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.

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.

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?

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

Tolerance, eh?

“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?

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.

Roger,

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

Thanks.

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.

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.