This is really a just a question, but it will predictably turn into a debate, so I thought I would put it here to begin with.
I am one of those who believes that the Bush Admin. did not lie, that is, purposely tell what it knew to another to persuade of this untruth, with the added moral dimension – to bring harm upon the one being persuaded.
I believe the Bush administration honestly believed that Saddam had chemical weapons, and had nuclear and biological programs. The adminstration may have been mistaken, but I don’t believe they lied or purposively misled.
Does anyone know of a good source that lists what leading Democrats said and did during the final buildup toward war ? Didn’t most agree with Bush? Didn’t leading Democrats sit on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, with their own access to intelligence estimates? If they thought Bush was spinning it wrong, did they publicize this?
I am looking for facts and sources, in my debate with others.
Off the top of my head I can think of a few Dems who believed the data. I’ll let others go into that if they want. I’ll just post this from Factcheck.org that talks to some of what you are asking.
I suggest that you look in this thread where we explained exactly what aspects the Bush Administration lied about. Everyone has their favorite whopper. For some, it is the aluminum tubes for centrifuges, for some it is the attempts to buy uranium from Niger, for some it is the supposed significant connections between Iraq and al Qaeda.
For me, the biggest was the Administration pretending that they were really concerned with the scenario that WMDs could end up in the hands of terrorists, and then doing hardly anything during the invasion to prevent that from becoming vastly more likely. (Thus exposing themselves as either complete liars or completely and utterly incompetent to a degree that is beyond my ability to fathom.) A close second is failing to admit what the inspectors were rapidly discovering…which is that the U.S. intelligence concerning suspected WMD sites was complete and utter garbage.
John: I am not sure exactly what that proves. That was a vote on a resolution whose purpose President Bush claimed was to help him keep the peace (by getting the inspectors into Iraq so we could find out what weapons Saddam did have, etc.). It was never meant to be a blank check for war…although some of us were smart enough to know on the basis of Bush’s previous lies that he had no intention of pulling up short of war.
By the way, I am pretty sure that even those on the intelligence committees don’t have access to everything the President has access to. For example, I don’t believe that they were privy to the full story about what those in the government believed in regards to the aluminum tubes. But, feel free to correct me if you can show otherwise.
If they believed that Saddam had nuclear programs then they believed this in what I believe to be direct contradiction to what the IAEA had determined. I think it is probable that they believed that they would find something in the chemical or biological category that they could hold up to show the world in ex post facto justification for the invasion. However, as I noted, any belief that they thought these weapons constituted a real threat runs headlong into the fact that they apparently didn’t seem to think it any sort of priority to prevent such weapons from ending up in the hands of any Tom, Dick, or Harry who would be likely be willing to sell them to terrorists are bargain-basement prices. (You may recall that the Administration was already doing a good job of lowering the bar during and after the invasion so that all of a sudden these dramatic scenarios of huge stockpiles and such that had been talked about pre-war were replaced by the idea that any biological or chemical agent found anywhere would constitute a “smoking gun”.)
Actually, lets do that the other way since you made the statement. I’ve seen this argued back and forth in myriad Iraq threads but never seen anything definitive on it. So, do you have a cite that the folks on the intelligence committees/subcommittees don’t have access to the same info as the president? My understanding of the government is that the president is required to share ALL information with at least representitives of the Senate/Congress.
I don’t know the answer to this myself btw so thats why I’m asking for a cite.
Whew! I’m sure the 2,000 dead American soldiers, their families, and the untold numbers of dead Iraqs, not to mention the maimed, injured, and tortured, and the victims of terrorism yet to come feel MUCH better now. “I’m not a liar, I’m fucking incompetent!” is a helluva rallying cry.
I seem to remember a great deal of discussion regarding the validity of the intelligence that the Bush administration relied on, and their ignoring of intelligence counter to their desired goal of invading Iraq. I also remember a great deal of people who, while they may have supported the idea of war, wanted to give the UN inspectors, and the international community, more time to determine the validity of the information.
xtisme: I don’t know exactly what the facts are on who gets what but I seem to recall someone high in the Kerry campaign saying that the Senators do not have access to the same degree as the President…and I don’t seem to recall that point being seriously disputed. The closest I could find is a description of Senator Graham of Florida making a similar point here:
I was under the impression that the Clinton administration’s conclusion was more along the lines of “yeah, he’s probably got quite a few stashed away somewhere. I’d be surprised as hell if he didn’t.”
Bush came out and said “I’ve got definite evidence that shows he has them.”
The issue isn’t “Bush believed Saddam had WMDs” - the issue is “Bush stated he had evidence that Saddam had WMDs”.
You’ll probably find a lot of people, many Democrats, who believed in Saddam’s weapon programs. But I doubt you’ll find anyone outside of the Bush administration and its informants who will claim they had actual evidence of the production and existence of WMDs.
Rational people realize there’s a difference between opinions and evidence or beliefs and facts.
The congress doesn’t necessarily have the same access to all intelligence data that the President has. However, when members of the intelligence community are called into top secret session with selected members of the congressional intelligence committee they are bound by law to tell the whole truth when questioned. And congress can be quite severe with those who equivocate, hedge and hem and haw in such circumstances.
The Congress really dropped the ball, especially the minority party. Minority party members of committees have the same power to ask questions and demand answers as do majority members. And if the chairman interferes they have the power to go public with a report of that interferance. I believe that the Democrats were cowardly in that they were afraid of being called “pro-terrorist” and simply went along. It will be some time before I’ll trust them again. I don’t see how then can expect to govern if they won’t stand up and demand that going to war be justified from A to Z and back again. I’ve got to admit that really doesn’t leave me with anybody I trust to govern. The Republicans have wholeheartedly backed an incompetent and Democrats are a bunch of ditherers.
Life’s a bitch and then you die.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
Any other hackneyed saws to help me out?
Of course as jshore said in this post, the resolution authorising GW to act was presented as a means to pressure Sadaam into coming clean. Or what GW claimed would be coming clean about those awful weapons he had. It’s tragic that GW didn’t mean it and that the Democrats though he was honest.
I didn’t say it was a blank check for war. The title of this thread is “which leading Democrats thought Saddam had WMD”. Presumably, those who voted for the resolution thought he did.
The issue is not which Democrats (or Republicans or Administration members) thought Saddam had WMDs a year before the war. The issue is what was the evidence at the time of the invasion. That the significant UN inspection effort turned up nothing, which made Bush not hold until the evidence was clear but rather invade on schedule, shows he was either lying or was aggressively making sure he didn’t see the truth. Though the kind of president who didn’t know anyone was suffering in Louisiana until aides made a DVD is beyond belief.