President Bush & Iraq Vet on ‘Deal or No Deal’
[Guest post by DRJ]
Capt. Joseph Kobes, a Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient who has served in Iraq three times, is a contestant on Howie Mandel’s game show “Deal or No Deal.” He’s competing to get enough money to pay off his parents’ house. The taping included a moment where President Bush expressed gratitude for his service and wished him luck in the game.
President Bush isn’t the most popular politician right now (and he knows it, judging by this quote) but he’s still a pretty funny guy:
“I’m thrilled to be on ‘Deal or No Deal’ with you tonight. Come to think of it, I’m thrilled to be anywhere with high ratings these days.”
It’s a nice clip. Take a look.
— DRJ
Funny, sweet and touching.
Vermont Neighbor (629f2e) — 4/21/2008 @ 9:51 pmW, he’s got the hardest job in the world, and in many respects has presided over a remarkable recovery from an enormous attack on our economy, and security. He’s failed in many ways, but he’s also succeeded in many ways and isn’t nearly as bad as people claim he is.
He’s really a pretty alright person, who has weathered a storm of hatred unlike any I’ve ever seen, and decided to keep on doing what he thinks is right. Say what you will about him, and there’s plenty of room to criticize him, but he’s not taken the easy road.
Jem (4cdfb7) — 4/21/2008 @ 9:53 pmDubya knows what the public opinion polls say.
But he doesn’t let them eat him alive, the way LBJ did.
And he doesn’t let them determine his actions as President, the way Bill Clinton did, and Hillary Clinton would. I’m not sure yet about Obama, but certainly his equivocation about topics like his knowledge of, and agreement with, Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism make me believe he’s a gifted chameleon — which in turn implies a willingness to sacrifice principle for political expediency.
Beldar (3ea2d1) — 4/21/2008 @ 11:37 pmI think a re-phrasing of the above comment is in order:
“which in turn implies a willingness to sacrifice people for political expediency.”
Think of his grandmother.
Jack (d9cbc5) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:31 amAnd I want to konw this: Did Capt. Kobes win?
Jack (d9cbc5) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:40 amI’d rather have a kind, upstanding, honest President than a popular one. Over the last seven and a half years of vicious and blind populist hatred toward all things ‘Republican white male’, President Bush was the person who has always remained above the fray; he took the nasty hits yet kept going strong without ever slinging the mud.
I will miss him and his civility when his term is complete.
I doubt however, that the vicious populists will end their madness particularily if they don’t get their way.
syn (1017f1) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:09 amJack,
The good Captain won near $80,000.
PCD (5c49b0) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:44 am#7 PCD:
Ah, excellent! Thank you for relaying that.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 8:24 amI think George Bush is funniest when he jokes about all the weapons of mass destruction he couldn’t find in Iraq. He sent American soldiers to fight and die on a mission they never had a hope of completing, isn’t that fucking hilarious?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:41 amYou are vile person, Levi. With a filthy little mouth.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:43 amAnd George Bush makes jokes about all the people his terrible leadership has needlessly killed.
And you’re one of his biggest fans.
I’d rather be vile.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:51 am#9
The ones not found, those are in addition to the 503 found between November of 2003 and March of 2005?
Oh, I forgot. They were WMDs before they were found, but once they were found they were only chemical weapons.
You’re not only vile, you’re a liar.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:10 amLevi, George Bush did not joke about anyone killed in this conflict. That is just yet another of your despicable lies.
Levi, a vile liar. That’s your only accomplishment in life.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:21 amhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6luiMINQ
Probably worse than Bush telling the joke is the reaction from all the dumbasses in the room with them, including Nancy Pelosi, who, as you can see, greeted each joke with uproarious laughter.
What do you think soldiers in Iraq would have thought of their Commander-in-Chief say such a thing?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:50 amSo your reaction, Levi, on having your lie pointed out is to introduce yet another non sequitur.
You remain a liar.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:53 amFunny, I have never heard him tell one joke about the “needlessly killed”. Vitriol is all Levi has got, and he has plenty of that.
JD TWP (75f5c3) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:57 amNot merely vitriol, JD, but lies. Levi’s link is to a video of George Bush joking about looking for WMD’s with photos of him looking under things in the Oval Office from the annual correspondants dinner that some freak edited together with pictures of KIA soldiers.
And Levi thinks this excuses his lie.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:59 amSPQR – I had seen that before, and suspected that was the vile bile that Levi was referencing. Therefore, kudos to you for actually looking at the link. I see Levi went to the Gren Gleeeenwalds school of lying about the content of links. Surprising, not in the least.
JD (75f5c3) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:03 amAs usual, Levi loses. What a putz!
PCD (5c49b0) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:30 amPEOPLE, you are feeding the hell out of this troll.
This was a good story that has been successfully hijacked by some idiot who is laughing his head off. Levi, you really do hate us, don’t you? Must be tough going through life like that.
Jem (4cdfb7) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:57 amPlease, leave Levi alone. If he didn’t have his conspiracy theories and blogs where he can spew his vile he might twist off and become a serial killer. I beg of you, for the sake of his potential victims, lighten up on him, encourage him to post more…..Besides, I needed a good laugh today and he supplied it.
Patrick (a8c3ea) — 4/22/2008 @ 12:05 pmSpeaking of the President’s charm, I recall when his dauther called him from that talk show…What a cool segment that was. DISCLAIMER…I wasn’t watching Ellen, I SWEAR!!!! I just caught a replay of the segment on a different show….You have to believe me…
Patrick (a8c3ea) — 4/22/2008 @ 12:08 pm“The ones not found, those are in addition to the 503 found between November of 2003 and March of 2005?”
– EW1 (SG)
Link, please.
Leviticus (ed6d31) — 4/22/2008 @ 12:28 pmLeviticus, try this link:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15918
Kenny (76922b) — 4/22/2008 @ 12:44 pmI can link his whole, unedited speech if you want to watch ten minutes of it. I thought the edited one makes my point pretty well. Here it is if you care:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJF13BS-hE
Question is, do you think that’s funny? Probably more importantly, do you think that someone that enlisted in the armed forces after 9-11 to defend their country,was sent to Iraq to find all of these WMDs that the President promised all of us would be there, and horribly mutilated for life by a roadside bomb, would think that that was funny?
What if George, the kind, upstanding, honest, charming President, tried that kind of material on a roomful of Gold Star mothers? Would they be laughing?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 12:55 pmLevi, the video does not make your point. Your point was a lie and the video contains nothing that supports it. George Bush never made fun of KIA, period. The creator of the video tries to use the deaths of soldiers to attack George Bush in a cheap shot, which is your style, but George Bush did not.
You remain a vile little liar.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:15 pmHumor is best when it is tailored for its’ audience.
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:20 pmBefore a roomfull of Gold-Star Mothers, no President would attempt humor – it would be inappropriate, insulting, and not cool.
Before the Washington Corespondents’, a humorous (and hopefully funny – see Al Franken for what doesn’t work) routine that is self-deprecating is almost required,
and is appreciated by that audience.
Once more, Levi proves himself the moron that we know he is.
Stop feeding the troll.
Beldar (3ea2d1) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:33 pm#23:
Normally, I would be happy to oblige such a request: in this instance however, I witnessed a live local telecast of a press conference given by Senator Rick Santorum and the ranking House member of the Joint Intelligence Committee (whose name eludes me at the moment), announcing the results of a newly declassified DIA report on the status of WMD inspections in Iraq.
I’m not even sure where I would look to find a link to a report of such an event, although it looks as though the link Kenny has kindly provided may be discussing the same essential elements I recall from the telecast. And it seems about the right time frame as well: IIRC, Santorum was up for reelection shortly afterwards (which he lost).
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:44 pmI watched him say that live on national TV as it happened. The President’s audience was a little bit bigger than the sum total of the people in the room he was in, it always is. If I saw it, some Iraq vets could have seen it, some disabled Iraq vets could have seen it, some parents who lost their kids, their kids who got sent to Iraq to look for these WMDs, I remind you, could have seen it. If they had innocently flipped over to C-Span at that moment, you think they would get it?
Do you think that shit was funny? Can you explain to me what the joke is? It doesn’t strike you as at least slightly inappropriate for a sitting President to make light of a huge intelligence failure that caused him to commit one of the biggest foreign policy blunders in our national history, for which people many, many thousands of people have been killed or horribly maimed?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:53 pmEW1 (SG):
Fair enough. Thanks for the response.
I’ll remain skeptical, but I’ll assume that your claim has some solid foundation.
Leviticus (e87aad) — 4/22/2008 @ 1:57 pmFrom that guy’s link:
The munitions addressed in the report were produced in the 1980s, Maples said. Badly corroded, they could not currently be used as originally intended, Chu added.
Hardly the stuff of ‘smoking gun mushroom clouds,’ wouldn’t you say?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:02 pmLeviticus,
I’m curious. What are your skeptical about? Do you doubt that the military recovered the items claimed; that the items can be considered WMDs; or something else?
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:03 pmKenny: Thanks for the link.
Since the article comes from the US Department of Defense, I’ll take it with a grain of salt. In addition, I’m not sure “badly corroded”, inoperable-in-their-current-state cannisters of mustard/sarin gas are quite the evidence the Administration needs to justify its claims of Iraqi WMD, particularly since their allusions were to weapons of a more… how do I say this… nuclear variety.
That said, you don’t really hear anyone talking about these cannisters, and they are something.
Leviticus (e87aad) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:04 pmThere’s more to the quote:
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:05 pmDRJ: We cross-posted, but I think #34 answers most of your questions.
Leviticus (e87aad) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:06 pmYep. Thanks, Leviticus.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:09 pmYup, a bunch of hypotheticals about what Saddam could have done with all the gas. Certainly, he could have given it to a group of terrorists, but he seemed pretty content just letting them rot all over his country.
And it’s worth reiterating that this is a far cry from the mobile anthrax factories we were told we’d be stumbling over after our invasion. You couldn’t argue that a bunch of forgotten, decaying warheads justifies all of this, could you?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:14 pm#31:
You’ve already demonstrated that you are totally clueless when it comes to the military, let alone an area of specialized knowledge like munitions.
And you still haven’t figured out what Smithee was talking about either, have you?
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:15 pmLeviticus – You are mistaken on the nuclear allusions. No one claimed that Iraq had nuclear weapons. I would be interested in a citation if you have one claiming they did.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:16 pmLevi – Put down those goalposts.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:19 pmBet you ten bucks I could come up with Levi’s link to “prove” #40 “wrong”…
Scott Jacobs (fa5e57) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:23 pmActually, I think Kenny tagged it. I think the Santorum press conference was after the release of the classified portion referenced in the link. And the number of “badly corroded” munitions and munition components was actually very small.
(You also have to remember that these munitions weren’t all recovered at once nor in the same place: some were being actively maintained in the Iraqi arsenal.)
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:25 pmHow do you mean?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:25 pmCLUELESS!
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:29 pmLevi, your comment was “And George Bush makes jokes about all the people his terrible leadership has needlessly killed.”
That is still a lie, and you remain a liar.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:32 pmLeviticus #34 – You are correct. They are something. And I would agree that there is little to no attention devoted to their discovery. It’s also true that the relative amounts of said weapons, while valuable to terrorists, could hardly be classified as an arsenal for a nation like Iraq.
One thing always puzzles me, however, and that is the zero level of discussion regarding weapons programs, which IMO can exist without the presence of the end product. You can probably make a sarin gas weapon in your garage, if you’re that stupid. To make an amount that would actually constitute an international threat, however, you need a program.
Historically, the US, has been caught flat footed with regards to the actual progress of China, Pakistan and India in their Nuclear programs, (admittedly the most difficult to undertake or conceal) which would give one pause to bet on the ability of our intelligence and inspectors to accurately gauge the presence or effectiveness of said programs. That uncertainty, taken in context with Hussein’s erratic behavior, his known possession not only the weapons themselves but also the programs to construct such systems and effectively use them, would seem to render trivial the actual amount of weapons found as if that amount is the only measure of danger upon which we should rely.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:35 pmI’m always a bit flabbergasted by the left when they begin to drift back into the WMD argument arena.
Fact: Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. This is not open for debate, it is a given.
Fact: Saddam Hussein USED weapons of mass destruction. This is not open for debate, it is a given.
Fact: Saddam Hussein had dual use facilities, open, in operation and capable of creating within weeks, all manner of deadly weapons. This is not open for debate, this is a given.
Fact: The DEMOCRATS said that Saddam Hussein posed the greatest risk to mankind, that he was not hesitant to MAKE AND USE weapons of mass murder…more importantly, THE DEMOCRATS SAID that Saddam Hussein was a global risk to hand off such weapons to terrorists to export murder around the world. This is not open for debate, it is a given.
Fact: Saddam Hussein was well beyond the “exploration” stage of developing a nuclear arsenal. He had plans in force and effect to build nuclear weapons. This is not open for debate, it is a given. (and anyone who believes that Saddam Hussein would have allowed Iran to build nuclear capability while he sat still, is a fool)
Fact: Saddam Hussein kept inspectors out of his country, sane people believe that he surely had a reason for doing so, only insane people “knew” that he had nothing to hide. It is an utterly ridiculous stance to suggest that someone sitting in their living room in Berkeley “knew” that Saddam did NOT have something to hide.
Fact: The last time he hid weapons, he hid them in the river, no inspectors would have found them, in fact, unless a country cooperates with inspectors…they can hide all manner of tools of mass murder.
Fact: In the six weeks to the runup of the toppling of Saddam, there is strong evidence that a number of materials were shipped into Syria.
To suggest that one “knows” that Saddam posed no threat, is to label oneself an imbecile.
To suggest that Al-Qaeda would not have setup shop in Iraq for the purchase and distribution of tools to transport their brand of terrorism, is to label oneself an imbecile.
The DEMOCRATS voiced that very concern. While they held the Oval Office. President Bush made that threat go away. The Democrats voted to allow him to do so. One of them isn’t a coward and liar about it today.
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:39 pm#47 Apogee: Well put. I agree that we didn’t find the quantity nor quality of weapons we expected, but it wasn’t only that that made Hussein a threat to our national security.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:42 pmOkay, then riddle me this. Saddam is building all these horrible weapons, we’re about to invade his country for building all these horrible weapons, and so he takes his horrible weapons and….. wait for it….. gives them away? Why would a crazy, American-hating dictator give all the weapons away that he’s being invaded for, and not use them to kill Americans, whom he hates?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 2:46 pmI can put this entire debate to rest. My friend (a guy I served with) was Saddam’s interrogator after he was captured. Listen to his recounting of the interrogations. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml
Patrick (a8c3ea) — 4/22/2008 @ 3:03 pmLevi – Why not ask that question (#50)of Sadaam yourself since you believe you have the ability to read minds on this site? Or is it only conservative minds that you believe that you can read?
Why not answer your own question since you also believe yourself to be such a military and foreign policy genius? Why do others have to do all your work for you.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 3:06 pmPatrick #51 – Good link. Especially Page 4.
“He believed that he couldn’t survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?” Pelley asks.
“Absolutely,” Piro says.
I’d have to say that, short of removing Hussein from power, it would have been impossible to prevent him from at least attempting to acquire them (WMD) again.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 3:20 pmYes Patrick, good link.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 3:48 pmThis “discussion” with Levi is as predictable as the rising sun. There is simply no amount of evidence you could supply him that would make him realize how patently silly and unserious his position is. Again. a leftist shows us how great the arguments are, provided you accept their lies, couched as their underlying premise, as being true.
JD (e15e05) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:23 pmJD, what is my position?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:25 pmJD…
Another Drew (f9dd2c) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:26 pmWe try not to discuss mythical figures, or hypothetical situations; Right?
The DOD must be taken with a grain of salt, but every bullshit claim trotted out by every anti-Bush, anti-war, BBC, LancetM etc .. is taken as gospel truth. Has the earth begun to rotate in the opposite direction? Good allah, these people are painful.
JD (e15e05) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:31 pmAD – His positions are not mythical. Bush lied people died. Fucking lying alcoholic coward. Disaster of a presidency. Yadda yadda yadda. Insert into any topic.
Levi – If you have to lie to make your point, it is not a very good point.
JD (e15e05) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:37 pmThat’s bizarre, I never said I need to take the DOD report with a grain of salt. I believe it’s accurate. We found a handful of weapons left over from the 80’s strewn all across the country and in various stages of decay. I think you’re confused?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:40 pmNot everything’s about you, Levi. Here is what Leviticus said:
So, JD’s statement was on point, just not directed at you.
Steverino (6772c8) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:44 pm“No one claimed that Iraq had nuclear weapons. I would be interested in a citation if you have one claiming they did.”
– daleyrocks
I never said anyone “claimed” that Iraq had nuclear weapons; I said “alluded”, and I think that’s totally accurate (though I’m not going to give Scott the satisfaction of crowing about me linking to anything related to yellowcake uranium from Niger or centrifuges or anything like that).
Leviticus (43095b) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:46 pmI was not speaking to you, liar. Someone else said that. Did we miss the part of all of the UN resolutions that said it is alright to have chemical weapons as long as they are old and not stored in one place? That is addressed to you, liar.
JD (e15e05) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:48 pm“The DOD must be taken with a grain of salt, but every bullshit claim trotted out by every anti-Bush, anti-war, BBC, LancetM etc .. is taken as gospel truth. Has the earth begun to rotate in the opposite direction? Good allah, these people are painful.”
– JD
That would be a fair point, if I took “every bullshit claim trotted out by every anti-Bush, anti-war, BBC [?], LancetM etc.” as “gospel truth”… which I don’t. I make it a point to decry bullshit on both sides of the aisle (which I did with the Lancet study, if you’ll recall).
Hmmm. Guess that wasn’t a fair point, after all.
Leviticus (43095b) — 4/22/2008 @ 4:50 pmOkay then. It’s just a little confusing, is all. You said something about my stupid positions, I asked you which of my positions you’re referring to, and I’m still waiting for your answer.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:05 pmSorry, Leviticus. My bad. However, assuming to have to take the US military with a grain of salt is still BS.
JD (e15e05) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:07 pmLevi – See all of the lies and distortions that you typed above. Those are what I am referencing.
JD (5f0e11) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:09 pmIsn’t it some huge platform in the Republican party and the conservative movement that you’re supposed to be mistrustful of government, that you’re supposed to take anything that any official says with a grain of salt, that no institution, including the military, is above influence, corruption, or distortion?
You think everyone should just believe anything that anybody in the government or military says?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:13 pmWhy can’t you be specific? Why do I have to ask a hundred fucking times?
I’ve only really staked out two positions in this thread; that George Bush is an unfunny retard with no respect for the people whose lives he’s responsible for ruining, and that Iraq didn’t have any WMDs. Which of those are lies?
I’d love if we could get the conservatives talking again about how great and charming they think George Bush is, you wanna bring it back to that?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:15 pmI never said anyone “claimed” that Iraq had nuclear weapons; I said “alluded”, and I think that’s totally accurate (though I’m not going to give Scott the satisfaction of crowing about me linking to anything related to yellowcake uranium from Niger or centrifuges or anything like that).
Comment by Leviticus — 4/22/2008 @ 4:46 pm
You’re not going to turn into a Levi here on me are you and just start making stuff up? Normally you are pretty sane. You can research the claims as well as I can. Nukes were years off, the number of years varied. Find some “allusions”, I would be interested in reading those as well.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:18 pm#69:
Both.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:23 pmBush said aluminum tubes useless for the purposes of enriching uranium were being used for just that, and he let Condi run around saying things like “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” How else are we to interpret that besides, “We have to invade Iraq, or we’re going to get nuked.” Add to that the yellow cake allegation, and yeah, that’s an administration-wide effort to make people think that Saddam was going after the bomb.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:34 pmI don’t expect you to re-evaluate your Bush-as-God perception of the President, but you think we found WMDs, really? Some scattered, deteriorated munitions that Saddam probably didn’t even know he had constitutes WMD to you?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:36 pmLevi, so far all you’ve proven is that Bush has been far more honest than you.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 5:59 pm#73:
LOL! You are too much!
Unlike you, I don’t have to cast people as demigods or satanic demons of some sort. President Bush is an honorable man, even when I think he is wrong: something you are not.
And you really haven’t been paying attention either, have you? Above, you’ll notice (at #39) I pointed out:
which was directed at you, by the way. Also, at #43 I pointed out that the number of weapons recovered in an unusable state was revealed to be just a small fraction of the total recovered when the entire report was declassified.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:11 pmYou think everyone should just believe anything that anybody in the government or military says?
Why not? You claim constantly that we should believe everything Obama says.
Retard.
Paul (4ca58a) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:14 pmPlease grace us with your definition of WMD, Levi. Also, some support for the idea that Saddam didn’t know he had them would be amusing…err, appreciated.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:40 pmI’m skeptical of anything Levi says. Is that conservative?
steve miller (6da930) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:45 pmNo, steve miller, just experience.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:46 pmBush said aluminum tubes useless for the purposes of enriching uranium were being used for just that, and he let Condi run around saying things like “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Levi – Absolutely pathetic. Iran is attempting to enrich uranium. They have been doing it for a while. We don’t believe they have nukes yet. Did you notice the word “years” in what I wrote. Go back and read the source quotes to which you refer and you’ll see none of them claim Iraq had nukes or was in imminent danger of getting them. Sadaam was seeking them, we claimed, and it was only a matter of time, how much time was unclear.
Do you need a license to be as stupid as you are in public?
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 6:54 pm#80 daleyrocks:
I don’t think so, but its gotta hurt.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/22/2008 @ 7:01 pmNot enough evidently.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 7:08 pmIt ought to hurt. If idiocy was painful, the world would be a much better place. Sadly, it is not.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/22/2008 @ 8:02 pmLevi – You asked where you lied, or just made shit up. Again, the simple answer is almost every one of your comments has been a lie, been premised on a lie, or has so distorted the truth so as to make it unrecognizable. You, Levi, are a liar of the highest order.
JD (5f0e11) — 4/22/2008 @ 8:21 pmWhat do you mean my definition of WMD? I think it’s pretty clear; weapons of mass destruction. What we’re talking about here are relic munitions, scattered around the country, decaying, with no delivery system. Those certainly aren’t WMDs. Now if you want to define the ‘mass’ part in terms of body count, well I don’t know. Thousands? Millions? I guess it would depend on the scenario.
And I said ‘probably’ about Saddam, just a guess based on what I’ve seen. It certainly doesn’t appear that he knew about them, and at the very least, he wasn’t all that concerned about maintaining them if he did know. Saddam wasn’t really running anything resembling an organized, disciplined military, I expect they probably lost track of lots of their shit. That these munitions were breaking down in various, forgotten locales in the desert doesn’t really paint Saddam as the hysterical maniac George Bush said he was. He was happy being king of his little slice of the desert.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:28 pmHe was happy with his little slice plus an extra portion of Kuwait and a big helping of Iran. But other than that you may be right.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:30 pmJD…
Another Drew (8018ee) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:39 pmMy point was that “L” to me is a mythical person who does not exist, who posits hypotheticals that are so distant from reality that they make Grimm’s Fairey Tales seem like documented history.
*sigh*
I know this will hurt your mind, but try and follow along…
Nerve agents such as Mustard gas don’t need to be fired from a rocket, or dropped as a bomb to be effective. They are a gas. A tny detonation to rupture the vessel, and you can spread the gas.
Meaning, any IED or suicide bmber could use one, and kill a LOT of poeople in a city.
With a small mountain of UN resolutions telling him to get rid of or account for them, and the threat of military force should he fail to do so (led by the people who led the LAST savage ass-kicking that took the 4th largest army in the world and made it so much scrap metal in 100 hours), you would think he’d have made some effort to find them if he wanted to, you know, follow the rules.
As for WHY he might have shipped the stockpile he had to Syria, I can think of several plausible scenarios.
1- He didn’t really think we’d invade, and figured he’d just ship them back a few days later
This has the benifit of agreeing with past performance. He’d been threatened several times with an attack, and when we started to move folks over, he could have though “Bluff. They’ll go away in a month or so when I don’t do anything agressive”
2- He figured on a short war, remaining in power, and with the majority of the WMDs gone, we couldn’t try him for possessing them.
This has the benifit of relying on the retardation of the modern world, and the “If the glove don’t fit, you must aquitt” mentality. If we can’t find them in Iraq, obviously he NEVER had them, so we should leave the nice man alone. Once we’re gone, he brings them back, and when he uses them (and publicly denies involvement or having sold them), the world will buy it because hey, didn’t we think he had them LAST time, and don’t you remember how THAT went?
3- Transfer of munitions to friendly country for use by 5th column forces
This is WAY more forward thinking that I think him capable of, but who knows. Basicly, it assumes that he KNEW he’d get it handed to him, and decided to move his best weapons to some other country. Then he could sneak some folks over to get some now and then for attacks on “the invaders”.
Now, how about you stfu, you freaking dim bulb…
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:43 pmSo in other words, Levi, you have been lying about the President’s comments and you don’t know what you are talking about.
In case you don’t know it ( and wow is that a long list … ), old chemical weapons are not harmless. Last summer I toured the battlefields of Flanders. A few years before, a farmer encountered an old chemical shell dating from WWI in his field ( something that the Belgians do every year ). It killed him more approximately 90 years after it had been fired.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:43 pmThat these munitions were breaking down in various, forgotten locales in the desert doesn’t really paint Saddam as the hysterical maniac George Bush said he was. He was happy being king of his little slice of the desert.
Comment by Levi — 4/22/2008 @ 9:28 pm
You are showing your stupidity again Levitra. Try three initials – NBC. They stand for nuclear, biological and chemical. Now what category would the material in those artillery shells be classified Levitra?
If you guessed chemical you would be right.
Is having a “delivery system” a requirement for something to be classidied a WMD? I don’t know Levitra, you never defined it? Did the plutonium that killed people in London have a delivery system? I don’t think so? Does anthrax or ricin need a complex delivery system to kill a bunch of people? How about sarin gas on a subway?
Sadaam was pretty happy trying to evade oil for food controls on his money while rewarding the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, funding terror operations around the world, serving as a safe haven and training ground for terrorists, but hey, why should we, and you, Mr. Multicultural Sensitivity give a fuck, right.
What historical distortion are you going to attempt for your next trick, retard?
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:44 pmThat is the ridiculous description of Saddam Hussein I’ve ever heard. It could only be written by someone completely ignorant of the history of Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:46 pmPlease. That’s the basis of Republican debate; all vocal critics of Bush and his war are troop-hating, treasonous socialists. With BDS. Learn to take it if you’re going to dish it out. You guys were pathetically over the moon for Bush, and there’s an internet filled to the brim with all these fawning articles and profiles about him, authored by conservative after conservative, to prove it.
What does that even mean, ‘honorable?’ What are some examples of Bush’s honor? I can point out plenty of examples of him embarassing himself and the country, where he’s breaked the law, where his stupidity and inability and disinterest in running an effective government has gotten Americans killed, but for the life of me, I can’t find anything that resembles a demonstration of how ‘honorable’ he is. Does making jokes about how we didn’t find any WMD make him an ‘honorable’ man? Does appearing on the shittiest game show in history make him ‘honorable?’
And just curious, what do you think he’s been wrong about?
How have I demonstrated that? How do you know I don’t know anything about the military or munitions? What have I gotten wrong?
And I’m to take your word on that, because you are an expert, I guess?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 9:58 pmLevi, you can point out examples of Bush breaking the law? Embarrassing the country? Then why instead do you keep lying about him? Why do you keep making up stuff?
And if your comments are not nutty, why do you write the most ridiculous historically-false nonsense about Saddam Hussein?
What need in you does it fill to write lies and fiction?
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:01 pmWhy can’t you admit your errors instead of switching the subject Levi? Is it because you are retarded or mentally challenged? People are engaging you as you requested and you are dodging.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:06 pmBush bypassed FISA. He admits to this. FISA is a law. Therefore, he broke the law. It’s also against the law to torture people, no matter what his puppet Justice Department told him. His administration also just outright exposed the identity of a covert intelligence agent. There’s other things, there’s probably lots of secret other things, and there’s also all sorts of instances of unethical behavior, like this revelation that the Pentagon was using military ‘experts’ to spread disseminate propaganda.
And if you aren’t embarassed by this Iraq boondoggle being carried out in all of our names, you’re just fucking nuts.
What would that be? None of you seem to value specificity, for some reason. It would help, substantially.
Yeah, I don’t know. The BDS flaring up, I guess…
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:18 pmLevi, your description of Saddam Hussein above was extraordinarily ignorant.
As yet, you have failed to explain why you lie about Bush. You’ve been caught in multiple lies and yet you continue.
Explain why you lie, Levi.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:20 pmAnd by the way, Levi, your discussion of FISA was another misrepresentation on your part. You’ve misrepresented what the Bush administration position on FISA and their wiretapping program was. That is no surprise because like everything upon which you comment, you don’t understand the FISA issues either.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:22 pmJudging from the changes Congress passed, actually he didn’t. 🙂 Nice try.
…
Truly, you are the Dalai Lama of morons…
Does the CIA use your filling sto listen to your thoughts, too?
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:24 pmAh, poor misunderstood Saddam. A fine old chap he was, truly. Pity that the ignorant Iraqis convicted him of mass murder and hanged him for it, ain’t it, Levi?
Pablo (99243e) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:29 pmYep, Pablo, a pity. He was such a quiet boy in his little desert kingdom.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:33 pmPardon me, do you have any outdated mustard gas? This sandwich is terribly dry.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:35 pmNo, Pablo, but I’ll ask a Belgian farmer for some on my next trip … it not being a WMD, I’m sure they’ll let me take some of the thousands and thousands of tons they’ve got in their chemical weapons dumps.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:36 pmWow.
This may get me flamed, but I’ll do it anyway.
The only people commenting who are less intelligent than Levi are those who believe that he’s here to debate.
If interacting is a fetish, like burning ants, well, Ok. Just please do it out of site in the back yard.
If you’re worried about him offing himself and this is some sort of tag-team suicide watch, then please just put an asterisk * or something denoting “I’m on duty”.
But please, after a thousand posts it should be obvious. I need a new mouse from scrolling through the endless confusion.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/22/2008 @ 10:43 pmIf you’re going to tell me that I misrepresented Bush’s position on FISA, wouldn’t it make sense for you to explain what it is, or how I’m getting it wrong?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:11 pmOoo yeah, thanks. I really needed that little nugget of wisdom.
Have you ever heard anybody tell you that the simplest answer is sometimes the best one?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:13 pmYeah I knew that. Thanks for wasting my time!
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:14 pmLevi – The only posts that lack specificity or facts are your own. Nice try at dodging yet again.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:15 pmWhat dodge? One of you says that I write ficticious nonsense about Saddam, well what did I write, specifically? How am I supposed to counter your arguments if your arguments don’t have any depth beyond ‘You’re wrong!’
I lack specificity? Compared to you? I’m cranking out paragraphs at a time, you and your cohorts seem taxed after posting a sentence or two, most of the time.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/22/2008 @ 11:21 pmThe problem being, Levi, tht since the end of the first Gulf war we knew he had a certain amount of WMDs. He used a certain amount after, but amount X was never accounted for…
If you think Saddam would have destroyed it without accounting it, you’re just insane…
And frankly, I’m done wth this blog till you’re gone. You can’t have an honest discussion if your life depended on it.
Scott Jacobs (d3a6ec) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:58 amYou wrote this:
That is wrong, and you insist that it’s right.
Yes, but I still can’t decide whether you’re a lying fool or a foolish liar.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:58 amHillary’s pounding of Baracky really seems to have set Levi off.
JD (75f5c3) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:58 amHe did destroy lots of them, of course he wouldn’t account for that, he always wanted us to think he had all sorts of weapons. Did you read the transcript from the guy that interrogated Saddam? It was posted in this thread, and says exactly this.
Whatever. Run away if you must. I won’t miss you.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:43 amWhat dodge? One of you says that I write ficticious nonsense about Saddam, well what did I write, specifically? How am I supposed to counter your arguments if your arguments don’t have any depth beyond ‘You’re wrong!’
Levi – What you say makes sense if you totally ignore what has been written in response to your comments. If you have actually read what has been written, it just reinforces what a mental midget and liar you are every day. You fit in well on the left.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 9:51 amThe ‘response to my comments’ is a never-ending series of unfunny one-liners from my conservative groupies. You’re one of the worst offenders. If my arguments are so stupid and insane, you’d be addressing them, not calling me names. Like you did with this post, like you do with all of your posts.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 10:00 amSo, let me see if I’ve got this straight. He destroyed some, he didn’t know he had the rest and he wanted us to think that he did while telling us that he didn’t.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 10:15 amBasically. Did you read the link that was provided about Saddam’s confessions to his interrogators? It totally supports that. A number of reports from the United Nations and our own government support that. Documents we’ve found in Iraq support that. The fact that we didn’t find anything of any significance supports that.
Or, we can just believe he moved them to Syria, based on absolutely nothing.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 10:33 amhmmm
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 11:15 amAbsolutely Nothing.
Just like this.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:04 pmAnd the WMD’s we found? Well, those aren’t WMD’s so we didn’t find any at all.
Brilliant.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:07 pmThe ‘response to my comments’ is a never-ending series of unfunny one-liners from my conservative groupies. You’re one of the worst offenders. If my arguments are so stupid and insane, you’d be addressing them, not calling me names. Like you did with this post, like you do with all of your posts.
Levi – Thank you for confirming that you are not reading the responses and thus not engaging in honest debate.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:18 pmOh, I forgot.
Retard
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:20 pmA couple of spoonfuls of decaying poison in decaying munitions buried and forgotten in the desert aren’t WMDs. They’re definitely not the WMDs Bush described, and they’re definitely not worth spending all this money and getting all of our guys killed to find.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:32 pmI read everything. You might think I don’t, I’m telling you, I do. Okay? Do I have any reason to lie to you? I read every word, you can’t take that on good faith? Do you believe me? Why not? Why do you think I quote you guys if you don’t think I’m reading what you’re typing? Does that make any fucking sense?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 12:35 pmI read everything. You might think I don’t, I’m telling you, I do. Okay? Do I have any reason to lie to you?
Levi – Then why won’t you engage me after I keep smoking your ass with facts in replying to the lies you include in your comments here? Is it embarrassment or shame that prevents you from admitting mistakes or ignorance? Just review the education provided free to you above on WMD from myself and others and summarize where you were wrong.
We’ll wait.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 1:30 pm…of sugar help the sarin go down. You’re still dead as hell, but at least it’s a little tasty.
I’m unfamiliar with this “spoonful” measurment of chemical weapons. Has anyone seen Hans Brix?
Oh, bother. The important thing is that you managed to completely ignore the information linked in my #118. Absolutely nothing, right?
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 1:35 pmhttp://www.energyintel.com/DocumentDetail.asp?Try=Yes&document_id=227713&publication_id=104Some 1.5 million pounds of U3O8 has been shipped out of Iraq under conditions of extraordinary secrecy, marking one final death knell for Iraq’s fabled nuclear program, UIW has learned. The uranium was destined for Canada, having been sold to Cameco, a Saskatoon-based producer that will use it to meet customer demand, making up for shortfalls at its own mines. The sale to Cameco followed months of negotiations carried out in strictest secrecy.
G (722480) — 4/23/2008 @ 1:35 pmSmoking my ass with facts? Like what? What is this education you’ve provided me? Reproduce it, just give me a quick summary, some bullet points, a link, something. I promise I will respond to everything.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 2:11 pmSmoking my ass with facts? Like what? What is this education you’ve provided me? Reproduce it, just give me a quick summary, some bullet points, a link, something. I promise I will respond to everything.
Comment by Levi — 4/23/2008 @ 2:11 pm
It’s up there Levi – You claimed you read everything. It’s as easy as NBC.
Worthless hack.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 2:41 pmStill, no specificity. These most recent links bring me to an error page, one of them plops me right in the middle of a wikipedia entry that doesn’t say anything that supports that we’ve found WMD, another tells me to buy some book, and another is an article about North Korea. Nobody explained a point, nobody told me what to look for, it isn’t even the slightest bit clear, you just copied and pasted some links, called me a moron, and still refuse to explain yourself.
You’re supposed to make a point and support that point with links. Can you try doing that?
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 2:46 pmLevi, your claim was that reports suggesting that Saddam sent WMD to Syria are based on absolutely nothing. Do you remember that? here, I’ll quote it for you:
Now, would you like me to walk you through the relevance of the links I posted? Or are you content to play stupid?
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 2:53 pmI didn’t put any links in my comment you flaming idiot. Can you demonstrate your incompetence any better?
When you start putting links in your comments to support your supposed “facts” Levi, maybe I’ll put them in mine more frequently than I already do. Deal?
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 2:59 pmYes, idiot, that’s what you’re supposed to do from the beginning. Between you brainiacs, you posted an Amazon.com entry, a broken link, and a story about Korea. I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to tell me.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:13 pmWell I can’t find anything resembling a point that you’re making. Where are your greatest hits in this thread? A summary? Still nothing? You’re worthless.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:14 pmOK, the Amazon link is to Iraqi Gen Georges Sada’s book which discusses Iraqi WMD being shipped to Syria in anticipation of the US invasion. From his Wiki:
There’s video of him discussing it here.
The Wiki link goes to a specific section of Curt Weldon’s bio, which says this:
I know, all the link does is drop you precisely to that excerpt, but I suppose it’s silly of me to actually expect you to read what appears on your screen when you click on a link. And certainly, looking Gaubatz up is out of the question.
As for the link about Korea, it’s more about Syria, what with them being who just got their nuke plant bombed. Have you yet discerned the Syria thread through all of this?
The broken link is not mine, so I can’t speak to it. But I can gather that if it weren’t broken, you’d find some silly way to dismiss whatever it said out of hand, as I’ve just watched you do with 3 non-broken links.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:36 pmLevi, after you’ve shown yourself to be a liar, you’ve no basis to call others’ arguments “worthless”. Liars like you have no credibility.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 3:40 pmFirst of all, thank you. God, what is so hard about that? Why do I have to ask 20 fucking times?
Anyway, I suppose I should just admit I was wrong to say that the theory that Saddam moved his weapons to Syria is based on ‘absolutely nothing.’ We’re all prone to hyperbole, and I definitely grant that it could have happened, even though I’m pretty sure it didn’t, and this evidence you’ve provided doesn’t really change my mind. Face it, this isn’t really compelling, smoking gun stuff. If it were, wouldn’t the Bush administration be looking into it? Wouldn’t finding all these weapons vindicate the entire Iraq war, and shouldn’t finding them be his paramount focus? You’ve got an Iraqi relaying what he heard from some Iraqi Airways pilots, and you’ve got some American relaying what he says he found out from some ‘reliable’ sources. No one in the Bush administration seems to think that’s enough evidence, plus there’s still more evidence that Saddam had nothing, it still makes more sense that Saddam had nothing.
Again, simplest answer is sometimes the best one.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:03 pm“Looking into it” with any expectation of a definitive answer would involve invading Syria. Do you think that’s even a slightly plausible option?
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:07 pmBTW, I don’t see where you asked once, let alone 20 fucking times.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:11 pmWell, why not? I mean, isn’t this precisely what we were worried about with regards to Saddam? That he’d move weapons around to other rogue states and terrorists? If there really were deadly, super dangerous weapons in Iraq, and now they’re just floating around out there in the ether, shouldn’t we be worried about that?
The alleged movement was 6 years ago anyway. If it did happen, they could be anywhere at this point.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:19 pmEvery single exchange between daleyrocks and I up there is me asking him for clarification and him refusing to give it to me.
Levi (76ef55) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:20 pmSaddam was obligated to the terms of the ’91 ceasefire and subsequent UN Resolutions. Syria doesn’t have those problems and has absolute sovereignty that Saddam did not.
I first put the links in #118. I then called you out for ignoring then in #125. You dismissed them as incomprehensible (apparently without reading much of them) the first time you mentioned them in #129. I offered to flesh them out for you in #130. You responded with silly ad hominem in #132, and admitted you had no idea what the point was, but told me I should have walked you through each of them to begin with. I don’t see where you asked for an explanation once.
Scroll up, it’s all there.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 4:33 pm#91:
Learn to take what? Sniveling drivel and flecks of spittle flying from the corners of your mouth?
You haven’t shown any indication that you can debate truthfully, let alone intelligently.
I’d tell you to look that one up in a dictionary, but that would be pointless, as you don’t have a clue, do you? And this:
Is there a chance that English is not your first language? (I’m thinking that might explain why you don’t seem to understand what WMDs are, and why it’s immaterial whether Saddam Hussein had the WMDs that everyonge, including him, thought he had.)
For starters, you haven’t even twigged to my nic being a military title (that I’m entitled to use by virtue of being an honorably discharged veteran), so simply by your massive display of ignorance about the relationship between the current CINC and the vast majority of active duty armed forces members you shown how little you know of us.
Secondly, you’ve been incorrect about every particular you stated regarding WMDs and their state of utility, lethality and age after being recovered in Iraq. As I mentioned in an earlier post, after the DIA report was declassified, it was revealed that most weapons recovered between 2003 and 2005 were being actively maintained: not “useless” or “corroded.” So,
if you had bothered to figure out what my nic designates, you would have figured out that yes, I am an expert in certain classes of weapons~including a variety of WMDs.
Finally, #136:
You start with a flawed premise: there isn’t any need to vindicate our toppling of Hussein as a dictator, the justification was presented prior to the action and agreed on by a majority of members of the UN (most of whom aren’t the most ardent of Bush supporters) and a majority of members in Congress, so why should we even be concerned about finding them (other than the continuing physical threat they represent)?
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/23/2008 @ 5:37 pmOn Jan. 5, 2004, Nizar Nayouf, a Syrian journalist who recently defected to France, said in a letter to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that chemical and biological weapons were smuggled from Iraq into Syria before the war began, when Saddam realized he would be attacked by the U.S. Nayouf claimed to know three sites where Iraq’s WMDs are kept: in tunnels under the town of al-Baida in northern Syria, part of an underground factory built by North Korea for producing a Syrian version of the Scud missile; in the village of Tal Snan, adjacent to a Syrian Air Force base; and in Sjinsjar, on the border with Lebanon.
Speaking to the British television station ITN on Jan. 9, Nayouf quoted a Syrian military intelligence official as confirming the three sites.
Nayouf’s claims had in fact been substantiated by the U.S. intelligence community two months before. In a briefing to defense reporters on Oct. 30, 2003, officials of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency in Washington released an assessment that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were transferred to Syria in the weeks before the war began.
The officials said the assessment was based on satellite images of convoys of Iraqi trucks that poured into Syria in February and March 2003. According to Middle East Newsline, quoted by WorldTribune.com, most of the intelligence community concluded that at least some of Iraq’s WMDs, along with Iraqi scientists and technicians, was smuggled to Syria.
NIMA chief James Clapper, a retired Air Force general and a leading member of the U.S. intelligence community, told reporters he linked the disappearance of Iraqi WMDs with the large number of Iraqi trucks that crossed into Syria before and during the U.S. invasion. The assessment was that these trucks contained missiles and WMD components banned by the United Nations Security Council.
“I think personally that the [Iraqi] senior leadership saw what was coming and I think they went to some extraordinary lengths to dispose of the evidence,” Clapper said. He said he is certain that components connected to Iraq’s biological, chemical, and nuclear programs were sent to Syria in the weeks prior to and during the war.
David Kay, the recently resigned head of an American WMD search team in Iraq, confirmed that part of Saddam’s weapons was hidden in Syria, Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reported on Jan. 25, 2004. Kay said he had uncovered conclusive evidence shortly before last year’s U.S. invasion.
“We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons, but we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD program,” Kay said.
Gal Luft, a former analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, confirmed Iraqi WMDs are hidden in Syria, but not by the regime.
“Certain individuals are taking money and hiding weapons,” he told UPI on Feb. 7, 2003, but this is “not government-sanctioned.” Judith Yaphe, a former senior CIA Middle East analyst, agreed, suggesting the WMD smuggling operation is “palace intrigue.” She said in the same UPI report that Bashar Assad’s sister, Bushra, “is the brains. She’s much smarter and more effective than Bashar, and she was disappointed at being passed over and not seeing her husband elevated.”
Dr. Dany Shoham of Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies is a former lieutenant colonel in the IDF Intelligence Corps who specializes in weapons of mass destruction, particularly bio-chemical warfare. He says it is “likely” at least some of Saddam’s WMDs were hidden in Syria before the war.
“I’d say there are three possibilities: that these weapons were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war; that they were hidden in Iraq; and that they were smuggled out,” Shoham said. In all probability, some were destroyed, some are still hidden, but some lethal amount was smuggled to Syria for safekeeping.
“Syria is the No. 1 candidate,” Shoham continued, “because of its long, common border with Iraq, because a number of Iraqi bio-warfare scientists fled to Syria before the war, and because Syrian President Bashar Assad had a much closer relationship with Saddam than his late father, Hafez.”
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 4/23/2008 @ 5:57 pmcfb – There you go again, getting all fact-y on Levi. Surely a substantive response is forthcoming.
JD (5f0e11) — 4/23/2008 @ 6:16 pmcfbleachers – 10/8/07 – Mysteries still surround Israel’s air strike against Syria. Where was the attack, what was struck and how did Israel’s non-stealthy warplanes fly undetected through the Russian-made air defense radars in Syria?
This neither proves nor disproves the presence of WMD’s, but something was bombed late last year in Syria, and there still hasn’t been much discussion as to the mission. An attack of this scope would not, most likely, have been authorized against a conventional target.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 6:33 pmcfbleachers, they were apparently warplanes of the stealthy sort, at least according to this. If this is true, what we have is a situation where western aircraft can penetrate Soviet air defenses at will and without detection which must be infinitely disturbing to countries that rely on them; ie. Syria and Iran.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 6:46 pmAn attack of this scope would not, most likely, have been authorized against a conventional target.
Unless the intent was to show Iran that its nuclear facilities could be attacked as well. There were a fair amount of media ‘leaks’ to the effect the target was a suspected nuke site built with North Korean materials.
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 6:51 pmTipping off the ability to penetrate current aircraft detection capability is a big deal. That is not a secret you let out of the bag to ‘demonstrate’ to another party. Guaranteed the morning after the attack various parties to the Syrian and Iranian defense networks were hard at work attempting to identify the weak points and fix them.
The target must have been important – to everyone concerned, as confirmed by their silence.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:02 pmAnother interesting point is that the Syrians scraped the site clean in short order, likely to prevent anyone from getting a look at what was there.
I linked this above, but the silence is now breaking and the story is nuke manufacturing plant.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:08 pmI suspect it was initiated to test the waters, an effort to determine the degree of Syria’s isolation. Perhaps it’s not surprising how little condemnation the attack received in the Arab world.
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:20 pmPablo #149 – Good timely link.
So the Syrians (Baathists) are possibly quite interested in the construction of WMDs.
And yet, we’re to believe that Hussein (fellow Baathist), if left in power, would not have attempted to reinvigorate his WMD programs, even after the evidence of the manipulation of the UN in the Oil for Food scandal, (The UN committee being his ‘containment vessel’) and by his own admission to his interrogators that the possession of such WMD’s was paramount to his survival?
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:23 pmSteve – perhaps, but even Syria didn’t complain.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:24 pmSyria was alone in complaining.
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:27 pmsteve, that’s not much of a complaint.
They don’t even mention that anything was bombed, only that their airspace was violated. And they didn’t complain officially, they just complained sort of out loud.
Given the UN’s proclivity to unload on Israel, that’s an awfully mild reaction on Syria’s part.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:39 pmFrom this link
In an interview with BBC Radio, President Assad said IAF jets had hit an “unused military building” in his country.
The attack, in the early hours of September 6, put Syria in an awkward position as it wanted to complain about Israeli ‘provocation’ but did not want to betray too much about what had been hit.
So Damascus issued a very lukewarm complaint about the attack and then let the issue die away until Mr Assad’s public confirmation.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:40 pmThe U.S. will show the world what it claims Syria was up to tomorrow.
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:50 pmSteve – link’s wanky (repeats http) but you can figure it out.
Seems like there’s a connection regarding the NoKo Nuke program. I wonder what this means in regards to the current negotiations with NoKo – pressure to scuttle or pressure for concessions?
[I fixed Steve’s link and he also reposted it in comment 159. Thanks, Steve. — DRJ]
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 7:59 pmWell, that ought to be interesting. I’ve seen a number of reports suggesting that Israel had an agent(s) inside the facility.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:01 pmhttp://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4713159&page=1
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:02 pmShades of Osirak. This may well be an effective model for dealing with rogue nuclear programs. Just how hardened is Natanz?
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:07 pmPossibly related?
“This kind of activity is not constructive,” White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
Johndroe added that North Korea should instead be focused on delivering complete documentation of all its nuclear weapons activities.
The North Korean statement did not address the compliance issue directly.
“If the U.S. continues to insist [about] what does not exist, and delays the settlement of the nuclear issue, it would have a grave impact on the disablement of nuclear facilities.”
Pyongyang has denied it ever had a uranium enrichment program, whereas Washington has been suspecting the country of not only developing but proliferating the technology to Syria.
Seems like the timing may not be coincidental.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:09 pmThe strike in Syria is 6 months old and the intelligence is obviously older than that. I’d guess that the timing is not coincidental.
Pablo (99243e) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:12 pmSteve – thanks for fixing the link – it’s a good one and helps to tie this all together.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:19 pmIf that facility in Syria was an “unused military building”, every Leftie journalist in the world would have been trouped through there by Assad to prove the perfidy of the IAF, and, by extension, the Great Satan.
Another Drew (8018ee) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:19 pmI’m not counting on a media show-and-tell:
steve (271d1c) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:39 pmThere’s also apparently another monkeywrench ready to be thrown in these works
kishnevi (a117ab) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:47 pmI give up. Bloody spam filter.
kishnevi (a117ab) — 4/23/2008 @ 8:59 pmGo to amconmag.com/blog and scroll down to the article about Israeli spies. There’s a connection to the hearings.
What happens with the hearings will tell us the relative weight given to NoKo vs. Syria vs. Iran.
Embarrassment to Israel for Israeli on US spying I would guess pales by comparison to concerns over Iranian nuke proliferation.
Apogee (366e8b) — 4/23/2008 @ 9:43 pmEvery single exchange between daleyrocks and I up there is me asking him for clarification and him refusing to give it to me.
Comment by Levi — 4/23/2008 @ 4:20 pm
Sorry to be gone so long Asshat. No clarification should be needed if, as you claim, you read everything. Since you didn’t dispute my original comments, I’ll assume you are agreeing with the general consensus here that you know absolutely nothing about WMDs. Try a few links to support your “facts” once in a while, sport.
daleyrocks (906622) — 4/23/2008 @ 9:45 pmTHE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.
The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000.
Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis.
According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million “exploitable items” captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives.
“We had boxloads of Iraqi Intelligence records–their names, their jobs, all sorts of detailed information,” says the former military intelligence officer. “In an insurgency, wouldn’t that have been helpful?”
How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people–Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq–that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today?
ON NOVEMBER 17, 2005, Michigan representative Pete Hoekstra wrote to John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence. Hoekstra is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He provided Negroponte a list of 40 documents recovered in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan and asked to see them. The documents were translated or summarized, given titles by intelligence analysts in the field, and entered into a government database known as HARMONY. Most of them are unclassified.
For several weeks, Hoekstra was promised a response. He finally got one on December 28, 2005, in a meeting with General Michael Hayden, principal deputy director of national intelligence. Hayden handed Hoekstra a letter from Negroponte that promised a response after January 1, 2006. Hoekstra took the letter, read it, and scribbled his terse response. “John–Unacceptable.” Hoekstra told Hayden that he would expect to hear something before the end of the year. He didn’t.
The main worry, says DiRita, is that the mainstream press might cherry-pick documents and mischaracterize their meaning. “There is always the concern that people would be chasing a lot of information good or bad, and when the Times or the Post splashes a headline about some sensational-sounding document that would seem to ‘prove’ that sanctions were working, or that Saddam was just a misunderstood patriot, or some other nonsense, we’d spend a lot of time chasing around after it.”
This is a view many officials attributed to Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steve Cambone. (Cambone, through a spokesman, declined to be interviewed.) For months, Cambone has argued internally against expediting the release of the documents. “Cambone is the problem,” says one former Bush administration official who wants the documents released. “He has blocked this every step of the way.”
Why haven’t we heard more about this project? Aren’t most of the Iraqi documents unclassified?
Tanji: Until a flood of captured material came rushing in after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom [in October 2001], DOCEX was a backwater: unglamorous, not terribly career enhancing, and from what I had heard always one step away from being mothballed.
The classification of documents obtained for exploitation varies based on the nature of the way they were obtained and by whom. There are some agencies that tend to classify everything regardless of how it was acquired. I could not give you a ratio of unclassified to classified documents.
The silence associated with exploitation work is rooted in the nature of the work. In addition to being tedious and time-consuming, it is usually done after the shooting is over. We place a higher value on intelligence information that comes to us before a conflict begins.
The project seems overwhelmed at the moment, with a mere 50,000 documents translated completely out of a total of 2 million.
In a sense the exploitation process is what it is; you have to put eyes on paper (or a computer screen) to see what might be worth further translation or deeper analysis. It is a time-consuming process that has no adequate mechanical solution. Machine translation software is getting better, but it cannot best a qualified human linguist, of which we have very few.
Tackling the computer media problem is a lot simpler in that computer language (binary) is universal, so searching for key words, phrases, and the names of significant personalities is fairly simple. Built to deal with large-scale data sets, a forensic computer system can rapidly separate wheat from chaff. The current drawback is that the computer forensics field is dominated by a law-enforcement mindset, which means the approach to the digital media problem is still very linear. As most of this material has come to us without any context (“hard drives found in Iraq” was a common label attached to captured media) that approach means our great-grandchildren will still be dealing with this problem.
Dealing with the material as the large and nebulous data set that it is and applying a contextual appliqué after exploitation–in essence, recreating the Iraqi networks as they were before Operation Iraqi Freedom began–would allow us to get at the most significant data rapidly for technical analysis, and allow for a political analysis to follow in short order.
To read some of the reporting on Iraq, one might come away with the impression that Saddam Hussein was something of a benign (if not exactly benevolent) dictator who had no weapons of mass destruction and no connections to terrorism.
Critics of the war often complain about the lack of “proof”–a term that I had never heard used in the intelligence lexicon until we ousted Saddam–for going to war. There is really only one way to obtain “proof” and that is to carry out a thorough and detailed examination of what we’ve captured.
Several officials who have seen unclassified materials indicating the former Iraqi regime provided significant support–including funding and training–to transregional terrorists, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ansar al Islam, Algeria’s GSPC, and the Sudanese Islamic Army.
It appears we underestimated [Saddam Hussein’s] support for transregional terrorists,” says one intelligence official.
Speaking of Ansar al Islam, the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group that operated in northern Iraq, the former high-ranking military intelligence officer says: “There is no question about the fact that AI had reach into Baghdad. There was an intelligence connection between that group and the regime, a financial connection between that group and the regime, and there was an equipment connection. It may have been the case that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] support for AI was meant to operate against the [anti-Saddam] Kurds. But there is no question IIS was supporting AI.”
The official continued: “[Saddam] used these groups because he was interested in extending his influence and extending the influence of Iraq. There are definite and absolute ties to terrorism. The evidence is there, especially at the network level. How high up in the government was it sanctioned? I can’t tell you. I don’t know whether it was run by Qusay [Hussein] or [Izzat Ibrahim] al-Duri or someone else. I’m just not sure. But to say Iraq wasn’t involved in terrorism is flat wrong.”
STILL, some insist on saying it. Since early November, Senator Carl Levin has been spotted around Washington waving a brief excerpt from a February 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency assessment of Iraq. The relevant passage reads: “Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.”
Levin treats these two sentences as definitive proof that Bush administration officials knew that Saddam’s regime was unlikely to work with Islamic fundamentalists and ignored the intelligence community’s assessment to that effect. Levin apparently finds the passage so damning that he specifically requested that it be declassified.
In a Dallas courtroom testimony in the deportation hearing of Ahmed Mohamed Barodi, a 42-year-old Syrian-born man who’s been living in Texas for the last 15 years. Barodi proudly proclaimed his membership in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and again when Barodi, dressed in loose-fitting blue prison garb, told Judge J. Anthony Rogers about the 21 days he spent in February 1982 training with other members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood at a camp in Iraq.
The account he gave in the courtroom was slightly less alarming than the description of the camp he had provided in 1989, on his written application for political asylum in the United States. In that document, Barodi described the instruction he received in Iraq as “guerrilla warfare training.” And in an interview in February 2005 with Detective Scott Carr and special agent Sam Montana, both from the federal Joint Terrorism Task Force, Barodi said that the Iraqi regime provided training in the use of firearms, rocket-propelled grenades, and document forgery.
Barodi comes from Hama, the town that was leveled in 1982 by the armed forces of secular Syrian dictator Hafez Assad because it was home to radical Islamic terrorists who had agitated against his regime. The massacre took tens of thousands of lives, but some of the extremists got away.
Many of the most radical Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Hama were welcomed next door–and trained–in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Spanish investigators believe that Ghasoub Ghalyoun, the man they have accused of conducting surveillance for the 9/11 attacks, who also has roots in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp in the early 1980s. Ghalyoun mentions this Iraqi training in a 2001 letter to the head of Syrian intelligence, in which he seeks reentry to Syria despite his long affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Reaching out to Islamic radicals was, in fact, one of the first moves Saddam Hussein made upon taking power in 1979. That he did not do it for ideological reasons is unimportant. As Barodi noted at last week’s hearing, “He used us and we used him.”
Throughout the 1980s, including the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam cast himself as a holy warrior in his public rhetoric to counter the claims from Iran that he was an infidel. This posturing continued during and after the first Gulf war in 1990-91. Saddam famously ordered “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) added to the Iraqi flag. Internally, he launched “The Faith Campaign,” which according to leading Saddam Hussein scholar Amatzia Baram included the imposition of sharia (Islamic law). According to Baram, “The Iraqi president initiated laws forbidding the public consumption of alcohol and introduced enhanced compulsory study of the Koran at all educational levels, including Baath Party branches.”
Hussein Kamel, Saddam’s son-in-law who defected to Jordan in 1995, explained these changes in an interview with Rolf Ekeus, then head of the U.N. weapons inspection program. “The government of Iraq is instigating fundamentalism in the country,” he said, adding, “Every party member has to pass a religious exam. They even stopped party meetings for prayers.”
And throughout the decade, the Iraqi regime sponsored “Popular Islamic Conferences” at the al Rashid Hotel that drew the most radical Islamists from throughout the region to Baghdad. Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey, who covered one of those meetings in 1993, would later write: “Islamic radicals from all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia converged on Baghdad to show their solidarity with Iraq in the face of American aggression.” One speaker praised “the mujahed Saddam Hussein, who is leading this nation against the nonbelievers.” Another speaker said, “Everyone has a task to do, which is to go against the American state.” Dickey continued:
Every time I hear diplomats and politicians, whether in Washington or the capitals of Europe, declare that Saddam Hussein is a “secular Baathist ideologue” who has nothing do with Islamists or with terrorist calls to jihad, I think of that afternoon and I wonder what they’re talking about. If that was not a fledgling Qaeda itself at the Rashid convention, it sure was Saddam’s version of it.
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 4/24/2008 @ 1:24 amIn the face of such evidence, Carl Levin and other critics of the Iraq war trumpet deeply flawed four-year-old DIA analyses. Shouldn’t the senator instead use his influence to push for the release of Iraqi documents that will help establish what, exactly, the Iraqi regime was doing in the years before the U.S. invasion?
Several pages of one document indicate that Iraqi intelligence officials in August 2002 were searching for members of the al-Qaeda organization who were reported to be in Iraq.
One document indicates that al-Qaeda had Iraqi supporters. Several photos are attached, including one that appears to be of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist leader now operating in Iraq.
Underneath the picture in the Iraqi document is Zarqawi’s real name, Ahmed Fadeel Nazzal al-Khalayleh.
In an October 2002 speech, President Bush first referred to Zarqawi, though not by name, as an associate of Osama bin Laden’s who was in Baghdad, which indicated a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
The English-language synopsis supplied by Negroponte’s office for the Iraqi document says the presence of the terrorist group was “later confirmed.”
Another of the released documents, from November 2001, sought more information about rumors that Islamic fighters were responding to the post-Sept. 11 U.S. attack on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
“Chatter among the population that there is a group of Iraqi and Saudi volunteers estimated at 3000 men have traveled unofficially (illegally) to Afghanistan and joined the Mujahedeen to fight with them and help them in thwarting the imperialist American Zionist attack.”
The Iraqi documents, which will eventually include papers from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, were to be found at http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products-docex.htm , a Web site run by the U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office
cfbleachers (4040c7) — 4/24/2008 @ 2:11 am#168 Apogee:
It doesn’t work that way: anti-semites would seize upon such an incident to raise complaints about Israeli “parasitism” and “stabbing us in the back” and assorted sundry complaints designed to make the US polity question our relationship with Israel.
Were they ever successful, as they desire, of changing the US/Israeli relationship to something resembling that of the US-Cuban relationship, it could well be the death of Israel.
So measuring the damage caused by Israel’s “embarrassment” against the possibility of Iranian nuclear proliferation isn’t a simple calculus.
EW1(SG) (84e813) — 4/24/2008 @ 5:34 am