doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lead shot ban in Washington

Larry, my interest is pre-Golitsyn; Penkovsky strengthened my notion of a very influential strategically placed person in war-time Washington. As for Sasha, "Intrepid's Last Case" documents the poison of Soviet disinformation that destroyed careers among America's and Britiain's top spymasters. On the evidence, I don't think any of the current crop have the education, experience, intelligence, social skills or the emotional range of the Donovans and Stephensons. Technology has its limits in a world that changes on a dime.

King, one of my instructors at "the Farm" was a victim of Angleton's mole hunt. We did not realize it until later, but he was one of the beneficiaries when Congress finally passed the "Mole Relief Act" and awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to people whose careers had been ruined by false accusations.

[/quote]


Larry B., My point was about use of plausible denial. The foregoing adds to the veracity of my point. Four words: Iraq, WMD. If you are correct there must be a lot of intel. guys looking for new jobs.
Rs,
K.

Kerryman, the intel analysts who produced the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, which stated with "high confidence" (the highest rating assigned) that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and missiles were not operating from a "plausible denial" scenario. Remember, Saddam not only had but USED (on his own people as well as during the war with Iran) WMD's. Thus, we knew he had them at one point. Absent a stream of reporting indicating that those weapons had either been destroyed or exported, there was no logical basis on which an analyst could have concluded that they were no longer there--unless you subscribe to the "they were beamed up by the Starship Enterprise" scenario.

"Plausible denial" is used in support of operations you want to keep secret or, if you can't keep them secret, at least hide your own hand. (As in the CIA funneling arms to the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the 80's, when they were fighting the Russians, through the intermediary of the Pakistanis.) You don't use plausible denial in support of the conclusions of a finished intelligence study . . . unless, that is, the intelligence agency in question is deliberately trying to confuse the people running the country, or the national leadership is "cooking the books" on the intelligence produced. In the case of Iraq, the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation produced no evidence that any analyst bowed to any sort of political pressure to change his conclusions.

Larry, once a spook, always a spook. More proof of the sophistry (or maybe obfuscation?), I gotta admire you!

There is no issue about the fact that Saddam used WMDs against the Iranians from 1981 and later against the Kurds (e.g. 5,000 civilian Kurds killed in Halabja). However, what is being hidden is the fact that he got the chemicals primarily from the US and Germany. The US supplied “dual use” licensed materials from at least 1985 and had “advisors” on-site (e.g. at the chemical plant in Al-Qaemushkashat, supposedly for "fertilizer"). After Halabja, the CIA , still supporting Saddam, suggested in several briefings that the gas was dropped by the Iranians, knowing that to be untrue. Plausible denial??

It is no secret that the US provided Iraq with battlefield intel during the Iranian war, particularly troop movements, etc., (e.g. on the re-taking of the Fao peninsula. ) Lt. Col. Rick Francona told Washington that the Iraqis had used gas to obtain victory. Later, Col. Walter Lang told the New York Times that “The use of gas on the battlefield by the Iraqis was not a matter of deep strategic concern.”

As a means of justifying their incursion into Iraq, both Bush Jnr. and Bliar, having years ago tried to hide Halabja, now were to use it as an excuse “remember, Saddam has gassed his own people.” However, before thousands of good guys were put in harm’s way, UN and EU intell. agencies supplied proof that any remaining WMD had been destroyed. Remember Blix?

I fully subscribe to your comment

Rs,
K
PS The gases were mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide and tabun. Personally I'd prefer some lead shot. And I recall I said I would not debate with you:)

Kerryman, the main assist the US gave Iraq during its war with Iran (we did not much care for Iran after the whole embassy hostage deal) was indeed battlefield intelligence. We did not provide them with gas. It is true that some "dual use" materials were provided which can be precursors to the development of chemical weapons . . . but then if you sell someone sulphur, you have provided them with a precursor to making black powder.

Remember the UN inspectors that were in Iraq long after the Gulf War? Departed in 1997, with the warning that hundreds of tons of chemical weapons were still unaccounted for. The fact that they were not found in a few months' worth of searching in 2002-early 2003 is pretty much irrelevant--since Saddam had successfully played "hide and seek" with inspectors in the past. There was NEVER any proof that all the chemical weapons had been destroyed. In fact, we found chemical artillery rounds (some of which the insurgents used in some of their IED's, fortunately with little effect as far as poison gas goes) long after we invaded.

Remember how the Russians and the Americans handled nuclear arms reductions? "Trust but verify." There was no reason to trust Saddam, and the destruction of his chemical arsenal was thus never verified with "eyeballs on the ground" to witness the process--which is the only way to verify something of that nature, and which is precisely what we and the Russians did, as nukes were destroyed. Our teams were over there watching; their teams came here and watched. President Clinton and Vice President Gore both commented--repeatedly--about Saddam's WMD's. And that was with the same individual (George Tenet) heading the CIA who remained in that position under Bush. So it wasn't like the assessment changed, all of a sudden, once Bush came into office or once his administration began to contemplate taking military action against Saddam. Rather, it was the same assessment on which Clinton and Gore had operated. And the Senate Intelligence Committee (bipartisan) did not accuse the CIA of lying about WMD's, nor did they accuse the Bush Administration of coming up with a different assessment by pressuring the analysts to change their views. Would have been no need to pressure them to change their views, because those views were that the WMD's were still there.

Whether we should have invaded Iraq is certainly open for debate. However, the Bush Administration did not lie about WMD's. They simply repeated what the intelligence community told them--with "high confidence". And per the above, the intelligence community did not change its views on WMD's to suit the new administration, because it didn't have to. The Bush Administration (especially Cheney) was pushing the analysts hard to come up with some ongoing relationship between Saddam and Al Qaeda. However, the intelligence community held firm on their stance that while there had been contacts, a real "relationship" did not exist, and Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, the intelligence community went so far as to debunk a report from a friendly intelligence service (the Czechs) which put one of the hijackers--Mohammed Atta--in Prague and in contact with Iraqi intelligence just a few months before the attack. If they had wanted to cook the books for Bush/Cheney, that report handed them the ingredients on a silver platter--which they promptly upset.

Kerryman, you're running pretty good propaganda yourself, referring to me as a "former spook". I was "former" LONG before we went to war in Iraq . . . long before 9/11, in fact. Therefore, I have no ax to grind on this issue, other than to get at the truth--just as I did when serving as an intelligence analyst and as a commander of analysis units. I have yet to see any proof that, given the Oct 02 NIE, Bush "lied" about WMD's, nor that the intelligence community lied in its assessment. That assessment was indeed wrong in many respects, but that does happen in the intelligence business, since intelligence is the science (and art) of uncovering the unknown, which others are trying to obscure or hide from you. So it makes about as much sense for you to refer to me as a former spook as it would for me to refer to you as a current hard-headed Irishman. Both should be irrelevant to the discussion . . . unless we start talking about either Ireland or the nitty-gritty of how the intelligence process works.

This thread started as something about a lead shot ban in Washington State and has now gone off on Saddam and the WMD. You guys need to stop spending so much time online.

DLH

I'm a reloader, MH . . . obviously suffering from high lead levels in my blood.

Great phrase. Used regularly by junk bond salesmen as in "I'm highly confident...."(e.g. KKR / "Liar's Poker")



But I am one!
Let's stop,
Regards,
K.

Good grief, Kerryman . . . comparing intelligence analysts to junk bond salesmen? How about comparing the Irish to a collection of lazy drunks? It is indeed time to stop, and were I still in "the game", with comments such as yours, I'd find it quite difficult to make much of an effort to aid Ireland were she ever in need. If the rest of the world wants to indulge in cheap shots at this country, then fine--let them fend for themselves. Which they've been largely unable to do, without significant assistance from the United States, since the end of WWII.