That issue amazes me.  The single source for those labs was, in fact, the British company Marconi Command & Control, that sold the ballon mobiles to the Iraqis.  This is where we get to that not-so-fine line between misinterpretation and patent lying.

The Observer article linked to claimed this may have embarrassed Blair's government, as if it was misinterpreted.  But I'd say the odds that the units had identifying tags with serial numbers and "Marconi Command and Control, UK" stamped right on a bronze label are pretty high - meaning that the folks who found them knew from the get-go what they were and where they came from.  I mean, why would the Iraqis remove the labels? 

Neoboho

But the big problem we're confronted with is going to come to bear again, very shortly: it's this insane process where you have less than 50% of Americans electing our President.

I've spent time trying to get people to register to vote and here’s what I've been told:

1. My vote doesn't count, so why bother?
2. All politicians lie, so why bother?
3. Neither party appeals to me, so why bother?
4. The voting system is corrupt, so why bother?
5. I don't have time to do all the research necessary to find out which candidate best represents my views, so why bother?
6. I don't know anything about the issues, so why bother?

If we do not reform the electoral system, reform the way candidates campaign, find more effective -- and TRUTHFUL -- ways of informing people about the candidates and the issues (corporate controlled media is more interested in making money than educating the electorate), and impressing upon ALL American citizens (not just those registered to vote) that their PARTICIPATION in this democracy is more vital to improving their quality of life than working 60 hours a week so their income and jobs can be sent overseas ...

THEN WHY BOTHER?

Until then, our country will be under a much greater threat than terrorism: our country is being destroyed from within by IGNORANCE AND APATHY orchestrated by an elite class who benefit from an uninformed and disenfranchised populace.

Morgan

With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plea; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.
-- William Lloyd Garrison (1805 - 1879)

... and thanks so much Nancy for deciding that the future of our country is not worth impeaching Cheney/Bush.

Tom

In my former homeland, Poland, there is on and off witchhunt for folks who cooperated with the secret police during Communist times, which was, of course, a perfectly legal activity when it was performed. Distasteful in most cases, but legal.

Here we have a case that is a bit similar. If a country has to rely on the conscience and non-conformism of its top spook, that country is in a bad shape. The top spook is supposed to support the executive branch in the dirtiest schemes, basically, he is deputized to commit crimes on behalf of his motherland.

Some of these crimes are straightforward, so-called "operations". But collecting shit to be used for propaganda purposes is part of the job too. And it is not the job of CIA to provide "sanity check" (propaganda is supposed to fool OTHERS). For example, when Reagan wanted huge defence build-up, CIA produced incontrovertible evidence that military effort of Soviet Union consumes more than the totality it its economy (or was it half?).

One of the purposes of CIA is to provide truthful and sober facts to the executive branch (and, to a much lesser extend, to Congress). But they have to collect shit too. CIA was created so the Executive could use it and abuse, with the hope that someone, somewhere, has wisdom and conscience.

Thus, I am inclined to cut Tenet some slack. The only problem is that we have no way of knowing what is going on in the world, other than reading newspapers, blogs etc. But that is perhaps better than having some foolish illusions.

Would not be a complete waste of time -- it would be a message to would be future "unitary executives" that they will be held accountable, convicted or not.

Tom

That is a very thought-provoking comment.

Here we have a case that is a bit similar. If a country has to rely on the conscience and non-conformism of its top spook, that country is in a bad shape. The top spook is supposed to support the executive branch in the dirtiest schemes, basically, he is deputized to commit crimes on behalf of his motherland.

I grew up in the U.S. (I am 50 now, so I grew up in the middle of the thermonuclear threats from the cold war) and at the time, it seemed to be a very good place to be. Among the privileges that we thought we had as citizens, were the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship: We were led to believe that in general every one of us had the opportunity to achieve in accordance with our abilities, no matter who we were.

An important result of that belief was, in those days, a person could be straightforward and honest, but still find a place in society. It was possible to stand up to the powerful and still have a place in society. Today, it seems very much as if standing up to the powerful is merely a way to get nailed.

George Tenet was a "public servant", being paid by our tax dollars. It is the duty of every citizen to act in the best interests of his/her society. It is absolutely necessary for people with the sort of power, influence, etc. that George Tenet has, to be faithful to their commitment to the society that they are (theoretically) serving.

So while your inclination to cut Tenet some slack is very well argued, I am inclined to the anachronistic view that Tenet should have been more forthcoming with his doubts about the arguments being put forward for the invasion of Iraq.

"...the ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’—and that's a direct quote from Article II of the Constitution—with regard to Cheney and Bush, I think there's a helluva lot better case, with regard to Cheney and Bush.”

The attorney scandal is enough to act on, but the Wilsons/Libby saga works to this point soon also.

The President can even be sued in Civil Court. Its discovery can empower Fitzgerald further.

Thanks to the Lewinsky precedent this moves forward. Ambassador Wilson has saved words for Bush himself to a good degree from respect for his father. He even gave George political leverage with statements leading to a diplomatic option, one that was discarded, before the war took place.

His statements in "How Saddam Thinks" found in his Oct.13, 2002 OpEd for the San Jose Mercury News, that he lists at his own web page for The Politics of Truth.

He makes statements of caution upon the premise of media narrative at the time, but clues you in to his view of the big picture at the time:

"Both the U.S. and U.N. approaches are dangerously flawed. They ignore crucial lessons we learned in the Persian Gulf War about how Saddam thinks."

"If history is any guide, “regime change” as a rationale for military action will ensure that Saddam will use every weapon in his arsenal to defend himself. You need look no further for evidence than his use of chemical weapons to repel Iranian invaders during the Iran–Iraq war. As the just-released CIA report suggests, when cornered, Saddam is very likely to fight dirty."

There he does Bush a favor of using the leverage of their efforts to shape opinion, though he is not mentioning mushroom clouds. This taken with the staging positions before the war(troops in aggregate locales, where one strategic WMD would cause maximum damage, and only coming from essentially one direction at Kuwait's staging point) seems to be evidence enough that Wilson understood this to be a bluff determination, one that was supposed to to provide plausible extent to carry out full diplomatic measures under the force threat model.

Deconstruction of his diplomatic approach to this conflict finds a counterpositive assertion of neocon policy in the operative mode employed.

This key passage indicates how well he understood the symbolic use of actions that went beyond their immediate collateral consequence. He understood who he was dealing with and how to take him on.

"What we learned firsthand is what the CIA psychiatrists have said for years: Saddam is an egomaniacal sociopath whose penchant for high-risk gambles is exceeded only by a propensity for miscalculation. Those psychiatrists, who study the characters of world leaders, believe that he suffers from what is popularly called “malignant narcissism,” a sense of self-worth that drives him to act in ways that others would deem irrational, such as invading neighboring countries."

Well we see that Saddam and Bush had much in common, to the point his nickname in Iraq is "the White Saddam" as so aptly put by people who are most the victims of his policies.

"But the trait also makes him highly sensitive to direct confrontation and embarrassment, even as he is contemptuous of compromise."

That's how you must deal with Bush. If you don't call him out, or any of the political levers he uses as props, then you are not going to get results. See also Harry Reid's criticism of recent command structure appointments.

Thus we see how to make this work, as Wilson directly states in the next section, titled '“In your face” approach' and its relevance to expanding options without losing grasp of ways to shape the outcome peacefully.

"At the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, a visiting delegation of Iranians disappeared in Baghdad, never to be seen again. Our conclusion was that some of us attending that meeting would not survive.

We also recognized that the traditional diplomatic methods had not worked; Ambassador April Glaspie had been severely, albeit unjustly, criticized for not being tough enough in her meeting with Saddam just days before the invasion. What she did at that meeting was follow longstanding instructions from Washington to urge, but not demand, that Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait over border and oil issues be settled diplomatically. She then left for official business in Washington."

Well, that and she had to get out false flag stories of Baby Incubators being placed by UK publicity firm Hill & Knowlton to shape public opinion with the help of Leslie Blitzer's concern tone in full narrative mode...

Wilson still shows a consistent approach to analysis of the person in power. The same thing he did in this instance was done to him when he cited dissent backed with the facts as he could determine before the second Iraq war.

"After the invasion, those of us still at the embassy opted for a confrontational “in your face” approach opposite to diplomatic convention, but well-suited to Saddam’s understanding of the world. Whenever Saddam tried to garner international sympathy or support, we pushed back hard. Saddam would never yield to traditional diplomatic persuasion, because he equates compromise with weakness. Therefore, we let no action go uncriticized and sought to embarrass him whenever possible, to shame him into concessions."

Look at the headhunting done vs. persons like Scot Ritter before the war. Look at the attack on Wilson's wife once he made statements of record against the assertions of Cheney's people who were funneling falsehood to Judith Miller.

Pushback is what it was.

The best way to flip this is to call it out personally, putting yourself on the line, which is exactly what Wilson did at the time in writing about what he did not find in Africa. He's done so before:

"The first test of this approach came when Saddam tried to portray himself as a host rather than hostage-taker when he appeared on television with a young British boy and his terrified family. We immediately issued statements that true Arab knights, as Saddam liked to be called, did not hide behind women’s skirts—mocking his masculinity. Our comments were broadcast to the world and repeated by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a speech. Just days after Thatcher chided him, Saddam released all women and children. While we could never prove cause and effect, we knew we had succeeded."

Two important factors above relate to the overview. One is that you don't allow photo ops to portray false facts, the other (more historically important) item was that the UK Prime Minister worked closely in concert with PR functions of the USA at this time. Again this hearkens a return to the recollection of baby incubators, Rendon Group, and Hill & Knowlton's publicity stunts.
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2005-39,RNWE:en&q=saddam+baby+incubators
Wilson used the same rhetorical tactic when he was in Iraq on the narrative timeline of that story, that of calling out his opponent in personal terms. He made America's bravest diplomatic stand ever and did so in personal terms.

"Later, when the Iraqi government circulated a diplomatic note threatening to summarily execute anybody harboring foreigners—at a time when the embassy was providing refuge to 125 Americans stuck in Baghdad—I wore a hangman’s noose in lieu of a tie to a news briefing. I shared the note with the international media and told them that if the Iraqis wanted to execute me for protecting Americans, I would bring my own rope.

The Iraqis were furious at my black joke and harangued me publicly. Then they withdrew the diplomatic note—another indication that Saddam was thin-skinned in the face of aggressive opposition."

So, calling out a bully was nothing new to him, and his efforts to derail what Dick Cheney said in back channels was light work in comparison, given the graces of service to duty and his good standing in the world community with which Wilson was familiar.

That's when unjust pushback occurred.

He pushed back against Cheney, and the same was done to his family. That's what separates the political from the personal. They're different spheres unless you are in service on the front lines in some capacity.

The war on truth was taken back home when Plame was outed, it was a personal attack, one made necessary by Cheney's pushbacks against the Intelligence Community. Wilson was no stranger to fights, and his obligation to inform persons of the truth would not be deferred against Cheney and the Office of Vice President.

In his initial efforts to help Bush with the OpEd Wilson highlights how many options James Baker planned in the discussion, and the extent to which their opponent opinions mirrored that of the US in its approach then and now.
Confrontation worked

"At one point, Saddam sought to justify the invasion of his neighbor as a step toward the liberation of Palestine and, in a particularly ludicrous assertion, he claimed to be the champion of the Muslim world against the Christian infidel capitalists. We countered that several hundred thousand Muslim Pakistanis, Indians and Sri Lankans were languishing in Iraqi refugee camps. Within days, Saddam released all of them.

As we applied these tactics to the task of attempting to reverse the invasion of Kuwait, we understood that the only way to try to avoid a war was to be credible in threatening one. Saddam had announced the annexation of Kuwait on Aug. 8, but by the end of September he was squirming, trying to retain as much of his conquest as possible as we kept beating the drums of war.

We told Saddam that the United States had accepted the fact that the men he was still holding hostage would be killed and convinced him that they were not of any worth to him. On the contrary, we said, they were a liability; if the Iraqis brutalized any of them, American outrage could well trigger a war to avenge the mistreatment.

He released the hostages in early December. Our entire embassy staff and virtually all other foreigners who wanted to leave also were allowed to go before the start of war.

In each case, taking a tough stand worked.

In the end, of course, the United States didn’t succeed in peacefully dislodging Iraqi troops from Kuwait. But in the days leading up to Operation Desert Storm the United States again took a confrontational approach that may well have prevented an even deadlier war.

A week before the United States launched the assault on Iraqi forces in Kuwait, Secretary of State James Baker met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in Geneva. Throughout December it had become clear that Saddam would fight a military battle that he knew he would lose, calculating that in defeat he could still win the political war. In a region that feels deeply the humiliations it has suffered over centuries at the hands of imperialists, conquerors and more recently Israel, merely standing up to the West is considered a victory.

It fell to Baker to try to deter Saddam from using chemical or biological weapons. In the meeting, Baker made it clear that if Iraq attempted to defend itself in Kuwait by using weapons of mass destruction, the United States would respond by “eliminating the current Iraqi regime”—a not-so-veiled reference to a nuclear strike.

During the war, Saddam launched Scud missiles against Saudi Arabia, set fire to the Kuwaiti oil fields and did everything he could to draw Israel into a broader conflict. But he did not use chemical or biological weapons against our troops. In the end, he prized his own survival above all.

You could argue—and some liberals have—that deterrence alone could work again now, and that neither war nor tough inspections are needed. But effective deterrence requires that world leaders issue ultimatums backed by the credible threat of force, which they have not been willing to do so far."

First paragraph, he shows how calling for respect of other Muslims, and playing to the ethnic diversity of their population, was a way to win diplomatic gains that helped support any military action.

We've since abandoned that to torture and detain those we could have won favor from.

His note of Saddam's attempt to annex Kuwait would be a bit more honest if he listed the previous history behind the forming of the two countries, and mentioned any of the slant drilling Marvin Bush and Marge Tutwiler helped enable of the world's second largest oil field. Iraq had justified reasons to demand of Kuwait compensation. Had we legitimately worked to those ends the first invasion would not have happened.

Note how Wilson determines captives to be of little worth politically, their care becomes a major liability to any aggressor. Why does the contrapositive assertion hold to policy today? Prisoners are at all times a liability and can shape how outsiders view both sides of the conflict.

He notes Baker's estimation that Saddam determined war for political gain against the West. If these underpinnings held true then what is one to think of today, when access to images online make it that much easier to appeal top emotions and appearance? The same motivations drive Bush policy now, and invite blowback reaction.

It's key that regime change was not on the table between Baker and Saddam on condition no WMD were put in use. Such was not actually the case, we did observe the use of such items along portions of the war front, and it could be argued our own troops were determined as guinea pigs in the operations. We gave them the ordinance and were familiar with their logistics and delivery, subsequent later strikes placed the same items in their environment, other items lost shelf life and were irrelevant to the time specific to the second war. In other words, lack of WMD was an actually item in any true discussion of regime change from the outset of our talks with Iraq throughout the history of this crisis.

Wilson notes how Saddam tried to get the region drawn to wider conflict when the war actually occurred. If that was such a risk at the time with a state actor, how much more so would the case be with de-Baathification and a failed state?

It's clear this was diplomatic leverage to garner the working of a true coalition, something that also went ignored. The threat of force was in some ways a bluff to the notion of regional stability as well. This hearkens back to Bush having the same kind of personality as Saddam. Narcissistic rivals at play, both determined to make mitakes under pressure, counterintuitive to their strategic political standing. Thus it was an attraction that happened, sprung of rivals most likely to plot similar visions of empire central to the middle east.

Bush got his Congressional seats and second term back running on the war, but he's eroded all moral authority and long terms standing of both the political party and our nation as the electorate sees this.

The entire levers in action by Wilson in the above listing were that we have to see Saddam as a bully, a shadowboxer of sorts whose bark was not even big as his bite. We had an opportunity to reshape the region politically and failed in choosing conflict.

There are three models to employ in foreign policy at times through history.

1)Cooperative- Same interests and we work the same way to get there.
2)Competitive- Same interests and we work differently to get there.
3)Conflicting- Different objectives for the same interests, negative actions to reaching those goals.

We had a chance to shape the region competitively for certain, cooperatively with allies, and avoid number three. Bush jumped the shark and shat the bed in choosing the third model which regionally cultures more enemies, in addition it weakens your own allies.

Wilson showed a path to take, but Bush did not share the same motivations he claimed in action. The method of experience was entirely discarded and the NIE now show that the same conclusion was reached by the Intelligence Community.

'Build on experience'

"So the question remains: Can we disarm Saddam this time without risking a chemical attack or a broader regional war that threatens our allies?

The answer, I think, is yes, but only if we reject the approaches favored by many in the Bush administration and by France and Russia, and build instead on the experiences of the gulf war."

Saddam had to play matador in the bull ring of Mid-East strongmen, had we taken his bluff to heart no mass staging would have occured with centrality as a theme. Baker's first talks showed how easy Saddam caved to any WMD use to an extent it could be considered a threat. The Gulf War was a legitmate coalition, and this time our own interests showed companies like Halliburton to be gaming the sanctions system outright anyways. The premise itself was flawed.

"An aggressive U.N.-sanctioned campaign to disarm Iraq—bolstered by a militarily supported inspection process—would combine the best of the U.S. and U.N. approaches, a robust disarmament policy with the international legitimacy the United States seeks. Secretary of State Colin Powell is pushing the Security Council to adopt such an approach.

But he will have to overcome French and Russian concerns that other harsh demands in the U.S.–British draft resolution leave Saddam little room to save face and avoid war.

One of the strongest arguments for a militarily supported inspection plan is that it doesn’t threaten Saddam with extinction, a threat that could push him to fight back with the very weapons we’re seeking to destroy. If disarmament is the goal, Saddam can be made to understand that only his arsenal is at stake, not his survival."

Never trust Bush, is what that entire plan panned out to prove. The best you can hope for is a legislative body shaping his behavior.

Remember that Wilson simply applied diplomatic pressure in this piece, to other countries with hopes of devlopment as Iraq was reopened, by way of such strong talk, and as a reminder that Bush could get this without going to war.
To finish this Wilson says:

"The ultimate lesson of the gulf war may be that when offered the choice, Saddam will sacrifice almost everything before sacrificing his own life or grip on power."

This is the main point to take from such strong talk. In the face of force force multipliers Saddam Hussein was puddy. This was proven when the IAEA was brought back in. Mission Accomplished.

That Cheney took over from there was a certainty, one everyone knew would occur but could perhaps plausibly deny. Perhaps working to donate proceedings of writings about this war to those most hurt(via Red Crescent, some mideast student exhcanges, for example) could work best to rectify the role everyone the diplomatic and intelligence community played in shaping this tragedy alongisde the political leadership.

There's other items worth seeing at Wilson's page, a treasure of items that explain the background of scandal in the Iraq war, via Josh Marshall at TPM, linked on the pages Wilson shares interviews with Josh at...

Pelosi is too busy counting the money from her husbands government contracts to impeach another grafter.

All that has to happen is to bring the impeachment charges and investigate them in a house committee so as to lay the truth out before the American People in a way no media outlet can ignore and any Republican, Republican lite or fellow grafter who refuses to vote for impeachment will be dead in the water come the 2008 elections. The same can be said of Senators who might refuse to vote for conviction. Bush and Cheney are guilty as sin of high crimes, mal and misfeasance as anyone who has researched the mater knows . It's too damned the Democrats we wasted our time electing in 2006 to set right the situation are spinless and too sold out themselves to bring the needed charges. We need to clean the House and Senate of the whole bunch, Democrats and Republicans (with a few exceptions,) in 2008… enough is enough!!!

They apparently like to aid and abet treason, and defend those too cowardly to do the right thing and thus are also aiding and abetting treason for that's exactly what Bush, Cheney and their gang of Neo-Cons have done...treason. If they don't like the strong language, well it's just too damned bad.

Tom, the Troll rating is for this:

Pelosi is too busy counting the money from her husbands government contracts to impeach another grafter.

If I want to listen to Rush Limbaugh spew made up facts in an effort to demonize democrats, I'll turn on a radio.

I'm not really impressed by someone who starts off their homily with fringe nutcase talking points.

You have as yet to say much that impresses me chum. The veneer that you put on parade and apparently think of as class is pretty damned thin…to the point of pathetic.