Free Dating Site    

The results of bushes lies speak for themselves. Did we find those WMDS? 5 years later.. 4100 dead american soldiers .. for what? 650,000 dead iraqi civilians... almost a trillion dollars.. wasted.. and the war goes on.. OUr economy is in ruin.. surely that trillion wasted in Iraq would have been better spent domestically?

Apparently you aren't aware that overthrowing Saddam and his regime was not just about WMD

Evidently you didn't listen to Pres. Bush's address to the American people before the first strike on Baghdad

Whether he mentioned liberation in his pre-bombing raid address or not, the main reason that was given to Congress, the American people, and the international community was centered around the search for "WMD" and the imperative to find them ASAP and prevent a major terrorist attack which was made to sound as though it were

it's actually quite astounding how a changing of the guard in the WH can elicit short term memory loss with so many Democrats.

^^ You are an employer of straw men, ma'am. Interesting article here, I've been reading. It's long; get a cup of coffee. Or skip to the next post. It's from salon.com , I believe it's a couple yrs old but it's feeling pretty relevant still.

if you're gonna throw around huge numbers like that be able to provide some data as to the breakdown of how exactly the 650,000 people died. Cause if I didn't know better it sounds like you're accusing our excellent military of killing these people deliberately.. the same military that you claim to support.

Introduction

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) represents the U.S. intelligence community’s most authoritative and coordinated written assessment of a specific national-security issue. The concept of an “estimative” intelligence report was established by the National Security Act of 1947 following the surprise invasion of South Korea by North Korean troops. Since its creation the NIE process has undergone a series of overhauls to increase interagency collaboration. Today as many as seventeen government agencies and departments participate in drafting the documents.

But as former intelligence officer Robert L. Suettinger notes in his history of the NIE, intelligence estimates are by definition controversial products. “In discussing large or complex topics,” Suettinger writes, “National Intelligence Estimates necessarily have to delve into a realm of speculation.” The most cited recent example of a poorly drafted NIE is the October 2002 prewar estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (PDF). In July 2004, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee found that “most of the major key judgments” in the 2002 Iraq NIE—which were cited by President Bush and other policymakers in their case for war—“either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting.” Changes made to the NIE process after the 2002 Iraq report have been incorporated into recent estimates, including the November 2007 assessment of Iranian nuclear ambitions.
Intelligence Gatekeepers

Intelligence estimates are coordinated by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and is the intelligence community’s “center for mid-term and long-term strategic thinking.” The NIC employs thirteen National Intelligence Officers—senior experts drawn from agencies of the intelligence community and from outside the government—who, among their other responsibilities, head up the NIE writing process. The current chairman of the NIC is Thomas Fingar, who also serves as deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.
The NIE Writing Process

The NIE process from inception to completion progresses as follows:

* A senior executive branch official, a committee chair of the House or Senate, or a senior military official can request an NIE. An estimate can also be initiated independently by the National Intelligence Council. The request is authorized by the Director of National Intelligence.

* The NIC prepares the terms of reference, an outline of the key issues, and questions to be covered in the estimate.

* Before an NIE is drafted the intelligence officer produces a terms of reference paper, or TOR, meant to define the key questions the NIE is to address; sets drafting responsibilities; and establishes a publication schedule. The TOR is circulated throughout the intelligence community for comment.

* The intelligence officer selects a lead drafter of the NIE or directs another intelligence analyst or outside expert to do so. The draft is typically reviewed by the NIC before it is sent to the U.S. government agencies that are members of the intelligence community, or compile national intelligence on the relevant issue.

* Agency experts review the draft and prepare comments.

* Agency representatives meet and discuss the report at an interagency coordination session.

* Intelligence is vetted by the National Clandestine Service within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to eliminate potentially questionable or unreliable sources.

* A final draft is distributed for final review to intelligence community experts for their review. In addition, the NIE often includes a summary of the opinions of experts outside the government.

* The NIC reviews the final draft and then forwards it to the National Intelligence Board (PDF). The board is composed of senior representatives of the intelligence community and is chaired by the DNI.

* Once an NIE is approved by the National Intelligence Board it is delivered to the requester as well as the president, senior policymakers, and relevant members of Congress.

Up to seventeen agencies and departments are generally involved in the process. They include:

* Office of the Director of National Intelligence
* The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps intelligence organizations
* The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
* Coast Guard Intelligence
* The Defense Intelligence Agency
* The Department of Energy
* The Department of Homeland Security
* The Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)
* The Department of the Treasury
* U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
* The Federal Bureau of Investigation
* The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (formerly the National Imagery and Mapping Agency)
* The National Reconnaissance Office
* The National Security Agency

Recent NIE Contributions

The intelligence community drafts NIE documents covering a wide range of issues; hundreds have been written in the last six decades. Suettinger writes that 1,500 estimates were produced between 1950 and 1973 alone. Most recent NIE assessments, however, have remained classified. Intelligence estimates that do reach the public domain are typically declassified key judgments, not the entire NIE. Since 2006 DNI has released key judgments on trends in global terrorism (PDF); the terrorist threat to the homeland (PDF); two NIEs on prospects for stability in Iraq (PDF); as well as the Iran nuclear NIE. The president and the director of national intelligence have the authority to declassify all or part of an NIE.

http://www.cfr.org/publication/7758/national_intelligence_estimates.html

E. The National Intelligence Estimate

( ) At the same time DELETED, the IC was preparing the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. In mid-September 2002, in both hearings and in letters, Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) requested that the CIA. publish an NIE on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Committee Members expressed concerns that they would be expected to vote on an Iraq Resolution shortly and had no NIE on which to base their vote.

(U) On September 12, 2002, the DCI officially directed the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Strategic and Nuclear Programs to begin to draft an NIE. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) staff drew the discussion of nuclear reconstitution for the draft NIE largely from an August 2002 CIA assessment and a September 2002 DIA assessment, Iraq's Reemerging Nuclear Weapons Programs. The NIO sent a draft of the entire NIE to IC analysts on September 23, 2002 for coordination and comments and held an interagency coordination meeting on September 25, 2002 to discuss the draft and work out any changes.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/
congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2-e.htm

(U) In an unclassified letter dated September 9, 2002, Senator Richard Durbin wrote to Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Tenet, expressing concern that the IC had not drafted an NIE on the status of Iraq's WMD program, and requested that the DCI "direct the production" of such an NIE - expressing the belief that "policymakers in both the executive branch and the Congress will benefit from the production of a coordinated, consensus document produced by all relevant components of the Intelligence Community" on this topic. Senator Durbin also requested that the DCI "produce an unclassified summary of this NIE" so "the American public can better understand this important issue."

(U) On September 10, 2002, then Committee Chairman Bob Graham sent a second letter to DCI Tenet requesting the production of an NIE, "on the status of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems; the status of the Iraqi military forces, including their readiness and willingness to fight; the effects a U.S.-led attack on Iraq would have on its neighbors; and Saddam Hussein's likely response to a U.S. military campaign designed to effect regime change in Iraq."

(U) On September 13, 2002, Senator Diane Feinstein wrote to President Bush to request his assistance in ensuring that the DCI prepare, on an immediate basis, an NIE "assessing the nature, magnitude and immediacy of the threat posed to the United States by Iraq." Senator Feinstein added that "there has not been a formal rigorous Intelligence Community assessment, such as a National Intelligence Estimate, addressing the issues relating to Iraq, and I deeply believe that such an estimate is vital to Congressional decision making, and most specifically, any resolution which may come before the Senate."

(U) On September 17, 2002, Senator Carl Levin, SSCI Member and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote to DCI Tenet stating that it was "imperative" for the IC to prepare an NIE on Iraq, "including the central question of the current state of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs." Senator Levin asked that the NIE address a number of issues including Iraq's WMD holdings, development facilities, acquisition activities, denial and deception activities, deployment, doctrine for employment, means of delivery; the likelihood that Saddam Hussein would use WMD against the U.S., our allies, or our interests; the likelihood that Iraq would comply with UN resolutions; and Iraq's terrorist activities.

(U) During a September 17, 2002 SSCI Committee hearing, Senator Richard Lugar noted that an NIE had not been produced on Iraq and said that the President, therefore, did not have the benefit of such an Estimate. The DCI responded that the IC had written several NIEs on the world wide missile threat which each included discussions of Iraq's WMD programs and said, "I see the President every morning, six days a week. He gets the intelligence I provide . . ."

(U) Nevertheless, the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, testified at an October 2, 2002 SSCI hearing that the DCI did direct him to prepare an NIE and he had begun to work on it as soon as he became aware of Senator Graham's request. The NIO testified that the NIE had been completed in just three weeks, noting, "normally, Estimates take months to put together. To put one together in a matter of weeks, especially one with the depth this has, is fast-paced." The Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (NIC) told Committee staff that a due date of October 1, 2002 had been worked out between the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Office of Congressional Affairs and the Committee. Neither CIA's Office of Congressional Affairs nor the Committee have documentation to show that such a deadline was established.

(U) During the course of the Committee's review of the intelligence assessments on Iraq's WMD programs, several analysts involved with the production of the October 2002 NIE, including analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy (DOE), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), commented on the unusually rapid time frame for completion of this document. Many of these analysts believed that the rapid time period in which the NIE was produced negatively impacted the quality of the final document. Several indicated that, if they had more time, they would have been able to more carefully consider how the language in the document portrayed their analysis, but many also said that they believed their "bottom line" judgments would have remained the same. The analysts' comments about the fast pace of the NIE's production follow below.

* An INR chemical and biological weapons (CBW) analyst told Committee staff, "there's no question in my mind that the process was rushed and I've never participated in an NIE that was coordinated in the manner in which this was." The analysts said that more time would have allowed, "the key judgments to better reflect what was in the back of the book . . . we failed in adequately coordinating the key judgments." He noted that this is a particular concern because many readers do not read more than the key judgments.

* A DOE analyst told Committee staff that "if we would have been allowed more time . . . possibly some of the issues that are being sifted through during these discussions here would have been hashed out more at the working level throughout the Intelligence Community. Some of the pieces of evidence that we have found that contradict others' assertions may have been able to be laid out better on the table and we would have had a better understanding, maybe, of others' views through written product."

* A CIA nuclear analyst said that "the comments in regards to vigorously pursuing uranium from Africa without caveat are ones that I would look back and say that I wish that we had bothered to caveat that statement. Just from a trade craft perspective, we usually don't say things with absolute certainty unless we have absolute proof." He said that the fast pace of the NIE "contributed to, I think, to what should have been a caveated statement and not catching that at the time."

* A DOE analyst said, "people were coming to the table in the process that normally takes four to six months to work its way through, with several meetings and a little bit of blood on the floor, and lots of good scientific debate did not occur."

* A CIA chemical weapons (CW) analyst stated that the amount of time given the analysts to complete the NIE was "extremely unusual," and that while she would have liked to have seen some "word smithing" changes to the document, she noted that "none of the bottom lines we would have changed." She added that "mainly we would have liked to have had time to look over the draft again after we provided all of our changes and the other agencies had provided their changes."

* A CIA biological weapons (BW) analyst told Committee staff, "we had enough time to comment, and analytically I didn't have any problems with it, but we made some errors." She noted that the statement in the key judgments of the NIE that Baghdad had chemical and biological weapons, "does not as accurately reflect the body of the text as it could." She said, "you can extrapolate that we assessed Baghdad did have biological and chemical weapons, but it would have been more accurate if one of the caveats which you see in the text had been included in that sentence." She said it would have been more accurate to say "we assess that Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons."

* A CIA CW analyst also told Committee staff that "we would have felt more comfortable with 'we judge that' Iraq has chemical and biological weapons," rather than "Iraq had chemical and biological weapons" as stated in the key judgments of the NIE. She also pointed out that the key judgments said, "Iraq's chemical industry was rebuilt primarily to support the CW program," but said, "we don't think it was 'primarily.' We think that the program was benefitting from it, but we don't think that's why they were rebuilding the industry."

* An INR analyst told Committee staff that although he did not agree with the NIE's key judgments statement that Iraq was developing a "UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents." When asked why he did not join the Air Force's footnote he said, "it's probably an example of the speed of the process."

* A senior INR analyst said, ". . . you don't really have much time, even in a two-day meeting that covers one country's entire WMD and delivery system capabilities as well as a section on doctrine and a terrorism section, to really get down in the weeds and make sure you feel comfortable in understanding all of the analytic processes and thoughts that went into how the drafting agency put their words together. It just doesn't happen."

(U) Most analysts believed that the errors or inconsistencies that would have been caught were not problems that would have changed their fundamental judgments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. Some also pointed out that much of the text for the NIE had been pulled from previously written and coordinated IC products, meaning that analysts had previously had the opportunity to comment on the language.

* A CIA delivery system analyst noted that"... this was pulled together from pieces of stuff we'd already written, so it wasn't as well polished as we would like. It didn't flow very well. It was pieces pulled together. But we couldn't argue with what was said because this is what we had written in previous publications."

* A DOE analyst said, "I don't really think [the NIE] suffered, because . . . we got our position in there about the [aluminum] tubes and what we thought. . . . So I did think it turned out fair in the end, in my opinion."

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/
2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter11.htm

t is telling that, in the more than two-year run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, nobody in the Bush administration sought to commission a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Saddam Hussein's WMD programs. Perhaps it is unsurprising that they did not want such an estimate. An estimate, if conducted over a period of months, would undoubtedly have revealed deep skepticism about the threat posed by Saddam's weapons program. It would have exposed major gaps in the intelligence picture, particularly since the pullout of U.N. weapons inspectors from Iraq at the end of 1998, and it would have likely undercut the rush to war. It was only as a result of intense pressure from Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, that the intelligence community was finally tasked, in September 2002, to produce an NIE on Saddam's WMD programs. The report was to be rushed to completion in three weeks, so it could reach the desks of the relevant congressional committee members before a vote on war-powers authorization scheduled for early October, on the eve of the midterm elections. As the NIE went forward for approval, everyone knew that there were major problems with it.

THE NIE CONTAMINATION
Two other major INC-foisted fabrications made their way into the NIE and from there into policy speeches by top Bush administration officials, including the president, the vice president and the secretaries of Defense and State. The first involved claims that Iraq had mobile biological-weapons labs that could produce deadly agents. The declassified version of the October 2002 NIE stated, "Baghdad has mobile facilities for producing bacterial and toxin BW agents; these facilities can evade detection and are highly survivable. Within three to six months, these units probably could produce an amount of agent equal to the total that Iraq produced in the years prior to the Gulf war." The same claim was a dramatic highlight of Colin Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation before the Security Council.

But, a subsequent review of the intelligence files -- long after the NIE had been produced -- revealed that the sole source for the mobile-lab story was an Iraqi military defector, a major, who had been produced by the INC via the "Information Collection Program." The CIA and DIA had both given warnings about the defector, after concluding that he was a fabricator. But, as CIA Director Tenet would later admit in a February 2004 speech at Georgetown University, those warnings fell on deaf ears. The fabrication judgment was shown to be correct after the U.S. invasion, when two of the mobile labs were captured. They were, as other Iraqi sources had claimed, mobile facilities for producing hydrogen for weather balloons.

A somewhat different fiasco occurred on the issue of the equally inflammatory claim that Iraq had unmanned airborne vehicles (UAVs), outfitted to deliver biological and chemical weapons. Allegations about the UAVs surfaced in early September 2002, prompting both CIA Director Tenet and Vice President Cheney to visit House and Senate leaders on the day Congress reconvened after the Labor Day recess to present their new "smoking gun" argument for war. The UAV story appeared in President Bush's October 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati. It was also featured in Colin Powell's Security Council presentation four months later. Powell warned the Council then that "Iraq could use these small UAVs, which have a wingspan of only a few meters, to deliver biological agents to its neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States."

Yet the declassified version of the October 2002 NIE, while reporting that "Baghdad's UAVs could threaten Iraq's neighbors, U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf and, if brought close to or into the United States, the U.S. homeland," also noted that "the Director, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, US Air Force, does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. The small size of Iraq's new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance, although CBW delivery is an inherent capability." Indeed, the specifications of the Iraqi UAVs, known to U.S. Air Force Intelligence, proved that they were ill-suited for CBW dissemination. According to several news accounts, even the formulation that "CBW delivery is an inherent capability" was foisted upon the Air Force during the negotiating sessions over the final wording of the NIE.

The subversion of the intelligence process was death by a thousand cuts, a cumulative process of badgering in which the pipeline of disinformation from the INC, through OSP, to the desk of the vice president played a decisive role.

Vincent Cannistraro puts it this way:

Over a long period of time, there was a subtle process of pressure and intimidation until people started giving them what was wanted . . . . When the Senate Intelligence Committee interviewed, under oath, over 100 analysts, not one of them said, �I changed my assessment because of pressure.' . . . The environment was conditioned in such a way that the analyst subtly leaned toward the conceits of the policymakers. . . .The intelligence community was vulnerable to the aggressiveness of neoconservative policymakers, particularly at the Pentagon and at the VP's office. As one analyst said to me, �You can't fight something with nothing, and those people had something. Whether it was right or wrong, fraudulent or specious, it almost didn't make any difference, because the policymakers believed it already, and if you didn't have hard countervailing evidence to persuade them, then you were at a loss.'

Lt. Col. Dale Davis (USMC, ret.) concurs that the intelligence process was badly subverted by a "political operation." Davis, through March 2004, headed International Programs at the Virginia Military Institute. A fluent Arabic speaker, he has served throughout the Arab world. Davis initially said that he did not think that the intelligence analysts were pressured, "per se":

They created an organization that would give them the answers they wanted. Or at least piece together a very compelling case by rummaging through all the various intelligence reports and picking out the best, the most juicy, but quite often the most flimsy pieces of information. . . . By creating the OSP, Cheney was able to say, �Hey, look at what we're getting out of OSP. How come you guys aren't doing as well? What is your response to what this alternative analysis that we're receiving from the Pentagon says?' That's how you do it. You pressure people indirectly.


"Drinking the Kool-Aid"

W. Patrick Lang

Col. Lang is president of Global Resources, Inc. and former defense intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).


http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0406_lang.asp

02-11-2000 Candidate Bush Says "There won't be any WMD left in Iraq"
Bush also defended his father's decision to end the 1991 Persian Gulf War without sending troops after Saddam Hussein, and said as president he would ensure Iraq didn't develop weapons of mass destruction.

"If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq if I'm the commander in chief," Bush told reporters, without giving details. "I'm not going to tell you what I mean, because I'm not going to tell Saddam Hussein what I mean."

CNN - Politics, published 02-11-2000



02-04-2001 Powell can't confirm WMD, but says "we reserve the right to use whatever means necessary" if Saddam has WMD
MR. DONALDSON: First, do you think he has been developing weapons of mass destruction? Do you have any evidence?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we have to assume that he has never lost his goal or gone away from his goal of developing such weapons. And that is unfortunate because, as long as he pursues that goal, the United Nations has to remain engaged. He made a commitment at the end of the Gulf War that he would not develop these weapons and he would demonstrate to the international community that he was not doing so. He has failed to meet those obligations.

And as a result, the people of the region are threatened; the children of the region are threatened by Saddam Hussein and his potential possession of these kinds of weapons.

MR. DONALDSON: What you seem to be suggesting to me that, at the moment, you don't have enough evidence to believe that you should follow through on President Bush's words to take out those weapons.

SECRETARY POWELL: We reserve the right to use whatever means may be necessary if we had a specific set of targets, or something occurred to us, or we found something that we think would be appropriate to go after.

ABC - This Week, published 02-04-2002


02-11-2001 Rumsfeld: Iraq Not a Nuclear Threat
Mr. SNOW: Is Iraq a nuclear threat?

Mr. RUMSFELD: Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time. There's no question but that its nuclear capabilities were well advanced, and much farther advanced than Western intelligence capabilities knew. And we were very fortunate that the Israelis went in some time before, and took out their nuclear capability.

Fox News Sunday, published 02-11-2001


02-11-2001 Powell: Saddam much weaker but still a threat
MS. BORGER: This is, as you know, the tenth anniversary of the Gulf War. Do you believe Saddam Hussein is stronger or weaker than he was?

SECRETARY POWELL: He's weaker, he's much weaker. That million-man army of ten years ago is gone. He is sitting on a very much smaller army of perhaps 350,000 that does not have the capacity to invade its neighbors any longer. He is living in three concentric rings of jails that he has created for himself in order to protect himself behind a security cordon. He has a great deal of money available to him through our Oil-for-Food Program, which he refuses to use entirely for the benefit of his people and for his children. Instead, he continues to pursue weapons of mass destruction to threaten the people and children of the region.

CBS - Face the Nation, published 02-12-2001



02-22-2001 Bush: We won't tolerate [Saddam] developing WMD
THE PRESIDENT: We're reviewing all policy in all regions of the world, and one of the areas we've been spending a lot of time on is the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein, we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone.

I have said that the sanction regime is like Swiss cheese. That meant that they weren't very effective. And we're going to review current sanction policy, and review options as to how to make the sanctions work. But the primary goal is to make it clear to Saddam that we expect him to be a peaceful neighbor in the region and we expect him not to develop weapons of mass destruction. And if we find him doing so, there will be a consequence.

Press Conference by the President, published 02-22-2001


02-22-2001 Bush: We won't tolerate [Saddam] developing WMD
THE PRESIDENT: We're reviewing all policy in all regions of the world, and one of the areas we've been spending a lot of time on is the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein, we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone.

I have said that the sanction regime is like Swiss cheese. That meant that they weren't very effective. And we're going to review current sanction policy, and review options as to how to make the sanctions work. But the primary goal is to make it clear to Saddam that we expect him to be a peaceful neighbor in the region and we expect him not to develop weapons of mass destruction. And if we find him doing so, there will be a consequence.

Press Conference by the President, published 02-22-2001


02-24-2001 Powell: Saddam has "no significant WMD capability"
…[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.

Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt, published 02-24-2001


03-06-2001 Powell: Sanctions will prevent Iraq from acquiring WMD
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the modified Iraq sanctions policy will prevent Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from acquiring weapons of mass destruction but allow Iraqi civilians to obtain needed consumer goods.

"We will keep them from developing their military capability again, just the way we have for the last ten years, but we will not be the ones to blame because the Iraqi people, it is claimed, are not getting what they need to take care of their children or to take care of their needs," Powell said at a press conference with Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in Washington March 6.

Powell said he has received expressions of support from Arab leaders about the modified Iraq sanctions policy.

State Dept - Washington File, published 03-06-2001


03-08-2001 Powell explains changes in Iraq sanctions policy - Iraq not "full fledged threat"
Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 8 that the United Nations sanctions regime has kept Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in check. "Even though we know he is working on weapons of mass destruction, we know he has things squirreled away, at the same time we have not seen that capacity emerge to present a full fledged threat to us," he said.

State Dept - Washington File, published 03-08-2001

04-30-2001 2000 State Dept Terror report: No mention of ties between Iraq and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
"Iraq planned and sponsored international terrorism in 2000. Although Baghdad focused on antidissident activity overseas, the regime continued to support various terrorist groups. The regime has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait.

Several expatriate terrorist groups continued to maintain offices in Baghdad, including the Arab Liberation Front, the inactive 15 May Organization, the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), and the Abu Nidal organization (ANO). PLF leader Abu Abbas appeared on state-controlled television in the fall to praise Iraq's leadership in rallying Arab opposition to Israeli violence against Palestinians. The ANO threatened to attack Austrian interests unless several million dollars in a frozen ANO account in a Vienna bank were turned over to the group.

The Iraq-supported Iranian terrorist group, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), regularly claimed responsibility for armed incursions into Iran that targeted police and military outposts, as well as for mortar and bomb attacks on security organization headquarters in various Iranian cities. MEK publicists reported that in March group members killed an Iranian colonel having intelligence responsibilities. An MEK claim to have wounded a general was denied by the Iranian Government. The Iraqi regime deployed MEK forces against its domestic opponents."

State Dept - "Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism", published 04-30-2001

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A 2001 State department Report on terrorism :

Middle East Overview

Patterns of Global Terrorism -2000
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
April 2001

http://web.archive.org/web/20010504012003/www.state.gov
/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/index.cfm?docid=2438

NO MENTION of Iraq.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

05-15-2001 Powell: Iraq has not been successful in developing WMD
SENATOR BENNETT: Mr. Secretary, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq expire the beginning of June. We've had bombs dropped, we've had threats made, we've had all kinds of activity vis-a-vis Iraq in the previous administration. Now we're coming to the end. What's our level of concern about the progress of Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programs?

SECRETARY POWELL: The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10 years ago.

So containment, using this arms control sanctions regime, I think has been reasonably successful. We have not been able to get the inspectors back in, though, to verify that, and we have not been able to get the inspectors in to pull up anything that might be left there. So we have to continue to view this regime with the greatest suspicion, attribute to them the most negative motives, which is quite well-deserved with this particular regime, and roll the sanctions over, and roll them over in a way where the arms control sanctions really go after their intended targets -- weapons of mass destruction -- and not go after civilian goods or civilian commodities that we really shouldn't be going after, just let that go to the Iraqi people. That wasn't the purpose of the oil-for-food program. And by reconfiguring them in that way, I think we can gain support for this regime once again.

When we came into office on the 20th of January, the whole sanctions regime was collapsing in front of our eyes. Nations were bailing out on it. We lost the consensus for this kind of regime because the Iraqi regime had successfully painted us as the ones causing the suffering of the Iraqi people, when it was the regime that was causing the suffering. They had more than enough money; they just weren't spending it in the proper way. And we were getting the blame for it. So reconfiguring the sanctions, I think, helps us and continues to contain the Iraqi regime.

Testimony before the Senate Appropriations Commitee, published 05-15-2001

Source all :

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/timeline/index

who pay tax dollars for a war not declared by Congress

That's why you were lied to.

they never said it was going to be easy..

I'm sorry but I don't feel "lied to" the current Administration did what they said they were going to do.. overthrowing Saddam and his regime and creating a Democracy

they never said it was going to be easy.. in fact quite the contrary.. no administration could undertake such a task without flaws.

Why have you fallen for it so easily?