Big Dogs Weblog

Don’t Let Facts Get in the Way Little Moonbat

by Big Dog on Dec 18, 2007 at 19:22 Political

Meatbrain has not been to my site (well at least he has not commented here) in quite some time. For those of you unfamiliar with him, he is a left wing lunatic who finds fault with everything and his only method of debating is to demand proof of something and then call people a liar. I recently wrote a post about leaving Iran alone and Meathead took issue with it. He wrote a post at his site asking that I answer 3 questions. I am not going to answer them in his comments because no matter what I write he will call me a liar and then things go down hill from there. I will answer the 3 questions here so that they are put forth without all the drama associated with his site. He can either read it here or he can just sit in his mother’s basement eating Hot Pockets and drinking Mountain Dew. Those who do not know him (I do not link to his site) just think of the annoying gnat named Billy Joe and you will know Meathead. The only difference is that, at least, BJ made good arguments sometimes no matter how wrong he was. However, Meathead is just as annoying and degrading.

Q: Who in the intelligence community, specifically and by name, has indicated that Iran does not pose a threat?

A: I cannot answer the question as it is posed because it asks for the name of one person. The National Intelligence Estimate was prepared by a number of people and the press release on it was written by Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Dr. Donald M. Kerr. The NIE is comprised of information provided by many intelligence analysts so naming one specific person is something I cannot do. The question also takes the original post out of context. I was writing about nuclear weapons and said “Basically, according to the intelligence community, Iran does not pose a threat.” The logical conclusion of the statement is …to make nuclear weapons (and I indicated they might later but not now). The report states that Iran has not been working on nuclear weapons since 2003 (emphasis should focus on the fact that they were prior to that despite their denials) and that they have not since then and there is no indication they will but if they do it will be well into the next decade (well into the next president’s watch).

UPDATE: I found this while searching for something else:

They are Tom Fingar, formerly of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; Vann Van Diepen, the National Intelligence Officer for WMD; and Kenneth Brill, the former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

I have already shown that the report indicates they are no threat “to build nuclear weapons.” That is what the subject is about.

Q: In what previous NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) report did “the intelligence community” state unequivocally that Iran was developing nuclear weapons?

A: I never stated that the intelligence community stated anything unequivocally. Check the post and see if the word is even in there. The exact quote is “Never mind the fact that this is the same intelligence community that said Iran was working on nukes…” From the November 2007 NIE; “We assess with high confidence that until fall 2003, Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons.” This is also is pointed out in the key differences between the previous NIE and this one in the summation. United for Peace also questions the differences by stating; ” The assessment does not explain — unless it is addressed in more than 130 pages still marked classified — how the May 2005 conclusion that Iran was still pressing ahead with a nuclear weapons program went awry.” Therefore, the May 2005 NIE stated that Iran was working on developing nuclear weapons. Since the 2005 report has not been declassified I cannot cite it directly.

Q: How do you reconcile your claim that the intelligence community “missed 9/11 completely” with the fact that the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing, which was titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US”, specifically noted that Osama bin Laden intended to conduct terrorist attacks on U.S. cities, that members of his Al Qaeda operatives had traveled to or lived in the U.S. for years, that bin Laden had previously expressed a desire to hijack an American aircraft, and that “FBI information since that time indicate[d] patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York”?

A: First of all, the PDB which you cite does indeed have that title and the information contained after the title is old news that had been passed from the previous president. It was the ongoing stuff and if you look it clearly indicates that the information is from as far back as 1997 and it was prepared because Bush had been briefed about the desire of OBL to attack inside the US. Bush wanted to know if we had any new information. This was the historical portion. What the briefing did not say is that bin Ladin was an imminent threat. Specifically, the PDB stated “The only recent information concerning possible current activities in the PDB related to two incidents. There is no information that either incident was related to the 9-11 attacks.” The only recent information was about two possible activities. The PDB does not give any information that indicates an attack was imminent. The entire PDB has not been released but the fact sheet on it summarizes the information. The report does not address all the items you outline in the question and many of them are suppositions since the entire report has not been released (the 1998 PDB to Clinton did. More on that later).

Now for my assertion that the intelligence community missed 9/11 completely. It has already been established that the PDB had no information regarding imminent attacks on 9/11 or any other date. The information citing intelligence failures comes from the 9/11 Commission Report. This report is the Bible all libtards hold up when they claim the President was totally at fault despite the fact the report lays blame in a number of directions and reaches back prior to the Bush administration and to the Congress:

Commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean says the report cites government wide “failure of policy, management, capability and, above all, failure of imagination,” but not government neglect. Fault is spread broadly: The intelligence community is harshly chastised but so is Congress for poor oversight of intelligence collection. Chemical and Engineering News

I realize that it is inherent in the design of moonbats to hate President Bush and blame everything on him. Meathead would have you believe that the intelligence community reported the late breaking news that bin Ladin hated us and was planning something and we are supposed to believe that the inaction of the president was the problem. If we were to take that at face value then we would have to blame President Clinton first. This is from his PDB in 1998:

The following is the text of an item from the Presidential Daily Brief received by President William J. Clinton on December 4, 1998. Redacted material is indicated in brackets.
SUBJECT: Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks

1. Reporting [—] suggests Bin Ladin and his allies are preparing for attacks in the US, including an aircraft hijacking to obtain the release of Shaykh ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman, Ramzi Yousef, and Muhammad Sadiq ‘Awda. One source quoted a senior member of the Gama’at al-Islamiyya (IG) saying that, as of late October, the IG had completed planning for RESPONSES TO AL QAEDA’S INITIAL ASSAULTS 129 an operation in the US on behalf of Bin Ladin, but that the operation was on hold. A senior Bin Ladin operative from Saudi Arabia was to visit IG counterparts in the US soon thereafter to discuss options—perhaps including an aircraft hijacking.

• IG leader Islambuli in late September was planning to hijack a US airliner during the “next couple of weeks” to free ‘Abd al- Rahman and the other prisoners, according to what may be a different source.
• The same source late last month said that Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack US aircraft before the beginning of Ramadan on 20 December and that two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport. [—]

2. Some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources,but no group directly tied to Bin Ladin’s al-Qa’ida organization has ever carried out an aircraft hijacking.Bin Ladin could be weighing other types of operations against US aircraft.According to [—] the IG in October obtained SA-7 missiles and intended to move them from Yemen into Saudi Arabia to shoot down an Egyptian plane or, if unsuccessful, a US military or civilian aircraft.

• A [—] in October told us that unspecified “extremist elements” in Yemen had acquired SA-7s. [—]

3. [—] indicate the Bin Ladin organization or its allies are moving closer to implementing anti-US attacks at unspecified locations, but we do not know whether they are related to attacks on aircraft. A Bin Ladin associate in Sudan late last month told a colleague in Kandahar that he had shipped a group of containers to Afghanistan. Bin Ladin associates also talked about the movement of containers to Afghanistan before the East Africa bombings.

• In other [—] Bin Ladin associates last month discussed picking up a package in Malaysia. One told his colleague in Malaysia that “they” were in the “ninth month [of pregnancy].”

• An alleged Bin Ladin supporter in Yemen late last month remarked to his mother that he planned to work in “commerce” from abroad and said his impending “marriage,” which would take place soon,would be a “surprise.”“Commerce” and “marriage” often are codewords for terrorist attacks. [—] [Pages 128 and 129 of the 911 Commission Report]

Notice how much this PDB from 1998 looks like the one Bush received in 2001? As I stated earlier, the Bush PDB was a rehash of old material. However, this begs the question, if moonbats hold Bush accountable for 9/11 based on the 2001 PDB why do they not hold Clinton accountable for not acting on the same (and in some cases more detailed) information? The Clinton 1998 PDB actually said that it was going to happen in a couple of weeks so it was certainly imminent at that time. I would not hold my breath waiting for Meathead or any other moonbat to lay the same blame on Clinton that they have been laying on Bush.

In any event, I answered the questions and they are well sourced. This will not stop Meathead from calling me a liar, demanding facts and generally smearing me in his comment section. This is all I am going to say with regard to addressing him though I welcome comments and will respond in kind. I answered the questions so that readers who followed his trackback (but don’t waste your time) would know that I did not ignore him and that I had the facts in the case, so to speak.

BTW: If you are unfortunate enough to end up at Meathead’s site, there is a commenter named Dan. He wrote an ignorant comment posing as me until Meathead changed it. Dan also accuses me of threatening to get my military buddies to track him down when I was on WAR. I never said that and he is lying about it. I never threatened this guy on the air and I do not recall saying I would get anyone to track him down. It would not be worth my time or anyone else’s. I will give credit to Meathead for writing that the comment did not come from me and asking Dan to comment under his own name.

Tags: 9/11 commission report, Bush, Clinton, Iran, nuclear weapons, pdb