SEE PROOF BUSH EVIL OOPS MY BAD!!!

[Guest Guest]

Another case of bush derangement syndrome These self righteous liberals that don't have a clue what the real world is about trying to be pompouse once again blows up in their face.

 

Iran DIDN'T 'Halt' Nuke Program After all! Where's the NYTimes' Apology?

 

Remember how the New York Times went apoplectic over last December's NIE estimate that brashly claimed that Iran had suspended their intent to manufacture nuclear arms? It was a front pager and formed the basis of claims that we had illegitimately targeted Iran for rhetorical attacks by many people who opposed the Bush Administration's entire foreign policy regime. Well, as the New York Sun said on the 7th, "what a difference two months make." It appears that the original NIE report was too hasty in its claims that Iran was innocent as the driven snow. So, here's the question: Will the NYT gives us a front page story apologizing for their alarmism?

 

Yeah. I didn't think so.

 

On December 3rd, the NYT led its front page, "News Analysis" article with this startling statement:

 

 

Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here.

 

And in their followup report, the first paragraph read as follows:

 

 

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

 

Well, that all sounds as if the Bush Administration badly bungled the claims that Iran was trying to get the bomb, doesn't it?

 

But, we are now two months in the future from those breathless reports and it seems as if the initial NIE report that the New York Times was so exercised over turns out not to be so sanguine of Iran's eschewing of its nuclear ambitions.

 

The New York Sun reported on the 7th that maybe "Iran halted its nuclear weapons program" is a claim that is a bit over blown.

 

 

Tuesday, as our Eli Lake reported on page one of yesterday's Sun, the director of national intelligence, Mr. McConnell says he now regrets the phrasing of the unclassified estimate that so stirred America's enthusiasts of diplomacy. In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Mr. McConnell went further. He noted that Iran is developing both the long range ballistic missiles and the nuclear fuel for a potential weapon. What had halted, it turns out, was work to design the actual warhead and secret enrichment activity. The Iranians continued to enrich uranium in the open in Natanz in defiance of two Security Council resolutions.

 

Mike McConnell went even farther in his reassessment.

 

 

As for the secret enrichment and weapons design, Mr. McConnell is not even sure as of mid-2007 whether the Iranians have restarted this work. "We assess with moderate confidence that Tehran had not restarted these activities as of mid-2007, but since they comprised an unannounced secret effort which Iran attempted to hide, we do not know if these activities have been restarted," he told the assembled senators. So why then did the opening sentence of the December 3 assessment state with no equivocation, "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program"? Mr. McConnell said that it was because he had to assemble quickly a declassified estimate in late November and that it did not occur to him that this kind of declarative statement would confuse the issue.

 

Well, that is a whole different kettle of fish(wrappers) isn't it? This new assessment, this correction to the earlier NIE report that the NYT was so excited to report, really flies in the face of what the Times said before. Since the NYT's original assumption seems to have been defeated, it makes one wonder where their apology will be for having jumped the gun back in December?

 

You'd be excused for not holding your breath.

 

Of course they reported on this reassessment of last December's NIE claims. On the 5th the NYT gave us their report on McConnell's latest appearance before the Senate intelligence committee. Curiously, their lead paragraph didn't contain a word to correct their earlier reports.

 

 

Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda is improving its ability to attack within the United States by recruiting and training new operatives. At the same time, he said, a terrorist group in Iraq that claims allegiance to Al Qaeda is beginning to send militants to other countries.

 

Now, you'd have to wonder that if their December reports posited that Iran's supposed suspension of their nuclear program was such an important story that newer evidence that contradicted that claim would similarly be an important story. Apparently, however, not.

 

Curiously, the Times focused on the Al Qaeda threat discussed by McConnell instead of the correction to the Iran Nuke program story. It took half way down the story to finally see the Times address the new nuke assessment. And even there they addressed it in scoffing terms.

 

 

The report attempted to calibrate its assessment of the Iranian nuclear threat, following the National Intelligence Estimate last year that concluded that Iran had probably suspended its nuclear weapons work in the fall of 2003. That finding appeared to undercut American diplomatic efforts to press Iran on the nuclear issue.

 

"We remain concerned about Iran’s intentions and assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons," the report said.

 

"We assess with high confidence that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons,” it said, adding that the only plausible way to prevent Iran from producing such weapons was “an Iranian political decision to abandon a nuclear weapons objective."

 

And that is all the Times has to say about this news.

 

No apology.

 

Nothing.

 

Last December, the Times yelled from the rooftops about Bush's "failures." Today, when their premise is shown to be false, they slink away pretending nothing happened.

 

Some of you may remember the horrible 70's sitcom called "Welcome Back Kotter." The show featured a young John Travolta as High School student, Vinnie Barbarino. His calling card phrase when confronted with the Teacher's questions was to say "What... where?"

 

We can say that the New York Times just pulled a Vinnie Barbarino.

 

Public: So, New York Times, it appears that your claims that Iran has no nuclear program is not quite true. What do you say to that, Times?

 

NYTimes: "What... where?"

 

Nice going, Times.

 

Still, I'm sure that the Times will be apologizing any day, now.

 

...though I won't hold my breath.

 

 

 

[Guest Guest]

We are in a new internet age were you have no idea what is TRUE and what is FALSE!!!!! Something gets stated - who knows the original source or validity and it gets repeated all over!!!

[Guest Guest]

We are in a new internet age were you have no idea what is TRUE and what is FALSE!!!!! Something gets stated - who knows the original source or validity and it gets repeated all over!!!

What the DELETED are you talking about??????????????????

[Guest Guest]

We are in a new internet age were you have no idea what is TRUE and what is FALSE!!!!! Something gets stated - who knows the original source or validity and it gets repeated all over!!!

This you mental midget is a perfect example of why the times printed it's story as it did in December.

This shows perfectly how sick and twisted their thinking is!!!!!!!!!!!

 

NYT Reporter Salutes Disgraced Sandy Berger as 'on Top of al-Qaeda'

 

 

Philip Shenon, investigative reporter for the New York Times, has written a book on the 9-11 Commission and talked about it with Fresh Air host Terry Gross on National Public Radio Monday. Judging by Shenon's past willingness to heap all of the blame for 9-11 on the then eight-month old Bush administration (as opposed to the eight years of Clinton that preceded it), it's no surprise he praised Clinton's former National Security Advisor, the disgraced Sandy Berger, who got caught and convicted for shoving copies of classified documents into his socks.

 

Shenon hailed Berger and suggested he only did it because he feared Republicans would blame him and the Clinton administration for missing the 9-11 threat, even though, according to Shenon, "his friends and his colleagues will tell you that, you know, nobody was on top of the al-Qaeda threat like Sandy Berger."

 

Host Terry Gross: Your book begins with Sandy Berger, who was President Clinton's national security adviser, smuggling confidential documents out of the National Archives by stuffing them into his clothes. This is an infamous story. Why do you start there, and what did you learn about why he smuggled out the documents?

 

Philip Shenon: It's been a parlor game in Washington for a long time. Why would Sandy Berger destroy his reputation like this? It has an awful lot to do with Sandy Berger's personality. I believe he thought that if some of these documents found their way to the public or to Republicans on Capitol Hill that he would somehow be blamed for 9/11 when, in fact, a lot of his friends and his colleagues will tell you that, you know, nobody was on top of the al-Qaeda threat like Sandy Berger. And he did a lot of admirable work in trying to prepare for terrorist attacks as they rose up. The answer seems to be, as to why he stole these documents, that, again, he thought that some of these documents might somehow implicate him in not having acted fast enough or done enough to deal with the bin Laden threat over time....Again, I think that may reflect Sandy Berger's a catastrophizer. People who know Sandy Berger and know his record suggest that he's one of the people who might well have been saluted in the 9/11 Commission report for having been on top of al-Qaeda.

 

 

For the full account of Shenon's NPR interview, including his defense of former White House counterterrorism director (and Clinton partisan) Richard Clarke, visit TimesWatch.

http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2008/20080207140359.aspx

 

 

[Guest Guest]

We are in a new internet age were you have no idea what is TRUE and what is FALSE!!!!! Something gets stated - who knows the original source or validity and it gets repeated all over!!!

 

Sorry: What I meant was the New York Times got it wrong and they probably won't publish a retraction that they were wrong!

 

When I stated "you have no idea what is TRUE and what is FALSE" I did not mean the original poster, I was speaking generically about both people who read articles that they have no idea if they are true or false and those who write these articles.

[Guest Newsbusters]

Nobody believes "News"busters except you 29%-ers! There's no need to refute. Pointing to "News"busters is the same as pointing to a butt......you KNOW what's coming out of it!

 

Well, except for you 29%-ers!

[Guest Guest]

Nobody believes "News"busters except you 29%-ers! There's no need to refute. Pointing to "News"busters is the same as pointing to a butt......you KNOW what's coming out of it!

 

Well, except for you 29%-ers!

Yep true liberal, spouting of numbers like you know what your talking about.

Look you DELTED www.newsbusters.org does nothing but show the true hypocrisy in reporting around the MSM. They don't write the stories they put them all up for us to see how stupid you liberal idiots really are. So take your cute little Boy DELETeD and shove your head up it till you suffocate.

[Guest Guest]

BDS Guy calling the world a lot of high school kid names.

 

How so very enthralling.

[toonsiesdrvgcat]

Did Bill Clinton pass up a chance to kill Osama bin Laden?

Was Bill Clinton offered bin Laden on "a silver platter"? Did he refuse? Was there cause at the time?

A: Probably not, and it would not have mattered anyway as there was no evidence at the time that bin Laden had committed any crimes against American citizens.

Let’s start with what everyone agrees on: In April 1996, Osama bin Laden was an official guest of the radical Islamic government of Sudan – a government that had been implicated in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993. By 1996, with the international community treating Sudan as a pariah, the Sudanese government attempted to patch its relations with the United States. At a secret meeting in a Rosslyn, Va., hotel, the Sudanese minister of state for defense, Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, met with CIA operatives, where, among other things, they discussed Osama bin Laden.

 

It is here that things get murky. Erwa claims that he offered to hand bin Laden over to the United States. Key American players – President Bill Clinton, then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Director of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke among them – have testified there were no "credible offers" to hand over bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission found "no credible evidence" that Erwa had ever made such an offer. On the other hand, Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Looming Tower," flatly states that Sudan did make such an offer. Wright bases his judgment on an interview with Erwa and notes that those who most prominently deny Erwa's claims were not in fact present for the meeting.

 

Wright and the 9/11 Commission do agree that the Clinton administration encouraged Sudan to deport bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia and spent 10 weeks trying to convince the Saudi government to accept him. One Clinton security official told The Washington Post that they had "a fantasy" that the Saudi government would quietly execute bin Laden. When the Saudis refused bin Laden’s return, Clinton officials convinced the Sudanese simply to expel him, hoping that the move would at least disrupt bin Laden’s activities.

 

Much of the controversy stems from claims that President Clinton made in a February 2002 speech and then retracted in his 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission. In the 2002 speech Clinton seems to admit that the Sudanese government offered to turn over bin Laden:

 

Clinton: So we tried to be quite aggressive with them [al Qaeda]. We got – well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

 

Clinton later claimed to have misspoken and stated that there had never been an offer to turn over bin Laden. It is clear, however, that Berger, at least, did consider the possibility of bringing bin Laden to the U.S., but, as he told The Washington Post in 2001, "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." According to NewsMax.com, Berger later emphasized in an interview with WABC Radio that, while administration officials had discussed whether or not they had ample evidence to indict bin Laden, that decision "was not pursuant to an offer by the Sudanese."

 

So on one side, we have Clinton administration officials who say that there were no credible offers on the table, and on the other, we have claims by a Sudanese government that was (and still is) listed as an official state sponsor of terrorism. It’s possible, of course, that both sides are telling the truth: It could be that Erwa did make an offer, but the offer was completely disingenuous. What is clear is that the 9/11 Commission report totally discounts the Sudanese claims. Unless further evidence arises, that has to be the final word.

 

Ultimately, however, it doesn’t matter. What is not in dispute at all is the fact that, in early 1996, American officials regarded Osama bin Laden as a financier of terrorism and not as a mastermind largely because, at the time, there was no real evidence that bin Laden had harmed American citizens. So even if the Sudanese government really did offer to hand bin Laden over, the U.S. would have had no grounds for detaining him. In fact, the Justice Department did not secure an indictment against bin Laden until 1998 – at which point Clinton did order a cruise missile attack on an al Qaeda camp in an attempt to kill bin Laden.

 

We have to be careful about engaging in what historians call "Whig history," which is the practice of assuming that historical figures value exactly the same things that we do today. It's a fancy term for those "why didn't someone just shoot Hitler in 1930?" questions that one hears in dorm-room bull sessions. The answer, of course, is that no one knew quite how bad Hitler was in 1930. The same is true of bin Laden in 1996.

 

Correction: We originally answered this question with a flat 'yes' early this week, based on the account in "The Looming Tower," but an alert reader pointed out to us the more tangled history laid out in the 9/11 Commission report. We said flatly that Sudan had made such an offer. We have deleted our original answer and are posting this corrected version in its place.

 

 

Sources

"1996 CIA Memo to Sudanese Official." Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2001.

 

[The West Sider]

Read "Dereliction of Duty".

 

TWS

[Guest Newsbusters]

We see animated "hi-nees" are still a no-no! Guess it's back to

 

After all, it is a family friendly web site!

[Guest Guest]

Did Bill Clinton pass up a chance to kill Osama bin Laden?

Was Bill Clinton offered bin Laden on "a silver platter"? Did he refuse? Was there cause at the time?

A: Probably not, and it would not have mattered anyway as there was no evidence at the time that bin Laden had committed any crimes against American citizens.

Let's start with what everyone agrees on: In April 1996, Osama bin Laden was an official guest of the radical Islamic government of Sudan – a government that had been implicated in the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993. By 1996, with the international community treating Sudan as a pariah, the Sudanese government attempted to patch its relations with the United States. At a secret meeting in a Rosslyn, Va., hotel, the Sudanese minister of state for defense, Maj. Gen. Elfatih Erwa, met with CIA operatives, where, among other things, they discussed Osama bin Laden.

 

It is here that things get murky. Erwa claims that he offered to hand bin Laden over to the United States. Key American players – President Bill Clinton, then-National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and Director of Counterterrorism Richard Clarke among them – have testified there were no "credible offers" to hand over bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission found "no credible evidence" that Erwa had ever made such an offer. On the other hand, Lawrence Wright, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Looming Tower," flatly states that Sudan did make such an offer. Wright bases his judgment on an interview with Erwa and notes that those who most prominently deny Erwa's claims were not in fact present for the meeting.

 

Wright and the 9/11 Commission do agree that the Clinton administration encouraged Sudan to deport bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia and spent 10 weeks trying to convince the Saudi government to accept him. One Clinton security official told The Washington Post that they had "a fantasy" that the Saudi government would quietly execute bin Laden. When the Saudis refused bin Laden's return, Clinton officials convinced the Sudanese simply to expel him, hoping that the move would at least disrupt bin Laden's activities.

 

Much of the controversy stems from claims that President Clinton made in a February 2002 speech and then retracted in his 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission. In the 2002 speech Clinton seems to admit that the Sudanese government offered to turn over bin Laden:

 

Clinton: So we tried to be quite aggressive with them [al Qaeda]. We got – well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan. And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again. They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America, so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America. So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

 

Clinton later claimed to have misspoken and stated that there had never been an offer to turn over bin Laden. It is clear, however, that Berger, at least, did consider the possibility of bringing bin Laden to the U.S., but, as he told The Washington Post in 2001, "The FBI did not believe we had enough evidence to indict bin Laden at that time, and therefore opposed bringing him to the United States." According to NewsMax.com, Berger later emphasized in an interview with WABC Radio that, while administration officials had discussed whether or not they had ample evidence to indict bin Laden, that decision "was not pursuant to an offer by the Sudanese."

 

So on one side, we have Clinton administration officials who say that there were no credible offers on the table, and on the other, we have claims by a Sudanese government that was (and still is) listed as an official state sponsor of terrorism. It's possible, of course, that both sides are telling the truth: It could be that Erwa did make an offer, but the offer was completely disingenuous. What is clear is that the 9/11 Commission report totally discounts the Sudanese claims. Unless further evidence arises, that has to be the final word.

 

Ultimately, however, it doesn't matter. What is not in dispute at all is the fact that, in early 1996, American officials regarded Osama bin Laden as a financier of terrorism and not as a mastermind largely because, at the time, there was no real evidence that bin Laden had harmed American citizens. So even if the Sudanese government really did offer to hand bin Laden over, the U.S. would have had no grounds for detaining him. In fact, the Justice Department did not secure an indictment against bin Laden until 1998 – at which point Clinton did order a cruise missile attack on an al Qaeda camp in an attempt to kill bin Laden.

 

We have to be careful about engaging in what historians call "Whig history," which is the practice of assuming that historical figures value exactly the same things that we do today. It's a fancy term for those "why didn't someone just shoot Hitler in 1930?" questions that one hears in dorm-room bull sessions. The answer, of course, is that no one knew quite how bad Hitler was in 1930. The same is true of bin Laden in 1996.

 

Correction: We originally answered this question with a flat 'yes' early this week, based on the account in "The Looming Tower," but an alert reader pointed out to us the more tangled history laid out in the 9/11 Commission report. We said flatly that Sudan had made such an offer. We have deleted our original answer and are posting this corrected version in its place.

 

 

Sources

"1996 CIA Memo to Sudanese Official." Washington Post, 3 Oct. 2001.

It's pretty simple if your not a liberal DELETED You don't arrest enemies of War you KILL THERE DELETED so take all your liberal psychobabble and stuff it up your deluded arse!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest Homer]

It's pretty simple if your not a liberal DELETED You don't arrest enemies of War you KILL THERE DELETED so take all your liberal psychobabble and stuff it up your deluded arse!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It's called the law not psychobabble. People like you and your leaders' inability to recognize this is why things are so messed up right now. Life on the global stage is a bit more complex than a John Wayne movie.

[Guest Guest]

BDS Guy calling the world a lot of high school kid names.

 

How so very enthralling.

 

Wrong AGAIN. But you're used to that by now.

[Guest Guest]

Wrong AGAIN. But you're used to that by now.

 

 

Your replies are so intellectually stimulating......and each one is a paragon of originality.

[Guest Guest]

Your replies are so intellectually stimulating......and each one is a paragon of originality.

 

"......paragon of originality." Did you invest in a thesaurus? Good for you!

 

[Guest Guest]

How about an apology from Bush?

 

After the 9/11 attacks Bush vowed (On public Tv) that we would not rest until all those responsible for the 9/11 attacks were captured or killed.

 

In 2004 Bush said (In an on TV interview) "We don't know where Osama Bin Laden is. We don't care where Osama Bin Laden is. Osama Bin Laden is not a top priority."

 

Late last year, our own intelligence showed Bin Laden operating openly inside Pakistan yet Bush has our forces still scouring Afghanistan.

 

Bush's words and actions have allowed the world's worst terrorist to remain free after he masterminded and funded the attacks on the U.S. which killed thousands of Americans.

 

Where is his apology to the American people?