they're terrorists if they have terrorist or terrorist i mean i can't make it any more clearly to other nations around the world if they develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorize nations they will be held accountable. after this speech secretary of defense rumsfeld meets with general tommy franks at central command in tampa florida. franks controls a massive area from africa to asia and leads the war in afghanistan but rumsfeld has something else in mind iraq. he orders general franks to prepare a plan of attack. since his invasion of kuwait in the gulf war in one nine hundred ninety one large parts of iraq had been under an international no fly zone. despite iraq's defeat and the terrible sanctions that were decimating his people saddam remained in power . in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight he drove out u.n.

inspectors sent to disarm him saddam was a dangerous man dangerous first to his own citizens and dangerous to the rest of the world. joe wilson knows iraq well in one thousand nine hundred ninety one in baghdad he was the last american diplomat to meet with saddam hussein saddam was hemmed in he was not a threat he had been turned from a major regional power into a third rate dictator. just over one hundred days after the attacks of nine eleven still fighting in afghanistan america looks for another war richard powell publishes what is essentially a declaration of war. the same day franks visits bush at his ranch in texas in front of journalists the two men speak of the. successes against the

taliban in afghanistan where taliban gone the country secure the country stable we will destroy the al qaeda terrorist network inside afghanistan it will take as long as it takes thank you all. but in private bush confirms to franks the order to attack iraq. this change in priority worries the general who on february nineteenth two thousand and two confides in bob graham florida senator and chairman of the senate intelligence committee. after a briefing which was quite upbeat with the progress that was being made the general asked me to meet privately in his office and the first thing he said was we're no longer fighting a war in afghanistan i was stunned by that and i asked him what the mean and he said that some of the important personnel such is special operations units

were being moved from afghanistan to get ready for a war in iraq. bush's decision is fraught with consequences the fight against terrorism is put on the back burner in favor of a conventional war in the middle east not the most predictable region in the world . in early two thousand and two the military machine is set in motion all the trimmings is to convince the public of the need to go to war with a country that seems far removed from the tragedy that struck america. under base of each former army colonel and professor of military history. having made that decision to go toward the political necessity was to sell the war to the american people that they had prepared a significant profit and operation to sell the war at

a time when the press was very receptive to whatever the administration might be saying in its efforts to defend the united states against yet another attack and weapons of mass destruction seemed to people on the inside to offer the best mechanism to complete the selling job. w m d s weapons of mass destruction chemical biological nuclear for months this deadly arsenal will be at the heart of the iraqi deception the stakes are high in a power struggle between the proponents of war and those who oppose it i was listening to briefings detailed top secret briefings from the cia the defense intelligence agency and other intelligence organizations and they all believed believed very strongly that saddam had multiple programs to develop

weapons of mass destruction in reality there is no consensus on the existence of w m d's for years american intelligence has been monitoring iraq and has found nothing we spend billions literally billions of dollars a year with what we call national technical means which everyone knows are satellites and then not only take images but they have all kinds of other sensor data on that thing ok and guess what. not one w m d's site was found any rock since one thousand nine hundred ninety one the specialists of alex running espionage the n.s.a. the national security agency cannot find anything. william binney former technical director of the n.s.a. was among those scrutinizing iraq there was no information collected by n.s.a.

that that indicated that he continued his weapons of mass destruction program or even that he had weapons of mass destruction. this was no surprise saddam hussein's arsenal had been destroyed after the gulf war. before nine eleven american senior officials had publicly stated otherwise is not about any significant capability to respect the weapons or abstraction is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors were. we are able are. not one not. one saddam hussein's fate is decided the official tone changes and washington portrays him as an immediate threat. this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. states like these

and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil and bad but no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people in the stability of the world than the regime of saddam hussein in iraq simply stated. there is no doubt that saddam hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. the existence of w m d's will have to be proven to help them the bush administration turns to i'm a child. in one thousand nine hundred ninety two together with other opponents of saddam hussein in exile he formed the i n c the iraqi national congress. all of them had a common interest in being ex exiles in that they wanted to take over the government and understood that the way they were going to do the act was by following a u.s. army which was dispensing with the current government and with saddam

hussein. overlooked by bill clinton chalo be allied himself with the president's political opponents the i.o.c. . managed to develop a clear and significant strategic relations with people in among the neocons and in the republican party at large and it with some democrats also to get support for america to do something about saddam. in january two thousand and one approach unity presented itself for the iraqi exiles so one president bush came to power all those people who were advocating supporting us came to power with him . after nine eleven the collusion between the iraqi exiles and the bush administration becomes cooperation. that american administration.

so that specifically asked us to see if we can introduce them to people. oh can provide information on w l d's. chalo be complies enthusiastically he introduces the americans to iraqi defectors endless sources of revelations about saddam hussein's deadly arsenal. the people in child his group wanted to get rid of saddam that so they were looking and searching in trying to come up with things that would help justify to us what our people wanted to hear that is we wanted to hear something would be weapons of mass destruction so we could justify it's going to war with them. a shrewd politician and strategist chalo be also introduces his defectors to the press and through their provocative headlines the journalists lend credibility to all the allegations against baghdad opinion in washington is divided and it was clear from the very beginning that

major institutions in the united states such as the cia and a large part of the state department what opposed. to this they had no confidence in us they kept that criticizing us they kept calling us exaggerated liars despite everything the pentagon refuses to question the revelations made by the exiles the idea that chalo be had information that he knew to be false and he presented it knowing it to be false is has never been established in any of the inquiries and there have been many official inquiries into the activities of the intelligence activities before the war. but the skeptics must be countered and to give credence to the iraqi exiles the hawks at the pentagon create our own service the office of special plans an initiative by paul wolfowitz and douglas feith. the

office of special plans this was quite a lot of us once tri-city they were set up as an alternative cia. the cia gathers information from a multitude of sources in general its analysts check them before submitting their conclusions to the politicians but the office of special plans short circuits this process a first in the history of american intelligence in the end bush cheney and rumsfeld obtain the answers they need and. george tenet director of the cia grudgingly supports the information before congress. i have one of those hearings the director of the cia george tenet brought with him three white folders where materials about the some five hundred

fifty sites in iraq where allegedly there were weapons of mass destruction i asked tenet where did we get all this information and the answer is we got it from . the exiles who did we the united states of america have on the ground to see if in fact what was said in these exiles provided information packets was accurate and the answer was zero. the exiles and the pentagon collaborate and transforming mere allegations into official policy. the collective effort by all those groups involved became a fabrication that became the policy of the united states and it was used to justify a war. further information was provided by friendly nations. in rome a dossier from the italian military secret service sees me arrives at the american

embassy. it eludes to a secret sale of uranium to iraq by may share. the german secret service offers its support as well. it's provides the americans with revelations made by an iraqi defector code name curveball he claims baghdad is making biological weapons in its mobile laboratories. up to date as. the war to liberate iraq went for bush a crucial barrier remains to be overcome before he can go to war congress the american president must ask congress for the green light before launching the country into a war. in august and september the drumbeats of war in iraq started get louder and louder and there were some indications that the president

would soon be calling on congress for an authorization of war against iraq. a mere formality as bush holds the majority but bob graham will try to stall. this race too. and one of the questions was we'd like to review the national intelligence estimate on possible war with iraq and the answer was there isn't a national intelligence estimate. what graham is asking for is a top secret document an estimate of what every intelligence agency knows about a particular threat. to be told that here we are about to go to war and no national intelligence estimate has been done it was astounding and we asked that it be done what happened was they kept their heads way down you know they didn't

want to do an estimate on weapons of mass destruction in iraq because that honest the honest answer was there any. good in london live comes to the aid of his friend bush's publishes a dossier on the iraqi weapons. intelligence picture they want to keep it they can be deployed within forty five minutes and iraq is seeking uranium from africa to develop an atomic bomb but in congress graham is not convinced he presses on he wants proof the agency particularly the cia the central intelligence agency was very reluctant and said we don't have time to do this i said we don't have time to know everything we need to know before we commit u.s. troops to combat tenet goes back to the white house and he says. looks like the jig is up i will have to do it estimate and the white house says ok mr tenet two things

number one you have to do it in one and a half weeks usually an estimate takes three or four months and number two it's got to come out exactly as vice president dick cheney said it was. tenet will once again view to the president's orders. bob kerrey is a u.s. senator and former navy seal. well i think it's a fair accusation to say that both president bush and vice president cheney put pressure on the intelligence community to reach a conclusion that they had already reached vice president cheney at one time went down and sat in cia did sat down at a in a chair next to the analyst looking at the data saying what do you have on weapons of mass destruction will and kind of puts the pressure on the intelligence agencies to come up with something. a lot of the cell of being in control don't know that it's tremendous from the potential so i think and he was determined to come could use of them at that point

a facility to avenge its people to eighty eighty is he smashes the frankish ali captures the king of tourists that he sees is the true cross and this is the great military victory the crusades an arab perspective episode three unification of this time on a just. and monday put it well on. u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for drivers with dates like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country haven't truly been able to escape the war. water. an essential resource for all human coming across europe pressure to recognize water as a human right and put its management back into public is increasing i think that

the european commission would be very very. would probably. anybody say anything. ever to do something to invest the profit of one dollar. to the last drop on al-jazeera. there michelle kerry and these are the top stories on al-jazeera the u.s. government shutdown is dragging into its fifteenth day with another round of negotiations failing to break the deadlock so your top administration officials met with democratic congressional members at the white house but they haven't found a way to reopen the government and that's to broadcast more from washington d.c. vice president mike pence jared cushion or the president's son in law and close

advisor and kiersten nielsen who is the secretary of homeland security met for about two hours on saturday afternoon with congressional aides talking about this government shutdown the vice president said that these talks on saturday were productive however president trump tweeted that the two sides really didn't make much headway now the vice president is going to be continuing these talks tomorrow while president trump is going to be meeting with some of his senior aides at camp david presidential retreat treat u.s. national security advisor john bolton has worn the also government that withdrawal of american troops from syria as not a green light to use chemical weapons alton's preparing to meet israeli and turkish leaders about decision to pull out roughly two thousand u.s. troops from the country. an egyptian police officer was killed while trying to defuse a bomb near a church in cairo these were called to the eastern suburb of nasr city when the

suspicious package was found on a rooftop egyptian christians have been targeted in a string of attacks in recent years earlier results from democratic republic of congo's presidential election have been delayed a week outcome as expected on sunday at the electoral commission says it has counted less than half of the votes the. french ministers had held an emergency meeting on for the first yellow vest protest at the new year turned violent police fired tear gas to disperse anti-government demonstrators in central paris or just get eight weeks ago in opposition to arise and fuel tax but now include wider demands for government reforms indian leaders in hungary are calling for a national strike and more protests over controversial labor reforms last month the government introduced what's being called the slave law and increases the amount of extra hours of lawyers can demand while delaying overtime payments is the headlines

return you now to iraq a deadly deception keeper. in early october two thousand and two in the u.s. congress a resolution authorizing the war is put to the vote the cia finally presents its estimate on iraq classified as top secret it is not until twenty fifteen that the estimate is made available to the public it is in a state or text ninety five pages long the dissect saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction program most notably however the estimate is exceedingly cautious citing doubts and conflicting opinions coming from the core of the intelligence community. to keep these drugs from being taken into account the white house symbol taney asli publishes a shortened version of the estimate on iraq twenty five pages embellished with color photographs and maps. they had

a very clever sanitized version of the estimate which. if a sentence said we think it possible that saddam hussein had this then the take out the possible this version makes official the allegations that have been circulating for months baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles saddam could get his hands on a nuclear weapon within a year the sales campaign that took place i would characterize as aggressive deception there's no question that the headlines leave a different impression of what's in the document itself october two thousand and two in i.e. is not conclusive. it is the headlines that will sway congress bob graham knows this he votes against the resolution to go to war. by taking that action

according to our own intelligence reports i will tell you friends and i would encourage you to. read the classified intelligence reports which are much sharper than what is available in the classified form we are going to be increased the threat level against the people of the united states i found the document to be a very unpersuasive and it was a significant part of my ultimate decision to vote against the war in iraq. october tenth two thousand and two that. congress approves the war right roll touring the course of history for out of jackson. the deception is successful. american officials bear the responsibility of having allowed questionable evidence to dictate their decision and this for political ends this vote was going to be taken in october of two thousand and two just

a month before the november election so there were a lot of people who felt that from a political standpoint. they didn't really want to know too much because they wanted to be able to tell their constituents this is what the president said was the right thing i accepted his judgment the vote by congress is a resulting victory for the bush administration. and the iraqi exiles and it leaves the antiwar proponents with a bitter taste of defeat and willing. with a vote of congress security it is no time to rally public support to do so they have a dossier on hand. remember that dossier from rove the one that conveniently emerged from the archives from the italian military secret service seized me. and so bianco former minister of the interior has closely followed the extraordinary story of this dossier chat on document the wall up at the u.s.c.

it called going to let me introduce the college women mean it raises a laugh at that it. but they will tease out. that food soldier is rocco martino a long time sees me agent informer to french british and american secret services he is the one who circulated this seemingly explosive dossier among his so-called clients. this is it it contains official looking documents that allude to a sale by nice to iraq of concentrated you rhenium or yellowcake. the yellowcake dosey he finally lands on the desk of vice president cheney in february two thousand and two. when dick cheney saw this report from the defense intelligence agency about yellowcake iraqis seeking yellowcake in darkest africa and asia where. he asked the cia briefer. you think about this this year briefer said

well i'll check it out and to verify it the cia summons joe wilson on february the nineteenth two thousand and two wilson is familiar with the fourth largest uranium producer in the world he was posted there earlier in his career when i got there the first person i went to see was a u.s. ambassador. and she said to me we have already looked at this. and we have determined that there is nothing there will some returns to the united states and gives his report to the cia the amount of uranium that was being talked about represented about a twenty five percent increase in annual protection levels and any such increase would have had been approved through the consortium that ran the mine you could not hide that. wilson's conclusions are related to cheney who ignores the vice president is sticking to his dossier from italy. and yet the

italians gave the americans fair. warning the documents in the sherry and yellow cake are false. enzo b. young co has been demanding a commission of inquiry for years. if i took it usually in a post in the eighty third up but then into the visit of e.c. kists he's come to that then that it cases come to this it cost him votes should it not at all not cause and effect say negative at. event then you get the one the. family the anything in it will david's out that the costs read it they'll be better at them in the file save for the maturity to not respond on a late that is. to be in that case ducts suspicions that the program or camp will ignore for them the yellowcake dossier is a godsend it fuels

a fundamental fear that of a nuclear apocalypse the only weapon of mass destruction that truly. is a weapon of mass destruction is a nuclear with chemical weapons and biological weapons are battlefield weapons but a nuclear weapon and as a society altering weapon. fear of the iraqi people reaches its pinnacle in september two thousand and two the new york times publishes a headline about the threat from baghdad it eludes to aluminum tube was seized by the americans that were to be used in the production of centrifuges to enrich uranium from africa and finally to make an atomic bomb it all adds up. at the end of two thousand and two the media campaign in the united states works like a charm according to the polls almost eighty percent of americans believe saddam has an atomic bomb or is close to having them in the end the yellowcake dossier

will have a remarkable fate president bush himself will get behind it the british government has learned that saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa pronounced by the most powerful man in the world this little sentence is an unequivocal condemnation and yet bush had been warned when the president when the state of the union address was being fair the cia told the white house you cannot use this. laim that saddam attempted to purchase uranium from. there. to proceed to despite of the cia's reluctance the white house attributes these revelations to the british who spoke of yellowcake in their september report . with respect to iraq's attempts to acquire nuclear material in the air the. the british intelligence official the head of british intelligence at the

time to this day insists that that information was correct and no one can say with certainty that it isn't it isn't true in fact the british white paper was simply circular reporting it was our story that ended up in a british document it was the same story. the french government which essentially controls the exploitation of the raimi of mines looked into the yellowcake affair and concluded it was fraudulent some mug dilla subir was the diplomatic advisor to french president jacques chirac at the time and said i felt a little kid you know wanted a cool extra point home six people. killed much oily you know that don't you know food stuffs you want us to show each to pretty under to some of the recommender extra.

when early two thousand and three the american government decides to present its case to world leaders. colin powell stands before the u.n. to deliver a scathing indictment of saddam hussein he repeats the accusations already presented during debates before congress he stresses the existence of mobile laboratories for producing biological weapons these are the revelations made by curveball the iraqi defector who spoke to german intelligence. finally he accuses saddam of wanting to get his hands on an atomic bomb he speaks of the i am an e m tubes that for months have been presented as a refutable proof. we watched colin powell and we said whoa this is really theatrical well done and we gave him an a for presentation and a c.

minus for content which would. be. yes and also it's costly almost policeman the vile that. general powell put in the nations with the head of the cia behind him was acquired from a man which they named curveball. curveball whose real name was rough feed comment was a knobby would later admit that he made it all up so he could stay germany. richard powell who had superficially defended the idea of going to war has no problem admitting that many of powers allegations were unfounded the mobile laboratories that were described in that intelligence report that turned out to be completely false there were no mobile laboratories the aluminum tubes which could have been

part of centrifuges. turned out to be aluminum tubes for launching small small rockets colin powell now always lie yeah he did. why didn't he do it because the president told him a do it taking their case to the un the american seek to justify their actions in front of the international community weapons inspectors return to iraq but have yet to find a way to. washington applies an indisputable launching a saddam hussein indicates that he has weapons of mass destruction that is why later united nations resolutions then we will know that saddam hussein again deceive the world if he said he doesn't have any and i think that we will find out whether or not saddam hussein is saying some of the.