I’m not in much of a blogging mood, so check out my “favorite music review”:http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/15036-are-weapons of all time.
I can’t speak to its accuracy, but this is hilarious:
bq. …the hobnobbing and scenester privilege could be forgiven if A.R.E. Weapons had a shred of talent or originality, but at best, this record is Suicide resurrected as a novelty act; at worst it could pass for an extreme deodorant commercial with swearing.
I can’t blog as much as I would like to right now because I’m trying to keep my editor from hiring a hit man. So I’ll write about something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
If the SSCI ever gets to it, there’s something more I would like to know about the whole Iraq intel fiasco.
Shortly before the 2003 US-led invasion, I saw Colin Powell give “a speech”:http://geneva.usmission.gov/press2003/powellCSIS0305.htm at CSIS where he said that the UNMOVIC inspections weren’t working. For example, he dismissed Iraq’s destruction of its al-Samoud II missiles and argued that Iraq was planning to build more:
… from recent intelligence, we know that the
Iraqi regime intends to declare and destroy only a portion of its
banned al-Samoud inventory and that it has, in fact, ordered the
continued production of the missiles that you see being destroyed. Iraq has brought its machinery that produces such missiles out into the daylight for all to see. But *we have intelligence that says, at the very same time, it has also begun to hide machinery it can use to convert other kinds of engines to power al-Samouds II.*… Even as he [Saddam Hussein] orders some to be destroyed, he is continuing with activities that will allow more to be produced.
Powell also claimed that Iraq was otherwise deceiving the inspectors by “moving weapons of mass destruction materials around the country to avoid detection.”
Specifically, he charged that
in late January, *the Iraqi Intelligence Service transported chemical and biological agents to areas far away from Baghdad, near the Syrian and Turkish borders, in order to conceal them, and they have concealed them from the prying eyes of inspectors.*
In early February, fearing that UNMOVIC had precise intelligence about storage locations, the *Iraqis were moving prohibited materials every 12 to 24 hours.* And in mid-February, concerned about the surveillance capabilities of the U-2 overflights that they finally were going to permit, *Iraq was transferring banned materials in old vehicles and placing them in poor, working class neighborhoods outside the capital.*
Given that the various investigations so far have not, as far as I know, addressed this speech, I would be very interested to know where this “intelligence” came from. Especially because it was crap.
Happy rest-of-weekend.
OK, not quite a blog. But he does have his own “web site.”:http://www.zarif.net/
I just now found this out from “this IHT”:http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/18/news/profile.php story about Zarif. It’s quite good – take a look. It’s sad that he’s leaving.
Have a good weekend. Watch some Fugazi.
“Disarmament Insight,”:http://www.disarmamentinsight.blogspot.com/ an outstanding new blog from UNIDIR and the Geneva Forum, has a “great post”:http://disarmamentinsight.blogspot.com/2007/05/cluster-munitions-do-not-adjust-your.html up which contains a pretty disturbing “video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_jsyObTG8k about the impact of unexploded cluster munitions in southern Lebanon.
According to author John Borrie, the video, which was shown at the “February Oslo Conference,”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2007_04/ClusterTreaty.asp
bq. cut through acres of the usual conference room baloney of diplomats and politicians who have in many cases never even seen an unexploded submunition with their own eyes. It helped to give those present some clarity of purpose, which other multilateral meetings closed to the real world sometimes can lack.
Just FYI, Stephen Goose of HRW and Norwegian Ambassador Roald Naess discussed the cluster munitions issue during “an ACA event this past February.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/events/20070209_transcript_cluster.asp
Also check out “this piece”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2006_10/Cluster.asp from Wade about Israel’s use of cluster munitions in Lebanon.
TBogg has a “post”:http://tbogg.blogspot.com/2007/05/dispatches-from-republic-of-dumb.html up titled “Dispatches from the Republic of Dumb” in which he describes a bunch of ideas from a congressman.
This, I think, would be the one of most interest to readers of this blog:
*Wikintel*
Create a website similar to Wikipedia for Americans to sign up and then contribute ideas for a unique intelligence estimate the the DNI can draw from as desired and as need be. *This “Outside the Circle” thinking will help intelligence officials dream of terrorist plots and foreign intelligence estimates at home and abroad without much overhead of hiring analysts.* Though “spies” could unfortunately participate in this, ideally the good information provided by millions of Americans would outweigh the bad.
The punchline:
bq. I think that last one was was submitted by dougf@f*ckingstupidestguyonthefaceoftheearth.com.
p{float: right; margin-left: 10px}. !/images/18.jpg!
Jeffrey has a “post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1498/tenet-libya-and-soccer up about G. Tenet getting a bit sloppy with the facts in his account of Libya’s decision to renounce its nuclear and CW programs, as well as give up its longer-range missiles.
I thought I’d take the opportunity to give props to TMZ.com for “reporting”:http://www.tmz.com/2007/05/01/george-tenets-porno-connection/ that Tenet went to high school with none other than Ron Jeremy (formerly Ronnie Hyatt).
They even got the photos. Awesome.
[via “the Sleuth”:http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/05/ron_jeremy_comes_to_dc.html ]
I recently ran across a report from _Al-Hayat_ containing the details of a paper that Iran presented at the Sharm al-Sheikh conference earlier this month. I couldn’t find a link for the article, but the full text is in the comments.
Anyway, the piece cites unnamed sources claiming that Iran is linking resolution of the nuclear issue with other issues, such as Iraqi security. It’s one of the more detailed discussions of the subject that I have seen.
According to the piece,
bq. …the Iranian plan for a solution in Iraq cannot be separated from the “basket of the region and the nuclear file.” Therefore, any agreement on Iraq between the two influential poles in it; namely, Iran and the United States, should be accompanied by understandings on other regional files, especially in Lebanon and Palestine.
The reason? Iran has a very firm grip on the US, um, ear and doesn’t wanna let go:
bq. These sources say that Tehran believes that the nuclear issue is outwardly separate from the other regional files, especially the Iraqi file. However, *regional files reflect on the nuclear issue negatively or positively, especially since Tehran cannot give up, or accept participation in, cards, which it holds and which it considers to be strong, without achieving any progress in its nuclear file in exchange for this.* It proposes proceeding with regional files in parallel to the nuclear file.
Given that the US doesn’t want to link the nuclear issue with anything else, this whole thing is getting increasingly complicated.
Solid.
p{float: right; margin-left: 10px}. !/images/17.jpg!
Purchase a bunch of North Korean soju (“you can do that now.)”::http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070504/ap_on_re_as/nkorea_us_liquor_2;_ylt=AmGQ.zkRafTzrq39_0hXob.CscEA Then invite your enemies.
A friend of mine who was stationed in Korea told me that soju has a different effect on everyone, but it is always bad.
Stop making your “Free Mousavian” sign, at least for now.
According to ISNA, Iran freed him today. I don’t have the original, but _AFP_ has a “summary:”:http://www.spacewar.com/2006/070509131248.im1kz59n.html
bq. “A two billion rial bail was issued for the release of Moussavian today, Wednesday, and the suspect was released,” said Hassan Hadad, the Tehran deputy prosecutor in charge of security issues, according to the ISNA agency.
FNA reported that, according to an “informed source,” Mousavian “has expressed regret and remorse about his deeds.”
Apparently the investigation continues:
bq. “The preliminary investigation on Musavian has been completed and the rest of the investigation will be carried out by summoning him [when necessary] to the court.
“Un-ironic humor”:http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSSEO19597520070508 from Pyongyang.
Reuters reports that North Korean Lieutenant-General Kim Yong-chol got recent bilateral North -South military talks rolling with the following:
Bush…goes out jogging one morning and, preoccupied with international affairs, fails to notice that a car is heading straight at him.
A group of schoolchildren pull the president away just in time, saving his life, and a grateful Bush offers them anything they want in the world as a reward.
“We want a place reserved for us at Arlington Memorial Cemetery,” say the children.
“Why is that?” he asks.
“Because our parents will kill us if they find out what we’ve done.”
Kim said he read it on the internets…