My Outtakes in the June 28 issue – UNLEASH THE HOUNDS on Bill O’Reilly, Fox News and political views in newspapers has stirred up a hornet’s nest among those who love the Fox News Channel.
Here is the email I got from Bill Davison:
From your UNLEASH THE HOUNDS editorial it seems you love the left-wingers, “Monday morning quarter backing.”
Just to make the record factual:
President Bush made it plain that the United Nations voted as well as a majority of members of the US Congress to support invading Iraq… as well as more than a dozen other nations joined in the effort.
Those who did not were the one selling arms to Saddam Hussein including France, Germany and Russia. French Mirage jet fighters are not a medium of mass destruction sir?
President Bush also made in plain that any nation harboring, feeding, supporting, or financing terrorists were America’s enemy. Iraq did all of the above.
Saddam and his band of cutthroats had the fourth largest army in the world… but surely no wise thinking leftist would dare view that any threat to world peace! Why just ask those in Kuwait!
Wow, you just so smart that you should now chair the Neville Chamberlain think tank and be declared the undisputed leader of the, “Let’s now forget Pearl Harbor” syndrome.
See what watching FOX News does to someone’s brain. I replied to all of it but I found it particularly fascinating that Davison still believed WMDs were found in Iraq.
My reply – The U.N. didn’t believe the reports that Powell gave that Iraq was actively producing chemical and biological weapons and had ties to al-Qaeda. The Congress and American public did believe those reports. Four years later no chemical or biological weapons have been found. No ties to al-Qaeda have been proven either.
Of course, Davison wouldn’t give up:
*There is not one shred of evidence that all did not believe Colin Powell.
Are you trying to tell me the British didn’t believe him?
Chemical, biological weapons have been found but of course, not widely reported.
So I asked Davison: Please send me any news reports you have of biological weapons or WMDs being found in Iraq.
To which Davison replied:
I wish I had kept them now… but a good newspaper reporter shouldn’t have any trouble finding them if you read anything other than the NY Times.
Finally I had enough and sent Davison this excerpt from Pres. Bush’s Commission on Intelligence Capabilities of the US Regarding the Weapons of Mass Destruction (http://www.wmd.gov/report/)
As war loomed, the U.S. Intelligence Community was charged with telling policymakers what it knew about Iraq’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs. The Community’s best assessments were set out in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, a summation of the Community’s views. 1 The title, Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, foretells the conclusion: that Iraq was still pursuing its programs for weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Specifically, the NIE assessed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program and could assemble a device by the end of the decade; that Iraq had biological weapons and mobile facilities for producing biological warfare (BW) agent; that Iraq had both renewed production of chemical weapons, and probably had chemical weapons stockpiles of up to 500 metric tons; and that Iraq was developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) probably intended to deliver BW agent.
These assessments were all wrong.
This became clear as U.S. forces searched without success for the WMD that the Intelligence Community had predicted. Extensive post-war investigations were carried out by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG). The ISG found no evidence that Iraq had tried to reconstitute its capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991; no evidence of BW agent stockpiles or of mobile biological weapons production facilities; and no substantial chemical warfare (CW) stockpiles or credible indications that Baghdad had resumed production of CW after 1991. Just about the only thing that the Intelligence Community got right was its pre-war conclusion that Iraq had deployed missiles with ranges exceeding United Nations limitations.
….Facts are facts – even if Fox News Channel viewers don’t believe them