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Old Comments (5)

1. Doug Alder on 22 Oct 2004

   You forgot to put it in 72 point bold for them Elaine because it's pretty damned obvious they're blind as well as deaf.

2. chequette on 23 Oct 2004

   Not blind not deaf but informed and well informed My friend

   Yet I have proved my case, again you show no proof no Facts very well typed argument on your behalf but again you choose to stay blind to the information .
   Read the report , its there for everyone to read , no one is hiding it from us . Like I typed you cannot argue the facts and I am in no way trying to change your view or the way you tend to look at things , just the facts are my concern, you have none . Your argument was well written but you tend to forget that with the President or with Mr. Kerry as president even when the Clintons where the big wigs , America was and will always be hated and envied worldwide no matter what Americans do . They hate us and that hasn`t been a secret ! Fact is you cannot blame the president for others countrys thought. Thats the way they beleive.

   Unjust war? what was just so Unjust about freeing a country that was run by a terrorist dictatorship that by the way funded terorist for many years like the MUJAHADEEN , Saddam was no saint , he killed hundreds of thousand of kurds , Mass graves are still bieng discovered as we speak! His sons terorized many woman and abused them in so many ways, many newly married woman and if the husband spoke he was killed . This is in the history books this can be found on the history channel and the discovery channel . I guess also that Iraq never used WMD against Iran , and of course never invaded Kuwait and the iraq troops where never told to abuse women and burn houses down and steel, never happend its just so unjust .

   Unjust , unjust would be to stand there and watch and not do a thing about it that is unjust

   Did we forget what he did to the oil refineries , causing a major catostphic disaster , so please dont talk about unjust !

   HERE are some fun facts about terrorist in Iraq
   Date Formed:
   11/22/1974
   Strength:
   Group is active
   Classification:
   Nationalist/Separatist, Communist/Socialist
   Last Attack:
   Jan. 29, 1994
   Financial Sources:
   Government sponsorship from Syria, Libya, and Iraq
   U.S. Terrorist Exclusion
   List Designee:
   No
   Designated:
   1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
   Watched:
   No
   
   Baker, Atef Abu (Abu Bakr)
   
   Issa, Abdel Rahman (Abd-al-Rahman Isa)
   
   l-Banna, Sabri
   
   
   
   Isa, Zein
   
   
   Musa, Tawfiq
   
   
   Nijmeh, Luie H.
   
   
   Nijmeh, Saif Alaslam Hussein
   
   
   
   
   Palestine Liberation Organization • Rival

   The head of Iraqi intelligence holds photographs purporting to prove Abu Nidal's 'suicide'
   Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
   Mothertongue Name: Fatah al-Qiyadah al-Thawriyyah
   Base of Operation: Iraq; Libya; Syria
   Founding Philosophy: The Abu Nidal Organization split from the PLO when the latter proposed the creation of the Palestinian National Authority in 1974. Abu Nidal believed that no goal other than the total liberation of the Palestinian people was acceptable and that the only method by which to accomplish that goal was armed struggle. Abu Nidal hated Israel ("It is a crime to allow the Zionists to leave our land alive"), the United States ("Were it not for American support, the Zionist ghost would have long vanished from the world arena") and Arab leaders who have engaged politically with Israel or the West. Abu Nidal sometimes referred to these leaders as "Zionists who are not Jews," and they were the target of many of the ANO's attacks.

   Current Goals: At its peak, the ANO had 400 members, but the organization has been losing strength since the 1980s, when many of its operatives were arrested in South America. Last attacked a Western target in the late 1980s. In August of 2002, the Iraqi government claimed that Abu Nidal had committed suicide in Iraq. Many believe that Saddam Hussein ordered the assassination, while others doubt that Abu Nidal is really dead. The remaining leadership of the organization has publicly stated that the ANO did not die with its founder and that a new leader will be named.
   
   1968 - Present
   Incidents Casualties Fatalities
   77 565 188
   Targets:
   Terrorists 9%
   Tourists 1%
   Government 5%
   Unknown 1%
   Military 1%
   Private Citizens & Property 2%
   Airports & Airlines 16%
   NGO 3%
   Business 14%
   Diplomatic 24%
   Journalists & Media 3%
   Educational Institutions 1%
   Other 5%
   Maritime 3%
   Religious Figures/Institutions 3%
   Transportation 1%
   
   Data for 1968-1997 covers only international incidents.
   Data for 1998-Present covers both domestic and international incidents. those are facts from MIPT terrorisam knowlege base

   Charles Duelfer is not into propaganda why doesnt anyone want to talk about the report he submitted to the hearing of the senate armed forces committe - where he sates that our so called friends where bribed - so that the UN security council which are france germany and some others would vote against the use of force !
   its in the report .

   Then you have Dr. David Kay another person that went to the senate armed forces committe and testified that with Saddam gone in his opinoin we are in fact safer becuase the deteriorating sanctions that the UN failed to upkeep . It also goes on to say that the rigime got rid of alot of the eveidence and that other countrys were in fact aiding them .

   Its time to stop blaming America for everyone else`s hate of this country. Other countries hate us its been like that ever since we became the 13 original colonies .

   Why are there so many different people from all over the world here in the US. Why ? Is it becuase they love our freedom is it becuase we have rights or is it becuase here we can say what we want when we want however we want to whomever we want and not be torchered ! Or is it becuase here we actually have choices , to start a buisness and be jewish , catholic , buddaist hindist . Even those racist groups can say what they want .

   But you and MR. Kerry have no ground to stand on
   Your argument is of opinion and opinion only not based on facts but rhetoric the Facts that I have typed here are checkable.

   I love Peace , Yes peace should always have a place , Looking back at history WWI, WWII before we entered the second WW , We chose peace as a country So did Europe so did germany , but germany just kept signing those accords of Peace and over and over again he would break his promise , Little did we know that in germany they where commiting genocide , what if we had told germany , we just want Peace and told Japan we just want peace japan dont attack us anymore just Peace , We would all be speaking japanese

   but I also reserve the right to defend , Sorry you cannot win on that one.

   Mr. Kerry is a trial lawyer and he has used America as his own personnel court trying to get singlemined " short-term, narrow-minded, and disingenuous thinking and speaking processes"
   the people bieng the jury and the Fact finders Foreman he has not even come close to presenting a valuable Fact . He has shown a good show, but in the end the FACTS are necessary to win in Americas court of Law!

   I have just came to the conclusion that you no matter what , you just dont Like the President.
   You have no Facts ! So please dont insult America have your way of thought its your right , but just come out and say it . No matter who you are or what you think I still respect you!

3. Elaine of Kalilily on 23 Oct 2004

   I think that you need to read the study conducted by PIPA, the Program for International Policy Attitudes (www.pipa.org)

   They report
   "EVEN AFTER THE FINAL REPORT OF CHARLES DULFER to Congress saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points."

   Read the non-partisan PIPA report and find out just how Bush has duped you.

4. chequette on 24 Oct 2004

   She says non partisan what that means is that they are actually pushing thier POLITICAL beleives and opinions by polling even though they the PIPA members have and are High money contributors to the John Kerry fund and money other Democratic politacal needs As I said before Read the Duelfer report . He made a statement to the Armed forces comittee I will post an email I recieved from Elaine , all I ask is that you read it all. then form an opinion:

   
   #1 you havent read the Duelfer report ! Only what benifits you and your supporters, yes the report says there are now no WMD but just read the whole thing please then make a statement
   
   #2 Has made donations to Mr .kerry from Dester william
   DESTLER, WILLIAM
   COLUMBIA,MD 21044
   UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND/PROVOST
   7/29/2004
   $250
   Kerry, John
   
   #3 HAS made well over 14,500 dollars in controbutions
   Daniel Yankelovich
   
   #4 the Tide foundation which recieves many of mula from none other than hienz kerry
   
   #5 I have read the report from Duelfer , yes the entire thing and yea I have red the 9/11 commision report have you ?
   
   #6 robert shapiro dont even get me started
   I dont want to keep wasting my time by finding this info for you, have you done your homework!
   
   These are the Brainiacs from this frim that just polls people based on thier Political ideas this is your rebuttal ? I will help you out ill attach the report for you .
   here it is so read it all .

   Mr. Duelfer: If I may, I would like to go through it just to—

   Sen. Warner: Oh, I’m not suggesting other than all of it’s going to be in.

   Mr. Duelfer: OK. Thank you.

   I’d also like to thank those of you who came out and visited in Baghdad.

   That means a lot to the people doing this work to know that there are people who really are interested in the work that goes on out there.

   I know it is a difficult trip to make, is not a safe trip to make, but I welcome it.

   I know that General McMenamin welcomes it. And I think it’s a useful thing to do. You do get a sense of what goes on on the ground.

   Thank you very much.

   The relationship between Iraq and the rest of the world has been complicated and dangerous for three decades, a dilemma that has confounded the international community through much of recent history.

   Three wars, devastating sanctions, and an endless progression of international crises have eroded or ruined thousands of lives.

   The region and Iraq are both complicated and unstable, and obviously very dangerous. Weapons of mass destruction have added to the uncertainty and risk posed by an unpredictable and clearly aggressive regime in Baghdad.

   This report is not simply an accounting of the program fragments that we have examined in the aftermath of the recent war and the ongoing conflict.

   Nor is it my aim merely to describe the status of a program at a single point in time.

   The complexity and importance of the question deserves a more synthetic approach, in my opinion.

   Instead, the objective of this report is to identify the dynamics of the regime’s WMD decisions over time.

   I want to identify the area under the curve, not just a single point on a trend line that may be going up or down.

   In other words, this problem deserves calculus, not algebra, and thus the report I have prepared attempts to describe Iraqi WMD programs not in isolation, but in the context of the aims and objectives of the regime that created and used them.

   Which is not to say that I’m not going to look at the artifacts and what we did find at the given point in time when we began work.

   I’ve also insisted that the report include as much basic data as reasonable and that it be unclassified.

   Since the tragedy that has been Iraq has exacted such a huge cost for so many for so long, I feel strongly that the data we have accumulated be presented in as thorough a manner as possible to enable others to draw their own conclusions.

   Certainly I have a concept of the dynamics that underlaid the course that Saddam followed with WMD, and this is conveyed in the report.

   Others, including Iraqis themselves, may examine this and conclude otherwise.

   The report consists of six chapters. It includes at the end a time line showing key events that bear on the Iraqi WMD program.

   Aiming to introduce the reader to the Iraqi frame of reference, the report begins with an analysis of the nature of the regime and its aims, in chapter one.

   As compared with most countries, fathoming the intentions of the regime is made easier in Iraq, because it really boils down to understanding one person, Saddam Hussein, who was the regime.

   The highly personalized nature of the Iraqi dictatorship under Saddam with its multiplicity of security organs and unclear, often overlapping lines of authority, progressively created a governmental system of operating alien to those steeped in the norms of Western democracy.

   An understanding of the workings of the Iraqi system of governance is important so that the evidence or the lack of evidence can be evaluated within the frame of reference of Baghdad, and not the frame of reference of Washington, London, or Canberra.

   For example, given the nature of Iraqi governance, one should not look for much of an audit trail on WMDs.

   Even Saddam’s most senior ministers did not want to be in a position to tell him bad news or make recommendations from which he would recoil.

   The most successful and long-lived advisers were those who could anticipate his intentions.

   Hence, there was a very powerful rule for implicit guidance.

   This is particularly the case for the most sensitive issues, such as actions related to human rights or weapons of mass destruction.

   This dynamic limits the evidence that one might expect to find; that is, little documentation or senior advisers who could honestly say that they had instructions on certain matters.

   This, of course, makes it risky to draw conclusions about the absence of evidence, a continuous problem that was found in Iraq.

   Further obfuscating the picture is the fact that Baghdad had a long experience in dealing with inspection by western outsiders.

   From the experience of dealing with U.N. inspectors, the Iraqis learned a great deal about what signatures we looked for.

   And I point out, I spent many years in that activity myself.

   Iraqis generally knew a lot more about us than we did about them.

   For various reasons, their ability and desire to conceal their intentions and capabilities were quite good.

   Beyond a discussion of how the regime operated, the report also provides a sense of Saddam’s goals, aspirations and political vision as a means to better understand his decisions about WMD, their development, use, and destruction and role in the future realization of his political-military aims for the Iraqi nation.

   We have tried to understand his objectives and how he developed and used power.

   I’d point out that after the 1991 war, Saddam established as his prime objective, taking into account survival, of course, his prime objective was the termination of U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

   And he weighed all policy actions and steps for their impact on this overarching objective.

   Saddam committed the brightest minds and much national treasure to developing weapons of mass destruction.

   Moreover, Saddam saw this investment as having paid vital dividends.

   Senior Iraqis state that only through the use of long-range ballistic missiles and the extensive use of chemical weapons did Iraq avoid defeat in the war with Iran.

   And there was a second, less obvious, instance where the regime attributes its survival to the possession of WMD.

   In the run-up to the 1991 war, Iraq loaded, dispersed, and Saddam pre-delegated the authority to use biological and chemical weapons, if the coalition proceeded to Baghdad.

   The regime and Saddam believed that the possession of WMD deterred the United States from going to Baghdad in 1991.

   Moreover, it has been clear in my discussions with senior Iraqis that they clearly understand that they blundered in invading Kuwait before completing the nuclear weapons program.

   Had they waited, the outcome would have been quite different.

   Finally, Saddam also used chemical weapons for domestic purposes, in the late ’80s against the Kurds and, as we learned in our work at ISG, during the Shia uprisings immediately after 1991 war.

   Again, this first chapter, aspects of Saddam’s decision-making were examined by identification of several key inflection points, when Saddam made a choice affecting WMD. Several such points have been identified and dissected to see the dynamics of these decisions.

   This tool of using a time line and identifying key inflection points was also useful in tracking his strategy and tactics toward the United Nations and the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

   Saddam’s personal direction of much of Iraq’s relations with the U.N. reflected his approach to influence, and is described in some detail in the report.

   Overall, the hope is that not only will we see what Saddam decided to do with WMD, but why.

   This may be instructive for future policy considerations, and certainly for future intelligence considerations.

   The second chapter of the report is an extensive analysis of Iraq’s financing and procurement, a bid to identify the resources available to Baghdad and examine how they were allocated.

   We made it a high priority to obtain complete information from the oil ministry and the state oil marketing organization. These data were extremely valuable in obtaining an understanding of how the regime operated and its priorities.

   This is a way of bounding the problem, in a sense. Because Iraq had limited resources, that was one of the ways we could delimit our analysis. It turned out to be quite instructive.

   Our investigation makes clear the top priority for Saddam was to escape the economic strangle-hold of the U.N. sanctions. The sanctions limited his ambitions in many ways and took an enormous toll on Iraqi society. The disintegration of the middle class, civil infrastructure, the health system, and the blight on the hope of young Iraqis were clear through the ’90s.

   The U.N. Security Council, in attempting to mitigate the effects of sanctions on innocent Iraqis, created the oil-for-food program. It is instructive that the regime rejected the opportunity to export oil for civil goods until conditions were so bad that they threatened survival of the regime.

   Chapter two — this chapter — makes clear the range of steps the regime took to erode support for and the efficacy of the U.N. sanctions program.

   The steps the regime took to erode sanctions are obvious in the analysis of how revenues, particularly those derived from the oil-for-food program were used.

   Over time, sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq in, roughly the 2000 to 2001 time frame, was confidently designing missiles around components that could only be obtained outside of sanctions.

   Moreover, illicit revenues grew to quite substantial levels during the same period, and it is instructive to see how and where the regime allocated these funds.

   Our investigation also makes quite clear how Baghdad exploited the mechanism for executing the oil-for-food program to give individuals and countries an economic stake in ending sanctions.

   The regime followed a pattern that Saddam has applied throughout his career, offering rewards and a rationale for accepting them, successfully arguing its case that the sanctions were harming the innocent and that the moral choice was to elude and diminish them.

   It is grossly obvious how successful the regime was. It is also grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted, not just the national system of finance and economics but, to some extent, international markets and organizations.

   The procurement and finance section notes that a sizable portion of the illicit revenues generated under the oil-for-food program went to the Military Industrial Commission; that is the government-run military industrial establishment.

   The funding for this organization, which had responsibility for many of the past WMD programs, went from approximate $7.8 million in 1998 to $350 million in 2001. During this period of growing resource availability, many military programs were carried out, including many involving the willing export to Iraq of military items prohibited by the Security Council.

   And I would note that some members of the Security Council participated in violating those very same resolutions.

   The remaining four chapters deal with the different types of WMD programs, which Iraq had previously worked.

   The first of these is a delivery system chapter describes the work Iraq had bee pursuing with respect to missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

   Iraq continued to work on missile delivery systems in the wake of the Gulf War. Some missile activity was permitted, in fact, by the U.N. resolution.

   Saddam drew a distinction, however, between long-range missiles and other WMDs, a distinction not drawn in the U.N. resolutions.

   Iraqi’s missile development infrastructure continued to develop under sanctions, and included work on propulsion, fuels and even guidance systems.

   As more funding became available following the implementation of the OFF program, the oil-for-food program, Saddam directed more missile activities.

   In the latter years, more foreign assistance was brought in, including both technology and technical expertise.

   While it is clear that Saddam wanted a long-range missile, there was little work done on warheads.

   It is apparent that he drew the line at that point so long as sanctions remained.

   However, while the development of ballistic missile delivery systems is time consuming, if and when Saddam decided to place a nonconventional warhead on the missile, this could be done quite quickly.

   The chemical weapons and biological weapon warheads put on Iraqi missiles in 1990 and 1991, for example, were built in months.

   A couple of points are of interest from the Iraqi missile efforts.

   One is that they did not abide by the range limits set in U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 {910 kb pdf, 910 kb pdf}.

   The range capabilities of the ballistic missiles they were developing exceeded the stated limits.

   Iraq also used components from SA-2 — those are surface-to-air missile engines — that they had been expressly prohibited from doing.

   Iraq also produced fuel that was not declared.

   They also tested UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, in excess of the range limits.

   Iraq missile developers became so confident that other would violate the sanctions that they designed new missile systems which depended upon the import of guidance systems which were prohibited by sanctions.

   Further, they drew upon foreign expertise that was readily available for such areas as propulsion; again, in violation of the sanctions.

   The next chapter is on nuclear programs, and it reviews the program up to the 1991 war and describes the activities of the scientists and engineers following the war.

   The analysis shows that despite Saddam’s expressed desire to retain knowledge of his nuclear team and his attempts to retain some key parts of the program, during the course of the following 12 years Iraq’s ability to produce a weapon decayed steadily.

   Sanctions and inspections lasted longer than Saddam anticipated. The inspections were also much more intrusive than expected. Therefore, retention of weapons material put at risk his higher immediate objective of escaping sanctions.

   Nevertheless, Saddam’s son-in-law and chief weapons development manager, Hussein Kamal, directed that design information and very limited physical material be hidden from inspectors. These concealment efforts were successful until Hussein Kamal himself, the son-in-law, fled to Jordan in 1995.

   There were also efforts to retain the intellectual capital of nuclear scientists by forbidding their departure from Iraq and keeping them employed in government areas.

   However, over time, there was decay in the team.

   Unlike other WMD areas, nuclear weapons development requires thousands of knowledgeable scientists, as well as a large physical plant.

   Even with the intention of keeping these talented people employed, a natural decay took place, and the time it would take for Iraq to build a nuclear weapon tended to increase for the duration of the sanctions.

   The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission utilized the same people in a range of projects during the 1990s and addressed technical problems akin to those in nuclear weapons development.

   These efforts, however, cannot be explicitly tied to an intention to revive a nuclear weapons program.

   Despite this decay, Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions.

   He made clear his view that nuclear weapons were the right of any country that could build them.

   He was very attentive to the growing Iranian threat, especially its potential nuclear component.

   And he stated that he would do whatever it took to offset the Iranian threat, clearly implying matching Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

   Saddam observed that India and Pakistan had slipped across the nuclear weapons boundary quite successfully.

   Those around Saddam seemed quite convinced that once the sanctions were ended and all other things being equal, Saddam would renew his efforts in this field.

   Chapters dealing with chemical weapons and biological weapons tell somewhat different stories.

   In the chemical weapons area, the Iraqis had long experience with production and use of mustard and nerve agents.

   In Baghdad’s view, these weapons saved Iraq from defeat in the war with Iran and, in combination with biological weapon capabilities, deterred the United States from deposing the regime in 1991.

   Following the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi chemical weapons activity shifted from production to research and development of more potent and stabilized agents.

   In contrast to the nuclear field, chemical weapons work requires not thousands of scientists, but hundreds.

   The top expertise is developed among a few dozen scientists and chemical production engineers.

   Once inspections began, in 1991, Iraq chose to yield most of its weapons, and bulk agent, as well as the large facilities that were widely known to exist.

   As in the other WMD areas, Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually and, to the extent it did not threaten the Iraqi efforts to get out from sanctions, he chose to sustain the inherent capability to produce such weapons as circumstances permitted in the future.

   Over time, and with the infusion of funding and resources following acceptance of the oil-for-food program, Iraq effectively shortened the time that would be required to re-establish the chemical weapons production capacity.

   Some of this was a natural collateral benefit of developing an indigenous chemical production infrastructure.

   By 2003, Iraq would have been able to produce mustard agent in a period of months and nerve agent in a less than a year or two.

   We have not come across explicit guidance from Saddam on this point, yet it was an inherent consequence of his decision to develop a domestic chemical production capacity.

   Iraq denied it had offensive biological weapons programs to inspectors in 1991 and secretly destroyed existing stocks of agents and weapons in 1991 to 1992.

   Iraq decided to retain the main biological weapons production facility, but under a guise of using it to produce single-cell protein for animal feed.

   
   These decisions were taken with Saddam’s explicit approval.

   Saddam clearly understood the nature of biological weapons.

   He personally authorized their dispersal for use in 1991 against coalition forces, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

   He clearly took steps to preserve this capability and was successful until 1995.

   Preservation of Iraq’s biological weapons capabilities was simpler than any other WMD area because of the nature of the material.

   First, the number of experts required is quite small, perhaps a couple dozen.

   Then, too, the infrastructure to produce an agents can be readily assembled in quite simply domestic civilian plants.

   Moreover, little, if any, activity would be necessary to keep this option on the shelf.

   Some activity that might have been related to a biological program has been examined closely, including work with a bio-pesticide, bacillus thurengiensis.

   While this work could have been related to advancing Iraqi anthrax knowledge, information is inconclusive.

   This work could and certainly did sustain the talent needed to restart a potential biological weapons program.

   However, we can form no absolute conclusion whether this work represented active efforts to develop further anthrax programs.

   Given the developing infrastructure in Iraq in the late 1990s and early 2000, such a reconstitution could be accomplished quite quickly.

   Other aspects of the Iraqi BW program remain cloudy.

   For example, it is still difficult to rule on whether Iraq had a mobile biological weapons effort or made any attempts to work with smallpox as a weapon.

   We were able to eliminate some of the questions and resolve some of the questions which circulated about the mobile question earlier though, however.

   And I can deal with those in questions.

   What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of the use of force, had experience that demonstrated the utility of WMD.

   He was making progress in eroding sanctions, a lot of progress.

   And had it not been for the events of 9/11, 2001, things would have taken a very different course for the regime.

   Most senior members of the regime and scientists assumed that the programs would begin in earnest when sanctions ended, and sanctions were eroding.

   A variety of questions about Iraqi WMD capabilities and intentions remain unanswered, even after extensive investigation by ISG.

   For example, we cannot yet definitively say whether or not WMD materials were transferred out of Iraq before the war.

   Neither can we definitively answer some questions about possible retained stocks, though, as I say, it is my judgment that retained stocks do not exist.

   Developments in the Iraqi intelligence services appear to have been limited in scope.

   And I’m referring here to some laboratories which were discovered in late 2003, where the Iraqi intelligence service was found conducting some work in chemical and biological areas.

   Some of these activities were not declared to the United Nations.

   What they really did represent and was there a more extensive clandestine activity with another set of technical experts, we cannot say yet for certain.

   Opportunities to develop new information are decreasing.

   However, I must mention that we just came into possession of a large number of documents recently accumulated by coalition forces. The number of these documents is approximately equal to the total received since the end of the war, and it will clearly take many months to examine what has been found and provide an initial summary of what they contain.

   Then, too, we continue to receive a continuing stream of reports about hidden WMD locations. When such reports are judged sufficiently credible, ISG conducts an investigation. And in fact, two weeks ago, we had a source came to us with a partially filled canister from an old — and I repeat and underline “old” — 122-millimeter rocket round.

   These, like others recovered, are from pre-1991 stocks.

   And despite these reports and findings, I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are hidden in Iraq.

   A risk that has emerged since my previous report to Congress is the connection of former regime CW expertise with anti-coalition forces.

   ISG has uncovered evidence of such links and undertook a sizable effort to track down and prevent any latch-ups between foreign terrorists or anti-coalition forces in either existing CW stocks or expertise from the former regime that could be used to produce such weapons.

   I believe we got ahead of this problem through a series of raids throughout the spring and summer.

   I am convinced that we successfully contained a problem before it matured into a major threat.

   Nevertheless, it points to the problem that the dangerous expertise developed by the previous regime could be transferred to other hands.

   Certainly there are anti-coalition and terrorist elements seeking such capabilities.

   It is my hope that this report will offer a generally accurate picture of the evolution and disposition of WMD within the former regime.

   I am quite aware that the Iraqis who participated in these programs will be reading this report and ultimately will comment upon it.

   I hope they learn from it and do not find too many errors.

   I’ve spend hours with many of the Iraqi participants, both before the war as deputy chairman of UNSCOM in the 1990s, and after the war when many were in custody.

   Many of these individuals are technocrats caught in a rotten system.

   Some, on the other hand, wholeheartedly participated in that system.

   In either case, Saddam channeled some of the best and brightest Iraqi minds and a substantial portion of Iraq’s wealth toward his WMD programs.

   It has, of course, been very difficult to discern the truth from these participants, given the mix of motivations that inescapably color the statements of those who remain in custody.

   It is sometimes very difficult to recognize the truth.

   This applies to Saddam himself, especially so.

   He was a special case in all of this.

   We had the opportunity to brief him for months.

   But he naturally had limited incentives to be candid or forthcoming at all.

   Nevertheless, many of his statements were interesting and revealing.

   In the end, only he knows may of the vital points.

   Even those closet to him had mixed understandings of his objectives.

   In fact, there was uncertainty among some of the closest advisers about WMD and whether it even existed.

   And with that, Senator, I will end my remarks.

   Thank you.

   Sen. Warner: Thank you very much.

5. chequette on 28 Oct 2004

   Edwards Parrots New York Times' Fiction; '60 Minutes' Busted

   The novice legislator who wants to be one heartbeat from the presidency either is too stupid to understand the phoniness of the New York Times' latest fiction about Iraq or thinks the American people are too stupid to understand.

   Or perhaps Democrat airhead apparent John Edwards is just doing his handlers' bidding: the old Democrat trick of repeating a lie often enough until people believe it.

   Story Continues Below

   Edwards claimed today in Wilmington, Ohio: "These are exactly the kind of explosives terrorists want. They're the dangerous weapons we wanted to keep from falling in the hands of terrorists. And now these explosives are out there, and we have no idea who's got them. Dick Cheney calls that a remarkable success."

   He failed to mention that the pro-Democrat Times, whose recent endorsement of the Kerry-Edwards ticket was the nation's most obvious redundancy since the coining of the term "liberal media bias," refused to report reality, which even NBC reported: that the explosives were already missing from Al-Qaqaa when GIs got there a mere one day after Saddam Hussein's fall.

   Nor did the one-term senator or the Times note that that "news" dated from April 2003.

   More Democrat Sleaze at '60 Minutes'

   
   Now the media scandal is growing with the revelation that pro-Democrat Viacom's pro-Democrat CBS's pro-Democrat "60 Minutes" had planned to report the old "news," in the guise of new revelations, as an attack on the president Sunday, right before the election.

   The Los Angeles Times reported today that "CBS was relegated to airing a report Monday evening, and '60 Minutes' merely got credit in the newspaper, which ran an unusual box noting that the article 'was reported in cooperation with the CBS News program 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes first obtained information on the missing explosives.'"

   "60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager issued a statement saying that "our plan was to run the story on [Oct.] 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold, so the decision was made for the Times to run it."

   Sen. John Kerry stepped up the Democrat-Times-CBS collusion Tuesday in Wisconsin, where he claimed, "Yesterday we learned that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives vanished from one of Iraq's most sensitive military installations after the invasion."

   
   The Washington Dispatch noted today:

   
   This story is in dispute and has been presented in a completely biased manner. It is easy to argue that this story was highlighted to assist John Kerry. It was at the center of his accusatory campaign rallies all day on Monday. But the missing elements of the story are astonishing. And again, just as with the fraudulent document story Dan Rather tries to heave at the president, the story is falling apart in record time.

   By Monday night it was learned that NBC News had imbedded reporters with the 101st Airborne as they took over the facility on April 10, 2003. The conclusion of NBC, "the troops never found the nearly 380 tons of some of the most powerful conventional explosives, called HMX and RDX, which is now missing.” The Pentagon makes the same claim.

   The New York Times story failed to mention that. John Kerry has yet to mention that. In fact, they are still using the story on Tuesday afternoon as if the NBC revelation never happened. ...

   
   CBS and The New York Times can now climb in bed together as discredited Old Media that many will never believe again, even in their news departments. In the minds of the American news consumer, one election season has destroyed Old Media’s fading credibility beyond repair.

   A headline this afternoon on the Times' Web site: "Iraq Explosives Become Issue in Campaign." An accurate headline would state: "Pro-Kerry Media Do Anything to Try to Damage Bush."