Greg H
07-23-2003, 06:51 PM
Why A Special Prosecutor's Investigation Is Needed
To Sort Out the Niger Uranium And Related WMDs Mess
By JOHN W. DEAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published on Friday, Jul. 18, 2003
The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. In making his case, the President laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that these WMDs posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.
Now, as more and more time passes with WMDs still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent controversy has focused on the President's citations to British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
In this column, I will examine the publicly available evidence relating to this and other statements in the State of the Union concerning Saddam's WMDs. Obviously, I do not have access to the classified information the President doubtless relied upon. But much of the relevant information he drew from appears to have been declassified, and made available for inquiring minds.
What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony.
Bush repeatedly, in his State of the Union, presented beliefs, estimates, and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now it is little wonder that none of these purported WMDs has been discovered in Iraq.
So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters. Since the Independent Counsel statute has expired, the burden is on President Bush to appoint a special prosecutor - and if he fails to do so, he should be held accountable by Congress and the public.
and he should know...... tongue.gif
Full Story:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/Dean%20Why%20a%20Special%20Prosecutor.html
To Sort Out the Niger Uranium And Related WMDs Mess
By JOHN W. DEAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published on Friday, Jul. 18, 2003
The heart of President Bush's January 28 State of the Union address was his case for going to war against Saddam Hussein. In making his case, the President laid out fact after fact about Saddam's alleged unconventional weapons. Indeed, the claim that these WMDs posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war.
Now, as more and more time passes with WMDs still not found, it seems that some of those facts may not have been true. In particular, recent controversy has focused on the President's citations to British intelligence purportedly showing that Saddam was seeking "significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
In this column, I will examine the publicly available evidence relating to this and other statements in the State of the Union concerning Saddam's WMDs. Obviously, I do not have access to the classified information the President doubtless relied upon. But much of the relevant information he drew from appears to have been declassified, and made available for inquiring minds.
What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony.
Bush repeatedly, in his State of the Union, presented beliefs, estimates, and educated guesses as established fact. Genuine facts are truths that can be known or are observable, and the distance between fact and belief is uncertainty, which can be infinite. Authentic facts are not based on hopes or wishes or even probabilities. Now it is little wonder that none of these purported WMDs has been discovered in Iraq.
So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters. Since the Independent Counsel statute has expired, the burden is on President Bush to appoint a special prosecutor - and if he fails to do so, he should be held accountable by Congress and the public.
and he should know...... tongue.gif
Full Story:
http://www.yuricareport.com/Impeachment/Dean%20Why%20a%20Special%20Prosecutor.html