Putin reveals intelligence confirming Saddam planned attack on America

[Nubclear]

If the Lord God Putin says it is so, then it is so
He need not give you liberalcommies "proof"...

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor
The Diplomat

Just to remind you - I dont hate France (la belle France, la douce France)

But I still think what Chirac did was - well Im not sure I like the term backstabbing, but definitely a reason to hold France as less of an ally than would some would make it out to be.

[Spiffor]

Well, Chirac is a complete ass, and the main reason why he was so extreme is that he believed now was time to create the Third Block, with Gaullian deslusions of grandeur.

Had Jospin been president, I'm sure France would have taken another strategy, and would have probably obtained more delay for the weapon inspectors, and a more subtle diplomacy to try convincing the US not to go in its adventure.

[The Vagabond]

Putin must really be frightened that Kerry might win in November.

[Chemical Ollie]

Intelligence reveals America planned attack on Saddam (Under Clinton)

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Well, Chirac is a complete ass, and the main reason why he was so extreme is that he believed now was time to create the Third Block, with Gaullian deslusions of grandeur.

Had Jospin been president, I'm sure France would have taken another strategy, and would have probably obtained more delay for the weapon inspectors, and a more subtle diplomacy to try convincing the US not to go in its adventure.

What makes you think Americans would care who's President of France?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie


What makes you think Americans would care who's President of France?

spiff knows I care about that

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
Intelligence reveals America planned attack on Saddam (Under Clinton)

The US DID attack Iraq under Clinton (Operation Desert Thunder)

Ergo, IF US plans for a conventional attack make Iraqi plans for a terrorist attack irrelevant, than wouldnt the actual US attack under Clinton make ACTUAL Iraqi support for a terrorist attack irrelevant? Ergo, even if Saddam HAD been behind 9/11 (which he wasnt) then that would have been a justified response to US attack? Is that not the logical conclusion from your implicit equivalence?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
What makes you think Americans would care who's President of France?

It's mostly a question of behaviour from the part of the prez. We can have a Gaullian prez who is a major pain in the ass (De Gaulle, Chirac). We can have a dull prez and we go under the radar (Pompidou, Giscard... Jospin would have been one). Or we could have an Atlantist prez, and we become the nice and lovable Frenchies (Mitterrand)

Anyway, it's not like the people decide of the diplomacy here. Had Chirac decided to go to war in Iraq, you'd have demonstrations, massive rejection, but that's about it. And his sycophants would have justified his actions, like everywhere else.

[GePap]

This is still such a tempest in a teapot. If anyone actually thinks this had anything to do with the war, they are nuts.

This was has been in the planning stages of certain people since 1998. So if the Russians sent anything (which of course should then be checked out by our people if it is halfway credible), it would at best be simply more stuff to place in the "excuses" column.

Letsg face reality people! They sold the public this war on terrorism - it was not done becuase of terrorism, but as a grand experiment on a whole set of things (use of American power to change the world, use of a 'new" military, more mobile, rapid privatizing and using more contractors, so forth and so on).

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
The US DID attack Iraq under Clinton (Operation Desert Thunder)

I know, thus the troll

Ergo, IF US plans for a conventional attack make Iraqi plans for a terrorist attack irrelevant, than wouldnt the actual US attack under Clinton make ACTUAL Iraqi support for a terrorist attack irrelevant? Ergo, even if Saddam HAD been behind 9/11 (which he wasnt) then that would have been a justified response to US attack? Is that not the logical conclusion from your implicit equivalence?

Too many words, too much whiskey (for me)

Not to defend Saddam in any way, I supported kicking Iraq out of Q8, but just tell me, how many air missions were directly aimed at killing Saddam in GW1? (answer = dozens)
How many assassin attempts did Saddam later on do on Bush the Elder (answer = 1)

There were some discussion in Swedish media the other day, that at least 50-100 air mission (counting only the confirmed errors) on Iraq in the recent war were total failures and hit purely civilian targets, yet no investigation has been started to find out what went wrong. You should expect more from a power that says it started the war to implement democracy in the Middle East.

[Bosh]

My isn't this article interesting reading:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=2EPOOJVBVEZ3MCRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=5460311

Russia 'Warning' on Saddam Puzzles U.S.
Fri Jun 18, 2004 03:44 PM ET

By Raushan Nurshayeva
ASTANA (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks that Iraq's Saddam Hussein planned to hit targets on U.S. soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin's remarks looked certain to help President Bush, but officials at the State Department expressed bafflement, saying they knew of no such information from Russia.

Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States.

"After the events of September 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services several times received information that the official services of the Saddam regime were preparing 'terrorist acts' on the United States and beyond its borders," he told reporters.

"This information was passed on to our American colleagues," he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam's agents had been involved in any particular attack.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their heads," said one State Department official, who asked not to be named.

But the Kremlin leader's comments seemed certain to bolster Bush, whose campaign for re-election in November is under pressure from the Iraq crisis.

Bush has been on the defensive at home for insisting -- against the findings of an independent commission -- that Saddam had links with al Qaeda, the militant group behind the 2001 airline attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted the U.S. war on terrorism.

Putin's remarks were all the more unusual since Russia had diplomatic relations with Saddam's Iraq and sided with France and Germany in opposing the invasion.

Speaking to reporters in the capital of ex-Soviet Kazakhstan, he went out of his way, however, to say Russia's view of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was unchanged.
"Our position has not changed. We indeed passed this information on to our American partners but we consider that there are rules, defined by international law, for using force in international affairs and these procedures were not observed," he said.

It is not the first time that Putin, who has forged a strong personal bond with Bush despite opposing him diplomatically over Iraq, has come to his defense on the issue.

At a summit of G8 world industrialized powers at the U.S. resort of Sea Island last week, where he met Bush separately, Putin stepped into the U.S. campaign by chastising U.S. Democrats for attacking the Republican president on Iraq.

He said they had "no moral right" to do so since it had been the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton that had authorized the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by U.S. and NATO forces.

Bush, speaking in Washington Thursday, strenuously asserted there was a link between Saddam and al Qaeda even though the independent September 11 commission reported, a day before, that there was no such evidence of collaboration.

Intelligence reports of a link between Saddam and al Qaeda were part of Bush's rationale for the invasion of Iraq where more than 830 U.S. soldiers have died after 14 months of violence.

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

And another one bites the dust...

The justifications for the war are dying as fast as poor little puppies getting thrown in a river

Basically, as many of us suspected, Putin is full of BS as usual.

[Sirotnikov]

why is it different? do terrorist attacks invovle taking the life of people? yes. do military attacks invovle the taking of life of people? yes. so its the same thing.

Aha.

So terrorist attack = war = mugging & murder = work accident = natural death.

After all, it all involves people dying!

This was not the tune I heard when France "backstabbed" the US by precisely refusing to join its war in Iraq.

That's because the US expected France to be "allies" which is more than friends. The US thought that the nature of its ties with France call for France to have a high regard for US interests and security.

It appeared, that France did not hold the US in the high regard it expected.

Heck, Australia cared more.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

So terrorist attack = war = mugging & murder

After all, it all involves killing!

Or, if you like, you could substitute 'killing' for 'terror'.


Of course, I hope you can reconize the scale of difference between a mugging and the other two.

[Sirotnikov]

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

[snip]

And another one bites the dust...

Yes, we all know that every info, especially sensitive intelligence is awlays passed only through the State Dept. because it is such a non-beaurocratic body which never leaks to the press, and has high clearance.


Much info is exchanged directly between the presidents or possibly between the intelligence agencies, and the state dept. officials never know its there.

Obviously it is striking that NO ONE there knows it, but is is possible, or there is the possibility they have had information without knowing its source.