RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events "It's not about oil or Iraq..."

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Rob Kamphausen said:

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whomod said:
I think that is part of the reason it's become a question of partisanship rather than a question of intelligence and fact.

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no, the reason its become a question of partisanship is because everytime someone disagrees with you, you say something similar to:

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whomod said:
you support Bush because of an unflailing, unwavering, partisanship and not because ...yadda yadda.

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why you'd still think that, i'm not sure. i believe many of us "pro-dubyers" (??) have all freely said we would have rather have had mccain in office. i believe many of us "blind george lovers" have said we strongly disagreed with some of his calls (like nasa spending or gay marriage stances or the illegal alien decisions, etc, etc). i believe many of us "flag waving supporters" have clearly shown we're anything but.

i shouldn't have to point out all the situations where i agree or disagree with the president to clarify whether or not i'm capable of making up my own mind. reading through this forum, or even just this thread, you'll see dozens of instances where you can get a handle on our views.

this is such a strong partisan division because you are making it out to be.

in reality, this is simply a disagreement, and (should be) nothing more.

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whomod said:
I'd feel better about that if I were given reasons of why Bush earns your trust.

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but we've given those reasons. 20 pages worth. you disagreeing with them is one thing. thats fine. you ignoring them and stating they have no basis simply because you're ignoring them and feel they have no basis is silly.

we don't like or agree with your viewpoint, but we respect that you have one, and respect that its different. i think you'll find the conversation flow much smoother were some of that respect returned.

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whomod said:
Now I know Sadaam was bad and everyone feels rather good about him being deposed. Again, I'm not discussing that. I'm discussing assertions made exactly one year ago today that Iraq couldn't wait because we were in immimnent danger from him.

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a valid gripe.

if anything, i'm frustrated over the lack of wmds, and the "egg on your face" outlook it gives. but i still agree with and support the decision, even above and beyond the "iraq is now free" sentiment.

i feel the story broke down like this:

the world knew saddam's iraq was a bad place. for decades. we hadn't done anything (major) because there wasn't an imminent need (for us).

9-11 hits.

the world changes. view points change. realities change. things taken for granted change. this was now a world where silly bad people in funny sounding countries who made threats had to be looked at seriously.

saddam was that target. not that he had any direct link to 9-11, but a very strong indirect link. judging by his own past, and the future of this changed new world we live in, i find it perfectly acceptable to believe he could be the next osama, and help plan the next 9-11. accurate or not, i find zero fault with that suspicion.

fact: we knew that he had wmd's. we had discovered and encountered them, first hand. we knew that he had the gusto to use them. we knew that he hated the US. we knew he had the ability to hide them with incredible skill (due to blix's inability to discover enormous stockpiles despite nearly 20 years of searching).

all of these facts were not simply based on bush, or US intelligence. this was a common knowledge, spreading throughout the globe. everyone from france to russia to japan to canada "knew" there was stuff going on in there -- completely separate from the bush admin.

the UN knew saddam had things he shouldn't. that's why there were inspectors in the first place. there are large amounts of chemicals and weapons that the UN (not the US) has on record of being in iraq that are, somehow, missing. tons of items that are unaccountable, to this day. again, [known ] completely separate from the bush admin.

adding all of that with the 9-11 outlook (with the US, of course, bearing the brunt), and you have your [ basis for ] iraq invasion -- which was based on many things, including and highlighting iraq's decade of UN rebellion.

yes, i agree, the "urgency" viewpoint was based on the wmd belief. and yes, that urgency may turn out to have been misguided.

but even assuming that, because of the events that led to the decision, i do not fault it. i do not feel it's a cover up. i do not see it as a lie. i do not feel the bush admin is the scourge of the planet -- especially when the planet shared with the viewpoint.

and to you, thats all blind loyalty.

i'm hoping you now see otherwise.

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Kay Asks Why U.S. Thought Iraq Had WMD
25 minutes ago

By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq (news - web sites) possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had no such arms.


AP Photo


AFP
Slideshow: Iraq

Kay Says Iraq Likely Had No Banned Arms
(AP Video)




Latest headlines:
· Kay Asks Why U.S. Thought Iraq Had WMD
AP - 25 minutes ago
· Army Copter Crashes Into Tigris; 2 Aboard
AP - 28 minutes ago
· Iraq set to dominate Cheney talks with Berlusconi
AFP - 39 minutes ago
Special Coverage





"I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist — we've got to deal with that difference and understand why."


Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."


"It's an issue of the capabilities of one's intelligence service to collect valid, truthful information," Kay said. Asked whether President Bush (news - web sites) owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people."


The CIA (news - web sites) would not comment Sunday on Kay's remarks, although one intelligence official pointed out that Kay himself had predicted last year that his search would turn up banned weapons.


Kay said his predictions were not "coming back to haunt me in the sense that I am embarrassed. They are coming back to haunt me in the sense of `Why could we all be so wrong?'"


Kay told The New York Times in a later interview posted for Monday's editions that U.S. intelligence agencies did not realize Iraqi scientists presented Saddam with fanciful plans for weapons programs and then used the money he authorized for other purposes.


"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process," he told the Times. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs."


He said he has had U.S. intelligence analysts some to him, "almost in tears, saying they felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to find — I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions they did."


Kay said Iraq did try to restart its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, but that evidence suggests it would have taken years to rebuild after being largely abandoned in the 1990s.


He said it is now clear that the CIA's basic problem was that the agency lacked its own spies in Iraq who could provide credible information, but that he does not believe analysts were pressed by the Bush administration to make their reports conform to a White House agenda.


The White House stuck by its assertions that illicit weapons will be found in Iraq but had no additional response on Sunday to Kay's remarks.


Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., said Kay's comments reinforced his belief that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat Iraq posed.


"It confirms what I have said for a long period of time, that we were misled — misled not only in the intelligence, but misled in the way that the president took us to war," Kerry, a White House contender, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think there's been an enormous amount of exaggeration, stretching, deception."


Hans Blix, the former chief U.N. inspector whose work was heavily criticized by Kay and ended when the United States went to war with Iraq, said Sunday the United States should have known the intelligence was flawed last year when leads followed up by U.N. inspectors didn't produce any results.


"I was beginning to wonder what was going on," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "Weren't they wondering too? If you find yourself on a train that's going in the wrong direction, its best to get off at the next stop."


Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was surprised Kay "did not find some semblance of WMD" in Iraq. Roberts said a report on Iraq intelligence, to be delivered to his panel Wednesday, should help clarify the CIA's prewar performance.





"It appears now that that intelligence — there's a lot of questions about it," Roberts said on CNN's "Late Edition."

In October 2002, Bush said Iraq had "a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for and is capable of killing millions." In his television address two days before launching the invasion, Bush said U.S. troops would enter Iraq "to eliminate weapons of mass destruction."

Kay returned permanently from Iraq last month, having found no biological, nuclear or chemical weapons nor missiles with longer range than Iraq's troublesome president, Saddam Hussein, was allowed under international restrictions.

But on Sunday, Kay reiterated his conclusion that Saddam had "a large number of WMD program-related activities." And, he said, Iraq's leaders had intended to continue those activities.

"There were scientists and engineers working on developing weapons or weapons concepts that they had not moved into actual production," Kay said. "But in some areas, for example producing mustard gas, they knew all the answers, they had done it in the past, and it was a relatively simple thing to go from where they were to starting to produce it."

The Iraqis had not decided to begin producing such weapons at the time of the invasion, he concluded.

Kay also said chaos in postwar Iraq made it impossible to know with certainty whether Iraq had had banned weapons.

And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq was moving a steady stream of goods shipments to Syria, but it is difficult to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the weapons investigation.

Administration officials have sent mixed signals in recent days about the hunt in Iraq for illicit weapons.

While Bush's spokesmen have insisted weapons will yet be found, Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and Secretary of State Powell held open the possibility that they will not.

Cheney warned in March 2003, three days before the invasion: "We believe he (Saddam) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."

But in an interview Wednesday with NPR, he said of the weapons search: "The jury is still out."

Kay's comments echoed those of dozens of Iraqi scientists who, in recent interviews with The Associated Press, claimed they had not seen or worked on weapons of mass destruction in years.

Only a handful of Iraqi scientists who worked in former bioweapons and missile programs remained in custody by the time Kay left Iraq in December. Some of the detained scientists have been held since April and Kay's conclusions were likely to raise their hopes for release.

Kay said he resigned Friday because the Pentagon (news - web sites) began peeling away his staff of weapons-searchers as the military struggled to put down the Iraqi insurgency last fall.

Kay hopes to draw on his experiences to write a book on weapons intelligence.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
This all but confirms what I've been saying. I wait for whomod to spin it.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
Good job of ignoring. He says what we said all along Bush had intelligence that said there were WMD's. If none are found and it looks like there wasn't, the intelligence community needs to be overhauled and looked into. Your theory was Bush made it up when in fact intelligence led to the conclusion he had them. Go back re read, dont skip anything.

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whomod said:
[Bush chose evidence that had already been discredited, to present to the American people. Evidence that was known to be false long before he presented it to the American people as PROOF of our imminent doom.

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the G-man said:

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whomod said:
Bush chose evidence that had already been discredited, to present to the American people. Evidence that was known to be false long before he presented it to the American people as PROOF of our imminent doom.

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Wrong again.

Bush presented--and made clear he was presenting--evidence that we received from British intelligence which, at the time, the British believed to be accurate. In fact, Britain still stands by that intelligence.

So, other than your own emotional reaction, you don't have one shred of actual evidence that Bush deliberately misled anyone.

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That's what bothers me about what Whomod is saying (and many other liberals as well ), voicing a relentless stream of unproven allegations against Bush, as if they are facts.

I don't have a problem with voicing the possibility of wrongdoing under any President, investigating, and asking tough questions.
But I do have a problem with slander, relentlessly saying these allegations as if they were proven, to the point that the uninformed actually believe that these allegations are proven.
That's deliberate and bitter misrepresentation.

No proof of "blood for oil".
No proof of "Bush fought the Iraq war for his father".
No proof of "Bush knew about 9-11 before it happened" (as Dean alleges).
No proof that Bush and Cheney gave the contract to Halliburton through cronyism.
No proof of a war profiteering motive by Bush's administration, to allegedly get themselves rich.
No proof that Bush's White House leaked information about ambassador Wilson.
And ultimately, no proof that Bush deceived the public in any way to persuade the nation to invade Iraq.

Allegations, not facts.

And relentlessly asserting these allegations as if they were facts is inflammatory and divisive.

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Iraq War Not Humanitarian, Group Says

Mon Jan 26,11:53 AM ET

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - The war in Iraq (news - web sites) cannot be justified as an intervention in defense of human rights even though it ended a brutal regime, Human Rights Watch said Monday, dismissing one of the Bush administration's main arguments for the invasion.


While Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had an atrocious human rights record and life has improved for Iraqis since his ouster, his worst actions occurred long before the war, the advocacy group said in its annual report. It said there was no ongoing or imminent mass killing in Iraq when the conflict began.


President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) cited the threat from Saddam's alleged weapons of mass destruction as their main reason for attacking Iraq. But as coalition forces have failed to find evidence of such weapons, both leaders have also highlighted the brutality of the regime when justifying military intervention.


Human Rights Watch, however, rejected such claims.


"The Bush administration cannot justify the war in Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, and neither can Tony Blair," executive director Kenneth Roth said.


Atrocities such as Saddam's 1988 mass killing of Kurds would have justified humanitarian intervention, Roth said.


"But such interventions should be reserved for stopping an imminent or ongoing slaughter," he added. "They shouldn't be used belatedly to address atrocities that were ignored in the past."


The 407-page Human Rights Watch World Report 2004 also said the U.S. government was applying "war rules" to the struggle against global terrorism and denying terror suspects their rights. It suggested that "police rules" of law enforcement should be applied in such cases instead.


"In times of war you can detain someone summarily until the end of the war and you can shoot to kill. And those are two powers that the Bush administration wants to have globally," Roth said. "I think that's very dangerous."


Human Rights Watch criticized the United States for detaining 660 so-called "enemy combatants" without charges at a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Most of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan (news - web sites).


"The administration's actions display a perilous belief that, in the fight against terrorism, the executive is above the law," the report said.


Government officials have said the lengthy detentions are vital to intelligence-gathering and that the information gleaned from prisoners has led to arrests around the world.


The New York-based group further said that European and other governments were ignoring human rights abuses in the conflict in Chechnya (news - web sites), which Russia characterizes as its contribution to the global war on terror.


The annual survey featured 15 essays related to war and human rights. But unlike previous versions, it did not include summaries of human rights events in countries where Human Rights Watch works. Instead, information on those nations was available on the group's Web site.


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Human Rights Watch: www.hrw.org

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
whomod i wish you hatred didnt blind you so, youd have a bunch better life if it wasnt filled with hate.

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The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Sunday that his panel is investigating the prewar data. But Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas told CNN's "Late Edition" that if Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction, "why on Earth didn't he let the U.N. inspectors in and avoid the war?"

Hussein did allow U.N. inspectors into Iraq in November 2002 as momentum for war built, and they conducted nearly 600 inspections of about 350 sites. The inspectors made no significant discoveries of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs.

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"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful." - George W. Bush

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Now i'm willing to concede that maybe they just don't know any better but my suspicious nature (plus the fact that they get paid to know better) tells me that perhaps it's actually meant for TV news viewers, at least the ones who actually don't know any better.

And all the *traitorous* dangerous WRONG critics of Bush's war were right all along.




We're all waiting for Bill O'Reiley's aplogy any minute now...
http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/oreillywmd.htm

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:

I don't have a problem with voicing the possibility of wrongdoing under any President, investigating, and asking tough questions.
But I do have a problem with slander, relentlessly saying these allegations as if they were proven, to the point that the uninformed actually believe that these allegations are proven.
That's deliberate and bitter misrepresentation.

No proof of "blood for oil".
No proof of "Bush fought the Iraq war for his father".
No proof of "Bush knew about 9-11 before it happened" (as Dean alleges).
No proof that Bush and Cheney gave the contract to Halliburton through cronyism.
No proof of a war profiteering motive by Bush's administration, to allegedly get themselves rich.
No proof that Bush's White House leaked information about ambassador Wilson.
And ultimately, no proof that Bush deceived the public in any way to persuade the nation to invade Iraq.

Allegations, not facts.

And relentlessly asserting these allegations as if they were facts is inflammatory and divisive.

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Give 9/11 Panel More Time

With FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III declaring anew in recent days that terrorists will "quite probably" attack the U.S. again, the need to unravel what went wrong on Sept. 11 remains as urgent as ever. A clear understanding of where intelligence services, the White House and other government bodies may have gone astray is vital to helping prevent new terrorist strikes. But unless the independent federal commission investigating Sept. 11 gets a new deadline, it can't carry out this mandate. The commission has created some self-inflicted wounds, but Congress and the Bush administration must agree to its plea to extend the May 27 deadline for it to issue its comprehensive report.

The panel isn't like a high school student, stalling for time on its big exam. Its respected members have hit some real, deplorable roadblocks as they have tried to do their work. The administration, which initially opposed the commission's creation but then endorsed it, has hampered its research and insists on shortening its life span from 24 months, as originally proposed by Congress, to 18 months. This timetable raises questions of cynical political calculation — whether the administration really wants to know what went awry in the past to fix it or whether it just wants to get any damaging revelations out well before the fall presidential campaign heats up.

And, while government bodies may have sound reasons not to disclose information, the 9/11 panel has run a sad gantlet as it has sought data crucial to its mission — some 1,600 interviews and 2 million documents — from sources as varied as New York City to NORAD, the air defense command center. It also has battled with the White House, Pentagon and intelligence services over sensitive materials. The commission only recently received copies of the "president's daily brief," crafted by the CIA. These files could reveal whether President Bush had been warned before 9/11 of the possibility of terrorist attacks using commercial planes.

Commissioners themselves have hit complications while sifting history; two, because of their previous high posts, found themselves answering queries from their fellow panelists about their past duties and actions. This odd turn, as reported elsewhere, is just one more distraction that threatens to disrupt a keystone of the panel's efforts: Can this bipartisan group, as advocates once hoped, lay to rest the burgeoning doubts, rumors and conspiracy theories about official policies and practices that may have allowed an attack that killed thousands?

It's important work that deserves more cooperation and time — not just for history's sake but also to satisfy victims' families and to prevent any repeat of what may have been deadly mistakes about the nation's security.

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But i'm sure their opinon doesn't matter because they're "liberal" or something.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:

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But i'm sure their opinon doesn't matter because they're "liberal" or something.

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There opinion matters as much as anyone elses I suppose. But I dread the day the US tries to conform policy to someone elses opinion. Like Bush said and rightly so, the US should not and wont seek a permission slip to defend herself.

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• 35% said Jews "should stop playing the victim because of the Holocaust and persecution of 50 years ago."
  
• 16.1% said it "would be better if the state of Israel did not exist and the Palestinians got their land back."
  
• 40% think Jews have a "particular relationship with money."

The people polled were asked four questions about the Middle East conflict. Nearly one-third proved clueless. Only 6.2 per cent gave correct answers.

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:
I really hope he wins again, just to here you cry for 4 more years, this stuff is good.

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the G-man said:
The need of the left to consult with "our allies" on matters of our own security seems to be steeped in some sort of assumption that Europe is intellectually and/or morally superior.

But is it?

A new poll surveyed residents of nine European countries--Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain--about their attitudes toward Jews. Among the findings:

• 35% said Jews "should stop playing the victim because of the Holocaust and persecution of 50 years ago."
  
• 16.1% said it "would be better if the state of Israel did not exist and the Palestinians got their land back."
  
• 40% think Jews have a "particular relationship with money."

And the poll shows that Europeans aren't exactly the experts on world affairs that the liberals want us to think:

The people polled were asked four questions about the Middle East conflict. Nearly one-third proved clueless. Only 6.2 per cent gave correct answers.

In other words, our friends on the left want us to "seek permission" from a group that, at best, represents a constituency with no moral or intellectual superiority to our own and, at worst, is a bunch of ignorant racists.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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Why thank you for the high praise!

Granted, I'm danish and Denmark weren't included in the poll. But still.......

I don´t think that there are lot of Europeans (except the French ) who claims moral superiority against the US. What Europeans are saying is that America certainly doesn't hold it either.

Of course, no country should seek permission to defend itself. What many find wrong with that statement however, is that few people can find any reason why the US. should defend itself against Iraq, there was no immediate threat. Probably never would be by the way it looks, what with Saddam probably not having any WMD.

"The United States will not seek a permission slip to defend itself"

Nor should it! But, there is a problem with that statement. I think one of the other reasons why Iraq was invaded was because Saddam Hussein was a dictator, he didn't think like America. This leaves an open question, who's next?
With the statement Bush made he can justify any invasion on virtually any nation that doesn't think like he does (I know that's an exxageration, but bear with me) saying that it posed a threat to the security of the U.S.A.
Iran, Yemen, Syria, Saudi Arabia, even North Korea.
Those are nations that have a different regime than Democracy. And some way you can argue the case that any non democratic nation poses a threat to a democratic nation, and then justify an attack.
I think that is why many people don't like the Statement Bush made. He may not have that scenario in mind, but he certainly opened the door for it.


China too is not a democratic nation.....

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Yes, they destroyed their carreers and built new ones in the anti-war liberal speech circuit. Same thing with whats his name now who left the Clinton administration and called them liars, he became a instant hit on the conservitaive speech circuit, and doing work for Fox.

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whomod cracks me up again, he presents his opinion as proven fact.

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Chant said:
[I don´t think that there are lot of Europeans (except the French ) who claims moral superiority against the US. What Europeans are saying is that America certainly doesn't hold it either.

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Steve T said:

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Yes, they destroyed their carreers and built new ones in the anti-war liberal speech circuit. Same thing with whats his name now who left the Clinton administration and called them liars, he became a instant hit on the conservitaive speech circuit, and doing work for Fox.

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whomod cracks me up again, he presents his opinion as proven fact.

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Was he being deliberately ironic?

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britneyspearsatemyshorts said:


Whats ironic?

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We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html

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Senators were told Iraqi weapons could hit U.S.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson said Monday the Bush administration last year told him and other senators that Iraq not only had weapons of mass destruction, but they had the means to deliver them to East Coast cities.

Nelson, D-Tallahassee, said about 75 senators got that news during a classified briefing before last October's congressional vote authorizing the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Nelson voted in favor of using military force.

Nelson said he couldn't reveal who in the administration gave the briefing.

The White House directed questions about the matter to the Department of Defense. Defense officials had no comment on Nelson's claim.

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Lies lies lies, yeah ah.

Most likely delivered by Slick Cheney.

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Posted by Whomod, Jan 28, 2004:
Just as an aside, when is Bush going to offer a retraction of his incorrect comments:

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George W. Bush, from the opening weeks of the Iraq war, when mobile labs were first found, prior to their being swept clean of evidence:

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/g8/interview5.html






Oh no, he just makes wild assertions which he presents as FACT and tosses them into the air. If they're found out to be false, then they re-spin it to something resembling "WMD-related programs" rather than saying he was wrong.

I beleive I was accused of presnting my opinion as fact a couple of posts up. Hell, these guys do it on an almost daily basis!

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As already answered repeatedly, that was a statement he made in full belief that a smoking gun had been found. And it was only later after a full sweep of the mobile labs that it was found not to be the smoking gun, that Iraq's captured mobile labs were initially believed to be.

I believe Bush has made more than enough acknowlegement of this.

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Posted by Whomod, Jan 29, 2004:
Lies lies lies, yeah ah.

Most likely delivered by Slick Cheney.

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This and the other unproven charges, which you allege as fact, are small footnote technicalities, which David Kay in his Senate hearing today even acknowledged to be a failure of intelligence, not deception by Bush to mislead the country into war.

Once again, the big picture...

• Saddam's genocide of an estimated 1 million of his own people,
• Saddam's prior pursuit and possession of WMD's,
• Saddam's use of WMD's on Iranians and his own people,
• Saddam's documented secret WMD program to again obtain WMD's (whether or not he had successfully done so at the time if the March 2003 invasion),
• Saddam's defiance of the 1991 peace agreement,
• Saddam's non-compliance with U.N. weapons inspections,
• Saddam's defiance of ten U.N. resolutions calling on Saddam directly to disarm, the last voted in September 2002, just 6 months before the U.S. invasion, calling on Saddam to disarm and submit to inspections, or face "severe consequences",
  

...ALL speak of of a threat and justification for invasion that Bush-hating head-in-the-sand liberals choose to ignore.

Again, the Congress and Senate get largely the same constantly updated intelligence the White House gets, and if they were "misinformed" (as Democrats after-the-fact allege) in their vote to authorize an Iraq invasion, it is THEIR idiocy, and not the President's deception.

Again, prior to the Iraq invasion, virtually everyone in the White House, Senate Congress, the U.S. intelligence community, and foreign governments, including Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, and the prior Clinton administration, had ALL argued for regime change in Iraq, and all argued that there was an emerging threat in Iraq.

Blaming the intelligence failure on Bush, in an act of slanderous liberal revisionism that ignores the facts, to try and trash Bush, is deliberate manipulation of the truth for pure and simple self-serving (and divisive) political purposes, attempting to smear Bush.

David Kay said in his Senate hearing today that regardless of the WMD's not being found (specifically answering Sen John Warner) that although he believes it unlikely at this point, WMD's could still be found.

I'm envisioning the F-16's that were found buried in the sand.
And Iraq has a lot of sand.

Kay also said that regardless of WMD's not being found, clear evidence was found that Saddam Hussein was still in clear breach of the U.N.'s prohibition of WMD's, having a clear WMD program in place, ready to begin WMD production as soon as weapons inspectors would have left.
And Kay said that it was absolutely the right thing for the U.S. to do, to go in and remove Hussein, and that the world is absolutely a safer place with Hussein removed from power.

What you raise, again and again, Whomod, are technicalities that ignore the big picture.

And you also ignore that Libya has surrendered its nuclear weapons program, as a direct result of U.S. invasion of Iraq.
An imminent threat that we didn't even know existed, until Libya revealed and surrendered it.
Which, for me, destroys the credibility of wrongheaded liberals who just hate Bush and want to trash him, no matter what the facts, and say there "was no evidence of an imminent threat."

Saddam wanted WMD's. If he didn't have them already, he would have gotten them sooner or later, if not deposed by the U.S.
And given the examples of Libya and North Korea, probably a lot sooner than shrill liberal rhetoric trying to slander the President would like us to believe.

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the G-man said:
The need of the left to consult with "our allies" on matters of our own security seems to be steeped in some sort of assumption that Europe is intellectually and/or morally superior.

But is it?

A new poll surveyed residents of nine European countries--Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain--about their attitudes toward Jews. Among the findings:

• 35% said Jews "should stop playing the victim because of the Holocaust and persecution of 50 years ago."
  
• 16.1% said it "would be better if the state of Israel did not exist and the Palestinians got their land back."
  
• 40% think Jews have a "particular relationship with money."

And the poll shows that Europeans aren't exactly the experts on world affairs that the liberals want us to think:

The people polled were asked four questions about the Middle East conflict. Nearly one-third proved clueless. Only 6.2 per cent gave correct answers.

In other words, our friends on the left want us to "seek permission" from a group that, at best, represents a constituency with no moral or intellectual superiority to our own and, at worst, is a bunch of ignorant racists.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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Bush seems to have lied. The fact that we have not found WMD has nothing to do with it. First, the Aluminium tubes for uranium enrichment. But they can't be used for that, they are for rockets. And it seems GWB's people knew this. Second is the attempt to buy Uranium from Nigeria by Iraq. It was a total sham, and it seems to have been known as a sham by Cheney *a year* before GWB mentioned it in the State of the Union. Lastly was Powell's (I think it was him) comment about unmanned arial vehicles reaching American soil. This one is a farce of the highest order. Does Saddam have space warping technology now? These things couldn't get to Isreal easily, let alone the US.

All of this is part of a plan of misinformation, designed to scare the hell out of the American people, it seems. They are very serious charges, and unless the Administration is holding back some exhonerating evidence, they seem to be in trouble.

This leads to the second problem that the administration has, and it has nothing to do with a lack of WMD, either. That is the case for *why* we needed to invade Iraq today, right now, can't wait a second. Why couldn't we allow more time for inspections? What was the rationale for immediate threat? Saddam has been sitting there for 12 years in violation of UN mandates, in possession of WMD, etc. So why do we have to go now? The rhetoric, of course, was that Saddam was about to attack us. And that he was linked to al Qaeda.

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And you also ignore that Libya has surrendered its nuclear weapons program, as a direct result of U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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I wonder how the same poll would run in relation to black people in the US? Or Aborigines or Asians in Australia, or Asians in Canada, for that matter.

I'm pro-Israel and pro-Zionist, but I think Israel should be subject to UN economic sanctions for what they're doing. And I also think Israel should stop playing the victim of the Holocaust (not Jews), because Israel uses it as an excuse to do what it wishes against international criticism. So you can drop me in the 35%, too.

You can be pro-Jewish, and pro-Israel, but against the anti-Palestinian policies of Israel. You can even be Jewish and against Israel's occupation of Palestine.

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Dave said:

Knee-jerk Republican / Bushite defence is concerned with retrospective changes to the rationale for invasion.

Suddenly the Republicans are deeply concerned with human rights in Iraq. Oh-ho, that's why we invaded!

Absolute wank. Bush said Saddam was an immmediate threat because of WMDs. That's why Iraq was invaded. It did not have WMDs. Either Bush was lying, or most of the US intelligence agency heads shuld be sacked (yeah yeah, blame the Brits, but were was the corroborating evidence that even newspaper reports need before they publish a story, let alone politicians need to start a war?)


The invasion of Iraq has produced some great things. Iraq has a chance of being a democratically elected country (even if the occupation is a shoddy affair). Libya has decided to join the human race, and Sudan has stopped its civil war (both Libya and Sudan were shit scared they'd be next). Iran is being nice for the first time in years. Even Syria is trying to behave. The invasion is a big stick to coerce such regimes into line.

But lets be honest about it. Iraq wasn't invaded because they were hundreds of thousands dead at the hands of Saddam's torturers. No one in Washington gave a shit about the dead and tortured, and never have.

Saddam was deposed either because there was a monumental fuck up on intelligence on WMDs, or because the Bush administration decided the Saudis couldn't be counted on after 9/11 (most of the hijackers were Saudis) and it would be good to secure strategic oil interests in the region.

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Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:


And once again, you've misrepresented what Bush clearly listed as the reasons for going to war in Iraq in the first place, again alleging falsely that the SOLE reason we went to war was because of "imminent threat" of WMD's.
As I've pointed out repeatedly OVER AND OVER, that is a deliberate misrepresentation easily disproven by any of Bush's speeches leading up to the war in March, particularly his 1/28/2003 speech, and his 3/17/2003 speeches that the Democrats constantly distort:
www.whitehouse.gov

State of the Union Address, 1/28/2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
(in particular, the concluding 18 minutes of his 60 minute speech )

Saddam Hussein has 48 hours to leave Iraq, on the eve of invasion, clearly stating the reasons for war in Iraq, on 3/17/2003
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html


As is clear in his speeches, the primary reason for the invasion were:

• years of Iraq's defiance of the U.N.,
• 10 U.N. resolutions that called for Iraq's disarmament
• Stockpiles of WMD's that his government's inventory paperwork, and the U.N., said were missing, and Iraq's unwillingness for many years to account for them.
• Hussein's massive and systematic torture, murder and rape of his own citizens.
• Saddam Hussein's support of terrorism throughout the Arab region. His support of various Palestinian terror groups is well documented. Saddam Hussein made no secret to the world that he would give $15,000 to the family of any Palestinian who would suicide bomb Israel. I've seen news footage of many ceremonies where the check was given to a Palestinian family, post-bombing.
• It was no secret for many months before the war that the Bush administration intended this reconstruction of Iraq, in order to plant democracy in Iraq, and have it cause a domino effect, spreading democracy throughout the Arab region.

The allegation that the Iraq invasion/occupation was "SOLELY" because of WMD's is absolutely false, and absolutely completely a lie perpetrated by Democrats, and anti-American liberals worldwide.
Bush's speeches clearly say otherwise, that there were MANY reasons for invading Iraq.

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MARGARET WARNER: Senator McCain, do you see evidence of exaggeration or manipulation?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I do not. President Clinton in 1998 stated unequivocally that we needed a regime change, because of Saddam Hussein's continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Nor do I believe this president of the United States, or vice president would either.

This is a serious charge and I categorically reject it. Yes, I believe that mistakes were made and yes we need to have a review of it, but somehow to believe that two administrations intentionally misled the American people, I think is a leap of imagination that I cannot take nor do I believe the majority of the American people would ... the majority of the American people are glad that the country[the U.S.], Iraq, and the world, is rid of Saddam Hussein.

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Dave the Wonder Boy said:
"A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased."
----Hans Frank, Germany's Governor General of Poland, before he was hanged at Nuremberg

I say this as an American of German descent, who is largely proud of his German history. But in this case, let the punishment fit the crime !

I've dated three women who immigrated to Germany, before coming to the U.S.
Two were Polish, and one Iranian. All quite beautiful. All said that it was the most cold and racist place they've ever lived, and they were treated, more than anywhere else they've lived, "like foreigners".

I've also seen several articles about attacks on immigrants to Germany as well, beyond these personal accounts.

I once met a man named Charlupsky, a former Polish Jew who immigrated to the U.S. after the war with his wife. Both he and his wife had survived Auschwitz.
We had a conversation one day about WW II, and I was unaware at that point of his past. And just very casually and calmly in a matter-of-fact way, he rolled up his sleeve and showed me the Nazi-imprinted numbers tattooed on his arm. He said he and his wife had survived Auschwitz.
I've seen a lot of documentaries, about how the burned ashes dispersed in the fields surrounding Auschwitz elevated the ground six feet, I've seen footage of bulldozers pushing a panorama of emaciated naked corpses into a mass grave. But nothing struck me with more horror about these events than this amiable 70-year old man standing right in front of me with the numbers tattooed on his arm.

So I know in some ways it seems disproportionate, but from the examples I just gave. No, I don't think the message has fully sunk in.

Yours is the only country in Europe that actually tried to protect its Jews, and didn't eagerly hand them over to the Germans.

And many Jews who tried to return to their native towns, post-war, were driven out, or killed by the local population, NOT the Germans.
Hence the need for a Jewish homeland in Israel, in 1948.

~

On a different issue, Chant, how do you feel about France selling a nuclear reactor to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, that the Israelis bombed to the ground in 1981 ?

And how do you feel about Russia selling reactors to Iran, that the Iranians, it seems quite clear, are attempting to use to create weapons grade plutonium?

How do you feel about a nuclear armed North Korea?

Or a Libya that almost went nuclear, before they chose to submit to U.N. dismantlement of it in recent weeks?

Does it alarm you that these fanatical regimes have or are/were on the brink of obtaining nukes ? It seems that Europeans are suicidally indifferent to this, while Americans are very concerned.
Which is extremely odd to me, since Europeans are within much closer missile range to these rogue countries.

And how do you feel that it is EUROPEAN states that are providing this capability to fanatical and fundamentalist/extremist states?
It seems to me that countries like France and Russia lose all credibility as diplomatically "responsible" nations when they so carelessly hand out this technology to rogue nations.


And I'm mystified what the logic is, that Europeans have no problem with these nuclear transactions, but have a huge problem with U.S. removal of a regime that has a long checklist of evil beyond WMD's, 12 years of U.N. defiance, and that the world is unquestionably a better place without.

It just makes no sense to me.

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