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Fake Photos Helped Lead U.S. to Invade Iraq
By Walter Brasch
Created Sep 2 2007 - 10:12am
Add faked photos to the list of lies told by the Bush-Cheney Administration
before its invasion of Iraq.
In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa., this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a
12-term congressman, said that shortly before Congress was scheduled to vote
on authorizing military force against Iraq, top officials of the CIA showed
select members of Congress three photographs it alleged were Iraqi Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Kanjorski said he was told
that the drones were capable of carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical
agents, and could strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or west coast
cities.
Kanjorski said he and four or five other congressmen in the room were told
UAVs could be on freighters headed to the U.S. Both secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice and President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing
room, Kanjorski said.
Kanjorski said it was the second time he was called to the White House for a
briefing. He had opposed giving the President the powers to go to war, and
said that he hadn't changed his mind after a first meeting. Until he saw the
pictures, Kanjorski said, "I hadn't thought that Iraq was a threat." That
second meeting changed everything. After he left that meeting, said
Kanjorski, he was willing to give the President the authorization he wanted
since the drones "represented an imminent danger."
Kanjorski said he went to see Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine
colonel. Murtha, said Kanjorski, "turned white" when told about the drones;
Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was
classified.
Several years later, Kanjorski said he learned that the pictures were "a
god-damned lie," apparently taken by CIA photographers in the desert in the
southwest of the U.S. The drone story itself had already been disproved,
although not many major media carried that story.
In October 2002, President Bush said in Cincinnati that Iraq had the ability
to deliver weapons of mass destruction to eastern U.S. cities. He
specifically referred to the drones as the delivery mechanisms that were
ready to deliver weapons of mass destruction within 1,000 miles of the east
or west coasts. In that same speech, he claimed, "Iraq possesses ballistic
missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles--far enough to strike
Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations--in a region where more than
135,000 American civilians and service members live and work." Bush further
claimed, "Surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding
facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."
Those claims were later proven false.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said that at the time the President made his
speech, intelligence analysts had already discounted that threat. Nelson had
told Florida Today in December 2003 that no analysts had "found anything
that resembles an UAV that has that capability." Any drones that Iraq did
have, John Pike, director of Global Security, a major military and
intelligence "think tank," told Florida Today, had limited range, and would
not be able to target Tel Aviv, let alone the U.S.
Nelson, on the floor of the Senate in January 2004, said that the
information presented by the Administration was crucial in getting him and
others to authorize a pre-emptive strike.
[Assisting on this story were Bill Frost, and John and Sandy Walker. In a
four-day period after that meeting in northeast Pennsylvania, Rep. Kanjorski
did not return phone calls to follow up on his statements. The Department of
Defense and the CIA did not comment. Certain representatives who could
confirm the meeting were unavailable. Dr. Brasch, an award-winning
journalist and journalism professor, is author of America's Unpatriotic
Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights
and 'Unaccepted': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Forthcoming is
Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush]
_______
About author Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts:
The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and
'Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are
available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr.
Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu [1], or through his website,
www.walterbrasch.com [1]. Readers may also wish to order Making Burros Fly:
Cleveland Amory, Animal Rights Pioneer, by Julie Hoffman Marshall.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Walter Brasch
Created Sep 2 2007 - 10:12am
Add faked photos to the list of lies told by the Bush-Cheney Administration
before its invasion of Iraq.
In a town hall meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa., this week, Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a
12-term congressman, said that shortly before Congress was scheduled to vote
on authorizing military force against Iraq, top officials of the CIA showed
select members of Congress three photographs it alleged were Iraqi Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones. Kanjorski said he was told
that the drones were capable of carrying nuclear, biological, or chemical
agents, and could strike 1,000 miles inland of east coast or west coast
cities.
Kanjorski said he and four or five other congressmen in the room were told
UAVs could be on freighters headed to the U.S. Both secretary of state
Condoleezza Rice and President Bush wandered into and out of the briefing
room, Kanjorski said.
Kanjorski said it was the second time he was called to the White House for a
briefing. He had opposed giving the President the powers to go to war, and
said that he hadn't changed his mind after a first meeting. Until he saw the
pictures, Kanjorski said, "I hadn't thought that Iraq was a threat." That
second meeting changed everything. After he left that meeting, said
Kanjorski, he was willing to give the President the authorization he wanted
since the drones "represented an imminent danger."
Kanjorski said he went to see Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a retired Marine
colonel. Murtha, said Kanjorski, "turned white" when told about the drones;
Murtha, a former intelligence officer, believed that such information was
classified.
Several years later, Kanjorski said he learned that the pictures were "a
god-damned lie," apparently taken by CIA photographers in the desert in the
southwest of the U.S. The drone story itself had already been disproved,
although not many major media carried that story.
In October 2002, President Bush said in Cincinnati that Iraq had the ability
to deliver weapons of mass destruction to eastern U.S. cities. He
specifically referred to the drones as the delivery mechanisms that were
ready to deliver weapons of mass destruction within 1,000 miles of the east
or west coasts. In that same speech, he claimed, "Iraq possesses ballistic
missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles--far enough to strike
Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations--in a region where more than
135,000 American civilians and service members live and work." Bush further
claimed, "Surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding
facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons."
Those claims were later proven false.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said that at the time the President made his
speech, intelligence analysts had already discounted that threat. Nelson had
told Florida Today in December 2003 that no analysts had "found anything
that resembles an UAV that has that capability." Any drones that Iraq did
have, John Pike, director of Global Security, a major military and
intelligence "think tank," told Florida Today, had limited range, and would
not be able to target Tel Aviv, let alone the U.S.
Nelson, on the floor of the Senate in January 2004, said that the
information presented by the Administration was crucial in getting him and
others to authorize a pre-emptive strike.
[Assisting on this story were Bill Frost, and John and Sandy Walker. In a
four-day period after that meeting in northeast Pennsylvania, Rep. Kanjorski
did not return phone calls to follow up on his statements. The Department of
Defense and the CIA did not comment. Certain representatives who could
confirm the meeting were unavailable. Dr. Brasch, an award-winning
journalist and journalism professor, is author of America's Unpatriotic
Acts: The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights
and 'Unaccepted': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Forthcoming is
Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush]
_______
About author Walter Brasch's current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts:
The Federal Government's Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights and
'Unacceptable': The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina. Both are
available through amazon.com and other on-line sources. You may contact Dr.
Brasch at brasch@bloomu.edu [1], or through his website,
www.walterbrasch.com [1]. Readers may also wish to order Making Burros Fly:
Cleveland Amory, Animal Rights Pioneer, by Julie Hoffman Marshall.
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
