posted on November 22, 2005 10:23:27 PM new
Or maybe they just realized that thee was no way the supreme court was going to uphold an attempt to keep a US citizen in jail for life without access to a lawyer or any charges ever being made against him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WASHINGTON (AP) - Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for three years as an enemy combatant suspected of plotting a ``dirty bomb'' attack in this country, has been indicted on charges that he conspired to ``murder, kidnap and maim'' people overseas.
A federal grand jury in Miami returned the indictment against Padilla and four others. While the charges allege Padilla was part of a U.S.-based terrorism conspiracy, they do not include the government's earlier allegations that he planned to carry out attacks in America.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the indictment at a news conference in Washington moments ago.
Padilla, a Brooklyn-born Muslim convert, has been held as an ``enemy combatant'' in Defense Department custody for more than three years. The Bush administration had resisted calls to charge and try him in civilian courts.
The indictment avoids a Supreme Court showdown over how long the government could hold a U.S. citizen without charges. The high court had been asked to decide when and for how long the government can jail Americans in military prisons.
``They're avoiding what the Supreme Court would say about American citizens. That's an issue the administration did not want to face,'' said Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor who specializes in national security. ``There's no way that the Supreme Court would have ducked this issue.''
Padilla's lawyers had asked justices to review his case last month, and the Bush administration was facing a deadline next Monday for filing its legal arguments.
``The 'evidence' the government has offered against Padilla over the past three years consists of double and triple hearsay from secret witnesses, along with information allegedly obtained from Padilla himself during his two years of incommunicado interrogation,'' his lawyers said in their earlier appeal.
The Bush administration has said Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, sought to blow up hotels and apartment buildings in the United States and planned an attack with a ``dirty bomb'' radiological device.
Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in 2002 after returning from Pakistan. The federal government has said he was trained in weapons and explosives by members of al-Qaida.
Although the Justice Department has said that Padilla was readying attacks in the United States, the charges against him and four others allege they were part of a conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and provide material support to terrorists abroad.
The others indicted are: Adham Amin Hassoun, Mohammed Hesham Youssef, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, and Kassem Daher. Hassoun also was indicted on eight additional charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice and illegal firearm possession.
Hassoun, a Palestinian computer programmer who moved to Florida in 1989, was arrested in June 2002 for allegedly overstaying his student visa. Prosecutors previously described him as a former associate of Padilla.
Padilla has been held at a Navy brig in South Carolina. Following the indictment, which was handed up last Thursday, President Bush sent a memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordering Padilla transferred to the federal detention facility in Miami.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now there's just the question of what will happen with the guy facing the possibility of life in prison, not for attempting to kill the president, but for contemptlating it.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on November 23, 2005 12:34:21 AM new...sought to blow up hotels and apartment buildings in the United States and planned an attack with a ``dirty bomb'' radiological device.
Nothing to do with the President, but the American People.
I hope he does spend his life in prison, or stripped of his citizenship and sent packing.
But I guess it would of been better to let them actually explode the bomb first. Then we could of charged them with murder.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on November 23, 2005 05:11:50 AM new. . .an attempt to keep a US citizen in jail for life without access to a lawyer or any charges ever being made against him.
Oh, but we do make sure that child rapists and murderers are afforded a lawyer and are charged within 24 hours. So, what you're saying Ron is that a US combatant is worse than a child rapist/murderer and deserves harsher treatment? It doesn't matter what he's charged with. Under the US Constitution, he's afforded the same rights as the rest of us.
Personally, I'm sick of this administration trying to throw the Constitution in the trash.
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
[ edited by cblev65252 on Nov 23, 2005 05:12 AM ]
posted on November 23, 2005 06:21:06 AM new
Ron - sorry - assumed this crowd paid attention to the news. This is what I was referring to...
U.S. Citizen Found Guilty of Plotting to Kill Bush
Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a U.S. citizen, was convicted by a federal jury of conspiring to assassinate President George W. Bush and providing support to the terrorist organization al-Qaeda.
Abu Ali, 24, born in Texas and raised in Virginia, was arrested by Saudi authorities in June 2003 while he attended the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. He is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 17, said Edward Adams, a spokesman for the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. He faces a minimum prison sentence of 20 years and a possible maximum of life, prosecutors said in a statement.
``The evidence presented in this case firmly established Abu Ali as a dangerous terrorist who posed a grave threat to our national security,'' U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said in the statement. The conviction ``serves as a clear warning to all that terrorists can and will be brought to the bar of justice.''
In addition to the charge of conspiring to assassinate the president, Abu Ali was convicted of eight other counts including conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists, receiving funds and services from al-Qaeda, and conspiracy to commit air piracy.
Trial evidence showed that Abu Ali joined an al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia, McNulty said in a statement. Abu Ali received training in weapons, explosives, and document forgery, and plotted with al-Qaeda operatives to assassinate the president himself, court records said.
Prosecutors said Abu Ali conspired to hijack and destroy civilian airliners in a scheme similar to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that he researched nuclear power facilities in the U.S. under at the request of an al-Qaeda operative. The jury deliberated for fewer than three days before reaching its verdict.
Khuurum Wahid, a lawyer who represented Abu Ali at the trial, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
FBI Agent Barry Cole testified at the trial that Abu Ali admitted while in Saudi custody that he joined an al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and received weapons and explosives training.
Prosecutors denied Abu Ali's claim he was tortured into making a false confession in Saudi Arabia. A U.S. doctor who examined him in February found no evidence of physical mistreatment, McNulty said in legal papers.
Abu Ali's parents filed a lawsuit last year challenging their son's detention. They said the case was an example of ``rendition,'' which they said means the U.S. government sending suspected terrorists for interrogation in other countries where they don't have U.S. legal protection.
Court records said federal authorities searched the Abu Ali family home in Falls Church, Virginia, in June 2003, and found a document on avoiding surveillance, another praising the Sept. 11 attacks, audio tapes in Arabic promoting violent jihad and a book written by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the top aide to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on November 23, 2005 06:29:01 AM new
I had read that article, I assumed you were refering to the article you posted. But then again I guess it would of been too difficult to post the article that you actually wanted to discuss to begin with.
It was jury trial, they made a good decision and now it will go through appeals. He may find some judge to overturn the trial, but I think his association with Al Quaida has set him down.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on November 23, 2005 06:31:24 AM new
::But I guess it would of been better to let them actually explode the bomb first. Then we could of charged them with murder.::
What, are you channeling Linda? Mind finding a place where I stated and support for his actions? Sorry Ron, the only thing I believe in this case is that our government which constantly screams out about strict constitutionalism should be able completely ignore it whenever they please and hold people in jail, for life, with no representation, and no charges.
As for the second individual... I think there are a number of questions.. he states his confession wasobtained by torture which ,many interogation experts say is is a recipe for obtaining lies, it was obtained in a foreign country and as far as I have heard, there was no evidence of him every acting towards the advancement of these plots. Are we turning into the thought police? this is one of those cases where a smart government would have allowed him to return, not filed charges and kept him under surveilence. Then you find out if the confession was real and if so, are able to uncover more info on domestic activity... and isn't that suppoed to be the big focus?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on November 23, 2005 07:03:04 AM new
There you go assuming again. If I thought you had supported it I would of said so.
Padilla is an enemy combatant and should have been stripped of his citizenship upon capture.
The others being held are not citizens and have no such protections. Let'em rot.
2nd article
He confessed, of course he is going to say it was beaten out of him, the jury decided he was a liar and they convicted him. This was a jury trial or is that something people would like to overlook?
Here is a definition of conspiracy and he meets it.
http://tinyurl.com/aga8p
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on November 23, 2005 08:35:08 AM new
Gee, I thought it said he had been indicted....like Scooter...and now Ron has him tried, found, guilty and convicted.
Let's do the same for all those indicted and arrested in the bush administration
Civil rights for EVERYONE the bush administration doesn't like went out the window with the Patriot Act.
posted on November 23, 2005 09:31:20 AM new
Well miongotree, unlike people of the left, I can see the difference.
Scooter Libby has never confessed. He was not indicted for conspiracy and has not harmed our government.
But I am sure Al Quiada appreciates your support.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on November 23, 2005 10:02:22 AM new
Maybe Scooter should be tortured into confessing???
Why not?
After all he is involved in an attack on national security.
Classic, if you once more state that I or anyone else is an Al Queda supporter I will turn you in.
NO statement I have ever made has said that. I will turn you in to Vendio, Period.
Now take your sick obsession and go back to giggling about sex.
classicrock000
posted on November 23, 2005 09:50:11 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
yes crowfart-the Al Quiada lover
posted on November 23, 2005 10:11:35 AM new
Ron - I appologize for having more than one thought in a single post. I will attempt to slow down my thought process in the future.
Mingo - there are two seperate people being discussed here. (I brought them both up because of the unique situations under which their charges where brought.)
One was indicted yesterday after it became onbvious that the Supreme Court was not going to uphold an attept to keeep him uncharged and unrepresented for life.
Th other was convicted yesterday of plotting to kill Bush.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
An intelligent deaf-mute is better than an ignorant person who can speak.
posted on November 23, 2005 10:19:41 AM newRon - I appologize for having more than one thought in a single post
Thought, what a novel concept.
Mingotree by your very support of those who belong to Al Quiada, makes out to be one who supports Al Quaida. Why are you ashamed of that? If they hold the ideals and principles you seem espouse here on these boards.
You dislike President Bush, they dislike President Bush
You want us out of Iraq, they want us out of Iraq, you want to embarass President Bush, they want to embarass President Bush, you want the American people to surrender to the insurgents, they want the American people to surrender.
So much in common.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
[ edited by WashingtoneBayer on Nov 23, 2005 10:20 AM ]
posted on November 23, 2005 10:22:41 AM new
How could the USSC uphold that? He is an American citizen, one who should be stripped of it, but still a citizen, I believe there are 4 others also. But the ones at Gitmo don't have those protections and the US is not forced to act on them yet.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
posted on November 23, 2005 10:55:45 AM new
Ron advocates torture ...so does AlQuaeda
Ron advocates genocide ...so does Al Quaeda.
WashingtoneBayer
posted on November 23, 2005 10:19:41 AM new
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ron - I appologize for having more than one thought in a single post
Thought, what a novel concept.
Mingotree by your very support of those who belong to Al Quiada, makes out to be one who supports Al Quaida. Why are you ashamed of that? If they hold the ideals and principles you seem espouse here on these boards.
You dislike President Bush, they dislike President Bush
You want us out of Iraq, they want us out of Iraq, you want to embarass President Bush, they want to embarass President Bush, you want the American people to surrender to the insurgents, they want the American people to surrender.
So much in common.
Ron
So Ron everyone who doesn't like bush is supporting terrorists? Well, if that's true they number in the billions.
The Iraqi's and many, many Americans want us out of Iraq so they are all Al Queada?
You have no reasoning ability whatsoever.
However , I reconnize this as a dare to get me to turn you in to Vendio. You're not too subtle.
posted on November 23, 2005 11:09:27 AM new
Where has Al Quaida ever said they want genocide? Please show me that article, I must have missed that.
I support Torture for the enemy of the American People, I believe all Al Quaida should be KOS.
I am for anything that betters the American People, which this President has done so far. economy is better, Iraq is becoming more democratic, they may even vote to ask us to leave.
Obviously they jury didn't believe the story about torture for a confession, but oddly you do? Why is that?
Disliking President Bush is not taking sides with Al Quaida, you seemed so worried about how some terrorist confessed, I am sure the majority of Americans don't feel that way.
Besides I wasn't being general, I was quite specific in my reasoning, you need to study up on that also it seems. Do you know anything about anything or just post because hodge podge because you don't?
Wanted to add: Now mingotree if you are just acting and really do not support anything Al quida does and deserves whatever they get, well I would like to see that in writing. and I would be happy to apologize for my misassumption of your writings.
Ron
"Better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not."
[ edited by WashingtoneBayer on Nov 23, 2005 11:17 AM ]
posted on November 23, 2005 02:21:43 PM new
"Wanted to add: Now mingotree if you are just acting and really do not support anything Al quida does and deserves whatever they get, well I would like to see that in writing. and I would be happy to apologize for my misassumption of your writings. "
Linda-ya notice she never posted back that she
didnt support Al Quaeda-even Ron had the decency and said he would apologize if she did.The silence is deafening LOL
posted on November 23, 2005 04:22:04 PM newIt doesn't matter what he's charged with. Under the US Constitution, he's afforded the same rights as the rest of us.
Personally, I'm sick of this administration trying to throw the Constitution in the trash.
Exactly Bush is using fear tactics to re-write the Constitution to fit his agenda. This guy is an American citizen and should have been charged with a crime years ago. He has the right of due process.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 23, 2005 04:40:28 PM new
Now only if they can apply some logic and come forth with the truth about the Iraq War.
Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument
By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page A01
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate.
The administration's overarching point is true: Intelligence agencies overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and very few members of Congress from either party were skeptical about this belief before the war began in 2003. Indeed, top lawmakers in both parties were emphatic and certain in their public statements.
But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did not happen."
But the only committee investigating the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of our inquiry."
Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."
In the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."
But Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the vote to authorize the use of force in that country.
In addition, there were doubts within the intelligence community not included in the NIE. And even the doubts expressed in the NIE could not be used publicly by members of Congress because the classified information had not been cleared for release. For example, the NIE view that Hussein would not use weapons of mass destruction against the United States or turn them over to terrorists unless backed into a corner was cleared for public use only a day before the Senate vote.
The lawmakers are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002 vote. But, as The Washington Post reported last year, no more than six senators and a handful of House members read beyond the five-page executive summary.
Even within the Bush administration, not everybody consistently viewed Iraq as what Hadley called "an enormous threat." In a news conference in February 2001 in Egypt, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said of the economic sanctions against Hussein's Iraq: "Frankly, they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."
Bush, in his speech Friday, said that "it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began." But in trying to set the record straight, he asserted: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The October 2002 joint resolution authorized the use of force in Iraq, but it did not directly mention the removal of Hussein from power.
The resolution voiced support for diplomatic efforts to enforce "all relevant Security Council resolutions," and for using the armed forces to enforce the resolutions and defend "against the continuing threat posed by Iraq."
Hadley, in his remarks, went further. "Congress, in 1998, authorized, in fact, the use of force based on that intelligence," he said. "And, as you know, the Clinton administration took some action."
But the 1998 legislation gave the president authority "to support efforts to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein" by providing assistance to Iraqi opposition groups, including arms, humanitarian aid and broadcasting facilities.
President Bill Clinton ordered four days of bombing of Iraqi weapons facilities in 1998, under the 1991 resolution authorizing military force in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Describing that event in an interview with CBS News yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "We went to war in 1998 because of concerns about his weapons of mass destruction."
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on November 23, 2005 04:40:39 PM new
"The Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons."
-- George Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in a speech in Cincinnati.
There is a small somber box that appears in the New York Times every day. Titled simply "Killed in Iraq," it lists the names and military affiliations of those who most recently died on tour of duty. Wednesday's edition listed just one name: Orenthial J. Smith, age 21, of Allendale, South Carolina.
The young, late O.J. Smith was almost certainly named after the legendary running back, Orenthal J. Simpson, before that dashing American hero was charged for a double-murder. Now his namesake has died in far-off Mesopotamia in a noble mission to, as our president put it on March 19, "disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
Today, more than three months after Bush's stirring declaration of war and nearly two months since he declared victory, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons have been found, nor any documentation of their existence, nor any sign they were deployed in the field.
The mainstream press, after an astonishing two years of cowardice, is belatedly drawing attention to the unconscionable level of administrative deception. They seem surprised to find that when it comes to Iraq, the Bush administration isn't prone to the occasional lie of expediency but, in fact, almost never told the truth.
What follows are just the most outrageous and significant of the dozens of outright lies uttered by Bush and his top officials over the past year in what amounts to a systematic campaign to scare the bejeezus out of everybody:
LIE #1: "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program ... Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons." -- President Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati.
FACT: This story, leaked to and breathlessly reported by Judith Miller in the New York Times, has turned out to be complete baloney. Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, angrily told The New Republic: "You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that's just a lie."
LIE #2: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." -- President Bush, Jan.28, 2003, in the State of the Union address.
FACT: This whopper was based on a document that the White House already knew to be a forgery thanks to the CIA. Sold to Italian intelligence by some hustler, the document carried the signature of an official who had been out of office for 10 years and referenced a constitution that was no longer in effect. The ex-ambassador who the CIA sent to check out the story is pissed: "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," he told the New Republic, anonymously. "They [the White House] were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more strongly."
LIE #3: "We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." -- Vice President Cheney on March 16, 2003 on "Meet the Press."
FACT: There was and is absolutely zero basis for this statement. CIA reports up through 2002 showed no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
LIE #4: "[The CIA possesses] solid reporting of senior-level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." -- CIA Director George Tenet in a written statement released Oct. 7, 2002 and echoed in that evening's speech by President Bush.
FACT: Intelligence agencies knew of tentative contacts between Saddam and al-Qaeda in the early '90s, but found no proof of a continuing relationship. In other words, by tweaking language, Tenet and Bush spun the intelligence180 degrees to say exactly the opposite of what it suggested.
LIE #5: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases ... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: No evidence of this has ever been leaked or produced. Colin Powell told the U.N. this alleged training took place in a camp in northern Iraq. To his great embarrassment, the area he indicated was later revealed to be outside Iraq's control and patrolled by Allied war planes.
LIE #6: "We have also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States." -- President Bush, Oct. 7.
FACT: Said drones can't fly more than 300 miles, and Iraq is 6,000 miles from the U.S. coastline. Furthermore, Iraq's drone-building program wasn't much more advanced than your average model plane enthusiast. And isn't a "manned aerial vehicle" just a scary way to say "plane"?
LIE #7: "We have seen intelligence over many months that they have chemical and biological weapons, and that they have dispersed them and that they're weaponized and that, in one case at least, the command and control arrangements have been established." -- President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003, in a national radio address.
FACT: Despite a massive nationwide search by U.S. and British forces, there are no signs, traces or examples of chemical weapons being deployed in the field, or anywhere else during the war.
LIE #8: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5 2003, in remarks to the UN Security Council.
FACT: Putting aside the glaring fact that not one drop of this massive stockpile has been found, as previously reported on AlterNet the United States' own intelligence reports show that these stocks -- if they existed -- were well past their use-by date and therefore useless as weapon fodder.
LIE #9: "We know where [Iraq's WMD] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003, in statements to the press.
FACT: Needless to say, no such weapons were found, not to the east, west, south or north, somewhat or otherwise.
LIE #10: "Yes, we found a biological laboratory in Iraq which the UN prohibited." -- President Bush in remarks in Poland, published internationally June 1, 2003.
FACT: This was reference to the discovery of two modified truck trailers that the CIA claimed were potential mobile biological weapons lab. But British and American experts -- including the State Department's intelligence wing in a report released this week -- have since declared this to be untrue. According to the British, and much to Prime Minister Tony Blair's embarrassment, the trailers are actually exactly what Iraq said they were; facilities to fill weather balloons, sold to them by the British themselves.
So, months after the war, we are once again where we started -- with plenty of rhetoric and absolutely no proof of this "grave danger" for which O.J. Smith died. The Bush administration is now scrambling to place the blame for its lies on faulty intelligence, when in fact the intelligence was fine; it was their abuse of it that was "faulty."
Rather than apologize for leading us to a preemptive war based on impossibly faulty or shamelessly distorted "intelligence" or offering his resignation, our sly madman in the White House is starting to sound more like that other O.J. Like the man who cheerfully played golf while promising to pursue "the real killers," Bush is now vowing to search for "the true extent of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, no matter how long it takes."
On the terrible day of the 9/11 attacks, five hours after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon, retired Gen. Wesley Clark received a strange call from someone (he didn't name names) representing the White House position: "I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein,'" Clark told Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert. "I said, 'But -- I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence.'"
And neither did we.
[ edited by logansdad on Nov 23, 2005 04:41 PM ]
