How We Went To War

[molson_golden2002]

There is a reason 76% of Americans thought Saddam did 9-11

 

 

Feith Takes the Fall

 

Friday, Feb. 09, 2007 By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON

 

For a person most Americans have never heard of, Doug Feith has been called terrible names by very important people. In Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward quotes General Tommy Franks — appalled at the quality of intelligence about Iraq — railing that Feith, then the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, was "the f---king stupidest guy on the face of the earth." Today, there was another bad review. Feith got publicly slapped by the Defense Department's inspector general for developing pro-war intelligence on Iraq — outside of official channels — that now seems plainly wrong. The IG concludes that Feith's office, on a free-lance basis, made claims "that were inconsistent with the consensus of the intelligence community." The report said that Feith's shop exaggerated the purported links between Saddam Hussein's government and al Qaeda. "That was the argument that was used to make the sale to the American people about the need to go to war," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the armed services committee. He said the Feith's work, "which was wrong, which was distorted, which was inappropriate ... is something which is highly disturbing."

 

Feith may have been one of the Bush Administration's most fervent supporters of war with Iraq but, in truth, he was only a bit player. Indeed, he is the third bit player in the Iraq fiasco to be paying for the sins of his superiors recently. For a couple of weeks now, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been in the dock in federal court in Washington, trying desperately to keep his one-time boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, from being stained by the responsibility for Libby's chats with reporters and government officials about Valerie Plame's CIA job. Then, just yesterday, Army General George Casey was raked over the coals by Senators who didn't think his past 30 months in command of U.S. ground forces in Iraq warrants his elevation to Army chief of staff. While he did get the promotion, the Senate vote of 83-to-14 was the poorest showing for an Army chief since Vietnam. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Casey should be held accountable for giving Congress too-rosy assessments of the war as the situation there spiraled downward into chaos. "I have questioned in the past and question today a number of decisions and judgments that Gen. Casey has made in the past two and a half years," McCain said. "During that time, conditions in Iraq have gotten remarkably and progressively worse."

 

This trio of woes seems to have a common thread: Underlings snared while trying to please their bosses. It's almost like blaming the hammer instead of the carpenter for a bent nail. Speaking to the Associated Press, Feith took umbrage at descriptions that his work was "inappropriate." Said he: "The policy office has been smeared for years by allegations that its pre-Iraq-war work was somehow 'unlawful' or 'unauthorized.'" He has a point: it was the Bush administration that chose Feith's reports over those generated by its $1 billion-a-week intelligence operation. Feith's work was most certainly authorized — from the very top.

 

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,...1587982,00.html

[Prognastic]

101 ways to say BUSH BAD by Molson Golden

 

 

Forward by Blzrule

[pdh1]

By James Langton in New York, for the Evening Standard

 

The methodically assembled dossier from Jayna Davis, a former investigative TV reporter, could destroy the official version that white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were solely responsible for what, at the time, was the worst act of terrorism on American soil.

 

Instead, there are serious concerns that a group of Arab men with links to Iraqi intelligence, Palestinian extremists and possibly al Qaeda, used McVeigh and Nichols as front men to blow up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

 

Davis, who was one of the first reporters on the scene after the blast, has spent seven years gathering evidence of a wider conspiracy. But it is only as America prepares to wage war on Iraq and Saddam Hussein that her conclusions are being taken seriously at the highest level. Finally, she says, the authorities are examining the idea "that the Oklahoma bombing might not simply be the work of two angry white men".

 

After hearing her evidence, several senior members of Congress have called for a new probe.

 

What triggered Davis's investigation was a report immediately after the Oklahoma explosion of Middle-Eastern looking men fleeing in a brown Chevrolet truck only minutes earlier. The FBI launched an international hunt for the men but later cancelled the search.

Within days McVeigh and Nichols were arrested, and the case seemed to be one of home-grown terrorists, motivated by a hatred for authority. But the case has always had loose ends. In particular, several witnesses in Oklahoma City that April morning saw a third conspirator with McVeigh. The elusive dark-haired suspect became known as "John Doe 2".

 

Terry Nichols, now serving life for conspiracy in the bombing and involuntary manslaughter, was the original "John Doe 1" but, with his arrest, the FBI claimed that the case had been wrapped up. They eventually concluded that "John Doe 2" was Nichols all along.

Davis thought otherwise. Early on, she found that a brown Chevrolet truck almost identical to that once hunted by the FBI had been seen parked outside the offices of a local property management company several days before the bombing.

 

The owner was a Palestinian with a criminal record and suspected ties to the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Later she found that the man had hired a number of former Iraqi soldiers.

 

He had recruited them to carry out maintenance on his rental properties, but several were later discovered to be missing from work on the day of the bombing. Eyewitnesses have told Davis that they saw several of them celebrating later that day.

But what increasingly drew her attention was another Iraqi living in Oklahoma City, a restaurant worker called Hussain Hashem Al Hussaini, whose photograph was almost a perfect match to the official sketch of "John Doe 2".

 

Al Hussaini has a tattoo on his upper left arm, indicating he was once a member of Saddam's elite Republican Guard.

Since then, Davis has gathered hundreds of court records and the sworn testimony of two dozen witnesses. Several claimed to have seen a man fitting Al Hussaini's description drinking with McVeigh in a motel bar four days before the bombing.

Others positively identified former Iraqi soldiers in the company of McVeigh and Nichols. Two swore that they had seen Al Hussaini only a block from the Murrah building in the hours before the bombing. With the case against McVeigh and Nichols seemingly watertight, the FBI has until now consistently refused to reopen it. McVeigh went to his death in the execution chamber two years ago, insisting he alone was responsible.

 

Davis thinks he may have done so out of loyalty to his family, not wishing to go down in history as a traitor to his country.

But she has evidence that up to 12,000 Iraqis were allowed into America after the Gulf war. Some of these, she suspects, are using their status as refugees for cover. "They are here," she said. "And they are highly trained and motivated."

The renewed interest in Washington is clearly linked to America's case against Saddam as broker of world terror.

 

And there is more. Al Hussaini, who entered the US from a Saudi refugee camp, worked after the Oklahoma bomb as a cook at Boston's Logan Airport - from where the two hijacked aircraft that hit the World Trade Center took off.

 

There is another confirmed incident that suggests something more sinister. Two of the 11 September conspirators held a crucial meeting at a motel in Oklahoma City in August 2001. The motel's owner has since identified them as ringleader Mohammed Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, who has known links with shoebomber Richard Reid.

 

The motel is unremarkable - except for one thing. It is where a number of Davis's witnesses are sure they saw McVeigh drinking and perhaps plotting with his Iraqi friends.

[Alaska Darin]

I'm just shocked that giving huge amounts of money and power to a really small group of people ends up not working out so well.

 

You libs ready to cut and run on any of the social programs you've implemented? They're working about as well as Iraq.

[chicot]

By James Langton in New York, for the Evening Standard

 

The methodically assembled dossier from Jayna Davis, a former investigative TV reporter, could destroy the official version that white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were solely responsible for what, at the time, was the worst act of terrorism on American soil.

 

Instead, there are serious concerns that a group of Arab men with links to Iraqi intelligence, Palestinian extremists and possibly al Qaeda, used McVeigh and Nichols as front men to blow up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

 

Davis, who was one of the first reporters on the scene after the blast, has spent seven years gathering evidence of a wider conspiracy. But it is only as America prepares to wage war on Iraq and Saddam Hussein that her conclusions are being taken seriously at the highest level. Finally, she says, the authorities are examining the idea "that the Oklahoma bombing might not simply be the work of two angry white men".

 

After hearing her evidence, several senior members of Congress have called for a new probe.

 

What triggered Davis's investigation was a report immediately after the Oklahoma explosion of Middle-Eastern looking men fleeing in a brown Chevrolet truck only minutes earlier. The FBI launched an international hunt for the men but later cancelled the search.

Within days McVeigh and Nichols were arrested, and the case seemed to be one of home-grown terrorists, motivated by a hatred for authority. But the case has always had loose ends. In particular, several witnesses in Oklahoma City that April morning saw a third conspirator with McVeigh. The elusive dark-haired suspect became known as "John Doe 2".

 

Terry Nichols, now serving life for conspiracy in the bombing and involuntary manslaughter, was the original "John Doe 1" but, with his arrest, the FBI claimed that the case had been wrapped up. They eventually concluded that "John Doe 2" was Nichols all along.

Davis thought otherwise. Early on, she found that a brown Chevrolet truck almost identical to that once hunted by the FBI had been seen parked outside the offices of a local property management company several days before the bombing.

 

The owner was a Palestinian with a criminal record and suspected ties to the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Later she found that the man had hired a number of former Iraqi soldiers.

 

He had recruited them to carry out maintenance on his rental properties, but several were later discovered to be missing from work on the day of the bombing. Eyewitnesses have told Davis that they saw several of them celebrating later that day.

But what increasingly drew her attention was another Iraqi living in Oklahoma City, a restaurant worker called Hussain Hashem Al Hussaini, whose photograph was almost a perfect match to the official sketch of "John Doe 2".

 

Al Hussaini has a tattoo on his upper left arm, indicating he was once a member of Saddam's elite Republican Guard.

Since then, Davis has gathered hundreds of court records and the sworn testimony of two dozen witnesses. Several claimed to have seen a man fitting Al Hussaini's description drinking with McVeigh in a motel bar four days before the bombing.

Others positively identified former Iraqi soldiers in the company of McVeigh and Nichols. Two swore that they had seen Al Hussaini only a block from the Murrah building in the hours before the bombing. With the case against McVeigh and Nichols seemingly watertight, the FBI has until now consistently refused to reopen it. McVeigh went to his death in the execution chamber two years ago, insisting he alone was responsible.

 

Davis thinks he may have done so out of loyalty to his family, not wishing to go down in history as a traitor to his country.

But she has evidence that up to 12,000 Iraqis were allowed into America after the Gulf war. Some of these, she suspects, are using their status as refugees for cover. "They are here," she said. "And they are highly trained and motivated."

The renewed interest in Washington is clearly linked to America's case against Saddam as broker of world terror.

 

And there is more. Al Hussaini, who entered the US from a Saudi refugee camp, worked after the Oklahoma bomb as a cook at Boston's Logan Airport - from where the two hijacked aircraft that hit the World Trade Center took off.

 

There is another confirmed incident that suggests something more sinister. Two of the 11 September conspirators held a crucial meeting at a motel in Oklahoma City in August 2001. The motel's owner has since identified them as ringleader Mohammed Atta and Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, who has known links with shoebomber Richard Reid.

 

The motel is unremarkable - except for one thing. It is where a number of Davis's witnesses are sure they saw McVeigh drinking and perhaps plotting with his Iraqi friends.

 

So the new justification for the Iraq war is that Iraqis were behind the Oklahoma City bombing?! Right. I'm sure Iraqis were behind the assassination of the Kennedys as well. Hell, it wouldn't suprise me if Iraqis were involved in the shooting of Abraham Lincoln

[ESPeculatioN]

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

[Joey Balls]

So the new justification for the Iraq war is that Iraqis were behind the Oklahoma City bombing?! Right. I'm sure Iraqis were behind the assassination of the Kennedys as well. Hell, it wouldn't suprise me if Iraqis were involved in the shooting of Abraham Lincoln

 

 

Wow...did you actually bother to read all that?

[RkFast]

What's the Democrat's plan for getting the United States out of this situation while ensuring the following?

 

1. Iraq remains stable and its new government maintains control of the Country.

 

2. Iran doesnt influence the process, nor does it dominate the region either militarily or economically.

 

3. The state of Israel (yes....THEM....you know..the one TRUE Democracy in the region) can continue to viably exist.

 

4. The United States can continue to have a presence in the Middle East for its own economic and military interests.

[Wacka]

What's the Democrat's plan for getting the United States out of this situation while ensuring the following?

 

1. Iraq remains stable and its new government maintains control of the Country.

 

2. Iran doesnt influence the process, nor does it dominate the region either militarily or economically.

 

3. The state of Israel (yes....THEM....you know..the one TRUE Democracy in the region) can continue to viably exist.

 

4. The United States can continue to have a presence in the Middle East for its own economic and military interests.

 

Answer: Bush Bad!!!, We support the tropps, but...

[molson_golden2002]

What's the Democrat's plan for getting the United States out of this situation while ensuring the following?

 

1. Iraq remains stable and its new government maintains control of the Country.

 

2. Iran doesnt influence the process, nor does it dominate the region either militarily or economically.

 

3. The state of Israel (yes....THEM....you know..the one TRUE Democracy in the region) can continue to viably exist.

 

4. The United States can continue to have a presence in the Middle East for its own economic and military interests.

1) Iraq isn't going to be a stable anything anytime in the foreseeable future. It's been blown the f--- apart. All the kings horses and all the kings men can't put it back together

 

2) Iran will have a role, they live there. Its time for diplomacy. The time is really here. We have arrived at the point where we all do have to live together. Its a sad time for warmongers, really. Gen. McArthur was said to have remarked on hearing of the atomic attack on Japan, "Men like me are no obsolete." Maybe

 

3) Israel a true democracy? Are they not more of a Theocracy/Democracy? Whatever, they will be fine if we stay in Iraq or leave.

 

4) We are all over that f---ing region.

 

5) A war with Iran would be a huge disaster for the world, and I fear we are heading in that direction. I hope not

[John Adams]

What's the Democrat's plan for getting the United States out of this situation while ensuring the following?

 

1. Iraq remains stable and its new government maintains control of the Country.

 

2. Iran doesnt influence the process, nor does it dominate the region either militarily or economically.

 

3. The state of Israel (yes....THEM....you know..the one TRUE Democracy in the region) can continue to viably exist.

 

4. The United States can continue to have a presence in the Middle East for its own economic and military interests.

 

What's the Republican plan? Keep in mind that the last few haven't worked and that a Republican plan is what got us into this in the first place. I am no fan of the Dems but if you don't hold the Repubs accountable for this hell, who would you hold accountable?

[Bungee Jumper]

What's the Republican plan? Keep in mind that the last few haven't worked and that a Republican plan is what got us into this in the first place. I am no fan of the Dems but if you don't hold the Repubs accountable for this hell, who would you hold accountable?

 

 

The Republican plan is: Provide for basic security while installing a democratic government. Or was. Now it's: provide for basic security while the democratically-elected-but-not-really-representative-of-the-people government learns to provide for its own basic security.

 

Which, if you think about it, is a bit contradictory. And probably useless, as well. The only real benefit it gives over any other plan I've heard is that it at least recognizes that we're responsible for the mess Iraq's in.

[Orton's Arm]

What's the Democrat's plan for getting the United States out of this situation while ensuring the following?

 

1. Iraq remains stable and its new government maintains control of the Country.

 

2. Iran doesnt influence the process, nor does it dominate the region either militarily or economically.

 

3. The state of Israel (yes....THEM....you know..the one TRUE Democracy in the region) can continue to viably exist.

 

4. The United States can continue to have a presence in the Middle East for its own economic and military interests.

1. Maintaining Iraq's current government isn't an end in itself; though it's a potential means to an end. Biden's suggested dividing the country up into three largely autonomous regions, with the central government controlling currency, oil, and the military. I don't know that any other plan--including Bush's current one--has the potential to work.

 

2. I have no objection to allowing Iran to influence the process. It's their region; and the Iranians have a common religious bond with Iraq's Shiite population. If we think Iran has no business influencing Iraq, then what right do we have to do the same?

 

3. America has done quite a bit to help Israel. They're our largest recipient of foreign aid, and the per-capita numbers are truly astounding. U.S. aid to Israel has generated hatred for us throughout the Middle East. We've given Israel lots of help, and have paid a high price. I can't remember the U.S. having ever received anything in return.

 

4. The United States should seek to reduce or eliminate its presence in the Middle East. If it wasn't for oil, we could pretend that entire region of the world didn't exist--an arrangement which would be better for us and for them.

[IDBillzFan]

I gotta give you this, Molsen. You are true to your party lines.

 

Blaming all day. Hiding all night.

[molson_golden2002]

I gotta give you this, Molsen. You are true to your party lines.

 

Blaming all day. Hiding all night.

What lies would those be? And don't hide, let's hear them

[erynthered]

What lies would those be? And don't hide, let's hear them

 

 

Do you ever read anybody responses? Your absorption for reading is like a two year old. DING!

[molson_golden2002]

Do you ever read anybody responses? Your absorption for reading is like a two year old. DING!

Ya, ya. My bad, "lines" not "lies." Still, it was an inspector general's report that pointed out--rather softly considering the monumental impact of his lies--Feith's misdeeds. So blame the Democrats instead, right? I'd say that LA person is the one ignoring the truth for love of party, not me.

[erynthered]

Ya, ya. My bad, "lines" not "lies." Still, it was an inspector general's report that pointed out--rather softly considering the monumental impact of his lies--Feith's misdeeds. So blame the Democrats instead, right? I'd say that LA person is the one ignoring the truth for love of party, not me.

 

 

Its only that you rehash the same shiit. if you want to argue anything new, go ahead. Your redundancy is pathetic.

[molson_golden2002]

Its only that you rehash the same shiit. if you want to argue anything new, go ahead. Your redundancy is pathetic.

It is new, the IG report came out thursday.

[erynthered]

It is new, the IG report came out thursday.

 

 

Nothing new there.

 

What about the Iran report? Is the intelligence verified? What should we do? You digress to justify your political leanings. You're just a hack.

 

" If I knew now, What I know now " bull sh-- is getting really old.

 

Highinsight is you biggest weakness. Grow up. Looking at things from the outside looking in, is something your incapable of. Enjoy your MSNBC tonight.

 

I'm done.