At the risk of pointing out the obvious, a-he wasn’t left “unchecked” in the least – quite the opposite actually – and b-I don’t quite see anything in that quote that suggests immediate military action as the only way to deal with the problem.
Compare and contrast with the way Bush went about making Saddam and AQ one and the same in order to market his invasion plans. Here’s a recent article on that very topic with a number of quotes from the pResident:
Are you really that dense? You can honestly sit there and say that you don’t know the difference between thinking Saddam has WMDs, and claiming that you have incontrovertable proof of the same? Among the many, many other lies and distortions, Bush used the yellowcake uranium “evidence” 6 MONTHS AFTER it had been discredited. There are only 2 conclusions one can draw from that. He either lied, or he is completely clueless. Take your pick.
It is a mathematical truism that 2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2.
Did that make any sense? No? Perhaps because I left out a little bit of info. You see in the equation above we’re only displaying one significant digit, but the calculation actually rests on having at least two significant digits. The above equation could be more clearly written as 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8 but since 2.4 rounds down to 2 and 4.8 rounds up to 5 then if we were displaying only one significant digit then the equation becomes 2 + 2 = 5 and makes people scratch their heads.
Sound bytes are rounding errors. The underlying data(two or more significant digits) is often different enough from the high-level soundbyte(single significant digit) view that when put together in the equations it throws them off. Thus you get what seems to be a clear view of the situation but in reality it is nearly useless.
The quoted statement above is like the 2 + 2 = 5 equation. It leaves out important data which is necessary to really understand the situation. “Everybody thought [Saddam] had WMD” is a terribly imprecise statement which leaves out. [ul][li]The state of the WMDs(i.e. rusty chemical warheads from the Iran-Iraq war). []The type of WMDs. (Chemical, Biological, Nuclear)[]Amount of WMDs(a couple vials of botulinim, the bacteria which causes botulism food poisoning and whose toxin is the magic ingredient in Botox, which would require millions of dollars and years to weaponize, if it was possible at all).[]Production capabilities(vials of toxin in some guys refrigerator at home aren’t really producing much of a threat to the region or the US).[]Delivery mechanisms and their state(45 minutes anyone?).[]Capabilities to produce more WMDs given sanctions and inspections.[]Reliability of the information on these programs and the authenticity of documents like the Niger uranium documentation.Dozens of other factors which swing the value of the 2 as high as 2.4999 or as low as 2.0001.[/ul]Determining a course of action where the possibilities are as dire as war is not done by analysis at the sound-byte level(or should not be). Doing it at this level comes up with erronous results because of round off errors which either underestimate some factors or overestimate some factors. One of the courses of action available was to continue inspections or turn over US/UK intelligence on WMD storehouses/production facilities to the inspectors. These same inspectors had overseen or personally handled destruction of approximately 98% of Iraq’s WMDs in the post Gulf War I era.[/li]
While it may be true that a majority of the soundbytes from world leaders agreed that “Saddam had WMDs” before the war, if you dig a little deeper(not much, just to the tenths position) you will find extreme variations. You would find even more variations on the proposed action plans in response to the assessments(which were far more nuanced than soundbytes imply).
And so I obviously did and I apologize yet again. Guess I take this topic too seriously to joke about it. Other than that, please do carry on with the main purpose of this thread. Which is none other than what we’re doing now.
Reminding those that choose to do so, that a vote for Bush is a vote for either a flat-out lier or a terribly incompetent, arrogant, asshole. In my book, both charges are factually true.
This is simply not so. There is a huge space between these two extremes. For Bush to have lied, he would have had to know Iraq had no WMD but deliberately decided to con the American public by saying it did. For him to be terribly incompetent and stupid as you claim, would be to put him in league with the British; the Russians; the UN; virtually all of the countries in the Middle East; the FBI; the CIA; and Bill Clinton himself. Are they all “terribly incompetent and stupid” as well, since they all believed Iraq had WMD as well.?
The fact of the matter is, Bush believed Iraq had WMD (or was striving mightily to obtain or develop them), that Hussein was a danger to the Middle East (and therefore to us, as Hillary described above), that there was a very real danger of WMD falling into the hands of al-Qaeda or some other terrorist group as a result, and that since it was clear the U.N. was never going to take action to back up its words, and that his number one priority was to protect America, he decided to take action to remove these threats himself.
He said he *knew * they had them, and *knew * where they were. He didn’t know; he couldn’t have known because it wasn’t so. To say he know was a lie.
Do you really intend to differentiate between not knowing the facts and simply not caring about them? Is the latter acceptable to you? Apparently:
[quote]
For him to be terribly incompetent and stupid as you claim, would be to put him in league with the British]Not “the British”, just Blair. You also left out Howard. True. But the rest of your list, as impressive as you’d like it to be, consists of people who did *not * go to war and *did * want to send the inspectors in to find out the facts. Bush was opposed to that view, fought it “vociferously” in fact, and has only Blair and Howard to point to as the co-fooled.
Etc. Believing is not knowing. He could have known. He chose not to know. He *chose * to remain ignorant and send people to die for it.
Not a surprise there at all. Unfortunately we here believe in *fighting * ignorance, not applauding it.
Nonsense. Consider the following statement: “I have proof that Iraq has WMDs.” If I in fact do not have proof, then that is a lie. I don’t have to know that they don’t have WMDs for it to be a lie. The lie is not in saying he believed it, but rather in saying that he proved it.
You might believe that John Edwards (the psychic) has clairvoyant abilities, but if you claim to have scientifically proven it, when you know you have not, then you are lying. But at this point, I suspect you will never acknowledge the difference.
I simply disagree. So-called proof can be wrong, as can anything involving human endeavor. But that doesn’t mean those who believe it are liars if events show that proof to be wrong.
No president has first hand knowledge of most of the things they have to contend with during their time in office. They are told things by their intelligence services, by their own advisors and by the leaders and government officials of other countries. Do you think JFK had hands-on first hand knowledge of Soviet nuclear missles being installed in Cuba? No, he was both told and shown photos that indicated that this was the case, the same as with GWB.
The “proof” in the case of Cuba was correct; the “proof” in Iraq was faulty (unless of course Hussein managed to ship them out of the country prior to the invasion so as to facilitate his possible return to power…but that is for another discussion). JFK and GWB acted identically in taking the proof they were shown by their intelligence services seriously. Why is one smart and prescient and the other a lying dumbass when they both did the same thing?
I suspect it’s because one was a Democrat and could therefore do no wrong, and the other is a Republican and can therefore do no right.
First of all, you didn’t “simply disagree”; you made the statement that “For Bush to have lied, he would have had to know Iraq had no WMD but deliberately decided to con the American public by saying it did.”, which is false. The conclusion “Bush lied” is NOT contingent on the premise “he would have had to know Iraq had no WMD”. Whether you personally believe he didn’t lie is another matter. It’s still not contingent on the premise you stated.
Second, you seem to have ignored the fact that I pointed out that Bush, in at least one case, had to have known the evidence was faulty before he presented it. Tenet told Bush not to rely on the yellowcake uranium evidence, yet Bush used it in his State Of the Union address. It was NOT a matter of believing seemingly valid evidence that was later discredited, as you seem to think; it was in fact a matter of using evidence that had already been discredited.
Because in Bush’s case, he put the cart before the horse. He had already decided to invade Iraq, and then pressured the intelligence agencies to come up with an excuse. And to compare this to the Cuban Missile Crisis is absurd. IIRC, they had PHOTOS of the missiles. What evidence did we have for Saddam’s WMDs? Nothing - just a bunch of hype.
I can certainly understand why you might want to defer this discussion for another time, since that would save you the embarrassment of trying to defend a steaming load. Give us a preview of this fascinating discussion. Have you the slightest evidence of any such? Even the merest shred? One notes that you are not so circumspect as to refrain from dropping this turd into the punchbowl, but only disinclined to defend it.
Kennedy was shown proof, actual proof. Real stuff, not fantasies. There was no tangible, valid dissent from the clear significance of the U2 photos, which is very much at variance with GWB’s input. As well, Kennedy did indeed exhaust the diplomatic approaches, including back channel approaches, in pursuit of a peaceful solution. GWB showed no interest whatsoever in anything that might forestall his stated intent, to “take Saddam out.”
Back on the subject of the *pitter * and the pittee, I’d rather read 100 of **Read Fury ** angry outbursts than 1 mild rumination by Mr. Svinlesha. Both posters are absolutely predictable; however, RF’s posts are shorter and occasionally entertaining, while MrS posts are endlessly boring without exception.
Yes, they do go on and on with all those words, and um, points, and er…cogent arguments, and um, refutations of bullshit by reference to, er, cites with, whatsitcalled, evidence.
How boring is that?
I think my method of just calling people cunts is better. Pithy. To the point.
How do mean that Bush “lied” if you don’t mean that he intentionally deceived the American public into believing that Iraq had WMD when he knew it didn’t. Are we back again to Moore’s assertion that he lied because he said something that ultimately proved inaccurate? Are we calling noble people of hundreds of years past liars because they contended the Earth was flat?
Need I point out that Bush has many advisors. How many do you suppose counselled that the evidence was likely valid? Why do you apparently accept Tenet’s word as the end all and be all of the true activity going on in Iraq?
You have no idea, based on your own personsal knowledge, as to what had been discredited at that time or not. Your post is a classic example of someone picking and choosing his quotes and evidence and the weight they should be given based on his own preconceived notions.
There is absolutely no way you have any such knowledge of your own that he did anything of the sort. Therefore, this is just what you believe.
Well, this brings up two questions. IIRC, I believe there were supposed to be at various times photos of mobile chemical weapons labs here and there. And secondly, are you saying there can be no “proof” without PHOTOS. Are PHOTOS to be the only proof that is acceptable to you? And if so, what about modern technology that can so easily alter them.
The JFK analogy was to illustrate that no president has first hand knowledge of the things he must either accept or reject as fact.
I’m surprised at you, luci. You are generally intelligent and witty enough not to have to resort to snipping words out of context to alter what they appear to say. I was not claiming this happened, I was stating that it was a possiblility…a hypothetical circumstance that might possibly explain the disparity between pre-invasion evidence and the fact that no WMD have been found. I was not stating it as either incontrovertible fact or even probability.
This simply isn’t so. Neither Cuba nor the U.S.S.R. was subjected to the same sanctions, no-fly zones, UN resolutions, etc. as was Iraq…nor was Russia given a pass and a chance to abandon its agressive behavior for anywhere near the same length of time as Iraq.
Also, the Soviet Union presented a known threat and a known target for retaliation. If Iraqi WMD were to fall into the hands of terrorists, entire American cities could be vaporized with impunity. Who would we strike back at? How would we keep more of the same from happening? (And spare me the “Hussein wouldn’t dare do that because he knew we’d kick his ass” argument. We kicked his ass anyway, and he knew that was coming but he still didn’t leave when he had the chance.)
And besides, he would simply have denied involvement and blamed a renegade military officer or some such, and the U.N., France, Germany, et. al. would would want to “investigate” it ad infinitum while yet more WMD found their way into terrorist hands and even more Americans died.
Far better to have a president like Bush who believes an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.