August 10, 2003 7:46 AM
Bob Novak continues to be the Bush administration's go-to leak man. In yesterday's column, he leaked that David Kay has found "substantial evidence of biological weapons in Iraq, plus considerable missile development." Nothing much in chemical weapons, and hasn't even started on nukes.
People familiar with the evidence have been hinting that there are documents, lots of them, indicating a WMD program. This fits in with the administration's shift in rhetoric from pursuing weapons, to pursuing evidence of a desire to make weapons.
They plan to unveil all of this with much fanfare in mid-September.
Meanwhile, the pillars of the President's case that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons - aluminum tubes and uranium from Africa - have taken substantial hits in credibility today.
First, the Washington Post has a must-read article with several new sources showing how the administration hyped the Iraq threat far beyond what was supported in the intelligence.
Houston Wood, the "widely acknowledged most eminent living expert" on centrifuge physics agrees with the IAEA and thoroughly debunks the claim that the aluminum tubes Iraq bought were suitable for centrifuges:
It would have been extremely difficult to make these tubes into centrifuges. It stretches the imagination to come up with a way. I do not know any real centrifuge experts that feel differently. ... I don't see how you do it.
And in the Independent, Wissam al-Zahawi, the Iraqi diplomat the British claimed tried to buy Saddam uranium from Africa, has come forward completely denying it. He also didn't know of any Iraqi representative visiting Niger since then. Add that to Joseph Wilson's story, and it's pretty clear there was no credible evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa.
I continue to think we are just at the beginning of this story, and it will continue gathering legs for quite some time.
Aluminum Tubes + Yellow Cake = Twinkie (08.10.2003)
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A Scripps Howard poll has Americans increasingly doubting the war:
"Confidence in Iraq war falls below 50 percent
Public confidence in America's military involvement in Iraq has eroded recently with 42 percent of U.S. adults now describing themselves as 'not certain' that committing troops to war was the right thing to do."We've got more on this at JUSIPER.
Wed Aug 13 2003 8:53 PM
Infusion:
I gotta say, with the likes of Arianna Huffington and Ted Kennedy headlining your collaborative efforts, I wouldn't be calling too many people to the carpet about lies. Arianna only wishes she could decieve like old Kennedy there, but what she lacks in cunning, double-talk, and self agrandizing evil, she makes up for with a sort of oblivious psychosis.
Thu Apr 15 2004 11:05 AM
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