welcome back here's a look at the beats top stories from r.t.e. the aaa that's now america's accounting anxiety its credit crowd has taken down a rock in the ratings as investors are frogger over how the debt ceiling raise was handled lead to news rounded off a rocky week of global markets with wall street worst week in over two years worsened by europe's debt said fears of a second possible american recession. and as you just former president goes on

trial for mass killing and corruption a weary public see the replacement regime failing to meet the revolution's demands . watched in a neighboring ease roll the reform rally swells with a quarter of a million people in tel aviv and move up the government's lead living costs get out of town. go up next our special report on the u.s. invasion of iraq and the consequences for the country after the war please stay with us.

senao has weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction to the united states from his go for ballistic pay to sponsor and sheltered terrorists saying suicide bombers weapons are he from the trial logical weapons including anthrax and botulism toxin a logical and chemical agent to kill millions of people chemical weapons including v.x. and sarin mustard gas and massive and sudden heart massive death and destruction on a massive scale the danger to our country is great if the danger to our country is growing iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons iraqi regime is building the facilities necessary to make more biological and chemical weapons. and according to the british government iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as forty five minutes after the order

were given the regime has longstanding and continuing ties to terrorist organizations and there are al qaeda terrorists inside iran three shima seeking a nuclear bomb and with physical façade material could build one within a year. the push administration made up its mind to go to war on september the eleventh two thousand and one that very first day on september twelfth one day after september eleventh. the meeting that was held in the white house in the situation room. led to rumsfeld asking the question shouldn't we use this as an opportunity to do something about iraq as well we all said but no no well kind of is in afghanistan we need to bomb afghanistan rumsfeld said there aren't

any good targets in afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in iraq from that time on you were dealing with rationalization and justification for the war you weren't dealing with real causes for the war a real reasons for the war there was never a clear and present danger there was never an imminent threat with weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destined weapons of mass destruction was a convenient way of picking our congress and to giving the president authority to wage this war saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons development clear weapons nuclear weapons it was clear that iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program but over and over again president bush secretary of defense rumsfeld particularly vice president cheney but also national security adviser condi rice drummed up the idea of a reconstituted nuclear capability and prediction particularly the notion that i think has some resonance among the american people the mushroom cloud leaders will

use worst case assessments. that point to nuclear weapons to generate political support because they know people fear nuclear weapons so much the evidence was simply not there. wolfowitz would be asked to explain you know how good is the evidence can you tell us more about it this in nato mind you and you'd say well it's like this it's like pornography. hard to describe but i'll need to recognize it when you see it. my guy and we're going to go to war and that if someone is waiting for a so-called smoking gun it's certain that we will have waited too long we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud we cannot wait for the final proof. the smoking gun. that could come in the form of mushroom cloud. a lot of people who supported the war in iraq actually believed that iraq had the capability to fire

a missile that could reach the united states carrying payloads of nuclear or chemical or biological weapons. iraq has never had the capability to do that they didn't have it in the first gulf war they didn't have in this. war in iraq and they don't have it any way of getting it in future what the bush administration did was try to round up as many people as they could who would make the case for what the white house wanted with the cia to get a talking points to justify this war already made a massive intervention by people particularly from vice president cheney's office and wait for the cheney himself in the process and i think the intelligence analysts found themselves really up against it when they tried to argue that those connections were as tight as it was people were saying intelligence director of the department of energy simply ordered his experts who had raised questions about the evidence being used on a nuclear and of

a as a kind of safe to sit down and shut up so that we would be on board with the with the overall estimate they were not given. because it was chief of collecting information on iraq and it's in the mid ninety's i know what we had what we didn't have and i'm here to tell you there was no information and very heavy leaning on the director of central intelligence and his staff to produce precisely the language which would allow them to make the statements which they have been making to support the decision to go into iraq not only by their physical presence but by the questions they asked for id well don't you think sort of things for could it be possible that they call it data mining going back over old information coming questions and the overwhelming opinion from the scientists of this government i think

a part of the energy and even the cia and some of the state department were arguing against using weapons of mass destruction. as a case to go to war the whole purpose of the cia was to leave those people right that's why they're not in washington they're in order to continue away from the white house away from congress leave them alone ask them what they fake but don't tell them to rethink their positions because then you come up with nonsense like we saw did ministration have decided very early on that saddam should go and that in itself is not a bad. goal but of course everything depends on how you do it when and how way or with whom it's set or delay in decision and inaction could leave to a massive and sudden harm it simply makes no sense to wait any longer to take action before it's too late we will not wait it was a rushed and i was stunned and i believe in three or four weeks which is really fast for that. it wasn't done earlier from what i understand because the bush

administration didn't want such a document that had carried out that's why they never asked for a comprehensive national intelligence estimate within the intelligence community on this particular problem because they knew the intelligence community didn't agree on any of these issues and national intelligence estimate is really about i don't know five major players or ten intelligence agencies in total weighing in on the basic situation with weapons of mass destruction and so i think the bush administration resisted having an eye and then once it was out selectively picked what was useful to their argument. most of their qualifications were simply filtered out the senate is ation of the original estimate was not true to its real meaning all the modifiers were were dropped out it was a prosecutor making a case using what benefited his case ignoring evidence that would undermine his case and there was no defense attorney to give us the other side and the end

product used by policymakers particularly in its discussion with the american public were much more forceful than could have possibly been when originally written by cia dia or state department's intelligence and research it was a bizarre warping of the intelligence process and they thought they would be able to get away with it because who's going to see the classified version well later several months later they released parts of the classified version they thought no one would notice so this was not a case where the national intelligence estimate was driving the war this was to provide an excuse after the fact going to war based on the inside is yet another example i think of intelligence simply not being able by nature by definition to live up to that kind of requirement you may produce intelligence that could keep you out of a war but i doubt she will ever get one to three reports of intelligence that will

in any way. allow you to go to war. there are al qaeda in iraq saddam hussein. cohorts with terrorists secretly without fingerprints he could provide one of these in weapons to terrorists. help them develop. well the war really did absolutely nothing to do with terrorism there was no connection whatsoever between iraq and the secular regime there and the religious fanatics who perpetrated nine eleven they wanted to believe that there was a connection god the cia was sitting there the f.b.i. was sitting there i was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years for years we've looked for a connection let's just no connection saddam was in. or he was a terrible feeling yes but he was not willing to sacrifice his own life.

to stupid answers terrorists had completely antithetical to use the al qaida has a total contempt for saddam hussein himself he's been a socialist he's been very harsh he's treated islamic leaders i slam misleaders extremely harshly rock and we have come very good intelligence on this was not heart of the picture of terrorism before we invaded saddam hussein and ben laden were enemies and ladan considered and said that saddam hussein was the socialist infidel these were very different kinds of individuals competing for power in their own way and saddam hussein made very sure that al qaida couldn't function. in iraq that terrorists couldn't function except for the small northeastern quadrant of a country where there was an extremist group but he had no control over that it was near the iranian border ties with al qaeda it was just a scare tactic to exploit the trauma the very real trauma that the american people

have felt that is since nine eleven and to associate that trauma with iraq as you know from the polls most americans believe that iraq had something to do with nine eleven and it was a very successful very deliberate and very. unethical and immoral operation on the part of the p.r. people of this administration. we now know. that saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. among other sources we got this from first hand testimony from defectors access to emigres and defectors with more direct access to these programs three iraqi defectors we know that iraq in the late one nine hundred ninety s. and several mobile biological weapons listen only after defectors told us about it there inspectors were in the country the most important information that the

inspectors have ever gotten what's going on in iraq have come from defectors know about that capability from defectors and others the recent defectors stated that as recently as august of ninety eight that's what inspections were still way known a formal order was issued to proceed with the nuclear program at full blast i was thought to do is to bring to the world the danger of the poles as in its current state we don't. he is developing weapons of mass destruction. without a doubt he has chemical and biological weapons and without a doubt for thirty years he has been trying to acquire a nuclear weapon the usual scrutiny of these kind of guys was just not done adequately but there was this attitude of let's find the smoke and john let's find the evidence rather than let's let's look at what's out there and weigh the evidence they want to believe him it goes back to contacts that ridge unaided is only as the one nine hundred ninety s. with individuals like dick cheney like paul wolfowitz like richard perle dealing

with iraq mentality the became enamored of this fellow who dressed like a westerner talked with a british accent and appeared to be upper crust and therefore was quite believable and everyone in washington was believing them and i thought people had really somehow checked out of reality in order to go to war it was a war fever that had taken over these people want to get back into it and to baghdad they couldn't defeat saddam hussein but they knew that u.s. military power could so the worst of these offenders who would be ahmad chalabi. who been in exile from his own country for twenty to thirty years and is clearly not a hero under any definition of heroism to his own people sold the pentagon on the idea that saddam hussein did have weapons of mass destruction and he must be stopped but they were bringing forward individuals who they claimed rather high level military or scientists with access they were looking for money first of all

his child he was paying money senior members of the department of defense gave him their thumbs up his information was coming into the white house to people like dick cheney through the office of special plans so it was coming in through and through an avenue that's not traditional to the intelligence community and wasn't open to being vetted or reviewed and you had challah be himself admit that he they didn't mind providing false information because it helped them to achieve their goal of removing saddam nobody in iraq will defend that regime. including the military both the regular army and the republican guard our liberation would not have been achieved without the determination of president george w. bush and the quote commitment of the coalition and the forefront of which stand the people of the united states of america and great britain. will never forget your courage and sacrifice on our behalf we are here today to declare that the new iraq is born and iraq where dignity justice and human rights and i sure thought of all

citizen there is no risk of a breakup of iraq and there is no risk of a civil war i got what i want i got my war back in iraq and if you people relied on my information they're stupid. every year law and custom we meet here to consider the state of the union this year we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead distorted beliefs estimates and guesstimates the appears that he was misleading the public and the congress that saddam hussein had the materials to produce as much as

five hundred tons of sand and mustard and v.x. nerve agent sarin that they were making in one nine hundred ninety nine hundred ninety one had a known shelf life of about two months i have confirmed this with inspectors and analysts who were deeply involved in the one nine hundred ninety s. analyses well if you made it twelve years ago and it had a shelf life two months it may not be safe to drink but it isn't sarah nerve gas any longer and there's no way the agency could not have known u.s. intelligence indicates that saddam hussein had upwards of thirty thousand munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. spector's recently turned up sixteen of them despite the racks we sent declaration. denying their existence and then they tried to use perfect inspectors found sixteen of these as

evidence that they had thousands more existed and you can i mean it's as a methodology it's a very weak way to predict anything and i think it borders on propaganda to argue that a small number that have been found by inspectors in private. in this case of twenty nine thousand exist so down the same is not accounted for the remaining twenty nine thousand nine hundred eighty four of these prohibited munitions but this week bush administration officials need to routinely sad or try to give the impression that if iraq had not fully accounted for all of a certain item in poll related to or chemical or biological weapons then it must be either and it's not at all what the inspectors stad or found saddam hussein had material sufficient to produce more than thirty eight thousand liters. but human toxin. enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory

failure. guinea accounted for the material but inspire much more weapons program quickly its ability to make much of mining toxin and therefore it was an open issue but it can it doesn't mean they're ok what the inspectors found was evidence that iraq possessed their own intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production i think there was very little doubt that the centrifuge two so-called were nothing rocket motor tubes to go into m. eighty one style artillery rockets they certainly have all the specs for the nuclear experts for instance from the lawrence livermore laboratories z. division the experts on center fusion richmond came out and said now you couldn't enrich uranium using these are these tubes they're not compatible so i saw it as a deliberate attempt to take information. errant selectively take information and

try to basically say iraq poses an imminent nuclear threat and therefore action is absolutely necessary and i thought that was absolutely wrong the international atomic energy agency confirmed in the one nine hundred ninety s. this is don hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program the ministration showed photos of nuclear or former nuclear weapon sites in iraq korean one nine hundred ninety one nuclear weapons sites claim that new construction showed they were ongoing nuclear weapons production sites complete nonsense the most troubling thing about the fact that distortions in the misleading statements that bush gave congress is that it is a federal felony it's a crime to mislead and to store information and present to the congress the british government has learned saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa just sixteen words in the state of the union address words that we now know were misleading retired career diplomat joe wilson trying to warn the

administration of the. just that nearly a year before the speech i received a call from from the cia in february two thousand and two i was invited out to talk to those people within the broader intelligence community who deal with three different subjects iraqi. uranium and the share i prefer to know what i knew about the ring in business it was during the course of their briefing today said that they had received the reports keep the interest of the office of the vice president and that report was of a purported memorandum of agreement arthritis and sale of uranium yellowcake somewhat in restraining him from the share to to iraq and it was a document that was executed by the government new fair they asked me if i would be willing to go out and take another look at it and talk to people i knew there i left i left there telling them that if they wanted i would be able to free up my

schedule they subsequently called me and said please do i spent the eight. drinking plenty and talking to everybody that was to talk to who knew anything about the subject matter and the image that i'd come back persuaded to not have happened one from a business perspective because of that with a consortium structure you just couldn't do it but a lot of people know him and to the way the government bureaucracy was fresher you cannot make the decision without a lot of people knowing and if you made the decision the decision would be reflected in the series of documents a series signatures on the on the documents and if the documents that are contained of state signatures they could not be authentic government of documents present quoted a british paper we did not know at the time no one knew at the time in our threat maybe someone knew down in the powerful the agency that no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery of course it was information that was mistaken but. it was

a relatively small. part of the case about nuclear weapons and nuclear reconstitution it is also the case that the broad picture about iraq's programs was a picture that went very far back in time based on thought and this is value has concluded was there was a concurrence of outside experts. but these documents which formed the basis for the reports of anything unique beauty and transaction between iraq and new dad and in fact not authentic numerous french words were misspelled in the documents one of the letters was signed by a nice year official with let office ten years ago several dates and the documents did not match the day of the week several of the names and titles of officials mentioned in the documents were incorrect who was it that asked for this review of the niger nuclear material question it was the vice president i mr wilson

a former ambassador was sent to niger in response to the vice president's questions about this issue so assume that really the vice president got a report back in response to his question and that report contained we will send a memo of his assessment the situation wilson says his family's the subject of a smear campaign by senior administration officials they deliberately leaked his wife's identity as a covert cia operative damaging her future career and compromising past missions after you criticize the administration on meet the press and in the new york times the right house hatchet came out and started writing started writing articles which they basically said that wilson was the first one came out and said that wilson told the truth because he's a democrat. let's set that up as an argument democrats tell the truth kerry republicans fell in the bind then then a couple of senior administration officials leaked to bob novak's thread my wife

was a cia operative involved in the weapons of mass destruction business and for the c.s.t. you're going to stray she is a he the very typically the president vice president cabinet officers and the top of the white house their way to get information got to go back to old. time magazine it one of the information. that's against a statutory law prohibits the. cia operatives what you're doing when you expose a cia officer on officer of any name you basically taking their entire career and flushing it down the toilet also as a potential look i see the person in jeopardy because of their operations and their operations and people that i'm paraded in jeopardy so to say very little act

against the ambassador to try to hurt him i pretty you slice it we're if not for it physical damage i've never seen a dirty trick could be. present the united states and in ministration who has come to office on a platform of restoring dignity and honor to the white house what they did was neither dignified nor was it terribly honorable nor was it germane to the issue at hand.

and.

in india all she's available to do the movie going.