Wed, 17 Dec 2003
CNN Reporting of war crimes
Our guys are committing war
crims in Iraq. Lovely. But, in all honesty, all our guys are doing
is liberating the
Iraqi people. That's not soo wrong, is it? And victory
is right around the corner..
At least we don't need to worry about our president lying to us, do we??
From
Florida Today
Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S.
Nelson said claim made during classified briefing
By John McCarthy
FLORIDA TODAY
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told
him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction,
but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.
Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a
classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing
the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in
favor of using military force.
Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave the
briefing.
The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of
Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's claim.
Nelson said the senators were told Iraq had both biological and chemical
weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to cities along the
Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones.
"They have not found anything that resembles an UAV that has that
capability," Nelson said.
Nelson delivered the news during a half-hour conference call with
reporters Monday afternoon. The senator, who is on a seven-nation trade
mission to South America, was calling from an airport in Santiago, Chile.
"That's news," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a
Washington, D.C.-area military and intelligence think tank. "I had not
heard that that was the assessment of the intelligence community. I had
not heard that the Congress had been briefed on this."
Since the late 1990s, there have been several reports that Iraq was
converting a fleet of Czechoslovakian jet fighters into UAVs, as well as
testing smaller drones. And in a speech in Cincinnati last October, Bush
mentioned the vehicles. "We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of
using these UAVs for missions targeting the United States," the president
said.
Nelson, though, said the administration told senators Iraq had gone beyond
exploring and developed the means of hitting the U.S. with weapons of mass
destruction.
Nelson wouldn't say what the original source of the intelligence was, but
said it contradicted other intelligence reports senators had received. He
said he wants to find out why there was so much disagreement about the
weapons. "If that is an intelligence failure . . . we better find that out
so we don't have an intelligence failure in the future."
Pike said any UAVs Iraq might have had would have had a range of only
several hundred kilometers, enough to hit targets in the Middle East but
not the United States. To hit targets on the East Coast, such drones would
have to be launched from a ship in Atlantic. He said it wasn't out of the
question for Iraq to have secretly acquired a tramp steamer from which
such vehicles could have been launched.
"The notion that someone could launch a missile from a ship off our shores
has been on Rummy's mind for years," Pike said, referring to Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Sen. Bob Graham, who voted against using military force in Iraq, didn't
return phone calls concerning the briefing. Spokespersons for Reps. Dave
Weldon and Tom Feeney said neither congressman could say if they had
received similar briefings since they don't comment on classified
information.
Posted at: 22:57 on 17/12/2003
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