Using recently translated Harmony Database documents, an intriguing American Thinker post attempts to connect some dots concerning Iraq’s supposedly non-existent nuclear program:
Our contributor Ray Robison notes a startling early 2001 article from the U.K. Sunday Times, claiming Saddam had and tested a nuclear weapon. What makes this old, and apparently dismissed, claim more viable is a document in the Harmony Database (what we call here “The Saddam Filesâ€Â) recently made available on the web for open source translation from Arabic. Ray has put two and two together.
If the implications are proven, it changes the entire argument about the justification for going to war.
Got your attention?
Good. Go read the rest. And for further context, read Robison’s update here.
Also, be sure to check out this March 2, 2001 document at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty site discussing Iraq WMD, which adds to the pre-911 intelligence mix (courtesy of Barry Dwyer).
Thoughts?
Seems to be a bit of smoke there, but not really any fire. Anybody know whether any nuclear country actually tested a gun-type bomb as their first test? My understanding is that though Trinity was an implosion device, the Hiroshima device (Little Boy) was the first gun-type bomb exploded. They were so sure the design would work, they didn’t feel the need for a full-blown (pun intended) test. Would the Iraqis? By far the most difficult part of developing a gun design is obtaining the U235.
T.W.: I’m all set to go home now, but will check back later as I think this thread is going to be good.
I don’t even think it matters if this is true or not. Some of those who support the war may be more inclined to believe it and those who did not support the war will never, ever believe it. You could provide video tape evidence and witnesses all day long and it just wouldn’t matter. I don’t know that there will ever be enough information available to be anything other than suggestive regarding Iraq WMD’s, and to the antiwar faction that will only heighten their derision.
Skepticism, you see, should be reserved for America. It’s our patriotic duty to never believe in anything that comes from or supports America.
What would Phineas Taylor Barnum do without you Jeff…
The story seems consistent but far from established. The problem is that the document’s translation leaves some ambiguity about the question of whether or not the story is assumed true by those discussing it.
It seems to me that many (some? all?) of these documents that come out of Iraq have to be viewed with great scepticism over their truthfulness. Okay, not exactly a novel thought but one that warrants notice.
While the Iraqis were considered the Prussians of the Middle East due to their propensity to keep meticulate and detailed records, as has been noted elsewhere (see this lengthy story Saddam’s Delusions) Saddam was fed a great deal of misinformation, mostly out of fear, from his underlings about the military capabilities of his army.
Not inconceivable – indeed it’s likely – that a lot of Iraqi Baathists and staff were padding the books a bit. Recording successes and accomplishment that weren’t really true. Taking the monies allocated to them and boogeying to downtown Kirkuk.
They say Kirkuk was the place for Baathists to flash the bling bling.
Why, he’d probably still be showing you off as the bearded lady, Fred. Were he still alive, of course.
Just a guess.
At any rate, email me in the MORNINGS to tell what I’m not supposed to point readers to for fear they might form their own (skeptical) opinions. Otherwise, you’re being unfair. And subjecting me to your cutting wit without warning is, well, simply sadistic. You hirsute shemale bully.
Come on Jeff, it’s the only way Fred can get anybody to read his musing. I mean it’s not like anybody goes to his blog.
Jeff,
Whether Saddam Hussein still sought WMD at the time of invasion is now a closed question. We all know now that he did not; therefore, any new information that suggests otherwise is absurd on the face of it, and may be safely dismissed. I trust I have cleared this up.
That’s sarcasm, but the notion of a nuke test seems awfully farfetched. Apply Occam’s razor here. We are awfully, awfully good at detecting nuclear explosions, even underground; we invested a lot of money, energy and expertise into making sure we’d know when and what the Russians were testing. And that we could tell beyond doubt the difference between an underground test and that likeliest cover story, “Just a natural seismic event.”
I just don’t buy that we could have missed a 10 kt explosion in a Soviet client state in 1989 (yes, lefties, Iraq was that, even if Don Rumsfeld did once shake Saddam’s hand).
I believe Saddam wanted nukes, and I believe he or his even more loathsome sons would have gotten them at some point after the sanctions crumbled, which they were sure as hell on their way to doing. But I’d be shocked if there were anything to this story of a nuke test that remained a perfectly kept secret. And I don’t care how well they scrubbed down the test site, there would be abundant radiological evidence of the test to this day if anyone cared to look.
If they had a successful test wouldn’t a few nations had known about it, including Israel? Come on, Cold War intelligence was pretty good when it came to verifying test treaties. This dot connecting seems a bit kooky to me.
Whether Saddam Hussein still sought WMD at the time of invasion is now a closed question. We all know now that he did not.
We do? Based upon what do you draw that conclusion?
I’m with JPS and bsigniter, but replace “sucessful nuclear test” with “nuclear test accident” and I think the facts can still work.
And BTW, the main argument justifying the war was to install a constitutional democracy in the Middle East as an alternative to a thug dictator and or a theocracy. Continually trying to find a smoking WMD takes our eye off the ball…and plays into the left’s hand, IMHO.
I doubt this will turn out to be anything (seismic sensors tend to detect these things), but seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to investigate.
Whether Saddam Hussein still sought WMD at the time of invasion is now a closed question. We all know now that he did not.
Ummm, no. We know exactly the opposite. Go read the Kay report.
Dammit, someday I’ll learn to read entire posts before I make an ass of myself.
Ah, you’re no fun.
No TallDave. You’re brilliant. There’s no need to beat yourself up. You’re the paragon of men and beasts alike.
No TallDave. You’re brilliant. There’s no need to beat yourself up. You’re the paragon of men and beasts alike.
I agree. TallDave can best any man here and we all know it.
I think the other posters who have names similar to me all make excellent points.
This is not conclusive, Jeff, and not even positive. The ability to monitor for nuclear detonations world wide has been around a long time, and I believe that earthquakes are readily differentiated from nuclear explosions, although I can’t even guess as to the noise threshold. It’s possible, I suppose, but I wouldn’t bet on it. This could just be more disinformation for Saddam, in lieu of being fed into a shredder.
And if there is radiation in some hidden installation, I’d be inclined to go with a nuclear accident as well.
The problem with a lot of commentators, in the media or the blogosphere, is that uninformed people come to conclusions based on their assumptions. There are a lot of assumptions that have been exploded in the last five years. One is that the US intelligence services can tell us what our enemies are up to. They screw up a lot more often than we imagine … and we got 9/11.
I have not idea if these nuclear tests occurred, but I have never believed that Saddam got religion after Gulf War 1 and decided to disarm. It is illogical. And the idea that Saddam’s generals regularly lied to him about weapons programs is also illogical. Suppose you were an Iraqi general in charge of a weapons program and you lied to him about its existence. Supposed he asked for a demonstration? Your response is “Just kidding Saddam, my brother?†That is not the way that subordinates keep their heads in a bloodthirsty dictatorship.
An assumption that is made by a lot of the posters is that the US is a capable of detection any rumble in the ground anywhere in the world. And if we do detect a rumble in the ground anywhere in the world we can determine if it is a nuclear explosion or not. Where did you all get that impression? The movies? For all I know, it may be possible, but as a critical thinker, I would have to have a lot more data to convince me that we are the infallible detectors and interpreters of the earth’s moans and groans.
So, yes, I believe that this event is possible. Am I convinced that it is true? No. I would have to see corroborating evidence.
TallDaves are all good looking and they sing well too.
Let’s assume it’s all true–Saddam had nuclear weapons since 1989. That means that he went through two wars with the US (one that dethroned him) and a brutal war with Iran, but he never used them or apparently threatened to use them during this time. Nor did he give them to any terrorists. Yet it was imperative that we invade in 2003 because he might use weapons he either had or was soon to get against us. One or more parts of this story do not hold together. I bet it’s the part about him having nukes.
moneyrunner:
“One [conclusion based on the assumptions of uninformed people] is that the US intelligence services can tell us what our enemies are up to. They screw up a lot more often than we imagine … and we got 9/11.”
Broadly speaking, I agree with you. But I think in this particular arena our technical intelligence capabilities are excellent. Our human intelligence capabilities have been called into question, probably with good reason, although we won’t know for several decades what they’re doing right. How well we interpret technical intelligence–whether these trailers are or aren’t bioweapons facilities; whether these industrial facilities are civilian in nature or dual-use–is also in controversy.
But it isn’t blind faith to say that when a nuke of any size, which 10 kt is, goes off somewhere in the world, we know what it is, and we know it’s no earthquake.
Christopher R. Taylor:
That was meant as dry humor. Two problems: (1) I’m not all that funny; (2) the dogmatic insistence that Saddam Hussein never was going to be a threat, and that any evidence suggesting otherwise is desperate spin, is now beyond satire. I am simply unable to outdo it.
Sorry, TallDave(s); don’t feel bad for not reading all of my overlong post earlier.
moneyrunner:
shorter JPS–When our intel tells us that Iran is years away from getting nukes, I’m not a bit reassured; I think it’s safer to assume they’re missing something. If they tell us Iran hasn’t exploded one yet, I’m inclined to take their word for it.
This is a great theory to run with.
“Run with”?
Interesting way to interpret “Thoughts?”…
That’s where you and I differ JPS. I would like to believe that we can tell when the earth moves (outside of good sex) and why, but I am not persuaded that we do. However, it’s a common assumption and I could be wrong, but someone with more expertise that I have seen exhibited by the press and bloggers would have to convince me.
That’s the way I interpreted it, too, particularly with the info about the workers dying from exposure. An intact device wouldn’t cause problems, and a successful device would have announced their arrival as a nuclear power. A dud? Send in some disposable prisoners to see if they can find evidence of what went wrong or something to salvage.
Pure speculation: Saddam was having trouble getting enough refined uranium, and wanted to know if the designs he had included a large safety margin in the purity or mass needed. So why not take some of the partially refined uranium, or the fully refined but insufficient amount, and stuff it into a bomb to see?
Like, keep going with it. I’m sure its going to take us to great places.
As I understand it, the seismic signature of a nuke is noticeably different than natural movements. You can tell the difference between a thunderclap and (say) a dumpster being dropped, for example.
By the way, I find it fascinating that literally millions of documents gathered up by agencies of the Federal Government relating the innermost actions and secrets of the Saddam regime are just now being translated – by amateurs – revealing things that we did not know. And, by the way contradicting the “revealed truths†that have become the accepted wisdom not only of the Left, but most of the middle and a good part of the Right.
Sort of shakes your faith in the infallibility of the intelligence services, doesn’t it? Remember the final scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark?†At the time it was funny, now it seems all too real.
I understand the argument and the rationale, but I am just not convinced that it’s infallibly true. To use your example as an argument, there are times when it’s simply not possible to tell the difference between a thunderclap and a dumpster being dropped. Just as I am not convinced that we can detect every earth tremor.
“Accident” seems to be my thought. I have seen quite accurate measurements by the USGS of earthquakes (and not even large ones) that I happened to been aroud in the Hindu Kush. If we tag those right, I think our technical abilities are pretty good. Our HUMINT…heh heh, not so hot.
Be a good place to send someone with a radiac meter, yes?
Major John that is the answer to this issue. Check it out. I’m afraid that theoretical discussions about technical capabilities are so much hot air. Go to the area, search it and report back without the kind of preconceptions that Valerie Wilson brought to her husband’s boondoggle
Just to clarify, I have no way of knowing whether this event happened or not. I am merely trying to look at it with evidence we have available to see if it fits Leone’s testimony. I have posted a new article with satellite images that look very much like the tunnel in the GR article. These pictures were taken off of google earth today. Also, posted a good article that discusses the issue of hiding nuclear testing.
I can commit to one thing. There was some type of nuclear event in the South that caused alarm, caused the IIS to create a cover story, and begin cataloging uranium exposure in the area. Clearly, some nuclear event happened there. Thanks to you all for your thoughts.
Robert Crawford:
“Pure speculation…why not take some of the partially refined uranium, or the fully refined but insufficient amount, and stuff it into a bomb to see?”
Now that’s an interesting speculation. We did some pretty hair-raising experiments, which Richard Feynman dubbed “tickling the dragon’s tail,” to better understand criticality in our fissile materials. At least one of these (and if I recall correctly there were less famous incidents) went tragically wrong:
Louis Slotin
Wow, I posted a whole bunch about a week ago and drew no responses.
Y’all are the suck. Mad propz to suck.com for being a really great site for a couple of years.
Fuck neocons? Eat babies? What do I have to say to stimulate discussion around here.
Again, ask yourselves why that document is in there.
Why didn’t the guvvies use it if it so rocks as you think it does?
Woodchipper test, please.
Keep in mind there is NO RAW DATA in the “Saddam Files”.
Also we can detect thru emissions (krypton 85 testing) and seismology.
Please, among the various exciting revelations the army of pajama clad translators has bruted for the world’s attention, has Negroponte’s office stood up and OWNED A SINGLE ONE OF THEM?
Get a clue.
The blogverse got these docs because they are sketchy and useless, and Negroponte is using your sorry unpaid asses to check for anything JFCOM missed, and also dribbling in a few woodchipper docs for PR purposes.
You bin used, suckas.
NS, please be a little more respectful of the “pajama clad†and a little less respectful of authority figures. If nothing else, Dan Rather should make you somewhat more circumspect.
“I find your lack of faith disturbing†(said in a deep bass voice.)
Uh, yeah, nishizono, we were all just agreeing with each other that this settles everything, until you walked in. Thanks for setting us straight.
And I’ll say one more thing.
Untranslated doesn’t mean unread.
And written does not mean sensical.
This has nothing to do with Rathergate,
The pajama clad are awesome, but even they cannot get blood from a turnip.
This is about document control, authentification, classification, and chain of custody.
Jeff, do you notice that these discussions can be interesting and stimulating, even if we find ourselves disagreeing, until the “Y’all are the suck. Mad propz†and “guvvies use it if it so rocks†kids show up.
They are the equivalent of Morlocks.
“hirsute shemale bully”
That makes you,what…limp wristed sword swallower?
Those papers which cannot be proved reliable before inspection are worthless and unreliable. If you can’t prove the information is official before you read it there is no reason to read it. Even if after you read it, check it, and it turns out to be accurate it is still worthless. So says the great Shinji.
A more relevant comment might be does anyone have radiacmeter they could send to Yon or Roggio or some other willing detective in country? You can get one here for about $160. Somebody would have to run this down while doing some other reporting in the area and report the results.
Wow! What a concept!
Look, fella, this discussion was about declassified documents that may or may not contain clues regarding activities within the Saddam regime prior to its demise. If you are going to contribute, read the earlier comments first. And don’t try to be the smartest guy in the room because it’s evident you are not.
This is not a court of law, we are not trying a case and we don’t need wiseass comments from your “sorry unpaid ass†telling us what we are allowed to discuss.
So using your own argot, buzz off sucka.
About the documents themselves, I worked with ISG and I will testify that the vast majority of these documents were captured by soldiers or collection teams, sent to the combined media processing center with a “chain of custody form” that gives the when, where and who for every box collected. Those people who are saying these documents have no value are kidding themselves. Just because you haven’t seen the chain of custody doc, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You have zero understanding of the document collection, analysis, and exploitation process.
lol, i’ll settle for being the smartest grrl in the room.
like usual.
Ray, what I am saying is that no document is released to the “harmony files” without being read. No document can be authenticated or classified without being read.
Negroponte’s office says it removed the obvious frauds. Presumeably chalabi-mill docs sold to someone for profit.
But the woodchipper documents would not be obvious frauds. They would look just like the real thing.
lol, i know plenty about classified document analysis and exploitation.
i have just one question for you, Ray.
Lifestyles or loyalties?
or both?
Ray, I really don’t care if these documents were assembled using a front end loader and dumped in a big pile in a warehouse somewhere. This “chain of evidence†BS is fine in a court of law and if we have it, that’s great. But these documents need translation and exposure because the American people deserve the truth about what Saddam did or did not do. What he did or did not have. So far they have gotten the Michael Moore version of Saddam, the one in which the Iraqi people were better off under his rule, flying kites in the park. Where he disarmed after Gulf War 1 and was brutally attacked – while finding a cure for cancer and the common cold – by the evil BushHitler intent on making Halliburton rich while grinding the faces of the poor.
Chain-of-evidence is a great big fat red herring designed to take your eye off the ball and get you discussing peripheral issues.
Riiiight. Like I’m going to answer that and let you finish getting yourself off.
Sorry. You’re going to have to insert some other guy’s cockswallowing into your masturbatory fantasies.
Although I will say this for you: nice tits, furbag!
You must frequent pretty small rooms, nishi.
Sorry, not buying it. Your terminology is all wrong. “Ray, what I am saying is that no document is released to the “harmony files†without being read.”
This sentence demonstrates that you do not have a clear understanding of the process. When the documents were captured, they were gisted. Almost never by a trained intel analyst. The gist was simply who, where, when, and what. The documents were triaged. The items that fell into the priority request catagories were immediately given a full translation and analyzed by a professional. The low value documents, like one discussing a medical study were put a side for later. Later didn’t come because there was always a fresh supply of docs. So these docs were read once by an untrained linguist and many of them put away never to be fully reviewed. They were put into the Harmony database. Then the FMSO pulled some docs from the database to review and those were the intial release docs. Now we are seeing things they did not review for studies. And I have no clue what you mean by no document is being released to the harmony files. The documents are FROM the harmony database. You may have some experience with classified documents, but no experience with the subject at hand. And why do you libs always have to say conservative bloggers are only doing it to get paid? Are your brains really that unidimensional you can only percieve that someone disagrees with your position because they are getting paid to? Pretty pathetic…
Good post, not only for the insight, but as an example of the difference between adults tackling a complicated issue, and kids banging their spoons.
I kinda hope Saddam didn’t have WMD – that his henchmen were sending him bills for stuff and pocketing the proceeds. That way sending him to Hell by the numbers was just for GP.
TM, I have to wonder if the day Saddam is executed, a bunch of Iraqis will start revealing secrets.
Goddammit. I thought we’d settled this. Iraq didn’t have any WMD! What will it take to get that through your head, Goldstein?!? The armadillo’s already danced on this mass grave!
?? i’m a registered republican.
since you didn’t answer my question, i’ll assume the answer is no.
good enough for me.
Look, I’ll eat my words and give apolos all around the day Negroponte’s office gives you guys an attaboy.
good luck with that.
paid? what are you talking about?
i just said the army of pajama translators were unpaid.
i just think you might be a tad more skeptical, is all.
do you think you’re going to find a smoking gun in there, ray?
I don’t.
triage shoulda revealed it and they woulda used it.
i think you’re going to find a lotta woodchipper documents and useless dreck.
Verc, wrong kanly. i should drag your ass before the judge of the change.
Just to throw a thought out there:
If saddam had a nuclear test and the weapon misfired, isn’t there a possibility that the explosive trigger could merely shatter and scatter the highly radioactive nuclear core, essentially turning it into a dirty bomb?
That could explain the lack of a seismic recording, while still being quite lethal to anyone unlucky enough to go down there after the fact without protective equipment.
Just a wild guess, but it seemed plausible.
Bob:
“isn’t there a possibility that the explosive trigger could merely shatter and scatter the highly radioactive nuclear core…quite lethal to anyone unlucky enough to go down there after the fact without protective equipment [?]”
This doesn’t quite fit–uranium’s not very radioactive. (Even U-235; its half-life is 700 million years, and it emits mostly alpha particles. You’d have to eat the stuff to come to grief.) A near-critical mass would throw off some neutrons, but when you scatter the stuff around, a near-critical mass becomes many subcritical masses, cutting way down on this.
On the other hand, a fizzle–a nearly unsuccessful nuclear explosion that wastes most of the fissile material, essentially a core meltdown equivalent to 10 or 20 tons of TNT–would produce the effects you describe.
Anyway, if anyone gets interested enough to do a measurement, the question (fission products or not?) is easily answerable. ‘Scuse the pedantry.
lol, i’ll settle for being the smartest grrl in the room.
like usual.
I’m getting a whiff of narcissism. But you’re the best narcissist in the room.
In the other room you were the best ropin’ and ridin’ and shootin’ cowgirl, Nishi.
Yeeeeehah!!!
I expected nothing less from Rick Santorum’s young sith apprentice, any more of your signature dog sex fantasies while your at it?
Why is it so critical to certain people that no one even consider the contents of these documents?
Sod off, Fred.
Fred –
How about you just send Jeff nasty e-mail instead, OK? Some of us are actually interested in the issue being discussed here. Contribute or vanish, if you please.
Yeah, but originally three fourths of the American people supported the war, so there could be an opportunity to get us back in black in terms of overall current support. Let’s face it: most Americans are quite well able to take care of themselves and contribute meaningfully to society, but they generally aren’t very politically engaged (which I appreciate to a certain extent). If you can obtain a bare majority of opinion on any subject your likely to gain even more in the long run. This sort of bandwagonism, I believe, is well evidenced by today’s overwhelmingly negative opinions about the Iraq war following three years of little but bad news, and even more by the implication in most media that the war is already lost(even though we’re clearly winning) and was fought on false pretenses. If that’s the case, well then of course everyone wants to claim to be on the right side of history, which is to say they don’t support–and never supported unless duped–the war. But, if the narrative of loss as a fait accompli and the grounds for waging war as false can be overturned, well, everyone wants to be on the winning team. No one talks now about the Civil War as a costly failure, though it looked that way long after Lee’s surrender(indeed, an insurgency of sorts carried on into the next decade), and support for it never garnered support of a large majority of American, and as it dragged on became increasingly unpopular.
To put it plainly, forget about the polls and the conventional wisdom, as both proved fickle and fleeting these past few years. Keep fighting for what is right and true and we will win. We always do.
Some thoughts from an interested observer:
1. The Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), which is currently in place, sets a limit of ~150KT for nuclear tests. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), long bandied about but never ratified by the US, would, of course, ban just about all nuclear tests.
The TTBT was accepted because, at the time, it was the limit of sensor detectability. The arms control supporters have long argued that nuclear tests up to 1KT (i.e., 1KT or larger) could be detected (with a large enough number of seismographs), the arms control skeptics have questioned this, suggesting that weapons as large as 10KT could be tested without detection. Interestingly, there is some reason to believe that “decoupling,” involving placing the weapon in a VERY large chamber, might affect detectability.
2. While no one has tested a gun-type weapon early on, since they are essentially fool-proof, the claim here seems to be that the assembly was obtained from a foreign source. If that was the case, wouldn’t you want to test it and see if it really worked, wasn’t flawed in materials and workmanship, etc.? OTOH, South Africa developed an entire nuclear arsenal without testing (AFAIK)—all gun-type weapons.
3. Regarding documents being read, sifted, etc. It is interesting that a few years ago, a book came out claiming that Japan had developed a nuclear weapon by late 1945. This was based on perusal of documents that have sat at the National Archives since they were removed from Japan in 1945-1946.
Similarly, although literally tons of documents were seized in Grenada, how many of them were read, much less disseminated? And those were in English!
I can’t help feeling, in reading the documents that have come out so far, that there is a lot of stuff here that bears looking into. Certainly we could send a few guys to Rezzala, see if there are any bodies, and do some testing, though after this many years, I wonder if the bodies (if found) would still contain the telltale signs of radiation poisoning. I haven’t watched enough episodes of CSI to know.
I also wonder that if (in an alternate universe) this story were leaked to Sy Hersh if it might not have gotten more buildup and play in the media. It seems to me to be no less thinly sourced than some of the negative stuff we read.
I myself think we’d know if Saddam tested a nuke, and i’m not thinking that even “Russian experts” could hide that from us. But maybe they had enough uranium to play around with and test some ideas with, and a few folks got poisoned as a result. All speculation, of course.
Does anyone have a can of SnarkOffâ„¢ handy? If the ‘smartest grrl in the room’ were paying attention to the thread, she would realize:
1. Said thread’s originator is not, in fact, claiming “it so rocks.” He simply found it interesting and invited comment
2. The vast majority of the commenters are quite skeptical.
It’s always interesting and revealing to watch the sane people who frequent this site substantively discuss an issue, while actus/R.T.P, fred et al can do no better than poo on the rug and frantically hump the lamp in the corner.
forget about the polls and the conventional wisdom, as both proved fickle and fleeting these past few years.
Well said Chairman. I don’t buy the MSM shit either. Not for a minute. I guess now I’m an elitist.
I don’t buy the MSM shit either
To be less ambiguous, as it relates to the documents being translated, the MSM does not report on them and that could be an indicator. Aside from that, I no speaky Farsi.
I no speaky Farsi
That was not PC and I owe an apology:
Me so sorry. I now hit myself with shoe.
That was not a nuclear bomb design.
That was a specially designed high-altitude high velocity dispersal system intended to to distribute the special fertilizers developed in the buried dual-use trucks and restore Mesopotamia to the verdant garden it once had been at the dawn of history…
The deafening silence of the MSM on these documents is very telling. I mean, I haven’t heard a word.
I would just like to point out the utter incompetence of our intelligence branches*. Saddam Hussein HAS assembled nuclear weapons in his prison cell and keeps them behind the toilet bowl, next to his shank, copy of Chador-Boy, and G.W.Bush voodoo doll.
Halliburton will engineer Jeb Bush, Imperator of these United States of Jesus-bothering America, to discover them on his fifth consecutive term.
*(a function of the nancy-boy diplodunk State-refugee career-oriented bureaucracy and not the G-14 classified action arms, which actually rock…on occasion)
Is your head so far up your ass to think, even for a second, that something so valuable to the poll cratering Bush Administration would be thrown out on the net for analysis? If they really thought that the “smoking mushroom cloud†was in those reams of Iraq bureaucratic minutia do you think they’d let anyone other then themselves find it?
Rove: They found all of Saddam’s paperwork! The proof of WMD is in there someplace!
Bush: Quick! Get it to Free Republic and Powerline! They’ll unearth everything we need to prove that we had to invade Iraq!
You know what would prove Cheney’s declaration of “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.â€Â?
Actual weapons of mass destruction! Not bits of paper. Crazy huh?
But I have to admit it’s fun watching you flail at straws as your sanity slowly drowns in the truth of the situation; they lied, you believed them and people you don’t like didn’t. You wrong, they right and I can see that’s driving you hog wild.
If they lied, then every freaking democrat in the country lied, too.
Yeah Salvage we know. The Bushies are brilliantly evil yet dumb as rocks at the same time. It just depends on what suits your arguement at the time.
Still having problems defining the difference between a lie and being possibly incorrect I see. I will also admit it’s fun watching you grasp for straws in this regard. Especially the irony of congress authorizing force, Dems publically denouncing Sadam’s WMDs etc… The same tired old arguements really. Seriously, Wikipedia should just place a big ass donkey (no pun intended) under the entry for ad hominem.
alpucchino, they speak Farsi in Iran, not Iraq.
kyle, i object to the breathless revelations coming out of the saddam legacy docs– “startling” from this article.
Whether you call it “triaged” or “gisted” or read, the docs are pre-used. Anything promising on WMDs would go to actual analysts, not the blogverse.
Umm…Ray, in case you didn’t notice, there are no trained analysts in the blogverse either.
It’s fine with me if the pajama clad want to donate labor to fact check government file archives, but I just don’t think the smoking gun that the rightside bloggers are breathlessly anticipating is in there.
It can’t be.
And I think the pajama army is easily fooled in the case of woodchipper docs….because they WANT to believe. But everyone should keep in mind that if the guvvies could have backed this story, they would have run it.
Bush’s polling at 33% right now.
yah, nikkolai, and the silence emmanating from Negroponte’s office is deafening also. IF any of this stuff means what you guys are suggesting it does, or if it is new or “startling”, wouldn’t Negroponte’s office stand it up?
What I am trying to say is please be a little more skeptical and a little less credulous.
Nishizono:
First, why this Manichean, black/white view? Is it not possible that the original documents are being vetted by trained analysts, even as the images are put out on the Harmony database?
Second, I’m amused by this assumption that trained analysts don’t exist on the Web. What if I, Lurking Observer, were a trained analyst, who worked on this stuff both during the day from home and in the evenings at the office? Do I somehow leave my expertise behind at Langley when I leave the front gates?
Better yet, what if I’m a contractor, assigned to help out with translations and the like? Or could I not exist in your worldview?
Third, “I just don’t think the smoking gun that the rightside bloggers are breathlessly anticipating is in there.” Of course not, Nishi. Just as it’s not possible that mere bloggers might trip up something as fact-checked as “Sixty Minutes,” eh? Or are you one of those who’s still convinced the Rather memoes were the real-deal, genuine article, from Dubya’s CO’s personal CYA file?
nishizono shinji:
I’ve seen mostly healthy skepticism here and in other threads. Words like “corrobaration” get tossed around in the posts. Very few “A smoking gun!”, wide-eyed, credulous type comments.
Intelligence is not about smoking guns. It’s about piecing together disparate data into what might a coherent picture of the situation, and then proving that picture is valid. This requires equal amounts of intelligence, imagination, patience, and skepticism.
I’m guessing that you need more imagination, myself. And perhaps patience.
-nikkolai
Hi! Who invaded again? You know the difference between talk and action right? Like if Clinton had only talked about getting a blow job from a chubby rather than actually getting a blow job from a chubby he wouldn’t have been in trouble?
– dario
The Bushies are dumbly evil actually; I have never, ever accused them of being brilliant I assure you. They are slightly smarter than their voters, I’ll give ‘em that.
>Still having problems defining the difference between a lie and being possibly incorrect I see.
Nope, they lied, they knew the WMD were BS. How could they not know it was lies? The “evidence†they produced was so weak it made Tiny Tim look like Paul Bunyan, mobile bioweapons labs? What the hell was that? Someone left a GI Joe comic on the Chimp’s desk? UAVs? America with the most advanced and expansive aerospace program just came up with working models in the last decade, ones that can be used offensively in the last three years, a third world crap-hole like Iraq is going to come up with one that can cross oceans? How stupid does one have to be to believe those fairytales? Hmm well like I said the Busies are slightly smarter than their voters.
But they thought that the war would be quick and easy and no one would care about the WMD lies and who knows had Iraq gone “Mission Accomplished†they might have been right. But of course after three years we know the truth, that only someone dumbly evil would think that the U.S. could invade a Middle Eastern country in a cakewalk.
And instead of whining about ad hominem why don’t you actually dispute my point that Bush wouldn’t have turned the documents lose on the net if they actually had anything he could use to rescue his sinking administration? Is there a flaw in my logic? If so let me know.
Or is the cognitive dissonance too painful? Too much reality after going without can be bruising on the psyche.
Here is the most interesting snippet in my opinion….
“A. Leak the news through reliable sources.. News agencies or Satellite stations.. “
“They lied. They knew. How could they not?”
Stone fucking cold logic there, salvage. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.
and
Is it too much to ask that you two actually read the upstream comments? Nobody here is screaming GOTCHA or saying this proves anything.
The least-skeptical position taken is that we maybe could go in and measure radioactivity to see what *might* have occurred. It’s certainly not unreasonable to find these documents interesting and worth a look.
“it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons”
—Bill Clinton, former President of the f***ing United States
You’re quite the charmer, salvage. Obviously your motives here are to free us from our illusions, and not simply to guard your own. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Also, let me compliment you on your unassailable logic as proffered above. No one can or should doubt that Bush allowed the release of these documents for his own political gain–bravo on figuring that out by yourself. Imagine, a politician doing something to benefit his agenda. Crazy, I know, but nonetheless…
If I were so bold to point out any logic in your arguments here–and who am I to challenge such a towering intellect, so rife with logic and ad hominem?–it would be to point out that you’re dodging the subject of Saddam’s support for terrorism. I, like many others on the right, am doubtful that Saddam had any significant stock of WMD’s (and, by the way, how exactly did Bush get Russia and France to lie about them too?). In fact, the documentary evidence seems to strongly support the theory held by many on the left and right that Saddam himself grossly overestimated his WMD capabilities(Now, I know this widely held theory posits the inconvenient corollaries that Bush actually didn’t lie and that Saddam wanted to have WMD, but maybe that’s an illusion too). Yet, what piques my interest about these documents is what they say about Saddam and terrorism. And already there is a great deal of that. Can you, then, offer us proof that Saddam was disinterested in supporting terrorism, that he was simply trying to build grand mosques and put his rowdy past behind him? I know, I shouldn’t question the judgement of someone so clear thinking as you, but pray indulge me this one time.
Agreed. I’ve seen it turn reasonably intelligent people into childlishly taunting trolls. Pity that.
>GOTCHA or saying this proves anything.
Oh I think Ralph… excuse me Jeff is saying just that with his “dots†talk.
> It’s certainly not unreasonable to find these documents interesting and worth a look.
Yes, yes it is. If they were worth a look don’t you think that maybe the Pentagon, the CIA and the like would be doing the looking? Since when has the investigation of data from a hostile nation at war been given to the public? I know we’re a pack of smarties on the Internet but excuse me for thinking some of y’all believe the hype.
DrSteve – Once again, did Bill Clinton invade? No? Oh. Then who cares what he was wrong about? It’s fascinating how much respect Democrats gets when it comes to the whole WMD question. Suddenly Clinton is as honest as they day is long. Maybe a blowjob isn’t sex?
>Obviously your motives here are to free us from our illusions, and not simply to guard your own.
Oh gosh no, I’m just pointing and laughing really. If you haven’t figured out that you’ve been played for suckers by now than you never will. You’ll be part of the solid 30% of Americans who would still vote for Bush. Some sort of political battered wife syndrome I imagine.
Fascinating that you want to talk about Saddam and terrorism rather than WMD, so you agree then? That if these documents had something of exculpatory value that Bush wouldn’t have dumped them as he has?
Saddam and terrorism, right, can anyone please provide me with an example of a terrorist attack against a U.S. interest that Saddam was involved in?
Cole?
African embassies?
Beirut?
Kobar Towers?
9-11?
Hey, guess who was involved in those? Tall fellah? Name rhymes with been forgotten?
The facts are that Saddam was an evil ruthless bastard who certainly deserves to be hung and shot and if terrorism against the U.S. suited his ends and if he could have gotten away with it I have no doubt he would have.
But he didn’t it wasn’t in his interests, Al Qeada was a threat to him, in many ways far graver than to the U.S. (Al Qeada could never ferment a revolution in the U.S., in Iraq? Could be) so he would be insane to help them much less arm them.
But that is immaterial, the fact is that the U.S. is now stuck in Iraq, bin Laden is free and alive and he has a whole new generation of terrorists being created, motivated and trained in Iraq. I bet bin Laden thanks Allah for Bush at every prayer.
See getting Saddam wasn’t a bad idea, invading this way was, it has created more problems than it has solved. Bush tried to put out a fire with gasoline.
And it’s baffling that you all think that this is a good thing.
Interesting choice of words, “wrong”—rather than, say, “lying,” since that was the point of my comment. I’d say the folks who so strenuously object to any notion that there was a good-faith basis for thinking Iraq retained any WMD are straying awfully close to willfully ignorant dogmatism themselves.
And that’s all I’m saying. Don’t talk to me like the years 1993-2001 didn’t exist.
Fine, lying but um here’s the thing… what was his motivation for “lying”? The NeoCons had a hard on for an Iraq invasion well before Dubya came along. They wanted it so bad they’d say anything to get it.
Furthermore did Clinton have a team of weapons inspectors in Iraq reporting that they hadn’t found anything? Did he create an adjunct to the CIA with the mandate of cherry-picking intelligence to suit a predetermined agenda? Did Clinton ever talk about “dual useâ€Â? Cobra Commander Mobile BioWeapons Lab? Reconstituted nukes? Did he ever say “We know where they are!†to the UN?
See the difference?
…
‘kay.
alpucchino, they speak Farsi in Iran, not Iraq.
How would I know? Like I said: I no speaky.
Oh and Nishi, my name is spelled with 2 (two) p’s (pees). Get it right would you? I mean it’s right there on the screen. Gah!………smartest ….girl…..in……the….
And stop putting the “h” in my name too! C’mon cowgirl. Inside tip: It’s cappuccino only the ca is al. cappuccino is spelled with pp and cc. No h.
Too bad you can’t wear your 6-gun to the spelling bee.
Yeeeehah!
Oops.
Hey guys! I’m smarter than nishibono!
Cool.
Well, if you’ll recall, Clinton did bomb a site in the Sudan, on the basis of an alleged Al-Qaeda-Iraq WMDconnection. Clinton’s NSA said he wasn’t aware of any differing opinions on the matter. Madeleine Albright then prevented the publication of a report that highlighted dissent among analysts regarding the nature of the facility.
See here.
Obviously Clinton didn’t invade. I’ll certainly rant you that Bush went farther on the basis of the intelligence he had than Clinton did or maybe even would have. But when you try to make part of your argument that no one believed in either an extant Iraq WMD program or an Iraq-Al-Qaeda connection, you do a disservice to your position. You say “Bush Lied,” I showed you that Clinton said he believed they had WMD too, and your response was that Clinton was “wrong,” followed by some talk about neocon hardons and the like. Doesn’t sway me too much.
Heh, paging Dr. Freud.
Sure people believed it, they were wrong. It’s that simple, the majority of the planet said there were no WMD and no Al-Qaeda connections and they were right. But instead of the wrong people saying “Wow, we were wrong, hmm maybe we should look at this Bush guy’s skillz a little closer.†You go scavenging through intelligence byproduct hoping against hope that you weren’t wrong.
Please read my reply again, when you quoted me you lopped off:
Suddenly Clinton is as honest as the day is long. Maybe a blowjob isn’t sex?
Clinton’s bombing of Sudan was stupid but I suspect based on bad intelligence, really he didn’t have much of a motivation otherwise. If it were some sort of wag the dog thing there were certainly tastier targets in Iraq, who the hell even knew where Sudan was back then?
alpacchino, what would afghani documents be doing in your saddam treasure trove?
i should take you “hiding” without the hide.