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Surprise..look who showed up in Iraq (pg. 3)
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| Tudo Beleza |
Bush's panic visit is like of a thief that comes in the night
| By Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor in Chief | 30/11/2003
The head of state of the strongest nation on earth will normally not make a sneaky and panicky visit to a country which is wholly occupied by his troops, unless he is terrified and unsure of his own safety.
That was what US President George W. Bush did when he sneaked into Baghdad to try and lift the morale of his soldiers there by sharing their celebrations on Thanksgiving Day as claimed by the US Administration.
But the trip was counter-productive because Bush appears to have demoralised his troops, as the visit was surrounded by lies from the Administration. In doing so, Bush has confirmed the Arab saying: "Trying to improve it, he spoilt it."
Lied to the public
According to news reports, Bush flew 27 hours non-stop to spend just two and a half hours with his troops. His Administration, like the previous ones, lied when it said two days before the trip that Bush planned to spend Thanksgiving Day with his family and that he would send a telephone message to his troops in Iraq.
Instead, all of the sudden, he turned up in Baghdad. It means that the American people are being lied to by their own Administration and government. This of course had nothing to do with security arrangements for the trip because there is a difference between lying and keeping something secret.
But let us now forget about the lying issue because we already know the US habitually lies through Bush himself, his defence secretary, national security adviser and the rest of the Likudish gang in the Departments of State, Defence and other institutions.
We tasted their lies as they prepared for the war against Iraq and as they launched that war.
Our focus here will be the scared President's trip to a country which is entirely occupied by his forces. It is a strange formula of course, although Bush is the second American President after the late president Dwight Eisenhower to go to a country occupied by the US forces. But there is a big difference between the two visits.
Bush made the trip under the cover of night and it was shrouded with secrecy and lying. Eisenhower visited his forces in Europe after World War II during daylight and it reflected victory and self-confidence.
It was unlike Bush's panicky trip which demonstrated only fear and, perhaps, defeat despite his hollow assurances of victory to his soldiers.
Bush's lightning trip to Baghdad produced only this outcome, although of course US propaganda will propagate different results.
We all saw how US troops, who are demoralised and upset, were paid a secret and surprise visit of less than three hours by their President and Supreme Commander. How can such a visit by such a scared President lift their already undermined morale?
The US Administration could have announced Bush's visit in advance and at the same time taken precautionary security measures. I can't see any contradiction in such a procedure given the United States' enormous military and intelligence might. With such a well prepared visit, Bush could have sent a strong message of self confidence and triumph to his demoralised forces in Iraq.
Fear of the situation
The sneaky trip under the cover of night produced just the opposite. It illustrated lack of confidence and fear of the situation in Iraq and was more like an infiltration by thieves than a morale-lifting trip by a president… how can Bush's troops now trust their ability to stay in Iraq if their own President's comes to them panicking under the cover of night?
Bush's lighting trip to Baghdad has actually hijacked his troops' self-confidence and could also have the same impact on the American people. These people are led by a government of lies and today it acquires two new characteristics - fear and panic.
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/o...rticleID=104150 |
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| NeoPhono |
| quote: | | Bush's lighting trip to Baghdad has actually hijacked his troops' self-confidence and could also have the same impact on the American people. These people are led by a government of lies and today it acquires two new characteristics - fear and panic. |
Ahh...propaganda at its best. |
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| S_madis |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Ahh...propaganda at its best. |
and invading Iraq on the basis that Saddam possesed WMD's is not propaganda at its best ? |
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| WhoaNellie1487 |
Bush's visit to Iraq boosted the morale... It didn't cause panic and fear...where did you get that boviene excrement from?
I get excited when I hear Bush speak! It makes me want to get up and do something!
Did you even watch what he had to say? The troops were rooting for him! They love Bush. ( and yes, They do. It's a fact that the majority of the military is conservative... My parents served,and most of my family has. So I know that for a fact, Further more.They know what's right,and they know what's wrong. ) |
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| NeoPhono |
You can jump all over me when I say this, but when the US invaded Iraq there was "compelling" evidence that not only were there WMD, but also strong ties to terrorist organizations. The article you posted used strong adjectives and cliches to make a visit to Iraq by the president seem like the downfall of the US in Iraq. If you remember, truthful or not, the president and his staff, along with Blair, gave the world several credible documents pertaining to WMD and terrorism in Iraq before invading. These, at least at the time, were considered facts, and some may still be. The article merely contained emotion skewed with misreported events to make a point to his interest, that's why I call it propaganda.
Also, I'd like to say that one of the "hats" of the president is commander in chief. I don't know why people see a problem with him visiting his own troops. It's like getting pissed off if the boss of some corporation decides to go talk with his employees, hoping to cheer them up. Hilary on the other hand, as a senator visiting troops, now that is a publicity stunt as she has no real "ties" with the troops. If senators did, I'd suspect all of them would have been over there by now. |
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| S_madis |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
You can jump all over me when I say this, but when the US invaded Iraq there was "compelling" evidence that not only were there WMD, but also strong ties to terrorist organizations. The article you posted used strong adjectives and cliches to make a visit to Iraq by the president seem like the downfall of the US in Iraq. If you remember, truthful or not, the president and his staff, along with Blair, gave the world several credible documents pertaining to WMD and terrorism in Iraq before invading. These, at least at the time, were considered facts, and some may still be. The article merely contained emotion skewed with misreported events to make a point to his interest, that's why I call it propaganda.
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Common dude ! you seriously cannot be that ignorant to believe that the US had "compelling evidence" (as you put it) to invade Iraq. I mean even my 6 year old sister understands that the entire Invasion was based on lies and deception, attempting justify its cause under emotional complexes and not factual evidence. |
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| NeoPhono |
Sorry, "dude," but a simple google search would have led you to the evidence GW put forth during both the State of Union address, as well as to the UN. Again, you can deny what is reported by our government, but I'd argue it's a lot more factual than some guy writing an inflamatory editorial telling us that Bush's visit to Iraq is going to be the downfall of the US.
Here, I'll skip the googling and get straight to the "evidence" we used to justify our attack.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/ |
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| Izzy |
nice, i never saw that |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
You can jump all over me when I say this, but when the US invaded Iraq there was "compelling" evidence that not only were there WMD, but also strong ties to terrorist organizations. The article you posted used strong adjectives and cliches to make a visit to Iraq by the president seem like the downfall of the US in Iraq. If you remember, truthful or not, the president and his staff, along with Blair, gave the world several credible documents pertaining to WMD and terrorism in Iraq before invading. These, at least at the time, were considered facts, and some may still be. The article merely contained emotion skewed with misreported events to make a point to his interest, that's why I call it propaganda.
Also, I'd like to say that one of the "hats" of the president is commander in chief. I don't know why people see a problem with him visiting his own troops. It's like getting pissed off if the boss of some corporation decides to go talk with his employees, hoping to cheer them up. Hilary on the other hand, as a senator visiting troops, now that is a publicity stunt as she has no real "ties" with the troops. If senators did, I'd suspect all of them would have been over there by now. |
I won't jump all over you, but I would like you to present evidence to your assertions. "Strong ties to terrorist organizations"? Please show me where this was mentioned. I assume we're talking about Iraq here. "Compelling evidence of WMD?" Funny, many articles I've run across seem to show otherwise. But I put the burden of proof on you first to show me this is true. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by NeoPhono
Sorry, "dude," but a simple google search would have led you to the evidence GW put forth during both the State of Union address, as well as to the UN. Again, you can deny what is reported by our government, but I'd argue it's a lot more factual than some guy writing an inflamatory editorial telling us that Bush's visit to Iraq is going to be the downfall of the US.
Here, I'll skip the googling and get straight to the "evidence" we used to justify our attack.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/ |
Apologies for posting too late.
Anyways, that seems to contradict this:
| quote: | CIA admits lack of specifics on Iraqi weapons before invasion
Sun Nov 30, 3:41 AM ET Add World - AFP to My Yahoo!
WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The US Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) has acknowledged it "lacked specific information" about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction when it compiled an intelligence estimate last year that served to justify the US-led invasion of Iraq (news - web sites).
But it said that and other uncertainties surrounding the case had been fully presented to President George W. Bush (news - web sites) and other US policymakers in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a document often referred to by members of the Bush administration as a basis of their claim that Iraq had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) told the UN Security Council last February that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and his regime were "concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction" and that their weapons programs "are a real and present danger to the region and to the world."
However, an explanation issued over the weekend by veteran CIA (news - web sites) analyst Stuart Cohen, who was in charge of putting together the 2002 intelligence estimate and currently serves as vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council, made clear the case against Iraq, as presented by the CIA behind closed doors, was much less clear-cut and more nuanced.
"Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph of the Key Judgments to know that as we said: 'We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD program,'" Cohen wrote in an article posted on the agency's Web site.
The document still concluded that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150-kilometer (93-mile) limit imposed by the UN Security Council. It also said that Baghdad did not have nuclear weapons.
Cohen said he still stood by those judgments. But he insisted the estimate he produced had "uncertainties" that "were highlighted in the Key Judgments and throughout the main text."
Moreover, specialists from three US government agencies -- the State and Energy Departments and the Air Force -- vocally disagreed with at least some of the findings, according to the CIA analyst, who denied that these expressions of dissent had been somehow suppressed or buried in footnotes.
"All agencies were fully exposed to these alternative views, and the heads of those organizations blessed the wording and placement of their alternative views," Cohen insisted.
The veteran CIA analyst stressed that all major conclusions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been drawn on the basis of information "overwhelmingly" gleaned from a combination of human intelligence, satellite imagery and communications intercepts.
But made clear that in the murky world of intelligence, hard and unequivocal evidence was often hard to come by.
"There is a reason that the October 2002 review of Iraq's WMD programs is called a National Intelligence Estimate and not a National Intelligence factbook," Cohen argued. "On almost any issue of the day that we face, hard evidence will only take intelligence professionals so far."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=1512&ncid=1480 |
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| Shakka |
Another interesting article from the NY Times today--mind you the Times is much more left of center for the most part.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/01/i...print&position=
| quote: | For the Iraqis, a Missile Deal That Went Sour
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
ASHINGTON, Nov. 30 — It was Saddam Hussein's last weapons deal — and it did not go exactly as he and his generals had imagined.
For two years before the American invasion of Iraq, Mr. Hussein's sons, generals and front companies were engaged in lengthy negotiations with North Korea, according to computer files discovered by international inspectors and the accounts of Bush administration officials.
The officials now say they believe that those negotiations — mostly conducted in neighboring Syria, apparently with the knowledge of the Syrian government — were not merely to buy a few North Korean missiles.
Instead, the goal was to obtain a full production line to manufacture, under an Iraqi flag, the North Korean missile system, which would be capable of hitting American allies and bases around the region, according to the Bush administration officials.
As war with the United States approached, though, the Iraqi files show that Mr. Hussein discovered what American officials say they have known for nearly a decade now: that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, is less than a fully reliable negotiating partner.
In return for a $10 million down payment, Mr. Hussein appears to have gotten nothing.
The trail that investigators have uncovered, partly from reading computer hard drives found in Baghdad and partly from interviews with captured members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle, shows that a month before the American invasion, Iraqi officials traveled to Syria to demand that North Korea refund $1.9 million because it had failed to meet deadlines for delivering its first shipment of goods.
North Korea deflected the request, telling Mr. Hussein's representatives, in the words of one investigator, that "things were too hot" to begin delivering missile technology through Syria.
The transaction provides an interesting glimpse into the last days of the Hussein government, and what administration officials say were Iraq's desires for a long-term business deal for missiles and a missile production plant.
Bush administration officials have seized on the attempted purchase of the missiles, known as the Rodong, and a missile assembly line to buttress their case that Mr. Hussein was violating United Nations resolutions, which clearly prohibited missiles of the range of the Rodong.
It also establishes that Syria was a major arms-trading bazaar for the Hussein government, in this case hiding an Iraqi effort to obtain missiles, they say. Investigators say Syria had probably offered its ports and territory as the surreptitious transit route for the North Korea-Iraq missile deal, although it remains unclear what demands the government in Damascus might have made in return. Further, according to United States government officials and international investigators, the Iraqi official who brokered the deal, Munir Awad, is now in Syria, apparently living under government protection.
If it served as a middleman in this deal, as the documents suggest, Syria was acting in violation of Security Council resolutions even as it served on the Council and voted with the United States on the most important resolution before the war.
In an interview in Damascus on Sunday with The New York Times, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, was asked about the deal described in the Iraqi computer files and said, "This is the first time I have heard this story."
He said Mr. Hussein "was never able to trust Syria, and he never tried and we never tried to make any relation between him and any other country because he did not trust us in the first place." For all its complaints about arms smuggling across the Syrian-Iraq border, Mr. Assad said, the United States had never cited specific cases, adding, "I told the Americans if you have any evidence that there is smuggling of weapons into Iraq, please let us know."
International inspectors note that the missile deal gone bad appears to be the most serious violation that has been found so far.
The investigators say they tripped upon it while looking for something far more nefarious — evidence of a continuing nuclear program, or an active effort to accumulate more biological or chemical weapons.
"So far, there's really not much in that arena," said one official who has monitored the continuing search for weapons led by David Kay, a former weapons inspector who is now conducting the search for the Central Intelligence Agency.
After spending tens of millions of dollars in a search that continues on the ground in Iraq to this day, the official noted, "We've learned this much: that Kim Jong Il took Saddam to the cleaners."
The first clue of the North Korea-Iraq deal surfaced in public in October when Dr. Kay released preliminary findings of his inquiry into Mr. Hussein's program for developing unconventional weapons.
Dr. Kay said his team had uncovered evidence that Iraq had negotiated a deal with North Korea to acquire missiles, a transaction that a senior administration official said was apparently never detected by American intelligence agencies.
But when it came time for the North Koreans to deliver on the deal they demurred, according to an Iraqi account of the meeting in Syria that international inspectors found on an Iraqi computer hard drive. According to the files, the North Koreans said Iraq was under too much American scrutiny. Evidence amassed since the invasion of Iraq indicates the deal was for more than just missiles.
"This $10 million was a down payment, and not just a straight purchase for Rodong missiles, but for Rodong technology," said one American official who has read documentation on the deal. "Saddam's intent was to get the expertise from the North Koreans and, potentially, open his own production line." If the American interpretation is right, it is unclear where Mr. Hussein might have built the production line or how it could have avoided detection by American satellites.
The exact outlines of the deal remain unclear, the official said, "since the North Koreans ended up stiffing the Iraqis." The Iraqis were demanding their money back, "right up to the end," the official said.
American investigators say they have been able to discern outlines of the murky deal. The $10 million was too much to buy simply a missile or two, American and international experts say, and too little for an entire production line, leading to the conclusion that it was a down payment.
Investigators said information downloaded from Iraqi computer hard drives, at least one of which was obtained before the invasion of Iraq, allowed them to more specifically interrogate detained members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle. They, in turn, guided investigators deeper into the mountain of official documents seized during the war.
"You do that, sort of a back-and-forth process," said one American official. "You find something on a computer disk or in the pile of documents slowly being translated. That makes you ask questions of the detainees. Then you bounce back to the documents and so forth. That's how you get the bigger picture."
Administration officials say investigators found evidence of meetings between the Iraqis and North Koreans as least as far back as late 2001.
One administration official said American intelligence had evidence that "the agents from North Korea flew into Syria — that's where the first meeting took place." Other officials said at least one round of talks was held in North Korea.
The final session was held in Syria in February of this year, just before the war began, officials said. On that trip, according to the Iraqi account of the meeting in Syria, the Iraqis were also seeking night-vision goggles, ammunition and gun barrels — mostly through European middlemen. At that point, a huge American-British force had been built up on Iraq's southern borders, and it was clear that war was coming.
What is also interesting about the shopping list, however, is "what's not on it," said one investigator. "Nothing nuclear, no dual-use items, nothing about weapons of mass destruction."
American officials said the failed missile deal was brokered by an Iraqi firm called Al Bashair Trading Company, also spelled Al Bashir in some documents, which has been identified by American investigators as having had past involvement in arms trade for Iraq conducted with Yugoslavia.
The company reported directly to the Iraqi military command, investigators said, and had close ties to one of Mr. Hussein's sons, Qusay, who was killed in a battle with American troops in July.
The negotiations with the North Koreans were conducted by Munir Awad, the senior officer of Al Bashair, American and international investigators said.
"Munir Awad is one of three men who personally oversaw the most sensitive transfers of money from Al Bashair to other front companies and governments and worked directly for Qusay Hussein," said one American official. "Awad is believed to be in Syria under the protection of the Syrian government." |
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| MisterOpus1 |
I remember reading that first in this article:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/...-kay-iraq_x.htm
Pretty interesting connection, if it continues to hold true. I have my sincere skepticism, however, on the accuracy and ability to withhold pointed criticism. Seems like every point so far the current Admin. has tried to hold as a trumph card tends to fall flat on it's face. I'm incredulous on this story as well, though it still is an interesting lead. |
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