When Truth Tried to Stop War

[Octafish]

When Truth Tried to Stop War

Exclusive: The year 2013 is the one-decade anniversary of the U.S. political/media system’s failure to stop a criminal President from launching a war of aggression on Iraq. It was a shameful time when only a few brave individuals, like the U.K.’s Katharine Gun, did the right thing, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern reports.

By Ray McGovern
ConsortiumNews.com, Feb. 1, 2013

Ten years ago, Katharine Gun, then a 28-year-old British intelligence officer, saw an e-mailed memo from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that confirmed for her in black and white the already widespread suspicion that the U.S. and U.K. were about to launch war against Iraq on false pretenses.

Doing what she could to head off what she considered, correctly, an illegal war of aggression, she printed a copy of the memo and arranged for a friend to give it to the London Observer. “I have always ever followed my conscience,” she said, explaining what drove her to take such a large risk.

Those early months of 2003 were among the worst of times – and not just because the U.S. and U.K. leaders were perverting the post-World War II structure that those same nations designed to stop aggressive wars, but because the vast majority of U.S. and U.K. institutions including the major news organizations and the nations’ legislatures were failing miserably to provide any meaningful check or balance.

The common excuse from politicians, bureaucrats, editors and other opinion leaders was that there was no way the momentum toward war could be stopped, so why take on the career damage that would result from getting in the way. And if Ms. Gun were made of lesser stuff, she might have hidden behind a similar self-serving excuse or found solace in other comforting rationalizations, like the government must know what it’s doing, or what do I, a Mandarin-to-English translator, know about Iraq.

CONTINUED...

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/01/31/when-truth-tried-to-stop-war/

DU was full of brave people then. Almost all opposed Bush and Blair and their illegal, immoral and unnecessary war on Iraq.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Joe Wilson also provided information their reasons for invafing Itaq was false and his reward

Was Dick Cheney and his gang outer Wilson's wife Valerie Plame who worked for the CIA. Where was McCain and Graham on this investigation, apparently silent and part of the cover up. Iraq had a handle on Iran but the powers that be was hell bent on invading Iraq and the only true reason was because Saddam had threatened my daddy. Now what is happening, Iran is working on a nuclear bomb, Saddam would never allowed this to happen next door. This was truly a dumb war.

[Octafish]

3. Bush made wives 'fair game' in war on whistleblowers.

...was how Ray McGovern put it.

Behind L'Affaire Wilsons Wives are "Fair Game" in Bush's Preemptive Attack on Whistleblowers

Wives Are Now "Fair Game" in Bush’s War on Whistleblowers

by RAY McGOVERN Former CIA Analyst
CounterPunch Oct. 3-5, 2003

What could have been going through the heads of senior White House officials when they decided to blow the cover of Valerie Plame, wife of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson? What did they find so compelling that they would burn her entire network of agents reporting on weapons of mass destruction, put those agents is serious jeopardy, and destroy her ability at the peak of her career to address this top-priority issue?

Was it another preemptive attack, which–like the attack on Iraq–seemed to the White House a good idea at the time? It certainly fits that pattern, inasmuch as little thought seems to have been given to the implications, consequences, and post-attack planning.

It is clear to me that the objective was to create strong disincentive for those who might be tempted to follow the courageous example set by Ambassador Wilson in citing the president’s own words to show that our country went to war on a lie.

After being sent to the African country of Niger in early 2002 at the behest of the Vice President’s office, he reported back that the report that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger for Baghdad’s putative (and, we now know, non-existent) nuclear weapons program was false on its face. As if further proof were needed, it was later learned that the report was based on forged documents.

When, despite all this, President Bush used this canard in his state-of-the-union address on January 28, 2003 Wilson faced a choice not unfamiliar to just-retired government officials. He could sit comfortably and smirk over brandy with friends in Georgetown parlors, or he could speak truth to power.

Conscience won. In a New York Times article on July 6, Wilson blew the whistle on the Iraq-Niger hoax, stating flatly what we all now know–that “some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

The consummate diplomat, Ambassador Wilson chooses his words carefully. He was fed up, though, with the specious reasons adduced to justify the unprovoked US/UK attack on Iraq–the same reasons that prompted three courageous colleagues to leave their careers in the foreign service in protest. Wilson even permitted himself the comment to Washington Post reporters that the Iraq-Niger hoax “begs the question as to what else they are lying about.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/10/03/wives-are-now-quot-fair-game-quot-in-bush-s-war-on-whistleblowers/

These gangsters have made a killing off Iraq. What's a top spy or a spy network stopping the spread of nukes to them? That they remain free shows who really runs America.

[Egalitarian Thug]

2. Yeah, but that was when they could blame it all the republicans.

Last edited Sat Feb 2, 2013, 06:06 PM - Edit history (1)

Never forget the names of the traitors (yes, they were traitors) who voted for this crime against humanity.

These are the nominally Democratic Senators that opened the door:

Max Baucus (Mont.)
Evan Bayh (Ind.)
Joe Biden (Del.)
John Breaux (La.)
Maria Cantwell (Wash.)
Jean Carnahan (Mo.)
Tom Carper (Del.)
Max Cleland (Ga.)
Hillary Clinton (N.Y.)
Tom Daschle (S.D.)
Christopher Dodd (Conn.)
Byron Dorgan (N.D.)
John Edwards (N.C.)
Dianne Feinstein (Calif.)
Tom Harkin (Iowa)
Fritz Hollings (S.C.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
John Kerry (Mass.)
Herb Kohl (Wis.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Joe Lieberman (Conn.)
Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)
Zell Miller (Ga.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Harry Reid (Nev.)
John Rockefeller (W.Va.)
Charles Schumer (N.Y.)
Bob Torricelli (N.J.)

See any names you recognize?

Never forget who these people are and who they really work for.

ETA: And here's a timely cartoon from the greatest page

[Thinkingabout]

5. It was Geirge W Bush with the final decision, the ones you listed authorized action

As lady resort but W never was going to let the opportunity pass him by. How many of the Republicans did you list, the Democrats was not in the majority at the time, this was Republican power plain and simple.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. Well of course it was shrub, that's not the point. Without these traitors siding with

the majority of republicons, he couldn't start the mass-murder in Iraq. Look closely at that list, read the names.

[Thinkingabout]

11. I read the names, the point I was trying to make to you it would have happened without the support

of the majority of Congress which of course Republicans. The final decision was up to W but based on information provided by the W administration who was not going to allow any possibility of invading Iraq to pass him by, he is your traitor.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. That's simply not true. Go look at the records, there were quite a few republicans that opposed

and voted against it, enough to have stopped it. Without the support of the turncoat Democrats, shrub doesn't get his war, at least not that one.

ETA: Just to be clear, this is not a defense of the worst President in American history, it is an indictment of the worst of the Democrats. And nobody with a brain believed the WMD bullshit, go read the DU archives. If a bunch of internet geeks with no access to top secret information could tell it was a total lie from the beginning, what excuse could the people that did have?

[stevenleser]

14. There was nothing wrong with the Democratic vote on IWR. As I explain in my post below. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. Yes, there was. Apparently revising history is not the sole purview of the republicans. n/t

[stevenleser]

19. Go ahead and explain away my response then because you have to revise history to be correct. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. And here's another republican strategy, accuse your opponent of doing what you're doing.

Without the votes of the turncoats, the act doesn't pass. End of argument.

[stevenleser]

24. You just revised the Iraq War Resolution below. So I would say you just did the GOP tactic. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

25. Of course you would. It doesn't change the record. Without the votes of those DINOs the act

doesn't pass and all the rest becomes irrelevant. Now, if you want to play the "Well what if, game" go right ahead, but the fact is and will always remain that with those votes shrub has no cover for his war in Iraq.

[stevenleser]

27. You keep trying to pretend facts away, it doesn't work. Deal with the facts or admit defeat.

(a) AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to—

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iraq was not a threat and demonstrably so and the UN weapons inspectors proved in their March 7th reports that Iraq was not in violation of any UNSC resolutions.

You have no answer for any of these things and so you pretend they do not exist.

If your beliefs depend on ignoring facts, you need to change them, and quickly.

[Egalitarian Thug]

29. .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/senaterollcall_iraq101002.htm
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/13365142/ns/us_news-msnbc_wire_services/t/house-iraq-war-vote-roll-call/
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_135/-13762-1.html

There are hundreds more sources. You are wrong, period, The votes are recorded for all to see. Belief has nothing to do with it, this is fact, now go and try weasel some explanation for why Wall Street did nothing wrong or something.

[stevenleser]

30. Cite where any of those articles disagree with me. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

34. Every one of them shows that without the Senate vote the acts fails and the rest

doesn't matter. Are there any other completely self evident facts you would like pointed out?

United States Senate
Party Ayes Nays No Vote
Republican 48 1 0
Democratic 29 21 0
Independent 0 1 0
TOTALS 77 23 0

No votes from the traitors, the measure fails, 51 - 49

Are there any other completely self evident facts you would like pointed out?

ETA: And surprise, you didn't recommend the OP either. I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

[RandiFan1290]

37. I agree 100%

I was reading DU in 2002-2003 and I remember the same lectures about those Dems knowing so much more than us lowly peons. We were lectured that they had to stand with Bush to show Saddam we mean business.

We knew it was bullshit and it would be used as a "bipartisan" excuse to attack and finish the job.

[stevenleser]

42. It wasnt just "Dems" it was the entire international community

No one trusted Saddam Hussein's word and justifiably so. That is why the entire Security Council went along with the effort to get weapons inspectors into Iraq including the Russians, Chinese, French and Syrians who were on the council at the time. All four of those countries would happily tell us to go pound sand if they thought we were full of crap.

The effort to put pressure to get weapons inspectors into Iraq is not the evil thing here. The evil thing is what was done by the Bush administration after the weapons inspectors were there and were reporting that they werent finding anything. That's the short version of my article linked here http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2300171

[Comrade Grumpy]

45. It was a clear as day then what the IWR was about and no amount of obfuscation changes that.

It was Bush's free ticket for a war of choice, and those Democrats who voted for the IWR gave it to him (along, of course, with their Republican counterparts, but we expect them to vote badly).

[stevenleser]

39. I am in favor of the OP, and as I said, cite something that disagrees with me and the article.

We all know what the vote was.

Note that I posted a positive response to the OP before you wrote that I 'didnt rec it'.

Once again, you dont read, you dont do the research, you go off half-cocked and the evidence is against you.

This is a pattern with you, isn't it?

[Egalitarian Thug]

40. Go push your blog somewhere else. You're not the first, nor will you be the

last one trying to jump on the Party gravy train through DU and other popular boards. As a long-time member of DailyKos, I've seen it many times before.

If you know the vote, you know my statement is correct and that's the point.

I'll never forget, nor forgive these traitors and you can spin, rationalize, and obfuscate from now until Sol goes nova and I'll still point this out every time I see it. They helped to bring this nation down with their own efforts to profit from politics and I doubt very many of them care about the hundreds of thousands of dead their acts caused any more than you appear to.

[stevenleser]

41. OpEdNews is not my blog. Let's count how many times you have been wrong or ignored facts

1. You tried to pretend the IWR did not have conditions attached to the use of force. Not only that, you claimed I tried to revise history then you did that exact thing by trying to pretend the IWR didnt have this clause.

2. After several attempts to get facts from you, you post four links to articles with no text at all included in your post let alone any that disagrees with anything that I said.

3. When called out on that, you post the IWR vote results which are not in dispute by anyone under this OP and are not material to my points that the IWR has a clause that was not met.

4. You claim I do not support the OP when I had, considerably before you asserted that, posted a response to the OP saying K&R and thanking them for posting another piece of the puzzle.

5. After being corrected on #4 you attack my blog when the article I gave you that details my POV on the subject was never posted on my blog, it is on Rob Kall's OpEdNews site.

Again and again, you don't research what you talk about or ignore facts and go off half cocked.

You mad bro?

[Comrade Grumpy]

43. This is just pathetic. No Democratic votes for the IWR = no Iraq war

Those Democrats who voted for the IWR made Bush's war possible. It was clear as day then and it's clear as day now.

[stevenleser]

53. Think about how illogical that statement is. The provisions in the IWR were not met.

That is as good as no IWR. The IWR does not apply to what was done. He had no authorization for what he did.

Furthermore, what is it about Republicans that makes you think they care about having permission for something?

Does Iran Contra ring a bell? With Iran-Contra, there was specific congressional action making it illegal to support the rebels there. That did not stop Republicans and there has been no real repercussions for anyone. In fact, it made media careers for several of the folks involved including Oliver North.

It is a fantasy to suggest that no IWR would have meant no Iraq war.

[Egalitarian Thug]

51. Spin tiny dancer. I made one point and one point only.

Your article is spinning bullshit trying to excuse the inexcusable. I posted the names of the traitors that voted for mass murder to remind us all of who they are and what they did, everything else was your own doing.

Nominally Democratic Senators that opened the door:

Max Baucus (Mont.)
Evan Bayh (Ind.)
Joe Biden (Del.)
John Breaux (La.)
Maria Cantwell (Wash.)
Jean Carnahan (Mo.)
Tom Carper (Del.)
Max Cleland (Ga.)
Hillary Clinton (N.Y.)
Tom Daschle (S.D.)
Christopher Dodd (Conn.)
Byron Dorgan (N.D.)
John Edwards (N.C.)
Dianne Feinstein (Calif.)
Tom Harkin (Iowa)
Fritz Hollings (S.C.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
John Kerry (Mass.)
Herb Kohl (Wis.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Joe Lieberman (Conn.)
Blanche Lincoln (Ark.)
Zell Miller (Ga.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Harry Reid (Nev.)
John Rockefeller (W.Va.)
Charles Schumer (N.Y.)
Bob Torricelli (N.J.)

And yes, I am angry at how so many of those claiming to be on our side have sabotaged us over and over and still people like you want us to just forget about it and move on. Some of you even want to put one of them up as a candidate for President in 2016. Well if you do, you can expect to hear all about this all over again. Every day.

But angry at you? No, you're making your play and I couldn't care less.

[stevenleser]

54. I stand on my previous call outs of your inaccuracies and bad faith efforts. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

64. Of course you do. But it still doesn't change the fact that Democratic Senators

made it all happen, period.

[Egalitarian Thug]

52. The republicans were a foregone conclusion, only one of them voted against.

The point is that without the cooperation of these traitors shrub wouldn't have been able to go ahead with this crime against humanity.

[Octafish]

6. The 'money trumps peace' crowd is buy-partisan.

"There is such a thirst for gain (among military suppliers) that it is enough to make one curse their own Species, for possessing so little virtue and patriotism." -- President George Washington, 1778

MAKING A KILLING: The New War Profiteers

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. Exactly.

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Matthew 7:5

These guys give me a headache. Is it any wonder we are in such deep shit?

[stevenleser]

13. Not correct and I thoroughly explain why here...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Iraq-War--Six-Year-Annive-by-Steven-Leser-090304-145.html

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. Roll Call says otherwise.

Spend a little less time pimping your blogs and radio show, and a little more examining facts.

As I replied above, the members of DU saw through the complete pile of bullshit that was being flung at the time, and they were just a bunch of people that cared and payed attention.

[stevenleser]

18. Fact matter, and they are not on your side. Here it is real easy and simple

Congress gave permission for war in case of X. X was not the case and demonstrably so. Bush went to war anyway.

Do you have anything that disputes that? No, you dont because those are the facts.

[Egalitarian Thug]

21. Yes they do. "Congress gave permission for war". n/t

[stevenleser]

22. Just as I thought, you are revising history to make your point. Exactly what you accused me of doing

[Martin Eden]

26. I probably shouldn't jump in here, but ...

2 things were clear to me in October 2002:
1) The case for invading Iraq was bogus.
2) If the IWR passed, GW would invade regardless of any wording or understanding about "last resort."

Do you disagree with #1 or #2 above? If so, please explain why.

[stevenleser]

28. Things were not clear to lots of folks including a majority of the UN Sec Council Nations

they voted for UNSC Resolution 1441 on November 8th after our IWR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441

I disagree with both #1 and #2. The expanded reason why I disagree and my explanation how everything happened in real time is in the article http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Iraq-War--Six-Year-Annive-by-Steven-Leser-090304-145.html

[magellan]

33. Are you suggesting that the Dems who signed off on the IWR

...had no clue that Bush and Blair were already de facto at war with Iraq over the summer and fall of 2002 via a massive joint bombing campaign - before Bush received Congressional approval? Or that Dems like Dick Durbin couldn't have done more than simply vote against the IWR, like share what he knew from secret Intelligence Committee reports about how Bush was lying to get his war on, and take the consequences rather than remain silent?

Or maybe you're suggesting our Congresspeople of the time were just too stupid to think Bush would use the IWR as an excuse to invade Iraq, despite his giving every indication that war was his only goal, and how out of line that was with his own administration's summation of Saddam's capabilities only a year before:

Colin Powell: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

Condoleeza Rice: "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country. We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Sorry, but from where I'm sitting there are only two ways to explain the Dems on Iraq: complicity or utter incompetence.

[stevenleser]

38. That argument doesnt work for several reasons

1. A defacto bombing campaign never ended since the Gulf war. That was nothing new. It had fits and starts for the better part of the 11 year intermission between the wars.

2. The UN Security Council Resolution vote on 1441 was unanimous 15-0 with zero abstensions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_1441 If you are going to indict the Democrats, you have to indict Russia, China, Syria, Mexico, France, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Guinea, Ireland, Mauritus, Norway and Singapore who all voted in favor of 1441 which basically said that "Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments" etc."

If you know the history of UN Security Council votes and how infrequently certain of the permanent members vote in favor of US efforts, how much they generally distrust us, not to mention how some of the non-permanent members who were on the council at the time generally regard our efforts, like Syria for instance. Speaking of Syria, the Syrian ambassador to the UN had this to say about Syria's 'Yes' vote on 1441:

“ Syria voted in favour of the resolution, having received reassurances from its sponsors, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, and from France and Russia through high-level contacts, that it would not be used as a pretext for striking against Iraq and does not constitute a basis for any automatic strikes against Iraq. The resolution should not be interpreted, through certain paragraphs, as authorizing any State to use force. It reaffirms the central role of the Security Council in addressing all phases of the Iraqi issue.[4]

In fact, 1441 was used by the Bush administration to justify its invasion at least as much as the IWR and on both counts it was wrong to do so. IWR did not constitute the right to invade Iraq except in specific circumstances that were not met. UNSECRES 1441 did not authorize the US to use military action against Iraq, but it was cited as are reason for doing so anyway.

[Martin Eden]

44. Your Security Council argument doesn't work

A vote for SC 1441 was by no means a vote for war.

The United States -- the world's only superpower and the leader of the Western world -- was beating the war drums, with WMD as the casus belli. It was entirely reasonable for every member of the SC to vote for compelling Iraq to provide access to UN inspectors to settle the question.

Even more to the point of your argument was the requirment for a 2nd vote by the SC to authorize invasion. Bush pushed hard and tried every means to leverage several non-permanet SC members on that vote, but when he saw he would lose he called off the vote.

And invaded anyway.

That intent was very clear to the DU community, and should have been to members of the US Congress before they voted for the IWR.

[stevenleser]

56. It does work, and everything else you wrote only makes my point stronger.

How many citations would you like me to provide of the Bush administration saying that UN Resolution 1441 made the case for war for them. Despite the fact that it said it was not a justification for war or permission for war.

The administration did not care. They would not have cared if IWR had been voted down. They would have asserted a threat to the US and gone to war anyway.

[Martin Eden]

62. You're making no sense whatsoever.

You can provide citations of the Bush administration making claims about 1441 until you're blue in the face, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether Democrats in October 2002 should have known that a vote for the IWR was a vote for invading Iraq. The Bush administration made more false claims than any of us can shake a stick at. Not one false claim excuses a member of Congress for approving and providing political cover for the invasion of Iraq. If they failed to see the case for war was bogus, they are incompetent.

Your 2nd paragraph makes even less sense. Essentially you are arguing that since Bush would have invaded no matter what, the Democrats were correct to endorse it in advance.

Is it possible you actually belive we SHOULD have invaded Iraq in 2003?

[magellan]

48. The bombing campaign that took place in 2002 wasn't de facto

It was breathtaking in its intent, intensity, and targets:

The Other Bomb Drops - The Nation, June 13, 2005

As for UN Security Council Resolution 1441: as you yourself point out, it did NOT authorize the use of force if Saddam failed to comply with its inspection regime - unlike the IWR. Which is why, in March 2003, France and Russia vowed to veto any US-backed UN resolution that in effect authorized war in Iraq, and Bush never went back to the UN again, instead forming his "coalition of the willing".

The IWR otoh granted Bush the authority to use US military force against Iraq as he deemed necessary, with limited constraints.

SEC. 3. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) Authorization.--The President is authorized to use the Armed
Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and
appropriate in order to--
(1) defend the national security of the United States
against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq.

(b) Presidential Determination.--In connection with the exercise of
the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force the President
shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter as may be feasible,
but no later than 48 hours after exercising such authority, make
available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the
President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that--
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or
other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately
protect the national security of the United States against the
continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to
enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq; and
(2) acting pursuant to this joint resolution is consistent
with the United States and other countries continuing to take
the necessary actions against international terrorist and
terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations,
or persons who planned, authorized, committed or aided the
terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

All Bush had to do after that was decide his patience with diplomacy - something he had little time for in any case - had run out. And that's precisely what he did.

Anyone who voted for the IWR was asleep at the wheel - and that's the BEST I can say about them.

[stevenleser]

57. Again, you make my point for me. How exactly was this satisfied...

"reliance by the United States on further diplomatic or
other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately
protect the national security of the United States against the
continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead to
enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq; and"

... when the UN Weapons inspectors issued reports 13 days beforehand that said that no weapons had been found after four months of on the ground inspections where every previous suspected site had been inspected and several new sites were also suspected.
Thats part B and as far as part A, as I made clear in my article, without WMD and with the US flying combat air patrol over 66% of the country, how is Iraq a threat.

No matter how you slice it, the President violated the IWR when he invaded.

An authorization whose provisions are violated is no authorization.

[magellan]

61. Are you joking?

Bush only had to explain that diplomacy wasn't working, just as he had been declaring all along. And note he didn't have to do that before sending the troops off to war, but within 48 hours of doing so.

Intentionally weak wording. Tough to prove a violation. This was exactly what Bush wanted, and they handed it to him on a silver platter.

[stevenleser]

58. And as regards the bombing, there were many such escalations, like Operation Desert Fox and

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

and the cruise missile strikes of 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(September_1996)

[magellan]

63. Except those were publicly announced by Clinton, not kept secret

And they weren't carried out as a pretext to invading Iraq.

[Comrade Grumpy]

47. It was clear at the time what the IWR was...a free ticket for Bush to go to war.

Hundreds of thousand of us were screaming that at Congress at the time. We uninformed plebes could figure out; why couldn't Hillary and Biden and the rest?

[magellan]

49. Exactly

Even if they were living in bubbles and weren't aware of what was already going on in Iraq, or the obvious attempts to gin up the intelligence, the wording of the IWR should have given them pause. It was markedly different than UN Res 1441. It essentially said, "Okay, you can use military force, just tell us which of these easy excuses you'll be using within 48 hours of doing so."

[stevenleser]

55. Nope, see my response upthread. nt

[HiPointDem]

50. +1

[leftstreet]

4. DURec

Very interesting, thanks for posting this

I'd never heard of Gun

[Octafish]

8. Only the Truth could derail the War Train

So Gun's story was too true to broadcast and too dangerous to print, from the watmongers' POV.

The woman who nearly stopped the war

Five years ago, Katharine Gun, a translator at GCHQ, learned something so outrageous that she sacrif...

BY MARTIN BRIGHT
The New Statesman 19 MARCH 2008 12:00 
 
Of all the stories told on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, there is one important episode that took place during the build-up to the conflict that has gone largely unreported. It concerns a young woman who was a witness to something so outrageous, something so contrary to the principles of diplomacy and international law, that in revealing it she believed war could be averted. That woman was Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old Mandarin translator at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham.

On Friday 31 January 2003 she and many of her colleagues were forwarded a request from the US government for an intelligence "surge" at the United Nations (with hindsight, an interesting choice of words). In essence, the US was ordering the intensification of espionage at the UN headquarters in New York to help persuade the Security Council to authorise war in Iraq. The aim, according to the email, was to give the United States "the edge" in negotiations for a crucial resolution to give international authorisation for the war. Many believed that, without it, the war would be illegal.

The email was sent by a man with a name straight out of a Hollywood thriller, Frank Koza, who headed up the "regional targets" section of the National Security Agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ. It named six nations to be targeted in the operation: Chile, Pakistan, Guinea, Angola, Cameroon and Bulgaria. These six so-called "swing nations" were non-permanent members of the Security Council whose votes were crucial to getting the resolution through. It later emerged that Mexico was also targeted because of its influence with Chile and other countries in Latin America, though it was not mentioned in the memo. But the operation went far wider - in fact, only Britain was specifically named as a country to be exempt from the "surge".

Koza insisted that he was looking for "insights" into how individual countries were reacting to the ongoing debate, "plans to vote on any related resolutions, what related policies/negotiating positions they may be considering, alliances/ dependencies etc". In summary, he added: "The whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers the edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises." The scope of the operation was vast: "Make sure they pay attention to existing non-UNSC member UN-related and domestic comms for anything useful related to the UNSC deliberations/debates/votes," wrote Koza.

Gun was appalled by the email in two ways. First by the seediness of the operation: she believed the clear message was that GCHQ was being asked to find personal information that would allow Britain and America to blackmail diplomats in New York. But second and more importantly, she believed GCHQ was being asked to undermine the democratic pro cesses of the United Nations.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2008/03/katharine-gun-iraq-war-gchq

Amazing we know about her at all.

[hay rick]

7. Thanks for this.

K&R

[Octafish]

65. '...but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy...'

Well. We've learned a lot since the Downing Street memo.

PS: You are most welcome, hay rick! Thank you for caring about justice for warmongers and the traitors they employ.

[7wo7rees]

9. Dear Octafish, you are just the best of the best.

Would be lost without you and your knowledge. Top 10 at DU, my top 5. Whoops, i am wife of 7wo7rees. Still u r the best.

[Octafish]

66. Remember how Pruneface and Poppy Bush helped arm Saddam in the 1980s and 90s?

Weird how Corporate McPravda missed the story in the run to up to re-war.



Perhaps next run up to war, they'll remember to apply the acronym, a simple mnemonic device: BNL.

PS: Thank you for the kind words, wife of 7wo7rees. As a Democrat, I believe we all are the best. Together, We the People are unstoppable -- JFK got us to the moon when today's pols say we can't figure out how to print money for anybody but Wall Street. The reason I post is the hope enough people learn the truth about these warmongers and traitor to end their regime and return justice to the United States of America, absent since Nov. 22, 1963.

[4Q2u2]

78. Bad Partners

We always make very bad partners with our short sighted goals. We trained Ho Chi Min in covert Jungle operations in WWII, that did not work out to well. We armed Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the 80's also to fight the Russians. We know how that one worked out.
Saddam not only in the 80's but look how he came into power, CIA's "our guy" program. That is just the short list of the top of my head that now hurts thinking about how many lives lost, money wasted, and corruption.

[stevenleser]

15. K&R

Another piece of the story.

Excellent

[Octafish]

67. ENEMY WANTED

From the Pentagon, ca. 1999, per the great DUer and writer David Swanson:

“ENEMY WANTED: Mature North American Superpower seeks hostile partner for arms-racing, Third World conflicts, and general antagonism. Must be sufficiently menacing to convince Congress of military financial requirements. Nuclear capability is preferred; however, non-nuclear candidates possessing significant bio chemical warfare resources will be considered. . . .”

[stevenleser]

71. Good read. Swanson's work is very important

I dont always agree with him, but his work is very important. See http://davidswanson.org/node/2121

[stevenleser]

72. Check this out...

http://www.brussellstribunal.org/article_view.asp?ID=479&menu=2013%20JUSTICE4IRAQ&submenu=3

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

31. Political ambrition trumps the truth every time. Not to mention money.

[Octafish]

68. This war on terrorism is bogus

Wisdom from across the pond, 2003:

The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination

Michael Meacher
The Guardian, Saturday 6 September 2003 07.15 EDT

Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.
We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

SNIP...

Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a "worldwide command and control system". This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be seen in several ways.

First, it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested.

It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that "al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House".

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001).

Instructive leads prior to 9/11 were not followed up. French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui (now thought to be the 20th hijacker) was arrested in August 2001 after an instructor reported he showed a suspicious interest in learning how to steer large airliners. When US agents learned from French intelligence he had radical Islamist ties, they sought a warrant to search his computer, which contained clues to the September 11 mission (Times, November 3 2001). But they were turned down by the FBI. One agent wrote, a month before 9/11, that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers (Newsweek, May 20 2002).

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/sep/06/september11.iraq

That was less than two years after September 11. What we've seen since then is nothing but lies and policies that only create more enemies for the United States and more profits for the war mongers who run the government.

[Ian Iam]

32. He was good at jumping through Bush's hoop

[Octafish]

69. Steve Bell pegged them for history.

Can't wait to see them in The Hague. Bishop Tutu, too.

[Initech]

35. Money trumps peace all the time every time.

[Octafish]

70. Bush told the Iraqis not to harm the oil wells night before invasion.

"...And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders.'...Good night, and may God continue to bless America."

SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/18/usa.iraq

[Initech]

73. So that makes me really wonder what this war was really fought for.

It wasn't the liberation of the Iraqi people... it wasn't terrorism... I know that much!

[LongTomH]

36. An excellent job of research, Octafish!

This would make a great international intrigue thriller; sadly, most of those are written by conservatives.

[Octafish]

74. DU was on to their gangster arses from the Gitmo Get-go.

The way this Frenchman felt to see the NAZIs march down the Champs Elysees in 1940
is how I felt when Bush ordered the attack on Iraq in 2003.



Bush-NAZI Business Model boasts horizontal, vertical integration...

Web Archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20021105210239/http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9325/PLAntisemitism.html

No wonder the Bushes don’t like the Kennedys. As Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was giving his life fighting the Nazis, the Bushes were busy doing business with them.

Is there any question why the Corporate McPravda only spit on the memory of the Kennedys and all they have done for this country? Can you say comprehensive global hegemony, Duhbya?

As the following article demonstrates, the people, organizations and events to which it refers are the real deal. Truly, uniting western capital with history's most heinous minds has created a first-class criminal operation. They must be stopped before they act again. Their Achilles heel is the Smirkelgruber.

--------

Anti-Semitism, Racism and a Bush Family Organization

By Carla Binion

December 19, 2000 | Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush's brother, Prescott Bush, belong to a political organization, AmeriCares. AmeriCares is a CIA front that supports rightwing military operations while posing as a humanitarian group.

The late J. Peter Grace, the chair of AmeriCares from 1982 to 1995, also worked with the ultra-right racist think tank, the Liberty Lobby. Grace was the key participant in Project Paperclip, a covert operation which recruited 900 Nazi scientists to work in the U. S. after World War II. Many of those Nazis had been found guilty of experimentation on humans. ("Censored 1999: The News That Didn't Make The News," Seven Stories Press, 1999)

… more …

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/9325/PLAntisemitism.html

I was Oblomov, then.

PS: Thank you for the kind words, LongTomH! And thank you for caring about the truth and the crimes of the national security state all these years. May we see Bush, Blair and their crew of evil and all the connected Aspen cronies they serve face justice, as Bishop Tutu stated.

[LongTomH]

80. The archive.org article did make a factual error. Prescott Bush was George H.W. daddy not....

.....his brother. FDR should have hanged Prescott's miserable ass for dealing with the Nazis, as well as the attempted coup.

[Octafish]

81. Two Prescotts...pere and frere.

Poppy's bro headed the US-China Chamber of Commerce, among other things. (All those jobs...)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4401300

Poppy's daddy married George Herbert Walker's daughter. Walker was Averell Harriman's partner in Brown Brothers Harriman. Their lawyer chums included John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2933358



A multi-generational dynasty of power, privilege, and hypocrisy.

[LongTomH]

82. I stand corrected!

[WillyT]

46. HUGE K & R !!!

[Octafish]

75. Now Lies and Sideshows Protect the Traitors.

Instead of leading an investigation of the illegal, immoral, unnecessary, disastrous and tragic war on Iraq, Washington wonks talk about the fiscal cliff and gridlock.

There is no Statute of Limitations on Treason.

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. I remember those days.

They were dark indeed.

[Octafish]

76. The Lies that Led to the Iraq War and the Persistant Myth of 'Intelligence Failure'

Some light...

The Lies that Led to the Iraq War and the Persistant Myth of 'Intelligence Failure'

Jeremy Hammond
Foreign Policy Journal, September, 2012

The George Washington University National Security Archive recently published a newly released CIA document from January 2006 titled “Misreading Intentions: Iraq’s Reaction to Inspection Created Picture of Deception”. The document, the Archive notes, “blames ‘analyst liabilities’ such as neglecting to examine Iraq’s deceptive behavior ‘through an Iraqi prism,’ for the failure to correctly assess the country’s virtually non-existent WMD capabilities.” Foreign Policy magazine describes it as a “remarkable CIA mea culpa”. But nothing could be further from the truth. Far from acknowledging the CIA’s true role, the document does not present any kind of serious analysis, but only politicized statements rehashing well-worn official claims designed to further the myth that there was an “intelligence failure” leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003.

There was no such “intelligence failure”. On the contrary, there was an extremely successful disinformation campaign coordinated by the CIA in furtherance of the government’s policy of seeking regime change in Iraq. The language of the document itself reveals a persistent dishonesty. It speaks of “deepened suspicions” that Iraq “had ongoing WMD programs” and “suspicions that Iraq continued to hide WMD.” Needless to say, however, the Iraq war was not sold to the public on the grounds that government officials and intelligence agencies had “suspicions” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It was sold to the public with declarations that it was a known fact that Iraq had ongoing programs and stockpiles of WMD. The tacit acknowledgment that the actual evidence only supported “suspicions” that this was so by itself is proof of that the narrative of an “intelligence failure” is a fiction.

The report relies heavily upon the 1995 defection of Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law, Hussein Kamal (respectively spelled “Saddam Husayn” and “Husayn Kamil” in the document), arguing that the information he revealed bolstered suspicions that Iraq was concealing ongoing WMD programs and continued to possess stockpiles of WMD. It argues further that the regime’s behavior indicated he was hiding such weapons. Kamal, who returned to Iraq and was killed there in 1996, was the same individual Vice President Dick Cheney referred to in selling the administration’s case for war on August 26, 2002, when he said that “we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors—including Saddam’s own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam’s direction.” But the fact is that Cheney was lying, and the CIA’s persistent adherence to essentially the same false narrative renders ridiculous the suggestion that this document is some kind of “mea culpa”.

The document states, “Analysts interpreted Iraq’s intransigence and ongoing deceptive practices as indicators of continued WMD programs or an intent to preserve WMD capabilities, reinforcing intelligence we were receiving at the time that Saddam Husayn continued to pursue WMD.” Yet the examples it lists of Iraq’s “intransigence” and deception do not support the CIA’s earlier judgments that Iraq had ongoing programs and WMD stockpiles. “In April 1991, for example,” the document says, “Iraq declared that it had neither a nuclear weapons program nor an enrichment program. Inspections in June and September 1991 proved that Iraq had lied on both counts, had explored multiple enrichment paths, and had a well-developed nuclear weapons program.” This is true. However, the document makes no mention of the fact that it was public knowledge that Iraq’s nuclear program was subsequently completely dismantled. As former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei, pointed out, the Agency had “destroyed, removed or rendered harmless all Iraqi facilities and equipment component of Iraq’s nuclear programme” by 1992. The IAEA reported in 1998 that it was “confident that we had not missed any significant component of Iraq’s nuclear programme”.

The document states that in “March 1992, Iraq decided to declare the unilateral destruction of certain prohibited items to the Security Council, while continuing to conceal its biological warfare (BW) program and important aspects of the nuclear, chemical, and missile programs”. As worded, this implies that Iraq in 1992 was continuing these programs. This is disingenuous, because in fact Iraq was at that time trying conceal past programs that it had ended following the 1991 Gulf War. Iraq did not continue these programs, but dismantled them and unilaterally destroyed its WMD in order to hide the fact that it had had such programs in the past. As the document acknowledges in its “Key Findings” section, “in 1991, Iraq secretly destroyed or dismantled most undeclared items and records”. Yet the very next paragraph contradictorily and disingenuously states, “We now judge that the 1995 defection of Saddam’s son-in-law Husayn Kamil—a critical figure in Iraq’s WMD and denial and deception (D&D) activities—promoted Iraq to change strategic direction and cease efforts to retain WMD programs.” This again implies that Iraq had ongoing WMD programs at least until 1995, which is false, as the CIA knew perfectly well at the time this report was written.

Even more importantly, that the programs had been dismantled and the weapons destroyed is in fact precisely what Hussein Kamal actually told U.N. inspectors when he defected in 1995. The newly released document in fact points out, “He said that Saddam destroyed all WMD in secret” in 1991. Yet apart from that single buried admission, the document is full of statements implying that weapons programs continued. For example, it states that “Iraqi officials did not admit to weaponized BW agent after the defection of Husayn Kamil”, but fails to clarify that this was an admission of past and not ongoing activity. The document acknowledges that Kamal’s defection was “the key turning point in Iraq’s decision to cooperate more with inspections”, but then adds that his debriefing with U.N. inspectors “strengthened the West’s perception of Iraq as a successful and efficient deceiver.” Following Kamal’s defection, the document states, “the West”, meaning the U.S., judged that Iraq “was determined to retain WMD capabilities.” In other words, the U.S. continued to claim that Iraq had ongoing WMD programs and stockpiles, and supposedly based that assessment on Kamal’s information, even though Kamal in fact had confirmed that Iraq’s WMD had been destroyed and its programs dismantled in 1991.

CONTINUED...

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/09/08/the-lies-that-led-to-the-iraq-war-and-the-persistent-myth-of-intelligence-failure/

Truth is, these liars own and operate Washington.

[WinkyDink]

60. Two NYC marches for me. Millions of us world-wide knew we were about to see a war crime in our name.

[Octafish]

77. Thank you, WinkyDink. I, too, remember. Remember Curveball?

Infinite thanks.

Man Whose WMD Lies Led to 100,000 Deaths Confesses All

Defector tells how U.S. officials 'sexed up' hiis fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion

Jonathan Owen
The Independent, April 1, 2012

EXCERPT...

He tries to defend his actions: "My main purpose was to topple the tyrant in Iraq because the longer this dictator remains in power, the more the Iraqi people will suffer from this regime's oppression."

The chemical engineer claimed to have overseen the building of a mobile biological laboratory when he sought political asylum in Germany in 1999. His lies were presented as "facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence" by Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, when making the case for war at the UN Security Council in February 2003.

But Mr Janabi, speaking in a two-part series, Modern Spies, starting tomorrow on BBC2, says none of it was true. When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes."

US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".

As for his former boss: "I don't see any way on this earth that Secretary Powell doesn't feel almost a rage about Curveball and the way he was used in regards to that intelligence."

Another revelation in the series is the real reason why the FBI swooped on Russian spy Anna Chapman in 2010. Top officials feared the glamorous Russian agent wanted to seduce one of US President Barack Obama's inner circle. Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's head of counterintelligence, reveals how she got "closer and closer to higher and higher ranking leadership... she got close enough to disturb us".

The fear that Chapman would compromise a senior US official in a "honey trap" was a key reason for the arrest and deportation of the Russian spy ring of 10 people, of which she was a part, in 2010. "We were becoming very concerned," he says. "They were getting close enough to a sitting US cabinet member that we thought we could no longer allow this to continue." Mr Figliuzzi refuses to name the individual who was being targeted.

CONTINUED...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/man-whose-wmd-lies-led-to-100000-deaths-confesses-all-7606236.html

[Oilwellian]

79. There were millions, worldwide, who tried to stop it

It wouldn't have happened without Democratic support. Hillary and Biden lost the 2008 primary because of their votes. Obama knew it was highly unpopular, spoke publicly against it, and unsurprisingly won the nomination because of it. Then he proceeded to nominate both of them for high positions within his administration. In his second term, he carries on the tradition by nominating Hagel, another one who supported this criminal war.

You will know them by their deeds.

I debated posting my very first political video. It's crude and unrefined, but serves as a poignant reminder of what they did to the people of Iraq.
Warning: GRAPHIC