Charles J. Hanley of the The Associated Press wrote the definitive takedown of the administration’s case for WMD. He wrote it on Friday, and I totally missed it. Everyone should read it, print it, and mail it to every Republican person they know.
If the AP had printed this article last October, I can say with confidence, John Kerry would be President today.
David Kay, quitting as chief of the U.S. hunt for WMD, or weapons of mass destruction, had just delivered the answer to the world.
The world can know the answer from the action of one man, but the United States of America cannot, because some corporation wouldn’t take action.
There’s more important wrong here than a corporation.
The atrocities at Abu Ghraib were probably related to desperate attempts to find any WMD’s that might have escaped destruction.
Small fry though they were, the prisoners just might have seen something.
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Abu Ghraib is just evil, however put into place by General Miller from Guantanamo base to access presumed intelligence on the ground in the face of increased insurgency, IED’s and bombings. Intention was to save American lives. However it was an ill conceived plan sanctioned by WH and civilian DoD officials. In the end it was and is contraproductive and has cost many more American lives, as well as innocent Iraqi civilians.
The increase in Aby Ghraib torture was directly related with special forces stepping up action in search of top Iraqis and Saddam Hussein. The combination of goals was based on faulthy judgement and an illusion: the killing of sons and capture of Saddam Hussein did not alleviate suicide attacks and bombings.
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Wow, that takes commitment to the lie – He wouldn’t even tell his own generals about the secret WMD’s when invasion was immanent.
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A nice summary covering many bases, however not all bases covered, nor is it a comprehensive story.
Article is not completely accurate and major UK blame is passed by very easily. For the uninformed it is a nice start. However for the RW Republicans, story is not written in a style to convince, too lenient in judgement.
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Rod Barton, the Australian who worked as a weapons inspector in the 1990s, and later for Hans Blix and for the post-invasion Iraq Survey Group, was interviewed for an Australian TV program in February. In the transcript you can read his account of:
Sorry folks that I didn’t make the time to diary this back in February.
I guess I felt we knew the war was based on a lie before it started. UNSCOM had inspected enough of Iraq over many years (including sites nominated by the CIA and MI6) to know that Iraq did not have WMD. They said so. The media didn’t grab hold of this and didn’t challenge strongly enough the disgraceful torrent of lies from Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and eventually Powell. That torrent of lies denigrated Hans Blix and UNSCOM. It was designed to give cover for an invasion Bush had already decided to undertake when he came to office.
Hanley has brought the evidence together in a digestible form. I’m not so convinced this article would have changed the election last November. How would you have communicated it to the voters? Don’t let my cynicism stop you from passing it on now, though!!
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there to be found. See protest demonstrations.
I like this type of interview. Substantiates the already existing reports, including our own Congressional hearings.
It should be useful to compile the best written articles, diaries, reports or comments on this topic and publish this info in BooMan’s own encyclopedia.
I’ll be happy to contribute in venture.
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Good idea. Wasn’t there some discussion about a Boopedia or wiki? Perhaps I’m confusing with Eurotrib.
Most of the republicans I know don’t like Bush or his war.
We knew all that already. Is this supposed to be news or something?
</end DSM snark>
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in aftermath of 9/11 and to deal with Afghanistan first!
Arabic News Website with some links – another view.
Tony Blair has frequently played a pivotal role in the infighting in the US administration over Iraq, according to the recently retired British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer. Hawks in the Bush administration, mainly the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, pushed for an attack on Iraq rather than Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11.
Sir Christopher said in an interview, that the prime minister, arriving in Washington the week after an inconclusive discussion between George Bush and his key advisers at Camp David, swung in behind the US secretary of state Colin Powell, who saw Afghanistan as the prime target.
In the documentary Blair’s War, Sir Christopher, who returned to Britain last month, said that when Mr Blair met Mr Bush in the weeks after September 11, he urged him to deal first with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network and its protector – Afghanistan’s Taliban government – before tackling Iraq.
“Tony Blair’s view was, ‘Whatever you’re going to do about Iraq, you should concentrate on the job at hand’. And the job at hand was get al-Qaida, give the Taliban an ultimatum,” the former British ambassador said.
Sir Christopher added that Mr Bush took Mr Blair aside and promised he would keep Iraq “for another day”.
I personally believe from past years, Tony Blair is his pursuit “to do good”, had from the mid-nineties the goal of democracy and freedom for the Iraqi people. That was his motivation, once he had immense power through a vast majority in parliament, nothing could stop him. Everything else was fixing the means with false intelligence and to establish some legality – the path through the UN, prematurely aborted by not giving UN inspectors ample time. The rest is poor leadership, not evaluating all options, not listening to opposing arguments and views, and in the end he himself decided to walk the path to war with George Bush.
A Sunday’s child, who had all go his way throughout his life and political career, and never was confronted with a challenge, he could not fix to be resolved.
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