The NY times has a wonderfully lengthy investigative article on the US claims that Iraq was getting nuclear weapons because it was purchasing centrifuge tubes called How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence. It thoroughly proves that the only piece of actual intelligence was vigorously disputed and eventually discredited. A couple thoughts on this. First, it's great that the press is finally starting to do some serious hard investigative work and connecting the dots. Second, they come down quite hard on Vice President Cheney, which can't be co-incidence given tonights Vice-Presidential debate.
Rumsfeld admitted that there were no hard links between Al-Quaeda and Saddam and there were no WMDs in Iraq, in cnn report
And CNN reports that Bremer said more troops were need in Iraq.
In the State of the Union speech in 2003, President Bush described a variety of WMD threats that Iraq posed. Looking at the Nuclear threat section, he says
"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide."
The purchasing of uranium from Africa claim has been discredited, and now the purchasing aluminum tubes claim been discredited.
Then, there's a section on "Iraq's defiance" in
"The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal -- Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups. "
There was no illegal weapons program, there was nothing to hide, and there were no links to terrorist groups. Nothing but lies.
And now there's the fumbled recovery in Iraq. And greater nuclear proliferation because Iran and Korea justifiably believe that they could be attacked at any time based upon 100% lies.
The world is not safer when the rule of law is denigrated by lying and the inevitable backlash and response measures that others take.
I would hope that democracy means that administrations have to accept responsibility for actions and the voters have to decide who they trust. The notion of invading a foreign land based upon 100% made up evidence, and having over a thousand dead - without even really knowing the thousands and thousands of civilian dead - should not be ignored. People have been tarnished forever on far flimsier actions, surely thousands dead and 100s of billions spent should be a critical factor.
