Tom wrote:
"You discount the sources because they belong to an anti-Saddam group. Not sure where I can go from there, unless I get one of his sons to testify."

This is absolutely not the case, and is a total mis-presentation of what I wrote. Please return to my post and examine the significant reasons why i distrust the INC, Those two sources and their data on Salman Pax.

My rejection of the Salman Pak claims is based on THREE things:
1) Sources and arguments presented in the Hersh piece
2) The evaluated credibility of the two sources that claim Salman Pak was a terrorist training camp.
3) Comparison of the credibility of the Hesh sources vs Khodad and friend.

Its patently absurd to reject my case because it depends on unnamed sources and then not immediately discount your own. And you claim that 'Multiple people come to the same conclusion'- well I can't verify that because the original story seems to have been taken down, and the conclusion the come to is STILL based on your two sources.

Its not about relativity or arbitrarily choosing X over Y- its abould evaluating sources and information.

The MKO, AAI stuff comes primarily from
1)State Department and governmental Whitepaper and records from several decades
2)Information concerning the ethnic composition of AAI and MKO
3)Documented and undisputed historical info about AAI, MKO

etc,etc,etc. Just check out the info I gave. Very little of it depends on any unnamed sources.

Look, its POSSIBLE that UFOs have visited earth and its POSSIBLE that the yeti exists.

However, the case AGAINST both these things is STRONGER than the case for.

And if you want to say my case is weak, you have to ATTACK it on a SPECIFIC. In logic, we call this sort of thing you are doing a 'handwaving' dismissal- and it doesn't fly here or out in the world. You don't defeat my point by simply stating "either way, its just not sure". The truth is NOT relative.

And again. Even if we grant all of what you say- you are left with the viewpoint "half a dozen of one, 6 of the other", this relativity soup... So you say we are allowed to attack other nations and blow folks to bits off of unsure and impeachable data because it might be true?

"How about listing the sources you have that state that Saddam never supported terrorism? I'm primarily thinking of Salman Pax here, but if you want to go into the AAI, you can. How many are there altogether?"

Well, thats not possible, because not all journalism and not all fact gathering boils down to interviews. For example, a lot of it boils down to public-domain knowledge (like the history of MKO/AAI terrorist attacks, etc) or Governmental reports.

"Almost all intelligence work involves some interpretation."

Yes, this is fine, but if it is to be actionable intelligence, the interpretation needs to be NOT OBVIOUSLY FALSE. AAI, MKO are OBVIOUSLY FALSE in the pre-war perspective. Salman Pak was certianly not verifiable or firm in the pre-war perspective. In the Post-War perspective, of course, we know that ALL of it was bullshit.

Tom wrote:
"And if you have information--not hard objective evidence--from one group of sources (including intelligence analysis) that says Saddam supports terrorism both in the Mideast and elsewhere, and has access to WMD, and other sources that say--again without objective evidence--that Saddam wouldn't dream of such a thing, and you're the President of the United States, which direction do you err in?"

This assumes that it was just all MASSIVE mistakes and incopentence- not outright fictions. Okay, but lets play.

You check the data against other known facts, and you estimate the reliability of the data by examining the sources. With AAI and MKO, the notion that they would work with Saddam is laughable. There is no detectable factual underpinning whatsoever (like names, times dates etc). There is not even anything verifiable. Saman Pak is highly suspect by evaluation, and boils down to two impeachable linked sources.

Tom: in general, you can't go to war on a hunch- especially a hunch as impeachable and absurd as the claims of terrorist ties.

10-15,000 people dead for no good reason is what you get when you make a mistake. Making that kind of mistake is not like forgetting the dry-cleaning after you pick up the kid from soccer. Its murder.

You just want to throw up hands and say "Dunno, could be true, could have been true, might as well invade and find out".

Thats wrong

Davin L.