ABC Nightline tonight -- Dubya and his SOTU speech lies

Nightline Daily E-Mail
July 9, 2003


TONIGHT'S FOCUS: It's hard to remember when a single reference in a long State of the Union speech has taken on a life of its own nearly six months later. But this isn't just any reference. In January, before a joint session of Congress, the president claimed that Saddam Hussein had tried to acquire uranium for nuclear weapons from Africa. Now the administration has conceded that claim was, indeed, based on false information. And some in Congress have pounced on that admission to renew calls for an inquiry on how the White House used prewar intelligence on Iraq. It's become the issue that won't go away.

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The latest flare-up began over the weekend when Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the former charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, wrote in the New York Times that he was sent by the CIA to the African nation of Niger to investigate the allegation that Saddam was buying yellowcake uranium in the late 1990's. Wilson says he reported back to intelligence officials, well before the president's State of the Union speech, that the story was bogus. But somehow, the false information made it into a heavily vetted address.

Why was the president allowed to misspeak in the lead up to war with Iraq on such a crucial issue? Did he manipulate intelligence to help pave the way for invading Iraq? That remains a mystery. But today as President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld were half a world away from each other -- in South Africa and Washington respectively -- each was pressed on the truth behind that justification for war with Iraq. The president sidestepped the specific issue of the false claim in his State of the Union address, saying he is "absolutely confident" in his decision to remove Saddam from power. And the defense secretary told a Senate committee, "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit" of weapons of mass destruction. He continued, "We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9-11."

Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy has weighed in with some tough language: "It's bad enough that such a glaring blunder became part of the president's case for war. It's far worse if the case for war was made by a deliberate deception. It's more important than ever that Congress conduct a real investigation into the use of intelligence sources as a justification for war. The American people deserve to know whether the President is making war and peace decisions based on reliable information. We cannot risk American lives because of shoddy intelligence or outright lies."

So tonight, Chris Bury has the latest on the lingering questions on the justifications for war with Iraq and a look at how the search for the weapons of mass destruction has been handled in Iraq. Is it possible that those materials could be in the hands of those who don't have the best interests of the United States at heart?

Chris will also check in with three of ABC's correspondents tracking the issue of who knew what and when they knew it: John Cochran, traveling with the president in South Africa, Martha Raddatz at the Pentagon and Linda Douglass on Capitol Hill.

We hope you'll join us.

Richard Harris and the Nightline Staff
ABCNEWS Washington bureau

"It's hard to remember when a single reference in a long State of the Union speech has taken on a life of its own nearly six months later."

:bounce:

I thought for sure I'd see a transcript here by now.

It'll put a backwater internet fraud story about the lies to sleep real quick!

Wilkinson's story was subterfuge to what WILSON said.

Now we've got two people saying they knew and lied. I'm ready for a 'Trifecta.' I can't believe this is finally happening. I was beginning to be afraid for the future. This is all over the news. It's NOT going away. This is going to be great.

accuracy. Thanks it's on now. Here we go!

Undergroundrailroad

I LOVE nightline, this is going to be good!!

faith-based intelligence

starting now

CIA says they knew uranium story was bogus before the SOTU speech! Nightline is pulling no punches.

want to bet they fold up like the little girly-men they really are?

good thing Koppel isn't there.

recall how he just fellATED Bush during his fawning one on ones during the selection campaign

no respect for him, whatsoever

never forget, one of his closest friends:

Kissinger

These 'journalists' on the story can't fucking put 2 and 2 together. They say in the first segment that Wilson knew it was bullshit in February of 2002. Then they say Powell didn't use it on Feb 5 2003, though bush had used in sotu the week before. "They didn't know it was a fraud yet." DID ANY OF THEM WATCH WILSON IN THE FIRST SEGMENT???????

It's a start...this thing can snowball...give it time...

Never mind, they are taking the easy way out...ohhh, the scientists are scared to talk...BLAH!!

I thought this was really headed somewhere. Bury wimped out. Damn!

They really tried hard to make lame excuses for bush. Everybody else may have known what was going on. But bush certainly did not! Whores! All of them!

was that the scientist were afraid of the US investigators because they were treating them like criminals.

Fury's closing thought he said he wanted to recap and laid out the inconsistancies in the WH story. Then he said the Republicans in Congress are calling it "much ado about nothing." And he finished the closing thought by saying, we haven't heard the last of this yet.

I was disappointed that they let those puppets go on with the WH company line for so long. I wonder what kind of pressure Fury and Koppel are under from the network.

I think Nightline is just getting warmed up. You should have seen Fury when he said we haven't heard the last of this. Determined.

I know that some folks missed the finale. IkeWarnedUs reported accurately.

This story's growing real legs.

among other things, he uses this quote from CRAZYstupidreligosofanatic James Inhofe:

"an absurd, media-driven diversionary tactic, and I've never seen the likes of it before."

Diversion from WHAT, you frickin LOON?

never seen the likes of it before?

was he born after the impeachment?

you can tell how nervous they are by the level of their rhetoric.

it's starting to look like the skat hasn't even BEGUN to hit the fan.

sure hope I'm right

Like what happened to Clinton for eight years?

Conan had that segment where he had a still pic of Dr. Death (DD) with the moving mouth and Conan was talking to him about the trip to Africa. DD said he is proposing the top 1% of Africans get a tax cut. Conan told him that was the stupidest thing he's ever said. He told Conan wait he has two more years to go. He said he didn't know there were so many Aferkan murkans in African. Conan said there werent. DD laughed and said something about being PC. All in al...Very funny.

Applauding.

:hi: listening now .

Just listened, thank you Wonk.

Paraphrase-

Q: When did you find out the Niger documents were fake?
Rumsfeld: In the recent days when all this has been coming out.
Q: So did you know before or after the President's SOTU?
Rummy: I just answered the question.


NO YOU DIDN'T YOU LYING SACK OF S***!!!!

Edited for punctuation.

Bury: "Linda Douglass, is this going to have any traction?"

LD: if the dems were in, there'd be an IMMEDIATE investigation.
"but it is interesting to note that the democrats are being fairly cautious in the questions they're raising, and in their criticisms." Daschle wants an investigation. "none of them yet are willing to go as far as to say that there was anything intentionally done YET."

quoted sections are almost word for word

they're AFRAID, cause he's so popular!

sure fazed the nutbags under Clinton, didn't it

The allegations Hussein Kamel made is common knowledge here at DU, but the mainstream media seems willfully ignorant on the subject. The narrative that the Kamel testimony supports is quite plausible, and there is no reason the American public shouldn't at least be able make up their own minds on its validity.

Americans right now are only aware of three possible explanation for the WMD question:
The weapons are either still hidden,
they were sent across the border with terrorists,
or they destroyed right before the war.

This is a primary reason why they still support the rationale for war.
They believe that the Iraq "crisis" started because of the confirmed existence of Iraq's WMD.
They do not know that the WMD's were destroyed before bush was even appointed.
They are unaware of the PNAC and its agenda.
And thus, they are still unaware that most of the "intelligence" reported to them was based on outright blatant lies.


(Reposted from LBN due to locked thread. oops :shrug: )

....at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=5264&mesg_id=5264&page=3

didn't you see Koppel climb all the way up *s ASS during the selection campaign?

he did a two parter, IIRC, and it was as nauseating a puff piece as anything Chrisycophant Matthews ever did.

I haven't been able to stomach him for five seconds since that. I turn the channel almost as fast when I see him as I do when Hannity comes on.

please disabuse me if he's done anything in the last three years to disabuse me of this impression.

just remember, though

Kissinger

Andrea is married to the guy who wrote the book on 'The Coming War in Iraq'--is his last name Pollack???? He is described as being a "Middle East expert."

Pollack has changed his tune a bit, I think...but before the war, he was pushing the 'get rid of Saddam now' message if I recall correctly...

Koppel has a big house and is fighting with his neighbors about it...he's rich and has gotten journalistically "fat"...
I don't trust him at all....

Check the timeline. Bush uses the phony info in his SOTU address in January 2003, info that bush knew was false 10 months earlier, in March 2002.

Today, bush tries to drag Clinton into it by stating that Clinton raided Iraq "in 1998 based on the exact same evidence." Well, maybe Clinton's team didn't make such a good effort to disprove the info back in '98, BUT Cheney DID investigate the info and found out it was false 4 YEARS AFTER CLINTON'S RAID, ie: BEFORE the 2003 SOTU!

So what was shrub saying? That two wrongs make a right? Or that the fact that a Dem president acted on phony evidence means it's OK for a repig to do it as well, even if the repig knows ABSOLUELY that the info is bogus? OR, does bush think that Clinton is so smart - and slick - that he should have been able to time travel from 1998 to 2002 to find out if the info was bogus or accurate?

but it was a mistake for * and his cronies to use intelligence that old (and we all know * knew it was fake anyway...)

for him (*) to keep tap dancing around this issue"

and

"It is clear we have not seen the end of this story"



Ah, sweet, sweet music.

who said the former, please?

I think it was Martha Raddatz. If not, it was Linda Douglass that stated the former.

she thinks the dems are wimps, and seems to like it that way

Raddatz has been fairly resolute in past appearances, and seems to have some SPINE, unlike almost all the Achordate Party

I like that, Do you mind if I use it?

Jeremy

somebody finally took notice......been using that for over a month

:kick:

Was quite pleased to see this as their topic last night...