Yeeeaah, um, earth to Bush: there's this thing called the Internet. Because of it, you're frickin screwed pal.

Why don't you post the address for requesting a copy when you get it, and why don't we all send in our stamped, self-addressed envelopes....just to make a little point to the Administration.

I'm sure the media will get their copy later.

Why the HECK aren't these people IMPEACHED YET?

We go bonkers over a man and his SEX acts but completely IGNORE our our goverments actions and lies.

Shame on Americans, once again.

Fools.

attention citizens. please disperse. there is nothing to see here.

"Too politically sensitive," like pointing out that Pres. Bush and his lackeys are a bunch of stone-cold traitors:

http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

Note, they're not discrediting the report, or saying there's an error, but attempting to hide it.

I'm pretty sure anyone who requests this report in writing will have it (or something) hand delivered by the Men in Brown.

I called earlier and they took my phone number. They said that they were prioritizing responses because they were being inundated with calls and they only had a limited number of print and CD copies, but they would get back to me in the next few days.

You mean this war I bought was based on false assumptions?! Talk about "buyer's remorse"...

This has the makings of a best-seller for some enterprising publisher: "The terrorism shocker the Bush Administration didn't want you to see!!"

The study is available on CD if you go to the command's website at http://www.jfcom.mil and click on the Contact Us button. Give them the mailing address you want it sent to and they'll send it.

What you SEE in this report is something that was known for decades: that Saddam used terrorists to prop up his regime.

What you REFUSE to SEE (and therefore refuse to believe), is that the administration lied to you when they claimed to have evidence linking Saddam to al-Qaeda and 9/11. This report shows that it cannot have been true.

You can only lay claim to the superiority you imply if you're also willing to SEE what you don't want to believe. If you're happy with a government that lies to your face to make you give up your son or daughter for their illegal plans, then you're the one who wants to live in la-la land. Sorry to be so blunt, GIDad.

Impeach Cheney and Bush or lose your democracy to terrorism.

Whoohoo...lots of muck to rake at this site!
I proved my point...you all see what you believe.
You twist words and resort to name calling to your satisfaction and you know it. I can put down any debate you come up with...any! Bottom line is we have to face today and the future. Debating history that hasn't fully manifested itself is a "walk on a slipery rock". We are in Iraq. We have a target rich environment with terrorists exposed. They will not negotiate.
Economy: What are you liberals doing with all that tax refund money Bush gave you?$$$$$$$$
Are we in recession or correction?
Energy: Oil reserves are larger than ever...its your "gloom and doom" liberals raising oil prices.
Health care: Why are we living longer than ever?
So, there's some muck in your eyes.
BackAtchaBoys...and, you won't catch me name calling...I do respect your opinion's.
Now, sombody give me a reasonable debate, Please!

GIDad,

We're both individual citizens of the United States. Neither of us has been to Iraq, has seen firsthand if NBC, CNN, our government, anybody, is telling the truth.

When one part of the government, especially one that is one of the least politicized branches (because a complete lack of politicization is impossible) criticizes the actions of another, we as individual citizens have been given the right to find out what that is, that's the beauty of being an American.

When that one part is the Joint Forces Command, which is responsible for ensuring that everything runs hot, straight, and normal, and they are supposed to publish a report of the possible indiscretions of the extremely politicized (and obviously correctly so) executive branch, we also have a duty as good American citizens to pay attention and weigh what they have to say, after all, it's their area of expertise.

When that executive branch makes it difficult for us as individual American citizens to do our duty and give our military's suggestions due diligence, that's not right, and that's anti-American in every sense.

Regardless of how you feel about the war, that's what this article and this thread is about. So any of your other stances are immaterial here, the question is: do you support the executive's right to obfuscate? Or are you interested in being the best citizen you can be and doing your duty to your country?

Still a question after 7 years? Beat the dead horse till it dies? Move on...deal with the present and future. What's done is done.
Lets try to work out our future, reasonably.
We're at a big intersection in the USA.
I personally feel Barak or Hillary is a wrong turn. McCain is questionable, too. Once again, we're gonna choose the lesser of two (three?) evils.
Damn! I love this country!
We are stronger than the terrorists, able to solve our problems, eventually, with a majority consensus and able to get past our differences without killing each other.
AmerikaBeenBerryBerryGoodToMe...

I assume this is a stalling tactic so that the report can be modified.

I talked to scores of Soldiers...volunteers all. All are convinced why we are there and why we need to complete the mission. Its tough to complete a patrol with wounded and hear "cut and run" from our Democrats.

Funny, but the last Ft. Campbell funeral I was at the soldiers I talked to didn't want to go back to Iraq. Every soldier I have ever talked to had no real problems with being sent to Afghanistan, but most knew that Iraq was BS before they were even sent. I ain't buying what you have to sell when I get it straight form the soldiers mouths all the time.

It is tough to complete Afghanistan when conservatives like you already cut'n'run from Afghanistan to Iraq to waste our soldiers lives. Get over yourself and your talking points.

Let's take a random "finding" of the report, and compare it with the sourcing in the notes. Take this one for example:

Document: snipurl.com/21n3b

Text before Note 56 on page 29 of 230.
Then check the Note for 56 at 38 of 230.

Then check the subsequent comments at note 57, referring to the fear people had with getting monitored while using the internet.

The way the report is written, it's making some sweeping assumptions about Saddam's intelligence capabilities by looking at Larouche's internet commentaries.

Notice the dates at the note on 56: Some of the listed LaRouche reports are from 1998. These US military commentaries on Iraq's retention of these documents doesn't credibly argue that this is how Iraq viewed things; only that Iraq had this information.

If the US military wants to argue, on the basis of a "small sample set" what Iraq was thinking; and question whether Iraq was or wasn't doing its job related to comments on LaRouche/Masons, then the US government hasn't been looking in the mirror. The US government does the same it is accusing Saddam:
- Using unreliable information
- Treating all non-sense as if it were real
- Using any pretext to pretend someone is an enemy
- Using convoluted arguments to assert someone is a threat, despite that person/entity having no physical means to do anything.

Just as Saddam was weak, and the US ignored this, so too is the US applying the same faulty logic to Iraq's having acquired internet information from LaRouche in re Masons. It's hypocrisy. We make no comment on whether the Iraqis took this information seriously; or whether the US government has or hasn't adequately viewed the Iraqi possession of the LaRouche-Mason information correctly.

That's just a quick example. The report seems very convoluted, poorly argued, and appears to attempt to package some information into a composite picture. Left wondering while reading this report, "Where are they going, why should I believe this, and how could this information be useful." It has the taste of worthlessness:

"You can't be serious, you're going to use this report to make some decisions about US force planning in future conflicts; or evaluate something about the US interaction/conflict with Saddam?!?"

It will take a while to go line by line through this document to do an analysis. Where does the TPMM community want to go with this report? It has the intellectual sophistication of a below-average elementary school, handwritten report.

Here's another example. As a quick view of the apparent Phase1 report, the report has the tone and feel of something constructed using a checklist or template. [ snipurl.com/21n3b ]

Look at 11 of 230. Read the introduction. "Iraq's response to . . ." That'snot an introduction as it doesn't help a reader now where the report is going, but smacks of a checklist item: "Why are you writing this report? What is your goal?"

The first sentence of the apparent Phase 1 report has one of those generic statements from a report: A sweeping, meaningless assertion that isn't useful, relevant, or helpful. It reads more like an executive summary of a report that's trash, unfocused, and still searching for a resolution. Indeed, the war isn't over, the insurgency continues, and the US is pretending it has "hindsight." This is as if the US in 1965 were writing about how the Vietnamese were defeated. A report like this written in 1965 would have been meaningless then as it is meaningless today.

Again, I realize we're apparently talking about the Phase I report; and the key interest is seeing the now-disclosed apparent Phase 2 report. My question for the TPMM: Do you want to hold off discussing anything until we get the Phase 2 report; or do we want to spend time on this Phase 1? It seems like a report that has inherently flawed assumptions. If I were the President and SecDef, I'd want to hide it as well: Not because of what it doesn't say about there being "no link" between Saddam and AlQueda, but about what it does say: "We still can't write reports, much less understand how to write coherent sentences."

As we saw with the bungled Iran invasion plans, when the President and his staff gloss over details and will not articulate in written words what they precisely hope to accomplish, it will only get worse: Combat leadership muddles around. This has the feel of jello sliding down a wall, not a robustly vetted work product for defense planners.

The Phase 1 report talks about assumptions on page 12 of 230. These "Saddam" assumptions as written are, absurdly, not just what Saddam may have assumed; but what the US was assuming about Saddam. They're not the same.

Let's illustrate. The first paragraph talks about the 1991 invasion, and the "Saddam view" that the US, because it didn't invade Baghdad in 1990-1, would not do so again. HOwever, this analysis doesn't look at the opposite view: That, in fact, the US President's to invade Iraq was, in fact, stupid. Again, the point is that the report isn't written from the perspective of what were the US enemies thinking; but pre-judging that supposed assumption not on the basis of what Saddam was doing, but on the basis of the US invasion.

The flaw of the "analysis" is that it's looking at Saddam not through the eyes of Saddam going forward from 2003, but retrospectively with the assumption that the US would prevail. It's not a "faulty assumption" when a US invasion in 2003, and quagmire in 2008, was and remains ludicrous. That was a correct assessment. What Saddam didn't envision was that the President would stupidly do something that was both unexpected, and stupid: Jump into a mess. That is not a problem of Saddam or his assumptions; it shows that Saddam was reasonable in his assessment that the invasion would be ludicrous. If, as asserted, the "invasion plan" was ludicrous, then Saddam would not have planned, as he did, for an insurgency after the US invasion.

This is the problem with the Phase I report: It's been written by the same people who apparently are using non-sense thinking to plan; and non-sense thinking to write a report using non-sense assumptions and non-sense, flawed analysis.

To adequately discuss the report, it's assumptions, and the background information of the staff working on this Phase I report will take pages and pages. It's possible. Is that the direction we would like to go?

Finish this and get over yourself

Good advice, GIDad - get over your R-brand talking points, form a real opinion based on VERIFIABLE FACTS, and then rejoin this discussion.

I understand that as a parent, you desperately want to feel that your child's choice to become cannon fodder in this war of lies was based on some sort of objective truth or worth, but it's time for you to face the FACTS: Hussein never possessed WMDs; Iraq was and is "payback" because Flight-Suit McChimp is pissed that "[Hussein] tried to kill my dad!"; and Afghanistan is a total, unmitigated FAILURE because military eyes were taken off the real targets. These are real, objective, verifiable TRUTHS.

None of this is justification to continue to waste American lives and treasure in Iraq - to bankrupt our collective future simply because your machismo says "we have to finish!!!" Finish what, I ask? The genocide we've begun? The real wasting we've laid to architectural, anthropological and human treasure in Iraq solely because we have some pathological neocon need to prove how big our dicks are?? It's beyond pathetic.

Your war cheerleading is an embarrassing disgrace. I hope your child or children come home intact enough for you to realize what an incredible waste their suffering has been. I pray that you never have to suffer through a needless death or deaths because your child or chilren were sent into harm's way based on lies.

Finish what? We toppled our own dictator in Iraq and gave his oppressed people a quasi-election of their own. They need to decide their own future. I mean this sad return to the crusades seems an even more expensive waste of time then the last one. Of course America does not really like real elections unless our sock puppet dictator of choice wins. Let's not foget what happended to poor Hamas. Also having the report of the latest lie won't change the mind of anyone dumb enough to believe it in the first place. There are still morons who swear there were WMD's. Remember that smoke and mirrow show? We need to get out of there as we have done our job. If the ignorant tribal wasteland of the middle east can not solve its own problems, too bad. We can do the real patriotic thing and re-enforce the 55mph speed limit and force more oil drilling in Alaska and Florida. That way the Arabs can drown in their own glut of oil just before they fall into anarchy.

It would be nice if this claim was true in general. Unfortunately, it's not quite.

Where is the unclassified Bargewell report on the Haditha massacre and subsequent coverup? The New York Times has had a copy for quite some time and has published articles with short quotes from it, but the last time I looked (a few months ago) I couldn't find it anywhere on the Web.

Youz guyz go ahead and banter the crap out of this. Typical liberal "go nowhere" vomit. Do ya really think you'll find something new? NOT!
Fact remains: The middle east was a seathing cauldrin of hate for your liberal morals. The invasion of Iraq cut a swath right up the belly of that beast, firmly entrenched Freedom and Democracy, forced the enemy to expose themselves, redefined and proved our Military is the best and capable of answering the terrorist challenge.
Why dance around 12,000 ft mountains that Russia proved were inpenetrable? Why not choose the battlefield?...Brilliant!!!
It's you people who haven't seen enough innocent's die. Your waffeling prolongs the effort and it will not stop at Barak or Hillary, only increase. Mark my words...The fat lady hasn't sang and you only embolden the terrorist effort. So, banter away, see what you believe. I will remain to throw muck right back at ya. I love to upset your apple cart.

Hey, is this the report everyone's looking for?

http://a.abcnews.com/images/pdf/Pentagon_Report_V1.pdf

Better download it now, before it's retroactively classified.

OK pardner...I'll be patient with you...Here's a little history lesson...

December 19, 2002
UNMOVIC Chairman Hans Blix tells UNSC members that the Iraqi weapons declaration filed on December 7 "is essentially a reorganized version" of information Iraq provided UNSCOM in 1997, and that it "is not enough to create confidence" that Iraq has abandoned its WMD efforts.

January, 2003
A statement released to various newspapers and signed by the leaders of Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic shows support for the US, saying that Saddam should not be allowed to violate U.N. resolutions. The statement goes on to say that Saddam is a "clear threat to world security," and urges Europe to unite with the United States to ensure that the Iraqi government is disarmed.

January 27, 2003
Chairmen of the inspections effort report to the UN Security Council that, while Iraq has provided some access to facilities, concerns remain regarding undeclared material; inability to interview Iraqi scientists; inability to deploy aerial surveillance during inspections; and harassment of weapons inspectors.

February 26, 2003
Hans Blix states that Iraq still has not made a "fundamental decision" to disarm, despite recent signs of increased cooperation. Specifically, Iraq has refused to destroy its al-Samoud 2 long range missiles. (These are not a WMD, and Iraq is permitted "battlefield" missiles. However, Iraq's missiles were limited by UN instruction to a diameter of 600mm, and the Al-Samoud II has a diameter of 760mm). These missiles are deployed and mobile. Also, an R-400 aerial bomb was found that could possibly contain biological agents. Given this find, the UN Inspectors have requested access to the Al-Aziziyah weapons range to verify that all 155 R-400 bombs can be accounted for and proven destroyed. Blix also expresses skepticism over Iraq's claims to have destroyed its stockpiles of anthrax and VX nerve agent in Time magazine. Blix said he found it "a bit odd" that Iraq, with "one of the best-organized regimes in the Arab world," would claim to have no records of the destruction of these illegal substances. "I don't see that they have acquired any credibility," Blix said.

March 4, 2003
Iraq destroys three more Al Samoud 2 missiles, bringing to 19 the number Baghdad has crushed out of 100 ordered destroyed by the UN. Iraq also destroys a launcher and five engines in a rush to prove it is disarming before a crucial U.N. report on March 7. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls the new actions "a positive development" while the White House remains unconvinced saying, "Despite whatever limited head-fakes Iraq has engaged in, they continue to fundamentally not disarm."

March 5, 2003
Two days before his scheduled update to the United Nations on Iraqi cooperation with inspection, Hans Blix credits Iraq with "a great deal more of cooperation now", although still expressing some skepticism as to whether or not the cooperation would continue. Among the examples of cooperation that he cites are Iraq's destruction of Samoud 2 missiles, which he calls "the most spectacular and the most important and tangible". He adds that "here weapons that can be used in war are being destroyed in fairly large quantities." In general, he states, "you have a greater measure of cooperation on interviews in general." These statements help to harden the opposition to the US-led war by several other Security Council members. Secretary of State Colin Powell says that US intelligence has indicated that Hussein has ordered the production of more Al Samoud 2 missiles parts and engines. The Iraqi government does not deny the claim but simply says once again that they considered the missiles to be legal. Powell also points out that Iraq has delivered "some documents that have not been found before"
Iraq destroys nine more Al Samoud 2 missiles, bringing to 28 the total number of missiles scrapped.

March 6, 2003
United States intelligence reports that the Iraqi government has ordered US military uniforms with plans of carrying out attacks on Iraqi citizens which would then be blamed on US soldiers. (Reuters) [6]
Iraqi exiles testify in Washington about the brutal crimes committed against Iraqi citizens by the Hussein government. One Iraqi woman says that the Iraqi people are "patiently waiting" for the US to liberate the country. Another woman says that war protesters are "ignorant and misinformed". [7]
Iraq flattens six more Al Samoud 2 missiles, meaning the country has now destroyed 34 of its known stock of 100 of the banned rockets.

"If it quacks like a Duck..."...we all took the bait, REMEMBER!!!!

And..."but the Pentagon report released this week says there were no pre-war operational links between iraq & al-qaeda" SEE WHAT YOU BELIEVE!!!!
It also said..."Other documents indicate that the Fedayeen Saddam opened paramilitary training camps that, starting in 1998, hosted "Arab volunteers" from outside Iraq. What happened to the non-Iraqi volunteerrs is unknown." (by Warren Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers, 3/11/07)...Ya ignored that because its not your agenda!!!!

And..."because the ones who are simply fighting to get america out of their country count" your wrong again, the overall majority are foreign fighters!

"uh, it's not a popularity contest with the terrorists that i'm concerned about. it's a popularity contest with our allies..."
What is this? High School? SCREW any popularity contest!!!!
MUCKBACKATCHA...GOT PLENTY MORE...