Wikileaks reveals WMDs

[Ravi]

Gotta love Wikileaks.

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.
Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results | Danger Room | Wired.com

Myabe Bush did lie to us after all, if you call keeping evidence that will exonerate him lying.

This isn't news. From what I recall, most of these things were reported on. And no, a few leftovers from the first Gulf War do not mean Saddam was any kind of threat to us or had a workable WMD program.

It was pretty clear that was the case when we all watched footage of the invasion.

 

[edthecynic]

i'd like to see a source for that

Actually the claim was made by Rove in his book.

Rove on Iraq: Without W.M.D. Threat, Bush Wouldn't Have Gone to War - NYTimes.com

Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush and architect of his two successful campaigns for the White House, says in a new memoir that his former boss probably would not have invaded Iraq had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.


“Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” he writes. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.”

So, did GWB lie, or did Rove lie?

Both, of course.
Bush about not knowing there were no WMD, and Rove about Bush not invading if he knew there were no WMD.

Author: Bush knew Iraq had no WMD - TODAY People - TODAYshow.com

By Bob Considine
TODAYshow.com contributor TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 8/5/2008 919 AM ET

President Bush committed an impeachable offense by ordering the CIA to to manufacture a false pretense for the Iraq war in the form of a backdated, handwritten document linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, an explosive new book claims.
The charge is made in “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, released today.
Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. rationale to go into war.




Prelude to war
Suskind reports that the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, met secretly with British intelligence in Jordan in the early days of 2003. In weekly meetings with Michael Shipster, the British director of Iraqi operations, Habbush conveyed that Iraq had no active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
When Tenet was informed of the findings in early February, he said, “They’re not going to like this downtown,” Suskind wrote, meaning the White House. Suskind says that Bush’s reaction to the report was: “Why don’t they ask him to give us something we can use to help make our case?”
Suskind quotes Rob Richer, the CIA’s Near East division head, as saying that the White House simply ignored the Habbush report and informed British intelligence that they no longer wanted Habbush as an informant.
“Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq from the very first days he was in office. Nothing was going to stop that,” Richer is quoted in the book.
Suskind also writes that Habbush was “resettled” in Jordan with help from the CIA and was paid $5 million in hush money.




The letter
On page 371 of “The Way of the World,” Suskind describes the White House’s concoction of a forged letter purportedly from the hand of Habbush to Saddam Hussein to justify the United States’ decision to go to war.
Suskind writes: “The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq — thus showing, finally, that there was an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, something the Vice President's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade.”
He continues: “A handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, would be fashioned by CIA and then hand-carried by a CIA agent to Baghdad for dissemination.”
CIA officers Richer and John Maguire, who oversaw the Iraq Operations Group, are both on the record in Suskind’s book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter.

 

[Si modo]

Actually the claim was made by Rove in his book.

Rove on Iraq: Without W.M.D. Threat, Bush Wouldn't Have Gone to War - NYTimes.com

Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush and architect of his two successful campaigns for the White House, says in a new memoir that his former boss probably would not have invaded Iraq had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.


“Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” he writes. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.”

So, did GWB lie, or did Rove lie?

Both, of course.
Bush about not knowing there were no WMD, and Rove about Bush not invading if he knew there were no WMD. ....

So, you posted lies to support what, exactly?

 

[editec]

Gotta love Wikileaks.

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.
Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results | Danger Room | Wired.com

Myabe Bush did lie to us after all, if you call keeping evidence that will exonerate him lying.

Chemical weapons are not WMDs.

Yeah I know that people call them WMDs but they're really not.

They're tactical weapons at best.

 

[edthecynic]

So, did GWB lie, or did Rove lie?

Both, of course.
Bush about not knowing there were no WMD, and Rove about Bush not invading if he knew there were no WMD. ....

So, you posted lies to support what, exactly?

Ahhhhh, the patented CON$ervative Dumb Act.

 

[Si modo]

Both, of course.
Bush about not knowing there were no WMD, and Rove about Bush not invading if he knew there were no WMD. ....

So, you posted lies to support what, exactly?

Ahhhhh, the patented CON$ervative Dumb Act.

If trying to get a poster actually to focus makes me dumb, so be it.

 

[L.K.Eder]

yeah, i think it is time for a personal anecdote of an uncle who considers leftovers from decades ago WMD's.

true story

 

[edthecynic]

So, you posted lies to support what, exactly?

Ahhhhh, the patented CON$ervative Dumb Act.

If trying to get a poster actually to focus makes me dumb, so be it.

I'm not the one who isn't focused. See the first quote in my sig.

DumbCon asked for a link to BUSH saying that if he knew there were no WMD he would not have invaded Iraq. I merely pointed out that it was not Bush who said it and it was Rove in his book. It was merely a point of information.

 

[Sallow]

I am sure that early on I said that, and then later, when small labs or whatever, I have said that the Iraqi programs had been generally ended. I am sure you said, "The Syrians have it. Invade Syria to find out." This issue is a non-issue. Bush himself has said that if he had flatly known that the WMDs were not there,he would not have invaded.

You are not a conservative, that's for sure, only a stupid reactionary, while I am a GOP moderate conservative. So two words for you: buh bye.

i'd like to see a source for that

Me too. I recall him saying very much the opposite.

 

[Sallow]

Gotta love Wikileaks.

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But for years afterward, WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins, and uncover weapons of mass destruction.
An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.
In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.
Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”
Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results | Danger Room | Wired.com

Myabe Bush did lie to us after all, if you call keeping evidence that will exonerate him lying.

Chemical weapons are not WMDs.

Yeah I know that people call them WMDs but they're really not.

They're tactical weapons at best.

Actually..most of the bio agents and chemical weapons they found were very old and might have well been forgotten by the Saddam Hussien's regime. They were basically pretty harmless.

 

[Si modo]

Ahhhhh, the patented CON$ervative Dumb Act.

If trying to get a poster actually to focus makes me dumb, so be it.

I'm not the one who isn't focused. See the first quote in my sig.

DumbCon asked for a link to BUSH saying that if he knew there were no WMD he would not have invaded Iraq. I merely pointed out that it was not Bush who said it and it was Rove in his book. It was merely a point of information.

You post what you call the lies of others to support a claim by another poster; then you start talking about Limbaugh. You've lost me. But, at this point, that's OK. I am not on a need-to-know basis in this matter any longer.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Dems still insist that Uncle Saddam was a good and kind man

 

[Sallow]

Dems still insist that Uncle Saddam was a good and kind man

Never heard that one. They did however, insist that Iraq was largely contained and not a threat.

And on that..they were correct.

 

[edthecynic]

If trying to get a poster actually to focus makes me dumb, so be it.

I'm not the one who isn't focused. See the first quote in my sig.

DumbCon asked for a link to BUSH saying that if he knew there were no WMD he would not have invaded Iraq. I merely pointed out that it was not Bush who said it and it was Rove in his book. It was merely a point of information.

You post what you call the lies of others to support a claim by another poster; then you start talking about Limbaugh. You've lost me. But, at this point, that's OK. I am not on a need-to-know basis in this matter any longer.

Dang you are dense. I posted nothing in support of another poster, I merely pointed out it was ROVE not BUSH who said if Bush knew there were no WMD Bush would not have invaded Iraq. Only CON$ervative "logic" could spin that into I was SUPPORTING the poster who claimed Bush said it.

 

[Sallow]

I'm not the one who isn't focused. See the first quote in my sig.

DumbCon asked for a link to BUSH saying that if he knew there were no WMD he would not have invaded Iraq. I merely pointed out that it was not Bush who said it and it was Rove in his book. It was merely a point of information.

You post what you call the lies of others to support a claim by another poster; then you start talking about Limbaugh. You've lost me. But, at this point, that's OK. I am not on a need-to-know basis in this matter any longer.

Dang you are dense. I posted nothing in support of another poster, I merely pointed out it was ROVE not BUSH who said if Bush knew there were no WMD Bush would not have invaded Iraq. Only CON$ervative "logic" could spin that into I was SUPPORTING the poster who claimed Bush said it.

On that..Rove is wrong. Bush was dead set on invading Iraq and alluded to as much during his Presidential campaign.

 

[edthecynic]

Actually the claim was made by Rove in his book.

Rove on Iraq: Without W.M.D. Threat, Bush Wouldn't Have Gone to War - NYTimes.com

Karl Rove, the chief political adviser to President George W. Bush and architect of his two successful campaigns for the White House, says in a new memoir that his former boss probably would not have invaded Iraq had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.


“Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” he writes. “Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change, and deal with Iraq’s horrendous human rights violations.”

So, did GWB lie, or did Rove lie?

Both, of course.
Bush about not knowing there were no WMD, and Rove about Bush not invading if he knew there were no WMD.

Author: Bush knew Iraq had no WMD - TODAY People - TODAYshow.com

By Bob Considine
TODAYshow.com contributor TODAYshow.com contributor
updated 8/5/2008 919 AM ET

President Bush committed an impeachable offense by ordering the CIA to to manufacture a false pretense for the Iraq war in the form of a backdated, handwritten document linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, an explosive new book claims.
The charge is made in “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism” by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, released today.
Suskind says he spoke on the record with U.S. intelligence officials who stated that Bush was informed unequivocally in January 2003 that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, his book relates, Bush decided to invade Iraq three months later — with the forged letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam bolstering the U.S. rationale to go into war.




Prelude to war
Suskind reports that the head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush, met secretly with British intelligence in Jordan in the early days of 2003. In weekly meetings with Michael Shipster, the British director of Iraqi operations, Habbush conveyed that Iraq had no active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
When Tenet was informed of the findings in early February, he said, “They’re not going to like this downtown,” Suskind wrote, meaning the White House. Suskind says that Bush’s reaction to the report was: “Why don’t they ask him to give us something we can use to help make our case?”
Suskind quotes Rob Richer, the CIA’s Near East division head, as saying that the White House simply ignored the Habbush report and informed British intelligence that they no longer wanted Habbush as an informant.
“Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq from the very first days he was in office. Nothing was going to stop that,” Richer is quoted in the book.
Suskind also writes that Habbush was “resettled” in Jordan with help from the CIA and was paid $5 million in hush money.




The letter
On page 371 of “The Way of the World,” Suskind describes the White House’s concoction of a forged letter purportedly from the hand of Habbush to Saddam Hussein to justify the United States’ decision to go to war.
Suskind writes: “The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq — thus showing, finally, that there was an operation link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, something the Vice President's office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade.”
He continues: “A handwritten letter, with Habbush's name on it, would be fashioned by CIA and then hand-carried by a CIA agent to Baghdad for dissemination.”
CIA officers Richer and John Maguire, who oversaw the Iraq Operations Group, are both on the record in Suskind’s book confirming the existence of the fake Habbush letter.

You post what you call the lies of others to support a claim by another poster; then you start talking about Limbaugh. You've lost me. But, at this point, that's OK. I am not on a need-to-know basis in this matter any longer.

Dang you are dense. I posted nothing in support of another poster, I merely pointed out it was ROVE not BUSH who said if Bush knew there were no WMD Bush would not have invaded Iraq. Only CON$ervative "logic" could spin that into I was SUPPORTING the poster who claimed Bush said it.

On that..Rove is wrong. Bush was dead set on invading Iraq and alluded to as much during his Presidential campaign.

Exactly, and I pointed that out in an earlier post where, after being told by the CIA that there were no WMD, Bush had a letter fabricated to have an excuse to invade Iraq.

 

[editec]

Gotta love Wikileaks.




WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results | Danger Room | Wired.com

Myabe Bush did lie to us after all, if you call keeping evidence that will exonerate him lying.

Chemical weapons are not WMDs.

Yeah I know that people call them WMDs but they're really not.

They're tactical weapons at best.

Actually..most of the bio agents and chemical weapons they found were very old and might have well been forgotten by the Saddam Hussien's regime. They were basically pretty harmless.

Even if they'd been 100% effective they still aren't WMDS.

Its that pesky word MASS that makes pronoucing chemical weapons WMDs a misnomer.

WMDs have got to TRULY cause MASS destruction to fit into that catagory.

Right now the only thing that really fits the bill is nuclear weapons.

Biological weapons might, but (thank god) nobody has yet fielded one of those.

But chemical weapons? Nah!

They have very limited ability to cause mass destruction since they're so damned hard to get into the field.

If you really want to destroy a city or village, its easier to do with standard ordinance than chemically.

And if you truly want to cause mass destruction there's nothing like a nuclear weapon.

 

[Si modo]

I'm not the one who isn't focused. See the first quote in my sig.

DumbCon asked for a link to BUSH saying that if he knew there were no WMD he would not have invaded Iraq. I merely pointed out that it was not Bush who said it and it was Rove in his book. It was merely a point of information.

You post what you call the lies of others to support a claim by another poster; then you start talking about Limbaugh. You've lost me. But, at this point, that's OK. I am not on a need-to-know basis in this matter any longer.

Dang you are dense. I posted nothing in support of another poster, I merely pointed out it was ROVE not BUSH who said if Bush knew there were no WMD Bush would not have invaded Iraq. Only CON$ervative "logic" could spin that into I was SUPPORTING the poster who claimed Bush said it.

A request was made for the source and you posted what you call lies.

Yeah, my sense of logic doesn't understand - at all - your attempt at some point. And, when I asked, you talk about Limbaugh. As I said, I am no longer in any need-to-know situation in this matter as I am unable to follow your logic. Thanks for trying to explain, though.

I am sure that early on I said that, and then later, when small labs or whatever, I have said that the Iraqi programs had been generally ended. I am sure you said, "The Syrians have it. Invade Syria to find out." This issue is a non-issue. Bush himself has said that if he had flatly known that the WMDs were not there,he would not have invaded.

You are not a conservative, that's for sure, only a stupid reactionary, while I am a GOP moderate conservative. So two words for you: buh bye.

i'd like to see a source for that

 

[Si modo]

Gotta love Wikileaks.




WikiLeaks Show WMD Hunt Continued in Iraq – With Surprising Results | Danger Room | Wired.com

Myabe Bush did lie to us after all, if you call keeping evidence that will exonerate him lying.

Chemical weapons are not WMDs.

Yeah I know that people call them WMDs but they're really not.

They're tactical weapons at best.

Actually..most of the bio agents and chemical weapons they found were very old and might have well been forgotten by the Saddam Hussien's regime. They were basically pretty harmless.

Unfortunately, the claim of harmless doesn't jibe with the chemistry of organophosphates.

 

[Sallow]

Exactly, and I pointed that out in an earlier post where, after being told by the CIA that there were no WMD, Bush had a letter fabricated to have an excuse to invade Iraq.

While I think Bush lied in the SOTU, it was one of the "pushing the envelope" lies you could sort of back out of by saying the intel came from the brits. And given that the administration could have "snowflaked" a WMD..and didn't..I highly doubt Bush had a letter fabricated. There are plenty of con artist types around the world that would be more then happy to fabricate a letter to make a buck. Think Nigerian scams for cash. What did happen, in all likelyhood, is that they got one of these letters and held it up as valid.