Bush: "We gave him a chance to let the inspectors in and he wouldn't let them in."

[Desmostylus]

Yeah, wish I’d retracted a few posts ago. Wait a minute, I did, didn’t I.

[Otto]

*Originally posted by hawthorne *
**Is it too early to start naming airports after him? **

Done and done.

[Revtim]

*Originally posted by Otto *
**Done and done. **

I hope he has better luck finding my luggage than he does finding WMDs…

[ElwoodCuse]

Can you imagine the angel and the devil that must appear on GWB’s shoulders?

“Now George, we both know that it’s right to go to Iraq. But the people might not see it like you do. We have to keep the people happy, so we can do what needs to be done.”

“Screw the people!! Enough of this pussy-footing around! I want you to go on TV tonight, and tell the whole world, 'damn right we went into Iraq just ‘cause we felt like it, and shut up or you’re next! America uber alles!’”

[Eonwe]

*Originally posted by iampunha *
**I had been wondering what the resident SDMB Republican apologists would have to say about this latest bit of news. I just didn’t want to be the one to give Eonwe that bit of satisfaction:D **

Aparently I need to search for myself more often

[elf6c]

I have to admit the idea of naming an aircraft carrier after a spoiler rich kid who used his daddy’s influence to get everything he had and avoid military service where dangerous or inconvient:

Even as a young man, Bush could say one thing and do another. He said he was for the Vietnam War, but accepted a home-side slot in the Texas Air National Guard arranged by his father’s friends. He then appears to have shirked even that duty with still-unanswered questions about why he failed a flight physical and whether he went AWOL for a year.

According to the Boston Globe, “In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And … for a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.” [Boston Globe, May, 23, 2000]

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2003/070903a.html

Ahh, here is the original:

News Archives

But both accounts are contradicted by copies of Bush’s military records, obtained by the Globe. In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.

Gee, the Navy seemed to keep damn good track of me during my service. How did he get away with that I wonder. Well:

If Bush’s interest in Guard duty waned, as spokesman Bartlett hinted, the records and former Guard officials suggest that Bush’s unit was lackadaisical in holding him to his commitment. Many states, Texas among them, had a record during the Vietnam War of providing a haven in the Guard for the sons of the well-connected, and a tendency to excuse shirking by those with political connections.

And well connected he was:

The ease of Bush’s entry into the Air Guard was widely reported last year. At a time when such billets were coveted and his father was a Houston congressman, Bush vaulted to the top of a waiting list of 500. Bush and his father have denied that he received any preferential treatment. But last year, Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House in 1968, said in a sworn deposition in a civil lawsuit that he called Guard officials seeking a Guard slot for Bush after a friend of Bush’s father asked him to do so.

Before he went to basic training, Bush was approved for an automatic commission as a second lieutenant and assignment to flight school despite a score of just 25 percent on a pilot aptitude test. Such commissions were not uncommon, although most often they went to prospective pilots who had college ROTC courses or prior Air Force experience. Bush had neither.

See a pattern yet?

[Cheesesteak]

*Originally posted by London_Calling *
**Cheesesteak
** - You’re factually wrong and very naïve on every count, at least according to (this time around) Hans Blix and (from UNSCOM) Butler and Ritter.

Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s fucking ass what Blix has to say NOW. Let’s take a look at what he said BEFORE we brought a giant army to bear on Iraq.

January 28th

His report to the UN Security Council about his inspectors’ work in Iraq over the past 60 days gave an unexpectedly critical appraisal of Iraq’s failure to comply fully with UN resolutions to disarm and actively co-operate.

February 13th

HANS BLIX: Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace. Last weekend, when he returned to Baghdad, Blix said Iraq was starting to heed the mounting international criticism.

March 7

In his report presented on 7 March, Hans Blix stated that '…after a period of somewhat reluctant cooperation, there had been an acceleration of initiatives by Iraq since the end of January

What I see is a gov’t being dragged kicking and screaming into semi-compliance, due entirely to the fact that an army was getting ready to stomp it into oblivion. What this tells me is, the very instant that army is no longer pointed at him, he’ll tell Blix to suck sand, just like he did years ago.

Of course, if my facts are wrong, feel free to provide your own cites where Blix gave Iraq a big old thumbs up BEFORE the war started.

[Voyager]

You’ve never done any negotiating, have you? If Blix said that Saddam was being an angel, do you think there would be more cooperation? If Saddam had cooperated with no resistance, Bush would no doubt be demanding rectal exams next. In the previous round of inspections they never got into the palaces, so this round was going better. The threat helped, no doubt about that.

At the time, I figured they would close in on the WMDs, and Saddam would kick out the inspectors, and there would be a war with UN backing. I didn’t understand why Bush couldn’t wait until this happens. Maybe, just maybe, he knew there were no WMDs, but since he wanted to kick out Saddam WMDs or no, he had to act before this became obvious.

The fact is that Iraq was cooperating more than ever before at the time the war started, and a majority of the Security Council knew it.

If Bush wanted to go to war just because Saddam was a bad guy, he should have the guts to have said so, and taken the consequences if the public was against it. But he hid behind a lie (or he was a dupe of Rummy and Cheney - your pick.) Or, he might have lost touch with reality so much that he actually thinks that the inspectors weren’t let in, and that WMDs have been found. He’s going to be praying with Henry Kissinger next.

[EasyPhil]

You’re either against us or with the terrorists.

[London_Calling]

Cheesesteak - We can cite real-time (negotiating) sticks and carrots all day, but that’s what they always are; telegraphed sticks and carrots. The idea, just in case you haven’t grasped it, is to not read the lines themselves but to read between the negotiating lines.

If you’re not up to that, then you have no choice but to read what the protagonists have to say after the fact, assuming you do want to understand what unfolded. That you choose to not so do (“rats fucking ass”), also didn’t read between the lines in real-time and, presumably, relied on the US news media to help you form opinions means you’ve been well and truly whoosed. But you’re not exactly alone in that.

Ftr, Saddam was complying with the UN timescale, it’s just that Bush decided he wanted to impose a different self-determined, non-UN timescale. In addition, Saddam refused to produce the WMD Bush knew he had . . so he had to invade immediately on those two (false) pretexts.