Face it, some of you were duped

[frithrah]

Fine, I’ll take them point by point:

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MegaDave *
**Well, considering even the UN thought that he had WMD’s (as seen by some of the reports from Hans Blix, a UN weapons inspector), whom should we hold responsible for that? Why isn’t the UN help to the same accountability as Bush? How about Jacque Chirac of France? Or the German Chancelor (whos name for some reason escapes me at this moment)? Or how about all of the other people that said there were WMD’s? **

Blix wanted the inspections to continue. The security council would not authorize use of force. These other countries you mention acknowled the possibility of some WMD’s; mustard gas or some left over anthrax from what we had sold him. They did not feel it was a compelling case to wage war.
**
Is it possible that the only one held accountable for this is Bush is simply becuase there are so many Bush haters out there? I think so. The hypocrisy of it all is astounding. **

Is it possible Bush is so hated because he is the one accountable?
**
Yes, if Bush relied on CIA and FBI (and probably NSA) reports that turn out to be false, then some people should most certainly be fired. If the reports were incorrect on purpose (i.e., someone made them up out of malicous intent) then there should be a congressional hearing on it.

However, in the role of POTUS, he has no choice but to rely on his intelligence reports, unless of course, you think he should have personally been responsible for finding that intelligence out for himself. Of course, it that were true, then everyone would be harping that he should rely on his existing intelligence reports instead of trying to do it himself.

My point is that no matter what Bush does, some are always going to find fault in it.

**

As it turns out, he had intelligence questioning the existence of WMD and continued his tirade, banging the war drum.

**
What about the mass graves? What about him using mustard gas and serin gas on the Kurds? What about all of the Iraqi people that celebrated when he was overthrown? What about the fact that there is now progress between Isreal and Palistine (which some have attributed soley to the fact that SH is gone)? What about all of the good things that have happened now? What about SH’s sons abusing their people while living in the lap of luxury?
**

I’m not going to defend SH. I think your argument on moral ground is a bit flimsy however when you consider the thousands of Panamanians we bulldozed into mass graves or the smallpox infected blankets we used to wipe out native americans or the anthrax we sold to S.H. Our hands aren’t all that clean.

**
Why didn’t SH come out and say “Hey, I’ve got no WMD’s come see for yourself”?
**
Were you living under a rock the month or so prior to the war?
He did just that. The exception was having scientists interviewed abroad. I cannot prove that this was of their own accord anymore than you can prove it was by SH’s decree and intimidation. But S.H. is gone now, and those interviews don’t seem to be getting very far.

**
You cannot adequately explain why SH was willing to put up with all the sanctions if he didn’t have any WMD’s. How come he thwarted almost every attempt by the UN weapons inspections teams? Until you can show me why all this supicous behavior was ok, then I will go with the rest of the world that says they believed he had them.
**
Several theories have been offered. It is all speculative at this point. “rest of the world” seems a just a bit aggrandized.

**
Syria was in no way hostile to Iraq. In fact, a lot of the top Iraqi officials were said to have escaped to Syria, and there is nothing that leads me to believe that Syrai was hostile to Iraq. **

I have no idea what point you are making here.

[MegaDave]

No disagreement there about what should happen, but probably about who it should happen to.

So what you are saying is, if Bush relied on trained professionals who were doing there job, and he relied on lots of them, not just one guy in a dark suit, then he should be lynched? To put that in perspective, that is like a person recieving word from his doctor (the trained professional doing his job) that he had cancer (the WMD’s) and he decided that he should fight it with everything he has got (the war), and the Doctor turned out to be wrong (what you are implying about Bush) then the patient should be held accountable for it?

If Bush cannot rely on his intelligence agencies to provide accurate intelligence reports, then whom should he rely on, and how should he get his intelligence about national security?

It’s also possible that GWB should be held accountable because he’s the one directly or indirectly responsible for all this crap.

Again, I fail to see how he is THE ONLY ONE who should be held accountable when there were 48 other countries (and their leaders) who were in this with us. So all the other countries just get a pass and we ignore it (assuming you are right of course, which has still yet to be proven).

Well, maybe because it wasn’t the French and the Germans that presented forged documents as evidence, and then actually invaded?

I’m sorry, you have proof that the documents were forged? And Blairs men invaded on the same day that we did, so how is that different?

From Hans Blix’s report to the UN Secuirty Council dated Jan 27th, 2003:

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction

The document (found here) does not explicitly state that they still have WMD’s, only that they have not accounted for the WMD’s that they said they “destroyed”, which is the same point that I have made in previous posts.

[MegaDave]

In the end, my point is that I cannot prove that he has/had WMD’s and you cannot prove he does not. I just am of the opinion that we should wait to jump to conclusions until more information is found and you seem ok with demonizing Bush right now based on about as much info as he had before the war.

Trust me my friend, I am not a Bush apologizer, and if it is found out that there was malicious deceit on his part, or the part of any of the coalition members, or on the part of the intelligence agencies that gave Bush his info, I will be standing right next to you in line to give Bush a swift kick in the head.

[dantheman]

*Originally posted by MegaDave *
Well, considering even the UN thought that he had WMD’s (as seen by some of the reports from Hans Blix, a UN weapons inspector), whom should we hold responsible for that? Why isn’t the UN help to the same accountability as Bush? How about Jacque Chirac of France? Or the German Chancelor (whos name for some reason escapes me at this moment)? Or how about all of the other people that said there were WMD’s?

As others said, France and Germany didn’t invade.

Is it possible that the only one held accountable for this is Bush is simply becuase there are so many Bush haters out there?

No. It’s not possible. It’s more possible he’s the one who should be held most accountable because he’s the one who invaded.

Yes, if Bush relied on CIA and FBI (and probably NSA) reports that turn out to be false, then some people should most certainly be fired. If the reports were incorrect on purpose (i.e., someone made them up out of malicous intent) then there should be a congressional hearing on it.

Fired? If a war is begun over false reports, I certainly would hope that someone would be fired, censured, arrested, and perhaps jailed.

However, in the role of POTUS, he has no choice but to rely on his intelligence reports, unless of course, you think he should have personally been responsible for finding that intelligence out for himself. Of course, it that were true, then everyone would be harping that he should rely on his existing intelligence reports instead of trying to do it himself.

Exactly. Therefore he must be held accountable for relying on them.

My point is that no matter what Bush does, some are always going to find fault in it.

Not true. I’m sure if he did something right… Although, to be fair, this is true of just about every world leader. You can’t please everyone, anyway.

What about the mass graves? What about him using mustard gas and serin gas on the Kurds? What about all of the Iraqi people that celebrated when he was overthrown? What about the fact that there is now progress between Isreal and Palistine (which some have attributed soley to the fact that SH is gone)? What about all of the good things that have happened now? What about SH’s sons abusing their people while living in the lap of luxury? Why didn’t SH come out and say “Hey, I’ve got no WMD’s come see for yourself”? I mean after all, the UN restrictions and sanctions placed on Iraq simply becuase the UN thougt he had WMD’s were costing him BILLIONS every year. If he didn’t have any, why would he be willing to lose that much money?

Well, I’m in a little over my head here, but: So what? Mass graves? Other dictators do them, but we’re not invading them. Mustard gas on the Kurds? We’re not the Kurds, so it’s not an attack on us, so we’re interfering in another country’s affairs - notice we don’t overtly help Russia with their Chechnya problem. Progress with Israel and Palestine? There isn’t any real progress, because Abbas is being undermined by Hamas, which refuses to play along anyway. Also don’t think that the fact that SH is gone has meant one bit of difference to that particular conflict. SH’s sons? So what? Why didn’t SH come out and admit he had them? He’s a nutty dictator, and he was playing a bluffing game anyway. I don’t think he ever thought the US would invade. Were the sanctions costing SH money, or were they simply costing the Iraqi people money?

[rexnervous]

*Originally posted by MegaDave *
**Actually Bush isn’t the only one. You have the obvious choice of Mr. Blair and his countrymen. But then you also have all the other members of the coalition. Australia helped, same with Turkey. According to this cite (which is just the first one that I pulled up and seemed reputable despite their religous bent) there wer 49 countried involved in the coalition that helped to topple SH. Now sure, some of them didn’t send troops and only helped financially, but the point is that they all believed in principal what Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush were saying.
**

You don’t honestly believe that do you? That all of them believed in principal what Bush/Blair said? The words Bush said that they believed in were “cash-money”.

[dantheman]

*Originally posted by MegaDave *
**In the end, my point is that I cannot prove that he has/had WMD’s and you cannot prove he does not. I just am of the opinion that we should wait to jump to conclusions until more information is found and you seem ok with demonizing Bush right now based on about as much info as he had before the war.

Trust me my friend, I am not a Bush apologizer, and if it is found out that there was malicious deceit on his part, or the part of any of the coalition members, or on the part of the intelligence agencies that gave Bush his info, I will be standing right next to you in line to give Bush a swift kick in the head. **

MegaDave, I agree with your sentiment to a degree. What people are saying, however, is that Bush had the info that showed there was at least some skepticism as to the presence of the WMD. That is, it wasn’t a certainty. But it seems as if he decided to act as if it actually was a certainty and made it his basis for invasion.

[MegaDave]

The only time I heard any moeny being offered was to Turkey if they would let us use their bases for ground based attacks, and they said no to that.

We already give a lot of money to countries all over the world, so I will agree with you that the threat of withholding that money (either implied or not) may have been a contributing factor, but I still have yet to see anyone bash Blair, and I completly fail to see how he has less responsibilty in this than Bush does.

[Desmostylus]

*Originally posted by MegaDave *
I’m sorry, you have proof that the documents were forged? And Blairs men invaded on the same day that we did, so how is that different?

I don’t personally have proof. But I don’t see anyone in the administration denying that they were forged. For example:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/
CNN Washington Bureau
Friday, March 14, 2003 Posted: 10:43 PM EST (0343 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Intelligence documents that U.S. and British governments said were strong evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons have been dismissed as forgeries by U.N. weapons inspectors.

The documents, given to International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, indicated that Iraq might have tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the agency said they were “obvious” fakes.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell referred to the documents directly in his presentation to the U.N. Security Council outlining the Bush administration’s case against Iraq.

“I’m sure the FBI and CIA must be mortified by this because it is extremely embarrassing to them,” former CIA official Ray Close said.

Responding to questions about the documents from lawmakers, Powell said, “It was provided in good faith to the inspectors and our agency received it in good faith, not participating … in any way in any falsification activities.”

“It was the information that we had. We provided it. If that information is inaccurate, fine,” Powell said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday.

[dantheman]

I dunno, Blair’s in huge trouble at home, it seems. If you mean bashing from those on this board, maybe that’s because it’s a largely US-centric board - no offense to all of our overseas Dopers, of course.

[MegaDave]

Desmostylus, I am aware of the report and what Powell said about it. It just goes to further my point though that they can only rely on the reports that are given to them in good faith. If they do not do this, how are they supposed to get their intelligence?

[frithrah]

*Originally posted by MegaDave *
**Desmostylus, I am aware of the report and what Powell said about it. It just goes to further my point though that they can only rely on the reports that are given to them in good faith. If they do not do this, how are they supposed to get their intelligence? **

The paperwork had an obviously forged signature by a Nigerian leader that had been out of power for years. I don’t see how it is excusable for the executive department to overlook this.

I’m sorry, it just seems like if you had a receipt for a laptop purchase signed by Abraham Lincoln in day-glo paint you would, as POTUS do a bit more fact checking before using it as an excuse to go to war. Unless of course you wanted to go to war regardless of the true facts.

[Desmostylus]

What they’ve clearly done is to accept any information from any source that supported the “invade Iraq” position that they’d already decided on. Regardless of how biased the sources were.

At the same time, they rejected information from unbiased sources, e.g. the weapons inspectors, and more importantly, their own intelligence services.

The Pentagon even set up its own intelligence gathering service, because Rumsfeld wasn’t satisfied with what was coming from the normal sources.

The checks and balances weren’t in place.

The fault lies with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Woolsey. There’s just no way the blame can be shifted downward. They are the ones that actively rejected accurate information, and sought out and propogated absolute bullshit.

[Squink]

I wonder if the president bothered to reaf this report:
U.S. Secret Report Raises Questions Over Iraqi Weapons
If so, he sure didn’t mention his doubts to the rest of us americans.

[december]

*Originally posted by Desmostylus *
The fault lies with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Woolsey. There’s just no way the blame can be shifted downward. They are the ones that actively rejected accurate information, and sought out and propogated absolute bullshit.

I agree.

Same thing for the credit.

Since the war with Iraq did far more good than harm, despite intelligence misreadings, it’s a net positive accomplishment for this administration. From polls I’ve seen, my view is held by a substantial majority of Americans.

[Desmostylus]

*Originally posted by december *
Since the war with Iraq did far more good than harm, despite intelligence misreadings, it’s a net positive accomplishment for this administration.

And I suppose you have something to back up that conclusion, december? Something other than GWB said so?

Or do you mean “net positive accomplishment for this administration” as “improves the administration’s re-elections chances”, i.e. pure wishful thinking?

[december]

*Originally posted by Desmostylus *
**Or do you mean “net positive accomplishment for this administration” as “improves the administration’s re-elections chances”, i.e. pure wishful thinking? **

What I meant was “made the world a better place.”

BTW I don’t think the Iraq war improved Bush’s re-election chances. It didn’t help his father.

[Revtim]

How can one even say it made the world a better place when we don’t know what form of gov’t Iraq will have beyond the short term? Saddam was bad, but that doesn’t mean worse isn’t possible.

In ten years you might be able be say it made the world a better place. Until then, admit you don’t really now.

[Mr.Svinlesha]

frithrah:

• The fact remains, the Bush admin was emphatic he definately had them, and the report released this morning seems to suggest they had intelligence to the contrary.*

Link, please?

[rjung]

So far, the only group I’ve seen who have clearly benefitted from the Iraq war is Haliburton.

An initial no-bid contract award with a $7 billion cap, with a follow-on unlimited contract for future services? That’s even easier than printing your own money!

[ChaosGod]

*Originally posted by december *
**Since the war with Iraq did far more good than harm, despite intelligence misreadings, it’s a net positive accomplishment for this administration. From polls I’ve seen, my view is held by a substantial majority of Americans. **

You at least have to admit that there are thousands, perhaps millions of people, that have been obviously negatively affected by the war. The families of the 16,000 (minimum) dead CAN’T be happy. Neither the Iraquis suffering from hardships that will take a loooooong time to be relieved. Neither the Iraquis that are not happy with US presence on their soil. Neither the countries member of the UN who like to think of it as some sort of semblance of law and order which can protect them from more powerfull nations.
Those are only the OBVIOUS complaints.

I personally think the US govs attitude was along the lines of “FUCK It, we’re sitting on top of a gargantúan military machine going to waste, whilst those dirty SOBs are living on top of a SEA OF OIL and have the nerve to provoke us. Time to put those tanks and marines to some good use!”

but thats just my impression.