Yes, we all remember how the main topic of the 2000 Presidential Campaign was whether Al Gore or George W. Bush would be the right man to take out the “imminent threat” of Saddam’s non-existent WMDs. :rolleyes:
Be fair, now. It was not the “imminent threat” of Saddam’s non-existent WMD. It was the “grave and growing” threat of Saddam’s non-existent WMD.
Sure he would. And everyone would also say “Mr. President, I totally disapprove of your decision to take a hard line with Iran and North Korea despite the fact that they are clearly more dangerous than Iraq.” And then everybody would go out for tea.
Yep. I think that my original source was the UN about a zillion documents ago. But this will have to do:
http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/asp/presse_item.asp?LNG=en&TYPE=discours&ID=901
Excerpt from nterview given by President M. Jacques Chirac to CNN and CBS, Paris
3/16/2003:
Kerry would have gone after him as being too soft on Iraq. No doubt about it. Kerry was to the right of Clinton on Iraq in the 1980’s.
But of course, Kerry is capable of taking two sides, even in the same debate. From last night:
Then later, when asked about Iran:
And people wonder why Kerry gets a rep as a flip-flopper. How can anyone take this guy seriously? He clearly just tacks into the prevailing winds wherever it may happen to take him. If he thought there was political advantage in going after Bush for not invading Iraq, that’s what he would have done. He supported the invasion two years ago. Elsewhere I posted a link to a thread from 2002 where I thought Kerry would be a good candidate because he would be more hawkish on Iraq than other Democrats. Because that’s the way he portrayed himself then.
Well, there you have it! Right out of the frogs dewlaps, France would never, ever vote to use force, no matter what, forever. Says so right there: “…I am totally ready to accept any agreement…” Well, or course, if France doesn’t agree, then there could be no agreement, so they wouldn’t have to accept anything!
I know how these people think.
Oh, come on, Sam. Is that the best you can do? Quibble over words…I wouldn’t go there if I were you given the sort of things that come out of Bush’s mouth. The next sentence of his by the way after the one you quoted was:
His point is clearly that Iraq was not such a large threat that we had to rush to war, particularly once we had succeeded in getting the inspectors in and they were doing their job. Kerry voted for the authorization to use force because he felt there was a threat. (I might quibble with him about how large a threat that really was…But, he is entitled to his opinion as I am to mine.) However, once the inspectors were in, the immediacy of the threat just wan’t there anymore. It was time for the inspectors to do their job…unless you were concerned that the inspectors would find something different than what you wanted them to find…Say, rather than finding WMDs, they found that your intelligence regarding WMDs was “garbage after garbage after garbage”!
If he’s taking both sides at the same time, how can he be tacking himself to the political winds? Is “Saddam Hussein was dangerous and had to be contained, but there was no danger Iraq was going to attack the US” too complicated to understand?
Apparently, the political winds must change very rapidly. 
We must be in the middle of a political tornado or something.
This translation of an article from ‘Die Zeit’ should remind everybody that the only reason inspections sometimes were making any progress was escalation of threat of US invasion. Forget Blix and Annan, listen to the inspectors,
That is from German newspaper.
Oh, well then, it MUST be true! :rolleyes:
You might argue that if the US had been threatening toward Iraq but made clear to its allies that it was committed to a diplomatic solution, France, Germany and the other countries would have gone along with it. Those countries could have then presented a united front. Of course, for that to have happened, you’d need an administration who actually wanted disarmament and was willing to try diplomacy instead of one that was looking for a reason to invade, and guess which one we had.
You know who Hans Blix is, right?
What did France say about our (USA) invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11? Did they agree? Disagree? I don’t remember. Personally, I felt it was the right decision. So I’m no Buddha. But what did the French think? Just curious.
ILM: *What did France say about our (USA) invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11? Did they agree? Disagree? *
They agreed, and have had equipment and troops in Afghanistan since November 2001:
I accept the correction. And I’m not complaining for Bush, just want to add to the overall picture.
A Gasbag?
Well done, he was one of the weapons inspectors, indeed the chief one. So, ignoring him in favour of unattributed and anonymous quotes from an uncertain number of other weapons inspectors seems a strange thing to do.
Is Bush being castigated now for not doing enough (i.e. something unqualified) about Iran and North Korea? And why? Simply because there’s a remote hope to score a percentage of a point against him on that.
There are MAGATE inspectors in Iran, finding nothing. When did Iran ever went to war against US and UN, like Saddam did? When did Iran attack anybody like Saddam did? Never mind, elections are coming, just stay hopping mad, everything will be explained later.
There are multilateral talks with North Koreans, but Sen. Kerry suddenly wants bilateral talks (which are a lot closer to unilateral). There are Russians, Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans ‘at the table’, but Sen. Kerry wants to ‘push them aside’. Two nuclear powers, two richest progressive nations? Aren’t those the same Russian and Chinese whose agreement was essential for justifying Iraq operation? How can we exclude South Korea from the talks with the North? Never mind, elections are coming, just keep jumping up and down, everything will be explained later.
The same intelligence that is ridiculed on Iraq is accepted at face value for Iran and North Korea.
But what if Bush invade Iran and find nothing? Invade North Korea and find nothing? Never mind that, doesn’t score any points.
Bush is allowing inspections to work in Iran and getting criticized fot ‘not doing enough’.
Bush is engaged in multilateral talks with North Koreans and getting criticized fot ‘not doing enough’.
Sen. Kerry:
If Bush continued with inspections and multilateral approach in Iraq, wouldn’t he be criticized for that?
Who by? Are you suggesting there is a lobby for invading Iran and/or North Korea. Who are they, can you link to some examples of their views?