Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details

[Clarence]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/
Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?

In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence. What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles. In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

At the beginning, I'm thinking "that must be Chalabi" right? but no it's a new guy. Who is Naji Sabri? Has anyone heard of him? The Headline is so leading and then it's this other guy. watching video... I know it's not proper breaking news edicate, but I feel the need to break this particular article down by phrases and paragraphs. fell free to move it, I believe the breaking news is the article itself and the way it is written and way it is put across at the time it has been put across and...just bear with me for a second, please.

First, the headline...

Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?

This thing opens up defending the Bush administration. Am I wrong? It sounds like Vicchio wrote this headline godblesshisheart, does it not? Maybe not, but sounds defensive if you've been following the show for a couple of years.

who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed

As I'm reading this I realize they're not talking about Chalabi. Instead they've got someone who knew more...?

It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

new questions, damn I've been questioning this since the day W confirmed rumors that indeed the solution to 9/11 was...Iraq. This better be good, I'm thinking...

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source.

Y'all watch the video? tries to hypnotize you at the beginning, look at something else and listen. Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam...

Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

I'm thinking there's no way that Saddam couldn't have figured this cracker out a spy. Remember, evil doesn't necessarily mean dumb. BTW, does cosmopolitan = metrosexual? doesn't matter to my point.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.

Can I see that video? haven't looked..

But on that very trip, there was also a secret contact made.

ooOOOoowww...a secret CIA meeting! Just like the movies...What happened, quick!

The contact was brokered by the French intelligence service, sources say

From this point on, in the article, it'll either be "Yay! the French!" or "Those freakin' ferry's! Always messing around with the good 'ol US of A!". I smell scapegoat all over this peice of shit article. What sources say?

Through the intermediary, intelligence sources say, the CIA paid Sabri more than $100,000 in what was, essentially, "good-faith money." And for his part, Sabri, again through the intermediary, relayed information about Saddam’s actual capabilities

100g's for info this kind of info? That's a fair trade, IMO. shoot. That kind of info's got to be worth millions if not billions if it means war or peace, right? So, reading on I'm wondering just what the capabilities must be...

The sources say Sabri’s answers were much more accurate than his proclamations to the United Nations, where he demonized the U.S. and defended Saddam. At the same time, they also were closer to reality than the CIA's estimates, as spelled out in its October 2002 intelligence estimate.

so what did he say already!

For example, consider biological weapons, a key concern before the war. The CIA said Saddam had an "active" program for "R&D, production and weaponization" for biological agents such as anthrax.

so now we finally get down to the meat of the article and they go and act like a couple of CIA agents have been trying to tell us there were NO programs since day one! WTF is going on?

Intelligence sources say Sabri indicated Saddam had no significant, active biological weapons program. Sabri was right. After the war, it became clear that there was no program.

After the war? Did I miss the part where it ended? are they talking about the first Gulf war? moving on...

Another key issue was the nuclear question: How far away was Saddam from having a bomb? The CIA said if Saddam obtained enriched uranium, he could build a nuclear bomb in "several months to a year." Sabri said Saddam desperately wanted a bomb, but would need much more time than that. Sabri was more accurate.

so then white house can admit that using mushroom cloud references were abit over the top and meant to induce fear to further causes which is of course the definition of terrorism? (I know how you guys love run ons )

On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.

Mr.V brought this up. I'll have to look to see who his source was at the time. Volconvo is really something neat, I tellya'.

In the weeks following September 2002, after first contact with Sabri was made in New York, the agency kept much of his information concealed within its ranks.

"They tricked us!" tears welling up "we ain't evil, we're just dumb, see!!? Those bastards!" (tomorrow's headlines between the lines)

Sabri would have been a potential gold mine of information, according to NBC News analyst retired Gen. Wayne Downing."I think it’s very significant that the CIA would have someone who could tell them what’s on the dictator’s mind," says Downing.

:confused:

But, intelligence sources say, the CIA relationship with Sabri ended when the CIA, hoping for a public relations coup, pressured him to defect to the U.S. The U.S. hoped Sabri would leave Iraq and publicly renounce Saddam. He repeatedly refused, sources say, and contact was broken off.

Him feared for him life, I say. Such a sad ending to a beutiful relationship. :rolleyes:

When war broke out, Sabri was defiant and outspoken. "Those aggressors are war criminals, colonialist war criminals. Crazy people led by a crazy, drunken, ignorant president," he said.

probably not drunk.

After the war, former CIA director George Tenet once boasted of a secret Iraqi source. "A source," he said in a speech on Feb. 5, 2004, "who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle." Sources tell NBC News Tenet was alluding to Sabri.

I used to think he was talking about Chalabi. Wasn't he? Hafta look it up, I suppose. It could hinge on it. Again, what sources?

Tenet said that the source — meaning Sabri — had said Iraq was stockpiling chemical weapons and that equipment to produce insecticides, under the oil-for-food program, had been diverted to covert chemical weapons production. However, in that speech, Tenet also laid out what Sabri had disclosed: that there was no biological program, that Saddam wanted nuclear weapons but had none.

Yeah, we all knew as much. It goes back to whether some empty tubes or insecticide machines "diverted to make weapons" are enough to do what we've done, which many experts (including myself ) predicted. Chaos and suffering.

After the war, Sabri was not arrested or put on the notorious "deck of cards." He lives in the Middle East and NBC News is not revealing his location for security reasons. According to Downing, that he is living in the Middle East may be significant.

This guy's obviously got leverage on the white house. He ain't living here and he's hiding there. If he comes out and says that he told the CIA that there were no weapons, the white house can say that certain people mislead him and then there can be a political roundup. When a gov't falls, there's always a roundup. Sometimes it's the only sign.

[Clarence]

"The fact that he was there, that he was able to get out, live openly, like he is, says that for some reason he received some special status," says Downing.

:confused:

NBC News repeatedly requested comments about this report from Sabri, either in written form, by telephone or in person. NBC News contacted Sabri several times by phone, and hand delivered a letter to a representative of his, explaining in detail the substance of this report, including the details about weapons of mass destruction. Sabri confirmed he received the letter, but repeatedly refused to comment in any way, neither confirming nor denying any of the information in this report. So did the CIA. The agency also would not comment on Sabri, or answer why it discounted or ignored Sabri's assessment of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

how long has this been going on behind the public's backs? The breaking news is that journalistic integrity just reached it all time low at NBC. There's no way the average person can smell what's cooking. They're just now starting to accept that the information that led to war was false. Now, the bad guys are gonna take that information and turn it on the messenger who said all along that there was no threat. Lord! This better not work out in their favor or I'll... or I'll... or I'll get hopeless, that's what! And you know what hopeless people do. They act hopeless and that's never good. This is the strangest life I've ever known...

[rmnunez]

Some people might expect a foreign minister to voice the regime's 'line'. If Saddam insisted he had no WMDs and wasn't trying to get any, nor ever had, what would his foreign minister say when asked the same thing?

[jose]

no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional intelligence committees, not from the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration's prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated, distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.

Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon's Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq's weapons and ties to terrorists. "It wasn't intelligence‚ -- it was propaganda," she says. "They'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together." It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S. officials‚

The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the participants in the meeting‚ -- and officials all the way down the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed, the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn't even been formally installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, began putting together what would
become the vanguard for regime change in Iraq.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feat...01/12_405.html
i wish i copuld post the whole thing but you can click on the link :eek:

A half-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iraq.

More than a dozen calls to the White House, the CIA, the National Security Council and the Pentagon for comment were not returned.

The ad-hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/leopold11.html
don´t let the Barstewerds lie there way out

[Boetie]

When one cherry picks data, what does that turn the pre-emptive policy into?

When one lies and hypes a nation into war, what does that turn the pre-emptive policy into?

This current administration rose to the top via the smear machine and it eliminated any serious debate via the smear machine.

The public ought to have seen the red flag when the best this current administration could do is slime. It's one thing to slime others when campaigning for office, it's another thing when lives are on the line. In this case the lives of our soldiers and the lives of innocent people abroad.

Want to see more red flags. Click on this link

Straw Man

You have the downing street memo, an administration retaliating against Wilson, because Wilson told the public that the Niger document is a fake, an administration currently using the straw man technigue as the link provided shows. Given all these red flags, what does this turn the pre-emptive policy into?

The public must realize that the pre-emptive policy is dangerous because it can be used as a cover for what is actually war crimes.

When you lie and hype a nation into war using pre-emptive strike as a cover you have turned yourself and your administration and this country into war criminals.

I have noticed that we are now being told that history will vindicate Bush Jr. When one has to resort to a distance future, a future so far down the road that none of us will be alive, then that person using history as a judge needs to seriously re-examine the pre-emptive policy, because if you can't determine the wisdom of using that policy here and now, you have no business using that policy. An unknown future should not be used to justify the use of a policy such as the pre-emptive policy.

Taking the words of some one else I ask, "Bush Jr have you no decency?" Because many whom were on the hot seat wanted to cross examine Joe McCarthy's evidence, so to we would like to cross examine your claim you didn't lie and hype this country into a needless war, which is to say Bush Jr your straw man doesn't cut it.