08 Nov 08
Originally posted by no1maraudercherry picking.
Are you joking or can't you read? This is getting Alice in Wonderlandish.
I repeat: [b]The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. He quoted Mayaki as saying that when he met with the Iraqis he was wary of discussing any trade issues ...[text shortened]... ctions. According to Wilson, Mayaki steered the conversation away from any discussion of trade.[/b]
The article goes on to state that although Mayaki claimed that this never came up, that Mayaki understood that to be the purpose of the meeting. Read the whole thing rather than just cherry pick the sentences that meet your narrow agenda.
08 Nov 08
Originally posted by no1marauderSOME of the Niger documents were apparently forged. That still leaves you with the remainder of the Niger information, the Congo, and Somalia. And that leaves you with the conclusion that Saddam was in fact shopping for uranium.
And soon after, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice acknowledged that the 16 words were, in retrospect, a mistake. She said during a July 11, 2003 White House press briefing:
Rice: What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech -- but that's knowing what we know now.
08 Nov 08
Originally posted by no1marauderHow the hell do you figure?! This is all about what happened in the first gulf war. It's all about Saddam thumbing his nose at the weapons inspectors, year after year. To say that we must narrowly focus on just the time period when Bush II was in office is absurd.
What happened before Bush was in office has no relevance to what we are discussing....
08 Nov 08
1 edit
Originally posted by leisurelyslothYou're quite insane. You have the President's Press Secretary, National Security Adviser and the CIA Director all conceding there was no info indicating that Saddam was seeking uranium but you insist he was. How's the tinfoil hat?
SOME of the Niger documents were apparently forged. That still leaves you with the remainder of the Niger information, the Congo, and Somalia. And that leaves you with the conclusion that Saddam was in fact shopping for uranium.
08 Nov 08
1 edit
Originally posted by leisurelyslothLMAO!!! You're the one who said this was about whether Bush lied or not! What does what happened under Clinton have to do with that??
How the hell do you figure?! This is all about what happened in the first gulf war. It's all about Saddam thumbing his nose at the weapons inspectors, year after year. To say that we must narrowly focus on just the time period when Bush II was in office is absurd.
08 Nov 08
Originally posted by no1marauderThey didn't say anything of the sort. If you bothered reading the entire article instead of cherry picking the lines which fit your agenda you'd see that. They said very clearly that SOME of the reports were forged with respect to Niger.
You're quite insane. You have the President's Press Secretary, National Security Adviser and the CIA Director all conceding their was no info indicating that Saddam was seeking uranium but you insist he was. How's the tinfoil hat?
The tin foil hat is fine by the way. It looks great on you!
08 Nov 08
Originally posted by leisurelyslothThe article says no such thing. It says:
cherry picking.
The article goes on to state that although Mayaki claimed that this never came up, that Mayaki understood that to be the purpose of the meeting. Read the whole thing rather than just cherry pick the sentences that meet your narrow agenda.
Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales."
Mayki never said the purpose of the meeting had anything to do with uranium sales; some CIA analysts claimed that. But they were wrong; the Iraqi delegation didn't discuss uranium sales at all.
08 Nov 08
Originally posted by leisurelyslothWhat the hell is wrong with you?
They didn't say anything of the sort. If you bothered reading the entire article instead of cherry picking the lines which fit your agenda you'd see that. They said very clearly that SOME of the reports were forged with respect to Niger.
The tin foil hat is fine by the way. It looks great on you!
Fleischer: Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.
Rice: What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were apparently forged, we wouldn't have put this in the President's speech -- but that's knowing what we know now.
Tenet: These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.
The 16 words were: Bush: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
So all three of these individuals are telling you that the statement was wrong. For some inexplicable reason, you are saying they are wrong and the statement is correct. You have exactly zero evidence to support this claim, but that doesn't seem to stop you.
08 Nov 08
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Originally posted by no1marauderSynopsis:
What the hell is wrong with you?
Fleischer: Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.
Rice: What we've said subsequently is, knowing what we now know, that some of the Niger documents were appare You have exactly zero evidence to support this claim, but that doesn't seem to stop you.
British intelligence claims that Iraq officials met with Niger to purchase uranium--claim to have multiple sources corroborating this. Also Brits state that since 3/4 of Niger's exports are uranium, that this is additional corroboration.
U.S. intelligence corroborates story that Iraq did meet with Niger official. Speak to one official who claims the HE did not directly discuss selling uranium, BUT according the the CIA report he understood that was Iraq's goal.
U.S. intelligence receives additional reports (plural) that Iraq has attempted to purchase uranium through the Congo and Somalia as well.
Italian journalist uncovers one report that purports to be a signed agreement between Niger and Iraq to sell uranium. This turns out to be a forgery.
U.S. officials state that they should not have included this information in the State of the Union address.
It certainly appears as though all of the evidence except one piece is still good. And so you have two intelligence agencies each claiming to have multiple sources of information that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from multiple sources. On top of that you have the fact that Iraq had already purchased uranium and attempted to make nuclear weapons in the past.
Or you can weigh that evidence against a bunch of political hacks with an ax to grind who are mindlessly claiming that Saddam was not trying to acquire uranium in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
hmmmmm
09 Nov 08
Originally posted by leisurelysloth"Mountain of evidence"????????????????????? You're completely deluded. As even the Bush Administration concedes, there is no credible evidence.
Synopsis:
British intelligence claims that Iraq officials met with Niger to purchase uranium--claim to have multiple sources corroborating this. Also Brits state that since 3/4 of Niger's exports are uranium, that this is additional corroboration.
U.S. intelligence corroborates story that Iraq did meet with Niger official. Speak to one offici ...[text shortened]... as not trying to acquire uranium in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
hmmmmm
For those of you not totally insane, I strongly recommend this series about the uranium from Africa hoax, which offers this conclusion about the veracity of the "16 words":
6. Bush's 2003 SOTU claim
Even if we ignore the details of the British Government's deceptions and manipulation of intelligence on the "uranium from Africa" claim, a straightforward reading of Bush's SOTU claim shows why it was false.
Here are the exact words used by George W. Bush in the 2003 State of the Union (SOTU):
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa
The word "learned" implies two things. First, that the British had credible, believable evidence, that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Second, that the U.S. trusted the British claim. This latter part is obvious because Bush did not say that the British "claimed...", but rather that the British had "learned...".
The discussion in the previous sections showed that the British government, in reality, learned no such thing. The British claimed (i.e., asserted) that Saddam sought uranium from Africa, but a reasonably critical review of their claims reveals them to be mere assertions (bunk); indeed, the evidence makes it clear that the British Government made numerous false or misleading claims in order to peddle their so-called evidence and that their "evidence" was actually alleging that Iraq had bought uranium from Africa.
The fact is, the CIA did not consider the British intel to be credible and they said so repeatedly prior to the Bush 2003 State of the Union (SOTU). INR had always considered the uranium claim to not be credible. So, Bush's SOTU statement was false since he was confidently endorsing a claim that our own intelligence agencies had discarded as not being credible. In other words, if A knew B was peddling something that is not credible and therefore discarded B's claims, for A to later claim that we trust B because B trusts itself is the height of dishonesty. Either you trust B or you don't. Both cannot simultaneously be true.
It is also instructive to note something that the U.S. SSCI Report and the British Butler Report deliberately hid from the public. Around the time of Bush's SOTU speech and immediately prior to Colin Powell's Feb 2003 speech to the UN that occurred shortly after Bush's SOTU speech, the CIA communicated with the British regarding the uranium claim and based on the information exchanged, Colin Powell did not find the uranium allegation to be credible. This is significant for many reasons but particularly so because the only (fake) defense that the Bushies were left with
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004909.php#6
The whole series, which shows that the Butler Report on this issue is total BS based on information from the Iraqi Survey Group, Senate SubCommittee Report, IAEA and other sources, is excellent reading for those interested in the truth rather than the lies LS is peddling.
09 Nov 08
Originally posted by no1marauderSo we are left with factcheck.org vs theleftcoaster.com hmmmmm.... Which one of these is believable and which one is a political propaganda machine? I wonder....
.....
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004909.php#6
The whole series, which shows that the Butler Report on this issue is total BS based on information from the Iraqi Survey Group, Senate SubCommittee Report, IAEA and other sources, is excellent reading for those interested in the truth rather than the lies LS is peddling.
09 Nov 08
Originally posted by leisurelyslothFactcheck doesn't support your ridiculous claim that the 16 words were "correct"; it merely claims that Bush didn't knowingly lie. The Bush administration concedes that the claim wasn't correct and shouldn't have been in the State of the Union.
So we are left with factcheck.org vs theleftcoaster.com hmmmmm.... Which one of these is believable and which one is a political propaganda machine? I wonder....
I assume you didn't bother to read the cite I gave. It is exhaustively researched and its conclusions are backed by the facts as exposed in multiple government documents. Your ad hominem attack is fallacious reasoning.
09 Nov 08
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The Factcheck.org article is also quite dated (it was last updated in August 2004) and much additional data is now known. Of particular interest is the finding of the Iraq Survey Group, which had unfettered access to Iraqi documents and its former government officials. The findings of the group are set forth in the Robb-Silberman Report (which was also written long after the Factcheck article (as were the articles I cited):
The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991.113 With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja’far Diya Ja’far, the head of Iraq’s pre-1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998—neither of which was related to uranium.114
One such contact was a visit to Niger by the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican Wissam Zahawie, the purpose of which Ja’far said was to invite the Nigerien President to visit Iraq (a story told publicly by Zahawie).115 The second contact was a visit to Iraq by a Nigerien minister to discuss Nigerien purchases of oil from Iraq—with no mention of “any kind of payment, quid pro quo, or offer to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum.”
116 The use of the last method of payment is supported by a crude oil
contract, dated June 26, 2001, recovered by the ISG.117
The ISG found only one offer of uranium to Baghdad since 1991—an offer that Iraq appears to have turned down.118 The ISG found a document in the headquarters of the Iraqi Intelligence Service that reveals that a Ugandan businessman had approached the Iraqi Embassy in Nairobi with an offer to 65 IRAQ sell uranium, reportedly from the Congo. The Iraqi Embassy in Nairobi, reporting back to Baghdad on the matter on May 20, 2001, indicated that the
Embassy told the Ugandan that Iraq did not deal with “these materials”
because of the sanctions.
Robb-Silberman Report, pp. 64-65 at http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html