Amy Goodman is putting another nail in the coffin

[burythehatchet]

Bush cited a NON-EXISTANT IAEA report as the causus belli. Which investigation will this fall under? And the statistics she cited about media representation of public opinion was awesome.

This was on the O'Franken Factor at noon, being repeated now.

[Skittles]

1. sorry, what is IAEA

?

[Pobeka]

2. International Atomic Energy Agency ?

I think this refers to BushCo quoting a report from IAEA about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, when there literally was no such report at all, and the IAEA made that very clear.

[DieboldMustDie]

3. International Atomic Energy Agency...

would be my guess. ;)

[burythehatchet]

4. Basically he cited a report that was never written, stating that

Saddam's nuclear capability was far greater than it really was. el Baradei publicly stated that he knew of no such report. And he's the head of that UN agency (IAEA).
Well the real crime is that no one in the librul media asked one questioin about this.

The NYTimes ran a front page story on it, with chuckle nuts quoted as saying "what more proof do we need?".

[Skittles]

5. I haven't heard about it

but it is terribly disturbing that I have no problem believing it is true. Can you IMAGINE if Clinton did such a thing?

[Egnever]

6. I am constantly amazed by all the little details

that were out there at the time debunking almost all of the administrations claims most within hours or days of the claims being made that so many seemed to have missed.

Admitedly I was scouring the web for information at the time. So none of this is news to me. But I find it easy to forget that many remain unaware of all this stuff.

[WilliamPitt]

7. Wha wha WHA?

Links?

[Skittles]

8. I would be interested in reading about this too

nt

[burythehatchet]

9. I googled "non-existent IAEA report" and here's just one of the hits

http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR030603a.htm (see third bullet point, and note the date - prewar)

Actually, I remember this incident distinctly. The crime, as Amy Goodman said was that no one in the mainstream press chose to question it. The way it worked was the white house , through an "un-named source" fed the BS to the NY Times. The Times then runs the story without checking if such a report exists. Then the white house says "look, since the Times said it, it must be true".

Why is this important? Because this incident is just one of many that at the time they occurred, were ignored. We talked about them here at DU, but the press completely blew off their job.

But as we all know no lie ever goes undiscovered. The fun part is that now, when the press is finally starting to question, and the public is waking up, each and every one of those lies is going to come back and fill in pieces of the puzzle for the public.

I'll take a large popcorn, extra butter, and a coke.

[warrior1]

10. add this

to the list of crimes he has committed.

[burythehatchet]

17. and on edit

this is why the NYT cute little apologytorial doesn'y really float my boat. It is not out of the realm of possibility that criminal charge should be filed. Why? because as a bona fida news source, the Times enjoys protections that apply uniquely to news journals. As such, it is necessary to hold them to a higher standard.

[JanMichael]

11. IIRC we talked about this on the Guy James Show last year.

Bummer that it seems to have been ignored...

[Armstead]

12. From SipinSanity

Here's whast the fact-checkers at Spinsanity reported on their website:

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021108.html

Now, with matters far more grave at stake in the debate over Iraq, the administration has been no less brazen in its dishonesty. At a Sept. 7 appearance with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush said, "I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA , that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need."

An IAEA report in 1998 (around the time that inspectors were "finally denied access") did say Iraq was six to 24 months away from developing a weapon before the Gulf War in 1991, but its efforts to produce weapons-grade uranium were largely crippled by the war and subsequent inspection regime. It appears Bush was referring to that estimate to underscore the point that Iraq has already come close to developing nuclear weapons and will try to do so again.

However, he should have been clearer about when that capacity was discovered. By tying the pre-Gulf War estimate to when inspectors were "finally denied access," Bush appears to imply that IAEA's conclusion that Iraq was "six months away from developing a weapon" dated from 1998, rather than 1991. The IAEA summary of the report he is referring to in fact stated that as of 1998 it "has found no indication of Iraq having achieved its program goal of producing nuclear weapons or of Iraq having retained a physical capability for the production of weapon-useable nuclear material or having clandestinely obtained such material."

Rather than clarifying the point appropriately, Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan claimed the president was referring to an IAEA report published in 1991 (the organization says it did not issue such a report that year) and pointed a Washington Times reporter to two newspaper stories that do not corroborate Bush's claim.

The White House shifted gears several weeks later, telling a Washington Post reporter that Bush was "imprecise" and that his statement was based on U.S. intelligence. Then, just two days after that story was published, press secretary Ari Fleischer tried a third approach, claiming that "it was in fact the International Institute for Strategic Studies that issued the report concluding that Iraq could develop nuclear weapons in as few as six months."

But the IISS report Fleischer finally settled on as the president's source was actually released on Sept. 9, 2002, two days after Bush's original statement and years after inspectors were "finally denied access." And if the president was briefed about the report in advance, he would have been told that it does not mention any such six-month estimate. An IISS summary does state that Iraq "could ... assemble nuclear weapons within months if fissile material from foreign sources were obtained," but this conditional assessment of the situation today was certainly not the basis for Bush's claims in his press conference with Blair.

Nonetheless, Fleischer attacked the Post with righteous indignation. "The source may be different, but the underlying fact remains the same, despite the story's declaration of the president's argument, once again, as 'dubious, if not wrong,'" he wrote. "It is The Post's reporting that is dubious, if not wrong."

[burythehatchet]

13. NIce find Armstead

We all have an arm down the memory hole and will pull these "truths" out of the hole, one at a time. God bless democracy and the web.

[in_cog_ni_to]

14. It won't matter.

His mouth pieces will just say he "misspoke" and meant to say something else. Nothing sticks to these people...the media will not hold them accountable for ANYTHING. :grr:

[buddhamama]

15. i recommend her book Exception to the Rulers

For Amy's in-depth look at the Media.

I remember a comment from a IAEA when asked about the falsehoods cited by the Administration.
(paraphrased) If someone, anyone, had bothered to ask Us, we would have them the truth.

[burythehatchet]

16. I vividly remember that quote