For years the Bush administration has tried to tie Iraq to 9/11. Despite the fact that this has been pretty much refuted, we still hear politicians say "we are fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here."

Question for Debate:

1. Would the Bush administrtion have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

1. Would the Bush have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?


No. He would have nothing close to a majority of support in any angle you could cut it to start the war, keep support for it, and still keep his party close to staying stable. He really does not at this point, its just the effects of 9-11 were slow to come off of and see what has occurred. This is why basically the government is messed up, because we have an administration that will not care for any other view but there own on the issue. There is nothing in reality that can support our occupation now save for some phony nation building idea that fails day to day.



2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

No.

1. Would the Bush administrtion have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

The Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes had deep roots in the neo-conservatives, so this very likely could have happened without 9/11. There are many ways to start a war, and in our history the US has deliberately provoked conflict. The sinking of the Main and marching near disputed Mexican territory are two that come immediately to mind. There are other examples that I'm too caffeine-deprived at this moment to research.

Now don't take this as a slam at the US. Other countries have done the same thing. History is full of less than honorable foreign policies.

Damn nasty world, isn't it?

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

I can envision several scenarious that would have come close to the 9/11 effect. Hostages could have been taken somehow, possibly contrived but still having oomph from the Iran hostage crisis of the 1980s. It's always effective to lure the enemy into an initial strike, which is arguably how the Civil War got touched off. I'm not sure that sinking a ship in a harbor would work these days. Might have needed a few military aircraft to have been shot down.

The principle at work here is if a world power really wants to start a war, it can be done in ways that make the opposition look like the bad guys. Or it can be done through a military coup internally, but that's pretty darn messy.

The administration took advantage of the 9/11 effect to invade Iraq, it worked, and there you go. Because 9/11 made it easy, some suspect the administration of either letting the attack happen or causing it to happen. Eh, maybe so, maybe not. I'll just call it a lucky political break, heavy on the sardonic tone.

1. Yes, Saddam would have not stopped playing his game and he was also trying to decimate the US economy by trading oil in Euro's rather than the dollar. Regardless, I think the war was inevitable which even Clinton nearly went back there.

2. Yes, Saddam was overwhelming defiant with not only US demands, but UN resolutions. I think there was more than enough to authorize removal of the regime.

1. Would the Bush administrtion have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

I personally think there is a good chance they would have. The situation with Saddam was untenable. We had been essentially engaged in conflict with them for a decade, with no end in site. Without regurgitating them here, if you look at the reasons I put forward for the invasion, most of them were irrelevant of the attack of 9-11...that just helped bring some of them into focus. Even the likely successors to Saddam were considered worse, so if anything, the bad situation was going to be viewed as something that was just going to get worse.

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

Ahhh, now this is an entirely different question. No, I don't think it would have. As I said above, I think 9-11 brought some of the issues we were having with Iraq into sharp relief. Without that added emphasis, I don't think Congress would have authorized invasion.

So, given those two conflicting scenarios, I think basically the status quo with Iraq would have been maintained. Given that, it seems a foregone conclusion that 9-11 would have occurred eventually. Remember, the reason UBL gave for the attack was our presence in Saudi Arabia, which was due solely to the situation in Iraq, and also our lack of strong response for other attacks against us, which not attacking Iraq would only have reinforced. So, UBL would still have planned and executed an attack eventually, at which time Congress would have given the autorization, which brings us right back to where we are now. It's basically the same question as to whether we would have declared war on Japan if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened. No, we wouldn't...but Pearl Harbor or something very similar was going to happen, as the factors that led up to that attack were already in place and weren't going to change, so it's essentially a moot discussion.

1. No.

2. No.

9/11 fundamentally changed the outlook of the Bush administration. They changed from the status quo "defensive" posture to an aggressive offensive "pre-emptive" posture.

The Bush doctrine would have been politically impossible prior to 9/11.

Saddam can thank Bin Laden for losing his regime. Bin Laden miscalculated and thought America would withdraw from the Islamic world after they witnessed the barbarism that his followers were capable of perpetrating on the American people. He was wrong.

We're at war because of 9/11. Period. End of story.

1. Would the Bush administrtion have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

It was in the 2000 Republican National Committee platform, so yes. Bill Clinton had badmouthed Saddam Hussein as well; as a matter of fact, President George H.W. Bush by his rhetoric was setting the stage for the overthrow of the Iraqi dictator, but he was smart enough not to try it.

It wasn't a new idea. Acting on it was what was new. The events of 9/11/2001 was a "gimme" for G.W. Bush, who was already hot to trot on the idea of getting the people who "tried to kill my dad," and it wasn't because of an overwhelming desire to bring democracy to the Iraqi people.

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

It would have been difficult to get Congressional authorization in the absence of a catastrophe such as 9/11. Clearly, Iraq did not appear able to harm the United States, until the insinuations came that somehow the Iraqi dictator would not only brook the presence of another, separate leader in his country; but also conspire with said terrorist leader(s).

Without the events of 9/11/2001, it would have been harder for a Senator or U.S. Representative to sell yet another war to the constituency back home. First Americans had to be scared, by bomb threats, anthrax-laced letters, what have you.

But what GW did worked, and billions upon billions of dollars were diverted from the Afghanistan front as well as equipment and, most importantly, troops. As a result, we have the quagmire that isn't going to go away.

Clinton did a lot more than "bad mouth" Iraq. He formulated the official American policy of "regime change" in Iraq. What does that imply if not explicity state? I know Clinton said a lot of things that he didn't really mean, but the FACT of the matter is that the official policy of the United States government when Bill Clinton left office was that the Saddam Hussein government should be replaced.

A few quotes from democrats during the Clinton era:



Clinton also attacked Iraq militarily. He launched bombing raids and cruise missile strikes multiple times.




This is just hokum, excuse me. "Diverted billions of dollars from the Afghanistan front"??? The Taliban government was defeated in several weeks times by a relatively small force of US military. The Tora Bora region, which anti-military types like John Kerry point to as "having Bin Laden in our sights" was incompatible with a large expeditionary force. How in the world would you supply such troops? How would they operate in large numbers, at high altitudes without years worth of extensive training? What Kerry talked about was practically impossible. It's no wonder that those who glom onto that way of thinking are those in our society with the least knowledge of military matters.

As I said in my previous post, the 9/11 attacks changed the ORIENTATION of the Bush administration. It went beyond the tit-for-tat responses of the past. In other words, Bush would not have been satisfied to "only" attack Afghanistan and Bin Laden's group. He declared war on "terror", not war on "Al Qaeda".

What the democrats have apparently advocated is a scaled back operation that would accomplish almost nothing long term. It's like "declaring war on organized crime" and then declaring the job done when Gotti was put in jail. That's it? No. The Bush people pushed for, and got congressional buy-in for a comprehensive "war on terror" that massively repositioned the US stance toward global threats, put us on offensive footing against those groups AND the states that support them (like Iraq... and Iran, Syria, N. Korea, and others) and authorized us to attack them militarily, financially and economically, politically, etc.

There is NO WAY that such a comprehensive effort would have been undertaken without 9/11. No possible way.

It would have been the same old same old like the Clinton responses to the USS Cole, Khobar Towers bombings, Kenyan Embassy bombings, etc. Ineffective law enforcement type half measures.

Anyone who read the PNAC document of strategy designed in 1997-, need we reiterate what this is once again-The Project for the New American Century, a think tank, funded by three foundations closely tied to Persian Gulf oil and weapons and defense industries, drafted the war plan for U.S. global domination through military power. Members are and publicly signed: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Dan Quayle, Billy Kristol (Chair and co Founder, so dont let him fool you by his nice guy demeanor on TV, this guy is a shark) Richard Perle, Max Boot along with a few lesser know names, planned ' A “core mission” for the transformed U.S. military to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars,” according to the PNAC.

The PNAC document ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ (you can search it on their website) states the need to take military control of Middle East oilfields, and maintain control.
In addition to a long list of countries requiring American imposed “regime change”, the PNAC has ambitious plans. There is a need for the militarization of space, American control of the Internet, and a biological weapon that can target specific races - something the PNAC terms “a politically useful tool”. Norman Podhoretz (PNAC) believes that we are now engaged in “World War IV”, and the current administration has every intention of winning this undeclared war.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/



http://www.reasoned.org/e_pnac.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_t...merican_Century

Now,
1. Would the Bush administration have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?
Yes. These neocons had been itching for a puppet for years, all of them were waiting in the wings for the perfect opportunity.
2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?
Anything , even minor or fabricated could have triggered what was inevitable, I mean look at the names and the power behind those names. They had at the most 8 years, if not perhaps a long delay of plan and all of them are in their 50's and 60's. They would have made it happen. Threats of mushroom clouds would have come about one way or another.

You know I find it astounding due to the information out there that people have ignored the statements of the PNAC, readily available for years on the internet, discussed at length here many times, especially after 911, and still! believe Iraq was about liberation and democracy. This is world and oil domination people! Pre-planned, badly executed, using the US military (THATS OUR MEN AND WOMEN, CHILDREN , HUSBANDS, WIVES) as pure cannon fodder, with absolutely no conscience what -so- ever.
And the PEOPLE, they read and cannot COMPREHEND what they are reading and effectively translate it into what IS HAPPENING.
If you believe that World Domination and Oil domination is good for us, then thats a legit argument, but otherwise..dont believe a word.

Bt you know what Clinton DIDN'T do?

Invade Invade Iraq with no plan for post-war transition, and get the US involved in an unholy mess which has reduced US strength and prestige around the world, tied up the entiure conventional ground force of the US in an losing struggle with no end or reasonable long-term strategy, killed almost 3000 US soldiers and wounded another 18,000 or so, poured over half a trillion US taxpayer dollars into a hole, weakened the US dollar and economy, CREATED a new regional cell of Al qaida, and destabilised an entire critical region of the world.

I don't recall Clinton doing any of that...



Really?

Forgive me for opposing your wild assertion with facts:

http://www.cfr.org/publication/10551/

The Afghan Taliban is better organized today than it was in 2001, they have more recruits. (...), they have largely recovered from their initial defeat, and are proving a savvy enemy for coalition forces."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092506R.shtml (Newsweek article)

"In the countryside over the past year Taliban guerrillas have filled a power vacuum that had been created by the relatively light NATO and US military footprint of some 40,000 soldiers. (...) There are not nearly enough US, Western or Afghan troops or resources in the field to counter them.

the Taliban seems to be flush with cash, thanks to the guerrillas' alliance with prosperous opium traffickers. The fighters are paid more than $5 a day - good money in Afghanistan, and at least twice what the new Afghan National Army's 30,000 soldiers receive. It's a bad sign, too, that a shortage of local police has led Karzai to approve a plan allowing local warlords - often traffickers themselves - to rebuild their private armies."[/i]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-06...tan-cover_x.htm

"Revived Taliban waging fill blown insurgency. (...) The United States and its allies have scrimped on money and manpower. Iraq has distracted the United States from the difficult tasks of subduing the Taliban and rebuilding Afghanistan. For Afghanistan, the results have been too few Western troops, too little money and a lack of coherent strategy.

And so on. As soon as Iraq came up, Afghanistan was ignored, and now the US presence there is minimal, and its troops are even more poorly equipped and supplied than the US troops in Iraq. Now other coalition nations are manning the front lines against the Taliban, and suffering casualties for it.

The fact of Bush' Jr s presidency is that he waged two wars, one justified and one not, and he botched both of them. Afghanistan was all but won, until the US pulled out all its troops and money for the ill-fated venture into Iraq. Now the Taliban is stronger in Afghanistan than they have ever be.

John Kerry may not be very quoteworthy as a rule, considering his silly mistakes, but he did have one great quote worth repeating: "George Bush has a cut-and-run policy in Afghanistan, and a stant-still-and-lose policy in Iraq."




And so he decidied to go after the most prolific terror-supporting state in the Middle East in his war on terror? Oh wait, that was and still is Saudi Arabia. Well the second most? Oh wait, that is Egypt. Third most? Iran. Fourth most? Syria. In fact Iraq was one of the LEAST terror supporting states of all states in the Middle East. Even Kuwait gave more money to Islamic Jihad and Hamas than Iraq did. So what were you saying again about Bush jr. declaring a 'war on terror'?



Yes, as opposed to the present, which is SO much better. NK testing nukes on Bush's watch. Iran building Nukes essentially freely on Bush's watch. Iraq a bloody losing battle on Bush's watch. Afghanistan becoming a bloody jihadist ruled state on Bush's watch. Al qaida stronger now than they were before 9/11 on Bush's watch. US deemed LESS safe by the combined US intelligence committee since before the war on Iraq on Bush's watch. Complete alienation of world opinion, which Clinton had garnered amazingly well, on Bush's watch.

Maybe Clinton didn't improve the situation, maybe he did. I'm hardly the biggest Clinton defender here. But at least he did not make every single relevant situation regarding the war on terror MUCH, MUCH WORSE by his actions.

This is for YOUR short memory, lordhelmet:

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/06/far04018.html

Did you really think I was making this up? That's Rush Limbaugh's job, not the job of a member of the opposition party.

I tried to find a link to the 2000 RNC platform, but I guess its age meant its obsolescence on the Internet. There used to be a C-SPAN link with the actual platform on it. Fortunately, many of us still have our memories from "the year before 9/11".

And yes, where the hell do you think the United States would be devoting its money, equipment and personnel were it not for Iraq? Whatever happened to Dubya Boy's assertion, "We will not rest until we find Osama bin Laden...he is our number one priority"?

Unless OBL was actually GW's buddy, wouldn't the troops still have been trying to make a concerted effort to find him were Iraq not the colossally expensive and time-consuming side trip that it became in the SO-CALLED Global War on Terror?

Is your memory really that short? Or just selective?

Fact One: The Republicans, particularly the NeoCons, had Saddam Hussein in their sights before 9/11.

Fact Two: The Republican administration tried its damndest to link Saddam Hussein to the perpetrators of 9/11. And even though they couldn't through cold hard facts, Bush constantly mentioning Saddam Hussein in the same sentence as the 9/11 attacks actually caused many Americans to think that he did have something to do with it, a little ploy that our upstanding Christian president did nothing to correct so long as it worked to his advantage.

Fact Three: Under the leadership of George W. Bush, the military did NOT finish the job in Afghanistan before its disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Fact Four: The Taliban is experiencing a resurgence in Afghanistan, and U.S. troops are still needed in the region. The Taliban has not been stamped out by any stretch of the imagination.

Fact Five: Osama bin Laden, the reputed arch fiend behind the 9/11 attacks, is still at large.

Honestly, why do we have to refresh some peoples' memories so often around here, especially when they can recite chapter and verse of Vince Foster's suicide during the Clinton administration?

Maybe the GOP could use some Gingko Biloba supplement...

Artemise, Vermillion and I have addressed this. If George W. Bush had declared war on Al Qaeda instead of on a word, we might have actually been closer to winning something by now.

And ignore the rest of the anti-American terrorist groups in the world? Just go after ONE small sect of the broader global terrorism world?

Is THAT what you're advocating here?

Bush has said all along that this war against terror is comprehensive. He's said it will be "difficult". He said it will last a "long time". He said it would require many sacrifices among our military and our population. What part of that didn't he make clear? What part didn't you hear?

That seems to be the sticking point for democrats and the left in general. They seem to advocate only some, not all of our war on terrorists, and only if it can be wrapped up in a 60 minute doc-drama complete with commercial breaks! In other words, only the actions they perceive as "easy".

And this gets back to the Clinton policy on regime change which he forumlated because it sounded good while at the same time he had ZERO INTENTION of implementing it. Clinton, and his democrat administration were more than happy to leave the problem for someone else to deal with so that his selfish legacy could be untainted by the difficulties involved with confronting terrorists, not just ignoring them, running from them, or pretending they did not exist! He could NOT, after all, compromise his poll numbers to do what was required if it would be difficult!

The democrats seem intent on going back to the Clinton method of "swatting at flies" when it comes to terrorism. That, plus coddling them like Clinton did with the terrorist Arafat who visited the White House more times than our "allies" did. And what did that get us? What did all that "Kumbaya-lets-all-just-get-along" get our country!?

It got us 9/11. It got us the USS Cole. It got us the embassy bombings and the Khobar towers.

We are not dealing with Ivy League sophisticates among our enemies. If you think John Kerry looks down on our troops for their lack of pedigree education, just think how he should look at Bin Laden and the rest of the terrorists who embrace a dark ages world-view and REJECT the values of America and the west in general. Furthemore, they are fully willing to kill not only themselves but innocents to further their warped cause.

And in light of such a threat, we hear the democrats recoiling in horror at the reality associated with confronting such people. Day after Day after Day we hear casualty statistics trumpted out there as though that very FACT should make us crawl under our collective beds and give up the ghost. We hear ENDLESS snipes, gripes, criticisms, and complaints about our war effort without ANY THOUGHT given to the impact our our troops, our enemies, and our overall efforts in this death struggle.

It's all BUSH'S FAULT! we are told. HE CREATED terrorists! HE LIED! HE'S INCOMPETENT!

Enough!! It's tiring I tell you. People who face reality cannot make such pronouncements. People who are sheltered, spoiled, and who utterly take for granted our place in the world and the freedoms that bloodshed secured for us can only make such pronouncements. People who think that the world is a nice place and that there are no predators in this world other than those WE CREATE can make such pronouncements.

Confronting Islamist terror is inevitable whether we like it or not. We can do it now, or we can do it later. But that doesn't change the FACT that it has to be done.

We can choose to do it when we have the military advantage, when we can get by relatively cheap (by historical war standards) and before these fanatics get their hands on some REAL weaponry.

It's really up to us. We can take the easy way out which just delays the inevitable or we can act now. We can delude ourselves into thinking that dealing with primatives who don't share our values can be done with "talk", "understanding" and "negotiation"..... or we can be realistic.

The democrats have already put their stake in the ground. They abhor the hard effort and sacrifice associated with confronting Islamist terror. They want to take a "smarter" approach that takes military off the table and concentrates on making the French like us while not upsetting the "bee's nest" of Islamists.

I respectfully assert that such a strategy can not and would not work.

Firstly, way to completely ignore my post and all the specific issues and questions I asked of you.

Secondly, your point above is just silly.

Firstly, lets at least START with Al qaida, shall we? They are after all the nation responsible for 9/11 and the other attacks you mentioned. So why is Al qaida stronger now than it was before 9/11? Why has the 'war against Terror' left Al qaida in a BETTER position now than before it started?

Because of Iraq. This sideshow which occupied the US administration and the US military was a total sideshow from the war on terror, Iraq was one of the LEAST terror-funding states in the entire Middle East. It had NO significant links to Al qaida, as confirmed by a US senate investigation. Iraq was behind ZERO attack on the US outside Iraq's own borders. So while this irrelevant sideshow takes place, the REAL war on terror goes unfought. Afghanistan returns to Taliban rule, Al Qaida gets stronger. Bin Laden remains at large and his primary funders, Saudi Arabia, remain free of this so-called 'war on terror'.

Nobody is advocating ONLY going after Al qaida and nobody else, but here are a couple reasonable suggestions for anyone considering a REAL war on terror:
-Firstly, Go after Al qaida like you promised you would, don't make it a secondary target with reduced funding and resources. Don't disband (As Bush Jr did) the CIA group created specifically to target Bin Laden. Don't leave them alone to the point where they start getting stronger and stronger again.
-Secondly, before engaging your entire mobile military ground force and Hundreds of billions of dollars in attacking a nation as a part of the war on terror, make sure they are a target significantly way linked with global terrorism. Every single one of Iraq's neighbours, including little Kuwait, supplied more money than Iraq did in anti-Israeli terrorism, EVERY ONE. Saudi Arabia alone provides more money to Hamas and other such groups than every other Middle Eastern nation combined.
-Thirdly: make sure you don't deliberatly disregard every advisor you have when invading a country, and assume everything after the war will be just fine. Otherwise you might find your actions are the DIRECT CAUSE of an increase in terrorism, a growth of instability, and result in a complete loss in the war on terror.




This is pure fiction. People (Democrats AND republicans) in the US are not against the war in Iraq because it 'isn't easy', they are against it because it is badly run, badly planned, badly executed and it is being LOST, all at HUGE expense to the USA taxpayers, not to mention the families of the 23,000 US casualties, but with no significant benefit. In fact, not only no benefit, but significant loss. Was the war SUPPOSED to make the US less safe than before it started? Was every measurable statistic of progress in Iraq SUPPOSED to be getting worse year after year? Was that all part of his 'Big Plan'?

Don't pretend the 'Democrats' are somehow imagining this: here is an interview with a couple of Republicans who were entirely in favour of the war in 2003:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB48J_0re2g




I can't speak for all Democrats of course, only you seem capable of that kind of sweeping generalisation, but I would guess most democrats ware intent on getting into a war on terror that is not a Complete and Utter failure on all fronts. They want a war on terror which does not leave the US much weaker, while Al qaida gets stronger. How's that for a revolutionary idea?




Thats fine, so how about we start doing it? Bush's presiency over the last 6 years has made Islamicist terrorism MORE of a threat to the US, has directly allowed them to get MORE powerful and MORE numerous. He has wasted hundreds of billions on US dollars and thousands of US lives on a sideshow that has nothing to do with the war on terror, all the while Al qaida grows stroinger and the still quite secure Bin Laden laughs himself to sleep.




And I respectfully assert that your 'strategy' is ab utter fabrication with no basis in reality whatsoever. The Democrats and the republicans BOTH want a secure United States free from threat from terrorism. The main difference is that all democrats and a lot of republicans are tired of a leader whose actions give direct and clear AID to the terrorists he claims to fight, whose actions have weakened the US and strengthened the terrorists, who pays lip service to the war on terror, but has made his country weaker, poorer, less safe and killed a lot of Americans to do NOTHING to advance this so called war.

But don't listen to me, listen to people who fight wars for a living:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ-O0oforKc

How about a "smarter" approach that takes into account the actual source countries of the terrorists, such as Vermillion suggested? That might take more guts than this administration has shown to date.

How about finishing one job as best the military can before diverting it to an entirely different area?

And, speaking of sacrifice, just what is your average American doing by way of sacrifice for the war effort?

Are we rationing anything? Are we collecting scrap metals for our "war effort"?

Or are you referring to the high gasoline prices we've been paying at the pumps? Gee, I didn't know that charging exorbitant prices for gasoline was the petroleum companies' way of supporting the war effort; I wonder if they know?

The fact is, the only people sacrificing anything for this war are those in the military and their families. There is woefully little by way of sacrifice that anyone in the rest of the country is doing. George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld certainly aren't sacrificing a damn thing. They take their vacations as planned. They're not doing without the basics, let alone the luxuries that their positions afford.

And of course, there is also the tremendous debt incurred by this administration that our children and grandchildren will also have to pay...

Oh, I see...We're supposed to sacrifice our FREEDOM OF SPEECH, just keep our mouths shut, and watch the situation in Iraq go from bad to worse to far worse...Patriotism is just keeping our mouths shut and letting Bush and his minions have carte blanche, right? Just let Big Brother do what Big Brother does and thereby provide a "united front" against the terrorists. What a crock...if we wouldn't believe it, how would the terrorists?

But back to Iraq and 9/11...

I reiterate that the Republicans had Iraq in their sights before 9/11/2001 took place, and I provided a link in support of that assertion.

I also believe that it would have been difficult to attack Iraq without 9/11 taking place, though possible. It's too bad about 9/11 serving as the impetus, because without it, this administration would have had to actually come up with more evidence of Iraq having WMDs or being an "imminent threat".

1. Would the Bush administration have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

Clearly, the answer is no. I do think that Iraq had been a thorn in the US's side for the previous decade, but Congress had no will to do anything about it. Sure the DoD was making plans for contingencies, but that's about it.

The 2000 Republican platform was mentioned earlier. Here's a link: 2000 Republican Platform courtesy of CNN.com

What's it say about Iraq?



Yes, the Republicans realized that Saddam was a huge problem that was festering in the Middle East. It advocating building a coalition (Bush failed to pull this off, but he did try), implementing the Iraq Liberation Act (which authorized money for resistance groups), restoring inspections (remember those??). The result of those inspections indicated (rightly or wrongly in hindsight) that Iraq was still in the WMD business and was hiding something. That's what initiated action against Iraq, just as the platform laid it out.

Dealing with Iraq was on the Republican radar, but the political will was not there until after 9/11.

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

Not a snowball chance in hell. The problem was "over there" until 9/11 woke us up as to how small the world really is and how hard a relatively small group could affect us. When Iraq continued to stonewall inspectors, giving many the impression that he was hiding something, action had to be taken in the view of both the Congress and the President.

If the purpose of a direct lie and the purpose of a misleading statement is to deceive, what is the difference?

LH, you've carried so much water for this administration, Rush Limbaugh would be humbled.

As horrific as the Cole attack was, how was an attack against a legitimate military target equivalent to flying airplanes into buildings? Once again, you tie these types of things together to make a bogus point.

And although Clinton implemented policy for regime change, it never came close to military intervention and you know it. It supported regime change from the inside because as you probably know, regime change by our military (for the purpose of regime change only) is illegal.

And thanks to people like you, President Hillary can invade countries at will without recourse as long as she has a democratic house and senate because of your bankrupted views. If you won't hold Bush accountable for getting it wrong when he has virtually unlimited resources to get it right, you can't hold Hillary wrong. As I've said on other posts - you have no more credibility because you've made arguments over and over for a legally corrupt administration. Nobody will take you seriously when the democrats do the same and you cry foul.

The invasion would have happened because that was Bush's policy going in. They intended to use the no fly zones, inspections, and whatever to create a war they know they could win. 9/11 just made it easier for them. Before the inspector's mission was accomplished (funny how Bush had no patience for them, but he wants us to be patient while our fellow Americans get blown into bite-sized chunks), Bush pulled them out and created the greatest debacle of our lifetime.

And you still cheer them on.

1. Would the Bush administrtion have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?

Likely not, but I'm not sure. There would have to be some sort of big catalyst. I think it's important to place some context of the time, which is often missing in pre-911 debates. At that time, we were involved in a low-level air war over Iraq. At the time, there were schools of thought in the Airforce that Iraq was already occupied. Strange but true, "air occupation" was a new paradigm. Back then, the airforce, deployment-wise (obviously not casualty wise, thank God) was in much the same position as the Army is now, and had been for ten long years. How things stood in 2000:

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

Doubtful, but I'm not sure where exactly the mess from before was leading or how it would end.

<biting tongue...choosing the right words...strumming fingers....trying not to be a jerk....>
Ok, got it. Marge, from Fargo:



MrsP, the US and Britain unilaterally enforced the no-fly zones without sanction (nor disapproval) of the UN. History will show that this action worked completely in keeping Saddam contained and advanced Clinton's policy of regime change from within - we protected the Kurds. Apparently while Clinton was doing nothing about Saddam by the way (not directed at you).

Anyhow, after 30,000 sorties, the Iraqis shot down ZERO coalition planes. This wasn't an airwar. It was a police patrol while shooting fish in a barrel when necessary.

Now, don't get me wrong, I would hope any of our troops would completely decimate whoever is attacking them regardless of the reason they are there or why they are attacked. But calling this an "air war" is a little disingenuous.

I respectfully disagree with you on this issue and hope I didn't make myself out to be an idiot once again...

1. Would the Bush administration have tried to go to war in Iraq if 9/11 had never happened? Why or why not?
They may have tried to go to war but it is not clear how they could possibly have pulled it off. Also, Rice was preparing to give her speech on missile defense spending on 9-11. That is a very different direction than democratizing the Middle East.

I don't recall any overt talk before the manna, er mandate from heaven came that gave the war/chicken hawk crown that hung out at 1600 PA Avenue back then the ability to get a free foreign policy move.

2. Would Congressional authorization have been granted without 9/11?

The poll watchers of the 2002 Congress let Bush Jr. have a much easier path to war than the 1990 version gave to his father.
People who knew better allowed the president to have this authorization to play the war card without coming up with a better alternative. Bush needed some leverage in negotiating with Iraq, but we pre-authorized a war and the results having been that bad since Germany issued Austria-Hungary a blank check in July 1914.


Congressional authorization would not have been granted with the evidence at hand. perhaps at no other time in US history would that authorization have been granted. Strike that, through most of the Cold War this probably would have been given to a Cold Warrior wielding the soft on communism card.