Folks inside the CIA knew that the yellow cake uranium was a lie and at best, did not make any of this knowledge public as the justification for war was coming together. That silence resulted in the loss of at least one hundred and fifty thousand human beings needlessly and a war that has lasted decades.
> the CIA knew that the yellow cake uranium was a lie and at best, did not make any of this knowledge public
?
Isn't that a bit of a... large jump?
Also, do/should intelligence agencies generally come out and make public announcements of intelligence at all? I mean, maybe you can argue they should do that (for the public good), but unless they already do this in similar situations (or are normally instructed to), to show they actually acted in bad faith is going to need a lot more than arguing they didn't explicitly go out of their way to do so.
> Moderate Confidence: Iraq does not yet have a nuclear weapon or sufficient material to make one but is likely to have a weapon by 2007 to 2009. (See INR alternative view, page 84).
> We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources. [...] Intelligence information on whether nuclear-related phosphate mining and/or processing has been reestablished is inconclusive, however.
(To be clear: none of this is to suggest I'm a fan of the entities involved...)
Not defending the cia, but the yellow cake thing was not a lie of commission (arguably a lie of omission): it was very much true in the strictest senses - hussein did have yellow cake and we did not know for sure where it was and he blocked inspectors that he was supposed to let in. but utterly overblown and misrepresented: yellow cake is not that dangerous by itself, hussein had stopped trying to enrich it - and we probably knew that - and it turned out to be exactly where it was last known to be to be under the UN inspections regime.
As they say, technically correct, the best kind of correct.
On the "I have witnessed the CIA justify those wars" comment we have started what 4 wars since Iraq? Every drone strike is justified with intelligence. I can find some YouTube clips later of CIA directors justifying war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria if you don't believe me.
> Also, do/should intelligence agencies generally come out and make public announcements of intelligence at all?
They did so pretty frequently during the Trump administration. Whistleblowers spoke up when someone came in claiming to want to end the war on terror, they didn't feel the need to do so in 2001 when that war was getting started.
>That silence resulted in the loss of at least one hundred and fifty thousand human beings needlessly
Just gonna point out that non-Americans are human beings as well, and millions have died - directly as a result of this silence.
The fact that Biden played a key part in enforcing this silence at various stages is particularly galling, and it's beyond fucked-up that he isn't held to account for it.
>Just gonna point out that non-Americans are human beings as well, and millions have died - directly as a result of this silence.
150k is the most conservative estimate I could find for Iraq. US and Iraqi deaths included. Some estimates are in the millions but I try to be as generous as possible to the other side of a argument I am making.
Iraq is not the only country where the Intelligence agencies were up to no good. But no, using American claims from sources linked to people justifying war about fatilities goes beyond being charitable.
>150k is the most conservative estimate I could find for Iraq.
It is the lowest I could find. It also has quite a list of criticisms attached to it.
The Iraq body count project counts more just from reported deaths alone.
I wouldn't be surprised if the ORB study showing in excess of 1.2 million is closest to the truth. especially since it ended in 2006 i think and it's not like people stopped dying since then.
Folks inside the CIA knew that the yellow cake uranium was a lie and at best, did not make any of this knowledge public as the justification for war was coming together. That silence resulted in the loss of at least one hundred and fifty thousand human beings needlessly and a war that has lasted decades.