Who lost the WMD's? A interesting read at how confused Bush is!

[midnitemoleman]

Who lost the WMD?
By MASSIMO CALABRESI AND TIMOTHY J. BURGER
Monday, June 30, 2003 Posted: 4:22 PM EDT (2022 GMT)


http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/06/30/timep.wmd.tm/



As the weapons hunt intensifies, so does the finger pointing. A preview of the coming battle

Meeting last month at a sweltering U.S. base outside Doha, Qatar, with his top Iraq commanders, President Bush skipped quickly past the niceties and went straight to his chief political obsession: Where are the weapons of mass destruction?

Turning to his Baghdad proconsul, Paul Bremer, Bush asked, "Are you in charge of finding WMD?" Bremer said no, he was not. Bush then put the same question to his military commander, General Tommy Franks. But Franks said it wasn't his job either.

A little exasperated, Bush asked, So who is in charge of finding WMD? After aides conferred for a moment, someone volunteered the name of Stephen Cambone, a little-known deputy to Donald Rumsfeld, back in Washington. Pause. "Who?" Bush asked.

[deutsey]

1. Sounds like Abbot and Costello

Bush: Who is responsible for finding the WMDs?

Bremer: Yes, sir.

Bush: That's what I'm asking. Who's responsible for finding WMDs?

Bremer: Right.

Bush: Someone named Wright is responsible?

Bremer: No, who is responsible for finding WMDs.

Bush: That's what I'm asking YOU!

And so on, ad nauseum

[Tinoire]

2. When will someone tell the Emperor that there are no WMDs? n/t

[Bandit]

3. Clinton is responsible and he found them and destroyed them in 1998

:shrug: Oh you mean we found something that Clinton isn't responsible for?

[Deege]

4. I find it very interesting...

...that Dick Chaney was actively visiting the CIA in the weeks before the bombs started falling. Although he says the visits were not putting pressure on the agents collecting information, this involvement coupled with the sweet deal that Halliburton received after the invasion (a deal that required no bidding process) makes this very suspicious to me. Why? Who was the former CEO of Halliburton? Answer: Dick Chaney

[DrBB]

5. Featured on Talkingpointsmemo a week or two back

Same story. Nice to see it getting more mainstream--not that Josh Marshall is exactly a crier in the wilderness.

The point with this stuff seems to be that, judging by their planning and actual actions once in the country, the *admin didn't ever really take the WMD threat all that seriously themselves. Just a cover story, as Wolfie admitted.

[rasputin1952]

6. Precisely...

and this will jot be forgotten.

Today, there was a deal on about Iraq's nuke program, and the inference that Saddam was working on nukes; but it fell through, when it was mentioned that the Israeli's blew up the reactor. Nothing since then about Iraq's nuke program. But bush went out of his way in SOTU speech to ensure Americans felt threatened by Iraqi nukes, knowing full well there weren't any.


Doom and gloom in the WH, as well it should be.

[Ekaterina]

7. huh??

what's with the last sentence?
"..if WMD don't turn up and the Administration wants to act elsewhere, it may find that the enemy massing against it is public opinion at home." HELLO? Oh, shit!!! That's right. I forgot. The millions of us out PROTESTING were focus groups...right, gotcha. nevermind.