|
UNIVERSITY OF COMPASSIONATE
CONSERVATISM (what
is this?)
You have selected
COMPASSIONATE
CONSERVATISM
203B*
*President Bush's lies
and deception moral clarity,
honesty and integrity
on Iraq and (non-nuclear) "WMDs"
and other weapons
In this course you will learn about the
abundant lies, deception or
intent to deceive moral clarity, honesty and integrity displayed by compassionate conservative2
President George W. Bush (and his administration speaking on his behalf)
on the issues of Iraq and non-nuclear "WMDs"
and other weapons. This
part covers his (Government's) statements on Iraq/Saddam's biological,
chemical and conventional weapons/capability - made before and after the invasion of
Iraq and some statements made before but evaluated after the invasion.
Make sure you drop by again when the Election 04 (2004) campaign starts
picking up steam, so that you can refresh your memory on his
compassion. Please
note that the statements made by Bush or his
spokespersons/administration3 - as
cited in column 3 of the tables below - are by default extracted from
one or more of the links shown in column 4. If the source of the
statements is different from the link(s) in column 4, then a URL is
explicitly provided in column 3. For feedback and corrections, please go
here. A detailed
acknowledgement of the sites from which the information below was
obtained is listed at
this location. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the
following sites where I got the vast majority of links from: Atrios/Eschaton,
Politics, Law and
Autism, Calpundit,
Buzzflash, Talking
Points Memo, Daily
Howler, Thinking
it Through, Bushwatch,
Spinsanity.
Total Compassion Con credits 2
available from this course to date = 100
Last
Update: 11/18/2003
BEFORE THE INVASION
"To questions about whether the
attacks on Sept. 11 turned Bush into a better leader, Rove answered that
Bush was a great leader all along," the Washington Post reported on
December 12: " 'I for one don't buy this theory that September 11th
somehow changed George Bush,' " Rove said. " 'You're just
paying better attention. He is who he is.' "
"In a lot of ways he is exactly how he's always been, and I think
people sort of see him now for how he's always been - very steady, and
very disciplined, and a lot of resolve, but also a whole lot of
compassion and a way to really connect with people," Laura [Bush]
told Tim Russert on December 23.
(from Mark Crispin
Miller, The
Bush Dyslexicon)
Touché.
Quotes
below via Billmon/Whiskey Bar
"...Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam
Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction..." - Dick
Cheney
"...Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons,
and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those
weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein
recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical
weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not
have..." - George W. Bush
AFTER THE INVASION
Nancy Gibbs (Time.com) via Independent-Media
"...Over the past three months, TIME has interviewed
Iraqi weapons scientists, middlemen and former government
officials. Saddam's henchmen all make essentially the same
claim: that Iraq's once massive unconventional-weapons program
was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt;
that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that
would prove it; that the shell games Saddam played with U.N.
inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on
conventional weapons systems—missiles, air defenses,
radar—not biological or chemical programs; and that even
Saddam, a sucker for a new gadget or invention or toxin, may
not have known what he actually had or, more to the point,
didn't have. It would be an irony almost too much to bear to
consider that he doomed his country to war because he was
intent on protecting weapons systems that didn't exist in the
first place..."
&c.
(The New Republic):
"...I appreciate people's opinions,
but I'm more interested in news.... And the best way to get
the news is from objective sources, and the most objective
sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's
happening in the world..."--George W. Bush, in an
interview with Fox News, September 22, 2003
|
Once you are done with the above sections, you may
choose another course by picking one of the options below
STATEMENTS ON IRAQ'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS
BEFORE THE INVASION
<go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 11
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| CB1-01 |
Previous
U.S. support for Iraq and Saddam's chemical weapon use |
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...said he "cautioned" Hussein about the use of
chemical weapons [back in 1983]...Rumsfeld has also said he had "nothing
to do" with helping Iraq in its war against Iran..." |
Michael
Dobbs (Washington Post) via Democrats.com:
"...What U.S. officials rarely
acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when
Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally. Among
the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad
during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now
defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a
special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of
U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld
traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical
weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of
international conventions. The story of U.S. involvement with
Saddam Hussein in the years before his 1990 attack on Kuwait --
which included large-scale intelligence sharing, supply of
cluster bombs through a Chilean front company, and facilitating
Iraq's acquisition of chemical and biological precursors -- is a
topical example of the underside of U.S. foreign policy. It is a
world in which deals can be struck with dictators, human rights
violations sometimes overlooked, and accommodations made with
arms proliferators, all on the principle that the "enemy of
my enemy is my friend."...The administrations of Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of
numerous items that had both military and civilian applications,
including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses,
such as anthrax and bubonic plague...
In a September interview with CNN, Rumsfeld said he
"cautioned" Hussein about the use of chemical weapons,
a claim at odds with declassified State Department notes of his
90-minute meeting with the Iraqi leader. A Pentagon spokesman,
Brian Whitman, now says that Rumsfeld raised the issue not with
Hussein, but with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz. The State
Department notes show that he mentioned it largely in passing as
one of several matters that "inhibited" U.S. efforts
to assist Iraq.
Rumsfeld has also said he had "nothing to
do" with helping Iraq in its war against Iran. Although
former U.S. officials agree that Rumsfeld was not one of the
architects of the Reagan administration's tilt toward Iraq -- he
was a private citizen when he was appointed Middle East envoy --
the documents show that his visits to Baghdad led to closer
U.S.-Iraqi cooperation on a wide variety of fronts. Washington
was willing to resume diplomatic relations immediately, but
Hussein insisted on delaying such a step until the following
year. As part of its opening to Baghdad, the Reagan
administration removed Iraq from the State Department terrorism
list in February 1982, despite heated objections from Congress.
Without such a move, Teicher says, it would have been
"impossible to take even the modest steps we were
contemplating" to channel assistance to Baghdad. Iraq --
along with Syria, Libya and South Yemen -- was one of four
original countries on the list, which was first drawn up in
1979....On the other hand, Iraq continued to play host to
alleged terrorists throughout the '80s. The most notable was Abu
Abbas, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front..."
|
2 |
| CB1-02 |
Previous
U.S. support for Iraq and Saddam's chemical weapon use |
Powell
for Bush
"...Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no
compunction about using them again -- against his neighbors and
against his own people..."
Cheney
for Bush
"...The whole range of weapons of mass
destruction then would rest in the hands of a dictator who has
already shown his willingness to use such weapons, and has done
so, both in his war with Iran and against his own
people..." |
Peter
W. Galbraith (Boston Globe):
"...In 1987, Hussein turned his chemical weapons on the
Kurds, who the year before had embarked on one of their periodic
rebellions against rule from Baghdad. The effects were
devastating. In a single attack on March 16, 1988, on the
eastern city of Halabja, more than 5,000 Kurdish men, women, and
children died horrific deaths as nerve gas seeped into cellars
where hundreds huddled or caught up with those trying to outrun
the gas on the city's dusty streets.
A few months later, I encountered the survivors of what proved
to be the final gas attacks on the Kurds. On August 25, 1988 -
five days after the Iran-Iraq war ended - Iraq launched a
massive attack on Kurdish villages along its border with Turkey.
Within days, 65,000 refugees had crossed into Turkey...
By the time we arrived in early September, some refugees were
sheltered in Turkish-run tent cities while others remained in
the open in desolate high mountain valleys fringed with patches
of snow. They seemed numb as they described how helicopters and
fixed-wing aircraft flew over their homes, dropping
"quiet" bombs. Smoke smelling of "burnt
almonds" or "rotten onions" wafted across the
landscape. People dropped dead. Those brave enough to venture
close to the corpses noticed "blue lips" and sometimes
small amounts of blood. Because these were not the first such
attacks, the survivors knew better than to touch the corpses;
nerve agents can kill on contact. Men fled, leaving the bodies
of their wives and young children to scavenging animals.
Before we left for Turkey, Senators Pell, Al Gore, and Jesse
Helms had introduced legislation to impose comprehensive
economic sanctions on Iraq for its use of chemical weapons. The
Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 unanimously passed the US
Senate just one day after being introduced. Van Hollen's and my
report on the gassings was intended to boost the bill's
prospects in the House of Representatives.
Kurdish leaders knew all about the legislation. For the first
time, it seemed the United States was poised to take action on
their behalf. Indeed, at one refugee camp, Van Hollen and I were
feted with an enthusiastic pro-American demonstration.
The Kurds were to be disappointed. The Reagan administration,
which had been providing Iraq with $700 million a year in credit
guarantees, saw Hussein's Iraq both as a potential security
partner in the volatile Persian Gulf and as a promising market
for American products and investment.
Secretary of State George Shultz denounced Iraq's use of
chemical weapons, but others in the administration seemed more
concerned about the Iraqi reaction should the sanctions become
law. (Senate passage of the Pell legislation produced the
biggest anti-American demonstration in Baghdad in 20 years.)
Working with the Republican House leadership and some House
Democrats, the administration was able to water down and
ultimately defeat the Prevention of Genocide Act.
While past error is no indication of future action, the Kurds
have not forgotten that Secretary of State Colin Powell was
then the national security adviser who orchestrated Ronald
Reagan's decision to give Hussein a pass for gassing the Kurds.
Dick Cheney, then a prominent Republican congressman and now
vice president and the Bush administration's leading Iraq hawk,
could have helped push the sanctions legislation but did not..."
[CG emphasis]
|
1
(being very very compassionate here) |
| CB2-01 |
Iraq and
VX |
Powell
for Bush
"...It took years for Iraq to finally
admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent,
VX. [...] UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had
produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery. Yet, to this
day, Iraq denies it had ever weaponized VX. And on January 27,
UNMOVIC told this council that it has information that conflicts
with the Iraqi account of its VX program..."
State
Dept. for Bush
"...The UN concluded that Iraq had not
accounted for 1.5 tons of the VX agent. Just one drop is enough
to kill a person..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...Most chemical and biological agents are subject to
processes of deterioration. A working paper by UNSCOM from
January 1998 noted that: "Taking into consideration the
conditions and the quality of CW-agents and munitions produced
by Iraq at that time, there is no possibility of weapons
remaining from the mid-1980's" (quoted
in Arms Control Today, June 2000)...If the allegations
that Iraq possessed a stockpile of illicit weapons were to be
true, then the UK and US would need to present credible evidence
that Iraq had managed to stabilise its chemical and biological
agents to a greater extent than it is previously thought to have
done...For example, the International Institute for Strategic
Studies (IISS) strategic dossier of September 2002 records the
status of VX produced before the Gulf War: "Any VX produced
by Iraq before 1991 is likely to have decomposed over the past
decade [...]. Any G-agent or V-agent stocks that Iraq concealed
from UNSCOM inspections are likely to have deteriorated by
now."...United States laboratory, which reported in June
1998 that they had found VX degradation products on the missile
warheads. This was seen as indicating at the time that Iraq had
stabilised VX sufficiently and had managed to weaponise it (in
contrast to the Government of Iraq's own claims). However,
further tests on fragments from the same missile warheads at two
other laboratories (in Switzerland and France), and at the same
United States laboratory with further samples, "found no
nerve agent degradation products" (ibid., p.82). The
chemical in question "could also originate from other
compounds such as precursors or, according to some experts, a
detergent" (ibid., p.81)..."
Also see Glen
Rangwala for more details on the VX case.
|
1 |
| CB3-01 |
Iraq and
mustard gas |
State
Department for Bush
"...UNMOVIC has reported that Iraq failed
to provide evidence to account for 1,000 tons of mustard gas,
550 mustard gas-filled munitions..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via Dennis
Hans):
"...With regard to the "1,000 tons of mustard
gas", referred to by the State Department on 27 February
2003, this seems to be an exaggeration. The only mustard that is
unaccounted for except for the artillery shells is the
discrepancy revealed in the Air Force document between the
aerial bombs that Iraq claims it used in the Iran-Iraq war and
the lower figure for those used in that document (see above).
As Hans Blix said (quoted above), the total amount of chemical
agents in these bombs could be around 1,000 tonnes. However, a
considerable proportion of this would be made up of Sarin and
Tabun bombs, agents that would not have lasted for more than a
few months, and not mustard..."
|
1 |
| CB4-01 |
Iraq and
G-agents |
Defense
Dept. for Bush
[claimed that] 200 metric tons of G-agents (sarin)
are unaccounted for.
State
Dept. for Bush
"...Gaps identified by UNSCOM in Iraqi
accounting and current production capabilities strongly suggest
that Iraq maintains stockpiles of chemical agents, probably VX,
sarin, cyclosarin and mustard..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...The main G-agents produced by Iraq were Tabun, Sarin
and Cyclosarin...These agents deteriorate rapidly, especially if
impurities are present in their manufacture. This seems to have
been the case with Iraq's nerve agents...
Tabun: "documentary evidence suggests that Tabun was
produced using process technology and quality control
methodologies that would result in the agent being degraded to a
very low quality through the action of a resulting
by-product." ("Unresolved
Disarmament Issues", 6 March 2003, p.68).
Sarin / Cyclosarin: "According to documents
discovered by UNSCOM in Iraq, the purity of Sarin-type agents
produced by Iraq were on average below 60%, and dropped below
Iraq’s established quality control acceptance level of 40% by
purity some 3 to 12 months after production. [...] There
is no evidence that any bulk Sarin-type agents remain in Iraq
- gaps in accounting of these agents are related to Sarin-type
agents weaponized in rocket warheads and aerial bombs. Based on
the documentation found by UNSCOM during inspections in Iraq,
Sarin-type agents produced by Iraq were largely of low quality
and as such, degraded shortly after production. Therefore, with
respect to the unaccounted for weaponized Sarin-type agents, it
is unlikely that they would still be viable today."
("Unresolved
Disarmament Issues", 6 March 2003, pp.72-73)...."
|
1 |
| CB5-01 |
Iraq
chemical weapons plants |
State
Department for Bush
"...Iraq continues to rebuild and
expand dual-use infrastructure that it could quickly divert to
chemical weapons production, such as chlorine and phenol
plants..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...Many of the most detailed claims
made about Iraq since 1998 have been related to the rebuilding
of facilities that were formerly associated with chemical and
biological weapons. It is noticeable that few of these claims
are that a specific facility is currently being used for the
production of chemical or biological warfare agents. Instead,
the facilities are identified as being capable of
producing such agents as well as civilian products, or that the
material that is being produced could be used in the
development of illicit weapons.
Unless there is a reliable assessment that the production
undertaken at these facilities is part of a chemical and
biological warfare programme, the information presented in these
claims cannot be taken as demonstrating that Iraq has recently
produced illicit chemical and biological agents. Indeed, UNMOVIC
inspections have not discovered any facilities in Iraq currently
engaged in the production of chemical or biological weapons. A
significant example is the description provided by UNMOVIC for
the facilities required to produce mustard agents:
"Iraq does not appear to have a dedicated facility
capable of producing Mustard and its key precursors.
Significant modifications would be required to convert existing
chemical production facilities for this purpose. Iraq would have
to utilize “corrosion resistant” equipment (for the
processing of the chlorinating agent), which it possesses in
limited quantities. However, Iraq had some items of dual-use
equipment distributed all over the country at legitimate
facilities that could be removed and assembled for the
construction of a dedicated Mustard production plant".
("Unresolved
Disarmament Issues", 6 March 2003, p.77).
The example of mustard is significant because, according to
UNMOVIC, "Mustard would be the easiest agent for Iraq to
produce indigenously." (ibid.)..."
|
None
assigned since the claim is couched in "safe" words
that cannot be argued against. However, the statement is
compassionate because it does not demonstrate that actual
weapons production is occurring.
I will cover this claim further in the
"after invasion" section. |
| CB5-02 |
Iraq
chemical weapons plants |
Powell for Bush
"..."Iraq has rebuilt key portions
of the Tareq State Establishment. Tareq includes facilities
designed specifically for Iraq’s chemical weapons program and
employs key figures from past programs"..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...This site,
which used to produce chemical weapons precursors, was bombed in
the Gulf War, and its remaining stocks were removed and
destroyed by UNSCOM. It was inactive in 1998. The claims that it
now produces chlorine and phenol (ie carbolic acid), which could
serve as precursors for the production of weapons, were not
substantiated in UK and US reports. These chemicals could also
be used as disinfectants and in water treatment, and so the
production of these chemicals in themselves would not
necessarily be evidence for a weapons programme.
Results of UN inspections. Fallujah II was inspected by
UNMOVIC inspectors on 9 December 2002. In contrast to the
extensive claims of the CIA and the State Department, UNMOVIC
found that the chlorine plant was not even in use:
"Two separate chemical plants are in the factory area and
their major activity is the production of phenol and chlorine. The
chlorine plant is currently inoperative. The site
contains a number of tagged dual-use items of equipment, which
were all accounted for. All key buildings were inspected in
addition to the chlorine and phenol plants. The objectives of
the visit were successfully achieved."..."
|
1 |
| CB5-03 |
Iraq
chemical weapons plants |
Powell for Bush
"...Here you see 15 munitions
bunkers...the four that are in red squares represent active
chemical munitions bunkers. How do I know that?...a facility
that is a signature item for this kind of bunker. Inside that
facility are special guards and special equipment to monitor any
leakage...The truck you also see is a signature item. It’s a
decontamination vehicle..." |
Greg
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) via Dennis
Hans:
"...(a) This seems ostensibly to be a
wholly implausible claim: a picture of a truck and a shed by
themselves reveal nothing about the contents of the adjacent
bunker. It also begs the question why the US did not provide
this information to the inspectors as soon as they entered Iraq
on 27 November, 25 days before Powell claims al-Taji was
evacuated. If they were genuine in their beliefs, why did they
not allow the independent inspectorate to check verify their
claims?
(b) Dr Blix reminds the Security Council of Powell’s false
inference on 14
February 2003: "The
presentation of intelligence information by the US Secretary of
State suggested that Iraq had prepared for inspections by
cleaning up sites and removing evidence of proscribed weapons
programmes. I would like to comment only on one case, which we
are familiar with, namely, the trucks identified by analysts as
being for chemical decontamination at a munitions depot. This
was a declared site, and it was certainly one of the sites Iraq
would have expected us to inspect. We have noted that the two
satellite images of the site were taken several weeks apart. The
reported movement of munitions at the site could just as
easily have been a routine activity as a movement of
proscribed munitions in anticipation of imminent
inspection."..."
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...Powell presented satellite photos
of industrial buildings, bunkers and trucks, and suggested they
showed Iraqis surreptitiously moving prohibited missiles and
chemical and biological weapons to hide them. At two sites, he
said trucks were "decontamination vehicles" associated
with chemical weapons.
These and other sites have now undergone 500 inspections in
recent months. Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, a day earlier,
had said his well-equipped experts had found no contraband in
their inspections and no sign that items had been moved. Nothing
has been reported found since.
Addressing the Security Council a week after Powell, Blix used
one photo scenario as an example and said it could be showing
routine as easily as illicit activity. Journalists visiting
photographed sites hours after the Powell speech found similar
activity to be routine.
Norwegian inspector Jorn Siljeholm told AP on March 19 that
"decontamination vehicles" U.N. teams were led to by
U.S. information invariably turned out to be simple water or
fire trucks. On June 24, Blix said of the entire Powell photo
package, "We were not impressed with that particular
evidence."
Amid Powell's warnings, a critical fact was lost: Iraq's
military industries were to have remained under strict, on-site
U.N. monitoring for years to come, guarding against the
rebuilding of weapons programs..."
|
2 |
| CB6-01 |
Iraq
chemical weapons |
Powell for Bush
"...Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons..."
Powell
for Bush
"...On Sept. 8, 2002, Powell said in a
Fox News interview that ''there is no doubt'' that Saddam
Hussein ''has chemical weapons stocks.''..." |
Colin
Powell (U.N. Speech):
"...We have evidence these weapons existed. What we don't
have is evidence from Iraq that they have been destroyed or
where they are. That is what we are still waiting for...With
Iraq's well-documented history on biological and chemical
weapons, why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the
doubt? I don't..."
Glen
Rangwala:
"...a false inference that lack of corroborative evidence
for destruction is equal to continued existence of weapons, as
Blix pointedly mentioned in his briefing
to the Security Council of 14 February 2003: "To take
an example, a document, which Iraq provided, suggested to us
that some 1,000 tonnes of chemical agent were ‘unaccounted
for’. One must not jump to the conclusion that they
exist."..."
Bryan
Bender (Boston Globe):
"...The Defense Intelligence Agency, in a classified report
that same month, had a different view: ''There is no reliable
information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical
weapons.''..."
|
2 |
STATEMENTS ON IRAQ'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS EVALUATED AFTER THE INVASION <go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 9
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| CA1-01 |
Iraqi
chemical/ biological weapons |
Bush/WH
"...[Iraq] could launch a biological or
chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given..."
|
Dana
Milbank (Washington Post):
"...The White House, in the run-up to
war in Iraq, did not seek CIA approval before charging that
Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack
within 45 minutes, administration officials now say.
The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by
President Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after
meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same
week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but
in a "Global Message" issued Sept. 26 and still on the
White House Web site, the White House claimed, without
attribution, that Iraq "could launch a biological or
chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."
The 45-minute claim is at the center of a scandal in Britain
that led to the apparent suicide on Friday of a British weapons
scientist who had questioned the government's use of the
allegation. The scientist, David Kelly, was being investigated
by the British parliament as the suspected source of a BBC
report that the 45-minute claim was added to Britain's public
"dossier" on Iraq in September at the insistence of an
aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and against the wishes of
British intelligence, which said the charge was from a single
source and was considered unreliable.
The White House embraced the claim, from a British dossier on
Iraq, at the same time it began to promote the dossier's
disputed claim that Iraq sought uranium in Africa.
Bush administration officials last week said the CIA was not
consulted about the claim. A senior White House official did not
dispute that account, saying presidential remarks such as radio
addresses are typically "circulated at the staff
level" within the White House only.
Virtually all of the focus on whether Bush exaggerated
intelligence about Iraq's weapons ambitions has been on the
credibility of a claim he made in the Jan. 28 State of the Union
address about efforts to buy uranium in Africa. But an
examination of other presidential remarks, which received little
if any scrutiny by intelligence agencies, indicates Bush made
more broad accusations on other intelligence matters related to
Iraq...
As it turns out, the 45-minute charge was not true; though
forbidden weapons may yet be found in Iraq, an adviser to the
Bush administration on arms issues said last week that such
weapons were not ready to be used on short notice..." |
1 |
| CA1-02 |
Iraqi chemical
weapons |
Bush
"...We have seen intelligence over
many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and
that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and
that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements
have been established..."
|
Christopher
Scheer (AlterNet):
"...FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and
British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of
chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else
during the war..."
Washington
Post:
"...The administration maintained that Iraq was still
producing deadly chemical agents such as mustard, sarin and VX.
Mr. Kay reported that "multiple sources" have told his
1,200-member team "that Iraq did not have a large,
centrally-controlled chemical weapons program after 1991."
In the dozen summary pages of his report made public, Mr. Kay
emphasized that after three months of work his conclusions are
preliminary and that he may yet find chemical or biological
munitions. Yet already enough is known to conclude that both the
president and the nation's intelligence community must be
accountable for misstating, or being mistaken about, the extent
of the Iraqi threat.
.."
|
1 |
| CA1-03 |
Iraqi
chemical weapons |
Powell
for Bush "...Our conservative
estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and
500 tons of chemical weapons agent..." Bush
NIE "...Although we
have little specific information on Iraq’s CW stockpile,
Saddam probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and
possibly as much as 500 MT of CW agents—much of it added in
the last year..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...Powell gave no basis for the assertion, and no such
agents have been reported found. An unclassified CIA report last
October made a similar assertion without citing concrete
evidence, saying only that Iraq "probably" concealed
precursor chemicals to make such weapons. The DIA reported
confidentially last September there "is no reliable
information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling
chemical weapons."..."
Bob
Drogin (The New Republic):
"...Kay's interim report all but dismisses those claims as
groundless. "Multiple sources," he wrote, indicate
that Iraq "did not have a large, ongoing, centrally
controlled C.W. program after 1991." Information found so
far, he added, suggests Baghdad's large-scale capability to
develop, produce, and fill new chemical munitions "was
reduced--if not entirely destroyed" by the combined effects
of the 1991 Gulf war, the 1998 Desert Fox air strikes, 13 years
of U.N. sanctions, and nine years of U.N. inspections. Since
large-scale facilities are needed to develop, produce, and fill
chemical weapons for military use, the program was effectively
dead..."
|
1 |
| CA1-04 |
Iraqi
chemical weapons |
Powell
for Bush "...Let me remind you
that -- of the 122 mm chemical warheads that the UN inspectors
found recently. This discovery could very well be, as has been
noted, the tip of a submerged iceberg.
The question before us all, my friends, is when will we see the
rest of the submerged iceberg?..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...The warheads were empty, a fact Powell didn't note.
Blix said on June 16 the dozen stray rocket warheads, never
uncrated, were apparently "debris from the past," the
1980s. No others have been reported found since the invasion..."
|
1 |
| CA1-05 |
Iraqi
chemical weapons |
Kay
for Bush
"...Iraqi practice was not to mark much
of their chemical ordnance and [was] to store it at the same
[sites] that held conventional rounds, the size of the required
search is enormous..." |
Bob
Drogin (The New Republic):
"...That's not quite true. For one thing, U.N. weapons
inspectors checked scores of suspect Iraqi military bases, ammo
dumps, and armories before the war. After it ended, special U.S.
weapons-hunting teams scrutinized scores more that had been
identified by the Defense Intelligence Agency. On May 30, the top
Marine commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General James Conway, told
reporters that his troops had scoured ammo storage sites across
southern Iraq for banned weapons. We've been
to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti
border and Baghdad, but they are simply not there," Conway
said.
There is another problem. If no chemical weapons were produced in
bulk after 1991, as Kay now concedes, then he presumably is
searching for chemical warfare agents or precursors left over from
the '80s in drums or in filled munitions. It's possible that some
will be found. But, except for Iraq's mustard gas, which had a
long shelf life, all of Iraq's known nerve agents were of poor
quality and would have deteriorated years ago. U.N. inspectors who
recovered and destroyed large quantities of those weapons in the
early '90s found they had lost most of their lethality and were
not suitable for warfare.
Moreover, despite Kay's claim, several U.N. inspectors say
Saddam's regime always marked its "special munitions,"
as chemical-filled shells, bombs, and warheads were known. The
markings were neither consistent nor standard--some munitions had
numbers, others a black stripe, others a stenciled white circle,
others just the painted letter "A" or "B."
Nevertheless, they were marked. In fact, the markings were so
well-known that, before the war, the Pentagon produced hand cards
showing the various markings so that military ordnance and
demolition experts could identify chemical weapons. There was good
reason. On March 4, 1991, just after the Gulf war ended, up to
5,000 American troops were exposed when American military
engineers mistakenly destroyed bunkers containing sarin and
mustard gas at the Kamisiyah ammo-storage site in southern Iraq.
No one wanted the accidental release of another toxic cloud.
"Kay's comment gives the impression [chemical weapons] were
kept with conventional munitions, and he'll have to check every
shell," said an American weapons expert who spent seven years
as a U.N. inspector and who strongly supported the war.
"That's baloney. They kept them separated from regular
munitions, they had separate security, and they had separate chain
of command. They were never co-located with conventional
munitions."..."
Also see: Bob
Drogin (Los Angeles Times)
|
2 |
| CA2-01 |
Iraqi VX |
Powell
for Bush "...It took years for
Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the
deadly nerve agent VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill
in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after
inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection
of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law.
UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX
and put it into weapons for delivery, yet to this day Iraq
denies it had ever weaponized VX. And on January 27, UNMOVIC
told this Council that it has information that conflicts with
the Iraqi account of its VX program..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...[In this speech] Powell didn't note that most of
that four tons was destroyed in the 1990s under U.N.
supervision. Before the invasion, the Iraqis made a
"considerable effort" to prove they had destroyed the
rest, doing chemical analysis of the ground where inspectors
confirmed VX had been dumped, the U.N. inspection agency
reported May 30.
Experts at Britain's International Institute of Strategic
Studies said any pre-1991 VX most likely would have degraded
anyway. No VX has been reported found since the invasion..."
|
1 |
| CA3-01 |
Iraqi
chemical weapons
plan(t)s |
Powell
for Bush "...We know that Iraq
has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons
infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all
outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks
like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit and legitimate
production can go on simultaneously or on a dime..."
State
Department for Bush
"...Iraq continues to rebuild and
expand dual-use infrastructure that it could quickly divert to
chemical weapons production, such as chlorine and phenol
plants..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...No "chemical weapons
infrastructure" has been reported found. The newly
disclosed DIA report of last September said there was "no
reliable information" on "where Iraq has - or will -
establish its chemical warfare agent-production
facilities."
Many countries' civilian chemical industries are capable of
making weapons agents, and Iraq's was under close U.N.
oversight. The DIA report suggested international inspections,
swept aside by the U.S. invasion six months later, would be able
to keep Iraq from rebuilding a chemical weapons program..."
Dana
Milbank and Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq,
presented a different view in his congressional testimony last
week. For example, he said: "Information found to date
suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce,
and fill new CW [chemical weapons] munitions was reduced -- if
not entirely destroyed -- during Operations Desert Storm and
Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N.
inspections."
..."
|
1 |
| CA3-02 |
Iraqi
chemical weapons
plan(t)s |
Powell
for Bush "...Saddam Hussein has
chemical weapons...we have sources who tell us that he recently
has authorized his field commanders to use them. He wouldn't be
passing out the orders if he didn't have the weapons or the
intent to use them..." Bush "...We
have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently
authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the
very weapons the dictator tell us he does not have..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...No such weapons were used and none was reported found
after the U.S. and allied military units overran Iraqi field
commands and ammunition dumps. Even before Powell spoke, U.N.
inspectors had found no such weapons at Iraqi military bases..."
Dana
Milbank and Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq,
presented a different view in his congressional testimony last
week. For example, he said: "Information found to date
suggests that Iraq's large-scale capability to develop, produce,
and fill new CW [chemical weapons] munitions was reduced -- if
not entirely destroyed -- during Operations Desert Storm and
Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and U.N.
inspections."
..."
|
1 |
STATEMENTS ON IRAQ'S BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
BEFORE THE INVASION
<go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 14
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| BB1-01 |
Previous
U.S. shipment of biological toxins to Iraq |
Rumsfeld for Bush
"...At last week's Armed Services
Committee hearing, Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld said he had no
knowledge of any such shipments and doubted that they ever
occurred..." |
Paul
Nyden (West Virginia Gazette) via TruthOut:
"..."We have a paper
trail," Byrd said. "We not only know that Iraq has
biological weapons, we know the type, the strain, and the batch
number of the germs that may have been used to fashion those
weapons. We know the dates they were shipped and the addresses
to which they were shipped. "We have
in our hands the equivalent of a Betty Crocker cookbook of
ingredients that the U.S. allowed Iraq to obtain and that may
well have been used to concoct biological weapons." Those
shipments included: Between 1985 and 1988, the nonprofit
American Type Culture Collection made 11 shipments to Iraq that
included a "witches' brew of pathogens," including
anthrax, botulinum toxin and gangrene. All shipments were
government-approved. Between January 1980
and October 1993, the federal Centers for Disease Control
shipped a variety of toxic specimens to Iraq, including West
Nile virus and Dengue fever. The U.S. Commerce Department and
CDC provided lists of these shipments..."
|
1 |
| BB2-01 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Bush
"...From
three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had
several mobile biological weapons labs... Saddam Hussein has not disclosed
these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed
them..."
"...In 1995,
after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of
Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime
was forced to admit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters
of anthrax and other deadly biological agents..." |
Alan
Gilbert (Priority Peace):
"..."Hussein
Kamel, the highest-ranking Iraqi official ever to defect from
Saddam Hussein's inner
circle, told CIA and British intelligence officers and U.N.
inspectors in the summer of 1995 that after the gulf war, Iraq
destroyed all
its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to
deliver them."
Newsweek "The
Defector’s Secrets" 03-03-03
"All chemical weapons were destroyed. I
ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons -
biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were destroyed" Hussein
Kamel
UNSCOM/IAEA interview transcript, "UNSCOM/IAEA
Sensitive," p. 13 08-22-95 http://www.casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf..."
Outlook
India:
"..."Several inspections have taken place ... in
relation to mobile production facilities," he [Blix] said.
"No evidence of proscribed activities have so far been
found." Blix said his inspectors had looked into several
mobile facilities as well as "large containers with seed
processing equipment...."
Also see: The
Guardian and see Glen
Rangwala for a more detailed rebuttal of the claims
regarding the "mobile" facilities.
|
1 |
| BB2-02 |
Iraq (biological
weapons) |
Bush admin
"...All key aspects - R&D,
production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive BW program
are active and most elements are larger and more advanced than
they were before the Gulf war..."
A lot of quotes are
here. |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...It is unclear how seriously the
CIA's claim that Iraq's BW programme is more advanced now than
it was in 1991 should be taken, especially as al-Hakam, Iraq's
main biological weapons facility, had been destroyed under
UNSCOM supervision in May-June 1996. The Security Council's
Panel on Disarmament recorded
in March 1999 that "the declared facilities of Iraq's BW
programme have been destroyed and rendered harmless"
(para.23). In any event, the CIA's claim is contradicted by
other US official assessments. The US General Accounting Office
(GAO), and investigative arm of the Congress, concluded in
September 2002 that: "In the context of the conventional
battlefield, the nature and magnitude of the military BW threat
has not changed materially since 1990 in terms of the number of
countries suspected of developing BW capability, the types of BW
agents they possess, or their ability to weaponize and deliver
BW agents. This is particularly true regarding the ability to
accumulate and deliver sufficient quantities of processed agent
to cause mass casualties."
GAO Report GAO-02-445 (September 2002), p.3,
at:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02445.pdf..."
AFTER THE INVASION
Bob
Drogin (The New Republic):
"...The Kay report doesn't support that assertion at all..."
|
1 |
| BB2-03 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Bush
"...the regime was forced to admit that
it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other
deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded
that Iraq had likely produced two to four times that amount.
This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never
been accounted for, and capable of killing millions..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...The quotes above from the State Department and CIA in
September and October 2002, misrepresent the findings of UNSCOM
most clearly: UNSCOM did not conclude with the State Department
"that Iraq actually produced two to four times the amount
of most agents, including anthrax and botulinim toxin, than it
had declared", but that if the assumptions above were to
hold, the "[q]uantities produced could be at
least 3 times greater than stated" by Iraq (in its January
1999 report, Appendix III). To infer from this to what Iraq
"actually produced" (State Department) is to make a
leap of logic for which there is insufficient evidence.
Similarly, President Bush and Press Secretary Fleischer both
impute views to UNSCOM that never constituted the position of
the inspectorate: in no UNSCOM report is it stated that Iraq is
"likely" to have produced more than it claimed, but
merely that it could have done so.
Furthermore, the claims about Iraq possessing a stockpile of
biological weapons created before 1991 may suffer from the same
problems as discussed for the notion of a stockpile of chemical
weapons, above. The assessment by Professor Anthony H. Cordesman
of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is
as follows:
"The shelf-life and lethality of Iraq's weapons is unknown,
but it seems likely that the shelf-life was limited. In balance,
it seems probable that any agents Iraq retained after the Gulf
War now have very limited lethality, if any"
"Iraq's Past and Future Biological Weapons
Capabilities" (1998), p.13, at: http://www.csis.org/stratassessment/reports/iraq_bios.pdf..."
Joseph
Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadyay (Foreign Policy) via Corrente::
"...The U.N. inspectors did not reach this conclusion.
Their final report in 1999 indicated that 520 kilograms (1,144
pounds) of yeast extract (bacterial growth media) remained
unaccounted for and was "sufficient to produce 26,000
litres of Bacillus anthracis spores or over 3 times the amount
declared by Iraq." Inspectors did not know if Iraq had
actually used this growth media to produce more anthrax, nor did
they draw any conclusions about what weapons Iraq might possess.
Iraq's biological weapons, if they existed, could "kill
millions" only if the regime had a large arsenal of
highly-effective long-range missile, rocket, and airborne
delivery systems, such as those that the United States and the
Soviet Union perfected during the Cold War. There was no
evidence that Iraq possessed such delivery systems..."
|
2 |
| BB2-04 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Bush admin
"...The UN Special Commission
concluded that Iraq did not verifiably account for, at a
minimum, 2160kg of growth media. (repeated by White
House, January 2003, p.5)..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...It is particularly curious that Dr Blix, in his update
to the Security Council on 27 January 2003, provides a
wholly different set of figures from the US in accounting for
growth media. He claims that 650kg of bacterial growth media is
unaccounted for (unlike the US claims that 2160kg or,
alternatively, 3 tonnes of this media is unaccounted for)..."
|
1 |
| BB2-05 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Powell for Bush
"...By 1998, U.N. experts agreed that the
Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their biological
weapons programs..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...This seems to be untrue. UNSCOM never stated in its
official reports that Iraq had "perfected drying
techniques". UNSCOM recognised that Iraq had experimented
with drying techniques, but seem to have been unsure about
Iraq's success in this regard...
UNMOVIC reached the following conclusions:
"It is most likely that, as it had declared, Iraq was
unsuccessful in 1989/90 in acquiring a special dust-free spray
dryer to safely dry large quantities of anthrax. [...] In any
event, it seems likely that no bulk drying of agent took
place in either 1989 or 1990...
"UNMOVIC has no evidence that drying of anthrax or
any other agent in bulk was conducted." (ibid.,
p.120)..."
|
1 |
| BB2-06 |
Iraq (biological
weapons) |
Bush
"...The United Nations concluded that
Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than
38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions
of people to death by respiratory failure..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...Secretary Powell and President Bush both make a claim
about growth material for botulinum toxin that is unaccounted
for, and attribute this claim to the United Nations. Both are
inaccurate. According to the UNSCOM
January 1999 report, the growth media unaccounted for that could
be used for making botulinum toxin consisted of 460kg of casein
and 80kg of thioglycollate broth. It records that this amount
was "Sufficient for the production of 1200 litres of
concentrated botulinum toxin (depending on availability of other
components including yeast extract). This would represent an
additional 6% of that which has already been declared by
Iraq." Although far from being a small volume, the 1200
litres at issue for UNSCOM is quite different in scale from the
38,000 litres described by Secretary Powell and President Bush...
Clostridium botulinum (botulinum toxin) consists of anaerobic
bacilli, which have a short shelf life."
Glen
Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker (Traprockpeace.org):
"...In March, UN inspectors reported: "it seems
unlikely that significant undeclared quantities of botulinum
toxin could have been produced, based on the quantity of media
unaccounted for."..."
|
2 |
| BB2-07 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Powell for Bush
"...We know from Iraq's past admissions
that it has successfully weaponized [...] ricin..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...This seems to be untrue. UNSCOM
stated in its January
1999 report, Appendix III, that Iraq only admitted to
attempting field trials using 155mm artillery shells in November
1990. UNMOVIC record:
"Iraq states that a single static field test was conducted
in November 1990, that it was considered to be a failure and
that the project was abandoned. While UNMOVIC finds it probable
that this test occurred, the project was probably abandoned due
to the onset of war rather than the failure of the test. Apart
from this static field test using 155mm artillery shells, there
is no evidence to suggest that Iraq weaponized ricin for
military purposes."
("Unresolved
Disarmament Issues", 6 March 2003, p.116)..."
|
1 |
| BB2-08 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Bush admin
"...The al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Disease
Vaccine Facility is one of two known biocontainment level-three
facilities in Iraq that have an extensive air handling and
filtering system. Iraq has admitted that this was a biological
weapons facility. In 2001, Iraq announced that it would begin
renovating the plant without UN approval, ostensibly to produce
vaccines that it could more easily and more quickly import
through the UN..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...Prior to 1991, al-Dawrah was
engaged in research on viral warfare agents. In March 2001, the
Government of Iraq wrote to the UN Secretary-General to notify
him of the reactivation of this facility for the production of
foot and mouth vaccine. This was in the aftermath of a severe
outbreak of the disease, during which "at least 400,000
animals have died for lack of the vaccine", and the
Executive Director of the UN Iraq Programme himself recommended
the reconstitution of Iraq's own facilities for producing the
vaccine (AP,
3 July 1999). The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
warned
in February 1999 that "Iraq would need to import the
vaccines required to fight foot-and-mouth disease [...]
Procurement of the vaccines and their timely delivery is vital
to safeguarding animal health, which is an essential component
of food security in the region. [...] The government has been
unable to adequately monitor and control the spread of these
diseases, partly because of the difficulties it has in
obtaining equipment and supplies, particularly vaccines.
As a result the Iraqi government has repeatedly sought the
assistance of FAO to deal with the outbreaks" (emphasis
added). Permission from the UN Sanctions Committee to import
foot and mouth vaccine was inconsistent...According to a Reuters
report of 13 April 1999, the US had again held up Iraq's
purchase of the vaccine in the UN Sanctions Committee for a
short period of time. Although Iraq has in general been able to
import the vaccine under the oil-for-food programme since that
date, especially as the vaccine is not on the May 2002 list of
items that need to be reviewed by the Sanctions Committee prior
to import, there may in 2001 have been suspicions that an
indigenous facility would be necessary in the event of a renewed
obstructionist US role on the Sanctions Committee....
Results of UN inspection: "By the time the
inspectors left the plant today, after four hours, they had
concluded that the plant was no longer operational -- not for
the production of toxins, and not for animal vaccines either.
Reporters who were allowed to wander through the plant after the
inspectors left found the place largely in ruins. Apparently, it
had been abandoned by the Iraqis after 1996, when the weapons
inspectors took heavy cutting equipment to the fermenters,
containers and pressurized tubing and valves used in the toxin
production." ("Inspectors
Find Only Ruins at an Old Iraqi Weapons Site", New
York Times, 29 November 2002)..."
|
2 |
| BB2-09 |
Iraq
(biological weapons) |
Bush
"...From 1991 to 1995, the Iraqi regime
said it had no biological weapons. After a senior official in
its weapons program defected and exposed this lie, the regime
admitted to producing tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and
other deadly biological agents..." |
U.S.
State Department:
"...For years, Iraq denied that it had an offensive
biological weapons program of any kind. Despite such
stonewalling, U.N. weapons inspectors uncovered evidence of
an extensive and ongoing effort to develop biological weapons.
[CG emphasis]
Then, in 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law and director
of Iraq's military industries, defected and provided
verification [CG emphasis] of Iraq's bioweapons
program. The regime was forced to admit the truth: production of
thousands of liters of such deadly agents as anthrax, botulinum
toxin, and aflatoxin..."
Compassiongate: Bush's statement was misleading
as usual compassionate in that his words suggest that a
lie was exposed by the defector. But as the State Department
says, the lie was already exposed by the U.N. inspectors and
then verified by the defectors statement. |
1 |
| BB2-10 |
Iraq
biological weapons |
Powell
for Bush
"..."Saddam Hussein...has the
wherewithal to develop smallpox"..." |
Glen
Rangwala and Raymond Whitaker (Traprockpeace.org):
"...The UN recorded in March 2003 that "there is no
evidence that Iraq had possessed seed stocks for smallpox or had
been actively engaged in smallpox research"..."
AFTER THE INVASION
AP/MSNBC:
"...Top
American scientists assigned to the weapons hunt in Iraq found
no evidence Saddam Hussein’s regime was making or stockpiling
smallpox, The Associated Press has learned from senior military
officers involved in the search...SMALLPOX
FEARS were part of the case the Bush administration used to
build support for invading Iraq — and they were raised again
as recently as last weekend by Vice President Dick Cheney.
But a three-month search by
“Team Pox” turned up only signs to the contrary: disabled
equipment that had been rendered harmless by U.N. inspectors,
Iraqi scientists deemed credible who gave no indication they had
worked with smallpox and a laboratory thought to be back in use
that was covered in cobwebs...
Two of the six members of Team Pox — whose existence and work
hasn’t been previously disclosed — have left Iraq while the
rest remain involved in other aspects of the weapons hunt, said
the officers who described the smallpox pursuit for the first
time.
Though Team Pox is no
longer operational, having carried out their work between May
and July, their findings don’t dismiss the possibility that
smallpox could still be discovered, according to the officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
However, there remains
little to pursue in this area now.
“We found no physical or
new anecdotal evidence to suggest Iraq was producing smallpox or
had stocks of it in its possession,” one of the military
officers said...
Bush administration officials often cited smallpox when
describing Saddam’s intentions — and continue to do so
despite the lack of evidence.
On Sunday, Cheney said two
trailers discovered in Iraq could have been used to make
smallpox...
Despite those suspicions, Pentagon planners didn’t organize a
specific search for smallpox when they put together a
post-Saddam weapons hunt comprising hundreds of military
personnel with expertise in missiles as well as chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons.
“There was some
discussion about creating specialized teams but we didn’t have
enough people,” said Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, who planned the
weapons hunt for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The original search teams,
which disbanded when a Pentagon-led effort known as the Iraq
Survey Group took over in August, comprised military officers
trained in detecting chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Those teams didn’t have an investigative capability and
didn’t include experts in specific areas such as smallpox.
Surprised by the
configuration, a handful of American biologists and virologists
sent to Kuwait and then Baghdad with little instruction except
to help, set up Team Pox on their own..."
|
1 |
STATEMENTS ON IRAQ'S BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS EVALUATED AFTER THE INVASION <go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 16
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| BA1-01 |
Iraqi biological
weapons |
Bush
administration/CIA
"...made public its
assessment of two mysterious trailers found in Iraq, calling
them mobile units to produce deadly germs and the strongest
evidence yet that Saddam Hussein had been hiding a program to
prepare for biological warfare.
"We're highly confident" of that
judgment, an American intelligence official told reporters. The
official said the administration's strong conviction was based
mainly on the similarity between the testimony of Iraqi sources
and the evidence found on the ground..."
Bush
"...citing two trailers that U.S.
intelligence agencies have said were probably used as mobile
biological weapons labs, said U.S. forces in Iraq have
"found the weapons of mass destruction" that were the
United States' primary justification for going to war..."And
we'll find more weapons as time goes on," Bush said.
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned
manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found
them."..."
Cheney
for Bush
"...We had intelligence reporting before
the war that there were at least seven of these mobile labs that
he had gone out and acquired. We’ve, since the war, found two
of them. They’re in our possession today, mobile biological
facilities that can be used to produce anthrax or smallpox or
whatever else you wanted to use during the course of developing
the capacity for an attack..."
|
William
Broad (New York Times):
"...The report called the discovery
of the trailers "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq
was hiding a biological warfare program." It also noted
that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in his testimony before
the United Nations on Feb. 5 to generate support for a war in
Iraq, had detailed such charges.
Both the report and the briefing, a telephone
conference call in which reporters asked questions, were careful
and candid. Both had notable caveats, including the use of the
words "probable" and "unlikely." Both
conceded that there were inconsistencies in the evidence and a
lack of hard proof, like the presence of pathogens in trailer
gear. The officials acknowledged that they had discovered
neither biological agents nor evidence that the equipment had
ever been used to make germ weapons.
Moreover, they said the trailer's hardware presented no direct
evidence of weapons use. The best evidence of that, they said,
was the trailers' close resemblance to prewar descriptions of
mobile germ plants given by Iraqi sources. A
technical assessment alone "would not lead you intuitively
and logically to biological warfare," an official said of
the trailers.
Their gear was rusty, officials said, perhaps from sitting in
the rain. And the mobile factories were poorly designed. For
instance, one official noted, Iraqi biologists running the
plants would have had a hard time getting raw materials into the
production gear and removing multiplied colonies of deadly
germs...
"It's possible," one official added, that the two
trailers, made in 2002 and 2003, were part of a new, more
advanced generation of mobile gear "never used to
manufacture agent." The report also
made brief mention of a mobile laboratory found by American
forces that intelligence officials said could have had both
civilian and military uses. The report took issue with experts
cited in a
New York Times
editorial of May 13, who had suggested that the trailers might
have been meant to produce biopesticides or to refurbish missile
fuel. Those explanations, it said, made no sense. American-led
forces in Iraq are still hunting for other plants and their
support vehicles, especially older models that might better
match the descriptions of Iraqi sources.
A skeptical view of the evidence presented yesterday came from
Matthew S. Meselson, a Harvard expert on biological weapons who
has advised the Central Intelligence Agency. He said the C.I.A.
had made technical errors in the past and called on the
government to turn over its Iraqi evidence to an independent
panel. "The C.I.A. is under great political pressure,"
he said in an interview. "The evidence has to be given to
an unimpeachable outside group of scientists and they should be
allowed any tests or measurements they want. They shouldn't be
spoon-fed the data." Dr. Meselson suggested that an
appropriate group might be the National Academy of Sciences, a
prestigious organization in Washington that often advises the
government..."
Ben
Fritz (Spinsanity):
"...President Bush's is now claiming that "we found
the weapons of mass destruction. "This statement is flat
out false according to the evidence presented by his own
administration, however. So far, the U.S. has only found
evidence of weapons labs that likely could have been used to
create biological weapons, but has found no actual weapons
banned by the United Nations...In remarks
to Polish television released on Friday, though, President Bush
stated that the U.S. has found much more than these labs.
"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found
biological laboratories," he said, according to an Associated
Press article. "''They're illegal. They're against the
United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And
we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say
we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned
weapons, we found them."
However, as the Washington Post piece states, "U.S.
authorities have to date made no claim of a confirmed finding of
an actual nuclear, biological or chemical weapon." The
existence of the labs is an important but separate issue. In the
midst of a debate about whether the U.S. government misled the
public and other governments over its reasons for invading Iraq,
the President is now making a patently false claim about
evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction..."
Peter
Beaumont, Antony Barnett and Gaby Hinsliff (The Observer):
"...An official
British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq
has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was
claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for
the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the
Iraqis have continued to insist...
a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has
examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week:
'They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not
use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look
like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were -
facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons.'
The conclusion of the investigation ordered by the British
Government - and revealed by The Observer last week - is hugely
embarrassing for Blair..."
Douglas
Jehl (New York Times):
"...The State Department's
intelligence division is disputing the Central Intelligence
Agency's conclusion that mysterious trailers found in Iraq were
for making biological weapons, United States government
officials said today.
In a classified June 2 memorandum, the officials said, the
department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research said it was
premature to conclude that the trailers were evidence of an
Iraqi biological weapons program, as President Bush has done...The
reasons cited in the State Department memorandum to justify its
dissent could not be learned. But in interviews earlier this
month in Washington and the Middle East, American and British
analysts with direct access to the evidence also disputed the
C.I.A.'s claims, saying that the mobile units were more likely
intended for other purposes and that the evaluation process had
been damaged by a rush to judgment..."
Dana
Milbank (Washington Post):
"..."The president had repeatedly said that Iraq had
weapons of mass destruction and that includes everything
knowable up to the opening shots of the war," he said.
"We still have confidence in that information. You could
say Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction. We have
confidence we're going to find them. They're still there."
Bush's remarks were significantly more circumscribed than his
statement two weeks ago that "we found the weapons of mass
destruction," based on the discovery of two trailers that
the CIA has said could have been used to produce biological
warfare agents. Although no actual pathogens had been recovered,
Bush asserted then that "we'll find more weapons as time
goes on."
A week later, Bush dropped the assertion that weapons had been
found, saying instead that "we're on the look" for the
weapons and that Hussein had "a big country in which to
hide them."..."
Glen
Rangwala (The Independent):
"...The ISG [Iraq Survey Group headed by David Kay] even
casts serious doubt on President Bush's much-trumpeted claim
that US forces had found three mobile biological laboratories
after the war: "technical limitations" would prevent
the trailers from being ideally suited to biological weapons
production, it records. In other words, they were for something
else..."
Joe
Conason (New York Observer via Working for Change):
"...Wrong again, as Mr. Kay reluctantly noted. After
scouring the two trailers for the past several months, his teams
have been unable to "corroborate the existence of a mobile
[biological-weapons] production effort." Indeed, what his
scientists have learned is that technical limitations would
almost certainly have made such difficult, dangerous processes
impossible in those peculiar, canvas-sided vehicles..."
AP/MSNBC:
"...Top
American scientists assigned to the weapons hunt in Iraq found
no evidence Saddam Hussein’s regime was making or stockpiling
smallpox, The Associated Press has learned from senior military
officers involved in the search...
...a three-month search by “Team Pox” turned up only signs
to the contrary: disabled equipment that had been rendered
harmless by U.N. inspectors, Iraqi scientists deemed credible
who gave no indication they had worked with smallpox and a
laboratory thought to be back in use that was covered in
cobwebs...
Bush administration officials often cited smallpox when
describing Saddam’s intentions — and continue to do so
despite the lack of evidence.
On Sunday, Cheney said two
trailers discovered in Iraq could have been used to make
smallpox...
Despite those suspicions, Pentagon planners didn’t organize a
specific search for smallpox when they put together a
post-Saddam weapons hunt comprising hundreds of military
personnel with expertise in missiles as well as chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons.
“There was some
discussion about creating specialized teams but we didn’t have
enough people,” said Lt. Col. Michael Slifka, who planned the
weapons hunt for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
The original search teams,
which disbanded when a Pentagon-led effort known as the Iraq
Survey Group took over in August, comprised military officers
trained in detecting chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Those teams didn’t have an investigative capability and
didn’t include experts in specific areas such as smallpox.
Surprised by the
configuration, a handful of American biologists and virologists
sent to Kuwait and then Baghdad with little instruction except
to help, set up Team Pox on their own..."
Also see: Fred
Kaplan (MSN/Slate)
|
2
(1 for lying compassion about
the trailers and 1 for saying that others who point out the
truth are liars compassionate.) |
| BA1-02 |
Iraqi biological
weapons |
Bush
"...Iraq
could decide on any given day to provide a biological or
chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance
with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America
without leaving any fingerprints..."
|
Joseph
Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadyay (Foreign Policy) via Corrente::
"...To
date, no nation that has produced chemical, biological, or
nuclear weapons has ever given such weapons to terrorist groups.
In March 2002, CIA Director George Tenet told the U.S. Senate
that if Saddam did cooperate with al Qaeda or another terrorist
network against the United States, he would be “well aware
that such activity would carry serious consequences.”..."
Walter
Pincus (Washington Post):
"...But declassified portions of a still-secret
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released Friday by the
White House show that at the time of the president's speech the
U.S. intelligence community judged that possibility to be
unlikely. In fact, the NIE, which began circulating Oct. 2,
shows the intelligence services were much more worried that
Hussein might give weapons to al Qaeda terrorists if he were
facing death or capture and his government was collapsing after
a military attack by the United States.
"Saddam, if sufficiently desperate, might decide that only
an organization such as al Qaeda, . . . already engaged in a
life-or-death struggle against the United States, could
perpetrate the type of terrorist attack that he would hope to
conduct," one key judgment of the estimate said.
It went on to say that Hussein might decide to take the
"extreme step" of assisting al Qaeda in a terrorist
attack against the United States if it "would be his last
chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims
with him."...
Friday's declassified material from the
NIE gave a much more complete picture of the intelligence in the
form of all the key judgments of the intelligence community.
One of the judgments was that Hussein "appears to be
drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with
conventional or [chemical or biological weapons] against the
United States fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would
provide Washington a stronger case for making war."
Another judgment was that Iraq would "probably"
attempt a clandestine attack against the United States, as
mentioned by Bush -- not on "any given day" as the
president said Oct. 7, but only "if Baghdad feared an
attack that threatened the survival of the regime were imminent
or unavoidable."
..."
|
2 |
| BA1-03 |
Iraqi
biological weapons |
Iraq
Survey Group (ISG) report for Bush
"...there is the allegation that a
biologist had a "collection of reference strains" at
his home, including "a vial of live C botulinum Okra B from
which a biological agent can be produced"..."
Bush
"...The [Kay] report states that Saddam
Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological
laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum..."
Bush
"...said [that] the Iraq war was
justified and cited the vial of bacteria as proof Kay found
ample signs Saddam "was a danger to the world."..."
Powell
for Bush
"Do you think vials of botulism should
constitute a weapon of mass destruction?" Powell asked
reporters. " ... They never lost that capability. They
never lost that intent."
Boucher
for Bush "...US State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher added: "You kill
people with botuli. They have no other use."..." Kay
for Bush "...Well, that's
one of the most fascinating stories. An Iraqi scientist in 1993
hid in his own refrigerator reference strains for — active
strains, actually would've — were still active when we found
them — Botulinum toxin, one of the most toxic elements known..." Kay
for Bush "...KAY: We're
actively searching for at least one more cache of weapons — of
strains that we know exists.
SNOW: This is a cache that had been referred to by a scientist.
The first bit of information paid off; you're still looking for
the second one?
KAY: Exactly..." |
Walter
Pincus (Washington Post):
"...Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," U.S. chief
weapons inspector David Kay said he is searching for a cache of
reference strains of biological agents that is supposed to include
anthrax bacteria. Reference strains are not weapons agents but in
effect sample amounts to be used to determine whether that agent
exists.
Kay's discovery of one vial of a reference strain of botulinum
toxin that an Iraqi scientist had stored in his refrigerator in
1993 at his government's request was described by Bush on Friday
as a piece of evidence that Iraq was prepared to have prohibited
biological weapons.
Before the war, the administration, using 1998 data from U.N.
inspectors, said that Iraq had not accounted for 25,000 liters of
anthrax bacteria and 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin..."
Julian
Borger (The Guardian):
"...the scientist involved said he was asked to hide the
botulinum in his refrigerator at home in 1993. Iraq admitted
pursuing a biological weapons programme to UN inspectors two years
later. It is unclear whether the Iraqi scientist had received any
orders from the regime after that date...
More evidence of such programmes was
included in a 200-page classified version of the 13-page report
made public, but experts in the ISG, including former UN
inspectors, have so far not been allowed to read the classified
version, according to one of their former colleagues.
The refusal to allow ISG experts to read a report on their own
work adds weight to suspicions that the report has been
manipulated. "They're under huge pressure to come up with
whatever," the ex-colleague said..."
John J. Lumpkin (AP):
"...The Iraqi scientist who had the vial had been given it
for safekeeping at his home by another, more senior scientist, in
1993, Kay said...
Although tests showed that the one vial of bacteria that the
scientist kept was still viable, Kay offered no evidence it had
been used in a weapons program during the last decade.
The vial contained a live bacteria that make botulinum toxin - a
toxin that can be used as a biological weapon. But experts say
there are many, complicated steps between possessing a vial of
bacteria and producing enough of the toxin to create a weapon.
That would require relatively sophisticated equipment and
processing.
The bacteria itself is a common cause of food poisoning."
John
J. Lumpkin (AP) via Salon:
"..."We have not found at this point actual weapons,"
[CG emphasis] Kay said after briefing lawmakers behind
closed doors. "It does not mean we've concluded there are no
actual weapons."..."
Bob
Drogin (Los Angeles Times):
"...A suspicious sample of biological material recently found
by U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq probably was purchased legally
from a U.S. organization in the 1980s and is a substance that has
never been successfully used to produce a weapon, experts said.
The discovery of the hidden vial of C. botulinum Okra B, which was
revealed in an Oct. 2 interim report by chief U.S. weapons hunter
David Kay, was highlighted in speeches by President Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and
other senior administration officials as proof that President
Saddam Hussein's government maintained an illicit bio-weapons
program before the war.
The significance of the vial is one of several elements of Kay's
report that are being called into question by U.S. biowarfare
experts and former United Nations weapons inspectors. Although
most praised Kay for uncovering numerous cases in which Iraq hid
suspicious equipment and activities from U.N. inspectors, they
said the report appeared misleading in several areas...
The single vial of botulinum B had been stored in an Iraqi
scientist's kitchen refrigerator since 1993. It appears to have
been produced by a nonprofit Virginia biological resource center,
the American Type Culture Collection, which legally exported
botulinum and other biological material to Iraq under a Commerce
Department license in the late 1980s.
The vial of botulinum B — about 2 inches high and half an inch
wide — was the only suspicious biological material Kay reported
finding. It was sealed and stored in the scientist's home with 96
other apparently benign vials of single-cell proteins and
biopesticides...
But Dr. David Franz, a former chief U.N. biological weapons
inspector who is considered among America's foremost experts on
biowarfare agents, said there was no evidence that Iraq or anyone
else has ever succeeded in using botulinum B for biowarfare.
"The Soviets dropped it [as a goal] and so did we, because we
couldn't get it working as a weapon," said Franz, who is the
former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of
Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md., the Pentagon's lead
laboratory for bioweapons defense research.
"From the weapons side, it's not something to be concerned
about," agreed Dr. Raymond Zilinskas, another former U.N.
inspector who is now director of the chemical and biological
weapons nonproliferation program at the Monterey Institute in
California..."
Glen
Rangwala (The Independent):
"...type B - the form found at the biologist's home - is less
lethal.
Even then, it would require an extensive process of fermentation,
the growing of the bug, the extraction of the toxin and the
weaponisation of the toxin before it could cause harm. That
process would take weeks, if not longer, but the ISG reported no
sign of any of these activities.
Botulinum type B could also be used for making an antidote to
common botulinum poisoning. That is one of the reasons why many
military laboratories around the world keep reference strains of C
botulinum Okra B. The UK keeps such substances, for example, and
calls them "seed banks"..."
Also see: Bob
Drogin (The New Republic); Billmon/Whiskey
Bar
|
3
|
| BA1-04 |
Iraqi
biological weapons |
Kay
for Bush
"...[Iraq had] New research on
BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic
Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were
not declared to the UN..." |
Bob
Drogin (Los Angeles Times):
"...In addition to the doubts about the botulinum B, several
outside experts are also questioning the significance of Kay's
claim that he uncovered covert "new research" in Iraq on
such potential biowarfare agents as Brucella and Congo Crimean
Hemorrhagic Fever as well as "continuing work" on ricin
and aflatoxin that were not declared to U.N. inspectors.
CCHF, as the hemorrhagic fever virus is known, is common in Iraq.
The World Health Organization reports that the disease, which can
cause intense bleeding and death, is "endemic in many
countries in Africa, Europe and Asia." There is no evidence
that Iraq or anyone else has weaponized it.
"There are public health reasons to work with it in that part
of the world," said Franz, the former bioweapons lab chief.
"I wouldn't find it alarming that they're working on
that."
Brucella, which chiefly affects livestock, is also endemic to
Iraq. U.S. military scientists weaponized the bacterium during the
Cold War but did not consider it effective because it is slow
acting and can be treated with antibiotics. U.N. inspectors have
not found evidence that Iraq worked on Brucella as a weapon.
Aflatoxin causes vomiting and other incapacitating symptoms but is
rarely lethal in humans. The fungal toxin is chiefly known for
causing liver cancer. Iraq produced aflatoxin as a weapon in the
1980s, but nonproliferation program director Zilinskas said it has
never been clear why.
"It's not particularly toxic, and its primary effects are
long term," he said. "My feeling to this day is that it
was a scam that the scientists put over on the decision-makers
because it's easy to produce and the decision-makers wouldn't know
it is useless as a biological weapon."
Hussein's regime also had sought to weaponize ricin, which can be
highly lethal if inhaled, but ended the program in 1990 after
field tests failed to kill animals, according to U.N. reports.
"They gave up using ricin as a weapon," Franz said.
"That was the right decision, in my opinion." Because it
is so difficult to produce the proper powdered form for aerosol
distribution, he added, "you almost need to be hit by a brick
of it to kill you."..."
|
3 |
| BA1-05 |
Iraqi
biological weapons |
Kay
for Bush
"...[Iraq had] A clandestine network of
laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence
Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and
suitable for continuing CBW research..." |
Glen
Rangwala (The Independent):
"...Note what that sentence does not say: these facilities
were suitable for chemical and biological weapons research (as
almost any modern lab would be), not that they had engaged in such
research. The reference to UN monitoring is also spurious: under
the terms of UN resolutions, all of Iraq's chemical and biological
facilities are subject to monitoring. So all this tells us is that
Iraq had modern laboratories..."
|
1 |
| BA1-06 |
Iraqi
biological weapons |
Powell
for Bush
"...Numerous human sources tell us that
the Iraqis are moving not just documents and hard drives, but
weapons of mass destruction, to keep them from being found by
inspectors. While we were here in this Council chamber debating
Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a
missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers
and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various
locations, distributing them to various locations in western
Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads had been hidden in
large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to
four weeks to escape detection..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...According to Powell, unidentified sources said the Iraqis
dispersed rocket launchers and warheads holding biological weapons
to the western desert, hiding them in palm groves and moving them
every one to four weeks.
Nothing has been reported found, after months of searching by U.S.
and Australian troops in the near-empty desert. Al-Saadi suggested
the story of palm groves and weekly-to-monthly movement was lifted
whole from an Iraqi general's written account of hiding missiles
in the 1991 war..."
|
1 |
| BA1-07 |
Iraqi biological weapons |
Kay
for Bush
"...Debriefings of IIS officials and site
visits have begun to unravel a clandestine network of
laboratories and facilities within the security service
apparatus. This network was never declared to the U.N. and was
previously unknown. We are still working on determining the
extent to which this network was tied to large-scale military
efforts or BW terror weapons, but this clandestine capability
was suitable for preserving BW expertise, BW capable facilities
and continuing R&D – all key elements for maintaining a
capability for resuming BW production..." |
Bob
Drogin (The New Republic):
"...Bush officials maintain that much
may yet be hidden in Iraq, and, as evidence, they have emphasized
Kay's discovery of a clandestine network of two dozen small
laboratories in safehouses run by the Mukhabarat, Saddam's
ruthless secret police and intelligence service. In his report,
Kay said the "previously unknown" labs contained
dual-use equipment that should have been declared to U.N.
inspectors and that was "suitable for continuing [chemical
and biological weapons] research." He did not say if such
research was actually conducted and so presumably had no evidence
that it was. Still, he called the discovery a "major
surprise."
It is not clear why. U.N. inspectors uncovered documents and other
evidence about the secret Mukhabarat labs in 1996 and sent search
teams out several times to find them during the next two years.
They never did, but internal U.N. reports were filled with
references to them, said the same former U.N. inspector, who asked
not to be identified because he has applied to join Kay's group.
"There were Post-it notes everywhere about the labs saying,
`Who is this? What about this? Where is this?'" he said.
"It was on our investigative menu for a long time."..."
|
1 |
| BA1-08 |
Iraqi
biological weapons |
Powell
for Bush
"...The Iraqi regime has also developed
ways to disperse lethal biological agents widely,
indiscriminately into the water supply, into the air. For
example, Iraq had a program to modify aerial fuel tanks for
Mirage jets. This video of an Iraqi test flight obtained by
UNSCOM some years ago shows an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet aircraft.
Note the spray coming from beneath the Mirage. That is 2,000
liters of simulated anthrax that a jet is spraying...
Iraq admitted to producing four spray tanks, but to this day, it
has provided no credible evidence that they were destroyed,
evidence that was required by the international community..." |
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...Powell showed video of an Iraqi F-1
Mirage jet spraying "simulated anthrax." He said four
such spray tanks were unaccounted for, and Iraq was building small
unmanned aircraft "well suited for dispensing chemical and
biological weapons."
According to U.N. inspectors' reports, the video predated the 1991
Persian Gulf war, when the Mirage was said to have been destroyed,
and three of the four spray tanks were destroyed in the 1990s.
No small drones or other planes with chemical-biological
capability have been reported found in Iraq since the invasion.
Iraq also gave inspectors details on its drone program, but the
U.S. bombing intervened before U.N. teams could follow up..."
|
1 |
| BA1-09 |
Iraqi
biological / chemical weapons |
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...A reporter at a Pentagon news
conference asked: "In retrospect, were you a little too
far-leaning in your statement that Iraq categorically had caches
of weapons, of chemical and biological weapons, given what's
been found to date? You painted a picture of extensive
stocks" of Iraqi mass-killing weapons.
"Wait," Rumsfeld interjected. "You go back and
give me something that talks about extensive stocks. The U.N.
reported extensive stocks. That is where that came from. I said
what I believed to be the case, and I don't - I'd be surprised
if you found the word 'extensive."'..." |
Eric
Rosenberg (Online Star Banner):
"...When testifying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
before the House Armed Services Committee Sept. 18, 2002, Rumsfeld
said Saddam "has amassed large clandestine stocks of
biological weapons." including anthrax and botulism toxin and
possibly smallpox. His regime has amassed large clandestine
stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX and sarin and mustard
gas."
Saddam
Saddam "has at this moment stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons," he later added, repeating the charges
the next day before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He repeated that theme in the weeks preceding the war..."
Compassiongate:
The U.N. did not report extensive stocks. As documented in the
sections above, the U.N. said it could not account for some stocks
but that it is a far cry to use that information to assert that
such stocks were actually in Iraq.
|
2 |
STATEMENTS ON OTHER WEAPONS/MISCELLANEOUS WMD CLAIMS
BEFORE THE INVASION <go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 19
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| OB1-01 |
Past
support of Saddam's weapons program |
Bush
and others
have waxed eloquent about the
threat of Saddam's WMDs and how his having WMDs is
unacceptable
|
Baltimore
Chronicle:
"...The plot? The missing 8,000 pages
the United States edited out of Iraq’s 11,800-page dossier on
weapons before it passed on a “sanitized” version to the 10
non-permanent members of the United Nations security council,
according to a December 22 story in the Glasgow, Scotland Sunday
Herald. The five permanent members of
the security council—the US, the UK, France, China and
Russia—were given access to the complete “top secret”
version of the dossier. Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan
called it was ‘unfortunate’ that the UN had allowed the US
to take the only complete dossier and edit it. Norway, a fellow
(non-permanent) member of the Security Council, was miffed; its
UN spokesperson said Norway felt like it was being treated like
a “second-class country” because it wasn’t made privy to
the complete dossier...Hans von Sponeck, former assistant
general secretary of the UN and the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator
in Iraq until 2000, told the Scottish authors, “This is an
outrageous attempt by the US to mislead.”...the missing pages
provided the names of US corporations, government agencies and
even nuclear labs that over the years have helped arm Iraq, and
train Iraqi personnel in the use of these
arms—illegally..."We have 24 major U.S. companies listed
in the report who gave very substantial support especially to
the biological weapons program but also to the missile and
nuclear weapons program," Zumach said. "Pretty much
everything was illegal in the case of nuclear and biological
weapons. Every form of cooperation and supplies was outlawed in
the 1970s."...US corporations listed in the missing pages
of the report include Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Honeywell,
Rockwell, Tectronics, Bechtel, International Computer Systems,
Unisys, Sperry and TI Coating. Further, the missing information
shows that US governmental agencies, including the Departments
of Defense, Commerce, and Agriculture, as well as the U.S.
government nuclear weapons laboratories Lawrence Livermore, Los
Alamos and Sandia, all illegally helped Iraq to build its
biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs by providing
supplies and/or training..."
Also see: The
Memory Hole, Tony
Paterson (The Independent) |
1 |
| OB2-01 |
Iraqi missiles |
Bush
"...In his March 6 news conference, Bush
dismissed Iraq's destruction of its Al Samoud-2 missiles, saying
they were being dismantled "even as [Hussein] has ordered
the continued production of the very same type of
missiles."..." |
Walter
Pincus and Dana Milbank
(Washington
Post, MSNBC):
"...But the only intelligence was electronic intercepts
that had individuals talking about being able to build missiles
in the future, according to a senior intelligence
analyst..." |
1 |
| OB2-02 |
Iraqi
missiles |
Fleischer for Bush
"..He [Saddam] denied he had these weapons, and then
he destroys things he says he never had."...referring
to Saddam Hussein's destruction of Al Samoud missiles..." |
Dana
Milbank (Washington Post):
"..."In the missile area, Iraq
has declared the development of a missile known as the Al Samoud,
which uses components from an imported surface-to-air
missile."-- Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, Dec.
19." |
1 |
| OB2-03 |
Iraq
missiles |
State
Department for Bush
"...Iraq claims that flight-testing of a
larger diameter missile falls within the 150km limit. This claim
is not credible..."
White
House
"...Iraq claims that its designs for a
larger diameter missile fall within the UN-mandated 150km limit.
But Dr. Blix has cited 13 recent Iraqi missile tests which
exceed the 150km limit..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...it seems that the claim of
the State Department (19 Dec 02) and White House in response to
Iraq's dossier is incorrect: Iraq has admitted that the range of
both al-Samoud II and al-Fatah in test flights has
exceeded the 150km limit.
al-Samoud II
"In the missile area, Iraq has declared the development
of a missile known as the Al Samoud, which uses components from
an imported surface-to-air missile. A variant of the Al Samoud,
with a larger diameter (760 mm) than the standard version (500
mm) has been declared. [...] In the latest update of the
semi-annual monitoring declarations, Iraq has declared that in
13 flight tests of the Al Samoud the missile has exceeded the
permitted range. The greatest range achieved was 183 kilometres."
Hans Blix, notes
for briefing the Security Council of 19 December 2002
On 27 January 2003, Blix reported:
"During my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on
these two programmes. We were told that the final range for both
systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150
km. These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of
proscribed systems. The test ranges in excess of 150 km are
significant, but some further technical considerations need to
be made, before we reach a conclusion on this issue. In the mean
time, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of both
missiles."..."
|
1 |
| OB2-04 |
Iraqi missiles |
Bush
"...Iraq possesses ballistic
missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough
to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey and other nations -- in a
region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service
members live and work...."
|
Walter
Pincus and Dana Milbank
(Washington
Post, MSNBC):
"...Inspectors have found that the Al Samoud-2 missiles can
travel less than 200 miles -- not far enough to hit the targets
Bush named. Iraq has not accounted for 14 medium-range Scud
missiles from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but the administration
has not presented any evidence that they still exist..."
Joseph
Cirincione and Dipali Mukhopadyay (Foreign Policy) via Corrente::
"...In the 1980s Iraq had hundreds of Scud missiles with
ranges from 300 to 600 kilometers (186 to 373 miles), firing
over 500 in its war with Iran, and almost 100 in the 1991 Gulf
War. The U.N. inspectors were able to confirm that all but two
of the Scuds remaining after the war were destroyed. Under U.N.
sanctions, Iraq was able to build short-range missiles with
ranges of up to 150 kilometres (93 miles). In May [or March
?? - CG note] 2003, U.N. inspectors reported that they had
found 97 missiles that had exceeded that range by some 30
kilometres (19 miles). These missiles could have struck
neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey but could
not have hit more distant nations such as Israel or Egypt.
Inspectors had destroyed 72 of these missiles when the U.S.
attacked Iraq. As yet, there is no evidence that Iraq had any
missile capable of flying "hundreds of
miles"...."
|
2 |
| OB2-05 |
Iraqi
missiles |
Powell
for Bush
"...Iraq has programs
that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly over
1,000 kilometers. One program is pursuing a liquid fuel missile
that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers. [...] Iraq
has built an engine test stand that is larger than anything it
has ever had...Since then, the test stand has been finished and
a roof has been put over it so it will be harder for satellites
to see what's going on underneath the test stand."..."
|
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...This appears to be untrue. This
site (the al-Rafah/Shahiyat Test Facility) has been repeatedly
inspected, beginning on 27
November 2002. No incriminating usage has been found.
Recent inspections include those of 4
February 2003. The relevant excerpt of the UNMOVIC
/ IAEA report of 21 January 2003 read: "Another missile
team traveled to the Shahiyat Test Facility, about 100 km north
of Baghdad, to verify that this site was still abandoned."
Dr Blix made this point explicit in his briefing
to the Security Council on 14 February 2003: "The
experts also studied the data on the missile engine test stand
that is nearing completion [...]. So far, the test stand has not
been associated with a proscribed activity."..."
Alan
Gilbert (Priority Peace):
"..."The
experts also studied the data on the missile engine test stand
that is nearing completion [...]. So far, the test stand has not
been associated with a proscribed activity."
Chief U.N. weapons inspector, Dr. Hans Blix Report to the U.N.
Security Council 02-14-03
"But the U.N.
missile experts have reported inspecting al-Rafah at least five
times since inspections resumed Nov. 27, have studied the
specifications of the new test stand, regularly monitor tests at
the installation, and thus far have reported no concerns."
Associated Press "Iraq:
Sites Powell Noted Are Monitored" 02-07-03
"Al-Rafah and
the Rasheed site were just two of numerous Iraqi installations
said by Powell to pose threats, without his noting that U.N.
teams have them under close watch." Associated Press
"Iraq: Sites Powell Noted Are Monitored" 02-07-03..." |
1 |
| OB2-06 |
Iraqi
missiles |
Tenet
for Bush
"...In February 2003, Tenet told Congress
that ''Iraq retains . . . a small number of Scud missiles.''..."
Powell
for Bush
"...numerous intelligence reports over
the past decade from sources inside Iraq indicate that Saddam
Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant
ballistic missiles. These are missiles with a range of 650 to
900 kilometers..." |
Glen
Rangwala (Traprockpeace.org) (via
Dennis
Hans):
"...The claims about a
retained stock of ballistic missiles seem unlikely. According to
UNSCOM, by 1997, 817 out of Iraq's imported 819 Scud-B ballistic
missiles had been certifiably destroyed. This finding was
endorsed by UNSCOM commissioners in their report
of November 1997 (para.7). On the worst-case assumption that
Iraq has salvaged some of the parts for these missiles and has
reconstructed them since 1998, even Charles Duelfer - former US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, deputy head of UNSCOM and
strong proponent of an invasion of Iraq - has provided an
estimate of only 12 to 14 missiles held by Iraq.
There remain questions about Iraq's retained missile engines and
warheads. Iraq produced 121 Scud-type warheads, and UNSCOM did
not manage to find remnants of approximately 25 of them. Iraq
also developed 7 engines, it claims, for training purposes, and
states that these engines were destroyed in July 1991. UNSCOM
was unable to verify this claim, but inspectors have yet to
analyse the fragments Iraq claims were found from the
destruction of these engines on 4 August 1997..."
Bryan
Bender (Boston Globe):
"...Thielmann said that even the CIA
director, George Tenet, exaggerated the facts. In February 2003,
Tenet told Congress that ''Iraq retains . . . a small number of
Scud missiles.'' But Thielmann said the supporting classified
analysis said: ''We cannot confirm that all of those over 800
missiles that Iraq obtained have all been destroyed.''
''I would argue that's an important difference,'' he said..."
Also see: CBS
News
|
1 |
| OB3-01 |
Iraq's Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) |
Bush
"...Iraq is
exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]
for missions targeting the United States..."
|
Peter
Beinart (The New Republic):
"...American officials later admitted that the UAVs had a
maximum range of several hundred miles. It's hard to believe
such a whopping error made it into President Bush's speech by
accident...the Bush administration may well have lost its bid
for U.N. authorization for the war. If so, American officials
and commentators will no doubt chalk up the defeat to
anti-American suspicion among countries motivated by timidity,
resentment, and pique. And they'll be partly correct. But it's
worth noting that the suspicion isn't entirely irrational, given
what Security Council members have witnessed over the past
several months. If the Bush administration wanted to win the
world's trust, it should have started by telling the
truth..."
CBS
News:
"...the U.S. claim that Iraq is developing missiles that
could hit its neighbors – or U.S. troops in the region, or
even Israel – is just one of the claims coming from Washington
that inspectors here are finding increasingly unbelievable. The
inspectors have become so frustrated trying to chase down
unspecific or ambiguous U.S. leads that they've begun to express
that anger privately in no uncertain terms...So frustrated have
the inspectors become that one source has referred to the U.S.
intelligence they've been getting as "garbage after garbage
after garbage." In fact, Phillips says the source
used another cruder word. The inspectors find themselves caught
between the Iraqis, who are masters at the weapons-hiding shell
game, and the United States, whose intelligence they've found to
be circumstantial, outdated or just plain wrong..."
|
1 |
| OB3-02 |
Iraq's Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) |
Powell/Fleischer
for Bush
Claimed
that the drones could fly greater distances than the limit
imposed by the U.N.;
Claimed
that "...the information that the aircraft exists ''should
be of concern to everyone'' and that Baghdad's failure to
declare the drone suggests that ''Iraq has really not changed''
when it comes to declaring its weapons systems..."; Claimed
that "...there was no question ''the munitions are capable
of dispensing chemical and biological weapons.''..."
|
Niko
Price (Salon.com):
"...A
remotely piloted aircraft that the United States has warned
could spread chemical weapons appears to be made of balsa wood
and duct tape, with two small propellors attached to what look
like the engines of a weed whacker.
Iraqi officials took journalists to the Ibn Firnas State Company
just north of Baghdad on Wednesday, where the drone's project
director accused Secretary of State Colin Powell of misleading
the U.N. Security Council and the public. "He's making a
big mistake," said Brig. Imad Abdul Latif. "He knows
very well that this aircraft is not used for what he
said."...
Latif said the plane is controlled by the
naked eye from the ground. Asked whether its range is above the
93-mile limit imposed by the United Nations, he said it couldn't
be controlled from more than five miles. Latif said the exact
range will be determined when the drone passes to the next
testing stage...Iraq insisted it declared the drone in a report
in January -- and Hussein held up its declaration to prove it.
The confusion, he said, was the result of a typo: The
declaration said the wingspan was 14.5 feet instead of 24.5 feet
as stated by Powell. "When we discovered the mistake we
addressed an official letter correcting the wingspan," he
said. He showed that letter to reporters as well. He suggested
inspectors had already seen the drone when the correction was
made, but said: "No one of the inspectors noticed the
difference."..."
David
Filipov (Boston Globe):
"...Duct tape reinforced by aluminum foil held together the
black and white drone's balsa wood wings....Perched on a
sawhorse at a military research base 20 miles north of Baghdad,
the drone looked more like a large school science project than a
vehicle capable of delivering chemical and biological
weapons..."
News.com.au:
"...Powell told the UN Security Council that the Iraqis
possessed a drone that could fly 500km, violating UN rules that
limit the range of Iraqi weapons to 150km. "There is no
possibility that the design shown on 12 March has the capability
to fly anywhere near 500 kilometres," drones expert Ken
Munson said on Jane's website (http://jdw.janes.com). "The
design looks very primitive, and the engines -- which have their
pistons exposed -- appear to be low-powered," he
said...Jane's, a British weekly specialising on defence, is one
of the most respected publications on such matters and its
experts are considered to be authorities on the
subject...."
Also see: BuzzFlash |
3 |
| OB4-01 |
Iraq inspection areas |
Powell
for Bush
"...Let me play another tape for you...Let
me pause again and review the elements of this message...
"They are inspecting the ammunition
you have, yes?"
"Yes. For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."
"For the possibility there is, by chance, forbidden
ammo?"
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all the
areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is
nothing there. Remember the first message: evacuate it."...
This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things
out of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind..." |
Gilbert
Cranberg (Herald Tribune):
"...The State Department's transcript of the actual
conversation makes it evident that Powell had embellished the
quote to make it appear much more incriminating. Instead of
being a directive to "clean out all of the areas, the scrap
areas and the abandoned areas," as Powell claimed, the
transcript shows the message from headquarters was merely
"to inspect (emphasis added) the scrap areas and the
abandoned areas." The damaging admonition that Powell said
he quoted, "Make sure there is nothing there" is not
in the transcript and appears to be an invention. Asked
to explain the discrepancy, the State Department's press and
public affairs offices said I should study Powell's presentation
posted on the department's Web site. Instead of clarifying or
explaining the discrepancy, the posted material simply confirmed
the disparity..."
Charles
Hanley (AP) via Common Dreams:
"...Powell played three audiotapes of men speaking in
Arabic of a mysterious "modified vehicle,"
"forbidden ammo" and "the expression 'nerve
agents' " - tapes said to be intercepts of Iraqi army
officers discussing concealment.
Two of the brief, anonymous tapes, otherwise not authenticated,
provided little context for judging their meaning. It couldn't
be known whether the mystery vehicle, however modified, was even
banned. A listener could only speculate over the cryptic mention
of "nerve agents." [CG note: Glen Rangwala has
noted that the comment on nerve agents, which was provided
without context could easily have been a report that was being
written]
The third tape, meanwhile, seemed natural, an order to inspect
scrap areas for "forbidden ammo." The Iraqis had just
told U.N. inspectors they would search ammunition dumps for
stray, empty chemical warheads left over from years earlier.
They later turned four over to inspectors.
Powell's rendition of the third conversation made it more
incriminating, by saying an officer ordered that the area be
"cleared out." The voice on the tape didn't say that,
but only that the area be "inspected," according to
the official U.S. translation...."
Also see: Gilbert
Cranberg (Washington Post)
|
1 |
| OB5-01 |
General
comments on Iraq's WMDs and/ or cooperation |
Powell
for Bush
2-5-03
"...I asked for this [special U.N.]
session today for two purposes: First, to support the core
assessments made by Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei...And as Dr.
ElBaradei reported, Iraq’s declaration of December 7, ‘did
not provide any new information relevant to certain questions
that have been outstanding since 1998..."
|
Glen
Rangwala:
"...Powell misses out the next part of ElBaradei’s quote
of 27 January 2003, where he explains
that these ‘certain questions’ relate only to "Iraq’s
progress prior to 1991 related to weapons design and centrifuge
development...While these questions do not constitute unresolved
disarmament issues, they nevertheless need further
clarification". ElBaradei’s core
assessment was that:
"we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived
its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the
programme in the 1990s...With our verification system now in
place, barring exceptional circumstances, and provided there is
sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able
within the next few months to provide credible assurance that
Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme."..." |
1 |
| OB5-02 |
General
comments on Iraq's WMDs and/ or cooperation |
Powell
for Bush
2-5-03
"...Dr Blix pronounced the 12,000-page
declaration rich in volume but poor in information and
practically devoid of new evidence..."
|
Glen
Rangwala:
"...Blix made this statement
to the Security Council on 9 January 2003. He seemed to revise,
and in some ways reverse, this judgement in his statement
to the Security Council on 27 January 2003: "In the
field of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a
good deal of new material and information covering the period
from 1998 and onward. This is welcome"..." |
1 |
| OB5-03 |
General
comments on Iraq's WMDs and/ or cooperation
|
Powell
for Bush
2-5-03
"...This is all part of a system of
hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure
they have left nothing behind...this is part and parcel of a
policy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years, a
policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime...Saddam
Hussein has what is called "a Higher Committee for
Monitoring the Inspection Teams". Think about that. Iraq
has a high-level committee to monitor the inspectors who were
sent in to monitor Iraq’s disarmament not to cooperate with
them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from
doing their jobs."..."
|
Glen
Rangwala:
"...(a) Hans Blix in his briefing
to the Security Council on 14 February 2003 gives
a much more positive view of Iraqi ‘monitoring’, and gives
details of two assisting commissions which have been set up:
"The Iraqi side also informed us that the commission, which
had been appointed in the wake of our finding 12 empty chemical
weapons warheads, had had its mandate expanded to look for any
still existing proscribed items. This was welcomed. A second
commission, we learnt, has now been appointed with the task of
searching all over Iraq for more documents relevant to the
elimination of proscribed items and programmes. It is headed by
the former Minister of Oil, General Amer Rashid, and is to have
very extensive powers of search in industry, administration and
even private houses."
(b) Movement of proscribed weapons is questioned by Dr Blix on 14
February 2003:
"intelligence has led to sites where no proscribed items
were found. Even in such cases, however, inspection of these
sites were useful in proving the absence of such items and in
some cases the presence of other items - conventional munitions.
It showed that conventional arms are being moved around the
country and that movements are not necessarily related to
weapons of mass destruction."..." |
1 |
| OB5-04 |
General
comments on Iraq's WMDs and/ or cooperation |
Bush
Making statements repeatedly to the effect
that Saddam has WMDs because he hasn't provided sufficient
evidence that he does not
Examples:
Fleischer
for Bush
"...If he declares he has none, then we
will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the
world..."
|
Dave
Koehler (Philly Burbs) via Carla
Binion:
"...Another arguing device is the argument from
ignorance. This involves claiming that what hasn’t
been disproven must be true. We hear Iraq hasn’t shown that
they do not have WMD, therefore they do. The real burden of
proof is on the party making the claim. The U.S. and/or U.N.
must prove that Iraq has WMD. It is impossible for Iraq to prove
that they don’t..." |
1 |
| OB6-01 |
Intelligence
quality on Iraqi WMDs |
Powell for
Bush
"...I would call my colleagues' attention
to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday
which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities..." |
CNN:
"...Large chunks of the 19-page report -- highlighted by
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.N. as a "fine
paper ... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception
activities" -- contains large chunks lifted from other
sources, according to several academics...Academics told
Britain's Channel 4 news on Thursday that the "bulk"
of the report was lifted from three sources, an article in the
Middle East Review of International Affairs by Ibrahim al-Marashi,
a research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies
in Monterey, California...Al-Marashi's
article, published last September, was based on information
obtained at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, Rangwala said.
"The information he was using is 12 years old and he
acknowledges this in his article. The British government, when
it transplants that information into its own dossier, does not
make that acknowledgement. "So it is presented as current
information about Iraq, when really the information it is using
is 12 years old."..."
Walter Pincus and
Dana Milbank
(Washington
Post, MSNBC):
"...But it later emerged that the British report's evidence
was based in part on academic papers and trade
publications..."
Also see: BuzzFlash
|
1 |
| OB6-02 |
Intelligence
quality on Iraqi WMDs |
Powell
for Bush
"...The Secretary of State began his February
5 presentation to the UN Security Council — supposedly the
best-scrubbed version of the indictment against Saddam — with
the promise that "every statement I make today is backed up
by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are
giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid
intelligence."..." |
Compassiongate:
All the stuff above speaks for itself.
|
1 |
STATEMENTS ON OTHER WEAPONS/MISCELLANEOUS WMD CLAIMS EVALUATED AFTER THE INVASION +
STATEMENTS RELATING TO WMD SEARCH
<go back to the top>
Compassion Con
credits total = 31
| # |
Topic |
President
Bush or his representative's
Compassionate statement |
Some
Uncompassionate Facts |
Compassion
Con Credits |
| OA1-01 |
WMD
search |
Bush
(when asked about Iraq's WMDs and not having
found any so far) "..."Iraq had a weapons
program," Bush said yesterday after a meeting of his
Cabinet, the first time the body had met since the war started.
"Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a
weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find
out that they did have a weapons program."..."
|
Dana
Milbank (Washington Post):
"...Even in making that stout
defense, though, Bush appeared to redefine the accusations being
made about his administration's use of intelligence in rallying
support for an attack on Iraq. Nobody disputes that Hussein had
weapons programs at one point. At issue is whether Iraq pursued
such programs after inspectors left in 1998 and whether Hussein
continued to possess such weapons in quantities to threaten the
United States. [CG emphasis. It is astonishing that one
even needs to highlight this. There is no shame at all in this
administration.]
But Bush spoke of Iraq's weapons program, rather than its
weaponry, and referred to it in the past tense. Asked to clarify
Bush's remarks, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said
Bush did not intend to make a distinction between weapons and
weapons programs. "The president, in saying programs, also
applies that to weapons," the spokesman said. Fleischer
also said Bush believed Iraq had weapons when the war began..."
Bryan
Keefer (Spinsanity):
"...Though White House Press
Secretary Ari Flesicher has suggested
that Bush uses "weapons" and "weapons
programs" interchangeably, there is clearly a difference
between evidence suggesting weapons were produced and actual
weapons (link requires Salon Premium subscription or viewing of
an advertisement).
Just as importantly, however, is the way Bush is building the
claim...[he] rhetorically implies that the
discovery of the trailers is equivalent to finding weapons
themselves, stating that we will find "more
weapons" (emphasis mine) and repeating the word
"weapons" three times after mentioning the labs. The
final sentence, "But for those who say we haven't found the
banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong,
we found them," is a classic example of a rhetorical fudge
-- the "them" could refer to either the trailers or
weapons themselves. By combining them in this way, Bush implies
that weapons have actually been found, but he does so in such a
way that he can claim he was only discussing manufacturing
devices..."
Also see Jake
Tapper (Salon.com)
|
1 |
| OA1-02 |
WMD
search |
Bush
"...''We won't be proven wrong,'' Bush
told reporters last week. ''We will find the truth, and the
truth is [Hussein] was developing a program for weapons of mass
destruction.''..."
|
Bryan
Bender (Boston Globe) - 7/20/03:
"...But weapons specialists note that ''developing a
program'' -- intending or endeavoring to acquire weapons of mass
destruction -- represents a far less imminent threat than would
the possession of a stockpile of such arms, raising questions
about the haste to go to war in Iraq without broad international
support..."
Compassiongate:
Clearly, it also represents a far less threat than even a developed
program for making WMDs, let alone possessing the WMDs
themselves.
Josh
Marshall (Talking Points Memo):
"...This is the
statement that jumped out at me from the president's press
conference this morning. (And, for what it's worth, I was
surprised and impressed that he held one just now.)
We gathered a lot of
intelligence. That intelligence was good, sound intelligence on
which I made a decision.
And in order to, you know, placate the critics and the cynics
about intention of the United States we need to produce
evidence. And I fully understand it, and I'm confident that our
search will yield that which I strongly believe: that Saddam had
a weapons program.
I want to remind you, he actually used his weapons program on
his own people at one point in time, which was pretty tangible
evidence.
You can see where this is going, can't you? This
is really great-moments-in-goal-post-moving.
Saddam had a weapons program.
And how can you believe he didn't have a weapons program,
when he actually used the weapons from his weapons
programs, albeit fifteen years ago.
This isn't just a slip of the tongue or a Bushism. This is where
we're going. As the White House now wants to define it, the
question is whether Iraq ever had a weapons program. Or,
to put it more precisely, whereas some people are foolish enough
to believe that the standard is whether Saddam actually still
had the weapons programs we know he once had, the real
standard is whether Saddam actually once had the weapons
programs we know he once had.
This is too silly to even talk about..."
|
1
(being very very compassionate here) |
| OA1-03 |
WMD
search |
Bush
"...In order to placate the critics and
cynics about intentions of the United States, we need to produce
evidence..."
|
Letter
to New York Times via Atrios:
"...If the Iraqi weapons exist, we need to find them not to
placate critics but to prevent them from being used for
devastating attacks on the United States! The weapons that the
administration described before the war could be used by whoever
now possesses them to kill us by the thousands or millions.
The fact that President Bush did not express concern about this
prospect, but instead described the stakes as a matter of
political credibility, indicates that he privately assumes that
the weapons do not exist.
ALAN M. MACROBERT
Bedford, Mass., July 31, 2003..."
|
1 |
| OA1-04 |
WMD
search |
Rumsfeld for Bush
"..."We have
to recognize that almost all first reports that we get turn out
to be wrong," Rumsfeld said, adding that "literally
dozens and dozens and dozens of instances where the first report
comes in and -- perfectly good reporting -- but it's wrong. And
therefore, we don't do that."..."
|
Jake
Tapper (Salon.com):
"...But that policy became irrelevant when the Pentagon
decided to embed reporters with troops. While the Pentagon might
not have planned on issuing preliminary reports on possible WMD
discoveries, that didn't stop soldiers in the field from sharing
these almost always erroneous primary field reports with
journalists. They may not be official Pentagon pronouncements,
but reporters have taken to the airwaves with gripping stories,
the phrase "smoking gun" being bandied about. Days
later, the reports have generally been shot down. But did
readers -- or TV viewers -- really notice?
On Monday, reports came in about the discovery of 11 alleged
biological/chemical weapons mobile labs. No evidence of any
weaponry has been reported to have been found within the labs,
though the media has played up the possibility that these vans
constituted evidence of WMD. "The 101st, Wolf, continues to
inspect so-called sensitive sites," CNN's Ryan Chilcote
reported from the field. "Sensitive sites are places where
the U.S. believes the elements of an Iraqi chemical and
biological weapons program may be hidden."
Chilcote interviewed Gen. Benjamin Freakly, who told CNN viewers
that the "2nd Brigade found about 11 buried conexes"
-- a military term for a large metal shipping container -- in
the form of "20- by probably 20-foot vans buried in the
ground." They "are dual-use chemical labs, biological
and chemical," Freakly continued. "About 1,000 pounds
of documentation were found in that, and they were close to an
artillery ammunition plant." Freakly said that the Iraqi
regime had denied "any wrongdoing and yet here's major
chemical lab facilities, 11 different large-sized conexes buried
in the ground clearly marked so they could be found again,
dual-use chemical and biological close to an artillery factory
that has empty shells." He noted that nothing had been
confirmed -- "We're exploring that further, a little too
early to tell," he said. Yet, he concluded, the labs were
evidence of "new equipment, a lot of money in the
2000-to-2003 time period have been spent in that camp, probably
over a $1 million worth of chemical capability found in these 11
conexes, and we continue to develop that with better
expertise."
Centcom spokesman Maj. Brad Bartelt, reached in Qatar, said he
would not confirm that report. "You gotta be careful about
rushing to judgment," Bartelt cautioned. "We use a
process that's methodical and precise, and it does take
time." Time that neither Gen. Freakly nor Chilcote were
willing to take before going on air.
That has been the pattern..." [see many more examples in
the article]
Also see: Sam
Gardiner (US News and World Report via Common Dreams) for a
systematic study of the use of premature information that was
misleading or false as propaganda by Rumsfeld, Bush, etc.
|
1
(being extraordinarily compassionate here)
|
| OA1-05 |
WMD
search |
Bush:
"...[Saddam] spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He
knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than
me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the
look. We'll reveal the truth...."
|
Compassiongate:
Er, how about the minor detail that he could
have transferred weapons over to terrorists? (Something
that was repeated ad nauseam before the war) Did the Al Qaeda
that were supposedly "linked to Saddam" suddenly
decide to go on a trip to Mars minus all those
"weapons"?
Dafna
Linzer (Newsday):
"...no U.S. weapons hunters or intelligence officials have
visited the heart of Iraq's missile programs -- the state-owned
al-Fatah company in Baghdad, which designed all the rockets
Saddam Hussein's troops fired in 1991 and again this year. Not
only that, it's not even on their agenda.
"We have the most sensitive documents here," said
Marouf al-Chalabi, director-general of al-Fatah. "We were
sure the Americans would target us but they haven't even dropped
by."
Looters, however, have ransacked the place. The three-building
complex has been stripped of everything from drafting tables to
light switches.
Among the few things left behind, though, are what U.N.
inspectors long believed existed but never obtained: design
plans and test results for every missile system and warhead the
Iraqis developed.
Plans for rocket engines, guidance systems and even missile
warheads are strewn across the dusty office floors and swirl in
the parking lot outside. Some have been blown into nearby
bushes. "They're scattered everywhere," al-Chalabi
said, marveling at the mess.
American missile experts who have accompanied U.S. weapons teams
in Iraq expressed astonishment this week when told that the
design plans and engineers behind the Iraqi Scuds and other
missile projects were available..."
|
1 |
| OA1-06 |
WMD
search |
Bush
administration
Condi Rice
"...U.S. officials never expected
that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons
of mass destruction..."
Donald Rumsfeld
"...We never believed that we'd just tumble over
weapons of mass destruction in that country..."
"...They may have had time to destroy
them, and I don't know the answer..."
Rumsfeld
for Bush (5/27/03)
"..."It is also possible that they
decided they would destroy them [WMDs] prior to a
conflict," Mr. Rumsfeld said in response to question after
a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan
today..."
Rice
for Bush (6/8/03)
"...No one ever said that we knew
precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored..."
|
Whiskey
Bar/Billmon:
"...
Simply stated, there is no doubt that
Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney
Speech
to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002...
Well, there is no question that we
have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass
destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this
will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever
duration it takes.
Ari
Fleisher
Press
Briefing
March 21, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of
Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . .
as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified,
found, along with the people who have produced them and who
guard them. Gen. Tommy Franks
Press
Conference
March 22, 2003
I have no doubt we're going to find big
stores of weapons of mass destruction. Defense Policy Board
member Kenneth Adelman
Washington
Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and
destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites. Pentagon
Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press
Briefing
March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They're in the
area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north
somewhat. Donald Rumsfeld
ABC
Interview
March 30, 2003
But make no mistake -- as I said earlier
-- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass
destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about.
And we have high confidence it will be found. Ari
Fleischer
Press
Briefing
April 10, 2003..."
Council
for a Livable World:
"...On February 5, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell
told the United Nations Security Council: "We know from
sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing
rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare
agents to various locations, distributing them to various
locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads
have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be
moved every one to four weeks to escape detection."..."
Alan
Elsner (Reuters):
"...[Rice's] statement represents a
dramatic change from rhetoric from Bush and other top officials
before the war, backed up by a steady stream of documents, all
of which are still accessible on the White House web site.
In his March 17 speech giving Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave the country, 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." Earlier,
in a speech last Oct. 7, Bush said: "The Iraqi regime ...
possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is
seeking nuclear weapons. "We know that the regime has
produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard
gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas ... And surveillance photos
reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used
to produce chemical and biological weapons." In
his State of the Union address last January, Bush accused Iraq
of having enough material "to produce over 25,000 liters of
anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people ... more
than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject
millions of people to death by respiratory failure ... as much
as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
In his dramatic presentation to the United Nations Security
Council on Feb. 6, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the
United States "knew" that Baghdad had dispersed rocket
launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to
locations in western Iraq. "We also
have satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have
recently been moved from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction facilities," Powell said. "There can be no
doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the
capability to rapidly produce more, many more." In
Congressional testimony last month, Powell insisted that banned
weapons "will be found." He said of his U.N speech
that, "everything we had there had backup and double
sourcing and triple sourcing."..."
|
3
(being ultra-
compassionate)
|
| OA1-07 |
WMD
search |
Wolfowitz
for Bush (5/13/03)
"...We said all along that we will never
get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and
searching specific sites, that you’d have to be able to get
people who know about the programs to talk to you..."
|
Whiskey
Bar/Billmon:
"...There is no doubt that the regime of
Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . .
as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified,
found, along with the people who have produced them and who
guard them. Gen. Tommy Franks
Press
Conference
March 22, 2003
I have no doubt we're going to find big
stores of weapons of mass destruction. Defense Policy Board
member Kenneth Adelman
Washington
Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and
destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press
Briefing
March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They're in the
area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north
somewhat. Donald Rumsfeld
ABC
Interview
March 30, 2003
But make no mistake -- as I said earlier
-- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass
destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about.
And we have high confidence it will be found. Ari
Fleischer
Press
Briefing
April 10, 2003..."
Billmon:
"...I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of
mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming.
We're just getting it just now.
Colin Powell
Remarks
to Reporters 5/4/03
"...There are people who in large measure
have information that we need . . . so that we can track down
the weapons of mass destruction in that country..." Donald
Rumsfeld
Press
Briefing 4/25/2003..."
|
1 |
| OA1-08 |
WMD search |
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...No. I mean, how can you
secure…sites in a country the size of California, that has
open borders, porous borders…It’s not possible to secure
every single site. What one has to do is to go in and win the
war. Throw out the regime. And then, as rapidly as possible,
shift that fighting force into a presence force and try to
provide security in the country..."
|
Liberal
Oasis:
"...The logic here is simply bizarre, and should call
into question the entire pre-emption argument.
If the whole point of the war is to remove the WMD, but the
realities of war make it difficult to get the WMD, then why go
to war in the first place?
Apparently, using Rummy logic, it would only make sense if the
WMD were in a really tiny island nation. (Watch out
Barbados.)..."
|
1 |
| OA1-09 |
WMD search |
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...We know where they are. They're in the
area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north
somewhat..."
|
David
Corn (The Nation):
"...Speaking at a National Press Club luncheon last week,
Rumsfeld was asked, "On March 30th you said, referring to
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, quote, 'We know where they
are.' Do you know where they are now? Will they be found?"
He replied, "In that instance, we had been in the country
for about 15 seconds; sometimes I overstate for emphasis...What
we had...is a long list of suspect sites. And they were sites
that the inspectors had been in the process of looking at when
they concluded that the inspection process really wasn't
working, because of lack of cooperation on the part of Saddam
Hussein's regime. And I said, 'We know they're in that area.' I
should have said, 'I believe they're in that area.'..And we were
being pressed to find them while the war was still in its
earliest, earliest days. And it seemed to me a somewhat
unrealistic expectation."..."
Liberal
Oasis:
"...What will probably be lost in the
IntelliGate fallout was George
Stephanopoulos’ notable exchange with Rumsfeld about the
Phantom WMD.
First, Rummy belatedly walked back his earlier “we know where
they are” statement from back in March:
I probably should have said “we know
where they were,” instead of “we know where they are.”
Of course, this was done with the classic
Rummy nonchalant, devilish grin, trying to make a blatant
lie come across as an innocuous “oops!”..."
|
2
(for providing two different
compassionate explanations) |
| OA1-10 |
WMD search |
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...What we had...is a long list of
suspect sites. And they were sites that the inspectors had been
in the process of looking at when they concluded that the
inspection process really wasn't working, because of lack of
cooperation on the part of Saddam Hussein's regime..."
|
David
Corn (The Nation):
"...Rumsfeld was pegging the needle on the duplicity meter.
The UN inspectors never concluded that the inspections process
wasn't working. They had identified problems and complained
about aspects of the process, presenting mixed reports to the
Security Council on their progress and Iraq's cooperation. And
their complaints mostly concerned Iraq's reluctance to account
for past WMD materials, not the lack of access to suspected
sites..."
|
1 |
| OA1-11 |
WMD
search |
Rice
for Bush
"...You may find assembly lines, you may
find pieces hidden here and there," she said. Ingredients
or precursors, many non-lethal by themselves, could be embedded
in dual-use facilities.
She had a new explanation too for Iraq's ability to launch these
weapons that were not assembled. "Just-in-time
assembly" and "just-in-time" inventory, as she
put it..."
|
Sydney
Morning Herald:
"...President George Bush's National
Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is now acknowledging that
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program is less clear-cut,
and probably more difficult to establish, than the White House
portrayed before the war. She has no doubt
that the US-led coalition, assisted by experts from Britain and
Australia, will find Iraq's WMD programs. But for the first
time, Dr Rice is saying publicly that it is less likely many
actual weapons will be found. Rather, she described the programs
as being hidden in so-called "dual use"
infrastructure. In other words, chemicals and biological agents
could be in plants, factories and laboratories capable of being
used for legal and prohibited purposes. Almost
three weeks since the fall of Baghdad, with senior Iraqi
scientists and officials in US custody, no chemical or
biological weapons stockpiles have been found. Neither has any
evidence been uncovered that Iraq had restarted a nuclear
program.
In explaining the gap between the prewar and postwar claims on
Iraq's WMD, Dr Rice said the US was now seeing the programs in a
different light. "The fact is that we are beginning to see
a kind of pattern on how Iraq may have hidden its weapons of
mass destruction from the outside world for all of these
years," she said this week. According to Dr Rice, the
weapons programs are "in bits and pieces" rather than
assembled weapons. "You may find assembly lines, you may
find pieces hidden here and there," she said. Ingredients
or precursors, many non-lethal by themselves, could be embedded
in dual-use facilities.
She had a new explanation too for Iraq's ability to launch these
weapons that were not assembled. "Just-in-time
assembly" and "just-in-time" inventory, as she
put it.
But in the months before the Iraq war, Mr Bush and his advisers,
including the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, gave far more
frightening descriptions of Iraq's stockpile of weapons of mass
destruction..."We cannot wait for final proof," Mr
Bush said. "The smoking gun that could come in the form of
a mushroom cloud."
When Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, suggested Iraq's
WMD program could be more fragmented and degraded, he was
pilloried as naive or incompetent. When his inspectors talked of
a more complex search for WMD, where components or precursors
could be in the form of legal, dual-use chemical or biological
agents that had to be monitored, they were dismissed as
flatfooted and overcautious. [CG emphasis] Yet Dr Rice's descriptions of
Iraq's weapons program is far closer to Dr Blix's analysis than
she would want to concede. Throughout Dr Blix's reports to the
Security Council he spoke of the need to track down the
components of Iraq's old biological and chemical programs, the
bits and pieces, and to monitor all activity at dual-use
facilities.
Many international weapons experts believed that the threat from
Iraq did not come from chemical-filled Scud missiles or
aircraft, as sometimes cited in Washington. The threat was less
direct. It was about whether Saddam was trying to maintain the
core of a WMD program, both raw ingredients and scientific
expertise, which he could reconstitute when the world got tired
of containing him. For arms control
experts around the world that threat was a very real one. But it
was far less dramatic and threatening than that presented by the
US to justify a pre-emptive war..."
|
1 |
| OA1-12 |
WMD search |
Bush
"...“I am absolutely convinced that
with time, we’ll find out they did have a weapons program.”..."
Fleischer
for Bush
"...''I think there's an interesting
lesson here on patience,'' Fleischer said. ''The president has
it. He will continue to have it.''..."
Bush
"..."We are determined to discover
the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter
how long it takes..."
Rumsfeld
for Bush
"...the WMD search in Iraq "is going
to take time," the secretary observed, adding searchers
probably aren't "going to stumble over" a cache of
WMDs in Iraq..."
Wolfowitz
for Bush
"...Well, look, I mean, we've stressed
since 1441 was passed that the key to finding out what this
program is, what they have, what they've destroyed, what they
were working on, is getting people to talk to us. And that
remains the key. And it will take time. I mean, it took time in
1991, if you recall. I think it was three months after the war
that the IAEA was prepared to declare there was no nuclear
program, and it was about 3-6 months later that they discovered
that, in fact, they were pursuing not one, but I think four
different routes to nuclear weapons, a couple of which we had
completely missed. So it takes time to do this stuff..."
|
George
W. Bush (Speech transcript - CBS):
"...Inspection teams do not need more time or more
personnel. All they need is what they have never received —
the full cooperation of the Iraqi regime..."
The
New Republic:
"...Before the war, critics maintained
that United Nations inspectors would need months to years to
search for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Yet
less than two months after the war, these same critics rush to
judgment, unwilling to give coalition forces time to find
weapons that Saddam Hussein had years to hide." So
explained Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke in a letter to The
New York Times this week.
We hate to be unsympathetic, but it's not the critics
who have changed their stripes. It was the Bush administration
that demanded speedy evidence of Iraq's failure to disarm from
the U.N. team even though inspectors reported progress and
wanted a few more months to complete their work. "This is a
matter of weeks, not months," President Bush declared on
January 31. "Any attempt to drag the process on for months
will be resisted by the United States." It hardly seems
hypocritical for administration critics to argue that it should
be held to its own standard. After all, the Pentagon has a few
advantages the U.N. inspectors did not--military control of
Iraq, more than 100,000 troops in the country, and no evil
dictator to obstruct the process, to name but a few. Still,
Clarke pleads for time: "We have an extensive effort under
way. Let's allow our team to finish the job before drawing
conclusions." Somewhere, Hans Blix is laughing..."
James
Pinkerton (Newsday):
"...David Kay's report on Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, or lack thereof, was obviously a disappointment to
President George W. Bush. But some weapons of mass destruction
have already been found, here at home, and they have killed
Americans. Yet the Bush administration is much less interested
in the search for those weapons and the unknown evildoer who
used them - and for future weapons of the same lethal sort.
Two years ago this month, even as America was still reeling from
9/11, the nation was further shaken by the letter-based anthrax
attacks aimed at six different political and media targets.
Those attacks - envelopes filled with bacterial spores - left
five people dead and 17 sick..."
|
1 |
| OA1-13 |
WMD
search |
Fleischer
for Bush (6/10/03)
"..."The president had repeatedly
said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that includes
everything knowable up to the opening shots of the war," he
said. "We still have confidence in that information. You
could say Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction. We
have confidence we're going to find them. They're still
there."..."
|
Bennett
Roth (Houston Chronicle) (4/25/03):
"..."He tried to fool the United Nations, and did for
12 years by hiding those weapons," Bush said. "And so
it's going to take time to find them. But we know he had them.
And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're
going to find out the truth."..."
Compassiongate: Either one believes
there is a possibility that Saddam
destroyed the WMDs, or one is confident that Iraq
"continues to have" WMDs. Both can't simultaneously be
true. |
1 |
| OA1-14 |
WMD search |
Cheney
for Bush
"...How do you explain why Saddam
Hussein, if he had no program, wouldn’t come clean and say,
“I haven’t got a program. Come look”? Then he would have
sanctions lifted. He’d earned $100 billion more in oil revenue
over the last several years. He’d still be in power. The
reason he didn’t was because obviously he couldn’t comply
and wouldn’t comply with the U.N. resolutions demanding that
he give up his WMD..."
|
Uggabugga:
"...False. The U.S. government position was not to lift
sanctions unless Saddam was removed from power..."
George
W. Bush (CNN):
"...Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has
disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds
power..."
Nonviolence.org:
"...The Iraqi government, knowing that the United States
favors Saddam Hussein’s ouster and will impose sanctions until
a "regime change" occurs, has no incentive to
cooperate with the United States or intrusive weapon’s
inspections. Top US administration officials have said publicly
for more than a decade that sanctions will remain intact until
Saddam Hussein is out of office, even though this is not
stipulated under the UN resolutions enforcing the
sanctions..."
IPA:
"...May 20, 1991: President George Bush: "At this
juncture, my view is we don't want to lift these sanctions as
long as Saddam Hussein is in power." James Baker, Secretary
of State: "We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of
sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power."...
[President] Clinton [1993]: "There is no difference
between my policy and the policy of the present
Administration.... I have no intention of normalizing relations
with him."...
March 26, 1997: Albright, in her first major foreign policy
address as Secretary of State: "We do not agree with the
nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations
concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be
lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must
prove its peaceful intentions. It can only do that by complying
with all of the Security Council resolutions to which it is
subjected. Is it possible to conceive of such a government under
Saddam Hussein? When I was a professor, I taught that you have
to consider all possibilities. As Secretary of State, I have to
deal in the realm of reality and probability. And the
evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein's intentions will
never be peaceful."...
November 14, 1997: President Clinton. [During a standoff
on weapons inspectors] "What he [Hussein] says his
objective is, is to relieve the people of Iraq, and presumably
the government, of the burden of the sanctions. What he has
just done is to ensure that the sanctions will be there until
the end of time or as long as he lasts..." |
1 |
| OA2-01 |
Iraqi
WMD evidence |
Fleischer for
Bush
"...What the president has said [about
Iraq's WMDs]... has been
the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this
country, not only in this administration, but around the world,
including at the United Nations..."
|
Peter
Beinart (The New Republic):
"...But that's not exactly true. Yes,
everyone agreed Saddam Hussein had not accounted for his
chemical and biological stockpiles. But those stockpiles
weren't, by themselves, the basis for war. The administration's
case rested on linking them to the far more frightening prospect
of an Iraqi nuclear weapon, which Vice President Dick Cheney
claimed Saddam would acquire "fairly soon." And, on
that score, there was heated debate. During the Clinton
administration, as John Prados wrote in the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, intelligence assessments of Iraq's
nuclear program were far more cautious than they became in 2002.
And, on March 7, the International Atomic Energy Agency's
Mohamed ElBaradei reported that, "after three months of
intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or
plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program
in Iraq." To which Cheney responded, "I think Mr.
ElBaradei frankly is wrong."
The other key element in the White House's case for war was
Iraq's supposed links to Al Qaeda, which both explained how
Saddam could deliver his unconventional weapons to the United
States and connected Iraq in the public mind to September 11,
2001. And that was even more controversial. In October 2002,
French President Jacques Chirac said, "To my knowledge, no
proof has been found, or in any case officially made public, of
a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda." John Edwards made the
same point this January: "I've certainly not seen any
compelling evidence of an Al Qaeda connection as a member of the
Intelligence Committee."..."
Compassiongate: The issue is not
whether everyone and their uncles and great grandmothers thought Saddam had biological
and chemical weapons - it is whether:
(a) the Bush administration's "evidence" clearly
showed evidence to support that picture, or not, and
(b) the possession of the
disputed weapons caused an immediate threat to the United States
that justified a near-unilateral attack on Iraq.
|
2 |
| OA2-02 |
Iraqi
WMD evidence |
Powell for Bush
"...Our concern was that Iraq was keeping
in place this capability, waiting for the day when they were
free of sanctions and could go about putting all of their
programs back in place. This particularly applies to the nuclear
program. What I said in February when I spoke to the UN, was
that they had the brainpower, they had the plans, and they were
working on acquiring the capability, and whenever they were free
of UN constraints or other constraints -- nobody was breathing
down their neck -- there was no doubt in my mind Saddam Hussein
still had the intention of developing such a capability..."
|
Josh
Marshall (Talking Points Memo):
"...So now the argument is that Iraq hadn't reconstituted
anything, but rather that they were holding on to the plans and
waiting for the day when they were out of the sanctions box and
could go back into the WMD business...
But this isn't the argument the
administration made -- not even close. If this is what the White
House thought, then there was no reason whatsoever to turn the
world upside down in order to pull the trigger this spring. Dick
Cheney knew that, of course. Thus the recourse to bogus Niger
uranium documents..."
|
1 |
| OA2-03 |
Iraqi
WMD evidence |
Bush
"..."After 11
years during which we have tried containment, sanctions,
inspections, even selected military action, the end result is
that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons
and is increasing his capabilities to make more," President
Bush declared in a speech in Cincinnati last October. "And
he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."
"Clearly, to actually work, any new inspections, sanctions,
or enforcement mechanisms will have to be very different,"
he added...."
Wolfowitz for Bush
"...just days before President Bush's
State of the Union address in January, Paul D. Wolfowitz, the
deputy secretary of defense, described the intelligence as not
only convincing but up-to-date.
"It is a case grounded in current intelligence," he
told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, "current
intelligence that comes not only from sophisticated overhead
satellites and our ability to intercept communications, but from
brave people who told us the truth at the risk of their lives.
We have that; it is very convincing."..."
Tenet
for Bush
"...[said] "...When inspectors were pushed out in 1998, we did not sit
back... The fact is we made significant professional progress."
In his written statement, [Tenet] cited new evidence
on biological and missile programs, but did not mention
Hussein's nuclear pursuits..."
Rice
for Bush
"...told "Fox
News Sunday" that "there was an enrichment of the
intelligence from 1998 over the period leading up to the
war" and that Saddam Hussein had "very good programs
in weapons of mass destruction...It was a gathering
danger."
Rice said the intelligence included new information about Iraq's
procurement efforts and attempts to "reconstitute groups of
scientists that had worked" for Hussein.
"Yes, I think I would call it new information, and it was
certainly enriching the case in the same direction that this is
somebody who had had weapons of mass destruction, had used them,
and was continuing to pursue them," she said. "There
were many, many dots about what was going on in the Iraqi
programs after 1998."..."
|
James
Risen, David E. Sanger, and Thom Shanker (New York Times)
- bold text is my emphasis:
"...Now, with the failure so far to find prohibited weapons
in Iraq, American intelligence officials and senior members of
the administration have acknowledged that there was little new
evidence flowing into American intelligence agencies in the five
years since United Nations inspectors left Iraq, creating an
intelligence vacuum...
Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said
today that the question of new evidence versus old was beside
the point. "The question of what is new after 1998 is not
an interesting question," she said. "There is a body
of evidence since 1991. You have to look at that body of
evidence and say what does this require the United States to do?
Then you are compelled to act...
"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had
discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of
mass murder," [Secretary Rumsfeld] said. "We acted
because we saw the existing evidence in a new light, through the
prism of our experience on Sept. 11."
Richard Kerr, who headed a four-member
team of retired C.I.A. officials that reviewed prewar
intelligence about Iraq, said analysts at the C.I.A. and other
agencies were forced to rely heavily on evidence that was five
years old at least.
Intelligence analysts drew heavily "on a base of hard
evidence growing out of the lead-up to the first war, the first
war itself and then the inspections process," Mr. Kerr
said. "We had a rich base of information," he said,
and, after the inspectors left, "we drew on that earlier
base."...
When the inspectors returned in November, senior
administration officials were dismissive of their abilities.
They insisted that American intelligence agencies had better
information on Iraq's weapons programs than the United Nations,
and would use that data to find Baghdad's weapons after Mr.
Hussein's government was toppled. In hindsight, it is now clear
just how dependent American intelligence agencies were on the
United Nations weapons inspections process.
The inspections aided intelligence agencies directly, by
providing witnesses' accounts from ground level and, indirectly,
by prodding the Iraqis and forcing them to try to move and hide
people and equipment, activities that American spy satellites
and listening stations could monitor.
Several current and former intelligence officials said the
United States did not have any high-level spies in Mr. Hussein's
inner circle who could provide current information about his
weapons programs. That weakness could not be fixed quickly..."
Daily
Howler:
"...Yesterday, President Bush took a
question on WMD. We thought his reply was astounding:
QUESTION: On weapons of mass
destruction; is it fair to say now after a few months of looking
for them that there is a discrepancy between what the
intelligence community and you and your top officials described
as the threat from Saddam Hussein and what was actually there on
the ground?
BUSH: Saddam Hussein
had a weapons program. Remember he used them—he used chemical
weapons on his own people. Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat
to the United States because we removed him, but he was a
threat. Such a threat that my predecessor, using the same
intelligence in 1998, ordered a bombing of Iraq. I
mean, so—he was a threat. He’s not a threat now. And the
world is more peaceful by virtue of the fact that he is not in
power..."
Dana
Milbank and Mike Allen (Washington Post):
"...Bush told those gathered in the lush gardens outside
the government's Union Building here that President Bill Clinton
in 1998 "raided Iraq based upon the very same
intelligence." Bush was referring to four days of bombing
by the United States and Britain in December 1998 of Iraq's
chemical, biological and nuclear weapons facilities as well as
its missile-production plants.
..
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to diminish the
importance of the debate over the intelligence on Iraq's weapons
programs. "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had
discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit" of
weapons of mass destruction, he told the Senate Armed Services
Committee. "We acted because we saw the evidence in a
dramatic new light -- through the prism of our experience on
9-11."
..."
Dana
Priest (Washington Post):
"...The leading Democrat on the House intelligence committee
yesterday strongly disputed the assertion by national security
adviser Condoleezza Rice that there was new information to support
the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war
and was a looming threat to the United States.
"We don't see the support for that," said Rep. Jane
Harman (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, whose staff has spent four months
scrutinizing 19 volumes of intelligence underlying the
intelligence community's prewar judgments about Iraq.
"As we moved to war, did the claims the policymakers made,
were those claims supported by the intelligence?" Harman
asked. "My conclusion is no."...
As we moved to war, did the claims the policymakers made,
were those claims supported by the intelligence?" Harman
asked. "My conclusion is no."
Last week, Harman and committee Chairman Porter Goss (R-Fla.) sent
a letter to CIA Director George J. Tenet outlining their
preliminary view of the material used to compile a classified
National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in October 2002. The
90-page NIE, parts of which were declassified at Congress's
request, was the key document used by members of Congress and
other policymakers to decide whether to go to war in Iraq.
In the letter, the two committee members criticized the
intelligence community for using information that was outdated,
circumstantial and fragmentary to come to the conclusion that Iraq
possessed chemical and biological weapons and had links to al
Qaeda.
Most of the information was collected before 1998, when U.N.
weapons inspectors left Iraq because the United States had made it
clear it was about to strike the country, the two members noted..."
Dana
Priest (Washington Post):
"...Leaders of the House intelligence committee have
criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely
outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary"
information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.
Top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence, which spent four months combing through 19 volumes
of classified material used by the Bush administration to make its
case for the war on Iraq, found "significant
deficiencies" in the community's ability to collect fresh
intelligence on Iraq, and said it had to rely on "past
assessments" dating to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998
and on "some new 'piecemeal' intelligence," both of
which "were not challenged as a routine matter."
"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons
and their related development programs had been destroyed was
considered proof that they continued to exist," the two
committee members said in a letter Thursday to CIA Director George
J. Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend...The
committee, like all congressional panels, is controlled by
Republicans, and its chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), is a
former CIA agent and a longtime supporter of Tenet and the
intelligence agencies. Goss and the committee's ranking Democrat,
Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), signed the letter..."
|
1 |
| OA2-04 |
Iraqi WMD
evidence |
Kay
for Bush
"...Our understanding of the status of
Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and
had to be heavily caveated..." |
David
Corn (The Nation):
"...Wait a minute. That was not what Bush and his compadres
had said prior to the war. Flash back to Bush's get-out-of-town
speech on March 17, two days before he launched the war. He
maintained, "Intelligence gathered by this and other
governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. Yet Kay was
saying there had been "large uncertainties" in the
intelligence. How does that square with Bush's no-doubt claim? It
doesn't...
On December 5, 2002, for instance, Ari Fleischer, then the White
House press secretary, said, "the president of the United
States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly
and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction
if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for
saying it."..."
Dana
Priest and Dana Milbank:
"...On Thursday, after briefing House
and Senate intelligence committee members, Kay had said that the
team had discovered no chemical or biological weapons and that the
nuclear program was only rudimentary. "It had a long way to
go," he said.
Yesterday, Kay estimated it would have taken Iraq five to seven
years to reconstitute its nuclear program.
In his March 17 ultimatum to Hussein, 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."
In May, after inspectors found two trailers that could have been
used to produce biological weapons, Bush said: "We found the
weapons of mass destruction."..."
Powell
at the U.N. before the invasion:
"...There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has
biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more,
many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons
and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction..."
"...Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons..."
|
1 |
| OA2-05 |
Iraqi WMD
evidence |
Bush
"...Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves
no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal
some of the most lethal weapons ever devised..."
Bush
"...[Iraq] possesses and produces
chemical and biological weapons..."
Fleischer
for Bush:
"...the president of the United
States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly
and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction
if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for
saying it..."
|
AFTER THE IRAQ INVASION
Dana
Milbank (Washington Post):
"...President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
defended yesterday a statement made by Powell early in 2001 that
Iraq's Saddam Hussein did not have "any significant
capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." [CG
emphasis]
Bush and Powell were asked about the remark, made on Feb. 24,
2001, after it was discovered on the State Department's Web site.
Bush, asked about how Hussein went from that status in February to
becoming what he called a "great and gathering danger" a
year and a half later, said his perspective was changed by the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"Nine-eleven changed my calculation," the president said
after a meeting with lawmakers at the White House. "It made
it really clear we have to deal with threats before they come on
our shore..."...
Powell offered a different explanation
yesterday, saying that more information was obtained later.
"What I said was, at that time, three weeks into the
administration, when I was trying to get sanctions retained -- and
we did succeed in getting sanctions retained -- I made that
observation," he said. "You'll note that I did not say
that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction. . . . He was a
threat then. The extent of his holdings were yet to be determined.
It was early in the administration and, fact of the matter, it was
long before 9/11."
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, interviewed yesterday
on ABC's "Good Morning America," provided a similar
explanation. She said "the story unfolded" after
Powell's remark, noting that "we began to get important
reporting, for instance, on the fact that, in 1998, Saddam Hussein
was diverting maybe $500 million in illegal funds from oil revenue
by the period of 2002, not -- $3 billion in illegal revenue."
Powell's 2001 remark was similar to one made by Vice President
Cheney on Sept. 16, 2001. Cheney asserted that Hussein was
contained. "Saddam Hussein's bottled up, at this point, but
clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the
Iraqis are concerned," he said..."
|
1 |
| OA2-06 |
Iraqi WMD
evidence |
Powell
for Bush
"...A lot changed
between February 2001 (and the invasion), but I don't find
anything inconsistent between what I said then and what I've
said all along..." |
Billmon/Whiskey
Bar:
"...Sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the
Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam
Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction
... And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any
significant capability with respect to weapons of mass
destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against
his neighbors.
Colin Powell Press
Briefing in Cairo
February 24, 2001
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its
weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the
last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we
would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us.
Colin Powell Interview
with Radio France International February 28, 2003..."
MaxSpeak
has more quotes, especially from Powell.
Sydney
Morning Herald:
"...A television report by Pilger aired on British
screens last night said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no
threat...
Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in
Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has
not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons
of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power
against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep
his arms from him. His military forces have not been
rebuilt."
..."
|
1 |
| OA3-01 |
Iraq's Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) |
Powell
for Bush
"...In his U.N. address last February, Powell highlighted
two other points about Iraq's UAV program to suggest the drones
could be used to spread chemical or biological agents. One was
an extensive Iraqi effort to develop "spray devices that
could be adapted for UAVs." The other involved evidence
that Iraq had tried flying UAVs substantial distances, including
one test that went for 310 miles..."
Bush
"...We’ve also discovered through
intelligence that Iraq
has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that
could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across
broad areas. We’re concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of
using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States..."
|
Bradley
Graham (Washington Post):
"...Flipping through photographs of drone aircraft
uncovered by U.S. search teams in Iraq, Robert S. Boyd, the Air
Force's senior intelligence analyst, stopped at one showing the
inside of a fuselage.
Two glass viewing ports could be seen at the bottom of the metal
frame. Fastened above was a bracket, which Boyd said was likely
for mounting "a camera or recorder of some sort." Also
squeezed into the cramped space were the flight controls,
leaving little room, Boyd noted, for much else -- certainly not
anything capable of dispensing biological or chemical warfare
agents.
Discovery of such remnants of Iraq's drone program since U.S.
forces seized Baghdad in April has left Air Force officials
feeling vindicated. They argued before the Iraq war that the
drones were never meant to spread toxins but to fly unarmed
reconnaissance missions.
The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other government
intelligence groups disagreed with that assessment. They
contended the drones, known in military jargon as unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs), were intended to carry biological or
chemical agents and therefore posed a particular threat to
Iraq's neighbors and to U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region.
They also warned that if Iraq managed to find a way to launch
the UAVs from some place near the United States, the aircraft
could threaten American communities.
President Bush and his senior national security aides seized on
that assessment to bolster their argument for invading Iraq. In
a speech in Cincinnati last October, Bush expressed concern that
"Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs for missions
targeting the United States." Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell spoke of the same possibility in his presentation to the
U.N. Security Council in February.
What the Bush administration did not reveal until recently was
that the government organization most knowledgeable about the
United States' UAV program -- the Air Force's National Air and
Space Intelligence Center -- had sharply disputed the notion
that Iraq's UAVs were being designed as attack weapons. [CG
emphasis] The Air
Force dissent emerged publicly in July when the White House
released excerpts from an October 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) on Iraq.
The disclosure has added to the debate over the administration's
handling of intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs before the
war, when the president and his senior advisers often cited
intelligence assessments that supported their argument for
invading Iraq without reference to opposing points of view...
According to Boyd, the dissent began in
the summer of 2002, when Air Force specialists received a draft
of the NIE, a comprehensive assessment of Iraq's weapons
capabilities produced by the various intelligence agencies. It
asserted that Iraq's drone aircraft were intended to spew deadly
chemicals or germs.
"We thought this statement was a little odd," Boyd
said, noting that Air Force assessments "all along"
had cited reconnaissance -- not weapons delivery -- as the
purpose of the Iraqi UAVs.
.."
[CG: There's more...]
"...But with the debate now out in the open,
Boyd, who is the director of intelligence analysis for the Air
Force, has been quite willing to talk...
Boyd said the spray devices were weighty
tanks that were intended for fighter jets and were too heavy for
Iraq's UAV fleet. As for the longer-range test flights, he said
they did not mean the drones could carry any bigger payload.
U.S. teams scouring Iraq in recent months for evidence of Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction have unearthed UAVs -- or pieces of
them -- in several locations, including a "parking
lot" in southwest Baghdad that Boyd described as part of
Iraq's "main UAV development center." He said U.S.
officials have determined that before the war, Iraq had an
inventory of about 75 UAVs, roughly half of them Musayara-20s.
"Everything we discovered strengthened our conviction that
the UAVs were to be used for reconnaissance," Boyd said.
Interviews with a number of Iraqis who had been involved in the
UAV program have supported this view, he added..."
|
2 |
| OA4-01 |
Iraqi
missile "program" |
Bush
"...The [Kay] report states that Saddam
Hussein's regime had...advanced design work on prohibited
longer-range missiles..."
Cheney
for Bush
"...Plans and advanced design work for
new long-range ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges capable
of striking targets throughout the Middle East, which were
prohibited by the U.N. and which Saddam sought to conceal from
U.N. weapons inspectors..." |
Glen
Rangwala (The Independent):
"...However, it does not demonstrate
that Iraq was violating the terms of any Security Council
resolution. The prohibition on Iraq acquiring technology relating
to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons was absolute: no
agents, no sub-systems and no research or support facilities.
By contrast, Iraq was simply prohibited from actually having
longer-range missiles, together with "major parts, and repair
and production facilities". The ISG does not claim proof that
Iraq had any such missiles or facilities, just the knowledge to
produce them in future. Indeed, it would have been entirely lawful
for Iraq to develop such systems if the restrictions implemented
in 1991 were lifted, while it would never have been legitimate for
it to re-develop WMD..."
|
1 |
| OA5-01 |
Iraqi U.N.
Resolution violations |
Cheney
for Bush
"...each and every one of these findings
[by Kay's team] confirms a material breach by the former Iraqi
regime of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441..." |
Dana
Milbank and Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...But some of the
items Cheney cited from Kay's report as violations remain
unconfirmed. The prison laboratory story was first explored in
1998 by U.N. inspectors. Kay said U.S. inspectors still did not
have enough evidence or witnesses "that would indicate that
in fact that's what they [the prison facilities] were used
for."
Similarly, a former U.N. inspector said that in the past,
investigators in Iraq were continually discovering technical
equipment that had not been declared or tagged "because
almost any lab equipment is dual purpose." And experts say
the drones Cheney cited probably could not travel far enough to
violate U.N. requirements and were not designed to carry weapons..."
|
1 |
| OA5-02 |
WMD
inspection |
Cheney
for Bush
"...We've got a very good man now in
charge of the operation, David Kay, who used to run UNSCOM..."
|
Dana
Milbank and Walter Pincus (Washington Post):
"...Kay, who is heading the 1,200-person search group, did
not in fact run UNSCOM, the U.N. Special Commission that
directed inspections in Iraq from 1991 through 1998; he was for
one year the chief inspector for the International Atomic Energy
Agency, which handled the nuclear portion of those
investigations for UNSCOM..."
|
1 |
| OA6-01 |
Concern
over Iraq's WMDs |
Adelman for
Bush
"...we know that the main weapon of mass
destruction was Saddam Hussein and his regime and that has been
stopped..."
|
CNN
via Atrios:
"...BROWN: Do you think it's fair to say at this point that
whatever ends up being found in Iraq is going to be less than
the administration seemed to suggest very strongly leading up to
the war?
ADELMAN: I don't think that's fair. I think what we've seen is
the destruction in Iraq far more than any of us ever predicted.
We have seen the destruction of a people, the destruction of the
family, the destruction of human beings and human life in that
country is far, far greater than we ever expected. So, we know
that the main weapon of mass destruction was Saddam Hussein and
his regime and that has been stopped..."
Julian
Borger (The Guardian):
"...Mr Wolfowitz said there were
several motives for the invasion, including weapons of mass
destruction, Iraq's alleged links with al-Qaida and the
oppression of the Iraqi people. "The
truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the US
government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that
everyone could agree on - which was weapons of mass destruction
- as the core reason," he said. Mr Wolfowitz said that the
"criminal treatment" of the "Iraqi people is a
reason to help the Iraqis, but it's not a reason to put American
kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we
did" [CG emphasis]..." |
1 |
| OA6-02 |
Concern
over Iraq's WMDs |
Bolton
for Bush
"...Whether or not Hussein had weapons
was not central to the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, Bolton
said. "The issue I think has been the capability that Iraq
sought to have . . . WMD programs," he told the Associated
Press. "Whether he possessed them today or four years ago
isn't really the issue. Until that regime was removed from
power, that threat remained. That was the purpose of military
action."
..."
Wolfowitz
for Bush
"...I'm not concerned about weapons of
mass destruction..."
July 21, 2003
|
Billmon/Whiskey
Bar:
"...We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent
the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior
regime officials out of the country.
Donald Rumsfeld Press
Conference
April 9, 2003
Q: And are you concerned that those weapons might have been
shipped out of the country?
Rumsfeld: You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the
reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist
states with weapons of mass destruction ... and terrorist groups
-- networks -- is a critical link. And the thought that ... some
of those materials could leave the country and [get] in the hands
of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is
important to us to see that that doesn't happen.
Donald Rumsfeld Press
Conference
April 9, 2003..."
Billmon/Whiskey
Bar:
"...Disarming Iraq of its chemical and biological weapons and
dismantling its nuclear weapons program is a crucial part of
winning the War on Terror.
Paul Wolfowitz Speech
to the Council on Foreign Relations January 23, 2003
Compassiongate: A whole slew of such
quotes is available from Billmon
here.
|
1
(being very very compassionate here) |
1. Now
some of you might wonder where this University is located - so, it is
appropriate to make it clear right here that this is not a real University - it
is only a hypothetical institute of lower higher learning.
2. I sometimes prefer to truncate the
words Compassionate Conservative to Compassion Con. There is no intent
here to imply anything significant by this (at least anything more than
is commonly understood). I reserve all moral clarity rights to the use
of this term. One Compassion Con credit is assigned to every instance of
compassion (i.e., misleading, deceptive or inaccurate statement or
outright lie/mendacity).
3.
Note that Compassionate statements made by Mr. Bush's spokespersons,
advisers or appointees - speaking clearly on behalf of Mr. Bush - are
considered as being supported by Mr. Bush, absent a public statement to
the contrary.
|