If Oranckay wants to change that to “connection between Iraq and 9/11″ – I can again get on board – if Cheney is actually saying that.

However, it turns around completely if we just stick to the actual words written. — It seems to me you have to have a heck of a lot of faith to say with strong conviction that it is preposterous to believe Hussien had any connection with Al Qaeda….and I thought others had already laid out a fair case showing connections between the loosely connected terrorist groups that fell under the broad name “Al Qaeda” and the Hussein regime?

That I can support without a doubt. Having the intelligence wrong on Iraq was bound to hurt US credibility.

Saying that the evidence was fabricated or fudged —- saying that the Bush administration lied —– in order to go to war is a different matter and where the discussion starts to become worthless.

The best thing that can come from getting the intel wrong in Iraq is for the intel community —– including the ones in all those other European nations who believed it just as much as we did —- to take a look at how they gather and analyize intel and figure out where the weaknesses were and try to fix it.

But, what is the point in Albright, or anybody else, bringing up the Iraq intel failure?

How many people see the US going out to build a case for war against North Korea based on the HEU claims – raise your hand…?..

OK. So, stopping the next war isn’t the reason Iraq is used. What else could it be?

Is Albright being a champion of the 1994 Accord? He is bringing in Iraq and connecting it to HEU because it was Bush’s telling lies about the HEU program, just as he did in Iraq, that led to the current impasse by forcing NK to walk away from the Accord?

Alright does in fact make that case through direct statements andimplications.

So, what is to be done? Since the Bush administration lied about HEU to break the 1994 Accord, it is incumbent on the US to now make things right. Since we broke the 1994 framework down, the US has the obligation to make major concessions to North Korea to get it to trust us again and re-make the 1994 Accord?…

Some of us have pointed out, and some in the press too, that just having a HEU program was a breach of the 1994 deal as well as others….

But, if we entertain the idea that Albright is correct in his bringing up Iraq to bolster the case he won’t make just using NK alone, it would seem to me that the above is what he must be arguing for.

But, I don’t believe that is really what he wants to do —- that he wants to help NK by defending it and making it out to be the victim in the 2nd nuke crisis.

No. I believe the foundation for his use of Iraq and connecting it to the HEU program is much more simple – it is just a way to publically strike at the Bush administation. In short, NK and the 2nd nuke crisis is being used to bring up the spectre of “failed intelligence” to strike at the Bush administration as a whole.

Bruce Cummings has had a somewhat sucessful career out of making the Korean War the first Vietnam…

Albright is doing the same with the HEU program intel spiel.

And he is the one claiming Richardson, (the blogger — not the new skipper of the Pueblo…) is too blinded by politics in his analysis of the HEU program and its implications.

There are two ways (ok, more, but for this…) to mention the Iraq intelligence failure in the context of North Korea; a) to point out (legitimately) as you did that regardless of intent the Iraq failure will cast a shadow of doubt on the accuracy of U.S. intelligence on North Korea’s HEU program, or b) to imply that Iraq was hyped for political reasons with flimsily evidence ergo the DPRK HEU case was as well (a position which ignores a lot of publicly available information completely). “B” is what can be taken from the whole of Albright’s writing and comments. He doesn’t state it directly, but strongly suggests it. I’m all for qualified statements, but at a certain point he’s got to stop speaking form the side of his face.

Basically Albright is a political hack with an MS in physics (whoop-dee-freakin-doo).

Q.10 No one denies that we got a lot wrong in our intelligence about Iraq, but what specific and common errors of logic or procedure actually make your drawing of the Iraq comparison relevant to your argument? Are you saying that the North Korea intelligence was deliberately distorted? Are you really saying that when secretive tyrants create uncertainties about their intentions and capabilities, that we must never draw adverse inferences?

I don’t know what Mr. Albright’s answer is going to be for this, but FWIW mention of Iraq is relevant because whether or not there were errors (and I think there were) and whether or not Iraq intel was deliberately manipulated (and I think it might have been) and even though secretive tyrants create uncertainties about their intentions and capabilities which “we” SHOULD draw adverse inferences from, the fact remains that whatever argument is made by the Bush Administration about HEU (HEU itself or HEU programs or HEU capabilities, if one wants to get technical) in North Korea is tragically less convincing because of Iraq. Even if one thinks everything was done right and honestly with Iraq I don’t see how one couldn’t think the failue to find WMD in Iraq hurts any case against NK based on intel coming via the current US administration, no matter what the intention – invasion, sanctions, pure rhetoric, whatever.

The fact that Mr. Cheney keeps saying there was a connection between Iraq and al qaeda can’t help either.

“The choice between war and appeasement, however, is a false one.”

Who is framing the debate in those terms?

Let me state that I have no opinion about whether NK has HEU, but it would seem to me that just as a matter of common sense, there’s no way to be absolutely, positively sure until someone invades it and has a good look around.

It’s not really about if they have HEU or not, it’s about the HEU program. We know they received some two dozen centrifuges for enriching uranium (not enough to produce the amounts of HEU needed for a weapon unless in the *very* long-term), and that they have attempted to produce materials for what would amount to thousands of centrifuges (would be enough for nuclear weapons).

We “know” this as well as possible without actually going there to see it; A.Q. Khan admitted to it, which corroborated intelligence. Reports of intercepted shipments of aluminum tubing suitable for use in centrifuges is plentiful and unclassified.

But the number of centrifuges is moot; the existence of any HEU program, pilot or not, even active or not, is forbidden by numerous agreements North Korea has signed on to.

So there is no question about North Korea having violated the 1994 Agreed Framework et al, just of how to answer that. Since the only persons of some note calling for air strikes on various parts of North Korea in times of tension (i.e., the July missile launches) are Perry and Gingrich, we don’t have to worry about that happening, and no one in the administration is calling for a war with North Korea at this point (if they are proved to have proliferated nuclear material that could change quickly).

I’ll also note that most likely U.S. troops would not do too much invading of North Korea in the most likely scenarios, ROKA troops would.