America tore out 8000 pages of Iraq dossier By James Cusick and Felicity Arbuthnot THE United States edited out more than 8000 crucial pages of Iraq's 11,800-page dossier on weapons, before passing on a sanitised version to the 10 non-permanent members of the United Nations security council. The full extent of Washington's complete control over who sees what in the crucial Iraqi dossier calls into question the allegations made by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that 'omissions' in the document constituted a 'material breach' of the latest UN resolution on Iraq. Last week, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan accepted that it was 'unfortunate' that his organisation had allowed the US to take the only complete dossier and edit it. He admitted 'the approach and style were wrong' and Norway, a member of the security council, says it is being treated like a 'second-class country'. Although Powell called the Iraqi dossier a 'catalogue of recycled information and flagrant omissions', the non-permanent members of the security council will have no way of testing the US claims for themselves. This will be crucial if the US and the UK go back to the security council seeking explicit authorisation for war on Iraq if breaches of resolution 1441 are confirmed when the weapons inspectors -- this weekend investigating 10 sites in Iraq, including an oil refinery south of Baghdad -- deliver their report to the UN next month. A UN source in New York said: 'The questions being asked are valid. What did the US take out? And if weapons inspectors are supposed to be checking against the dossier's content, how can any future claim be verified. In effect the US is saying trust us, and there are many who just will not.' Current and former UN diplomats are said to be livid at what some have called the 'theft' of the Iraqi document by the US. Hans von Sponeck, the former assistant general secretary of the UN and the UN's humanitarian co- ordinator in Iraq until 2000, said: 'This is an outrageous attempt by the US to mislead.' Although the five permanent members of the security council -- the US, the UK, France, China and Russia -- have had access to the complete version, there was agreement that the US be allowed to edit the dossier on the ground that its contents were 'risky' in terms of security on weapons proliferation. Yesterday, US President George W Bush announced that a planned trip to several African countries, scheduled for January, had been cancelled. As he gave the go-ahead to double the current 50,000 US troops deployed in the Gulf by early January, he used his weekly radio address to say that 'the men and women in the [US] military, many of whom will spend Christmas at posts and bases far from home' were the only thing that stood between 'Americans and grave danger'. An equally pessimistic view of the immediate future came from the Vatican. Pope John Paul II promised the Catholic church would not cease to have its voice heard and would offer prayers 'in the face of this horizon bathed in blood'. Despite the prayers, the US military isn't expecting peace. Yesterday, General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, was asked if US forces were ready if called upon immediately. General Myers simply said: 'You bet.' The language coming from Baghdad was equally gung ho. The Iraqi newspaper Babel, owned by Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday, likened US and UK political leaders to ruthless Mongol conquerors of the past. http://www.sundayherald.com/30195
Ok, this is the biggest lie on paper i've seen in a while. 8,000 pages weren't torn out of the declaration. Parts were edited that the non-nuclear (also non-perminate) members of the SecCoucil would see. This was to deter them from getting nuke weapon info. Gimmie a break Adam, the guys that wrote the article didn't accuratley quote anyone.
It may be the biggest lie to you, since you can open your frantic mouth in this forum at will. That report in the SundayHerald presented by two journalists deserve far more attention than your jerked disappointments. Search the internet and see if you’ll find that dozens of journalist are wrong and that you are right.
Former UN Weapons Inspector Butler Accuses US of Nuclear Hypocrisy The former chief weapons inspector in Iraq Richard Butler has lashed out at United States "double standards", saying even educated Americans were deaf to arguments about the hypocrisy of their stance on nuclear weapons. Mr Butler, an Australian, told a seminar at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies that Americans did not appreciate they could not claim a right to possess nuclear weapons but deny it to other nations. "My attempts to have Americans enter into discussions about double standards have been an abject failure - even with highly educated and engaged people," Mr Butler said. "I sometimes felt I was speaking to them in Martian, so deep is their inability to understand." http://www.rense.com/general30/byutq.htm
What does the inability of some Americans to understand the issue have anything to do with an edited version of the weapons declaration. Its misleading to say the US "ripped out" 8000 pages of an 11000 page report. Sry, doesn't fly that well.
"Search the internet and see if you’ll find that dozens of journalist are wrong and that you are right" This is logical fallacy at it's best. Anthony; if they're so crucial why did France, a nation as against this war as you are, allow the States to edit them out?
Oh yes, conspriacy theories abound. The US edited the rather unsubstantive Iraqi declaration to justify war. Saddam Hussein and Bush were both cheerleaders at Yale too.
Jees, Adam was merely implying that they might as well have ripped them out. What's the point of giving the UN half of the truth? Can't Iraq just send the UN the Dossier directly? Why'd they send it to the US anyway, or is that a tactic by Saddam?
Iraq's weapons dossier declared a "sham" [19/12/2002] America and its allies, including Australia and Britain, are moving closer to war with Iraq after Saddam Hussein's weapons dossier was declared a sham. Dial-up or broadband http://www.news.ninemsn.com/video/default.asp
Tony; to make sorting through it all much easier. Again; France is 100% anti-war. They said this was okey-dokey.
So, the US should divest itself of most of its nukes by hosting a garage-sale and selling them to anyone who wants some? What a provincially quaint, Oz notion. Nuke info is available on the free market. Anyone who wants them can soon have them. What America wants regarding nukes in general circulation hasn't been relevent for some time now. Butler is joisting windmills--too Oz-like.