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Recent
Stories
June
6, 2003
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
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Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
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Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
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Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
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May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
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WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
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Vouchers for Jesus
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Greens 04: In or Out?
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Watch
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Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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June
7, 2003
Where is the Outrage?
It's
Time for Bush to Level with the People
By SENATOR ROBERT BYRD
With each passing day, the questions surrounding
Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction take on added urgency.
Where are the massive stockpiles of VX, mustard, and other
nerve agents that we were told Iraq was hoarding? Where are
the thousands of liters of botulinim toxin? Wasn't it the looming
threat to America posed by these weapons that propelled the
United States into war with Iraq? Isn't this the reason American
military personnel were called upon to risk their lives in combat?
On March 17, in his final speech to the
American people before ordering the invasion of Iraq, President
Bush took one last opportunity to bolster his case for war.
The centerpiece of his argument was the same message he brought
to the United Nations months before, and the same message he
hammered home at every opportunity in the intervening months,
namely that Saddam Hussein had failed to destroy Iraq's weapons
of mass destruction and thus presented an imminent danger to
the American people. "Intelligence gathered by this and
other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues
to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever
devised," the President said.
Now, nearly two months after the fall
of Baghdad, the United States has yet to find any physical evidence
of those lethal weapons. Could they be buried underground or
are they somehow camouflaged in plain sight? Were they destroyed
before the war? Have they been shipped out of the country?
Do they actually exist? The questions are mounting. What started
weeks ago as a restless murmur throughout Iraq has intensified
into a worldwide cacophony of confusion.
The fundamental question that is nagging
at many is this: How reliable were the claims of this President
and key members of his Administration that Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction posed a clear and imminent threat to the United
States, such a grave threat that immediate war was the only
recourse?
Lawmakers, who were assured before the
war that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq,
and many of whom voted to give this Administration a sweeping
grant of authority to wage war based upon those assurances,
have been placed in the uncomfortable position of wondering
if they were misled. The media is ratcheting up the demand for
answers: Could it be that the intelligence was wrong, or could
it be that the facts were manipulated? These are very serious
and grave questions, and they require immediate answers. We
cannot--and must not--brush such questions aside. We owe the
people of this country an answer. Every member of this body
ought to be demanding answers.
I am encouraged that the Senate Armed
Services and Intelligence Committees are planning to investigate
the credibility of the intelligence that was used to build the
case for war against Iraq. We need a thorough, open, gloves-off
investigation of this matter and we need it quickly. The credibility
of the President and his Administration hangs in the balance.
We must not trifle with the people's trust by foot-dragging.
What amazes me is that the President
himself is not clamoring for an investigation. It is his integrity
that is on the line. It is his truthfulness that is being questioned.
It is his leadership that has come under scrutiny. And yet he
has raised no question, expressed no curiosity about the strange
turn of events in Iraq, expressed no anger at the possibility
that he might have been misled. How is it that the President,
who was so adamant about the dangers of WMD, has expressed no
concern over the where-abouts of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq?
Indeed, instead of leading the charge
to uncover the discrepancy between what we were told before
the war and what we have found--or failed to find--since the
war, the White House is circling the wagons and scoffing at
the notion that anyone in the Administration exaggerated the
threat from Iraq.
In an interview with Polish television
last week, President Bush noted that two trailers were found
in Iraq that U.S. intelligence officials believe are mobile
biological weapons production labs, although no trace of chemical
or biological material was found in the trailers. "We found
the weapons of mass destruction," the President was quoted
as saying. Certainly he cannot be satisfied with such meager
evidence.
At the CIA, Director George Tenet released
a terse statement the other day defending the intelligence his
agency provided on Iraq. "The integrity of our process
was maintained throughout and any suggestion to the contrary
is simply wrong," he said. How can he be so absolutely
sure?
At the Pentagon, Doug Feith (FITHE),
the Under Secretary of Defense for policy, held a rare press
conference this week to deny reports that a high level intelligence
cell in the Defense Department doctored data and pressured the
CIA to strengthen the case for war. "I know of no pressure.
I can't rule out what other people may have perceived. Who knows
what people perceive," he said. Is this Administration
not at all concerned about the perception of deception?
And Secretary of State Powell, who presented
the U.S. case against Iraq to the United Nations last February,
strenuously defended his presentation in an interview this
week and denied any erosion in the Administration's credibility.
"Everybody knows that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,"
he said. Should he not be more concerned than that about U.S.
claims before the United Nations?
And yet...and yet...the questions continue
to grow, and the doubts are beginning to drown out the assurances.
For every insistence from Washington that the weapons of mass
destruction case against Iraq is sound comes a counterpoint
from the field--another dry hole, another dead end.
As the top Marine general in Iraq was
recently quoted as saying, "It was a surprise to me then,
it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered
weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites.
Again, believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to
virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti
border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there."
Who are the American people to believe?
What are we to think? Even though I opposed the war against
Iraq because I believe that the doctrine of preemption is a
flawed and dangerous instrument of foreign policy, I did believe
that Saddam Hussein possessed some chemical and biological
weapons capability. But I did not believe that he presented
an imminent threat to the United States--as indeed he did not.
Such weapons may eventually turn up.
But my greater fear is that the belligerent stance of the United
States may have convinced Saddam Hussein to sell or disperse
his weapons to dark forces outside of Iraq. Shouldn't this Administration
be equally alarmed if they really believed that Saddam had
such dangerous capabilities?
Saddam Hussein is missing. Osama bin
Laden is missing. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are missing.
And the President's mild claims that we are "on the look"
do not comfort me. There ought to be an army of UN inspectors
combing the countryside in Iraq or searching for evidence of
disbursement of these weapons right now. Why are we waiting?
Is there fear of the unknown? Or fear of the truth?
This nation and, indeed, the world were
led into war with Iraq on the grounds that Iraq, possessed weapons
of mass destruction, and posed an imminent threat to the United
States and to the global community. As the President said in
his March 17 address to the nation, "The danger is clear:
using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained
with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated
ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent
people in our country, or any other."
That fear may still be valid, but I wonder
how the war with Iraq has really mitigated the threat from terrorists.
As the recent attack in Saudi Arabia proved, terrorism is alive
and well and unaffected by the situation in Iraq.
Meanwhile, the President seems oblivious
to the controversy swirling about the justification for the
invasion of Iraq. Our nation's credibility before the world
is at stake. While his Administration digs in to defend the
status quo, Members of Congress are questioning the credibility
of the intelligence and the public case made by this Administration
on which the war with Iraq was based. Members of the media
are openly challenging whether America's intelligence agencies
were simply wrong or were callously manipulated. Vice President
Cheney's numerous visits to the CIA are being portrayed by some
intelligence professionals as "pressure." And the
American people are wondering, once again, what is going on
in the dark shadows of Washington.
It is time that we had some answers.
It is time that the Administration stepped up its acts to reassure
the American people that the horrific weapons that they told
us threatened the world's safety have not fallen into terrorist
hands. It is time that the President leveled with the American
people. It is time that we got to the bottom of this matter.
We have waged a costly war against Iraq.
We have prevailed. But, we are still losing American lives in
that nation. And the troubled situation there is far from settled.
American troops will likely be needed there for years. Billions
of American tax dollars will continue to be needed to rebuild.
I only hope that we have not won the war only to lose the peace.
Until we have determined the fate of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction, or determined that they, in fact, did not exist,
we cannot rest, we cannot claim victory.
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction remain
a mystery and a conundrum. What are they, where are they, how
dangerous are they? Or were they a manufactured excuse by an
Administration eager to seize a country? It is time to answer
these questions. It is time--past time--for the Administration
to level with the American people, and it is time for the President
to demand an accounting from his own Administration as to exactly
how our nation was led down such a twisted path to war.
Today's
Features
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
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