Chip

US President George W Bush has said he wants to "know the facts" about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The White House has been under pressure to set up an investigation into why no weapons have been found in Iraq.

In his remarks on Friday, Mr Bush did not address whether an inquiry would be set up as recommended by the ex-chief US arms inspector David Kay and others.

Those calls have been fuelled by a White House admission that the pre-war intelligence may have been flawed.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Thursday became the first senior member of the Bush administration to acknowledge publicly that the data used as the key argument for invading Iraq may have been wrong.

President Bush said he wanted to be able to compare what was found by the Iraq Survey Group formerly headed by Mr Kay with what had been thought before the war.

"I want to know the facts," he said.

Inquiry demands

Ms Rice's admissions are being seen as a painful necessity after Mr Kay's testimony to Congress that he did not believe that there were significant stockpiles of banned weapons in Iraq before the war.

Opposition Democrats have urged a wide-ranging investigation into the apparent failures and similar calls have also been made by influential Republican Senator John McCain.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says the demands for an inquiry into the pre-war intelligence could force action from the White House.

I just don't see how Tony Blair can hold the line that he was right when everyone else is now admitting they were wrong

Robin Cook,
Former UK foreign minister


Should there be an inquiry?

"The pressure could become unstoppable," he says. "This is now a serious issue in American politics - one that the president has to address."

But our correspondent says the lack of WMD is regarded as a separate issue to whether the war was justified.

On Friday, Mr Bush reiterated his view that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had been a "danger".

"We dealt with the danger, and as a result, the world is a better place and a more peaceful place, and the Iraqi people are free," he said.

UK challenges

In Britain, pressure for is also growing on UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to set up an inquiry into the pre-war intelligence. His office echoed his American allies in saying the war was necessary to stop an imminent threat from an Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction.

But Robin Cook, a former UK cabinet minister who resigned in the run-up to war, told the BBC: "I just don't see how Tony Blair can hold the line that he was right when everyone else is now admitting they were wrong."

Mr Blair is expected to be challenged on why he is sticking by the WMD arguments when he appears before a committee of senior members of parliament on Tuesday.

A spokesman for Mr Blair has dismissed calls for an inquiry into the gathering of intelligence and said the Iraq Survey Group should be given time to finish its work.

No deadline has been set for the inspectors to complete their search.

US defence expert Anthony Cordesman told the BBC that the so far fruitless search for alleged weapons of mass destruction revealed problems in the gathering of intelligence from Iraq and its subsequent analysis, much of which he described as "sophisticated guesswork".

He said the difficulties in getting good information from Iraq also had a bearing on arms control elsewhere, such as in Iran and North Korea.

"They simply have to be addressed," he said.

And there was I thinking that maybe, just maybe they should have sought out the facts first.

Chip.



[Edited by Chip - 1/30/2004 8:52:45 PM]

Freak

I thought they were in possesion of all the facts in the first place- hence the decision to go to war??

retards

akshay67

Bush is just covering his *** pre-election: get the WoMD issue out of the way, find a suitable scapegoat (e.g. Iraqi people have freedom*), WoMD issue burried and it won't come back to haunt him...

*Cynical example. Watch CH4 on Sunday at 7pm, 'Invading Iraq'.

[Edited by akshay67 - 1/30/2004 8:57:54 PM]

fast bloke

Can someone mail him this


Dear Dubbya,
Please find attached facts about WMD's

1. You made them up
2. Your bum chum B. Liar backed you up (mmmmm interesting)
3. You got control of the oil

If you need clarification mail me
If you need whitewash mail lord.hutton@coverupsRus.gov.uk

Why not be upfront and say - "OK people - we had to invade that git in Iraq cos if we didn't he would held some control over our economy and could have fecked us up the **** very slowly, and anyway - without a war I would have got booted out at the next election (just like me poor old da... hang on - he got botted out anyway.... damn)"

I am sure you would get more support that way


Cheers


FB

Fatman

...bingo! It was always about the oil.

gareth123

Bush Sr went to war with Iraq. Saddam survived and outlasted Bush Sr in office. Saddam publically mocked Bush for getting booted out. Saddam tried to kill Bush Sr. Bush Jr gets into office and wants to settle the score. The CIA provide 'suspect' intelligence that enables Bush Jr to attack Iraq. Bush Sr used to be head of the freaking CIA.

Nobody here is asking why this smells so bad!

Fatman

Yes, there was the element of "finishing what Daddy started" but America needs middle-eastern oil and dearly wants control over it. IIRC the rights to sell/process Iraqi oil were sold to Haliburton way before Gulf War 2*. Can anyone honestly say that oil had nothing to do with it?

* I wish I could find the link to that story. Could have been on Cryptome. Anyone have the link?

gareth123

I think oil is a factor.

If oil was the sole reason they would have invaded Saudi Arabia using the excuse that 15 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis and Saudi mosques continue to promote anti-Western hatred. But the Bushes have too many family business ties with the Saudis.

Fatman

British businesses are also heavily involved in Saudi, so Bush would find little support for a strong anti-Saudi stance from Tony B.liar.

gareth123

Bush would find strong support from Tony if he wanted to rip Cherie's head off and poop down her neck.

fast bloke

anyone got a figure for the cost of 'Iraq2-Die hard with vengance?'

Imagine dubbya had spent that much on harnessing solar power - About 50% of America would be totally self-reliant within 20 years and probably generating enough capacity to keep the rest fairly warm

Oops - Problem is that dubbya won't be around in 20 years, so doesn't give a flying ****... and no matter how hard they try.. the british people just won't live with sunshine tax from B.Liar and 'Gordo' B.Rowntherobbinggit

gareth123

100 square miles of solar panels (granted that's a lot of solar panels but how much is this war costing again?) in southern Nevada would generate enough electricity for the entire country. Distributing it and protecting it from attack would be tricky I accept, but wouldn't that just be an awesome thing to achieve. It's not like anyone would miss 100sq miles of Nevada nothingness either.

Fatman

lol @ gareth123: yeah, sad to say but you might be right. He's jammed well up Bush's /\r5€.

The technical achievement of assembling a hundred square miles of solar cells would be awesome. Considering the land resource available, it would make perfect sense.

I don't know what GW2 costs, but to maintain the current presence has to be costing the States tens of millions of dollars per day. That would solve an awful lot of problems in America. Healthcare, for starters.

Except Bush is a Texas oilman.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Lets get this right folks...


Bush wants to know from the military WHY they have not found any WMD



They've probably not found any WMD as there WEREN'T ANY IN THE FIRST BLOODY PLACE




**** me, I bet someone gets sacked for not finding something that wasn't there




Eijit

dsmith

Anyone who does that has my unconditional support for ever.

Deano

gareth123

$1,000,000,000 per month is the burn rate the White House currently quotes. Lord knows what the true figure is. A Bil a month is $22,000 per minute, which is about 3 average American's yearly income tax contributions EVERY FREAKING MINUTE, 24 x 7.

Fatman

I wonder if Bush 'gave' himself the right to claim any of the costs of the US presence in Iraq from the Iraqi oil revenues? i.e. a (partially, at least) self-financing presence?

gareth123

Does this stuff not get reported over there?! Maybe the BBC doesn't want more trouble

Yes, the Iraqi oil revenues will be used to partially pay back the US for freeing Iraq. In fact, the government here was pissed off about the sorry state of the Iraqi oil infrastructure, because a. Iraq won't be able to pay back the US as fast as originally thought and b. (speculation) it means Halliburton can't cream off profits quite so fast as they help the Iraqis hand their oil over.

The widely reported $80Bn additional funding for Operation Iraqi Freedom includes $20Bn the Army are spending on oil infrastructure (huh? Army? oil? wtf?), so the US taxpayers are being super-generous-nice to all Bush's oil buddies there then. None of whom bankrolled his political career of course.

Fatman

I've not personally seen that in the UK news, no. I suspected as much, though. I'm sure I read something along those lines on Cryptome a while back.

I wonder who else has a resource-rich country which UKUSA could help 'liberate'?

fast bloke

spending the money working out how to get 100 sq miles of solar panels would quickly lead to increased efficiency and reduced size - look at the processing power used for code cracking during WW2 compared to processing power used to drive a mobile phone. By 2100 a postage stamp solar power cell would probably power a large city.

BTW - Has anyone ever flown over the Nevada desert? 2 hours at 500 MPH of sand, sun, sand, sand and sun. Enough capacity to give some spare to the Arabs

gareth123

I don't think the 100 square miles of solar panels in Nevada is very workable - the distribution losses to the NorthEastern US would be huge. But they could at least try to come up with a better energy policy than oil.

BTW, the Mojave desert in Nevada is a beautiful and fun place to go for a drive. Need sunblock and a few gallons of water though. I melted a credit card in the 'boot' of our MR2 out there, so I think it gets quite warm

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Took longer over Australia

gareth123

But there's only about 40 houses in Australia with mains electricity, and half of those are empty because the owners are in Earl's Court, so 100 square miles of Aussie solar panels would be a bit silly really.