# John Dean: Lying about WMD could dwarf Watergate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 8, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411 "2003-06-08T05:22:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/41 "2003-06-10T12:12:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tekneek \* > \*\* > I think a vast majority of people in the US will forget that we even put troops in Iraq by 2004. A lot of people don’t even remember what happened on 9/11/2001 anymore. \*\* Oh, they’ll remember all right. Problem is, they’ll remember Iraqis hijacking the planes on 9/11, and Bush overthrowing Osama bin Laden from his home countries of Iraq and Iran. ---
**Author:** ![Tekneek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Tekneek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tekneek)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/42 "2003-06-10T12:18:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Revtim \* > \*\*Oh, they’ll remember all right. Problem is, they’ll remember Iraqis hijacking the planes on 9/11, and Bush overthrowing Osama bin Laden from his home countries of Iraq and Iran. \*\* Hah. 🙂 You may be right, but does this mean you think troops will land in Iran? I can’t get onboard with that idea at all. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/43 "2003-06-10T13:52:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tekneek \* > \*\*Hah. 🙂 > > You may be right, but does this mean you think troops will land in Iran? I can’t get onboard with that idea at all. \*\* Hey, why not? Iran has the world’s 4th largest oil reserves. We now have Iraq with the world’s 2nd largest reserves, so if we get those two secured we won’t be doing half bad! > **[Breaking International News & Views](https://www.reuters.com/)** > [@](#): > > NEW YORK, June 6 (Reuters) - The collapse of talks this week between an Exxon Mobil-led XOM.N consortium and Saudi Arabia over a $15 billion gas project shifts the spotlight firmly to Iraq as the best chance for U.S. firms to land a share of the Middle East’s energy riches, analysts said. ---
**Author:** ![Tekneek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Tekneek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tekneek)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/44 "2003-06-10T14:06:26Z")
I can understand that view, I meant to say that I cannot get onboard supporting that kind of action. I suspect you meant it all tongue-in-cheek… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/45 "2003-06-10T15:25:11Z")
I notice that a [report](http://www.msnbc.com/news/924471.asp?0dm=N13MN) was issued today by the U.S. predicting “a ‘high probability’ that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years”. The timing of this report feels quite convenient as troublesome questions about WMD in Iraq continue. Anybody wanna bet we see an Orange Alert soon? And “two years” also seems like a convenient timeframe. Hmmmph. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/46 "2003-06-10T15:27:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ben \* > **Normally I would hope that any President would be impeached under the circumstances, or that at least a special prosecutor would be appointed to figure out what was going on in the leadup to the war.** I can’t see this happening. In the current American political environment, Congress has (for possibly-craven political reasons of its own) decided it’s not going to vote on the (constitutionally-required) declaration of war. The de facto delegation of warmaking power to the executive branch is a problem, but it’s been accepted for 50 years. If the President has the de facto power to go into and out of military engagements with only indirect governance by Congress (i.e., votes on funding, vague resolutions supporting use of force), technically he doesn’t have to tell anyone (Congress or the public) anything because ultimately the war will or won’t start on his fiat. The only reason he has to say anything is the practical political need to keep himself or his party from being too unpopular in the next elections. In this context, I do not think that purposefully manipulating and cherrypicking intelligence materials (whose “worst case” speculations may have been formulated with the pro-war Administration in mind to begin with) is ever going to be seen as rising to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor – or if it did, that a Congress who has recused itself from direct responsibility for the warmaking process (thus preserving the opportunity to “support the troops” while not paying any direct penalty for dragging the country into possibly-unsuccessful engagements) is going to initiate or carry through such a charge. I see Bush’s problem as a political, not legal, one, and the penalty (if any) he will pay would be seen (if at all) in next year’s elections. > [@](#): > > \*\*But if you ask me, we’ve already gone through this, and Bush got away scot-free. Remember all that talk about Bush’s mishandling of 9-11? Remember the FBI agents who said Bush squelched investigations into the Saudi connection? Or the talk of how Bush knew that Al-Qaeda was going to carry out terrorist attacks involving hijackings, but nothing was done beyond making sure that Bush and his cronies didn’t fly on 9-11? \*\*While I’m still wondering why there wasn’t more investigation of 9/11, if only to figure out how the intelligence and INS and FBI failures happened, I think this is unfair hindsight. The most reasonable view of 9/11 seems to be a combination of ineptidude and (not unnatural) failure to put together disparate pieces of information or inferences. Knowing that “something” might happen “soon” (which I think the Admin did) is not the same as knowing what exactly it is or how to stop it. If something had happened during any of the recent Orange Alerts (which purported to represent serious but unspecified threats of attack), as opposed to the non-events that actually ensued, would we infer that the existence of the Orange Alert meant that the government purposefully allowed the attack to occur? And I’ll bet senior Admin. officials had additional security provisions in place (including not flying, perhaps) during the Orange Alerts – but that’s just an instance of Rank Has Its Privileges, not a nefarious plot to sit back and allow the rest of us to be killed by ignoring a threat that they knew how to avert. > [@](#): > > \*\*My prediction is that if Iraqi uranium is used to make a dirty bomb, it will actually rebound in Bush’s favor. Bush will trumpet it as proof of Iraqi WMD’s, proof that Iraq passed them to Al-Qaeda, and proof that Bush could have stopped them if only the liberals and the UN hadn’t gotten in the way. \*\* Agreed. Politically, Bush can probably squeak through with limited damage if **anything** significant turns up anywhere. I don’t know that logically this should be so, because the war was not premised on “there is some bad stuff out there somewhere.” But an American public that is willing to believe in the 19 Iraqi hijackers may decide that the al Q. dirty bomb made from stolen Iraqi nuclear slag, or the next set of pesticide drums, is good enough for govt. work, rather than tracing back the various stories of imminent-WMD-attack-on.Americans and analyzing them claim by claim, and then deciding how bad the misleading was, and – more importantly – what to do about it. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/47 "2003-06-10T15:38:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tekneek \* > \*\*Hah. 🙂 > > You may be right, but does this mean you think troops will land in Iran? I can’t get onboard with that idea at all. \*\* I really don’t know. I hope not. If Bush takes a political hammering for Iraq, that makes it a lot less likely. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/48 "2003-06-10T15:58:35Z")
Has anyone seen any evidence that Bush, or the architects of the grandiose “remake the Middle East” plan (Wolfowitz, Perle, et al.) is at all abashed or delayed in pressing forward on the next phases of the plan? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/49 "2003-06-10T15:59:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by squeegee \* > **I notice that a [report](http://www.msnbc.com/news/924471.asp?0dm=N13MN) was issued today by the U.S. predicting “a ‘high probability’ that al-Qaida will attempt an attack with a weapon of mass destruction in the next two years”.** Makes you wonder what, exactly, the War on Terrorism has accomplished. Other than enriching Haliburton. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/50 "2003-06-10T16:02:16Z")
Also, one wonders if the US will declare war on itself, for “harboring terrorists.” ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/51 "2003-06-10T16:07:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Huerta88 \* > \*\*Has anyone seen any evidence that Bush, or the architects of the grandiose “remake the Middle East” plan (Wolfowitz, Perle, et al.) is at all abashed or delayed in pressing forward on the next phases of the plan? \*\* On **Meet the Press** , Tim Russert asked Condi Rice if the failure to turn up WMD in Iraq meant that future claims that Iran was making WMD would be greeted with skepticism. Her reply: “I hope not.” Sure sounds to me like they are planning to move against Iran. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/52 "2003-06-10T16:16:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\*Also, one wonders if the US will declare war on itself, for “harboring terrorists.” \*\* Yeah, an advance on Jersey City and Brooklyn (where we **know** there have been and likely remain those with hostile intentions and terroristic plans toward the U.S.) struck me also as a perhaps more fruitful end to which Coalition forces might be turned. I hope they’ve at least finally figured out how to keep an eye on that Jersey City mosque that was home to both the '93 and some of the 9/11 perpetrators. Not quite sure how they let the surveillance slip on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Tekneek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Tekneek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tekneek)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411/53 "2003-06-12T05:12:15Z")
I thought it was in Brooklyn. In fact, I am pretty sure it was this mosque : Masjid At Taqwa (Mosque) 1184 Fulton St (718) 622-0800 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-dean-lying-about-wmd-could-dwarf-watergate/180411.md?page=2)