Read this!

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - European critics of the Iraq (news - web sites) war expressed shock Friday at published remarks by a senior U.S. official playing down Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the conflict.

In an interview in the next issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited "bureaucratic reasons" for focusing on Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s alleged arsenal and said a "huge" reason for the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.


"For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.


He said one reason for going to war against Iraq that was "almost unnoticed but huge" was the need to maintain American forces in Saudi Arabia as long as Saddam was in power.


Those troops were sent to Saudi Arabia to protect the desert kingdom against Saddam, whose forces invaded Kuwait in 1991, but their presence in the country that houses Islam's holiest sites enraged Islamic fundamentalists, including Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).


Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, the United States announced it was removing most of its 5,000 troops from Saudi Arabia and would set up its main regional command center in Qatar.


However, those goals were not spelled out publicly as the United States sought to build international support for the war. Instead, the Bush administration focused on Saddam's failure to dismantle chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.


The failure of U.S. forces to locate extensive weapons stocks has raised doubts in a skeptical Europe whether Iraq represented a global security threat.


Wolfowitz's comments followed a statement by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who suggested this week that Saddam might have destroyed his banned weapons before the war began.


On Friday, the commander of U.S. Marines in Iraq said he was surprised that extensive searches have failed to discover any of the chemical weapons that U.S. intelligence had indicated were supplied to front line Iraqi forces at the outset of the war.


"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying," Lt. Gen. James Conway told reporters. "We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."


The remarks by Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld revived the controversy over the war as President Bush (news - web sites) left for a European tour in which he hopes to put aside the bitterness over the war, which threatened the trans-Atlantic partnership.


In Denmark, whose government supported the war, opposition parties demanded to know whether Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen misled the public about the extent of Saddam's weapons threat.


"It was not what the Danish prime minister said when he advocated support for the war," Jeppe Kofod, the Social Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, said in response to Wolfowitz's comments. "Those who went to war now have a big problem explaining it."


Former Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said he was shocked by Wolfowitz's claim. "It leaves the world with one question: What should we believe?" he told The Associated Press.


In Germany, where the war was widely unpopular, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeiting newspaper said the comments about Iraqi weapons showed that America is losing the battle for credibility.


"The charge of deception is inescapable," the newspaper said Friday.





In London, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who quit as leader of the House of Commons to protest the war, said he doubted Iraq had any such weapons.

"The war was sold on the basis of what was described as a pre-emptive strike, 'Hit Saddam before he hits us,' " Cook told British Broadcasting Corp. "It is now quite clear that Saddam did not have anything with which to hit us in the first place."

During a visit to Poland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said Friday he has "absolutely no doubt" that concrete evidence will be found of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

"Have a little patience," Blair told reporters.

Wolfowitz was in Singapore, where he is due to speak Saturday at the Asia Security Conference of military chiefs and defense ministers from Asian and key Western powers.

He told reporters at the conference that the United States will reorganize its forces worldwide to confront the threat of terrorism.

"We are in the process of taking a fundamental look at our military posture worldwide, including in the United States," Wolfowitz said. "We're facing a very different threat than any one we've faced historically

I 100,000% agree with you but Dont hold your breath for a possitive response 88% of the American sheople are in a tell-lie-vision coma. now that the cat is out the bag these foolish patriots on this site will run to hide or regroup with some bush*te (oh sorry cant curse).


Remember the truth is like a bubble you cannot drown it.

redheron you should also visit democracy now site (google search) for the true unadulterated news that does'nt reach the American public.

Well yes, hesaid, the cat is out of the bag. I wish the readers here would go back to all the pre-"WAR" (ha! what a joke) posts on here from the writers who knew Bush's war was a scam. Soon a congressional hearing will take place and bush will be thrown out of office and tried for war crimes. Read the groundswell campaign starting below...

=============================

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration distorted intelligence and presented conjecture as evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of Iraq (news - web sites), according to a retired intelligence official who served during the months before the war.


AP Photo




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"What disturbs me deeply is what I think are the disingenuous statements made from the very top about what the intelligence did say," said Greg Thielmann, who retired last September. "The area of distortion was greatest in the nuclear field."


Thielmann was director of the strategic, proliferation and military issues office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His office was privy to classified intelligence gathered by the CIA (news - web sites) and other agencies about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear programs.


In Thielmann's view, Iraq could have presented an immediate threat to U.S. security in two areas: Either it was about to make a nuclear weapon, or it was forming close operational ties with al-Qaida terrorists.


Evidence was lacking for both, despite claims by President Bush (news - web sites) and others, Thielmann said in an interview this week. Suspicions were presented as fact, contrary arguments ignored, he said.


The administration's prewar portrayal of Iraq's weapons capabilities has not been validated despite weeks of searching by military experts. Alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have not turned up, nor has significant evidence of a nuclear weapons program or links to the al-Qaida network.


Bush has said administration assertions on Iraq will be verified in time. The CIA and other agencies have vigorously defended their prewar performances.


CIA Director George Tenet, responding to similar criticism last week, said in a statement: "The integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong." On Friday, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency acknowledged he had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall but believed Iraq had a program in place to produce them.


Also Friday, Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said he was not prepared to place blame for any intelligence shortcomings until all information is in.


"There are always times when a single sentence or a single report evokes a lot of concern and some doubt," Warner told reporters after a closed hearing of his committee. "But thus far, in my own personal assessment of this situation, the intelligence community has diligently and forthrightly and with integrity produced intelligence and submitted it to this administration and to the Congress of the United States."


Thielmann suggested mistakes may have been made at points all along the chain from when intelligence is gathered, analyzed, presented to the president and then provided to the public.


The evidence of a renewed nuclear program in Iraq was far more limited than the administration contended, he said.


"When the administration did talk about specific evidence — it was basically declassified, sensitive information — it did it in a way that was also not entirely honest," Thielmann said.


In his State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."


The Africa claim rested on a purported letter or letters between officials in Iraq and Niger held by European intelligence agencies. The communications are now accepted as forged, and Thielmann said he believed the information on Africa was discounted months before Bush mentioned it.


"I was very surprised to hear that be announced to the United States and the entire world," he said.


Thielmann said he had presumed Iraq had supplies of chemical and probably biological weapons. He particularly expected U.S. forces to find caches of mustard agent or other chemical weapons left over from Saddam's old stockpiles.





"We appear to have been wrong," he said. "I've been genuinely surprised at that."

One example where officials took too far a leap from the facts, according to Thielmann: On Feb. 11, CIA Director Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iraq "retains in violation of U.N. resolutions a small number of Scud missiles that it produced before the Gulf War (news - web sites)."

Intelligence analysts supposed Iraq may have had some missiles because they couldn't account for all the Scuds it had before the first Gulf War, Thielmann said. They could have been destroyed, dismantled, miscounted or still somewhere in Saddam's inventory.

Some critics have suggested that the White House and Pentagon (news - web sites) policy-makers pressured the CIA and military intelligence to come up with conclusions favorable to an attack-Iraq policy. The CIA and military have denied such charges. Thielmann said that generally he felt no such pressure.

Although his office did not directly handle terrorism issues, Thielmann said he was similarly unconvinced of a strong link between al-Qaida and Saddam's government.

Yet, the implication from Bush on down was that Saddam supported Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s network. Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks frequently were mentioned in the same sentence, even though officials have no good evidence of any link between the two.

@Redherron
Yeah there is definately a case for war charges but you cannot underestimate the Billionaires who fixed sorry funded his campaign to place him in office,these accusations will dissolve as they all do because believe me this is just the beggining we are to see many more injustices around the world caused on our own soil but its quite a coincidence how conveniently everyone is now afraid to travel easier to control,does'nt it seem like we're living in a sci fi movie.
Guess the inevitable moment is here question is WHEN WILL THE OTHERS WAKE UP now or when they've lost all their liberty.

ME, I SLEEP ON A BED OF NAILS.


I Implore those who continue to sleep in these changing times to (not watch but)
"STUDY THE MATRIX"

A California mother whose son is right now in Kuwait,
wrote her son asking how he would feel if she joined
other relatives of service members in an anti-war
demonstration in Hollywood last month. After reading her
son's response,
she elected not to participate.
The following is her son's response as it was printed in
the Las Vegas Review Journal.

Dear Mom,
It's really your decision to march if you want to or not. You are the one who
has to decide if what we are doing out here is right or not. My opinion is not yours.

I do, however, have things I would like for you and Grandma and everyone else at home to know.
I am a United States soldier. I was sworn to defend my country against all
enemies, foreign and domestic. People may not agree with the things we are
ordered to do. I would like to address those people by telling them that
terrorism is not only a threat to us as Americans, but to many other innocent
people in the world.
What type of country would we be if we didn't defend the rights and freedoms
of others, not because they're Americans, but how about just because they're human?

Yet as Americans we're afraid of losing our soldiers to defend our security. I can
only speak for myself when I say that my life is an easy expense to ensure that my
family and friends can live in peace.

I strongly believe in what we are doing and wish you were here to see for
yourselves the honor and privilege that American soldiers aboard this ship are
feeling, knowing that we are going to be a part of something so strong and so
meaningful to the safety of our loved ones. Then you would know what this
potential war is about.

We will stand tall in front of terrorism and defeat it. We as soldiers are not afraid
of what may happen. We are only afraid of Americans not being able to
understand why we are here.

I ask for your courage as Americans to be strong for us; I ask for your
understanding in what we believe is right. I ask for your support in what we are
sworn to do: defend our country and the life of all.

We will succeed in our task and will end the threat of terrorism in our back yard.
We will also end the threat of terrorism in our neighbors'.

We have to remind ourselves of what this country stands for: life, liberty and
justice for all. In order to maintain those rights we have to stop the threat of
terrorism.
I am proud to be here. I will be coming home, but not until I know that it's going
to be safe for all Americans and for everyone I love.

My family is first. My country is where they live. I will defend it.

Lonnie J. Lewis
Navy corpsman
C Co. 1/4 WPN PLT
UIC 39726
FPO AP 966139726

P.S. Mom, please send this to everyone who has a hard time understanding
why we are here. Ask the paper to put what I've said in a column so that
others will know why we are here and what we are here for.

I love you all and will be home soon.

ME, I SLEEP ON A BED OF ****.


I Implore those who continue to sleep in these changing times to (not watch but)
"STUDY THE MATRIX"[/QUOTE]

get a brain !!!