A Challenge from a Freeper

[funkybutt]

I just found this. Any takers?

"To: Indy Pendance
Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that Niger had not, in fact, provided uranium to Iraq that might be part of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.

Never once did President Bush say that Saddam bought uranium (or any other substance) from Niger. NEVER!

If a DUer can prove me wrong I will donate $1,000 to DU, MoveOn, or the charity of their choice."

[freedom_to_read]

1. he said Africa

so... are we assume he meant Madagascar or something?

[Luminous Animal]

2. Check out this blog entry

at The Left Coaster:

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004851.php

[XemaSab]

3. start here

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm

[Southsideirish]

4. "A parsing we will go...." The Prez doesn't personally have to say

anything as he has his people do it - deniability, ya know?

[napi21]

5. Here's the quote from the State of the Union address.

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

You decide how to answer your Freeper friend.

[XNASA]

6. The 16 Words

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html

Bush: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Though Bush said 'Africa' and not 'Niger', and 'sought' instead of 'bought'...it's pretty clear what he meant.

[Zen Democrat]

9. Bush stated that as "Fact" when it was already discredited because the

documents the Brits were using were proven forgeries obtained from Italy.

[MaineYooper]

27. it begs the question:

How does one buy something from a continent?

It's typical *-speak. When you actually parse it, it turns out to not really mean anything at all.

God, I miss the days of having a president who could actually speak his native language.

[thoughtanarchist]

7. jan 28 2003 -- Bush in his State of the Union address:

jan 28 2003 -- Bush in his State of the Union address: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein has sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,�

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. Right: "has sought"...not "has bought"

The whole game is to try to convince you that Joe Wilson said "Iraq never BOUGHT uranium from Niger." That's false. Joe Wilson said "Iraq never SOUGHT uranium from Niger."

The freeper is attributing a false claim to Joe Wilson. Ding dong. Over.

Nobody will ever prove that Bush said Iraq BOUGHT uranium from Niger. Bush likely NEVER SAID THAT. But it is utterly beside the point, since Joe Wilson disputed that Iraq even SOUGHT to buy uranium from Niger, and Bush very clearly said that.

[MostlyLurks]

8. Don't Bother - It's Correct

There are two points in the statement that make it correct and impossible to debunk:

1. "Niger". I don't know if he ever specifically mentioned Niger and the most famous statement, from the SOTU, talks about Africa in general, no particular mention.

2. "Bought". That's the real sticking point. Even if you found a quote mentioning Niger specifically, I'd be shocked if the word bought, purchased, attained, etc EVER came out of Bush's mouth. For a variety of reasons, the Bushgang never said Iraq actually had attained nuclear materials definitively - it always danced around that with more vague language: sought, attempted to acquire, etc.

This Freeper is accurate in the on-the-face statement he's making (although he's ignoring a vast universe of other, much more relevant information).

Mostly.

[funkybutt]

12. yeah..i think you're right

ignoring the truth, as usual, and focusing on technicalities. These people are so blind.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Nobody is claiming Bush said that Iraq HAD BOUGHT uranium from Niger

Bush DID claim that Iraq had TRIED to buy uranium from Niger.

And Joseph Wilson proved that Iraq HAD NOT TRIED to buy uranium from Niger.

This is a typical bait and switch on the part of the Freeper. He is asking you to prove something that nobody is even claiming. Dumbass.

[ClassWarrior]

11. Tell him to prove Bush** didn't say it.

B-)

NGU.

[More Than A Feeling]

14. Who is claiming that he did say that?

The original quote was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Why must they build strawmen?

[ClassWarrior]

16. Because they have nothing else.

NGU.

[Contrary1]

15. "Sought", not "bought"...

It's all the wording, which this administration is so very good at.
Sure, the Dim Son made it sound like our lives were in imminent
peril from weapons of mass destruction delivered by one Saddam
Hussein, but I don't believe he ever said Saddam actually bought
uranium, only sought to. Big difference.

Rovespeak...that's one reason no one in this administration will ever
face charges, other than maybe Rove himself, and that's a big maybe.

[BOSSHOG]

17. And so the freep will continue to not care about the body bags

coming back from Iraq. He will however continue to aid and abet and enable a moral degenerate and his administration of like minded constitution haters to stay the course which will lead to more body bags. And he will continue to nuance and let people who are destroying our military and our economy to wield their power and he will do so without a care in the world. IT SUCKS MORE EVERY DAY BEING A SUPPORTER OF GEORGE BUSH; and they agree with me in their private moments.

[PurityOfEssence]

18. So fucking what?

He said that we'd learned from Britain (a certified lie, since we knew what their sources were and that we'd seen them before and discredited them) that he had ATTEMPTED to buy uranium ore from Niger. Nope, Junior never said he actually bought it, and that doesn't mean dick. The POINT of Junior's lie is that Saddam is scrabbling about to get nuclear material, therefore he's going to have a bomb shortly and obviously bomb us with it. It was fearmongering pure and simple, and all the worse for the carefulness with which it was phrased.

The sixteen words are a lie because of the having learned from Britain bit.

Listening to that speech live, it was the worst sort of slanderous innuendo, and it was obvious to anyone with a brain. He never said Hussein had the nerve agents or the botulinum toxin, just that he had tons upon metric tons of undescribed substances from which vast oceans of weapons could be made.

The guy goading you to do this is posing an idiotic point to cast doubt on any dissent. Junior never said Saddam was personally responsible for 9-11, either, and even said that he'd never said that, but with the insinuations and conflations, that was the message many people got.

So what that he didn't buy any ore? The issue was that Junior was lying about him TRYING to, and that was to (as Max Cleland would put it) scare the pants off the American people and have them looking over their shoulder for the billowing mushroom cloud.

[many a good man]

19. State Department substitute spokesman said it

The way I remember it Wilson's ears perked up when he heard the reference to Africa in the SOTU. He thought to himself they must have information on something different than that which inspired his trip to Niger. He thought the president and the British must have been referring to some other country in Africa.

Shortly after the invasion began, the State Dept spokesman was off or out sick and had his assistant filling in on a Saturday afternoon briefing. The sub spilled the beans and indicated the reference was indeed to Niger. That's what gave Wilson the impetus to go public. The rest is history.

[DemGa]

20. This looks interesting

"Then Fleischer contradicted himself, saying "the president's statement was based on the predicate" of the unproven uranium deal with Niger, so the sentence was incorrect. Fleischer halted the briefing minutes later and promised to return with a "specific answer" on the issue. He never returned."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/906dhrpb.asp

http://www.memphilter.com/blog/archives/000400.html

[DancingBear]

21. It depends on what the meaning of "sought" is

Oh wait - somebody already used that defense. :)

(Have no fear, though -the morans will use it over and over, and the hypocrisy quotient will escape them, as always).

[Celebration]

22. All this is a big "so what"

It really doesn't matter what Bush said or what Wilson found or who sent Wilson to Niger or who posed for Vanity Fair.

All that matters is that a covert CIA agent was outed. This is NOT an issue about why she was outed or who was right/wrong about what they said about anything.

[Karmakaze]

26. That is the correct answer!

It matters not if Wilson was lying thru his teeth and if his Wife sent him to Nioger for a holiday - that is all irrelevent.

All that matters is that a covert agent was outed by the Bush cabal simply for political purposes, in the process damaging a whole swathe of intelligence assets that have now been exposed, and that were working on WMD proliferation.

The freeper can go stick it - his hero is a traitor.

[AllegroRondo]

23. Bush retracted the statement

so he knew what he said was wrong.

[LSK]

24. a response

Now if you heard a rumor that Saddam SOUGHT uranium from Africa, wouldnt it be reasonable to ask if that was 1. possible and 2. if he was SUCCESSFUL????

Wilson answered those 2 questions.

Not that this will get you to win the bet, but the freeper is MISSING THE POINT.

[deutsey]

25. No, but Bush used documents (that were forgeries) to justify

invading Iraq.

"The Yellowcake forgery refers to a set of false documents that were used in the justification of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The documents suggested that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. In the 2003 State of the Union address by President George W. Bush and in Secretary of State Colin Powell's address to the United Nations Security Council, Bush and Powell cited the forgeries as "indisputable" evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_Forgery

This from the New Yorker, March 2003 (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1):

SNIP

Two days later, Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also cited Iraq’s attempt to obtain uranium from Niger as evidence of its persistent nuclear ambitions. The testimony from Tenet and Powell helped to mollify the Democrats, and two weeks later the resolution passed overwhelmingly, giving the President a congressional mandate for a military assault on Iraq.

SNIP

President Bush cited the uranium deal, along with the aluminum tubes, in his State of the Union Message, on January 28th, while crediting Britain as the source of the information: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” He commented, “Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

SNIP

Then the story fell apart. On March 7th, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents involving the Niger-Iraq uranium sale were fakes. “The I.A.E.A. has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents . . . are in fact not authentic,” ElBaradei said.

More...


These motherfucking freepers have to learn that not EVERYONE's perception of reality is shaped by Orwell's memory hole.