UPDATED: MICAH WRIGHT: "I WAS NEVER AN ARMY RANGER"

[kingbobo]

Originally posted by Evil Pikachu
I meant something like rescuing some hostages or the sort, not slaughtering a bunch of poorly armed Iraqi regulars/insurgents.

There are people starving to death every day in this country and you're more concerned with a hack comic artist who lied on his resume and an "American Hero" who ended up being given a self-serving eulogy by sports talk radio shock jock Jim Rome of all people. I kept expecting Rome to say "Rack him, he's OOUUUTTT!"

I'm not going to get into the Pat Tillman is a hero debate, but just so you know, he died in Afganistan, not Iraq.

[YDLM]

Rome is not a shock jock, I have been listening to that man for years. He is not the Sports version of Howard Stern. Tillman death affected him and many of the listeners of his radio show. Stop looking for evil motive behind everyone's actions. Wait a minute. Your name is "Evil" Pikachu, so that means you cant help yourself. Ignore everything I just said

[Karl Hamner]

Originally posted by Regulator
If Micah's supporters are having problems figuring out why there is so much anger about this, I think one of the main reasons is that he was a condescending, arrogant prick in any kind of message board discussions.

When S:TA was first released, the biggest selling point was that it was a military-style book being written by a former Army Ranger. If you can't figure out why people are pissed off, you need to get a clue.

Micah's fictional Ranger experience was the only reason I tried this book as a fan. God knows it wasn't the art.

[Charlesknight]

http://asmallvictory.net/photoshop/d...p&cat=0&pos=31

[Janus]

Originally posted by Smeggy

What the hell are you people going on about Pat Tillman for? We all know that professional athletes, or entertainers, are automatic heroes. Here in the south, it pickup trucks with little number 3 stickers with wings for the soon-to-be-sainted Dale Earnhart. Pat Tillman threw a football, and then he wore camo. Of course he's a hero, you idiots!

First thing, Tillman didn't throw a football, he played defence. Second, if he is a hero, it would be for risking his life for what he believed to be a good cause. Cops do it, firemen do it, and Tillman did it. He enlisted after 9/11, he wasn't called up from the reserves or something similar. Being a football player doesn't entitle him to more consideration than other soldiers, but neither should it demean his sacrifice. I'm sure if you were facing a gun barrel, you'd realize the courage it took.

I'm not American, but I can see Tillman (and many other soldiers, not all) deserve respect.

[Charles RB]

Originally posted by mpg
he makes a point thru his sarcasm

He wasn't being sarcastic. He was literally stating he thinks America should be invaded and people killed in large numbers.

[Chris1]

Originally posted by kingbobo
So if Newsarama (which didn't bother to interview ME for this story) wants to repeat third-hand stories and get the sequence of events out of order, that's fine, but for the record, I first put up a very accessible and public version of this webpage days ago." END QUOTE

So now newsarama is at fault for not going to the Micah for the TRUTH?!?

Boy, that's balls.

Bobo

Oh this is rich. I really don't want to sound like I'm enjoying this but like Kurt Busiek said, he is just digging himself in this deeper and deeper. I predict that by the end of the week he will be trashing DC because those morons didn't bother to file a Freedom of Fnformation Act request BEFORE they hired him to write Vigilante. Geez, people bash Marvel but clearly it is DC which represents all that is evil. What the hell is wrong with those bastards?

[Chris1]

Wow. I can't go anywhere online without running into this controversy.

I hope this isn't a repost but check out this very mature letter that Wright wrote to one of his detractors:

http://www.kevinparrott.com/archives/000195.html

"I've seen combat to "liberate" people before in Panama. Have you? Did you volunteer to fight for your country? I fucking doubt it. I especially doubt your leg ass ever made it through Airborne School and I KNOW for a fact that you wouldn't have survived one week of Ranger School."

[Davinder Brar]

Originally posted by Justice41

But I see the Videos of Bush kinda put a crimp in the ole Bush lied argument.
[/b]

Not really. What about this line: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" ?

You can play word games with it all you want, but what he's telling everyone in this line is that Iraq went looking for uranium. Bush is stating this as a fact despite knowing at the very least (as the CBS article posted above states the CIA said) that the intelligence was uncertain. He presented speculation as fact in order to bolster his case.

- Davinder

[hork]

Originally posted by Charlie Hustle
Kind of crazy that some people think it's overreacting to look poorly on him. He has lied about being a person who's willing to lay down their life in defense of something (real or not) and i don't see how it's possible to over-react to that. This makes him scum in my book and i'll avoid his work at all costs.

If lying about being in the military doesn't make you a lowlife what does? It's not about being holier than thou it's about having some semblance of morality. And yes cheating on a spouse is wrong, which has nothing to do with this discussion. It's always interesting; you can tell right away if somebody knows their argument is poor because instead of defending their position they show how something else is bad.

sad.

Maybe some people don't have this reverence for the military that you seem to have.

[hork]

Originally posted by OM
...Damn right. Only a wimpy little treehugging peacenik - the type who probably thinks NAMBLA's a good idea too - would fail to find such actions heroic. And the sad part about it is that heroes like Tillman and ever other casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan and every other point of conflict in the 200+ year history of this nation were fighting for the rights of idiots, cowards, hippies, radicals and other yellowbellied whiners to behave as unpatriotic as they choose. But then again, the old Cold War joke still applies even today:

Yes, thank goodness for those heroes in Iraq protecting my rights. Why, just yesterday Saddam Hussein came to my house and tried to take all of my rights away! It was awful!

[Jeremy Williams]

Originally posted by mpg
when was credibility ever necessary to be a comic book writer?

LOL Good point. If he can`t write comic-books because of this, what is he gonna do? I think it`s a joke that got out of hands pure and simple. If anything, it demonstrated his abilities as a storyteller.

[kingbobo]

Originally posted by Jeremy Williams
LOL Good point. If he can`t write comic-books because of this, what is he gonna do? I think it`s a joke that got out of hands pure and simple. If anything, it demonstrated his abilities as a storyteller.

It's not a joke when you base a reputation on the lie. He started the lie, and then, over the years, embellished it. He used the lie to shout down people who criticized him.

He may well be a good storyteller, but he used this lie to further his career and gain some type of legitimacy in his anti war stance. He stated that at first he merely went along with it when people he knew assumed he'd been a Ranger. Of course, I don't really buy that either; there's an obvious difference between ROTC in college and being a Ranger. Did he drop out of sight for a few years?

Come on. He perpetuated this lie and profited on it. As people have mentioned earlier, the big drawing point for Stormwatch: TA was that a former Army Ranger was writing it.

This was not a joke, sorry.

And of course, when he gets busted, he blames everyone but the one person who could have preempted the whole thing: Himself.

Bobo

[Jeremy Williams]

Originally posted by kingbobo
It's not a joke when you base a reputation on the lie. He started the lie, and then, over the years, embellished it. He used the lie to shout down people who criticized him.

He may well be a good storyteller, but he used this lie to further his career and gain some type of legitimacy in his anti war stance. He stated that at first he merely went along with it when people he knew assumed he'd been a Ranger. Of course, I don't really buy that either; there's an obvious difference between ROTC in college and being a Ranger. Did he drop out of sight for a few years?

Come on. He perpetuated this lie and profited on it. As people have mentioned earlier, the big drawing point for Stormwatch: TA was that a former Army Ranger was writing it.

This was not a joke, sorry.

And of course, when he gets busted, he blames everyone but the one person who could have preempted the whole thing: Himself.

Bobo

I see this as something that got out of hand. I don`t see him as a bad guy over it, I really don`t. Of course his credibility is hurt, but tomorrow this will be over and I won`t have a problem letting him continue spinning fantasy tales in the funny books over that.

[Garth Rockett]

Originally posted by Evil Pikachu
I meant something like rescuing some hostages or the sort, not slaughtering a bunch of poorly armed Iraqi regulars/insurgents.

I suppose you missed the part of the story where his actions allowed fellow soldiers to escape an ambush without taking casualties. Then again, as Bobo pointed out, you couldn't even be bothered to get the location of Mr. Tillman's death right - which just goes to prove my old theory: A troll will never let the facts get in the way of his trolling.

[Chesscub]

I was shocked when I read this. To lie about one's credentials just is unacceptable. I'm not sure if he used this lie to get the job as writer of the Stormwatch: Team Achilles. I admittedly got the book because I liked previous incarnation of Stormwatch, but came to really like the writing on the title. I'm not sure however that I will pick up anything by him for a while after S:TA ends.

And I was planning on getting the anti-propaganda book.

All I can think of is Notre Dame's football coach search from a couple years ago. One man over-inflated his credentials and had to resign quickly after the scandal broke.

It's just sad. We keep building a culture that values the truth less and less.

Jeff

[The Blue Spider]

Originally posted by Evil Pikachu
I meant something like rescuing some hostages or the sort, not slaughtering a bunch of poorly armed Iraqi regulars/insurgents.

There are people starving to death every day in this country and you're more concerned with a hack comic artist who lied on his resume and an "American Hero" who ended up being given a self-serving eulogy by sports talk radio shock jock Jim Rome of all people. I kept expecting Rome to say "Rack him, he's OOUUUTTT!"

It sounds to me that you have a rather storybook and superficial definition of heroism. A rather strict set of guidelines for such, too.

In the mean time I really don't care for your fascist viewpoint that the heroics and/or tragedies that are relevent to our respective lines of thought should be shoved aside or repressed in favor of the plights of starving people, a sad aspect of poverty that you wouldn't have the luxury of worrying about if not for people like Tilman and despite people like Wright.

CJA

[OM]

Originally posted by Charlesknight
http://asmallvictory.net/photoshop/d...p&cat=0&pos=31

...And we have a winner!

[OM]

Originally posted by some dipshit calling himself, appropriately enough, Smeggy
Do you even think about the dumb shit you write before you click the submit button?

...Have you bothered asking yourself that question?


Tsk. Kids like you are the reason we need to reinstate the draft.

[OM]

Originally posted by Charles Retarded Bastard
He wasn't being sarcastic.

...And how the fuck would *you* know, Chuckie? In all your lame-assed attempts to dispute anything I've posted in the past year or so, you've offered AbZero proof that your snotty comments are more factual than my commentaries and satires. No arguements allowed here, Chuck - you wouldn't know satire if it bit you on the ass so hard it took a chunk out of it. You have all the earmarks of a fat, sexless, retarded little nothing - think Herbie Popnecker with no powers or heroics, and a lollypop shoved up his ass - who's living in his parents' basement because he's too socially inept to survive in the outside world save just long enough to go down to his local comic book store and pick up his subscription.

For the record - just so this dipshit can get it straight for once - I *was* being sarcastic. And if Chuckie can't recognize satire when it's kicking him in the balls, that's *HIS* problem, not mine.

...On the other hand, I blame some of you regulars out there for Chuck's inability to recognize satire. The problem is that you haven't been motivating him properly. I suggest watching the first half of Full Metal Jacket for suggestions on how to give Private Gomer RB the proper motivation. THe way I see it, you ladies also owe me twenty, so drop and give them while Charles chews on his crow and jelly donut.

[Vegas Odds that Charles RB can't see the above as satire is set at 1:1]

[mpg]

Originally posted by kingbobo
It's not a joke when you base a reputation on the lie. He started the lie, and then, over the years, embellished it. He used the lie to shout down people who criticized him.

the part about him using it to shut people down, that just makes him a real big friggin jerk.

the fact that he was outspoken and agressive with this false info, is unexcusable and undefendable

micah could be the vanilla ice of comics now.

but lets not be hypocrites, eh? we ALL lie.

[The Blue Spider]

Originally posted by mpg
the part about him using it to shut people down, that just makes him a real big friggin jerk.

the fact that he was outspoken and agressive with this false info, is unexcusable and undefendable

micah could be the vanilla ice of comics now.

but lets not be hypocrites, eh? we ALL lie.

It's not that he lied. It's how he lied, and what he did with it that makes Micah Wright an issue. It's the consequences that matter.

The sin itself is a matter of heaven, hell, Christ and God. It's the consequences that we deal with here.

CJA

[BurgundyTears]

Well, that's rather lively discussion. To sum up my views:

Is Wright a dishonourable, lying scumbag who's made money making a mockery of the deaths of idealistic soldiers everywhere? Of course. He deserves all the blame he has and will receive. Why spend your time defending him just because some of your views may coincide with his own? In any case this matter is met with a shrug. I don't know much about Wright, so I don't have a personal feeling about this.

Has the mounting evidence of president Bush being a liar much to do with this? Not really. Neither excuses the other, but I'd expect higher standards from the president than from some rather paranoid writer who obviously has serious trouble separating fact from fantasy, so the Bush deal is infinitely more interesting to me.

Was the american soldier killed in Afghanistan a war hero? Apparently so. Are all soldiers automatically heroes or even good people? No, but most of them have shown a strong act of courage for their convictions. Are most of them utter bastards compared to peacemongers? No, but harsh conditions tend to bring out the worst in people.

Does this matter give an excuse for people to start generalising and calling all conservatives/liberals inhuman monsters/killjoy lunatics/greedy scumbags/corrupt cynics/dishonourable liars/spineless weaklings/blind sheep/delusional idiots/etc? No. That's extremely rude and arrogant. All those people have nothing to do with this and have their personal reasons for feeling (or even thinking) the way they do. Most of them having extremely different views on a case-by-case basis and hopefully having sensible, moral and fact-checked reasons for them. So let's bash Wright all we want, but try to be polite and respectful to each other, while keeping the generalising insults to a minimum shall we?

[Hexjumper]

Originally posted by Hap Collins
You bunch of judgmental fucks. Who the fuck are any of you to pass judgment on Wright or anyone else for that matter? .

Just a guy who didn't spend the majority of his life lying to people for my own gain.

-Darren Maclennan

[Smeggy]

Originally posted by Hexjumper
Just a guy who didn't spend the majority of his life lying to people for my own gain.

-Darren Maclennan

Whew! It's good to know you're not the president...

[Charles RB]

Originally posted by OM
...And how the fuck would *you* know, Chuckie? Blah blah blah wonk wonk

Y'know, this is all very rich coming from a habitual troll too cowardly to post his real name.

Course, I'm still trying to work out when my parents suddenly built a basement or how I suddenly became fat. Note the lack of fat.

Now- let's see you. I'm using my real first name, got my real image, even got me E-mail address easily accessable everywhere I go- now let's see you do the same. Let's see you stand by your comments.

AKA, put up or shut up, matey.

[Augusto]

Micah is a piece of scum. Not only did he lie about being a soldier, but he used this lie to make up stories about his actions in my native country of Panama.

In this thread, I responded to his claims that Panamenians hate Americans so much, he had to pretend he was "Canadian":

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/show...5&pagenumber=5

Because of his lies, another poster responded to me that Micah must know what he was talking about because he was a soldier and was there. So with his lies, people would believe something he said, over a person that actually was born and lived in that country and had family during the invasion.

In one of his apologies, he says that what he claims about Panama is still basically right. You have to have balls to say that, since from what I can see, he has never set foot in my native country.

The thing that really bothers me though is that he has profited from this because of his fake resume. There are well documented examples of WWII posters used after 9-11 in the same manner, yet this guy made money of it because he was being paraded as an ex-soldier. If he had any honor left in him, he should pay back all the proceeds from these books to some veteran charity of his choice.

He also needs to let people know, how deep his lies extended in addition to his fake military service.

[Justice41]

Originally posted by Davinder Brar
Not really. What about this line: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" ?

You can play word games with it all you want, but what he's telling everyone in this line is that Iraq went looking for uranium. Bush is stating this as a fact despite knowing at the very least (as the CBS article posted above states the CIA said) that the intelligence was uncertain. He presented speculation as fact in order to bolster his case.

- Davinder

Good Try, here's your lollypop. Suck it.
Read this.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...tel/index.html
http://www.wral.com/news/1683782/detail.html
http://nyjtimes.com/cover/08-11-03/E...eSaddamWMD.htm

And lick a little more on these. Now you may not believe the reports or news articles because of where ythey come from but that's up to you.

[GhettoRebel]

Fry the bastard.

Seriously. Impersonating a military service member is punishable by death in my book. If you dont have what it takes to get up and sign the dotted line with those of us that do. DONT DARE PRETEND THAT YOU DID

This is one of the most unexcusable criminal acts against the public anyone could be capable of. Blatant lying.

I for one am glad I have not funded this guys cash flow and will not be going out of my way to find any of his work ever.

I hope he is tried and sentenced to the fullest extent of the law.

And yes folks. This is a criminal act. It will probably go unpunished since he didn't claim anything like being a Medal of Honor Reciepient.

If I can find the US Code about it. I'll post a link.

Anyways here's my take on the deal. Bit by Bit.

Originally posted by MattBrady
Wright began his statement (which has since been edited) with a recap of what he used to tout as his credentials, and then added: “Except that I was never an Army Ranger. I never served a day in a Ranger Regiment. I never went to Ranger School. The closest I ever got was Army ROTC.

Then you never had any reason to say so.

Originally posted by MattBrady
“This entire Army Ranger thing is a stupid lie which has its roots back in college. When I was in the Army ROTC (and I really was, trust me), I met a lot of Rangers, and got to know some of these amazing men. They always impressed me with their inspired competence and their commitment to one another. Though I enjoyed my time in Army ROTC, I decided that eight years of military service was not for me and I left the program. That ended my involvement with the military. But once I was out of the Army ROTC program, there was a lingering impression among friends that I had been in the Regular Army.”

Wright went on to say that he began using the Army Ranger lie shortly after he began “remixing” the posters – something which brought him numerous death threats. “After posting the webpage saying that I was a former Ranger, the number of death threats dropped drastically. I still got hate mail, but it was now of a different sort, telling me that my opinion was idiotic or that I had been misled. My fellow Americans seemed to believe that if you had served in the military, this gave you leeway to say what you felt... but if you were NOT a veteran, God forbid you should think opposite of what everyone else thought. Did any of that justify my lie? No. But it made it easier to tell. Too easy.”

So a few friends thought you had been real army and instead of grabbing hold of your cantaloupes you decided to be Mr. Popularity and roll with it. That just shows me how scared you were to admit you had to live a lie to get by in life. It would've been more honorable to tell the truth or to have enlisted.

Originally posted by MattBrady
According to his post, Wright felt the hoax/lie had gotten out of control when he spoke with the Washington Post last year, adding lie upon lie, heaping (he thought) obvious falsehoods so high that surely, a reporter, or at least a fact checker from the Post would notice them.

They didn’t.

“A day later, the article ran,” Wright posted. “My outrageous lies were printed verbatim. They'd dedicated two full pages to a ridiculous hoax which could have been exposed with a half hour's work. My beliefs in the veracity of the corporate media had been shaken previously, but now they were shattered. I couldn't figure it out. How had this happened? I stared at the paper in shock. Then I realized that the Washington Post had only done what they normally do: run whatever anyone in a uniform or position of authority told them to.

It took having the Post run a story about your lies for you to realize that the lie was out of control. The lie was out of control the minute you tried to pass it as truth.

Originally posted by MattBrady
“It certainly wasn't unprecedented. After all, Governor George W. Bush had done the same thing in 2000 when running for president. Questions arose and were quickly squashed about his military service. Even today, Bush still hasn't released all of his military records but NO ONE in the media is crying out for them. It's no wonder that my much smaller-scale hoax worked! Of course, this doesn't excuse my hoax... but it certainly motivated it.

I'd like to see the articles which Bush told the Post to run. I also remember him releaseing his military records to the public a while back. How dare you compare the President's right to privacy and your out right blatant lie. The President never ran a hoax. YOU DID Mr. Wright. Only you.

Originally posted by MattBrady
“Within hours of seeing print, the edges of the hoax began to unravel. I received two separate emails from real Rangers and Special Forces soldiers. They had seen right through me. No matter how much research you do, you can't fool an expert, and in this case the experts weren't fooled for a second. Web pages sprung up overnight: Micah Wright is a Big Fat Liar. "Yes," I thought, "I am." Outraged Rangers started phoning the Washington Post. We haven't heard of this guy. His photo isn't familiar, who the hell is he? The Post, chagrined, began "investigating" after the fact... by calling ME and asking if I was telling the truth.

And you should've said no.

Originally posted by MattBrady
“On the face of it, it was an easy story to disprove. A simple Freedom of Information Act request would turn up no records of me having an active duty military career. Was sending that piece of paper too hard for anyone in the corporate media to do? No wonder huge corporations get away with Enron-sized ripoffs. No wonder Jayson Blair was able to get away with making up the news. No wonder that 55% of Americans still think that Saddam Hussein carried out the 9/11 attacks. The media was sleeping on the job. The Jayson Blair story exploded at the New York Times in April of 2003--the story about "Ranger Micah" ran in the Washington Post on July 6th, 2003. It wasn't like they had no idea that there was a problem or that they should check their sources. Why were they so asleep at the switch?”

Wow. Your the first person to say anything about Sadam carrying out the 9/11 attacks. I think CNN did a fine job of putting the blame for that horrible day on Osama. Did you make up your own poll for these stats also?

Originally posted by MattBrady
Further down in the statement, Wright gives his reasoning for why he opted to come clean now, posting: “So why come clean now, you ask? Why shouldn't I continue on, seeing how far I can push it? Well, frankly, I'm sick of it. The corporate-media-hoax part of the joke isn't fun any longer, and the personal side has never been fun. I'm sick of lying to my friends, to employers, to my fans, to myself. I'm not a Ranger. I've lied to so many people about this that it's made me physically ill. I haven’t been able to sleep and I’ve just about given myself an ulcer. The phone would ring and guilt, terror and panic would grip me: is this the day that I get found out? Or is it NPR wanting to do a story on me? How long should I compound the media hoax? To lie to more people? The waiting has become too much. I'm killing the hoax and I'm stopping the lies.

Your not sick of it. You relaized that you were about to get caught and wanted to shift blame on others and clear yourself before this became a media frezy on your entire career......

You didn't kill the hoax. The Rangers that called the Post did.

Originally posted by MattBrady
"The cat's out of the bag now... I've finally told the truth. I wish I had a long time ago. In the last year dozens of real Rangers have been killed or wounded overseas--how can I keep lying in the face of that kind of dedication? When I read about the death of Pat Tillman, who sacrificed a high-paying football career in order to join the Rangers, I felt like even more of a fake and a heel. It's time it all ended: I'm not a Ranger, I was never a Ranger and I'm sorry for ever saying that I was. I apologize to every Ranger and to the families of every Ranger."

Wow. It took a football player to make you realize that your lie was spitful and hurtful to people. I'm sorry that we had to lose another Fine American Service Member in combat. But the fact that you yourself are so wrapped around the media spinwheel is disgraceful. The first Army Ranger who died should've woken you (not that you shouldn't have woken up a long time ago.) Why on earth did it take a football player.

I'm sick of football corrupting the country. Thanks to football we now have tighter censor controls from the FCC and an extremly warped view of the war in Iraq. Of course the general media is not helping any.

Originally posted by MattBrady
However, this too may be a statement coming through a particular lens, as Newsarama has learned that tomorrow’s Washington Post will contain a story about Wright, exposing his Ranger story as a fiction.

Good. I'm glad we aren't the only ones who will now the truth behind this farce of a man.

Click the link above for Wright's full post.

Originally posted by MattBrady
In his biography on his homepage, all mentions of Army service have been removed, with this passage added: "Micah was cloned in a labratory from the DNA of Victor Lustig, Charles Ponzi, Frank Abagnale, Henry Gondorf and Limehouse Chappie. He is an accomplished practical joker, hoaxer of the Corporate Media and a fabulous & incredible prevaricator."

Ummmm...sure. Cute. Real Cute.

Originally posted by MattBrady
according to Leiby, Seven Stories, who published Wright's You Back the Attack! We'll Bomb Who We Want! has cancelled publication of Wright's next book, If You're Not a Terrorist, Then Stop Asking Questions, and that the publisher will remove Wright's fictional account of parachuting into Panama under fire during Operation Just Cause from all future printings of You Back the Attack!

Good. I'm at least satisfied knowing that this farce has affected his career. Hopefully there are some other ramifications coming down the line for him.

[Davinder Brar]

Originally posted by Justice41
Good Try, here's your lollypop. Suck it.
Read this.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...tel/index.html
http://www.wral.com/news/1683782/detail.html
http://nyjtimes.com/cover/08-11-03/E...eSaddamWMD.htm

And lick a little more on these. Now you may not believe the reports or news articles because of where ythey come from but that's up to you.

From your own links:

The newly released report, however, also included a dissenting view from the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, known as the INR.

"The claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious," read the dissent,

Another U.S. official said the intelligence on uranium in the NIE never rose to the level that it could be "stated flatly" by the United States.

and

The White House initially admitted that the president’s assertion in his State of the Union that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger was based on false intelligence.

and this guy who subsequently makes the odd claim that the president does and does not know the intelligence

The president, said the official, has had "countless conversations about the intelligence community, about the contents of the NIE but I don't think he sat down over a long weekend and read every word of it but he's familiar, intimately familiar, with the case."

Like I said before, speculation was presented as fact in order bolster the case for war.

-Davinder