it's how P-list liars operate, too

[joeallonby]

Was it a nucular program?

on 6/9/03 11:28 PM, pynchonoid at pynchonoid at yahoo.com wrote:

> When pinned down or proven wrong, just change the
> terms of the discussion and claim you were talking
> about something else:
> 
> 
> 
> Bush Admin. Now Says Iraqi WMD a 'Program'
> 
> By Knut Royce
> Washington Bureau
> 
> June 10, 2003
> Washington -- Faced with the awkward possibility that
> no significant caches of weapons of mass destruction
> will be found in Iraq, Bush administration officials
> are recasting their earlier predictions by insisting
> evidence will emerge that Saddam Hussein at least had
> a "program" for such weapons.
> 
> Bush used the term "program" in three consecutive
> sentences on the issue Monday. "Iraq had a weapons
> program," Bush told reporters. "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."
> 
> National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, while
> declaring Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that she
> believes such weapons will be found, asserted it would
> take some time "to put together a full picture of his
> weapons of mass destruction programs."
> 
> Even intelligence officials are talking more broadly
> of "programs." Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the
> Defense Intelligence Agency, confirmed Friday that a
> September DIA report found the agency "had no reliable
> information" that Iraq had chemical weapons. He
> insisted, though, "such a program existed ... such a
> program was active such a program was part of the
> Iraqi WMD infrastructure." [...]
> 
> <http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wowmd0610,0,5321263.story?co
> ll=ny-worldnews-headlines>
> 
> What they said when they were stampeding us to war:
> 
> [...] Readers may not recall exactly what President
> Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I
> certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these
> statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he
> had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had
> recalled. 
> 
> Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
> 
> "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities
> that were used for the production of biological
> weapons." 
> United Nations address, September 12, 2002
> 
> "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."
> 
> Radio address, October 5, 2002
> 
> "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."
> 
> "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."
> 
> "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting
> its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held
> numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a
> group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear
> holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq
> is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part
> of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted
> to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other
> equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used
> to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
> 
> Cincinnati, Ohio speech, October 7, 2002
> 
> "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam
> Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500
> tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
> 
> State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003
> 
> "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." 
> 
> Address to the nation, March 17, 2003
> 
> Should the president get the benefit of the doubt?
> 
> When these statements were made, Bush's
> let-me-mince-no-words posture was convincing to many
> Americans. Yet much of the rest of the world, and many
> other Americans, doubted them.
> 
> As Bush's veracity was being debated at the United
> Nations, it was also being debated on campuses --
> including those where I happened to be lecturing at
> the time. 
> 
> On several occasions, students asked me the following
> question: Should they believe the president of the
> United States? My answer was that they should give the
> President the benefit of the doubt, for several
> reasons deriving from the usual procedures that have
> operated in every modern White House and that, I
> assumed, had to be operating in the Bush White House,
> too. 
> 
> First, I assured the students that these statements
> had all been carefully considered and crafted.
> Presidential statements are the result of a process,
> not a moment's though. White House speechwriters
> process raw information, and their statements are
> passed on to senior aides who have both substantive
> knowledge and political insights. And this all occurs
> before the statement ever reaches the President for
> his own review and possible revision.
> 
> Second, I explained that -- at least in every White
> House and administration with which I was familiar,
> from Truman to Clinton -- statements with national
> security implications were the most carefully
> considered of all. The White House is aware that, in
> making these statements, the president is speaking not
> only to the nation, but also to the world.
> 
> Third, I pointed out to the students, these statements
> are typically corrected rapidly if they are later
> found to be false. And in this case, far from
> backpedaling from the President's more extreme claims,
> Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer had actually, at
> times, been even more emphatic than the President had.
> For example, on January 9, 2003, Fleischer stated,
> during his press briefing, "We know for a fact that
> there are weapons there."
> 
> In addition, others in the Bush administration were
> similarly quick to back the President up, in some
> cases with even more unequivocal statements. Secretary
> of Defense Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly claimed that
> Saddam had WMDs -- and even went so far as to claim he
> knew "where they are; they're in the area around
> Tikrit and Baghdad."
> 
> Finally, I explained to the students that the
> political risk was so great that, to me, it was
> inconceivable that Bush would make these statements if
> he didn't have damn solid intelligence to back him up.
> Presidents do not stick their necks out only to have
> them chopped off by political opponents on an issue as
> important as this, and if there was any doubt, I
> suggested, Bush's political advisers would be telling
> him to hedge. Rather than stating a matter as fact, he
> would be say: "I have been advised," or "Our
> intelligence reports strongly suggest," or some such
> similar hedge. But Bush had not done so.
> 
> So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements
> are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they
> currently appear to have been?
> 
> After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been
> found, and given Bush's statements, they should not
> have been very hard to find -- for they existed in
> large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical
> weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements,
> telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could
> testify, and production equipment also existed.
> 
> So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the
> White House's unequivocal statements with the fact
> that they may not exist?
> 
> There are two main possibilities. One, that something
> is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's
> national security operations. That seems difficult to
> believe. The other is that the president has
> deliberately misled the nation, and the world. [...]
> 
> <http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/06/findlaw.analysis.dean.wmd/>
> 
> 
> 
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
> http://calendar.yahoo.com