WP (Walter Pincus): Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence

[kskiska]

By Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus
Sunday, August 10, 2003; Page A01

His name was Joe, from the U.S. government. He carried 40 classified slides and a message from the Bush administration.

An engineer-turned-CIA analyst, Joe had helped build the U.S. government case that Iraq posed a nuclear threat. He landed in Vienna on Jan. 22 and drove to the U.S. diplomatic mission downtown. In a conference room 32 floors above the Danube River, he told United Nations nuclear inspectors they were making a serious mistake.

At issue was Iraq's efforts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes. The U.S. government said those tubes were for centrifuges to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb. But the IAEA, the world's nuclear watchdog, had uncovered strong evidence that Iraq was using them for conventional rockets.

Joe described the rocket story as a transparent Iraqi lie. According to people familiar with his presentation, which circulated before and afterward among government and outside specialists, Joe said the specialized aluminum in the tubes was "overspecified," "inappropriate" and "excessively strong." No one, he told the inspectors, would waste the costly alloy on a rocket.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html

[Rose Siding]

1. Good for Pincus

He was very thourough.

There must be new sources that are ready to come out.

I'm hoping that the rest of Powell's case will be decimated in future articles (the pictures, the tapes, the outdated quantities of nasties he used, etc)

[dArKeR]

6. Let's email WP a Happy Email instead of the nasty ones I'm used to sending

--------------------------
WP, Barton Gellman, and Walter Pincus,

Thanks for a little truth which is hard to come by in America since Bush became pResident. Does this mean Bush and his cabinet could be charged for some type of 'Accessory to Murder' or 'Wrongful Death' suits to our soldiers?

Thanks again,

MyName.

PS. What's your NSA undercover agent Woodward up to lately? Lucky I'd taped him on Larry King saying, 'I'm sure there are 100 times more WMD in Iraq than Bush even alluded to. It's the rule.' (paraphrase). Could Woodward be charged with 'Wrongful Death' too? Better go to the Confessional Box Woodward, our would you get something else while in the Box? Squirm maggot.
-------------------------------

(You might not want to send the last paragraph because you want to appear to be a normal average Joe American and not a militant emailer. But I can't resist)


[e-mail], [e-mail]

'[e-mail]'

editors:
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]







http://www.geocities.com/darkerxdarker/index.html

[harrison]

2. I have read that Pincus pretty much represents the Spooks. So, you

can figure out where the spooks stand on an issue by reading Pincus.

[grasswire]

3. the nugget

Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities."

In an interview with the New York Times published Sept. 6, Card did not mention the WHIG but hinted at its mission. "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

The first days of September would bring some of the most important decisions of the prewar period: what to demand of the United Nations in the president's Sept. 12 address to the General Assembly, when to take the issue to Congress, and how to frame the conflict with Iraq in the midterm election campaign that began in earnest after Labor Day.

A "strategic communications" task force under the WHIG began to plan speeches and white papers. There were many themes in the coming weeks, but Iraq's nuclear menace was among the most prominent.

The day after publication of Card's marketing remark, Bush and nearly all his top advisers began to talk about the dangers of an Iraqi nuclear bomb.

[diamond14]

4. my favorite nugget.....

Majority votes make poor science, said Peter D. Zimmerman, a former chief scientist at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

[snippy]

9. Agreed. Together with the identification of a "pattern" of deception.

To me, the most interesting part of the description of WHIG is the participation of Rove, Hughes, Matalin and Wilkinson plus the reference of how to benefit politically from the invasion of Iraq. This article hints at the three questions I consider most important about the invasion of Iraq:

1. Who made the decision to use a campaign of lies to market the invasion of Iraq? (Was it Turd Blossom Rove? Bush? Cheney? Roger Ailes? Someone else?)

2. When was that decision made? (Before or after January, 2001? or September 11, 2001? or March, 2002 when Bush told three Senators in Rice's office: "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out."? or September 2002 when Andrew Card said about trying to sell the American people on the invasion of Iraq: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."?)

3. Why was that decision made? (Political reasons? Financial reasons? Personal reasons? Other reasons?)

I think the answers to these questions would reveal a criminal conspiracy and could lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor.

[Trajan]

7. Pincus has some 40 years in CIA/DIA reporting ....

He is the dean of "Spook" coverage ....

He HAS been the most prolific source of CIA discontent since 911 ...

He is my hero ......

[diamond14]

5. bush* has got lots of explaining to do...Front Page WP.....

well researched article, very well written...WP is slamming the shrub...IMO, there's lots more where that came from...the CIA guys are NOT happy about shrub dissing them, and NOW, the American nuclear scientists at Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge Nuclear Laboratories are NOT happy about shrub dissing them...

anyone with a brain would try not to piss off the CIA and the NUCLEAR scientists (the people who make WMD, and the radioactive materials)...really, how dumb is shrub??? Every President should have a short list of 'special' people you NEVER cross...and top on that list should be CIA and DOE scientists...shrub may be on his way out...KEEP FIGHTING, don't give up, call/write your congressional reps...

-snip-

"Wood, the centrifuge physicist, said "that was a personal slam at everybody in DOE," the Energy Department. "I've been grouped with the Iraqis, is what it amounts to. I just felt that the wording of that was probably intentional, but it was also not very kind. It did not recognize that dissent can exist."

[VolcanoJen]

8. KICK!!!!!!

:dem:

[karlschneider]

10. Another kick. Send the URL to this story to everyone you know!

:kick:

[coda]

11. p.m. KICK!

:kick:

Great! Thanks kskiska.