Security Council members deny meeting Kerry

How do you lefties explain this? I'd like to hear it directly from you.

Steve From Texas - just passing on the facts.


Security Council members deny meeting Kerry


By Joel Mowbray
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
An investigation by The Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.
At the second presidential debate earlier this month, Mr. Kerry said he was more attuned to international concerns on Iraq than President Bush, citing his meeting with the entire Security Council.
"This president hasn't listened. I went to meet with the members of the Security Council in the week before we voted. I went to New York. I talked to all of them, to find out how serious they were about really holding Saddam Hussein accountable," Mr. Kerry said of the Iraqi dictator.
Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York in December 2003, Mr. Kerry explained that he understood the "real readiness" of the United Nations to "take this seriously" because he met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."
But of the five ambassadors on the Security Council in 2002 who were reached directly for comment, four said they had never met Mr. Kerry. The four also said that no one who worked for their countries' U.N. missions had met with Mr. Kerry either.
The former ambassadors who said on the record they had never met Mr. Kerry included the representatives of Mexico, Colombia and Bulgaria. The ambassador of a fourth country gave a similar account on the condition that his country not be identified.
Ambassador Andres Franco, the permanent deputy representative from Colombia during its Security Council membership from 2001 to 2002, said, "I never heard of anything."
Although Mr. Franco was quick to note that Mr. Kerry could have met some members of the panel, he also said that "everything can be heard in the corridors."
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico's then-ambassador to the United Nations, said: "There was no meeting with John Kerry before Resolution 1441, or at least not in my memory."
All had vivid recollections of the time frame when Mr. Kerry traveled to New York, as it was shortly before the Nov. 7, 2002, enactment of Resolution 1441, which said Iraq was in "material breach" of earlier disarmament resolutions and warned Baghdad of "serious consequences as a result of its continued violations."
Stefan Tafrov, Bulgaria's ambassador at the time, said he remembers the period well because it "was a very contentious time."
After conversations with ambassadors from five members of the Security Council in 2002 and calls to all the missions of the countries then on the panel, The Times was only able to confirm directly that Mr. Kerry had met with representatives of France, Singapore and Cameroon.
In addition, second-hand accounts have Mr. Kerry meeting with representatives of Britain.
When reached for comment last week, an official with the Kerry campaign stood by the candidate's previous claims that he had met with the entire Security Council.
But after being told late yesterday of the results of The Times investigation, the Kerry campaign issued a statement that read in part, "It was a closed meeting and a private discussion."
A Kerry aide refused to identify who participated in the meeting.
The statement did not repeat Mr. Kerry's claims of a lengthy meeting with the entire 15-member Security Council, instead saying the candidate "met with a group of representatives of countries sitting on the Security Council."
Asked whether the international body had any records of Mr. Kerry sitting down with the whole council, a U.N. spokesman said that "our office does not have any record of this meeting."
A U.S. official with intimate knowledge of the Security Council's actions in fall of 2002 said that he was not aware of any meeting Mr. Kerry had with members of the panel.
An official at the U.S. mission to the United Nations remarked: "We were as surprised as anyone when Kerry started talking about a meeting with the Security Council."
Jean-David Levitte, then France's chief U.N. representative and now his country's ambassador to the United States, said through a spokeswoman that Mr. Kerry did not have a single group meeting as the senator has described, but rather several one-on-one or small-group encounters.
He added that Mr. Kerry did not meet with every member of the Security Council, only "some" of them. Mr. Levitte could only name himself and Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock of Britain as the Security Council members with whom Mr. Kerry had met.
One diplomat who met with Mr. Kerry in 2002 said on the condition of anonymity that the candidate talked to "a few" ambassadors on the Security Council.
The revelation that Mr. Kerry never met with the entire U.N. Security Council could be problematic for the Massachusetts senator, as it clashes with one of his central foreign-policy campaign themes - honesty.
At a New Mexico rally last month, Mr. Kerry said Mr. Bush will "do anything he can to cover up the truth." At what campaign aides billed as a major foreign-policy address, Mr. Kerry said at New York University last month that "the first and most fundamental mistake was the president's failure to tell the truth to the American people."
In recent months, Mr. Kerry has faced numerous charges of dishonesty from Vietnam veterans over his war record, and his campaign has backtracked before from previous statements about Mr. Kerry's foreign diplomacy.
For example, in March, Mr. Kerry told reporters in Florida that he'd met with foreign leaders who privately endorsed him.
"I've met with foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly," he said. "But, boy, they look at you and say: 'You've got to win this. You've got to beat this guy. We need a new policy.' "
But the senator refused to document his claim and a review by The Times showed that Mr. Kerry had made no official foreign trips since the start of 2002, according to Senate records and his own published schedules. An extensive review of Mr. Kerry's domestic travel schedule revealed only one opportunity for him to have met foreign leaders here.
After a week of bad press, Kerry foreign-policy adviser Rand Beers said the candidate "does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements."
The Democrat has also made his own veracity a centerpiece of his campaign, calling truthfulness "the fundamental test of leadership."
Mr. Kerry closed the final debate by recounting what his mother told him from her hospital bed, "Remember: integrity, integrity, integrity."
In an interview published in the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Mr. Kerry was asked what he would want people to remember about his presidency. He responded, "That it always told the truth to the American people."

Don't you have anything better to do?

Oh I'm sorry dummyteen,

Looks like you're against those expressing their right to free speech?

You're not one of those that supports the right's of others as long as they agree with yours are you?

Oh wait, I forgot you're a dim, my mistake.

Steve From Texas - Hope your day is half as good as mine

Dear god, are you daft, all its repeating itself about is that either it is wrong, Kerry was wrong, mistated, or overimelished, or even lied, we have covered this, they are journalists he's a politician, they all fucking lie to get people like you in a frenzy because you bite on apparently every worhtless piece of information and then assult UGN with a brand new thread every time. How bout you stick to site links rather than cut and paste jobs, leaving some room for you to voice your own freakin opinion for once perhaps, maybe you will even answer some questions left hanging instead of spamming with junk, junk without thoughts or opinions of you own, and no none of this shit is a good read, and no one cares about when your days off are either.

Oh and dummy, I see as usual, you didn't have anything to say in regards to the article...so typical.

Steve From Texas - going fishing this weekend.

Ahhhhhhhhh Lefty,

In other words you're saying that when I, a republican, say anything that shows what a dipshit kerry is the same way that you and the other libbys say what a dipshit bush is then that is wrong?

What a hypocrit you guys are. If you can't take the heat then stay out of the kitchen.

Everything I've posted deserves an answer and all you guys can do is sling mud towards me?

Losing your composure is no way to get your point across. Just look at dummyteen.

Steve From Texas - 3 days off this week starting Wednesday. Hope you have a great week like I am.

I'm slinging nothing, I'm tired of weak and repetative arguments on nearly trivial items, he met with some of them, ok then, if you just want to expose lies, I'm all for it, I wasn't defending I was saying that this point is almost pointless, except for questions of deception.

Maybe you don't listen to good or your just too sensitive and getting offended to bother, but I don't endorse any candidate, all politicians and media are liars. I bitch about your posts for quality and relavance, we don't need some biased repetative paste job, put your site link down, summerize or state the point of it, and add some freakin opinions.

I'm curious about all the things you tend to bring up, but most are pretty weak, like saying well he did meet with some, but he said he met with all, dear god no. This leaves room for misunderstanding on either side and includes the alsways real possibility that Kerry is just as full of shit as anyone else, which no one is arguing.

I'm not arguing most of your points because they are mostly questions I don't have an answer to, just your quality of topics and statements like calling Kerry an evil man, which you still haven't answered at the time of this posting.

Well let's now lefty,

Let's clarify evil shall we? I suppose we could jot it down as opinion. I'm sure you have one fo those don't you?

people could classify evil as just about anything that disagrees with his or her point of view.

You say that all politicians lie. Many people consider lying as being a form of evil, therefore it could be argued that all politicans are evil right?

You dims seem to be voting for kerry because of you hatred for bush. most republicans are voting for Bush not because they hate kerry, but because they believe Bush is the best man for the job out of the two candidates.

I've never seen a group of people that holds such a hatred for someone. You guys get brainwashed by all the propaganda from Michael Moore, the press, and hollywood.

You take the words of movie stars, most who hardly hold a high school diploma to be fact and becuse they're popular you jump on the bandwagon and start slinging mud.

Now that's evil, there's your answer. If it's not to your satisfaction then too bad.

Steve From Texas - never gets upset, life is too short!

P.S. I apologize for the double posting. I wasn't sure it took the first time so I hit the enter key twice.

Steve From Texas - always willing to apologize.

Dear god man, are you a politician, you still didn't answer my question, why did you say Kerry was evil?

Stop, answer the question

Hey stop, did you answer it yet?

"You dims seem to be voting for kerry because of you hatred for bush. most republicans are voting for Bush not because they hate kerry, but because they believe Bush is the best man for the job out of the two candidates."

You are an pressumptuous and evasive ignoramous guilty of all that you bitch about.

I don't hate Bush, I don't say he is even capable of being the cause of all america's problems, I do know that I feel he is making them worse. And your point of one candidate being the better of the two does not show a belief in Bush, and is exactly where I stand, that Bush is the worst of the two.

And since he is president, and has started wars, and he is continuing the country's history of lying to start wars, or just guilty of ignorance and bad judgement, that anyone who "believes" in Bush, might need to wake up. The people who buy into Bush are the people who are buying the media hype, the right wing media.

Michael Moore made a decent movie when he made bowling for columbine, farenhieght 9/11 (although containg a few interesting points) was mainly garbage, he sounded like a whiny pissed off kid.

My concerns come from information gained by people of the government speaking out about it. This is the same info many of the "uninformed", "uneducated" actors are fighting to have properly heard, I don't condemn or condone them, I haven't bothered to listen to them because they too are professional liars and I haven't bothered to listen to them much. Unfortunately they might be right in some cases, but I don't even know what all they are trying to say.

Where's the mud, I think you may just be oversesnsative, and all you are saying is that no one knows what they are talking about and yet those who "believe" in Bush are somehow thinking more clearly, makes not one bit of sense.

And steve, go to edit, it gives the option of deleting posts, it happens.

Hey Lefty,

Thanks for the tip on the edit button. Got it and did so.

Now then, back to something you said.

"I don't hate Bush, I don't say he is even capable of being the cause of all america's problems, I do know that I feel he is making them worse. And your point of one candidate being the better of the two does not show a belief in Bush, and is exactly where I stand, that Bush is the worst of the two."

I agree with you to some extent but not entirely. True, I don't show a belief in Bush, that much we agree on. True, I don't hold a belief in Kerry, that much we agree on also. But, the Republican platform is closer to my beliefs than the democratic platform therefore, I vote for the person that represents my platform.

That is why I voted for Bush yesterday. I feel pretty good about it too. Hope you do the same.

Steve From Texas - Heading out to the gym. Hope y'all have a great evening like I will.

Pssssst Lefty,

I answered your question. Try reading it a little slower...lol

Steve From Texas - loving life!

Well, belittle me if you like, but I re-read it and I still don't feel you answered my question, but if the lying point was the only one, how can you vote for Bush? Besides the party thing, which is sad in some respects (but respectable enough given no reason to believe either are woth a shit, although Kerry wins on that because at least his promises have yet to be disproven, allowing for at least a chance of change.)

Do you think that things are bad with Bush now? Do you think keeping him will make anything better or worse?

Honestly, I can't help but feel that you just did a terrible disservice to our country, hopefully that is just a fear based sentiment that will be dissproven, but evidence is not working towards that end, and my fears seem to have much evidence, some I wish you were more familiar with.