Was The Iraq War a Mistake Because WMD Stockpiles Were Not Found by Gregory Hilton

The United States and its allies believed Saddam Hussein had WMD stockpiles. Prior to the U.S. invasion no one could determine if these stockpiles had been destroyed because the Iraqi regime had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors four years earlier.
The stockpiles did not exist but the UN Report by weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded that Iraq had the ability and infrastructure for instantly creating new WMD stockpiles in about a week. They intended to begin churning them out the minute the sanctions ended.
Many of the allies we wanted to help us bring down Saddam Hussein were already in a corrupt coalition to keep him in power. The UN found documents which showed the “guiding theme” of Saddam’s regime was to be able to start making WMD again “with as short a lead time as possible.” Once again, Saddam was convinced that the UN sanctions – which stopped him acquiring weapons – were on the brink of collapse and he bankrolled several foreign activists who were campaigning for their abolition. He personally approved every one.

Iraq: Were There Weapons of Mass Destruction and was Joe Wilson Correct? by Gregory Hilton

Valerie Plame and her husband former Ambassador Joe Wilson

Many people continue to believe that Iraq had no connection to weapons of mass destruction. We now know the Senate Intelligence Committee received the same briefings as President Bush in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. All of the Democratic lawmakers on this panel reached the same conclusion as the President. Every intelligence agency believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and the post-invasion UN Duelfer report concluded that he maintained the capability to produce them on short notice.
Saddam had destroyed most, but not all of his WMD stockpile. On June 14, 2003 the U.S. Army discovered over 550 metric tons of uranium yellowcake at a facility in Tuwaitha , 12 miles south of Baghdad. Once refined, this quantity would make 142 nuclear weapons. At the same location the Army uncovered four devices for controlled radiation exposure. Over 500 chemical weapons (mustard and sarin gas) were also found.
In July of 2008 the last of the yellowcake was shipped to Canada where it is now being processed into nuclear fuel. Most of the uranium was acquired prior to 1991, but Saddam still had it in 2003. He was holding onto it in order to wait out the U.N. sanctions when he could restart his WMD program.
This one discovery should put to rest the canard peddled by Joe Wilson who made a career out of claiming “Bush lied” about Iraq seeking yellowcake from the African country of Niger. After numerous investigations it appears the person who lied was Wilson, not Bush. The Senate Intelligence Committee and the British parliament both concluded that Wilson was lying about many things. Iraq was seeking additional yellowcake in Niger, and Wilson accurately reported this at the time, before changing his story.
Bush’s “16 words” in his 2003 State of the Union Address were accurate. Wilson lied about the documents he had seen, and he also lied when he claimed his CIA officer wife was not instrumental in sending him to Niger,
According to Wilson’s own testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki of Niger said an Iraqi delegation was seeking to acquire additional yellowcake in 1999, but they let the matter drop because Iraq was under international sanctions.
Wilson’s wife, former CIA employee Valerie Plame wrote the book, “Fair Game: My Life As A Spy, My Betrayal By The White House.” You don’t even have to get to the first page of Plame’s book to find something misleading, because it’s right in the title, in the ‘My Betrayal By The White House’ part. It wasn’t the White House who first told Robert Novak that Plame worked for the CIA, it was Richard Armitage, a State department Iraq war critic, hardly a Bushie. Novak was the one who outed Plame by saying she worked at the CIA in one of his columns. You would think it was Cheney who announced it in a press conference if you listened to the propaganda. After prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s endless investigation of the White House, nobody was ever charged with violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) for outing Valerie Plame, though Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, was convicted of making false statements to the FBI during the investigation for not remembering who told him Plame’s name first several months after the fact. Libby would not have been in any trouble if he had just said “I do not recall.” Hillary Clinton used that phrase over 250 times when she was under oath.
Valerie Plame was never deep under cover. The CIA confirmed her employment over the phone when they were called by Bob Novak.

Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Report We Must Not Ignore by Gregory Hilton

Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Vice President Joe Biden and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO).

Washington, D.C. (BBC) – Earlier today I had a feeling history was repeating itself when I listened to the testimony of former Senators Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jim Talent (R-MO) before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Graham is the Chairman and Talent the Vice Chairman of the Congressionally-mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Graham previously served as Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Commission outlined significant dangers posed by terrorist group production of WMD, but apparently not too many people view this as an important subject. The room was not crowded, few Senators attended, and there has been next to no coverage in the news media since the report was completed last month. The only significant exposure they received was when Senator Graham was a guest on Stephen Colbert’s comedy show.
This has happened before. On January 21, 2001, former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH) released the in-depth report of their Congressionally-mandated U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. The Hart/Rudman group said a hostile attack was increasingly likely on the U.S. homeland, and “America’s military superiority will not help us.” They warned of the dangers of terrorism and said rapid advances in information and biotechnologies would create new vulnerabilities for U.S. security.
The Hart/Rudman Commission was ignored and nine months later we were confronted with 9/11. The new report developed by Senators Graham and Talent is entitled “World at Risk,” and it calls for decisive international action. The Graham/Talent Commission members believe it is likely terrorists will use a weapon of mass destruction somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.
The first priority continues to be the potential use of a nuclear weapon by terrorists and rogue states. The report says North Korea has many ties to terrorist organizations and they already have at least 10 nuclear weapons. In addition, Iran has crossed numerous “red lines” set by the international community regarding weapons-related uranium enrichment.
They recommended increased security measures being devoted to Pakistan’s uranium and plutonium stockpile. The seizure of weapons grade material by terrorists would have enormous consequences, but they also emphasized the main threat comes from biological weapons.
The Senators briefed Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on their findings. Senator Talent told them “We know the terrorists want to get these weapons, we know they have tried to get these weapons and we know they are sophisticated enough organizationally to acquire this capability.”
The Commission members supported the Bush Administration’s cross-border attacks against extremists along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The attacks were designed to stop the reconstitution of headquarters and training camps for al-Qaida.

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert D. Novak

The best part is Novak's response of Ambassador Joseph Wilson

The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington by Robert D. Novak

The book has many entertaining stories about DC in the old days, and we are missing a lot from that era. The book’s original manuscript was 1,400 pages which was reduced to 672 pages. At the end I wanted to read more and I am now wondering what I missed.
The best part was Novak’s rebuttal of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who in 2004 published “The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity: A Diplomat’s Memoir.” In late February of 2002, Wilson was sent to Niger on behalf of the CIA to investigate the possibility that Saddam Hussein had a deal to buy enriched uranium yellowcake. Wilson’s July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed article became one of the focal points for the 2004 president campaign. Wilson claimed President Bush lied because of the controversial “16 words” in his 2003 State of the Union Address: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Wilson said Iraq was never trying to acquire uranium from Niger, but Novak demonstrates that the person who was lying is Wilson. Wilson’s claims were rebutted by the Senate Intelligence Committee report, the British government’s Butler Committee report and by Wilson’s prior actions. The British Inquiry said “It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.”
A July 13, 2005 “Wall Street Journal” editorial also says Wilson lied in his “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” article. The Journal says Wilson lied about “what he’d discovered in Africa, how he’d discovered it, what he’d told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission.” An editorial headlined “A Good Leak” published in the April 9, 2006 “Washington Post” claims “Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth and that, in fact, his report [to the CIA] supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.”

Weapons of Mass Destruction Were Not Found in Iraq. Do You Regret Supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom?

The weapon of mass destruction was found in Iraq. His name was Saddam Hussein and he was responsible for the deaths of 1.8 million of his own people. The former Iraqi regime was supporting terrorism and they openly gave $25,000 to $35,000 to the families of every Palestinian suicide bomber. They maintained a terrorist training facility at Salman Park near Baghdad where an old Boeing 707 passenger airplane was used to train hijackers. Saddam Hussein praised both Hitler and Stalin, and numerous times he threatened to burn half of Israel. His regime murdered, wounded and ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Shiites and other Iraqis over three decades. He destroyed 4000 Kurdish villages.
Because of the regimes brutality there were over 5 million Iraqi exiles. They used poison gas on their own people, their torture techniques were unbelievably cruel, and they engaged in ethnic cleansing against the Marsh Arabs and Kurds.
Forced confessions are obtained: by torturing children while their parents were forced to watch. International human rights groups described the methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues and rape. As President Bush said, “If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.”
The Baath Party’s favorite techniques also included throwing children out of helicopters in front of their parents. They frequently video taped gang rapes of young girls and then sent the tapes to their parents or relatives who had escaped to the West. Saddam’s own son Uday was known for having girls as young as 14 kidnapped so he could rape them.
The girls would be attending a sporting event with their parents, and they would be kidnapped when they went to the rest room. Uday Hussein would even have brides kidnapped from their wedding receptions! One groom who saw his bride carried off responded by shooting himself.
Before Saddam came to power, Iraq was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. After he took over the nation no longer had a budget. All of its money went into Saddam’s pocket. Almost a third of children born in the center and south of Iraq had chronic malnutrition, and half the population of the rural areas had no safe water. Saddam responded by building over 50 palaces.