Look, Ma, no WMDs!!

[Magiver]

It would be nice if I had the f!@#$ing spell check turned on.

[Marley23]

At the beginning of the Gulf War he had the 3rd largest standing army in the world. He tried to conquer Iran.

And failed miserably.

If he had succeeded with Kuwait it is likely he would have gone after Saudi Arabia.

That’s the line the first Bush Administration pushed for a while - that Saddam was about to invade Saudi Arabia as well - but satellite intelligence photos showed the Iraqi soldiers weren’t going anywhere else.

That’s not to say it would have been a good thing. But I wouldn’t want to say ANYBODY is keeping the Middle East stable, because it’s not. It’s not very far from complete chaos, and a large Western invasion doesn’t strike me as a way to stabilize it.

[Leaper]

Then, of course, there are the people who say that WMDs (and, by implication, any claims made about them) don’t matter, because we did good by invading Iraq.

OTOH, I don’t know how widespread this opinion really is, or if it reflects well or poorly on those who think it…

[Gary_Kumquat]

@Beagle

What part of Saddam having a weapons program, hiding it from the UN, and keeping critical elements in place to reconstitute it do people have trouble with?

The fact that no evidence has been found for it, and that even Bush’s head weapons inspector concludes that it didn’t exist.

Kay told Reuters by telephone shortly after stepping down from his post on Friday he had concluded there were no such stockpiles to be found.

“I don’t think they existed,” Kay said. “What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I don’t think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s,” he said

@Beagle

Moreover, nobody I know ever suggested that actual stockpiles of WMDs were the real reason to attack Iraq.

Oh really. Please read the following statement from Bush. BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Full text of Bush speech on Iraq I’ve summarised some of the more amusing points here:

the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons…The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons.

The time for denying, deceiving, and delaying has come to an end. Saddam Hussein must disarm himself - or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

[Doc_Nickel]

@vibrotronica

How many of those Allied aircraft did he actually hit and shoot down in the no fly zone? Did he actually murder the Elder Bush?

-I’m sorry, it’s quite irrelevant, but I couldn’t help but read that and think of Sideshow Bob complaining about his prison conviction:

“Attempted murder. Feh, do they award the Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?”

I know it’s irrelevant to the discussion at hand, and no excuse for anything, but attempting a crime, although unsuccessful, is still a crime. Technically, Hussein’s shooting at our planes in the “no fly” zone was itself an act of war- they did so with some regularity, and I seem to recall at least one plane (a British one?) being hit and limping home. (No cite, and no, I’m not saying it justifies the War. Just pointing it out.)

[Richard_Pearse]

@minty green

'Cause if you think there was any serious suggestion to the shrub that the guys who know weren’t really all that sure, then I submit that he’s a reprehensible piece of shit for not caring enough to delve deeper than what the nice Mr. Wolfowitz was telling him.

Hey I’m not batting for him or anything, I’m just saying that he may well have wanted to believe it and when you want to believe something, it is very easy to do so. I don’t dispute that he is one of the most dangerous people currently on the planet.

[RTFirefly]

@agiantdwarf

@RTFirefly

Lybia was trying to get back in the good graces of the West well before 9/11. I can dig you out a cite if you want.

Please do.

Here you go. This was in the category of “I know I can find the damned thing, but it may take awhile,” hence my “I’ll dig it out for you if you ask.”

Note that it’s from the May/June 2001 issue of Foreign Affairs.

As the Bush administration struggles to define its foreign policy, with sanctions slipping on Iraq and the prospect of missile defense raising complications around the world, a new question has emerged: How should Washington handle a “rogue” state that is gradually abandoning its objectionable practices? What should the United States do when its long-standing policy toward a maverick country such as Libya starts to pay off – and that country finally begins to clean up its act? The question has recently become a pressing one as, in a surprising twist of events, the often and justifiably maligned Libyan regime of Colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi has started to meet international demands and redress its past crimes.

[RTFirefly]

I owe that cite (or my awareness of it, at least) to Joshua Micah Marshall’s excellent Talking Points Memo blog. Besides blogging, Marshall has in recent years produced some of the Washington Monthly’s finest articles, which is saying a lot, because the WM has been one of this country’s best political magazines for decades.

[BarnOwl]

@rjung

It’s not a matter of fooling all the people all the time, it’s a matter of fooling just enough people some of the time – namely, 51% of the voters on election day 2004.

Normally, I’d agree with you, rjung, but…

Even 30% will do, when you can augment it with a battallion of hackable electronic voting machines. Which I am certain he will do.

[RTFirefly]

@Magiver

Saddam was publicly writing checks to the Palestinian families of the dearly exploded. Prior to his check writing campaign, he launched missles at Israel. He attacked Kuwait. His regime repeatedly threatened Allied aircraft in the agreed upon no-fly zone. He attempted to murder a US President. Any of these reasons qualify as an attack against the US and her allies.

Except that all but the checks to the suicide bombers’ families were old news. You don’t start a war with another country over stuff on this level that happened a decade ago.

And the check-writing may have modestly encouraged local terrorism in Israel/Palestine, but unless you can show that the next of kin turned around and gave that money to terrorists, it didn’t even go towards financing local terrorism, let alone the international terrorism that Bush said was the problem.

That’s what the war is about. You can type WMD until your fingers fall off but President Bush never gave that as a single reason for going to war. He threw a whole list of them on the table. He did that for a reason. Just as the UN resolutions were worded (by the United States) the way they were, so the United States could finish the job if it became necessary.

OK. Since you mention the UN resolutions, let’s look at 1441:

Recognizing the threat Iraq’s noncompliance with council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,

Recalling that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized member states to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990) of 2 August 1990 and all relevant resolutions subsequent to resolution 660 (1990) and to restore international peace and security in the area,

Further recalling that its resolution 687 (1991) imposed obligations on Iraq as a necessary step for achievement of its stated objective of restoring international peace and security in the area,

Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers, and of all holdings of such weapons, their components and production facilities and locations, as well as all other nuclear programs, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material, …

1441 contains a brief, passing mention of Iraq’s repression of its civilian population and a couple of other doodads, but it’s fundamentally and overwhelmingly about the WMDs.

This is what we got the UN to sign on to. This was the justification we gave to the world for going into Iraq.

Now let’s take a look at the Congressional resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq:

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

It also includes a passing reference to Saddam’s repression of his own people - one brief clause amid paragraphs and paragraphs about (a) Iraqi WMDs, (b) terrorism, and (c) connecting the two.

And just for good measure, here’s Bush’s address when he signed the resolution. That sucker is ALL about the WMDs. I’d quote it, but this post is long enough already.

You can say what you like, but the historical record is clear: the reason the Bush Administration gave to the world, to the Congress, and to the American people for invading Iraq was the threat that Iraqi WMDs represented. Period.

[Rashak_Mani]

You know what this all looks like ? Like the police bursting into a house with a half cooked bogus search warrant in order to arrest someone who didn’t committ that specific crime. Suddenly the police stick new charges in order to justify their bogus search. So this mentality of “he was a criminal anyway” who cares if the police didn’t have any proof comes into being.

Now this creates something called a precedent… after all Cuba might have a WMD program too. Prove to us that Cuba doesn’t have WMD ? They have an advanced biological programs ! (also called medicine). You might think of course that Bush wouldn’t invade people for nothing… so while he abuses this precedent only to take down bad guys its not a major problem… but who determines “bad guy” status ?

Why make up crimes for Saddam if he had so many ? I actually think that taking down Saddam through diplomatic, economic or military means (yep military last) was a necessity... but no one ever claimed that. Probably because that meant having no IMMEDIATE and URGENT excuse to invade. It was this urgency to go to war that made the world most reluctant to understand Mr. Bushie Jr.  The price is being paid now in the streets of Baghdad everytime a US soldier gets maimed or killed.

[DirkGntly]

Oh. My. God.
Now this is a frightening thought:

Originally posted by Antiochus:
Even 30% will do, when you can augment it with a battallion of hackable electronic voting machines. Which I am certain he will do.

So if Bush wins in '04, the argument is going to be, “He didn’t really win, he hacked the voting machines”???!?!?!?!?!?

Jesus horking Christ on a pogo-stick, you folks are DELUSIONAL!! And I thought Dean was unstable…

I’m outta this debate, because that’s just crazy, man…

[milroyj]

@RTFirefly

Impeachment and criminal trial would be the appropriate response.

Ha, Ha. What are you going to do when he is re-elected, instead?

[elucidator]

Bravely spoken! One simply must admire such plucky aplomb in the face of certain doom.

[Spavined_Gelding]

Friends, we all know what is going on here. There is not one point made in this thread that has not been repeatedly made before in God knows how many arguments here and in the Pit. We all know what an embarrassment it was to the President when it was finally conceded that there was no African uranium. The President and his people are not about to let that happen again by admitting that the other rationales for the invasion and occupation were false. Their answer to the pretty obvious falsity of the substantive basis for the war is to stonewall the whole thing. Thus we have the Vice-president insisting that we will someday find the WMDs. Thus we have the President insisting that the purpose for the war was to bring democracy to Iraq. Thus we have people equating nominal support for the Palestinian uprising with complicity in 9/11. It is all the Big Lie. If the Lie can be made to hold together until this November its purpose will have been accomplished.

Certainly we will have a general grasping of straws featuring stuff like the report, supported solely by some Kuwaiti secret agent, that Saddam made an attempt on George H.W. Bush’s life some ten years ago, and claims that Iraqi missiles were capable of delivering chemical agents, and claims that the invasion was to rescue the people of Iraq. The problem is for those of us who see the war as an unjustified, unnecessary and mistaken foreign adventure to keep our composure in the face of this balderdash and to have the patience to rebut it when raised, even though raised again, and again, and again.

[Optihut]

So if Bush wins in '04, the argument is going to be, “He didn’t really win, he hacked the voting machines”???!?!?!?!?!?

There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me – you can’t get fooled again.

You know what this all looks like ? Like the police bursting into a house with a half cooked bogus search warrant in order to arrest someone who didn’t committ that specific crime. Suddenly the police stick new charges in order to justify their bogus search. So this mentality of “he was a criminal anyway” who cares if the police didn’t have any proof comes into being.

If only it had been the police, but since the USA disregarded the input of the UN and of the weapons inspectors, I’d rather say it was a private security firm at best.

[Milum]

DirkGntly: I’m outta this debate, because that’s just crazy, man.

Don’t Dirk! Please don’t leave. You misunderstood. This is NOT a debate. A debate is where open-minded people exchange their points of view. This thread is a gang bang and you are the babe. Listen, these people don’t hate Bush. They hate you. They hate you because you are right and they have been proven wrong and all they have left is their vengeful rhetoric. Pity them.

They know not what they say or do.

[Optihut]

@Milum

Don’t Dirk! Please don’t leave. You misunderstood. This is NOT a debate. A debate is where open-minded people exchange their points of view. This thread is a gang bang and you are the babe. Listen, these people don’t hate Bush. They hate you. They hate you because you are right and they have been proven wrong and all they have left is their vengeful rhetoric. Pity them.

They know not what they say or do.

Irony is so… Ironic!

[elucidator]

How many times do I have to say it before you people start catching on! Cognitive Dissonance is the number one threat to our nation, and it is growing at pandemic rates! The evidence is right in front of you!

When your CD volunteer calls, give, and give generously! Cognitive Dissonance - a mental disorder that masquerades as a political position! Remember - CD doesn’t just strike the rich and powerful, but the people they get killed under the influence of CD! Custer, McNamara, LBJ, GWB…remember these names? All chronic sufferers of CD!

Remember the words of our CD Poster Boy: “Heavens to Betsy, yes! Give so that CD doesn’t strike again! Cookie. Where’s my cookie?..”

[Ronnie_Woo_Woo]

I think that one of the points that a lot of people are missing is that whether Bush actually lied or just presented information which he actually believed which turned out to be wrong is kind of a matter of semantics. The fact is that this administration started planning for an invasion of Iraq pretty much since Day 1. O’Neil said that Bush had said “find me a way to do it”, or something along those lines.

When someone already has made up their mind that something has to happen, it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for that person to ever look at all the information coming in objectively. In other words, Bush didn’t care that the information on the aluminum tubes as part of a nuclear program was dead wrong. He didn’t care that the UN wanted more time. He didn’t care that there was no evidence that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. He only cared about information that would support his point of view, no matter how unreliable or biased.

Because Bush refused to look at any information contrary to the decision he had made long before to go get Saddam it doesn’t really matter whether he actually lied or not. It only matters that he had blinders on and got us into this quagmire as a result. This was simply a matter of arrogance. Bush, Cheney, Rumy and Ashcroft know best. Question them and you lack patriotism, even though they never question themselves.