[Vwdiesel] Fwd: Iraq War Intelligence

[Mark Shepherd]

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Scott do you get this email
>From: "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org"
>To: "Mark Geoffrey Shepherd"
>Subject: Iraq War Intelligence
>Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 11:26:51 -0700
>
>IRAQ WAR INTELLIGENCE
>
>MoveOn Bulletin
>Friday, July 4, 2003
>Noah T. Winer, Editor
>noah.winer at moveon.org
>
>Subscribe online at:
>http://www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/
>
>You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking here:
>http://moveon.org/s?i=1491-2068952-z_vZIG0e1BRbXYvd3thzrQ
>
>------------------------------
>
>GRASSROOTS INTERVIEW WITH REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN
>U.S. Congressman Henry Waxman (Democrat-California) has long supported
>crucial health and environmental protection initiatives, including
>universal health insurance and the 1990 Clean Air Act. Since 2001, he
>has opposed efforts by the Bush administration to block congressional
>oversight and roll back health and environmental laws. Active in
>investigations of White House ties to Enron, Waxman fought for
>disclosure of the energy industry lobbyists who shaped the Bush-Cheney
>energy plan.
>
>Rep. Waxman is in an interesting position: he voted for the Iraq war
>resolution in an effort to force a consensus in the United Nations,
>and has since become sharply critical of the intelligence the Bush
>administration relied upon in making its case for war. His letter to
>President Bush on this matter is included in this week's bulletin.
>
>Rep. Waxman will respond to five of the top questions posed by MoveOn
>members. Post your questions by Tuesday, July 8 at:
>http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=259
>
>------------------------------
>
>CONTENTS
>1. Introduction
>2. One Link
>3. Niger Forgeries
>4. Misrepresentation
>5. Powell and Blix Have Their Doubts
>6. Intelligence Sources
>7. Impeachment
>8. British and U.S. Inquiries
>9. Ends Justify the Means
>10. Misleader
>11. Credits
>12. About the Bulletin
>
>------------------------------
>
>INTRODUCTION
>Arguing for the necessity of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq, U.S.
>President George W. Bush and other administration officials cited
>intelligence that Saddam Hussein's government possessed weapons of
>mass destruction (WMD) in violation of United Nations Security Council
>resolutions.
>
>Not only had Iraq manufactured chemical and biological weapons, the
>administration contended, they had attempted to obtain materials for
>nuclear weaponry. In one address, Bush said: "Intelligence gathered by
>this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime
>continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
>devised."
>
>Yet more than two months after Bush declared the end of major combat
>operations in Iraq, no WMDs have been found. While he still insists
>such weapons will be discovered, evidence mounts that his
>administration's drive for war was based on forged, inaccurate, and
>deliberately misconstrued intelligence.
>
>------------------------------
>
>ONE LINK
>No time for more? Read the New York Times' Paul Krugman on the Bush
>administration's "denial and deception" to justify war in Iraq and why
>Congress won't confront these distortions.
>http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0624-04.htm
>
>------------------------------
>
>NIGER FORGERIES
>During the build-up to war, British and U.S. officials cited letters
>indicating Iraq had attempted to obtain nuclear material from the
>central African country of Niger. On March 7, shortly before the war
>began, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International
>Atomic Energy Agency, declared the documents had proven to be
>forgeries.
>http://www.moveon.org/r?457
>
>The C.I.A. had debunked the Niger documents long before Bush began
>using them as evidence. The agency urged the State Department not to
>cite the forged letters when challenging Iraq's weapons declaration in
>December.
>http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-12-niger-usat_x.htm
>
>In a March 17 letter to President Bush, U.S. Representative Henry
>Waxman called upon the President to explain the situation. As he said,
>"The two most obvious explanations -- knowing deception or
>unfathomable incompetence -- both have immediate and serious
>implications."
>http://www.house.gov/waxman/text/admin_iraq_march_17_let.htm
>
>Rep. Waxman has prepared two excellent factsheets: "The Bush
>Administration's Use of the Forged Iraq Nuclear Evidence" and "What
>Intelligence Officials Knew about the Forged Iraq Nuclear Evidence."
>http://www.house.gov/reform/min/inves_admin/admin_nuclear_evidence.htm
>
>------------------------------
>
>MISREPRESENTATION
>The Observer reports that the two vehicles Bush and Blair claim are
>mobile biological weapons labs are probably used to produce hydrogen
>for artillery balloons.
>http://www.moveon.org/r?458
>
>A memo from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity to President
>Bush:
>"What is at play here is a policy and intelligence fiasco of
>monumental proportions."
>http://truthout.org/docs_03/050503D.shtml
>
>------------------------------
>
>POWELL AND BLIX HAVE THEIR DOUBTS
>"[U.S. Secretary of State Colin] Powell's team removed dozens of pages
>of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists
>from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At
>one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to
>intelligence claims that he declared: 'I'm not reading this. This is
>bullshit,' according to the magazine."
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,968581,00.html
>
>UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who retired on Monday:
>"It is sort of fascinating that you can have 100 percent certainty
>about weapons of mass destruction and zero certainty of about where
>they are."
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0623-10.htm
>
>------------------------------
>
>INTELLIGENCE SOURCES
>From the Washington Post:
>"A still-classified national intelligence report circulating within
>the Bush administration...portrayed a far less clear picture about the
>link between Iraq and al Qaeda than the one presented by the
>president...."
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19822-2003Jun21
>
>"In this report we present the publicly available data that U.S. and
>UK leaders chose to ignore in the pre-war debate.... The reason those
>now searching for weapons are finding only traces, remnants, and
>precursors is that previous policies of sanctions and UN weapons
>inspection and destruction actually worked."
>http://www.fourthfreedom.org/php/t-d-index.php?hinc=Unproven.hinc
>
>Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on Rumsfeld's new Office of
>Special Plans. Populated with associates of the Project for the New
>American Century, "the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the
>Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency...as President Bush's main
>source of intelligence regarding Iraq's possible possession of weapons
>of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda."
>http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact
>
>From The New Republic:
>A former staff member of the Senate Intelligence Committee admitted,
>"People [kept] telling you first that things weren't right, weird
>things going on, different people saying, 'There's so much pressure,
>you know, they keep telling us, go back and find the right answer,'
>things like that."
>http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=ackermanjudis063003
>
>------------------------------
>
>IMPEACHMENT
>John Dean, President Nixon's White House counsel, says the case for
>impeachment would be easy legally, but impossible politically:
>"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war
>based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate
>misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be 'a
>high crime' under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also
>be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal
>anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony 'to defraud the
>United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any
>purpose.'"
>http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html
>
>A superb interview with Dean from BuzzFlash:
>"Impeachment is a political proceeding, of quasi-legal nature.
>Republicans are not going to impeach their president. To the contrary,
>it is very clear they would defend him."
>http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/06/17_dean.html
>
>------------------------------
>
>BRITISH AND U.S. INQUIRIES
>In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Tony Blair is under fire for his
>dossier alleging Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. An
>inquiry underway in the Parliament has heard devastating testimony
>from former foreign secretary Robin Cook and former international
>development secretary Clare Short, both of whom resigned over Blair's
>claim that Iraq was a "clear and serious threat."
>http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,987816,00.html
>
>An Associated Press report on the Congressional inquiry into the Bush
>administration's handling of pre-war intelligence.
>http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0626-10.htm
>
>------------------------------
>
>ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS
>From the Village Voice:
>"New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman shrugged off WMD hype as
>a necessary selling technique for Bush, arguing that we hit Hussein
>'because we could' and that what matters is whether we succeed at
>building a 'progressive Arab regime.' In other words, the ends justify
>the means."
>http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0325/cotts.php
>
>------------------------------
>
>MISLEADER
>As regular Bulletin readers may know, the Bulletin topics aren't
>necessarily part of current MoveOn campaigns. The issue of Iraq war
>intelligence, however, is the focus of MoveOn's "Misleader"
>advertising campaign. Sign the petition to demand that Congress
>establish an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate and
>hold the President and his officials accountable if they manipulated
>or fabricated intelligence to justify taking the country to war.
>http://www.moveon.org/distortion/
>
>------------------------------
>
>CREDITS
>Research team:
>Leah Appet, Russ Juskalian, Kate Kressmann-Kehoe, Janelle Miau, Sarah
>Parady, Kim Plofker, and Jesse Rhodes.
>
>Editing team:
>David Taub Bancroft, Nancy Evans, Judy Green, and Rita Weinstein.
>
>------------------------------
>
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