Melanie Phillips has a story in The Spectator, which, if it came from someone less perspicacious, I’d probably write off. I had to arrest the loading of the screen on each of the three pages of the article to get it to stay visible long enough to read it, and unfortunately, her site’s not presently loading for me. I read it quickly once through, but the outline is as follows.
An Arabic-speaking agent of the US was dispatched to Iraq in 2003 to try and locate the WMDs which we (and virtually everyone else) believed were there. Intelligence efforts focused on possible sites in the northern part of non-Kurdish Iraq. Instead, this individual and his team located a number of cunningly hidden bunkers near the Euphrates in the south. The dimensions and the difficulty of access suggested that they were extremely important. In a series of electronic communications, he urgently requested that excavation take place with all due speed. His requests were rebuffed, on the grounds that the equipment was needed elsewhere. Upset, he eventually went to Centcom headquarters to determine what happened to his communications, only to find that they had disappeared–or been disappeared. Indirect confirmation of the importance of the sites was obtained when it was determined that he and the members of his team had been exposed to significant levels of radiation.
According to the article, between the time in 2003 when this individual–whom Phillips notes is a highly decorated agent–first discovered the sites and when he revisited in 2005 to discover they’d been opened and everything removed, Iraqi agents, working with Syria and Iran, and with logistical support from Russia, moved the bulk of the materials to Iran. The agent feels that the disappearance of the records is not accidental. The CIA has stonewalled efforts to get more information on communications regarding the sites.
Phillips feels, not without reason, that this puts the White House in a bind, because they find it easier to cop to the accusation that the WMDs never existed than to cop to having had them in their grasp, and by virtue of gross incompetence to have permitted the materials that formed the basis for their argument to go to war to escape to one of the very same dangerous regimes that they had wished to prevent having them fall to. Indeed, if this scenario were true, they would be guilty of having created the conditions under which it became a fact rather than a deep concern.
At this point I am skeptical and engaging the claims as a hypothetical proposition. Still, it seems more straightforward than some of the three-card-monty psychologizing that posits that Saddam was unaware that his programs didn’t exist in fact because the sanctions had worked and his scientists and taskmasters were too terrified to notify him of the facts, or that he pretended to have his programs in order to save face with other Arab powers. Still, assuming, for the sake of argument, that the tale were true, it has one major element to commend it: it ought to be possible to determine whether those sites still show signs of having hosted sources of intense radiation.
We deserve to know that much, don’t we?
UPDATE: The guy’s name is Dave Gaubatz, so I guess that goes into the negative column. Dave. What a ridiculous name.
I’ve always found it most plausible that Saddam ditched all the WMD materials while the globally televised debate went on at the UN prior to invasion. I mean, if there was a drug dealer in a house full of drugs and he can see on TV a long drawn out trial decided a search warrant should be issued for his house, what do you think he would do?
Thats a real winner we signed up with. Keep reaching for that rainbow.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, emmadine.
Cant look forward to yesterday. Progress is ahead.
This article does not surprise me one bit. I wrote this on my blog back in 2004:
“Something told to me by someone who has worked with the ISG – but I won’t provide any additional information that would make this more credible because I wouldn’t want the person’s identity revealed. This person told me that the CIA had deliberately removed information from ISG reports that revealed discoveries of WMD materials in Iraq. This fits in the vein of the fact that Pentagon officials thought the sarin shell IED was classified information, and also with the instructions to soldiers to change their reports from the Gulf War, and with the “this didn’t happen” when the agency guy took the sarin round from one of my soldiers.”
The guy I was talking about told me, directly, that the CIA made him delete information about WMD materials from a database prior to a visit by some Congressmen. Now, read this from the article:
“When Mr Gaubatz returned to the US, he tried to bring all this to light. Two congressmen, Peter Hoekstra, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Curt Weldon, were keen to follow up his account. To his horror, however, when they tried to access his classified intelligence reports, they were told that all 60 of them – which, in the routine way, he had sent in 2003 to the computer clearing-house at a US airbase in Saudi Arabia – had mysteriously gone missing. These written reports had never even been seen by the ISG.
One theory is that they were inadvertently destroyed when the computer’s database was accidentally erased in the subsequent US evacuation of the airbase. Mr Gaubatz, however, suspects dirty work at the crossroads. It is unlikely, he says, that no copies were made of his intelligence. And he says that all attempts by Messrs Hoekstra and Weldon to extract information from the Defence Department and CIA have been relentlessly stonewalled.”
The data wasn’t destroyed inadvertently – it was destroyed on purpose. And I know the guy who did it.
Dream on!
I’m no expert, Dan, but I’m not sure taking steps toward nuclear fission necessarily involves “intense sources of radiation.” If we’re talking about processing natural uranium, which is barely radioactive, the traces left might not stand out from background radiation. Being also not a geologist, I don’t know the natural radioactivity of the rock surrounding the sites Gaubatz claims.
U-235 is a lot more radioactive than U-238, but still hardly a hot isotope. Any sort of forensic slam-dunk (oops) might require them to have been very sloppy in their handling.
For the benefit of emmadine, I should point out that I am treating this as a testable hypothesis. I’m not particularly desperate to believe Gaubatz, and like Dan Collins I’m skeptical. Still, I don’t see how you, emmadine, can know that this can be dismissed. Mishu’s take is not absurd on the face of it, unless you’re determined to insist that there were no WMD activities, because there couldn’t have been, because it is well known that there were no WMD.
Okay, JPS, but remember that the counters of Geiger were used to locate natural uranium. I surmise that there would be significant traces.
JPS –
Depends on the steps toward fission that one is exposed to, and what you mean by “intense” radiation (yeah, I know, Dan’s words not the article’s).
Many activities for nuclear bomb making involve highly radioactive materials – there aren’t a lot of other things that can get you exposed that way – medical research maybe, working in a power plant.
No doubt these ISG were wearing dosimeters and the records show that they were exposed. The article doesn’t say exposed to what.
I don’t put much stock in that report. To sum the argument:
1) Dave *thinks* he found WMDs and told the US Government where to find them
2) The US was too busy looking elsewhere to make time to investigate his claim
3) While the US was busy looking elsewhere, the WMDs were smuggled by RUSSIANS into SYRIA.
4) The US is too embarrassed to admit that the WMDs slipped away under their watch.
Many people have suggested that the Russians came in PRIOR to the war to move (probably WMDs) into Syria.
The only spin on this story is that this guy suggests that it didn’t happen pre-invasion, that it happened instead after the invasion.
This seems highly unlikely. He takes a well established theory (that Russians helped move WMDs into Syria) and simply changes the date in order to hypothesize that the US government is covering up a catastrophic blunder – letting the WMDs escape right from under their nose.
If Iraqi WMD’s are ever uncovered in Syria, he can say, “Ah hah! I told you!” but that doesn’t prove when they were moved or where they were moved from. He could be right that WMDs have been moved to Syria (a well accepted theory… it even appeared in an ISG report) and wrong about everything else
blaster–the Dream On comment was directed at emmadine.
So, this contact of yours. Did he have any insight into why CIA wanted that stuff gone?
No, the guy didn’t say why. He was a technical type, not an analyst, he said that there were Congressmen coming to review the material, the CIA made him delete stuff from the database, the Congressmen reviewed it, then they went on TV and said “ISG has no evidence” blah blah blah.
Kinda ticked him off.
I am not a conspiracy nut – hate conspiracy nuts. But there is something weird going on with this whole WMD thing. Michael Ledeen at NRO has written similar stories – taking info to the CIA, they blow him off, then months later go, yeah, we went, nothing there, its all looted.
But, yeah, I’m going to have to blame Bush here. Remember all the exploit docs that they were going to publish? Negroponte put the kibosh on that, he’s a Bush guy. It took Senator Santorum a lot to get Negroponte to declassify a report that we have found hundreds of WMD in Iraq, not the 53 in the Duelfer report. And yet they have conceded the WMD argument to their opponents. Why?
Word. My theory is that the US has a national security interest in perpetuating the myth that no WMDs have been found. Why? Because 25,000 UN catalogued WMDs were missing pre-invasion. We only found 500, many of which were never catalogued. Thus 24,500+ WMDs are still missing. IF the world thinks they don’t exist, we can search for them in secret. If the world thinks they do exist, then terrorists might find them first.
Maybe not the best theory, but it makes sense. I wrote about it here.
Dave Gaubatz…he’s got a website
Is there going to be a Colin Powell powerpoint with satellite pictures? Otherwise there’s totally nothing here.
Assuming this report is true (and I know it’s a big assumption), despite the hit he would take, I think Bush should let this come out.
Politically, the “Bush lied” mem has been devastating (in large part because of an inept defense on Bush’s part), but even worse is the hit to American credibility. If we need to go after Iran or Syria because of WMD’s we’ll be forced to present “incontrovertible proof,” which means we’ll have to wait until Atlanta is already obliterated.
Incompetence is awful, but not as awful ad willfully misleading us into war, which is what too many folks think we’ve done now.
Lastly, the Democrats have hinged their entire political lives on there being no WMD’s–it’s supposed proof that pre-emptive strikes are disastrous. We have to punish the Democrats in order to change that perception, even if the Republicans have to take a big hit to do it.
Ok emmadine, you’re snarky. We get it. Try some different schtick mmmkay?
Sorry, I’m jumping in without reading through, so I’ll add to
The captured Iraqi docs– it took a lot to get those made public too – only to be snagged after the left freaked out when they found the docs detailed nuc plans, diagrams of the Iraqi dictators non-existent nuc ambitions – he, of course, was too busy seeing to kite flying opportunities – but never interested in acquiring NUC’s – that of course was too uncomfortable, Dems succeeded in deep sixing the docs.
I think it makes perfect and RESPONSIBLE sense too…no sense telegraphing to native speaking terror assholes the WMD is there to be found to use against out troops or US interests, if they find it first.
Has anyone thought about or wondered if in fact the CIA had in some way armed Saddam going back many years and so this was something they’d like to conceal? It just seems to me that there were a LOT of WMD like leaks way before the war that pretty much telegraphed to Saddam and perchance the Admin. realized this jig too late?
Hmmmm.
*shrug* or it could be the CIA liberals looking to undercut Bush.
It’s not like this hasn’t happened, the CIA undercutting Bush, a couple dozen times already.
by pushing they were duped by the most incompetent, stupid man on the face of the earth!
They have a vested interest in keeping up the meme – if it turns out that Bush wasn’t twisting the Intel and lying – just oversees an incompetent bureaucracy? ( and really, the CIA has shown itself to be incompetence in this very area even before Bush)
Um – yeah…name a President who hasn’t? Nope, it’s much more devastating to the Dems investment in defeat.
“IF the world thinks they don’t exist, we can search for them in secret. If the world thinks they do exist, then terrorists might find them first.”
shhh. you’re giving it away dude.
actually, they undercut you and me and everyone else in their sick effed game.
I am pretty much convinced that every intel leak wasn’t just to try and fuck Bush (with reckless disregard to you and me) – but really a stab at protection and to immunize themselves for having created and utilized said program etc. to their illegal benefit…and they’d like to politize the program or make it political unattainable to go after their asses…but that’s just me
That’s what you guys said about Saddam’s nuke diagrams,remember?
Get your shit straight.
me? I believe in the most second amendment we can get.
Non Sequitar defense eh?
The secondest?
This is really a rich (and dangerous for them politically) argument the left is trying to advance…the evils of advocating for an armed citizenry while advocating for a disarmed maniacal regime.
Not only is it a non sequitar, it’s dumb if it were to be taken seriously.
Genocide. Gas bombs dropped on a population. People, babies, families dropped in a ditch. dropped in plastic shredders.
The left has basically condoned/embraced Saddam’s genocide and murders, arguing he’s was no threat.
Balkans. Darfur. Exactly why should any country or military engage in operations in a country engaged in the same activity as a Saddam regime that the left has defined as no problem, care or threat?
Is Darfur using plastic shedders to kill people? because if they are FORGET stepping in…
1. Do we have any satellite photographs of the Euphrates being dammed and diverted during the construction of these bunkers?
2. If the stuff from the bunkers was moved in 2003 to Syria, was it then stored in previously prepared sites?
Because Joe Wilson proved Saddam didn’t have nukes, remember?
We are way beyond the point of recovery on the WMD meme. It has absolutely crippled our ability to deal with Iran. The Iranians are sending us video of their centrifuges, and all Europe can say is, yeah, but you were wrong about Iraq Mr. Bush!!!!
Breaking out Occam’s Razor, the reason one might say the Administration has said there were no WMD in Iraq is because, well, there weren’t. But Occam doesn’t shed any light on why the administration is actively suppressing information about WMD in Iraq. For example, Danish EOD found over a hundred liquid filled mortars in Iraq. They said they were mustard filled (pictures looked like mustard rounds to me, and yeah, I used to be an EOD guy, I know what they look like), the field tests said they were mustard, the theater tests said mustard, they go the Idaho National Labs, they report that it isn’t chemical agent and not dangerous. So what liquid was in the mortars? Noone uses non-chemical liquid fill in mortars, so I am curious. INL reported what it wasn’t, what was it? I don’t know, they didn’t tell us, so I FOIA’d the report from INL. Guess what – I got a letter acknowledging my request, and then nothing. If it isn’t a dangerous chemical agent in the shells, then it shouldn’t be classified – you and I paid for the analysis, I think they should give us the results.
Active suppression of WMD – and not just now. It goes back to the first Gulf War – read this article (yeah, I know, its the NYT, but just because the NYT prints it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.) A Marine testified before Congress that he was using a Fox vehicle in the first Gulf War, he detected chemicals, reported it up as required, and was told by higher headquarters that it wasn’t, and to change his report. I have a friend who commanded a Fox vehicle in DS, and he told me a story just like it, well before I read that Times article. I wrote about it in 2003 – so I am not just some ex post facto internet Forrest Gump.
That post I linked, posits a theory of why we have been systematically downplaying, not hyping, Iraqi WMD. Honestly, its a bit of a stretch:
Are we willing to take this blow to national credibility to cover up that vulnerability? Seemed more likely back in 2003, but by 2007, it strains credulity even more.
Maybe the moonbats are right – we gave Saddam WMD, and we are covering that up. That would explain why it has gone on over 3 Presidencies, from both parties. And it isn’t conspiracy theory coverup – we know that the government has been actively suppressing information on this topic – which is the very definition of coverup.
Sounds like a worthwhile Malkin trip.
“Because Joe Wilson proved Saddam didn’t have nukes, remember? “
Looks like its rather dubya and a couple of thousand dead that did this.
Between 9/11 and the anthrax attack, a newspaper run by one of Saddam’s sons printed an editorial saying that the “next phase” of attacks against the US would be a biological attack.
The eagerness to find a domestic source—to the point of ignoring all evidence of a foreign source—even when the supposed domestic source shows no connection whatsoever to the attack, tells me there’s something particularly stupid going on. Yeah, I think we’ve made it clear we have no way to respond to a WMD attack.
Again, emmadine, do you have anything more substantive than snark?
Gosh Em. What does one do with 500 tons of uranium oxide? That’s a shitload of yellow paint.
That isn’t correct; we can respond with weapons of our own and it was made clear in the 1st Gulf War that any use of chemical weapons by Iraq would be met with appropriate retaliation.
furriskey – that’s kinda my point. In the run up to Desert Storm, we implied, heavily, that if Iraq used chemical weapons on us, we could and would nuke them.
There is a lot of evidence – not proof, mind you, evidence – that Iraq did use chemical weapons on us during DS – but for sure we didn’t nuke them. So if you take the accounts that chemical weapons were used as true, then our threats of retaliation were empty ones.
She’s progressed to Stage 2 of trollification. Stage 3 is when she starts hijacking threads.
blaster,
I’m not sure I do believe that chemical weapons were used against us in GW1, and if they were they were so ineffective as to render a nuclear response excessive-
On this current issue, the intelligence services of the UK and US (& Germany & France) have been made to look incompetent over the issue of WMD.
I don’t believe that they would cooperate in any conspiracy to hide the fact that they had been right all along.
And then, after 9/11, we made it clear we won’t retaliate. That, instead, we’ll desperately search for any plausible way to blame someone else. And, eventually, the opportunistic among us will begin attacking us while ignoring our enemies.
We certainly have the means to retaliate. We lack the will.
No, but continuing the slander against Bush… I think they’d jump into that with glee.
Again, I can’t agree. As a consequence of 9/11, the US with support from some allies invaded Afghanistan and took away al qa’eda’s main refuge.
Most of the senior personnel in al qa’eda have been killed or captured, and in most sane circles there is now an understanding that we are at war with Islamist terrorism.
That war could certainly have been prosecuted more aggressively than it has been- some people advocated taking the brakes off Israel and allowing the establishment of a much larger state, which has not yet been done. Others suggested that the role Saudi Arabia has played in the fomenting of Islamist expansionism should be more actively discouraged.
That hasn’t happened yet, either.
But we are only at the start of a very long road.
This is good stuff, guys. Proving Iraqi WMDs existed would have actually hurt the Bush administration. Riiiight.
It’s better than the delusions required to believe arming college students would have stopped the VTech massacre. All the while bemoaning how cowardly the students behaved. Nope, no problem with that line of thinking!
We already know they existed, heet. The unanswered question is what happened to them. Lots and lots remain unaccounted for.
But are you saying that the Times is lying about the dangers contained in saddam’s nuke program?
And heet appears with his hate and his non-sequiters.
Keep eating heet, ignorance like that has to be fed often.
While this strikes me as plausible and fits other bits of the puzzle we have, I simply don’t trust anything the American Spectator says, and there’s no proof either way.
I agree it’s almost certain that in the almost year-long buildup to the invasion that Hussein moved the stuff he had. I agree the Russians almost certainly helped him – as some Russians have said. I agree that Syria and Iran (particularly Syria) are the most likely spots to send the material.
We just don’t have proof and probably never will. At this point it wouldn’t matter anyway, even if we found it all the argument is too passionate to be rational, let alone changable.
Were this not so, even the most opposed to the invasion would admit this scenario is likely.
Incidentally, the Bush administration never said there were no WMD in Iraq. They said “we haven’t found the WMD we expected and are abandoning the search,” not that there never were any and that they didn’t exist.
Yes, I’ll buy that the same forces in the CIA that leak information to damage the Bush administration would go to great lengths to do so with intel on these weapons. They proved they are willing to risk their jobs and break the law to leak classified data, why is it unbelievable they’d delete data? Just ask Sandy Berger about erasing materials you don’t want out there.
The only frustrating thing is how the Bush administration seems to shrug about it and do nothing.
This Go-bats, er, Gaubatz dude, who is the main source for the Spectator story, seems like a highly reliable source, to judge from his website:
http://www.saneworks.us/National-Existence-category-3.htm
Did Hussein move things around prior to the war. Maybe. But it is extremely unlikely that the Bush administration is trying to coverup the existence of Hussein’s WMD. That is the dumbest fucking thing I’ve heard today. From proteinwisdom.com, even. Get a grip on reality, people.
1 – this is not the American Spectator, but the Spectator in the UK.
2 – In Bush at War, Woodward describes Tenet briefing the Cabinet about the anthrax, says he thinks it is Iraq, but says he won’t announce that they think there is a state actor. Cheney – yes, neocon #1 – says good, because we can’t do anything about it if it is.
Well, heet. At least you finally admit Saddam had WMDs.
But to be fair, heet, the reason was for the war in Iraq was Saddams POTENTIAL to make WMDs. Which was actually second on the list.
Just remeber. The gun is unloaded.
Bollocks.
Hello? Even if “POTENTIAL” was the true reason, how does that in any way prove that the Bush admin, or the CIA, or the pink unicorns are involved in an elaborate coverup to hide evidence of Hussein’s WMDs? It doesn’t. It is a stupid idea.
No, sweetie. You wrote the dumbest fucking thing you’ve heard today. And probably yesterday and the day before.
I’m about to top it :
“Pablo is an erudite internet personality well respected by all.”
You were right, I suppose.
…she explained.
I usually am. And also as usual, you’re not.
We seem to have degenerated into just name calling. Well, we haven’t hit the Godwin limit yet, so I will keep going.
In a way heet is right – dumbest effing thing I have heard all day. The Bush administration burying Iraqi WMD info. That is dumb, goodness knows why it is happening. I mean, some of it seems like CIA plotting against Bush, but some of it is Bush himself. I have heard him, and as big a fan as I am of Rumsfeld, I have heard Rumsfeld say – there are no WMD in Iraq. It may have been laziness of speech, because it is a lot more difficult to say we didn’t find what we would expect, but it just hands the Left ammunition – “See, even Bush says it….”
Negroponte is taking affirmative steps to keep Iraq WMD info from being disseminated to the public, and he is no Clintonoid holdover in the bowels of bureaucracy. He is a Reaganite, central to our push for democracy in Latin America, and President Bush’s first Director of National Intelligence. The Chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence (from the President’s own party) had to threaten Negroponte’s budget to get information released – and when it was released, Negroponte did his best to downplay it and undermine the credibility.
Now – here’s the thing, heet. You can call names and curse, any teenager can do that (am I close?), but can you deny the above about the former DNI?
If Russia helped Saddam’s regime ship WMD to Syria, then the terrorists know all about it. We’re not fooling them about the existence or location of the weapons by feigning ignorance. Assuming that the administration is only feigning ignorance, then the more likely reason is that they don’t want the public to know where the WMDs went, because they don’t want to be pressured into having to do something about it.
I think there’s a level of confusion here about the CIA having members in it trying to make the Bush administration look bad somehow being the Bush administration.
President Clinton basically cleaned house from one end of government to the other and placed his guys in every single position, including the Pentagon (just ask Donald Rumsfeld). Those guys are still there, in almost every single office, and they despise President Bush.
Think of it this way, you on the radical left: let’s say you were in these positions and under President Bush. How far would you go to discredit, hurt, and shame the administration? Imagine miss Emmadine or Alphie in these jobs. How far do you think they’d go, what line do you think there would be, that they would not cross?
Yeah, thought so.
It is unfortunate that heet can’t engage in adult discourse because we were moving towards a sensible discussion prior to its intervention.
Most conspiracy theories founder on the point that everyone involved, even peripherally, has to:
a) Buy in to the ramp being perpetrated
b) Keep their mouths shut about it.
In this particular case there are other countries’ intelligence agencies involved, and if Dearlove and Scarlett are both in Bush’s pocket, which we should presume from their actions leading up to GW2, and if they are under pressure to recover lost face by subordinates who may not share their Blairite sympathies, there would be so much leaking going on it would make the Titanic look waterproof.
The fact that Gaubatz appears to have worked for Air Force intelligence is also a factor which would lead to schism in the intelligence ranks, not a solidarity of silence.
Seriously, you guys believe this guy? One source with no proof and no evidence is more credible than the ISG, the Senate Intelligence report, the Dalfeur Report, etc? Every report from Iraq shows that those weapons were non-existent.
I know you guys want to believe this, and I heartened by some of the skepticism I read on the comments, but let’s be clear that a) it is not illegal for Syria to possess WMD, b) they do possess chemical weapons, c) the US government would have shown you the trucks going to Syria.
Lastly, it’s good see Pablo and B Moe, the PW insult cops on hand to keep order and prmote clever discussion.
PS. Follow the link above the this dude’s website. He knows for a fact that American White Christians have a special place in this society (apparently, since they founded the country, they still get to make all the rules.) Anyway, some of you might want to help catalog all those meanie mosques and day schools in America.
timmyb –
I know you want to believe it, but none of the sources that you cited shows that the weapons were non-existent. They existed at some point, at some point they weren’t in Iraq. The question remains, to this day, what happened to them.
Were they, as the Iraqis claimed, all destroyed? Or did something else happen?
Let’s take the sources you cite – the ISG, for example. The ISG was initially led by David Kay – you might be interested to know that Kay thinks that at least some part of Saddam’s WMD program went to Syria:
Charles Duelfer took over the ISG from Kay – his report has an addendum:
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report is about matters of intelligence – it does not weigh in on whether weapons existed or not, it talks about analysis and uncertainty.
So, do I trust those more than one guy? In general, yes. Except it isn’t just one guy reporting thse things. Iraqi General Sada reported that weapons were transferred to Syria. Gaubatz reported all this stuff before – here’s a story from last July.
Also, the ISG reviewed an Iraqi document that listed a truck convoy of 50 trucks to Syria.
Once again, Timmah! sees things that don’t exist in the words he’s looking at.
THREE QUOTES! THREE, I TELL YOU!
THREE!!!
That’s good heet. We can agree Saddam haad WMDs and was working on more up to the ivasion. That’s a big step for you.
I agree.I don’t think the report is a red herring, and I’m looking at Blaster with a jaunticed eye as well because I don’t know the provenance of any of their information.
Israeli intelligence has told the US that up to the 2003 invasion road traffic of heavy trucks to Damascus increased as well as numerous flights of cargo planes.
So. How far along was he on his WMD projects? We may never know.
But wait, there’s more.
The key assertion by Gaubatz is that he had developed intelligence regarding the existence of these bunkers – they were underground and underwater – he reported it to the ISG, the ISG ignored him. He thinks that WMD were stored there. The ISG chose not act on his intelligence.
After forcing the issue through Congressmen, the ISG inspected the sites. What is important is that intel about the existence of the bunkers turned out to be 100% correct – but as 2 years had passed, there is no telling what happened – they had been looted, and they were empty. Perhaps they were empty 2 years prior, but we don’t know that. The same guys who said these places existed also said they had WMD – they were right about the existence, they might have been right about the WMD.
Now, you moonbat members of the “reality based community” – do you claim that none of the above is true? That he developed the intel, that the ISG did not act on it for years until their hand was forced by Congresmman Hoekstra, that they found the exact bunkers described by Gaubatz, that his reports were not “missing”?
Or are you just saying “he’s a Christian who has information that questions our unshaking faith in the wrongness of George Bush so we must disparage him?” Go back and look at the comments and see which one it is.
As for the rest of Gaubatz story, well, we just don’t know. There is nothing he is saying that is implausible. We know that Gaubatz’s reports disappeared, we don’t know how or why – even the CIA is saying what they “think” happened. Gaubatz says there was dirty work there. I know a guy who was told by the CIA to delete information regarding WMD from the ISG database prior to review by Congressmen, so it is plausible to me that Gaubatz’s reports were deleted on purpose. But, hey, I’m just a commenter on PW, so you can dismiss that as you would like. But the fact still remains that when Congressman Hoekstra requested the reports that Gaubatz said that he filed, the CIA couldn’t produce them from the database.
As for the “I had info but the CIA blew me off” part of the story – we know that’s true, too. And it isn’t unique, either, to hear a story of the CIA ignoring information that they don’t want to hear – read this story – yeah, I know, its Michael Ledeen, but, again, do you have anything but namecalling, or can you substantively rebut this:
Pablo, cop on the beat. Let’s see what Pablo believes that the United States government does not:
1)Pablo believes he is the founding member of the PW rhetoric police. His job is to parse statements and play legalese with them. “Tim,” Pablo says, “the President only said he could not show there was no connection, that doesn’t mean there was no connection, because, you see, it has to be true or I, Pablo, am a braying ass.”
2) Pablo believes there were WMD’s in Iraq
3) Pablo believes Saddam and Al Qeuda were in direct cahoots (this despite the most recently declassified report of the Pentagon’s AG http://www.dodig.osd.mil/IGInformation/archives/OUSDP-OSP%20Brief.pdf)
4) Pablo believes we are winning in Iraq, and the only reason people think we are not is because of the US media, which is somehow in cahoots with Iraq insurgents
4a) Pablo believes, on faith mind you, that Jamil Hussein was made up.
5) Pablo believes Iran is trying to conquer the Middle East and probably the world. Oh, hold it, that was unfair, the current administration also says they believe that
6) These are the things Pablo currently believes and have nothing to do with reality. he had many of false beliefs in the past: Iraq would be a cakewalk, the insurgency was in its last throes, John Kerry = coward, Bush = hero, Saddam was Hitler, the fall of Saddam would bring peace to the Middle East, George Bush knew what the hell he was doing, Dick Cheney is a capable administrator, the list goes on.
Now, I know you’re all upset Pablo, all sputtering like Belichek at a press conference. Go get B Moe and two of you can parse the words here and try to cloud the meaning of what I wrote, but in the end that diffuse anger and frustration you feel and so profanely express is the inner knowledge that you are wrong, you have been wrong and you will continue to be wrong.
Wonderfully for you, you will always have anger, the word “fuck”, and PW to keep you company.
Godspeed
Wonderful mindreading skills, timmah. You should have already made a fortune in poker, real estate, and other forms of gambling.
Lets take this ad seriatum
Pablo, cop on the beat. Let’s see what Pablo believes that the United States government does not:
1)Pablo believes he is the founding member of the PW rhetoric police. His job is to parse statements and play legalese with them. “Tim,†Pablo says, “the President only said he could not show there was no connection, that doesn’t mean there was no connection, because, you see, it has to be true or I, Pablo, am a braying ass.â€Â
You have to admit, the guy does argue well.
2) Pablo believes there were WMD’s in Iraq
Yes. Well. There were. Or else a bunch of Kurds just sucked on a giant tailpipe. So. Just sayin’, if he did it once he’ll do it again. If you’d read the HR going into the war you’d know that. But being pissed at GWB is MUCH cooler
3) Pablo believes Saddam and Al Qeuda were in direct cahoots (this despite the most recently declassified report of the Pentagon’s AG http://www.dodig.osd.mil/IGInformation/archives/OUSDP-OSP%20Brief.pdf)
They were. According to Saddams own declassified and translated security documents
4) Pablo believes we are winning in Iraq, and the only reason people think we are not is because of the US media, which is somehow in cahoots with Iraq insurgents
I can’t read Pablos mind, but I think he wants us to win in Iraq, because the alternative will be pretty awful.
4a) Pablo believes, on faith mind you, that Jamil Hussein was made up.
No. It has been pretty muched proved that Jamil Hussein was a composite and therefore made up. But. Hey. Your free to believe everything you read at the Daily Kos
5) Pablo believes Iran is trying to conquer the Middle East and probably the world. Oh, hold it, that was unfair, the current administration also says they believe that
Well. They WILL be the only arab nation with a nuclear capability and the means to deliver it. So that pretty much makes them the team to beat in the ME. Except for that pesky Israel. But Iran has said that they will settle their hash in short order.
6) These are the things Pablo currently believes and have nothing to do with reality. he had many of false beliefs in the past: Iraq would be a cakewalk, the insurgency was in its last throes, John Kerry = coward, Bush = hero, Saddam was Hitler, the fall of Saddam would bring peace to the Middle East, George Bush knew what the hell he was doing, Dick Cheney is a capable administrator, the list goes on.
Pablo has pretty muched proved he’s a thinker. You. Not so much.
Now, I know you’re all upset Pablo, all sputtering like Belichek at a press conference. Go get B Moe and two of you can parse the words here and try to cloud the meaning of what I wrote, but in the end that diffuse anger and frustration you feel and so profanely express is the inner knowledge that you are wrong, you have been wrong and you will continue to be wrong.
The only one sputtering is you. So I guess Pablo has succeeded.
Wonderfully for you, you will always have anger, the word “fuckâ€Â, and PW to keep you company.
Godspeed
Posted by timmyb | permalink
Legal disclaimer; I don’t know Pablo from a hole in the ground. I am not defending anything Pablo has said in the past or may say in the future as much as I am showing what a complete dimwit timmyb is. Which, lets face it, anybody wouldn’t have much trouble doing. Logic is your friend tim. Quit fighting it.
I think you mean to say, “Well. They WILL be the only Middle Eastern nation with a nuclear capability…”
Iranians are Persians, not Arabs.
And, if pushed, I would categorize Israel as a Western nation that’s in the Middle East.
No Timmah! You made a definitive claim (HE SAID THERE’S NO CONNECTION!!1!ELEVEN!! THREE QUOTES!!) and backed it up with quotes that say exactly the opposite of what you told us they said. I don’t need to be a cop to point out that you’re a dissembling, gibbering idiot with no grasp of the facts. I just have to be sufficiently amused by the process enough that I enjoy doing it, which I assure you I am.
Yes, because there were WMD’s in Iraq. That is a known fact, and if you’d been paying any attention you’d know it. The open questions are how many, of what sort and what happened to them. We don’t have definitive answers to any of those questions, except for the ones used in Halabja. And then there’s the ones we’ve found.
Feel free to quote me saying that. Meanwhile, Timmah! believes that chocolate chip ice cream enemas are the shiznit!
No, I think we’ve already won, and we did it years ago. Now we’re helping the Iraqi government solve it’s problems. I believe that because I listen to the people who are serving there and doing the work.
No, I believe that because the closest anyone has come to producing Jamil Hussein is Jamil Ghoalem Ghaddab, who denies being Jamil Hussein, and is in fact not Jamil Hussein. You believe that JH exists on faith, and not a shred of verifiable evidence. Where are his post exposure dispatches, Timmah!?
No, Ahmalittlecrackpot belives he’s destined to bring about the end of the world. 12th madhi, hidden imam and whatnot. Nice try, though. That’s another quote you can go find, dumbass.
I believe that you’re an idiot, and I can prove it. Though it seems that you just did that for me.
Timmah, you’re in the wrong head, you fool! Feel free to gather the quotes to substantiate that pile of drivel as well. And stay the fuck away from my ice cream.
BTW, since when does Belichik sputter? The guys says as little as possible and with as little emotion as possible. Why would you refer to Belichik as sputtering, fucker?
Timmy appears to have an endless capacity to absorb and ignore its own humiliation.
Please, you embarrass yourself. Trying to figure out just why GWB covered up the Iraqi WMD evidence is probably the opposite of a sensible discussion. “Adult discourse” my happy ass. “Delusional idiocy” is more like it.
Other commenters are doing their darndest to change to subject more palatable like “Iraq was a threat to America!”. Still dumb, though.
While we’re searching for quotes, heet, why don’t you find the one where someone said George Bush covered up evidence? Or do you prefer dueling with that strawman?
Ummm… What? Did you read the original post or any of the comments? Is this part of your schtick, Pablo? Deny the obvious and demand evidence in order to change to subject?
You forgot to scold me for using the word “ass” you fucking hack.
No, heet, I’m afraid you didn’t read the post.
Where’s the part where George Bush had evidence in his hands and decided to hide it?
Go ahead. Quote it. If it’s so obvious, this is your big chance to show me up. It will be so easy. And you can swear all you like, and I’ll be the last person to take you to task over it, ya moron. Just bring the fucking heet, won’t you?
(pssst….C…I…A.)
Pablo believes Saddam and Al Qeuda were in direct cahoots
Yes, well that depends on what you mean by “direct cahoots.” We have testimony (that was on NPR by the way) from a guy who worked at the terrorist training camp a few miles north of Baghdad who said that “Bin Laden’s people” trained there. We have two invitations by Iraq for Bin Laden to stay safely in Iraq after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. We have Iraqi government documents that point toward a working relationship between al`Qaeda and Iraq.
And one more time: elements of the CIA (you know, the guys that leaked classified information to the New York Times) would be the ones who had evidence of WMD and destroyed or hid it, not the administration.
Like the chairman of the 9/11 commission said: there were ties, they were just shadowy. Sort of like you’d expect a government under UN scrutiny to have with a terrorist organization.
I’d link to various news stories and proof of this but I know better than to expect you’d actually look them up.
Pablo, your misdirection is cute and I’ll indulge you a bit. This is a direct quote from the original post :
No doubt you will now try to convince me that this doesn’t actually mean Phillips believes the WH could have put the kibosh on the WMD “discovery”. Don’t be that stupid.
I didn’t even have to touch your rather convenient yet wholly unsubstantiated “liberal CIA” conspiracy theory. Good luck with that one, though.
One delusional thought after another, all without evidence but supported only with a sense of righteousness. Pathetic.
No, this is the part where you try to convince me that Bush had evidence of WMD and he covered it up. What Phillips is talking about is intelligence that suggests where WMD might have been, which is all that Gaubatz claims.
Try wrapping your peabrain around this bit.
Where is the WMD “discovery”, heet?
Nice self analysis, heet, but we let you hang around anyway because the rage is so amusing. Really, does it get any better than watching a nutter duel a strawman and lose?
timmyb – congrats, you now have a new logical fallacy in your arsenal. You had your stock ad hominem, now you’ve got a custom strawman. Sweet, dude.
heet, you’ve got nothing new. Need to step up your game. The calling everyone stupid thing is just beat.
Try some facts or logic or something. Try addressing the issues and questions at hand. It really isn’t all that hard.
Some might even say that is “evidence” of “Iraqi WMD”. With that, I’m done with this tired thread. Carry on the good fight, crazies. You’ll catch that wabbit, yet.
Yup, someone with…
Bye, heet! You’ll get that scarecrow next time!
I can hear heet and friends now: “Gee, Mr. President. You were right and we were wrong. I’m terribly sorry we doubted you. But now that we know where WMD might have been, we apologize for calling you a liar.”
Yep, what a fool Bush is to have passed on an opportunity like that.
Oh I know I said I was gone but this is too good to pass up.
Pablo, you have serious problems and I don’t really know what you are trying to say. Are you actually claiming that the WH would choose to not provide evidence of the number one reason we’ve invaded Iraq? Because they are worried about what people like me might say?
You know what, you are right. In fact, Bush is so far into this conspiracy to undermine his own reasoning for the war, he has actually claimed Iraq didn’t have any WMDs at the time we invaded! He is fucking diabolical! From his own mouth in 2006:
Please, waste my time explaining this away.
Trust me, heet, I don’t embarrass myself, I expose you as an embarrassment.
I am not trying to “figure out” why George Bush covered up anything. I am applying a mixture of knowledge of the facts and analysis of probabilities to discuss why anyone would think such a thing.
It is quite amusing that “Theo”, in another place, sets out his stall that conservatives are uneducated idiots whereas Socialists are intellectually rigorous logicians.
He clearly hasn’t met you.
No, you are scolding me for calling the PW commenters a bunch of loons. Dan Collings is trying to “figure out” why Bush would purposefully torpedo the evidence for WMDs :
Wonder why this “story” isn’t found anywhere but the crazy right wing web sites? It has legs I tell ya!
No, I’m not. Dan Collins (sp) raised a question, acknowledging that he was sceptical about it, because he respects the intellectual honesty of Melanie Phillips. So do I , usually- and while I accept that a lot of her information comes from Israeli sources, I don’t assume from that that the information is wrong. I do try to think out why they have passed it to her and what the intended outcome is.
We (some of us) have been trying to discuss the question in an adult manner.
Part of a long list of things you’ve said that lack truthiness, heet.
No, I’m saying that as evidence goes, it’s no smoking gun. Of course there are political implications that must be considered before trying to run with something like that, but when the day comes that such things are decided on the basis of what people like you might think, I’m moving to Costa Rica.
Tell me, if you had heard this from Tony Snow instead of Jeff Goldstein, would you have said “Gee Mr. President, I sure am sorry I doubted you!” Of course you wouldn’t have. Because it isn’t proof. Although even if it were, you still wouldn’t acknowledge it. But I digress.
Well, heet, I know that this will come as a shock to you, but we didn’t find them. Except for these. Would you be so kind as to quote where I or someone else said that “Bush is into this conspiracy to undermine his own reasoning for the war”? Or is that your invention?
Heh.
Probably because such statements are the sum total of what you’re working with, fucknut.
he has actually claimed Iraq didn’t have any WMDs at the time we invaded
First, I’ll never cease to be amused by radical leftists claiming that President Bush – the biggest lying liar on earth who cannot be trusted and is the biggest idiot in the history of mankind – is suddenly an authoritative source when they use quotes like this.
Second, the fact that, as President Bush admits we didn’t find the WMDs that everyone in the world expected we would does not somehow negate the concept of Hussein moving these weapons before or during the early days of the invasion.
Are you paying attention here? This entire story is about someone who claims they knew where the WMD were… then these weapons were moved… and then when we got there, the weapons weren’t there.
Do you need a scorecard to keep track? Because you seem to be distracted somehow.
Jeff won’t touch that one with a ten foot pole, you nimrod. Just like he never said the kidnapped British soldiers were cowards. Your blogmaster doesn’t share ALL of your delusional ideas.
I’ve already proven that GWB doesn’t think Iraq had WMDs when we invaded. Why the fuck do you? Are you that stupid?
Frankly, this is getting old. Your strategy of shrieking for “proof” that you and the other folks here are saying crazy things is a transparent distraction. I posted a quote that clearly refuted your claim. And yet you have nothing to say except restating the crazy position with less crazy language.
Your other tired strategy is to focus on one misunderstanding or vaguely stated thought and ask for clarification. And then ask for clarification of the response. And so on until there is no argument left. All in the interest of distraction. From this, I can only assume you are a lawyer.
I missed that proof. Point me at it.
So, you don’t believe a word he says either? Because that is what you have to think in order to square his quote and the theory that he is lying. So, do you?
”find”? Idiot, he didn’t say “find”, he said Iraq didn’t have WMDs. “Have”. As in – you can’t “find” what doesn’t exist. Why would Bush say that if he didn’t believe it? Good luck on that one.
What idea are you referring to, heet? Gaubatz’s claims are what they are, and nothing more. And you’re not answering my very simple question.
Why is that, heet?
You’ve got serious problems, heet.
Go to bed, Pablo. You need the sleep. Lots of delusional thoughts need thinking tomorrow.
More nothing, heet? If you’re done, just stop posting. If you’re not, answer my very simple question.
Ad hom will get you nowhere.