MISC> Re: NEWS> Bush Administration Makes Substantial Portion of Case for Iraq War

From: Gleason Sackmann <gleason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: NetHappenings <nethappenings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 07:38:05 -0600
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Net Happenings - From Educational CyberPlayGround
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From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 16:16:01 -0500 (EST)

I think that the type and sources of information found in the British
paper are important for reasons outlined in this article excerpted below.

Op-ed: Exquisite detail
<http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_12-2-2003_pg3_2>

Anyway, it is unthinkable that the British government would tell lies or
even shade the truth in such an important matter. Mr Blair might tell lies
about other things �indeed has done so in the most juvenile fashion �but
we are not talking grubby politics, here, or about deceiving the British
public to achieve petty popularity; we are talking about committing vast
US and British military forces to a war that will result in the killing of
an unpredictable number of civilians. A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand?
A hundred thousand? President George Bush does not know. Nobody knows. The
war will alter the shape of the Middle East and have profound economic and
social consequences for almost every country in the world. But Mr Bush is
determined to go to war, and to his mind his action will be justified by
the revelations of his secretary of state in the Security Council, which
included a major contribution from Mr Blair.

Mr Powell said that every statement I make today is backed by sources,
solid sources... some of them sources of the intelligence services of
other countries. The Washington Post noted that The [British] dossier was
cited and praised by... Powell during his presentation, and in his address
Mr Powell said I would call my [UN] colleagues attention to the fine paper
that the United Kingdom distributed yesterday which describes in exquisite
detail Iraqi deception activities.

Let us look at the fine paper and exquisite detail because if Mr Powell
describes something as fine he means that it is of high quality,
excellent, of notable merit. Exquisite means extremely beautiful or
delicate... keen, highly sensitive or discriminating. The British
document, alas, was none of the above. It was a mishmash of
cobbled-together extracts from articles descriptive of conditions many
years ago. It was also incompetent, because it included grammatical
infelicities that had appeared in the original publications. It was
produced by a bunch of poisonous zealots who had trawled the Internet to
copy a few paragraphs that would satisfy their masters that a convincing
case had been made against Iraq.

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The masters were the prime minister of the United Kingdom and the
secretary of state of the United States of America. It cannot be claimed
that Mr Powell did not read the paper. Who would lavish such exquisite
praise on a document if he hadnt read it, after all? Did Mr Blair read
this fine paper issued in his name? We will never know. What we do know is
that this bunch of sleazy sharpies took paragraphs from three editions of
Janes Intelligence Review �a good source, to be sure, but not exactly MI6
published in 1997 and 2002, for their purposes. Then there were paragraphs
lifted wholesale from an article by Mr Ibrahim al-Marashi in the Middle
East Review last year. But it was not only a cut and paste job; it
involved altering sentences to convey the message that these hacks were
told to send by their masters. For example, one sentence in the original
Janes article about the Iraqi intelligence services responsibilities was
Monitoring Iraqi embassies abroad... aiding opposition groups in hostile
regimes. In the Downing Street version �the document referred to by Mr
Powell as a fine paper having exquisite detail �the sentence was changed
to Spying on Iraqi diplomats abroad... supporting terrorist organisations
in hostile regimes. This is deliberate deceit. How can we believe a word
these people tell us?

William Rivers-Pitt, author of War on Iraq, summed up the British
deception by observing: An analysis [of Mr al-Marashis essay] clearly
demonstrates that his work was meant to describe Iraqs... situation in the
1990s. The British dossier was presented as an up-to-date report on the
status of Iraqs weapons and terrorist ties... Powells presentation was
based upon information that is questionable, to say the least. In short,
Mr Powells exercise was the epitome of hi-tech hocus-pocus.

---------------------

I think that it is important to put on the table discussion of all aspects
of an issue as serious as a major war in the Middle East. �There will be a
great deal of attention payed to the fact that discussion of the report
led one to believe that its contents were from sophisticated intelligence
work of the sort that might come from satellite photos and secret contacts
rather than from research anybody could do in their public library. �The
serious importance of the issue and of the credibility of our actions
greatly increases the importance of the content sources for the British Report.

Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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MISC> Re: NEWS> Bush Administration Makes Substantial Portion of Case for Iraq War

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