Bush and Blair Lied About Mass Graves in Iraq

I never trusted their justifications of the war. I expected the lies to come out at some point, and alot of them have. However nobody has been punished and nobody will. Maybe because the bonus prize it that there isn't a dictator in charge of Iraq, treating people bad. But it just doesn't justify it does it?

Originally posted by RockerDom
I think this was the first piece of info I found after the Nigerian documents were debunked. It really made me sick to my stomach that we could be lied to in such detail and with such little remorse.

In fairness to the president, although the much-publicized documents concerning Iraq and Nigerian uranium have been shown to be forgeries, the matter of whether Iraq was indeed shopping there for uranium has not been closed.

Your comment inspired me to dig up an article that doesn't seem to have gotten much air time on ATS (I couldn't find it in a search, anyway), so it's posted below:

Intelligence Backs Claim Iraq Tried to Buy Uranium

The SMUGGLERS were attemting to SELL Urainum, NOT IRAQ was seeking to BUY.
From Majic's link:
"Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq."

The actors in this are the SMUGGLERS NOT IRAQ. The assertion still appears false until someone can come up some actual evidence that IRAQ was seeking anything.

To Majic: Does destroying records of military service qualify as a lie if it is used to offuscate the truth? Then copies of those records are found showing GW Bush as being AWOL for over a month, qualifying him as a DESERTER?

From a Reuters news story:
"The documents released on Friday by the Pentagon included two faded computerized payroll sheets showing Bush was not paid during the latter part of 1972 and offer no evidence to place Bush in Alabama during the latter part of 1972."

[edit on 24-7-2004 by slank]

You democrat-lovers really crack me up. AS IF lying, cheating, stealing (also known as pulling the wool our the eyes of sheeple) in politics belongs on one side of the aisle or another.
Please, corruption in politics is a way of life in both parties. Can't you see that the grumbling goes on no matter who is in office, only the grumblers change.

OK, donguillermo, are you finished with your puerile name calling? Want to stop long enough to answer the question as to what the magic number is that finally classifies Saddam as a mass murderer? It is obvious that the number 5,000 is not high enough for you. Do you think we are picking on your hero unfairly?

Can we say that it is obvious that you are a Saddam sympathizer and apologist, because you are more concerned with what Blair and Bush said than you are with how many people Saddam murdered? Why is that, donguillermo?

Why doesn't it matter to you how many people Saddam murdered, donguillermo?

BTW, I have proof that I am a centrist. My numbers were 52 and 51 on that little test posted here recently.

Just my centrist .02.
Edit for sig



[edit on 25-7-2004 by jsobecky]

Originally posted by jsobecky
OK, donguillermo, are you finished with your puerile name calling? Want to stop long enough to answer the question as to what the magic number is that finally classifies Saddam as a mass murderer? It is obvious that the number 5,000 is not high enough for you. Do you think we are picking on your hero unfairly?

Excuse me, please point out where in any post in this thread I said that Saddam was not a mass murderer??? You are attributing to me a position I do not hold, and there is nothing in anything I have said that could reasonably be construed as saying that Saddam is not a mass murderer. That is called a strawman argument, a debating tactic favored by those with zero intellectual integrity, such as yourself. Thanks for providing another example confirming that what you call puerile name calling is actually truth in reporting.

The point of my original post was not to exonerate Saddam, but to provide conclusive proof that Bush and Blair had lied about the number of corpses that had actually been found in the mass graves. In particular, I wanted to show conclusively that Bush had actually lied about something, since the Bush apologists on ATS refuse to accept previously offered clear documentation of the many lies of George Bush. Much to my amazement, you showed yourself to be the most brazen Bush apologist of them all by trying to spin clear evidence of a Bush lie into a misunderstanding about faulty estimates. The same dishonest strategy used to explain away the many lies about weapons of mass destruction.

Can we say that it is obvious that you are a Saddam sympathizer and apologist, because you are more concerned with what Blair and Bush said than you are with how many people Saddam murdered? Why is that, donguillermo?

No we cannot say it is obvious that I am a Saddam sympathizer and apologist. Where did you get that idea? Oh, I forgot, you like to make up strawman arguments. That makes two so far in this post.

Then you assert that I am more concerned with what Bush and Blair said than I am with how many people Saddam murdered. That makes three strawman arguments. The subject of this thread is the fact that Bush and Blair lied about the number of corpses found in mass graves in Iraq. You use the typical Republican dishonest tactic of trying to change the subject to how many people Saddam murdered, then have the audacity to criticize me with not being sufficiently concerned about the issue you want to change the subject to!!!

Why doesn't it matter to you how many people Saddam murdered, donguillermo?

Yawn. More strawman tactics. Change the subject. Claim it doesn't matter to me how many people Saddam murdered. You Republicans are so boring and predictable.

BTW, I have proof that I am a centrist. My numbers were 52 and 51 on that little test posted here recently.

First of all, I have only your word that those were your scores. That is not proof, especially from someone with a demonstrated lack of intellectual integrity such as yourself. I could easily take that test and give answers that would show that I am an extreme right-winger. My actual scores were 29/31, by the way. I find that amusing, since the test scores indicate that I am a moderate liberal. I know for a fact that I am on the far left-wing of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. So much for the accuracy of the test.

Second of all, I have read enough of your posts to know that you are no centrist, but a right-wing propagandist, as I previously stated. There are several people like you on ATS. You people claim to be centrists, or independents, or moderates. I guess you think that gives your views more credibility, thus facilitating the dissemination of your right-wing propaganda and misinformation.

What is most telling about your latest post is that you failed to address in any way my refutation of your lame argument that the statements by Bush and Blair were not lies. Instead you used the classic Republican debating tactic of trying to change the subject, by accusing me of being a Saddam sympathizer.

[edit on 7/25/2004 by donguillermo]

800,000 died in Rwanda, if we really care about stopping mass killing why did we do nothing? Because that is our implicit policy.

We invaded Iraq to secure oil, get the guy who tried to assassinate his dad and if Bush is to be believed because he actually thought there were WMDs and some mythical involvement in 9-11. Liberation and democracy for the Iraqi people was a last ditch patch excuse, after every other reason had fallen apart. We didn't want to look like mercenaries who invaded just to control the oil contracts.

If you go postal and kill several people it is considered mass murder. Saddam and his henchmen commited mass murder on a grand scale.

After all the alleged reasons for going to war, (facetious) why would anyone doubt the credibility of GW Bush and Co.

Sad thing is, chances are 1/2 (or more) of those 5000 bodies in the mass graves are civilians that rebeled and were not backed up by US troops after the FIRST gulf war. Al la slaughter.

Edit add: anyone have a link to this left/right wing test?

[edit on 25-7-2004 by rwsdakota]

Originally posted by slank
The SMUGGLERS were attemting to SELL Urainum, NOT IRAQ was seeking to BUY.
From Majic's link:
"Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq."

The actors in this are the SMUGGLERS NOT IRAQ. The assertion still appears false until someone can come up some actual evidence that IRAQ was seeking anything.

Please read the entire article and take note of the following:

According to a senior counter-proliferation official, meetings between Niger officials and would-be buyers from the five countries were held in several European countries, including Italy.

Contrary to your claim, the article states that meetings were held, not only with Iraq, but with four other countries as well. SUch meetings would include not just potential sellers, but potential buyrs. The question of who a "would-be buyer" would actually be is not addressed, or what such a buyer's official standing with the country in question would be, but the product in question is uranium.

As for the reliability of the information, the article says:

Intelligence officers were convinced that the uranium would be smuggled from abandoned mines in Niger, thereby circumventing official export controls. "The sources were trustworthy. There were several sources, and they were reliable sources," an official involved in the European intelligence gathering operation said.

Granted, the sources are not named, but intelligence sources are not exactly renowned for giving out their names. That fact that "European intelligence", and not U.S. or British intelligence, is cited is worthy of note.

The credibility of any unnamed source is always a reasonable cause for skepticism, so when sources are not named, the credibility of the media organ carrying it must be considered. The Financial Times is, at least in my assessment, a credible source.

So is this definitive proof? Of course not, but the fact that stories like this are still circulating, and that intelligence agencies that are not necessarily U.S. or British, and thus not invested in protecting their reputations, should at least give pause for thought.

Regarding the military records, there are other threads devoted specifically to that, and we would both be better served to keep this thread closer to mass graves in Iraq.

What appears in the news is not the final authority on what is true or false, and it is dangerous to free thinking to believe you are being told all there is to know by commercial media. I spent a great deal of my life going down that road, only to suffer betrayal after betrayal -- enough to realize that the media spotlight is itself a tool of control.

Never trust the government or the media to tell you everything, or you ensure that you will be manipulated to serve their purposes.

Rather, it is better to keep an open mind and question everything.

I'm not a supporter of bush, but I do have to point out that this is a politically slanted thread mis-representing the truth. To be a leader of a country, and have your highly trusted security agency supply you with information, which you then use to make your decisions, and which you at times share with others, then finding out they were wrong does not constitute lying, nor that someone is "neo-con" or whatever bush haters like to term him. It's called an "oops." We have all had them. Rather than flame the president, it would be more constructive to find where the false information originated, and if it was an honest mistake or a case of misinformation to further an agenda.

You see, I don't like Bush. I don't think he's really that great. But I dont hate him just because he beat Al Gore, or because he is liberal enemy #1. But those two factors are the true underlying motivation for the majority of those who do dislike or hate bush, and their reason for trying to tear down his credibility. To question is good; to spin your answers into propaganda is not.

Originally posted by saturnine_sweet
I'm not a supporter of bush, but I do have to point out that this is a politically slanted thread mis-representing the truth. To be a leader of a country, and have your highly trusted security agency supply you with information, which you then use to make your decisions, and which you at times share with others, then finding out they were wrong does not constitute lying,

This thread is not politically slanted and does not misrepresent the truth. That would be your post. You obviously have reading comprehension problems. You are trying to use the lame excuses about faulty intelligence offered up for the WMD lies. When Bush made the statement about the mass graves, U.S. forces had been on the ground in Iraq for eight months. The U.S. military knew exactly how many corpses had been found in the mass graves. For Bush not to be lying in the statement I quoted, lies about the mass graves would have had to be passed up the chain of command to Bush. This is not a question of faulty intelligence sources. This is a question of the U.S. military deliberately lying to the commander in chief. How likely is that? The more plausible conclusion is that Bush lied and knew he was lying.

nor that someone is "neo-con" or whatever bush haters like to term him. It's called an "oops." We have all had them. Rather than flame the president, it would be more constructive to find where the false information originated, and if it was an honest mistake or a case of misinformation to further an agenda.

No one is flaming the President, merely documenting that he lied. No one needs to find where the false information originated. It either originated in George Bush's head, or somewhere in the chain of command between him and soldiers in the field. Honest mistake or a case of misinformation to further an agenda? I vote for misinformation, AKA lies, from George Bush to justify his insane Iraq War. That is a very solid motive for Bush to lie in this case.

Know what I love about you dong? Your constant and unrelenting double standard. And your totally prejudiced views. People like you make it fun to be a republican. The president recieves bad information which he acts upon and shares in good faith and you call hm a liar.
Newsflash in order for his statements to be a lie he must INTENTIONALLY state what he KNOWS to be untrue in a DELBERATE attempt to decieve. The fact that 99% of our intelligence on Iraq Both before and during the conflict with Iraq comes from Iraquis who have intentionally misrepresented and overestimated thier claims is to you irellevant. Tel me Dong, where do you think the reports about Iraqui WMD's came from in the first place? Iraqui disidents maybe? And if they led to the CIA and the CIA passed those lies on to the president and he passed them on to the U.S. people is HE guilty of lieing? even if neither he nor the CIA knew them to be lies?

BTW in terms of lieing to the public you might want to look to your own avatar to see a true master deciever.

But it doesnt count when dems do it does it dong?

Precisely speaking it does NOT say specifically how many from any given country NOR does it say that there were buyers from ALL the five countries.
IT SAYS:
'According to a senior counter-proliferation official, meetings between Niger officials and would-be buyers from the five countries were held in several European countries, including Italy.'

"would-be buyers from the five countries" could be two buyers from any of the five countries. It is in FACT a rather imprecise statement.

It is vauge and shows perhaps something about the way the mind operates. You have managed to read something into the text that is NOT there.

IT PROVES NOTHING ABOUT IRAQ.
.

[edit on 26-7-2004 by slank]

slank: Imprecise or not, the article says what it says, creative misinterpretations notwithstanding.

If you don't believe it, that is both reasonable and understandable. Attempting to redefine the syntax of the English language instead is not.

Do you understand the logic of mathematical proof?
Five countries is a collection of things. Imagine 100 would-be buyers are in a bag where you can not see them.
"would-be buyers from the five countries" =
you take 10 would-be buyers from this bag at random. There is no guarantee of getting would-be buyers from any more than ONE country.

READ THE TEXT FOR EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS.

THE ART OF LYING IS SAYING THE EXACT TRUTH AND RELYING ON THE INATTENTIVENESS OF YOUR AUDIENCE TO MISINTERPRET IT.

THIS IS THE TECHNIQUE OF ALL MAGICIANS.

Deception takes many forms.

Our interpretations of the text differ, and that's fine. You say it means one thing, I say it means another.

Agreement between us is not required, and other readers of this thread are free to make up their own minds, and that's never a bad thing.

So I recommend we leave it at that.