> > >"Did Bush say
> > >Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger?"
>
> > From the 2003 "State of the Union" address :
>
> >"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
> >significant quantities of uranium from Africa. "
>
>The CIA disbelieved these claims primarily because they know that Iraq
>has enough yellowcake uranium ore already under IAEA auspices and they
>presume that Saddam's regime could easily divert sufficient ore to
>crashstart their nuclear programme should they decide to restart it. The
>first point is unarguable but the second is a matter of judgement.
>
>The British claim is not based on the forged documents but on two
>separate pieces of intelligence, neither of which was based on the
>forged documents. The ISC looked into this issue when the fuss
>broke out and concluded that the intelligence assessment that Iraq
>had tried to negotiate the purchase of uranium was reasonable.
What the fuck? The claim was made that the answer to the question at the top of this post was "no". The answer is plainly "yes". End of story.
The accuracy of the British claim is a seperate matter. There has been a claim made that there is other intelligence evidence other than the forged documents on which it is based. But that evidence has never been made available to the public, so its existence (let alone worth) is not known to you or me. The IAEA have stated that Britain has not made any additional evidence available to it. The CIA has stated that having examined the evidence Britain holds it does not find the claim credible. The sole evidence for Iraq's nuclear program post 1998 is the purchase of aluminium tubes, which are more likely to have been used for missile casings.
> > > or "Did Bush say Iraq was an
> > >'imminent threat'?"
> >
> > From the 2003 "State of the Union" address :
> >
> >"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when
> >have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us
> >on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and
> >suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come
> >too late."
>
> >[Intended implication - the threat is imminent, but not visible.
>
>Read the first sentence again. "Some have said we must not act until
>the threat is imminent".
Read the whole paragraph again. Bush describes how a threat can be imminent but we would not know. The paragraph can be read as "the threat is imminent but not visible" and given that this is being used as justification for taking immediate action, that is the intended meaning.
> >Note also
> >the link with terrorists that remains unproven, and unaccepted by the US
> >intelligence community.
>
>Wrong. The link with Al-Qaida is unproven, the link with other terrorist
>groups is not.
Which ones? What evidence? Iraqi intelligence has performed covert operations abroad (including the attempted assassination of Bush snr) but I've yet to see evidence of Iraqi links with any terrorist organisations at all.
> >"America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country, and
> >our friends and our allies."
> >
> >["Serious and mounting" - how does this differ from "imminent"?]
>
>Serious means the situation is bad. Mounting means that it is
>worsening. Imminent means that the shit can hit the fan anytime
>now. A threat can be serious and mounting without it being
>imminent.
Take "serious and mounting" in the context of the early statement that "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions". Translation - we know its bad, we know its getting worse, and we can't know when the shit will hit the fan.
And again, this is offered as evidence justifying war. In short the threat is "imminent".
> >"...for the safety of our people and for the peace of the world, we will
> >lead a coalition to disarm him. "
>
> >["Safety of our people" - the primary justification used here for war...]
>
>And this is bad because?
This is further evidence that Bush claimed the threat was imminent. We need to go to war because Hussein is a threat to the safety of our people.
Look, the discussion started with a claim that Bush never said that Iraq was an imminent threat to America. Yet, here we have him stating that we can't know exactly how big a threat he is, that he is a big threat, that that threat is growing, and we need to go to war for the safety of our people. In short, barring minor semantic twiddling, that there is an imminent threat.
The fact that subsequent investigation has discovered that Iraq had no meaningful weapons programs, no chemical, biological, or nuclear programs at all, and no means of using them against America even if it did is a seperate argument entirely.
Cheers,
Graham
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