Replies to post #15219 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[sarals]

Excellent article sarai...

Blix felt that this arrangement was justified because U.S. intelligence services could not be trusted to tell the truth about their information. U.S. intelligence about Iraqi atomic weapons development and mobile laboratories had proved false.

"Consider the case of the production of contracts for a presumed Iraqi purchase of enriched uranium from Níger," Blix said. "This was a crude lie. All false. The information was provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA) by the U.S. intelligence services. As for the mobile laboratories, in attempting to verify the data that was passed on to us by the Americans, we only found some trucks dedicated to the processing and control of seeds for agriculture."

If we truly had solid info about WMD in Iraq, it would have been found by now. Sure sounds like they were trumping it up all along.

[BullNBear52]

U.S. Wants Long-Term Access to Iraqi Bases, Paper Says
Sat Apr 19, 7:11 PM ET Add Politics to My Yahoo!



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is planning a long-term military relationship with the new government of Iraq (news - web sites) that would give the Pentagon (news - web sites) access to military bases in the region, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

A Pentagon spokesman told Reuters he had no information on the report.


The Times online edition quoted U.S. military officials as saying they hoped to maintain four bases in Iraq -- one at the international airport near Baghdad, one at Tallil near Nassiriya in the south, one at an isolated airstrip in the western desert along an old oil pipeline that runs to Jordan, and one at the Bashur air field in the Kurdish north.


The U.S. military already uses the bases to support operations against remnants of the old government, to deliver supplies and relief aid, and for reconnaissance patrols.


As the invasion force turns over control to a new Iraqi government, Pentagon officials expect to gain access to the bases in the event of a future crisis, the newspaper said.


"There will be some kind of a long-term defense relationship with a new Iraq, similar to Afghanistan (news - web sites)," it quoted a senior administration official as saying. "The scope of that has yet to be defined -- whether it will be full-up operational bases, smaller forward operating bases or just plain access."


The United States is aware that the growing American presence in the Middle East and Southwest Asia invites charges of empire-building and might create new targets for terrorists, the newspaper said.


And the Pentagon has begun to shrink its military presence in the region.


But since Sept. 11, 2001, there has been a concerted diplomatic and military effort to win permission for U.S. forces to operate from the formerly Communist nations of Eastern Europe, across the Mediterranean, throughout the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, and across Central Asia, from the periphery of Russia to Pakistan's ports on the Indian Ocean.


"The attacks of Sept. 11 changed more than just the terrorism picture," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "On Sept. 11, we woke up and found ourselves in Central Asia. We found ourselves in Eastern Europe as never before, as the gateway to Central Asia and the Middle East."

Wolfie gets his wish! lol.

[BullNBear52]

We will find them even if we have to import them from NJ. j/k

[Tom K]

Smoking Gun:

NY TIMES
Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/international/worldspecial/21CHEM.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5006&am...