From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

Said1

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Das Kapital
Re: RE: From Watergate to Dow

Toro said:
no1important said:
Their Beer is better than American beer. Actually most beer is better than the watered down stuff they call beer in America.

Oh c'mon. Anything that is mass produced is just "cooking beer", no matter where its produced, including that Belgian brewer Labatts and that American brewer Coors Molson.

Love the avatar!


Don't ever pass up a chance to try Sleemans. Everything they make is fantastic - c'ept for their lager, bleh!
 

Said1

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Apr 18, 2005
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Das Kapital
This article is interseting:
The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.

Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper):

The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.

Read the rest here: http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004746.php




Any thoughts, comments?
 

gordo

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Jun 18, 2005
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Said1 said:
What about the article I posted? *sniff, sniff*


Did Lucy Ramirez Find The Downing Street Memos?
The media and the Leftists have had a field day with the Downing Street memos that they claim imply that the Bush administration lied about the intelligence on WMD in order to justify the attack on Iraq. Despite the fact that none of the memos actually say that, none of them quote any officials or any documents, and that the text of the memos show that the British government worried about the deployment of WMD by Saddam against Coalition troops, Kuwait and/or Israel, the meme continues to survive.

Until tonight, however, no one questioned the authenticity of the documents provided by the Times of London. That has now changed, as Times reporter Michael Smith admitted that the memos he used are not originals, but retyped copies (via LGF and CQ reader Sapper):

The eight memos — all labeled "secret" or "confidential" — were first obtained by British reporter Michael Smith, who has written about them in The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times.
Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.

The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.


Readers of this site should recall this set of circumstances from last year. The Killian memos at the center of CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday report on George Bush' National Guard service supposedly went through the same laundry service as the Downing Street Memos. Bill Burkett, once he'd been outed as the source of the now-disgraced Killian memos, claimed that a woman named Lucy Ramirez provided them to him -- but that he made copies and burned the originals to protect her identity or that of her source.

Why would a reporter do such a thing? While reporters need to protect their sources, at some point stories based on official documents will require authentication -- and as we have seen with the Killian memos, copies make that impossible. The AP gets a "senior British official" to assert that the content "appeared authentic", which only means that the content seems to match what he thinks he knows.

This, in fact, could very well be another case of "fake but accurate", where documents get created after the fact to support preconceived notions about what happened in the past. One fact certainly stands out -- Michael Smith cannot authenticate the copies. And absent that authentication, they lose their value as evidence of anything.

Besides, as the AP report makes clear, the two governments sincerely worried about the deployment of WMD despite the allegations of those who fixate on one sentence of one memo. The latest issue coming from the memos, according to its proponents, is the alleged statement by Blair that WMD programs had not progressed. However, it also points out why 9/11 made all the difference in the approach to Iraq:

The documents confirm Blair was genuinely concerned about Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction, but also indicate he was determined to go to war as America's top ally, even though his government thought a pre-emptive attack may be illegal under international law.
"The truth is that what has changed is not the pace of Saddam Hussein's WMD programs, but our tolerance of them post-11 September," said a typed copy of a March 22, 2002 memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press and written to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

"But even the best survey of Iraq's WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile or CW/BW (chemical or biological weapons) fronts: the programs are extremely worrying but have not, as far as we know, been stepped up."


All of the Western nations had intelligence that matched with the Bush/Blair determination that Saddam had not disposed of his WMD stocks. Prior to 9/11, the Western approach of waiting Saddam out appeared adequate. After 9/11, the existence of those WMD stocks clearly was intolerable, given Saddam's involvement with terrorist groups in the past -- including hosting an al-Qaeda convention, of sorts, in 1999.

Even if these memos could be authenticated, they're still meaningless. They could only excite the kind of idiots that would hold mock impeachment hearings with four witnesses and no authority whatsoever.

UPDATE and BUMP to top: Welcome to Instapundit and The Corner readers! I'll let this ride to the top all morning today.

UPDATE II: Marc at USS Neverdock says that the story gets even more bizarre at Rawstory:

“I first photocopied them to ensure they were on our paper and returned the originals, which were on government paper and therefore government property, to the source,” he added. [...]
“It was these photocopies that I worked on, destroying them shortly before we went to press on Sept 17, 2004,” he added. “Before we destroyed them the legal desk secretary typed the text up on an old fashioned typewriter.”


Why an old-fashioned typewriter? Why not just retype them on a computer, if you've already decided not to work from the originals? It looks like an attempt to fake people into believing that the documents produced by Smith were the originals.

This story gets nuttier and nuttier.

UPDATE III: Despite what Truck says in the comments, a lack of protest from Downing Street after being asked to authenticate retyped copies of alleged minutes of secret meetings does NOT constitute verification. The same exact argument came up with the Killian memos in Rathergate and the Newsweek Qu'ran-flushing report last month. In both cases, the documents or sources turned out to be fakes. It's the reporters' job to provide verification, not simply a demurral by officials to opine on their authenticity. If that isn't obvious, then centuries of evidentiary procedure in American and English common law have gone for naught, as well as traditions of journalistic responsibility and professionalism. After all, this argument just means that reporters can type out anything they like and the burden of proof shifts from the accuser to the accused in proving them false -- hardly the process endorsed in libel and slander cases in the US, at least.

I posted what was there.

I smell Dan Rather all over this. where is he and what does he know also when did he know it.

This could sink alot of Battleships :D :D :D :D
 

jimmoyer

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This article points out that "facts", web links, proof are a really poor foundation for an opinion.

Those who use the God of UNASSAILABLE LOGIC are the least discerning users of "FACTS", web links.

And even this article proves nothing.

It will prove nothing to Bush and Blair haters.

It will prove nothing for the Bush and Blair lovers.

The partisans still remain.
 

Said1

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Das Kapital
Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
This article points out that "facts", web links, proof are a really poor foundation for an opinion.

Those who use the God of UNASSAILABLE LOGIC are the least discerning users of "FACTS", web links.

And even this article proves nothing.

It will prove nothing to Bush and Blair haters.

It will prove nothing for the Bush and Blair lovers.

The partisans still remain.

Lots of articles posted on the "memos" prove nothing, but are interesting. My intent in posting it wasn't to prove anything, I just thought it might be some more food for thought.

Just out of curiosity (I don't mean to be facetious in any way, I like a lot of your posts) how many times a day do you use the word "partisan" anyway? :)
 

jimmoyer

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LOL !! Said1 !!

It was a good article. I was indicting the PARTISANS who might read it.

And you want to know how many times a day I use that word ?

I um (sheepishly using your question as literal instead of rhetorical) well, I gotta tell ya that it probably averages 666 times a day.

I feel a song coming on...

Very distracting...

.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
 

Ocean Breeze

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Hit by friendly fire
With his polls down, Bush takes flak on Iraq from a host of critics--including some in his own party
By Kevin Whitelaw

Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is angry. He's upset about the more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers killed and nearly 13,000 wounded in Iraq. He's also aggravated by the continued string of sunny assessments from the Bush administration, such as Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remark that the insurgency is in its "last throes." "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."




In Fallujah, Americans and Iraqis are brothers in arms.



That's strikingly blunt talk from a member of the president's party, even one cast as something of a pariah in the GOP because of his early skepticism about the war. "I got beat up pretty good by my own party and the White House that I was not a loyal Republican," he says. Today, he notes, things are changing: "More and more of my colleagues up here are concerned."

Indeed, there are signs that the politics of the Iraq war are being reshaped by the continuing tide of bad news. Take this month in Iraq, with 47 U.S. troops killed in the first 15 days. That's already five more than the toll for the entire month of June last year. With the rate of insurgent attacks near an all-time high and the war's cost set to top $230 billion, more politicians on both sides of the aisle are responding to opinion polls that show a growing number of Americans favoring a withdrawal from Iraq. Republican Sens. Lincoln Chafee and Lindsey Graham have voiced their concerns. And two Republicans, including the congressman who brought "freedom fries" to the Capitol, even joined a pair of Democratic colleagues in sponsoring a bill calling for a troop withdrawal plan to be drawn up by year's end. "I feel confident that the opposition is going to build," says Rep. Ron Paul, the other Republican sponsor and a longtime opponent of the war.

Sagging polls. The measure is not likely to go anywhere, but Hagel calls it "a major crack in the dike." Whether or not that's so, the White House has reason to worry that the assortment of critiques of Bush's wartime performance may be approaching a tipping point. Only 41 percent of Americans now support Bush's handling of the Iraq war, the lowest mark ever in the Associated Press-Ipsos poll. And the Iraq news has combined with a lethargic economy and doubts about the president's Social Security proposals to push Bush's overall approval ratings near all-time lows. For now, most Republicans remain publicly loyal to the White House. "Why would you give your enemies a timetable?" asks House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "[Bush] doesn't fight the war on news articles or television or on polls."

Still, the Bush administration is planning to hit back, starting this week, with a renewed public-relations push by the president. Bush will host Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari and has scheduled a major speech for June 28, the anniversary of the handover of power to an Iraqi government from U.S. authorities. But Congress's patience could wear very thin going into an election year. "If things don't start to turn around in six months, then it may be too late," says Hagel. "I think it's that serious."

Bush's exit strategy--which depends on a successful Iraqi political process--got a boost last week when Sunni and Shiite politicians ended weeks of wrangling over how to increase Sunni representation on the constitution-writing committee. Now, however, committee members have less than two months before their mid-August deadline. And given how long it took to resolve who gets to draft the document, it's hard to imagine a quick accord on the politically explosive issues they face.


hmm.
 

Said1

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Apr 18, 2005
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Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
LOL !! Said1 !!

It was a good article. I was indicting the PARTISANS who might read it.

I just wanted to state I that I wasn't intending to defend the info, but anything's possibe eh?

And you want to know how many times a day I use that word ?

I um (sheepishly using your question as literal instead of rhetorical) well, I gotta tell ya that it probably averages 666 times a day.

I feel a song coming on...

Very distracting...

.
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I was being literal. :D

Guess your name?? Mick Jagger??
 

Ocean Breeze

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Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
Perhaps you could encourage Iraq's neighbors to stop sending in the clowns.

It was the US invasion itself that fostered this. Time to stand up and be counted .
 

Said1

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Das Kapital
Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
Perhaps you could encourage Iraq's neighbors to stop sending in the clowns.

Here's a question: Maybe that was Saddam's sole purpose was to keep the "clowns" out?
 

Said1

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Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
Of course Saddam wanted the clowns out.

He already had his own paid clowns.

Sheeeesh !!!

I know he wanted them out, but maybe that was part of the deal after the first Iraq war? I think civil war was more prominent in Iraq than many people may be willing to admit.
 

jimmoyer

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Some say that, Said1, and people point to the fact that it is already happening, but most discussions (this board included) are way too partisan to even be able to predictg the future.

What I see is the absence of a large scale all out civil war.
The absence of such, is quite amazing.

Again it depends on your bias what you see.

I give a lot of credit to one man who casts a long quiet shadow over the majority population, the Shiites' long revered man by the name of Sistani.
 

Ocean Breeze

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http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050618/COLUMNS26/506180341/1215

bush must be held accountable. .........but do the American people /gov't have the guts to do what is right?? What will it take to get them off their complacent butts??


It do make one wonder why "Americans" would accept/support a leader who can be accurately described as a "war criminal" now.

Do they as a nation have so little regard for laws, ethics , that in their minds they believe they can get away with anything they want.??-------regardless of whom they hurt, destroy, kill in the process??
 

Said1

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Apr 18, 2005
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Das Kapital
Re: RE: From Watergate to Downing Street -- Lying for War

jimmoyer said:
Some say that, Said1, and people point to the fact that it is already happening, but most discussions (this board included) are way too partisan to even be able to predictg the future.

What I see is the absence of a large scale all out civil war.
The absence of such, is quite amazing.

I tend to agree, although the insugency is quite severe, it hasn't extended to internal religious factions or to a large part of the population (that I know of).

I give a lot of credit to one man who casts a long quiet shadow over the majority population, the Shiites' long revered man by the name of Sistani.

I can't say that I've heard of him, but I do think all religious exiles were very quick to return and very organized considering the rigid control Saddam ruled Iraq with.