Oekraïne crisis: Bill Clinton één van de aanstichters van de crisis

Bill Clinton was in feite een slappe president die geen verweer had tegen het Pentagon, noch de CIA. Daardoor was het mogelijk dat de NAVO zich kon uitbreiden naar het oosten, ofwel naar de grens met Rusland, dit tegen meerdere afspraken die men in 1990 en 1991 maakte met de voormalige Sovjet-Unie.... Hierbij moet nog worden opgemerkt dat ook de rechtse vleugel van de Democratische partij Clinton onder controle had en ook die vleugel wilde verdere uitbreiding van de NAVO....

Bij die afspraak stelde de Sovjet-Unie de eerdere westelijke staten niet te zullen aanvallen of weer in te lijven, dat zet nog eens extra vraagtekens bij de dooddoener van NAVO topgraaier Stoltenberg dat landen het recht hebben om zich aan te sluiten bij de NAVO, terwijl de VS de weg daartoe tegen de afspraken in had vrijgemaakt al onder oorlogsmisdadiger Clinton...... 

In het volgende artikel geschreven door Melvin Goodman en gepubliceerd op CounterPunch, legt de schrijver nog eens uit welke afspraken werden gemaakt met de Sovjet-Unie in 1990, waar in 1991 met voormalig president van de Sovjet-Unie Gorbatsjov nog eens uitdrukkelijk werd afgesproken dat de NAVO zich niet naar het oosten zou uitbreiden..... (vreemd genoeg noemt Goodman de afspraak met Gorbatsjov niet)

Ongelofelijk hoe men in het westen Rusland demoniseert als een agressieve oorlogszuchtige natie, terwijl die twijfelachtige eer volledig toekomt aan de VS (en haar NAVO partners), dat deze eeuw officieel 4 illegale oorlogen is begonnen 'gelegitimeerd' op basis van leugens en daarnaast oorlog heeft gevoerd en nog voert in Afrika, verder voert de CIA o.a. af en aan geheime operaties uit in Latijns Amerika, waarbij ook grote aantallen mensen werden en worden vermoord...... (met een paar fikse mislukkingen in Venezuela) Bij die grootschalige VS terreur kwamen tot nu toe ruim meer dan 5 miljoen mensen om het leven, ofwel die werden door VS en NAVO troepen vermoord!!! (die meer dan 5 miljoen moorden zijn inclusief de vele duizenden doden die de VS vermoordde met drones, waarmee men verdachten wilde uitschakelen [wat internationaal wordt gezien als een zware misdaad], daarbij was meer dan 90% van de slachtoffers niet eens verdacht!!)......Niet vreemd dan ook dat deze VS terreur enorme stromen vluchtelingen opgang hebben gebracht en daarnaast terreur hebben gekweekt op de straten van de EU.....

De westerse reguliere media en politiek hebben ronduit propaganda gemaakt voor de VS oorlogen, terwijl men nu Russische media beschuldigt van het brengen van propaganda...... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Men maakt zich druk om Russische militairen aan de grens met Oekraïne, terwijl de VS een raketschild voor de deur van Rusland heeft geïnstalleerd (in Polen en Roemenië) en datzelfde land met haar NAVO-partners bijna het jaarrond militaire oefeningen houden langs de westgrens en de territoriale wateren met resp. van Rusland...... Oefeningen o.a. gericht op het binnenvallen van Russisch grondgebied...... Voorts bevinden zich troepen van meerdere NAVO-lidstaten in Oekraïne en heeft de VS dat land afgeladen met wapens.....

Onder het artikel van CounterPunch nog een bericht van de WDR 5 site, waar op deze zender vanmiddag weer fiks werd getapt uit het anti-Russische propaganda vat.......

(On the top right hand side of this page you can choose for a translation in the language of your choice, first choose 'Engels' [English] so you can recognise your own language [the Google translation is first in Dutch, a language most people don't understand, while on the other hand most people recognise there language translated in English], You can do the same with the German text)

(als je het Engels en/of Duits niet machtig bent, kopieer dan de Engelse of Duitse tekst en plak die in deze vertaalapp, de app werkt snel en de vertaling is van een redelijk goede kwaliteit)

 

 

 January 18, 2022

Bill Clinton’s Role in the Crisis Over Ukraine

by Melvin Goodman

Photograph Source: Matt Johnson – CC BY 2.0

The militarization of American foreign policy has evolved over the past thirty years. Ironically, this took place in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which should have led to reassessing U.S. national security policy and defense spending.  Democratic presidents have played a major role in this militarization because they are unwilling to challenge the Pentagon and the defense industry.

Bill Clinton was initially responsible for the militarization.  He abolished the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and began the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  Barack Obama believed that war in Afghanistan was a “good war,” and reappointed Robert Gates as secretary of defense to appease the uniformed military.  President Joe Biden even appointed a retired four-star general to the position of secretary of defense, and has given diplomacy a back seat in the twin struggles with Russia and China.  The postwar presidents understood the need to divide Moscow and Beijing, but Biden has taken actions that have inspired Russia and China to grow closer.

But it all started with Clinton, whose relations with the Pentagon were tenuous from the outset.  Clinton came into office with a reputation for manipulating the draft laws in 1969 to avoid service in Vietnam.  Clinton, moreover, alienated the military shortly after his inauguration when he suggested that he would allow homosexuals to serve openly in the military.  Of course, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and William Cohen avoided Vietnam, but Republicans typically get a pass from the Pentagon and the press when avoiding service. Former senator John Kerry was a Vietnam War hero, but his ultimate criticism of the war was highlighted by the mainstream media and his Republican opposition.

Clinton bowed to military pressure time and time again on numerous national security issues. His capitulations weakened or abandoned agreements dealing with the International Criminal Court; a ban on landmines; the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and the Chemical Warfare Convention. Clinton bowed to the Democratic Party’s right wing in naming James Woolsey as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. When Woolsey, a Cold Warrior, wore out his welcome on the Hill, he was forced to resign. Clinton then named an Air Force general to succeed Woolsey; the general was forced to withdraw his nomination, but this earned no mention in Clinton’s autobiography.  Similarly, Clinton’s book makes no mention of his efforts to name Admiral Bobby Inman, another Cold Warrior, as secretary of defense.  Clinton’s CIA directors, John Deutch and George Tenet, contributed to the decline of the CIA.

The Pentagon had so little respect for Clinton that, in 1994, it did not respond to the efforts of the White House to create military options for stopping the genocide in Rwanda or for countering al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  Conversely, Clinton ordered the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan in 1998 in the wake of the bombings of the U.S. embassies on the Horn of Africa.  The White House argued the plant was producing lethal chemicals; no, it was producing aspirin for all of Africa and this was known to the intelligence community. Clinton’s White House and the Pentagon ignored the warnings of the Department of State and the CIA to avoid using Yemen as a refueling stop for U.S. warships because of the threat of terrorism.  As a result, the U.S.S. Cole was targeted in 2000 with a loss of 17 U.S. sailors.

We are still dealing with the results of Clinton’s ill-informed decision making, particularly with regard to the current crisis with Russia over Ukraine.  Clinton’s decision to expand NATO virtually ensured that there would be little progress in developing a strategic approach toward Russia.  The liberated states of East Europe, in the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, wanted to be anchored to the West, but the proper vehicle for such an arrangement was the European Union, not NATO.  Indeed, the greatest strategic failure of the Clinton administration was its marginalization of Russia rather than anchoring Russia to the West, as suggested by the late George Kennan in his strategy of containment.

The expansion of NATO marked a betrayal of President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III’s commitment in 1990 to not “leapfrog” East Germany if the Soviets removed their 380,000 troops from the East.  The continuing flirtation of membership for both Ukraine and Georgia, which started in 2008, has caused Russia anxieties over the changing European balance.  Expanding NATO was a gratuitous provocation, which belies U.S. accusations from high-level officials that the crisis over Ukraine is a “manufactured” one by Russian President Vladimir Putin.  In January 1990, the West German foreign minister confirmed that there would not be an “expansion of NATO territory to the east” in the wake of the Soviet military withdrawal.  In my interviews with Baker and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze in 1994, Baker acknowledged (and Shevardnadze confirmed) that he told the former foreign minister the United States would not “leapfrog” over a reunified Germany to move closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.  There are reports that Baker was willing to put this commitment in writing, but that national security adviser Brent Scowcroft convinced the president not to do so.

The sad fact is that the international calculus had nothing to do with Clinton’s decision to expand NATO.  He was concerned that his Republican opponent in1996, the late Robert Dole, was going to use the failure to expand NATO in the campaign for the presidency.  Clinton, a masterful domestic politician, moved to take the NATO issue off the table by endorsing expansion.  This played well domestically among East European communities in key states such as Michigan and Wisconsin.  George W. Bush worsened the strategic situation by recruiting former Soviet republics, the three Baltic states, for NATO and deploying a regional missile defense in Poland and Romania.

Overall, the Clinton presidency weakened the national security process by compromising the balance between the key instruments of foreign policy, ending the once central role of the Department of State.  The end to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the United State Information Service as well as the weakening of the Agency for International Development deemphasized the civilian agencies in the formation and conceptualization of U.S. foreign policy.  The Pentagon was the major winner in this rebalancing; similarly, the Pentagon’s control over the intelligence community was bolstered.  To paraphrase Mark Twain, when the only tool in the toolbox is a hammer, then all of our problems will look like nails.

Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University.  A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. and A Whistleblower at the CIA. His most recent books are “American Carnage: The Wars of Donald Trump” (Opus Publishing, 2019) and “Containing the National Security State” (Opus Publishing, 2021). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org.

==============================

Hier nog de tekst bij het Tagesgespräch op WDR 5, waar een zogenaamde vrije journalist de luisteraar trakteert op een onversneden portie Rusland haat.....:

Kalt, aber noch kein Krieg – Wer muss sich bewegen?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock | Pooled photo by Maxim Shemetov/ AFP via Getty Images 

Die Lage zwischen Russland und der Ukraine bleibt angespannt. Außenministerin Baerbock will vermitteln. Haben Sie Sorge vor einer Eskalation? Und was kann jetzt helfen? Diskutieren Sie mit im WDR 5 Tagesgespräch!

Es ist eine schwierige Bewährungsprobe für Annalena Baerbock: Nach Gesprächen mit der Ukraine ging es gestern (18.01.22) zum Antrittsbesuch nach Moskau. Auf der gemeinsamen Pressekonferenz sprach Baerbock von "fundamentalen Meinungsverschiedenheiten", der russische Außenminister Lawrow erinnerte an die Sicherheitsinteressen Russlands. Die Ukraine blickt nach Westen und zur NATO. Dem will Moskau einen Riegel vorschieben und erwartet Garantien des Westens, dass die NATO die Ukraine nicht aufnimmt. Die Ukraine sei frei in ihrer Wahl, so die Antwort. Viel gegenseitiges Verständnis für die unterschiedlichen Perspektiven ist derzeit nicht erkennbar.

Der Handlungsdruck ist hoch: Russland hat seit Ende Dezember Militär an der ukrainischen Grenze stationiert, mittlerweile sollen rund 100.000 Soldaten einsatzbereit sein. Während die USA und Großbritannien die Ukraine mit Defensivwaffen beliefern, schlägt die Ampel-Regierung deren Forderung nach Aufrüstung bislang aus – Baerbock will stattdessen auf Diplomatie setzen. Die Sorge vor einer Eskalation des Konflikts wächst: Laut der OSZE (Organisation für Sicherheit und Zusammenarbeit in Europa) sei die Kriegsgefahr so groß wie seit 30 Jahren nicht mehr.

Haben Sie die Befürchtung, dass es zu einem Krieg zwischen Russland und der Ukraine kommt? Ist es klüger nachzugeben und Russland ein Zugeständnis zu machen? Welche Erwartungen haben Sie an Außenministerin Baerbock und Deutschland? Kann diplomatisches Geschick zur Deeskalation beitragen? Oder könnte militärische Abschreckung den Konflikt entschärfen – wenn alle viel zu verlieren haben, halten sich vielleicht alle zurück?

• Sendehinweis: Tagesgespräch | Jetzt bis 13.00 Uhr | WDR 5

Rufen Sie uns während der Sendung an (WDR 5 Hotline 0800 5678 555).

Gast: Gemma Pörzgen, freie Journalistin mit Schwerpunkt Osteuropa (vrije journalist? Een regelrechte lobbyist voor het buitenland beleid van de VS, de NAVO en de westerse wapenindustrie in het groot!!)

Redaktion: Willi Schlichting und Jessica Eisermann

=======================================

Zie ook: 'Hack van Oekraïense overheid door landgenoten, of nee toch Rusland en geheime diensten VS waarschuwen voor Russische false flag operatie'

'NAVO uitbreiding in Oost-Europa is bewezen tegen gesloten overeenkomst met Rusland.......'

'Stoltenberg (NAVO) speelt de vermoorde onschuld en doet of hij serieus wil overleggen met Rusland'

'NAVO is 'vredesorganisatie' als je 'secretaris-generaal' Jens Stoltenberg moet geloven: 'geen kernraketten in Europa''

'Aanslag op Navalny wekt (zonder bewijs) woede in westen, terwijl door Trump toegegeven moorden stilte opleveren in datzelfde westen' (zie de links in dat bericht naar meer berichten over het Navalny sprookje >> een blootstelling aan novitsjok is ten allen tijde zonder meer dodelijk!!!)

'Tony Blinken heeft de Oekraïense president Zelensky de wacht aangezegd: zijn land is officieel een VS kolonie'

'Putin gaf het westen een memorabele les geopolitiek'

'De VS zet zichzelf wat betreft Rusland, China en Iran geopolitiek schaakmat' 

'VS eist dat Rusland haar troepen terugtrekt van de Oekraïense grens en volgens inlichtingenbron: politiek het grootste gevaar voor burgers VS........' En dan de volgende (!!!):

'VS generaal steunt een preventieve aanval met kernwapens'

'Strijd opgelaaid in Oost-Oekraïne tussen het leger en 'door Rusland gesteunde rebellen', aldus BBC World Service'

'Kernwapens in Europa: Rode Kruis >> Nederland moet het VN kernwapenverbod tekenen'

'Franse luchtmacht oefent voor WOIII op nucleaire lange-afstands bombardementen..........'

'Stoltenberg (NAVO zetbaas) liegt spijkerhard aangaande overleg INF-verdrag met Rusland'

'Star Wars 2.0: Trump wil een 'raketafweersysteem' in de ruimte'

'Jens Stoltenberg (NAVO zetbaas): de NAVO bombardeerde Servië om het volk te kunnen redden, of Servië nu maar even NAVO lid wil worden........' 

'Uitgelekte telefoongesprekken tussen Trump en Putin bewijzen dat 'Russiagaters gelijk hebben......''

'Oekraïne kondigt staat van beleg af vanwege 'Russische agressie' in de Zee van Azov'

'Stoltenberg (topgraaier NAVO) wil nog meer kernraketten in Europa.......'

'VS dreigt INF verdrag op de zeggen >> Trump verwijt de Russische ketel dat die nucleair zwart ziet'

'Oekraïne het toneel van grootschalige luchtmachtoefeningen met VS en NAVO, naast een enorme militaire VS/NAVO oefening in Noorwegen'

'VS en Japan stoken samen de 'oorlogsboel' op over de Oost-Chinese Zee'

'Pentagon Report Points To US Preparations For Total War'

'VS heeft Rusland al 3 keer met oorlog gedreigd, de laatste 2 keer in de afgelopen 1,5 week......'

'Zelenski (president Oekraïne) ingepakt door neonazi's en beloften aan EU gedaan door Porosjenko'

'Oekraïne: opnieuw neonazi protesten op Maidanplein, vanwege Rusland vriendelijk handelen door president Zelensky'

'De Krim het echte verhaal: geen annexatie maar de vrijwillige aansluiting bij Rusland, zelfs Oekraïners stemden voor'

'Snowden vindt het ongelofelijk dat de media VS politici niet aanspreken op totaal verschillende reacties n.a.v. 'klokkenluiden''

'Joe Biden heeft al lang toegegeven dat hij Oekraïne onder druk zette een openbaar aanklager te ontslaan die zijn zoon vervolgde'

'Koning Willem Alexander vraagt Rusland om medewerking bij onderzoek naar rampvlucht MH17' (en zie de links in dat bericht naar meer informatie over rampvlucht MH17)

'MH17: JIT haalt zelfs de afscheiding van Oost-Oekraïne aan in de zoveelste mislukte poging de schuld in de schoenen van Rusland te schuiven'
'Oekraïne kondigt staat van beleg af vanwege 'Russische agressie' in de Zee van Azov'

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

Wat hacken en propaganda betreft zie ook: 'VS ministerie van defensie, lees: ministerie van (oorlog en) terreur: wordt verdedigd door het westen, terwijl men Rusland en China demoniseert'

'Verkiezingen Nicaragua: één grote demonisering in de westerse media, vergelijk dat eens met verkiezingen in de VS'

'VS propagandamachine onder de loep genomen door schrijver Nick Schou'

'Westerse oorlogshitserij tegen China over Taiwan: in de VS is 52% van de bevolking voor oorlog....'

'Elaine Luria (VS Huis van Afgevaardigden) wil Biden 'carte blanche' geven voor oorlog tegen China' (ook het militaire pact AUKUS komt aan bod in dit bericht)

'Brits marineschip provoceert China in de Straat van Taiwan: op weg naar Wereldoorlog III' (o.a. over AUKUS)

'China: Ausländische Schiffe müssen sich in chinesischen Gewässern registrieren' 

'Australië laat zich chanteren door de VS: niet langer 'het beest China' voeren' (o.a. over Aukus)

'Veronderstel dat er een terreurgroep zou zijn die in bezit was van: drones, kruisraketten, kernkoppen, straaljagers, vliegdekschepen en bases over de hele wereld'

'Militaire bases VS goed voor grote 'defensie uitgaven' en een garantie voor komende oorlogsvoering' (o.a. over Aukus)

'MIVD en media schoten 4 Russische bokken met de claim van spionage op de OPCW....'

'Nederland, Groot-Brittannië en VS schieten '4 geheime Russische spionage bokken''

'Duitsland doet mee in het koor van de wolven: Russische cyberterreur!'

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

Voor meer terreur van de VS zie: 'CIA sinds oprichting: murder incorporated: een verdediging gegeven door 'journalist' Annie Jacobson'

VS vermoordde meer dan 20 miljoen mensen sinds het einde van WOII........' Tot het jaar 2000, deze eeuw zijn daar al meer dan 5 miljoen dodelijke slachtoffers aan toegevoegd..... Zie wat dat betreft ook:

'De illegale oorlogen van de VS deze eeuw hebben niet 2,5 miljoen levens gekost, maar minstens 5 miljoen' en zie wat dat betreft ook: 

'VS maakte 10 keer meer slachtoffers, dan de reguliere media rapporteerden........' In de 'oorlog tegen terreur' die men beter had kunnen noemen: illegale oorlogen van de VS met grootschalige terreur.....

'CIA 70 jaar: 70 jaar moorden, martelen, coups plegen, nazi's beschermen, media manipulatie enz. enz.........'

'CIA en 70 jaar desinformatie in Europese opiniebladen............'

'VS buitenlandbeleid sinds WOII: een lange lijst van staatsgrepen en oorlogen..........'

''VS 'ministerie van propaganda' had supervisie over meer dan 800 films en minstens duizend tv series........'

'Iran: moderne oorlogspropaganda ingezet door VS tegen 'ongehoorzaam land...'

'VS en GB brengen propaganda die moet verdoezelen wat er echt gebeurt in Syrië........ Door VS gebombardeerde 'gifgasfabriek' niet bestaand....'

Irak oorlog: 16 jaar na 20 maart 2003 ontkent de perschef van Bush dat er is gelogen om Irak binnen te vallen.....

Het gore lef wat sommigen hebben is niet zelden ten hemel schreiend, zoals de perschef van president Bush (deze oorlogsmisdadiger en top-idioot mag zich president blijven noemen). Ari Fleischer (de perschef) nam het besluit e.e.a. via Twitter de wereld in te helpen, waarschijnlijk als reactie op de dreigementen van de VS tegen het Internationaal Strafhof dat men actie zal nemen tegen de functionarissen, die zich bezig houden met onderzoek naar VS oorlogsmisdaden.......

Ongelofelijk wat ploert Fleischer durft te zeggen, terwijl de hele wereld weet (of kan weten) dat de VS heeft gelogen, leugens die meer dan 2 miljoen Irakezen het leven heeft gekost, ofwel die mensen zijn in feite vermoord door de VS......

Fleischer doet net of de geheime diensten van de VS, Israël en nog een paar landen zeker wisten dat er massavernietigingswapens lagen in Irak, weliswaar klopte dit niet, maar dat is iets anders dan liegen, aldus de hufter..... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Alsof die geheime diensten ook maar de neiging hebben om de waarheid te vertellen, jezus!!

De wapeninspecteurs van de VN, o.l.v. Blix, hebben uit en te na gewezen op het feit dat Irak (onder Saddam Hoessein) geen massavernietigingswapens had en deze zelfs niet voor hen verborgen kon hebben.....

Overigens liet de Hoop Scheffer, oorlogsmisdadiger van het CDA, vorig jaar weten nog steeds achter de illegale oorlog tegen Irak te staan, ondanks het enorme aantal slachtoffers, een land dat voor een groot deel in puin ligt en waar de oorlog nog lang niet is afgelopen...... Irak, een land waarnaar Nederland vluchtelingen deporteert, rechtstreeks de oorlog in, dit op basis van ambtsberichten van Buitenlandse Zaken, terwijl hetzelfde ministerie nog steeds een negatief reisadvies voor Irak afgeeft....

Caitlin Johnstone schreef op haar site een uiterst scherp artikel over deze zaak en laat van Fleischer en anderen geen spaan heel, lezen mensen, het gaat hier om geschiedvervalsing van de eerste orde, ook de reguliere (massa-) media doen net of hun neus bloedt als het om de illegale Irak oorlog gaat, terwijl zij deze oorlog op valse feiten van A tot Z hebben gepropageerd, waar de kennis over het tegendeel voor het oprapen lag........ (over het brengen van fake news gesproken....)

On the Anniversary Of The Iraq Invasion, Bush Press Secretary Claims Bush Didn't Lie

by Caitlin Johnstone

On the sixteenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, as the US government threatens punitive action against International Criminal Court investigators for attempting to look into US war crimes, former George W Bush administration Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has decided to publish a Twitter thread claiming that Bush did not lie to the world about Iraq.

Here is a transcript of the full thread by Fleischer:

The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow. There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no WMDs were found, the left claimed "Bush lied. People died." This accusation itself is a lie. It's time to put it to rest. 

The fact is that President Bush (and I as press secretary) faithfully and accurately reported to the public what the intelligence community concluded. The CIA, along with the intelligence services of Egypt, France, Israel and others concluded that Saddam had WMD. We all turned out to be wrong. That is very different from lying. 

After the war, a bipartisan group was created to determine what went wrong, particularly why the intelligence community's conclusions about Iraq were so different from what was found on the ground after the war. The group of experts was named the Robb-Silberman commission. It's report was issued in March 2005. It can be found in full here. Its key finding was that that a "major intelligence failure" took place. It also stated that no intelligence service was pressured by the Bush Administration to conclude that Saddam had WMDs. 

Here are the key quotes from their report: 

"Overall Commission Finding: The Intelligence Community's performance in assessing Iraq's pre-war weapons of mass destruction programs was a major intelligence failure. 

Nuclear Weapons Summary Finding: The Intelligence Community seriously misjudged the status of Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program in the 2002 NIE* and other pre-Iraq war intelligence products. This misjudgment stemmed chiefly from the Community's failure to analyze correctly Iraq's reasons for attempting to procure high-strength aluminum tubes. 

Biological Warfare Summary Finding: The Intelligence Community seriously misjudged the status of Iraq's biological weapons program in the 2002 NIE and other pre-war intelligence products. The primary reason for this misjudgment was the Intelligence Community's heavy reliance on a human source--codenamed 'Curveball'--whose information later proved to be unreliable. 

Chemical Warfare Summary Finding: The Intelligence Community erred in its 2002 NIE assessment of Iraq's alleged chemical warfare program. The Community's substantial overestimation of Iraq's chemical warfare program was due chiefly to flaws in analysis and the paucity of quality information collected. In the case of Iraq, collectors of intelligence absorbed the prevailing analytic consensus and tended to reject or ignore contrary information. The result was 'tunnel vision' focusing on the Intelligence Community's existing assumptions. The Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion, but the pervasive conventional wisdom that Saddam retained WMD affected the analytic process. The CIA took too long to admit error in Iraq, and its Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control Center actively discouraged analysts from investigating errors. 

Finally, we closely examined the possibility that intelligence analysts were pressured by policymakers to change their judgments about Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The analysts who worked Iraqi weapons issues universally agreed that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments." 

That is what the investigators reported, after been given full access to people throughout the intelligence community. Which leads me to conclude that there was a liar and his name was Saddam Hussein. He created an elaborate system of lies to fool western intelligence services and he succeeded. He wanted us to believe he had WMDs. 

The allegaton that "Bush lied. People died" is a liberal myth created to politically target President Bush. I understand the anger that was felt after no WMDs were found. But that doesn't justify calling the President a liar. I can only hope that serious historians and other experts do their homework and resist falling for this myth.

Ari Fleischer

✔@AriFleischer

The Iraq war began sixteen years ago tomorrow. There is a myth about the war that I have been meaning to set straight for years. After no WMDs were found, the left claimed "Bush lied. People died." This accusation itself is a lie. It's time to put it to rest.

11.2K

2:44 AM - Mar 20, 2019

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Ari Fleischer is lying. It is an absolute proven fact that George W Bush and his administration lied extensively about the degree of certainty in intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction, having ties to Al Qaeda, and seeking nuclear weapons, all of which (along with Vice President Cheney's claim that the US invaders would be "greeted as liberators") proved false. The Bush administration did not know the things they claimed to know with any degree of certainty, but they claimed that they were certain in order to manufacture support for war. Claiming to know something you do not know is lying, especially when it's to advance an ulterior motive.

"Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaeda," Bush claimed in January 2003. "Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own."

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," Cheney claimed in August 2002. "There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

"The United States knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in December 2002. "Any country on the face of the earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction."

"We are absolutely sure they have continued to develop weapons of mass destruction, and we are sure they have in their possession weapons of mass destruction,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said in December 2002.

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," Powell told the United Nations Security Council in his infamous Iraq presentation in February 2003. "These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

"People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind," Powell said in the same presentation. "These illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material."

Powell was not nearly as certain as he claimed to be. None of them were. Facts revealed after the invasion prove that for all their public claims of complete and total certainty that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, was aiding and abetting Al Qaida, and was developing nuclear weapons, behind the veil of government secrecy there was nothing like certainty at all.

For starters, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who was cited in Powell's presentation and who Fleischer refers to by the code name "Curveball" in the above thread, was known to have been lying about bioweapons long before the invasion. Despite the confident assertions made by the Bush administration about Janabi's claims to the public, no American personnel were present when he made those claims, and he told the Guardianin 2011 that the BND (the German intelligence agency who interrogated him) had known he was lying all along.

"The BND [German intelligence] knew in 2000 that I was lying after they talked to my former boss, Dr Bassil Latif, who told them there were no mobile bioweapons factories," Janabi said. "For 18 months after that they left me alone because they knew I was telling lies even though I never admitted it.

Believe me, back then, I thought the whole thing was over for me. Then all of a sudden [in the run up to the 2003 invasion] they came back to me and started asking for more details about what I had told them. I still don't know why the BND then passed on my information to the CIA and it ended up in Powell's speech."

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson was Powell's chief of staff and helped him prepare his UN presentation on Iraq. When asked on MSNBC if he believed he was lied to about Janabi following the 2011 revelation, Wilkerson told Cenk Uygur that "I cannot come to any other conclusion, especially when I have discovered that no US personnel were present when Curveball was interrogated by the BND, the German intelligence service. That we accepted that, that we even had a head of the European division for the CIA, Tyler Drumheller, who at the last minute during Powell's preparation, during my preparation of the secretary, had told both Tenet and McLaughlin that Curveball might not be reliable. That information was never relayed to the Secretary of State, or to me. I have some serious doubts about it now. I think there was some manipulation of this material, and there was some outright lying."

When asked by Uygur who he thought lied to him, Wilkerson said one of WINPAC's two WMD experts at the time may have been answering directly to Dick Cheney's office.

A declassified report from 2002 titled Iraq: Status of WMD Programs reveals that while the Bush administration was making its claims of absolute certainty regarding the dangers posed by the Iraqi government, behind the scenes it was damn near the opposite. Some choice excerpts:

“Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence. 
The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs.”

“We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program."

"Our knowledge of the Iraqi (nuclear) weapons program is based largely—perhaps 90%—on analysis of imprecise intelligence.”

"We cannot confirm the identity of any Iraqi facilities that produce, test, fill, or store biological weapons.”

“Our knowledge of what biological weapons the Iraqis are able to produce is nearly complete. Our knowledge of how and where they are produced is nearly 90% incomplete.”

“We do not know the status of enrichment capabilities. We do not know with confidence the location of any nuclear-weapon-related facilities.”

“Please take a look at this material as to what we don’t know about WMD. It is big.” (That one was from Rumsfeld.)

“We don’t know with any precision how much we don’t know.”

This is not the language of certainty. Yet certainty was presented to the public to manufacture support for a war which murdered a million Iraqis.

The 2002 Downing Street memo, made public in 2005, reveals a secret meeting between senior officials of the British government, intelligence and defense agencies discussing what they knew about America's plans for war. The text of the document contains an assertion by the head of MI6 that Bush had already determined that the invasion of Iraq would take place, and it was only a matter of fixing bits of intelligence around a narrative to make the case.

"Military action was now seen as inevitable," the document reads. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the document quotes Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying. "But the case was thin."

In a 2008 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, attorney and author Vincent Bugliosi pointed out that the fact that Bush lied about Iraq could be proven by the difference between the classified 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and its declassified white paper which was made available to the public. The classified version contained dissents from the consensus and language which made it clear that the reader was reading assessments and opinions by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, whereas the unclassified version saw these things deleted, presenting the assessments as absolute fact.

"The evidence that he lied about weapons of mass destruction, by the way, which is not the basis for this book, are right in front of me," Bugliosi said. "I have it right here. Here is the evidence. This document here is the National Intelligence Estimate. I didn't name it before. I talked about a classified report. This is it right here. October 1st, 2002, classified NIE report. It is called Iraq's Continuing Programs of Weapons of Mass Destruction. In this document right here, the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies use words like this, 'we assess that' or 'we judge that' Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. This document here is the white paper that was given to you folks here in Congress and the American people. And the words 'we assess that' or 'we judge that' were removed, meaning that you folks here heard a fact, and in fact, it was only an opinion.

"Number two, on nuclear weapons, this document right here, the classified report has several important dissents. This document right here, the white paper that you folks were given and the American people, all of those dissents were deleted."

Over and over and over again we saw the same thing: uncertainty presented as certainty. Guesses presented as fact. Opinions presented as proof. That's a lie. Bush lied. We know this with as much certainty as his administration was pretending to have in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. There was a pre-existing agenda to invade Iraq, and justifications were advanced to provide an excuse for that invasion with such extreme aggression that now-National Security Advisor John Bolton literally threatened to murder an international official's children for making diplomacy work with Saddam.

Here are a few more courtesy of Vox:

In October 2002, Bush said that Saddam Hussein had a “massive stockpile” of biological weapons. But as CIA Director George Tenet noted in early 2004, the CIA had informed policymakers it had “no specific information on the types or quantities of weapons agent or stockpiles at Baghdad’s disposal.” The “massive stockpile” was just literally made up.

In December 2002, Bush declared, “We do not know whether or not [Iraq] has a nuclear weapon.” That was not what the National Intelligence Estimate said. As Tenet would later testify, “We said that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009.” Bush did know whether or not Iraq had a nuclear weapon — and lied and said he didn’t know to hype the threat.

On CNN in September 2002, Condoleezza Rice claimed that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were “only really suited for nuclear weapons programs.” This was precisely the opposite of what nuclear experts at the Energy Department were saying; they argue that not only was it very possible the tubes were for nonnuclear purposes but that it was very likely they were too. Even more dire assessments about the tubes from other agencies were exaggerated by administration officials — and in any case, the claim that they’re “only really suited” for nuclear weapons is just false.

On numerous occasions, Dick Cheney cited a report that 9/11 conspirator Mohammed Atta had met in Prague with an Iraqi intelligence officer. He said this after the CIA and FBI concluded that this meeting never took place.

More generally on the question of Iraq and al-Qaeda, on September 18, 2001, Rice received a memo summarizing intelligence on the relationship, which concluded there was little evidence of links. Nonetheless Bush continued to claim that Hussein was “a threat because he’s dealing with al-Qaeda” more than a year later. 

In August 2002, Dick Cheney declared, “Simply stated, there’s no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” But as Corn notes, at that time there was “no confirmed intelligence at this point establishing that Saddam had revived a major WMD operation.” Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had heard the same intelligence and attended Cheney’s speech, would later say in a documentary, “It was a total shock. I couldn’t believe the vice president was saying this, you know? In doing work with the CIA on Iraq WMD, through all the briefings I heard at Langley, I never saw one piece of credible evidence that there was an ongoing program.”

In 2007 General Wesley Clark told Democracy Now that he'd actually been informed of the decision to invade Iraq immediately after 9/11, while the crosshairs were turning on Afghanistan and well before the public narrative was being amped up in demand of an invasion of Iraq. His comments read as follows:

About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. 

He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail." 

So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. If you've been following the behaviors of the US war machine, Iraq won't be the only painfully familiar name on that list.

Ari Fleischer

✔@AriFleischer

It remains important to learn what we’ve attacked and where. How widespread?
In addition to military targets, I hope we targeted Assad’s palace in Damascus. Leave him alive but destroy his prestige. Leave him without a home, as Assad has left millions of Syrians w/o theirs.

1,914

2:12 AM - Apr 14, 2018 · New York, USA

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Ari Fleischer

✔@AriFleischer

“In the last few months of 2018, Iran officially entered a deep recession.” Time to step up the sanctions... https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-official-figures-alarming-unemployment-2019/29698225.html …

941

1:36 PM - Jan 10, 2019

Iran's Official Figures Indicate Alarming Unemployment Rate Later This Year

The official unemployment rate has reached 27 percent among young Iranians and over 40 percent among university graduates, says Omid Ali Parsai, chairman of the Iranian Statistical Center.

en.radiofarda.com

Ari Fleischer is a liar. He was in the thick of the Bush administration's campaign to sell the Iraq war to the American public, and to this day he continues trying to sell them on new acts of depraved US interventionism. He's just as much a warmongering neocon inside as he was when he was behind a podium defending Bush's wars in the press room, so it's no wonder he wants to preserve the image of his insatiable death cult. Fleischer wants to preserve his legacy, yes, but he also wants to preserve support for the war machine whose feet he worships at, hence his ham-fisted attempt at narrative manipulation regarding the unforgivable Iraq invasion.

The responses to Fleischer's Twitter thread have been overwhelmingly negative, though, so it doesn't look like anyone's buying it. In our new political landscape, where the image of George W Bush is being continually rehabilitated, that gives me a bit of hope.

These monsters lied to start a war which snuffed out a million human lives and destabilized an entire region, and they did it right in front of our faces. The fact that they're now trying to lie about the thing we all watched them do is as insulting as it is infuriating. Never let them pull the wool over your eyes, and never forget what they did. Forgiveness is highly overrated.

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Caitlin Johnstone | March 20, 2019 at 3:25 pm | Tags: Ari Fleisher, bush, george w bush, invasion, iraq, lied, news, Politics, war | Categories: Article, News | URL: https://wp.me/p9tj6M-1Bl

* NIE: National Intelligence Estimate

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