Link 1: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/
Link 2: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11643327/
Here we have two links, in the order that I happened to read them.
The first is titled “Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details: Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?” Sounds like a pretty amazing story, right? Sounds like it's going to be full of scathing indictments against the CIA, right? Yeah, not so much.
In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. In front of the assembled diplomats, he read a letter from the Iraqi leader. "The United States administration is acting on behalf of Zionism," he said. He announced that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the U.S. planned war in Iraq because it wanted the country’s oil.
So, this is Naji Sabri's line. The US is a pawn of Israel, Saddam has no WMDs, oil, oil, oil, fin. Standard stuff. But then they have the backroom deal, where Sabri really spills the beans on Saddam's program. The article lists of stuff Sabri claimed, which “proved accurate.” Saddam had no biological weapons program, and while he wanted a nuclear program, he was far from having one. Then, this magical line:
On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as "500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents" and had "renewed" production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had "poison gas" left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.
I'm sorry, what? Are you fucking kidding me? Let's remind ourselves what the title of this wonderful piece is: “Saddam’s foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn’t agency listen?” That's incredible. Did you guys read your own article before you titled it?
A guy comes over here to represent Saddam, and the line he's told to sell is “we've got no WMDs.” Then, in secret meetings, which he is apparently bribed for, he says that Saddam does in fact have chemical weapons. Now, correct me if I'm wrong... If he's supposed to say there's no chemical weapons, and in secret he says there are, doesn't that suggest that there are? At the very least, wouldn't “listening to him” mean assuming that there are chemical weapons?
Guy says Saddam has chemical weapons, CIA says Saddam has chemical weapons, that's “not listening.” Wonderful.
But here's where it gets completely bizzare... Look at the second article, which is devoted to getting the facts straight on who said what, and when, regarding Hurricane Katrina.
Though Michael Brown has been critical of President Bush, the tape shows Brown praising the president that day, saying they'd already talked twice. “He's asking questions about reports of breaches,” Brown says in the video. “He’s asking about hospitals. He's really engaged, and he's asking a lot of really good questions.”
Ok, and then this:
As for the president, on Thursday Sept 1, four days after Katrina hit, he said, “I don't think anybody anticipated a breach of the levees.”
On a conference call, which President Bush participated in as Katrina approached, the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield, said: “I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not, but that's obviously a very, very grave concern.”
Today, Mayfield told NBC News that he warned only that the levees might be topped, not breached, and that on the many conference calls he monitored, “Nobody talked about the possibility of a levee breach or failure until after it happened.”
Finally:
In the Aug. 29 tape obtained by NBC News from Bush supporters, a senior White House official asks Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco how the levees are holding up.
“We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees,” Blanco says on the tape. “We've heard a report, unconfirmed. I think we have not breached the levee. We have not breached the levee at this point in time.”
We now know that an hour before Blanco's assessment, a FEMA official alerted superiors to reports that at least one levee had failed — information that didn’t reach the White House until almost midnight.
So, basically what this article is doing, is finding three major complaints with George W. Bush, and completely debunking them. This has the appearance of a Washington Times puff piece, it's so friendly to Bush, and so dedicated to exhonerating him.
But here's the thing: The articles are both by the same people. The first is by “Aram Roston, Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit,” and the second by “Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit.” I'm not sure what this means, except that maybe Aram Roston is a retard, but it's certainly bizzare.