Stunning revelation from Scott Ritter article

[gabeana]

The final line of questioning focused on weapons of mass destruction. Dave was on his feet, pacing before Mohammed, before turning to him and asking straight out, “Where are the weapons of mass destruction?” Mohammed, who had intimate knowledge of certain aspects of the Iraqi WMD effort, replied straight back: “There are no WMD in Iraq.”

Dave continued pacing back and forth in front of Mohammed. “My president,” he said, “is in trouble. Can you help him?”

Mohammed was taken aback by the question. “Excuse me?” he asked. “Could you repeat yourself?”

Dave sat down next to the Iraqi. “George Bush is in trouble. Our people did not find any WMD in Iraq. Can you help us?”

Mohammed looked back at Dave. “How?”

“Can we prepare something for that? We could bring in some nuclear material from the former Soviet Union, and pretend they are Iraqi.”

Mohammed, stunned by the unexpected nature of the request, indicated that such a ploy could be easily uncovered by forensic examination of the evidence by outside experts, such as UNSCOM (the United Nations Special Commission) or the IAEA, who would undoubtedly be called in to verify such a finding. Dave sat in silence for a few moments, before springing to his feet. “I have to leave for a meeting,” he said. “Stacey will show you out.”

Mohammed was to meet again with Dave, Stacey and Carol in the weeks that followed. The subject of WMD, Iraqi or otherwise, was never again broached by Dave or anyone else in his team.

In my extensive dealings with him, Mohammed has never lied to me or exaggerated about events he was personally involved in. His story establishes a pattern of behavior which shows how the Bush administration, especially when operating in the form of small, ideologically motivated teams functioning outside the norms and conventions of the mainstream, was able to consider (in Mohammed’s case) manufacturing data and circumstances to bolster its false case for invading Iraq, and (per author Ron Suskind) actually manufacture such data and circumstances. I trust Mohammed. And so I am willing to believe Suskind and his sources about similar cases of fraud, this time in the form of the CIA’s manufactured Mukhabarat document.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page4/20080811_where_are_the_weapons_of_mass_destruction/

[Lugnut]

1. K&R n/t

[Richard Steele]

2. K&R

[LSK]

3. K&R

[alfredo]

4. And Flaccid Dick Cheney wanted a false flag attack to justify war

with Iran.

[Mnemosyne]

5. Treasonous bastards. knr n/t

[girl gone mad]

6. We always wondered..

why the administration didn't try to plant WMDs. Guess they couldn't get enough people on board to help them.

[Raster]

8. The reason they couldn't get enough people on board was that enough people were smart

enough to realize weaponry of that caliber--nuclear or biological--has telltale signatures that CANNOT be eradicated. Take, for example, the ultra-weapons grade anthrax USED TO TERRORIZE certain Democratic Congressmen in this country. It has such an unmistakable biological signature that now certain parties are tap-dancing like the devil to try and explain just how the hell it came to be used.

[FogerRox]

11. They did try, VX gas was intercepted in Turkey

by some sort of 3rd party...maybe a CIA anti-proliferation unit... maybe called Brewster Jennings.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/?az=archives&j=1973&page=1

[Gen. Jack D. Ripper]

36. They didn't need to plant the weapons

Why go to all the trouble of planting WMDs when much of the American populous doesn't seem to paying attention? An illusionist's trick for the sake of a distracted audience? Nah, why bother. Just steal the stage while their heads are turned.

[Arugula Latte]

47. We hadda go to war to git 'em back fer 9-11

:eyes:

They knew that was the mentality they were dealing with in this country, and they took full advantage.

[Blue_Tires]

45. not only that;

the administration knew once the invasion was underway and the media on board, they could easily 'move the goalposts' about this war freeing iraq from a dictator/fighting terror and everyone would lap it up

[leveymg]

7. Dave, if he exists, is one stupid SOB for telling Mohamed that much.

Why would Dave explain his motives?

Why not just give Mohamed $10 million in $100 bills and a plane ticket to Tashkent, and send him shopping for a lose nuke? Even better, bribe some Iraqi General to play the role of the cut-out. The General, playing the head of Ba'ath Dead-Ender Legion, sends Mohamed on a secret mission to buy Soviet plutonium. Then, after Mohamed has come back into Iraq, shoot the General, and arrest Mohamed. Case solved - hero's welcome home.

Not saying that Ritter is making this up, or that Dave didn't say such a thing to Mohamed, but frankly, I just can't believe that this was an organized effort to plant nuclear materials in Iraq.

There's a character in Apocalypse Now who is "wound just a little bit too tight". There are a number of them. Paul sounds like one of them.

[FogerRox]

12. I think they tried to plant VX gas

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/?az=archives&j=1973&page=1

[leveymg]

37. Roger - Just planting a tank full of VX in Iraq wouldn't have done it.

The claim being made by the White House was that Saddam had "reconstituted his WMD programs". In order to verify that claim, which was the casus belli for the invasion of Iraq, coalition forces would have had to unearth evidence of a recent (post 1991) operational facilities for manufacturing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Recall that at the conclusion of the Gulf War, as part of terms imposed by the Americans, Saddam ordered the Iraqi WMD program dismantled. That resulted in Saddam's "bonfire of the vanities", a mass destruction of equipment used to manufacture WMDs. This was observed and duly reported back to Washington, but kept classified because the details would have revealed the extent to which the Reagan-Bush Administrations had provided the WMD production infrastructure used by Iraq in its 1981-88 war against Iran.

After the defeat of George H.W. Bush in the election of 1992, rumours of Saddam's WMD program reemerged from several sources in the Middle East. This became a rallying cry to push the Clinton Administration to more actively intervene in Iraq, which continued providing support to the Palestinians, and as a way to undermine Clinton's peace talks. This culminated in the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. The main co-sponsors in the Senate were Joe Lieberman and John McCain. The Act set aside up to $90 million for Iraqi regime change pursued by a group of exile groups led by Ahmed Chalabi's INC, and handed an intelligence gathering role to those same groups.

Back in the mid-1990s, the UN inspectors were perplexed as to why they were still receiving intelligence about such Iraqi programs, but could not find operating manufacturing plants or facilities. Some speculated that maybe Saddam had built mobile biowarfare labs, which were moved around, and thus avoided detection. The US even built "replica" biowarfare labs at Ft. Detrick, MD to demonstrate that anthrax could be produced in a trailer. The CIA/DIA/SAIC contractor in charge of that project was a South African named Steve Hatfill.

In 1997, a US weapons inspector met with an Iraqi exile group leader at his apartment in Paris. During that visit, the American brought up the theory that Saddam was making anthrax in mobile biowarfare labs. Some months later, an Iraqi defector emerged in Germany, claiming he had been part of Saddam's WMD program that had built underground laboratories and, you guessed it, anthrax production trailers. He was dubbed "Curveball" by his German hosts, passed on to the CIA, and the rest is history.

By the way, the American and the Iraqi who met in Paris were named, Scott Ritter and Ahmed Chalabi. See, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/06/07/040607/fa_fact1

[lostnotforgotten]

9. We Started Torturing People In Earnest Once BushCo Learned There Were No WMDs

eom

[mopinko]

10. always thought this was the real reason for the plame leak.

why can't we? the answer is- because valerie plame and brewster jennings would know.

[FogerRox]

13. Now youre talking. Lets go back in time, late 2002 early 2003

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/?az=archives&j=1973&page=1

[Recursion]

38. Bingo; Wilson was a convenient ruse

They could have given a shit about Wilson's op-ed; the real point was they needed to neutralize Plame.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. I don't get it.

First, why did they need any kind of physical evidence? Why not lie & say a nuclear stockpile was found? Don't let UNSCOM near it. Or if they do discover it doesn't exist, so what? The American press isn't going to report it.

Second, even if they did plant weapons that were found out to be plants, again, the press isn't gonna tell anybody.

A few random stories in the foreign press or on Bill Moyers or in the New Yorker will pass absolutely unnoticed by the masses. You have to get absolute saturation on the Talking Head media in order to attain critical mass on a story. Take the Downing Street memos as an example. The story was carried here & there, but nothing happened as a result. Likewise various loose ends pointing to 9-11 LIHOP.

[HughBeaumont]

29. The Book "The Terror Timeline" . . . .

. . . alone has literally hundreds of LIHOP bordering on MIHOP loose ends; all real news stories, all documented events.

Maybe that's why there's been no "terrorist attacks" since 9-11.

[northernlights]

15. what is the original source of this?

Seriously, it reads like a cheap novel and I'm having a hard time buying it as a result.

Did Mohammed honestly say to Scott, "Dave was on his feet, pacing before me, before turning to me and asking me straight out, “Where are the weapons of mass destruction?” I replied straight back: “There are no WMD in Iraq.”

Dave continued pacing back and forth in front of me. “My president,” he said, “is in trouble. Can you help him?”

I was taken aback by the question. “Excuse me?” I asked. “Could you repeat yourself?”

Dave sat down next to me. “George Bush is in trouble. Our people did not find any WMD in Iraq. Can you help us?”

I looked back at Dave. “How?”

“Can we prepare something for that? We could bring in some nuclear material from the former Soviet Union, and pretend they are Iraqi.”

Stunned by the unexpected nature of the request, I indicated that such a ploy could be easily uncovered by forensic examination of the evidence by outside experts...."

I would expect such a revelation to be something on the order of, Mohammed told me he was approached by someone named Dave who asked me about WMD. I told him there aren't any, and then he asked me to help him get some...blah, blah, blah. Not be written as if Scott was there witnessing it.

[gabeana]

17. read the whole article from the link

Ritter actually sets it up quite well

[Demeter]

26. The Whole Bush Regime Reads Like a Cheap Novel

Violent, irrational and pornographic: a continuous wet dream for a certain type of reader.

[Festivito]

16. I recall they tried and a battle ensued destroying the mission.

They tried again there might still be some pile out there losing its forensic messages, such that they'll only have to control the forensic team chosen to look at it.

Do remember as they marched across Iraq they had several tests positive for WMD that would then drip a week later as a false positive on a field test. Over and over again and again they tried that ploy.

[Stephanie]

18. Remember the Niger yellowcake forgery?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

If special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald delivers indictments of a few functionaries of the vice president’s office or the White House, we are likely to have on our hands a constitutional crisis. The evidence of widespread wrongdoing and conspiracy is before every American with a cheap laptop and a cable television subscription. And we do not have the same powers of subpoena granted to Fitzgerald. We know, however, based upon what we have read and seen and heard that someone created fake documents related to Niger and Iraq and used them as a false pretense to launch America into an invasion of Iraq. And when a former diplomat made an honest effort to find out the facts, a plan was hatched to both discredit and punish him by revealing the identity of his undercover CIA agent wife.

---snip---

Fortunately, there are good signs. Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.

If Fitzgerald is examining the possibility that Ledeen was executing a plan to help his friend Karl Rove build a case for invading Iraq? Ledeen has long ties to Italian intelligence agency operatives and has spanned the globe to bring the world the constant variety of what he calls “creative destruction” to build democracies. He makes the other neo-cons appear passive. He brought the Reagan administration together with the Iranian arms dealer who dragged the country through Iran-Contra and shares with his close friend Karl Rove a personal obsession with Machiavelli. Ledeen, who is almost rabidly anti-Arab, famously told the Washington Post that Karl Rove told him, “Any time you have a good idea, tell me.”

The federal grand jury has to at least consider whether Ledeen called Rove with an idea to use his contacts with the Italian CIA to hatch a plan to create the rationale for war. Ledeen told radio interviewer Ian Masters and his producer Louis Vandenberg, “I have absolutely no connection to the Niger documents, have never even seen them. I did not work on them, never handled them, know virtually nothing about them, don't think I ever wrote or said anything about the subject.” It is strictly coincidence then that some months after he and his neo-con consorts and Italian intelligence officers met in Rome that the Niger embassy was illegally entered and nothing was stolen other than letterhead and seals. And equally coincident that forged papers under those letterheads were slipped to Elisabetta Burba, a writer for an Italian glossy owned by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, and a backer of the Bush invasion scheme. Unfortunately for the pro-war neo-cons, even an Italian tabloid would not publish the fake documents and turned them over to the CIA and US government in Rome.

The other American attendees at Ledeen’s Roman Holiday are also worthy of scrutiny. Larry Franklin was recently arrested for leaking classified US government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Ledeen sprang quickly to his defense but Franklin faces prosecution next year and is most probably cooperating with prosecutor Fitzgerald. Harold Rhode, the other American actor in this tragicomic affair, worked the Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Department of Defense for Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Characterized as a “counter-intelligence shop,” OSP simply interpreted intelligence in a manner that fit the need for evidence that Iraq had WMD. If the CIA gathered data that said otherwise, OSP analyzed it differently or ignored the facts and then reported to the vice president precisely what he wanted to hear. Rhode also was the liaison between Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted embezzler the Bush administration was using to feed information to them and Judy Miller about the distortions and lies required to fuel the rush to war.

[lala_rawraw]

19. this fucking confirms my article

about the ghost team that I wrote YEARS ago

[malaise]

27. There's a lot of confirmation for DUers these days

Back then they called us conspiracy theorists.

Keep up the great work! :D

[HughBeaumont]

30. Back then?

There are some that STILL call us that.

I had a post long ago about those who don't think the Bewsh Administration is all that bad. It's amazing what's happened since January 2006 when I wrote that, all that came and is coming out about this legal mafia. I suspect the revelations won't end once he's crowbarred from the Blight House.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=237543

[sabra]

31. indeed... your article even has almost identical quotes: "Our President is in trouble.'

same source?

<SNIP>

Secret team looked to ‘solve’ WMD problem?

This smaller unnamed team was tasked with interviewing former Iraqi intelligence officers in hopes of securing help with a “political WMD” problem, a source close to the UN Security Council says.

During the summer of 2003 through the fall of 2003, the team, whose members who were not named by sources, is said to have interviewed many Iraqi intelligence and former intelligence officers. The UN source says that the political problem discussed had more to do with solving the lack of WMD than anything else.

“They come in the summer of 2003, bringing in Iraqis, interviewing them,” the UN source said. “Then they start talking about WMD and they say to {these Iraqi intelligence officers} that ‘Our President is in trouble. He went to war saying there are WMD and there are no WMD. What can we do? Can you help us?’”

[lala_rawraw]

20. sorry, here is the link

I wrote this three years ago


http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Secretive_military_unit_sought_to_solve_0105.html

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

21. TF20 was a textbook...

"Sheep Dip" operation. They go around to all the specop teams, find the best of the best operators, pull them out of their units and literally sanitize their identity and records. They just cease to exist to their units, their branch of service, even their families(if they have one. Those without family ties are much prized.). They are given new "legends", whole new identities. They are then taken to "secret locations" to form the unit, train up and then sent to their AO, to do those things that someone wants done with great amounts of plausible deniability and and no apparent ties to anyone or anything American.

The services hate these sheep dip ops, because they lose their best operators, some never to be seen again.

[leveymg]

39. Looks like you used Scott as your source in 2006.

The phrasing of the UN source you cited and that used by "Paul" in Scott's article is virtually identical.

You do know that Scott admitted to Jane Mayer (New Yorker, "The Manipulator", (06/07/04)) that he was the one who, in 1997, told Ahmed Chalabi in Paris about the theory he and some other weapons inspectors had developed about Iraqi mobile biotoxins labs? Who then popped up - Curveball, and we all know the tales he told.

[EFerrari]

22. Everything we imagined about these mfers turns out to be true.

Cold, cold comfort.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Zhade]

24. And yet the cowards in Congress are willing to let these criminals walk.

NT!

[aquart]

42. Which means they'll be back like Cheney and Rumsfeld came back.

When we put Nixon people in jail, the jailed ones didn't return to government.

[MonteLukast]

25. Sell the war, baby! Sell it!

Nothing is inadvertent with these people. Nothing. Everything is intentional and calculated.

Because of the Bush administration, I've become more suspicious of people in general, wondering about intentionality behind every oversight, about pre-emptiveness behind every rejection, about deliberate neglect behind every fall-through of carefully laid plans.

Being jaundiced about positive thinking and happiness itself, because of how this band of crooks has used them-- as tools of self-presentation intended to kill discussion and discredit reputations.

That is their legacy for me. Suspecting everything and everyone.

[peacetalksforall]

35. Your sentence = "Nothing is inadvertent with

these people. Nothing. Everything is intentional and calculated."

What I find fascinating, in a disgusting way, is that every intentional and calculated move is thought through to get more than one benefit out of it either political, supportive of another agenda, remunerative, or through tigher controls.

To me it's like a baron agenda was given to Cheney and some behind the scenes people to get things done, especially including formers- Kissingers, Khashoggis, Bandars, the gang from Iran-Contra or even from the time of the JFK assassination. It is like one of their mission statements said - figure out how to find parallel benefits from each step in the plan.

They seem to have brought in all the Rovian type thinkers who helped them find how to get two for one or five for one ... meaning a primary agenda with spin-pff benefits. A spin off could be timing of an announcement to drown something out, a path to rewarding a cohort, fodder selection for corporate tv experts to spin or divert, action for a military unit to get practice. Political, propaganda, profit, control of news, control of us, control of partners - especially those partnering in torture. While they stole and plundered to establish permanent stealing and plundering routes, they had to find ways to fight truth and insurrection.

It's like all major divisions submitted 'a needs list' and a team who could think like Rove worked together to see how they could satisfy the most number of needs from one event.

I wish I had copied some of them down when I realized them.

There is some pleasure knowing that their biggest enemy is the conscience.

I think we might as use one word to define them - the betrayers. I haven't said this for a long time - we are lying to our children about this country and our childrens' books are pages of lies. Lies, mostly in color. Betrayed from an early age. Right to vote. Right to an elected representative in Washington. Neutral government employees. Right to justice. Right to independence from forced religion.

[annabanana]

28. Big Kick. . . n/t

[Dogtown]

32. K&R n/t

[RedLetterRev]

33. K&R n/t

[pleah]

34. K&R

:kick:

[Plucketeer]

40. Pollutant Pelosi

Is gonna let this stuff get swept under the rug. :banghead:

[paparush]

41. "Those weapons of mass destruction gotta be somewhere. Nope, not over here."

Maybe over there.

These guys are psychopaths. And they suck at being criminals. They're leaving mountains of evidence behind. Not that Congress will do anything about it.

*sigh*

[bertman]

43. proud to be rec #101

[Summer93]

44. Hearing and seeing

At the same time that Anthrax was being received I was prescribed Cipro by my doctor for a lung issue. After taking it I began to halllucinate. Ever since that experience I think back to the Bush Administration ans wonder whether any of them experienced hallucinations with their dose aswell.

[defendandprotect]

46. Too late to recommend -- but RECOMMEND --