Mr Rumsfeld, You Are A Liar (initial goddman screed)

w/ apologies to Will Pitt...


Iraq war not about new arms evidence: Rumsfeld
www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/0...Iraq030709

Last Updated Wed, 09 Jul 2003 17:17:08

WASHINGTON - The United States didn't declare war on Iraq because of new evidence of banned weapons, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday.

Rumsfeld said the U.S. declared war because it saw existing evidence of Iraqi arms programs in "a dramatic new light" following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

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What a load. Bush complains about revisionist history; what do you call Rumsfeld’s statements today, my friends?

HE LIED YESTERDAY. What, congress didn't have Powell's transcript in front of them? Not even the Dems? Sorry, but I'm pissed.

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From Powell’s UN presentation:

www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05...ranscript/


Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their ***efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction.****

While we were here in this council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and warheads have been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection.

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Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eye witness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.


Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, U.N. inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. ***Confirmation came later, in the year 2000.***

We know that Iraq has at lest seven of these mobile biological agent factories. The truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each. That means that the mobile production facilities are very few, perhaps 18 trucks that we know of -- there may be more -- but perhaps 18 that we know of. Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of Iraq every single day.

<Snip>
For example, Iraq ***has rebuilt key portions of the Tariq state establishment.*** Tariq includes facilities designed specifically for Iraq's chemical weapons program and employs key figures from past programs.

That's the production end of Saddam's chemical weapons business.

What about the delivery end?

I'm going to show you a small part of a chemical complex called al-Moussaid (ph), a site that Iraq has used for at least three years to transship chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field.

***In May 2002, our satellites photographed the unusual activity in this picture.**** Here we see cargo vehicles are again at this transshipment point, and we can see that they are accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or chemical weapons activity.

What makes this picture significant is that we have a human source who has corroborated that movement of chemical weapons occurred at this site at that time. So it's not just the photo, and it's not an individual seeing the photo. It's the photo and then the knowledge of an individual being brought together to make the case.

This photograph of the site taken two months later in July shows not only the previous site, which is the figure in the middle at the top with the bulldozer sign near it, it shows that this previous site, as well as all of the other sites around the site, have been fully bulldozed and graded.

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****Since 1998, his efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program*** have been focused on acquiring the third and last component, sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium.

Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.

He is so determined that he ***has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed.****

These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes, and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for.

Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.

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***Intercepted communications from mid-2000 through last summer show that Iraq front companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge rotors.**** One of these companies also had been involved in a failed effort in 2001 to smuggle aluminum tubes into Iraq.

While inspectors destroyed most of the prohibited ballistic missiles, numerous intelligence reports over the past decade, from sources inside Iraq, indicate that Saddam Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud variant ballistic missiles. These are missiles with a range of 650 to 900 kilometers.

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***One program is pursuing a liquid fuel missile that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers.*** And you can see from this map, as well as I can, who will be in danger of these missiles.

As part of this effort, another little piece of evidence, ***Iraq has built an engine test stand that is larger than anything it has ever had.***

***This photograph was taken in April of 2002. Since then, the test stand has been finished*** and a roof has been put over it so it will be harder for satellites to see what's going on underneath the test stand.
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Great job on this, darkstar.