Jan 22 2006
Calls For Impeachment Will Torpedo Senate Dems
The liberals, and their media cohorts especially, have been calling for the impeachment of Bush because he is monitoring terrorists overseas and their communications to people in the US – some of which could be preparing for the next 9-11. While this may seem to be a wasted effort, in fact it will rebound onto Senate Democrats currently under investigation for the NSA leaking, and apparently for leaking information about our Iraq plans to Syria prior to our invasion. Mac Ranger has been on this story which seems close to breaking out into the public:
In the weeks that followed Senator Rockefellers’ friendly visit with Syria, CIA operatives began reporting Iraqi convoys traveling across the Syrian border; – a suspected “outsourcing” of Iraq’s WMD, which became the centerpiece of Colin Powell’s case against Iraq before the UN. Those same WMD that would later go missing by the time America entered Iraq 12 months later.
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As I said here Rockefeller is under investigation, and from my source Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), is also a subject of interest, although this isn’t being reported in the MSM, just as they ignored Rockefeller’s admission of guilt. But what will be hard not to report on is the fact that a certain “Syrian security officer” has become, shall we say, very ‘talkative’.
All these claims about Bush will backfire on the dems as it becomes clear Rockefeller actually did break the law and tip off our enemies. But there is more here than meets the eye. If this is true, it is arguable that Rockefeller’s efforts enabled the disappearance of Saddams WMDs. Then the question is whether this was the desired result of his comments to Syria. Was Rockefeller hoping to lose the WMDs in order to fill out his plan for taking down Bush?
Rockefeller is on the record planning to take Bush down with investigations over Iraq. So far we have had the Plame investigation, the WMD investigation, and soon to come the NSA surveillance investigation….
If Rockefeller tipped off Syria, then it is reasonable to ask – in criminal court proceedings – whether the resulting missing WMDs was the intent of his leak.
Wow AJ, that is quite an accusation about Rockefeller. I don’t know about that. I’d have to have a lot more information about the connection between the cause and effect you are proposing.
Are you sure this isn’t just a little Republican propaganda?
It would be politically very hard to put a US Senator on trial for something like this. I think everyone would blackmail everyone else with all the dirty laundry. Some government worker would go to jail, but a Senator?
All these stories–Plame, Able Danger, NSA, Abromoff, etc. sound like big scandals, but then they just die, and we never hear what really happened. I would like just once for some of these scandals to end up in court and be subject to the rules of evidence. But they never do.
I read that one Arab country gave the CIA all their WMD.
I think it was Libya. They didn’t want to end up like Saddam.
I don’t remember when this happened, but after the war started, I think. Any possibility that the CIA got Saddam’s WMD from Libya?
I read the Lybians were making bombs in some big mountain with Iraqi and N. Korean help.
I also remember when some N. Korean train blew up with some explosives in it. I read that there were Arabs on that train and their explosives. I don’t know if it was a credible story, though.
Snapple,
Let’s be clear, I am just passing on the reports coming from contacts Mac Ranger has – and I trust his contacts. And it makes sense, because Rockefeller admitted telling the Syrians information he should not have told them. And he was listed in the NY Times story by Risen. So Rockefeller made his own problems.
Yes, the country was Libya and it was weeks after we went into Iraq.
I am not saying that Mac Ranger is wrong. I just like to be responsible with charges like that. We need to know a lot more.
Even tho’ I am Republican, I like to be fair-minded toward the opposition. I don’t like my politics to get too out in front of my facts.
I hope you post more on this, but even if it were true, do you think they would charge a Senator?
Snapple,
We all have different levels of what we feel comfortable saying. As you can tell I have no problem making the point Rockefeller is in deep trouble based on what he said.
To your question – of course we should charge a Senator. They have too much power not to be held to the highest standard. And the point of my post was all these calls to impeach Bush, and how no President is above the law, will rebound terribly on Rockefeller. Because Senators are not above the law either, and they do not share the same protections Presidents do!
I agree Rockefeller might be hoist on his own petard, but I think the political costs would be so high that the Administration wouldn’t do it. I could be wrong.
But if they charged Rockefeller, the Democrats would unleash a torrent of propaganda.
Unleash a torrent of propaganda? What do we have now, a little bit?
American citizens went to North Vietnam, while Americans were being killed by Viet Cong, set on their AAA weapons and declared their love for the Viet Cong, and things have gotten worse every day since. American defeatist propaganda destroys this nation’s ability
to defeat our enemies and gives Aid and Comfort to our enemies.
Gen Giap and other Viet Cong leaders told us that after Vietnam, and the enemy today puts out tape and stories telling the same thing. These conflicts are prolonged by American defeatist propaganda.
How much more evidence is needed?
Since you mentioned it.
Satellites and their images can be a great source of evidence, revealing rather or not Saddam had WMD’s before the 2003 invasion is another story. So lets be clear about it. The mere fact you cannot see inside trailors and mobile labs. (Oh hey, what about UN ambulances, they have been used to transport terror). However, there is a real issue to examine. How is it, the Bush administration officials, should know exactly what is inside these trailors? Can satellites identify the exact cargo being shipped to Syria, alledgedly. Do they start another war and go into Syria or can they trust Israeli intellegence and the likes of Gen. Clapper? Should we trust the Russians?
No matter what you think, satellite images can only be used to show movement, shipping activities and construction. Monitoring infrastructures by detecting changes or dismantlings of the same. So i never put much faith in the mobile lab claims (Collin Powells UN speech), althought they clearly had the equipment and knowledge to create such a lab. So, what exactly has been reported, using satellites as the end all be all.
Link
Associated Press September 6, 2002
The head of a U.N. inspection team banned by Baghdad said on Friday that satellite photos of Iraq show unexplained construction at sites the team used to visit in its search for any evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to develop nuclear arms.
He and other officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency emphasized that no conclusions on whether Iraq had restarted nuclear weapons programs could be deduced from the images.
The last U.N. inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998, ahead of bombing by the United States and Britain. But even though Baghdad has refused to let U.N. teams looking for nuclear or other prohibited weapons programs back in since then, monitoring has continued through satellite photography and other intelligence gathering.
French physicist Jacques Baute, the leader of the U.N. nuclear inspection team, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that reviews of commercial satellite images since 1999 show “some buildings that have been reconstructed … and some new buildings (that) have been erected” at sites its team visited before the ban.
Without identifying them, Baute described the sites as having potential “dual-use capabilities,” meaning they could potentially be locations for both civilian and military nuclear programs.
In a related development, a report made available to the AP on Friday and drawn up by Hans Blix, chief inspector of the team assigned to look for chemical and biological weapons, said Iraq has not been reporting to the United Nations its “dual-use” imports, which can be used in peaceful and military nuclear programs.
The United States has accused Iraq of trying to rebuild its banned weapons programs and of supporting terrorism, and has called for the ouster of Saddam.
Link
Since 17 March 2003, the IAEA has not been in a position to implement its mandate in Iraq under resolution 687 (1991) and related resolutions.During the period covered by this report, the IAEA has continued to consolidate, restructure and further analyze the information collected by it since 1991, with the objectives of: identifying lessons learned, securing data in paper and electronic archives for improved future access and maintenance of knowledge, and developing strategies for future Security Council mandated nuclear verification in Iraq, should the Security Council direct the Agency to do so.
The origin of the information obtained with respect to Iraq during the period covered by this report remained principally open sources (for example commercial satellite imagery of facilities and sites formerly monitored under the IAEA´s ongoing monitoring and verification (OMV) plan). Since March 2003, satellite imagery for 141 of the 175 locations identified by the IAEA as primary sites (sites that formerly contributed to Iraq´s clandestine programme or had technical capabilities of some value for the resumption of a nuclear programme) has been reviewed and assessed with a view to detecting and cataloguing changes that have occurred to the infrastructures of those sites. This assessment has revealed significant dismantling and removal activities at 37 of the most capable sites since March 2003. In the course of this assessment, the IAEA also focused on areas where destroyed equipment from the former nuclear programme had been stored or discarded. Satellite imagery has indicated that at least one site containing buried contaminated rubble has been extensively excavated.
Link
Towards the end of summer 2003, Israel identified the placement of Iraqi WMD goods in Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon. Israeli spy satellites had captured on film several tractor-trailers filled with Iraqi weapons (they assessed them to be WMD later) in the Bekka Valley. The weapons were then connected to strange shipments that occurred between January and the first week of March 2003. Additional information indicated that Saddam Hussein paid Bashar Assad, Syria’s president, approximately $35 million to hide the supplies. Not long after this was reported, additional press reports indicated that privately the United States had begun to suspect that the theory about WMDs in Lebanon to be correct.
The United States concurred that there was evidence that the weapons were in the Bekka Valley, near cells of Iraqi intelligence agents, Hezbollah strongholds, and presences of Syrian and Iranian intelligence cells. The trailers that brought the weapons there came through Syria in January 2003, and among the weapons, so says the report, are believed to be extended-range SCUD missiles and parts for chemical and biological warheads. The missile claim seems to be backed up by more information. In early April, the US spotted an Iraqi SCUD-transporter erector launcher driven by a truck near the Syrian border. It seemed to have come in from Syria, then operated its radar overnight, and then returned to Syria. The launcher appeared to be for an al-Hussein medium-range missile
Recently General James Clapper, head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency confirmed that satellite pictures indicated that WMD may have gone to Syria. Of course, because they were inside vehicles, satellites couldn’t see the weapons themselves. Clapper did record a huge increase in the number of Iraqi trucks traveling to Syria before and during the war, particularly between February and March, 2003.
Link
According to a former top Bush administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq to Syria.
“I am absolutely sure that Russian Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war,” stated John Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security.
According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam’s arsenal inside Syria and in Lebanon’s Bekka valley.
“While in Iraq I uncovered detailed information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all WMD and specified advanced munitions out of Iraq to Syria and Lebanon,” stated Shaw during an exclusive interview.
“I received information from several sources naming the exact Russian units, what they took and where they took both WMD materials and conventional explosives. Moscow made a 2001 agreement with Saddam Hussein to clear up all Russian involvement in WMD systems in Iraq,” stated Shaw.
Shaw’s assertions match the information provided by U.S. military forces that satellite surveillance showed extensive large-vehicle traffic crossing the Syrian border prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
There is no question that the Russian effort to remove Iraqi WMD systems was the most successful intelligence operation of the 21st century. The Russians were able to move hundreds of tons of chemical, biological and nuclear materials without being discovered by CIA satellites or NSA radio listening posts.
Link
According to Mr. Shaw he was asked to resign for “exceeding his authority” by releasing the information to the public.
Mr. Shaw also states that this information on the Russian involvement in moving the weapons from Iraq, was discussed
with retired Air Force Lt. Gen. james clapper, the head of Great Britain’s MI6, and another foreign intelligence officer
whose name Mr. Shaw did not disclose.
WASHINGTON — US officials have found evidence corroborating White House allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened US forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said yesterday.
The official said the United States has found proof that Russian companies exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq, the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it was used during the war, according to the official. Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Iraq.
“We have corroborated some of that evidence,” the official told a group of reporters.
While insisting that the matter is “now in the past,” he said that the Bush administration “never received entirely satisfactory explanations” of its charges, and that the issue “is still a sensitive one in the relationship.”
“It’s an issue that, shall we say, did not do much for strengthening trust,” the official added.
Link
U.S. intelligence agencies have obtained satellite photographs of truck convoys that were at several weapons sites in Iraq in the weeks before U.S. military operations were launched, defense officials said yesterday. The photographs indicate that Iraq was moving arms and equipment from its known weapons sites, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
According to one official, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, known as NGA, “documented the movement of long convoys of trucks from various areas around Baghdad to the Syrian border.”
Documents reviewed by one defense official include specific Russian military unit itineraries for the truck convoys. The arms that were taken out of the country included missile parts, nuclear-related equipment, tank and aircraft parts, and chemicals used in making poison gas weapons, the official said.
Regarding the satellite photographs, defense officials said the photographs bolster the information obtained from the European intelligence services on the Russian arms-removal program. The Russian special forces troops were housed at a computer center near the Russian Embassy in Baghdad and left the country shortly before the U.S. invasion was launched March 20, 2003. Harold Hough, a satellite photographic specialist, said commercial satellite images taken shortly before U.S. forces reached Baghdad revealed Russian transport aircraft at Baghdad’s international airport near a warehouse. “My thought was that the Russians were eager to get something out of Iraq quickly,” Mr. Hough said. “But it is quite possible that the aircraft was used to transport the Russian forces.”
Does anyone know what the status is of Rockefeller and/or his family members with oil interests? I know that at one time, the family name and Standard Oil were inextricably interwoven, but it seems like that goes back to the origins of the family fortune, and I haven’t a clue whether that was retained or for how long.
Is/was that just Texas oil, or did their money interests extend to the ME?
Impeachment is the just and honorable thing for Dubya and this Republican administration.
To fail impeaching this Presidency, is to miss the opportunity for using impeachment for its designed purpose.