# Now, Bush says he never said Iraq was an imminent threat **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 28, 2004, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464 "2004-01-28T21:42:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/61 "2004-01-30T06:41:15Z")
More like grabbing for baseball bats. Chalabi was too overt to be an agent, but his funneling of “intelligence” to the Pentagon made him thier darling, over the objections from CIA that Chalabi was an opportunist trying to con the USA into installing him as the New Boss. Try googling “Chalabi CIA”. Better take a sandwhich. Its a citeglut. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/62 "2004-01-30T07:47:08Z")
So are you saying that the CIA was on top of things and that over their objections the Bush Administration was duped by Chalabi. Whoever thought that up stays up later at night than I do. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/63 "2004-01-30T08:22:54Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > So are you saying that the CIA was on top of things and that over their objections the Bush Administration was duped by Chalabi. Whoever thought that up stays up later at night than I do. Seems like a lot of people stay up later than you, **kniz**. > [@](#): > > [Chalabi: With Friends Like the US… > April 25, 2003](http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/occupation/2003/0425chalabi.htm) > > Prior to the United States-led invasion of Iraq, many war supporters had a number of assumptions: Iraqi soldiers wouldn’t fight at all, American forces would be greeted as liberators, and longtime Iraqi dissidents in exile, such as Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which has long been funded by the US, would be enthusiastically received. Give the war supporters their due; at least they have been consistent, consistently wrong. They are batting zero for three so far. Chalabi, 58, has long been the poster boy of Iraqi exiles and its most public face. It is fair to say that he is better known outside Iraq than inside it. He certainly does not have much experience in current-day Iraq. Although his father and grandfather once held high-ranking ministerial posts in the Iraqi government, they were forced to flee in 1958, when Chalabi was 13, in the aftermath of a coup d’etat that unseated Iraq’s royal family. He had not been back, except to the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq - until this month. > > Through the INC, which he founded more than a decade ago, he has tirelessly lobbied the US government for regime change in Iraq, even when the issue was a nonstarter. His friends include those in high places, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, and they and Congress have seen him for years as the leading candidate to lead a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, a view not held by the State Department nor the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Chalabi, however, is hardly baggage-free. In 1992, the Jordanian government convicted him in absentia for embezzlement and fraud and sentenced him to 22 years of hard labor. The charges stem from the demise of the Petra Bank, which Chalabi founded in 1977 and ran until it collapsed in 1989. At its peak, the bank was Jordan’s third largest. > [@](#): > > [CIA Report Slams Pentagon’s Favorite Iraqi > April 8, 2003](http://www.aaiusa.org/news/must_read04_08_03upi.htm) > > WASHINGTON – The Central Intelligence Agency issued a report last week claiming that the opposition leader airlifted by the Pentagon to Iraq over the weekend, Ahmad Chalabi, would not be an effective leader to replace Saddam Hussein because many Iraqis do not like him. > In a classified report distributed widely within the U.S. government, the CIA argues that Chalabi, a favorite of Pentagon civilian officials, and Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the leader of the Tehran-based Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have little popular support among Iraqis on the ground. > [@](#): > > [Chalabi stirs post-war politics > 4/9/2003](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-04-08-chalabi-icover-usat_x.htm) > > Of outside figures likely to be in attendance, Chalabi (pronounced CHA-la-bee) is the most controversial. To U.S. supporters, including Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Chalabi is a selfless patriot who has devoted most of his adult life to freeing Iraq from Saddam’s repression. To detractors, including senior officials of the State Department and the CIA, Chalabi is a feckless opportunist who can gain and hold power only under the protection of U.S. troops. > [@](#): > > [CIA findings leaked to Bush > November 17, 2003](http://www.nilemedia.com/Columnists/Ahmed/2003/November/CIA_findings.html) > > Perhaps, the most damning result of any investigation into the deliberate OSP ‘intelligence failures’ will be the discovery of excessive reliance on sources like Ahmed Chalabi’s National Congress (INC). The mainstream intelligence community dismissed the INC for very sensible reasons. Chalabi, a creature of the American Enterprise Institute, had old associations with neo-cons like Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. His ‘intelligence’ was an echo of their ‘intelligence’ which was an echo of Israeli ‘intelligence’. Judith Miller, Sulzberger’s in-house WMD ‘expert’ at The New York Times, also found it convenient to use Chalabi as a ‘reliable’ source. > > It was all a ‘circular’ intelligence scam. First you concoct intelligence using operatives like Chalabi and the INC. Next you discover the intoxicating concoction on the menu at Chalabi’s place. Using his recipe you dismiss the findings of the CIA and DIA as too timid and unworthy of master chefs. You then selectively practice the art of the leak by contacting fellow travelers like Murdoch’s minions at FOX to come over for a taste of Chalabi’s soup de jour. For good measure, Charles Krauthammer and Judith Miller also get invited for the main course. Last, for a final coup de grace, Judith Miller’s WMD stories are put on the OSP lunchroom menu as a new item made of fresh leaks. > [@](#): > > [The spies who pushed for war > Thursday July 17, 2003](http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html) > > As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war. > It represents the Bush administration’s second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI’s inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses. > > This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence. > > According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. > > The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney. > > The ideologically driven network functioned like a shadow government, much of it off the official payroll and beyond congressional oversight. But it proved powerful enough to prevail in a struggle with the State Department and the CIA by establishing a justification for war. ---
**Author:** ![ccwaterback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@ccwaterback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ccwaterback)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/64 "2004-01-30T08:48:29Z")
What ever happened to Bush’s eloquent, diplomatic “Axis of Evil”? I also like how GW refers to the enemy as “killers”. Hmm, let’s see, how many people did THEY kill last year, and how many people did WE kill last year? Oh I see, we’re not killers because we are killing killers, so that doesn’t count. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/65 "2004-01-30T09:14:50Z")
Some more: > [@](#): > > [US Paid $1m for ‘Useless Intelligence’ from Chalabi > Tuesday, September 30, 2003](http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0930-06.htm) > > Information from Iraqi defectors made available by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress before the US invasion was of little or no use, a Pentagon intelligence review shows. > > The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) said defectors introduced to US intelligence agents by the organization invented or exaggerated their claims to have personal knowledge of the regime and its alleged weapons of mass destruction. The US paid more than $1m for such information. > > \ > > Opinion about the INC in the Bush administration was already divided. The Pentagon and those pushing for war against Iraq were quick to cite the information it provided and to promote the cause of Mr Chalabi, but the CIA and the State Department were much more cautious about the organization’s reliability. > > “The [INC’s] intelligence isn’t reliable at all,” Vincent Cannistraro, a former senior CIA official and counter-terrorism expert, said before the war. “Much of it is propaganda. Much of it is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear. And much of it is used to support Chalabi’s own presidential ambitions. They make no distinction between intelligence and propaganda, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice-presidential speeches.” > [@](#): > > [Reassessing Miller > U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s WMD deserves a second look. So does the reporting of the New York Times’ Judith Miller. > Thursday, May 29, 2003](http://slate.msn.com/id/2083736/) > > To Miller’s credit, she often qualifies her defector stories by noting that the CIA doesn’t buy what they’re selling. In piece after piece, she notes that the agency suspects they invent or embellish their tales to increase chances of winning asylum. But her caveats are usually followed by a passage about how the Pentagon embraces the very defectors the CIA spurns. In Miller’s Jan. 24, 2003, story, “Defectors Bolster U.S. Case Against Iraq, Officials Say,” neocon hawk and Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle attacks the CIA for its hostility to defectors smuggled out of Iraq by Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. The CIA, Perle said, had refused to interview the defectors and had undermined their testimony. “But ultimately, the flow of information was so vital and so overwhelming that they could no longer ignore it,” Perle says in the piece. > > One of the named defectors in Miller’s Jan. 24 story, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, a civil engineer, told officials that chem/bio weapons labs could be found beneath hospitals and inside presidential palaces. Haideri first aired his allegations to Miller for a Dec. 20, 2001, story. (According to Miller’s story, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress arranged the interview.) No such laboratories have been found, and Miller’s original report looks wrong. > > Miller also authored a provocative Dec. 3, 2002, story about the late Nelja N. Maltseva, aka “Madame Smallpox.” Extensively sourced to “senior American officials,” “foreign scientists,” “American officials,” “an administration official,” “administration officials,” and “an informant whose identity has not been disclosed,” the story reviewed the theory that Maltseva may have given “a particularly virulent strain of smallpox” to the Iraqis. No such smallpox program has been found in Iraq, and Miller’s original report looks wrong. ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/66 "2004-01-30T09:22:50Z")
[http://www.usembassy.at/en/download/pdf/iraq\_intlaw.pdf](http://www.usembassy.at/en/download/pdf/iraq_intlaw.pdf) Perhaps the above analysis would help. See in particular the top of p.6. If you acccept the analysis it seems to me that the whole “imminent” versus “clear and present” threat debate is not actually relevant to how international law has developed on the issue of using pre-emptive force. What the authors assert here is that both “necessity and proportionality” are the tests for the “common law” legal use of a pre-emptive military reaction to a threat. Those requirements are then modified for those signatory by the terms UN Charter. However unfortunately there is long standing dispute as to the correct interpretation of Art.51 in the context of the whole Charter text. What a surprise… However the Report concludes that: > [@](#): > > Iraq did not appear to pose an imminent threat of attack on traditional military terms. As a consequence, it seems doubtful that the use of force against Iraq could be deemed to meet the traditiinal legal tests. But Iraq may have possessed WMD, and it may have had ties to terrorist groups that seek to use such weapons against the U.S. **If evidence is forthcoming** on both those issues, **then** the situation necessarily raises the question that the Bush Administration articulated in its national security strategy, i.e. **whether the traditional law of preemption needs to be recast** in the light of the realities of WMD, rogue states and terrorism. (highlighting mine) On the face of that, there is no evidence of WMD possession and little or no evidence of ties to terrorist groups seeking to use such weapons against the US. Both are required by the authors to justify the US \*\*\*even seeking \*\*\* to raise the question as to whether the law of preemption needs to be recast. Sounds like they cannot use the UN Charter as justification for the attack to me. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/67 "2004-01-30T12:01:34Z")
I’m looking for use of the phrase “imminent threat” by Bush and have yet to find it. I suspect its a pointless exercise though as whether he did or didnt use that particular phrase it was definitely a concept that he communicated. Here for instance: [President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html) The Bush speech in Cincinnati, October 2002 > [@](#): > > Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss **a grave threat to peace** , and America’s determination to lead the world in confronting that threat. The threat comes from Iraq > [@](#): > > Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The **danger is already significant, and it only grows worse with time**. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today – and we do – does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons? > [@](#): > > And that is the source of our **urgent** concern about Saddam Hussein’s links to international terrorist groups > [@](#): > > Iraq could decide \*\*on any given day \*\* to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group > [@](#): > > America must not ignore the threat gathering against us > [@](#): > > Understanding the threats of our time, knowing the designs and deceptions of the Iraqi regime, we have every reason to assume the worst, and we have an **urgent** duty to prevent the worst from occurring. So maybe not “imminent” but only a “grave” “gathering” “threat to peace” that required “urgent” action. Weaselly and unfounded histrionics anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/68 "2004-01-30T12:32:15Z")
> [@Eolbo](#): > > I’m looking for use of the phrase “imminent threat” by Bush and have yet to find it. I suspect its a pointless exercise though as whether he did or didnt use that particular phrase it was definitely a concept that he communicated. I’m completely failing to understand why the Administrations’s mouthpieces keep bringing this up. They use it in a fairly strange way. It started months and months ago as a reaction to taunts about failure to find WMDs. But to bring it up now, after Kay has said that the WMDs didn’t exist at all, and neither did the WMD programs in any substantial way, is really bizarre. It’s like the Administration is saying: “Sure there was no legally acceptable justification for the war. We _never said there was_.” ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/69 "2004-01-30T14:24:39Z")
To be clear, the term “grave and growing threat” was used far before it started to become clear that Iraq had no WMD. From what I can determine, the phrase was first used in reference to the Axis of Evil in the SOTU on January 29, 2002: "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. " I see now that the Administration claims that the term “grave and growing threat” was appropriate to Iraq because Saddam _wanted_ to get WMD. Wow, one man’s pipe dreams are a threat to the U.S… If only we had realized that in the 1980’s when the Reagan Administration approved export licenses to sell samples of Class III biological agents to Saddam’s government. I suppose it was okay back then if Iraq only threatened Iran with BW… How times change. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Svinlesha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/22d042/32.png) [@Mr.Svinlesha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Svinlesha)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/70 "2004-01-30T14:47:08Z")
**Ravenman** : > [@](#): > > - The Administration has concocted a lousy legal justification for why its invasion of Iraq was legal under international law, but that house of cards depends entirely on one not reading the UN Charter too closely…. > > No, the Administration instead trots out arguments that are of a seventh-grade reading level: “The UN Charter allows a country to act in self-defense” and some fantasty that the threat of “serious consequences” in 1441 was a spelling error, and is actually pronounced “the UN Security Council authorizes the use of unprovoked military force.” Ijits.\* Just out of personal interest, do you know where I might find a text of this justification? It just seems to me that if they can’t even formulate a defense of the invasion based on imminent threat under 51, then they really don’t have a leg to stand on. **AQA:** You are right on all three counts: 1. That is the text of Article 51. 2. It does not include the word “imminent.” 3. This has been hashed over many, many, many, many times. Apparently there exists a kind of “common practice” basis for the manner in which one interprets the phrase “self-defense.” Considering the history of state relations, states have often reacted to “imminent” threats by attacking first, as a means of trying to get the first punch in, as it were. Thus, there is a long tradition wherein a military response to imminent attack is considered legitimate. Of course, this tradition does contradict the wording of the Article, and I’m not sure how that contradiction is resolved, technically. On top of that, the US (at least) has historically employed very broad interpretations of both the concepts “self-defense” and “imminent,” such that, for example, the invasion of Grenada was justified as an act of “self-defense against imminent attack” protected under the auspices of Article 51. To my mind, such a broad interpretation completely reverses the entire spirit of the Article: it becomes a pretext for engaging in aggressive military actions against other states, rather than a legal guarantee for the right to self-defense – a fairly transparent 180 as far as I can see. I was recently involved in a fairly deep-going discussion about these issues with **Ravenman** and a fella named, I believe, **Jimmy1** ; I had just brought up this very issue, but he dropped out. I don’t remember the thread title. **Desmos** : > [@](#): > > - I’m completely failing to understand why the Administrations’s mouthpieces keep bringing this up. They use it in a fairly strange way. It started months and months ago as a reaction to taunts about failure to find WMDs. > > But to bring it up now, after Kay has said that the WMDs didn’t exist at all, and neither did the WMD programs in any substantial way, is really bizarre. It’s like the Administration is saying: “Sure there was no legally acceptable justification for the war. **We never said there was.** ”\* Touché. My sentiments exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/71 "2004-01-30T17:56:04Z")
> [@kniz](#): > > So are you saying that the CIA was on top of things and that over their objections the Bush Administration was duped by Chalabi. Whoever thought that up stays up later at night than I do. There was a Frontline news program which had a substantial interview with Chalabi about his role in the intelligence gathering process. He said he himself provided key documentation about WMDs in Iraq to the OSP and to Paul Wolfowitz in particular. He also said he had documentary evidence of Saddam Hussein passing funds to Al Queda. The interviewer told him pretty much flat out that he thought Chalabi was lying and that this document was either a fabrication or didn’t exist. Chalabi swore up and down that the documentation was genuine and accurate. He also promised to get Frontline a copy of it immediately after the interview. Frontline said they never received a copy of the document. You can find the show archived online and all the interview segments are viewable through downloadable video clips. I would provide a link, but I’m having trouble with my connection at the moment. Googling “Frontline Chalabi” should get you mostly there. I did find a transcript of the interview [here](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/chalabi.html). Beware, it is quite lengthy. The same program also had footage of Chalabi after he returned to Iraq following US forces as they marched northward towards Bahgdad. Almost the first thing he did was try to organize his own militia who took orders straight from him and had their own weapons and territory. He claimed his militia would work with the US troops to topple Saddam and provide a peacekeeping force afterwards. Of course part and parcel with the deal is that he runs it and they take orders from him. Essentially he becomes a local warlord, head of his own little military regime. The US military dismantled his militia and he’s back to playing politics. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/72 "2004-01-30T18:54:03Z")
> [@Mr. Svinlesha](#): > > It just seems to me that if they can’t even formulate a defense of the invasion based on imminent threat under 51, then they really don’t have a leg to stand on… > > (snip) > > …Apparently there exists a kind of “common practice” basis for the manner in which one interprets the phrase “self-defense.” Considering the history of state relations, states have often reacted to “imminent” threats by attacking first, as a means of trying to get the first punch in, as it were. Thus, there is a long tradition wherein a military response to imminent attack is considered legitimate. Of course, this tradition does contradict the wording of the Article, and I’m not sure how that contradiction is resolved, technically. **Mr Svinlesha** did you read as high as my earlier post when I tried to assist in how that contradiction has been at least addressed, if not resolved. It is only an opinion of some experts in international law, but they have concluded that Art.51 does not, on previous precident, prove any justification for the US attack. However they also conclude that the US have not necessarily given up their “common law” rights to self defence and pre-emption generally accepted internationally before ratification of the UN Charter just because they are now party to the Charter. That is if I am reading the source correct. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/73 "2004-01-30T18:54:29Z")
ob·fus·cate tr.v. ob·fus·cat·ed, ob·fus·cat·ing, ob·fus·cates 1. To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made… to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert Conquest). 2. To render indistinct or dim; darken: The fog obfuscated the shore. [Dictionary.com](http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=obfuscate) I just wanted to clear this up for the ongoing discussion. It seems to me the Bush Administration has succeeded in its attempt, deliberate or otherwise, to sufficiently cloud what was said and not said, that nothing will come of this. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/74 "2004-01-30T19:07:04Z")
What are you guys talking about? **Clinton received blowjobs in the oval office and then lied about it!** I cannot believe folks are willing to participate in this particular exercise of “what-did-he-say-and-when-did-he-say-it.” Can any one deny that a major - if not THE major emphasis of administration arguments for war stressed a serious threat to the US via Iraqi WMD - and that to date, we have not discovered any capability to carry out such threat? At best, one can argue that Bush acted based on wildly incorrect intelligence. Which, for most of us working stiffs, would be plenty enough to earn us our walking papers - even without a trail of dead bodies. ---
**Author:** ![Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d07c76/32.png) [@Age\_Quod\_Agis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Age_Quod_Agis)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/75 "2004-01-30T19:20:36Z")
Thanks to **notquitekarpov** and **Mr. Svinlesha** for helping the slower among us (i.e., me) catch up. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/76 "2004-01-31T02:04:06Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Argue with the pre-emtive doctrine if you want, but this “imminent threat” bru-ha-ha is just that-- much ado about nothing. Funny, I thought we \*were \* arguing with the doctrine, what it means, and what Bush wants it to mean. An “imminent” threat can require action that a longer-term threat may not, _eh bien_? There are other means available to deal with a “grave and gathering” danger short of getting people killed - means Bush never tried, and that you supporters tie yourselves in knots trying to avoid facing. Much ado about “nothing” you say? There are 500+ service families who might be interested in hearing you say that. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/77 "2004-01-31T03:39:05Z")
> [@Eolbo](#): > > I’m looking for use of the phrase “imminent threat” by Bush and have yet to find it. I suspect its a pointless exercise though as whether he did or didnt use that particular phrase it was definitely a concept that he communicated. Here for instance: > > [President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat](http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html) > > So maybe not “imminent” but only a “grave” “gathering” “threat to peace” that required “urgent” action. Weaselly and unfounded histrionics anyway. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=219080&highlight=imminent)’s a collection of different quotes from various Bush Admin officials. > [@kniz](#): > > I believe you are making an assumption that is not correct. Many people believed as you do, but do not use the term “people” as if _everyone_ felt that they were mislead or that _everyone_ believed that “imminent threat” was used. I personally understood that we did not want to wait until it was “imminent”. If you think about it, back before Desert Storm; it was imminently sure that Iraq was going to invade Saudi Arabia. If they had not held off until we got our troops in position, it could have been a different story. So why wait for that kind of situation? > [@](#): > > \*\* THE PIPA/KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS POLLL > THE AMERICAN PUBLIC ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES > [AMERICANS REEVALUATE GOING TO WAR WITH IRAQ\*\*](http://pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Nov_13_03_iraq_report.pdf)(.pdf) > November 13, 2003 > > An overwhelming **87% said “the Bush administration, before the war, did… portray Iraq as an imminent threat to the US.”** However, 58% said that the US did not “have strong evidence that the US was in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraq with weapons of mass destruction,” and only **42% thought the US was in fact in imminent danger > then**. > > [http://pipa.org/](http://pipa.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/78 "2004-01-31T04:48:01Z")
> [@Desmostylus](#): > > I’m completely failing to understand why the Administrations’s mouthpieces keep bringing this up. They use it in a fairly strange way. It started months and months ago as a reaction to taunts about failure to find WMDs. > > But to bring it up now, after Kay has said that the WMDs didn’t exist at all, and neither did the WMD programs in any substantial way, is really bizarre. It’s like the Administration is saying: “Sure there was no legally acceptable justification for the war. We _never said there was_.” It’s damage control. The administration needs to create the impression that it hasn’t lost _every single_ argument. This one it can not-lose. Get inside the collective headspace of the administration. It communicates to the faithful on the impulse and impression level. Trying to understand it and the electorate as engaging in closely watched rational discussion will only succeed in alienating you from where the popular mood actually is. Consider the outrage and giddy triumphalism found here over the No-WMDs concession. The US general public is indifferent. See. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/79 "2004-01-31T05:39:03Z")
All this semantic quibles are completely irrelevant in the face of facts, the USA invaded Iraq because it presented an alleged threat; it turns out, quite unsurprizingly, that there was no threat at all. So, “imminent” “grave and gathering”, etc… just don´t matter at all, the actions prove that the invasion had to be done RIGHT NOW, no matter how the thread is qualified it was alleged to be big enough to start a war ASAP. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2004, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464/80 "2004-01-31T05:41:38Z")
Well, did I mangled the English language in that last post or what? :rolleyes: _ashamed_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/now-bush-says-he-never-said-iraq-was-an-imminent-threat/226464.md?page=5)