FIELD EXPERIENCE. What’s so special about hands-on experience?  It’s simply not gained without many years working in the field or in laboratories, well beyond graduate-level academic and specialized training in occupations.  Those who attain hands-on field experience — usually under distracting and sometimes dangerous conditions — find out that good data collection, patience, luck, calculated risk, indulgence, leadership, subservience, practical skills, inadvertent radiation exposures, bruises, disappointment, details, experiment design, equipment, science fundamentals, analytic skills, jury-rigging, self-effacement, open-mindedness, tolerance, technical publication, and knowledge reinforcement are some aspects of direct participation not found much in books or in the classroom for either teacher or student.

Academic institutions do a great job giving researchers a good start; just look at the graduate degrees and prominent educational institutions (United States, Great Britain, etc.) where the Iraqi nuclear-weapon developers acquired their basic scientific and technological knowledge.  The remaining requisite experience is gained in the field the hard way.  (It should be noted, however, that even after two decades of effort, Saddam Hussein — lavishing authority and money — failed to have even a single functional nuclear weapon produced.)

Once in a while it does become necessary to challenge the credentials and experience of those who take outspoken positions on topics they seem to misunderstand or misrepresent, often because of they lack meaningful field experience, as Scott Ritter has noted.  If a more insightful author-evaluation process were routinely available, policymakers would have less cover for the type of premature or egregious data selection experienced particularly with regard to events in the Mid-East.

CREDENTIALS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST. In general, one inherent qualification of the academic community is comparatively less conflict of financial and institutional interest.  Even so, more weight to meaningful qualifications and explicit disclaimers should be required of academics when they address issues without having the type of field experience that Scott Ridder and David Kay have had.  I find that to be particularly the case when it comes a technical understanding of nuclear reactors and the risks of radiation and proliferation.  Academic or NGO papers having essentially no professional foundation are a disservice to our common interest in an improved energy economy that would be accompanied by reducing risk and chronic hazard.

This isn’t meant to imply that questions they raise shouldn’t be answered — just that those who answer should have an applicable track record.

In any event, a good disassociated test of validity is to examine technical statements and papers for rigorous recognition, analysis, and presentation of potential systematic errors in measurements; it is the keystone to credibility.  Too many consequential predictions have been made on the basis of selected or functionally dependent data.  Those who don’t recognize the limitations of their estimates do not warrant much credibility.

In short, academic/NGO papers and presentations should start out with a disclaimer if not based on actual laboratory or field experience, and if the authors cannot or do not fathom or report systematic measurement errors.  Why don’t they just admit, “I’ve really had no field experience on this topic, and I don’t know how to characterize the validity of my results, but caveat emptor, here they are!”

Academic and NGO communities should police their own qualifications for speaking out on critical issues so that experienced professionals, such as Scott Ridder and myself, don’t have to come forward with the risk of appearing to respond with ad-hominem attacks.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

CRITIQUING NUCLEAR EXPERTS AND NUCLEAR EXPERTISE (PART 2 OF 3)
THE PROFESSORS. For progress in non-proliferation, we need be saved from the assumed or accorded authoritarianism of well-intentioned professors, especially from the East Coast, who have titles mistaken as credentials.  Frank von Hippel of Princeton comes to mind.  Notwithstanding good intentions, pleasant personality, teaching experience, and published papers — these do not constitute hands-on field or laboratory experience.  Nor does time spent in Washington corridors, offices, conference rooms count.

I hold Frank partially responsible for the decade-long hiatus in reaching agreement with Korea on nuclear demilitarization, for decades of lack of progress in conversion of the Siberian plutonium reactors, for stalling growth of nuclear power in the United States, for misrepresenting the weaponizability of reactor-grade plutonium, and for sustaining radiophobia.

On the latter point, over two decades after the Chernobyl accident, Frank is yet to acknowledge in print that he was utterly wrong in projecting or implying a huge number of fatalities due to the accident.  He and others cling to unvalidated beliefs regarding the effects of low levels of radiation.  That particular professional impropriety about predicting Chernobyl radiation effects was written in collaboration with Tom Cochran.  Frank’s other nuclear-policy distortions often came with like-minded, but equally unrepentant collaborators.

Another fundamental lapse, more common in academic circles compared to those who have gained field experience, is insufficient awareness of systematic error in data and computed results.  Much of the debacle regarding unfounded projections of excess cancers (for adults and juveniles) from the Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island accidents would have averted if proper scientific methodology were applied to the estimates.

Were it not for the prevalence of contemporary East-Coast academics, U.S. oil- and coal-burning electrical power stations might long have been on the wane, along with the carbon-dioxide and chronic pollution they emit.  Certainly shortages and prices of oil would not have reached their present levels had more nuclear-power stations been built as a carbon-disengaged source of baseload electricity.

Steve Fetter, now at University of Maryland, is another bright fellow with Harvard physics graduate degrees, but has weighed in on topics with which he evinces little or no practical field experience.  I know about these people because I once had to bring them up to speed on fundamentals regarding practical nuclear and instrument technology.

Include Tom Cochran in the good-hearted, under-experienced list.  Academic qualifications aside, professorships or PhDs do not necessarily correspond to the experiential foundations of a John Pike or Steve Aftergood.  Hal Feiverson of Princeton, though, is an example of a professor who has exhibited a learning process well beyond the university norm.

Moreover, were it not for the professors of the ̓30s and ̓40s who gained hands-on laboratory and field experience, we would not have succeeded in the timely development of nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors.  With the demise of Hans Bethe and Pief Panofsky, a good example remaining is Dick Garwin (aside from some uncharacteristic overreaching he has done with regard to Chernobyl cancer projections).

Finally, there is the matter of “political” scientists, such as Graham Allison of Harvard, who have leaned over from the political to the technical side to address issues regarding “nuclear terrorism,” and others who have presented overhyped views about “dirty bombs.” The political scientists do better when they have sound technical advice or stick to their field.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

CRITIQUING NUCLEAR EXPERTS AND NUCLEAR EXPERTISE (PART 1 OF 3)
Scott Ritter’s challenge regarding the credentials of some outspoken “nuclear experts” is worthy of further comment, both in terms of the specific individuals and in terms of others who need to be “outed.” Too often proponents or critics with impressive resumes, especially from academia, gloss over their lack of fundamental training and experience in the fields of technical discussion.  Although relevant credentials and biases are very pertinent, it is extremely difficult to challenge credentials after formal publication or media publicity.

ALBRIGHT. Having been acquainted with David Albright since the early 1980s on the Washington NGO scene, I regrettably must second Scott Ritter’s outing of Dave’s overworked credentials.

My official role at Argonne National Laboratory in arms-control and verification technology led me to relevant contracts with the Defense Nuclear Agency well before the beginning of formalized on-site inspection, including OSIA, as well as interactions with all the DOE weapons labs, with DOD, and at overseas laboratories.  My volunteer activities allowed contribution of technical expertise to various NGO groups with which I collaborated, such as the FAS, NRDC, ACA, CDI, and others.  My professional activities at Argonne (and other laboratories) involved nearly 40 years of lab, field, and analytical activities in instrumentation, nuclear physics, nuclear engineering, reactor safety, radioisotopes, experiments, verification technology, and arms control.  I have technical papers, review articles, and patents to back this up.

Besides being a technical consultant to the joint FAS/NRDC (Federation of American Scientists/Natural Resources Defense Council) verification project, I worked with European arms-control projects involving Soviet and Eastern European counterparts before the Cold War came to an end (http://www.NuclearShadowboxing.Info).  Despite a half-century close involvement, I don’t recall Dave’s (or anyone else’s) position as a “Senior Staff Scientist” for the FAS (although they could use some professional help nowadays on nuclear issues).

Aside from Albright’s book compilation on fissile materials, there are some other useful contributions he has made to arms control and non-proliferation, such as his interpretation of country-specific proliferation activities.  Dave’s a friendly guy, but I always found him shallow on experience, and — now realizing that he was once on the research staff of Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies — I have a better understanding of his predisposition and educational preparation.  With no substantive foundation he has expressed himself as philosophically opposed to nuclear power.  This is not uncommon, particularly with academics associated with Princeton who evince no hands-on or other practical field experience regarding nuclear-weapons, nuclear-reactor technology, or verification methodology.

KHIDIR HAMZA. In connection with the “hands-on” criterion, I confess reluctance to accept some of the negative assessments about Dr. Khidir Hamza.  He has evidenced both academic and insider experience that really cannot be challenged in terms of insufficient qualifications.  As far has the technical content of his book, I find it quite plausible.  Regarding his derring-do exploits and memoirs, they make a good read.  I notice that David Kay, a highly qualified IAEA inspector that I was once acquainted with, praised the book.  I sense considerable self-effacing dissonance among Iraqi defectors regarding Hamza and each other.

—A. DeVolpi, retired physicist

Cann4ing,

More obfuscation in order to avoid answering any questions on your theories? Is that all anyone gets from you when asked a direct question? You’re doing a horrible job of changing my mind.

You are right about one thing. You clearly don’t wish to have a conversation.

Good luck to you.

As usual, the content of my posts escapes Rus’s tiny little mind.  The question is not simply the accuracy of the number you place as to how may Iraqi children died but the little matter of who is responsible for those deaths.  How many of those children were killed by bombs dropped on Iraq from Gulf War I?  How many died because UN sanctions imposed throughout that decade prevented Iraq from acquiring basic medicines, etc.?

To blame Saddam for those deaths would be like blaming Winston Churchill for the number of British citizens who lost their lives when the Nazis attacked that country from the air.

But, like a conditioned Pavlov dog, you only know to blame the objectified “enemy” for all that goes wrong; to never look to what your heroes in the WH have done.  You are the essence of a true believer--impervious to any evidence that reflects the duplicity of those whom you follow and admire.

Cann4ing,

I offered to prove my understanding of events. You very quickly made it clear you no longer wished to talk about it. I asked three very basic questions of you and you, again, made it clear you didn’t wish to talk about it. But here you are saying all the same things and talking about it.

You claim I am ignoring a mountain of evidence. What evidence? Your opinion? A book you read? Perhaps you could begin producing some evidence? That could change my mind. It would go much further than simply attacking me. That gets you nowhere. It’s childish and unhelpful. It may prove to make you feel better but, it’s of no real use.

Why not display that you know the real history that has led us to current events? Try answering the few simple question you have so far ducked and dodged. Right now you’re simply blindly spouting the party line. That’s not good enough. It’s never good enough!

Cann4ing,

You want my facts on the million children who lost their lives in Iraq over the 1990’s? You have only to ask. I will produce solid evidence of all my claims. You, to date, have only produced your unbending opinions.  I’d bet you could do better

And, of course, DFC, you leave out Rus’s lack of verification that Saddam was personally responsible for “any” of the horrendous but unsubstantiated statistics that he cites.  I am not certain where the one million Iraqi children figure comes from but I do know that per UN statistics, over 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five died as a result of the 13 year UN sanctions regime.  When pressed, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said, “it was worth it.”

Rus’s hero, George W. Bush, is responsible for the deaths of more than one million Iraqis, the displacement of 4 million Iraqis, half that number in exile, 4,200 American soldiers and counting, tens of thousands of our own soldiers who have returned maimed, disfigured and emotionally scarred for life, but, hey, we got to see those gruesome photos of Saddam’s lynching, so I suppose Rus can say, “it was worth it.”

Rus, the typical Orwellian, is blind to a mountain of evidence that exposes the criminal cabal operating inside the White House, but is prepared to condemn the objectified “enemy” on no evidence at all.  The point was exemplified by Bugliosi, who in “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder” notes that where it was claimed Saddam was responsible 300,000 Iraqis, he was prosecuted for “no crime at all.” Instead, he was prosecuted for signing an order permitting the prosecution of 148 men for alleged complicity in a plot to assassinate him, an order he signed on the recommendations of his legal advisers and a 361-page dossier of evidence compiled against them.

Scott Ritter writes three pages in order to denounce a collegue for being called “a former U.N weapons inspector” although his role was more marginal than that of Scott Ritter.

My respect for David Albright stems from the quality of his work. I have met many “inspectors”, “officials”, “professors”, and “weapon physicists”, as well as “students”, “commentators”, or “colleagues” and many more. In the many years of my work I have learned at least one thing, and that is: Look at the quality, seriousness, usefulness, and honesty of one’s work and derive the respect from this. Don’t look at titles or press attention.

In this sense, the results that David Albright, often together with colleagues, has given to the international nonproliferation community rank among the highest. Just some examples:

The book “Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996”, co-authored by Albright, Berkhout, and Walker, together with updates on the ISIS Web site, is up to today THE basis for a large range of follow-up work: examples are topics like a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, safeguards, future nuclear material control regimes, assessment of proliferation dangers etc. What makes the book valuable are not only the figures, but also the honest and transparent description of the methods how these figures have been gained, to which extent they may be trusted, which error margins must be assumed and why. Not only non-governmental experts work with them but also generations of diplomats and governments of non-nuclear weapon states. Definitely, it would be desirable if governments and their “officials” would publish more precise figures. This is just the case the book makes.

Another example are the timely comments by ISIS on topics of North Korea, Iran, Iraq and other proliferation cases. It is always clear what is INFORMATION and what is an offer of interpretation of this information. Colleages like myself are most thankful for this service.

On his three pages, Scott Ritter repeats again and again how important his own experience as an inspector is. Unfortunately, he forgets to explain his criteria for the use of the term “dilettante”. Instead he even fortifies this term by adding “in every sense”. Being himself a historian, how can he have the qualification to decide about the physics skills of a physicist? How can he know how well another physicist understands topics like energy and fuel consumption of a nuclear reactor etc? A little more modesty would have been more convincing, this way I feel reminded of an aggrieved child who complaints that although his singing sounded so much better, the other child got so much more applause.

A dilettante in diplomacy might be an excellent expert in nuclear weapon physics, or the other way round, an expert in psychology of deceiving inspectors might be a dilettant in designing an implosion design etc. That’s why you always need interdisciplinary teams with eagerness to respect and learn from each other.

Finally, being a physicist myself who “never worked as a nuclear physicist on any program dedicated to the design and/or manufacture of nuclear weapons.” (in our country you won’t find a single one), I nevertheless feel and - I believe - am regarded qualified to comment on nonproliferation, proliferation risks of various nuclear technologies, nuclear safeguards, nuclear disarmament etc. Ritter’s superficial comment to disqualify a respespectable expert although not being himself a “nuclear weapon physicist”, is an insult not only to Albright but also to all his colleagues world wide.

Annette Schaper, http://hsfk.de/index.php?id=10&no_cache=0&deta il=111&cHash=f46523b506&L=1

Well then, thank God Saddam Hussein is no longer. After attacking Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Israel. After a million Iraqi children lost their lives in the decade of the 1990’s. After the 3-400,000 men, woman and children found in mass graves in the dessert. After the total annihilation of the centuries old Marshlands culture and it’s people. After the worst environmental disaster the earth has ever seen. After Hussein paid the families of homicide bombers to kill the children of others. Or the children of the Am. Ambassador of Jordan and Saddam’s call for “all good Arab Brothers to attack” Americans around the world. And I can’t imagine what it’s like for the parents of the countless woman picked up off the streets of Baghdad by Hussein’s eldest Son only to be brutally raped for days on end and later died as a result of a knife across the throat.

Thank God, after Bill Clinton’s numerous warnings of no clearer example of a threat to the United States than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, he’s gone.

Yes Rus, on this we actually agree. No parent should EVER outlive their children. Sadly, it happens. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, even though I have few.

I wouldn’t even wish it on JBlack. (although it’s difficult to believe he would even have any kids, or didn’t kill them himself if he did).

At any rate, it is not important whether you believe me or not. I have no reason to lie about that or anything else.

Hopefully, this is not a pain that you will ever have to suffer, but we know there are at least a million others who have suffered the same heartache as a result of the US actions in Iraq. Lots of them and US, burying our children.

Meantime, Cyrena is beyond all harm now.

Cyrena,

If what you say is true, and I’m sorry you’ve made it so difficult to believe you, no parent should out-live their children.

Outraged Cyrena, I think you forgot to explain how DickBush is actually one person too. LOL

Is it fun exposing small minded, bigoted ignorance? You bet.

DFC--The core problem with the JBlack/rus argument is that they accept at face value the claims made by Bush/Cheney that they “believed” Saddam possessed WMD, had links to WMD and 9/11 when there is compelling evidence that demostrates clearly that they knew no of these claims were true, yet ordered the invasion anyway.

A classic construct of the CIA, to which both George Bushes have a long standing connection, is “plausible denial.” In his book by that title, Mark Lane, commenting upon the Iran/Contra hearings, observed that George H. W. “Bush routinely keeps a diary of plausible deniability, with the same skill employed by a crooked accountant who maintains two sets of corporate books, one of them cooked.”

DFC,

There was never any doubt for me or I’m sure anyone else posting regularly on this thread, that the post was your own. As an academic, I can spot plagiarism and similar writing styles quite well. I suspect that anybody does best at what they do most often. At least that is normally the case.

You’ve by now been introduced to Rus7355’s clone...JBlack. Both are psychotic, and may in fact be one in the same person. I hadn’t considered that until they accused me of it. (at least one of those identities have). That’s always a give-away with these types. They accuse others of their own behavior, failing to realize the clues that it provides to whom they are. In short, it says far more about THEM then it does about whomever they happen to be directing the accusations.

For the record, I post under one name, and one name only...both here and on the limited number of other blogs where I occasionally post. The one name that I use is not my own given name, simply because of the hassles and harassment that have resulted in the past, from people like JRusBlack, whom I’m sure have posted under other identities here as well. So I use instead my daughter’s given name, (given to her by me of course) since she passed away many years ago, and so is beyond whatever threats they pose. Their obsession with attacking me personally, (though it is not limited to me, since we now have them on cann4ing’s case as well) is a testament to why I use her name and not my own.

That said, I realize it provides only limited protection, and only from those who are not so smart. The more technically savvy (and psychotic) can in fact take it farther, and that’s simply a risk that we all take in utilizing the technology. That is the paradox of the Internet. It brings both the good/informative knowledge to our fingertips, and at the same time brings the dangerous and the dysfunctional to the just below the surface as well.

Even that though, provides some usefulness. I’ve frequently used some of these pathological posts for material in some of my courses, so that students can come to recognize these signs of the pathology that exists within the society.

Meantime, thanks again for your contributions. They are very helpful and much appreciated.

JBlack,

Sorry about misspelling your name. I was rushed and left out entire words.

Jback,

I find it interesting that you would mention the “shut-in”. It’s obvious to me that she fills much of her time with media and Internet information. No real world experience. Very myopic with only surface understanding of current events with an astigmatic view of history. The shut-in has never produced anything more than opinions on any given subject. And you’re right that everyone with opinions unlike her own are made to feel extremely unwelcome.

I too saw the comment about limiting free speech those who happens to agree with her. And I’m the fascist? Good grief!

I had first thought that Cann4ing would be reasonable. He’s the first here on TruthDig to even mention the U.S. policy of regime change prior to 2000. When I mentioned this fact in the past the responses the here were either complete denial or something analogous to a deer in headlights. Completely stunned with no knowledge of the fact.

As it turns out Cann4ing too is not interested factual history. He’s much more interesting in reaffirming his own set and unbending beliefs. He appears to believe the world takes place in a vacuum. Where the United States is all that matters. It matters none what others do or say. It’s a very typical Western attitude.

Hey, have you had a chance to look over the information I sent?

Enter JBlack, the high Party member, reformulating Rus’s amateurish effort at Newspeak.

Rus, I heavily suspect bigot cyrena is posting under various names here. She’s posting from one name and then signing on with another and congratulating herself for words well written....LOL Sick and twisted.

I also supect she’s a shut-in of some sort. I usually have compassion for her type but she’s so hateful and bigoted it makes it hard to feel sorry for her.

Rus, I see what you mean about the closed mindedness here. These people are not actually reading your words. They seem to be closing themselves off to anything that doesn’t look and sound like what they want. Most here do the same with me. They close off all senses when they feel their worlds are threatened.

Reality is indeed what people make of it. My reality is something different from my Granddad. How anybody can argue with that is beyond me. I don’t even recognize the world bigot Cyrena lives in (and thanks for mentioning the word “pompous”. It fits bigot Cyrena to a tee).

You’re also right about what a lie is. If a person believes what they say it’s clearly not a lie. Why anyone would argue with that is foolish. Just goes to show these people here are whacked and arguing for the sake of it. No matter what the truth is.

Cyrena bigot makes everyone feel unwelcome if they don’t agree with her. And she calls you a fascist LOL. But I noted her comment about limiting free speech. That one fits the very definition of fascist. Pure and simple.

Keep it up Rus. Facts are bound to sink in. Even with these narrow minded “progressives”. I call them “reality challenged”. Liberalism truly is a mental disease. LOL

DFC,

Thank you so much for this post #167226. I’ve saved it, just because I find it very helpful in explaining this phenomena to others who want to learn. You sum it up very well…

• “…If “It’s not a lie if you believe it. It’s not a lie to dismiss contrary information to your own beliefs,” and the point of arguing is to discover truth, then you are yourself just a lie…”

That’s what it boils down to. Rus7355 is a lie himself. We could entertain WHY that is, and cann4ing has. (we’ve been plagued with this from Rus for several months now).

Cann4ing suggests this:

• “What amazes me most about Rus’s thinking is that it answers some definitions of clinical impairment and even insanity, and he asserts it quite proudly.”

And it’s true. Rus does appear to be quite proud of it, which confirms another point by cann4ing..

• “If a cop stopped him on the road and Rus insisted that four fingers was five, the cop would have to conclude that he was drunk or high, and arrest him rather than let him drive…If he kept insising that four was five, he’d be kept for observation for his own safety. …If he insisted to a judge that four was five, he’d be hospitalized.”
So, Rus should have been hospitalized long ago, and for all we know…maybe he is. Maybe his keepers think that allowing him to post on the internet is ‘therapy’ or something, except of course all it amounts to is him terrorizing the on-line public with BS propaganda.

That means that he probably is NOT hospitalized, and that’s the tragedy of the times. Too many of these people go ‘undetected’ and some of them even manage to make oodles of money spreading this stuff. Cann4ing made that point not long ago. Witness Bill O’Reiley and Rush Limbaugh. Oh hell…witness George Bush.

Yes, this is the tragedy of the era. People who should be either hospitalized or incarcerated are running the county. (into the ground I might add, though that seems to be a mote point at this stage.)

Anyway, thanks again for the comments in this as well as #167204. That one hits the head on a current academic topic for me.

• “…Rus’s worldview is nothing but latent fascism. It assumes that facts and beliefs are the same. Facts may be ugly and disagreeable, but they are the same for everyone. If reality becomes a matter of personal perception, as Rus says it is--“’So if I believe that four is five, it’s five’. That is correct."--then whomever takes charge can assert a new one, and given sufficient consensus, they can dictate any reality they choose, and punish any dissenters they wish. Holding the idea of factuality in mind would itself become a crime, even if you agreed with the consensus, because it presumes some higher reality than the one in charge and permits the thought that the consensus is beholden to anything except itself…”

This is not an easy thing to understand about the properties of Fascism, (at least for me) if only because it is based on the irrational. How does rationality attempt to explain irrationality?  It’s not easy, but I’ve finally come to understand how it works. This has been the base worldview of all Fascists and the creators of Totalitarian regimes.

Thanks again.

Actually, DFC, when I read your post, I thought of the movie version of “1984” when O’Brien was torturing Winston Smith inside the “Ministry of Love” and convinced him that reality was whatever the Party says it is.

December 16, 1998
CNN Web posted at: 8:51 p.m. EST (0151 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN)—From the Oval Office, President Clinton told the nation Wednesday evening why he ordered new military strikes against Iraq.

The president said Iraq’s refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors presented a threat to the entire world. “Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons,” Clinton said.

Operation Desert Fox, a strong, sustained series of attacks, will be carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said.

“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces,” Clinton said.

“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,” said Clinton.

Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.

‘Without delay, diplomacy or warning’

The Iraqi leader was given a final warning six weeks ago, Clinton said, when Baghdad promised to cooperate with U.N. inspectors at the last minute just as U.S. warplanes were headed its way.

“Along with Prime Minister (Tony) Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy or warning,” Clinton said.

The president said the report handed in Tuesday by Richard Butler, head of the United Nations Special Commission in charge of finding and destroying Iraqi weapons, was stark and sobering.

Iraq failed to cooperate with the inspectors and placed new restrictions on them, Clinton said. He said Iraqi officials also destroyed records and moved everything, even the furniture, out of suspected sites before inspectors were allowed in.
“Instead of inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors,” Clinton said.

“In halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance—not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed,” the president explained.

Strikes necessary to stunt weapons programs Clinton said he made the decision to strike Wednesday with the unanimous agreement of his security advisors.
Timing was important, said the president, because without a strong inspection system in place, Iraq could rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear programs in a matter of months, not years. “If Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will,” said Clinton. “He would surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction.” Clinton also called Hussein a threat to his people and to the security of the world.

“The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government—a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people,” Clinton said.

Such a change in Baghdad would take time and effort, Clinton said, adding that his administration would work with Iraqi opposition forces.
Clinton also addressed the ongoing impeachment crisis in the White House.
“Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down,” he said. “But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America’s vital interests, we will do so.”

Cann4ing,

I understand.  You are unable to answer a few very basic questions regarding your “Bush lied people died” theory.

Administration critics continually demonstrate an inability to distinguish making claims based on flawed intelligence from knowingly propagating falsehoods. It may be helpful to you to read the 17 U.N. resolutions regarding Iraq’s WMD and links to international terrorism. You may also find the Robb/Silberman report and all relevant House and Senate reports very useful. The Duelfer report too is a wonderful source of information on exactly what was and was not found in Iraq after 2003.

There is also an in-depth report titled the “Lord Butler Report” to be digested. In fact the Lord Butler report is the most extensive British government investigation ever undertaken.

If you want facts you’ll find all of the above useful.

I’ll pick up a copy of the book you suggested from my local library. Who knows, perhaps the book will change my mind.

DFC

So I take it you disagree with me.

Utter rubbish!

Cann4ing,

You are still missing the point. It does not matter what I believe. It does not matter what you believe. What matters is what President Clinton believed. What Tony Blair believed. What the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia believed. What Denmark, Austria, Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations believed. Is it not interesting how you skip right past those important facts in order to offer your own beliefs?

There is always a bottom line. And yours appears to be that it simply doesn’t matter what others said and believe. It only matters what Bush said.

Because you read a book you will ignore the Robb/Silberman report and the Senate and House Select Intelligence Committee reports, the Lord Butler Report and over 40 House and Senate investigations and hearings. It’s the book you read that matters. Nothing else. It’s what one man wrote in a book that you hold up as your, so-called, “evidence”.

The issue is not what Clinton did about his threat assessment of Hussein versus what Bush did with the exact same assessment.  In desperation you keep trying to change the subject.

You have been unable to justify your own theories on the Bush lies. You are at a complete loss to explain how several dozen Kings and Presidents stated very publicly that Hussein held banned weapons and was a direct threat (you offer a theory that Bush convinced almost the entire world years before 2000. That almost every intelligence agency on the globe was to stupid and/or inept to do their own intel investigations. That everyone in the world relied on what Bush would one day say after he entered the White House).  You have no reasonable explanation as to why the U.N. found Iraq in breach of banned weapons agreements 17 times in ten years. But yet I am the one ignoring the facts? Interesting.

And if you really do believe that the Bush administration was able to deceive the entire Congress in 2002 then you hold little knowledge of Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Obviously you believe Bush is an absolute genius for setting things in motion many years before the 2000 election.

Cann4ing, I will readily change my mind when you are able to answer the few simple questions I posed prior. Barring that your “Bush lied people died” theory falls apart.

I understand you read a book laying out the case you proffer. But after reading the book you are still unable to answer the most fundamental questions about your theories. You ducked, you dodged and you refused to explain the very basics of your theories.

Try answering my few questions in my previous post. Because so far you have been unable

Excellent point, DFC.  There is an Orwellian quality to our Rus’s inability to apply basic logic, a point he underscored with his latest post, which, rather than addressing the massive evidence surrounding events in 2002/2003 that Bush lied about a supposed Iraqi threat, about WMD & supposed links between Iraq and al Qaeda/9/11, Rus has busied himself digging up old quotes from Clinton & Sandy Berger where they expressed the belief that Iraq was a threat.  Since they said they believed it, and Bush said he believed it in 2002/2003, then Iraq must have been a threat.  Oceania is a war with Eurasia.  Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.  He also quotes two Democratic Senators who in 2002 expressed the belief that Iraq had WMD & was reconstituting its nuclear program.

Of course, there are several points that our little Orwellian choses to ignore.  1)Clinton did not order U.S. troops to invade and occupy Iraq.  2) Much of the belief expressed by U.S. Senators arose from the deliberately deceptive information that was spoon fed to Congress by the Bush regime, including an unclassified summary of the 10/1/02 classified NIE which became known as the “White Paper"--a propaganda piece in which all dissents and qualifications from the classified NIE had been deleted by the Bushies, including language which expressly stated that Saddam was not likely to try to use WMD against the US unless he feared a U.S. assault on Iraq was imminent; (3) the fact that this or that Senator, irrespective of party affiliation, expressed the belief that Iraq possessed WMD does not establish that the Bushies possessed the honest belief that Iraq possessed WMD, and, in fact, as Vince Bugliosi amply demonstrates, the evidence compels the conclusion that the Bushies knew full well that Iraq (a) did not possess WMD; (b) was not trying to reconstitute its nuclear program, (c) had no connection to al Qaeda or 9/11, and (d) ordered the invasion anyway.

But then neither facts nor logic are likely to pierce the dense disinformation bubble surrounding Rus’s little mind, so I suspect that his latest mumblings will not be his last.

Part 2.

November 17, 1998 Wichita Kansas: President Clinton stated that “what happens in Iraq matters to you, to your children and to the future, because this is a challenge we must face not just in Iraq but throughout the world. We must not allow the 21st century to go forward under a cloud of fear that terrorists, organized criminals, [and] drug traffickers will terrorize people with chemical and biological weapons the way the nuclear threat hung over the heads of the whole world through the last half of this century. That is what is at issue”.

Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor under Bill Clinton, in Town Hall Meeting at Ohio State University, February 18, 1998:
“Imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened, believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And some day, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again, as he has ten times since 1983.”

“In the 21st Century, the community of nations may see more and more of this very kind of threat that Iraq poses now—a rogue state with biological and chemical weapons. If we fail to respond, Saddam and all those who follow will believe that they can threaten the security of a vital region with impunity. But if we act now as one, we will send a clear message to would-be tyrants and terrorists that we will do what it takes to protect our security and our freedom in this new era.”

“There is no question that the Iraqi people and the world would be better off without Saddam. And we would gladly work with a successor regime that is ready to live in peace with its neighbors and resume its place in the family of nations. We have worked with Iraqi opposition groups in the past and we will continue to do so in the future.”

Democratic Senator Carl Levin (MI), September 19, 2002:
“We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd (WV), October 3, 2002 (just 6 months before the US invasion of Iraq):
“The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons...”

Democratic Senator Jay Rockerfeller (WV), Remarks on Senate Floor, October 10, 2002:
“There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.”

In 1998 The New York Times reported that at the November 14 1998 meeting the “White House decided to prepare the country for war.” According to the Times, “[t]he decision was made to begin a public campaign through interviews on the Sunday morning television news programs to inform the American people of the dangers of biological warfare.”

During this time, the Washington Post reported that President Clinton specifically directed Secretary of Defense Cohen “to raise the profile of (Iraq’s) the biological and chemical threat.

Part 1.

DFC,

“So if I believe that four is five, it’s five”.

That is correct. Of course I believe most of the rest of what you write is cumbersome, unwieldy and a massive rationalization.

Some people believe that in 1998, years before Bush took office, a small group of evil “Neo-Cons”, through persuasion, coercion, or force convinced the entire Clinton administration, and the French, and the Germans, and Britain, and Australia, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, and the entire United Nations that Iraq held banned weapons and was a threat to the world. Would that be a lie? Or, against all the facts, do they still believe the improvable?

Some people have been able to convince themselves that it matters none what was believed or said about Iraq before the evil Neo-Cons entered the White House. They believe all that truly matters are the events from 2000 on. That is to say; George W. Bush is a genius that knew very well how to see past all the disinformation from others around the world. By the power of his superior intellect Bush knew Saddam was not the threat thousands of others were talking about. He knew no banned weapons or programs existed in Iraq.

To me that is a stretch, however, people do believe.

Ernest,

Good point about the comparison there with Marshall, who probably IS a disinfo agent.

Rus is just crazy.

Well, Cyrena, I was with you until the “paid for disinformation agent.” I could certainly see them hiring someone like Marshall, who, though a die hard neocon, is actually quite erudite.  But this guy doesn’t know how to g