Yes Will they have lied to us. I found this article on msn.com and it was originally reported in the Washington Post: DOCUMENTS THAT purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed “not authentic” after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the U.N. Security Council. ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim — made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday — that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Also, ElBaradei reported finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors. “There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities,” ElBaradei said. Knowledgeable sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away — including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said. ANOTHER SETBACK FOR U.S. “We fell for it,” said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents. A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency did not blame either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents “were shared with us in good faith,” he said. The discovery was a further setback to U.S. and British efforts to convince reluctant U.N. Security Council members of the urgency of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Powell, in his statement to the Security Council Friday, acknowledged ElBaradei’s findings but also cited “new information” suggesting that Iraq continues to try to get nuclear weapons components. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein pursued an ambitious nuclear agenda throughout the 1970s and 1980s and launched a crash program to build a bomb in 1990 following his invasion of neighboring Kuwait. But Iraq’s nuclear infrastructure was heavily damaged by allied bombing in 1991, and the country’s known stocks of nuclear fuel and equipment were removed or destroyed during the U.N. inspections after the war. However, Iraq never surrendered the blueprints for nuclear weapons, and kept key teams of nuclear scientists intact after U.N. inspectors were forced to leave in 1998. Despite international sanctions intended to block Iraq from obtaining weapons components, Western intelligence agencies and former weapons inspectors were convinced the Iraqi president had resumed his quest for the bomb in the late 1990s, citing defectors’ stories and satellite images that showed new construction at facilities that were once part of Iraq’s nuclear machinery. Last September, the United States and Britain issued reports accusing Iraq of renewing its quest for nuclear weapons. In Britain’s assessment, Iraq reportedly had “sought significant amounts of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear program that could require it.” Separately, President Bush, in his speech to the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 12, said Iraq had made “several attempts to buy-high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” Doubts about both claims began to emerge shortly after U.N. inspectors returned to Iraq last November. In early December, the IAEA began an intensive investigation of the aluminum tubes, which Iraq had tried for two years to purchase by the tens of thousands from China and at least one other country. Certain types of high-strength aluminum tubes can be used to build centrifuges, which enrich uranium for nuclear weapons and commercial power plants. By early January, the IAEA had reached a preliminary conclusion: The 81mm tubes sought by Iraq were “not directly suitable” for centrifuges, but appeared intended for use as conventional artillery rockets, as Iraq had claimed. The Bush administration, meanwhile, stuck to its original position while acknowledging disagreement among U.S. officials who had reviewed the evidence. In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, Bush said Iraq had “attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” Last month, Powell likewise dismissed the IAEA’s conclusions, telling U.N. leaders that Iraq would not have ordered tubes at such high prices and with such exacting performance ratings if intended for use as ordinary rockets. Powell specifically noted that Iraq had sought tubes that had been “anodized,” or coated with a thin outer film — a procedure that Powell said was required if the tubes were to be used in centrifuges. 81 MM ROCKETS ElBaradei’s report yesterday all but ruled out the use of the tubes in a nuclear program. The IAEA chief said investigators had unearthed extensive records that backed up Iraq’s explanation. The documents, which included blueprints, invoices and notes from meetings, detailed a 14-year struggle by Iraq to make 81mm conventional rockets that would perform well and resist corrosion. Successive failures led Iraqi officials to revise their standards and request increasingly higher and more expensive metals, ElBaradei said. Moreover, further work by the IAEA’s team of centrifuge experts — two Americans, two Britons and a French citizen — has reinforced the IAEA’s conclusion that the tubes were ill suited for centrifuges. “It was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program,” ElBaradei said. A number of independent experts on uranium enrichment have sided with IAEA’s conclusion that the tubes were at best ill suited for centrifuges. Several have said that the “anodized” features mentioned by Powell are actually a strong argument for use in rockets, not centrifuges, contrary to the administration’s statement. The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based research organization that specializes in nuclear issues, reported yesterday that Powell’s staff had been briefed about the implications of the anodized coatings before Powell’s address to the Security Council last month. “Despite being presented with the falseness of this claim, the administration persists in making misleading arguments about the significance of the tubes,” the institute’s president, David Albright, wrote in the report. Powell’s spokesman said the secretary of state had consulted numerous experts and stood by his U.N. statement. © 2003 The Washington Post Company " When/if it happens that peaceful dissent by the people -- a long held and exercised freedom in this country -- is cause for arrest and court action, it will be as sure a sign as any that Freedom itself has been the true victim of 9/11." Teejay I couldn't agree more! ~Aztec
Time to Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement,
by LuckyLucy 37 Replies latest social current
-
-
Aztec
Wow! Sorry about the formatting. I'm using the Mozilla browser and it won't let me space anything out. GRRR!!!~Aztec:(
-
William Penwell
I have heard Bush on TV saying about how can you trust those liars, the Iraqis. I don't trust either side they are both liars. The US just wants you to hear what they want you to hear just so they can make their case for war. The sad part is that thousands if not millions of American and Iraqis may lose their lives over these lies. Make me wonder how these type of people can sleep at night. Yet they are all "good Christians". Seems like we are reliving the "holy crusades of the 11 century.
Another thing is I am wondering after the Americans set up their "puppet government" if the next move is to send in Christian missionaries to convert all those heathens to Christianity. No wonder the US is so hated throughout the world.
Will
-
Satanus
The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away — including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said. ANOTHER SETBACK FOR U.S. “We fell for it,” said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents. A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency did not blame either Britain or the United States for the forgery.
They are suggesting that these forged documents didn't originate w the americans. I wonder from whom they came. Which agency supplies much middle eastern intelligence to US angencies?
SS
-
joannadandy
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
-
Simon
Arrest leaders of the anti-war movement? Why pick on such patriotic people instead of the mock patriotics who would be happy to send thousands of Americans to be killed and place the USA in much more danger from terrorist attack.
I suspect that in 10 years time, we'll be debating whether Bush and Blair et al should have been charged with the crimes they instigated rather than the other way round.
-
William Penwell
I have said it here before but if the US and Britain goes there without UN sanction, the fanatical Muslims will get them back. It may be 10, 15 or 20 years but they will get them back, Unfortunately it may make September 11 look like a picnic.
Will
-
Big Tex
Time to Arrest the Leaders of the Anti-War Movement,
Ah yes. Good idea. Considering the source of this nonsensical thread, and its idiotic title, I would laugh but the sentiments behind it are frightening.
Read this before advocating arresting anyone who disagrees with you, or is different from you:
-
JLOB
LuckyLucy,
If you weren't so confussed and stupid I would try to reply to you.
Instead I want everyone else to know that you offend many of us veterans who have served during war.
People have died to protect what is good about Americia. I personally know a close friend of mine that I had the priviledge to serve with that totally thought that the first Gulf War was wrong. He like many other brave and commited Americans did what was asked of thim dispite their OPIONIONS". When my freinds term in Kuwait was over he was awarded the Silver Star with Valor. (Valor means he risked his life).
One thing that makes our nation great is the public debate of national issues. Many have done their part to ensure that debates continue. If we go to war there will be soldiers who disagree with the war, fulfilling their duty in the war dispite their opionions. This phenomenon has occured in every war America has ever fought in. There are brave committed indivduals who fully understand DUTY. Imagine locking away a Silver Star Soldier that will save lives if called upon.
We are not a nation that locks away people that oppose our government, our president, or the fighting of wars.
If your solution is to lock away those who oppose you, how different are you from our enemy?
-
Abaddon
Isn't it funny how the pro-war movement are quite happy to ignore Constitutional gurantees when it suits their agenda?
We need to become a more Savage Nation in the interest of oour self-preservation.
Nathan, honestly! Haven't you read ANY of Hitler's speeches? That sounds SO like the excuses the Nazi's used I'm quite stunned.