there is r.t. live from moscow and he's now with our weekly headline says the u.s. credit rating has been downgraded for the first time since one nine hundred seventeen that's despite the last minute debt ceiling deal that i'm verge of default. business come on top of wall street's worst performance in over two years and european debt troubles adjusting the sheriff rollercoaster ride is likely to continue monday. egypt's former president is on trial for months of killing and

corruption but a weary public says the revolution is not over the replacement regime is failing to meet their demands. and just across the border in israel over a quarter of a million people have rallied against the government they are demanding better living conditions and say they are ready to do what it takes. up next our special report on the quest of george w. bush's administration in the run up and during the iraq war. those weapons inspection process was little more than the game they conceal denied to see return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever to eliminate by inspection is quite frankly a fool's errand on the contrary there is a great danger that it would provide false comfort that saddam was somehow back in his box reality is that between the original unscom inspections and the unmovic inspections you destroyed with those inspections ninety two probably ninety five

percent of the rocky arsenal the first gulf war destroyed almost nothing. and you know post-war us pal damage assessments confirm the weapons inspectors were effective before saddam to get rid of this stuff. they had that country under control by ninety ninety eight at the latest those inspectors had discovered the most of the weapons of mass destruction and the iraqi programs at that point were essentially at an end before the war in iraq the united nations inspectors told us. that saddam hussein. did not have nuclear weapons capability ironically the major effect of the invasion of iraq in terms of weapons of mass destruction is to be tested and to show that the inspectors were right all along the inspection regime worked. it was the most

intrusive inspection regime in history and it worked and if you end the day that's another reason why we went to war for not. these maniacs the courage of our enemies weakening our troops resolve and confusing the american people you should listen to these protests because there was the whole thing saddam hussein who would have guessed that you could build a massive international peace movement on the protection of sadam hussein the media is culpable for the misleading of the american public they've bought into the bush administration's rhetoric they don't understand that there was moral violence and immoral violence we use moral violence god bless this president he is truly

a great man reducing troop morale confusing the american people involving our enemies they are absolutely committing sedition treason as far as i'm concerned there's a huge difference between personal opinion and opinion which the grades and the bases are military in a time of war it's a disgrace i don't believe that mainstream media acted responsibly in regards to iraq you know i was the little i was called a traitor i was called crazy palos on of c.n.n. accused me of drinking saddam hussein's kool-aid for making accurate statements in response to aluminum tubes people out there accusing you of drinking saddam hussein's co i'm an idealogue and i'm a republican idealogue i'm actually a fairly conservative person who voted for george w. bush but i don't allow my ideology to get in the way of the facts and the reality of my duties and responsibilities as an american citizen the media is supposed to be the fourth estate but they decided to completely climb in bed with the administration on this in a way the administration constructed a box were and that was that box had all the information that they're going to

stray she wanted the media and the public and congress what they would do is you'd have the iraqi national congress. taking bogus defectors information from him giving him to the pentagon and the iraqi national congress then giving him to the journalists and they said if you don't believe us iraqi national congress call the pentagon so they had a circular recording and you had the new york times admitting that it was using one source for all of its information and weapons of mass destruction and it was self affirming by going to the pentagon which to put this stuff on paper it was. a lot of exaggerations partial information sometimes the whole information but on balance of very one sided view of iraq's w m d program had a lot of these stories the journalist didn't want to look into because the editors told them to run with we're going to be supportive of the administration it's a patriotic thing to do i think there was a part of me to too much of of in

a sense getting into the upcoming war and not enough look at do we really need to go there were some journalists out there raising the alarm bells the seymour hersh is the walter pincus of the world but unfortunately those great investigative reporters there are usually exiled when the heat is on and it was only after the fact that they end up being praised and given the pats on the back and the excitement was to make the case to go to war you know to show that you know now was the controversy to the media barbie's you know it was the titillation of wm d. hideous not that not the titillation of or the conflict of tacky ministration both the washington post new york times and very conservative editors that support of the white house on us.

please the people of the united states and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an hour which it threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder his regime has an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons and look there be no doubt about it we know for a fact that there are weapons there. there were a group of people who for many years had advocated going after saddam hussein and they pushed us hard and of course raw intelligence data can be interpreted in a lot of different voices i'm sure experts who talk to us and so there were a group of people i think that were adamant that this was the right course the pursuit of. elite. elite.

elite please please keep. the so please. keep the elite. elitists sleep q.

why did the administration so dramatically underestimate the cost of this war we did not have perfect foresight into what we were going to find in iraq. with the cost of the war rising and a search for weapons of mass destruction going nowhere the administration turns to david kay his work is being carried out in the direction of dr david kay a respected scientist and former u.n. inspector who was leading the weapons search in iraq we are determined to take this apart we have a tremendous group of dedicated american men and women involved in this with the best assets of the intelligence community can provide dr kay and his team are making progress we have had found a large body of continuing activities and equipment.

we are surprised by new advances that will make that work of laboratories and safe houses controlled by iraqi intelligence and security services and unlike pre-war intelligence we don't require someone just to say something we actually need the physical evidence equipment suitable for continuing chemical and biological weapons research. david kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time david kay wants more time and he says it could take another six to nine months to make a definitive finding ministration is asking congress for hundreds of millions more six hundred million dollars to ponder continuing search i have not yet balanced shiny pointy things that i would call a weapon before we can draw from conclusions we need to let the iraq survey group complete its work. we were all wrong probably in my judgment. and that is most disturbing. it's

inevitable that there will be an outside commission appointed i mean the issue of this gravity i think airings and we will get to the bottom of this and we will let the chips fall where they may democracy you have an obligation your obligation is to speak truthfully to the public that's the basis of civility in our belief in our system of government it is going to require an outside effort probably through an outside commission to deal with some of these very serious problems as i think explanations are important in a democracy this whole episode has caught the white house completely by surprise they've become so fearful of admitting error that they stand up and defend things that only are face to face are untruthful president bush is being pounded with calls for an independent investigation into how u.s. intelligence so badly misjudged iraq's capabilities before the war that the president holding all the cards for you all the people having everybody accountable to him is a very bad idea if i would care to try to operationalize some of the comments i

made about what was going wrong in iraq and so i said if you among other things that if you're going to do this you have to treat it like an intelligence problem and that is not go looking for hidden weapons but going looking for the people who would be associated with hidden weapons well the first things that worry me was we had a big army running through iraq in march and april. b.m.d. would not used against them. nor was it found that's sort of remarkable if they'd had large stockpiles i really believe in the jungle telegraph put the word out on street let people know what you're about what you have to offer and usually you'll get people coming to you around a weapons program if a weapons program exists you're going to find people people engaged in the production technology engineering design people involved in protecting the weapons people involved in moving them and people involved in preparing to use the weapons we found none of them we were running and so fewer and fewer leads but look

profitable and a lot of evidence that stacked up to explain something other than large stockpiles of problems this committee has a special responsibility to the men and women of our armed forces to look at the prewar intelligence because planning for military operations is policymakers take it they interpret threat they assess risk and you talk about it and how much more you do is frankly other pieces left out of the public white paper of the sea any of us feel that the evidence so far leads only to one conclusion. but what has happened was more than a failure of intelligence was a result of an appeal a show of intelligence to justify a decision to go to war secret societies have their own rules. of secret societies generally don't feel an obligation to openly and democratically communicate prime minister blair has surplus of somewhere commission in great britain at his is going to report back in july right now it's not going to be until march two thousand and

five five months after the presidential election should the american people have the benefit of the commission before the election well the reason why have we gave it time is because we didn't want to be hurried this is a this is a a strategic look at the big picture look about the intelligence gathering capacities of the united states of america. if there are no weapons of mass destruction which there aren't if there are no ties with al-qaeda which they were and which they aren't maybe now there are. then why do we go to war. well all you need do is go on the web and download project for a new american century there you will find the video logical and strategic underpinnings for this policy which was rejected by george bush the first which is

really cool out of town in those days became the about policy of this government and was implemented starting with the war i felt in my last year in the pentagon that i felt it was a great deal of can count for the constraints on a government that constitutionally is out. and i also felt it was a contempt of the constitution and i only absorb this sense of contempt by association with with some of the senior appointed civilians who are all neoconservatives who all believe in dominance who believe in preemption who believe in the military option as the first resort rather than the last resort they have a very fixed indeed almost obsessive idea that in fact iraq is a major actor in the world and a probable threat present possibly a deadly threat to the united states this is a group of people who for essentially believe that might makes right.

the united states at this stage of history has unchallengable power and therefore responsibility to use it to. make the world over in the manner that we or rather i think it ought to be made over i think behind a basic neo conservative philosophy it's a considerable arrogance that american interests are the primary. goal of all american foreign policy and they seem to have a really serious habit of not being interested in listening to what other people say about this subject so i don't think it's an accident at all. so much of the justification turned out to be palatial. misleading deliberately so i thought they had a place in history they were going to bring dad obviously a fairy dysfunctional arab peninsula as well as

a rat and they were going to change history they believe they won the cold war. and they said i we won the cold war because we were tough but the soviet union we get tough with these people and they're going to become like us and use fear to say the iraq war was a diversion from from the war on terrorism you certainly know that people weren't paying as much attention to afghanistan as they should have and the resources that might have gone to afghanistan ended up being focused more in iraq if you if you attack another country with no justification people going to say wait a minute this isn't a war on terrorism this is a war on. this imperialism this is colonialism you know and this is why it's a distraction because you need the help of these people if you get this view that the cia and the f.b.i. are lurking around the bazaars in the souks the middle east and handcuffing people

are sasson it just doesn't work or it works you've got to have the help of the locals could get a fight these people and you can put them in jail or a movement from to see only person saddam was a threat to at this point as we saw when the army claps was to iraq he didn't have weapons of mass destruction he wasn't scaring anybody certainly wasn't scaring the arrangements are the turks for the saudis or anybody else it was a state it was on the verge of failure now it is a failed state failed states because terrorism you know you can name afghanistan lebanon somalia any time you can you create a vacuum it's where people flock to discontented to fight of course and some of bin laden have been saying for years america wants to win they an arab country occupy an oil rich arab country. you've been saying this is part of his propaganda so what

did we do after nine eleven we invade and oil rich and occupy an oil rich arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us the only real connection is that having invaded iraq. we're very likely to make it a focus of terrorism we're likely to produce what the president has said iraq represents namely the central battlefield in the war on terrorism why because we've sent a lot of americans into a place where they're sitting ducks for people who think the only good american is a dead one. in the. iraq cannot be governed by americans ok what the intention is i don't care if we truly want to build a democracy that it cannot be ruled by a foreign power the only tool in the tool box the bush administration is

a military force a military force is a very blunt instrument it just doesn't work we've created more terrorists in iraq and we haven't even solve the problem afghanistan one of the more ironic effects of the attack on iraq was. to buttress other countries in the conviction of the famous remark by any indian general after the first gulf war he said the lesson of this war is that if you if you have to fight united states you better have nuclear weapons you don't want your president be seen as a hot dog and well when your president gets into a job suit gets in the back of a jet and lands on an aircraft carrier and then waddles out with this little straps between his legs and that's not when you want a sign of part of maturity and testosterone blasting through when you're talking about. things so fundamentally important as sending a nation to war and sending young men and women to their deaths there is

a sense in washington now that you can't raise. objections to this because you're not supporting the troops in the field i would i would rapidly point out that i'm like almost anybody i know that holds office in this country i've had two sons in uniform both of whom have been in combat and so i don't have to take any nonsense from anybody nor will i mark twain's definition of patriotism his patriotism is supporting your country all the time. and your government when it deserves it well i don't think it's patriotic to stand by and remain silent while your country stumbles into a disaster of patriotism is the last refuge scoundrels of. interests and i think these are scoundrels they have no argument now they have no defense for what they did the country is in a terrible international security situation and i think it's terrible so they're attacking the patriotism of others. i know that inside all right make

mistakes he is more likely to be mistakes if it were like it would be interesting if there is no criticism it was jefferson who said that our kind of government is not based on trust it's based on in fact suspicion to suggest that if you have a different viewpoint than any given an administration and or if you are not supporting the president and policies that may be highly erroneous i don't see that as patriotism at all in fact i would argue that. any patriot with integrity is going to speak out if he or she feels that that we're on the wrong course it's not unpatriotic that demand congress upholds its constitutional responsibilities regarding the declaration of war it's not unpatriotic to be very upset vocally upset when congress abrogates this constitutional responsibility by transferring war powers authority to the president had states as they did in october of two

thousand and two thousand when you guys were work at nasa dot com i was out in iraq trying to get rid of saddam and almost got killed for i had decided i was going to jail so it doesn't take a whole lot of courage for me to come out against the war and i did a pretty getting but i was studiously ignored when we did the first gulf war when i came out of baghdad in one thousand nine hundred one i met with president i states i met with the senior leadership of both parties in the one thing that sticks with me to this day is the extent to which each one of them. explained to me and i'm very emotional terms the extent to which they had to plan their consciences. to come to an. solution how to vote on the use of force authorization it had been a moral decision on their part it had been one that had kept them up at night is a thought their way through us we owe our soldiers our sailors our airmen and our

marines nothing less before we send them back sometimes the true patriot takes the unpopular course but helps their country avoid mistakes and even if they can't persuade at least for me america is this amazing land of opportunity unity of idealism hope it is a beacon to the world it's a place of fantastic people and what infuriates me more than anything else is that this is ministration has systematically slandered lied all the black and the image of america to our friends and allies around the world having the authority and the ability to go and wage war is a very very solemn wrong and it needs to be done with care and with deliberation and with genuine forethought and i think that none of that was present in a lead up to this entire bar that we now can bring freedom and when going up or has

no clothes have to have the presence of mind and the courage to stand up and say emperor has no clothes. regime is seeking a new killer pop. these attempted to push especially for women to use shoes for me you women spinach. curious suspicious just thirty eight thousand liters. but she was.

saddam hussein in an advanced nuclear weapons development program. the british government is one of saddam hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa. over a decade and. looming

just so. six. six. zero am passed. in taiwan and is available in hotels friends to convince myself to tell buying calls onion treatment comes i know my hotel been cold sweats or telephone calls runs a big joke to tell mindless punks from a golden so it's a new royal hotel to visit a princess in bangkok run to some hotels one can dream hotels on call seven sell some tara grant a phone call kansas city coach told michael grimm from hotel bank own close

a company phone calls a role in the region. i'm .

hungry for the food.