Another Bumper Sticker Mantra - WMDs

Mika Vs. Joe on Iraq

WMD’s ~ Myth or Reality?

Iraqi general, Georges Sada (right), makes the charges in a new book,“Saddam’s Secrets,” released this week. The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force says Iraq moved weapons of mass destruction into Syria before the war by loading the weapons into civilian aircraft in which the passenger seats were removed. He detailed the transfers in an interview yesterday with The New York Sun.

“There are weapons of mass destruction gone out from Iraq to Syria, and they must be found and returned to safe hands,” Mr. Sada said. “I am confident they were taken over.”

Mr. Sada’s comments come just more than a month after Israel’s top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Moshe Yaalon, told the Sun that Saddam “transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.” … (See Atlas Shrugged post)

Below is an updated edition of some of the proofs I used from a debate with a professor of history from Michigan University:

Just some of the "stuff" our boys "didn't" find in Iraq. The below are all violations against the cease fire brokered with Iraq in 1991, which all allow a legal re-entry into Iraq.

From: "Disinformation: 22 Media Myths that Undermine the War on Terror":

• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium

• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons

• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas

• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs

• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin

From a Daily News Article:

• A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing CBW research.

• A prison laboratory complex, possibly used in human testing of BW agents, that Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN.

• Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons.

• New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN.

• Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation (EMIS).

• A line of UAVs not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAVs out to a range of 500 km, 350 km beyond the permissible limit.

• Continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001 and that cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told to conceal from the UN.

• Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km - well beyond the 150 km range limit imposed by the UN. Missiles of a 1000 km range would have allowed Iraq to threaten targets through out the Middle East, including Ankara, Cairo, and Abu Dhabi.

• Clandestine attempts between late-1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles --probably the No Dong -- 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment.

Also, 750 shells with saran gas were found. Just 15 of these killed about 15,000 people, pictured below.

Protest Warrior sign:

These vials pictured below were found in a safe house with other items mentioned in the Daily News article (scientists, lab equipment, and the like).

97-Vials with Agents of Mass Destruction:

The below picture is some lab equipment found in a Mosque along with research scientists.

As our troops moved in, many documents were burned and destroyed. While we still have many hundreds of thousands of paperwork found still needing to be translated… much was lost.

What was discovered was dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.

This caused the United States and a larger coalition than the First Gulf War to resume (not preempt) military operations. Just the fact alone that the Iraqi’s were firing on our flyboys in the “no-fly” zones was reason enough to resume (not preempt) operations based on the cease fire agreement brokered by the United Nations via the first war.

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If Bush lied about WMDs, then what did Clinton do when he said:

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

~ President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

Or how about Madeline Albright, John F. Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and the like?

"Iraq is a long way from the USA but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

~ Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Feb. 18, 1998

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

~ Former Vice President Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

~ Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct. 10, 2002

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."

~ Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23, 2003

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

~ Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."

~ Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."

~ Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."

~ Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

If Bush lied, then all these persons did as well. You really can't have it both ways. You can't say President Bush lied while Senator Kerry and others, who said the same thing, were being honest.

There is no one who has made a remotely persuasive case that Bush lied. The German, Russian, French, Israeli, British, Chinese, Jordanian, and U.S. governments (as well as others) all agreed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Saddam said he did! The German evaluation was even more severe than America's estimates. They were convinced Saddam would have a nuclear weapon by 2005.

Apparently, bush, while being called a dunce or ignoramus by the left is so intelligently diabolical that he got every intelligence agency - not to mention every Democrat - to lie for him as well. So is Bush still the "dunce of the class," as the Left paints him; or is he so intelligent that he fooled the world, as the Left paints him. Which is it? Or are both views partisan?

If Bush lied, then he must have known there were no weapons in Iraq. There is no such thing as a lie unless you know the truth. If you say you believe something to be true, and it ultimately becomes false, that's not called a "lie," that's called a "mistake" – a mistake made by the CIA (and the world) that was beyond the Bush's control.

Bumper Sticker Mantras - Cost of War / Halliburton

Michael Medved dismantles a callers charge that we (as a country) spend more on the military than education and other social programs.

Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton

Give it a Rest!

The Halliburton mantra is getting to a fever pitch, again. This is merely the Left fear mongering about things it knows nothing about, that is, hard work and the companies and people behind that hard work. Another thing Democrats seem to know nothing about is that both President's Johnson and Clinton used Halliburton via no-bid contracts:

Dallas, Texas - Brown & Root Services (BRS), a business unit of Halliburton Company (NYSE: HAL), has been selected to continue its services as the premier logistics support provider to U.S. forces deployed in the Balkans region. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Transatlantic Programs Center announced today that it awarded the logistics support services contract, which becomes effective on May 28, 1999, to Brown & Root Services for a period of up to five years. Contract value is estimated up to $180 million per year, with a maximum value of $900 million if all four option periods are exercised. The one-year contract has four one-year options that can be awarded at the government's discretion.

My question is this, "could any other company have bid on the no-bid contracts?" Edwards is always parroting about allowing others to bid for contracts! This is similar in thinking that anyone but Red Adaire could put out the oil well fires after the First Gulf War. They were a no-bid contract.

An L.A. Times op-ed of April 22 said, “Halliburton Received No-Bid Contracts During Clinton Administration For Work In Bosnia And Kosovo.” An October 2003 article in the (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer quoted Bill Clinton's Undersecretary Of Commerce William Reinsch as saying “‘Halliburton has a distinguished track record,’ he said. ‘They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you.’”

There are two very large companies that could have done a lot of what Halliburton could do, one company is Brown and Root, and the other is Bechtel. Brown and Root was bought by Halliburton a long while back, and Bechtel is just an engineering firm as is Black and Vetch. In fact, the GAO came out and stated that only Haliburton could do the job… and get it done on time. No other company could have done this. Again, this same scenario happened in Bosnia with Clinton. All this is politicking by the Democrats to try and confuse the electorate.

The Facts on Halliburton

By Michael P. Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com 10/8/2004

To partisans of a liberal, radical, and Democratic Party background, Halliburton is synonymous with evil, the symbol of cloven-footed, corrupt capitalism.

According to the these activists, Halliburton is the treasonous corporation of which VP Cheney was formerly CEO -- treasonous because the company is reaping profits from the war in Iraq as our bravest young men are dying.

Both John Kerry and John Edwards have picked up on this. Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry recently said, "the only people George Bush's policies are working for are the people he chooses to help…They're working for drug companies. They're working for oil companies...and they're certainly working for Halliburton." Edwards likewise inserted this issue into this week's vice presidential debate.

It has been a reigning motif of the conspiracist Left that has slowly gained the mainstream acceptance of the man who could be the next president -- and the man who could be the frontrunner in the 2008 presidential race.

The Left has been on this theme for quite some time. According to an article by Carl Hiassen, in the April 25 edition of the Miami Herald, "Dick Cheney had gotten the war he wanted. One year later, it's costing us a staggering $4.7 billion a month, or about $157 million per day. A hefty chunk of that is being spent on support services provided in Iraq by Halliburton, the Texas company that Cheney ran before joining the Bush ticket in 2000. Cheney says he has severed his ties to Halliburton and had nothing to do with the lucrative no-bid contracts awarded to the firm. Not everyone is persuaded that the connection is merely coincidental."

All this rhetoric echoes the words of the revolutionary Marxist journal International Socialist Review (ISO), which has made reference to the "corporate invasion of Iraq by large U.S. corporations like Halliburton."[1]

Why do leftists demonize Halliburton? What proof exists of their claims of corruption? What exactly has Halliburton done to profit from American military casualties? Indeed, have they profited from military casualties? Is there a special relationship between the Bush administration and Halliburton so that the company receives contracts without observing the normal bidding process?

It is certainly true that during a two year period Halliburton’s revenue from Defense Department contracts doubled. However, that increase in revenue occurred from 1998 to 2000 - during the Clinton administration.

In 1998, Halliburton's total revenue was $14.5 billion, which included $284 million of Pentagon contracts. Two years later, Halliburton’s DoD contracts more than doubled.

Regarding the Iraq contracts, Halliburton was accused by Democrats of receiving special "no-bid" contracts because of Cheney’s influence. One advertisement by the Democrats charged, "Bush gave contracts to Halliburton instead of fighting corporate corruption."

FactCheck.org an organization which ascertains the validity of political campaign advertisements researched this accusation. According to FactCheck, "The Bush administration is doing a fair amount to fight corporate corruption, convicting or indicting executives of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco International, Worldcom, Adelphia Communications Corporation, Credit Suisse First Boston, HealthSouth Corporation and others, including Martha Stewart. The Department of Justice says it has brought charges against 20 executives of Enron alone, and its Corporate Fraud Task Force says it has won convictions of more than 250 persons to date. Bush also signed the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in 2002, imposing stringent new accounting rules in the wake of the Arthur Andersen scandal."

When Factcheck.org checked the facts about allegations by Democrats that there was a scandal because of the "no-bid" contracts awarded to Halliburton they stated, "It is false to imply that Bush personally awarded a contract to Halliburton. The ‘no-bid contract’ in question is actually an extension of an earlier contract to support U.S. troops overseas that Halliburton won under open bidding. In fact, the notion that Halliburton benefited from any cronyism has been poo-poohed by a Harvard University professor, Steven Kelman, who was administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Clinton administration. ‘One would be hard-pressed to discover anyone with a working knowledge of how federal contracts are awarded...who doesn't regard these allegations as being somewhere between highly improbable and utterly absurd,’ Kelman wrote in the Washington Post last November." (Emphasis added.)

The Center for Public Integrity another public interest group also investigated the purported scandal of the Halliburton "no-bid" contracts. They wrote:

• In Iraq, Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) has been awarded five contracts worth at least $10.8 billion, including more than $5.6 billion under the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, an omnibus contract that allows the Army to call on KBR for support in all of its field operations. When the Army needs a service performed, it issues a "task order," which lays out specific work requirements under the contract…From 1992 to 1997, KBR held the first LOGCAP contract awarded by the Army, but when it was time to renew the contract, the company lost in the competitive bidding process to DynCorp after the General Accounting Office reported in February 1997 that KBR had overrun its estimated costs in the Balkans by 32 percent (some of which was attributed to an increase in the Army's demands). KBR (obtained) the third LOGCAP contract in December 2001…[I]n November 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers tasked KBR to develop a contingency plan for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq…[O]n March 24, 2003, the Army Corps announced publicly that KBR had been awarded a contract to restore oil-infrastructure in Iraq, potentially worth $7 billion. The contract KBR received…would eventually include 10 distinct task orders. KBR did not come close to reaching the contract ceiling, billing just over $2.5 billion…The contract was awarded without submission for public bids or congressional notification. In their response to congressional inquiries, Army officials said they determined that extinguishing oil fires fell under the range of services provided under LOGCAP, meaning that KBR could deploy quickly and without additional security clearances.

Neither the Center for Public Integrity nor Factcheck.org determined anything sinister about Halliburton’s no-bid" contracts for the Iraq war. Two nonpartisan, nonaligned, public interest organizations have investigated the Halliburton allegations and found them to be specious allegations made for purely political purposes.

An L.A. Times op-ed of April 22 said, "Halliburton Received No-Bid Contracts During Clinton Administration For Work In Bosnia And Kosovo." An October 2003 article in the (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer quoted Bill Clinton's Undersecretary Of Commerce William Reinsch as saying "'Halliburton has a distinguished track record,' he said. 'They do business in some 120 countries. This is a group of people who know what they're doing in a difficult business. It's a particularly difficult business when people are shooting at you.'"

If Democrats want to investigate a scandal involving Iraq they should devote their efforts to the UN "Oil-for-Food" program instead of Halliburton. However, they will not because Saddam Hussein is not a candidate in this presidential election.

ENDNOTES:

[1] http://www.isreview.org/issues/36/toufic.shtml

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A former police officer, Michael P. Tremoglie recently published his first novel, A Sense of Duty. His work has appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, Human Events, and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He has a Master of Science degree from Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia.

(MICHAEL MEDVED GDP IRAQ WAR COST MYTHS LIBERAL CONSERVATIVE MILITARY EDUCATION BUSH)