The Iraq thread 3

[EiZei 0]

By the way, what is the death count for US soldiers in Iraq?

Around 500 IIRC. And around 2500-3000 wounded as well.

[JP226 0]

explain this left wing article to me please if you say the soldiers dont want to be there?

http://abcnews.go.com/section....-3.html

[Badgerboy 0]

explain this left wing article to me please if you say the soldiers dont want to be there?

http://abcnews.go.com/section....-3.html

You'll find that in pretty much every theatre of conflict. Soldiers have never got on with the press!

[bn880 5]

explain this left wing article to me please if you say the soldiers dont want to be there?

http://abcnews.go.com/section....-3.html

Why don't you explain it to me, I don't see anything of importance there. Just that stuff happens in Iraq?

[theavonlady 2]

explain this left wing article to me please if you say the soldiers dont want to be there?

http://abcnews.go.com/section....-3.html

Quote[/b] ]They saw a 20-ton Stryker bounce in the air and felt the heat and concussion of the explosion more than a football field away. Rushing to the aid of those inside, they were stunned. All jumped out of the Stryker. There was one minor injury.

Pins Da Smoka.......come in, Pins.

Hope he's OK out there.

[ralphwiggum 6]

i'm sure PDS is ok. besides, no one hates the one who brings great recreational smokes, whether you are a hard bent AQ or hard bent Christian.

he was here last night.

[denoir 0]

explain this left wing article to me please if you say the soldiers dont want to be there?

http://abcnews.go.com/section....-3.html

What about it? Have you read it? It's not about soldiers wanting or not wanting to be there but about them not liking to be accused by the media of killing civilians when they kill civilians.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]he was here last night.

congratulations

Anyway Wolfowitz !! arrived in Iraq on sunday.

Maybe we find WMD´s soon  

Funny quote though :

Quote[/b] ]"You have to make decisions based on the intelligence you have, not on the intelligence you're going to discover later," Wolfowitz said in Germany.

 

"Somebody please lift the rock he´s living under !"  

What is he doing there ?

[Mr. Snrub 0]

Quote[/b] ]and you can be guaranteed this ties in to something that has to do with George Tenet thinking he can pull on the US Government's strings.

You don´t get it, eh ?

Tenet is the one who gets blamed now but in fact the intelligance was made up by others, not the CIA. The CIA in fact warned Bush to use info on WMD´s, the nigeria WMD plot that had never happened. They had their hands tied and had to watch the TBA making up their own intel.

The CIA is the last to blame in this case. It´s the TBA and G.W Bush, especially Cheney and Rumsfeld.

To make up a conspiracy issue with Tenet included or even better run by Tenet is bullshit. That´s the greates stupidity release I have heard of lately....

Indeed - Tenet is being used by the administration as the fall-guy, the poor bastard who has to take the blame when Bush's/Cheney's/Rumsfeld's/Wolfowitz's mistakes or lies are uncovered. Tenet is just far enough down the pecking order to be comfortable for the administration to sacrifice, and high enough to satisfy the media.

The unfortunate fact is that the intelligence agencies are having pressure applied to them from above to come up with results that would justify the already-decided Bush plan.

The CIA then goes and digs up the only data it can find which backs the White House's position - 'evidence' which is either vague to the point of being useless, is 12 years old or is a complete fabrication (as is the case with the African uranium).

Ultimately, it is the administration who decides what evidence to use in making its case for war. For them to blame the intelligence agencies is a cynical (and hypocritical) attempt to divert criticism. The boys in the White House aren't stupid (at least at playing politics), and know that while they won't convince everyone, the faulty 'evidence' they provide will be enough to get widespread domestic backing for a war...

[walker 0]

Hi Mr. Snrub

That TBA will atempt to use Tennet and the CIA as a scapegoat I for one do not doubt for a second but as I keep on banging on; there is no excuse for any one in this forum to fall for that line. TBA set up The Office of Special Plans an organisation that never existed in the US before.

I draw your attention to this diagram of Intelligence flows under TBA http://www.downloads.thechainofcommand.net/images/Doctored_intel.jpg

TBA arranged for The Office of Special Plans, Rumsfeld's Amateur Private Secret Service to Doctor intelligence before it reached the presidents ear. It is called plausable deniability. And it would be plausable except for one thing; TBA set up The Office of Special Plans and staffed it with their people.

Most of the people in The Office of Special Plans are political apointees without an intelligence background. They are the people who assesed the intelligence. They are the people who wrote the reports that handed the US false intelligence. They are the people who demanded the CIA produce every rumour, half truth and even proven lie they had heard. They are the people who then passed this doctored intelligence on to TBA. Just the way that TBA wanted it.

As evidence I place before you the report of Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski:

http://www.amconmag.com/12_1_03/feature.html

recently retired from the U.S. Air Force. Her final posting was as an analyst at the Pentagon. please note the article is three pages long, links to other parts are in the top and bottom of the pages

She witnessed TBA feeding itself the rumour, half truth and even proven lies that they used to take the coalition into a costly war. It is the Key to why there are now 624 coalition and tens of thousands of inocent Iraqis dead, and why that death toll continues to rise.

We owe it to those thousdands of dead, the tens of thousands of wounded, and their families, to get to the bottom of this.

Kind Regards Walker

[walker 0]

Hi all

I apears Al Qaeda has made another succesfull attack on the US Senate, this time with ricin 16 people affected. Suposedly security at the senate had been beefed up to prevent precisely this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3453651.stm

Just another example of how the War on Iraq has diverted intelligence, defence and TBA attention away from the real war. That on terrorism.

TBA took its eye off the ball too busy looking for a fast buck in closed tender contracts for troubled Halliburton to pay off its Asbestos claims with. TBA continues to fail its' nation at a time of war.

Walker shakes head at the stupidity.

[miles teg 1]

binladen attacked the US because of bases in saudi arabia...ok yea right

You know what the most sad part is? Thosuands of your citizens have died and people like you are still completely ignorant to why it happened.

Yes, Bin Laden attacked the US becuase of bases in Saudi Arabia.

Invading countries that had nothing to do with it, like Iraq, won't prevent it from happening again. Understanding why it happened in the first place, just might. If nothing else, you owe it to the victims of the WTC attacks.

And for the love of God, please use capital letters and punctuations to mark the start and end of your sentences.  

I am not at all convinced that 9/11 was done by Bin Laden. The proof that the US provided (such as the passport that miraculously escaped the WTC inferno and the pilot manual found alongside the koran in some car) is laughable. Maybe the attacks are too delicate an issue for most Americans to discuss but I would like to learn/ hear something more about them.

By the way, what is the death count for US soldiers in Iraq?

Leveler, lots of such documents survived the 9/11 attack from the airplanes as alot of it got blasted out of the building including luggage and passengers.  

Also it is plausible that they may have studied a flight manual before boarding the plane in last minute preperations and indeed they almost certainly would have read their favorite verses from the Qu'ran before boarding if they truly believed (erroneously) that they were going to become martyrs for Islam.   There is nothing strange about these things.

Furthermore, European intelligence agencies confirm that these 9/11 terrorists had ties to Al-Qaeda cells all over Europe, especially in Germany.  

So if you want to be believe in conspiracy theories, you go right ahead, but personally the weight of the evidence to me far outweights any wacked conspiracy theory I've read that's based on wild assumptions and exagerations from I've seen.

Furthermore tons of evidence was gathered in Afghanistan showing links to Osama Bin Laden.  

Sure you can claim the evidence was doctored or fabricated by sinister CIA specialists, but if so then they would have found such "doctored evidence" showing links between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 a LONG time ago... yet they have not.    

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[miles teg 1]

Hi all

I apears Al Qaeda has made another succesfull attack on the US Senate, this time with ricin 16 people affected. Suposedly security at the senate had been beefed up to prevent precisely this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3453651.stm

Just another example of how the War on Iraq has diverted intelligence, defence and TBA attention away from the real war. That on terrorism.

TBA took its eye off the ball too busy looking for a fast buck in closed tender contracts for troubled Halliburton to pay off its Asbestos claims with. TBA continues to fail its' nation at a time of war.

Walker shakes head at the stupidity.

Walker, this may not be Al-Qaeda. We have plenty of homegrown terrorists here in America that are capable of such attacks. The Anthrax attacks for example are widely believed to have been from some American nutball who got ahold of Anthrax and who had fairly advanced knowledge on how to produce and weaponize Anthrax. Only a few such people exist in the United States who have such knowledge.

Ricin is easier to make, but nevertheless it may or may not have been related to Al-Qaeda and may be some right-wing militia member or just a lone nutcase like the "unibomber".

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]The Bush administration wants to transfer power to the Iraqis by then so that it can focus on the US presidential election in November.

Huh ?

Isn´t it the freedom and wellfare of Iraq that made G.W´s heart bleed so strong that he had to invade Iraq ?

Now he´s trying to get out of the backdoor unseen. What a lousy person.

Help me , help me Mr. UN !

Retreat full scale by powell:

Powell doubts about case for war

Mr Powell is winding with the TBA as he did when he showed up at the UN with all the fabricated evidence. Go away powell we don´t trust you anymore as we don´t trust anyone within the TBA. We didn´t do so when you started the war for good reason and we don´t believe that an open independant inquiry will bring up the facts as the inquiry has already been influenced by telling them when they are allowed to publish the results. Of course not prior election day but in january 2005. TBA is a community of people who betray. They have proven so.

A liar will always be a liar. The TBA has already lied that often that noone will believe them anymore. The whole administration has lost it´s credibility worldwide.

Mirror in britain:

Britzs hold inquiry on WMD ´s and the reasons to go to war

Quote[/b] ]That means the committee will meet in private, but its findings will be published by the end of July, without revealing any sensitive intelligence material.

HELLO ?!? Why are the brits faster than the US on that ? And how can you publish the results if you don´t comment sensitive intelligence material that has obviously been faked to get BlairBush to war ?!?

The nonsense goes on and on and on....

[miles teg 1]

Faked intelligence, no I don't believe so. However much of the intelligence used had very low reliability.

The intelligence profession is much like the social sciences in terms of how they go about analyzing intelligence data.

If done properly it is based on very rigorous methods to insure that the intelligence is sorted through in a scientific manner and not based upon pure opinions and speculations.

From what I can tell the Bush administration has sorted through the intelligence reports themselves using opinions and speculations using no methods whatsoever.

I suspect that this is the same case with the British government.

However in the US, the investigative committee has been put together by the Bush administration who hand selected the "investigators". These people are likely to be highly sympathetic to the Bush administration and are not likely to pin the blame on Bush but rather on George Tennet and lower ranking CIA analysts.

Before the war even started there were intelligence memos that were leaked out of the state department that warned of exactly what has happened in Iraq if America was to invade that country.

But I have yet to see anyone mention that report. It was on Reuters so I'll have to see if I can dig up that report.

In truth, there are many different types of individuals in the CIA and other US intelligence organizations, many of whom DO NOT support the Bush administration.

However because agencies like the CIA are highly compartmentalized (cell structure), it is possible to have rogue CIA units that will do the bidding of the Bush administration. But there are is also oversight so it is still difficult for such rogue cells to do stuff like fabricate evidence.

Plus, as I said earlier, where exactly is this intelligence? The war is over, so where is it now? I think most of it is what has already been released to the public which is basically, not a hell of alot. It is mostly from disreputable defectors who Chalabi provided to the CIA. Even in FrontLine interviews with these defectors it was clearly evident that they were not telling the same stories and that their information had low reliability. If I could tell that just from those public interviews, then certainly any professional intel analyst worth pissing on should have known known that the intelligence was VERY shaky.

Hopefully the CIA analysts will rally together and grow some balls to stand up and defend their intelligence reports and pin the blame on the Bush administration who filtred out what they didn't like and only accepted the reports that went along with their agenda of invading Iraq.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[denoir 0]

I don't think either that any intelligence was faked. It was selectively chosen, distorted in interpretation on trimmed to fit the profile. There was no reason as there were enough rumors around which they could dress up and present as intelligence. Although one must wonder who forged the Niger-Uranium papers in the first place

One thing that has been mentioned by various TBA officials lately is that they were not at all the only ones that thought that Saddam had WMD but that there was an agreement among all intelligence agencies. This is a half-truth. The simple fact is that nobody really knew. And on the political side, no country, not France, not German not Russia, not anybody opposed a war unconditionally, no matter what. The position of the opponents war that nobody really knew the status of Iraq's weapons programmes. What they asked for was to give Blix more time to find out. When the inspections were ended by the US starting its war, there were clear indications that the Iraqis were indeed cooperating and telling the truth. What other countries were asking was simply to give UNMOVIC more time to do their job. The Bush Administration on the other hand ridiculed Blix & Co for not being able to faster find evidence that the Iraqis were lying. The irony of is that the following eight months after the war Bush & Co were telling everybody to be patient and that these things take time. Before the war they claimed that Blix failure to find any WMD was due to obstruction by Iraqi government officials. The Iraq Survey Group on the other hand had no such worries. They more than ten times number of people searching, had access to the entire place with no theoretical possibility of Saddam interfering with the search.

Bush's "I want to know the facts too" is pathetic. He had his chance to get the facts before charging in with guns blazing, but refused to do so. That was a political decision that cannot be blamed on the intelligence agencies. Had they had any relevant info, they would have presented it to Blix which in turn would have resulted in a UN backing of the war. What they gave UNMOVIC was utter crap which Blix very loudly pointed out before the war. So they were perfectly aware about the quality of their "intelligence" and knowingly ignored it and started a war.

[Balschoiw 0]

Here is the story about the papers. Have recetly read a report on the way the papers went. This goes into the USA and this goes directly into the CIA or to Donald.

Translated by babelfish:

Quote[/b] ]Italian lady journalist is to have passed falsified uranium papers on.

A lady journalist of the Italian weekly paper "panorama" gave herself to recognize as messanger of falsified uranium documents to the US embassy in Rome. In an interview with the daily paper "Corriere della Sera" said Elisabetta Burba, her the dossier had received in past October from a source, which was trustworthy in the past. Burba did not call names, it stressed however that she had not received the papers from the Italian military secret service SISMI. Because it had doubts about the authenticity, Burba own data investigated according to in the Niger and brought the documents thereafter to the US message in Rome, in order to let it examine there. From there she heard then nothing more. In on Friday the appearing expenditure of "panorama" it will tell, announces history Burba. "panorama" belongs to the medium company of head of the government Silvio Berlusconi. The daily paper "La Repubblica" had printed a set of obviously falsified documents, which should occupy an alleged agreement between Iraq and the Niger on Wednesday. These documents were left to the military secret service SISMI in the autumn 2001 by an African diplomat, reported the newspaper with reference to a coworker of the service. The USA confirm delivery into message US authorities had before confirmed that the papers had been passed on over the alleged Iraqi purchase attempt by uranium in the Niger of the US message in Rome. The material was distributed handed over by a "private source" and immediately to different authorities within the message and in Washington, said a struggle-high civil servant of the US State Department. The US federal police FBI introduced meanwhile according to own data an investigation for the origin of the falsified documents. The current determinations a FBI speaker wanted to give however no closer data.

 

Edit:

Here is a more comprehensive and detailed coverage. Visit both sites.

Use URL with Babelfish and translate complete pages.

Page 1 of report

Page 2

[Mr. Snrub 0]

Hi Walker - thanks for the info, it was an interesting read...

It would be of no great surprise if it turned out that TBA had knowlingly used evidence that had been doctored 'in-house' by a politically motivated intelligence filter group, but so far all the evidence I've seen being used by the White House as justification for the war has just been of very poor quality.

The more likely scenario, I believe, is that the administration let the intelligence agencies know what sort of evidence they were after (ie. pressured them), and the CIA et al. dug up everything that would fit the official White House line. Unfortunately for Bush, all this 'evidence' amounted to was...

- a jumbled pile of decade-old analyses of Iraq's WMDs

- ambiguous satellite imagery of truck trailers

- old British undergraduate theses on Saddam's WMD programs

- forged documentation of uranium transfer papers in Africa

- the sale to Iraq of aluminium tubing which could in no way be used in WMD programs

I would suspect that if the US government intended to purposely fake evidence (although, as Denoir said, who knows about the uranium?) they would at least fake something that was half-way credible. The use of this evidence just looks like desperate attempt at justification, coupled with a media spin machine on overdrive.

Yet who knows - I would not entirely write off the prospect of one of Bush's cronies deliberately tampering with evidence, but its too early to tell just yet.

[Mr. Snrub 0]

An interesting, albeit slightly off-track, thought just popped into my mind...

If Nixon has been absolutely crucifed by history for his involvement in the Watergate affair (a relatively insignificant event, in a global sense), then I am keen to see how Bush Jr. is judged by time - after perhaps destabilising an entire region/world, boosting extremist popularity and doing so with virtually no justification.

I suppose we'll get a few versions of this 'history', but I think the vast majority will condemn TBA. Just interesting to contemplate what our grand-children will be brought up to believe...

[ralphwiggum 6]

speaking of Powell, he said today that he would stand by the decision to goto war, after yesterday's comments were published. too bad a soldier decided to follow orders till the last moment.

nice to see that TBA is busy covering its ass that Blair is getting left out. Blair hastly made inquiry into Brit's intelligence ability, and deadline is set for July. good luck Mr. Blair.

[JP226 0]

Look seems like the french "army" was caught up in killing innocent africans back in 2002. Backing a pretty bad hombre known for his genocide. Those silly frenchmen, when will they ever learn. Why won't they just give up their colonies?

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/ivor-d17.shtml

[ralphwiggum 6]

how about staying on the topic?

edit: you are quoting an article which is based on the principles abhorred by US conservatives. nice job on credibility. i should be obvious that media is full of left-wing bias and should not be trusted.

[denoir 0]

speaking of Powell, he said today that he would stand by the decision to goto war, after yesterday's comments were published.  too bad a soldier decided to follow orders till the last moment.

If anybody deserves to drive off a cliff, it's Powell. Cheny, Wolfowitz et al are doing something they believe is right. Powell on the other hand knew perfectly well how wrong it was and still did it.

Quote[/b] ]nice to see that TBA is busy covering its ass that Blair is getting left out. Blair hastly made inquiry into Brit's intelligence ability, and deadline is set for July. good luck Mr. Blair.

Indeed. It again makes Blair look as he isn't able to do anything without getting permission from Bush.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Most soldiers dont see it that way.

They see it the following way...simillar to this Lieutenant here

Quote[/b] ]Germany?

France?

Russia?

Without the USA, none of those nations would be anything but third world cesspools of socialist dung.

Oh, wait...those nations ARE third world cesspools of socialist dung.

Guess we didn't do enough for France and Germany, and defanging the Soviet Union only gave that bunch in Russia new found courage.

Great Britian, Australia, Poland, just to name the several dozen, constitute international cooperation. Fortunately for the rest of world, France, Germany, and Russia are not considered essential to any international endeavor.

You Euro-puzzies blew this deal big time. Not only will you be discounted as the cowards and sniveling wimps you have historically been proven to be, you will find a much less friendly American partnership and a very cold relationship for many years to come.

I will support candidates that call for outright bans on any financial or military support for France, Germany, or Russia. I would also inform France and Russia that we will not take kindly to their "demonstrations of force" in any region of the world.

Americans will not allow any of those nations to project power or play major roles in key international developments as long as the memories of this cowardice and refusal to meet one's responsibilities exists.

We don't intend to let our fallen comrades or the lives lost among Iraqis be sullied by allowing the simpering French, Germans, or Russians back into the equation.

I would back it up with force, if necessary.

What can you say. Survival of the fittest is heroic and manly!

The military doesnt waste a second thought on the war. All they are drilled for is superiority, not analysis!

[denoir 0]

LOL. Well, I can't say that I blame them. 50 years of dominating the world tends to make you a bit cranky when you realize that you are losing your position. Well, for those advocating unilateral American dominance, the Iraq war has turned out to be quite a disappointment. Not only is the situation in Iraq bad but those that opposed the war get to say "I told you so". USA under Bush tried its best to bully Europe into joining the war and they failed. It was certainly a blow to the national ego, and there are bound to be plenty of hurt pride and bitternes.

While the war itself was not good for inter-European relations, the results of it are. I think that next time people will think twice before going agianst the consensus and go running of starting wars.

Regardless if Bush and Blair end up taking the consequences of their actions or not, one big good thing has come out of this. A new war won't be started as easily as this one. The ideology of pre-emptive wars has failed spectacularly.