[ScottSolomon]

Maybe you are right. Naybe just a few lies are okay. Maybe it is fine to knowingly use plagiarized documents to prove your case. Maybe it is fine to alter the statement and intent of OBL's recordings. Maybe it is fine to used forged documents.

My point is, if you lie a few times, believing you in the future is very difficult. I have seen scads of Bush lies. I have seen Powell lie several times. Many of Powell's testimony have been disproven ( like the chemical weapons plant that Blix visited the day after Powell's presentation - finding it without indoor electricity or plumbing ), most of his assertions relied on faith - that Powell was not dissembling.

How many lies does it take to damage one's credibility?

Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium

The only people I saw pushing that point of view were the Bush accolytes. The Federation of American Scientists disagreed with his take.

who have analyzed the tubes in our possession agree that they can be adapted for centrifuge use.

Everybody said this - the point was, the modifications required were immense, and Iraq was not thought to have the technology capable of making said modifications.

Second, Iraq had no business buying them for any purpose. They are banned for Iraq

They were dual use items, which were selectively restricted at different times for different reasons. If they were going to be used for rockets, they are not in violation of the sanctions. If they were going to a nuclear weapons program they are. Powell believed the latter, the rest of the world believed the former.

Pencils were also restricted items because they contain graphite - which could be used in a nuclear reactor.

manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets

An assertion that could be true, but also may not be true. different weapons systems all have different specifications - this - in and of itself is not proof of anything. Most of the scientific community seem to think that the tubes specs. were not indicative of anything. The tubes still required massive reworking to function the way Powell is suggesting they functioned.

including in the latest batch an anodized coating on extremely smooth inner and outer surfaces.

So, according to Powell, if you are going to make a missile, the surfaces of the missile should not be finished. Even though these things may be stored for several years, you cannot anodize them to keep the surface from getting damaged.

Why would they continuing refining the specification, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket, would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off?

Poorly built weapons are unreliable. This line of argument is specious anyway. If you look at an artillery shell, a TOW missile, a Javelin, or any other weapons system, they are all polished, clean, and the aluminum has an anodized coating on it. Even the weapons that are about to be blow up are built well - because a soldier trusts his life to the reliability of a weapon.

We also have intelligence from multiple sources that Iraq is attempting to acquire magnets and high-speed balancing machines

Sort of like saying - we have intelligence from numerous African sources that Iraq tried to purchase fissile material from Nigeria. When does an unsubstantiated claim become the truth? I gues you have to give them your faith, but I have a hard time giving faith to liars.

Iraqi officials negotiated with firms in Romania, India, Russia and Slovenia for the purchase of a magnet production plant

An item that is true.

Iraq wanted the plant to produce magnets weighing 20 to 30 grams. That's the same weight as the magnets used in Iraq's gas centrifuge program before the Gulf War.

An item that is speculation. Followed by a link back to the pre gulf war weapons program. Does he have any proof or documentation that Iraq wanted to produce magnets that were 20-30 grams or is that just an assumption?

This incident, linked with the tubes, is another indicator of Iraq's attempt to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

So two specious claims - put together - makes a compelling argument? What are the claims? Iraq had high specification aluminum tubes, and some Iraq officials wanted to buy a magnet plant. If you assume that Iraq is trying to reconstitute it's nuclear program - and work back from there, this makes perfect sense. If you are trying to determin if Iraq has a nuclear weapons program, these points don't make a compelling case.

Intercepted communications from mid-2000 through last summer showed that Iraq front companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge rotors.

DId Powell ever produce these communications? Or did he just claim that we intercepted them - and left it at that?

I have a relly hard time buying this guy's word. If that is all he offered, I can't really trust it.

These illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material.

I thought they had proof that Iraq was buying nuclear material from abroad.




I don't know. Maybe I am wrong. But I have not seen any reports that we have found any nuclear reactos or weapons plants. If we find chemical WMDs, but not a nuclear program, does that mean Powell was lying - or just all this just fall down the memoory hole?