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04/14/2004 Archived Entry: "Holy crap. Cato Institute seems to be jumping ship."
Holy crap. Cato Institute seems to be jumping ship.
Sooner or later, Bush is gonna alienate everybody.
Equally serious is the weapons of mass destruction fiasco. The president, vice president, secretary of state and secretary of defense painted a veritable arsenal of horrors. Nuclear weapons programs, anthrax, biotoxins, chemical weapons, nerve agents, smallpox, biological weapons trailers, unmanned aerial vehicles, long-range ballistic missiles and more were being developed and deployed for use against America.Said President Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And this threat was direct, imminent, significant, urgent, gathering and mounting. Indeed, said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world." Of course, none of these claims were true.
And administration officials had reason to know, or at least suspect, that many of them were false. Observed John B. Judis and Spencer Ackerman of the New Republic, "Unbeknownst to the public, the administration faced equally serious opposition within its own intelligence agencies."
The CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Air Force, State Department's intelligence bureau, Department of Energy, and International Atomic Energy Agency criticized various administration claims. The top-secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq included some 40 caveats, which were left out of the public version. Moreover, the United Nations inspectors actively traversing Iraq found nothing.
At no point has the president or his advisers accepted responsibility. At worst, they appear to be conscious liars. At best they seem deceitful and manipulative.
Replies: 3 people speak up
Marginally OT but everybody needs a giggle now and then:
Ashcroft To Investigate Miracle Child
Posted by Xan @ 04/14/2004 05:43 PM NY
If Saddam had just fulfilled his obligations under the 1991 Gulf War CEASEFIRE, providing "free and unfettered" access to inspectors to confirm the destruction of ALL of his WMD weaponry, none of this would have happened.
Pity poor Saddam, and his catastrophic blunder.
But why in the world did Saddam have a team of scientists working on Crimean Hemorhaggic Fever?
Were they working on a cure?
Posted by rogersj52003@yahoo.com @ 04/14/2004 08:17 PM NY
Actually, the UN weapons inspectors were getting access and asked for more time. Something the "U.S." was unwilling to give them. The refusal to give inspectors more time was based on the bullshit documented by the Cato Institute and many others.
Posted by Mike @ 04/15/2004 11:45 AM NY
