Someone better ask the CIA if they vetted this speech!
Debate topic: What the hell is going on in the White House?
Do you, or anyone else, have a link to the actual transcript? I’ve run across this already today. I’d like to see this in context.
I don’t have a link to the transcript, but if you go to the White House page, you can watch the videotape of it, where he says it. (The headline is “President Reaffirms Strong Position on Liberia”.
Actually, there’s a transcript now up on the site. Here’s a fuller quote:
I just started a Pit thread about this. Argh. I’d love to see someone twist the semantics on this.
Its actually pretty simple. They either were wrong or lied about WMD in Iraq and are desperatley scrambling to justify what they did.
I’m sure the spin doctors are at work on it as we speak.:rolleyes:
From today’s white house press briefing:
I did find this @ * whitehouse.gov*
Gotta love how the fundamental question has changed since … oh, February. Before you know it, you’ll be hearing “We have proof that the Hussein regime in Iraq was fully geared toward the future manufacture or purchase of WMD. US Intel has termed this ‘WMD intent’.”
I hope the spin doctors have malpractice insurance.
What spin is needed? This is exactly what Bush had been saying all along. The inspectors were inspecting for WMDs. S.H. showed that he was only interested in stalling and not dealing with what was required of him under the cease fire terms of Gulf War I.
Still, we should’ve taken him out after we liberated Kuwait in the 90s. Do any of you anti-Iraq war folks disagree with that?
“What spin is needed?”
The problem is that the statement is flat-out false. Saddam did allow the inspectors in. He didn’t co-operate with them fully but that is not the same thing as not letting them in. Bush is clueless about basic facts about what happened just prior to the war, facts which should be clear to anyone who follows the news.
It’s a startling display of ignorance even by Bush’s standards.
Thanks John! You are absolutely correct - no spin is needed. Just a complete restatement, wholly different than what Bush said. Because you see, inspectors were allowed in, which is inherently different than “he wouldn’t let them in.”
So no spin needed at all. Aparently, you can neither polish, nor spin a turd.
I’ll grant you the possibility that either 1)Bush is moderately stupid, and said something accidently that was completely at odds with reality or 2) severely stupid, and believes that this was true.
Look, you guys. Obviously the quote should read as follows:
See? Now everything makes sense.
You guys seem to have forgotten that he only let the inpsectors in after the US started stages the military for war. Do you really think he would have otherwise?
I give up. The truth is not in the man.
We are all being cynically played for suckers. No amount of evidence, no amount of plain old common sense, no amount of tortured semantics and parsing of verbiage is going to change this. The man has utter contempt for the memory and smarts of not only his own electorate but of the opinion of the world. How can any one of intelligence and integrity accept this?
Even if the people in their anger rise up and run this pack of Robber Barons out of office we are still stuck with Iraq. What do we do with Iraq? We have caught the tiger by the tail and we don’t dare let go.
What could this government have done to better build the case for the people who hate America and want to do it harm?
I don’t think anyone argues that a credible threat was necessary (although the other thing Saddam was looking for was an indication that sanctions would be lifted as a result of the inspections) , but that does not necessarily justify invasion.
Yes, this is absolutely true. This, however, is not what the President said. Mr. Bush seems to have forgotten that Saddam Hussain did in fact let the inspectors in.
Now, I can be pretty dense sometimes, but I’m 99% sure that BrightNShiny was joking. Just in case others might be tempted to take the same approach more seriously, however, I’d point out that UNMOVIC inspectors were not, as far as I know, denied access to any site within Iraq. Before the war, the Administration’s arguments against the inspectors’ effectiveness hinged on allegations that the teams’ operational security had been compromised by Iraqi security services. It did not argue that arms inspectors had ever been turned away from a suspected NBC site. I cannot find a way to spin the President’s statement so that it is accurate, unless he’s much more of a poet than we thought and was speaking in some sort of elaborate metaphor.
I know Bush isn’t the best public speaker, but I simply don’t see how that can explain his statement. Frankly, I’m baffled by what the President said. It’s as though he confused the Administration’s desired pre-war scenario with what actually occurred.