.

Finally, did some top officials really want to respond to 9/11 not by going after Al Qaeda, but by attacking Iraq? Of course they did. "From the very first moments after Sept. 11," Kenneth Pollack told "Frontline," "there was a group of people, both inside and outside the administration, who believed that the war on terrorism . . . should target Iraq first." Mr. Clarke simply adds more detail.

Link

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 02:00 PM

"Factually correct" - the way Clinton was "factually correct" with his "I did not have 'sexual relations' with that woman", and his quibbles about what "is" means. Avoiding the lie direct is the easiest trick in the book - which is presumably what Carter had in mind when he chose to use the wider expression "lies and misinterpretations".

The important thing to keep in mind when listening to someone you have reason to distrust is not "is this person lying to me?", but rather "what is the truth; what does this person want me to believe; and how do those two differ?" Whether the deception involves a lie direct or not is just a matter of technique, not of morality.

William Blake cut to the heart of this kind of thing:

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 03:05 PM

A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

WOW! Nice one... Who was this "Blake" fellow? ...he's pretty good!

...?;^)... ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 03:51 PM

Thomas, you're a philistine....

'Who is this Blake fellow', indeed...

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:11 PM

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election."
                                           Otto Von Bismarck

"One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives."
                                           Pudd'nhead Wilson

"Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth."
                                           Ashleigh Brilliant

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,One More for the Road
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:13 PM

"If a lie is repeated often enough all the dumb jackasses in the world not only get to believe it, they even swear by it."

                                        ~ Billy Boy Franklin ~

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,I am in charge here
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:14 PM

"That's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude. Also, a tactical misrepresentation."


~ Alexander Haig ~

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Everyone should have a Willy
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:23 PM

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.


~ Margaret Thatcher ~

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 04:45 PM

Oh, this is almost embarrassing -- lord help us all.

Bush says he'd have acted quicker against al-Qaida if he knew attack was coming
04:30 PM EST Mar 23

WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush said Tuesday he would have acted quicker against al-Qaida if he had information before Sept. 11, 2001, that a terror attack against New York City was imminent.

"We have been chasing down al-Qaida, ever since those attacks," Bush said. In his first direct response to criticism raised in a new book by his former counterterrorism adviser, Bush denied that he ignored Osama bin Laden and the threat of the al-Qaida terror network before the terror attacks while rushing to blame Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

"The facts are these, George Tenet briefed me on a regular basis about the terrorist threat to the United States of America, and had my administration had any information that terrorists were going to attack New York City on Sept. 11th, we would have acted," Bush said. Tenet is the CIA director.

© The Canadian Press, 2004

Gee, no kidding, eh?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 05:53 PM

Why didn't someone tell him? The poor old duffer. Now he's stuck listening to the country serenading him with "Where in the World is Osama bin Laden?"

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 06:04 PM

How could the poor man be expected to know that terrorists wouldn't issue press releases in advance of doing stuff like that?

All together now:

If I knew you were coming
I'd have baked a cake
Baked a cake
Baked a cake
If I knew you were coming
I'd have baked a cake
How'd ya do, how'd ya do, how'd ya do?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:15 PM

George Washington couldn't tell a lie. I hold myself to a higher standard. I can tell a lie, but I chose not to.
                                                                                                                                        --Mark Twain

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Mar 04 - 11:38 PM

"People will believe the big lie more than the smaller ones..."

Adolf Hitler_______________

Bobert

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Kaleea
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:53 AM

Jeepers!   Truth? Truth, like time & space, is relative!    i believe that 60 Mintues certainly can tell the "truth." And I believe that they sometimes do.
    The harder question is: Can a politician tell the entire truth as opposed to speak the "truth"? Or should that be mis-speak an untruthfullness?
   Will Bubbabush speak "the truth"? More importantly, can Bubbabush ever be taught to speak in complete sentences which are gramatically correct?   
               NOT!!!!

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:25 AM

Thomas the Rhymer - 23 Mar 04 - 10:40 AM

"Ten days in, it was all about Iraq'.

Damn sight earlier than that ttr, Clinton 1998 - Agenda "Regime Change in Iraq"

GUEST 23 Mar 04 - 11:20 AM
What the Bush administration told them (the American public and the world at large) was that A FUTURE attack, by international terrorist groups, similar, or more dangerous, in nature to those of 9/11 was "possible, even probable" if backed by regimes prepared to furnish such groups with WMD, or WMD technology. A Senate Security Committee identified the Ba'athist regime in Iraq as one of the most likely candidates to fulfil that role.

The reason why all the major media keeps publishing these stories is simple - it sells.

Where is your "information"? Where are your "facts"? So far, from what you, and others, have put up as fact amounts to opinions and suppositions based on 20 x 20 hindsight - i.e. not facts at all.

The Bush and Blair administrations evaluated what intelligence data they had in order to establish what sort of threat existed, or could potentially exist in the case of nothing being done (favoured UN course of action) with regard to Iraq. Far from being wrong, the Bush and Blair administrations, were correct in their reading of the situation and their actions were correct.

GUEST 23 Mar 04 - 11:40 AM
"New information", "facts that emerge later" - As stated above you have offered neither.

By the bye, in the Gilligan/BBC v Blair Government case which you refer to as the "infamous case in Britain over the BBC & WMD constroversy" - The BBC and Gilligan were found to have been at fault.

Bobert - 23 Mar 04 - 01:32 PM
As poor as ever on fact and detail Bobert.

The "recent reports" are all recently reported opinions, nothing more. There have been no recent "discoveries" at all. And what Scott McClelland has said apparently has been analysed by Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times and guess what Bobert, Mr. Miller has come down to the conclusion that what Mr. McClelland has been saying is "factually correct" - but like I've said many times before your credo seems to be, "Facts I don' need no steenkin' facts".

Liked this bit Bobert -
"Lets go back to before the invasion of Iraq. What was going on? Were folks just standing around supporting an invasion? Well, heck no they weren't." Again not too good on facts Bobert - Heck yeah they were.

The "Millions took to the streets in cities across the US and in hundreds of cities around the world." Did they constitute a majority of the populations of the US and the world Bobert? - you suggest so, but both you and I know that that was not the case.

GUEST,pdc - 23 Mar 04 - 01:37 PM

Let's have a look at Krugman's, "bits of evidence" - that weren't

1. "From the day it took office, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government."

Opinion - not "evidence" - I take it that the federal governments business in the previous administration was completely open and transparent - Is that what Mr. Krugman is trying to say? - if so I don't buy it.

2. After 9/11 - "Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

Sounds pretty logical and sensible thing to do - what would Mr. Krugman rather have had Ari Fleischer say?

3. -snip 1 - Purely Mr. Clarke's opinion.

4. -snip 2 - Bush officials have not attacked Mr. Clarke's character. They have pointed out a number of significant inconsistencies in both Mr. Clarke's actions and statements. There is no independent evidence confirming the thrust of his charges, there is only opinion.

5. Prior to 9/11, terrorism within the US, has never been a priority, regardless of which administration was in power.   

6. Did the administration neglect counterterrorism even after 9/11? It most certainly did not. The FBI thing is a red-herring, post-9/11 the counter-terrorist policy adopted called for a complete revamp in order to streamline the flow of information between intelligence agancies. The present administration did spend more on counter-terrorist post 9/11, that is a fact. The UK went through the same thing in eliminating "turf" wars involving MI6; MI5; Special Branch and the Anti-terrorist Squad.

7. Regarding, "the next time terrorists launch an attack on American soil, they will find their task made much easier by the administration's strange reluctance, even after 9/11, to protect potential targets."

Really, you mentioned nuclear sites and ports. With regard to the latter, take a look at the recent IMO ISPS code - Not just the USA but world-wide. If G. W. Bush did flatly refuse to do anything about it, that flat refusal is having a pretty funny way of manifesting itself. All ports and vessels of 500 dwt engaged in international trade have to comply with this code by July this year.

8. "Finally, did some top officials really want to respond to 9/11 not by going after Al Qaeda, but by attacking Iraq? Of course they did."

Another red-herring. Pure observation on my part, but what did the administration do? Ignore what some wanted to do, what did the administration do? They went after the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan - DIDN'T THEY.

McGrath of Harlow - 23 Mar 04 - 02:00 PM

I liked the Blake quote.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 08:50 AM

I'm really glad I don't know you in 3D TBird. You are the most negative, deceitful, manipulative poster I may ever have encountered on the net.

And you think much too highly of your own opinions.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 09:30 AM

GUEST 24 Mar 04 - 08:50 AM
Guest's Mum:
Aw diddums, never-mind, you go and continue to believe whatever it is you want to believe. You go and chatter with all those "nice" people who only believe what you believe. Pay no attention to that nasty Teribus person who persists in challenging your beliefs and keeps asking you to provide some form of substantiation for them.

Teribus:
What me negative? Deceitful? Manipulative? Examples please Guest.

Oh, and Guest, I think no more highly of my opinions than you do of yours - only difference being that mine tend largely to be based on fact, wish the same could be said about yours.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:09 AM

Earlier still... T bird... Perhaps the humiliation suffered by the Bush team in '91 led to the 'all out' pull for Bush in '00... a little unfinished business 'bout humilliation? Or was it guilt for leaving such a mess...

Bush was obsessed with Iraq from the beginning. Is that why he was placed in the oval office? He sure wasn't interested in any sort of objectivity in his meetings... in fact, it appears as though he is terrified of intelligence... As any good puppet must be.

Clinton was concerned about the terrorist threat... with constant briefings from 'responsibly informed' individuals... But he was not obsessed with Saddam. Concerned, yes... weren't you? However, Clinton knew that Al-Quida must be stopped. His priorities were correct.

...and they probably still are...

Bush dropped the ball when he was elected... and went into a revery of how it used to be... and his hard studied 'Leave it to Beaver' reruns didn't give him the briefings he needed to have a clue about contemporary world issues and diplomacy... And his staff, consisting largely of 'blame game' afficianados, were hand picked by 'George' himself... (read: Carl)

You've got a full plate T-bird, and we're gonna keep servin' it up... Still hungry?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 10:51 AM

But how can that GUEST know he or she doesn't know Teribus in 3D?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: DougR
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 11:11 AM

Kendall: there will be debates, but we don't need eight months of debates. Bush would be stupid (and even I would think so)to enter into monthly debates with his opponent prior to the election. Bush has real identity with the voters, Kerry has to gain that. Why should Bush give Kerry the exposure he needs so many months prior to the election?

I haven't read Clarke's book so I won't comment on its content other than having seen the 60 Minutes interview. To me, he came across as a whiner who "didn't get his way" when he wanted it. It will be interesting to watch his testimony this afternoon before the 9/11 Commission.

Don: Bush may have said, as you quote, "Find it" when commanding Clarke to find evidence that Iraq was connected to 9/11, but I don't recall Clarke saying that on 60 Minutes. Perhaps he says something in the book he did not say on television.

DougR

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Update on Clarke from FOX
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:22 PM

Fox news (you KNOW it's true because it's bare and phalanxed) just released some tapes of Clarke made some months ago wherein he is praising the Bush administration. Look for this to be trotted into the mainstream as the current admin continues its campaign.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:32 PM

DougR

Seems to me a man acting in the capacity of Terrorism Czar was put there so he could pretty much handle the mission. Not wait for the pres. to agree with what he was doing. a quote from Cheney on the news last night:

"Clark doesn't know everything that went on because he was not always kept in the loop."

Pardon me but the administration was studying and making policy decisions without keeping their terrorism czar in the loop?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:34 PM

Yo, T:

No, the millions of people who actually took to the streets did not represent everyone who was against the invasion of Iraq any more than if a pro-life demonsatration attracts a thousand people that those 1000 prople are the only ones that hold pro-life views. Get my drift here? Your reasoning is flawed. The point is that with millions of folks in the streets Bush should have been more concerned with *getting it right* than playing cowboy.

Now we all have been witness to the revisions and re-revisions and re-re-revisions of how the story will look in it's final form.

Remember the "mushroom cloud" days, T? Remember the articles in the major newspapers and on the major television networks of the CIA warning the White House not to play that card? No? Well, I sure do. But the Bush White House played it anyway.

Then there was this inmistakenable link between bin Laden and Iraq. Might of fact, evn after Bushj himself has acknowledged that there is no proff to back that claim up, Dick Cheney still brings it up as if it is fact. These are reasonable things to look at, my friend, especially when you have a pre-emtive policy of defense.

And now you have folks calling into C-SPAN saying stuff like, "Well, I don't care if there weren't any WDM's, at least Saddam is out of power." Well, where did that little *slogan* come from? Well, I'll tell you. The Bush PR machine, that's where.

See where wre are going with this? This administration has had an agenda that dates back to at least 1992 when Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle drew it up on paper. They took the plan to the Clinton adminstration and it was rejected. Then along comes Cowboy George and 9/11 and waalaa. Bingo!

Problem is, T, that the US hasn't yet figgured out how to act in its roll of Big Dog yet. The invasion of Iraq is a prime example. Consider this, my friend. What if rather than whack Iraq, the Bush folks had chosen to buddy up to Saddam? Hey, he been a company man most of his life and there's no reason to believe that he couldn't have been given an opportunity to be brought back into the fold, so to speak. And don't give me the "he was a bad man" crap because the US has and continues to buddy up to bad men so that dog won't hunt. At some point in time the Big Dog will have to think diplomacy first rather than bite. We missed an opportunity in Iraq and now we're paying dearly for it. Figuratively, morally and finacially with no end in sight.

Just food for thought, T-Bird... Why noy consider what I've and others have said here fir a couple of hours before working up your standard rebuttal. I mean we can argue all day over tiny details but the basics are purdy much in place here. We hear your arguments 24/7 as the Bush folks and their media allies thry to pound the fight song into our heads. It's easy to take your side because of this but, IMHO, it does not make your side right.

Try a little open mindedness once in a while. Your *reaction* time is a tad bit too fast and seems to be getting in the way of your objectivity...

Peace.

Bobert

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: kendall
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:39 PM

Doug, Bush lacks the intellect and the balls to debate Kerry. All he has is a shitty record and a pack of attack dogs to cover up his failures.

Also, let's not forget how Saddam got to be so powerful with all those WMD that were given to him by Reagan.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 01:08 PM

Absolutely Bush lacks the intellect to debate Kerry. He might carry if off if he was actually sitting on Rove's knee, with Rove the ventriloquist putting words in his puppet's mouth.

What really broke me up was an interview with Bush last year, before Kerry had even become the dem nominee, in which Bush said he wouldn't have time for debates because he would be "too busy being president."
This from the president who set records for vacation time and fundraising trips.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 01:17 PM

"Terrorism Czar" - what a ridiculous thing to call anyone.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Larry K
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 02:17 PM

I am glad I waited before adressing this issue.   Every day there is more and more evidence how Clark is a fraud.   And most of it in his own words.    Fox news just played a video tape of a Clark briefing to Newsweek and Andrea (Mithcell?) basically contradicting everything he said on 60 minutes.    Devastating.

There is also the resignation letter praising Bush for his action in the war on terror.   There is also the transcript of his apprearance before Congress explaining why the Clinton administation did nothing on the war on terror from 1998 to 2000.   There is also his speech to Congress where he linked Al Queda to Iraq.    This directly contradicts what he said on 60 minutes.

The man is a walking time bomb.    I can't wait till what we find out tomorrow.    Clearly sour grapes from his demotion by Bush and the need to sell books have led to putting his foot in his mouth.    The only thing left to do is to tell us that foreign leaders support his assertions on the war on terror.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 02:25 PM

"Pardon me but the administration was studying and making policy decisions without keeping their terrorism czar in the loop?"

Exactly. That is the scariest part of the whole deal, isn't it? The Bush administration hacks thought they were the experts on terrorism. Obviously they were wrong on that count.

As to the silly thing over the resignation letter--please. I put nice things in my resignation letters to employers I left because they were totally incompetent too. So what the hell is a resignation letter supposed to "prove" about Clarke's charges? Not a damn thing.

Haven't seen the video from Fox you are referring to, so can't comment on that. But I don't think this is sour grapes. This sounds like a man who wanted to write his own account, in hopes of influencing his legacy. Lots of high ranking politicos do that when they leave government for good.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 04:12 PM

Teribus:

I picked these four things out of your post because they caught my eye; I haven't the patience to to go through the whole thing.

'1. "From the day it took office, the Bush administration "dropped a shroud of secrecy" over the federal government."

Opinion - not "evidence" - I take it that the federal governments business in the previous administration was completely open and transparent- Is that what Mr. Krugman is trying to say? - if so I don't buy it.'

No, he didn't say that. The federal governments business in the previous administration was not completely open and transparent, but the Bush administration is more secretive. Check it out.

'2. After 9/11 - "Ari Fleischer ominously warned, "need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
'Sounds pretty logical and sensible thing to do - what would Mr. Krugman rather have had Ari Fleischer say?'

In the context of the time it was a threat. The prevailing attitude, and is, was that those who criticize the administration are helping the terrorists. Myself, I would rather hear him say "We do not need to give up freedom for safety."

'3. -snip 1 - Purely Mr. Clarke's opinion.'

True. Informed opinion, though.

'4. -snip 2 - Bush officials have not attacked Mr. Clarke's character. They have pointed out a number of significant inconsistencies in both Mr. Clarke's actions and statements. There is no independent evidence confirming the thrust of his charges, there is only opinion.'

What I have heard is largely variations on "disgruntled employee." But 60 Minutes said they had witnesses to at least one of Clarke's conversations with Bush.

Seems to me you are arguing to win the debate rather than to arrive at (an approximation of) the truth.

clint

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: robomatic
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 04:12 PM

Guest, Larry:

I was the one who left the earlier update message of the FOX 'revelatory' tapes (wasn't logged in). I have also just watched Mr. Clarke's testimony before congress and I found him very forthright and a truly excellent communicator. I think you are perhaps overly primed to discredit him with these partial recordings which FOX has produced.

1) When he was interviewed, he was a member of the Bush Administration, and it is consistent with such a position that you present your employer, your 'team' in the best light possible and confine your critique in-house.

2) Apparently the newly revealed tapes are from 'background' which means there was an understanding when they were made that they were NOT for public airing but were a kind of 'aide-memoire' for the interviewers.

I was really impressed by Clarke who has a comparable presence and solidity to the impression given by Cheney, who whatever he says and whether you believe it or not, agree with it or not, gives an impression of sobriety and intelligence.


I haven't found Congressional hearings so riveting since the days of Ollie 'I shredded' North.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 04:44 PM

So lets see,

When I comment on Bush not being an expert on everything and not seeming to have the competence to be pres. all of my republican acquaintances tell me that he makes up for his shortcomings by surrounding himself with hand picked people who are experts.

It seems to me though that when one of his hand picked experts (in this case a former Republican who served in his position for Clinton) disagrees with the pres's view they toss him out on his ear and then claim sour grapes if the expert blows the whistle?

Can't have it both ways.

As with any other Presidents, regardless of who preceded them or who will follow, if it happens on his watch then he is ultimately responsible.

That's the meaning behind "The Buck Stops Here".
Stop blaming the intelligence community.
Stop blaming the Media.
Stop blaming former presidents.
Bad decisions made, even on bad information, are still bad decisions by the people who make them and they are responsible.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: DougR
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:31 PM

Chief Chaos: he was NOT the Terrorism czar. Said so himself.

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 05:38 PM

Wasn't the real "Terrorism Czar" Alexander III? (Hanged Lenin's elder brother, also called Alexander - which ultimately, perhaps, proved rather to have been rather a mistake...)

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 05:49 AM

I couldn't agree with Robomatic more regarding the hearings. I watched and listened to Tenet, Berger and Clarke yesterday.

Of the three performances, Tenet was comfortable, Berger was superb, Clarke impressive, although of the three, his body language indicated that he was the most ill-at-ease.

Now, what did I get from it all.

1. In an earlier post I said that terrorism within the US has never been a priority. That remark I retract, with the qualifier that compared to European countries faced with terrorist activity, activity on the part of the two administrations concerned in the US have always appeared (to me on this side of the pond) to have been very low key, very much behind the scenes.

2. Like the proud mum who goes to see her son's passing out parade and comments as her son's squad passes, "Oh look, they're all out of step except our Jimmy". That summed up Tuesday's and Wednesday's evidence, with regard to what Clarke had to say.

3. Berger clearly stated the options open to the US Government of Bill Clinton, as proposed by Clarke. He also stated with regard to hitting Al-Qaeda all of those options were simply just not feasible. He also stated that what action the Clinton administration did take (i.e. the cruise missile attacks) only succeeded in making Al-Qaeda look good and the US look feeble. He also explained that the cruise missile attack that Clinton did order was fraught with danger, given the required trajectory of the strike and the situation on the Indian sub-continent at the time.

4. On the USS Cole attack, Berger clearly explained that through December 2000, and into January 2001, the CIA had reached a "Preliminary Judgement" that Al-Qaeda was responsible and that a response to that attack could not, and should not, be launched on such a judgement, the case needed to be more compelling. Clarke on the other hand wanted Afghanistan bombed immediately, and continued with that line once the Bush administration took up the reins of government in January 2001. Clarke in recommending such a course of action, on which he was adamant, completely ignores the fact that Pakistan would, at that time, never have allowed such a violation of it's air-space.

5. The title, "Terrorism Tsar", Clarke himself rubbished, he clearly stated that that title was coined by the media. Under the Clinton administrations he (Clarke) had direct access to what he described as the "principals". Under the Bush administration his line of reporting was through their (the principal's) assistants. It was obvious that he felt that that represented a demotion, summed up by his comment that under the system as run by the Bush administration he had all the responsibility, but none of the authority. Considering some of his recommendations that does not surprise me and I do not believe it would have surprised Samuel Berger. The impression I got was that Berger/Tenet had a few "heated" discussions, while Berger/Clarke had many. On "actionable intelligence" and apparent lack of will on the part of the CIA to take direct action, Clarke's explanation regarding the pervading philosophy at Langley was excellent and probably very true.

6. The hand over in January 2001 between Berger and Rice consisted of three very comprehensive briefings. The first by Berger himself, the others were given to Rice by assistants (Clarke being one of them).

7. Considering the reported threat posed by Al-Qaeda according to Clarke, the differences in approach between the Clinton and Bush administrations were interesting. The Clinton administration were pursuing a policy of containment, of "rolling up" Al-Qaeda, to reduce its effectiveness over a period of 3 to 5 years. The Bush administration from the outset gave instructions that their policy would be to "eliminate" that organisation within 3 years. Now that is quite a radical change and it is clear that would obviously take time to put into practice. Equally clear was that this change, although welcomed by Clarke, also greatly frustrated him.

8. On the 9/11 attacks themselves, and the lead up to them, all three (but particularly Clarke and Tenet) commented on the amount of general intelligence regarding Al-Qaeda that had to be weighed through. They knew that an attack was being mounted, opinion was split over where that attack would fall, and how that attack would be carried out. General concensus, was that the attack would fall outside the US as that is where the bulk of intelligence information, at the time, pointed. Another factor causing people to consider an external target more likely, was the success in thwarting the "millenium" attempts by Al-Qaeda, and the number of cells broken in the US during those operations. Clarke alone was of the opinion that the attack would be made in the US. Action was taken to cover both possibilities. None considered an attack of the type that did actually occur (Clarke included). They did take into account that it could involve aircraft and warnings were issued during the summer of 2001 to the FAA and other associated agencies. Clarke was scathing in his opinions of the capabilities of the FBI. So low was his opinion of them that he recommended a seperate "secret police" to counter terrorism within the US. Berger was slightly more conciliatory towards the FBI, saying that due to the information load, it was probably true that the FBI didn't know, or realise, the importance of the information they actually had. Two factors, heavier than usual work-load, coupled with poor inter-departmental, inter-agency flow and exchange of information.

8. From his recommendations Clarke viewed Al-Qaeda as a fixed centralised organisation that could be attacked. Tenet did not hold the same view. From it's inception Al-Qaeda during the years of the Clinton administration successfully carried out a number of attacks against the US and attempted more. To date during the Bush administration Al-Qaeda scored it's greatest success with the attacks of 9/11. It was an attack that, given the set up in the US at the time, could not have been averted, even had bin Laden been killed - things were already too far down the track. The form of attack was not even considered, Clarke, himself, said that indications and assessments regarding such a form of attack amounted to a hand-full of papers dating back to 1995 buried among hundreds of thousands of bits of paper. One thing Berger did say was that Clarke's recommendations with regard to destroying Al-Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan only became feasible AFTER 9/11 - he was adamant that it could not have been done before.

9. So did the Bush Administration "drop the ball" as Richard Clarke contends? Given the circumstances, all-in-all, no I don't think they did.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 11:59 AM

Thomas the Rhymer - 24 Mar 04 - 10:09 AM

What on earth are you rambling on about? In 1998 Clinton identified regime change in Iraq as being required for the good of the region and in the interests of world peace.

"Clinton was concerned about the terrorist threat... with constant briefings from 'responsibly informed' individuals..."

Yes Thomas, exactly the same "responsibly informed" individuals were briefing GWB (George Tenet and good old Richard 'Pre-emptive Strike' Clarke) - Your Point?

"But he was not obsessed with Saddam. Concerned, yes... weren't you?"

Concerned enough to maintain the "no-fly" zones? Concerned enough to pre-emptively an unilaterally launch the bombing offensive otherwise know as "Desert Fox"? Concerned enough to openly declare that the United States would give 100% backing to anyone who would remove Saddam Hussein from power? Naw, that's not being obsessed with Saddam is it? As to Saddam being a cause of concern to me, yes he was, but obviously not to most, yourself included, who post to this forum. On your apparent preferred course of action Saddam would still be in power, the recent UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections would never have happened and the UN would still be doing absolutely nothing about Iraq.

"Clinton knew that Al-Quida must be stopped. His priorities were correct." AL-QAEDA had to be stopped, was Clinton's view and Clinton's priority was it? Not according to Samuel Berger, or Pre-emptive Clarke. The Clinton administration's policy was to contain Al-Qaeda, it was the Bush administration whose policy was to stop Al-Qaeda. In reality, at best all that was managed under the Clinton administration was that the US could only react to anything Al-Qaeda attempted. Clinton & Co never once made any attempt at wresting the initiative from the terrorists.

"Bush dropped the ball when he was elected..." Your opinion, probably borrowed from Pre-emptive, who is currently trying to sell his book - It's certainly not mine.

Irrespective of the 2000 election result, 9/11 would have happened with whoever was sitting in the White House.

Immediate reaction by the Bush Administration was to identify who was responsible, focus the world's attention on the problem of international terrorism problem and attack Al-Qaeda in the only safe haven Al-Qaeda thought they had. Hear any complaints from the "responsibly informed" at this stage in the proceedings? - No, not a whisper.

This process was then taken further to evaluate potential future threats to the United States of America, her allies and her interests. The risk evaluation threw up the possibilty of a rogue state supporting, supplying and assisting an international terrorist organisation on an attack on the US using WMD. By this time, others in the Bush Administration responsible with security, are way ahead of Richard Clarke (Old Pre-emptive is still riding his own old hobby-horse). Potential rogue states were identified, most prominent was Iraq, did the Bush administration just go in guns blazing - did they hell - they went to the United Nations. And if anyone was guilty of dropping the ball it was the UN - mind you the UN are rather good at doing that.

Full plate ttr? Hell you can't even muster enough in terms of point, fact or arguement to make the hors d'oeuvres. By all means keep servin' up your tripe.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 11:03 PM

Although I don't post here that often, I have reached a conclusion:

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck and swims like a duck, Teribus and Doug R. will swear it's a camel.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 12:21 AM

So, Teribus... you liked my tripe as an hors d'oeuvres so much, you want more tripe as a main course? By all means, eat more tripe!

What on earth are you rambling on about?
----Your inability to view the current regime with any appreciable degree of objective assessment
In 1998 Clinton identified regime change in Iraq as being required for the good of the region and in the interests of world peace.
----Yes, but if you noticed, he did not start a war we could not win... and Clinton maintained decent diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and the UN



Yes Thomas, exactly the same "responsibly informed" individuals were briefing GWB (George Tenet and good old Richard 'Pre-emptive Strike' Clarke) - Your Point?
----Clinton paid attention to his advisors, and chose a middle ground solution... as opposed to Bush's preconcieved notion that Saddam is the biggest threat and warrants immediate attention... instead of utilizing those same massive forces to 'get al Qaeda' with deadly serious intent.

----yes, Teribus...concerned, not obsessed to compusive and wasteful expenditures of time, money, and rescources.


Pre-emptive Clarke.
----disrespectful, Teribus. Clarke has extensive experience, most of which was with Reagan and Bush the first. Pre-emptive strike on al Qaeda, BTW...

The Clinton administration's policy was to contain Al-Qaeda, it was the Bush administration whose policy was to stop Al-Qaeda.
----Yes, I hear that was their 'big plan'... which they shelved in favor of a full scale attack of a 'toothless tiger'...

Clinton & Co never once made any attempt at wresting the initiative from the terrorists.
----Bush & Co. have wrested the initiative from the UN, the American people and the US economy, and may have stimulated anti American sentiment in troubled terrorist producing countries...


Irrespective of the 2000 election result, 9/11 would have happened with whoever was sitting in the White House.
----This assertion is not based in fact. It is an assumption that is popular amoungst the top level advisors and is not provable one way or the other. A lot of things would have been different...

Immediate reaction by the Bush Administration was to identify who was responsible, focus the
world's attention on the problem of international terrorism problem and attack Al-Qaeda in the
only safe haven Al-Qaeda thought they had. Hear any complaints from the "responsibly informed"
at this stage in the proceedings? - No, not a whisper.


Potential rogue states were identified, most prominent was Iraq, did the Bush administration just go in guns blazing - did they hell - they went to the United Nations. And if anyone was guilty of dropping the
ball it was the UN - mind you the UN are rather good at doing that.
----No Teribus. The rogue state you speak of, Iraq, was identified long before 9/11 as a place to go with guns blazing. Going there before al Qeada was dealt with, before Afghanistan could be rebuilt, and on faulty information... when the inspections were in progress and had the full support of the UN... (read 'the rest of the world'), was a poor excuse for war, and the diplomacy of barbarianism.

Full plate ttr? By all means keep servin' up your tripe.
----Chow down, and eat hearty!
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 05:23 AM

I suggest, Teribus, that if you want to go through posts and respond to them point by point, it would be clearer if you formatted your posts so as to make it easier to see whch are the quotes and which are the responses. Italics or quote marks would do the job.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 07:46 AM

A long time ago pdc I reached a similar conclusion:

"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck and swims like a duck, and George W. Bush says it's a duck, most people posting to this forum will swear it's a camel."

Now, lets take a look at the latest offering of chaff and magpie chatter from Thomas:

Objectivity? So the world and his uncle were solidly behind Bill Clinton's decisions:
- To start lobbing cruise missiles into the Sudan and Afghanistan, amazing that's not how I recall it.
- To continue patrolling the the Northern and Southern "No-Fly" Zones with orders given to pilots to engage Iraqi units who targeted them. Again that's not how I recall it, the UN in fact called such patrols illegal, of course the fact that those patrols severely curtailed Saddam's acts of revenge against his own population would never have entered into the UN's thinking process.
- To advise the UN to withdraw their inspection teams from Iraq as he was about to launch "Desert Fox", which incidently had as an addendum US military plans for the full scale invasion and occupation of Iraq as supplied by General Zinni. A unilateral action taken in the face of UN opposition, if I remember correctly.

You "objectively" think that the above represents a blue-print to, how did you put it, maintain decent diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, and the UN? - Amazing.

Next:
Bill Clinton paid attention to his advisors did he? Certainly didn't seem to pay much heed, initially, to Samuel Berger, who kept advising him that the measures being proposed and recommended by Richard Clarke were totally unfeasible and only served to increase the stature of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Fortunately, George W Bush, also paid attention to his advisors who happened to be looking a damn sight further ahead than Richard Clarke. I don't think that many of the world's leaders were under the impression that Saddam Hussein was anything other than a threat, the difference was that while they were not prepared to do anything about him, after the events of 9/11, GWB, his advisors and the House Security Committee all decided that some form of action was required. By the way TTR precisely what was all that massive force supposed to do? What do you believe they would have accomplished? Pre-emptive Clarke has not ventured an opinion on that.

Realistically TTR, security in the face of a terrorist threat actually does require "obsession" and compulsive, expenditure of time, money and resources - unlike you I can appreciate that, I can also appreciate that such obsession and expenditure is not wasteful, it serves to keep more of us alive than not.

Yes, "Pre-emptive Clarke" his extensive experience seems to have resulted in Richard Clarke solutions that were rejected as being unfeasible and totally counter-productive. Yes he served Reagan, George Bush Snr, Bill Clinton (two terms) and one half of George W. Bush's term - All that indicates is that he is a time server who steadily climbed the ladder then stomped off when he didn't get the job he wanted. Oh, and it was to be a, "Pre-emptive strike on al Qaeda, BTW..." - His solution immediately post-USS Cole was an extensive bombing campaign in Afghanistan - But as it was only against Al-Qaeda, I am sure, quite rationally, that the Taleban and others comprising the general population of Afghanistan would have immediately appreciated that distinction. It would, of course, have been regarded by Pakistan as a mere bagatelle of absolutely no consequence.

Action against Al-Qaeda and other similar groups was "shelved"? When? Where? How? Please provide some concrete facts to back that idiotic contention up, I'd be more than interested at looking at them. Actions throughout the world to combat Al-Qaeda have not slackened one jot since the attacks of 9/11, if anything they have steadily increased, and continue to do so.

Another objective, reality check:

----wrested the initiative from the UN, that's the best laugh I've had all week, and if you doubt that take a good long hard look at the track record of the UN and try to identify where and when it has ever used any intiative - East Timor possibly.

----wrested the initiative from the American people? Presidential elections apart, when have the American people ever held the initiative in terms of your country's foreign policy?

----wrested the initiative from the US economy? Oddly enough, according to most international analysts, the American economy is doing quite well at the moment and is forecasted to continue improving.

----"may have stimulated anti American sentiment in troubled terrorist producing countries..." That anti-American sentiment, in those terrorist producing countries has always been there TTR, way before your current President took office. As an aside, did you note the rhetoric used by Hamas's new leader in Gaza? All the chants about opening the doors of hell, about how America and Israel are to blame, but then immediately saying that America will not be attacked, that only Israel will be attacked. What, or, more accurately, who, do you think demanded that qualification? - Rantissi's lords and paymasters in Damascus and Tehran that's who. As for the why, they, President Assad and Iran's 12 old gits, have been watching their TV screens for the last two years.

Now the attacks took place on 11th September 2001, Bush had been in office for just about eight months. The attack had been in planning for at least eighteen months to two years, prior to 9/11 - so the decision to implement this plan was taken while Clinton was in office. Are you seriously attempting to suggest that if Al Gore had been sitting in the White House on the 11th September, 2001, the attacks would not have taken place?

TTR, you really should read what "Pre-emptive's" view on threat situations actually is. Identify and hit them before they become a threat, more or less his words before the 9/11 committee. Unfortunately TTR the world, and the problems that world can throw up at you, does not always allow you to complete one job before you have to take on the next. To believe otherwise is being incredibly naive, almost childish.

By all means - keep 'em comin'

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 11:10 AM

Teribus. I don't have time to waltz with you right now. But My, Oh My... You sure do seem to get off on being rude and offensive. Does it improve your sex life? If you could stick to the facts, and just swallow your rude invective, maybe we could get somewhere. You too have the "diplomacy of Barbarianism".

So, at the risk of slighting you with an 'ad hominem' personal attack, I must here point out that I fear you have your head so far up GWB"s ass, that it's stuck there, and the only way to deal with such a predicament, is to insist that GWB's poo tastes great!

Fact is, though you may have a lot to offer in terms of statistical evidence and governmental particulars, as any carrer military man should, something is keeping you from being objective ABOUT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.

I'm sorry sir... though you seem big and mighty when you're flaunting your 'mad-on'... I just don't agree with your bias. Just who is supposed to win in your world view? Where are the people?

Whew... talk about immature!
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:14 PM

Well TTR,

Being on the other side of the Atlantic from America, odd though it may seem, I have no particular political interest in who is President of the United States of America, George W Bush, John Kerry or Mickey Mouse.

Since 9/11 I happen to think that your current President has handled things well. I believe that he did provide leadership when it was needed. Two of the most despicable regimes known on this planet have gone thanks to your President's actions. If you and those of a-like-mind had your way Milosevic, the Taleban and Saddam Hussein would all still be in place. Kuwait would now be part of Saddam's Iraq, because you would have found some reason, for not reacting to that back in 1990 (UN could talk to him, you know drop him a hint, ask him nicely if he would give the Kuwaiti's their country back). You're pathetic, and you, you, have the complete and utter gall to ask me - "Where are the people?" - You for one, do not give a flying fuck for anything other massaging your own conscience - irrespective of how many "of the people" have to suffer and die in order for you to sit, safe, fat dumb and happy and say, "Well my conscience is clear".

Another thing that does rather tick me off a bit, is when people start spouting complete and utter rubbish then quoting it as fact when it is nothing of the sort.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:14 PM

That's what I was trying to point out earlier, ttr.

The T-Bird is really incapable of objectivity since he is an died in the wool Bushite. He doesn't bother considering anyone else's views other than this immediate need to *react* because that is the only way reactionaries know...

Hey, now don't get me wrong, ttr. I like T-Bird but he is very consistent in his defense of the Bush administration's policies. Pick any of them and he is ready to jump in and defend it. But that is what highly partisan people do. Ain't about right or wrong but making sure yer in the power circle...

Bobert

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: DougR
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:23 PM

TTR: and your attack on Teribus is NOT personal? Strange how some folks, who cannot offer good arguments to support their position, resort to that strategy.

Teribus view, as stated in his past three or four posts, is an excellent summation of the hearings in my opinion, and the conclusions he draws are absolutely correct.

Interesting how so many people responding to this thread jump to the defence of Richard Clarke when it was HE that proposed preimptive strikes against the Taliban without the express approval of the Congress or anyone else. I thought most of you folks were peaceloving.

PDC: you're a riot.

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:25 PM

Two of the most despicable regimes known on this planet have gone thanks to your President's actions.

I believe the Taliban is still active among the tribes of Afghanistan, T; and Milosevic was felled on the Clinton watch, nothing to do with Bushie. Regardless of these facts I think there is a modicum of truth in what you say and it does offset in small measure the rampant deceit and militant aggression Bush has demonstrated.

A

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Don Firth
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:34 PM

Let's see Teribus parse this:—

Not exactly a change of subject (it's conceivable that it's all of a piece), but as long as they're asking questions, there are a few more questions that need to be asked. Separate hearing, of course, but it needs to be held. Families of people who died in the World Trade Center keep asking these questions, but nobody keeps answering.

Ping! and Pong!

I make no comment. I merely post these links (only two of many on the same subject) for your consideration.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 01:43 PM

Whatever, Teribus... Your insults delegitimize your posts...

The point is, your assertions of my point of view are not only absurd, they are talk radio tip offs, borrowed from the far right 'party line'. I am not interested in your anthem for the establishment of miltary/industrial motives... I want Al Qaida caught and disbanded. While you are tooting your patriotic horn for the small victories against terrorism, and loudly proclaiming your own superiority because you 'notice' them... You are forgetting something Teribus... something terribly important.

Al Qaida perpetrated 9/11. Al Qaida is our enemy here, and Al Quaida is who we are at war with. All the rest of the 'accomplishments' you have sited above serve only to obscure our intent.

Between Bush's inauguration, and 9/11, lies a very important issue. It has been suggested, by very credible and respected people... who have managed to escape the 'hard ball' Bush team tactics... that Bush paid little attention to the real threat posed by al Qaida durring this time, and intended to shift the focus of 'the terrorist threat' to Iraq from the beginning of his term. This represents a major breakdown in effective security for the American people, a choice GWB decided to make for us. Though we'll never know whether 9/11 could have been stopped, there are many questions left unanswered.

No amount of personal insults, or 'mad-on' talk radio posturing... is going to make these questions go away.
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 05:47 AM

TTR,

A classic example of the type of thing that I object to:

"Between Bush's inauguration, and 9/11, lies a very important issue. It has been SUGGESTED, by very credible and respected people (NAME THEM)... who have managed to escape the 'hard ball' Bush team tactics... that Bush paid little attention to the real threat posed by al Qaida durring this time (NOT EVEN RICHARD CLARKE SUGGESTS THIS TO BE THE CASE), and intended to shift the focus of 'the terrorist threat' to Iraq from the beginning of his term."

You put that across, as the gospel truth, that the Bush administration ignored the threat posed by Al-Qaeda, earlier you even suggested that resources were withdrawn or diverted from combating this threat. Even Richard Clarke's testimony and that of both Berger and Tenet indicate clearly that neither was the case - So why do you continue to peddle those distortions as representing the truth when clearly they are not.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 06:01 AM

Since I started posting at this forum, I have continually seen demands for Teribus to ask people to 'name names', to 'prove it'; to 'show me the money', as it were.

Would that he had have been as fastidious when Bush and Blair announced that Saddam was an imminent threat, and had stockpiles of WMDs.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 06:07 AM

I understand why people feel strongly about these thigs, but it is perfectly possible to get that across without lashing out at people who disagree with us.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: el ted
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 07:29 AM

Post no 100. I thank you.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 10:03 AM

No need Jim,

The world and it's dog knew that Saddam was a threat. The announcement of the stockpiles of WMD came from the UN, not Bush and Blair.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,JH
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:44 AM

Argue from the right -- inflamatory, arrogant, "personal attacks", naive, ignorant, and poorly sourced (because the left de facto does not accept any but its own sources as factual -- even when they are over the top (like Mother Jones I saw quoted as factual).

Argue from the left -- this is orthodoxy here. You are enlightened, kind, caring, knowledgable, your sources are praised and your character unquestionable.

bigots. *BG*

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 12:46 PM

"The announcement of the stockpiles of WMD came from the UN, not Bush and Blair."

That is a blatant lie which is so easy to disprove that it's laughable.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 01:06 PM

Even Blair has moved on from talking about the non-existant WMD stockpiles to justifying the war on the quite other ground that Saddam's was a very nasty regime.

Which is true enough, but raises the question, if you're getting rid of nasty regimes, why start or stop with Iraq?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: DougR
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 01:42 PM

Good question, Kevin. I would think that the leadership in Iran might be getting a mite nervous, particularly after Gaddafi eleminated himself from "being next."

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 03:37 PM

Gee, the Feb 22 issue of Parade magazine - hardly a leftist publication - had their annual list of the World's 10 Worst Dictators, and Iran isn't even on it. So if we knock out Iran we've still got ten guys even more villanous. Why, we could have wars for years, even generations.

What luck!

clint

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,guest from NW
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:12 PM

"...earlier you even suggested that resources were withdrawn or diverted from combating this threat."

here is a story from usatoday regarding important resources that were diverted from afghanistan and the hunt for bin laden. for some reason i can't make the blickifier work so if someone wants to make this into a clickable link i'd appreciate it.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03-28-troop-shifts_x.htm?csp=24

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:19 PM

Here ya go -- a link to the article.

Regards,

A

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 04:25 PM

Well, Libya appears to have offered the same deal, well in advance of Iraq getting in the firing line. The continuing Iraq war makes it rather convenient now to accept it, and to present this as a result of what happened to Saddam's regime, and as evidence that this has had useful effects elsewhere. However I haven't seen any evidence whatsoever that actually backs up that assertion.

..................................

Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions -here you are, GUEST from NW

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 02:40 AM

GUEST,pdc 29 Mar 04 - 12:46 PM

"The announcement of the stockpiles of WMD came from the UN, not Bush and Blair."

That is a blatant lie which is so easy to disprove that it's laughable."

I don't know if you have ever bothered to go through the exercise pdc, but claims related to Iraq's WMD stockpile were based on the UNSCOM Report to the UN Security Council in January 1999 - That easy enough to check for you?

The famous JIC Dossier presented to the UK House of Commons mentioned the same quantities detailing the UNSCOM Report as it's source.

So taking into account the statement I made above - exactly where is the blatant lie which is so easy to disprove?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:05 AM

So the World and his dog knew that Saddam was an imminent threat to World security, Teribus?

To have satisfied your obvious insatiable desire for proof, one would have thought that nothing less than having samples of these WMDs delivered to your door by DHL, or at least for you to have been directed to a reputable website where you could have viewed them online, would have sufficed.
From the outset, quite a sizeable section of the British and American public were requiring just that, Teribus; TANGIBLE PROOF!, and since you "do not know for a fact that the people (you) vote for do, 'keep telling (you) lies all the time',....", again, one would have thought that your alarm bells would have started ringing at the first hint of doublespeak.

All this coming from someone whose elevated opinion of the UN ranges from their total inability to "organise a bottle party in a brewery", (whatever a 'bottle party' is) to your contention that "relying on the UN will, on the basis of probability, result in either a complete and utter srcew-up, or a complete and utter unmitigated disaster.".

I see that Hans Blix has published a book, now.
Is he short of money, I wonder?
Has he an axe to grind?

Has he good reason?

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:23 AM

January 1999?
We went into Iraq 4 years later, Teribus.
When was the last time you took as gospel, potentially out-of-date inteligence?

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, some guy who knows more about drilling for oil, says it's a duck, I'd say check its DNA, and then there'll be no doubt.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 04:24 AM

that Bush paid little attention to the real threat posed by al Qaida durring this time (NOT EVEN RICHARD CLARKE SUGGESTS THIS TO BE THE CASE)

Actually, Teribus, he did ...and quite clearly too.

When you say 'even', the affect takes on a subtile form of slight or delegitimization... Are you so 'credible' that you can substantiate that Clarke's testimony under oath is suspect? Clarke may be the most qualified person in the entire world to critique Bush's performance on terrorism.

I don't think you are in a position to make any claims about bias or partisanship here Teribus...
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 05:20 AM

Clarke, accusing Bush of paying insufficient attention to the al Qaeda threat before Sept. 11, 2001

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 05:27 AM

This is by way of a response to both TTR and Jim McCallan:

Jim, if the "World and it's dog truly believed that SH was harmless, why was UNSC Resolution 1441 passed unanimously?" - good enough indication for you?

If those charged with the responsibility of looking after the safety and security of nations only relied on tangible evidence, then, nine times out of ten, they would end up on the losing side. Given any situation relating to national security, you run with what intelligence you have, to ignore it could only ever be regarded as the height of incompetance and extremely foolish. The poor state of US "on the ground" intelligence is largely down to decisions sanctioned by President Jimmy Carter during his term of office.

Dr. Hans Blix's book? Short of money - doubt it. Axe to grind - doubt it. The affable Dr. Blix has a very good reason for writing his book, he's got to get his side across and in print before people start asking him some very tough questions. The following should be remembered with respect to Dr. Blix:

1. He was one of the main contributers to the original 1999 UNSCOM Report, which clearly stated what stockpiles of WMD, WMD pre-cursors, weapons systems and WMD development programmes the Iraqi's had running. Was that report a lie? It was after all compiled through evidence gathered by the inspection teams themselves and from information submitted by the Iraqi Authorities themselves.

2. He was the one who quite categorically stated that that the "Full and factual declaration" submitted to the UN Security Council on the 7th December 2002, was inaccurate, incomplete and could not be trusted.

3. He was the man who, armed with a mandate that required full, pro-active co-operation, on the part of the Iraqi Authorities, succeeded in down-playing every instance of "material breach", while commenting on the lack of Iraqi co-operation in every report he made to the UN Security Council as head of UNMOVIC.

4. He was the man who, on the departure of his teams from Iraq in March 2003, stated that his efforts to find the outstanding stockpiles of WMD, or establish what had happened to them, should have been given more time (Clear indication that he thought at that time there was something there to find?) 100 days later, he goes on-air stating that there were probably no WMD in Iraq - A bit bloody late for that sort of statement Dr. Blix. Why didn't he come out with that in March? He had no further information than he had then - Job security?

While many on this topic refer to comments made by Richard Clarke, trusted security advisor, and anti-terrorism expert. The comments made by Berger and Tenet are studiously ignored - are they somehow deemed unqualified? are they considered incompetent? TTR, Clarke said that the difference lay between "urgent" and "important". The fact that all the principal advisors and experts remained in place, with the exception of Samuel Berger, who was replaced by Rice, I would think that provides a pretty fair indication that those in place (Clarke included) were quite happy with the state of play - don't you? If not then you automatically call Clarke's integrity into question.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 05:53 AM

What tough questions do you think the good doctor may be asked, Teribus, that has prompted him to embark upon this pre-emptive broadside?

Clear indication that he thought at that time there was something there to find?
Or a clear indication that he wanted more time to make sure.
Are you seriously suggesting that Dr. Blix knew less about the WMD situation in Iraq than the Bush Administration did?
Perhaps if he had been given that time, his statement 100 days later may not have been a bit bloody late at all.

To have the weapons inspectors potentially give the all clear may well have satisfied the UN, Saddam's unwillingness to make life easy for them, or not; it was after all, their call.
It was not up to the US to unilaterally enforce 1441; it was a UN resolution, not a US one, as Kofi Annan has very succintly put it.

The numbers of (given different circumstances) incredibly credible people seems to be rising, as far as I can see it, Teribus.

Soon the World and it's dog will be added to that list.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:19 AM

... close the brackets, this time, Jim....
"Why didn't he come out with that in March? He had no further information than he had then... - Job security"

Priceless, absolutely priceless, Teribus... The guy was on a walking holiday in deepest Patagonia when the phone-call came to go to Iraq.
What age is he now, incidentally?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:32 AM

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:42 AM

Hans Blix - born in 1928. Which means that he is at least 75 and maybe 76. Really must be time he started to think of winding down, rather than worrying about "job security", don't you think Teribus?

................................

As for the resolution 1441, and that unanimous vote, the other way of interpreting that is that it was a way of putting the ball into touch, so that the process of investigating the whole issue could be carried out properly, without the USA and it's hangers-on going to war in advance. The clear implication of the resolution was that the whole matter would have to come back to the Security Council before any kind of war could be authorised, which cold only be done by a further resolution. This was stated by some signatories both at the time and later.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:07 AM

Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Hans Blix

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:45 AM

As MGOH says Blix will be 76 this year, born in Uppsala in Sweden in 1928. It was during Dr. Blix's tenure as Director General of the IAEA that Saddam Hussein successfully hood-winked Dr.Blix's organisation and kicked-off his quest to acquire nuclear weapons, severly curtailed courtesy of the Israeli Air Force.

Now you asked what questions Dr. Blix should be asked:

1. In the meetings that took place between UNMOVIC and the Iraqi's what emphasis was put on the importance of the Iraqi Declaration?

2. Did Dr. Blix request a preview of the document to advise on the acceptibility of the content?

3. Once submitted, and having declared that there were short-comings in that document, why did inspections proceed.

4. Having been given a mandate that specifically stated that full and pro-active co-operationwas required on the part of the Iraqi authorities. Why did you settle for less? Why wasn't the required degree of co-operation not demanded immediately by either yourself, or the Secretary General of the United Nations, or the Chairman of the UN Security Council?

5. Why did you not over-ride Iraqi failure to sanction U2 flights over Iraq?

6. Why did you fail to identify, locate and interview the scientists, engineers, civil servants and military personnel known to have been associated with Iraq's WMD and associated programmes?

Oh Kevin, He (Dr. Blix) might have wanted to put his feet up, but his old company (the UN) still needed the work.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 08:02 AM

"His" company? The United Nations belongs to all of us.

I suppose he might answer he was working away at getting at the truth, and he was working quite effectively, and making progress. And the people with the job of judging whether that was true or not was the Security council, not Bush and Blair.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 08:11 AM

So it wasn't job security then, Teribus.
Glad we got that out of the way.

As to why....?
The answers to quite a lot of your questions are 'googleable'. You should give it a go, some day
He apparently did what he could within the framework given to him. To claim (or suggest) that he didn't, is to cast dispersions on his credibility, and you are not in the business of doing that, Teribus, are you?

Hans Blix was not the UNSC as you perfectly well know; he only reported to them. Forcing Saddam to comply was not his brief. It was not the US' brief, neither, come to think of it.
It was the UN's brief, Teribus, and they hadn't quite finished with their business. They weren't keeping to the same timeline that the US was, you see. So given a different set of circumstances (no imminent American Election, for instance), even if the inspectors did take another 6 months to complete their work, there should be no earthly reason why they shouldn't have been allowed to do what they were mandated to do: satisy the UNSC.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 10:45 AM

Malapropisms aside, do I think he was the right man for the job? - Given his performance on the job, compared to the authority he was given, no I don't. He bent over backwards to be conciliatory towards the Iraqi Regime, Saddam viewed that as a weakness and thought he could finnesse his way past this team of inspectors as he had done previously, with UNSCOM.

Where on earth did I ever say Dr. Hans Blix was the UNSC. He was however "their man" with regard to the activities of UNSCOM - and he was given authority to implement the monitoring and verification programme on behalf of the United Nations Security Council.

1441, clearly stated that non-compliance with it's terms and conditions would be regarded as a "material breach" of that resolution, and that "serious consequences" would result from any "material breach". There were five such breaches in the time UNMOVIC operated in Iraq under the direction of Dr. Blix.

The President of the United States of America was perfectly correct when he stated that the task of looking after America's safety, security and interests is not something any President would delegate to the United Nations. The United States of America had told the UN quite plainly, the state of affairs in Iraq are your responsibility, act to resolve the outstanding issues that concern us, or, we will act independently to put those issues beyond doubt. He was right to do so. I do not believe that the terms of one single resolution had been met by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, therefore they were in breach of the ceasefire agreement drawn up at Safwan in 1991.

MGOH - "The United Nations belongs to all of us." - I know of 800,000 Rwandans, who relinquished their shares a few years ago.

As for Resolution 1441, IMO, if the original wording of that resolution had been allowed to stand, there would have been no war, because in the original wording, even Saddam would have realised that he had no choice.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:33 PM

You know, if we could all take our partisan hats off for a minute, and dispense (at least temporarily) with the juvenile name-calling, we might try to lay out a few facts that people might be able to agree on:

1. The terrorists are the ones who are resoponsible for the 9/11 attacks. However, the fact that the attacks occurred means that we Americans didn't do enough to stop them. That is true of the eight-month-old Bush administration, and also of the Clinton administration. If this situation calls for public apologies from government officials (debatable how much good that actually does), then there are plenty of people who ought to be offering them up.

2. The US government may have taken a more aggressive and impatient posture toward Iraq than many people, in the US and elsewhere, feel that it should have. Part of the reason for this is that the UN had shown itself to be a paper tiger, and was not taken seriously by Saddam Hussein's regime. The UN has relied on the US to be its primary "muscle" for most of its history. It puts the member countries in a fairly comfortable position, since they can make demands, pass tough sounding resolutions, and then sit back and let the US take care of it -- and THEN complain that the US is too heavy-handed. It would be nice if the UN were an effective organization, but it really is not. The UN passed a lot of resolutions (a lot of them), but was unwilling to enforce them. The UN is not blameless in this matter.

3. The technology of war-making in the present day does not afford us the luxury of sitting back and evaluating threats for extended periods of time before acting on them. Perhaps the US is too rash in responding to potential threats, but if the US approach is the wrong one, someone should propose an alternative approach. Weapons of mass destruction are proliferating, and there are a number of terrorist organizations in the world -- large, small, state-sponsored, and independent -- that have shown a clear desire to obtain them and use them in large-scale terrorist acts. If the world is collectively concerned about this, then the world has to take collective action -- it's not enough to just express the concern, and then bitch about the countries like the US that are attempting to do something about it.

4. The pre-war situation in Iraq had to change, and the US was the only country willing and able to lead the charge. Iraq was a threat to the world community and to his own people, and economic sanctions were not working. The fact that Saddam Hussein was only one of a number of bad actors on the world stage is not a good reason for letting him get away with it.

How's that for a start?

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:38 PM

How's that for a start?

Extremely non-partisan, if you happen to be a right-wing kook.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 03:41 PM

Obsequious nonsense!, I to Teribus now shout
His relentless cold calculus is hiding his doubt
For only one slope is this slippery bout
Inclined to the Bushes that obscure with their clout
And thus does he 'spin' forth talk radio treasures
The mouthpieces unify Cheney's corp-pleasures
Thus minnions like Teribus engage passionate leisures
And spread 'the word' showing us all counter-measures
But the dial is prone, to be spun for wellbeing
And the chorus remaining, ignores the truth seeing...
ttr

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 04:09 PM

So now Resolution 1441 wasn't much cop because it had been amended so that it didn't actually authorise war - but it still did authorise war anyway.

The UN is only as strong as it is allowed to be by its members. It can be weakened two ways - by its members withholding resources and support, and by members acting in breach of the UN Charter. The massacres in Rwanda happened because member states refused to provide the resources required. The war in Iraq was carried out in a way that involved breaches of the United Nations Charter by some of its leading members.

There were good reasons to delay the rush to war in March last year. The British contingent, for example, was woefully under equipped, and would have needed several months more to be properly prepared.

The only reason for rushing into war last March, was the political timetable of Bush. Unless of course there was another reason - that it was feared that further work by Blix would reveal that there were no Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 05:56 PM

What Weapons Inspectors Are..., And What They Are Not...

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: DougR
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:03 PM

Good try, Whistle Stop, but with this gang, no cigar. I, for one, agree with your post, and though some of my mudcat friends like to think so, I am not a kook. You certainly do not come across as one either. But if what you post is not in agreement with some folks, that's the brand you get.

DougR

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 06:18 PM

Some folks are always going to disagree with anything anyone posts. Just different folks.

Fair amount in Whistle Stop's post to agree with. And it was written in a moderate and considered way that contrasted very much with the way a lot of Mudcat discussions are phrased:

...The terrorists are the ones who are responsible for the 9/11 attacks... If this situation calls for public apologies from government officials ...then there are plenty of people who ought to be offering them up.

The US government may have taken a more aggressive and impatient posture toward Iraq than many people, in the US and elsewhere, feel that it should have... The UN is not blameless in this matter.

...Perhaps the US is too rash in responding to potential threats, but if the US approach is the wrong one, someone should propose an alternative approach.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 02:02 AM

McGrath of Harlow 30 Mar 04 - 04:09 PM

"So now Resolution 1441 wasn't much cop because it had been amended so that it didn't actually authorise war - but it still did authorise war anyway."

Now, now Kevin, don't put words in my mouth. What I did say was that in the amended version of 1441, Saddam saw an opportunity, he could exploit differences of opinion within the UN Security Council's permanent members as to what "serious consequences" meant. As far as France and Russia were concerned "serious consequences" meant, no further action to be taken, China was prepared to go along with whatever France and Russia decided, the USA and UK were very clear as to what they considered "serious consequences" meant - the removal of Saddam Hussein and Ba'athist regime.

By the bye, Kevin, regarding military operations involving British troops. Apart from D-Day, I've never known an instance yet where British forces have been anything other than woefully under-equipped - It is an almost permanent feature, that British politicians in general seem to think desireable, and that senior officers of our armed forces seem to accept as the price that has to be paid in order for them to pick up their knighthoods prior to retirement.

Classic example: Dennis Healey - scrapping of our aircraft carriers - Falklands. If Britain had had one strike carrier in commission, the Argentinians would never even have thought of occupying the Falklands and South Georgia as they did in 1982.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 08:40 AM

"As far as France and Russia were concerned "serious consequences" meant, no further action to be taken"

Is that proveable fact, Teribus, or are you putting words into France and Russia's mouths? The UN's agenda (and I agree that it is a 'weak' organisation), does not, and should not reflect that of individual member states'.

The USA was the only one (originally) to have interpreted 'serious consequences' the way they did; they got 'us' onboard because of that oft talked about 'special relationship'.

Sure, Saddam was a spoilt child in charge of a country; quite a lot of people in those kind of positions, are. If member states, however, paid what they owe to the UN coffers, perhaps it wouldn't be the semi-eunoch that it is presently conceived to be.

World Peace entails World solutions, and the UN should be there to ensure that no rouge state, democratically elected or not, tries to shift the agenda to their own private interests.

But I agree with you about the kit issue; I joined up for 'King and Country', not for Blair, Thatcher, Bush, or anyone else, and we have been used as the pawns that we are, to serve political interests more and more. And I don't know about you, but many of my friends have died needlessly on the eve of elections.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Whistle Stop
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 08:51 AM

Thanks Doug, and McGrath, for your posts. I don't expect everyone to agree with all that I said, but I do appreciate it when people try to rise above the insulting nature of so many of the posts in these political threads. We should expect to have differing views, and should try to learn from one another, rather than just score rhetorical points.

I didn't vote for Bush, and there is a lot about his policies that I don't care for. I am somewhat conflicted about the war in Iraq; I supported it initially, and to a large extent I still do, but I had anticipated that more evidence would be provided to support the primary rationale for the war. I keep a personal diary, and my diary entries from the period prior to the Iraq war reflect this feeling that the evidence, when it is presented in full, had better be pretty compelling, or the administration would have a lot of explaining to do. Since the evidence we have seen so far is somewhat less than compelling, we are now at the point where better explanations are needed.

I am left with the uncomfortable thought that, in the modern world, with so much depending on intelligence-gathering that can't be shared with the general public without compromising our security, we have to place a lot of trust in our leaders. Therefore it is very important that our leaders show themselves to be trustworthy, so that we will continue to support their actions even as we recognize that we don't have all the details in our hands. This is perhaps more true now that it ever was in the past, since the threats we face (a) are developed in the shadows, (b) do not depend on large-scale troop mobilizations as in years past, and (c) can be unleashed very quickly. So trust in our leaders becomes a necessary part of the equation. And trust, as we all know, has to be earned. I fear that the "trust factor" is the part that the current administration has bungled, perhaps more than any other, and this is will continue to hurt us for years to come.

On the other hand (there's always another hand), something needed to be done about Iraq; the Saddam Hussein regime was a menace to the Iraqi people and to others outside their borders, economic sanctions were only hurting the people of Iraq, and there was a continuing low-level conflict (over weapons inspections, no-fly zones, etc.) that showed no signs of abating and promised to ignite a larger powder keg sooner or later. Iraq deliberately and repeatedly reneged on their obligations prescribed by the terms of their 1991 surrender (that fact alone was a sufficient basis for regime change, in my view), the UN was completely ineffectual at calling them to account, and the US couldn't just maintain huge troop deployments on Iraq's borders indefinitely in the hopes of coercing compliance. And most people who were in a position to know believed that they were continuing to pursue nuclear, biological and/or chemical weapons, in order to better enable them to resist the demands of the international community. So I continue to ask the question: if we had NOT gone to war in Iraq, what (beyond endless talk and ineffective economic sanctions) should we have done?

Thanks again to those of you who have attempted to elevate the discussion. -- WS

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 10:32 AM

I believe that in the process of drafting a second resolution, Chirac stated that France would veto any resolution that would call for, or result in, military action against Iraq, the Russians said they would support the French point of view and the German's, although not UNSC permanent members were chairing the Security Council at the time, also stated that they supported the French position.

The original draft of 1441, clearly stated that unless Iraq co-operated fully and pro-actively with UNSCOM, military action would result. That draft resolution was jointly tabled by both the USA and the UK. I don't think that the UK got roped in, we had after all been assisting the Americans for the best part of 12 years in maintaining the Northern and Southern "no-fly" zones. Like the USA, the UK fully realised the danger of an Iraq under Saddam Hussein devoid of any monitoring; with UN sanctions as porous as a collander; and the political/diplomatic pressure being mounted to end sanctions altogether, the situation vis-a-vis Iraq had to be resolved.

To describe Saddam Hussein as, "a spoilt child in charge of a country" is a grave understatement. He was without doubt a thoroughly dangerous character, domestically; regionally and internationally.

With regard to the United Nations, you could throw money at that organisation until you were blue in the face it would still continue to be an ineffectual, mendicant, talking shop, where self-interest rules. As Guest Whistle Stop above has quite correctly pointed out - "The UN has relied on the US to be its primary "muscle" for most of its history" - and in any serious crisis situation in the future it would be to the USA that the UN would turn, not Russia; UK; France or China.

World Peace entails World solutions, that at times may have to be enforced and the UN should be fully prepared to order just that. Unfortunately the pursuit of furthering private national interests of individual member states is something you will never get rid of.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 10:49 AM

Sorry UNSCOM should of course have been UNMOVIC

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 11:48 AM

"Chirac stated that France would veto any resolution that would call for, or result in, military action against Iraq"
No, Teribus, he didn't. He said he would veto any resolution that would automatically result in war. Bit of a difference in interpretation there... Chirac was 'undiplomatic' perhaps to have come out with such an utterance; he should have known that that was just what Bush wanted to hear. And indeed it was

And while we're all offering conjecture, here, I don't think that Tony Blair would have made the first move to push for war with Iraq, probably for the same reason Clinton didn't invade Afghanistan when Richard Clarke was pushing for it... it just wouldn't have washed with the general public.

Through all the faults of the UN, I still would prefer to see it there, and in the absence of any other overseeing body, it is all we've got. The US cannot be allowed to unilaterally make decisions that affect my future, or my childrens', without scrutiny.

It seems to me that less than 50% of whatever percentage of the American public that excercise their right to vote, return not just a President of The United States, but a President of the World.
And he will make decisions that will have Worldwide implications, long after he leaves office.

I think we should pick our fights with a little more regard to the consequences for us, if that has to be the case, because I see we are back to the old 'Agricultural Fertiliser' days again. You may say that this is Al Qaeda related, and I might be inclined to agree. But do we have to alienate every Muslim on the planet by engaging in a Foreign Policy that they believe is designed to beat them all into submission?

My habit of understating has obviously got your attention, Teribus; I don't like using too many emotive statements, when the general drift will suffice. I never liked Saddam..., even when we were his friends.

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 01:05 PM

As Teribus pointed out "the original draft of 1441, clearly stated that unless Iraq co-operated fully and pro-actively with UNSCOM, military action would result."

And it was amended so as to remove that part, with automatic military action being replaced by "serious consequences" - and the reason members insisted on that amendment was precisely because they did not intend this resolution to authorise military action. "Serious consequences" meant that it was up to the Security Council to determine the nature of these consequences, and the timetable for imposing them.

That was the unanimous decuision of 1441 - and that was the decision which was unilaterally overturned by the USA, with the UK falling into line.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 01:35 PM

Thanks Jim,

On Chirac, I stand corrected.

Regarding Clinton's reluctance to follow Richard Clarke's advice on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, aside from the opinion of the general public, the biggest stumbling block to implementation of those recommendations was that they were just not possible.

Clarke's Recommendations to Clinton Administration:

1. Bomb Al-Qaeda locations in Afghanistan

2. Arm and support the Northern Alliance in their fight against the Taliban.

3. Put US Special Forces into Afghanistan to hunt out Al-Qaeda members and leaders.

Recommendation 1.
Not possible because a sustained bombing campaign would require over flight rights which the US at that time would not have been given. The US miltary at that time did not have any means of indentifying targets, so their campaign would have been spectacularly ineffective (as were Clinton's cruise missile strikes).

Recommendation 2.
To arm and support the Northern Alliance the US needed willing partners in the region to the North of Afghanistan in order to get the required aid into the country. During Clinton's Presidency they did not exist. To supply from the air would have required over flight rights that would not have been granted.

Recommendation 3.
Insertion of US Special Forces, not possible due to infringement of airspace required, logistical problems, the numbers required, facilities required, lack of local knowledge and absolutely no guaranteed way of getting those forces out.

AFTER 9/11 all became possible - remember the with regard to the war against terror the very clear statement on position, "You are either with us or against us". The results:

A. Unhindered overflight rights through Pakistani airspace - essential for all Clarke's recommendations.

B. Agreements reached after negotiations with Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, to use airfields to stage equipment, specialist personnel, arms and supplies to arm and support the Northern Alliance - essential for Clarke's second recommendation, it could not have worked without the co-operation of those countries.

C. After the defeat of the Taliban, US Special Forces and UK Royal Marines specifically tasked with sweeping through the country along the Pakistan border to dislodge and destroy Al-Qaeda. This only ever became possible with the Taliban dislodged from power, two large airfields secured and in operation, logistics bases set up and with local guides/assistance.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 01:49 PM

MGOH,

I think both the USA and the UK made it perfectly clear what they considered "serious consequences" to mean with regard to UNSC Resolution 1441, and quite rightly, the President of the United States of America said that he would not delegate responsibility for the safety and security of the United States, it's allies or interests to the UN. In failing to comply with the terms of 1441 and the previous UN SC Resolutions relating to Iraq, Saddam Hussein effectively violated the cease-fire agreement negotiated at Safwan in 1991.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 02:28 PM

Unfortunately I am starting to believe that both Gulf Wars and 9/11 are our fault. Now before you start screaming, allow me to illucidate.

We supported the previous Ba'athist regime in its fight to take control of Iraq which eventually gave us Saddam Hussein in power. We then supplied him with weaponry (including bio/chem)and training for the war against Iran (whom we were pissed with over the hostage crisis (The result of the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, another best buddy of the US). We also supported the Afghanis against the USSR (which was probably a mistake as it would have caused the USSR to go bankrupt that much faster if they ahd had to keep fighting). The USSR withdrew fom the God-forsaken desert of Afghanistan and in the vacuum of power left the Taliban stepped forward with strict Sharia law. The Afghani struggle against the USSR was also the training ground for Bin Laden and his followers to learn tactics to use against us. Saddam, emboldened by our support for him against Iran, invaded Kuwait because of a border dispute. We went in (thus incurring the wraith of those Islamics who don't want Infidels in the "Holy Lands of Mecca", namely Bin Laden.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that every move the US has made in the middle east seems to have come back and bitten us in the ass. I'm not for isolationistic policies, but in this day of so-called supercomputers I wish someone would program one to look at possible ramifications of our actions 20 to 30 years down the line.

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: GUEST,Jim McCallan
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 05:49 PM

"The US miltary at that time did not have any means of indentifying targets"
Well they had Predator, Teribus, at least towards the end of the Clinton administration. And when they eventually got around to arming it, it proved very effective indeed.
Arming the Northern Alliance would not have been too much of a problem, according to Richard Armitage. The problem he found was more 'cosmetic': "It was making sure that we wouldn't be embarrassed by what they were. And no matter the charismatic nature of Ahmed Shah Massoud -- and he was quite charismatic -- that doesn't make up for raping, drug dealing, et cetera, which many of the Northern Alliance had been involved with"
Samuel Berger did not believe that: " ... before September 11th that the American people or the international community would have supported an invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, notwithstanding the fact we had a President who in 1996 said, "This is the challenge of our generation. This is the threat of our generation." "

Jim

Subject: RE: 60 Minutes tonight (21-Mar-04)
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 09:02 PM

I would like to thank you, Teribus, for the most civil approach I've seen you take... It makes it possible for me to appreciate your input here... and I do...

There are so many unanswered questions... and I think the American public deserves to have a balanced attempt at comprehensive inquiry. I am very uneasy about the Bush administration's 'deal making' about the conditions of the inquest. For instance, why do George Bush and Dick Cheney want to testify together... at the same time? Hmmmmm? It just doesn't seem 'up front'... and it's been said that they can keep their story straight this way.

I sure would like to have a lot less spin, and a lot more honesty...
ttr