Perseid wrote:

After Much Chewing of Cud and Cogitation, "Steven Douglas"
<dsteven@flashmail.com> Spat the Words

Perseid wrote:

After Much Chewing of Cud and Cogitation, "Steven Douglas"
<dsteven@flashmail.com> Spat the Words

Perseid wrote:

After Much Chewing of Cud and Cogitation, "Steven Douglas"
<dsteven@flashmail.com> Spat the Words

JTEM wrote:

Steven Douglas wrote:

Yes, I know. But then Saddam refused to
cooperate with the inspectors.

I'll let you in on something. Perhaps it will lend you
insight into people like me, help you to understand
where we're coming from, and why we keep clashing
with you. Who knows? Maybe you can even agree
with us on a lot of things, and incorporate that into
your comments...

Way back in 2002 we witnessed Bush take Iran,
erase the 'n' and replace it with a 'q' in order to
arrive at "Iraq."

Get it? Bush turned "Iran" into "Iraq."

Was Iraq trying to buy uranium from Nigeria?

No. But Iran was.

Actually, the British government stands by its claim that
Saddam tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Last I heard that was debunked as a myth. You could perhaps
post a pre-2003 article to try to validate your claim (of course,
the world learned in 2005 that the niger connection was boloney).

Can you post documentation that proves that?

Provide evidence that something doesn't exist ?

You said the world learned in 2005 that the Niger connection was
baloney. What, exactly, did the world learn in 2005?

That the Niger connection was baloney.

Show me.

My not providing any evidence is the best evidence you'll find
that the yellow-cake connection didn't exist.

Just tell me what the world learned in 2005 that showed Saddam did
not *try* to purchase uranium from Niger?

The world learned in 2005 that Saddam did not *try* to purchase
uranium from Niger (sorry, you asked WHAT the world learned in
2005).

False.

As I recall, the 911 Commission report indicated there was no
Niger yellow cake purchase by Saddam in the works. You can
google that with '911 commission yellow cake'... you'll get
about 8000 articles for consumption.

Bush didn't say there was a yellow cake purchase. He said Saddam
*tried* to buy uranium. Now what did the world learn in 2005 that
debunks Bush's statement that British Intelligence learned Saddam
*tried* to buy uranium?

The evidence Bush used to support his 'yellow cake' claim, those
documents, were shown to be forgeries in 2005, by an independent
Italian investigation. You can google this if you need more.

False. British Intelligence stands by its claim that Saddam tried to
buy uranium from Niger. They reached that conclusion before the forged
documents appeared.

[Washington Post excerpt] Wilson's assertions -- both about what he
found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the
information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate
intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking
intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said,
bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to
Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the
CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of
the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in
President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address. [end excerpt]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html?

er=emailarticle

Interesting that prior to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings,
Wilson wrote an opinion article for the New York Times in which he told
of his journey to Niger:

WILSON (in an excerpt from NY Times, July 2004): "I spent the next
eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people:
current government officials, former government officials, people
associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to
conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever
taken place."

Notice he referred to a *transaction* instead of the possibility Saddam
had *sought* uranium.

WILSON (another excerpt from the NYT op-ed): "Then, in January,
President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about
Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a
friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the
president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not
borne out by the facts as I understood them."

But Bush hadn't claimed a *transaction* had taken place, only that "The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In the Butler Report,
British Intelligence continues to stand by their intelligence, and says
Bush was "well founded" to have quoted it.

Later, of course, after the Senate Intelligence Committee Report,
Wilson appears to correct himself in his letter to the Intelligence
Committee:

WILSON (in his letter to the Intelligence Committee): "I never claimed
to have 'debunked' the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from
Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents
that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not
occur."

There's that word "transaction" again. According to his own words, it
appears Wilson never actually "debunked" Bush's sixteen words in the
State of the Union address.

Washington Post headline: Book Names Iraqi in Alleged '99 Bid to Buy
Uranium
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 30, 2004

[excerpt] It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed
Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who
approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to
discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to
buy uranium.

That's according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador
who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that
Iraq had been trying to buy enriched "yellowcake" uranium. Wilson wrote
that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this
January, when he talked again with his Niger source. [end excerpt]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54640-2004Apr29?

r

And there's this: "Two intelligence investigations show Bush had plenty
of reason to believe what he said in his 2003 State of the Union
Address."

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html