Bush administration knew Iraq had no WMD’s

Posted on December 27, 2012 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Tyler Drumheller, now-retired CIA officer, appears on 60 Minutes to talk about the Bush Administration’s phony, manufactured “intelligence” that they used as the justification to invade Iraq.

Treason, anyone?

From daily News Line in Britain:

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Bush, Cheney and Rice were personally told that Iraq had no WMDs

THE US ThinkProgress website has published the text of the ‘60 Minutes’ TV interview with former CIA official Tyler Drumheller who revealed that in October 2002 a very highly placed Iraqi government official revealed that Iraq had no wmds and that Bush, Cheney, and Rice were personally told this information.

In October 2002, the CIA had made, what it termed, a major intelligence breakthrough on Iraq’s nuclear programme.

Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister made an agreement to reveal Iraq’s military secrets to the CIA. Tyler Drumheller was in charge of the operation and was questioned on ‘60 Minutes’ by Ed Bradley.

The transcript shows that Drumheller said: ‘This was a very high inner circle of Saddam Hussein, someone who would know what he was talking about.’

Bradley: You knew you could trust this guy?’

Drumheller: We continued to validate him the whole way through.

Bradley: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

Drumheller: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice.

Bradley: And at that meeting?

Drumheller: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

Bradley: And what did this high level source tell you?

Drumheller: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction programme.

Bradley: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active programme for weapons of mass destruction?

Drumheller: Yes.

Bradley: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

Drumheller: No doubt in my mind at all.

Bradley: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

Drumheller: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

Bradley: Drumheller expected the White House to ask for more information from the Iraqi foreign minister. He was taken aback by what happened.

Drumheller: The group that was dealing with preparations for the Iraq war came back and said they’re no longer interested. And we said, Well, what about the intel? And they said, Well, this isn’t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.

Bradley: And if I understand you correctly, when the White House learned that you had this source from the inner circle of Saddam Hussein, they were thrilled with that.

Drumheller: The first we heard, they were. Yes.

Bradley: But when they learned what it was that he had to say, that Saddam did not have the capability to wage nuclear war, weapons of mass destruction?

Drumheller: They stopped being interested in the intelligence.

Bradley: The White House declined to respond to Drumheller’s account of Naji Sabri’ s role, but Secretary of State Rice has said that Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister-turned-US spy, was just one source, and therefore his information wasn’t reliable.

Drumheller: They certainly took information that came from single sources on uranium, on the yellowcake story and on several other stories that had no corroboration at all, and so you can’t say you only listen to one source, because on many issues they only listened to one source.

Bradley: So you’re saying that if there was a single source and that information from that source backed up the case they were trying to build, then that single source was okay, but if it didn’t, then the single source was not okay because he couldn’t be corroborated.

Drumheller: Unfortunately, that’s what it looks like.

…

Recently Mike Barker made a Freedom of Information request to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office [in Britain] in relation to two letters written by Sabri.

Dated 2 September 2012 it asked to ‘Please confirm these extracts from two letters from Dr Naji Sabri, Minister for Foreign Affairs under President Saddam Hussein, sent to Kofi Annan Secretary General to the UN.

‘Letter dated 11 June 2002 from the Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General.

‘On instructions from my Government, I have the honour to transmit to you, enclosed herewith, a letter dated 11 June 2002 from Mr Naji Sabri, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq, concerning threats by the United States of America to use its nuclear capability against a number of States, including Iraq.

‘I should be grateful if you would have this letter and its annex circulated as a document of the Security Council.

‘(Signed) Mohammed A. Aldouri.’

The letter stated: ‘Secretary-General

‘On 10 March 2002 United States newspapers leaked information on a confidential report by the United States Department of Defense (the Pentagon) entitled “Re-evaluation of the nuclear situation”, in which it is stated that the Administration of President George W Bush had ordered the Department of Defense to prepare contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against China, Iraq, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic, and that the Department of Defense had submitted the report to the Senate on 8 January 2002. Later, senior United States Administration officials confirmed the information in the report
‘(Signed) Naji Sabri’

The second letter stated: ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Iraq’

September 16, 2002.’

‘Mr. Kofi Annan,

‘The Secretary General of the United Nations

‘Dear Secretary-General, held in your office in New York on 14 and 15 September 2002, with the participation of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States. . .

‘I am pleased to inform you of the decision of the Government of the Republic of Iraq to allow the return of the United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq without conditions.

‘The Government of the Republic of Iraq has responded, by this decision, to your appeal, to the appeal of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, as well as those of Arab, Islamic and other friendly countries.

‘The Government of the Republic of Iraq has based its decision concerning the return of inspectors on its desire to complete the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions and to remove any doubts that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction…

‘This decision is also based on your statement to the General Assembly on 12 September 2002 that the decision by the Government of the Republic of Iraq is the indispensable first step towards an assurance that Iraq no longer possesses weapons of mass destruction and, equally importantly, towards a comprehensive solution that includes the lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iraq and the timely implementation of other provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 687(1991).

‘To this end, the Government of the Republic of Iraq is ready to discuss the practical arrangements necessary for the immediate resumption of inspections.

‘In this context, the Government of the Republic of Iraq reiterates the importance of the commitment of all Member States of the Security Council and the United Nations to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Iraq, as stipulated in the relevant Security Council resolutions and article (II) of the Charter of the United Nations.

‘I would be grateful if you bring this letter to the attention of the Security Council members.

‘Please accept, Mr Secretary-General the assurances of my highest consideration.

‘Dr Naji Sabri

‘Minister of Foreign Affairs

‘Republic of Iraq’

While Iraq wanted peace, the US and the UK were determined to go to war and commenced the destruction of Iraq and its infrastructure shortly afterwards, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and turning millions into refugees.

Source of the Iraqi WMD Claims Comes Clean (ritholtz.com)
Lie by Lie: A Timeline of How We Got Into Iraq (kaystreet.wordpress.com)

Condoleezza Rice defends Bush torture policy

Posted on May 6, 2009 by petrel41

This April 2009 video from the USA is called Rice: Bush Authorized Torture.

Inspiration: Condoleezza Rice Defends Bush Torture Policy Again, To Grade School Student.

A Justice Department draft report produced under Bush opposing criminal prosecution of government lawyers who justified torture has been embraced by the Obama administration: here.

A memo released Wednesday lists 40 secret briefings for members of Congress on the use of “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”—in plain words, torture. Republicans have used the memo to indict Democrats for complicity in these criminal practices: here.

Rutgers historian Rudy Bell leads protest against Condoleezza Rice speaking at commencement: here.

Campus Activists Shut Down Condoleezza Rice Speech At Rutgers: here.

Last Saturday, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she would not deliver the May 18 commencement speech to the Rutgers University graduating class of 2014. For months, students and faculty at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, had mounted a protest campaign against Rice’s invitation to be commencement speaker: here.

US Bush administration, 935 lies about Iraq

Posted on January 24, 2008 by petrel41

380

This video from the USA is called WMD LIES – Bush Cheney Rumsfeld etc. – THE ULTIMATE CLIP.

From the Center for Public Integrity in the USA:

False Pretenses

Following 9/11, President Bush and seven top officials of his administration waged a carefully orchestrated campaign of misinformation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

By Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.

The decline of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Posted on September 6, 2007 by petrel41

In this video from the USA, Representative ‘Henry Waxman points out Condoleezza Rice’s “recollection” problem’ about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq.

From British weekly The New Statesman, by Andrew Stephen:

The fall of Condi

06 September 2007

The US secretary of state was feted as “brilliant” and “gifted”, but her tenure is now acknowledged as a disastrous failure.

How things change. It was less than three years ago that the British embassy here put on a ludicrously lavish extravaganza to mark the 50th birthday of the person whom they wrongly considered to be the most powerful woman in the world. “Dr” Condoleezza Rice, then George W Bush’s disastrously inept national security adviser and now his equally feckless secretary of state, walked into the ambassador’s residence and gasped when she was met by more than a hundred guests lining the curved Lutyens double staircase, applauding fervently and singing “Happy Birthday to You”.

The British ambassador, Sir David Manning, had thought of everything with his team: much to the relief of the woman who had arrived in slacks and a suede jacket, thinking she was going out for dinner with her aunt, Manning and his staff had obtained her measurements beforehand and were able to whisk her away so that she could change into a scarlet ballgown, specially made for the occasion by her favourite designer, Oscar de la Renta. Her very own hairdresser, whom the embassy had also thoughtfully provided, snipped away. And the honoured guest finally joined the throng as Van Cliburn, considered (again wrongly) to be America’s greatest pianist, hammered out the national anthem.

The full extent of the Iraq catastrophe was already beginning to dawn on most of Washington, but the British had always been peculiarly bewitched by Rice – dating back to pre-invasion days when Manning, then Tony Blair’s foreign policy adviser at 10 Downing Street, talked to her practically every day over the transatlantic phone line. Sir Christopher Meyer, Manning’s immediate predecessor, could hardly contain himself when he described Rice a year later in his book DC Confidential: “Extraordinarily gifted . . . can play the piano to a professional standard . . . fine ice-skater . . . brilliant academic career.”

This British lovefest, and the resulting mis calculation of both the abilities and importance of Condoleezza Rice, now seem thoroughly emblematic, in a tragicomic kind of way, of what George W Bush – via the lips of Rory Bremner, I have to say – describes as the Bush-Blair “error”. The British rightly sussed out that Rice was closer personally to Bush than anybody else in the administration. After all, she spent weekends at Camp David and watched football with him, didn’t she? True, very true, but the British government was not sufficiently plugged in to Washington to realise that the Bush administration was hopelessly dysfunctional even before it moved into the White House in January 2001, so much so, that proximity to Bush was virtually valueless from the very beginning.

Flailing around

Bush adopted Rice – black, and a woman – as a kind of mascot for his administration. He is genuinely fond of her, but that doesn’t mean he has ever paid any serious attention to what his inexperienced appointee has had to say. He always listened much more closely to hugely experienced Washington infighters such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom considered foreign policy to be part of their portfolios. As national security adviser, Rice flailed around desperately in the middle, letting both men trample all over her, and took command of US foreign policy away from Colin Powell, theoretically Bush’s secretary of state, and his deputy, Richard Armitage. “The calamitous consequences [of this] are likely to be felt for years to come,” says Zbigniew Brzezinski, US national security adviser himself from 1977-81.

Rumsfeld update: here.

Rice and Lebanon update, 1 November 2010: here.

USA: not even wasps like Bush’s Secretary of State Rice

Posted on July 14, 2007 by petrel41

This video from the USA is called Cicada Killer Wasp tending her burrow.

In the USA, not even her own diplomats like George W. Bush‘s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

They are definitely not the only ones.

Associated Press reports:

‘Killer’ Wasps Menace State Department

BY MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – As if the insurgency in Iraq and the fight against terrorism wasn’t enough, U.S. diplomats are now struggling with a new threat: menacing “killer” wasps that have infested areas around the State Department’s headquarters.

Large numbers of the fearsome looking insects, which can grow to about two inches, are congregating in the vicinity of State’s Harry S. Truman building and causing distress to employees, according to an internal memorandum obtained by The Associated Press.

These are ‘cicada killer’ wasps, which, despite their somewhat alarming appearance and name, are generally not aggressive and do not pose a threat to humans,” said the notice, which was distributed on Thursday in a bid to ease fears.

“Almost all of the wasps flying around the nesting areas are males, which typically do not sting unless disturbed during mating,” it says. “The female wasps prey on cicadas and are unlikely to bother passers-by unless directly threatened.”

The notice, which includes a photo of a typical wasp, points employees who have additional concerns to the Web site of the University of Kentucky entomology department for details about the cicada killers and their mating habits.

However, that Web site is unlikely to calm the diplomats’ nerves, inasmuch as it notes that both males and females will attack humans when bothered during mating season which runs through the summer months.

More Rice here.

Yellow jacket wasps: here. And here.

Big wasps’ nest in the Netherlands: here.

Constance “Connie” Rice vs. Condoleezza “Condi” Rice (darkactsbible.wordpress.com)
Conservationist Scott Tucker Explains How Wasps Are Important (prweb.com)

USA: Condoleezza Rice in Chevron-Saddam Hussein corruption scandal

Posted on May 9, 2007 by petrel41

Condoleeza Rice oil tanker

From Jeff Ballinger’s blog in the USA:

Condi Snoozed While Chevron Paid Off Saddam …

Near the end of her [Condoleezza Rice‘s] decade on Chevron’s board (she joined it in 1991 while a professor at Stanford University), the corporation cooked up the very responsible-sounding “The Chevron Way to a Strong Board.”

As chairman of the “Public Policy Committee,” she should have been tuned in to the open secret of kickbacks being paid to Saddam starting in June 2000 (everyone in the industry knew, according to investigators quoted in this morning’s International Herald Tribune).

While she left the board to head the National Security Council seven months later, there was plenty of time to keep Chevron from buying millions of barrels of crude from Iraq and sending around $20 million to Saddam’s private accounts and “pet projects” like aiding Russian whacko bigot, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

In this video, Rumsfeld greets Saddam Hussein.

“The Chevron Way to a Strong Board”, after all, emphasized “ensuring that management and the CEO lay the company’s problems out on the table,” according to CEO at the time, Kenneth Derr.

Sounds really thoughtful and, like most Corporate Social Responsibility blather, aimed at concrete problems.

Problem is, even the top officials can be faked out or lack interest in flagging the most blatant acts of cupidity.

Chevron will pay around $25 million to settle the charges – an amount the company will recoup hundreds of times over if the Iraq oil law goes forward with Production Sharing Agreements in the legislation.

In a more just world, such a spectacular failure of “Corporate Social Responsibility” would occasion a spate of investigative reports about how other corporations (shoe, apparel, electronics, toys, etc.) are cheating workers or abusing the environment while pledging that contractors are “clean” and “green.”

Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush: here.

Susan Rice is attacked by the same conservatives who defended Condoleezza Rice: Editorial (nj.com)
Constance “Connie” Rice vs. Condoleezza “Condi” Rice (darkactsbible.wordpress.com)
Khosla Ventures and Condoleezza Rice’s firm: A “strategic relationship” (nextlevelofnews.com)
Susan Rice, Condi Rice and Republican hypocrisy (dailykos.com)
Obama Invites Syrian Rebel Leader Who Praised Saddam for “Terrifying the Jews” to Washington DC (genomega1.wordpress.com)
John McCain Supported Condi Rice After Massive Intelligence Failure (thinkprogress.org)

USA: will Condoleezza Rice talk about ‘African uranium for Iraq’ hoax scandal?

Posted on April 22, 2007 by petrel41

Bush apologists in the United States media, cartoon

From the New York Daily News in the USA:

Come talk to us, Condi … or we’ll make you!

NEWS WIRE SERVICES

Saturday, April 21st 2007, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Rice doesn’t need to tell Congress what she knows about President Bush’s claims Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa, because “the questions … have been answered,” her legal staff said yesterday.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, threatened to subpoena Rice if she does not agree to appear before the committee.

Waxman wants to know what Rice knows about the claim President Bush made in his January 2002 state of the union speech – later discredited – that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.

“I hope we can work together over the next week to schedule a voluntary appearance by you before the committee,” Waxman wrote to Rice on Tuesday.

“That would eliminate the need for the use of any compulsory process.” …

Waxman also threatened yesterday to subpoena former Bush chief of staff Andrew Card, whom the committee wants to talk to about the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity to the media.

If Card can chat about it on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” then he can talk about it with Congress, Waxman said.

White House counsel Fred Fielding has declined to let Card testify.

“Mr. Fielding’s position appears to be that it is appropriate for you to discuss these matters on ‘The Daily Show’ but not before a congressional committee,” Waxman wrote to Card yesterday.

“You will not be surprised to learn that I take a different view of this matter.”

UK: pro peace protests against Condoleezza Rice

Posted on January 5, 2007 by petrel41

Rice, queen of halloween, cartoon

From the Google cache.

UK: pro peace protests against Condoleezza Rice

Date: 3/30/06 at 2:11PM

Mood: Looking Playing: War, by Edwin Starr

George W Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is not welcome in England.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported:

Demonstrators shouted “Condoleezza Rice go home” as she entered the school through a side entrance with the Foreign Secretary.

Outside the school, mother of five Rabiya Adam, 33, said the US Secretary of State was not welcome in her home town.

“When I found out she was coming here to speak to our children, I didn’t want her to preach what she did in Iraq.”

Arif Waghat, 47, a retail manager, said his 15-year-old daughter and son, 14, were at the maths and computing college today.

He said: “I’m not going to let a couple of warmongers deprive my children of their education.

My opposition is to the war. I’m basically a pacifist.”

Inside the school Ms Rice met pupils including 16-year-old Jabbar Khan.

He said she had told him she was not enjoying the cold and cloudy English weather.

As Ms Rice left the school police prevented protesters following her.

Hanif Dudhuala, a member of the community forum at Pleckgate, said: “We have been told that Ms Rice has said that she would like to talk to protesters.

“If that’s true, I would ask Ms Rice to turn her words into actions so we can raise our concerns with her.”

From ABC (USA):

One demonstrator held a yellow hand-lettered sign that read “How Many Lives Per Gallon?”

A reference to Ms Rice’s, and the Bush administration’s, links to Big Oil corporations.

Chemical waste kills South African fish and crabs. Condi’s corporation guilty?

Posted on December 30, 2006 by petrel41

Condoleezza Rice's oil tanker named after her

From The Independent of South Africa:

Cocktail of pollutants poisoned vlei

Willem Steenkamp

December 30 2006 at 10:56AM

A lethal build-up of nutrients poisoned the heart of the sensitive Rietvlei lagoon this week when thousands of fish, crabs and other marine life died after an alarming drop in oxygen levels in the estuary.

Described by locals as an ecological disaster, the stench of dying fish and rotting crabs this week wafted over residential areas around the vlei.

Volunteers gathered more than 60 tons of dead fish and by late Friday hundreds of thousands of small crabs lay dying along the beaches at the mouth of the lagoon.

Environmental experts and volunteers have collected samples of water and marine life. All water sports have been suspended by the authorities.

Cocktail of pollutants

City of Cape Town spokesperson Pieter Cronje said a cocktail of pollutants, which had washed down the stormwater pipes over many year, had finally reached critical levels in the vlei this week, sparking the disaster.

There were many rumours as to the cause of the disaster with some fingers pointing to a possible chemical spill at the nearby Chevron Refinery.

Andy Birkenshaw, environmental officer of the Table View Ratepayers’ Association, was particularly concerned that toxic chemicals used in the manufacture of lead replacement fuel might have landed in the vlei causing the death of marine life.