• stopmediabias said on Dec 23, 2008....

  Lets see, Blix said: "Cheney said we will not be afraid to discredit you in favor of disarmament."

  How is this threatening him?  You put this in a headline like it's a threat of bodily harm.

  I think everyone knew the inspections were not working, containment was not working, and Saddam had to go.  Cheney was making it clear to Blix, cut the crap and come up with decent progress on this or we will throw you under the bus.

• Expendable said on Dec 23, 2008....

  It's a little embarrassing to invade a country because you know there's wmds - and not finding any. Suddenly those countries you mocked because they said, 'hey, there's not enough evidence' get to say, 'i told you so' and snooty doctors send Iraqi childrens' medical bills to the US.
   
  Everyone knows Bush and Cheney wanted to invade. And they left us a big mess.

• stopmediabias said on Dec 23, 2008....

  The Saddam Hussein era was an era of torture, mass extinction, war, and complete hostility towards his neighbors and the world.  WMDs (which some were found buried) was not the only reason for taking Iraq down.  There were terrorist training camps, terrorists, major subjugation of the people and a lot of other things that were important to put a stop too.

  All this is meaningless now.  Notice how Iraq dropped out of the headlines shortly after that 60 Minutes interview with a guy who was a guard of Saddam after his capture.  This guy stated that Saddam had told him all the WMD's were  destroyed but it didn't matter because they had it in the works to just make more.  Getting this guy and his equally evil son's who were right next in line, was worth the price we paid and was the right thing to do.

  If you are going to talk about Iraq you should except the fact that we won.  You cannot deny it is better over there now than it was under Saddam.  At minimum at least we will know what happens because of the now fully independant media and the mistakes in the future will be made by the people who voted those mistakes in.

  Yes President Bush and Cheney wanted to invade because they saw the threat.  As did Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Charlie Rangel, John Kerry, The British government, Spain, Australia, and numerous other countries.  What did all these people see that you don't?

• bloc said on Dec 24, 2008....

  there are so many falsehoods in that rant and the majority of americans know it so I won't take the time to go through them line by line. 

• kelly said on Dec 28, 2008....

  "What did all these people see that you don't?"
  
  
  I'm thinking they saw dollar signs.  When was the last time a Republican administration pushed us into war for humanitarian reasons?  In fact, why is it only after the fact that no WMDs were found that Republicans suddenly became interested in human rights (and of course, only in Iraq)?
  
  
  And let's be clear about one thing.  We did not pay the price.  Thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and all the families of those people paid the price.  Gutless armchair generals never pay the price.

• stopmediabias said on Dec 28, 2008....

  Isn't the overall goal of all war in the end for humanitarian reasons(with the exception of conquerers)?  Our leaders since the dawn of civilization have had to make decisions that weigh human life.  Since Saddam and his government got in power way back when up to the day he became worm-food how many deaths did he cause?  Now no more government no more Saddam replaced with a free society and a freely elected government.  While acknowledging we still have work left and it may all still fall to pieces, you can't deny if it works generations will be saved.   

  Our people in the military volunteer for service and are part of a collective of all of us.  We pay the price in our worry.  We also pay the price in tax dollars.

• sheltercrow said on Dec 28, 2008....

  stopmediabias: In order to counter the reputation you have of "making it up as you go" you might just list a few sources for your assertions.

• stopmediabias said on Dec 28, 2008....

  Shelter-what assertions would you like me source?

• bloc said on Dec 28, 2008....

  "Isn't the overall goal of all war in the end for humanitarian reasons"
  
  Um, no, it's usually about power and resources.
  

• sheltercrow said on Dec 29, 2008....

  stopmediabias: They are all so obviously obtuse I wouldn't consider any of your comments as having the possibility of examination. So, just for fun, all of them. And, for charities sake, try and list a source that actually supports your assertion. Great.

• stopmediabias said on Dec 29, 2008....

  Bloc- usually yes but not all the time.
   
  Shelter-Christ you are killing me.  I state something, you either agree or fucking disagree.  If you disagree you give me something specific that you disagree with and I will back up any of the claims that I have made.  Your digs and insults will do nothing but give me a reason to insult you back.

• sheltercrow said on Dec 29, 2008....

  stopmediabias: they weren't insults. Here are a few statements of yours that require clarification. To my understanding all of the statements are false.
  
  
  ...the overall goal of all war in the end for humanitarian reasons
  
  ...replaced with a free society and a freely elected government
  
  There were terrorist training camps, terrorists, ...
  
  This guy stated that Saddam had told him all the WMD's were destroyed but
  
  ...you should [accept] the fact that we won.
  
  You cannot deny it is better over there now than it was under Saddam.
  
  ...we will know what happens because of the now fully [independent] media...
  
  Bush and Cheney wanted to invade because they saw the threat.
  

• stopmediabias said on Dec 29, 2008....

  #1-My opinion

  #2-Statement of fact any pinhead who watches two seconds of news knows

  #3-  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,84291,00.html

  "U.S. forces came upon a recently abandoned terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Baghdad where recruits were apparently taught how to make bombs and what to do if they got captured, the Marines said Wednesday."

  #4- http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494_page6.shtml

  Page 6- (page 4 is where it says the WMD's were destroyed)

  (CBS) In fact, Piro says Saddam intended to produce weapons of mass destruction again, some day. "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there," Piro says.
  "And that was his intention?" Pelley asks.
  "Yes," Piro says.
  "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?" Pelley asks.
  "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program," says Piro.
  "Chemical, biological, even nuclear," Pelley asks.
  "Yes," Piro says.

  #5-A waist a time so why bother.

  #6-(read number 5)

  #7- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3023752.stm

  #8- http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

• sheltercrow said on Dec 29, 2008....

  stopmediabias: you're still a waste of time.

• stopmediabias said on Dec 29, 2008....

  You are such a candyass.

• sheltercrow said on Dec 31, 2008....

  An interesting excerpt from Iran's victory revealed in Iraq election

  Soon after Bush spoke of the Iraqi election as "a landmark day in the history of liberty," early returns representing 90 percent of the ballots cast in the Iraq election established that the clear winners were Shiite and Sunni religious parties not the least bit interested in Western-style democracy or individual freedom -- including such extremists as Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fanatical followers have fought pitched battles with U.S. troops.

  The silver lining, of course, is that the election did see broad participation, if not particularly clean execution. And because all of the leading parties say they want the United States to leave on a clear and public time line, this should provide adequate cover for a staged but complete withdrawal from a sovereign country that we had no right to invade in the first place.

• stopmediabias said on Jan 01, 2009....

  By comparison, a freely elected government versus a Saddam style government, I don't know how you can't see the positives.

  I expect Iraq will go through more turmoil but when are you going to acknowledge that Saddam and sons being gone along with their policies is a good thing.  Where is the civil war?  Didn't we lose the war?  Weren't we in a quagmire?  What would another generation of Saddam look like versus the next generation in Iraq? 

• sheltercrow said on Jan 01, 2009....

  stopmediabias: It's pretty simple. Saddam and Iraq was not worth the price the U.S. paid in blood and national treasure. I will never forgive Bush for trading the future of our own citizens for oil. He is, and will be for the foreseeable future, the most corrupt President the country has had. It's not tough luck on his part. He's always been that way.
  
  Civil war? As we write the citizenry of this country are footing the bill to pay off both sides not to fight. That has to end some time. Then you will see blood in the streets again with full scale civil war.
  
  Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The CIA knew it which means Bush knew it. As for weapons of mass destruction, only our allies in the middle east have them. Like Israel and Pakistan.You have conveniently ignored the fact that the U.N. inspectors cleared out the country before Bush ordered them out.
  

• stopmediabias said on Jan 01, 2009....

  Shelter-First of all you are overlooking the price of containment.  Starting back to the time of Kuwait and the first Gulf War it cost more money to keep Saddam and his minions contained. 

  The war for oil claim?  Are you really serious?  Why didn't we just buy the oil if that was the reason for going in?  Tell me what unbiased stuff you have read that qualifies you to make the claim that President Bush is the most corrupt President our country has ever had?

  The Saddam 9/11 claim is the same old bullshit.  9/11 was in 2001 while Iraq was in 2003.  Iraq scientists spoke with Bin Laden in the late 90's.  This is well documented. 

  If the UN cleared out all WMD's then why did Saddam act in the manner that he did?  If he was the victim just his blindly irrational behavior creates an even greater threat. 

  Don't waste your time answering these questions, they are rhetorical.  Try this:

  Your President after 9/11.  How would you handle the situation of Iraq and Saddam?  I can assume you are so much smarter than our President so you must have a better idea.

• sheltercrow said on Jan 01, 2009....

  Well lets see. As a starter we should base any response on reality. There wasn't enough evidence for the FBI to go after Bin Laden for 9/11. And the facts do not support his involvement other than as an after the fact mouthpiece using it for propaganda against the U.S. And, whether you like it or not, Al-Qaeda was a creature of the CIA.
  
  
  "The United Kingdom politician Robin Cook, who served as the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons described Al-Qaeda as meaning "the database" and a product of western miscalculation. Cook wrote, "Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians."["The struggle against terrorism cannot be won by military means", The Guardian. Retrieved on 14 June 2008.]
  
  So what to do? Certainly not waste three trillion dollars with a useless military invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. George Bush and Dick Cheney were the worse people to have in the White House when 9/11 happened. Both cater to oil interests, a dry drunk whose old man screwed up, neo-cons (Zionists to a man) chomping to destroy any anti-Israeli interests, and an Arab world looking to throw off the petrodollar. What has he done...
  
  
  When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
  
  -----
  
  
  
  The fact that the intelligence that sent America into Baghdad was cherry-picked and sewn together like some kind of Frankenstein monster...
  
  [...]
  
  Just because that meant lying to the entire world and getting more innocent people killed than Saddam could have ever dreamed possible, well, that’s all in a day’s work keeping American corporations safe from the threat of too much money in the public coffers. He tidies up the mess to Mr. Karl with one of his typically succinct and psychopathic conclusions about Saddam Hussein: ...
  
  -----
  
  Under the Bush Administration, real GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 2.5 percent, considerably below the average for business cycles from 1949 to 2000. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked in October 2007 at about 14,000, 30 percent above its level in January 2001, before the subsequent economic crisis wiped out all the gains and more. Unemployment originally rose from 4.2 percent in January 2001 to 6.3 percent in June 2003, but subsequently dropped to 4.5 percent as of July 2007. Inflation-adjusted median household income has been flat while the nation's poverty rate has increased. By October 2008, due to increases in domestic and foreign spending, the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion, an increase of over 100% from the start of the year 2000 when the debt was $5.6 trillion.
  
  You get the point. The rule of law would have been better served and cost in lives and national treasure would have been much much less if he had simply not rigged those elections in Florida and Ohio.
  
  In sum, We should have let the real law work and not the sham that is Bush/Cheney law.
  

• stopmediabias said on Jan 02, 2009....

  Ok so let me repeat the question:

  "You are President after 9/11.  How would you handle the situation of Iraq and Saddam?" 

  I was not looking for a meaningless right out of the far-left handbook rant on what bastards President Bush and Egor were with 99.999% being a gross distortion of actual facts 

  My point in asking you that question is was there any other way? 

• Expendable said on Jan 02, 2009....

  For better or worse, yes, the CIA helped Afganistan fight off the invading Soviet Army by offering covert training and support. But after the Soviets left, that support was dropped and Afganistan was left to fend for itself.
   
  Is it any wonder the Taliban and Al Qaeda hate us? Osama Bin Laden directed other attacks against us, there was evidence linking him to 9/11. We were right to go after him and to invade Afganistan.
   
  But Iraq? The whole WMD story came from an Iraqi cab driver seeking asylum in Germany so he wouldn't get sent back and wind up in jail for embezzling. He had a degree in chemical engineering, last of his class, so he knew just what to say, even if the German Intelligence people interviewing him didn't believe a word he was saying. But they passed on what he had to say about mobile biological weapon labs to the DIA, along with their own doubts. The BND agents now say they were shocked to learn the US was treating the cab driver's story as genuine.
   
  There was a plant the cab driver said was a docking station for the mobile WMD labs - but where he said the trucks came in and out, satellite cameras showed a wall. It might have been temporary (something that could be moved when nobody was looking), so when the UN Inspectors went in, they checked the plant - and found the wall was permanent. A truck couldn't get in that way. And the warehouse that was suppose to be the docking station was set up for seed preparation, not supplying biological weapon stock. But we decided the UN Inspectors didn't know what they were talking about.
   
  So, we accused Hussein of having WMDs and invaded - only to find out Hussein didn't lie, there were no WMDs.
   
  Oops.
   
  So George Bush yells at the CIA for not telling him the Iraqi cab driver was lying. The higher ups say they never got a memo, but the guys in the middle say there were memos, emails and meetings all trashing the Iraqi cab driver.
   
  So then we all heard about terrorist camps, shady connections to Hussein and Bin Laden but it all just smoke, just like the WMDs.
   
  I think it's more likely George wanted to tackle Hussein for the death threats he made against his father in the last gulf war than this was about oil. But promising cheap oil sure probably helped get support.
   
  9/11 and the war with Afganistan didn't help George.

• stopmediabias said on Jan 02, 2009....

  Why are you guys so hung up on these WMD's?  It was not the only reason for going into Iraq and like I said the process of manipulation, lieing, misleading inspectors, over the course of years by Saddam makes no sense and creates an even greater threat.  If he all ready destroyed everything what does he have to hide, especially when the most powerful countries in world are standing on his doorstep ready to attack?  You want to take the word of a madman when there are tons of VX gas containers unaccounted for?  And what about the WMD's found degraded buried in the desert?  I thought he destroyed them all? 

  I am sick of this bullshit notion of "Bush/ Cheney wanted war!"  Nobody wanted war and we all made this decision together.  Just following Al Gores rhetoric before 2000 if he had won the election he would have gone into Iraq and the same Democrats who voted with President Bush would have voted with Gore.

  Now we have these Liberal conspiracy theories:  We went to Iraq for Oil, we went Iraq so Cheney could get richer off of Haliburton, we went to war as payback for trying to assassinate a past President, we went to war to enrich our elite constituants, we caused 9/11 as an excuse to attack Iraq (love that one).

  And terrorist train camps, try to keep up, this is from above:

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,84291,00.html

  "U.S. forces came upon a recently abandoned terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Baghdad where recruits were apparently taught how to make bombs and what to do if they got captured, the Marines said Wednesday

• sheltercrow said on Jan 02, 2009....

  stopmediabias: If your only source is Fox News. Forget it. End of conversation.

• bloc said on Jan 03, 2009....

  "If he all ready destroyed everything what does he have to hide"
  
  
  He has a lot to hide. He was worried that Iran would attack him if they knew he had no real military power.
  
  
  "And what about the WMD's found degraded buried in the desert?  I thought he destroyed them all? "
  
  
  Those were effectively destroyed. He had forgotten about them and they weren't capable of killing people. The suggestion that we invaded a country, killed over 100 thousand people, lost thousands of american lives, and spent trillions of dollars because of some forgotten and degraded mustard gas ... well that's just stupid.
  
  
  
  

• stopmediabias said on Jan 03, 2009....

   
   
  Shelter-Chicken shit the story comes from the AP and lets not talk about links to bias news sources.
   
  Bloc- We weren't requiring Saddam to dismantle his entire military just prohibited weapons systems.  Do you think Iran was willing to get into again with Iraq after their previous war cost over a million deaths, I don't think so.
   
  The crap buried in the desert just shows that Saddam is a big fat liar!  Why did he bury them?  To hide them.  What other stuff was buried?  How many other lies did he tell?
   
  Once again your playing the propaganda game with this 100,000 killed.  How many people did our military actually kill?  These pinheads come up with figures and tack on every person that was ever killed in Iraq since 2003.  How many of these are attributed to terrorism, insurgent groups, and Al Qaeda? 
   
  It doesn't matter, the Saddam regime before we even got there racked up a bodycount in the millions, so in the years to come we will have saved a lot more lives.
   
  Lets say you are right and it was a mistake to take an Arab-Hitler off this planet and send him to hell.  What was the solution to Iraq?  I'm assuming we have brilliant military minds here that have another bright idea to deal with Saddam and his sons so lets here it. 
   
   

• sheltercrow said on Jan 03, 2009....

  stopmediabias: Lets look at your story.
  
  First paragraph:
  
  
  "U.S. forces came upon a recently abandoned terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Baghdad where recruits were apparently taught how to make bombs and what to do if they got captured, the Marines said Wednesday."
  
  
  They are not "recently abandoned terrorist training camp." See comments below.
  
  The "Marine" "spokesman Cpl. John Hoellwarth" merely repeats what their Bush handler tells him to say. It can be discarded out of hand as phony.
  
  Second paragraph:
  
  
  "The extensive camp consisted of about 20 permanent buildings on 25 acres south of the city and was operated by the Iraqi government and the Palestine Liberation Front, said Marine spokesman Cpl. John Hoellwarth."
  
  
  More phony Bush here using the "Marine spokesman" as a mouthpiece.
  
  The truth about the Palestine Liberation Front:
  
  
  Until recently the leaders of the PLF were active in the PLO with Abu Abbas acting as PLF representative in the PLO's executive committee. During the years after the PLO signed the 1993 Oslo Accords, which the PLF opposes, Abu Abbas agreed to abandon terrorism and acknowledged Israel's right to exist. The movement maintained offices in the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Iraq, but its activities dwindled. It has a low level of support in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and its main strength lies in the Lebanese refugee camps, where it is reported to have coordinated with Fatah against various Syrian-backed factions.
  
  In November 2001, 15 members of a PLF cell were arrested by Israeli authorities. Some of those captured had received terrorist training in Iraq. The cell had been planning attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the Ben Gurion airport. The cell had already been involved in other terrorist activities including the abduction and murder of Israeli teenager Yuri Gushstein.
  
  During the 2003 US-led War on Iraq Abu Abbas was captured in April, 2003, by US forces. He died while in US custody in Iraq, reportedly of natural causes, on March 9, 2004.
  
  
  Last four paragraphs:
  
  
  "Among the documents found were filled-out questionnaires that included such questions as "What type of missions would you like to carry out?" according to Hoellwarth. He said many recruits wanted to carry out suicide missions."
  
  "The camp included an obstacle course and what appeared to be a prison, to teach terrorists what to do if captured and interrogated, Hoellwarth said."
  
  "Recruits were also apparently taught how to make bombs, he said. The Marines found chemicals, beakers and pipes."
  
  "Hoellwarth said uniforms and gas masks were also left behind, along with bread and other food, suggesting the place had been used fairly recently."
  
  More phony Bush here using the "Marine spokesman" as a mouthpiece. I would hazard a guess that the story dies out as the truth of the situation emerges.
  

• stopmediabias said on Jan 03, 2009....

   Ok well how about the PBS frontline interview with a former Captain in the Iraqi army.

  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/interviews/khodada.html

  How about Deroy Murdock?

  http://www.husseinandterror.com/

  Global Security?

  http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/salman_pak.htm

  Council on Foreign Relations?

  http://www.cfr.org/publication/9513/#2

  Are all these people mouthpieces for phony Bush policy?

  If they lied about terrorist training camps why not lie about WMD's?  Logically they could have doctored something and saved face with a bogus story couldn't they?

  Bloc- I hate correcting people because I think it is rude and I make mistakes more than most, that said could you stick a "c" in the word "inspetors" on your headline.  Its been bugging me:> -ty.

• sheltercrow said on Jan 03, 2009....

  From Salman Pak + 9/11 = Pure Fantasy
  
  
  Misinformation about the Iraqi special forces training camp (part of the Salman Pak military reservation that occupied a narrow peninsula formed by a bend in the Tigris river) stems from the Iraqi National Congress (the umbrella Iraqi opposition group led by Ahmed Chalabi), and through it, the timely testimony of two Iraqi defectors, both of whom the INC introduced to sympathetic political commentators shortly after the attacks.
  
  The first so-called defector is Abu Zeinab al-Qurairy, an alleged General in the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He was forced to flee the country after exposing the corrupt shenanigans of President Saddam Hussein's son, Uday. As reported by Vanity Fair contributing editor David Rose, al-Qurairy "crossed from Iraq to its northern neighbour, Turkey." Stuck there in a refugee camp, "his life going no-where", he eventually "made contact with Iraq's democratic opposition, the Iraqi National Congress". (Inside Saddam's Terror Regime, 21 January, 2002) The second defector - a friend of the first - is Sabah Khalifa Khodada al-Lami, a former Captain in the Iraqi Army. Khodada spent approximately six months at Salman Pak in the mid-1990s, his function chiefly administrative "such as providing food, leave of absence permissions, and ammunition."
  
  
  From Profile: Vanity Fair
  
  Vanity Fair was a participant or observer in the following events:
  
  November 6-8, 2001: Fabricated INC Story of Muslim Terrorists Training in Iraq Electrifies Media, Builds Case for War
  
  
  An Iraqi defector identifying himself as Jamal al-Ghurairy, a former lieutenant general in Saddam Hussein’s intelligence corps, the Mukhabarat, tells two US reporters that he has witnessed foreign Islamic militants training to hijack airplanes at an alleged Iraqi terrorist training camp at Salman Pak, near Baghdad. Al-Ghurairy also claims to know of a secret compound at Salman Pak where Iraqi scientists, led by a German, are producing biological weapons. Al-Ghurairy is lying both about his experiences and even his identity, though the reporters, New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges and PBS’s Christopher Buchanan, do not know this. The meeting between al-Ghurairy and the reporters, which takes place on November 6, 2001, in a luxury suite in a Beirut hotel, was arranged by Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC). Buchanan later recalls knowing little about al-Ghurairy, except that “[h]is life might be in danger. I didn’t know much else.” Hedges recalls the former general’s “fierce” appearance and “military bearing.… He looked the part.” Al-Ghurairy is accompanied by several other people, including the INC’s political liaison, Nabeel Musawi. “They were slick and well organized,” Buchanan recalls. Hedges confirms al-Ghurairy’s credibility with the US embassy in Turkey, where he is told that CIA and FBI agents had recently debriefed him. The interview is excerpted for an upcoming PBS Frontline episode, along with another interview with an INC-provided defector, former Iraqi sergeant Sabah Khodada, who echoes al-Ghurairy’s tale. While the excerpt of al-Ghurairy’s interview is relatively short, the interview itself takes over an hour. Al-Ghurairy does not allow his face to be shown on camera.
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 03, 2009....

  From The New Yorker
  
  
  The Manipulator by Jane Mayer
  
  
  From The History Commons
  
  
  Profile: Iraqi National Congress (INC)
  
  
  Talk: Salman Pak facility
  
  
  This piece is based largely around the uncorroborated claims of two INC "defectors", both of whom have since been discredited. According to U.S. authorities, the first informant -- a self-confessed rapist and mass-murderer -- is known to have lied about his level of access while the second source simply regurgitated the claims of the first, his close friend!
  
  [...]
  
  In Response: The CIA did not believe the Salman Pak defectors, but the basic elements of their stories (foreign fedayeen, Tupolev airliner) were confirmed by the Marines who fought an intense battle with the foreign fighters in the Salman Pak facility in April 2003.
  
  [...]
  
  Inspectors with greater experience and longer memories recall sighting the body of an aircraft when they first visited the then suspected biological-weapons facility four years earlier, in 1991, and at least one inspector with a background in military intelligence, Scott Ritter, was able to corroborate and was later willing to elaborate on the history of the training facility:
  
  
  "Iraqi defectors have been talking lately about the training camp at Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. They say there's a Boeing aircraft there. That's not true. There's an Antonov aircraft of Russian manufacture. They say there are railroad mock-ups, bus mock-ups, buildings, and so on. These are all things you'd find in a hostage rescue training camp, which is what this camp was when it was built in the mid-1980s with British intelligence supervision. In fact, British SAS special operations forces were sent to help train the Iraqis in hostage rescue techniques. Any nation with a national airline and that is under attack from terrorists - and Iraq was, from Iran and Syria at the time - would need this capability. Iraq operated Salman Pak as a hostage rescue training facility up until 1992. In 1992, because Iraq no longer had a functioning airline, and because their railroad system was inoperative, Iraq turned the facility over to the Iraqi Intelligence service, particularly the Department of External Threats. These are documented facts coming out of multiple sources from a variety of different countries. The Department of External Threats was created to deal with Kurdistan, in particular, the infusion of Islamic fundamentalist elements from Iran into Kurdistan. So, rather than being a camp dedicated to train Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, it was a camp dedicated to train Iraq to deal with Islamic fundamentalist terrorists.
  
  "And they did so. Their number one target was the Islamic Kurdish party, which later grew into Al Ansar. Now, Jeff Goldberg claimed in the New Yorker that Al Ansar is funded by the Iraqi Intelligence service. But that's exactly the opposite of reality: the Iraqis have been fighting Al Ansar for years now. Ansar comes out of Iran and is supported by Iranians. Iraq, as part of their ongoing war against Islamic fundamentalism, created a unit specifically designed to destroy these people."
  
  
  Though clearly not a Boeing of any description, upon closer inspection, experts have identified the aircraft as an old Russian-built Iraqi Airlines Tupolev 154.
  
  Further information on the site comes from Seymour Hersh, who, in his May 2002 article "Selective Intelligence", wrote:
  
  
  
  "Almost immediately after September 11th, the I.N.C. began to publicize the stories of defectors who claimed that they had information connecting Iraq to the attacks. In an interview on October 14, 2001, conducted jointly by the Times and 'Frontline,' the public-television program, Sabah Khodada, an Iraqi Army captain, said that the September 11th operation ‘was conducted by people who were trained by Saddam,’ and that Iraq had a program to instruct terrorists in the art of hijacking. Another defector, who was identified only as a retired lieutenant general in the Iraqi intelligence service, said that in 2000 he witnessed Arab students being given lessons in hijacking on a Boeing 707 parked at an Iraqi training camp near the town of Salman Pak, south of Baghdad.
  
  "In separate interviews with me, however, a former C.I.A. station chief and a former military intelligence analyst said that the camp near Salman Pak had been built not for terrorism training but for counter-terrorism training. In the mid-eighties, Islamic terrorists were routinely hijacking aircraft. In 1986, an Iraqi airliner was seized by pro-Iranian extremists and crashed, after a hand grenade was triggered, killing at least sixty- five people. (At the time, Iran and Iraq were at war, and America favored Iraq.) Iraq then sought assistance from the West, and got what it wanted from Britain's MI6. The C.I.A. offered similar training in counter-terrorism throughout the Middle East. ‘We were helping our allies everywhere we had a liaison,’ the former station chief told me. … It is, of course, possible for such a camp to be converted from one purpose to another. The former C.I.A. official noted, however, that terrorists would not practice on airplanes in the open. ‘That's Holly-wood rinky-dink stuff,’ the former agent said. ‘They train in basements. You don't need a real airplane to practice hijacking.’
  
  "Salman Pak was overrun by American troops on April 6th. Apparently, neither the camp nor the former biological facility has yielded evidence to substantiate the claims made before the war."
  
  
  
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 03, 2009....

  A little story about Afghan from the International Herald Tribune
  
  Afghan corruption: Everything for sale
  

• stopmediabias said on Jan 03, 2009....

  So from this garbled mess of links we can pretty much assume that one of the most brutal regimes in all of history wasn't up to anything dangerous in Salmon Pak.  Of course Saddam was funding Palestinian terrorists, had wanted terrorists in his country, and was affiliated with lot of terrorist groups around the world.  Nooooo, of course there were no training camps, all these people must be lieing.

  Its been my experience every single even remotely postive thing about Iraq has been run through the shit and supposedly discredited.  Defectors who say there were no WMDs are hailed as truthsayers and defectors who say other things must be morons and liars.  I'm actually wondering if Saddam actually killed anyone, no wait the mass graves, darn!

• sheltercrow said on Jan 04, 2009....

  stopmediabias: With respect, because you believe your parties propaganda, you will always be full of shit.
  
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 04, 2009....

  "Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution."
  
   -- W. Lance Bennett Author, professor at University of Washington Source: News: The Politics of Illusion, 1983
  
  "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
  
  -- Noam Chomsky (1928- ) Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics
  

• sheltercrow said on Jan 04, 2009....

  A President Forgotten but Not Gone by FRANK RICH
  
  
  The last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on Bush’s presidency found that 79 percent of Americans will not miss him after he leaves the White House. He is being forgotten already, even if he’s not yet gone. You start to pity him until you remember how vast the wreckage is. It stretches from the Middle East to Wall Street to Main Street and even into the heavens, which have been a safe haven for toxins under his passive stewardship. The discrepancy between the grandeur of the failure and the stature of the man is a puzzlement. We are still trying to compute it.

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