and as I have staed extensively elsewhere, (and you ostensibly read), it relates to things other than the existences of Iraqi NCB WMDs.
Fior example, there’re cases where the Admin deliberately used the top end of the worst-case scenarios without mention or regard to likelihood of these worst-case sceanrios being true to sell the invasion. If that’s not a ‘dishonest manipulation of facts,’ then I’m not sure what is.
It would be a more likely scenario if Iraq actually had these mobile labs. It’d be more likely that Iraq had mobil;e labs if the info that they had them hadn’t come from a known ‘fabricator’ supplied by suspected Iranian intelligence agents.
The DIA labelled this guy a fabricator a year before the WH decided to use his testimony.
Is that dishonest? To use the testimony of a known liar to sell a war? Or do you think that the Admin was just incompetent rather than mendacious in this instance?
Why, yes, yes I do! I can even get Fox News and NewMax and, really, all the reliable sources, same as you. Thing is, I actually read them. So I know, as I’m fairly sure you know, that the Mobile Laboratories of Doom to which you refer (…“films of the actual ones”…“smack dab in the deserts”…) are bogus, hokum, crapola.
You did know this, right? It’s a delicate point, and I approach with respectful restraint. Are you really so entirely ignorant of the facts of the matter that you still honestly believe that those rusting piles of iron tubing were state of the art miniaturized bio-chemical weapons labs?
If so, I will take it as a lesson, to be more understanding, more compassionate, to extend the benefit of a doubt. Not everyone has the benefits I have, of up-to-the-month sources of information available to liberal elite trailer trash, such as myself.
Show me one, count 'em, one, reliable opinion to the effect that the Bushwah you just posted has some basis. Silence will answer as well, being a tacit admission that your whole line of conjecture is pure-D horseshit, uncontaminated by facts.
Oh, good, Brutus is here, he has the information required, and is happy to share!
Oh, dear, such a disappointment! In his eagerness to defend the Shining One, he has neglected to include any actual information to bolster snide slurs and arch innuendos. Yes, indeed, I have stoves, glassware, stuff like that. Even have some glass tubing, if a bong counts.
But I fear that my imagination fails when I try to draw a parallel between such as this and anything remotely similar to a bio-weapons lab.
I await expectently, for you to fill in the gaps with your vast expertise in such matters.
Well, since we’re trailer-parking all over the place here, first of all I believe the term is “pure-dee-died-in-the-wool” horse (or bull, if you prefer) shit.
Now, having cleared that up, I will admit that I didn’t make detailed notes on the occasions when I happened upon a newscast or program showing these labs. I can say that what I saw could not be construed even slightly as rusting iron tubing. No sir, they just looked like plain old died-in-wool truck or trailer type vehicles that had been converted into mobile labs.
Perhaps you should spend more time with your bong and then you won’t find these things so troubling.
[sob]
Brutus has a point.
You can whip up some very very nasty bio/chemical weapons with just a closet. All you have to to is get a culture of Clostridium botulinum (which grows in improperly canned food and kills people really fucking dead). Of course, since I for one have seen no claims that there is improperly canned food in these putative mobile weapons labs, so this remains just a possibility, but we can’t discount the concept of a truck growing WMD inside. If we call botulin a WMD of course.
Well, now we’re getting somewhere! Don’t be so reticent, tell us precisely what equipment you saw in these photos that tipped you off.
“Aha! A Veeblefetzer 9000 vacuum-evaporator! And, look there, a Proctor and Fonebone Virus Production Thingy! And over there, a chunk of rusted iron tubing…oh, wait, never mind…”
Keep digging deeper, Starv. China awaits.
“I gave up whiskey for weed in 1975. May be the only really smart thing I ever did.”
- Willy Nelson
Yeah, you can grow nasties most anywhere. A number of what Dr. Kay cited in his report were items indigenous to Iraq.
The real issue, the actually tricky and technical part is the weaponization of such things.
Starving Artist,
Even the WH has backed off the mobile bio-labs caims. The current operative statement is that they were indeeed for producing hydrogen for baloons.
Congratulations, Starving Artist; you’ve demonstrated the effectiveness of the right-wing bullshit machine, to wit:
- Invade Iraq.
- Find “suspicious” trailers.
- News media (led by Fox) lead with breathless screaming headlines about the discovery of mobile weapons labs.
- Gullible Bush apologists see #3, conclude that the war was justified.
- Level-headed examiners study trailers, determine the claims of mobile WMD labs were bogus.
- News media bury corrections on page 22.
- Gullible Bush apologists miss #6, continue to hold mistaken notion that Saddam had mobile WMD labs.
Rinse, lather, repeat. I’m sure you also believe that Iraq fired “illegal SCUDs” at US forces in the opening days of the war, too, and that Saddam had a remote-controlled drone that could spray WMDs on advancing forces…
luci,
play nice
hearts and minds, remember?
Not really. Just as you say, some really bad stuff can be made without any sort of laboratory. But, that being the case. why should the 'Rackys build any sort of laboratory at all, if their purposes could be served without such? And if an ordinary laboratory is unneccesary, how much more unnecessary is a mobile laboratory? If one presumes, and I do, that a mobile laboratory is more troublesome than the ordinary type that just sits there.
Nonetheless, I commend your generosity.
Stolen then adapted from the work of the enviably well-researched Mr. Svinlesha:"
A bit more background, for the morbidly curious." re this very issue. (emphases rearranged by yours truly)
Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim
Powell’s 90-minute presentation had offered an overview of U.S. intelligence about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as the Bush administration was struggling to win approval of a U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. In his speech, Powell provided extensive descriptions of the biological weapons labs. He also displayed an illustration of a mobile lab that he said was based on an eyewitness account. Powell stressed that the information on the weapons labs was based on multiple sources….
Moreover, in recent weeks news organizations have reported that one of the sources cited by Powell had been cited by U.S. intelligence officials as unreliable even before his presentation. The warning, however, was missed during the preparation of Powell’s speech. Another source, who provided the eyewitness description of the labs, had never been interviewed by U.S. intelligence – which did not even know his real name until after the war, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. After Powell’s speech, it also was learned that this source was a relative of a senior official in the Iraqi National Congress, an émigré group that was considered by some U.S. intelligence officials to be a provider of dubious information about Iraq’s weapons programs.
Iraqi Defector’s Tales Bolstered U.S. Case for War
…Bush administration’s prewar claims that…Hussein…built a fleet of trucks and railroad cars to produce anthrax and other deadly germs were based chiefly on information from a now-discredited Iraqi defector code-named “Curveball,”…
Only later, U.S. officials said, did the CIA learn that the defector was the brother of one of Chalabi’s top aides, and begin to suspect that he might have been coached to provide false information….
David Kay, who resigned in January as head of the CIA-led group created to find illicit weapons in Iraq, said that of all the intelligence failures in Iraq, the case of Curveball was particularly troubling.
“This is the one that’s damning,” he said. “This is the one that has the potential for causing the largest havoc in the sense that it really looks like a lack of due diligence and care in going forward.”
Kay said in an interview that the defector “was absolutely at the heart of a matter of intense interest to us.” But Curveball turned out to be an “out-and-out fabricator,” …
U.S. and British intelligence officials have acknowledged since major combat ended in Iraq that lies or distortions by Iraqi opposition groups in exile contributed to numerous misjudgments about Iraq’s suspected weapons programs. Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress is blamed most often…
Still, the Curveball case may be especially damaging because no other credible defector has provided firsthand confirmation that Iraq modified vehicles to produce germ agents, and no proof has been found before or after the end of major combat. Iraqi officials interrogated since the war have all denied that such a program existed….
“We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails,” Powell said. He showed what he called “highly detailed and extremely accurate” diagrams of how the trucks were configured, and warned that they could spew enough anthrax or botulinus toxin “in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people.”
But Kay… said Powell’s account was “disingenuous.”
Kay added: “If Powell had said to the Security Council: ‘It’s one source, we never actually talked to him, and we don’t know his name,’ as he’s describing this, I think people would have laughed us out of court.”
Germans accuse US over Iraq weapons claim
An Iraqi defector nicknamed Curveball who wrongly claimed that Saddam Hussein had mobile chemical weapons factories was last night at the centre of a bitter row between the CIA and Germany’s intelligence agency.
German officials said that they had warned American colleagues well before the Iraq war that Curveball’s information was not credible - but the warning was ignored….
Yesterday, however, German agents told Die Zeit newspaper that they had warned the Bush administration long before last year that there were “problems” with Curveball’s account.
“We gave a clear credibility assessment. On our side at least, there were no tricks before Colin Powell’s presentation,” one source told the newspaper….
The revelation is embarrassing for the Bush administration and appears to bolster the contention that it used dubious intelligence in a partisan manner in the critical few weeks before the invasion of Iraq.
It has now emerged that Curveball is the brother of a top aide of Ahmad Chalabi, the pro-western Iraqi former exile with links to the Pentagon.
Powell offerred a description of some of this pre-war info from Curveball, the INC, et al: re-re-posted from here
From here
Powell recently referred to some ICP[li]** provided information as ‘inaccurate,’ ‘wrong’ ‘deliberately misleading’.**[/li]And finally, here’s an entire thread devoted to the subject:
Weapons Trailers Disputed… by American Intelligence Analysts
If you care for more info about this isuue, Starving feel free to let me know.
Yours,
Simon
- Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National COngress’ Information Collection Program that was run by an known Iranian intelligence ‘liason’ and was funded by the Pentagon despite objection by the CIA and the Stat Dept.
Go figure.
Menadcity or Incompetence?
You decide.
Laziness? Is that a defense, or an excuse? I enumerated the steps to objective evaluation, but they really aren’t nearly as laborious as you appear to consider them.
And your reasoning is becoming circular. How do you know he’s a “dishonest manipulator of facts?” Rush told you so? Or was it O’Reilly? Or maybe George W. Bush? You respect and believe what those men say. Because they’re “honest men.” Who says they’re honest? Why they themselves do, of course. They never distort or manipulate any facts. Yes, they are so honest that anyone who claims that they’re being dishonest must in fact be liars themselves.
And since it’s just too much gosh darn work to remember what they said a year ago and compare it to what is happening now, you’re just going to believe them when they deny lying, or manipulating the facts, or distorting the truth, or whatever those liars call it this week.
Well, unfortunately, these issues are too important, to the entire world, to leave to a personality contest. Laziness is no excuse. And again, it’s really not all that hard. All it really takes is a desire to be objective. Then the rest just falls into place.
Wow, three whole pages and nothing about the actual movie itself. I caught a midnight showing last night in Denver, and as skeptical as I was concerning MM’s modus operandi, I was simply blown away by the film . Not so much a Micheal Moore ego fest like BFC was, he lets sound bites and interviews tell almost entirely the whole story.
Some narration at the beginning, and a few patented MM grandstanding moments like reading the Patriot Act out loud to the houses of Congress from an Ice Cream truck, and trying to get Congressmen to enlist heir family members t ofight in Iraq.
The interviews with the mother from Flint Michigan had me crying like a big crying thing, and the images of Iraqi civilians and our soldiers talking about the war were riviting. There seemed to me to be too much of an attempt to tie the Bush and Saud families together, and not really enough about the duplicity involved with getting us into the war.
The missing WMD’s were glanced over in my view, but watching the shark like recruiters trolling a mall on the wrong side of town for “fresh meat” was a little hard to watch.
All in all, I’d say this is the best movie I’ve seen by Mr. Moore. Great use of camera’s rolling before and after interviews with Condi, Rummy, and Wolfie.
Will it change anyones mind? Probably not. Will it mobilize the Democrats already pissed at this administration? Most definately. People walked out of the theater last night quiet, subdued and above all reall REALLY angry. Not the yelling, crying gnashing of teeth and wailing kind of angry, but the quiet resolute kind of angy that moves mountains.
just my .02
yancey
I haven’t seen it yet, but I just drove past the theater in town that’s showing it. This was at 4:12 pm, and the line for the 4:30 showing was quite literally stretched around the block. I have NEVER seen lines at this theater like that, not even for evening showings.
Asheville’s a pretty liberal community, sure–but only for North Carolina. I wonder what’s going to happen with it in major theaters in more liberal regions of the country?
Daniel
I just got home from the matinee. The house was packed. Lots of hootin’ & hollerin’. In no way did this film deserve an R rating IMO. A few GIs, like Cheney, drop a few F-bombs and a few seconds of footage of dead and injured Iraqi children and GIs. At moments it was very funny and very very sad. Hard core Bush fans should stay away. It will make you feel really really really stupid.
Methinks anyone who’s still a hardcore Bush fan after four years of the guy will have long repressed their feelings of stupidity. 
Haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve got a rendezvous for a matinee showing tomorrow morning. What few news reports I’ve heard about today’s release mention jam-packed theaters everywhere.
Just got back from the morning showing. Theater wasn’t packed, but it was very crowded. Lots of cheering/laughing/clapping etc.
The movie itself I felt was pretty solid. I don’t think it was over the top in any case.
Got back a while ago from the first showing.
Lies? Well, durned if I could catch him in any, and I was lookin’. I look forward to the inevitable “debunking” of this film, as I do not much trust Moore to stick to the unvarnished facts.
The style is familiar, from Bowling For Columbine, but aside from a couple of rather cheap grandstand stunts (driving around in an ice cream truck, reading the Patriot Act through the loudspeaker, and the infamous “ambush congressmen and try to get them to have their children enlist and go to Iraq” stunt), Moore himself does not appear in all that much of the movie, although the voiceovers are his.
Rather, he mostly puts out the facts, and then kind of nudges the viewer towards the conclusion he’s already laid out for you.
Is this bad? Yes and no. I’d rather simply see the facts, and draw my own conclusions, thank you… but as far as I can tell, he ain’t lyin’. Perhaps Bowling For Columbine taught him something about fact checking.
Mostly, the film (much like The Atomic Cafe) simply uses news clips and clever editing to make its point; which Moore’s narration then spoon-feeds to the viewer. If it were as GOOD as The Atomic Cafe, we wouldn’t even need Moore’s voiceovers telling us what to think. Then again, nobody ever claimed this wasn’t an editorial piece…
It achieved two ends, IMHO:
- It gets the viewer to ask some pertinent questions. In one part, Moore implies that the Bush family cares more about Saudi business interests than in the life and well-being of the average American. This may even be true, although even I find it hard to swallow.
…but just why DID the administration arrange for more than a hundred Saudi nationals to be able to leave the country by air, two days after 9/11 – an event in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, and which was arguably arranged and financed by Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi national?
Moore asks "If all Timothy McVeigh’s relatives suddenly wanted to leave the US two days after the Oklahoma City bombing, would we have given THEM special permission, and expedited their departures? (and on The Daily Show, Thursday night,) If a hundred of Moammar Qaddafi’s relatives wanted to skip the country a couple days after the Lockerbie horror, would we have allowed it? And what would we have done to an administration who DID permit and abet such a thing?
…and this is just one of the questions the film poses. Moore’s mistake is in attempting to ANSWER the questions himself, rather than allowing the viewer to draw his own conclusions; Moore himself can’t possibly know what Bush was thinking, not for sure, and it makes him look like a pompous ass. Again.
- It does a fine job of pointing out many of Bush’s shortcomings and questionable actions as President, all at once.
As a President, we can’t claim we’ve caught Bush with his pants down. Not the way we did Clinton, at least. On the other hand, as far as questionable actions and decisions go, Bush has plenty. We’ve never caught him actually ROBBING the cookie jar, but it always seems to go empty when he’s in the room.
Especially since he holds his private meetings in the kitchen, and then won’t turn over the documents to a Congressional subcommittee when they launch the Cookie Investigation.
One incident could be chalked off as a mistake.
Two incidents could be written off as coincidence.
This film sticks 'em all up there at once. Mr. Bush has taken a great many questionable actions during his term as President, and Fahrenheit 9/11 makes durn sure that you are going to see some of the most questionable, all together. And, weirdly enough, Moore doesn’t even hit on some of Bush’s more attackable weaknesses.
It does do a fine job of pointing out Bush’s business connections, though, and how so many of these chaps seem to have wound up in positions of power, and how these people are benefiting like crazy from Bush’s administration and the war in Iraq.
It does not prove wrongdoing. It simply points out the questionability of the situation. And it shouts it pretty loud, all at once, rather than piecemeal, the way the news media’s been doing since Bush got in there.
As a documentary, it stinks. It’s an op-ed piece, not a documentary, and Moore himself makes no bones about it. But it IS chock-full of facts; the news footage alone tells quite a story, and instead of seeing it over a four-year-span, you’re seeing it in two hours.
It does get one to thinking. And it will certainly influence anyone who ain’t a hardcore Bushie to take a look at those facts, and make a decision.