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WMDs? What WMDs? Iraq Nukes & bio/chem weapons were the reason we were given for invading Iraq. Well, the US has all the weapons it needs to destroy itself. All you have to do is blow up a local chemical plant or a nuclear reactor and you kill millions. We were told that the greatest threat to the US was Iraq, and we fell for this nonsense.
Cartoon by K. Bendib, all rights reserved.
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It is undisputed that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. However all the UNMOVIC inspectors, using the latest state of the art detection technology, had not found a trace of any current ongoing nuclear program in Iraq. The United States had to rely on forged evidence to get the world to believe them.
White House knew there were no WMD CIA - The CIA had evidence Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction six months before the 2003 US-led invasion but was ignored by a White House intent on ousting Saddam Hussein, a former senior CIA official said, according to CBS. - "The (White House) group that was dealing with preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer interested." - "We said: 'Well, what about the intel?' And they said: 'Well, this isn't about intel anymore. This is about regime change'," added Drumheller, whose CIA operation was assigned the task of debriefing the Iraqi official. - "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy," the former CIA agent told CBS. How America armed Iraq - UNDER the successive presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the USA sold nuclear, chemical and biological weapons technology to Saddam Hussein. - In the early 1990s, UN inspectors told the US Senate committee on banking, housing and urban affairs – which oversees American export policy – that they had “identified many US-manufactured items exported pursuant of licences issued by the US department of commerce that were used to further Iraq’s chemical and nuclear weapons development and missile delivery system development programmes”. Ronnie & Saddam - It was just before Christmas 1983 that Donald Rumsfeld, then US presidential envoy to Iraq, slipped quietly into Baghdad to come face to face with the man who would become one of America’s greatest enemies within two decades. - The trip by the current US defence secretary, to pledge US support for Saddam Hussein, marked one of the lowest points of the entire Reagan presidency, and symbolically represents the real legacy of the “Great Communicator”. For Reagan was a president who allowed the US to secretly arm the Iraqi dictator with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), supported Iraq’s military expansion, turned a blind eye to Saddam using chemical weapons against Iran and thereby set in train the events that would lead to George W Bush’s disastrous decision to invade the country in 2002.
False claims have been made regarding the aluminum tubes Iraq tried to acquire.
Bush has repeated these lies over and over, even in is State of the Union Address.
IAEA: US Forged Evidence, No Proof of Aluminum Tubes
FORGED EVIDENCE:
Blair 'duped' over out-of-date dossier - TONY Blair’s first dossier on the justification for war against Iraq was almost entirely put together from information freely available on the internet, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. - TVNL asks: Didn’t we know this? I knew this prior to the invasion, where were Tony and George?. The US was distracted by the Code Orange alert; convenient timing for a distraction! Bush Claim on Iraq Had Flawed Origin, White House Says - The White House acknowledged for the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa.
ALUMINUM TUBES:
Remember Mahdi Obeidi? He's the Iraqi nuclear scientist who made headlines back in June when he turned over parts of a gas centrifuge for uranium enrichment and blueprints related to Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons program. The parts of course were buried under a rosebush in his backyard. -More recently, Obeidi made more embarrassing headlines when the Associated Press revealed that he has consistently told CIA investigators that those much-discussed aluminum tubes had nothing to do with nuclear weapons developmen
Did We Say Weapons of Mass “Destruction”? We Meant “Distraction”!:
- Starting to Backtrack
- Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted - They must not have been too worried about this.
- Rummy the Genius Forgot About Nukes
- Seven Nuclear Sites Looted
- US blocks return of UN arms inspectors
Official explodes key WMD claim - Downing Street doctored a dossier on Iraq's weapons programme to make it "sexier", according to a senior British official, who claims intelligence services were unhappy with the assertion that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were ready for use within 45 minutes. Radioactive Mystery - How Did 'Bogus' Info about Iraq's Nuclear Plans Get Into Bush's Speech? - Lawmakers investigating why the United States went to war are expected to look into how false information about Iraq trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons made it into President Bush's State of the Union speech. CIA rejects blame for Bush's Iraq uranium claim - A spokesman, Bill Harlow, voiced confidence that ''a careful reading'' of documents supplied to congressional oversight committees would show the spy agency ''did not withhold information from appropriate officials'' about Iraq's purported attempt to buy uranium in Niger. - TVNL comment: Let the blame game begin! Watch the media defend Bush! Ministers knew war papers were forged, says diplomat - US official who identified documents incriminating Iraq as fakes says Britain must have been aware of findings - A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme last night accused Britain and the US of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein. - The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries CIA investigator debunked report of Niger uranium sales to Iraq - A former US ambassador who investigated reports of sales of processed uranium by Niger to Iraq has concluded the government twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, according to an opinion piece published in a US newspaper. - TVNL comment: Seems like everyone knew! Bush 'warned over uranium claim' - The CIA warned the US Government that claims about Iraq's nuclear ambitions were not true months before President Bush used them to make his case for war, the BBC has learned. - TVNL translation: Bush Lied. A Diplomat's Undiplomatic Truth: They Lied - They may have finally found the smoking gun that nails the culprit responsible for the Iraq war. Unfortunately, the incriminating evidence wasn't left in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces but rather in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. - What is startling in Wilson's account, however, is that the CIA, the State Department, the National Security Council and the vice president's office were all informed that the Niger-Iraq connection was phony. No one in the chain of command disputed that this "evidence" of Iraq's revised nuclear weapons program was a hoax. - Yet, nearly a year after Wilson reported back the facts to Cheney and the U.S. security apparatus, Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union speech, invoked the fraudulent Iraq-Africa uranium connection as a major justification for rushing the nation to war: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." What the president did not say was that the British were relying on their intelligence white paper, which was based on the same false information that Wilson and the U.S. ambassador to Niger had already debunked. "That information was erroneous, and they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the president's State of the Union address," Wilson said Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False - Senior administration officials tell CBS News the President’s mistaken claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa was included in his State of the Union address -- despite objections from the CIA. - Before the speech was delivered, the portions dealing with Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were checked with the CIA for accuracy, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin. - CIA officials warned members of the President’s National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. But the bottom line is the White House knowingly included in a presidential address information its own CIA had explicitly warned might not be true. - TVNL comment: He lied! Revealed: first dossier also dodgy - Tony Blair's first Iraq weapons dossier used material culled from the internet to buttress the Government's case for war - exactly as the now-discredited second, so-called dodgy dossier did. - The document, released last September, shows at least six separate items on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction were lifted from reports up to 21 months old. The revelation will be acutely embarrassing to the Prime Minister who, only this week, defended the first dossier robustly, and insisted it supported the need for action. Did CIA warn UK to drop Niger claim? - US officials said that last September as Tony Blair was discussing Iraq with George Bush at Camp David senior figures in the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to include the claim. The officials said Britain ignored the request, stating Saddam Hussein "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa". A senior Bush administration official said: "We consulted about the paper and recommended against using that material." CIA Got Uranium Reference Cut in Oct. - Why Bush Cited It In Jan. Is Unclear - The new disclosure suggests how eager the White House was in January to make Iraq's nuclear program a part of its case against Saddam Hussein even in the face of earlier objections by its own CIA director. It also appears to raise questions about the administration's explanation of how the faulty allegations were included in the State of the Union speech. Embassies knew of Iraq doubts: ALP - Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said it was unbelievable that Australian diplomats were unaware of a disagreement between the United States and Britain over the claim. Dug-Up Iraqi Parts' Potential Faces Doubt - A top U.N. weapons hunter says it would have been "virtually impossible" for Iraq to revive a nuclear bomb program with equipment recently dug up from a Baghdad backyard, as the Bush administration contends. Wolfowitz Committee Instructed White House To Use Iraq/Uranium Ref. In Pres Speech - A Pentagon committee led by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, advised President Bush to include a reference in his January State of the Union address about Iraq trying to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger to bolster the case for war in Iraq, despite the fact that the CIA warned Wolfowitz’s committee that the information was unreliable, according to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate’s intelligence committee who have been investigating the issue. Tenet Says Official Wanted Iraq Claim - Director George Tenet told members of Congress a White House official insisted that President Bush’s State of the Union address include an assertion about Saddam Hussein's nuclear intentions that had not been verified, a Senate Intelligence Committee member said Thursday. WMD Row Intensifies - CIA Director George Tenet told members of Congress a White House official argued with the CIA and insisted that President Bush's State of the Union speech contain the now-discredited claim about Iraq trying to buy uranium in Africa, according to a Democratic senator. Body 'matches' Iraq expert - Police searching for the weapons expert suggested by the government as the possible source for a BBC story on Iraq say the body they have found matches Dr David Kelly's appearance. - TVNL comment: The plot thickens. FBI probing forged papers on Niger uranium - The FBI is investigating the origin of forged documents indicating that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, and one candidate for the forgeries is an Iraqi opposition group, U.S. officials said.  WAS COLIN POWELL PREPARED TO LIE TO THE UN? - Colin Powell’s Credibility GapCheney, Forgery and the CIA - Not Business as Usual - By RAY McGOVERN, former CIA Analyst - As though this were normal! I mean the repeated visits Vice President Dick Cheney made to the CIA before the war in Iraq. The visits were, in fact, unprecedented. During my 27-year career at the Central Intelligence Agency, no vice president ever came to us for a working visit. - Most of the nuclear engineers at the CIA, and virtually all scientists at U.S. government laboratories and the International Atomic Energy Agency, found no reliable evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program. Iraq Flap Shakes Rice's Image - Controversy Stirs Questions of Reports Unread, Statements Contradicted - "If Condi didn't know the exact state of intel on Saddam's nuclear programs . . . she wasn't doing her job," said Brookings Institution foreign policy specialist Michael E. O'Hanlon. "This was foreign policy priority number one for the administration last summer, so the claim that someone else should have done her homework for her is unconvincing." 16 Words and 28 Pages - "All of the answers, all of the clues allowing us to dismantle Osama Bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia." - Former FBI deputy director, John O'Neill America silences Niger leaders in Iraq nuclear row - By David Harrison in Niamey, Niger - America has warned the Niger government to keep out of the row over claims that Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium for his nuclear weapons programme from the impoverished West African state. - One said: "Let's say Mr Cohen put a friendly arm around the president to say sorry about the forged documents, but then squeezed his shoulder hard enough to convey the message, 'Let's hear no more about this affair from your government'. Basically he was telling Niger to shut up." - The dramatic American intervention reflects growing concern about the continuing row over claims that America and Britain distorted evidence to justify the war against Iraq. - TVNL comment: This should be the top story! Bush/PNAC are involved in a blatent cover up! - U.S. accused of intimidation in Iraq uranium flap - Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a key figure in the Iraq-Niger uranium controversy, accused the Bush administration on Monday of using intimidation tactics to stifle criticism about its handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation - Officials Made Uranium Assertions Before and After President's Speech - By the time the president gave the speech, on Jan. 28, that same allegation was already part of a public administration campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. In January alone, it was included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by the president's four most senior national security officials. Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence - Two senior policymakers, who supported the war, said in unauthorized interviews that the administration greatly overstated Iraq's near-term nuclear potential. - "I never cared about the 'imminent threat,' " said one of the policymakers, with directly relevant responsibilities. Saddam didn't lie; there are no WMDs, UN inspectors say - The UN's senior weapons inspectors now say they believe Saddam Hussein was telling the truth when he claimed he had no weapons of mass destruction. - In addition, the Iraqi nuclear program was in such a shambles it was unlikely to be able to produce atomic weapons any time soon. Iraq WMD report shelved due to lack of evidence - After failing to get any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the US and Britain have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on the controversial issue - Efforts by the Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons have so far ended in failure - British defence intelligence sources have confirmed that the final report, which is to be submitted by David Kay, the survey groups leader, to George Tenet, head of the CIA, had been delayed and may not necessarily even be published, No WMD in Iraq, source claims - Number 10 will not comment on the report - No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq by the group looking for them, according to a Bush administration source who has spoken to the BBC. Officials Say Bush Seeks $600 Million to Hunt Iraq Arms - he Bush administration is seeking more than $600 million from Congress to continue the hunt for conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein's government had an illegal weapons program, officials said Wednesday. - The money, part of the White House's request for $87 billion in supplemental spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, comes on top of at least $300 million that has already been spent on the weapons search, the officials said. Blix warns inspectors on dangers of spin - Hans Blix warned the US-led experts hunting for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq yesterday to beware the dangers of "spin" when presenting their findings to their political masters anxious to justify the invasion of Iraq. - Mr Bush said: "The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts, and advanced design work on prohibited longer range missiles." - But Mr Blix pointed out that none of this constituted the "serious and current threat" used by the British Government to justify war. Although Mr Blix did not accuse Tony Blair of lying, he said the Government "should have exercised more critical judgement". - He said: "There was not a serious or imminent threat. They could have carried on with the policy of containment." Revelation casts doubt on Iraq find - The test tube of botulinum presented by Washington and London as evidence that Saddam Hussein had been developing and concealing weapons of mass destruction, was found in an Iraqi scientist's home refrigerator, where it had been sitting for 10 years, it emerged yesterday. - Mr Straw claimed after the report came out that it presented further "conclusive and incontrovertible" evidence that Saddam had been in breach of UN resolutions. He said the report confirmed how "dangerous and deceitful" the regime was and that the military action was "both justified and essential to remove the dangers". Iraq Survey Fails to Find Nuclear Threat - No Evidence Uncovered Of Reconstituted Program - According to records made available to The Washington Post and interviews with arms investigators from the United States, Britain and Australia, it did not require a comprehensive survey to find the central assertions of the Bush administration's prewar nuclear case to be insubstantial or untrue. Although Hussein did not relinquish his nuclear ambitions or technical records, investigators said, it is now clear he had no active program to build a weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either. Weapon hunters dismiss Powell's WMD claim - The U.S.-led team hunting Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has discredited part of the case for war -- that Saddam Hussein was trying to enrich uranium -- it was reported Sunday. - More broadly, the Iraq Survey Group has concluded that Iraqi nuclear scientists undertook no significant work after 1991, and that many facilities described before the war as suspicious were benign, investigators said. Iraq 'shelved nuclear plans' - New evidence acquired by the Washington Post newspaper suggests that Iraq made no attempt to restart its nuclear programme following the first Gulf War in 1991. - Perhaps even more seriously, the evidence suggests that the Bush administration did not take its own warnings very seriously either. Iraq Scientists Say They Lied Over Weapons - Iraqi scientists never revived their long-dead nuclear bomb program, and in fact lied to Saddam Hussein about how much progress they were making before U.S.-led attacks shut the operation down for good in 1991, Iraqi physicists say. UN still waiting for US report on Iraq weapons - United Nations weapons inspectors say they still have not been given a key report by American and British experts who have searched post-war Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. - Controversy has raged over whether the regime of Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, cited as a main reason for the US-led war that ended his regime.- The Bush administration has said the survey group's report confirms its statements about Saddam's weapons programs, even though it also admits no WMDs have been found. US refuses to disclose WMD report - UN Security Council members have complained that the United States and Britain refused to give UN weapons inspectors the results of their hunt for Iraq's unconventional arms. Is the search for weapons over? - After eight months with no discoveries, mission chief quits; - Fewer than 40 of the 1,400 inspectors still in the field; - As attacks on US military grow, WMD hunt no longer a priority White House Faulted on Uranium Claim - Intelligence Warnings Disregarded, President's Advisory Board Says - The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials because of its desperation to show that Hussein had an active program to develop nuclear weapons, according to a well-placed source familiar with the board's findings. - TVNL Comment: Translation: “Questionable claim” = “lie”. For those of you who may not know this already. Additional reading on this topic here: New theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them - British officials are circulating a story that Saddam Hussein may have been hoodwinked into believing that Iraq really did possess weapons of mass destruction. - TVNL Comment: 2 observations here: 1 - It is not a new theory, it is a new excuse. Don’t confuse the two. 2 - Wasn't it Saddam who claimed that hi did NOT have WMDs? Wasn't it Saddam who allowed inspectors back in to Iraq? What the hell are they trying to pull on us now? How many Jerry Springer watching American morons are going to buy this one? We say many! Just tally up the FOX News watchers and you should have your answer. Who forged the Niger uranium papers? - True, the provocative allegation Bush levelled against Saddam last January on the brink of war lies in tatters. But the whole story hasn't been told. There are big gaps for good journalists to fill. Iraq's WMD Plans Were Preliminary - Iraq hid from United Nations inspectors some preliminary plans to develop banned weapons, but a U.S. survey team has found no evidence of weapons stockpiles or active weapons-building programs, a newspaper reports. - But Iraq's nuclear weapons program appears never to have recovered from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Biological weapons apparently were also destroyed in 1991. And evidence suggests Iraq was not developing anthrax, smallpox or VX nerve gas. No WMDs, so American team pulls out of Iraq - The withdrawal of the 400-member military team was seen by some military officials as a sign that the US government may no longer expect to uncover chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, the daily said Kay Cites Evidence Of Iraq Disarming - U.S. weapons inspectors in Iraq found new evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime quietly destroyed some stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons in the mid-1990s, former chief inspector David Kay said yesterday. - The discovery means that inspectors have not only failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but also have found exculpatory information -- contemporaneous documents and confirmations from interviews with Iraqis -- demonstrating that Hussein did make efforts to disarm well before President Bush began making the case for war. Iraq 'ended nuclear aims in 1991' - The head of Iraq's nuclear programme under Saddam Hussein has said Iraq destroyed its nuclear weapons programme in 1991 and never restarted it. - He said that everything was destroyed, such that the programme could not be restarted at the time - and that it never restarted.
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