It was so nice yesterday that I actually went outside. I immediately had a relapse. Anyway, here's what's new at maru's:
Patriot 1: Isn't this enough for impeachment? This is solid evidence that Bush and the rest lied.
Patriot 2: No way... I did not read anywhere that he actually denied having sexual relations with that uranium.
Patriot 3: However, they DID sex up the dossier.
Joseph Wilson, the diplomat who checked out the Niger claim, goes public -
What I Didn't Find in Africa
A NY Times Op Ed:
Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?When serial liar Snippy the Chimp, in his 2003 State of the Union address, indicated that Iraq had attempted to acquire large quantities of uranium from an African country, he was referring to the Iraq-Niger connection. The connection that had been discredited nine months earlier as a result of the investigation undertaken by the CIA at the request of the vice president.
Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tomé and Principe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.
It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. {...snip...}
The question now is how [my] answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March Meet the Press appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.
But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.
Thousands Died
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