I am not here saying that there will not be evidence in the future that would persuade me, that would be closed minded. What I am saying is that the evidence that exists exists in totality on one side... and it is not the birther's side.
This subject has hurt the conservative cause. Many man hours were spent on this rather than fighting against Obama's agenda. One case in point is G. Gordon Liddy, whom I enjoy normally. But I would have rather had his voice already sounding the health-care alarm on the Chris Matthew's show rather than this crazy conspiracy stuff: "These Guys are Embarrassing Us! G. Gordon Liddy Gets Worked by Chris Matthews on Obama's Birth Certificate." Time and energy lost.
This subject has hurt the conservative cause. Many man hours were spent on this rather than fighting against Obama's agenda. One case in point is G. Gordon Liddy, whom I enjoy normally. But I would have rather had his voice already sounding the health-care alarm on the Chris Matthew's show rather than this crazy conspiracy stuff: "These Guys are Embarrassing Us! G. Gordon Liddy Gets Worked by Chris Matthews on Obama's Birth Certificate." Time and energy lost.
May I say most of the conspiracy theories lie on the left. Most presedential shooters were involved some way with the Communist or Marxist ideologies. Michael Medved points out the fact that Lane was a self-avowed Marxist. The guys behind the "Loose Change" "documentary" are also very involved in the Communist ideology. What does this, being on the extreme left, have to do with conspiracies you might ask? Propaganda. Plain and simple. The NWO stuff is merely being pushed by person who wish to undermine the governments affairs instead of voting these bad policies out. I want to have the viewer look at the report on Bedell:
Now I want you to watch a video on Alex Jones, do you see what I am seeing?
Now, I’ve been to innumerable “Truther” rallies over the last 8 years, and can say with some confidence that about 98% of folks who think 9/11 was a hoax are left-wingers, or at the very least fit in very comfortably in the left-wing milieu, since the impetus behind Truthism is to undermine the basis for Bush’s “War on Terror,” an impetus which is also a cornerstone of modern Leftist thought as well.
So far, however, I’ve noticed a deafening quietude on the left-leaning blogs about this guy’s affiliations and belief systems. Those brave enough to troll leftist comments sections have noted mumblings therein that the guy was probably a secret “teabagger,” despite all evidence to the contrary.
[....]
Michelle Malkin uncovered a key inconvenient fact which doesn’t quite fit this predictable “right-wing extremist” narrative — that Bedell was a registered Democrat.
Patterico has now posted a full transcript of one of Bedell’s internet rants — the same one cited by Talking Points Memo as evidence of his right-wing leanings — which has Bedell uncorking phrases like “economic justice” and paragraphs like (writing in 2006 during the Bush presidency) “This organization, like so many murderous governments throughout history, would see the sacrifice of thousands of its citizens in an event such as the September 11th attacks, as a small cost in order to perpetuate its barbaric control. This collection of gangsters would find it in their interests to foment conflict and initiate wars throughout the world in order to divert attention from their misconduct and criminality. The true nature of such a regime would find its clearest expression in Satanic violence currently ongoing in Iraq.” and anti-war conspiracy theories like “The political and military disasters such as the wars in Vietnam and Iraq that an illegitimate coup regime uses against the people…”.
Ooops!
Add all that to the previous discovery already linked above that Bedell’s Amazon “Wish List” featured the the left-wing conspiracy-theory books The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family and Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America.
Ooops!
And more evidence is being uncovered by diligent bloggers with every passing hour.
I post all this not to backtrack on my original wish to avoid the blame game, but to defuse the blame-the-right game now coming from the other side.
Tell me, Christian Science Monitor and Talking Points Memo (and the innumerable left-leaning sites which by now have surely followed in their wake): How many Tea Partiers or conservatives
- Shoot at the Pentagon and hate the military?
- Are registered Democrats?
- Hate George Bush and the whole Bush family?
- Think 9/11 was perpetrated not by Muslims but by Republicans?
- Grow and smoke marijuana?
- Read left-wing anti-Bush books?
- Are anti-war?
- Talk about “economic justice”?
- Think the Vietnam War and the Iraq War were not merely mistakes but were part of a government conspiracy?
Exactly as I had surmised, Bedell seems to be a nutcase who overwhelmingly tends to lean left but with a sprinkling of libertarian attitudes thrown in just to spice things up — and it is those exact libertarian sprinklings which the leftist mediasphere is focusing on, while completely ignoring the much larger pile of evidence on the other side of the scale.
Bedell may have been a left-wing conspiracy kook, but much more importantly: He was insane, and it was his insanity (not his politics) which led him to start shooting at the Pentagon.
Unfortunately, I can see now that the blame game is already in full swing and I am powerless to stop it, but at least I can say I tried.
The man who opened fire in front of the Pentagon had a history of mental illness and had become so erratic that his parents reached out to local authorities weeks ago and warned them that their son was unstable and might have a gun, authorities said Friday.
…
San Benito County Sheriff Curtis Hill told The Associated Press that Bedell, 36, had been at in-patient mental health institutions at least four times. Court records showed he was diagnosed as bipolar, or manic depressive.
…
The family put out a statement Friday saying they were “devastated as a family by the news from yesterday.”
“We may never know why he made this terrible decision,” it said. “One thing is clear though — his actions were caused by an illness and not a defective character.”
A completely crazy person goes berserk. That’s it. Can we for once not make this into a political boxing match?
Seems to me that Bedell falls into the Alex Jones / Libertarian extremist camp. Contrary to what [some Web sites] are promoting, I know from first hand experience that these types of “truthers” are ubiquitous at all International ANSWER sponsored anti-war demonstrations, but I have not seen any of them at the handful of “tea parties” I’ve attended. You can call them “right-wing” if you like, but they are definitely not conservative. Actually, they are the exact opposite of conservative, they are radicals – and nuts. They’re anti-military, anti-war, anti-Bush, conspiracy kooks who often stink of marijuana.
If a group like this bunch Alex Jones supporters were to show up at any “tea party” I’ve been to, I suspect they’d be run out, or at the very least booed and heckled. At anti-war demonstrations these very same people are welcomed with open arms. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see followers of “Libertarian” Alex Jones and members of the Maoist group, The World Can’t Wait, marching together carrying the same “9/11 truth” banner.
Bedell may not have been a Leftist, but he was most certainly not a conservative either. And he was not a Republican.
....Signs emerged that Bedell harbored ill feelings toward the government and the armed forces, and had questioned the circumstances behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In an Internet posting, a user by the name JPatrickBedell wrote that he was "determined to see that justice is served" in the death of Marine Col. James Sabow, who was found dead in the backyard of his California home in 1991. The death was ruled a suicide but the case has long been the source of theories of a cover up.
The user named JPatrickBedell wrote the Sabow case was "a step toward establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions."
That same posting railed against the government's enforcement of marijuana laws and included links to the author's 2006 court case in Orange County, Calif., for cultivating marijuana and resisting a police officer. Court records available online show the date of birth on the case mentioned by the user JPatrickBedell matches that of the John Patrick Bedell suspected in the shooting....
....No mention in the story of Bedell’s Bush-hatred or his party affiliation. It fell to the boss emeritus to dig that up, not for the purpose of indicting Democrats for what he did but to try to preempt the inevitable tedious attempts to lay this at the feet of conservatives. I don’t think she has much to worry about this time. It’s simply too far a logical leap to blame the military-loving mainstream right for an attack on the Pentagon, which explains why even noted “wingnut” critics like John Avlon and Sullivan staffer Patrick Appel are taking a pass on this one. If there’s any silver lining in the very dark clouds created by Bedell and Joe Stack (and even the Kentucky census worker fiasco), it may be that partisans on both sides have necessarily become more cautious about trying to divine coherent motives from incoherent minds. Not all partisans, natch, but some.
Your exit question: Is it possible to be a “left-wing extremist” anymore or do nuts who embrace some lefty ideas before launching an attack automatically fall under the broader heading of “anti-government,” a term that’s conveniently also used to describe conservatives’ opposition to statism? That’s why CSM ended up labeling him a right-winger, I suspect. Righties want a smaller federal government and Bedell hated the military and the military’s part of the federal government. Voila!
UPDATE: So… Will the state-run media report this? The Pentagon shooter is linked to several gay rights groups along with PETA, NPR, various drug legalization orgs, Greenpeace and Al Franken.
It was pointed out that much of what the IRS Joseph "the bomber" Stack talked about was directly from Michael Moore movies:
Have you noticed how things said in his manifesto seem to all be taken straight from Michael Moore movies?
Anti-health care system= Sicko
Anti-Capitalism= Capitalism, a Love Story
IRS cronyism with businesses= Capitalism, a Love Story
Anti-Bush= Fahrenheit 9/11
Blames Big Corporations for job issues= The Big One
One – Joe Stack was a liberal. As I pointed out recently, Stack:
Hates George W. Bush and his “cronies”
Hates Big Pharma
Hates Big Insurance
Hates GM executives
Hates organized religion
Refers favorably to communism
And in his last words before dying, denigrates capitalism.
Remember von Brunn? He also was a bit left leaning in his understanding of politics and government:
...While Mr. von Brunn is currently being made out to be the poster child of the Republican Party, even a cursory look at his professed views shows he is the avowed enemy of the GOP in its current incarnation. Among many others, Mr. von Brunn hates Rupert Murdoch, Fox News (that means you, too, Shep!), George W. Bush and John McCain. And according to the FBI, Mr. von Brunn even had in his vehicle the address of the Weekly Standard, home base of the dreaded "neo-cons."
Seems Mr. von Brunn wasn't a big fan of the Iraq War and also believed that 9/11 was an "inside job." Given this political sketch, Mr. von Brunn would feel at home at Camp Casey, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar outpost in Crawford, Texas, and at the Daily Kos convention, rather than partaking in a National Review cruise with pro-Israeli war hawks Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson.
It's not Charles Lindbergh's Republican Party any more. And it hasn't been for more than a half-century. But don't tell that to the facile minds at the DHS [the Department of Homeland Security] and CNN.
According to a retired couple who called into the Michael Medved show (which I heard... to which I will post the audio when I get it), the following occurred:
The Secret Service were dispatched from Omaha Nebraska this week, WHY?
To question a retired couple because of a bumper sticker on their car that was so terrible and threatening that 911 was called by some idiot and the Nebraska Highway patrol pulled them over and detained them until the Secret Service arrived. What did that terrible sticker say,
Kill Obama-care before it kills you!
According to the gentlemen he and his wife were held for 35 to 40 minutes by the Nebraska highway patrol until the agents arrived. The agent commented on the kill Obama stickers until the couple showed him that was not what it said. The agent left with no further comments.
The Secret Service agent commented on the spelling, saying that bot "Kill" and "Obama" were capitalized making it seem like the intention was to "kill obama." The retired gentleman pointed out that "kill" was the first word in the sentence and was capitalized due to its placement as the beginning of the sentence; and "Obama" is a proper name, thus its reason for capitalization. The call was soo funny... the government could have saved money by just sending their agents to Grammar 101.
The Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama stressed his rhetoric favoring peace and disarmament, but cited no real progress in that direction.
Unfortunately, the Peace Prize has a long history of recognizing good intentions rather than concrete achievements. Eighty years ago, the Nobel Committee awarded three separate prizes in three separate years to architects of the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact--a solemn treaty that outlawed war as "an instrument of national policy." Sixty-three nations signed the treaty, including Germany, Japan and Italy. The U.S. Senate approved it as well, by a vote of 85-to-1.
Within 11 years of the treaty going into effect and making war illegal, aggression by several signatory nations plunged the planet into the most destructive conflict in history. Rewarding airy, unenforceable good intentions has been a problem with the Nobel Peace Prize for many years.
I have attempted here to join many posts and ideas into one to make an airtight case that WMDs did exist, maybe not in the form found in the movie Spies Like Us. Which had a Soviet soldier standing over a mobile nuclear tipped ICBM ready to "push the button." I have even argued that the administration should have used the terms agents of mass destruction (AMDs). But this is neither here-nor-there since I feel the below case is sound for there being WMDs as well as AMDs. I will also point out a reason or two for us to enter Iraq even if WMDs were not part of the argument. Enjoy this revision... my last on this topic, it will be my last on WMDs and Iraq.
In this clip, a caller (a conspiratorial anti-Semite) to the Michael Medved Show tries to trip up Paul Wolfowitz on Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Throughout the video I will post some "factoids" and photos that support Wolfowitz and makes the caller look shallow in his knowledge about what he is calling about:
I wanted to rearrange previously posted information that may help the continuing politico in his refuting of "Bumper Sticker Mantras."
Relief Web is the global hub for time-critical humanitarian information on Complex Emergencies and Natural Disasters connected with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. They reported in an article, "Iraq sends 20 planeloads of aid to Syrian victims of dam collapse," the following on June 9th, 2002:
BAGHDAD, June 9 (AFP) - Iraq said Sunday it has sent 20 planeloads of humanitarian assistance to Syria to help victims of Tuesday's Zeyzoun dam collapse in the north of the neighboring country.
"Iraqi Airways planes have made 20 flights to Damascus until today to take foodstuffs and pharmaceutical products to the victims," Transport Minister Ahmad Murtada Ahmad told the official INA news agency.
Planes continued to take off from Baghdad's international airport on Sunday in the airlift put in place on Thursday at the request of President Saddam Hussein, Ahmad said.
Iraq's Health Minister Omid Medhat Mubarak added that the sanctions-hit country would also send teams of specialized doctors, surgeons and chemists to Syria....
I know this might be hard to believe, but... I call BS. Saddam Hussein said those 20 planeloads contained “humanitarian aid” while he was under U.N. Sanctions and he didn’t have enough food for his own people who dies of malnutrition and lack of medical assistance. But he had enough to send 20 planeloads of “humanitarian aid” to Syria?! Come on. Three news items support this theory/model that these "humanitarian flights" were something else:
1) A senior Syrian journalist reports Iraq’s WMD located in three Syrian sites:
(Debka) Nizar Nayuf is a Syrian journalist who recently defected from Syria to Western Europe and is known for bravely challenging the Syrian regime, said in a letter Monday, January 5, to Dutch newspaper “De Telegraaf,” that he knows the three sites where Iraq’s WMD are kept. The storage places are:
Tunnels dug under the town of al-Baida near the city of Hama in northern Syria. These tunnels are an integral part of an underground factory, built by the North Koreans, for producing Syrian Scud missiles. Iraqi chemical weapons and long-range missiles are stored in these tunnels.
The village of Tal Snan, north of the town of Salamija, where there is a big Syrian airforce camp. Vital parts of Iraq’s WMD are stored there.
The city of Sjinsjar on the Syrian border with the Lebanon, south of the city Homs.
Najoef writes that the transfer of Iraqi WMD to Syria was organized by the commanders of Saddam Hussein’s Special Republican Guard, including General Shalish, with the help of Assif Shoakat , Bashar Assad’s cousin. Shoakat is the CEO of Bhaha, an import/export company owned by the Assad family.
In February 2003, a month before America’s invasion in Iraq, DEBKAfile and DEBKA-Net-Weekly were the only media to report the movement of Iraqi WMD, the efforts to bring them from Iraq to Syria, and the personal involvement of Bashar Assad and his family in the operation.
Najoef, who has won prizes for journalistic integrity, says he wrote his letter because he has terminal cancer.
2) The man who served as the no. 2 official in Saddam
(The New York Sun) 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.
The Iraqi general, Georges Sada, makes the charges in a new book, "Saddam's Secrets," released this week. 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."
Democrats have made the absence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq a theme in their criticism of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in 2003....
Here is an interview with General Sada from the Hannity & Colmes show:
3) AMMAN, Jordan (CNN) -- Jordanian authorities said Monday they have broken up an alleged al Qaeda plot that would have unleashed a deadly cloud of chemicals in the heart of Jordan's capital, Amman.
(CNN) The plot would have been more deadly than anything al Qaeda has done before, including the September 11 attacks, according to the Jordanian government. Among the alleged targets were the U.S. Embassy, the Jordanian prime minister's office and the headquarters of Jordanian intelligence.
U.S. intelligence officials expressed caution about whether the chemicals captured by Jordanian authorities were intended to create a "toxic cloud" chemical weapon, but they said the large quantities involved were at a minimum intended to create "massive explosions." Officials said there is debate within the CIA and other U.S. agencies over whether the plotters were planning to kill innocent people using toxic chemicals.
At issue is the presence of a large quantity of sulfuric acid among the tons of chemicals seized by Jordanian authorities. Sulfuric acid can be used as a blister agent, but it more commonly can increase the size of conventional explosions, according to U.S. officials. Nevertheless, U.S. intelligence officials called the capture of tons of chemicals that together could create several large conventional explosions "a big deal." The plot was within days of being carried out, Jordanian officials said, when security forces broke it up April 20.
In a nighttime raid in Amman, Jordanian security forces moved in on the terrorist cell. After the shooting stopped, four men were dead. Jordanian authorities said. They said at least three others were arrested, including Azmi Jayyousi, the cell's suspected ringleader, whom Jordanian intelligence alleges was responsible for planning and recruiting. On a confession shown on state-run Jordanian television, Jayyousi said he took orders from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a suspected terrorist leader who has been linked to al Qaeda and whom U.S. officials have said is behind some attacks in Iraq.
"I took explosives courses, poisons high level, then I pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to obey him without any questioning," Jayyousi said. Jordanian intelligence suspects Jayyousi returned from Iraq in January after a meeting with al-Zarqawi in which they allegedly plotted to hit the three targets in Amman. In a series of raids, the Jordanians said, they seized 20 tons of chemicals and numerous explosives. Also seized were three trucks equipped with specially modified plows, apparently designed to crash through security barricades.
The first alleged target was the Jordanian intelligence headquarters. The alleged blast was intended to be a big one. "According to my experience as an explosives expert, the whole of the Intelligence Department will be destroyed, and nothing of it will remain, nor anything surrounding it," Jayyousi said....
....A Jordanian government scientist said the plot had been carefully worked out, with just the right amount of explosives to spread the deadly cloud without diminishing the effects of the chemicals. The blast would not burn up the poisonous chemicals but instead produce a toxic cloud, the scientist said, possibly spreading for a mile, maybe more.
The Jordanian intelligence buildings are within a mile of a large medical center, a shopping mall and a residential area. "And there is no one combination of antidote to treat nerve agent, choking agent and blistering agent," the scientist said. Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, has been accused of plotting chemical attacks before, and authorities said it would not be his first attempt to strike Jordan. In 2000, a Jordanian court charged him in absentia with planning to blow up a hotel and attack tourist destinations.
U.S. officials have said he was behind the 2002 assassination of American diplomat Lawrence Foley, who was gunned down outside his home in Amman. According to the televised confessions, $170,000 came from Zarqawi via messengers from Syria.
By-the-by Al-Zarqawi was killed by Coalition Forces June 7, 2006, in Iraq.
These news items show that Saddam was very busy on the Syrian border, and that some chemical weapons made it into Jordan from Syria via a network of Al Qaeda that led right to Iraq. Stephen Hayes compiled much of these connections in his book, The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. Almost two years after his writing it, some more information came out that supported his position. I will first post here the appearance of Stephen Hayes from Hannity and Colmes, after this video there will come an extended interview with National Review the week his book came out, good stuff for the politico.
NRO: Your new book is on connections between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Isn't that all a neocon myth? Isn't bin Laden on record dissing Saddam? Secular Saddam, meanwhile, was no Islamic fundamentalist or extremist? Did anti-American hatred trump all?
Stephen F. Hayes: If the Iraq-al Qaeda connection is a neocon myth, those neocons are even more resourceful than the conspiracy theorists suggest and they sure have got a lot of unlikely people making their arguments. Evan Bayh, Democrat from Indiana, has described the Iraq-al Qaeda connection as a relationship of "mutual exploitation." Joe Lieberman said, "There are extensive contacts between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda." George Tenet, too, has spoken of those contacts and goes further, claiming Iraqi "training" of al Qaeda terrorists on WMDs and provision of "safe haven" for al Qaeda in Baghdad. Richard Clarke once said the U.S. government was "sure" Iraq had provided a chemical-weapons precursor to an al Qaeda-linked pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. Even Hillary Clinton cited the Iraq-al Qaeda connection as one reason she voted for the Iraq War.
Saddam was, for a time, an avowed secularist. He began to use Islamist language during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and stepped it up during the first Gulf War. By the mid-1990s, when his son-in-law Hussein Kamel defected (and was later killed when he foolishly returned to Iraq), Saddam was interrupting Baath-party meetings for prayers.
Bin Laden has dissed Saddam several times. And I would certainly never argue that they were buddies. It was an on-again, off-again relationship based, as Bayh says, on mutual exploitation and a common enemy.
NRO: Who is Ahmed Hikmat Shakir?
Hayes: Shakir is one of the most intriguing and puzzling potential links between Iraq and al Qaeda. He was present at the January 2000 al Qaeda meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where U.S. intelligence officials believe the planning for the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole and September 11 took place. Shakir was working, ostensibly, for Malaysian Airlines as a VIP greeter. He told associates that he got the job through a contact at the Iraqi embassy and the same contact determined his schedule. Shakir escorted one of the 9/11 hijackers (Khalid al Mihdhar) to the meeting and left his airport "job" days after the meeting broke up. Making things even more interesting, Defense Department investigators recently found Shakir's name — with a slight spelling discrepancy — on three separate lists of Saddam Fedayeen officers. He was captured twice after September 11 — once in Qatar, once in Jordan — and let go. The Iraqi government reportedly showed a keen interest in his release. What was he doing at the meeting? How did he know the hijackers? And what, exactly, was his relationship to the Iraqi regime? He may have been a bit player, but it sure would be nice to know more. I hope the 9/11 Commission includes a discussion of Shakir in its final report.
NRO: What is the Feith memo and how important is it?
Hayes: The Feith Memo is a report that Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee last fall, in response to a request by that panel to see information the Pentagon gathered on Iraq-al Qaeda connections. Analysts in the DoD policy shop pored over old intelligence, gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies, and unearthed some interesting nuggets — some of them from raw intelligence reports and others from finished intelligence products. CIA Director George Tenet was asked about the Feith Memo at a Senate hearing in March and distanced his agency from the Pentagon analysis. He submitted another version of the document to the committee with some "corrections" to the Pentagon submission. My understanding is that there were but a few such adjustments and that they were relatively minor (although my book challenges two of the most interesting reports in the memo). Some of the stuff — telephone intercepts, foreign-government reporting, detainee debriefings, etc. — is pretty straightforward and most of the report tracks with what Tenet has said publicly; it just provides more detail. That said, there were two items that seemed to require more explanation and, when weighed against available evidence, seem questionable.
NRO: Mike Isikoff from Newsweek and others have tried to discredit some of your reporting on these connections. Do you concede any of their points?
Hayes: Well, Isikoff is a very good investigative reporter and I have long respected his work. We simply disagree on much of this. Intelligence reporting is quite subjective, of course, and lends itself to various interpretations. My problem with so much of the media reporting on this issue is that most journalists have chosen not to investigate the connection, and seem too eager to dismiss them. Why? This wasn't the case in the late 1990s, when Iraq-al Qaeda connections were more widely reported in the establishment press.
After I first wrote about the Feith Memo, the Pentagon put out a statement designed to distance itself from any alleged leak of classified intelligence. It was a classic non-denial denial — virtually devoid of content. It was something any veteran Washington reporter would dismiss without a second thought. But reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post, typically quite cynical about anything that comes from the Pentagon's public- affairs shop, suddenly found it a remarkably credible source.
NRO: It's been suggested by Isikoff and others that some of the evidence turns up nowadays is forged, that you can't take it on its face value. To what extent is the evidence you present corroborated by other evidence, other documented meetings, etc?
Hayes: I think they're right on that point — and it's almost never a good idea to take these things at face value. There was a report that surfaced in December 2003 that suggested that Mohammed Atta had been in Baghdad during the summer of 2001. And, a little too conveniently, the very same document claimed that the U.S. was seeking uranium from Niger. There's little question that the three-page report was forged. (An interesting side note: That document came not from Ahmed Chalabi, but from CIA favorite Iyad Allawi, the new Iraqi interim prime minister. Allawi has long argued that there was a significant relationship between Saddam's Mukhabarat and al Qaeda.)
Much of the evidence in the book comes from open sources — media reporting, court documents, interviews, etc. With respect to the information from the Feith Memo, many of the bullet points corroborate one another or previous intelligence on the relationship. For instance, the U.S. intelligence community has long believed that bin Laden met with the deputy director of Iraqi intelligence, Faruq Hijazi, in the mid-1990s. When we captured Hijazi, we asked him about the meeting. Bin Laden, he reported, asked for anti-ship limpet mines and training camps in Iraq.
NRO: Did Mohammed Atta meet with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague — multiple times?
Hayes: I wish we knew. Atta was in Prague under very strange circumstances in May 2000. What's unclear is whether he returned, as initially reported, in April 2001. If he did, it wasn't under his own name. But news reports claiming that the meeting couldn't have taken place because U.S. intelligence has documentation placing him in the U.S. are not accurate. One of the things I report in the book is that both George Tenet and Condoleezza Rice say privately that they believe the April 2001 meeting took place.
NRO: What is the strongest evidence that Iraq was a collaborator in the Sept. 11 attacks?
Hayes: Probably the Shakir story, which is far from conclusive. But it seems to me that the presence of a suspected Saddam Fedayeen officer at a key 9/11-planning meeting can't be dismissed. There have been additional recent developments in the Atta story reported by Edward Jay Epstein. If those turn out to be true, they would be significant. I'm trying, but as yet have been unable to prove or disprove them.
NRO: What's the deal with Richard Clarke? Why is he so adamant to defend Iraq vis-Ã -vis al Qaeda?
Hayes: I put that question to a top Bush-administration official not long ago. This person said: "If Iraq was involved with al Qaeda, whether they were involved with 9/11 or not, the whole counterterrorism policy of the 1990s was a failure." And we all know who was responsible for the counterterrorism policy of the 1990s. One thing that perplexes me about Clarke was his expressed certainty that there was an Iraqi hand in al Qaeda chemical weapons production in the Sudan in the late-1990s. (Top Clinton advisers — several of them now
working for John Kerry — continue to believe that today.) And Clarke's current views (no connection) certainly put him at odds with CIA Director George Tenet. ...
From this we can see that the typical bumper sticker statements/mantras we heard projected from street corners in close proximity close to Whole Foods markets just never took into account much of anything, except their dislike of Cheney and Bush. An example comes from an almost elated exclamation about Kucinich's "attempt" to start impeachment of Bush and friends:
(The World According to Kimba) Breathtaking in that I believe some, if not most of the charges to be true. Although certainly not all of the charges constitute or necessitate a call for impeachment (as was the case when [Kucinich] offered up articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney last year), they do add up to quite a record for a sitting administration, and I for one, am glad he got them on the record.... Obviously, the political climate these days in Washington are such that they will not touch this hot potato and let King George II serve out his full second term without incident. But, what does it say for our regard for the law, not to mention the constitution, when we refuse to prosecute for wrongs committed against the public good? (emphasis added)
Often times people don't follow their logic to the end... for instance, on MSNBC Mike Barnicle simply repeated these "sentiments" (the feeling that he is right based off of his feelings). Sit back, grab some popcorn and enjoy the show:
Debate: On Dec. 30th on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' one of Mika's "Must-Read Op-Eds" included one from the New York Times (shocker), slamming the Bush administration for the Iraq war, Mika, Joe and Mike Barnicle sparred about the facts going into the war and all the surrounding facts known at that time.
One thing I have heard and gave an example of is the Left saying and truly believing that Bush lied about WMDs. If this is the case, what about these other politicians?
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
So what are some of the examples that counter the Left's claims and bolster the Bush administration as well as the intelligence agencies from Germany, Russia, France, Israel, Britain, China, Jordan, as well as others showing that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (Saddam even saying he had them)? Well let's see:
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.
How about the fact that Mahdi Obeidi (Saddam's head nuclear scientist) buried a prototype of his gas centrifuge, the most direct and efficient route to enriching uranium, in his backyard in Baghdad. Hence the name of his book, Bomb in My Garden.
This next section comes from a Daily News article found in their Sunday Viewpoint entitled, “Altered Reality: Look Past The Dogma and You’ll See the WMDs” (October 26, 2003, p. 3):
A clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses 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 throughout 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.
I can also add here that 750 shells with saran gas were found. Just 15 of these killed about 15,000 people. Only in the Left's vernacular does this equal no WMDs. Scurrilous politics on display if there ever were. Two things come to my mind, and they are two slogans I heard all the time.
Bush is an Idiot;
and, Bush lied.
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? And 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. Now, 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. However, I have shown there was no mistake. I have yet for someone to show me that this cumulative case can be taken from its lofty place here at my blog. And may I say that I have not seen such a case made yet on this World Wide Web.
Let's hear how the above issues play out in real conversation, and I would entreat the reader to listen to the entire call. One may not like the term "little girl," but this gets explained near the end.
This broadcast below was made before we declared war on Saddam Hussein. The caller is an Iraqi who asks a anti-war organizer a pointed question about leaving Saddam in power. The clip is 6 minutes long and she never answers the question.
So Let Me Conclude
What was discovered in Iraq were dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment, chemicals, and specialists to make it happen that Iraqi concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002 was the final straw in the U.S. military's back. 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 (Iraq Survey Group) 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 Iraq was firing on our Air Force jets 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.
There are other peripheral issues that I have already dealt with that touch this issue in some way, like yellow cake uranium, or the cost of the war and contracts given to Halliburton. However, these issues are easily dismissed, at least for those that do not project their psychoses onto Bush and Cheney.
A quick refutation of another familiar "mantra" we hear, and one most at the rally in the video above most assuredly accept, is that the U.S. supplied the bulk of weapons that Iraq has and used. This just isn't the case, the the graphic below points out (click it to enlarge it for better viewing):
