U.S. Ends Fruitless Iraq Weapons Hunt

[Bronco_Beerslug]

We're giving up already?

------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON - The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (news - web sites) has quietly concluded without any evidence of the banned weapons that President Bush (news - web sites) cited as justification for going to war, the White House said Wednesday.
The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be converted quickly to making weapons.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said there no longer is an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that" but that it has largely concluded, he said.

"If they have any reports of (weapons of mass destruction) obviously they'll continue to follow up on those reports," McClellan said. "A lot of their mission is focused elsewhere now."

Chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer is to deliver his final report on the search next month. "It's not going to fundamentally alter the findings of his earlier report," McClellan said, referring to preliminary findings from last September. Duelfer reported then that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either. Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

Bush has appointed a panel to investigate why the intelligence about Iraq's weapons was wrong.

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday about 120 Iraqi scientists who had been working in weapons programs were being paid by the U.S. government to work in other fields.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20050112/ap_on_re_mi_ea/us_iraq_weapons

[alkemical]

What, no WMDS?

That CAN'T BE, we were told they were there, right?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise."

- Carl Sagan, "The Demon Haunted World," 1995

(This is one of the reasons Bush 'won' the election - They just couldn't bring themselves to admit how they were bamboozled, and the consequences thereof. So, they pretended they weren't, and voted accordingly.)

People in this country still think Whitewater was some shady deal and Clinton was guilty. I predict history books will write about Saddam causing 9/11 and having WMD. And how Darwin was a dangerous pinko commie nut.

http://www.bartcop.com/dead-end-dubya.jpg

Never apologize. Never admit you were wrong and The UN, France, Michael Moore and 'peaceniks' around the world were 100% right.

Igorance is forever...

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Survey: WMD: Do you feel like Americans were misled?

Go take the survey:

http://www.nbc17.com/surveypopup/4075687/detail.html?p=

Current results are:

Yes, not deliberate - 20%
Yes, deliberate - 59%
No - 20 %

Who are the morons saying that 'Merikans weren't mislead?

[TheDave]

Does this really shock anyone?

[W*GS]

Never admit you were wrong and The UN, France, Michael Moore and 'peaceniks' around the world were 100% right.

The UN, France and every other country that had an interest said that Saddam had WMDs.

I just wonder why Saddam decided to bluff.

[Odysseus]

I'll tell you something about sand boys. It is amazing what you can hide in it.

The truth might not come out for a generation what happened here.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

I'll tell you something about sand boys. It is amazing what you can hide in it.

The truth might not come out for a generation what happened here.
That's possible. But after reading all the reports I'm more inclined to believe that
there was none as many sources now show Iraq was effectively hamstrung by sanctions and inspections.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The UN, France and every other country that had an interest said that Saddam had WMDs.

Not true.

The UN, in particular, wanted more time to complete its inspections before Smirk rushed us into war - remember?

[W*GS]

The UN, in particular, wanted more time to complete its inspections before Smirk rushed us into war - remember?

The UN has no moral stature, so its views are irrelevant.

Besides, the UN, France and Russia didn't want to upset their cozy (and profitable) relationship with Saddam. Remember, France and Russia were anxious for the sanctions to be lifted so they could return to doing even more business with him. Why would they want Saddam, a wonderful customer, removed from power? Trade with him was worth billions.

This was not a case of the highly moral and upright UN restraining Bush and the bad ol' United States; there were far baser motives involved.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The UN has no moral stature, so its views are irrelevant.

Then why did you cite the UN's views about WMD to support your argument?

Besides, the UN, France and Russia didn't want to upset their cozy (and profitable) relationship with Saddam. Remember, France and Russia were anxious for the sanctions to be lifted so they could return to doing even more business with him. Why would they want Saddam, a wonderful customer, removed from power? Trade with him was worth billions.

Spoken just like a bush apologist.

Where were you when Cheney and Halliburton were doing business with Saddam?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Gosh, W*GS, why is it that you "couldn't vote for Bush" when you agree with him roughly 90% of the time?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Besides, the UN, France and Russia didn't want to upset their cozy (and profitable) relationship with Saddam.

Sort of like the way Bush and Cheney and their cronies don't want to upset their cozy and profitable invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Smirk and Dick and their cronies wanted the same thing from Iraq as the Russians and the French - they just decided it would be more convenient to take it all for themselves by force rather than 'share the spoils.'

I wonder who occupies the higher moral ground here?

France and Russia were anxious for the sanctions to be lifted so they could return to doing even more business with him. Why would they want Saddam, a wonderful customer, removed from power? Trade with him was worth billions.

Replace "France and Russia" with "Cheney and Halliburton" and the foregoing statements are still true.

Bush, Cheney, and Halliburton couldn't wait either - so they made up some bullsh*t about WMD, convinced Joe and Jane Lunchbox that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, and invaded the country.

http://www.bartcop.com/bobblehead_banner_inauguration.jpg

[Odysseus]

That's possible. But after reading all the reports I'm more inclined to believe that there was none as many sources now show Iraq was effectively hamstrung by sanctions and inspections.

There are a lot of things that I cannot say but I will say this. Underneath every true and factual revelation always look for another lie. When you think you have this place figured out try challenging your own point of view. It is fascinating.

What do you think of what is going on with the financial markets right now? I think it's incredible and in plain view and not a word being said.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

What, no WMDS?

That CAN'T BE, we were told they were there, right?

Not only that - they said they knew where the weapons were, remember?

[Bronco_Beerslug]

There are a lot of things that I cannot say but I will say this. Underneath every true and factual revelation always look for another lie. When you think you have this place figured out try challenging your own point of view. It is fascinating.

What do you think of what is going on with the financial markets right now? I think it's incredible and in plain view and not a word being said.
Since I'm a part of the securities markets on a daily basis I'd be interested in what you believe is happening. I don't dabble in commodities.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

http://www.bartcop.com/me-deceive.jpg

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Coalition admits on eve of election: 'The battle for Iraq may never be won'

Run-up to vote sees mounting violence as US commanders finally concede they underestimated the resistance

http://www.sundayherald.com/47185

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/images/topics/bonehed.jpg

For Iyad Allawi, Iraq's interim prime minister it was a deeply ironic moment. Last week he cranked up his election campaign in Baghdad on behalf of his 233 member party known as the Iraqi List with a call to arms.

Speaking to reporters about the need to defeat the men of violence and to push ahead with the polls, come what may, his podium was decorated with an Iraqi flag and the defiant slogan: "Security and safety come first."

Outside in the streets of the increasingly troubled country the maxim had a hollow ring. For all that Iraqi politicians and senior commanders in the US-led coalition insist that the elections will not be derailed by violence, the assassinations and bombings continue unabated.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

The fog of phony war

There are weeks when I detest our political-media culture. And this is such a week. When Bill Clinton was faced with incontrovertible evidence that he had misled his family, his friends and the public about his bizarre affair with Monica Lewinsky—that is, semen stains on a blue dress—he had to face the music. He conceded he had acted improperly and had lied about his scandalous behavior. The shouting-heads on the left and the right then only had to argue over the consequences of Clinton's misconduct and the suitable punishment.

When George W. Bush has been confronted with evidence that everything—yes, everything—he said before the war about Iraq's WMDs was absolutely false, he has refused to acknowledge that he peddled misinformation (or disinformation). He just keeps on dancing. And many in the media have enabled his sidestepping. While the debate over Bush's use—or abuse—of the WMD argument for war in Iraq should be over and done with, the White House and its allies in the media refuse to admit the undeniable. It's no surrender, no retreat. If they don't stop arguing the point, then they do not have to accept responsibility.

This has been going on ever since Bush's main rationale for war—that Iraq was a "direct" threat because it possessed WMDs and a revived nuclear weapons program—began unraveling after U.S. forces in Iraq found no signs of any of this. A few days ago, Bush's case for war received what should have been its death blow when The Washington Post reported that the Iraq Survey Group, the outfit in charge of the WMD hunt, had quietly closed up shop before Christmas. The Bush administration pulled the plug on the ISG for an obvious reasons: There was nothing to look for. But after this news leaked, Bush once more declined to concede that his prewar assertions had been distant from the truth.

In WMD Denial

In an interview with Bush, a Washington Post reporter asked him about the nonexistent WMDs: "We haven't found the weapons of mass destruction as predicted. The postwar process hasn't gone as well as some had hoped. Why hasn't anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?" This was not the same as pressing Bush to explain why he had repeatedly declared Iraq had WMDs, why he had overstated the CIA's overstated intelligence. Still, Bush ducked the issue of his prewar statements: "Well, we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election. And the American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me, for which I'm grateful." In other words, Hey, whatever works; as long as I am elected I need not be accountable. The Post reporter did not pose a follow-up question.

Bush was following the lead established by his chief denier of reality, Scott McClellan. At the daily White House press briefing on the day it was reported the WMD search was kaput, McClellan was grilled by reporters who asked if Bush owed the public an explanation for his pre-invasion statements. McClellan repeatedly noted that Saddam Hussein had "the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction" and had been trying to undermine the sanctions imposed upon Iraq so he could then "begin his weapons programs once again." But—as we all know—before the war Bush declared many times that Hussein had real WMDs, not merely the desire to be a WMD bigshot. There was, Bush said back then, "no doubt" Iraq possessed WMDs. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, for one, put it rather bluntly: "There's no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons…We all know that. A trained ape knows that." Well, there was a debate and Rumsfeld's trained ape, it turns out, was not so smart. Yet rather than say Bush blew it big time, his mouthpiece tossed out a phony argument.

GOP Message Discipline

That's to be expected. And the Bush-backers in the media predictably followed suit. On Fox News Channel, I debated National Review editor Rich Lowry on this matter—a topic that should no longer be subject to debate. Lowry would not concede that Bush had misinformed the nation on the path to war. Adopting an everybody-did-it defense, Lowry quoted Democrats—such as Bill Clinton—who, before the war, had said that they believed Hussein possessed WMDs. But these Dems generally did not advocate rushing to war while the inspections process—which was succeeding—was underway. In any event, it was not their responsibility to ascertain whether Iraq posed an immediate threat to the United States in March 2003. That job belonged to Bush. The host of the show, Martha MacCallum, suggested that Iraq might have hidden its WMDs in Syria or elsewhere. She was parroting one of the canards of the war's cheerleaders. The reports of both David Kay and Charles Duelfer—the successive heads of the ISG—noted that Iraq had no WMD production capability in the years before the war. Consequently, there were no WMDs that could have been hidden. Yet here was a news anchor still raising that possibility.

Over on NPR, I had to square off against Washington Times editorial editor (and former Newt Gingrich press secretary) Tony Blankley. He, too, stuck to the Hussein-wanted-WMDs-one-day stance. He maintained that the empty-handed conclusion of the WMD hunt was "not a big news story" and that Bush, prior to the invasion, had argued that the danger was the "potential nexus" between terrorists and rogue states that could develop WMDs. This was a mischaracterization—to be polite about it. Bush had not depicted Iraq as a state that might obtain WMDs. The "nexus," according to Bush was not potential but actual. (Bush also errantly claimed that Iraq had an operational relationship with Al Qaeda; the independent 9/11 commission and the CIA have concluded there is no evidence of such an alliance.) Blankley, echoing McClellan's talking points, said that Hussein had the "intentions" to reestablish WMD production. "The threat," he remarked, "would be there if we hadn't gone on in." But before the invasion Bush insisted that the WMD threat was already present. I have no recollection of Bush saying, "We must invade Iraq today—not because it has WMDs at this time, but because it will someday if we do not invade right now." Did I miss something?

Bush was flat-out wrong about WMDs. Yet the White House ignores this, the right-wing pundits keep their facts-free spin alive, and many within the mainstream media cannot (or will not) cut through this fog of phony war. Accountability? Not on any of these dials. Not even for a moment.

David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).

© 2005 TomPaine.com

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_fog_of_phony_war.php

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

No WMDs, No Problem
Impeachment isn´t good enough for this gang

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:96902

They called off the search for those wily weapons of mass destruction in Iraq last week. "They" are the people the Bush Administration sent out in the field to play a high stakes and expensive ($1 billion) game of charades with the American people.

The WMD search was never really serious; it was like O.J. Simpson's search for the person who murdered his wife -- a diversionary tactic. More to the point, the WMD search was part of George W's comedy routine. You know, the one where he pretends to look under his desk, out the window, behind the file cabinet ... then tells an audience of gutless yellow journalists "they gotta be around here somewhere!" (yes, this actually happened at the National Press Club), and we all die laughing.

"We," meaning anyone with a functioning brain who opposed this terrible war, knew there were no WMDs. We believed Hans Blix and Scott Ritter long before Bush's propagandists, led by the New York Times ' Judith Miller, started laying down their WMD diversions. Miller's source for the WMD claim was Ahmad Chalabi, the Bernie Kerik of the Middle East. We preferred to trust Ritter, a decorated U.S. Marine and super-patriot who worked for the U.N. inspection team from 1991 to 1998. He, like Blix, repeatedly claimed that 90 to 95 percent of Saddam's WMDs were destroyed and practically got on his knees and begged the U.S. government not to invade Iraq. Ritter was way too kind to Bush in his estimates; zero WMDs were found in Iraq, not even the ones the Bushes probably planted there.

We knew that Iraq presented no imminent threat to the U.S. We knew Iraq had no connection to 9/11; 15 of the 18 attackers that day were Saudi; none were Iraqi. And yet, we have been sending our sons and daughters to die for Bush's Iraqi diversion. We number in the tens of millions, but we don't matter. "They," the war criminals who opened this Pain-dora's Box in the Middle East, outvoted us, just as the Supreme Court outvoted us in 2000, 5 to 45 million.

Now that all the justifications for the war in Iraq -- WMDs, threat, connection to 9/11 -- have proven lies, it isn't up to "we" to step forward. "They" already know how "we" feel. It is up to "you" to do that -- "you," who backed this guy, "you," who shouted us down, called us unpatriotic, keyed our cars, made anonymous threatening phone calls and whispered vile lies about us to our communities. You broke it, you bought it. Don't come looking to us for any hugs just because you finally figured out that the "neos" really were the "cons" we told they were two years ago.

Are "you" going to be honest about this, take some moral inventory, and admit you have been duped by some really dangerous people? Or are you going to say, like the President, "It doesn't matter"?

If it's the former, that's the first step toward healing the nation's wounds and reclaiming what's left of our democracy.

If it's the latter, I hope you burn slowly and forever in hell.

When Barbara Walters asked Bush last week if the war in Iraq was worth it, even though no WMDs were found, he responded, "Oh, absolutely" the way someone might respond were they asked at a cocktail party, "Would you care for another pretzel?"

Think about it: We've invaded a country in the heart of the 1.1-billion-strong Muslim world under false pretenses, laid waste to their cities, tortured their people, allowed their cultural treasures to be looted, killed more than 100,000 civilians (that's the confirmed number; it's likely twice or thrice that), and stolen their oil, the one cash crop they have, taunting them every step of the way. And the man responsible says "Oh, absolutely," it was worth it.

No matter what happens with the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 -- and I anticipate chaos and bloodshed -- the justifications and excuses for this war were lies. The rest of the world knows this. Why don't we?

Another thing you may not know, because it was reported by the foreign press: 5,500 U.S. soldiers have already deserted, either going permanently AWOL or seeking asylum in Canada, Mexico or anywhere that will have them. Maybe these soldiers figured it out before the rest of you. Maybe they've seen one too many stories like the following, from last week: A U.S. warplane dropped a 500-pound bomb on the wrong house in Mosul. The man who owned the house said the bomb killed 14 people; an AP photographer on the scene confirmed the number and said seven of the victims were children. The U.S. military admitted to dropping the bomb, and that it hit the wrong house, but they insist that only five people were killed.

Oh, absolutely. It was worth it.