There is a fellow claiming to have found tapes of Saddam discussing WMDs before the war. If authentic, this could be very interesting. If bogus, it's still interesting but for different reasons....

http://www.intelligencesummit.org/news/JohnLoftus/JL010606.php

There is a fellow claiming to have found tapes of Saddam discussing WMDs before the war. If authentic, this could be very interesting. If bogus, it's still interesting but for different reasons....

http://www.intelligencesummit.org/news/JohnLoftus/JL010606.php

The best part of that website is the free paypal shopping cart and the donate through paypal button. Kind of blew the credibility.

Nah , many of the websites you see turning themselves into newsites are going to whatever sponsors they can find.

Curious info, I'll wait till the big boys start to cover it before I get excited.

Fandros

I read about this a couple days ago. The Paypal account doesn't bother me so much as the very premise. We're asked to believe that this person has uncovered some kind of evidence of a WMD program and that it's being presented not to the CIA/NSA (where its authenticity could be better determined) or to Congress but to this summit. It does set the skepticism meter off.

It could just be that the guy who "found" it wants to make a buck first before turning it over to the authorities.

I'm gonna wait too, but I thought the whole thing could be interesting whichever way it turns out.

Lil quick googling.

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/156129.php

Fandros

More informative link. Curious if House reps are involved why there isn't more coverage of this. Guess if Feb 17th comes and goes without a big hooplah then it's all pretty baseless.

http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=7069

Fandros

It could just be that the guy who "found" it wants to make a buck first before turning it over to the authorities.
Quite possible. Valid or not, having looked at his web site and read a little on this, I'm sure $$$ are involved one way or another.

Man, When I read that link and it mentioned 35,000 boxes of documents still not translated, all I thought about was the end of Indiana Jones. Maybe the Lost Ark is in that pile...

NY Times is giving a lil coverage to this issue now as well.

Guess Cavuto ( eerrrr this affects the buisness world how?) also spoke on this issue in the past 24 hours on Fox.

Until a good percentage of those 35k boxes are translated I think this might be a lil early to ramp up any hoopla imho.

Fandros

ABC's Nightline is going to air a special on this very topic tonight.

Apparently the tapes were made public last night. Read some excerpts from it and it has me wondering how the public will take them.

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=4468

Fandros

William Tierney evidently has a very reliable source for his revelations about Iraqi WMD's: God (http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200602200720.asp).
William Tierney, the former United Nations weapons inspector who unveiled the so-called "Saddam Tapes" at a conference in Arlington, Virginia, Saturday, told National Review Online that God directed him to weapons sites in Iraq and that his belief in the importance of one particular site was strengthened when a friend told him that she had a vision of the site in a dream.
I'm not sure if the Almighty was involved in all aspects of the Intelligence Summit, but He is clearly a guiding hand:
The president of the organization that staged the conference, former federal prosecutor John Loftus, has in the past drawn attention for writing that the Bush family won its wealth by supporting the Nazi regime in the 1930s. Loftus has also written about his theory linking the Enron scandal to the September 11 terrorist attacks, claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney forbade American intelligence from investigating ties between Enron, the Taliban, and al Qaeda in the months leading up to the attacks. "The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely)," Loftus wrote. "Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney's whole house of cards will collapse."

So basically, after the earlier war in '91 Saddam went around shooting his mouth off that he had huge terrible weapons that would destroy the Americans the next time they invaded. Someone, most likely someone he knew and had wanted to, taped him saying this.

Then, after that, Saddam went around saying that he would "hit" Washington (He also said similiar things during the gulf war) and again someone taped him.

Basically Saddam was like the drunk kid at the open house party that the kid whos parents were on vacation when you were in highschool. remember that kid, he was gonna kick everyones ass including the kid who was bench pressing 400 lbs and made up half of the football teams defensive front line.

Now back to the tapes.

Then this guy comes along and God speaks directly to him in a dream, but not only to him but to some woman who has the same dream. They never actually come up with the WMD's but they do have a tape of Saddam bragging how he has destructive weapons and will crush Washington along with anyone who invades, threatens or walks to close to Iraq.

Yep, all seems very credible.

Anyhow...if anyone is interested I am currently selling this (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Brooklyn%20Bridge&sa=N&tab=wi) for a mere $10,000.00 Just post your credit card info here and I will give you the keys to the lock.

Basically Saddam was like the drunk kid at the open house party that the kid whos parents were on vacation when you were in highschool. remember that kid, he was gonna kick everyones ass including the kid who was bench pressing 400 lbs and made up half of the football teams defensive front line.




Only problem is this kid had millions of dollars at his disposal and a shit load of oil to make more...to put towards those weapons of mass dreams.

Only problem is this kid had millions of dollars at his disposal and a shit load of oil to make more...to put towards those weapons of mass dreams.

Yes he most certainly did have the dollars to buy weapons. The problem is this, with the exception of chemical munitions which were basically destroyed in '91 and those that weren't were disposed of by the UN inspectors thereafter, Iraq barely had anything left in the conventional military besides a bunch of guys with AK-47's and RPG's.

Iraq's Armor divisions, Airforce, Artillery were mostly ineffective during the current invasion. What wasn't ineffective were the loyalists he had trained to fight guerilla actions who from a military standpoint have done a pretty good job. Throw in the fanatics which poured into Iraq to "stem" the tide of US imperialism also to stir things up between the Sunni and Shiite factions along with total mismanagement and piss poor planing by everyone from Tommy Franks to Bush/Cheney that gave us the current hornets nest.

But then again, Clinton did get a blowjob so it kind of negates the whole Iraq thing.

On a slightly more serious note

http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/25osama.htm

On a Less serious note and actually way off topic but this is just so very funny :(

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2646755

Rover, you're basically seeing a reflection of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, hell, even the invasions of the British during the 19th century.
The military at first might mealt away, but it, as well as every mental fanatic in a thousand mile area, come pouring in to play havoc with the occupying forces.

Infact, I think there's a hell of a lot we can learn from the first Anglo-Afghan War. A country at the height of its power, interested in regime change in a country which is strategically vital to its interests. In this case, it's the mid-east/oil connection. In Britain's case, it was all part of the Great Game, and a buffer state against the Russians. Same difference, really.
Nothing more is as stake than the prestige and saving face of what really is a complete cock-up in the first place.

If you pull out without the job being done, you're boned.
Eventually, we did. We thought we had won, and I guess we had. But it wasn't long before fanatics crept out of every hole to make sure we didn't stay.

I guess it's now left to see whether the US also finds the burden and hassle too much, like we did, or whether you will stay,and really claim victory. Not the sort that thrases the main military arm, and later realises the strength of a place like Iraq is not its Tank Divisions, but its guerilla fighters, its fanatics.

Iraq barely had anything left in the conventional military besides a bunch of guys with AK-47's and RPG's.
And a lot of heavy explosives at munition dumps like Al-Qaqaa. Left unguarded, they were ransacked and, very likely, can be found in many of the IED's that plague our forces.

Surprisingly enough, even O'Reilly wants us to leave (http://mediamatters.org/items/200602220007) as "fast as humanly possible."

I'm wondering if what we're seeing now is evidence of a larger split between the Bush Republicans and the rest of the Republicans and faux conservatives, rather than people gradually realizing the administration has been dead wrong about the whole Iraq thing the whole time.

At this rate O'Reilly might realize we're not leaving by about 2008.

Bush doesn't have to worry about re-election; many Republican legislators do. Whether the UAE port deal represents a true security threat or not, intuitively it seems at cross purposes with the "war on terror." And Republicans can clearly visualize the campaign commercials leveled against them on this issue. Between this and Abramoff, Republican incumbents have their hands full. Bush, meanwhile, can relax and focus supporting his legacy and his loyalists.

Some Republicans have also had their independence questioned by friendly hometown media (e.g., Snowe, Hagel, and Pat Roberts -- against whom the accusation certainly applies) and are rankled by it.

The "gentleman's agreement" between the executive and the legislature -- Bush doesn't veto bills and Congress doesn't look too closely at his actions -- is beginning to fade in the face of falling political capital in both camps.

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/3358

I'm unsure at the slant of this website ( first time there) but it bears watching.

If it continues to develop the way this website claims we all might want to recheck out facts and opinions.

Fandros

The article's last paragraph suggests their slant, but we'll all just have to watch and see if anything comes of it.

Perhaps Thor, or perhaps they are neutral and noting that a Truth will set aflame a platform being counted upon by the extremists.

I for one hope it bears out and then forces everyone to recheck themselves....right and left.

Because then we can stop bitching and wondering about lies and why for's...and start focusing on getting the job done over there.

So much wasted energy on both sides, sadly most of you can't see it as being wasted energy.

Fandros

I see a tremendous amount of wasted energy, that being Iraq. If WMDs of some sort do turn up in Syria it will strike me that the war becomes a "happy" accident, at least in removing WMDs from Saddam (but giving them to a neighbor). I recall only one media outlet making a substantial claim that the WMDs were moved (by Russians) to Syria, and that was the Washington Times. It's clear that the administration is clueless on the topic, and the fact that these tapes -- even if substantiated -- are in hands other than intelligence or administration analysts only heightens the fact.

http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/2006/col20060228.asp

Feeds directly into my own opinions of the coverage of anything U.S.

But, hey here on these boards I'm the tinfoil lunatic...;P

Fandros

Even a 2 star Iraqi General says Saddam had WMDs he was hiding.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/larryelder/2006/03/02/188299.html

A very Informative read.

Feeds directly into my own opinions of the coverage of anything U.S.

It's unfortunate but cuts both ways. Reporting the last few years is replete with examples of the media parroting administration talking points without analysis, or watching a pair of talking heads babble at one another without pointing out inconsistencies or lies on either side. The media should be the nation's watchdog. Instead, all too often it just watches.

The Townhall interview is hardly interesting (though it's amusing to see one who hates our "biased media" link to Townhall). Consider, for example:
But they didn't find them after liberation of Iraq, because they were searching not in the right place. These things were transported by air and by ground.
Yet the UN looked all over the place, guided by our intel, and still found nothing. He alleges that all traces and all results of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons were transferred to Syria prior to the invasion but were completely missed by the UN and every independent intel operation in the world.

Hell, maybe they just should have clicked the "Live Psychic Readings" link at the bottom of the page there and tracked the WMDs that way.

The media is a watchdog... a rabid one that wants to destroy the current adminstration.. but still a watchdog. They are real good at reporting things that make Bush look bad, and real good at championing the cause of the other side. For example, Scooter libby is evil for leaking classified info, but the former "whistleblower" for the CIA is not for reporting about secret prisons in foriegn countries. Do you see major networks commenting on how Clinton is a friend and advisor to the UAE, while his wife is making them look like terrorists? How come they do not investigate that relationship a little more??


Anyway.. back to the UN.. Are you serious Thor? How can the UN miss this? For fuck sakes man.. they were getting in on the oil for food kickbacks, so they were not looking for weapons getting moved... You should know that.


Hell, maybe they just should have clicked the "Live Psychic Readings" link at the bottom of the page there and tracked the WMDs that way


BTW.. I clicked on that link and it told me it was about time for a dumbass Rover remark.

The media is a watchdog... a rabid one that wants to destroy the current adminstration.. but still a watchdog. They are real good at reporting things that make Bush look bad, and real good at championing the cause of the other side.
You're clearly not paying attention. Out of all major media outlets, only one questioned Bush's pre-war claims (Knight-Ridder). The NYT carried administrative water during the lead up via Judy Miller. The Washington Post's editorial board has been strongly supportive of Bush policies. Criticism has been, at best, sporadic and tempered by a wealth of administrative talking points (such as "liberal media bias").
For example, Scooter libby is evil for leaking classified info, but the former "whistleblower" for the CIA is not for reporting about secret prisons in foriegn countries.
Consider what you're trying to defend here.

Now, it may be that the whistleblower broke a law -- that's for courts to decide. But as I find torture to be un-American (not to mention mostly useless), I think he did the right thing. Whether you are pro-torture or not, however, standing up for such principles is certainly a far cry from screwing an operative (and an operation) for the purpose of a political smear.
Anyway.. back to the UN.. Are you serious Thor? How can the UN miss this? For fuck sakes man.. they were getting in on the oil for food kickbacks, so they were not looking for weapons getting moved... You should know that.
Can you draw a connection between the oil-for-food mess (which, btw, included some Americans) and the search for WMDs? Can you demonstrate that WMDs existed and were being moved while UN folks and the investigators on the ground willingly looked the other way?

Now, it may be that the whistleblower broke a law -- that's for courts to decide. But as I find torture to be un-American (not to mention mostly useless), I think he did the right thing. Whether you are pro-torture or not, however, standing up for such principles is certainly a far cry from screwing an operative (and an operation) for the purpose of a political smear.




Leaking classified information for retaliation is ok if you think that it is against something that "you" do not stand for? Well, I happen to agree with the camps, so to me that is treason. What you have here is two opinons that do not matter. What you or I think is irrelevent. Classified information is that.. classified. The last I checked, the Vice President can declassify information, but I am sure that a EX employee of the CIA or NSA or any branch and the NY Times cannot. If one is a crime, then they both are. The underlying fact is that classified information was leaked, and if you like it or not, it is still considered National Security.


Can you draw a connection between the oil-for-food mess (which, btw, included some Americans) and the search for WMDs? Can you demonstrate that WMDs existed and were being moved while UN folks and the investigators on the ground willingly looked the other way?


No where did I say that Americans were not involved, but hell ya I can draw comparisons. If you are on the take for ANYTHING, your integrity is called into question. I can easily believe that these people could look the other way, and even help out if needed. In addition, I do not need to demonstrate, just as you cannot demonstate the the UN is innocent. I look at the fact that there was corruption (proven), and we still do not know the full extent of it. What proof do you have the UN is no above corruption? I have my proof.

Leaking classified information for retaliation is ok if you think that it is against something that "you" do not stand for? Well, I happen to agree with the camps, so to me that is treason.
Read again what I said. The whistle-blower is subject to the law, but I agree with what he did. Civil rights protesters often broke the law, but I agree with what the did. A shame that you find secret torture prisons to be a good thing.
The last I checked, the Vice President can declassify information, but I am sure that a EX employee of the CIA or NSA or any branch and the NY Times cannot.
To my knowledge, the VP can, at best, declassify information that he himself classifies (and I'm not sure his authority stretches even that far). Bush's executive order (http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html) says nothing about the VP having the authority to unilaterally declassify information (classification and declassification being two separate processes).
If you are on the take for ANYTHING, your integrity is called into question. I can easily believe that these people could look the other way, and even help out if needed. In addition, I do not need to demonstrate, just as you cannot demonstate the the UN is innocent. I look at the fact that there was corruption (proven), and we still do not know the full extent of it. What proof do you have the UN is no above corruption? I have my proof.
Just...wow. Look, I never said the UN was innocent or above corruption. Quite the opposite. We have evidence that members of the UN (and people from member nations, including our own) participated in the oil-for-food scandal. I don't have to prove anything on that point because I agree. What I asked of you was to provide that same level of evidence implicating WMD inspectors in the oil-for-food scandal or that they otherwise accepted bribes in order to "look the other way." Saying you feel it in your gut doesn't suffice.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/larryelder/2006/03/09/189159.html

The rest of the interview.
This guy Sada seems like a genuinely nice person.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/03/saddams_secret_strategy_what_t.html

Good article by Ed Coch.

SADDAM AND AL-QAEDA

To this day, liberals like to tell us that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, and thus no reason for the Bush administration to invade Iraq. But as time goes on, there is more evidence to the contrary. More proof came yesterday of a relationship between Saddam and Al-Qaeda.

The Pentagon posted a document [pdf] online that was a letter from somebody at Saddam's intelligence agency indicating not only Al-Qaeda was cozy with Saddam, but also the Taliban. But it gets better.

The letter says Osama Bin Laden was in contact with Baghdad, and even mentions he may have visited. The documents also make mention and show a picture of our good buddy Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leading Al-Qaeda terrorist in Baghdad.

So what does all of this prove? What some have said all along: there was an active link between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Oh, and Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, too. Of course, Osama Bin Laden could be captured in Iraq and Democrats still would never concede Bush was right to invade.

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents-docex/Iraq/CMPC-2003-001488.pdf
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1597459/posts?page=1,50

http://boortz.com
http://www.geocities.com/lobo3315a/sidd.jpg

liberals like to tell us that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden

You mean those "liberals" that were the 911 commission. :rolleyes:

From that report:

"to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."

From your "documents":

"The documents of pre-war Iraq were published this morning on the Pentagon website, I did a quick search and I found a very interesting document written in Arabic and not yet translated to English. I did the translation and I found the following:"

So let me get this straight...the Pentegon published Arabic documents from Taliban leaders that had not been translated to English yet? ...umm...riiggghhhttt. And based on the source...I would have real questions as to whether these were real...or something our criminal administration has put up.

I'm a Democrat..and I WAS for the war..yes I was dupped into believing their was a clear and persent danger posed by Saddam's "weapons"...but I still believed his continual aggression (and other nasty things he did) needed to be stopped....by the world community.
Bush was wrong to invade only because:

He didn't didn't have international support to help with the cost of the invasion and aftermath.

It was poorly planned and porrly implemented...as it continues to this day.

He did it so that his cronies could profit billions and some notion we could get cheaper oil.

I could go on but has been hashed and re-hashed here many times and we all know who is on what side on this board

Just wanted to address your generalizations..

I look forward to a translation not from Freeperland. Meanwhile, it looks like Saddam had an APB (http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=176240192&p=y76z4x898) out on Zarqawi, which would be no surprise.

You mean those "liberals" that were the 911 commission. :rolleyes:

From that report:

"to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."

From your "documents":

"The documents of pre-war Iraq were published this morning on the Pentagon website, I did a quick search and I found a very interesting document written in Arabic and not yet translated to English. I did the translation and I found the following:"

So let me get this straight...the Pentegon published Arabic documents from Taliban leaders that had not been translated to English yet? ...umm...riiggghhhttt. And based on the source...I would have real questions as to whether these were real...or something our criminal administration has put up.

I'm a Democrat..and I WAS for the war..yes I was dupped into believing their was a clear and persent danger posed by Saddam's "weapons"...but I still believed his continual aggression (and other nasty things he did) needed to be stopped....by the world community.
Bush was wrong to invade only because:

He didn't didn't have international support to help with the cost of the invasion and aftermath.

It was poorly planned and porrly implemented...as it continues to this day.

He did it so that his cronies could profit billions and some notion we could get cheaper oil.

I could go on but has been hashed and re-hashed here many times and we all know who is on what side on this board

Just wanted to address your generalizations..

First part of that bolded part perhaps....second part incorrect. Oil was never projected to be cheaper by invading, we knew the prices would rise when we went in.

Fandros

il was never projected to be cheaper by invading, we knew the prices would rise when we went in.

Your probably right in the short run, but in the long run I'm sure it was thoguht the additional iraqi oil under a US "controlled" Iraqi gov't might mean cheaper oil....or perhaps you're completely right, just higher profit.

I'd go along with securing a supply vs any concern for prices.

Fandros

That, and profits to be expected for Bush's allies in the oil industry (who've instead gone about profit acquisition in other ways). I agree that oil wouldn't be significantly cheaper than pre-war levels for the average consumer.

You know, there's a big difference between Profit and Gross Margin.
Profit is what a company makes by selling it's goods. Profit Margin is what a company makes after paying all its bills. From what I have read, the big oil companies are bringing in huge amount of profit, but the profit margin (when inflation is takin into consideration) isn't all that much more than from the 70's.
You have to consider that they have to pay thier workers more $$$, and it Costs more to do things in today's marketplace. One Billion dollars today was the 1970's million dollars.

They are making record "earnings" Sixee.

What's the Defenition of "Earnings" in economics? I'm not sure I've ever heard the term used.
But I'm not a know-it-all either.

Earnings as in , what the are earning above costs. Lotsa semantics in these articles....makes it hard to figure out. But from what I read...not a lot of these profits are being re-invested or being passed to shareholders. So where is it going?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/05/AR2005080501997_pf.html

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/10/oil_company_pro.html

Biased articles...the best I found.

ExxonMobil, as an example....

A. Dividends. Which returns the cash to the shareholders. Note the larger dividend increases over the last couple of years.

B. Share repurchases. XOM specifically has a hugeshare buyback program, which raises the value of remaining shares.

XOM's total return to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases was over $23 billion in 2005.

Earnings are essentially revenue minus expenses. however, due to the way accounting works, analysts often look at cash flow rather than earnings. Cash flow can be harder to manipulate quarter to quarter; it takes depreciation and capital expenditures into account.

Profit margin is not what a company makes after paying its bills. Profit margin is a percentage.

So they have been giving more money back to the investors.
How is that a bad thing?