Target Centermass

Day: July 11, 2004

  • New British Inquiry Is Showing That Saddam Did Seek Uranium in Africa

    Jack Kelly, writing for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, decisively argues against the idea that Bush lied about Iraqi attempts to purchase yellowcake in Africa.

    Britain’s Financial Times reported Wednesday that an official British government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq has concluded that Britain’s MI-6 was correct to conclude that Saddam Hussein’s regime had sought to buy uranium ore from Niger.

    If so, this gives the lie to the charge that “Bush lied!” when he said in his 2003 State of the Union address: “The British government has learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

    I like how Mr. Kelly quickly gets to the key point: the keystone of the “Bush lied” campaign is gone. It didn’t vanish — it never existed.

    The “Bush lied!” charge hung on two slender reeds. The first is that the only “evidence” the CIA had at the time of an Iraq-Niger-yellowcake connection was a fairly obvious forgery obtained through Italian sources. The second was the “investigation” conducted in early 2002 by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson on behalf of the CIA.

    Wilson spent less than two weeks in Niger. In his July 2003 New York Times op-ed about the investigation, in which he described his methodology as “drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country’s uranium business.” The people he talked to told him that Niger hadn’t sold uranium to Iraq. Wilson’s op-ed accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence — and ignoring his report on Niger — to justify a war on Iraq.

    There were two problems with Wilson’s investigation. The first is that the people to whom Wilson was talking might not have been telling him the truth. The second is that to say that Niger did not sell uranium to Iraq is not the same as saying Iraq did not try to buy yellowcake ore from Niger.

    In fact, Wilson himself has confirmed that Iraq did indeed try to buy uranium from Niger.

    Game, set, match.

  • Gang Attacks Mother on French Train

    In a display of misplaced anti-semitism and cowardice, the AP tells the story of a young mother assaulted on a train, apparently because the attackers mistook her as a Jew.

    A gang of young men attacked a woman riding a suburban train with her infant, cutting her hair and drawing swastikas on her stomach. Other passengers watched but did nothing, police reported.

    French politicians issued denunciations Sunday as news of the Friday morning attack spread through the nation.

    Police said the gang of six set upon the 23-year-old woman on a suburban train north of Paris and grabbed her backpack where they found identity papers that showed an address in the capital’s well-to-do 16th district. “There are only Jews in the 16th,” one of the group of attackers said.

    The young woman, who was not identified, was not Jewish and no longer lived in the district, police said.

    Ah, France, the great bastion of freedom and justice. Of course, here is the part that does not surprise me:

    According to the police account, none of the passengers on the train came to the woman’s rescue.

    EDIT: It seems the whole story was fraudulent. This lady may be nuts, but she seems to have a good read on her fellow French, nevertheless.

    French President Jacques Chirac had called the alleged attack shameful. But during his annual Bastille Day television interview, following the woman’s retraction, he called the whole affair regrettable.

    But Mr. Chirac said he does not regret his earlier condemnation of the alleged incident. He said France is currently in a period of racist acts against Jews, Muslims, and others. He said the attacks are unacceptable and violate the country’s principles.

  • Terrorism Chatter and the Election

    Democratic National Convention, Republican National Convention, November election, polling places, shopping malls, blah, blah, blah.

    I hope nobody has forgotten the most obvious, visible and probably easiest target: the upcoming Olympic Games in Athens. Not that the others aren’t potential, though personally I would suspect the Dem brewfest will be safe in Boston.