Tornado Alley (PROG)

[zitboy_rev_11_3]

withdrew from the action at Tora Bora in favor of letting local warlords......The mountain passes leading to Pakistan from Tora Bora were left wide open

no matter how big one's foot is, there's no way to step on all the scattering cockroaches all at once......the goal of tora bora was no more home for al qaeda......considering the type of military action it was, there's no way to get the number of troops in there, in time, to secure the border to pakistan (an easy 500 miles of relevant border to secure).......and with no agreement, there's no way to pursue those cockroaches into pakistan........always the objective seems to be helping enough for them to help themselves, which creates a delicate balance......you want the locals to be in charge, give them help, and let them be the heroes for their own country

battles will be lost, mistakes will be made, but it's the pursuit of the ultimate objective that will win in the end...........pakistan has made great progress, without one american soldier dying in that country.........and with iraq, as history bears out, liberals will be wrong (again) about the outcome

phony WMD imminent threat masquerade in which an Iranian intelligence agent - Ahmad Chalabi - was the primary source for the administrations pre-war intelligence on Iraq's supposed WMD and nuclear capabilities?

of course, if your a mainstream media fan, you haven't heard that chalabi has been cleared of all charges......regardless, iraq WAS trying to buy yellow cake, that's a fact, and joe wilson is a proven liar.......and you certainly didn't get any reporting of this testimony.......oh that's right, the liberal biased media was giving us the richard clarke show, or was joe wilson up to bat by then?

Testimony to the US Congress
by Mr. Charles Duelfer,
Director of Central Intelligence Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons
of Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs

30 March 2004

Nuclear Weapons

Likewise, in the nuclear arena, the ISG has developed information that suggests Iraqi interest in preserving and expanding the knowledge needed to design and develop nuclear weapons.

One significant effort illustrating this was a high-speed rail gun program under the direction of two senior scientists associated with Iraq’s pre-1991 nuclear weapons program. Documents from this project show that the scientists were developing a rail gun designed to achieve speeds of 2-10 kilometers per second. The ostensible purpose for this research was development of an air defense gun, but these speeds are what are necessary to conduct experiments of metals compressing together at high speed as they do in a nuclear detonation. Scientists refer to these experiments as “equation of state” measurements.

Not only were these scientists developing a rail gun, but their laboratory also contained documents describing diagnostic techniques that are important for nuclear weapons experiments, such as flash x-ray radiography, laser velocimetry, and high-speed photography. Other documents found outside the laboratory described a high-voltage switch that can be used to detonate a nuclear weapon, laser detonation, nuclear fusion, radiation measurement, and radiation safety. These fields are certainly not related to air defense.

It is this combination of topics that makes us suspect this lab was intentionally focused on research applicable for nuclear weapons development.

We continued our efforts to determine if Iraq was seeking to develop technologies for a uranium enrichment capability. Iraq’s efforts to procure high tolerance aluminum tubes were examined. Ostensibly these tubes were for small rockets, but the manufacturing tolerances specified were much higher than would normally be required for this purpose. Technical reasons for the high tolerances were explained by a number of Iraqis associated with their acquisition, but there are still a number of discrepancies to examine with regard to these tubes. Again, we need to determine what these activities mean.

Procurement

Let me begin by discussing procurement and financing, two critical areas that cut across all potential WMD efforts. The ISG has been investigating Iraq’s procurement process, sources of finance, the involvement of foreign firms, and the specific types of goods that were sought. Iraq utilized a complex and well developed procurement system hidden by an effective denial and deception strategy. By the late 1990s, Iraq, in contravention of UN sanctions, pursued the procurement of military goods and technical expertise for military capabilities.

The primary source of illicit financing for this system was oil smuggling conducted through government-to-government protocols negotiated by Iraq with neighboring countries. Money also was obtained from kickback payments made on contracts set up through the UN’s Oil for Food program.

Iraq derived several billion dollars between 1999 and 2003 from oil smuggling and kickbacks. One senior regime official estimated Iraq earned $4 billion from illicit oil sales from 1999 to March 2003. By levying a surcharge on Oil for Food contracts, Iraq earned billions more during the same period.

This was revenue outside UN control and provided resources the regime could spend without restriction. It channeled much of the illicitly gathered funds to rebuild Iraq’s military capabilities through the Military Industrialization Commission, the MIC. MIC worked with the Iraqi Intelligence Service to establish front companies in Iraq and other countries to facilitate procurement.

The budget of MIC increased nearly 100 fold from 1996 to 2003, with the budget totaling $500 million in 2003. Most of this money came from illicit oil contracts. Iraq imported banned military weapons and technology and dual-use goods through Oil for Food contracts. Companies in several countries were involved in these efforts. Direct roles by government officials are also clearly established.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/2004/tenet_testimony_03302004.html

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