Awesome - just tuned in.
1998 memos how to hide the WMD from the inspectors.
Haven't found the "smoking gun" yet
Listening now! jveritas is doing GREAT!
1998 hiding the WMD development & research programs from the UN
We are listening to the next FREEPER OF THE YEAR.
BUMP
Excellent. This info is finally going to start getting out there. FR was mentioned at least two or three times by Zig.
Ping-a-ling!!!
:)
You know, I really have to do something with the speaker problem with my computer. The last ones I hooked up, blew up, and all I have is a clock radio in the house. I really miss listening to KFI.
Will there be a transcript that I can read?
nice plug for FR... I am in Cayman and was able to listen online... Very cool... Thanks for the heads up...
ARA
I didn't have time to do a thread when jveritas FReepmailed me. I pinged the prewardocs list to another thread that had just started about the docs. Thanks for posting the thread. He did a great job!
Thanks doug. Heard the segment. He did a good job and FR got several mentions.
Maje sure you keep your Free Republic profile page updated with all this stuff!
Bttt
This is great!!!! Way to go JV!!! FReepers are making a difference.
Who is this guy who calls himself jveritas?
US puts Iraqi documents on the Web
Goal is to speed up translation of files
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | March 18, 2006
Joseph Shahda of Randolph earns his living as an engineer. But in his spare time, he's an intelligence agent, working to ferret out the truth about the regime of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
When the US government on Thursday began publishing captured Iraqi government documents on the Internet, Shahda eagerly began to translate the files into English and publish them on a conservative website.
''I feel a sense of duty," said Shahda, a native of Lebanon who supports President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. ''I think it's a duty for people who know Arabic to translate the documents."
US officials hope that thousands of other Arabic speakers feel the same. Goaded by Congress, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has begun to release millions of pages of captured files online in an unprecedented effort to harness the Internet to disseminate raw intelligence material. There, anybody with a knowledge of Arabic can download the files and translate them for the world.
It's the same ''open source" principle that drove the successful development of the Internet and of powerful free software like the Linux operating system. Instead of hiring a team of brilliant professionals to analyze Iraqi documents in secret, the open source systems will use hundreds of clever amateurs, who'll publish their work for anyone to analyze and improve upon.
''Workers control the means of production, but without all that tedious communism," said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and author of ''An Army of Davids," a book that shows how the Internet encourages public activism.
US intelligence officials say nearly all the documents released have been given at least a cursory reading by Arabic experts. Beth Marple, Negroponte's deputy press secretary, said amateur translators won't find any major surprises, such as proof Hussein hid stockpiles of chemical weapons.
Still, conservative bloggers, eager to bolster the case for going to war against Iraq, have long argued for release of the documents. They gained a powerful ally last month in Michigan Republican Pete Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. In an interview with blogger Andrew Marcus, Hoekstra called for Negroponte to release the documents online. ''Unleash the power of the Net," Hoekstra said. ''Let the blogosphere go." Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, backed Hoekstra's proposal.
Within hours of the first release of documents, Shahda posted his first translation on the conservative website Free Republic. It was an Iraqi intelligence report of an interview with an Afghan informant that suggests -- but does not prove -- agents of Al Qaeda and the Taliban were active in Iraq before the Sept. 11 attacks.
According to an intelligence official who declined to be identified, Negroponte plans to release all documents that have no further intelligence value. Files that might help apprehend members of the Iraqi insurgency will remain under wraps. So will files that could violate the privacy or harm the reputations of innocent people. For instance, the Hussein regime used rape as a method of torture, and the government won't release documents containing the names of Iraqi rape victims. Nor will it release files mentioning Iraqi-Americans or other US citizens, such as journalists.
The remaining documents, the official said, will mainly provide insights into Hussein's rule. ''This stuff needs to be laid bare because it helps the democratic process in Iraq, like it did in South Africa, like it did in Germany," he said.
At least one Iraqi blogger agrees. ''We are currently trying to organize a network of bilingual Iraqi bloggers to translate as many of the documents as possible," said ''Omar," a Baghdad dentist who publishes IraqTheModel, which is widely read in the United States. Omar will not reveal his full name because his support for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein could put him in danger of death.
While conservative US bloggers, and some Iraqis, are eager to translate and read the Iraq documents, some prominent liberal bloggers scoffed at the release. ''To me, this is just more evidence that the Bush administration doesn't take national security seriously," wrote Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the popular Daily Kos website. ''Why doesn't our government have enough translators to handle this job?"
Jonathan Singer, weekend editor of the liberal site MyDD.com, was equally dismissive. ''The Hussein documents are not of great interest to me," said Singer, ''for the simple reason that they simply reinforce the notion that the Bush administration cherry picks intelligence to suit their needs."
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com
Thanks for starting this thread doug from upland.
I can't thank you enough for your work jveritas.