The material I will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources. And some are those of other countries. Some of the sources are technical, such as intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites...
...I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling.
This is coming from a General, who can't possibly be partisan...so maybe we should listen...
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.
I know this guy is essentially working for George W. Bush, who I don't trust, but that doesn't mean I should transfer that distrust to the messenger...right?
Let me say a word about satellite images before I show a couple. The photos that I am about to show you are sometimes hard for the average person to interpret, hard for me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts with years and years of experience, pouring for hours and hours over light tables. But as I show you these images, I will try to capture and explain what they mean, what they indicate to our imagery specialists.
...I mean, he's trying to make things easier for me, Average Joe American. No one deceptive would go to such lengths. Someone like this would most likely take out anything that may be construed as "deceptive" to make sure that their report is as honest and as clean as possible...
Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.
...OK, that's cool. See we're using information from other countries. Like a coalition or something...
We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you see both truck and rail car-mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of the technical features required by such facilities are highly detailed and extremely accurate. As these drawings based on their description show, we know what the fermenters look like, we know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know how they fit together. We know how they work. And we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted.
...such detail; the picture is already being drawn in my head. I can see every little sneaky thing that's being sneaked in those sneaky trucks...
Some believe, some claim these contacts do not amount to much. They say Saddam Hussein's secular tyranny and Al Qaida's religious tyranny do not mix. I am not comforted by this thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and Al Qaida together, enough so Al Qaida could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents, and enough so that Al Qaida could turn to Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction.
"Ambition and hatred are enough" to bring to traditionally opposing groups together? Wow. So, like, if Iraq ever became some kind of fractured country with a multitude of groups (both relgious and secular in nature)fighting for control, they could be brought back together if there was one enemy everyone could focus their hatred on? An enemy like Al Qaida maybe? Interesting.
We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this body.
Well, there you have it. I mean, even Joe Biden called this "a powerful and I think irrefutable case." Vice President Cheney assured the public that this is sooo not political:
"Every other year is an election year and you can't take half the calendar and put it off-limits. This is an issue the president and I have talked about now for months," he said.
But forgive me if I remain just a little skeptical. I still have some doubts. Maybe you should read the speech yourself and decide if the danger is real, if the information we're being presented with is accurate. Afterall, The last thing we want is for history to repeat itself.