WWJLWMD, indeed.
Apprently, William Tierney—leaker of the Saddam Tapes—is just too weird, even for Byron York and National Review Online:
National Review Online February 20, 2006
“He Shall Direct Thy Paths to the Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
The former U.N. inspector behind the “Saddam Tapes” says God revealed WMD sites to him.
William Tierney, the former United Nations weapons inspector who unveiled the so-called “Saddam Tapes” at a conference in Arlington, Virginia, Saturday, told National Review Online that God directed him to weapons sites in Iraq and that his belief in the importance of one particular site was strengthened when a friend told him that she had a vision of the site in a dream.
In his presentation at the so-called “Intelligence Summit,” Tierney, an Arabic speaker, described how he received the “Saddam Tapes” from federal authorities last year as part of his job as a contract translator. It was supposed to be a routine assignment, but Tierney said he soon realized the tapes had special significance and decided to make them public. Tierney said he believes other tapes, which have not yet been heard, will eventually reveal that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Tierney also said that he believes Iraq orchestrated the 2001 anthrax attacks …
“Jesus H. Christ” is exactly what I was thinking.
I’ve been mulling what to say about this ridiculous ABC story and the insanity that followed (and the foul).
I think this kind of sums it up. I leave you with the wisdom of Charlie Duelfer:
Charles Duelfer, who led the official U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction after the war, says the tapes show extensive deception but don’t prove that weapons were still hidden in Iraq at the time of the U.S.-led war in 2003. “What they do is support the conclusion in the report, which we made in the last couple of years, that the regime had the intention of building and rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, when circumstances permitted.”
Lets see. Tierney only talked about God to the National Review Online, which they did not put in quotes, yet Tierney did not talk about God at the Intelligence Summit.
But the article “Where Would Jesus Look for WMD?” puts the two events together to make the reader think that Tierney was speaking about God at the Intelligence Summit.
Why is The National Review Online afraid to put in quotes Tierney’s alledged words about God???
Poor, poor journalism on The National Review Online’s behalf—almost tabloid level.
Jesus Halliburton Christ indeed. This is why we spent two generations in the Cold War developing experts who could not only translate Russian but do so in context, and why the handful of real North Korea analysts who understand both the language and the politics are so important.
Oh, wait—it was three generations in the Cold War. George Kennan was trained as a Sovietologist as early as the ‘30s when he was sent to the Baltics to learn Russian before we reopened our Moscow Embassy.
Of course, given what happened to the China Hands, and the deference shown to the professionals during the run-up to the Iraq war, why would any serious Arabist even bother with government service?
Wow.
I thought talk of guidance by means of omens and dreams was more the style of the shaykhs ‘skipping the spiritual mountaintops’ with Usama and friends. But Tierney seems every bit as loopy (though quite differently intended) as that fellow who told UBL that the plans for the 9/11 crimes had been confirmed by a divinely-sent dream of pilots playing soccer.
Weird.
Wow, is God not even on their side any more?
Wow… I always knew that somewhere within the government bureaucracy there was an Office of Faith-Based Strategic Initiatives. (Oh, wait – it’s called the Missile Defense Agency).
Wow. He sounds as loony as Laura Mylroie.