Yet you still don’t have a fucking clue as to what I am disturbed by or what is in this conservative mind. So please refrain from heaping unsubstantiated assumptions upon me as 'luci has tried on Bush with this thread. If you had actually asked me what I thought on the subject, I would have taken my time to elighten you. Instead I kindly ask you to cut it the fuck out. m’kay?
And now on to Zig…
That straw is big enough to float you mama all the way down the Big River. Probably the cite I should have used was:
“US Claim on Iraq Nuclear Program is Called Into Question”
With such gems as:
“Bush cited the aluminum tubes in his speech before the U.N. General Assembly and in documents presented to U.N. leaders. Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice both repeated the claim, with Rice describing the tubes as "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.”
“the U.N.-chartered nuclear watchdog, reported in a Jan. 8 preliminary assessment that the tubes were “not directly suitable” for uranium enrichment but were “consistent” with making ordinary artillery rockets – a finding that meshed with Iraq’s official explanation for the tubes. New evidence supporting that conclusion has been gathered in recent weeks and will be presented to the U.N. Security Council in a report due to be released on Monday, the officials said.”
And the punch line…
"Moreover, there were clues from the beginning that should have raised doubts about claims that the tubes were part of a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program, according to U.S. and international experts on uranium enrichment. The quantity and specifications of the tubes – narrow, silver cylinders measuring 81 millimeters in diameter and about a meter in length – made them ill-suited to enrich uranium without extensive modification, the experts said.
But they are a perfect fit for a well-documented 81mm conventional rocket program in place for two decades. Iraq imported the same aluminum tubes for rockets in the 1980s. The new tubes it tried to purchase actually bear an inscription that includes the word “rocket,” according to one official who examined them."
(bolding gleefully added)
Now, seeing as these are the very experts assigned to nuclear issues, I tend to take thier word as having some grounding in expertise, don’t you agree?
Now, on to Mr. Hamza (God, I love it when they lob the floaters over the plate!)
"Dr Hamza, who defected in 1994, was a senior administrator on Iraq’s nuclear weapons programme. He has been accused of making claims about programmes **of which he had no direct knowledge. **
David Albright, a former nuclear inspector, told the Observer last year: **"[Hamza’s] book is full of technical inaccuracies and there is no doubt he exaggerated his importance." **
(Bolding, as above)
Let us at least note that Mr. Hamza has not set foot in Iraq for…what?..eight, nine years? A bit out of the contemporaneous, don’t you think?
That’s “kindly”. Gosh, guy, what are you like when you get, like, nasty?
Well, that seals it. If they were stamped ‘Rocket’, then by gully that’s what they must have been used for! After all, the Iraqis wouldn’t lie. Only George Bush lies.
So tell us… Why would Iraq, already cash-strapped due to sanctions, order tubes to a much higher precision than necessary for rockets, and hence much more expensive? I find that bit of evidence to be at least as compelling as the length of the tubes or the fact that they are stamped ‘rocket’ (this ranks right up there with the ‘baby food’ factory the Iraqis showed during the gulf war, which had a hastily-stenciled sign, “Baby Food Factory” posted outside, and a bunch of boxes inside hastily stenciled, “Baby Food”).
In other words, if you were trying to import tubes for a nuclear centrifuge, wouldn’t you try to disguise them somehow?
By the way, the IAEA declared in 1994 that Iraq’s nuclear program was ‘totally eradicated’. It was then embarassed a few months later when Saddam’s son in law defected with documentation of a nuclear program that was not only still active, but more advanced than anyone had suspected. For example, Iraq had been using ‘short track’ enrichment which was less efficient but easier to conceal than ‘long track’ enrichment.
It’s telling that you would automatically assume that George Bush is a liar, but accept the word of the U.N. inspectors as the final authority. Inspectors are accountants and technicians - George Bush has access to the entire U.S. intelligence community and its own massive technical facilities and experts. And to this day, Colin Powell still rejects the claim that the tubes are innocuous.
George Whiskey BUllSHit is either a liar or incompetent.
He is not a criminal and an impeachment proceding stands about as much chance as I do trying to pick-up Pamela Anderson at a Kid Rock concert.
None of this changes the fact that, unless the democrats nominate Brian “Emanuel” Mitchell in 2004, Son of a Bush will go back to bankrupting corporations for a living.
Let’s get the war over with and do something, anything about what is about to become a triple-dip recession!
Sam Stone Quote “George Bush has access to the entire U.S. intelligence community and its own massive technical facilities and experts. And to this day, Colin Powell still rejects the claim that the tubes are innocuous”.
You have made a good point Sam so why is george’s evidence so weak? Maybe that he does not have the evidence. Ya think?
I don’t think his evidence is weak. I thought Powell’s presentation at the U.N. was devastating to Iraqi claims that they have no WMD left. So did the the U.N.
The only people who are still arguing that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction all seem to be on the Straight Dope board. It’s a very marginal position to take.
Gee, you mean all the posts of yours I keep seeing where you are ‘splainin’ and defendin’ The Resident are evidence of your deep disagreement with him?
Golly, the conservative mind really does confound and amaze!
(Unless of course, that wasn’t you, in which case, all apologies. My memory is not quite so dangerous as once it was, and I could certainly be confusing you with some other poster with a 4 letter name that starts with S. Or maybe another poster with a 12 letter name that starts with X, who knows!)
Oh Sam, will you never tire of your “Well pretty much everybody except * you * knows…” refrain? Especially when you are repeatedly shown how full of shit it is?
Sam, what little so called evidence the US, Powell or george has produced has been disproved or subject to skepticism. Now I would call that pretty weak. To say otherwise is just plain ignorant or very uniformed. They are still trying to find the smoking gun and in regards to finding one, the White House has resorted to using plagiarized documents and or manufacturing intelligence.
I’m glad you mentioned the famous defector, Sam, I’d almost forgotten. But as I mentioned before, thats a bit down the list, since it doesn’t involve out and out falsehood, but just a bit of judicious editing. Simply a matter of not mentioning something that might prove embarrassing… Quite embarrassing, actually. Very embarassing, not to put too fine a point on it.
In case anybody missed it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18467-2003Feb28.html
Sorry I dont have a more reliable source than Newsweek and the Washington Post, the Pravda of the Potomoc.
“…They indicated that the United States, which debriefed Kamel in Amman, may have ignored or dismissed his claims that many of Iraq’s deadliest agents had been destroyed. The defection of Kamel “should serve as a reminder to all that we often learn more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself,” Vice President Cheney said on Aug. 26…”
You tell 'em, Big Dick.
"…Kamel himself suggested the U.N. inspectors were a far more useful and reliable source than Iraqi defectors. “You should not underestimate yourself,” Kamel said. “You are very effective in Iraq.” In the interview, he described one well-known defector, Khidhir Hamza, a nuclear scientist who participated in Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons program, as “a professional liar…”
Oh, my. Him again.
It is? Let’s see…
France said that Powell’s evidence showed the need for ‘greatly enhanced inspections’. Britain said the evidence was ‘devastating to Iraq’.
Or you could just read this, a summary of the reaction fo the council.
A……….You obviously don’t know my mama.
B……….This “new” site is exactly (as in word for word) the same as the old site, except for the inclusion of a rather embarrassing advertisement.
To which I (gleefully) repeat my previous quote (with gleeful bolding added):
** ………“Of course Iraq would not order cylinders with exact specifications for centrifuges, because such tubes would never have been shipped,” Hamza said. “This is a standard Iraqi ploy…………”**
Ummm…….that’s exactly the point I was addressing when I quoted extensively from the article entitled “A senior Iraqi scientist tells how Saddam Hussein, in a decades-long quest for the bomb, systematically hoodwinked the IAEA.”
Isn’t David Albright the fellow who, back in 1991 before Mr. Hamza arrived and set him straight, wrote several articles indicating that, at a time when Bush I was claiming that Iraq posed a nuclear threat and when, we now know, Saddam was busily engaged in a crash program to produce a weapon within about 6 months; Iraq was “years” away from producing any nuclear weapons?
(This ad hominem game is fun.)
Which means what? That Iraq has had an additional…………what………eight, nine years to perfect “hoodwinking” the IAEA?
Got anythig more recent ? The world has had enough time since February 5th to critically evaluate Powell’s show. The continuing revelations of innacuracies and misstatements has surely had an effect on some world leaders, or do you maintain that everyone is holding by their February 5 assessments ?
In the words of the French Foreign Minister:
From your own cite:
Oh, my. Indeed.
The OP is about impeachment. My only point is that impeachment is too blunt an instrument and it will not happen in this case. The only way that the president can be removed other than by a rigidly scheduled election process is by being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, whatever they are. Simply getting everyone all het up over a preemptive war that is based on evidence that is either non-existent or tenuous at best and erecting an internal security apparatus that is hazardous to civil rights aren’t enough to do the job. That is a fundamental weakness in the system.
You wish. You’ll never guess where I was. Not in a thousand years.
…But anyhow, as debates go, even ones tarted by you, even one’s started by you against Bush, this ones pretty week.
All you’ve shown me is a couple of “bushistas,” a “report that didn’t exist,” and the old “aluminum tubes” argument.
Since you’ve used each of those at least a dozen times, I’m sincerely wondering what the point is.
Usually when I I see a Bush rant from you, I at least expect to see something new, but this rant appears to be wholly recycled from previous rants, and I have to say that I’m disapointed in you for pushing an inferior product.
It’s like that Simpson’s episode where they just show outtakes from previous episodes.
I’m used to the egregious partisan bullshit from you, but at least it was quality egregious partisan bullshit.
We’ve had all kinds of important events occur over the weekend so it’s not like you can claim there isn’t any new material.
Oh, dear me. Another blistering critique from Scylla. However shall I go on, so devastated.
Pass the popcorn.
Hey, I expect you to be big enough to take a sincere criticism. But you haven’t guessed where I was.
Well, gee, Scylla, I said I was devastated. What more do you want?
[Ernst Stavro Blofeld] But you intrigue me, Mr. Bond. Where might you have been that was so very unlikely…
An antiwar demonstration?
[/Ernst Stavro Blofeld]