Posted on 06/13/2003 11:07:26 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
Saturday, May 31, 2003 11:45 a.m. EDT Bush WMD Debacle Prompted by Salman Pak Blunder President Bush shouldn't wait a second longer to introduce Iraqi defectors Sabah Khodada and Abu Zeinab to the American people, and fire whoever it was in his administration who advised him to ignore the defectors' eyewitness accounts tying the Baghdad terrorist training camp Salman Pak to the 9/11 attacks. Instead of relying on evidence that would have dispelled all doubts about making war on Iraq, the as-yet-unidentified presidential adviser counseled Bush to hinge his Iraq war rationale on the threat of weapons of mass destruction, evidence that - so far, at least - has yet to materialize. The blunder has given Democrats their most potent ammunition yet in their bid to unseat Bush in the 2004 presidential election. In an embarrassing series of statements on Friday, Bush challenged reports contending that Iraqi WMDs were still MIA - only to be contradicted by U.S. experts on the ground. "They're wrong, we found 'em," he told reporters in Poland. "We found weapons of mass destruction. We'll find more weapons," the president added. But in a discrepancy that's sure to become the focus of the Sunday talk shows, U.S. intelligence and military officials contradicted Bush's claims. "We were simply wrong" in expecting to find that Iraqi army and Republican Guard units had terror weapons, Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told the New York Daily News. "It's not for lack of trying," Conway explained. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but [the Iraqi WMDs are] simply not there." A lengthy report released by the CIA this week said that two suspected mobile biological weapons labs contained no traces of the actual toxins that would prove they were WMD facilities. Adding to Bush's political humiliation, the British press quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell as fearing even before the war that tenuous WMD evidence "could explode in [our] faces." Even before the news of the contradictory accounts surfaced, Democrats had seized on the fruitless WMD search as evidence that Bush had lied to lead America into war. In one particularly odious comparison, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala charged that Bush's Iraq "lies" were far worse than his old boss's perjury about Monica Lewinsky. "Which is worse: lying about a girlfriend or lying about a war?" Begala complained on Thursday. "There aren't 169 [U.S. troops] dead over Monica Lewinsky," the Democrat strategist added sarcastically. While European and American intelligence services remain convinced that Saddam Hussein had substantial quantities of WMDs before Bush targeted the country as the lead member of the Axis of Evil in his 2002 State of the Union address, delays caused by United Nation's footdragging gave the Iraqi dictator plenty of time to hide or destroy his weapons cache.
Now, after U.S. forces have spent six weeks scouring Iraq in a fruitless search for Saddam's terror weapons, the decision to focus on WMDs has turned into a political nightmare for the White House. Still, boneheaded administration strategists have refused to acknowledge evidence that might still spare the president the his worst political debacle to date - the accounts of two Iraqi defectors who say that, for years before the 9/11 attacks, they helped train al-Qaeda operatives to hijack U.S. aircraft using the tactics employed by Osama bin Laden's kamikazi crews. In an account that would have dispelled any doubts about whether the U.S. was justified in making war on Iraq regardless of whether Saddam possessed WMDs, former Salman Pak instructor Sabah Khodada told the London Observer that Muslim fundamentalist recruits from throughout the Arab world were taught to hijack planes using small knives. "The method used on 11 September perfectly coincides with the training I saw at the camp," Khodada revealed. "When I saw the twin towers attack, the first thought that came into my head was 'this has been done by graduates of Salman Pak.'" Khodada's account is corroborated by a man identified by the Observer only by his code name, Abu Zeinab, a colonel in Saddam's Mukhabarat intelligence service who also helped train for 9/11-style operations. "One of the highlights of the six-month curriculum was training to hijack aircraft using only knives or bare hands," he told the Observer. "Like the 11 September hijackers, the students worked in groups of four or five." The accounts of the two Salman Pak instructors are further corroborated by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer - a one-time vice chairman of UNSCOM - who said he personally witnessed some of the 9/11 training aboard the parked fuselage of a Boeing 707.
Duelfer told the British paper that the Iraqis even acknowledged that hijacking dress rehearsals were taking place at Salman Pak - but they insisted it was counterterrorism training. "Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter,'" Duelfer explained. The accounts of Khodada, Zeinab and Duelfer are backed by two other eyewitnesses - a third defector and a second U.N. inspector - all of whom testified earlier this year in a lawsuit brought by 9/11 victim families against Iraq. In a May 7 decision that should have been seized upon by the Bush administration - but wasn't - Manhattan U.S. District Judge Harold Baer ruled that the Salman Pak evidence was persuasive enough to tie Baghdad to the 9/11 attacks. It's probably too late for the Bush administration to abandon its WMD argument for going to war in Iraq. And indeed, Saddam's banned weapons may eventually be found. In the meantime, the president needs to quickly focus attention on far more compelling evidence that every American would agree justified going to war - Iraq's role in the worst attack ever on U.S. soil. And just as quickly, Bush should fire the officials whose advice to ignore the Salman Pak connection could conceivably cost him his re-election next year.
That is what my Israeli tour guide said in December as we were on our way to tour the border with Lebanon; however, this WMD debacle underscores the dangerousness of Colin Powell for America and the President's re election chances.
The President needs to get rid of the pacifist Colin Powell now and give Rumsfeld what he needs without the appeaser's influence if Pres. Bush is to have the best chance possible at election time. Not to mention, Powell must go for the best interests of the country.
If there is a crime, it is dereliction of duty to protect the citizens of the United States by eliminating the clear and present danger posed by those nations.
--Boris
It sounds as if you're the dopey type. I don't understand how you turn heated internet discussion into a freedom of speech issue. I also don't understand how you managed mark up the same exact post 10 minutes after the first one. IOW you're not making any sense.
Not for anything, but I ain't going nowhere. I was here years before you showed up to write posts that don't make any sense.
There is no one watching the store anymore. It is more than sur real it is down right scary
We used to want to watch Washington, now we want to dance with them .
There are real questions that need answers. Questions that have nothing to do with the correctness of the war. But until these questions are answered we will not know for sure if the war was really about the best interest of the world or the best interest of a small group of people.
But it seems no one here wants the questions asked that we would have protested in Washington to get just a few years ago.
You're correct that it's natural to see less unity after a party takes power. It's much worse than it has to be though, because the conservatives in this country have nothing to high five about. Squabbles would be fine with me if we could have some unity and make at least a feigned effort at working our slowing the growth of our out of control government. Never mind the seemingly impossible dream of reversing some of it.
If GWB was pushing conservatism we'd all have a lot less to fight about. We don't have anything to ralley around to bring us together, as his domestic agenda is our nightmare. His supporters around here spend all of their damn time defending him, that's got to get old after a while.
Well, Rove in all his "genius" managed to dismantle the lean, mean, highly motivated and cost free grass roots apparatus that was in place in 2000, so I hope he's got all his liberals in place to come over in 2004. I doubt very highly I'll even pull the lever for him, much less take to the streets as I did last time around.
Nice to meet you BTW. 8)
Thank you! I think yours is the only post I've seen that reminds us of this.(not to say nobody else has, I just haven't seen or heard it.) I've been saying this to people since President Bush first starting talking war with Iraq.
All the other reasons for removing Saddam Hussein was nothing other then gravy
Amen!
Ma'm, I'm terribly sorry that I tried to take your freedom of speech away ....forgive me. I would also like to apologize for being anything less than nice after you flew in from nowhere, commenced to flaming me, then suggesting that I leave the forum.
Good day to you too.
i quite agree that the posession of WMD does not constitute Causus Beli. Were this the case, the rest of the world would be quite justified in attacking the United States as well as other such nations that posess them. That said, it was the motive given by the Administration. The American People should have...right motives or no...seen the evidence of the WMD. They should have had a chance to see what American boys (and at least one woman) were going to be sent to die for.
The Administration claimed to have the evidence, i am still irritated that it was not presented. Reasons have been given for this action, and i am afraid that they do not stand up to the test.
1) WE CANNOT COMPROMISE INTELLIGENCE SOURCES INSIDE IRAQ:i contend that the life of one Iraqi intelligence source and/or his/her family does not equal the value of the lives of 169 American Soldiers and Marines to the American people. This is especially true in a regime that would Cease to exist shortly after commencement of hostilities.
2) THIS EVIDENCE MUST BE PRESENTED TO THE UN:So then, the United Nations over rides the legitimate concerns of the United States? The United Nations has access to information gathered by US and allied intelligence services that the American People cannot have? What is wrong with that picture?
3) THE PRESENTATION OF THE EVIDENCE MUST BE TIMED SO AS TO HAVE MAXIMUM POLITICAL EFFECT AGAINST THE ENEMIES OF THE ADMINISTRATION:So, once again, Political expediency is placed at a greater premium than the lives of American Forces? This smacks of the same motives that lead Churchill to sacrifice a perfectly good Highlands Division, in a vain attempt to keep France in the war in 1940. It smacks of the same motives that prevented an all out effort to end the Korean situation, leading us to the problems we have today in that region. It smacks of the same motives that handcuffed the American effort in Vietnam, with an American President involved in the minutia of determining bomb loads and targets for political effect. While i firmly support civillian control of the military, i do not approve of political control of the military. The Military is to be used as a result of failed political policy, not as an instrument of political policy.
My Majour concern is that this appears to be a repetition of the Tonkin Gulf Situation, which history has proven to be a fraud. i rather hope that the events of the Iraq situation do not turn out to be as disasterous for GWB as they did for LBJ in the previous generation. If they do, i believe that history will show that we have again reaped what we have sown.
Bush is pounded on constantly no matter what: whether it's the aircraft landing, the 'looting', the tax cut, whatever. It goes with the territory and Bush has shown he is more than able to take it. It has still been less than three months since the Iraq campaign began. In the end the WMD info will come out and hopefully the libs will once again have to go running to find their next issue. Do I know exactly how this will turn out? No, of course not, but I'm confident that it will turn out fine. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rather than address the Article, "Deb" decided to excoriate "FR Bush-haters creeping out from under their rocks..." etc.
That's not an Argument, it's a Bulverism. Personally, I prefer Arguments to Bulverisms, and treat them with a little more respect.
I don't think Bush consciously lied, either.
I do think he had some bad advice, from certain corners, when he was advised to put WMDs on both front burners, to the exclusion of other rationales:
The point is, it is politically unfortunate that Bush's advisors settled on "WMD"s as the primary and most oft-repeated justification for the War on Iraq. We have known since last year that there was much contravailing intel against Iraqi WMDs, and that some of the intel supporting WMDs was suspect. We are only know discovering just how "suspect" some of this intel was.
By contrast, there was never really any doubt about the purpose and usage of the Salman Pak boxcutter-hijack training site. Even the UN inspectors, of all people, admitted the point:
"Of course we automatically took out the word 'counter,'" Duelfer explained.
That the Democrats have any traction on this issue at all... that Senate Investigations are even being pushed forward... is evidence for the argument that those Bush advisors who preferred WMDs as a "juicier" rationale have exposed their Boss to political vulnerability. I don't know if it was Wolfowitz himself or if he is just relating events from inside the "smoky rooms", but some higher-ups gave the Prez some bad political advice.
I agree with you, in terms of the political weight of the issue.
At the same time, I think that the very fact that the Dems have any traction at all on this issue is a result of not putting Salman Pak on Ari Fleischer's front burner, or at least one of the front burners alongside WMDs.
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