Originally Posted By ElKay <The State Dept's. own bureau of intel. had serious doubts about the charges that Undersect'y. of Defense Feith's Special Plans group got so very wrong.> Because they had their own misguided ideas. "This is the kind of short-sightedness that State and the CIA have shown all along in Iraq. Foggy Bottom resisted Baghdad's liberation for years and its Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs all but refused to disburse the nearly $100 million that Congress appropriated for the INC, even as war loomed. As for Langley, the CIA figured it didn't need an Iraqi opposition, predicting Baathist and Republican Guard defections that never occurred." Dougie, where do you get your opinions? The lunacy of your stuff is just astounding! State and the CIA were 100% correct in their decision to block any aid to the Iraqi Nat'l. Congress (INC). Do you know who was it's leader? CHALIBI--He was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan. His group was the source of much of the false info on WMDs, his driver's brother turned out to be "Curveball." After the Pentagon was paying his group $100k+ a month up to the fall of Baghdad, it was learned that he was a possible spy FOR Iraq!!!!!! >>>Also the State Dept. drew up fairly detailed plans in anticipation for the reconstruction for Iraq. Powell's staff offered Rummy's boobs (Wolfowitz and Feith) those plans, but were to bugger off, that Iraq's reconstruction was going to be a DoD show and they appointed Bremmer as the American "procounsel".> The wonderful thing about anonymous sources is that they can claim anything and no one can check it out. <<< Anonymous sources? Whaaaaat? <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37468-2003Jul23.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/articles/A37468-2003Jul23.html</a> >>The State Department and other agencies spent many months and millions of dollars drafting strategies on issues ranging from a postwar legal code to oil policy. But after President Bush granted authority over reconstruction to the Pentagon, the Defense Department all but ignored State and its working groups. And once Baghdad fell, the military held its postwar team out of Iraq for nearly two weeks for security reasons, and then did not provide such basics as telephones, vehicles and interpreters for the understaffed operation to run a traumatized country of 24 million. "People always say that sometimes people plan for the wrong war," said Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and former head of the State Department's policy planning office. "One can say in some ways that the administration planned for the wrong peace. In particular, there was an emphasis on preparing for a humanitarian crisis when in fact the larger challenges turned out to be political and security."<< >> Career civil servants who had helped plan U.S. peacekeeping operations in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo said it was imperative to maintain a military force large enough to stamp out challenges to its authority right away. Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then-Army chief of staff, thought several hundred thousand soldiers would be needed. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz rebutted him sharply and publicly. "It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam's security forces and his army," Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee on Feb. 27. "Hard to imagine." Powell and his top aides thought it made sense to allow the Pentagon to control the immediate postwar phase, when security would be the dominant issue. Still, they expected to contribute ideas and staffing to the political side of reconstruction -- they even budgeted for an embassy to become the central U.S. institution in Iraq within a few weeks of Hussein's anticipated defeat. But as the Defense Department put together its occupation plans, the State Department felt doors closing. 'So Much Tension' The circle of civilian Pentagon officials given the task of planning the occupation was small. From its early work, it all but excluded officials at State and even some from the Pentagon, including officers of the Joint Staff. "The problems came about when the office of the secretary of defense wouldn't let anybody else play -- or play only if you beat your way into the game," a State Department official said. "There was so much tension, so much ego involved." The Pentagon planners showed little interest in State's Future of Iraq project, a $5 million effort begun in April 2002 to use Iraqi expatriates and outside experts to draft plans on everything from legal reform to oil policy. Wolfowitz created his own group of Iraqi advisers to cover some of the same ground. << Dougie:"Neither the White House or the DoD condone the use of torture, so I'm not sure what your point is." Gawd what you don't know would fill the Rose Bowl. <a href="http://texscience.org/reform/torture/" target="_blank">http://texscience.org/reform/t orture/</a> >>These two memorandums from the Justice Department, both written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was serving in the department, provided arguments to keep United States officials from being charged with war crimes for the way prisoners were detained and interrogated. The memorandums, principally the one written on January 9, provided legal arguments to support Bush administration officials' assertions that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to detainees from the war in Afghanistan.<< >>An attachment to this memorandum, written by a State Department lawyer, showed that most of the administration's senior lawyers agreed that the Geneva Conventions were inapplicable. The attachment noted that C.I.A. lawyers asked for an explicit understanding that the administration's public pledge to abide by the spirit of the conventions did not apply to its operatives.<< >>This report, prepared by a Defense Department legal task force, drew on the January 2002 and August 2002 memos to declare that President Bush was not bound by either an international treaty prohibiting torture or by a federal anti-torture law, because he had the authority as commander in chief to approve any technique needed to protect the nation's security. This report also said that executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons, including a belief by interrogators that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful."<< >>This memorandum provided a justification for using torture to extract information from al Qaeda operatives. It provides very narrow definitions of torture that were devised to allow interrogators to evade being charged with that offense. The legal defintions in this memo allowed President Bush to claim that the United States "does not conduct torture," and "follows the law because we are a nation of laws."<< >>A memorandum from Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to Gen. James T. Hill outlines 24 permitted interrogation techniques, 4 of which were considered stressful enough to require Mr. Rumsfeld's explicit approval. Defense Department officials say it did not refer to the legal analysis of the month before.<< The above are summaries of the ACTUAL WH or DoD memos that set the Admin's policies on torture. Scroll down on the link to read numerous articles that described the efforts by the press to uncover the Admin's justification FOR toture. It's absolutely ludicrious for Dougie here to make a statement that the Admin doesn't condone torture. The truth is until the revelations of the Abu Graibe scandal and other abuses in Iraq and Afganistan and also at G'mo, the Admin. was forced to quickly change their policy on torture and then announce that don't condone it.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Dougie, where do you get your opinions? The lunacy of your stuff is just astounding!> The Wall Street Journal doesn't print "lunacy". <State and the CIA were 100% correct in their decision to block any aid to the Iraqi Nat'l. Congress (INC).> State and the CIA don't make policy. They impliment it. <Do you know who was it's leader? CHALIBI--He was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan.> I'm sure you look to Jordan as a model for fair criminal courts. <After the Pentagon was paying his group $100k+ a month up to the fall of Baghdad, it was learned that he was a possible spy FOR Iraq!!!!!!> Yes, he was accused on being a spy for Iran. Those accusations seem to be unfounded, and quite possibly originated from the same groups at the CIA and State that opposed the INC. <Anonymous sources? Whaaaaat?> Yes. I'm sure that Washington Post story was based primarily on anonymous sources from the State Department. I doubt they contacted the Pentagon to get the other side of the debate. <The above are summaries of the ACTUAL WH or DoD memos that set the Admin's policies on torture.> No, they're not. There's clearly some editorializing and speculation in amongst the quotes. There's simply no evidence that the USA has ever condoned torture.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Wilkerson's quotes came from a speech on October 19, 2005. <a href="http://www.thewashingtonnote.c" target="_blank">http://www.thewashingtonnote.c</a> om/archives/Wilkerson%20Speech%20--%20WEB>.htm> That was interesting. But none of it really countered what he said in my earlier post, except by the time he was quoted for that one, he was leaning more in the direction of "He said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war." In your link, he was critical of several aspects of the war policy, and of several people in the admin. (loved this quote about Bolton: "Well, what really was the straw that broke the camel’s back with me was John going around trying to get Mohamed elBaradei eliminated from the IAEA, even after he had been admonished to stop, and doing it with our allies, with our friends, and doing it in a most blatant fashion."). I assume the part you think proves your point is where he says that INR dissented about nuclear, but not about chemical and bio. Okay, but they still dissented about nuclear, which was the biggest scare tactic the admin. had with the public. What your link and mine show me when seen in conjunction is a man increasingly uncomfortable about what he's discovering as time goes on. <<But I also know that the WSJ news pages are more highly regarded than the editorial page (where opinionjournal comes from), which is widely regarded (quite rightly) as right-wing-agenda driven, at the expense sometimes of any sense of objective observance.>> <I'll agree that the WSJ's editorial page leans right, but I don't believe that it is widely regarded that it leans right "at the expense sometimes of any sense of objective observance."> We'll have to disagree on that one, I guess.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Okay, but they still dissented about nuclear, which was the biggest scare tactic the admin. had with the public.> It wasn't a "scare tactic". It was the consensus of our intelligence community.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh No, it wasn't. There was dissent, but it was relatively minor. Who silence the dissenters in 1998, 1999, and 2000, when the consensus was the same?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <It wasn't a "scare tactic". It was the consensus of our intelligence community.> In YOUR link, Doug, Wilkerson talked about the dissent of the INR on nuclear. The energy dept. dissented on the use of the aluminum tubes, and this is quite well known also. "The Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities. The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq may be doing so, but INR considers the available evidence inadequate to support such a judgment. Lacking persuasive evidence that Baghdad has launched a coherent effort to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, INR is unwilling to speculate that such an effort began soon after the departure of UN inspectors or to project a timeline for the completion of activities it does not now see happening. As a result, INR is unable to predict when Iraq could acquire a nuclear device or weapon. In INR's view Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose. INR considers it far more likely that the tubes are intended for another purpose, most likely the production of artillery rockets. The very large quantities being sought, the way the tubes were tested by the Iraqis, and the atypical lack of attention to operational security in the procurement efforts are among the factors, in addition to the DOE assessment, that lead INR to conclude that the tubes are not intended for use in Iraq's nuclear weapon program."
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <In YOUR link, Doug, Wilkerson talked about the dissent of the INR on nuclear.> Yes, apparently they were in the minority on that, but with the majority on everything else.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Yep. At least they were right about ONE thing. At any rate, there goes your "consensus" on nuclear argument. The INR cannot be considered "relatively minor."
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <The consensus argument didn't go anywhere, because it's true.> I can't believe you'd actually say that. Especially since it's the INR dissent that has proven to be true. But it shows that some people really WILL believe whatever fits their little world view.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <I can't believe you'd actually say that.> I say it because it's true. The majority of intelligence agencies, both ours and that of other countries, believed that Saddam's Iraq had WMD's.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Douglas, do you think it's acceptible for the intelligence to be that wrong? What if he actually had MORE WMDs that we feared? And if you subscribe to the theory that he had WMDs but spirited them away to some other nation during the lead up to war, while the entire world was focused on Iraq, doesn't that indicate a collosal gap in our intelligence gathering abilities that ,ust be addressed immediately? I think blowing off the fact that the intelligence was wrong with a "fiddle dee dee" or being content with "oh well, everyone else in the world thought he had 'em too" is a major mistake. It isn't good enough. Only by examining what went wrong can we avoid calamity in the future. But it seems like many in this administration would rather avoid that part of this whole thing because it is uncomfortable and embarassing.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Douglas, do you think it's acceptible for the intelligence to be that wrong?> I'm not sure it was "that" wrong. Certainly some things we thought were right, and some things were wrong. Somethings were not as bad as we thought, and somethings were worse. Intelligence gathering is an art, not a science, so it's a little silly to expect perfection. And the truism that you get what you pay for is certainly true - it's generally been the Democrats that have passed laws that have restrained our intelligence gathering ability. It was certainly Democrats that made it harder for our intelligence agencies to talk to each other, to share information. I think we've addressed some of those problems, although I doubt we'll ever reach perfection.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Somethings were not as bad as we thought, and somethings were worse.<< Which to me means it was "that" wrong. Especially considering item #1 on the reasons to invade Iraq were WMDs. To this point, we've found zero. The intelligence was "that" wrong. I'm disappointed, though not entirely surprised, by your response. How different your response would be if this were a Democratic administration.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Intelligence gathering is an art, not a science, so it's a little silly to expect perfection.<< We launched a war that has cost nearly 2200 American lives, physically injured over 15,000 Americans, and killed and wounded an uncounted number of Iraqi civilians, including women and children. The intelligence better be perfect.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I guess what I find amazing is that Douglas will argue ad nauseum for more "facts" and more "proof" of any statement made by posters here. That's all well and good, but when it comes to building a case for war, he seems to be okay with loose sketches and collective opinion as good enough.
