CBS 60 Minutes --- Iraq War Planned Pre-9/11?

[jshore]

@furt

Actually, the far left’s insistance on saying that, rather than simply conceding that “we disagree on policy,” is exactly what will keep him there.

So, the fact that Bush has lied or deceived on nearly every major issue and has used excessive secrecy to shield himself on other issues (not to mention the Orwellian language running through it all) doesn’t bother you at all? You think that this is the way a democracy is supposed to work!?!

[jshore]

@Age Quod Agis

I didn’t mention it because it’s irrelevant.

I’ll concede that Iraq showed either proactive cooperation or substantive progress on the eve or war, when thousands of troops were stationed just outside of Iraq and readying for an invasion.

Well, I don’t know exactly what you define as “eve of war”. Wasn’t this at the point when the U.N. was debating whether to pass a resolution to authorize an invasion? I wasn’t aware there was a time after which cooperation was not enough and Iraq was going to be invaded anyway. Actually, I was aware there was a time…and it was most likely Jan 20, 2001 (although one might be able to argue that Sept 11 really sealed their fate by providing pretext)…but I didn’t think that was “official”.

[Squink]

Uh oh John, there’s a new poll out, and it shows a big drop in Bush’s numbers.

CBS News/New York Times poll of 1,022 adults puts the president’s approval rating at 50%, matching his lowest ever, and the largest number ever – 45% - disapproving.

This decline (from 60% approval the week after Saddam’s capture) comes after former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s criticisms of the administration in a book and in interviews, and after continuing attacks on American troops in Iraq.
…
Less than half now approve of how he is handling the situation in Iraq. 51% say the war was not worth the costs.

Particularly worrisome is the erosion of Bush’s approval rating among independents.
Fortunately, this is just a poll.

[elucidator]

Hmmm. A bit strange. I also have a link to the CBS poll, dated a half hour later than yours which says:

…If the November presidential election were held today, 45% of voters say they would vote for the Democratic candidate and 43% would vote to re-elect President Bush.

Late last month, the President held a 49% to 40% edge. The standing today is similar to what it was in November 2003, before the capture of Saddam Hussein…

[elucidator]

oopsy! That’s http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/17/opinion/polls/main593848.shtml

[furt]

@jshore

So, the fact that Bush has lied or deceived on nearly every major issue and has used excessive secrecy to shield himself on other issues (not to mention the Orwellian language running through it all) doesn’t bother you at all? You think that this is the way a democracy is supposed to work!?!

I don’t think he has. Like most people, I neither love nor hate him.

If ya’ll were attempting to persuade people that Bush means well but he’s not done a good job, and that candidate X has better ideas for where to go in the future, you’d have a chance of getting 51%. But the left is deliberately setting the bar higher for themselves by insisting that people think of him as an evil spawn of Satan and that he’s done bad things in the past; and that attitude will simply turn off a lot of people in the middle for no useful reason.

[Desmostylus]

@furt

If ya’ll were attempting to persuade people that Bush means well but he’s not done a good job, and that candidate X has better ideas for where to go in the future, you’d have a chance of getting 51%. But the left is deliberately setting the bar higher for themselves by insisting that people think of him as an evil spawn of Satan and that he’s done bad things in the past; and that attitude will simply turn off a lot of people in the middle for no useful reason.

We’re talking on a message board here, not running a fucking election campaign. Your ridulous insistence that Bush’s motives never be questioned is a pathetic attempt to silence a debate you know you can’t win. As you should have realised by now, it doesn’t work. :rolleyes:

[Zoe]

Jonathan Chance: But I confidently predict that O’Neill’s book will feature prominently is the campaign…

GoHeels: Despite what O’Neil said in his book, he says he would probably vote for Bush.

This has been mentioned before, but it is important to note that O’Neill doesn’t have a book out. So his motivation for going public does not involve selling his own material. He was interviewed in a book that has just been released.

Chicago Faucet, this is from the same article that you linked to about President Clinton’s opinions on the presence of WMD’s:

An influential Washington think-tank said Thursday the Bush administration “systematically” inflated the threat from Iraq’s weapons programmes in a bid to strengthen its push for military action against Iraq last year.
In its report, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace also said it was unlikely that Iraq could have destroyed, hidden or moved out of the country hundreds of weapons of mass destruction without Washington detecting some sign of activity.

[Zoe]

To those of you who support President Bush:

Would you still support him if you knew that he had deliberately lied to lead us into war with Iraq?

How would you determine if he had lied to the citizens of the United States?

[elucidator]

Well, maybe friend Furt has a point, perhaps the message is a bit too somber, too strident. Howzabout…

GeeDubya, International Eagle Scout, set out to do his good deed for the year: free the Iraqi people. It was a really, really good idea! But, well, sometimes its hard for folks to see that. So GeeDubya fibbed a little, maybe stretched the truth just a little bit! Not much at all, really, just saying he was sure about something when it was really sort of maybe kinda. Could be. And, OK, so it turns out to be “not at all, not by a long shot”. Is that his fault? Is it his fault that Saddam treacherously didn’t have what he was supposed to have? One thing is for sure! he never will have what he didn’t have, and America is much safer than it would have been if GeeDubya had been telling the truth!

Yes, you draw more flies with honey than with vinegar. Of course, shit works best of all.

No, I don’t need to tar and feather GeeDubya, don’t really need to vilify him. All I need is that this time next year, he’s no longer in a position to order people to go kill people. That’ll do fine.

[John_Mace]

@Zoe

To those of you who support President Bush:

Would you still support him if you knew that he had deliberately lied to lead us into war with Iraq?

What a silly question. Of course not. Gee, you almost tricked me. :rolleyes:

How would you determine if he had lied to the citizens of the United States?

When I didn’t have to believe in a massive conspiracy theory in order to support the “he lied” scenario. So to start, when a significant majority of the Democrats who supported the war came out and said: “We’ve determined that Bush lied. We were misled, and we need to inform the American people of that fact.” A good initial roster would include: Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Dick Gepardt, and Evan Bayh.

[elucidator]

Comrade Mace has an excellent point, if somewhat more radical a position than mine own. We should certainly purge those collaborators who were either intimidated into compliance or were enthusiastic cheerleaders for mayhem. Chuck * all * the buggers out, quite right!

And I must applaud the non-partisan justice of it all: we’ll chuck out all of the Democrats as well as all the Republicans who were collaborators. If it doesn’t matter to him what a party balance that would leave, then by God, it doesn’t matter to me either!

You’ve convinced me, John. Lead on!

[John_Mace]

@elucidator

Comrade Mace has an excellent point, if somewhat more radical a position than mine own.

You’ve convinced me, John. Lead on!

Spasibo, elushka!

[blowero]

@Age Quod AgisQuote:

Originally Posted by blowero
My God are you ever becoming annoying.
That’s your argument? That I’m annoying?

Nope, just a statement of fact.

Please go back to post #99 and show me where you quoted my alleged Clinton analogy.

Do your own homework. Here’s a clue, the posts from me say “Blowero” at the top. Scroll your ass back up and read them.

No, you did not quote me. You didn’t even accurately represent what I’d said.

Actually, I quoted you TWICE. The first time when I responded to you, and the second time when you forgot that you had ever made the analogy, and I had to remind you. If you think I’m going to do it a THIRD time, you’re out of your mind.

I suppose it’s possible that I could have gone back through all of my posts and guessed at which statement you referring to. It just seemed easier to ask you what you were talking about.

You didn’t ask, you made a false assertion that I had misquoted you.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blowero
**THEN, you responded in an oblique manner about how you think WMDs were not the crux of Bush’s justification. It really had nothing to do with my point.
**
I was responding to your statement that “Bush tried to get the UN to sanction the war by presenting trumped-up evidence of “weapons of mass destruction” and “direct links to Al Qaeda”.” So in what way was my statement that WMD and terror were not the only justifications for war “oblique” or irrelevant?

My point was that Clinton didn’t do what Bush did, so you can’t compare the two. What exactly is it about that point that you have so much trouble addressing?

Originally Posted by blowero
And when I point out that you did make such a point, you get all bent out of shape because YOU forgot that you had said it.
You keep projecting these emotions onto me. I wasn’t bent out of shape about anything (except maybe a little at ElvisL1ves, but that’s only natural). I’m still not bent out of shape. In fact, I’m smiling right now. This is me —>

So why don’t you calm down, and let’s get back to the subject at hand?

Oh, boo hoo, whine, whimper - I am calm; why are you projecting emotions on me?

Quote:
Originally Posted by blowero
Well if you agree with it, then that makes it your point as well.
No, it doesn’t. It’s not my point until I make it.

What a fucking copout.

Is it ok for me to attribute to you the things elucidator says? Of course not. Because his points are not your points, even if you probably would agree with them. People around here call those strawmen.

Bullshit. If I quoted elucidator and said I agreed with the quote, then surprise! - I would actually be agreeing with what he said. And then if you disagreed, I wouldn’t be so dense as to say, “Oh, well, er, it was his point, not mine”. Who are you trying to kid here?

Quote:
Originally Posted by blowero
However, Bush DID intend to do so. So they’re NOT guilty of the “same”. Not in any way, shape, or form.
I understand that you believe that Bush intended to invade Iraq from Day 1 of his Administration.

I believe that 60 Minutes reported O’Neill as having said that. I believe so because I saw the show.

My point is that you can’t reasonably base that belief on Paul O’Neill’s statements, because on the Today Show, O’Neill said that they were simply reviewing and adopting Clinton’s contingency policies on Iraq.

I said this before, and I’m not sure why you’re ignoring it, but I don’t interpret the quote you posted that way. Yes, Bush inherited Clinton’s contingency plan, but for Bush it was not a contingency plan. Bush told his staff to make it happen. I don’t see anywhere in the Today Show interview where O’Neill disavows that.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blowero
According to 60 Minutes, he DID say that.
And according to Paul O’Neill and the Today Show, he did NOT say that.

I disagree.

[elucidator]

I refer fellow Dopers to an article in this months Atlantic by James Fallows titled “Blind into Baghdad”. In it, Mr. Fallows outlines the extensive degree of planning for a post-Saddam Iraq. The degree and intensity of the planning puts any suggestion that such planning was merely one of a number of “contingency” plans beyond serious consideration.

Further, the article states, that as the difficulties and problems inherent in “regime change” became more clear, Dept. of Defense heavyweights came to regard the planning effort to be “anti-war”, and more and more disregarded and ignored the findings of the planners.

If this article is essentially correct, there was quite a bit of intelligent and insightful planning, the problems we face today were not a surprise, but, for the most part, entirely predictable. The trouble came when the proceedings of these planners came to be viewed as contradicting the accepted wisdom of Rummy and Co.

One rather droll bit of “planning”:

"…A report titled “Free Media” proposed that all Iraqi journalists be taken out of the country for a month-long re-education process. “Those who ‘get it’ go back as reporters, others will be retired or reassigned…”

and

“…It recommended that a new film Colonial America: Life in a Theocracy be shot, noting 'The Puritan experiments provide amazing parallels with current Moslem fundamentalism. The ultimate failures of these U.S. experiments can also be vividly illustrated - witch trials, intolerance, etc…”

Ah! Hearts and minds!

I heartily recommend this article to anyone who still retains any doubts as to the Bushiviks determination for war with Iraq.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@Diogenes the Cynic

O’Neill also revealed that there never was any evidence of WMDs.

Please see the following from the Today Show transcript (emphasis added):

COURIC: Well, we’ll get to that in a moment. But you say nowhere did you ever see evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Well, an intelligent person would draw the conclusion that those charges were being trumped up by the administration as a rationale for the invasion.

O’NEILL: No, that’s not what I’ve said. I have a very high standard for what represents evidence. If you told me that you put your hands on weapons of mass destruction, I’d probably believe you because you are a public person. If someone that I believed in told me they’d actually seen it, that’s evidence for me. But it’s possible – and certainly there were lots of inferences and circumstantial things that the national security assessments pulled together in looking at this question of mass destruction. I’m not denying or gainsaying the fact that one could make a case. What I have said is I never saw anything that I considered to be concrete evidence of weapons of mass destruction. I think the fact that we haven’t found them makes the point. That also doesn’t make a point that we shouldn’t have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein. I’m not making that case. I’m making the really clear case that I know the difference between evidence and what is allusion and assertion and the rest. That’s my point.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but he also expressly disavows what you’ve asserted.

@Diogenes the Cynic

There is nothing that Clinton did that makes Bush’s war any more legal or legitimate or justified.

I agree.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

AQA:

Let’s just say that there doesn’t seem to have been sufficient evidence to justify a preemptive invasion. Ther may have been some suggestive intelligence but nothing concrete, and the fact that no WMDs have been found would have to cast some pretty serious doubt on the veracity of Bush’s stated confidence in their existence before the invasion.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@blowero

Nope, just a statement of fact.

Fine. I’m annoying. I’m also fat, stupid, and I’ve got a big, smelly butt. Now if you’ll stop giving me a rasberry, maybe we can step out of the 4th grade for a moment.

@blowero

Actually, I quoted you TWICE.

Talk about a copout. I asked you for a cite. You respond by telling me that it’s up there somewhere. I wonder why.

Well, since you seem to have “forgotten” what was actually said, let me help you out. Your “response” to my supposed Clinton analogy was in post #99. Here, from post 99, are all of my statements that you quoted.

@me

My point was that I’m sick of arguing about it because it’s been argued ad naseum in other threads, with absolutely no positive results.
. . .
First, there were a number of justifications for the war in Iraq. Admittedly, the ones that stuck in everyone’s mind were “WMD” and “links to terror.” However, that doesn’t diminish the fact that WMD and terror were only two of many justifications for war.
. . .
Second, the crux of the WMD justification was not that they were in possession of WMD. Rather, the crux was that Iraq wouldn’t cooperate with our efforts to find out if they had WMD or WMD-development programs.
. . .
Third, we thought they had WMD and/or WMD-development programs based on lots of evidence, including the fact that they were resisting inspections. In fact, there appears to have been near-unanimity in the international intelligence community that Iraq had WMD-development programs. That conclusion certainly may have been based on intelligence failures, but that doesn’t mean that Bush knew that he was presenting or basing his conclusions on intelligence failures.
. . .
[Here’s where someone will usually say that Bush either lied or is incompetent because he believed obviously false information. I don’t see how the information was obviously false. It seems much more likely that Bush based his belief that Saddam had WMD and/or WMD-development programs on bad and good intelligence.]
. . .
In short, even if all the justifications for war were false, I don’t think we must conclude that Bush lied, or that he unreasonably believed certain things were true. When looking at the evidence, everyone seemed to reach the same conclusion that Bush & Co. did.

So, where in there is my supposed Clinton analogy? In fact, where did I refer to the Clinton Admin? Nowhere.

So it’s now blatantly obvious to everyone that you didn’t quote anything having to do with the Clinton analogy in the post in which you responded to it. . . . Of course, I doubt anyone’s made it this far into my little tirade, but still, you and I know the truth.

@blowero

You didn’t ask, you made a false assertion that I had misquoted you.

Sweet merciful crap! When you said my Clinton analogy was bogus, I responded by saying (emphasis added):

@me

I don’t follow you here. I’m not trying to draw any sort of analogy between Clinton and Bush. . . . Is that what you’re referring to?

So, obviously, I did ask you what you were talking about. Perhaps you just “forgot.”

@blowero

My point was that Clinton didn’t do what Bush did, so you can’t compare the two. What exactly is it about that point that you have so much trouble addressing?

I’ve already addressed this point many times (post # 103, 106, 122, 127). Did you forget?

My point was that before 9/11, they did the same things. So when you’re talking about before 9/11, you should compare the two.

@blowero

If I quoted elucidator and said I agreed with the quote, then surprise! - I would actually be agreeing with what he said.

Absolutely true. So where did I say I agreed with the quote?

. . . I didn’t. Just your creative memory acting up again.

@blowero

Yes, Bush inherited Clinton’s contingency plan, but for Bush it was not a contingency plan. Bush told his staff to make it happen. I don’t see anywhere in the Today Show interview where O’Neill disavows that.

I posted the quotes before, but since you seem to have forgotten them, let me post them again. O’Neill disavows that right here (emphasis added):

O’NEILL: . . . **people are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq. **

COURIC: So you see nothing wrong with that being at the top of the president’s agenda 10 days after the inauguration?

O’NEILL: Absolutely not. One of the candidates had said this confirms his worst suspicions. I’m amazed that anyone would think that our government, on a continuing basis across political administrations, doesn’t do contingency planning and look at circumstances. Saddam Hussein has been this forever. And so, I was surprised, as I’ve said in the book, that Iraq was given such a high priority. But I was not surprised that we were doing a continuation of planning that had been going on and looking at contingency options during the Clinton administration.

I realize you’re responding to li’l ol’ me, and not some bigwig like elucidator or John Mace. But you’ve been around for a long time, and I’ve grown to expect more from you than to get so many things so blatantly wrong in one post.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Let’s just say that there doesn’t seem to have been sufficient evidence to justify a preemptive invasion. Ther may have been some suggestive intelligence but nothing concrete . . . .

O’Neill seems to agree with you on this point, and he’s certainly thoughtful, intelligent, and well-informed. So you’re in good company there.

You’re absolutely right that there was nothing concrete. There’s certainly room for disagreement on whether or not we had sufficient intelligence to invade Iraq. I just don’t agree that the implication to be drawn from that is that Bush must have wanted to go into Iraq from Day 1.

[Caveat: I know there’s more to your position than the implications to be drawn from the fact that we didn’t have concrete evidence of WMD. I’ve certainly oversimplified. But my hands are tired after typing out my War & Peace-like post to blowero. ]

[blowero]

Age Quod Agis, you must be on crack. Debating with you is like the movie “Groundhog Day”; we’re starting from square one every post. Sorry, not gonna play that game - goodbye.