WMD COMMISSION REPORT: US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war

[CptStern]

....no, I'm not referring to bush


'Crazy' Iraqi spy was full of misinformation, says report

"According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a 'congenital liar' by his friends"

"According to the report, the failure of US spy agencies to scrutinise his claims are the 'primary reason' that they 'fundamentally misjudged the status of Iraq's [biological weapons] programs'. The catalogue of failures and the gullibility of US intelligence make for darkly comic reading, even by the standards of failure detailed in previous investigations. Of all the disproven pre-war weapons claims, from aluminium centrifuge tubes to yellow cake uranium from Niger, none points to greater levels of incompetence than those found within the misadventures of Curveball. "



so what can we learn from all this? the US used as their sources for justifying the invasion of iraq on a liar, murderer and terrorist (current PM Iyad Allawi) and an alcoholic described as "crazy" by his CIA handlers ...the entire population of the US galvanised to invade iraq on the word of a handful of very questionable people. No one would be that foolish, unless that is ....they just needed an excuse

 

[Direwolf]

While I disagree with your conclusions, I do find that funny as heck.
Not that I'd advocate trying to pin this on a single person either.

 

[CptStern]

thanks, all I ask is that you look at the facts and draw your own conclusions

 

[Gray Fox]

OOh thats a reliefe, I thouht they fully relied on one really dumb man's fantasy, but it seems it was this guy and not bush that gave them the info. This gives me a little hope for the intelligence agencies.

 

[Korgoth]

I wonder if him and bush personally talked things over, over a drink?

 

[CptStern]

heh the more I read up on the WMD commission report the more insane it sounds:


"The incompetence described in the report occasionally descends into farce, particularly over an Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, whose fabricated tales about mobile biological laboratories and their influence on US decision-makers were reminiscent of Graham Greene's accidental spy in Our Man in Havana. Despite warnings that he was "crazy", "a waste of time", and that he had not even been in Iraq at the time of an event he supposedly saw, his claims became the subject of almost 100 Defence Intelligence Agency reports and a focus of the National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002.

Most critically, Curveball's description of mobile laboratories provided one of the highlights of Colin Powell's address to the UN security council on February 5 2003, in which the then US secretary of state laid out the justification for the invasion

source



"Assertions that Iraq was cooking up biological agents in mobile labs to elude international inspectors and Western intelligence services -- based almost exclusively on Curveball's information -- became what the report called one of the "most important and alarming" assessments in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate cited by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in justifying the war."

source


either extremely incompetent or very cunning ....you decide.

 

[Pogrom]

This personally scares the hell out of me.

These are people that are supposed to be protecting the US, Australia etc from terrorist attacks. It honestly is stranger than fiction; I couldn't have come up with a fictional story to make the intelligence agencies look stupider.

But one has to ask the question:

Why did nobody in a position of authority think twice about the validity of this intelligence?

Wouldn't be hard.

"We believe Iraq has WMD."
"How sure are you?"
"Very sure."
"Is your source reliable?"
"Well... no. Actually, we're basing these assumptions on the word of a drunken liar who has no proof to speak of."
"Well, that's good enough for me!"

 

[Tr0n]

This personally scares the hell out of me.

These are people that are supposed to be protecting the US, Australia etc from terrorist attacks. It honestly is stranger than fiction; I couldn't have come up with a fictional story to make the intelligence agencies look stupider.

But one has to ask the question:

Why did nobody in a position of authority think twice about the validity of this intelligence?

Wouldn't be hard.

"We believe Iraq has WMD."
"How sure are you?"
"Very sure."
"Is your source reliable?"
"Well... no. Actually, we're basing these assumptions on the word of a drunken liar who has no proof to speak of."
"Well, that's good enough for me!"

Thats politics.

 

[Pogrom]

Thats politics.

That's also what scares me ;(

 

[CptStern]

I think it all ties into this somehow


from Project for the New Armerican Century (PNAC) mission statement:

"we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values

"we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."


founding members of Project for the New Armerican Century:

Donald Rumsfeld

Paul Wolfowitz

Dick Cheney

Jeb Bush

 

[Link]

War in Iraq oponents: "Keep scraping lads..." - "But sir, the bottom of the barrels about to give".

Heres a little known fact (Apparently). When Saddam surrendered after the first gulf war, he agreed to certain terms. In breaking these terms, he actually declared war on the coalition, not the other way round. Yes, it took many years after that to actually go in, but hey, once war is declared, a state of war exists till such time as a treaty is reached or someone surrenders...

 

[el Chi]

War in Iraq oponents: "Keep scraping lads..." - "But sir, the bottom of the barrels about to give".

Uh-huh, that's sort of a petty debating technique, really... I mean, I could respond with:

"Let's attack Iraq! Saddam Hussein is a threat to Western civilisation!"
"But sir, he's never threatened the West even once..."
"Erm... He's a terrorist with links to al-Qaeda!"
"But sir, he's a secular leader and al-Qaeda are fundamentalist Muslims. They hate each other..."
"Erm... He has WMDs!"
"But sir, there's very questionable evidence about that and besides, isn't it monstrously hypocritical and somewhat foolhardy for us to criticise a nation for possessing weapons that we sold to them in the first place?"
"Erm... Shut up Perkins and do as you're told."

 

[Link]

It was an, obviously over subtle, way of pointing out that most of the arguments against the war in Iraq are petty. The fact remains that Saddam effectively declared war on us, so then saying we were wrong to invade is both pointless and incorrect.

If we catch a murderer, do we say "Off you go, and don't do it again", or do we put him in jail to, at least in part, prevent him killing again? Anyone remember his (rather effective) attempts at genocide? Seems most opponents have conveniently forgotten about it...

Whichever way you care to cut and indeed slice and hack it, looking for justification, or lack thereof, for invading is unnecessary, because I have just proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was justified. He declared war. I for one am glad we didn’t just sit there and pretend it didn’t happen.

 

[Pogrom]

It was an, obviously over subtle, way of pointing out that most of the arguments against the war in Iraq are petty. The fact remains that Saddam effectively declared war on us, so then saying we were wrong to invade is both pointless and incorrect.

If we catch a murderer, do we say "Off you go, and don't do it again", or do we put him in jail to, at least in part, prevent him killing again? Anyone remember his (rather effective) attempts at genocide? Seems most opponents have conveniently forgotten about it...

Whichever way you care to cut and indeed slice and hack it, looking for justification, or lack thereof, for invading is unnecessary, because I have just proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that it was justified. He declared war. I for one am glad we didn’t just sit there and pretend it didn’t happen.

So why lie about it in the first place?

 

[Link]

Who lied? We had reason to believe they had these wmd's. Why else would Saddam throw out inspectors whose only job is to look for them? That, combined with the fact that it was an act of war is a good enough reason to invade. Note, reason, not excuse.

Sadly, the majority of the population is not intelligent to absorb such a large fact, so we had to prove it somehow, that he had them. Without invading, we had to rely on intelligence gathering, before we could go in. The fact that this turned out to be poor intelligence shows only that the intelligence services need improvement. Nobody said publicly "Our information is accurate and infallible" only that it was there. Anyway, the snippet you posted only suggests the man is an alcoholic liar. It did not say he actually was lying. Possibly he was just wrong.

 

[el Chi]

The UN inspection team, led by Hans Blix, was not thrown out by Saddam Hussein. They left because the coalition was about to invade, despite issues with the UN, questionable legality, confused information and the fact that Blix had found NOTHING.

 

[Link]

You are correct el Chi, I stand corrected. As he says saddam did not throw the weapons inspectors out of iraq as Colin Powell stated. They withdrew due to non-full-co-operation (hah, triple barreled ), which is a breech of the terms of the surrender, blah blah blah, see previous arguments, replace "threw out" with "non-full-co-operation with" (My new work of the week) and the fact that it was saddam that declared war will still stand as the only un-deniable, and come to that, relevant fact on the table.

This however, has the potential to be argued about for all time, so I ask this. Do you wait for the wasp to sting you before you kill it? I don't. You may, and such is your choice to make, but I think the basic opinion on this matter can be compared to the wasp...

 

[el Chi]

If the wasp flies very near you in a threatening manner then yes, you may try and kill it. But if it's flying passively by you, then killing it might be unnecesszary. Although this analogy is getting a bit weird now...

 

[Link]

I am the king of odd analogies . What I am getting at is that everyone has their own ideas of what the appropriate course of action is in response to a threat. Having been stung for no apparent reason by wasps on more than one occasion, I consider the appropriate course of action to be to kill them on sight.

With the whole saddam issue, given that he is a known mass murderer, I feel the best course of action in response to the threat he presented (Obstructing the inspectors, with no benefit to this action unless he wished to make WMD's) is to respond with force to the implied declaration of war, obviously an opinion shared by the people we have chosen to act on our behalf in such an event. Given that they were legally ok to do this under the terms of saddams surrender, I feel that it is wrong to try to attack them for making that decision. We elected them to make it and now we are attacking them for doing so.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, I would never try to take that away from them, but judging people on their own decisions when they can be proven to be justified, and even trying to make them look like evil decisions smacks of hypocrisy and is, imo, unfair and unjustified.

 

[Korgoth]

the thing is, your buddy told you not to smack that wasp with your bare hand and you did it anyway, and now its stinger is stuck in you.... Nobody denied the wasp could/would sting... Get what i'm saying?


(just to keep this analogy in play )

 

[Link]

I get what your saying, but its not what I was driving at. Fair enough if I was trying to swat the wasp, then I would expect to be stung. However, if it sits on the back of my mug where I can't see it and I touch it as I pick up my mug, it stings me. It does not do this out of spite, it simply does not understand the situation and responds how its instincts tell it to.

Thats fine, but if you present a threat to me, whether its because you mean to, or because you are a wasp who only knows to do that, I will squish you. As I say, its all about opinions. Many people do not kill something just because it presents a threat. I do.

 

[CptStern]

ya but you had no reason to think the wasp would sting you ..in fact you gave the wasp a far more effective stinger to kill his neighbouring bees from a rival hive, then when the bee was disobediant you set out to destroy it's hive for 12 long lean honey-less years where the young bees died at a rate of 30,000 a month. Then after all the accusations of the bee storing the effective stingers that you gave him you invaded and completely destroyed his hive to find the effective stingers which you couldnt find. Now that the original bee is long dead you are breeding a new generation of bee that will be more ...obedient so that it will never sting you again ....till he gains a will of his own, but not to worry, you're firmly entrenched in the hive, you wont let that happen again

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz swat bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[el Chi]

Besides, some people would keep the wasp in a jar with no airholes, or pin it down and tear off its wings - swat it if you must, but don't torture it.


I am actually making a genuine statement here, but it's not entirely related, except for the wasp analogy. Which is fab

 

[ALEXDJ]

i bet you there wasn't any Curveball in the first place
he is a made up character, someone for people to point the finger at

the truth is the war can not be started because of one report

just wait for another drunken, "crazy" spy to talk shit about YOUR country, so US can invade it, ha

 

[willyd]

I first heard about this on the daily show with jon stewart, and i must say this is pretty funny.

 

[Link]

ya but you had no reason to think the wasp would sting you ..

Actually, the basis for my argument is that I do have a reason to think the wasp will sting me. It is because wasps have stCoalitiong me before, without deliberate provocation.

I don't want to get into the whole "But a wasp dosen't know if your going to hurt it". It not relevent, its only an analogy. The reason it stings me is not of interest to me, only the fact that it can and will whether I intend it harm or not. This is my reason and it is reason enough.

I need a new analogy, I hate wasps and besides, with summer on the way, Im starting to feel like I'm tempting fate here....

Ok, heres one. A mad dictator drops chemical weapons on some inocennt people, right? So we go in and say, (In our best english accent )
Coalition - "Hexscuse me sir, but do you think you could stop doing that?".
So the dictator says "Opps, sorry... Ok, I promise not to play with my chemical weapons anymore". and then we say "Jolly good, see that you don't. We will leave these people here to keep an eye on you, look after them or we shall come back and spank you. And remember, no chemical weapons, ok?"

A couple of years pass

Evil dictator - "Right, I'm going to throw all my toys out of my pram and probably some dirty nappies to, so there. And your not invited to my chemical weapons factory either."
Babysitter - "You have to let us come, or we'll tell the Coalition"
Evil dictator - "Don't care, not letting you in"
Babysitter - "Right, I'm telling"

So the babysitter tells the Coalition that the dictator is playing with his chemial weapons factory again and won't let the babysitter have a go with it.

Coalition - "Right, we warned you, go to your room (6x6, metal bars on windows type room)"
Dictator - "Wahh, don't wanna"
Coalition - "Don't make me come up there!!!"
Dictator - *Pokes out toCoalitionge*
Coalition - Stomps up to dictator and drags to room by ear...

SoCoalitiond familiar? This is the war in iraq without the political crap. The analogy actually holds up. Saddam is basically a naughty child that needs to be taught to behave. He was warned, agreed to leave well enough alone and chose to disregard.

 

[kirovman]

UN - "Right, we warned you, go to your room (6x6, metal bars on windows type room)"
Dictator - "Wahh, don't wanna"
UN - "Don't make me come up there!!!"
Dictator - *Pokes out tounge*
UN - Stomps up to dictator and drags to room by ear...

Sound familiar? This is the war in iraq without the political crap. The analogy actually holds up. Saddam is basically a naughty child that needs to be taught to behave. He was warned, agreed to leave well enough alone and chose to disregard.

Wasn't the UN against the war anyway, that's why we had to pull together a coalition?

 

[Link]

Good point. Mentally replace the words UN with the word coalition in my previous post as you read it. (Or don't cos I've edited it now..)

 

[CptStern]

Ok, heres one. A mad dictator drops chemical weapons on some inocennt people, right? So we go in and say, (In our best english accent )
Coalition - "Hexscuse me sir, but do you think you could stop doing that?".
So the dictator says "Opps, sorry... Ok, I promise not to play with my chemical weapons anymore". and then we say "Jolly good, see that you don't. We will leave these people here to keep an eye on you, look after them or we shall come back and spank you. And remember, no chemical weapons, ok?"

quaint but hardly historically factual:

a mad dictator drops chemical weapons on neighbouring soldiers (supplied by it's allies who know what he's up to because they have been supplying logistical help during the war)

loud vocal powerful coalition member: "We feel that the enemy of my friend (the dictator) is the agressor and we veto the resolution to bring our friend (the dictator) to justice for crimes against humanity ..and we will continue to sell weapons to our friend


After the success of the now powerful (with allied support) dictator he turns his eyes towards problems within his own country and kills many innocents


Coalition: ....*sound of crickets*

powerful member of coalition: "we will continue to sell arms to our friend (the dictator)"

A couple of years pass

Evil dictator - "Right, I'm going to throw all my toys out of my pram and probably some dirty nappies to, so there. And your not invited to my chemical weapons factory either."
Babysitter - "You have to let us come, or we'll tell the Coalition"
Evil dictator - "Don't care, not letting you in"
Babysitter - "Right, I'm telling"

A couple of years pass ...in which the dictator is no longer the friend of the powerful Coalition member ..the coalition member has destroyed most of the dictators country's infrastructure including deliberate destruction of it's water and sanitation plants ...hundreds of thousands of children die as a result in the first 5 years alone

Evil dictator - "Your not affecting me with your sanctions, I'm a rich crazy bastard but I'll help my people in the form of rations so that I dont look so bad ...even though I couldnt care less ...but you know that ...so do your worst there's plenty of civilians to go around"

Babysitter - "meh, ...we'll continue to deny you parts necessary to rebuild your sanitation and water plants ...we want you out and someone has to pay the price"


Coalition: ......*sound of crickets*

So the babysitter tells the Coalition that the dictator is playing with his chemial weapons factory again and won't let the babysitter have a go with it

Coalition - "Right, we warned you, go to your room (6x6, metal bars on windows type room)"
Dictator - "Wahh, don't wanna"
Coalition - "Don't make me come up there!!!"
Dictator - *Pokes out toCoalitionge*
Coalition - Stomps up to dictator and drags to room by ear....

So the babysitter lies to the Coalition that the dictator has banned weapons and says it will invade to serve it's own purpose but that they'll tell people it's because of weapons ...so try to play along

Coaltion: "but...but...but"

Babysitter: "shut up and do as I say"

Coaltion: "but...but...but"

Babysitter: "sigh, cowards ...we'll kill him ourselves and take all the spoils for ourselves ...and anyone willing to lie to their populace you'll receive a slice of the pie"

SoCoalitiond familiar? This is the war in iraq without the political crap. The analogy actually holds up. Saddam is basically a naughty child that needs to be taught to behave. He was warned, agreed to leave well enough alone and chose to disregard.

Sound familiar? This is the war in iraq without the political crap. The analogy actually holds up. Saddam is basically a naughty child that needs to be taught to behave especially after he disobeyed it's patron and benefactor. He was warned even though we didnt care when he actually used his weapons on soldiers and civilians ...in fact we made money off of it and we were a great help in providing support that turned the tide in the war with the dictator's neighbour, but ...he was a nuicance and is sitting on one of the most important strategic areas in the world ...doesnt hurt it also has tons of oil ...and I like to make my friends richer ...so even though you sorta complied we're going to have to take you out cuz you're too much of a loose cannon and we can pretty much do the job we want done better than you can ...so hasta la vista

 

[Link]

Ok, so thats it with all the political crap put back in.

Whilst what you say is true, its largely irrelivent*. Whether we previously supplied weapons, or previously liked this guy is not the issue. The issue is, we told him to stop with the chemical weapons and we wanted people there to prove it to us. He blocked them, which would allow him to produce them. Whether he did or not isn't actually relevent. He agreed not to, then led us to believe he was doing it anyway.

If a man throws a punch at you, do you wait to see if he is going to pull it, or do you, being a bigger and faster man, throw your own and take him out first? Even if he is your best mate? I would.

*Please note, I am not saying this argument is irrelivent altogether, just irrelivent to the rights and wrongs of the war. The politicians can argue until they turn blue about the rights and wrongs of who we supported or didn't, but the war itself is and was undeniably justified.

PS - You get SoCoalitiond when you do a search/replace for un/coalition on a work containing the word sound. But I knew that, I just wanted to see if anyone would spot it. Honest...

 

[CptStern]

Ok, so thats it with all the political crap put back in.

Whilst what you say is true, its largely irrelivent*. Whether we previously supplied weapons, or previously liked this guy is not the issue. The issue is, we told him to stop with the chemical weapons and we wanted people there to prove it to us. He blocked them, which would allow him to produce them. Whether he did or not isn't actually relevent. He agreed not to, then led us to believe he was doing it anyway.

but you did nothing when saddam was at his worst, in fact you helped him ..why the sudden change of heart ..cant be for humanitarian reasons cuz you didnt care when you had a chance to do something about it ..oh and I truely believe they knew from the very beginning there wasnt WMD in iraq ..at least not as much as they claimed:


Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

Dick Cheney August 26, 2002


Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

George W. Bush September 12, 2002


We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003



We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.

George Bush February 8, 2003


We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.

Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003

If a man throws a punch at you, do you wait to see if he is going to pull it, or do you, being a bigger and faster man, throw your own and take him out first? Even if he is your best mate? I would.

if your mate throws a punch at you after you've repeatedly punched him you really have no right to be all that surprised when he strikes back ...especially since you've been helping him out all these years