Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

My understanding is that the original report came out quite some time ago, and the new IAEA report fails to mention the timelines in any way that would NOT leave the reader with the impression that "this just happened". I have no reason to doubt the original report from the Iraqis - the stuff was there at some point, and then it wasn't, which is what they said. The newer IAEA report spins this in a way that leads to the NYT result.

So, yeah, I still like that Allawi guy.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

Hold on a second. Those morons think that Sadaam Hussain was behind 9/11 and that we found WMDs in Iraq. They're not going to have their mind changed because they read something else in the paper.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

You're confusing the moronic decideds with the moronic undecideds. Fortunately, for the sake of balance, we both have them. There are still people who believe that Kerry isn't hugely liberal.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

You need to have a talk with your puppet. He seems to blame the US for the attack that left 50 Iraqis dead.

"It was a heinous crime where a group of National Guards were targeted," Allawi said. "There was great negligence on the part of some coalition forces. It seems there was sort of determination on doing Iraq and Iraqi people harm."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...q_041026154446

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

Do you even notice the contradiction in your views?

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

Actually, I'm curious about the motivation for his statement. Is he distancing himself from the US in order to depuppetize his image? Or does he truly feel the US was determined to bring harm to Iraqis that the US has spent time and considerable resources training?

What I'd also like to know is who sent the poor bastards out into the middle of BFI unarmed. Something fishy is going on here.

An interesting take
 

. . . By an admittedly partisan source (the Kerryspot, on The Corner)
-----------
Agence France Presse, Sep 27, 2004:

A new board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog met in Vienna Monday to draw up procedures for electing a new director general, with current chief Mohamed ElBaradei seeking a third term despite US opposition.

ElBaradei put his hat into the ring for a third term as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) earlier this month despite opposition from the United States and possibly other top UN funding states.

His current four-year term expires on November 30 next year, and US officials have said the United States, the largest contributor to the United Nations, supports the position of the Geneva group of top 10 contributors that heads of international organizations should not serve more than two terms.

"This policy has nothing to do with the director general's qualifications. The United States thinks that he's done a very good job leading the agency at a very difficult time, but it's simply a matter of principle and good governance," a Western official familiar with the US position said...

Applications for candidacies will close by December 31 and the board will seek to have the new director general named by a meeting in June 2005, in order to be formally elected at the next IAEA general conference in September

The director's general's new term would begin on December 1, 2005.


(ElBaradei has had this job since 1997 — hey, wasn’t that a year before India and Pakistan announced they had the bomb? And since then we’ve seen North Korea dishonor its treaties and get nukes, the A.Q. Khan network try to sell nuclear material to any and all buyers, and Iran is on the nuclear doorstep. This is a “very good job”? How bad do you have to be to get fired around here? What is this, “Mary Mapes rules”?)

Anyway, so in late September, the United States makes clear it doesn’t want a third term for ElBaradei. We read in the New York Times story that started all this:

“In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history…
Early this month, Dr. ElBaradei put public pressure on the interim Iraqi government to start the process of accounting for nuclear-related materials still ostensibly under I.A.E.A. supervision, including the Qaqaa stockpile.

"Iraq is obliged," he wrote to the president of the Security Council on Oct. 1, "to declare semiannually changes that have occurred or are foreseen."

The agency, Dr. ElBaradei added pointedly, "has received no such notifications or declarations from any state since the agency's inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003."


Gee! In late September the U.S. says no third term for ElBaradei, and Oct. 1 he writes to Iraq demanding answers about this old weapons depot!

Then, in a memo that appears to be dated Oct. 10, the Iraqis respond that the explosives are missing… and it just happens to show up on the front page of the New York Times eight days before Election Day. An article that quotes a European diplomat as saying “Dr. ElBaradei is "extremely concerned" about the potentially "devastating consequences" of the vanished stockpile.”

I’ll bet he is! He’s so concerned, he felt a need to make this issue that he’s been quiet about since spring 2003 and press the Iraqi government for an immediate answer that he knows will make the Bush administration look bad!

One has to wonder - has John Kerry or a member of his staff indicated they would keep ElBaradei around for another term? We know ElBaradei wants a change in U.S. policy on his third term.

ElBaradei is doing everything he can to help Kerry. What’s in it for ElBaradei?

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

You do realize that this is not at all what the blog excerpt which you copied said? Anyway, at the risk of being repetitive, the "original report" was in a letter dated October 10, 2004. Let's try this again (from CNN):

"The International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Monday that it had been told two weeks ago by the Iraqi government that 380 tons of HMX and RDX disappeared from Al Qaqaa after Saddam Hussein's government fell.

"In a letter to the IAEA dated October 10, Iraq's director of planning, Mohammed Abbas, said the material disappeared sometime after Saddam's regime fell in April 2003, which he attributed to 'the theft and looting of the governmental installations due to lack of security.'"

So where's the IAEA spin? Or, is Mr. Abbas on the Kerry payroll?

S_A_M

P.S. You're better off doing what the admin, is doing, and arguing in the alternative, but not claiming that this is a lie or spin from the IAEA or NYT.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

Because believing Kerry isn't as liberal as he really is is not as flagrantly imbecillic as believing that Saddam had something to do with 9/11?

As usual, the devil is in the details. You're referring to the "low-grade chronically moronic", whereas RT was referring to what are known as the "terminally moronic". Apples and oranges.

The "acutely moronic" are those who know there never were WMDs and that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, but still argue that Bush made no mistakes. Their afflications will clear up in the next few weeks.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

His forces are still heavily infiltrated. He's the leader, and their dishonor becomes his. So, he says this, (as would most leaders in the face of no proof of anything yet) to appear loyal to, and stand-up for, his troops, because he needs their loyalty to help him clean up their act.

NC State?
 

http://www.wolfpacksfortruth.org/index.html

Not nearly as funny as the link Hank posted earlier, but it's worth a chuckle.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

I don't always think the media does a good job, as I have long made clear, but this notion of yours that we have partisan media is -- except in the case of FOX -- crude and wrong. Crude because there are certainly things which influence media coverage -- economic incentives, a pack mentality, and so on. (What you see as the NYT's partisan motive here is just as readily explained by their desire to scoop CBS.) And wrong because it doesn't explain why, for example, Judith Miller has been reporting for the NYT.

On your defense of Bush's mischaracterizations of Kerry's proposals, I'm not going to re-hash this with you. The basic facts have been reported by a wide variety of media. Doubtless you dismiss them all as partisan.

Why do you say it's old? I still don't understand.

Read what S_A_M said on this.

I honestly don't understand what you are talking about here. Maybe I'm just not steeped enough in the story. The sources I've linked to (Josh has several posts -- just go to his page and start reading) aren't seeing that the NYT got anything wrong.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

From whence do you derive this understanding?

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

Stop it. I'm spitting coffee now.

Keeping it civil instead of returning to our dark ways
 

I'm sorry. I should have dropped a footnote to remind you that I and the rest of the English-speaking world use the word "partisan" in a more narrow way than you do.