From: "Randy H" 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0606/dailyUpdate.html

In comments to reporters after he gave a speech to the UN Security Council,
BBC, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix questioned the credibility of the
US and British teams currently looking for weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq. "I do not want to question the integrity or the professionalism
of the inspectors of the coalition, but anybody who functions under an army
of occupation cannot have the same credibility as an independent
inspector," Mr. Blix said Thursday.
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-06/06/article04.shtml

Later, in interviews with the BBC, Blix also criticized the quality of the
intelligence given to him by the US and Britain. "Only in three of
those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases were
there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must
say." Blix also said he would not be surprised if weapons of mass
destruction are found in Iraq, and that the coalition forces had
"other reasons" for invading Iraq other than looking for those
weapons. Blix also acknowledged that Iraq had not provided full
cooperation, although he said he believed more could have been achieved if
inspectors had stayed longer.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2967598.stm
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/06/06/sprj.irq.blix.wmd/

Meanwhile the controversy over the prewar intelligence about the presence
of WMD in Iraq continued to grow in both Britain and the US. In Britain,
the BBC reported that British intelligence services were asked to
"rewrite" the dossier on Iraq at least six times. The Guardian
reports that the new claims seems to back up previous allegations that
intelligence services were told by Downing Street to "sex up" the
dossier to boost support for the war. In another angle to the debate, the
Financial Times reports that the claim Iraq could have its WMD ready in 45
minutes (one of the points critics claim was exaggerated), was made by a
"senior officer within Iraq's military."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$MDI3TFCIHWTNZQFIQMFSFF4AV
CBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2003/06/06/nwmd06.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/06/06/ixnewstop.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,972019,00.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-05-brits-iraq-intelligence_x.ht
m

The New York Times reports that British PM Tony Blair continues to insist
his government did not distort intelligence reports in order to exaggerate
the threat of weapons of mass destruction and justify war in Iraq. Earlier
this week, the Leader of the Commons,John Reid, said "rogue
spies" fed false information to journalists which accused Tony Blair
of exaggerating the size of Saddam Hussein's arsenal. But Mr. Reid's
comments produced a combination of "amazement and skepticism" in
opposition MPs, who said that intelligence sources were not taking his
remarks seriously.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/04/international/middleeast/04CND-BRIT.html?ex=1
055390400&en=c17b7fd661f9faa1&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2961432.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2962164.stm

The Iranian news agency, IRNA, reports that the US sought to help Blair on
Friday, as US assistant secretary of defense Valerie Clarke wrote a letter
to the Telegraph saying "It is far too early to make any judgments as
the final chapter of Saddam's WMD ambitions has yet to be written."
http://www.irna.ir/en/head/030606144717.ehe.shtml

Reuters reports that a new secret US report made public this week may add
more fuel to the WMD fire in the US. The report, written in Sept, 2000 by
the Defense Intelligence Agency, said it did not have enough "reliable
information" Iraq was amassing these weapons. And The Washington Post
reports that analysts at the CIA "felt pressured" to make their
intelligence fit the Bush administration's policy objectives. This pressure
was increased, the analysts say, by the "multiple visits" paid to
CIA headquarters by Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff,
Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Other analysts, however, said they
"welcomed" the visits.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=CLSSCPLRKI4VUCRBAE0CFFA?typ
e=topNews&storyID=2889971
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15019-2003Jun4.html

On Thursday, President Bush said the invasion of Iraq was justified and
pledged that "we will reveal the truth" of WMD to the world.
Earlier in the week, Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for
policy, took the unusual step of holding a press conference to deny that
senior civilian policy makers had politicized intelligence to fit their
hawkish views on Iraq, and that the special intelligence unit he created in
the Pentagon, known as the Special Plans unit, was there just to produce
pro-war information. "This suggestion that we said to them, 'This is
what we're looking for. Go find it,' is precisely the inaccuracy that we
are here to rebut," Feith said.
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-APO-1151&
idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20030605%2F044401817.htm&sc=1151&photoid=20030604JSA124
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/06/05/MN
268188.DTL
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

In Congress, The Los Angeles Times reports ranking members of the Senate
Intelligence Committee clashed over how aggressively the panel should
pursue the weapons issue. The Senate's most outspoken critic of the war in
Iraq, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, said he wants an
"open, gloves-off" inquiry, specifically on the absence of proof
that Iraq had WMD. He also questioned whether President Bush has been
honest about the issue. "It is time that the president leveled with
the American people," Sen. Byrd said.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/6016795.htm
http://www.register-herald.com/articles/2003/06/05/news/local_news/byrd6.txt
http://www.newsandsentinel.com/news/story/066202003_new05_Byrd.asp

The question of the President's veracity was also raised in different ways
by two columnists. In the Boston Globe, columnist Derrick Jackson writes
that with "empty hands after tha battle, President Bush is losing the
war for his honor," and that "Iraq is about Bush sending
Americans to die for what may have been a lie." But in the Weekly
Standard, Max Boot writes that it's ridiculous to think that President Bush
and British Prime Minister Tony Blair lied about the presence of WMD.
"It is indeed puzzling that US forces haven't found more evidence of
WMD, but this hardly shows that Bush and Blair lied. It does show how
imperfect our intelligence about Iraq was, which actually makes the case
for preventive war that much stronger."
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/157/oped/Bush_s_deceptions_on_Iraq_intelligen
ce+.shtml
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/766aaprx.asp

USA Today says that one victim of the lack of proof of WMD might be the
policy of pre-emptive strikes. The next time the president comes to Capitol
Hill warning of an emerging threat, one that requires military action to
pre-empt and defeat, some lawmakers of both parties say they will be
skeptical.
"If you're going to have a doctrine of pre-emption," said Jay
Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
"then you sure as heck better have pluperfect intelligence." A
Republican senator who spoke on condition of anonymity said that if
President Bush went to Congress with another plan to strike an enemy state,
"It would have to be very clear and convincing intelligence for it not
to cause a dispute."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-06-05-bush-doctrine-usat_x.htm

As of 6-03-03 when a man tossed a grenade into a Humvee, wounding wounding
a soldier, US casualties in the Iraq War have now reached 900, 186 killed
and 714 wounded.  We've spent 80 billion dollars (120 times the amount
spent on Iraqi humanitarian aid after the war), started World War 4
according ex-CIA director James Woolsey, legitimized pre-emptive strikes
against anyone percieved as a threat- including ourselves, shattered the
coalition on terrorism, isolated ourselves from the world, declared the UN
irrelevant after bullying and bribing it's members, 7041 Iraqi civilians
have been killed, degraded our national security by encouraging more would
be terrorists like Timothy McVeigh and Osama bin Laden which the first Gulf
War brought, and angered the entire world over two rusted out trailors that
MAY or MAY NOT have been able to produce WMD if two other trailors were
present for the other necessary steps required.  No WMD have been found to
date which is evidence our war was illegal because there was never a clear
and present threat, if WMD ever existed it is entirely possible our war
caused it to get into the hands of terrorists.  The UN weapons inspectors
who would bring expertise, credibility, and experience to the WMD hunt have
asked to help and were denied for fear of having and WMD finding or
planting second guessed.  The only people searching to this date are the
very people who could (and have reason to) plant evidence.

Powell says the public was misled:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,967548,00.html
Wolfwowitz says the public was misled:
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2003/s867453.htm
Bush officials told ABC the public was misled:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/nightline/US/globalshow_030425.html
National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice said the public was misled:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/30/1051381997497.html
The head of the UN Inspections Team Blix said the public was misled:
http://www.iraqwar.ru./iraq-read_article.php?articleId=3680&lang=en
A Bush official told the Scottish Sunday Herald the public was misled:
http://www.sundayherald.com/print33628
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (mostly former CIA) say Bush
misled the public:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0501-09.htm
Putin says Bush misled the public:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-663950,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,946321,00.html
A High level UK intelligence officer says Blair lied:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=400805
Blair advisor says we were mislead:
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ahJS35XsmXGg&refer=top_wo
rld_news
Ex-UN Weapons Inspector and former dedicated marine Scott Ritter said the
public was lied to:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3233.htm

"I don't want to be the world's policeman"
-George W. Bush (2000 election debates)
"We cannot be all things to all people"
-George W. Bush (2000 election debates)
"I think the United States must be humble, and must be proud and
confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are
figuring out how to chart their own course"
-George W. Bush (2000 election debates)
"Too much use of American power overseas causes the nation to look
like "the ugly American"
-George W. Bush (2000 election campaign)
"Listen, it's a healthy debate for people to express their opinion.
People should be allowed to express their opinion."
-George W. Bush (November 2002)

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