The p[roblem with the lies..er...misstatements..

[sarettah]

From:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/internat...4a47cef&ei=5062 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/20/international/asia/20KORE.html?ex=1059278400&en=4dec53cfc4a47cef&ei=5062)

North Korea Hides New Nuclear Site, Evidence Suggests
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, July 19 — American and Asian officials with access to the latest intelligence on North Korea say strong evidence has emerged in recent weeks that the country has built a second, secret plant for producing weapons-grade plutonium, complicating both the diplomatic strategy for ending the program and the military options if that diplomacy fails.

The discovery of the new evidence, which one senior administration official cautioned was "very worrisome, but still not conclusive," came just as North Korea declared to the United States 11 days ago that it had completed reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, enough to make a half dozen or so nuclear weapons.

.................................................. ...........

American intelligence officials say they are wary about making any final judgments about the new evidence. They are keenly aware that C.I.A. assessments of Iraq's nuclear program have touched off a national debate over whether intelligence was exaggerated, and have made all the agency's findings suspect.

That issue has also put the White House at odds with George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, who knows that the White House is going to extraordinary lengths to avoid calling the nuclear confrontation with North Korea a crisis. So far, White House officials have been told only informally of the new evidence and have not been fully briefed about its potential implications, administration officials say.

[Almighty Colin]

The whole world has been talking about Saddam's WMD's for over a decade. The UN had been dealing with it, Clinton dealt with it, Bush dealt with it. We all know what the evidence was ahead of time. There were no secrets. We all drew our own conclusions from that.

The UN had an extremely difficult time dealing with Saddam in that time. The history is all very public.

If Saddam had no WMD's and has had no WMD's all along, then every bit of evidence and speculation and reason regarding it by any person, analyst, the UN, or any particular country will turn out to have been wrong.
This includes some of the world's top experts in satellite photo analysis, ground intelligence, and analysts such as Kenneth Pollack who has made some remarkablly dead-on predictions of Saddam's behavior in the past.

Does that suddenly mean the satellite photos were faked, the CIA faked intelligence, Bush lied, Tenet lied, Powell lied, Blair lied, former weapons inspectors lied and analysts such as Kenneth Pollack lied.

Isn't it more reasonable that these people saw what they were expecting to find rather than that there was a conspiracy between all these people to deceive the world into something which would eventually be found out anyway? This is quite normal even in the hard sciences. It is even more so in a field relying on very imperfect information gathering techniques, speculation, extrapolation, and assumption.



Last edited by Colin at Jul 20 2003, 09:17 AM

[Almighty Colin]

I am so 50/50 on North Korea. NK with nukes is a nightmare for the world especially given their propensity to illegally sell arms. The US has used a lot of international political capital in the Iraq war. It would cost more in a major confrontation with North Korea. Which road is the lesser of two evils?

[Torone]

Originally posted by Colin@Jul 20 2003, 09:14 AM
The whole world has been talking about Saddam's WMD's for over a decade. The UN had been dealing with it, Clinton dealt with it, Bush dealt with it. We all know what the evidence was ahead of time. There were no secrets. We all drew our own conclusions from that.

The UN had an extremely difficult time dealing with Saddam in that time. The history is all very public.

If Saddam had no WMD's and has had no WMD's all along, then every bit of evidence and speculation and reason regarding it by any person, analyst, the UN, or any particular country will turn out to have been wrong.
This includes some of the world's top experts in satellite photo analysis, ground intelligence, and analysts such as Kenneth Pollack who has made some remarkablly dead-on predictions of Saddam's behavior in the past.

Does that suddenly mean the satellite photos were faked, the CIA faked intelligence, Bush lied, Tenet lied, Powell lied, Blair lied, former weapons inspectors lied and analysts such as Kenneth Pollack lied.

Isn't it more reasonable that these people saw what they were expecting to find rather than that there was a conspiracy between all these people to deceive the world into something which would eventually be found out anyway? This is quite normal even in the hard sciences. It is even more so in a field relying on very imperfect information gathering techniques, speculation, extrapolation, and assumption.
Isn't it also just as possible that the questions being raised now are deliberately false and misleading; ranging from deliberate misquotes to outright lies? I mean, no one is paying attention to the facts (for instance, the huge numbers of documents, the centrifuge in the scientist's rose garden, the 3 Iraqi ships circling out in the middle of nowhere maintaing radio silence, or the traces of chemical agents in the river and on and on). Don't forget, it will be election day a year from November...

[PornoDoggy]

Torone, what are you talking about when you refer to the three mystery ships circling under radio silence? I sort think that the U.S. Navy might be capable of dealing with such vessels if in fact they exist. The "centrifuge in the scientist's rose garden" was a single component of a device that, once assembled, would have several years to produce weapons-grade materials. I believe that the "the traces of chemical agents in the river" were determined to be runoff from a chemical plant by the U.S. Army.

IF FIRM EVIDENCE OF A CONTEMPORARY IRAQI WMD PROGRAM EXISTED GW AND HIS MINONS WOULD BE SHOUTING IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE.

I personally was alive when the President, the Secretarys of State and Defense, any number of intellectuals and intelligence officials, and the heads-of-state of a number of our allies lied to get us into a war, and lied to keep us in one - so I don't find it unreasonable to suggest that the current occupants of those offices could do so.

[JR]

ok guys... who is who here?

http://www.pleasurelabs.com/pics/grumpyoldmen.jpg

[TheEnforcer]

Oh man.. that's a classic JR!!!!

:wnw:

[Torone]

Pd,
Keep on, you'll win the award for dumbest Democrat of the year. I thought it was pretty dumb when Sharpton tried to make himself the 'big dog' by stating that he was the only candidate who had been in jail; and even dumber when Kerry tried to one-up him with his little 2-hour stay many years ago for a protest that got out of hand; but you don't know about those ships or what they're carrying. You also seem to know about as much about the centrifuge and the other evidence as the Communist News Network wants to tell you. Further, the main statement in question is being half-quoted, PLUS it was made in January AFTER the same lying Liberals voted to go to war in October. Better learn to watch another channel and try reading. I strongly recommend Ayn Rand as an antidote for Karl Marx. :nyanya:

Side note: A recently ex-CNN reporter told of a missile attack (unsuccessful) by Iraq BEFORE we commenced hostilities. That would seem to indicate that Hussein fired first...

[PornoDoggy]

So now that you're done enthralling me with totally irrelevant anecdotes about Sharpton and Kerry, you want to fill me in on the ships? Or better yet, provide me with a source of information that will prove the inadequacies and/or lies of CNN?

Your reference to "the main statement in question" puzzled me for a minute - but I'm assuming you are referring to the now infamous "16 words." Personally, I think discussion limited to that statement alone is irrelevant, and the ONLY person who would benefit from that is GW, because a focus on those words alone is easily (and somewhat justifiably) categorized as trivial.

BTW ... Ayn Rand is about as interesting as Herman Mehlville, and as exciting as watching paint dry. I waded through Atlas Shrugged years ago, and vowed to never repeat the experience. I don't quite get the obsession you seem to have with the fact that I've read some Marx - maybe you could never find the Cliff Notes, or did you simply accept the word of Herr Gruber years ago that anyone who exposed themselves to it was instantly corrupted?

For crying out loud, I checked it out of the base library at the Naval Training Center San Diego - I'll bet you can really go to town with that bit of information...

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by PornoDoggy@Jul 20 2003, 07:18 PM
BTW ... Ayn Rand is about as interesting as Herman Mehlville, and as exciting as watching paint dry. I waded through Atlas Shrugged years ago, and vowed to never repeat the experience.
You don't like Herman Melville? Have you read Billy Budd?

[Torone]

Originally posted by Colin+Jul 21 2003, 04:54 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Colin @ Jul 21 2003, 04:54 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--PornoDoggy@Jul 20 2003, 07:18 PM
BTW ... Ayn Rand is about as interesting as Herman Mehlville, and as exciting as watching paint dry. I waded through Atlas Shrugged years ago, and vowed to never repeat the experience.
You don't like Herman Melville? Have you read Billy Budd?[/b][/quote]
Actually, I doubt he has read anything in years. He's a CNN fan... :agrin:

Colin,
Have you ever read any of Immanuel Velikovsky's stuff? Damned interesting.

[Torone]

Pd,
I read Marx many years ago...the difference is that I don't embrace any of his ideas. I pick on you about it because you seem to. As for Ayn Rand, I found her works rather exciting, especially 'Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal'. Of course, Rand IS less exciting than E.E. Smith; and doesn't preach the Liberal doctrine like Marx did...

However, I digress. The fact is, that statement about uranium from Africa is being misquoted and used as if it were the reason we went into Iraq. The vote on Iraq was in October before that speech in January.

Personally, I would like to know what IS happening with those ships and the numerous missiles with empty chemical/biological warheads that were found early on in the war; but I do remember what happened when Bush tried to address the American people about the war. Do you? The Liberal-biased networks refused to carry it, just as they refuse to balance their reporting of every American casualty with at least a small statement of how many Iraqis died as a result. They only report Iraqi casualties if they are women and/or children.

[sarettah]

Originally posted by Torone@Jul 21 2003, 06:48 AM
However, I digress. The fact is, that statement about uranium from Africa is being misquoted and used as if it were the reason we went into Iraq. The vote on Iraq was in October before that speech in January.

First of all, that is not the only misstatement, that is just the first one folks went after....

Secondly, the biggest problem with it is that it calls the credibility into issue, which makes any further adventures (NK, Iran, wherever) a much harder sell....

The next misstatement to be called into issue is:
------------------------------------------------------------
CIA Did Not OK White House Claim
Gist Was Hussein Could Launch in 45 Minutes

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 20, 2003; Page A01

The White House, in the run-up to war in Iraq, did not seek CIA approval before charging that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack within 45 minutes, administration officials now say.

The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by President Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a "Global Message" issued Sept. 26 and still on the White House Web site, the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq "could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given."

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Torone@Jul 21 2003, 06:29 AM
Colin,
Have you ever read any of Immanuel Velikovsky's stuff? Damned interesting.
Yeah, I read his books as a child and believed them. Now I think he was pretty much a nutjob. He was a damned good writer though. Interesting guy.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by sarettah@Jul 21 2003, 07:08 AM
Secondly, the biggest problem with it is that it calls the credibility into issue, which makes any further adventures (NK, Iran, wherever) a much harder sell
JR's definition of politics in play. Maybe he'll refresh us.

[Torone]

Originally posted by Colin+Jul 21 2003, 07:28 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Colin @ Jul 21 2003, 07:28 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Torone@Jul 21 2003, 06:29 AM
Colin,
Have you ever read any of Immanuel Velikovsky's stuff? Damned interesting.
Yeah, I read his books as a child and believed them. Now I think he was pretty much a nutjob. He was a damned good writer though. Interesting guy.[/b][/quote]
I know this statement will piss somebody off...
:redance:

I find his works at least as believable as the religious dogma taught by the bible.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Torone@Jul 21 2003, 07:47 AM
I know this statement will piss somebody off...
:redance:

I find his works at least as believable as the religious dogma taught by the bible.
Me too, as in NOT AT ALL.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by PornoDoggy@Jul 20 2003, 02:30 PM
I personally was alive when the President, the Secretarys of State and Defense, any number of intellectuals and intelligence officials, and the heads-of-state of a number of our allies lied to get us into a war, and lied to keep us in one - so I don't find it unreasonable to suggest that the current occupants of those offices could do so.
PD,

I'm not saying it's not impossible the admin has lied about WMD. I'm saying its not clear and quite possibly not true at all. The belief that Iraq has had WMD's did not begin with the administration of George Bush. Saddam had such weapons in the early 1990s for sure.

Clinton bombed Iraq in 1998 and said "Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors". Did George Bush lie in 2002 and send it back in time to Bill Clinton in 1998? I don't see how anyone can forget that all along there has been a strong assumption that Saddam has such programs. It is not just intelligence which has suggested so but also the behavior of Saddam himself.

I really liked Clinton. It was Clinton who said "If we turn our backs on (Saddam's) defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed" He also said "The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government -- a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people"

Clinton's actions were a continuation of the policy of the previous administration and Bush's were a continuation of the one previous to his. There is little discontinuity.

The tale is not yet told.

[Torone]

In all fairness to Pd, at least he didn't run away and ide in the USSR... :D