The Official US President Election Thread

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

that's where i differ... i see reports from both sides of most issues all the time... maybe it's the news outlets i follow, but between the BBC, NPR and 'the news hour' on PBS you get a pretty fair picture of the world

a world where there's lots of bad guys and lots of good guys... sometimes in political positions, sometimes not... and country of origin has very little to do with which type they are

if you continue to look only at the attacks JD, that's all you will ever see... there is other stuff out there more worthy of your attention

I watch MANY news sources - even fox news - which you seem not to bother with. The BBC is hardly independant and unbiased from what I have seen - and leans left. You would have to counter your left leaning news sources with some right leaning ones - like I do.

As for your comments regarding "continue to look only at the attacks" You don't know me - so keep your damn speeches to yourself.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

As for your comments regarding "continue to look only at the attacks" You don't know me - so keep your damn speeches to yourself.

i can only try

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I've been out of touch with TV since the debates - any more news on the ABC memo thing where Bush was supposed to be held to a greater accountability than Kerry?

I had to do a search on the web about the memo - because it seems as if most news outlets aren't covering it very much...

MND NEWSWIRE
October 9, 2004

An internal memo written by ABC News director Mark Halperin admonishes his news staff not to "artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable" in the second Bush-Kerry presidential debate.

The memo, dated the morning of the second Bush-Kerry debate, cites two articles critical of the Bush campaign (In New Attacks, Bush Pushes Limit on the Facts, by Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson, NYT, and Bush vs. the news, by Howard Fineman at MSNBC.)

"The current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done," Haperin wrote, referring to the Nagourney/Stevenson and Fineman articles.

"Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win," Halperin continued. "We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that."


Halperin Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004:

It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave

I do not want to set off and [sic] endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion.

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

I know - it's a "conservative" website. i just did a search for an article - I could have gone with the Drudge Report or even StoptheMonkey.org which is an anti-Bush site. It's funny how StopTheMonkey.org felt it was fine to take it easy with Kerry. I would like to know WHO ABC is to judge whether Kerry's distortions are or are not central to his winning.

[The Gaffer]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

And Gaffer - it WAS and is NOT well reported about the role of France, Russia, China or Germany in Iraq. There is hardly anything ever reported on the investigation going on right now in the UN concerning the Oil for Food scandal. There has only been ONE mention that I have heard concerning Koffi Anna's son being given a position in one of the companies which were INVOLVED in the underhanded deals with Hussein.

You would think that one mention of the report would be too much for you handle. Show me the law where it states - "Under international law, you have to have actual weapons and intent to use them to justify a pre-emptive strike. " Becuase you know - Meloshivic had NO intentions of attacking any country yet we preemtively went into Bosnia.

As usual, you change the subject when you don't have an answer. As you well know, I was referring to the spin being put on Saddam's "intentions" coming out of the ISG report.

But since you raise the French, Russian, Chinese etc deals with Saddam, let's consider them. They were well reported, but then I read such extreme leftist media such as the BBC so maybe I'm better informed. I remember seeing Putin signing a deal with Iraq on BBC news early in 2003. Some of these deals were part of the oil-for-food programme, whereby Iraq was allowed to sell oil to purchase food. Others were made in anticipation of sanctions being lifted. There's nothing wrong with that.

There was indeed corruption involved in how they were executed (we now know, though we didn't at the time), but the deals themselves were legitimate.

As we all know, they're not the only people to make deals with Saddam:

This photo of Donald Rumsfeld taken shortly after Iraq had used chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds, 20 years ago.

What Bush et al didn't like about the deals was that Saddam had largely shut US oil companies out, and that the oil would be traded in euros, not dollars. That was Saddam's real crime.


BTW, Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo attacked and killed thousands, supported by Milosevic. My God man, your memory is a bit suspect.

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

So many people are bitching about Bush and how terrible he is, they also repeatedly start threads about anything the US does wrong.

Who? Where are these threads?

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

It's rather ironic that there isn't a thread about the elections that took place in Afganistan yesterday

Go on, then, start one.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally Posted by Valandil

I believe the proper title was Oil for Palaces.

i am sure it was actually titled Oil for Gold Taps in Bathtubs within Palaces

[Rían]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

I had to do a search on the web about the memo - because it seems as if most news outlets aren't covering it very much...

I wonder why ... Thank you!!! That was an incredibly scary memo!

From the memo:

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

What, these two sources are always, 100%, correct and unbiased? Two opinions out of how many?!

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

What, he does it for fun?! (I can tell I"m gonna hit the smilie limit soon!)

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

WHAT?!?! Unequal accountability?! Why, that's unprecedented in news coverage!

Why not try something new and original - EQUAL accountability!

I'm sure many of you have this week felt the stepped up Bush efforts to complain about our coverage. This is all part of their efforts to get away with as much as possible with the stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Senator Kerry at least partly through distortions.

And Sen. Kerry's NOT trying this? Y'know, if one side is doing it more than another, and you just equally and fairly present inaccuracies to the public, even the (IYO stupid) public will prob. catch on that it's going on with one side more than the other.

Why not just be safe and fair and try to keep BOTH sides EQUALLY accountable. If you see an innaccuracy on EITHER side, then report it.

It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right.

"evaluate"?! "EVALUATE"?! Why don't you just present news (and try to be fair), you schmucks! Don't give me this self-righteous, we-know-better-than-those-poor-idiots-in-the-public attitude! Is everyone in your organization forced to support Kerry? What happened to free thought and opinion? Sheesh! (and ONE MORE --> )

[Janny]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

I've been out of touch with TV since the debates - any more news on the ABC memo thing where Bush was supposed to be held to a greater accountability than Kerry?

Please explain. If it's interesting, we won't have heard about it.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Janny

If it's interesting, we won't have heard about it.

LOL!

See my post directly above yours, and JD's post about 4 up where he quotes my question (and did the research and gave info)

[Cirdan]

Coalition of what?

Good luck with the URL. It's very, ummm, popular, today. Basically Norwegians complaining about Bush and Norway being in the coalition. FYI

Norway is in Iraq? lol

[Janny]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

LOL!

See my post directly above yours, and JD's post about 4 up where he quotes my question (and did the research and gave info)

Opps.

*Runs out and takes a series of evening classes entitled: 'How to read'.*

*Returns.*

Thanks. Is this of scandal proportions? As I say, I've seen nothing in UK news. We're far too concerned by whether or not our soccer captain has 'the brains' that people don't credit him with.

[jerseydevil]

Agan Gaffer - you point out stuff that happened during the cold war with the Soviet Union.

Also - the issue with Russia, China and France WAS NOT LEGAL. You must really have yoour head in the sand. Talk about having blinders on. Billions and billions of dollars were funnelled into Iraq, which did NOT go to support the Iraqi people. The oil was sold illegally.

The U.N. Oil for Food scandal


First of two parts.
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry complains that President Bush pursued a unilateralist foreign policy that gave short shrift to the concerns of the United Nations and our allies when it came to taking military action against Saddam Hussein. But the mounting evidence of scandal that has been uncovered in the U.N. Oil For Food program suggests that there was never a serious possibility of getting Security Council support for military action because influential people in Russia and France were getting paid off by Saddam. After the fall of Baghdad last spring, France and Russia tried to delay the lifting of sanctions against Iraq and continue the Oil for Food program. That's because France and Russia profited from it: The Times of London calculated that French and Russian companies received $11 billion worth of business from Oil for Food between 1996 and 2003.

Most disturbing are Iraqi records that suggest Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Oil for Food office, received a voucher for 11.5 million barrels of oil from Saddam's manipulation of the program — enough to yield a profit of between $575,000 and $3.5 million.

In a series of articles published earlier this year, the Iraqi independent newspaper al Mada reported on a list of several hundred individuals, corporations and political parties that benefited from Saddam's oil vouchers and explained how the system worked. The intent of the program was to sell Iraqi oil to pay for food and medicine for the Iraqi people, who were suffering due to sanctions. Instead, vouchers were doled out as gifts or as payment for goods imported into the country in violation of U.N. sanctions. The recipient would then turn the voucher over to one of a number of firms operating in the United Arab Emirates, in exchange for commissions ranging anywhere from 5 cents to 30 cents per barrel, depending on market conditions. (This translates into a profit of $50,000 on the low end and $300,000 on the high end for every 1 million barrels worth of oil vouchers.)

The beneficiary list (found in the archives of the Iraqi Oil Ministry and translated into English by the Middle East Media Research Institute) should be deeply embarrassing to many prominent people. In the United States, those listed include Iraqi American businessman Shaker Al-Khaffaji, who put up $400,000 to produce a film by ex-U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, which aimed to discredit weapons inspections in Iraq. Also, British Labor MP George Galloway, a strident foe of taking action against Saddam, is listed as a recipient or co-recipient of 19.5 million barrels.

Other recipients include: former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (12 million barrels); Patrick Maugein, CEO of the oil company Soco International and financial backer of French President Jacques Chirac (25 million); former French Ambassador to the United Nations Jean-Bernard Merimee (11 million); Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri (10 million); and Syrian businessman Farras Mustafa Tlass, the son of longtime Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass (6 million). Leith Shbeilat, chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Jordanian Parliament, received 15.5 million.

Right now, Claude Hankes-Drielsma, a British investigator, is auditing the program on behalf of the Iraqi government. His findings, and the records reported on in the Iraqi press, deserve serious scrutiny. If it turns out that prominent politicians and businessmen profiteered while Iraqis were deprived of basic necessities that the Oil for Food program was supposed to pay for, there should be serious consequences, up to and including criminal prosecution.

So much for this being just standard procedure as you suggest Gaffer.

U.N. hit for lack of aid on oil probes

By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The United Nations has yet to prove it can police itself by investigating the $10 billion oil-for-food scandal under Saddam Hussein, but Iraq's interim government has done a good job securing thousands of documents related to the probe, U.S. lawmakers said yesterday.

"There are still a lot of folks wishing this investigation would just go away," said Rep. Joe L. Barton, Texas Republican who chairs the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

"I think the U.N. should cooperate a little bit more" with multiple congressional probes into the scandal, said Mr. Barton, who led a delegation that just returned from a fact-finding trip to Iraq and Kuwait.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has estimated that Saddam's ousted regime stole some $10.1 billion from the U.N.-administered program between 1997 and 2003, pocketing some of the money and doling the rest out in bribes and kickbacks to those helping Iraq evade economic sanctions.

Senior U.N. officials have been implicated in the scandal, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan earlier this year named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker to head an independent inquiry into the program.

Mr. Barton and fellow Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and George P. Radanovich of California toured a secure repository at an undisclosed site in Baghdad containing what they said were huge numbers of notebooks detailing oil-for-food deals.

Many of the documents were in English and Mr. Upton said that a few of the contracts he reviewed raised questions over whether they violated the U.N. programs' ostensible humanitarian purpose.

One contract worth approximately $1.02 million was for camera equipment from a Russian supplier.

"You could see immediately that there were real suspicions about how [the program] was organized and run," Mr. Upton said.

The lawmakers said Iraq's Board of Supreme Audit and the international accounting firm Ernst & Young appear to have firm control of the documents. A competing audit by former Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi no longer appears to be involved with the oil-for-food probe, they said.

The Energy and Commerce Committee probe is one of four congressional investigations into the oil-for-food program, the largest financial scandal in the history of the United Nations. The GAO, the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department are also investigating the scandal.

But relations have not been smooth with the probe headed by Mr. Volcker, who has kept a tight rein of the United Nations' internal records as he conducts his own investigation. Mr. Volcker has assembled a staff but is not expected to issue his first report for several months.

Mr. Barton said he had had a "cordial conversation" with Mr. Volcker over the investigation, but said that as a congressional committee chairman, he had subpoena powers, ample funding and other investigative tools that the U.N. probe will not have.

Heritage Foundation researchers Nile Gardiner and James Phillips, in a new analysis released this week, said the Volcker panel "bears all the hallmarks of a toothless paper tiger" and is "clearly open to U.N. manipulation."

Mr. Barton said, "My mandate comes from the people of the United States of America, and quite frankly, I will take the United States of America over the United Nations any day."

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Janny

Is this of scandal proportions?

ah HAHAHAHAHA! ah HAHAHAHAHA! ah ... oh nevermind ...

Scandal? Sadly, but NOT surprisingly, not at all. It was quickly buried. As JD said, he had to hunt for it. The faked CBS memo (against Bush), however, got lots of airtime, and not much time when it was proved a fake.

[Rían]

Here's an interesting story -

from Nebra Pickler, Associated Press:
MIAMI - With just three Sundays left before Election Day, Sen. John Kerry is asking for all the help he can get from black voters and the Almighty.

The Democratic presidential nominee attended two church services Sunday, instead of his usual one, worshipping first with Haitian Catholics and then with Baptists, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton tied his election to the civil rights struggle.

"We have an unfinished march in this nation," Kerry said at Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, as many congregants waved fans handed out by the campaign with his slogan, "Hope is on the way."

....

Isn't that illegal, as well as just plain two-faced on Kerry's part (as I doubt he was expecting to receive Pope-approved Holy Communion at a Baptist church). Where are the cries of separation of church and state?

[jerseydevil]

French connection armed Saddam


By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The United States stood by for years as supposed allies helped its enemies obtain the world's most dangerous weapons, reveals Bill Gertz, defense and national security reporter for The Washington Times, in the new book "Treachery" (Crown Forum). In this excerpt, he details France's persistence in arming Saddam Hussein.

First of three excerpts

New intelligence revealing how long France continued to supply and arm Saddam Hussein's regime infuriated U.S. officials as the nation prepared for military action against Iraq.

The intelligence reports showing French assistance to Saddam ongoing in the late winter of 2002 helped explain why France refused to deal harshly with Iraq and blocked U.S. moves at the United Nations.

"No wonder the French are opposing us," one U.S. intelligence official remarked after illegal sales to Iraq of military and dual-use parts, originating in France, were discovered early last year before the war began.

That official was careful to stipulate that intelligence reports did not indicate whether the French government had sanctioned or knew about the parts transfers. The French company at the beginning of the pipeline remained unidentified in the reports.

France's government tightly controls its aerospace and defense firms, however, so it would be difficult to believe that the illegal transfers of equipment parts took place without the knowledge of at least some government officials.

Iraq's Mirage F-1 fighter jets were made by France's Dassault Aviation. Its Gazelle attack helicopters were made by Aerospatiale, which became part of a consortium of European defense companies.

"It is well-known that the Iraqis use front companies to try to obtain a number of prohibited items," a senior Bush administration official said before the war, refusing to discuss Iraq's purchase of French warplane and helicopter parts.

The State Department confirmed intelligence indicating the French had given support to Iraq's military.

"U.N. sanctions prohibit the transfer to Iraq of arms and materiel of all types, including military aircraft and spare parts," State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said. "We take illicit transfers to Iraq very seriously and work closely with our allies to prevent Iraq from acquiring sensitive equipment."

Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Republican and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, declared that France's selling of military equipment to Iraq was "international treason" as well as a violation of a U.N. resolution.

"As a pilot and a former war pilot, this disturbs me greatly that the French would allow in any way parts for the Mirage to be exported so the Iraqis could continue to use those planes," Stevens said.

"The French, unfortunately, are becoming less trustworthy than the Russians," said Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "It's outrageous they would allow technology to support the jets of Saddam Hussein to be transferred."

The U.S. military was about to go to war with Iraq, and thanks to the French, the Iraqi air force had become more dangerous.

The pipeline
French aid to Iraq goes back decades and includes transfers of advanced conventional arms and components for weapons of mass destruction.

The central figure in these weapons ties is French President Jacques Chirac. His relationship with Saddam dates to 1975, when, as prime minister, the French politician rolled out the red carpet when the Iraqi strongman visited Paris.

"I welcome you as my personal friend," Chirac told Saddam, then vice president of Iraq.

The French put Saddam up at the Hotel Marigny, an annex to the presidential palace, and gave him the trappings of a head of state. The French wanted Iraqi oil, and by establishing this friendship, Chirac would help France replace the Soviet Union as Iraq's leading supplier of weapons and military goods.

In fact, Chirac helped sell Saddam the two nuclear reactors that started Baghdad on the path to nuclear weapons capability.

France's corrupt dealings with Saddam flourished throughout the 1990s, despite the strict arms embargo against Iraq imposed by the United Nations after the Persian Gulf war.

By 2000, France had become Iraq's largest supplier of military and dual-use equipment, according to a senior member of Congress who declined to be identified.

Saddam developed networks for illegal supplies to get around the U.N. arms embargo and achieve a military buildup in the years before U.S. forces launched a second assault on Iraq.

One spare-parts pipeline flowed from a French company to Al Tamoor Trading Co. in the United Arab Emirates. Tamoor then sent the parts by truck through Turkey, and into Iraq. The Iraqis obtained spare parts for their French-made Mirage F-1 jets and Gazelle attack helicopters through this pipeline.

A huge debt
U.S. intelligence would not discover the pipeline until the eve of war last year; sensitive intelligence indicated that parts had been smuggled to Iraq as recently as that January.

"A thriving gray-arms market and porous borders have allowed Baghdad to acquire smaller arms and components for larger arms, such as spare parts for aircraft, air-defense systems and armored vehicles," the CIA said in a report to Congress made public that month.

U.S. intelligence agencies later came under fire over questions about prewar estimates of Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. But intelligence on Iraq's hidden procurement networks was confirmed.

An initial accounting by the Pentagon in the months after the fall of Baghdad revealed that Saddam covertly acquired between 650,000 and 1 million tons of conventional weapons from foreign sources. The main suppliers were Russia, China and France.

By contrast, the U.S. arsenal is between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tons.

As of last year, Iraq owed France an estimated $4 billion for arms and infrastructure projects, according to French government estimates. U.S. officials thought this massive debt was one reason France opposed a military operation to oust Saddam.

The fact that illegal deals continued even as war loomed indicated France viewed Saddam's regime as a future source of income.

continued...

[jerseydevil]

Telltale chemical
Just days before U.S. and coalition forces launched their military campaign against Iraq, more evidence of French treachery emerged.

In mid-March 2003, U.S. intelligence and defense officials confirmed that exporters in France had conspired with China to provide Iraq with chemicals used in making solid fuel for long-range missiles. The sanctions-busting operation occurred in August 2002, the U.S. National Security Agency discovered through electronic intercepts.

The chemical transferred to Iraq was a transparent liquid rubber called hydroxy terminated polybutadiene, or HTPB, according to intelligence reports.

U.S. intelligence traced the sale to China's Qilu Chemicals, "the largest manufacturer of HTPB in China," one official says.

A French company, CIS Paris, helped broker the sale of 20 tons of HTPB, a controlled export that was shipped from China to the Syrian port of Tartus. The chemical solution was sent by truck from Syria into Iraq, to a missile-manufacturing plant. The Iraqi company that purchased the shipment was in charge of making solid fuel for long-range missiles.

HTPB technically is a dual-use chemical, because it also can be used for commercial purposes such as space launches. However, Iraq often disguised military purchases as commercial ones, as documents found later in Iraq would confirm.

In a report to Congress, the CIA said Iraq had constructed two "mixing" buildings for solid-propellant fuels at a plant known as al-Mamoun. The facility originally was built to produce the Badr-2000, a solid-propellant missile also known as the Condor.

The new buildings "appear especially suited to house large, U.N.-prohibited mixers of the type acquired for the Badr-2000 program," the CIA report stated.

French denials
Despite controversy over prewar intelligence on Iraq, the CIA said its estimates of Iraqi missiles were on target.

Representatives of the French and Chinese governments went on the attack when The Washington Times asked about the chemical sale.

Chinese Embassy spokesman Xie Feng did not address the specifics, but said "irresponsible accusations" about China's exports had been made in the past.

"These accusations are devoid of all foundation," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau declared. "In line with the rules currently in force, France has neither delivered, nor authorized, the delivery of such materials, either directly or indirectly."

By that point, many in the U.S. government were fed up with French denials.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called in the French ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, to complain about France's covert and overt support for Saddam's regime.

"Twelve years of waiting was too costly in terms of the growing threat from Baghdad," Wolfowitz told the ambassador, according to a U.S. official who was present.

Made in France
The war in Iraq, which began March 19, 2003, provided disturbing evidence that France's treacherous dealings come at a steep cost to the United States.

On April 8 came the downing of Air Force Maj. Jim Ewald's A-10 Thunderbolt fighter over Baghdad and the discovery that it was a French-made Roland missile that brought down the American pilot and destroyed a $13 million aircraft. Ewald, one of the first U.S. pilots shot down in the war, was rescued by members of the Army's 54th Engineer Battalion who saw him parachute to earth not far from the wreckage.

Army intelligence concluded that the French had sold the missile to the Iraqis within the past year, despite French denials.

A week after Ewald's A-10 was downed, an Army team searching Iraqi weapons depots at the Baghdad airport discovered caches of French-made missiles. One anti-aircraft missile, among a cache of 51 Roland-2s from a French-German manufacturing partnership, bore a label indicating that the batch was produced just months earlier.

In May, Army intelligence found a stack of blank French passports in an Iraqi ministry, confirming what U.S. intelligence already had determined: The French had helped Iraqi war criminals escape from coalition forces — and therefore justice.

Then, there were French-made trucks and radios and the deadly grenade launchers, known as RPGs, with French-made night sights. Saddam loyalists used them to kill American soldiers long after the toppling of the dictator's regime.

The intelligence team sent to find Iraqi weapons also discovered documents outlining covert Iraqi weapons procurement leading up to the war. The CIA, however, refused to make public the documents on assistance provided by France or by other so-called allies of the United States.

The clandestine arms-procurement network, disclosed late last year by the Los Angeles Times, put a Syrian trading company in a pivotal role. Documents showed the company, SES International Corp., was the conduit for millions of dollars' worth of weapons purchased internationally, including from France. Al Bashair Trading Co. in Baghdad was the major front used by Saddam to buy arms abroad.

A Defense Department-sponsored report produced in February identified France as one of the top three suppliers of Iraq's conventional arms, after Russia and China. The report revealed that France supplied 12 types of armaments and a total of 115,005 pieces.

A major reason Iraqi militants posed a threat to U.S. forces for so many months was that they had access to weapons that Saddam stockpiled in violation of U.N. resolutions.

continued...

[jerseydevil]

A close call
One of the most frightening examples of how the militants put French weapons to use against the Americans came Oct. 26, 2003. That morning, at about 6 o'clock, they bombarded the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad with French missiles.

The French rockets nearly killed Wolfowitz, whom Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has called "the brains" of the Pentagon.

The deputy defense secretary had just gotten dressed in his room that Sunday morning when a car stopped several hundred yards from the hotel. It dropped off what appeared to be one of the blue electrical generators that were common in the power-starved Iraqi capital. The driver stayed just long enough to open a panel on the end of the metal box that was pointing upward toward the hotel.

The car sped off. Minutes later, a pod of 40 artillery rockets set off by remote control began firing at the hotel, their trails leaving sparks as they flew. The rockets hit one floor below where Wolfowitz and about a dozen aides and reporters were staying.

One rocket slammed into the room of Army Lt. Col. Charles H. Buehring, a public-affairs officer. The explosion hit Buehring, 40, in the head. A reporter discovered him and tried to help, but the Fayetteville, N.C., resident died a short time later.

In all, between eight and 10 missiles hit the hotel. The casualties might have been higher, and included Wolfowitz, if the improvised rocket launcher had fired all the missiles.

Because of a malfunction, 11 failed to go off.

Playing defense
Half the missiles fired at Wolfowitz's hotel were French-made Matra SNEB 68-millimeter rockets, with a range of two to three miles. The others were Russian in origin.

The French missiles were "pristine," Navy SEAL commandos reported.

"They were either new or kept in very good condition," said one SEAL who inspected the rocket tubes.

The rockets were thought to have been taken from Iraq's French-made Alouette or Gazelle attack helicopters.

The fact that new French missiles were showing up in the hands of Saddam loyalists months after the fall of Baghdad made Wolfowitz and his close aides livid. Still, others in the U.S. government worked to defend the French.

The CIA, to avoid upsetting ties with French intelligence, played down the French role in helping Saddam. The agency had a weak human intelligence?gathering capability, and France, because of its history of ties to Iraq, was much better at penetrating Saddam's regime.

The State Department's response was not surprising. Asked about French support for Iraq while on a fence-mending mission to Paris in May 2003, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had said: "We're not going to paper over it and pretend it didn't occur. It did occur. But we're going to work through that."

Powell, the retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was too inexperienced in the ways of diplomacy. As a result, he largely had turned over control of State Department policy-making to the Foreign Service.

The problem with the Foreign Service is its culture. It trains diplomats to "get along" with the foreign governments they are sent to work with. Not insignificantly, Paris is among the most coveted postings in the world.

Backing down
Pentagon hard-liners on France, led by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, carried the day early in the war, but accommodationists within the upper councils of the Bush administration took control as the conflict went on.

Among those who took a softer position on France was National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, the former Stanford provost who surrounded herself with State Department officials and Foreign Service officers.

Rumsfeld drew a great deal of attention on Jan. 22, 2003 — and created a backlash within the State Department — when he let fly a verbal salvo against France and Germany for not siding with the United States, describing them as "old Europe" during a meeting with foreign reporters.

Rumsfeld also criticized French and German political leaders for making policy based not on "their honest conviction as to what their country ought to do" but on opinion polls that reflected ever-shifting public sentiments.

As the accommodationists in the Bush administration gained the upper hand, Rumsfeld and others were ordered to tone down the anti-Europe rhetoric. By late last year, the defense secretary's critics within the Foreign Service were crowing that Rumsfeld had been "tamed."

Just a day after the Iraqi attack on Wolfowitz's hotel in Baghdad, in an interview with The Washington Times, Rumsfeld took an even softer approach toward the French.

"People tend to look at what's taking place today and opine that it is something distinctive," Rumsfeld said of the turbulence in Franco-American relations. "I don't find it distinctive. I find it an old record that gets replayed about every five or seven years."

The public soft-policy line was, in many ways, a great victory for France. Even as new evidence poured in that the French had betrayed the United States and cost the lives of American troops, the government backed down from a confrontation with its erstwhile ally.

Remember - just because it might be 'conservative" leaning - doesn't make it not true. I have not investigated this yet, so I am not saying whether all this is true or not. I have heard some of this on general media though also.

[jerseydevil]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Isn't that illegal, as well as just plain two-faced on Kerry's part (as I doubt he was expecting to receive Pope-approved Holy Communion at a Baptist church). Where are the cries of separation of church and state?

Even though I'm atheist - I notice that the cries of seperation of church and state and outrage at candidates going into churches - is only really directed at republicans. Seperation of chruch and state though does not say anything about candidates or even the US government being "religious" only that no state religion shall be imposed, nor should anyone's freedom to worship as they wish be infringed on.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Here's an interesting story -




Isn't that illegal, as well as just plain two-faced on Kerry's part (as I doubt he was expecting to receive Pope-approved Holy Communion at a Baptist church). Where are the cries of separation of church and state?

I don't know if it's illegal. However, in some cases, people have been sent into what would likely be conservative / Republican-leaning churches, looking for violations of IRS rules - which would endanger that church's non-profit status. As I understand it, they (churches) may endorse particular platform issues, but not parties or candidates.

And yes... contrast that with how we see, every election year, televised no less, Democratic candidates themselves speaking from the pulpits of African-American churches, from where they expect to receive Democratic voters. I bet THEY don't get any notification from the IRS.

Baffling!

[jerseydevil]

My cousin just called me and said I would be happy to know he's decided he's voting for Bush. He watched the debates and decided that Kerry doesn't really have a plan and is just changing his story to try getting votes. I was sure he was going to end up voting for Kerry - because his brother is (I still have to work on him) Steve went in watching the debates leaning toward Kerry, decided he was going to watch the debates as being completely undecided and use that to make up his mind. He said he just doesn't think that Kerry will actually keep America safe.

He also told me that the marines asked if he would like to go into bootcamp early - or wait until January when he was scheduled to go. He decided to go early - so he's off after Thanksgiving.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by jerseydevil

Even though I'm atheist - I notice that the cries of seperation of church and state and outrage at candidates going into churches - is only really directed at republicans. Seperation of chruch and state though does not say anything about candidates or even the US government being "religious" only that no state religion shall be imposed, nor should anyone's freedom to worship as they wish be infringed on.

Yes, but usually it's misapplied, as in Val's examples

Perhaps "illegal" was the wrong word - from what I understand, non-profit entities cannot endorse candidates. That's what I meant. And Kerry was clearly being endorsed. He should know better (I'm sure he DOES). And he can't even say he was just going to a Baptist church for regular Sunday worship and *surprise!* Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson showed up - Kerry's Catholic! - he wouldn't go to a non-Catholic church for Mass