Reply #14 By: thatoneguyinslc - 10/6/2004 12:52:48 PM Dr....Come on! There were other intel reports out there at the time that stated saddam didnt have WMD's. bush 2.0 chose to ignore them. The current administration planned to invade Iraq very early in their term. The WMD's and 9/11 were their justification to do it.

Show them to me, I'm from Missouri! Even British intel said there were WMD's how many reports does Bush need to look at??? He actually should only ever have to look at one. The one from our intel dept (CIA).

The homework assignment that you are refering to was supposed to be done by the CIA.

Except the administration unprecedentedly set up its own office in the Pentagon to oversee and selectively pull and highlight (questionable) intelligence information, including information having to do with Iraq. The White House has oversight over the CIA. The president is in some ways ultimately responsible for the administration of the CIA and other intelligence gathering operations. The president IGNORED CIA briefings when they said intelligence he was quoting in his 2003 State of the Union address was suspect at best. The president seems to be dodging his responsibility for making these claims about WMD when he lays it off on faulty intelligence as if the intelligence gathering community is completely separate from his administrative policy, as if he's just another guy waiting for their reports with no influence on how that work is done. The buck for this one ultimately stops at the President's desk....now watch him play hot potato with it.

You still don't get it! The homework assignment that you are refering to was supposed to be done by the CIA no Bush!

I understand what you are driving at, that it's not Bush's fault we invaded Iraq based on intelligence he received. I'm telling you that he exaggerated those claims without questioning their veracity and plausibility and that his administration agressively sold the public on those claims to justify dropping 240,000 troops in the middle east without an proper war plan that made the proper concessions for an exit strategy or even the monetary means to complete the mission. There were much better options that could have been explored, but the Bush administration curiously and impulsively threw caution to the wind leaving Bush supporters to defend a mess that cannot be justified with anything but,

"Hey, buddy, it was faulty intelligence, my bad!"

Irresponsible and unstatesmanlike, vote CHANGE.

Also for the record, this should have been finished in 1990, when the WMD was a real threat.

Would have been, if Bush 1.0 hadn't done the show under the terms of the Kerry Doctrine (as Kerry has recently espoused it). Acting unilaterally or with a smaller, more deferential coalition would have given Bush 1.0 the lattitude to do just that. The whole notion of mustering world-wide consensus for such action is a two-edged sword, because it by definition limits your options.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Just to rule out the British reports. We had a legal review of the process behind those reports and it was shown that the government asked for much rephrasing of the report to emphasise the threat. While they did not actually add any false claims they did insist that the more outragious intelligence received be included and emphasised despite no secondary sources.

So the British report proving Saddam had WMD was a political report and NOT the internal belief of the intelligence community.

Paul.

My point has been and always will be that no matter the existance of WMDs now, there were greedy, dishonest regimes around the world that were poised to make a fortune re-arming Hussein the moment France and the rest had forced an end to the sanctions against him. Those sanctions had been in place for 10 years. There was basically NO support for the no-fly zones beyond the nations that were enforcing them. Within 10 years, certainly, and most likely 5 or less years, those sanctions would have been lifted, allowing Hussein to import "defensive" military equipment and the floodgates would have opened.

That simply could not be allowed. We were fighting against too much French, Russian and Chinese armament as it was. Once North Korea and other starving, rogue states had slid into the equation Hussein would have had no problem at all restarting WMD programs at a very accelerated rate.

The fact is, the neo-cons wanted to take Saddam down well before September 11th. Bush said he was going to, "Take Saddam out," while he was campaigning for President in 2000. So of course there were other reasons to invade Iraq, if you agreed with the neo-con argument that regime change would stabilize the region rather than destabilize it.

The miscalculation the Bush administration made was when they decided to invade Iraq in 2003, not because it was strategically necessary at that moment, but because they knew they could get support for it in the post 9-11 climate. And they used the threat of WMD to get that support. Now that the WMD argument has unraveld, they have to fall back on the neo-con philosophy that it will stabilize the region, which looks less and less reasonable the less stable Iraq becomes.

The lack of WMD also further hurts our credibility in the world. All the people out there who think international alliances are for wussies are kidding themselves. If we want to win the war on terror, international alliances are more important than all the military firepower we've got. Many of our allies opposed George W. Bush in the run up to war because they weren't sure it was justified for the reasons he was giving, and now they know they were right. They feel vindicated in their opposition to us, and they have good reason not to trust us in the future.

The new Republican argument is that sanctions were eroding and would have been lifted and therefore Saddam would have become the threat George Bush told us he already was. But that's only if the dynamic had remained what it was in the pre-9-11 climate. Post-9-11, countries across the world felt sympathy for us, and wanted to help us fight terrorism. It was only in the run up to the invasion that Bush managed to alienate so many of the people who could have helped us keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists. If we'd had a leader for a president, instead of a bully, he could have pursuaded the international community to do whatever he wanted.

That's the real difference in leadership philosophies between George Bush and John Kerry. All George Bush cares about is whether or not he's right. But being right doesn't get the job done. John Kerry believes in pursuading the rest of the world that we're right, and that our interests are the world's interests.

bakerstreet,
I agree totally with your point on why Saddam needed to be removed. Pity the government didn't focus on the truth as to why he needed removing and not try to 'sell' the war based on WMD.

Paul.

Good arguement Baker, but we should have done it in 1991.

We had the manpower in place, the Shiites were on board, and we could have pulled it off. But because of bush 1.0's hesitance and fear of pissing off the UN, we walked out. BIG mistake. If we would have done it then, the world would have been a much safer place now. Saddam would not have massacred all the Shiites, not paid the suicide bombers families and motivated others to do the same. Then we could have focused more on the real threats in this world unfettered. Like Iran and North Korea.

Lets face facts here folks. bush 2.0 fabricated the WMD's this go-around. There was also no connection between Al Qaida and Iraq. There's no arguing it. Wether you defend him by saying he was going off bad intel or whatever. The proof was never there. The administration wanted to get rid of Saddam, which i have no problem with. But the problem i have with them is that they could have used more legitimate reasons, for instance Iraq's multiple violations of the UN agreement. We did maintain the right to go in there and finish the job. But true to form our government paid too much attention to what the rest of the world thought through the bush 1.0 and Clinton administrations.

Bottom line...bush 2.0 lied to the american public about his reasons for the latest Iraq war to jusitfy his actions. Which is WRONG! And i feel will eventually cost him his job. We americans expect our politicians to lie to us on some things, but not when it costs us the lives of 1,000 + american soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen. That is unacceptable to me. and i suspect many others as well.

How about this arguement, then? Link

We had the manpower in place, the Shiites were on board, and we could have pulled it off. But because of bush 1.0's hesitance and fear of pissing off the UN, we walked out. BIG mistake. If we would have done it then, the world would have been a much safer place now. Saddam would not have massacred all the Shiites, not paid the suicide bombers families and motivated others to do the same. Then we could have focused more on the real threats in this world unfettered. Like Iran and North Korea.

That was Kerry's style of diplomacy at work!!

Give us your heart and we will give you a fart!

- GX

Also don't forget to forget the Oil For Program even though the scandal has been proven to be TRUE.

Forget the truth we want your tooth!

- GX

I think it is important to note, ( according to the The Duelfer Report that Liberals seem to love to quote ) , Hussein himself didn't break it to his generals that they didn't have WMDs at their disposal until 3 months or so before we invaded. If Tariq Aziz thought Hussein had WMDs to use against us that soon before the war, it is pretty understandable that Western intelligence agencies would have thought the same thing...

BTW, there's lots of stuff in the The Duelfer Report, lots more than this sad "There were no WMDs!!" mantra. If Kerry wants to base his election on his belief that sanctions were working, and that our former "allies" were the moral authorites to be persuaded in the conflict, he's going to need to explain where HIS intelligence came from...

Grim...You poor misguided person you

It's not Kerrys diplomacy, it was just the right thing to do. Shoulda been done in 91. End of story.

It's not Kerrys diplomacy, it was just the right thing to do. Shoulda been done in 91. End of story.

You are right it is not Kerry's diplomacy, the credit goes to the original author of that diplomacy, Jimmy Carter.
It didn't work than during Carter, didn't work with Bush Sr. and WON'T WORK NOW!!

- GX
The Anti-Demican Anti-Republicrat Libertarian