25 Comments

1. Pierre Legrand:

Roger,

I hope that you don’t stoop to Byron York’s near NYT’s level of reporting when you do put out your piece on Tierney. Byron’s piece was a hit piece pure and simple and reminded me of those sorts of articles I used to read in the MSM when I still read that crap. Not a single ounce of fact except what is used to kill the messagener. Even that is not done honestly by coming right out and saying the man is a nut. Intead its like Byron has his hand over his mouth smirking at him the entire time. Re-confirmed the rightness of my decision to allow my National Review Subscription to fade away.

My feelings on the matter were captured perfectly by Jeff over at Protein Wisdom in yesterdays piece. WMD Redux – The “Intelligence Summit” fallout

My article pointing to Jeff

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:07 am 2. syn:

Geez, if Tierney had simply used the word ‘destiny’ would that have calmed those fear the word ‘God’?

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:21 am 3. dclydew:

So how do these tapes differ from what we’ve been told since the invasion? It was my understanding that we’d realized that Saddam’s people had been lying to him, telling him that *insert weapons program* was progressing, while not actually doing any work on it. Do these tapes confirm that, or is there some information there that indicates that these people are seriously discussing real WMD’s not just appeasing a madman?

Though, if the had fooled Saddam into believing in WMD’s, then it may not be difficult to argue that it makes sense that the Administration was fooled too.

Feb 21, 2006 - 7:46 am 4. dclydew:

Wait a minute…. This guy was presenting on “Coast to Coast”… and you all actually paid attention to what he said?!!!

About 9 months ago Coast to Coast said that we had developed secret technology to divert hurricanes, but then sold it to the Chineese, who are now using it to direct hurricanes at us… a few weeks before that, they had a piece on how Alzihemers is actually Mad Cow Disease. That puts this revelation in an entirely different context.

Now, this fellow says that Saddam was responsible for the ‘93 WTC attack, the ‘95 Oklahoma City attack, the 2001 Anthrax attacks and his co-sponser thinks that the Bush family got their money from being friends of Nazis. Better yet, his big breakthrough came from God and a friend’s 2 year old dream…

I am astonished that the millitary ever let such a great resource go… people with direct lines of communication to God tend to live in Italy, so one would think it would be nice to have a prophet available for the President.

Now what I want to know is why did God choose someone who couldn’t actually acomplish his mission? I mean, why not directly speak with the President himself? Pop into a dream and say “Oh by the way, tell UNSCOM to go look where the giant pillar of fire is…”

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:00 am 5. Charlie (Colorado):

people with direct lines of communication to God tend to live in Italy, …

Or Salt lake City.

(The Pope told the College of Cardinals there was good news and bad news. The good news was that God had returned and called him. The bad news was that Her name was LaWanda and she was calling from Salt Lake City.)

Uh, Roger, on the plasma thing: plasma is an essential component of fidssion weapons too: its that real hot shiny stuff in the middle during the explosion.

What theyw ere talking about is plasma seperation, which would be a more efficient separation method than the centrifugal method they were already working on. It’s a clear statement they were continuing their nuclear weapon development.

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:42 am 6. dclydew:

“It’s a clear statement they were continuing their nuclear weapon development.”

Or a clear statement that they were feeding Saddam bullshit.

How are we supposed to figure out if they were really doing this stuff, or if they were just pulling the wool over the old man’s eyes (which I thought we had found evidence of)?

Feb 21, 2006 - 8:50 am 7. Knucklehead:

So far the WMDTapes strike me as nothing particularly new as far as info goes. We knew then, and know now, that the guy had WMD and programs to develop more of the same. What we did not know is how much he had stockpiled and, if there were large stockpiles or other sorts of smoking guns, where those went to.

If he didn’t have successful programs and stockpiles they why not come clean about that and ward off the Wrath of Shrub? One possible reason is that he thought there was no way on earth Jacques and Kofi and Gerhardt and Alex would allow Shrub to drop the hammer. Getting out from under the sanction and inspection routine would have been a piece of cake and his buddies would gladly have helped him – all he had to do was invite in everybody and anybody to look around wherever they wanted. That he didn’t take this option was puzzling and, to my thinking, only answered by presuming he thought his buddies would save his butt.

Of course the fact that a brinksmanship madman like Saddam was bluffing about having weapons he knew he didn’t have seems somewhat believable. Or perhaps he was being lied to. The result either way is the same. If it was a lie then maintaining the lie required subterfuge that would convince not only Saddam but international intelligence also. The idea that the US should have been able to see through either bluff or deception seems a bit much to have expected.

Imagine being US intelligence. Satelite shots show that everytime inspectors show up guys run out the back gate with a bunch of trucks. Saddam’s henchmen run around looking busy as hell and the bug you have in his office produces audio of them telling him how much progress they are making. In the meantime you’ve got a mole who claims the whole thing is a farce to keep Saddam from sending then all off to the firing squad and another mole who says just the opposite.

Now you’re Bush, POTUS. You know full well the guy is hooked in with various terrorist organizations and runs his own IIS. You know full well that a-Q is an umbrella terrorist organization hooked in with various terrorist organizations. You know the IIS has had some level of contacts with a-Q. You don’t know for sure if one is playing the other or they are in cahoots. But there sits Saddam, scum of the earth, right smack dab in the middle of the whole mess that just cannot be allowed to continue as it has, in control of the best geostrategic terrain in the whole place. “Take him down” is a perfectly sensible choice. I still fail to see why this action is considered so horrible to so many.

The idea that we’re “bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan” and, therefore, unable to do anything about Iran is silly. If we do anything militarily against Iran it will likely be an air show. We’re are not bogged down in the air above Iraq or Afghanistan. And if the whole thing should ever progress to the point of needing to put boots on the ground in Iran, in case nobody has noticed, Iraq and Afghanistan are right freakin’ next door.

Feb 21, 2006 - 9:13 am 8. Robin Goodfellow:

I find the “Massive Conspiracy of Saddam’s Ministers to Create a Make Believe WMD Program” theory rather hard to swallow. Consider that Saddam has already culled his staff of people he cannot trust, multiple times, and violently. Consider that such a conspiracy would have to be super tight; that it would involve, effectively, the embezzlement of vast sums of money (perhaps billions); that Saddam had previous experience with actual WMDs (chem & bio) and would be difficult to fool on this subject; that even the tiniest breach would result in the death by torture of the conspirators and their families. Was there really sufficient motivation for ALL of those who were involved to take such huge risks? What are the precedents in Saddam’s regime for such a thing as this? Surely if a group of ministers can bluff Saddam on this thing there would be other conspiracies of similar proportion, wouldn’t there? Where are the whistleblowers now? Where are the former conspirators saying they pulled one over on ol’ Saddam? Where did the money go if it didn’t go to WMDs?

It is a theory that just does not make sense. Furthermore, there is no positive evidence for this theory at all. What evidence their is (from many national intelligence agencies, from witnesses, from circumstancial evidence, etc.) all points toward the probability that Saddam’s regime had a functioning WMD program and some WMD stockpiles as late as 2002 and that the bulk of these materials were transported to Syria during the runup to the war.

Feb 21, 2006 - 9:15 am 9. dclydew:

Robin,

Unfortunately, I think that the ‘evidence’ for either argument is slim. However, I think that both may be theories that could bear fruit if investigated. Neither solution really sits well on Occam’s razor, we’re either assuming that Saddam was able to hide all WMD evidence from weapons inspectors and then spirited them away under the US Intel’s nose (do you think we weren’t watching them like hawks?), or we’re assuming that his people were lying to him about their progress in such research, which, as you point out, requires some further assumptions as well.

However, we do now know that Saddam had taken to sitting around writing romance novels, we’ve found no evidence that Iraq was buying WMD components, which means that they would be working off of old stockpiles in the case of bioweapons, and they appear to have had no useful nuclear base to build off of… If there were weapons programs, where did the resources come from? This I think should be answered before we assume that WMD’s existed and were spirited away.

Secondly, we have yet to find traces of weaponized materials in any of the locations we thought suspect. If all of our Intel about the locations were wrong, why assume that the existence of those weapons was right?

Thirdly, the question of why Saddam would maintain the lie if WMD’s didn’t exist… yet, by the same token, if he had spirited the WMD’s away, one would think that he would have come out in public as soon as they crossed the border and said “Come one Come all, investigate my country”.

Saddam, in the current trial appears a bit of a looney… is it possible that the man is no longer connected with reality, and perhaps was simply being humored by his friends?

Neither solution seems to have lots of supporting evidence, but I think that the distinct lack of any evidence of real WMD’s may indicate that Saddam was duped by his people. If we find a cache somewhere, I’ll likely revise that view.

Feb 21, 2006 - 9:36 am 10. Yehudit:

My problem with teirney is that if he wants to be credible he won’t wear his religion on his sleeve, knowing how it will impact his credibility. If he doesn’t know that and he has been in these high positions in the intelligence community, what kind of nerd is he?

Anyway, all this could have bearing on how he is handling this material and why he is leaking it.

Feb 21, 2006 - 10:26 am 11. dclydew:

Yehudit,

Good points… though I wonder why the people who were upset about someone leaking that the NSA wiretap program exists, thinks that leaking these tapes is good.

Leaking classified material is Bad, it doesn’t matter if it’s a CIA operative’s name, a secret NSA program or some tapes that an individual was asked to translate… any one of those sorts of leaks in my company would have resulted in the individual losing their job (and in my personal opinion betray a lack of ethics and morals).

Though I guess if God talks to someone directly, they may have more info on morals than I… or something.

Feb 21, 2006 - 10:35 am 12. Pierre Legrand:

The main problem with the theory that Saddams Weapons guys lied to him is why would they want to? What motivated such an outlandish conspiracy against a tyrant who was so paranoid that he had multiple intelligence agencies checking each other for conspiracies against the State. Why lie? Why tell Saddam he had weapons when they didn’t? This theory is more a product of people thinking too hard on a subject.

Good point that our intelligence agencies would have seen the weapons leaving. So that theory has a contradiction…except that contradictions usually don’t exist. What is the solution? Lets ask ourselves where the weapons went? Who moved the weapons? Finally does the Bush administration have an interest in exposing all of those answers or do they have more of an interest in hiding that information?

For just a moment answer the second question by inserting Russia. Then view our current circumstances with Iran…exactly what does the Bush administration gain my releasing the information? They don’t need justification for invading Iraq anymore its done. They do need Russia on board…and embarrassing them by painting them into a corner might not be the smartest thing in the world.

Judging a President at war is an art…nothing, absolutely nothing is what it seems to be.

Pierre Legrand

Feb 21, 2006 - 11:30 am 13. dclydew:

Pierre,

I agree that the ‘russian’ theory appears as a real possibility. However, as you say… all of this is an exercise in an art form. Its just too bad that these tapes appear less useful than I’d hoped.

Feb 21, 2006 - 11:48 am 14. RKV:

Roger, When you say “I was put off by his excessive religiosity” would you have been as put off if he was a hassidim? I think not. You may or may not agree with his beliefs, but it is a matter of fact that many Jews have are bigoted when it comes to evangelical Christians. I couldn’t point you to a survey to quantify the effect, but I certainly have seen this reaction from my Jewish friends. I encourage you to focus on the message (and it’s truth or falsehood) and not the messenger. I am an agnostic who grew up around evangelicals, and in my experience, it’s not the religion, its the person. RKV

Feb 21, 2006 - 12:23 pm 15. Robin Goodfellow:

Our intelligence agencies DID spot them smuggling WMDs out of Iraq. Moreover, there is also substantial evidence within Iraq that Saddam’s regime maintained a healthy WMD development program up until the time of the invasion. The real question is why the administration has not trumpeted this evidence. The answer there is multi-fold. On the one hand you have the problem that getting complex scientific and circumstantial evidence across to the public at large is very challenging if not often impossible. Ask the average man on the street about the ozone hole problem, for example. This is a very simple scientific issue that anyone should be able to understand. Ozone is a molecule created naturally from Oxygen via sunlight, it screens ultraviolet rays, there is a layer of the upper atmosphere rich in ozone which reduces the amount of UV rays from the Sun which reach Earth’s surface. There are certain chemicals, CFCs for example, which destroy ozone very efficiently (through catalytic reactions), the widespread use of these materials has caused thinning of the ozone layer as well as “holes” over parts of the Earth during certain times of year when conditions were just right. Ask 10 random people about the ozone hole problem and I can almost guarantee you that maybe only one of them will get it right. Now, imagine that, only translated into the even more complex subject of chemical weapons precurser materials, specialized equipment, and such-like. It’s not an easy case to make to the public. Especially given the difficulty of having to start running uphill due to the effect of the rhetoric of the opposition. Especially considering that all this evidence comes in the form of probabilities and most-likely scenarios, and whatnot.

Further, in terms of the mission itself, what was the need? Support for OIF has wavered at times, but we’re still there, Bush still won reelection, the Republicans still maintained control of congress. Without a pressing need to make the case, there’s little incentive to put the effort into such a grueling effort.

Also remember that the administration DID try to make the case. They put together some fairly reasonable evidence of mobile biological weapons facilities and the press and administration opponents shat all over it without putting forward the slightest effort in terms of science or logic.

I believe that the administration has decided to keep its powder dry, and wait for better and more incontrovertable evidence to come in. Operationally, they don’t need to be vindicated on this issue to continue OIF or other activities in the region.

I’ll say it again, if you look at the evidence, none of it points toward the “massive no-WMD conspiracy” theory, while the most plausable theory, given all the evidence, is that an active Iraqi WMD program was cleaned up and incriminating materials were shipped to Syria during 2002/2003. Why is this so hard to believe? Baathist Iraq had DECADES of experience keeping its WMD programs low-profile and hiding the evidence from inspectors, they also had decades of experience in the value of manipulating the press for advantage (by intentionally creating civilian casualties, for example). You can believe it or not, but if not, please put forward an alternate theory which has equivalent or superior evidence behind it.

Feb 21, 2006 - 12:51 pm 16. Roger:

Sorry, RKV, if he were a Hasid saying that God told him this and that my ears would have gone up as well. But… I agree with you that it is the person.

dlcydew, you have not done your homework. This info was not leaked. It was not secure. Tierney did not even have to sign so much as an NDA.

Feb 21, 2006 - 1:45 pm 17. dclydew:

Roger, When you say “I was put off by his excessive religiosity” would you have been as put off if he was a hassidim?

I would bet that if the hassidim had said that Moses appeared in a dream and told him where the WMD’s were, Roger may have been put off as well.

Robin,

DID spot them smuggling WMDs out of Iraq.

The DID, or did they spot something that could have been WMD?

substantial evidence within Iraq that Saddam’s regime maintained a healthy WMD development program up until the time of the invasion.

Really? Or was there some circumstantial evidence which indicated that this may have been the case?

they put together some fairly reasonable evidence of mobile biological weapons facilities

You mean the stuff from before the invasion, that they never found actual evidence to support?

Look, you’re argument that there is a strong case for WMD simply doesn’t stand. You have, at best some circumstantial evidence which you choose to interpert as supporting your theory. I’m not saying that your theory is wrong, only that its currently without emperical evidence.

As such, it is still no more or less conjecture than any other. In fact, if we compare both of the mentioned theories (They hid ‘em, They lied to Saddam) neither seem to have any emperical evidence. Though, we may certianly consider the David Kay’s statements that Iraqi Scientists had duped Saddam into handing them lots of money for non-existant programs (correlated by Tariq Aziz), as equally circumstantial evidence.

If Saddam was funding ‘fanciful’ programs which were really corrutption schemes by scientists (which according to Kay was apparently happening), then it seems reasonable that we didn’t find WMD’s (because the money that was going to WMD’s instead bought whatever it is that WMD scientists buy in their free time). Of course, we can’t prove that this was the case, the scientists and Mr. Aziz could be lying. David Kay could have been duped. However, without some emperical evidence to the contrary, Occam’s Razor seems slightly in favor of no weapons.

I’m still happy to see real evidence to the contrary.

Feb 21, 2006 - 1:54 pm 18. dclydew:

This info was not leaked. It was not secure. Tierney did not even have to sign so much as an NDA.

Roger,

Audio tapes of Saddam’s Hussein’s private conversations were not considered confidential? Well, that’s interesting. I stand corrected.

Thanks.

Feb 21, 2006 - 1:55 pm 19. RKV:

Roger, Neither of us has anything to be sorry about, and I appreciate your focus on the issue at hand (even though the personalities involved make that difficult for you). With respect to dclydew’s comments on the evidence for WMD’s being circumstantial, do you recall as I do the reports that our troops found large quantities of chemical warfare gear (masks and suits) as they invaded Iraq? Someone high up in the Iraqi military was thinking WMD’s were going to be deployed. I enjoy reading your blog. Thanks for what you do. Best Regards, RKV

Feb 21, 2006 - 3:05 pm 20. Charlie (Colorado):

dclydew, RKV, as you suggest, the details are certainly not (yet?) unequivocal. But the massive motion of trucks and trailers to Syria is well-documented, and there were some pretty good reasons to believe they coming back empty. Some of them were apparently filled with cash, but not all of them.

Now, consider the way that Saddam moved his fighter aircraft to Iran before the first gulf campaign.

There are also multiple reports, from independent sources, of weapons being hidden in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, of similar programs of concealment in Romania (by Ion Pacepa), and and now, multiple sources who actually claim to have participated in the shipping.

Countering that, we’ve got people saying the WMD had been destroyed — but an awfully high proportion of those sources stand to be indicted for crimes against humanity with those weapons.

I don’t think we can discount the “concealment” option.

Feb 21, 2006 - 3:30 pm 21. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

Roger, if your comments are based the statements shown on tape, I can only say that I am shocked and dismayed by your position.

“Excessive religiosity?” The guy said that he prayed with an Iraqi Christian to calm him down. He said that continuing in his work after being attacked for “proseletyzing a Muslim” (which he did not do) would be offensive to his religious feelings *and* his duty to protect the constitution. How would you feel if your job was put on the line for something you didn’t do? You might just get a bit emotional about it when someone asked! He didn’t say that his religion affected his views or his analysis, did he?

Have we come to the point where a highly intelligent person like yourself cannot like someone if they express a little bit of religious feeling?

Just what exactly do you object to? That an intelligent person can be religious (hint: a very large number of past and present intelligent people were and are religious)? That someone would dare to mention religion in public? That religious motivations would affect someone’s personal choices?

I don’t get it at all. This shows a remarkable amount of religious intolerance – very Hollywood, and yet I know you are much more than a Hollywood stick figure.

I can find lots of things the guy says that strike me as iffy, but his personal religious views, and the context in which they appeared, are as American as apple pie, and are hardly “excessively religious.”

By the way, just what would consider non-excessive religiosity?

Feb 21, 2006 - 4:06 pm 22. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

OK, so I posted that before I read the other article.

The guy is religious, deeply so. Enough to make him dislikable? Hardly. Enough to qualify him for the Art Bell show – perhaps.

Tolerance, eh?

Feb 21, 2006 - 4:08 pm 23. dclydew:

Charlie,

I don’t think we can discount the “concealment” option.

I don’t either. As I stated multiple times, it appears that we have no real evidence for anything. We seem to have some circumstantial evidence that could support concealment, circumstantial evidence that could support scientists swiping funds for ‘projects’ that went into their pockets. Both options require some serious guessing.

John Moore,

I think that people should be as religious as they want to be. If this fellow honestly believes that God is directing his hunt for WMD’s, more power to him. However, if he wants to be taken seriously he should probably focus on finding evidence, not inspiration.

Though, in the bible, if God wanted to direct someone to something, he was pretty straightforward about it. Pillars of smoke and fire might be useful here, or perhaps a couple angels who could lead our folks to it. If Russia or Syria helped hide them, why not shower a little fire and brimstone down on them and turn their site security guards into saltlicks?

This fellow sounds like the typical Art Bell fodder (as you pointed out). His conspiracy sounds like something straight out of Illuminatus!

Since he has yet to find anything, I wonder if God plans for him to wander around Iraq for 40 years before finally letting him find the bioweapons lab?

Feb 22, 2006 - 7:24 am 24. John Moore ( Useful Fools ):

On the other hand, if he finds the goods and attributes it to God, what’s the problem? Its the results that count.

The issue arises if he doesn’t find the goods, or there are other clouds over what he says. His statements about TWA-800 and Oklahoma City, to me, are far more suspect than those evoked by his religiosity.

Feb 23, 2006 - 1:45 pm 25. dclydew:

John Moore,

I couldn’t agree more. I personally don’t believe in God (though I accept that there may be a lot more than science can explain). If this fellow has direction from some source and he interperts it as God… great. When he shows up with some epmerical evidence that he found WMD’s I’ll be more than happy to accept that evidence.

However, as you point out, with the inclusion of these other disasters, which apparently he has no evidence for whatsoever (but thinks it might magically appear in other tapes), he sounds more and more like a crackpot. His ’smoking cannon’ sounds more like a ‘bang snap’ and I really think Coast to Coast is probably about all the media attention this story deserves…

until he finds some real proof, or a pillar of fire.

Heck, I’d be happy to just see him turn a stick into a snake or turn the Potomic into blood.

Feb 24, 2006 - 9:17 am

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