According to the New York Times -- circa 2002-2003 -- Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction.
 

The Times' was among the first to dub the claim that Saddam was building WMD's to be a 'weapon of mass distraction' designed to draw attention away from the Times' counter-claim that the Bush administration was lying.

According to the NYTimes -- circa 2002-2003 -- Saddam Hussein's Iraq was 'harmless' and no threat to the region or to the United States.

The United Nations was handling Iraq just fine, Hans Blix was the man to listen to, and the Bush administration was rushing to war so Halliburton could loot Iraqi oil reserves.

The Times' gave acres of front page real estate to the antics of Representatives David Bonior and Jim McDermott, repeating Representative McDermott's charge that US action would interfere with the 'democratic process' in Iraq under which Saddam had just been 'reelected' by the 'will of the people' without comment.

In October 2004, NY Times science editor William Broad co-authored a column entitled, "How the White House Embraced Disputed Iraqi Arms Intelligence".

"Senior administration officials repeatedly failed to fully disclose the contrary views of America's leading nuclear scientists, The Times found."

"They sometimes overstated even the most dire intelligence assessments of the tubes, yet minimized or rejected the strong doubts of their own experts. They worried privately that the nuclear case was weak, but expressed sober certitude in public."

"The result was a largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against the administration's most tangible proof of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq."

Reading through the whole piece, one would conclude that all the evidence available to the US in October 2004, (a month before the election) supported the allegations that the administration was lying about Iraq's WMD program.
Fast forward to 2005 and March 13th's New York Times headline; “Looting at Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says" -- coauthored by William Broad.

"In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms . . ."

What's that you say? NUCLEAR arms?

"The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.”

Whoa! The 'threats' were REAL? The threats suggested by the "largely one-sided presentation to the public that did not convey the depth of evidence and argument against the administration's most tangible proof of a revived nuclear weapons program in Iraq." THOSE threats?

Broad reports, "equipment capable of making parts for missiles as well as chemical, biological and nuclear arms was missing from 8 or 10 sites that were the heart of Iraq's dormant program on unconventional weapons."

So Saddam had a "dormant unconventional weapons program?"

But Broad noted that IAEA "inspectors, visiting other countries, have discovered tons of industrial scrap, some radioactively contaminated, from Iraq. . ."

How does a "dormant" program produce 'tons' of radioactive scrap?

"Al Radwan, for example, was a manufacturing plant for the uranium enrichment program, with enormous machine tools for making highly specialized parts, according to the Wisconsin Project. The Nida Factory was implicated in both the nuclear program and the manufacture of Scud missiles."

"Al Qaqaa, with some 1,100 structures, manufactured powerful explosives that could be used for conventional missile warheads and for setting off a nuclear detonation."

According to Broad, the formerly non-existent unconventional weapons program was stripped and looted -- post-invasion -- using heavy equipment, cranes and tractor trailer equipment by looters "more interested in making money than making weapons."

Broad quotes an Iraqi official who estimated that most of the organized looting took place from mid-April to mid-May of 2003.

According to US intelligence, most of Saddam's WMD facilities were dismantled, loaded on trucks and trucked to Syria BEFORE the March 2003 invasion.

The US revealed the intelligence during the UN debates leading up to the invasion, months before April 2003. Evidently, that's not important now.

In this generation, truth isn't what is true; it is what people want to believe is true.

William Broad, the New York Times and their core constituency WANT to believe that the Bush administration is a failure, and that their guy could have done a better job.

They WANT to believe it so badly the 'Bush lied' slogan is book-ended by stories that they both DENY the existence of Saddam's nuclear program AND blame the Bush administration for not securing it.

And do it with a straight face, without apology, without shame.

It has only been in the last few years that the media has dropped its facade of neutrality. Bernie Goldberg's book, 'Bias' caused a firestorm of controversy and got Goldberg, a 24-year veteran CBS reporter, blackballed from network news -- because he SUGGESTED Dan Rather was biased.

Four years later, Rather got caught fabricating evidence to support a political hit piece on President Bush. Only the most dedicated liberal would deny that the mainstream news media has a liberal bias -- although they are able to detect Fox News' conservative bias without difficulty.

(Dan Rather only stepped down from the news desk -- he is still an investigative reporter for 60 Minutes.)

Institutionalized deception is something that has to be introduced gradually. It's a bit like boiling a frog. If you drop him into the hot water, he'll jump right out. But if you heat it gradually, he'll just sit there until he's poached.

That we have been sufficiently poached is self-evident. In our media culture, the question isn't whether the media is biased, but in which direction that bias leans. The only question remaining is, which 'truth' do want to hear?

Do we want to hear the Iraq situation is a disaster? Read the New York Times or watch CNN.

Do we want to hear we are succeeding beyond our wildest dreams? Read the Washington Times or watch Fox News.

America prides itself as being the last bastion for freedom of the press. If so, then America's free press WAS the last bastion to fall to the god of deception.

The Bible says that the most powerful weapon in the antichrist's arsenal is deception. Through deception, he seizes control of the global power base. He deceives Israel into a false peace covenant.

He deceives the world into worshipping him as a god. Ultimately, he deceives them right into a battle with the forces of Jesus Christ Himself at the Battle of Armageddon.

"And as He sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world? "

"And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive YOU." (Matthew 24:3-4)

Excerpted from the Omega Letter Daily Intelligence Digest, Volume 42, Issue 15