Posted on 10/15/2003 6:38:28 AM PDT by areafiftyone
(CBS) The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his speech at the U.N. last winter.
Greg Thielmann tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that at the time of Powell’s speech, Iraq didn’t pose an imminent threat to anyone – not even its own neighbors. “…I think my conclusion [about Powell’s speech] now is that it’s probably one of the low points in his long distinguished service to the nation,” says Thielmann.
Pelley’s report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
Thielmann also tells Pelley that he believes the decision to go to war was made first and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion. “…The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence,” says Thielmann.
“They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the intelligence community would produce. I would assign some blame to the intelligence community and most of the blame to the senior administration officials.”
Steve Allinson and a dozen other U.N. inspectors in Iraq also watched Powell’s speech. “Various people would laugh at various times [during Powell’s speech] because the information he was presenting was just, you know, didn't mean anything -- had no meaning,” says Allinson.
Pelley asks, “When the Secretary finished the speech, you and the other inspectors turned to each other and said what?” Allinson responds, “’They have nothing.’”
Allinson gives Pelley several examples of why he believes Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. One time, he was sent to find decontamination vehicles that turned out to be fire trucks. Another time, a satellite spotted what they thought were trucks used for biological weapons.
“We were told we were going to the site to look for refrigerated trucks specifically linked to biological agents,” Allinson tells Pelley. “…We found seven or eight [trucks], I think, in total, and they had cobwebs in them. Some samples were taken and nothing was found.”
Looks like this guy was hitting the Guardian and the Australian papers first in June and July and now is hitting the U.S. papers.
Nothing new here....
Associated Press Serves Democrats' Agenda
We posted yesterday on the declassification of the CIA's October 2002 assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability. We won't repeat the extensive quotes from the CIA's report, but suffice it to say that the report, representing a consensus of all of the intelligence agencies, clearly indicated that Iraq was trying to reconstitute its nuclear program and, if it were able to obtain fissionable material, could develop a nuclear bomb in a year or less.
The CIA's report should have put to rest the claim that the Administration somehow twisted the data provided by the intelligence agencies to make a case for war against Saddam Hussein. Put aside for a moment whether the intelligence was correct or not. The information in the CIA report is what was given to the Administration, and it was correctly characterized by President Bush and other Administration officials in their public communications. And it was acted upon by President Bush when he decided to liberate Iraq.
The Associated Press was once viewed as a reasonably neutral news agency. It is now an agent of the Democratic Party, and its reporters are among the most influential, and the most biased, in American journalism. Its dispatches appear in hundreds of American newspapers. They are therefore worth scrutinizing carefully. Naturally, as soon as the Administration declassified the CIA report on Iraq's weapons programs, the Associated Press set out to neutralize the impact of the report.
This article is typical: "Iraq Evidence Was Thin, Nuke Experts Say". In this article, by John J. Lumpkin and Dafna Linzer, the AP asserted that the evidence in the CIA report did not support the claim that Iraq was pursuing nuclear weapons. The AP cited exactly two "experts" for the proposition that the CIA's evidence was "thin": Greg Thielmann and Andrew Wilkie.
You are probably aware of Mr. Thielmann. A former Democratic Party activist and State Department official, he has become a principal spokesman for the anti-Bush forces in the press and the Democratic Party. Since he retired from the State Department, he has spent essentially all of his time giving interviews in which he denounces the President and the Iraq war. He has been quoted in virtually every newspaper, and certainly every news magazine, in America. Yet his reliability is never questioned; he is always cited as a neutral, senior statesman who is entitled to pass judgment on the President, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense.
For a typical sample of Thielmann's point of view, here is his interview with left-winger Bill Moyers on PBS last month. Note in particular this statement, in which Thielmann purports to speak for the intelligence community: "The intelligence community as a whole in our considered wording and advice did not give the President the impression that there was an imminent threat....Our judgment was that Iraq had not reconstituted its nuclear weapons program in the sense that that's generally understood." So says Mr. Thielmann. But consider what the consensus evaluation of October 2002 actually told President Bush: "More than ten years of sanctions and the loss of much of Iraq's physical nuclear infrastructure under IAEA oversight have not diminished Saddam's interest in acquiring or developing nuclear weapons....Iraq's efforts to procure tens of thousands of proscribed high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists assess this to be the intended use....
"Before its departure from Iraq, the IAEA made significant strides toward dismantling Iraq's nuclear weapons program and unearthing the nature and scope of Iraq's past nuclear activities. In the absence of inspections, however, most analysts assess that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear program—unraveling the IAEA's hard-earned accomplishments." So Thielmann misrepresented the consensus of intelligence analysts.
Note also that the standard Thielmann applies--whether there is an "imminent threat"--has repeatedly been disavowed by the Administration, which says that a threat may need to be defused long before it can be proved to be "imminent." In fact, Administration spokesmen never said that the threat from Iraq was "imminent," nor have they ever said or implied that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons.
I bet you are a Scott Ritter fan too...maybe Benedict Arnold?
According to those who wish the administration political harm and ill will. Like the Demlibs and rightwing fringers with an ideological bone to pick. 12 years of brazen arrogance was enough from Saddam. There was ample evidence and good reason to take Saddam out, once and for all.
You're either with us, or against us.
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