What amazes me more than anything is the willingness of some people to believe everything they hear, so long as it is in line with there personal beliefs. Did you know that with most issues have conflicting opinions and analogies that all vary to some extent?

The thing is I'm almost 100% convinced that highly opinionated anti-iraq war Americans, are not willing to take anything that may justify this war seriously, while they simontaniously believe just about anything that involves lies or gouvernment cover ups in regards to the war. This felling I have comes from talking to these individuals online in forums like this one. Not one person against this war was willing to really debate the issues I went over in the original post, unless it was to try and discredit some of the points of course. I wouldn't doubt if anyone against the war even listened to the audio interviews with former Iraqi general Georges Sada. Its like this issue is dead and nobody cares to give it a fair look anymore.

If you know anything about Bush you know there are no shortage of people willing to suggest he is a flat out liar or criminal, However I'll go over the first link, the second seems to be a follow up making a similar argument. In the first link lets study the following quote...........




This is so silly, here they are claiming they counted 935 false statements by Bush in the two years before the war in Iraq, making claims that Saddam had, or may be developing WMD's, and that there were possible ties with Al Qaeda. That was before we went in to even find these things out for sure, nearly everything between 2001 and early 2003, was based on intelligence.

Did some of this intelligence indicate that Saddam did not have these weapons? Yup, but at that point in history everything was inconclusive, he had advisers telling him Saddam was very much a threat even if he didn't have these WMD. This was later confirmed when we went into Iraq, by Charles Duelfer, and David Kay the two heads of the Iraq Survey Group. Its all in the original post. How in the hell do you knowingly make 935 false claims about a situation that was understood almost solely through intelligence at the time?

We didn't know anything for sure John, nobody did, apart from those working within the Saddam regime itself. In fact, we still don't know for sure today , there were indications that he shipped these weapons to Syria. He certainly had the time to do it, because he knew in advance that we were going to war with them. I urge you to listen to the video and audio clips with General Sada that are in the original post, and compare it to statements made by the CIA. If you read the original post you will see that there is conflicting evidence here which makes this issue "even today" inconclusive. I don't claim he did have the weapons when we decided to go to war, and I don't claim he didn't, because by looking at both ends of the argument the only logical conclusion I can come to is that we don't know for sure either way. Don't fall victim to believing everything you hear and going only to the sources that will support what you have come to believe.

The reason I have come to the conclusion that I don't know if Saddam had the weapons is because Ive read from respectable sources many things about Saddams abilities being less than we had anticipated. Ive considered many of the counter arguments. If I hadn't done that, who knows maybe Id be saying there is no doubt he had those weapons, that certainly would help further justify my strong support of the war, but im after the truth. For me as a person its important to learn about the truth on issues such as these.

Dingo


Well this is the way I see it. Many politicians point out that religion is a factor in this war, as well as "end times". However in most cases they are not expressing their personal beliefs, but rather pointing out that terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda believe in this thoroughly, which they do. Most of these nut cases are fixated on the Idea that they can bring about a biblical Armageddon.

Therefore religion and end times are factors in this war, even if you or I don't believe what these terrorist do, the important thing to remember is many of these terrorist very much believe what they ramble on about. I think perhaps when you hear a news report titled something like "Al Qaeda to bring about the end of times" consider the context carefully. In many cases what they are talking about is potential disasters brought about by terrorist who believe they can end the world, and could they end the world? I very highly doubt it, but they can cause a lot of damage trying, as has been shown before.

What exactly would a 'fair look' consist of? I'll grant that many intelligence reports and sources indicated that Saddam had an active WMD manufacturing capability. With the exception of George Sada, that has been universally debunked. There has not been [to my knowledge] one other key ba'athist figure who could collaborate Sada's claim. No WMD storage, manufacturing, testing facilties have been found after 5 years of occupation. No files found. No janitorial, clerical, transportation, etc... personnel have come forward with any knowledge of a program that could be construed to be WMD.

Several composite military/civilian units went in just after the invasion, such as the 75th Exploitation Task Force, and found......nothing. [Iran/Iraq war era mustard gas shells don't count.] Whether or not Bush and company knowingly lied or were just duped by bad intelligence [I don't know which is scarier], the pre-war statements turned out to be false. That's not Bush bashing, it's just fact.

Nice diversion. Here I give you evidence from an American end times perspective that likely influences our conduct of the war and you just take a powder and talk about end times from an Islamic perspective, implying their metaphysics influences our view. No it is folks like the late Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson pushing their eschatology which exercises a powerful influence on conservative generally republican evangelicals in pushing for a confrontational approach in the ME. It strictly has to do with their interpretation of the Bible, not what some Islamic fellow thinks about the matter

I would be very surprised if you found a quote from an OBL fatwa that was relevant to some end times political philosophy. Certainly the BA has never mentioned the issue.

A fair look means looking seriously at the supportive evidence, as well as evidence that is non supportive. About you saying "There has not been [to my knowledge] one other key ba'athist figure who could collaborate Sada's claim." I considered that in my original post, and didn't want to rely solely on the testimony of one man. In my research I found out that the CIA and more specifically the ISG had reason to believe the weapons had been shipped to Syria as well, coincidently they believed it happened around the same time Gen. Georges Sada claims they were shipped to Syria. When I found this out my jaw literally dropped, unfortunately I couldn't find any specifics on what brought the CIA to suspect the same thing. I'm guessing it was that the CIA saw the planes and trucks ship the weapons by satellite, as Sada described. I cant be sure, but in any case the CIA had to have at least some evidence to lead them to make that statement. There are links to show where I got that information in the first post of the forum.



Well that link made it out as if he knowingly lied and there is no proof for that, if there was he would be in trouble, to say the least. If he was wrong, and im not so sure he was, he was wrong because we hadn't gone in to find out if Saddam had weapons. Saddam had a heafty arsenal of chemical WMD's in the late 80's and early 90's. The idea that they were all destroyed in Desert Storm, and in the 90's is an idea thats hard for me just to buy so easily.

This man was not stupid by no means, and if America for example had a nuclear war with the U.S.S.R, I guarantee you both superpowers would still have WMD's safely stored away. Now it is true that Iraq is less technically advanced and less resourceful, but the idea that he lost every last one of his WMD's is hard to imagine. Now I'm not saying anything for certain but my thinking is, from what I've read, one of the most likely scenarios is that Saddam still had these weapons and the raw ingredients to construct them, but lacked the ability to deploy them the way he did in the 80's and 90's. Whatever he had left was likely shipped to Syria or is hidden away within Iraq still. In the original post of this forum I give a link that states that there were suspicious sites that we never even checked to this day in Iraq.

Saddam's regime was only a shadow of what it was before Desert Storm but this is because we got on him and stayed on him thought the 90's. If you ask me the first gulf war never ended, we left prematurely and as a result had to spend money on intelligence and air strikes throughout the 90's on Iraq, until Bush Jr. decided to go in and deroot the Regime altogether. Had he done things differently, regarding strategies he would be going down in history. Instead he is going down in history for his incompetence which I admit is largely his fault. However this was a problem that wasn't going away on its own.

You realize that much of what you say is in direct conflict to what the UN said in 2002 and what the ISG said after the invasion – they said Iraq has dozens of WMD programs and their (and Saddams) “strategic intent” was to restart them as soon as the sanctions ended.

Do I need to quote the sources again? No files found?


“After six months searching for WMD, the ISG issued an Interim Progress Report on October 3, 2003. The team has found evidence of "WMD-related program activities" but no actual chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. In addition to details of dormant WMD programs, the October 2003 report also includes discoveries of non-WMD programs banned by the U.N. and concealed during the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNMOVIC inspections that began in 2002

Kay told the SASC during his oral report the following, though: "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion-—although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."
• The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judged that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam’s belief in the value of WMD.
• Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability, after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities.
• Prewar Movement of WMD Material Out of Iraq, stating "ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place" but also acknowledging that "ISG was unable to complete its investigation and is unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group

Unless this intelligence was corroborated, then it falls into the 'just as meaningless' catagory as the rest of the pre-war intelligence. If the CIA had any proof that might point to WMD's being shipped to Syria, don't you think the administration would have touted it long before?



An apparatus for enough WMD to be deemed a threat to US national security requires facilities, personnel, logistical lines, files, testing, raw materials.......the list goes on. Can you report your link about these sites? I don't have the time to scour through your opening post. I have a hard time believing [even with the incompetence of the Bush Administration] that there are 'suspicious sites' that have not been investigated.

You mean the sites that Bill Clinton was after in 1998? Why would we think differently in 2002? How cold they have been a grave threat in 1998 and no threat in 2002? Did the WMD and facilities to produce them targeted by Clinton and suspected by the UN evaporate after 1998?

Your statements are pure 20/20 hindsight at best.

Where are the sites now? Were they active in 2003? Where are the technical and other staff? Where is the equipment? Why has no residue, detrius or waste from a WMD program been found? With the economy in Iraq, there would be no shortage of former WMD related workers coming forward to share their knowledge for a price the US would easily pay. With five years of occupation, something or someone would have been found that could corroborate the pre-war intelligence.

But I'll give you credit.......you'll pull out all the stops to prop up the invasion.

FIRST of all I was not for the invasion – that was UN work and we should have done it with them or not at all. That said all you need to do is read the ISG and numerous other statement by Butler, Blix etc.

Iraq has substantial WMD capability in 1998 and for Bush, or the UN or the man in the dam moon, there was no reason to think there were not some still there. After all Clinton felt strongly enough about it to bomb and of course Blix had his questions as well.

We did questions lots of “workers” and we tried top contain them as well:

In the wake of the defeat of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the renunciation by Libya of its weapon
of mass destruction (WMD) programs, the United States has begun to expand the scope of its
nonproliferation activities to prevent the migration of former WMD scientists and workers from
these countries to other dangerous nations or organizations. The excess scientists, technicians,
and engineers from the two states could pose a “brain drain” proliferation threat because of their
considerable expertise in nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons

Secretary of State Colin Powell stated
that UN inspectors had “put together a list of about 3,500 names” of individuals linked to Iraq’s
WMD program during its post-Gulf War investigations.
3
This was supported by Kay’s remarks
that Iraq’s WMD programs, “involved thousands of people.”
4
But the new ISG leader Charles
Duelfer recently has explained that although his team has “met with hundreds of scientists, we
have yet to identify the most critical people in any programmatic effort. Many people have yet
to be found or questioned, and many of those we have found are not giving us complete
answers.”
5
A further complication in this effort has been identified as the decision to detain some Iraqi
scientists as part of the post-war WMD investigation. U.S. officials did not confirm the number
of scientists that were detained during the post-conflict period. But, knowledgeable experts
raised concerns that the combination of lengthy detentions and the possibility of war crimes
charges being brought against Iraqi weapons scientists might have created enough fear and
uncertainty to cause some of the WMD workforce to flee Iraq, and possibly enlist in the WMD
and missile programs of other states.
6
Reports in December 2003 indicated that along with the scaling back of the ISG’s operations,
most Iraqi scientists who had been detained were released.
7
In an address in Washington, DC, in
March 2004, the Ambassador-designate of Iraq to the United States Rend Al-Rahim stated that
few weapons scientists were still in detention, and that she was unaware of any plans to
prosecute any for war crimes.
8
If her assessment of the situation is accurate, a part of the
environment for the redirection of Iraq’s weapons scientists may have improved.
Unfortunately, fear of cooperating with the U.S. continues to exist within Iraq’s scientific
community. ISG leader Duelfer’s expressed his surprise that many former WMD specialists in
Iraq “perceive a grave risk in speaking with us.”
9
In fact, David Kay had earlier noted that one
Iraqi scientist “was killed immediately after talking to us….[others] report continuing threats.”
10

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:Iur5Q...;cd=4&gl=us

Net, it's not the big numbers that are important; they just reflect the propensity of the administration to trumpet the pro-war intelligence and leave out any intel that didn't support them. And that score is about 935 to zero. I don't think anybody will still dispute the fact that there was plenty of intel out there that undercut them, but you never heard it from the administration. They spoke in absolutes to make their case for war, and that, in and of itself, was misleading.
link
That's just one example. The link has more.

And it's not like they sat back and waited for the picture to become clearer - the administration was sending mouthpieces out every week to sell their war. Speeches, Meet the Press, wherever - they put themselves out there, and you never heard any contradictory evidence from the White House. You want me to take their pro-war intel seriously? Then show me both sides of the case. If their case for war was so great, it could have stood up to some scrutiny, especially in that post 9/11 atmosphere. But all I ever saw was a bunch of drum-beaters.

As the chart in the study makes clear, the lies and false charges peaked at politically convenient times, in September of 2002 when the President sent his war authorization to Congress and February, March, and April of 2003 the time of Powell's UN speech and the beginning of the invasion. This is prima facia evidence that the officials included in the study were using the false claims for political purposes not informing the public of evidence of weapons they actually thought existed.

They “gave him the power” because the situation and intel from Iraq was the same in 2002 as it was in 1998 when they backed up Bill Clinton (as I did ) in bombing Iraq.

To say that something had magically changed from 1998 – 2002 is ludicrous. So if Bush was wrong then Bill was wrong fro the same reasons and so were ALL the top Dems who backed him up – Right??

I'll admit I had to go back and look up what happened back in 1998. After reviewing a couple of old news stories, here is where I think there are significant differences:

Clinton's bombing was punishment for Saddam interfering with weapons inspectors. He got a unanimous condemnation of Saddam's actions from the UN security council. He got eight Arab nations - Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman - to help put pressure on Iraq. Then he pulled back the first airstrike in an attempt to win diplomatically, giving Saddam two chances to comply. Finally, he ordered the airstrikes, being careful not to start the attack during Ramadan. not a great link, but a link

Bush's invasion was based on intel that the WMD programs were up and running, and that there were significant ties to Al Qaida - as we all know now, there was also intelligence that contradicted both claims. Bush made his case for war in the press, not behind closed doors (once you do that, how do you change your mind without looking weak?) If the contradictory intel was ever considered, it certainly was not brought up in the press campaign to convince America to get behind a war. Arab nations were generally not on board with this war. The UN was not convinced.

So there is the difference, as I see it - Clinton went about things in a straightforward manner, trying diplomacy right up until the end, building consensus, and finally taking measured action - a bombing campaign. Bush, on the other hand, didn't present the evidence fairly. He never cared much for diplomacy. When a consensus didn't fall into place, he just bulled ahead with his plans to attack. And when he took action, it went way over the top - full blown war, complete with a misguided and poorly planned occupation.

I hate that Congress gave Bush war powers over Iraq. It was a big mistake in this case, because Bush couldn't wait to start that war. But with a different president, it's not such a bad move. Granting war powers gives the president the big stick he/she needs to show that we mean business when diplomacy is failing.

So, yes, I think you are correct in saying that things in Iraq, and the intelligence, were essentially the same. But Clinton and Bush used that same situation and evidence very differently. Had Bush simply used another bombing campaign, even based on the same evidence, that would have been fine with me. I'm no peacenik. Iraq has always been a pain in the arse, and there was some reason to consider them a threat (a regional threat, anyway). But war was way over the top, and a stupid move for a lot of reasons.
-------------------------------------

Interesting sidenote that I came across when looking at the news archives - this was right about when the Repubs were impeaching Bill over his attempts to hide his extramarital bj, and they were all indignant about the Iraq attack:
link
That's a lot funnier here in 2008 than it was back then.

John:

You wrote:

"I hate that Congress gave Bush war powers over Iraq. It was a big mistake in this case, because Bush couldn't wait to start that war."

John, time to play lawyer, in the sense that a good lawyer not only helps his client get out of today's trouble, he and she also help the client avoid future trouble. And so what were we going to do with Saddam? Were we to keep Iraq under sanctions for the indefinite future or were we going to remove sanctions and hope that Saddam had had a change of heart and so would not resume any WMD development and production after our inspectors went home and the sanctions were ended? That last is the problem that I have with your above remark. Fine, Saddam didn't have WMDs, but what was stop him from development and production of WMDs if we decided to end sanctions and bring our inspectors home? I have asked that question both here and elsewhere, and not your fault, but I have yet to receive an answer from anyone. I thought that the sanctions were folly to begin with for the following reasons: (1) in the case of autocrats/dictators we use sanctions on the premise that a given leader or regime has some love and compassion for his people and I saw none of that in Saddam, and (2) as I said, couldn't Saddam simply fool us all by complying now only to resume development and production of WMDs when we ended sanctions and brought our inspectors home? Sorry, but a related consideration going back to the autocrat/dictator nature of the problem, to wit, since Saddam ruled as dictator it wasn't like anyone was going to vote him out of office owing to the sanctions and it also seemed to me that he had enough of a grip on power to retain that grip.

So what was the alternative? The short version of my critique of your position is simply that your position never accounts for what happens with Saddam when we end sanctions and bring our inspectors home. That's the single matter that everyone who calls this "mistake" avoids addressing and so as I related, I am still without an answer from anyone. Maybe you can be the first to give me an answer. And, John, you're a lawyer and so you know that we think out and run through and compare every possible scenario before we recommend a course of action. All you are doing is pointing out that he had none and that we are paying a grievous price. As I said, fine, but again, what was the alternative and what would be the cost? Until that question is answered, no one, lawyer you included, can reasonably call all of this a mistake.

And so there can be no mistake, you no doubt have read the remarks here on AD about excess deaths. Some are comparing excess death prior to invasion and excess death after. But when do we end the comparison? The excess deaths prior would have continued with continued sanctions whereas sooner or later this war in Iraq is going to end and so the excess deaths from the war will end as well. So the people arguing that there is more excess death now are not approximating a true run through and comparison, and we haven't even considered any excess deaths that might come with Saddam staying in power, sanctions ending and our inspectors coming home, and Saddam then resuming development and production of WMDs [I mean, it's not like he hadn't used them before]. The people who argue the excess death are stuck here, since their argument includes the argument that we actually care about the people of Iraq. But this whole line of reasoning that says that we don't go to war and leave Saddam to do his own bidding throws the Iraqi people to the wolves. I probably should have asked some here this earlier, but which is it, do you truly care for the people of Iraq or are they just useful tools in your arguments here on AD re excess death?

Lastly, I haven't checked the members page re your enrollment here on AD, but as I said here long ago, Dubya didn't fool me. I was for this war well before Dubya obtained the office and I consider it a crime of the first order for us to have left Saddam in power following Gulf War I. We don't have the cops go in and simply through out the burglars, we have the burglars arrested, tried, and if found guilty, punished for their guilt. The man should otherwise have been tried for crimes against humanity even before his invasion of Kuwait. And, John, don't think for a moment that there's no pain here for me, as I am pained to the nth degree that some haven't made a much better use of their liberation from a dictator and his regime. I am trying to real hard to remember their children and so not write these people off as a lost cause, but that's an everyday and not so easy struggle.

Why not keep sanctions in place indefinitely? They seemed to be working, to some degree. If you notice some cooling towers going up, make a bombing run or ten. And Saddam was only human - he wasn't going to last forever. You could have waited it out to see if the next dictator might listen to reason. If you are still worried about the prospect of WMDs being used against us sometime in the future, all I can tell you is that there is no way to keep a foot on the neck of every crazy little country out there.

Back in 1991, I, too, was all for going all the way and booting Saddam out of power. We had the moral high ground, the justification for a war, most of the planet firmly on our side, and, just maybe, the blessing of the Iraqi people. Today, I'm not as sure it would have turned out well, but I'd bet it would have ended better than today's occupation. I think most of us envisioned a modern-day Marshall Plan when we thought about America occupying a country, with a generally thankful population to deal with. But once the looting started in Baghdad, I knew that was not going to be the case.

The "excess death" argument is not one that I use. Like I said above, you can't control every crazy little country out there. Bad stuff is going to happen. That being said, I'm in favor of doing something about Darfur, for instance, but I don't want to take over the whole country to do it. I think in the long run, it may be a better policy to punish dictators and try to make their lives miserable, rather than trying to replace them.

Dontreadonme



Well the thing is they had reason to suspect it was done, otherwise they wouldn't have even commented on it, but I don't know if they proved it or not, I'm assuming they never did. However the president has commented on it himself. I came across this link in addition to the one in the original post about this........

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...757C0A9659C8B63

This quote is from the link above.........




Well unfortunately its true, and yes that is something to scratch your head about, its just one of many things that make me wonder if Bush knows what he's doing. A couple of my links however have gone dead including the one that talks about potential WMD sites that were not searched. If I find a replacement link I'll give it to you.

Going into Iraq was never primarily about Saddams threat to launch something like an ICBM at the U.S. by the way. It was about two things, more than anything. That being for one putting an end to a regime that was truly evil and inhumane, and turning Iraq into a nation that is a strong ally, given that Iraq shares our enemies that makes sense. A strong ally in the area means we have a place to station if we have to deal with other threats like Iran, and it also means possible military support in the future. Letting Iraq go down the tubes with Saddam would have meant that we would have needed to spend modest amounts of money over and over, keeping him in check, just as we had to do all throughout the 90's. Instead of just bitting the bullet and spending the necessary bulk of money to take him out altogether like we did, although I do think the money can be better managed.

Other objectives were keeping the global economy healthy and, the U.S. safe from a direct attack although I do think those are played into way too much by those who don't support the war. People don't want to accept the fact that there were several reasons we went into Iraq, and Ive heard many say it was all about Oil, or it was all about protecting the U.S. from an improbable attack. I say to those people, broaden your minds, this is not a one or two issue war, there are many reasons we are there.

Dingo



I don't know what your suggesting here. That I couldn't find a quote from an OBL fatwa that is relevant to end times? Are you serious? Those loony toones talk about it all the time, just like AQI, and just like most other mid eastern terrorist groups, who are Muslim. Did you know that The Koran teaches that the end of the world will not be upon us until every Jew is killed? Did you also know that the World Trade Centers were chosen as targets largely because of the high number of Jews that worked in those buildings? Everyone should know that Muslim extremist groups such as Al Qaeda preach about bringing about the end of the world.

While some American Christians may believe that the end of the world is coming as well, much of the time when you hear an American talking about taking Muslim extremist seriously, its because they understand that many Muslims in the middle east want to spread their dominance, so that they can help bring about the end of the world, its not that every American believes that the end of the world is upon us as well. I surely don't, but I do know for a fact that the agenda of mid eastern extremist is not limited to the middle east, they believe the end of the world is near and they want to help make that a reality. They may not be able to achieve what they want but they sure can kill countless people trying, just as they did on 9/11. Do you really need a link proving that
Islamic extremist believe in bringing about the end of the world by spreading their dominance? I shouldn't have to do that, its common knowledge Dingo.

JohnfrmCleveland



There was a certain amount of arrogance in the Bush administration, and there still is. With a lack of communication to his country as well. However there are people saying he flat out lied which doesn't seem to be the case, because he didn't know. Why in the world someone would one day wake up and decide to lie to 300 million people by saying there were WMD in Iraq, when according to some he knew there were none, makes absolutely no sense. What was the end goal by lying?

Making himself look like a Schmuck by being wrong? Lol If he was willing to look like a Schmuck by lying just to go to war, then why did he speak in such absolutes to begin with? Wouldn't it have made more sense to be less conclusive, if he knew that what he was claiming was wrong, and he would have to deal with that later on? Better yet given that he is prone to lying why stop there? Why didn't he not only lie by saying there were WMDs, but lie again by planting some WMDs and framing Saddam so he didn't look like a yoyo? The whole thing makes no sense, and the truth of it is that the worst case scenario is that he was wrong, pure and simple. Although I have my doubts he was wrong.



The president believed in what he was saying if you ask me, but you know him. He's just got this personality where he isolates all those that are potentially against him. He does the same thing in foreign policy, by saying things like "your either with us or against us". He ticks even me off so don't worry your not alone. If he were more straightforward and to the point people would appreciate him a lot more than they do. Truth is he never really made an effort to talk to skeptics such as yourself, which is part of the reason he is so unpopular.

I'd be very interested in exploring your link, because in my mind, after five years of occupation and administering Iraq as a colony, there is virtually no logical reason that a single suspicious site wouldn't have been checked out. Especially when it could have led to some amount of vindication for the Administration.



You've brought this up before, but I'm still vexed by your belief in this assertion. Iraq isn't even a solvent nation, how can it be unified against an enemy? Is their enemy Turkey because of it's Kurdish population? Is it Iran becuase of it's Sunni population? Is it Saudi Arabia because of it's Shia population? Who exactly is Iraq's enemy? Right now it would seem that more Iraqi's are united against the United States than any other entity.



So that essentially gave us the right to invade and attempt to install a government and a political system of our choosing? It's small wonder that America is viewed as arrogant by most of the world.



There's a huge difference between the two. We weren't spending 2 trillion dollars containing Saddam. We weren't losing 3929 Americans and counting. We weren't stretching our military to near breaking point with containment and sanctions.

Simple - if he hedged, we might not have been sold on the war. Why he wanted this war so badly is beyond me, but his inner circle started talking about invading Iraq before the last brick had fallen at the WTC, and they never once took their foot off the gas.

I believe the jury is in on the "Lies" told by GW- I believe the count total is 935 lies-

http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Yep Net- he lied, and lied a whole bunch. And a bunch of very gullible people believed him.

Here ya go- this is a goody:

On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "

Okay Net- here is a straight up bald faced Texas lie:

On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories." But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team's final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.

This one here is grounds for impeachment:

On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement "probably is a hoax."

Let me ask you Net- you ever got that spam from the Nigerians about millions of dollars in the bank? And this genius didn't realize that Nigerian documents might be a hoax? It was a bad forgery at that- it is actually on the scale of a magnitude of a 1000 worse than what Dan Rather was accused of with his forgery scandal. After all, Dan Rather didn't murder 4000 American servicemen with his lies.

Here is a nice one proving torture doesn't work:

On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: "What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources." As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named "Curveball," whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had "decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government]."

NO NO No N0. Try reading UN 1441 and get back to me. It was about WMD that everyone was sure were stockpiled in Iraq and Saddam refused to bring forward or prove they were destroyed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_C...Resolution_1441

From your own source:

Nowhere does it say that everyone was sure that WMDs were stockpiled in Iraq. All it says was that Iraq did not fully cooperate with the inspectors.
The resolution was not the trigger. Most of the Security Council was against the war. America and the UK acted on their own, without the support of the UN.



That was just a little over 2 months before the UN resolution. So while they may have included that UN resolution in their justification, they had been beating that WMD drum like crazy, declaring with absolute certainty that WMDs indeed existed and were a genuine threat to the U.S. Remember, they sold the UN with crappy intel, also. Remember those "mobile anthrax labs," - or as we call them, semi trailers?

The Resolution was the trigger and while everyone was not sure he had stockpiles that WAS the issue of the Resolution which he never complied with. Certainly some countries doing big business and with ties to Saddam (some illegal) were against the “war” – France for example. And I personally would have waited them out – but Bush did not.



When you say THEY remember it includes lots of Dems includiung Dodd, Hillary etc. And also include former inspectors like Butler who was in Iraq inspecting longer than anyone on the planet.

I give everyone but the GW admin a "pass" based on him lying like a rug through the entire run up to the Iraq war.

The worst you can say about the others is that they were easily conned by the prez and his band of scuzz buckets. But one doesn't expect a president to casually throw away the lives of tens of thousands of US servicemen for his own vanity. You would expect the prez to at least be somewhat truthful.

There are 935 confirmed outright lies as I listed- incontrovertable proof of lying. He is a lying scuzz bucket- and now he has been found out.

But some poeple will continue as if he didn't anyway.

Listen man, the only ones I see continuing on in a state of denial are individuals such as yourself. You are driven by your own disgust of an administration you don't like or agree with. Thats what drives you, nothing else, certainly not any irrefutable evidence that the president knowingly lied 925 times, oops 935 times, well whats the difference its not important enough to remember anyway considering that story reflected the authors personal views, and has no proof.

The ones in denial are the ones speaking as if the truth is only the truth if its in line with what they believe personally. You don't like the president, nor do you like modern conservatives in the least, so when someone comes along and says the president has lied over 900 times, you don't have proof, because you don't need or want proof, your more than happy to believe the leader of the free world is a liar or a crook so long as that leader does not share your politics.

Here is the truth so listen up, has the president knowingly lied about WMD in Iraq? Well the truth is I don't know, and neither do you. Perhaps answers to questions like those are usually never known for sure.

This however is what I choose to believe, I choose to believe the president is neither a liar or a crook. I choose to believe this about a president I dont like anymore than you do, but I'll be honest about my reasons for not liking him. I don't like him because he has a clear habit of isolating a large portion of Americans that don't agree with him, although people like you have tried their best to further isolate him from America with propaganda. I also don't like him because he cant enforce many of his own policies, he cant communicate his message effectively, and he is also stubborn in many ways. Despite the fact I think he is a poor president, I choose not to exploit him unnecessarily. I choose to believe you can have good intentions, but screw up royally.

As for you, based on the same amount of evidence I have, you have chosen to exploit him in every way possible because you prefer to believe the president is a liar and a crook, thats how people like you can point their fingers 24/7 and say theres da bad guy, lol . We live in some pretty complex and trying times, and with issues like this war, and a failing administration people typically fall into 3 categories while most of these people have similar facts to go on.

Category 1 are those who support the war and our president while in most cases acknowledging his foul ups.

Category 2 are those who don't support the war or our president, and point out his many mistakes, but in a reasonable manner. People like this don't believe anything they hear simply because it may be against this administration, or against the war. So they can hold their opinion with respect.

Category 3 are those who loath the president, don't understand why anyone would support him in this war, and to these individuals all is fair in politics and war.

Based on your post I can see you will demote conservatives as much as possible, while blaming them for as much as possible. The modern conservative movement as you have called it, is responsible for ruining your country. You said something to the likes of that recently in another forum. Why should I take anything you say regarding conservatives as if it wasn't driven solely by Bias? Could you be a sport and show the irrefutable proof that the president knowingly lied regarding WMD? Humor me, and convince me that you actually don't prefer to believe this?



He had 9/11, and already had America on his side. By the way Bush was talking about Iraq even before the WTC was struck, and I'm pretty sure those buildings were not brick

The way I see it is nobody has any proof the president lied, and if they did thats the kind of thing that could get a president impeached. No one will impeach the president because despite all the negative hype, nobody really ever had a case, and thats just the way it is. So until you or someone else can show me some proof, I'm not going to entertain ideas that people believe simply because they prefer to. If the biggest thing you have to go on is the fact we found no WMD, well that would make for a pretty sorry court case wouldn't you say?

Dontreadonme



I don't understand it myself, but the information looked creditable. I'll get you a replacement link within the next couple days, I haven't had much time to post recently.



I was speaking of the nation as a whole sharing a common enemy, in other words the gouvernment of Iraq. Now its certainly a complex situation and there is a lot of infighting but the country of Iraq shares common enemies such as Iran and Al Qaeda. This was the case back when Saddam was in power as well. Al Qaeda was an enemy of Iraq, and so was Iran. Bush even spoke about Iraq and the U.S. sharing common enemies briefly in his state of the union address tonight.


No no, your making this a one issue war. Remember what I said in my prior post................

People don't want to accept the fact that there were several reasons we went into Iraq, and Ive heard many say it was all about Oil, or it was all about protecting the U.S. from an improbable attack. I say to those people, broaden your minds, this is not a one or two issue war, there are many reasons we are there.



Right well, to me its either we have to deal with Iraq for years to come, by being drawn over there constantly like we were in the 90's, or bite the bullet now and get Iraq under control so that we don't have to constantly be drawn over there to prevent a madman from using WMD on innocent people. Lets face it, the only reason Saddam never repeated what he did in the 80's and in 1991, is because we didnt let him, its that simple.

Ive spent a lot of hours researching that scum bag, and this is why I understand the depth of what he has done, and what he was capable of. Had we abandon Iraq after Desert Storm altogether he would have repeated what he did by now, and there is little doubt in my mind about it. He has killed thousands before, he had threatened violence after Desert Storm, and furthermore he said he had WMD even after 2000. Since he had WMD in large quantities in 1991, the mere fact that he claimed he still had them after 2000 was reason enough to be suspicious. Point is we had 3 options, option 1 ignore him completely, option 2 spend billions on small operations every other year to keep him and those who would have eventually taken place in check with no grantee of preventing him from committing another mass homicide, or option 3 bite the bullet and remove him from power and set Iraq up with a system that
would not be prone to governing itself under the power of another ruthless dictator.

Don't forget Category 4: people who support the President, believe everything he says, thinks that everything he does is correct, and blames all opposition to the President on politically motivated bias.
I'm sure there are still some people out there who stand by Richard Nixon, and don't believe that he was connected to anything wrong.


I'm not just going on the lack of WMDs. I could have forgiven that, had the administration considered all of the intel, pro and con, and made a reasonable decision based on the weight of the evidence, and simply been mistaken. The evidence says they did not. When they spoke in absolutes about the existence of WMDs, they lied. There was intel that did not back them up, and they ignored it, acted like it didn't exist.

If you want some evidence of wrongdoing and lies in connection with Iraq, I urge you to watch this episode of Frontline. No matter what side you are on here, it is worth watching.

Impeachment is not something to take lightly, especially during wartime. When the Democrats took over after the 2006 elections, they made a point of saying that impeachment was not part of their agenda - obviously, it has been discussed, and Kucinich still presses for it. Just because they haven't gone forward with impeachment does not mean they don't have a good case, it just means they are being more reasonable than their Republican counterparts were when they impeached Clinton over nothing.


Give me one example where that worked out well.
Until we can get the kinks worked out of installing puppet governments in places like Iraq, that should not be listed as an option.

Don't forget Category 4: people who support the President, believe everything he says, thinks that everything he does is correct, and blames all opposition to the President on politically motivated bias.
I'm sure there are still some people out there who stand by Richard Nixon, and don't believe that he was connected to anything wrong.

Let me add to that- Warren G Harding, Andrew Johnson, Grant, and other horrid presidents that were unbelievably bad-and history has consistantly rated them at the bottom until this day- I would be willing to bet good money, if someone were to look it up- that each one of those miserable presidents had 30% of the country still standing behind them, Guess what? GW has about that aproval rate.

Also known has "blindly and blithely believing anything GW and co say"- would be that group. That group will ignore all evidence, no matter how damning, Even when there are 935 examples. At least half of them, there can be no spin whatsoever- there is no other way to interpret it any other way. A good lawyer could spin the other half- I have seen them make murderers look sympathetic innocent victim more than once. Insteat that group just chooses to ignore, I would be willing to bet you money that you could have GW on live video tape beating a puppy and you would say it was just made up liberal bias.

I am curious- how do you answer this one Net? I am ready for an amusement park spin!

On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' "

Really. Are you aware of the ties that link the Badr Corps and the Dawa Party [the largest players in the fortified central government] to Iran? If you did, you wouldn't even dream of stating that Iran was Iraq's enemy. Certainly the Shia militia's and the Shia majority in Iraq would disagree with you also.



Of course Iran was an enemy of the Tikriti Sunni Saddam, but how do you figure AQ was an enemy of Iraq?



And Bush says a lot of things that make no sense. This is just one example of many.



That doesn't detract from the fact that we invaded a sovereign nation on the flimsiest of eveidence, realistically backed by only a handful of expatriates, and proceeded to install ourselves in the tyrants palaces and administer the nation as a colony. That certainly doesn't elevate the United States to the moral high ground in this endeavor.



So am I correct in interpreting your statement to mean that it is an acceptable loss to you to sacrifice 4000 Americans in an effort to expedite foreign policy? Not to mention the damage done to our military and our economy?

And what “category” do we have for the people who believed the Clinton Admin. About Iraq and WMD and all the Dems that agreed in 1998? It is so ludicrous to say Bush lied in 2002 when the Dems and Clinton Admin basically said the very same thing about Iraq and Saddam.

You cannot have it both ways – If Bush was wrong then Bill was wrong – IF Bush “lied” the so did Bill and all thee Dems who backed him up.

Do we really need top post the statements AGAIN?

I think as long as it stayed in the realm of rhetoric vs invading the country, I believe we were in okay shape. Like with Iran today. As long as it is sabre rattling and containment, a propaganda war really- like the obvious propaganda blunder of the recent "threatening" of Iranian speed boats in the gulf- however- if we used that as a context to invade- then we get back to needing HARD answers vs guesses.

Clinton never really went past the rhetoric and therefore, didn't need the rock solid evidence you need when you want to commit vast resources to the invasion.

There is some nuance needed here.

I would have demanded the same from Clinton as GW had Clinton wanted to invade Iraq, I hold all politicians to the same standard. In fact, that is the major heartburn I have with the bushbots- they don't hold GW to the same standards that they demanded of Clinton- and that is both dangerous AND stupid. If, oh, Ron Paul were to win the election- I would actually hold him to a HIGHER standard than any president in my lifetime- because he is proposing a radically different ideology.

I would expect the followers of GW to do the same.

Also- there is the issue of dates of the intelligence- it was very, very old and on shaky grounds even in 2000, but we invaded on intelligence from the prior administration, by the time we invaded, over 4-6 years old? Who is that stupid?

If GW had lots of credible and new intelligence- not the shaky crap he went with, based on torture captured "terrorists" and asylum seekers with a stake in telling GW what he wanted to hear- then we would have been in better shape if we still had decided to invade.

There wasn't any evidence of any type of industry ramping up his WMD programs that was credible or confirmed by a good independent source.

Instead, he and co- he made up 935 lies.

Is this incontrovertable proof as good as the incontrovertible proof you swore up and down about and then backed off of in the thread about 655,000 Iraqi civillian's deaths?

Ya right CR – Bill says the same damn thing and he is OK because he never follwed through and demanded the UN DO something? You have to be joking. The mistake Bush made was going alone without the UN. They had the ball and as we know they had internal interests preventing agreement on what to do in Iraq.
But the US flying over and getting shot at indefinitely should not have been acceptable for any US administration.

While you and CR trade partisan jabs, astute students of history will note that regardless of party, administrations in the U.S. maintain a fairly uniform approach to foreign affairs. Whether it's Democrat LBJ, or Republican George Bush, the good old boys with controlling interest in our dear nation will always find reasons for blowin' the hell outta something. Bickering over Clinton/Bush is a sideshow - and it's the sideshow these guys loooove you to focus on, because it keeps your mind occupied while they continue to steal you blind and ensure the American Empire lasts just a little bit longer. Did Saddam Hussein have WMD? Turns out he didn't. Clinton lied, or was wrong. Bush lied, or was wrong. I imagine both of them were posturing for the political gain of spinning the emotions of the poor saps who voted them into office.

Well we could have always left them alone.... damn how liberal of me to suggest such a simple solution.


Net

Net when you say "lie" are you speaking in the stickest tense?? Because if you are, surprise I agree with you so far. I mean the President manipulated words. He absolutely deceived the American people, but I don't think he ever flat out lied.

Others in his administration, flat out lied,like Cheney

QUOTE

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. -Cheney

That is a flat out lie. We didn't know. Bush made statements like

QUOTE

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

If I am being honest this is not a flat out lie. Why?? Because he describes the weapons as "some of the most lethal weapons devised" Well I think Iraq did have conventonal weapons and missles capable of more destruction than say a gun, grenade, or even artillery. One could conclude that a missle with a warhead

But NET, so what??

The question is not whether the President told a falsehood, but whether he deliberately mislead the American people into believing Saddam had WMD.

Do you believe he cherry picked information?

Do you think he insinuated links between the Iraq and 9/11 via Al Queada??

Do you believe his administration made flat out false statements??

Do you believe Bush purposefully deceived the citizens of the US??

Because I really can't see how the answer to these questions aren't all "yes".

Of course Saddam had WMD- of that there is no doubt. If you believe he voluntarily “destroyed” them then that would be the only UN mandate he ever keep and I personally think it is ludicrous to believe so. In any case I agree – each side brings us to one war or another.

Dems are for Peace? Well not if you listen to the wailing from the left to “Save Darfur”. So we agree. Both sides tend to use power to accomplish what they consider important in the world.



And……………….What. Drop sanctions? Get shot at forever? Pused the UN to go to war? What? You know the ISG report said Saddam was waiting out the sanctions so he could go back to WMD production – including nuclear weapons – what was the PLAN when Bill walked away in 1998 and the UN did squat to enforce the Resolutions?

Find me some Bill Clinton quotes where he states in absolute terms that WMDs definitely existed in 1998, right before the missiles flew, then show that the intelligence at the time did not support such a bold statement, and I will admit that he lied, too. Because that would be the same situation that Bush was in.

BTW, "Category 4" is not a party-specific category. It encompasses blind followers of either party. Did I say anything about Republicans?