Why Saddam lied about WMD
CBS News:
Saddam Hussein initially didn't think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen. The Iraqi dictator revealed this thinking to George Piro, the FBI agent assigned to interrogate him after his capture.This story demonstrates what a sham the Soros funded study on President Bush and his administration lying about WMD is. The media should be ashamed of promoting it. The truth is finally told by Saddam and the left is too angry to listen. The Democrats who have been claiming Bush lied should also be ashamed. If your local paper led with the AP story on the Bush lied study, they should be asked for a retraction and required to run this story.
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Piro spent almost seven months debriefing Saddam in a plan based on winning his confidence by convincing him that Piro was an important envoy who answered to President Bush. This and being Saddam's sole provider of items like writing materials and toiletries made the toppled Iraqi president open up to Piro, a Lebanese-American and one of the few FBI agents who spoke Arabic.
"He told me he initially miscalculated... President Bush’s intentions. He thought the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in 1998...a four-day aerial attack," says Piro. "He survived that one and he was willing to accept that type of attack." "He didn't believe the U.S. would invade?" asks Pelley, "No, not initially," answers Piro.
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Saddam still wouldn't admit he had no weapons of mass destruction, even when it was obvious there would be military action against him because of the perception he did. Because, says Piro, "For him, it was critical that he was seen as still the strong, defiant Saddam. He thought that [faking having the weapons] would prevent the Iranians from reinvading Iraq," he tells Pelley.
He also intended and had the wherewithal to restart the weapons program. "Saddam] still had the engineers. The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there," says Piro. "He wanted to pursue all of WMD…to reconstitute his entire WMD program." This included chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, Piro says.
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The 'Soros' study reported a series of statements by the US Administration including claims that Saddam possessed WMD. In response, you refer to Saddam's explanation that he was content to allow the world to think he may have had WMD. If I understand correctly, you claim this demonstrates the Soros study was a 'sham'. Why? The point is that the Bush Government stated as facts things that they did not know to be so. That Saddam refused to provide the counter evidence does not make that acceptable. If I claimed that Rudy Giuliani was the smartest man in the world "because he hasn't denied it" you would rightly treat me with contempt.
ReplyDeleteA first Google search led me to: http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html
"THE PRESIDENT: We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories... we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."
Is it not clear that these statements are false? If we can agree on that point, then surely either Bush lied, was lied to by his advisors, or misunderstood what his advisors told him. In light of that, why would you seek to attack the 'Soros' study and defend the Bush Administration? Surely you should be applauding anything that draws attention to Government deceit or error, especially on such a monumentally important subject.
I accept that the study may have been politically motivated. I don't know if it was, but yes, it may well have been. But that's life isn't it? Surely you wouldn't deny that right-wing think-tanks produce reports critical of the perceived left? And surely you wouldn't deny that these studies are reported by the media (Fox, Limbaugh et al?) So I believe your criticisms are entirely unwarranted.
The statements made by the President were made in good faith based on the intelligence and they were not any different from statements made by Bill Clinton based on the same intelligence. The implication of the Soros paid study is that those statements were made in bad faith. That is what is wrong and misleading about that study.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of Saddam's failure to comply with the UN resolutions and his obligations under the cease fire in the 1991 Gulf war is that was the real casus belli for the war in 2003 regardless of the statements made based on intelligence. If he had complied with his obligations there would have been no war.
What was stated as fact by the administration were things they had a good faith belief to be true. One of the ways the left has distorted the debate over the war is its attempt to redefine the word lie to include a mistake of fact.
That makes the whole Soros funded study a mockery. What the CBS story points out is why the intelligence community was mislead into giving erroneous information to the decision makers of both administrations.
well written
ReplyDeletei hope u would consider my writing too on same topic
http://phenomenalindia.blogspot.com/2011_01_04_archive.html