But this was not in hindsight. This was people warning him before the invasion that his intelligence was wrong. And they were right.
But we didn’t invade Iraq because Saddam was a evil dictator. He had been an evil dictator for decades and there was nothing new about that in 2003. The fact that Saddam had WMD program in the 1980’s (which he clearly did) did not justify an invasion of Iraq in 2003. And if our concern was Al Qaeda, then we should have been fighting Al Qaeda not Iraq. Iraq wasn’t going to sell or give any WMDs to Al Qaeda in 2003 because Iraq didn’t have any WMDs in 2003.
If the war had gone anywhere near the way the delusions about weeks only, being greeted as liberators, and the war and the reconstruction being paid for by Iraq’s own oil revenues would have had it, then it wouldn’t have mattered. Success in war eliminates any general concern for its justification. Nobody cared that the Spanish-American War was based on lies, either, but they certainly would have if we’d been quagmired and lost it.
I think that knowledge underlaid much of the calculated lies about the reasons, although not the delusions about how it would go - that hardly anyone would care about the lies if it really was a quick success.
That to me is grounds to be suspicious of the “Bush was mistaken” theory. If Bush was genuinely mistaken and he really believed that Iraqi WMD program existed in 2003 then those WMD sites would have been a primary target in the invasion.
But when the military plans were drawn up, the supposed WMD sites were left off the primary target list and were handled as an afterthought.
I see this as evidence that the Bush administration knew it was lying. It didn’t put any special effort into capturing what it said were active WMD sites because it knew, even before the invasion, that those sites were going to turn out to be inactive.
I still don’t understand the emphasis on Woodward. I’ve read several books about the Iraq War including one by Woodward and there are other Dopers who I’m sure could provide you with far more info than a Fox interview offers. :smack: Why bring up the topic if all you can say is “Woodward Woodward Woodward”?
Much of it was, even at the time. The UN inspectors were just a few weeks away from reporting that there wasn’t anything of any significance, as was very widely reported at the time. Bush hurried up to get the thing underway before his chief justification would have been irretrievably exposed.
It is not at all obvious why that is your claim, not that they lied about them even existing. Please note that the military rushed right by every place that had been claimed to be a possible WMD site, and headed straight for the Oil Ministry.
It was also widely reported at the time how Cheney had set up his own parallel intelligence organization, since the CIA wasn’t telling him what the PNAC mafia wanted them to.
“Continued dissemination of intelligence they knew to be discredited” is a lot of words which together mean “They lied”. And that too was widely reported at the time.
And all of that was heavily discussed on this board, too.
True, but that has nothing to do with the discussion.
Oh, so he did have WMDs? Interesting.
Having had “jack shit to do with them” does not mean that one of the leaders of AQ could have gotten introduced to SH. Do you truly not get that? Really?
Thanks you for demonstrating that you have no idea what a lie actually is. Only that it is something bad and therefore Bush must be guilty of it. Nice job.
So? Do you really think things like this are decided only with unanimous approval? Again, really? Are you happy we got OBL? Should we have not did what we did because there was an argument against doing so?
Oh, I was very direct. But this isn’t the forum for it. If it were, I’d be direct again. But given you’re posts thus far, my characterization of you contributions would be either redundant or superfluous. But you can search and provide the link if you’d like, chum.
Ten years ago, I summarized an argument about a lie that Bush told. Here’s that post:
I’m not particularly interested in Bob Woodward for any reason at all. Does he address this specific allegation about Bush? If so, can you point me to his specific rebuttal of the allegation?
If not–if he doesn’t rebut a specific allegation of a lie–I’m not sure how you think he’d change my mind on the subject.
I always love this argument that Bush lied about the WMD’s in Iraq.
You can go right to You Tube and find statements by Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Harry Reid and many other Democrats all claiming the existence of WMD’s Iraq. If Bush lied so did Ted, John, Harry and all the others.
SO WHAT? There was contradicting intelligence. Just like when we killed OBL. There were people in the room who thought it was a mistake. Should Obama have not given the word because there was murkiness, and a lack of unanimity?
In part, we DID go in because he was an evil murderous dictator. There was not just one reason. One can argue that we should have gone in earlier, I guess. 911 and the fear of him giving AQ something seriously dangerous was one more reason and the straw that broke the camels back.
Based on the way you’re looking at this, I might be the best NFL play caller in the history of the world.
See my post above. If you’re going to claim someone lied, you gotta make a specific claim with names and dates and proof that they were lying.
I’m happy to believe that a bunch of shitheels in DC were lying about Iraq. But I’m also happy to believe that a bunch of them were jingoistic morons who went along with whatever the Sith Lord in Chief told them was true. What i’m not happy to do is to assume either of these statements is correct without specific evidence.
What part of Woodward’s investigation is supposed to change our minds? Woodward saying he didn’t find something is unconvincing that that something isn’t there, or can’t be found (not that I’m convinced that Bush lied to get us into war – he either lied or was grossly incompetent, and neither one is worse than the other in my view).
:rolleyes: The only think not warranted is me believing that I should engage you at all. Poor thinking. Failure+ at humor. Yep, you’re #1 in my book, bucko.