Another day, another justification for Bush's bloody w-ar falls apart: "Inspectors have found no evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to transfer chemical or biological technology or weapons to terrorists, according to a report quoting US military and intelligence experts. This report is according to the Washington Post newspaper. Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, provided new details about the weapons search and Iraqi insurgency in report released Friday. His report was based on briefings over the past two weeks in Iraq from David Kay, the CIA representative who is directing the search for unconventional weapons in Iraq, US civil administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer, and military officials. 'No evidence of any Iraqi effort to transfer weapons of mass destruction or weapons to terrorists,' Cordesman wrote of Kay's briefing."

AP reports: "Dutch marines said Wednesday that several dozen artillery shells discovered last month in Iraq contain no biological or chemical agents. The 130-mm artillery shells, which dated back to the 1991 Gulf War, were found just north of the town of Samawah in the Dutch-monitored al-Muthana province on Oct. 8. The shells were initially considered suspect because they showed signs of discoloring. They will undergo more tests by British and American experts. Marines spokesman Albert Markus said 'testing until now has shown no signs of chemical or biological weapons.'" Yet another WMD story is a bust. Let's see, there were the forged Niger Uranium Documents, the Aluminum Tubes, the Trailers, the Backyard Centrifuge, the Botulin toxin (that couldn't be weaponized) ... and now this... all a crock.

PentaPost: "Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use. Most notably, investigators have judged the aluminum tubes to be 'innocuous'... That finding is pivotal, because the Bush administration built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear warhead... Cheney, in a televised interview last month, referred to a National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which said among other things that there was 'compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort.' Cheney said investigators 'will find in fact that they are valid.' His office did not respond to questions Friday."

Former Iraqi nuclear scientist Imad Khadduri writes: "Belatedly, in a September 29, 2003 article in the New York Times by Douglas Jehl, the Defense Intelligence Agency has awkwardly admitted that most of the intelligence and information offered by the Iraqi National Congress (INC) for the past several years, which was provided by Iraqi defectors of questionable credibility, was of little to no value, all at a cost of $150 billion, more than 300 dead American soldiers, and at least 10,000 dead Iraqi civilians. A prominent and callous epithet of such defectors mentioned in the above article is Khidhir Hamza, the self-claimed Iraqi atomic 'Bomb Maker.' Given a short lived assignment in the Iraqi nuclear program in 1987 to lead the atomic bomb design team, he was kicked out a few months later for petty theft... He retired from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission in 1989 and became a college lecturer, a stock market swindler and a shady business middle-man."

Robert Parry writes about the history of the "Team B" model of distorting intelligence for political purposes. The latest "Team B" is William Luti's Office of Special Plans (OSP), that manipulated intelligence to make a bogus case for the Iraq War. The blueprint for this scheme originated back when Bush Sr. was CIA Director. He appointed a "Team B" commission under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, that exaggerated the Soviet Threat. The "Team B" model was integrated into the bureaucracy of the CIA during the Reagan Years. Unmentioned in this report is that Rumsfeld has headed other Team B's, such as one on North Korea during the Clinton years. While this Team B blasted Clinton for being too soft on North Korea, it overlooked DIA reports that Bush family and rightwing benefactor Rev. Moon had paid the North Korean military leadership millions (ConsortiumNews.com has articles about this, too). This article also describes how George Tenet ingratiated himself with the Bushes over a decade ago.

"The Bush administration lied to Congress to pave the way for war with Iraq, alleged... Ray McGovern, 64, who was a CIA analyst from 1964 to 1990. The Bush administration's deception of the American people began a year ago, according to McGovern. It was then that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson made a trip to Africa to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking uranium to build nuclear weapons. Wilson reported to the Bush administration that the allegations were false. But the Bush administration reported to Congress that intelligence indicated Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Resident Bush also gave 'many' speeches linking Iraq to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, McGovern said. 'Never have I seen such a cynically orchestrated campaign over a year and a half,' he said. 'Only a few weeks ago did Bush admit that Iraq was not involved in any way with 9/11.'"

"A suspicious sample of biological material recently found by U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq probably was purchased legally from a U.S. organization in the 1980s and is a substance that has never been successfully used to produce a weapon, experts said. The discovery of the hidden vial of C. botulinum Okra B, which was revealed in an Oct. 2 interim report by chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay, was highlighted in speeches by Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell and other senior administration officials as proof that Saddam Hussein's government maintained an illicit bio-weapons program before the war. The significance of the vial is one of several elements of Kay's report that are being called into question by U.S. biowarfare experts and former United Nations weapons inspectors... The vial of botulinum B - about 2 inches high and half an inch wide - was the only suspicious biological material Kay reported finding." Bush lied AGAIN - Impeach Bush Now!

"American officials in Baghdad have identified at least 30 businesses and individuals in the United States that investigators said they suspect sold tens of millions of dollars in military technology to Iraq before the war. Atop the list of suspects... is a father-and-son team from San Diego charged Wednesday with selling gunboats to Saddam Hussein's government." Okay, but why aren't they also investigating who sold Hussein WMDs and other arms during the 80's -- and up to the invasion of Kuwait in '91? These loans and deals were arranged by Bush Sr., and Reagan's envoy, Donald Rumsfeld -- through the Agriculture Dept and the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL). Companies involved in the Iraqgate scandal include Bechtel, Honeywell, Bell Helicopter, Unisys, Rockwell, Hewlett Packard, DuPont, Eastman Kodak and Wackenhut. Bush Sr. ultimately left the US taxpayers holding $2 Billion in defaulted Iraqi debt. (Enter "Bechtel" in our search engine. Also, enter "Iraqgate").

"The person responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Colin Powell says the Secretary of State misinformed Americans during his speech at the U.N. last winter. Greg Thielmann tells Correspondent Scott Pelley that at the time of Powell's speech, Iraq didn't pose an imminent threat to anyone -- not even its own neighbors. 'I think my conclusion [about Powell's speech] now is that it's probably one of the low points in his long distinguished service to the nation,' says Thielmann. Pelley's report will be broadcast on 60 Minutes II, Wednesday, Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Thielmann also tells Pelley that he believes the decision to go to war was made first and then the intelligence was interpreted to fit that conclusion. 'The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence,' says Thielmann."

"David Kay's interim report on whether Saddam Hussein had a serious program to build WMD - an investigation that Kay and 1,500 agents from the Pentagon have been conducting for three months now - is a shockingly lame piece of work. Bush has insisted that the report proves Saddam 'was a danger to the world' and thus vindicates the war. Colin Powell chimed in that the Kay report left him 'even more convinced that we did the right thing.' These statements were mustered to counter criticisms from Democratic senators who proclaimed that it proves only that Bush had no basis for whipping up prewar fears of an imminent Iraqi danger. A close reading of the actual, unclassified report... reveals not only that Bush's critics are closer to the mark, but something much more significant: that Saddam wanted and, in some cases, tried to resurrect the weapons programs that he had built in the 1980s, but that the United Nations sanctions and inspections prevented him from doing so."

"Anthrax was discounted as a threat by Australian military leaders 10 days before the Iraq war started," reports the Australia Herald Sun. "A controversial anthrax inoculation program for Australian soldiers and sailors was secretly suspended before the first shots were fired... Australian defence chiefs rated the anthrax threat so low they ordered a complete stop to inoculations just two weeks after the invasion began on March 20. They kept the decision from the Australian public, and 52 sailors and other personnel who refused the vaccine were told they were sent back to Australia for their own safety." In Bush's military, soldiers refusing the dangerous, unnecessary vaccines are given DISHONORABLE DISCHARGES! All for the "safety" of pharmaceutical company profits.

Josh Marshall: "From the Department of Says It All: 'Kay's discovery of one vial of a reference strain of botulinum toxin that an Iraqi scientist had stored in his refrigerator in 1993 at his government's request was described by Bush on Friday as a piece of evidence that Iraq was prepared to have prohibited biological weapons.' From Walter Pincus' piece in Monday's Post."

Glen Rangwala writes, "For at least 10 years David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has staked his professional and business reputation on the case that Iraq was a serious threat. He was a frequent pundit on US television, making the case for regime change in blunt language. He called the attempt by Kofi Annan to broker an effective inspections process in 1998 'worse than useless'; claimed in 2002 that Iraq was pursuing WMD in order to bring about the elimination of the state of Israel; and said before entering Iraq that the Coalition would find not just a 'smoking gun', but a 'smoking arsenal'. Until October last year, Mr Kay was the vice-president of a major San Diego-based defence contractor, SAIC, co-ordinating its homeland security and counter-terrorism initiatives. It was while he held this role that he claimed that Iraq could launch terrorist attacks on the US mainland." SAIC ok'd Maryland's use of electronic voting machines to steal elections.

Cambridge University WMD expert Dr Glen Rangwala is the man who famously exposed Tony Blair's dossier on Iraqi WMD as a forgery. After examining David Kay's $300 million report, he concludes that all of its major claims - those cited by Bush on Friday - are lies. Lie #1) an Iraqi biologist had a vial of live C botulinum Okra B from which a biological agent can be produced. In reality, this would have taken weeks to weaponize, and there was no evidence of such activity. Lie #2) Iraq was building missiles with a range significantly beyond 150KM. In reality, Iraq was doing research, which was allowed under UN sanction. Lie #3: Iraq had "a clandestine network of laboratories ...suitable for continuing CBW research." In reality, there is no evidence of any actual research.

"An expert close to the U.N. nuclear watchdog Friday cast doubt on new U.S. claims that Saddam Hussein 's Iraq had been planning to revive its atomic weapons program until the U.S. invasion in March. Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, the expert close to the International Atomic Energy Agency said David Kay's report was largely based on 'statements and opinions by scientists and officials with no apparent supporting evidence.' Kay, head of the U.S.-led team which has been searching for evidence of Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in postwar Iraq, said Thursday his team had found no stocks of such arms. But he said there was 'evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons.'"

"Chief U.S. weapons searcher David Kay reported he had found no WMD's in Iraq... 'We have not found at this point actual weapons,' he said... On biological weapons, a single vial of a strain of botulinum, a poison that can be used as a weapon, located at the home of a known biological weapons scientist. On chemical weapons, multiple sources told the weapons hunting group that Iraq did not have a large, ongoing, centrally controlled program after 1991. There had been reports that Iraq retained some of its old chemical weapons but Kay said none had been found. On nuclear weapons, Kay said that despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, 'to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material.' But on missiles, Kay said the team had 'discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements.'"

"The Bush administration is seeking more than $600 million from Congress to continue the hunt for conclusive evidence that Saddam Hussein's government had an illegal weapons program, officials said Wednesday. The money, part of the White House's request for $87 billion in supplemental spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, comes on top of at least $300 million that has already been spent on the weapons search, the officials said... While the [earlier] Exploitation Task Force worked out of an abandoned palace and the servants' housing quarters near Baghdad airport and remained short of vehicles, air support, computers and even electricity during the initial months of the weapons hunt, the [new] Iraq Survey Group spent its first weeks installing air-conditioned trailers, a new dining facility, state-of-the-art software and even a sprinkler system for a new lawn." We demand an end to the Iraq WMD charade - cut all funds and impeach Bush now!

This article by Cheryl Seal gives a pretty good clue: "Until 2002, David Kay was VP of SAIC, a company with close ties to the Pentagon and Bush administration. Kay is rumored to still hold a big chunk of stock in SAIC. In 2001, SAIC was commissioned by G. W. Bush to construct a replica of a mobile WMD laboratory of the sort used by Saddam. This mock up, supposedly destined to be used to train teams searching for WMDs in Iraq, was designed by Stephen Hatfill, the WMD expert now being harangued into isolation and thus silence by Bush's FBI. Last spring, the Bush administration handed SAIC some of the biggest defense contract plums to be had -a billion-dollar chunk of the NexGen business and an unbelievably porky 10-year contract worth over $600 million." Btw - this week, just before Kay's report was released, the FBI officially apologized for Hatfill's persecution - looks like Bush is trying to sweep up the SAIC tracks!

NY Times editorial page editor Gail Collins writes as if Fox News is pointing a gun to her head. She pleads and begs for their understanding and cowers out of fear that they might pull the trigger at any moment. This editorial on Bush's failure to find WMD's in Iraq is a perfect case study in Collins contortions. Why doesn't Collins just come out and state the simple truth that BUSH LIED to the American people and the world? Why doesn't Collins take the obvious next step and demand the resignation or impeachment of Bush? Write letters@nytimes.com

Iraq WMD hunter David Kay has come up empty - COMPLETELY empty. But when he testifies before Congress next week will he tell the truth - the whole truth - and nothing but they truth? Fuggeddaboutit. Kay, who is in Washington this week finishing the document, is "still gathering information from the field," the CIA's chief spokesman, Bill Harlow, said yesterday. "Don't expect any firm conclusions. He will not rule in or rule out anything." Last month, after testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Kay told reporters that his team had "found some physical evidence." He added: "I think it's very likely that we will discover remarkable surprises in this enterprise." There is only one "remarkable surprise" - Bush LIED to the American people and the world. Impeach Bush Now!

"An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed. Both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat ... On February 24 2001, Powell said: [Saddam] 'has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.' This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public. Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of 'containment' that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to 'build his military back up or to develop WMDs for 'the last 10 years'."

William E. Jackson Jr. writes, "A New York Times story on Sept. 16, 'Senior U.S. Official to Level Weapons Charges Against Syria,' was the most important to appear under the sole byline of Judith Miller since her mea culpa of July 20 in which she revised history as previously published by the Times. But her latest story subjected the slant of her reporting to new criticism, as it appeared that she was, once again, the 'drop' of choice for a politically motivated leaker. There was no follow-up by Miller in the Times the next day... Did Miller break credible hard news -- or only flack for hawks in the government, an all-too-familiar role for her over the last two years as she wrote a batch of stories supporting allegations that Iraq was developing and producing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons?" We demand the Times fire Judith Miller for lying America into war!

One of the reasons cited by the Bush administration for invading Iraq was Saddam's alleged stockpiling of smallpox as a WMD. But now the top U.S. scientists on "Team Pox," who have spent 6 months searching for smallpox, say that any stocks, if they existed, have long since been destroyed. Yet, in February, Colin Powell categorically stated Saddam had smallpox WMDs. And, just ONE WEEK AGO, Dick Cheney expressed "smallpox fears" as one of the "valid" reasons for invading Iraq. The only purpose the smallpox lie served, besides helping to trump up an invasion? The sale by pharmaceutical companies of millions upon millions of smallpox vaccine. Quite a killing, eh?

From Reuters: "Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix now believes Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago and that intelligence agencies were wrong in their weapons assessment that led to war. In an interview with Australian radio from Sweden, Blix said the search for evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons would probably only uncover documents at best."

VOA News reports: "A senior official in Iraq's new science ministry says the country never revived its nuclear program after U.N. inspectors dismantled it in the 1990's. Abbas Balasem, an official of the new U.S.-backed administration in Baghdad, said Tuesday Iraqi scientists had no way to re-start the program because the inspectors took away all the necessary resources. The former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix echoed those sentiments, telling Australian radio he believes Iraq destroyed almost all of the weapons of mass destruction it had in the summer of 1991 - a position Iraq constantly maintained."

Josh Marshall writes, "The Sunday Times of London is reporting that 'Britain and America have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq's WMDs after inspectors found no evidence that any such weapons exist.' Let's be honest: there's no reason for delaying or refusing to issue this report, save for domestic political concerns in the US and Britain. None.... 1400 scientists, military and intelligence officials have been scouring the country for 4 months and interrogating most of the Iraqi government officials and scientists involved in weapons procurement and research. That's more than long enough to produce a preliminary report. The only question is whether it is published.... Here's the bottom line: the only reason for suppressing the Kay Report is to stymie the political debate within the US. That's unacceptable. Congress should demand the release of Kay's report - even if redacted in some form. No more game playing. Let the chips fall where they may."

"The chief expert on WMDs at the CIA, which was caught up in the recent storm over the invasion of Iraq, is quitting the agency next month after 26 years. Alan Foley, who heads the Weapons Intelligence, Non-proliferation and Arms Control Centre, became enmeshed in the row over inclusion of a bogus reference to Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium in Niger, in Bush's State of the Union address. In a note to colleagues, he alluded to the 'pressures' of recent months but denied he had been forced to leave. US officials have said White House national security council weapons expert Bob Joseph discussed the uranium line with Foley, but there were differing recollections about who said what. In one version, Joseph asked CIA's Foley if it was OK to use the uranium line and cite the British as the source. In another version, Foley told Joseph that the CIA had recommended the British not include the claim in their September 2002 Iraq dossier but the British included it anyway."

From Reuters: "British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon's fate may be sealed on Thursday when a parliamentary committee issues a report, which a newspaper said would accuse Hoon of 'misleading' a probe into the case for war on Iraq. The Evening Standard said the Intelligence and Security Committee would say Hoon misled its investigation into the arguments for war in Iraq, an accusation that, if true, could be seen to merit his resignation. But another newspaper, The Times, said the report will not be as damaging to Hoon as an earlier leak had suggested. But the British media is almost unanimous that Hoon's career will not survive an inquiry into the suicide of weapons scientist David Kelly, who killed himself in July after being named as the source for a reporter's claim that politicians 'sexed up' intelligence to justify war."

Greg Mitchell is editor of "Editor and Publisher", a leading trade publication for journalists. He writes, "Some time in the next two weeks, David Kay, head of the Iraqi Survey Group, is expected to finally release a crucial report on his findings so far in his search for weapons of destruction. 'I am confident that when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop more,' Colin Powell said Sunday. 'We did not try to hype it or blow it out of proportion.' Since no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been found in Iraq, close observers now report that Kay is likely to drop on the media a massive weapon of his own: hundreds or thousands of pages of summaries and documents purporting to prove that Saddam Hussein had WMDs recently (and hid them) and/or had numerous WMD programs underway that we succeeded in pre-empting... Would the media possibly fall for this?" Just watch!

"Iraq may have been truthful when it told the UN Security Council in December that it did not have chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, [Blix] said. The declaration, submitted December 7, was quickly dismissed as false and incomplete by the U.S. and U.K., which accused Baghdad of failing to disarm as required by UNSC Resolution 1441. These charges were later used to justify the invasion of the country in late March.... 'With this long period, I'm inclined to think that the Iraqi statement that they destroyed all the biological and chemical weapons, which they had in the summer of 1991 may well be the truth,' Blix told CNN.... A US investigative team headed top CIA weapons analyst David Kay that began its own search shortly after the fall of Hussein is to present its preliminary findings later this month. But US officials indicate it may fail to produce any 'smoking gun' as well.... Resident Bush did not mention the search for the Iraqi WMDs in his televised address late Sunday."

"Hussein was apparently convinced that American forces would never invade Iraq and oust him from power." Wow, Saddam must be the stupidest man on earth -- even stupider than Bush! "U.S. sources say that captured Iraqis insist Saddam's top strategic objective was to persuade the UN to relax sanctions on his regime. So, after [the] head of his unconventional weapons programs defected in 1995, Saddam ordered intensified efforts to hide or destroy blueprints, 'dual use' technology and any remaining germs or chemicals. Not only was material stashed or obliterated, but records showing what had been destroyed were also pulped... But U.S. Defense analysts are paying more attention to a 'working hypothesis,' based on stories told by Iraqi captives, that no live WMD may ever be found. Some [anonymous] U.S. officials even think Iraqi defectors who surfaced before the war saying Saddam was still making WMD were double agents dispatched by Saddam [!] to spread disinformation to deter his enemies."

"U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build atomic weapons, the nuclear agency chief said Monday. Reiterating that his experts uncovered no evidence of such a program, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said... that there was 'no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities.' ElBaradei stressed that his teams had to withdraw ahead of the U.S.-led war before they could complete their inspections. But he said what they saw in the months preceding their pullout suggested the Iraqis were in no position to build a nuclear weapon. 'The agency observed a substantial degradation in facilities, financial resources and programs throughout Iraq that might support a nuclear infrastructure,' ElBaradei said.... 'The former cadre of nuclear experts was being increasingly dispersed and many key figures were reaching retirement or had left the country.'"

AP reports, "No weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq, nor has any solid new evidence for them turned up in Washington or London. But what about Baghdad's patchy bookkeeping - the gaps that led U.N. inspectors to list Iraqi nerve agents and bioweapons material as unaccounted for? Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the 'unaccountables' may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago... Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, as he left his post this summer, became more open in discussing discrepancies. After the mid-1990s, 'hardly ever did (inspectors) find hidden weapons,' Blix reminded one audience. 'What they found was bad accounting. 'It could be true they (Iraq) did destroy unilaterally in 1991 what they hid.'" Bush - and the corporate media - knew this was true ALL ALONG. Bush lied and thousands died - and more die Americans and Iraqis every day. Impeach Bush Now!

The Moonie Times reports, "A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that 'limited the focus' for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations. The report, prepared last month, said the search for weapons of mass destruction was planned so late in the game that it was impossible for U.S. Central Command to carry out the mission effectively... Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage conceded in recent weeks that the Bush administration failed to predict the guerrilla war against American troops in Iraq. Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters have killed more than 60 soldiers since May 1, mostly with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades... Most war planning was conducted by Gen. Tommy Franks at U.S. Central Command; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, under the direction of Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman; and the Pentagon policy-writing shop led by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith." Fire them ALL!

"Hans Blix felt Washington was intimidating him to produce reports that would justify military action in the run-up to the Iraq war, says the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Elbaradei does not believe Iraq tried to revive its clandestine nuclear weapons program, despite continued claims by Bush and Blair. ElBaradei said Blix got the brunt of the bullying, however. 'I think there were probably more efforts to intimidate Hans Blix, because there were more serious concerns about chemical and biological (weapons).' Elbarabei says claims by Bush and Blair that Saddam had reconstituted its secret nuke program were unfounded. 'I would be very surprised if we were to discover that there was a nuclear weapons programme restarted in Iraq." So, Tony...what was that about your resignation?

Moonie site WorldTribune.com reports, "U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have finally been located. Unfortunately, getting to them will be nearly impossible for the US and its allies, because the containers with the strategic materials are not in Iraq. Instead they are located in Lebanon's heavily-fortified Bekaa Valley, swarming with Iranian and Syrian forces, and Hizbullah and ex-Iraqi agents, Geostrategy-Direct.com will report Wednesday. U.S. intelligence first identified a stream of tractor-trailer trucks moving from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon in January 2003. The significance of this sighting did not register on the CIA at the time. U.S. intelligence sources believe the area contains extended-range Scud-based missiles and parts for chemical and biological warheads." Karl Rove is hard at work, leaking bogus "intelligence" that will percolate up to right-wing talk shows and then to the PentaPost and NY Times. No more lies - impeach Bush now!

Iraq expert and blogger Prof. Juan Cole writes, "Former chief UN weapons inspector Richard Butler is raising the question of why the US is not sharing what Tariq Aziz and others have told them about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. (All the speculation that Chemical Ali, just apprehended, will finally spill the beans is silly; Tariq Aziz knows as much or more than he does).... Uh, Mr. Butler, the answer seems pretty obvious. Scott Ritter was right, and the Iraqis destroyed all or almost all of their WMD stockpiles and mothballed all or almost all of their programs. There have been numerous statements to the press by high Iraqi officials to this effect. If it weren't true, the US would have gleefully demonstrated the contrary. The US silence is the sheepish toe-swinging of a little boy caught in a tall tale that produced major carnage."

Newsweek reports: "Things quickly began to go wrong with the Obeidi story. True, Obeidi said he'd buried the centrifuge equipment, as he'd been ordered to do in 1991 by Saddam's son Qusay Hussein and son-in-law Hussein Kamel. But he also insisted to the CIA that, in effect, that was that: Saddam had never reconstituted his centrifuge program afterward, in large part because of the Iraqi tyrant's fear of being discovered under the U.N. sanctions-and-inspections regime... He also told the CIA that, as the International Atomic Energy Agency and many technical experts have said, the aluminum tubes were intended for rockets, not uranium enrichment or a nuclear-weapons program... Albright and others suggest that, with the Obeidi case, the message being sent by the Bush administration to Iraqi scientists being interrogated in Iraq is a troublesome one: if you don't tell us what we want to hear, you won't be rewarded. In fact, things might even get a little unpleasant for you."

Josh Marshall writes: "We know that the Iraqis had a biological weapons program and that there were biological weapons in the country. That's wholly undisputed. If Kay produces substantial evidence of such weapons in 1995 or 1998, that's meaningless. What we're trying to figure out is whether he had them in the period when we were considering going to war. What many suspect is that Kay is going to pull an intel version of a classic 1990s-era document dump. In other words, come forward with a mound of documents detailing the Iraqis' extensive programs, their histories, the means used to conceal them, whom they imported parts from, and so forth. And then conveniently leave as a footnote the fact that these programs had gone pretty dormant by 2002." Brings to mind the 'damning' Cox-Dicks congressional report on Chinagate. Buried deep in that document dump was the fact that the key secrets were lost under Reagan-Bush, not Clinton (enter 'chinagate' in the Democrats.com search engine).

Julian Borger writes: "The former UN inspector hired by the Bush administration to find evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction will claim in a report next month that Iraqi forces were ordered to fire chemical shells at invading coalition troops, according to US reports. But David Kay, who heads the 1,400-strong Iraq Survey Group, has admitted he has found no trace of the weapons themselves, and cannot explain why they were never used. One possibility is that the orders were part of an elaborate bluff, in the hope that they would be intercepted by the US and deter an attack." Or more likely, this is a Karl Rove concocted bluff --- another red herring to obscure the fact that Bush Lied, Thousands Died.

Here is BLOCKBUSTER revelation about Bush's Iraq WMD lies: "A former Energy Department intelligence chief who agreed with the White House claim that Iraq had reconstituted its defunct nuclear-arms program was awarded a total of $20,500 in bonuses during the build-up to the war, WorldNetDaily has learned. Thomas Rider... overruled senior intelligence officers on his staff in voting for the position at a National Foreign Intelligence Board meeting at CIA headquarters last September... Rider ordered them to 'shut up and sit down' ... With Rider and Energy on board, the vote for the position that Baghdad had restarted its defunct nuclear program was a nearly unanimous 5-1... 'It is noteworthy that although DOE assessed that the tubes probably were not part of Iraq's nuclear program, DOE agreed that reconstitution was under way,' CIA Director George Tenet said in a four-page statement defending the NIE on Iraq." DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham paid the bribe - we demand a Special Prosecutor!

Karl Rove's stenographer Robert Novak writes, "Former international weapons inspector David Kay, now seeking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction for the Pentagon, has privately reported successes that are planned to be revealed to the public in mid-September. Kay has told his superiors he has found substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development. He has been less successful in locating chemical weapons, and has not yet begun a substantial effort to locate progress toward nuclear arms. Senior officials in the Bush administration believe Kay's weapons discoveries should have been revealed as they were made. However, a decision, approved by Bush, was made to wait until more was discovered and then announce it -- probably in September." Get ready for a new Bushit propaganda offensive, full of alleged "evidence" that the corporate media reports in its headlines as PROOF of Saddam's WMD, which will all prove to be yet more Bushit.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes, "We have compiled major statements by senior Bush Administration officials on Iraq's capabilities to manufacture and hide chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and delivery systems." Here it is - all the lies, all in one place. For example: Cheney-Meet The Press, March 16, 2003: "We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons and we believe he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons." Rumsfeld-Press Briefing, June 24, 2003: "I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that Iraqis had nuclear weapons. I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one." Ah yes, facts are stubborn things.

"The prime minister of Niger, Hama Hamadou, has demanded that British prime minister Tony Blair put up or shut up over his continued allegations that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium from the African country. In his first interview since it was claimed that his country had been approached by Iraq, Hamadou told Britain's Sunday Telegraph, on July 28, that Blair must produce proof of the allegation. Niger had never had diplomatic or bilateral relations with Iraq, he said, accusing the British and US government of mistreating his country, which sent 500 troops to support the Gulf War in 1991, by making the claim... Pointing out that neither Britain nor the US has made a formal accusation of any wrongdoing by his government, he said that the claim originated in efforts by those governments to win public support for their war against Iraq. 'Everybody knows that the claims are untrue,' he added."

From the Sunday Herald: "Pure uranium oxide which could be used in the making of a 'dirty nuclear bomb' capable of killing countless people is being offered for sale in a Basra souk for $250,000. Senior American officials have confirmed that rampant looting was discovered by US marines arriving at the al-Tuwaitha nuclear site on April 7. The Sunday Herald source, who cannot be named for fear of reprisals, was approached by black marketeers in Basra and asked if he would help sell the material. He said: 'The cylinders are about a foot long, grey in colour with a red band around the top. The skull and crossbones warning logo, and the label 'pure uranium oxide' are clearly marked in English.'" Mission accomplished? Bush's War has made the world less safe!

AP reports: "A close aide to Saddam Hussein says the Iraqi dictator did in fact get rid of his weapons of mass destruction but deliberately kept the world guessing about it in an effort to divide the international community and stave off a U.S. invasion. The strategy, which turned out to be a serious miscalculation, was designed to make the Iraqi dictator look strong in the eyes of the Arab world, while countries such as France and Russia were wary of joining an American-led attack...Saddam's alleged weapons bluff was detailed by an Iraqi official who assisted Saddam for many years. The official was not part of the national leadership but his job provided him daily contact with the dictator and insight into the regime's decision-making process during the past decade and in its critical final days." The 'bluff' part of this story smells like a Karl Rove/Alastair Campbell disinformation story.

AP reports: "David Kay... a special adviser for the weapons search, said inspectors have found physical evidence of Iraqi activity on weapons of mass destruction, but he declined to discuss details... He said investigators had made a 'tactical and strategic decision' to focus on biological rather than on chemical or nuclear programs... The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, expressed concern that the searches are being diverted away from finding actual weapons. 'Signs of a weapons program are very different than the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons that were a certainty before the war,' Rockefeller said. 'We did not go to war to disrupt Saddam's weapons program, we went to disarm him.' 'It's looking more and more like a case of mass deception,' Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said after Kay briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'There was no imminent danger, and we should never have gone to war'."

"Iraqi scientists who have been questioned by U.S. officials have continued to deny that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. Four senior scientists and more than a dozen lower level ones who worked for the Iraqi government have denied that Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program or that he had developed and hidden biological and chemical weapons since United Nations weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998, the newspaper said, citing administration officials." Hey, Bushfeld - what was that you promised about Iraqi scientists supporting your claims?

Colin Powell has escaped much of the furor over Yellowcake-gate because he dropped it from his high-profile UN presentation on 2-5-03, knowing that it was bushit. But Powell "accused Iraq of importing special aluminum tubes as evidence that Baghdad was still working on a programme to produce atomic weapons" - even though his own Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) told him that was bushit also. Powell should resign - or be fired - for lying to the world.

UK's Sunday Herald reports, "Britain ran a covert 'dirty tricks' operation designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq. Operation Rockingham, established by the Defence Intelligence Staff within the Ministry of Defence in 1991, was set up to 'cherry-pick' intelligence proving an active Iraqi WMD programme and to ignore and quash intelligence which indicated that Saddam's stockpiles had been destroyed or wound down. The existence of Operation Rockingham has been confirmed by Scott Ritter... The rebel Labour MP and Father of the House, Tam Dalyell, said he would raise the Sunday Herald's investigation into Operation Rockingham in the Commons on Thursday and demand an explanation from the government about selective intelligence. Ritter has also offered to give evidence to parliament." Stay tuned - this story could EXPLODE.

Michelangelo Signorile writes, "You do have to wonder how these guys could bungle things in such a big way. The fact that they thought we'd all accept the excuse that they were just quoting the British... is pretty mind-boggling. Is it all due to arrogance, with the Bushies starting to believe the lazy media's own claims that this is such a 'disciplined,' 'tightly wound,' 'on-message' crew? Why would the administration go to such lengths, inserting a dubious line in a speech, when it already had the American people wrapped around its fingers? After all, our catatonic, fear-instilled public - as well as most Democrats in Congress - had been manipulated since 9/11 and was ready and willing to wage war based on much less evidence than the sale of the uranium. There seemed to be no reason to pump up the intelligence - unless, of course, the administration's entire case for war was in danger of falling down like a house of (most-wanted) cards." Exactly - it was all Bushit.

Jack Shafer writes: "If reporters who live by their sources were obliged to die by their sources, New York Times reporter Judith Miller would be stinking up her family tomb right now. In the 18-month run-up to the war on Iraq, Miller grew incredibly close to numerous Iraqi sources, both named and anonymous, who gave her detailed interviews about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Yet 100 days after the fall of Baghdad, none of the sensational allegations about chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons given to Miller have panned out, despite the furious crisscrossing of Iraq by U.S. weapons hunters... Judith Miller finds everybody associated with the failed search theoretically culpable except Judith Miller. This rings peculiar because Miller, more than any other reporter, showcased the WMD speculations and intelligence findings by the Bush administration and the Iraqi defector/dissidents. Our WMD expectations, such as they were, grew largely out of Miller's stories."

WSWS.org writes: "The assassination of the Hussein brothers has further undermined the claim that the US went to war to prevent the Iraqi regime from developing or using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). According to Judith Miller in the July 23 New York Times, Qusay Hussein 'was also responsible for overseeing Iraq's unconventional weapons. ... Qusay would have known, for instance, 'whether they had chemical weapons, how many they had, and where they were deployed.' ... Finally, he said, Qusay would have known not the exact hiding places but the 'broad brushes of the concealment policy and practices --whether Saddam had destroyed or hidden weapons or the capability for just-in-time production, and what the goals of this concealment were.' Obviously, by taking the decision to murder Qusay, the US government and military expressed their total lack of interest in the existence of WMD and, in effect, acknowledged that such deadly and dangerous weapons do not exist."

"I am pleased to present a Special Friday Presentation: Meria With Scott Ritter!!! One full hour with former U.N. weapons inspector, 12 yr Marine, author and true American Patriot. This show will REPLAY for FREE all weekend long until Monday mornings live show.Scott tells it like it is in Iraq now and then. Why we cannot 'win' this war. How this Bush regime needs to be held accountable and impeached; the bravery of our troops in an illegal war, and so much more.I don't want to ruin the show by telling you too much, but it's one of the best I've done. (and I think the first Republican I've ever interviewed - lol). Scott is great, the information excellent. This is what being an American is all about and once again proves the value of freedom of speech and the airwaves."

Jason Leopold writes: "A half-dozen former CIA agents investigating prewar intelligence have found that a secret Pentagon committee, set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in October 2001, manipulated reams of intelligence information prepared by the spy agency on the so-called Iraqi threat and then delivered it to top White House officials who used it to win support for a war in Iraq. The former CIA agents were asked to examine prewar intelligence last year by Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet. The former agents will present a final report on their findings to the Pentagon, the CIA and possibly Congress later this year... The ad hoc committee, called the Office of Special Plans, headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and other Pentagon hawks."

From a 'Global Message' dated 9/26/02 that remains on the White House website. "The danger is grave and growing. The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons and is rebuilding facilities to make more. It could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime is seeking a nuclear bomb -- and, with fissile material, could build one within a year. Iraq's regime has longstanding and continuing ties to terrorist groups -- there are al-Qaida terrorists inside Iraq." And who authorized the publication of "sexed-up" lies on the White House web site? Karl, was that YOU?

"Did it start with a break-in? On the morning of Jan. 2, 2001, Italian police discovered that the Niger Embassy in Rome had been ransacked. Not much was reported missing - only a watch and two bottles of perfume - but someone had apparently rifled through embassy papers, leaving them strewn about the floor. Some months after the break-in, the Italian intelligence service - the SISME - obtained a stack of official-looking documents from an African diplomat... Agents of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, it appeared, were angling to purchase from the cash-starved, mineral-rich African nation some 500 tons of yellowcake... A bombshell in the war on terrorism? More like an exploding cigar. The documents, a series of letters dated from July to October 2000, were actually crude forgeries... Italian investigators... have theorized that the thieves who broke into the Niger Embassy had come looking for letterhead stationery and official seals that could be copied to create bogus documents."

The best Iraqi WMD witness US forces have found is a military intelligence officer who said he oversaw part of Iraq's chemical weapons program. He "asserted not only that stockpiles of banned weapons had been destroyed from 1995 to a few days before the war, but also that the weapons programs were devised to continue research and development after the chemical stockpiles were gone. Military experts and administration officials who confirmed that the military spent hours debriefing the Iraqi said similar claims had also been asserted by other deposed Iraqi officials now in detention. But they declined to comment on what proportion of the stockpiles he said had been destroyed early on or why the intelligence agencies did not know of the stockpile destruction." Apparently this witness substantially confirmed the 1995 testimony of Saddam's son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who said he had destroyed all biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, but Judith Miller won't report that fact.

The Pentagon has incessantly claimed that its crack "mobile exploitation teams" (METs) will find Iraq's WMD's. But even Pentagon Pressstitute Judith Miller now admits the METs are a charade, because they are prohibited from talking to Iraqi scientists. Instead, they are restricted to inspecting suspect sites, all of which have turned out to be innocent. "We said this is useless," said Captain Cutchin of MET Bravo. "It [the list of suspect sites] is toilet paper for us." The intelligence on sites was often stunningly wrong, one senior officer agreed. "The teams would be given a packet, with pictures and a tentative grid," he said. "They would be told [metaphorically]: 'Go to this place. You will find a McDonald's there. Look in the fridge. You will find French fries, cheeseburger and Cokes.' And they would go there, and not only was there no fridge and no McDonald's, there was never even a thought of ever putting a McDonald's there. Day after day it was like that."

In a shocking article that has received little attention, the NY Times has conducted its investigation: "American intelligence officials and senior members of the administration have acknowledged that there was LITTLE NEW EVIDENCE flowing into American intelligence agencies in the five years since United Nations inspectors left Iraq, creating an intelligence vacuum." And that "little new evidence" (like the Niger Hoax) was all Bushit, possibly even planted overseas by Busheviks. Still, Bush declared "He is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." Wolfowitz declared: "It is a case grounded in current intelligence." And Tenet declared Intelligence "comes to us from credible and reliable sources." Each of these statements is a lie. Impeach Bush Now!

Here is a very important report from Canada that will certainly be ignored by the US media. "A conference of top-level military analysts was told Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - a message that later fell on deaf ears in the American capital, analysts say. Former Canadian military officer-turned-analyst, Sunil Ram remembers the June 2001 conference 'Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year Review.' What he heard at the meeting he has repeated for months, he says, getting little attention from the mainstream media: that Bush had no grounds to base the invasion of Iraq on the disarmament issue."

David Kelly's suicide resulted from a BBC story by Andrew Gilligan that claimed Bush's flak Alastair Campbell "sexed up" intelligence reports by claiming Iraq could deploy chemical or biological weapons in 45 minutes. According to PentaPost, "The claim, which has since been discredited, was made twice by Bush, in a September Rose Garden appearance after meeting with lawmakers and in a Saturday radio address the same week. Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but in a 'Global Message' issued Sept. 26 and still on the White House Web site, the White House claimed, without attribution, that Iraq 'could launch a biological or chemical attack 45 minutes after the order is given.'" Bush didn't even ask the CIA about this bogus "fact" - he just lied to the American people. Impeach Bush Now!

Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba, who writes for Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Panorama Magazine, claimed responsibility for delivering the Niger Uranium forgery to the US Embassy in Rome. Burba said her source "in the past proved to be reliable," but she would not disclose the name. Was it Berlusconi, or his own Karl Rove? Burba was suspicious of the story, so she traveled to Niger. Upon her return, she told Panorama's top editor "the story seemed fake to me," and the magazine refused to publish it. The State Department reviewed the document and came to the same conclusion, and so did the CIA. But Condi Rice's National Security Council staff ignored the warnings and put it into Bush speech. And since Bush doesn't "fact check," the rest is history...

Yellowcake-gate is just the tip of the iceberg of Iraq nuke lies. In his SOTU, Bush also declared: "Our intelligence sources tell us that (President Saddam Hussein) has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." And on March 16, three days before the U.S.-British invasion, Vice President Dick Cheney said Iraq was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons" and even that Iraq had "reconstituted nuclear weapons." But Mahdi Shukur Obeidi, who headed a uranium-enrichment unit vital to Iraq's pre-1991 bomb plans, told the CIA "that since '91 they hadn't resurrected a nuclear weapon program," and that the aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were for powering conventional rockets, not for separating uranium. Impeach Bush Now!

John Dean writes that Bush's "claim that these WMDs posed an imminent threat was his primary argument in favor of war... What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony... So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters. Since the Independent Counsel statute has expired, the burden is on Bush to appoint a special prosecutor - and if he fails to do so, he should be held accountable by Congress and the public."

Cheryl Seal reports: "Whenever David Kay makes the rounds of the Bush-controlled media these days, he is always introduced only as 'former UN chief weapons inspector' and 'senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Research.' In short, Kay skips over several years of his interim history. Why? Maybe because during the 'missing years,' he was Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a company with extremely close ties to the Pentagon and to the Bush administration in particular. A company up to its armpits in post-war Iraqi business, not to mention secret contracts rumored to involve electronic spying. A company in which Kay is rumored to still hold a sizeable chunk of stock, one where he maintains a rich network of inside connections. No conflict of interest here, eh?"

AP reports, "Italian intelligence services did not give the United States and Britain documents indicating that Iraq sought uranium in Africa to make nuclear weapons, the government said Sunday, denying media reports that it had a role in passing on the disputed claims... 'The news reported by various information organizations, national and foreign, concerning Italy's claimed transmission to other intelligence organizations of documents of Niger or Iraqi origin, conveying evidence relative to uranium transactions between Niger and Iraq are without any foundation,' Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office said in a statement. 'The Italian information services, in fact, never provided any documents having such content and origin,' it said." So where DID the hoax originate? Isn't that what "intelligence" agencies are supposed to find out???

AP reports: "A top U.N. weapons hunter says it would have been 'virtually impossible' for Iraq to revive a nuclear bomb program with equipment recently dug up from a Baghdad backyard, as the Bush administration contends. Jacques Baute said the long-term monitoring of Iraq's nuclear establishment planned by the U.N. Security Council would have stifled any attempt to build a huge uranium-enrichment plant for making bomb material... Baute also said in an interview with The Associated Press that it appears the unearthed cache of uranium enrichment parts, surrendered by an Iraqi scientist last month, lacked critical components, and its accompanying blueprints were marred by errors... An enrichment plant, a vast array of thousands of centrifuges, would have been easily detected, said Baute, who once helped build French nuclear bombs. To have turned it into a full-blown enrichment program while OMV was in place would have been virtually impossible,' he said of the Obeidi equipment."

Eleanor Clift writes: "Claiming that Iraq tried to buy uranium from the African country of Niger wasn't a judgment call. By the White House's own admission, it was a fraud, a lie. The envoy sent to investigate the intelligence in February 2002, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, sought out the information and informed the administration. The only question is how high up the food chain his report got. Did it stop at low-level officials as the White House claims, or did it go all the way to the resident and vice resident? Wilson is not some wild-eyed lefty. He had experience in Iraq and North Africa, and completely understood his mission. He only revealed his identity a week ago in the face of continued insistence by the White House that it had no idea the documents were forged. CIA director George Tenet sent Wilson to Niger after Vice Resident Cheney asked for an investigation. Wilson asks why Cheney's office would demand this inquiry and not want to know the result."

From a New York Times editorial: "We're glad that someone in Washington has finally taken responsibility for letting Bush make a false accusation about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program in the State of the Union address last January, but the matter will not end there. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, stepped up to the issue yesterday when he said the C.I.A. had approved Mr. Bush's speech and failed to advise him to drop the mistaken charge that Iraq had recently tried to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, later identified as Niger. Now the American people need to know how the accusation got into the speech in the first place, and whether it was put there with an intent to deceive the nation. The White House has a lot of explaining to do."

The UK Independent reports: "Tony Blair's first Iraq weapons dossier used material culled from the internet to buttress the Government's case for war - exactly as the now-discredited second, so-called dodgy dossier did. The document, released last September, shows at least six separate items on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction were lifted from reports up to 21 months old. The revelation will be acutely embarrassing to the Prime Minister who, only this week, defended the first dossier robustly, and insisted it supported the need for action."

"George Tenet gave Congress and the White House the accountability they demanded, declaring Friday that the blame for... Bush's false allegation about an Iraqi nuclear deal rested squarely with him and his agency. The CIA should never have let Mr. Bush repeat a British report that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African country of Niger when U.S. intelligence analysts could not corroborate it, Tenet said in a statement... 'Let me be clear about several things right up front,' he said. 'First, CIA approved the president's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my agency. And third, the president had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound.'" But the CIA and envoy Joseph Wilson warned Bush and Cheney repeatedly that the Niger Uranium story was untrue -- starting back in March 2002. So the Bush team didn't think to ask Tenet, Hey you told us back then it was bogus --- what makes you so sure now?

From TakeBacktheMedia.com: "Above - the article and graphic we pulled from MediaWhoresOnline and posted along with the link to the text at the CBS site. This was right before midnight PST. We urged fans to take this graphic and spread it far and wide - put it on blogs and sites everywhere and get the word out. But no. Look what showed up on the CBS site mere hours later!"

Fox News March 17, 2003: "The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war. VIPS member Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran who gave intelligence briefings to top Reagan officials before retiring in 1990, said the administration has not made the case that Iraq has ties to Al Qaeda and is providing information that does not meet an intelligence professional's standard of proof. "It's been cooked to a recipe, and the recipe is high policy," McGovern said. 'That's why a lot of my former colleagues are holding their noses these days.'"

Months ago, ex-CIA agents warned that Bush was pushing the CIA to cook the intelligence on Iraq and to clear phony documents as "real." Now the administration is hanging the CIA out to dry: "The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency reviewed and cleared references to Iraq's attempt to buy uranium for nuclear weapons included in the January State of the Union speech, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said today, reports Reuters. Rice, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One. 'The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety,' Rice said in the briefing. 'The president did not knowingly say something we thought to be false. It is just outrageous to suggest that.'" Bet there are some CIA agents feeling pretty damned burnt long about now.

Julian Borger writes: "A former US intelligence official who served under the Bush administration in the build-up to the Iraq war accused the White House yesterday of lying about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein... This was the first time an administration official has put his name to specific claims. The whistleblower, Gregory Thielmann, served as a director in the state department's bureau of intelligence until his retirement in September, and had access to the classified reports which formed the basis for the US case against Saddam, spelled out by President [sic] Bush and his aides. Mr Thielmannn said yesterday: 'I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq.' He conceded that part of the problem lay with US intelligence, but added: 'Most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided.'"

"It is not enough for the White House to issue a statement saying that... Bush should not have used that piece of intelligence in his State of the Union address at a time when he was trying to convince the American people that invading Iraq was in our national securi