Neither can our friends. Nor can anyone else, for that matter. Not to mention that you have not demonstrated that such a strategy motivates our enemies in the first place.
Sooner or later, we will have to negotiate a dentente with an enemy or potential enemy who might actually be able to do us some harm, someone who actually possesses intercontinental drone aircraft armed with nuclear anthrax bombs. We want our potential enemy to be mindful of our strength, to be sure. But a successful negotiation must depend on a degree of trust in the other guys sanity. And fear is not conducive to reason.
Oderint dum metuant is not the motto of a great and noble nation.
I have not supported any of the wars in the Middle East with the exception of sending troops into Afghanistan. But for clarification purposes, I am asking that Shodan cite, please, sources for what lies President Clinton told to get us into a war with Iraq when he was the President.
When stating that “…are all clearly on record,” the use of etc. following a list of names is inappropriate. Other than that, I think that your statement is probably correct. I certainly believed it. No one seems to argue that Saddam had had WMD in the past. Why did all of these people believe so strongly that Saddam had WMD in the spring of 2003? I know why I believed it.
Who or what convinced them that the evidence was strong enough to justify military action? Did they have access to all of the intelligence sources that President Bush had? That the DOD had? That George Tenet had?
When you say “Clinton,” I assume that you are referring to the Senator from New York. If you are, instead, referring to President Clinton, do you have a cite for the First Lady’s support of the bombing as a private citizen? If you are referring to Senator Clinton afterall, then you seem to be merely repeating your point that she believed that miitary action was justified.
Although I do judge them harshly for supporting military action in a preemptive war, I would appreciate knowing what lies they told that you are referring to. (But I swear to you, “etc.” never lied.) None of them, however, held the office of President of the United States while either lying to the public about evidence of WMD or failing to get adequate intelligence before ordering a pre-emptive strike against a foreign nation and leading us into war.
Shodan, do you think that it would be wrong for anyone acting in an official capacity to lie to the citizens of the United States in order to lead them into a war against another country – a war that would not be justifiable otherwise?
Do you think that if someone misled the President of the United States in order to convince her or him to seek a declaration of war against another country, that person should be tried for treason or at least held accountable?
Do you think that if someone mislead the Congress of the United States in order to convince the members to declare war against another country, that person should be tried for treason or held accountable?
rpavlick3: You certainly have done a lot of research, I assume, for all of those quotations. But considering the time span involved and the things that were learned after, for example, 1998, it becomes obvious that some of these people changed their minds before we went to war with Iraq.
Finally, in response to the OP, I do think that a lot of Americans thought that we would be saving many Iraqis from certain death. Many of us do have some romantic notions (that are easily played upon) about saving the world. But that was indeed only one factor. I think it may even have been as strong as the need for “revenge.” I suspect some of those same people are wondering why we still have a high terror alert after Saddam has been captured.
Once we get our soldiers home, many of these same Americans will be able to distance themselves emotionally from the civil chaos that we will leave in our wake.
The issue that concerns us is not the possibility that Iraq possessed “WMDs,” which – at least with regard to chemical weapons – was generally conceded by most outside observers, but rather the way in which that possibility was framed as a “certainty” by the current administration. In other words, the administration claimed on numerous occasions that it knew, without a shadow of doubt, that Iraq possessed “WMDs,” and that this knowledge was based on the firm conclusions of its intelligence agencies. Therefore, what we must demonstrate, in order to accuse Bush of lying, is that there did in fact exist a reasonable doubt about these claims – a doubt that Bush willfully, and misleading, attempted to hide from the American public.
I agree. On the other hand, it is not evidence, either. Rather, it is exactly what it is – a question mark. Thus, to take one example, Hans Blix reported to the UNSC in Iraq had possessed, at one point, enough “anthrax growth media” to produce approximately 24000 liters of anthrax. Hussein’s regime claimed to have destroyed that media, and provided some evidence that it had destroyed a portion of it, but much was left unaccounted for. Blix concluded, “One must not jump to the conclusion that they [i.e., the media and associated delivery systems] exist. However, the possibility is also not excluded.” This is a far cry from the unequivocal statements made by, for example, Colin Powell:
or George Bush:
Do you see the difference? It is not a trivial one.
I disagree –the playing field you are attempting to set up is not exactly level. There are a number of cases in which it certainly appears that Bush and his administration lied – or, at the very least, “not-lied,” to borrow Simon X’s excellent phrase – about circumstances surrounding Iraq that have little bearing on its actual possession of “WMDs.” For example, I think we can state with a high degree of certainty that the “yellowcake” accusation in Bush’s State of the Union address, 2002, was a clear case of deceitful rhetoric. The CIA had already vetted a similar charge intended for a speech Bush had given two months earlier (in Cincinnati), and managed after strenuous exertion – including a letter directly from Tenet – to have the claim removed. In order to include the claim in his SOTU, Bush was forced to introduce it with the phrase, “We have learned from British intelligence sources….” because it was well-known within the intelligence community that both US and UN sources found the yellowcake charges to be more than a little dubious. In this instance, Bush chose to rely on British intelligence rather than US, because his own agencies had already debunked the claim; and he also failed to inform his listeners that US intelligence disputed the British report, despite that, as President, he must have been well aware of this fact. Taken together, these circumstances seem to indicate that Bush sought to mislead his listeners with information he almost certainly knew to be less than accurate.
In addition, I think its finally time to debunk this specious oversimplification, “WMD.” With regard to Iraq, we are actually talking about three specific weapons systems: nuclear, chemical, and biological. These are three completely separate sorts of weapons, requiring completely different technologies, facilities, research programmes, and so forth. Furthermore, each weapon system poses a significantly different kind of strategic threat. By conflating them, the administration distorted the actual nature of the threat Iraq posed. The recently released report by the Carnagie Endowment for International Peace makes this point quite eloquently:
(For this reason, I have scrupulously used quotation marks around the letters “WMD” since this debate began over a year ago.)
This conflation is also being rhetorically employed now, by administration supporters such as yourself, to imply that that other actors outside the administration viewed the “WMD” threat in same manner as it was presented by Bush and his cronies. While it is technically correct to assert that, for example, Wesley Clark believed Iraq possessed “WMDs,” it is nevertheless misleading: Clark believed that Iraq possessed some chemical stockpiles, not nuclear weapons. He therefore did not support the war, even prior to its instigation, despite assertions to the contrary. Even if we look at the Senate testimony being flashed around by Drudge and Co., we see that it is wrong to interpret Clark’s stance as one supporting the war because of Iraq’s possession of “WMDs”. In fact, his debating opponent in that particular hearing, Richard Pearl, complained that Clark’s testimony was “hopelessly confused,” flatly stating, “…I think General Clark simply doesn’t want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn’t want to take action. He wants to wait.”
Anyway, returning to you assertion, it is really quite easy to present “clear evidence,” readily available prior to the invasion, that Iraq did not possess nuclear weapons nor the capability to produce them, that his chemical weapon stocks were largely non-existence, and that his capacity for producing new chemical weapons was severely reduced. Starting with the nuclear weapons issue, the IAEA concluded in 1997 that “There are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance.” Returning in November 2002, the IAEA conducted 237 inspections at 148 sites, including those that had been identified by satellite photos as being of interest to US intelligence. ElBaradei reported to the UNSC that his teams had found “no indication of resumed nuclear activities,” and that they had uncovered no attempts on the part of Iraq to import uranium. In fact, the results of the IAEA inspections ran diametrically counter to virtually all of the administration’s claims, including those regarding the aluminum pipes; and the IAEA also discovered that Iraq’s capacities for producing nuclear weapons and material had been seriously degraded since 1997, due primarily to the sanctions regime (WMD and Iraq, 24-25). Even Bush’s own man on the ground, David Kay, conceded that “the activities of the inspectors in the early 1990s did a tremendous amount.”
Does this mean that we can categorically rule out the possibility that Iraq possessed a covert nuclear weapons program? Not at all. But it does mean that we cannot state, unequivocally, that he has one, as, for example, Dick Chaney did on Meet the Press:
Regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons, briefly: the question of Iraq’s possession of stocks of chemical weapons has proven to be one of the administration’s most successful propaganda ploys, because it appears that even if Iraq had possessed such stocks, any warheads produced prior to 1990 would have been inert by 1996 or so, at the absolute latest. VX, sarin, mustard gas and the like has a shelf-life of 5 years, max. But even so, Iraq’s capacities were considerably more limited, as pointed out by UN inspector Rolf Ekeus:
So the issue then devolves to the question of whether or not Iraq had, or could, produce chemical munitions during the interim, and the extent to which we could accurately assess this possibility. Again, relying on information uncovered by UN inspectors between November and March of 2003, we find no evidence whatsoever that Iraq possessed stocks of weapons or had restarted any of its research or production programs (WMD and Iraq, 31).
I’ll return with more later, time permitting. I just want to respond to a couple of other points quickly. First:
I agree with you that it would be hypocritical to criticize Republicans for attacking other countries while excluding Democrats. I’m not sure what I think about “Desert Storm,” really, having never investigated it at depth, but just so you know, I believe that Bill Clinton committed a war crime when he bombed that pharmaceutical company in the Sudan. I completely agree that Democratic supporters of the war cannot be granted immunity for making false claims. But we have to consider the specifics of each case. It is true that there existed a general consensus in the intelligence community regarding Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons, for example, so false statements regarding those weapons not might be so damning, really. On the other hand, Wesley Clark did not claim that he possessed an IAEA report that stated Iraq was six-months away from constructing a nuclear weapon, Hillary Clinton did not say that she possessed evidence that Iraq was attempting to purchase “yellowcake” from Africa, and Joseph Lieberman did not say that there existed “no doubt that Iraq continues to possess some of the most lethal weapons devised by man.” Or consider this statement, submitted by rpavlik3:
”Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that…this country has continued armament programs,” is a far cry from:
It is one thing to claim that you suspect Iraq has an ongoing nuclear weapons program, or possesses a stockpile of chemical weapons; it is quite a different thing to claim that you know this for a fact, categorically. As the Carnegie report points out:
Ah, John, the difference between knowing and simply believing is what this thread is largely about, isn’t it? You claim to know something that you simply believe to be true. Bush & Co. claimed to know something based on even less than that, and no real interest in finding out. There are differing degrees of prevarication, and those are two of them. But we deal with facts here.
For those of us who think it matters that something is the case vs. might become the case, that the difference between reality and mere possibility matters, here isIncurious George’s interview on “60 Minutes”:
I know what I said in the same sense that I know humans evolved from apes. In the sense that the earth orbits the sun. It is you who are “Caught in a trap” of confusing your personal beliefs with facts.
There is no remaining way to interpret the facts there, pal. It is not a matter of belief any longer. Bush said he knew. He didn’t know, because he couldn’t know, because it wasn’t true. QED.
To claim that it is still somehow debateable is a statement of faith, not fact - which is what you’re still doing, in your obvious difficulty in separating the two concepts. Or, perhaps it’s difficulty in accepting either that Bush could be wrong or that you could be fooled. Keep trying, though - a war is a serious enough matter to require it.
No, you are mistaken, since that is exactly the possibility that concerns us.
All the Bush-bashers are saying that it was not possible to believe in good faith that Iraq had WMD. Therefore, Bush lied when he said that Iraq had, or was attempting to obtain such weapons. So, apparently, did everyone else under the sun when they agreed that Iraq had WMD, including both Clintons, Kerry, Gephardt, Clark, etc. Even Dean is not (AFAIK) on the record before the invasion as stating his belief that Iraq had no WMD.
So if Bush is lying, so is everyone else. But that is the part where Democrats change the subject.
Friend Shodan, your loyalty would be noble if it were not squandered on such unworthy men. You avoid the point like a bullfighter avoids the horns.
“Believed in good faith”? Well, yes, “faith” seems to be exactly the word.
Do you deny that the Bushiviks stated, as a fact, that Saddam had WMD’s? Do you deny that they stated that they knew that Saddam had WMD’s? And finally, do you deny that this has proven to be false?
There is but one signature at the bottom of the order for war, where it says “Commander in Chief”. Just one. It is neither of the Clintons, nor Dean, nor Gephart, nor Kerry, nor Clark.
You can’t “know” what isn’t true. You can believe what isn’t true. As I have faith in your sincerity, I can consider that demonstrated.
Why does this particular line of argument get so twisted? Can it not be true that Bush mislead the population AND that Clinton et al. were mistaken about WMDs? Why do we have to assign nefarious motives to Bush? Even if we accept that he was mistaken, even if we accept that he was, shall we say, willfully mistaken, what about his actions means that he was lying. Being wrong (even if you state that you know) does not equate to lying. Failing to see the evidence that the WMDs were not present is perhaps a failing. But it is not prevarication.
I am equally surprised that you dismiss other’s mistakes on the grounds they did not lead to war. Politicians who spoke about Iraq’s WMDs before the war did so for their own political reasons. Given that they all believed Saddam had them, how can you be sure we would not have invaded Iraq under Clinton if 9/11 had occured in, say, 1998? I realize this is a hypothetical, but some people seem to be certain that such a thing would not have happened. I am puzzled by the certainty. Especially in the face of all the accusations of “faith” and “belief” vs. knowledge and facts.
There is a difference between the statements “there is no way…” and “I cannot think of any other way…”. If you want to find out for sure, open a thread “Did Bush lie…?” in GQ and see how fast it gets bumped back here, into the debate forum, where debatable subjects belong.
Well, I don’t know if I qualify in your mind as a “Bush-basher,” but you are nevertheless misrepresenting, possibly misunderstanding, my argument.
I am certain that one could believe, in good faith, that Iraq possessed “WMDs.” It is entirely possible that Cheney, Bush, et. al., sincerely believed that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program after 1998, for example. But I do not believe that they could have been unaware of the existence of dissenting judgements regarding that question. Prior to the publication of the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, it was the consensus of both US and international intelligence agencies that Iraq had probably not reconstituted those programs. Between the 2002 and 2003 the UN also concluded, on the basis of a comprehensive inspections routine, that Iraq had probably not restarted those programs.
Even the 2002 NIE, which concluded that Iraq was back in the nuclear weapons business, contained significant dissenting opinions. Particularly eye-opening in this regard is the way in which the issue of the aluminum tubes was handled. The tubes were significant because they were the piece of hard, damning evidence possessed by the US that pointed to a reconstitution of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. But the agency most highly qualified to assess the adequacy of the tubes for this purpose, the DOE, had come to the conclusion that the tubes were in fact quite unsuitable for use as uranium centrifuges. Those who produced the report, and those who later read it, could not have failed to notice this important fact. They nevertheless chose to ignore these DOE (and State) dissentions, and to frame their claims regarding Iraq nuclear weapons capacities in terms of a level of certainty they did not possess.
In other words, my argument is that Bush probably lied when he said that he was certain that Iraq possessed “WMDs,” even if he believed in good faith that Iraq possessed these weapons. Do you understand my point? Many of his public statements were certainly misleading, because he was claiming as undisputed truth “facts” that were hardly undisputed. He was almost certainly aware that many of the facts he used were contested even as he employed them – such as the “yellowcake claim” from the SOTU. Other examples were detailed in my previous post, and I can’t help but notice that when we get down to brass tacks, and speak of specifics, you don’t seem to be able formulate a coherent rebuttal.
It might indeed be true that Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Dean, etc. were lying when they made specific claims regarding Iraq’s “WMDs.” I am nevertheless at a loss as to how that absolves Bush from this charge.
Regrettable, if true, but you may note that I’m not changing the subject. So here’ a golden opportunity for you to prove me wrong and restore honor to the Bush administration.
C’mon now, John. If there is any way to avoid concluding that the fact is that Bush lied, you haven’t presented it. If you’re forced to resort to simple petulance, this isn’t the right forum for it.
pervert, again, it isn’t the lies that are at the heart of this, it’s the going to war part.
Petulance? Well, at least you haven’t yet said that I’ve lied.
Look. It makes much more sense that Bush believed WMDs existed in Iraq than that he didn’t. It may not have been his primary motivation for the war, as he clearly implied, but that’s a different issue. He appears to have emphasized the one issue he felt was strong enough, important enough, and verifiable enough, ie WMDS, for the invasion. He’s going to take a lot of flack for the lack of WMD evidence. Going into war knowing that he’d have to take that flack makes no sense, politically.
Your theory, ie lying, on the other hand requires a massive conspiracy by Bush, all his top cabinet members, most of the Democrats, and Tony Blair to boot.
So if you want to argue that he shuffled his priorities about going to war to make WMDs seem the most important, then I’m with you. But when you say he outright lied (ie, he knew WMDs did not exist), you’re without a solid basis for that claim. Or if you want to argue that saying “I know” when one should more accurately say “I have every reason to believe” is lying, then I’m not really interested in that semantic distinction. Because in that case, one can never under any circumstances say “I know”.
The difficulty can’t be that it’s complicated, but that it’s painful to face having been fooled. A number of participants on this board have done so already, to their great credit (including Scylla, yes) but there are still a few dead-enders like **John ** here.
Bush also said he’d exhausted every alternative. We’ve extensively discussed alternatives he never even tried here, and the pleading from many of us both in the US and around the world to do so. Blowing off the UN just two weeks before the Blix report that would have settled the WMD issue is an example, and makes one suspect that Bush knew that he wouldn’t have a casus belli if he waited. But that’s speculation, although it’s hard to explain plausibly any other way, ain’t it?
But he still said he had exhausted every alternative. He lied about that, too. That makes it an aggressive war, and history does not treat those who engage in them kindly. Neither do tribunals, when they lose.
Firstly, it’s clear Bush did not substitute “I know” for “I have* every reason* to believe.” The evidence was much less than that, which is kind of the point isn’t it.
The lie was material to the issue. The distinction between “I know” and “I suspect” was pertinent to the Iraq policy options. Bush needed an “I know” to make the case for invasion and used one, where truthfulness would have made the case for continuing inspections & he wasn’t prepared to wear that.
Clearly that is the issue you keep harping on. But how does going to war make something untrue into a lie? If the Clintons were convinced that WMDs existed but did not take us to war, they were not lying. Bush believed the same thing and under different circumstances did take us to war so he is a liar. I’m not sure how the war part makes either of them liars or not. Or are you suggesting that not going to war means Clinton did not believe in WMDs strongly?
This is the stuff of Tom Clancy novels, like planes crashing into buildings, it’s obviously too out there to ever happen in the real world. Next you’ll be telling us that the PNAC people had also been pushing for an invasion since the 90’s. Is there no limit to your credulity?
