That’s just it, there’s nary an explosive bit about it.
Dr. Kay doesn’t address anything in that statement but the allegations. There’s nothing controversial about saying that the allegations are about serious matters. They’re about war. There aren’t many more serious topics in the human world. They’re about the sovereignty of the electorate. There aren’t many more serious issues in a republic.
Dr. Kay merely characterized the allegation as a “serious charge.” That’s not in the least way explosive. Any potential inappropriateness in the scale of Dr. Kay’s comment could only be on the side of saying too little, of being an understatement.
After saying all that, let me point out that it doesn’t really matter what Dr. Kay said. The issues are still the same.
John Mace,
I’ve seen hamsters swallow some pretty big posts. :eek:
The new release date for the first SSCI report re pre-war intel on Iraq.
**Panel members are now reviewing the draft report, and Roberts said he aims to release an unclassified version in late May.
**
No word yet on when the second report that focuses one the use of the pre-war intel on Iraq. Originally, it was set to come out some months after the initial report. Apparently, that report will come out late summer or fall.
Or maybe it’ll be delayed until after the election?
Well, of course, the report will have to be carefully “vetted”. National security, don’t you know? Can’t just fling something like that out into the public view without redacting information unsuitable for publication. And if the unpatriotic radical left shall insist otherwise, well, that’s a matter for the courts, isn’t it? Moving along briskly, we might have the whole thing resolved by the time Jenna Bush is inaugarated.
Jesus H. Keereyest! I wish people would stop using this rotten, stale argument. No one with any sense denies we are at war - now. Very few argue that we should just get out of Iraq - right now. Hardly anyone denied that Saddam was a bastard of the first water - ever.
The die is cast. The Perpeutal Sophomore has lied, cajoled, and pushed all of us into a real sticky situation.
Those who keep referring to the pie-in-the-sky dream about having a beautifully functioning Iraqi democracy, in the US sense of that word, are the real nut cases.
No I don’t think the world is better off now than before the Iraq war.
No, I don’t think we are any safer with Saddam as a prisoner.
No, I don’t think that the Iraq war advances the “war or terrorism” one particle. Quite the contrary in fact.
And yes, I think GW is an incompetent ninny based on his past and current performances.
Of course, all of the posts in that thread are from last October. We really should keep up to date. How do those people feel after this (April 17-18) weekend?
London Calling might still hold the opinion of last October because he argued that there never was what he would can a “war” in the first place. Most of the posts by those named dwelt with the semantics of the use of the term “war” not whether or not there was or had been armed conflict in progress.
And perhaps they had reason to think there was no ongoing war then, or even armed conflict. After all hadn’t GW bounced onto the deck of the Abe Lincoln, tail awag and grinning from ear to ear, and announced “Mission Accomplished” and declared “major combat ended?” If you can’t believe our President whom can you believe?
I’m not convinced by your “hindsights”. Twice during the months preceding the Irak war, the french President pronounced speech in which he stated that France could send troops in Irak and that the nation should be prepared too such a situation, or statements to the same effect. … I remember footages on TV about the troops which would have been sent there. There was a clear possibility that France could be part of the coalition during the winter preceding the war.
There was ample room to negociate a french participation. Clearly, the main issue was that the recourse to force would only take place if Irak did not comply with UN-mandated arm inspections. But it became clear very soon that the USA governement was decided to invade Irak no matter what.
At the height of the UN crisis, the windows of oportunity for a French participation was already closed, and even though France proposed, until the last moment, not to veto the US proposal if minimal conditions were met (UN mandate and , IIRC, a month to proceed to further inspections), at this time, a french military involvment had already been ruled out, if only because it wasn’t anymore materially possible to deploy french troops on so short a call (but certainly also for other reasons).
But your statement that “nothing would have brought them along” (at least for France, I wouldn’t know for Russia), is clearly false, given the content of the declarations adressed to the french public and to the french army by the governement during the previous months and of the negociations between the USA and France. The total lack of even the appearance of a minimal flexibility on the US side killed any chance of such a participation.
Except for the last four posts.
Of course, if the war was over in Oct and there’s a war now, it would be reasonable to ask if it were not now a new war.
In fairness to, well, me, London_calling seemed to say in this very thread that it wasn’t a war; that’s my read of his rejoinder to me at any rate – I’m not making this stuff up as I go along, you know.
In turn, in fairness to him, this is also an old thread as these things go. He may have a different viewpoint now.
I thought that’s what I wrote in this from my post: “London Calling might still hold the opinion of last October because he argued that there never was what he would can a ‘war’ in the first place.”
Maybe I wasn’t clear but I was doing my best to agree with your assessment of London_calling’s October opinion.
Pfft. French officials at nearly the highest levels seem at this point to have been bought and owned by Saddam Hussein through the “oil-for-food” program – as were Russians, as were senior UN officials. Until there’s a complete, independent investigation of that whole program I have no interest in what any of those guys’ public statements were or are. IMO, turns out it was all about the oil – dissenting countries’ senior people collecting money from Saddam’s oil. World’s a funny place, innit?
As for the U.S.'s intransigence, we were all about the regime change – Saddam goes into exile, no invasion. People seem to forget or ignore that, but the coalition governments would have taken that deal, so long as enough of his fellow tyrants went with him.
Doh! I think we’re at least mostly on the same page here. I was merely pointing out his apparent opinion in this thread, as of the end of February – clearly things have changed since then, just as they have since October, which might reasonably change peoples’ opinions. Sorry I wasn’t clear.
What a fascinating interpretation of events, Manny! As I age, memory fails, but I could have sworn GeeDubya was saying stuff about how it was all about those Dreadful Weapons. In fact, in my delusion, I seem to recall a joint statement by Mr. Powell and Ms. Rice to the effect that regime change was not necessarily needed - so long as Saddam agreed to rid himself of the Invisible Pink Unicorns of Death, he could go on his merry way.
If I were willing to work hard enough, I could find that cite for you. Would it make any difference?
[QUOTE=manhattan]
Pfft. French officials at nearly the highest levels seem at this point to have been bought and owned by Saddam Hussein through the “oil-for-food” program – as were Russians, as were senior UN officials. Until there’s a complete, independent investigation of that whole program
[/quote)
Yes. I remember there has been a list of officiasl supposedly “bought”. There even has been thread about this issue. You could probably find it, and…say, point to me which members of the french government were supposedly bought?
Fine, then I’ve no interest in any statements by any US officials, past or present. IMO it was all about handing juicy all contracts to G.W. Bush friends. End of debate. How could any country official had any other reason to make any political decision than filling his pocket with money, anyway?
I think that knowing that, from now on, threads related to politics or foreign affairs will be short and easy to deal with.
How come you have no interest in the further statements of US officials who went before Congress and the UN to swear up an down that they had solid intelligence that Saddam was massing weapons and then when that claim turned to crap turned around and whimpered that “all intelligence is only tentative?”
How come your don’t hang on every word of such sterling characters?
We would have gone in (invaded) regardless of whether Saddam and sons had fled the country. IIRC this came as a suprise to the rest of the coalition, including Blair. Apparently regime change and occupation were equally important goals.
And yes, the administration maintained steadfastly that Saddam must go. Because of his alleged ties to 9/11 and his addiction to WMD and mendacity. Absent the imminent threat/gathering threat/nukes in 45 minutes (or at least in the forseeable future) there is no necessity for invasion right now.
With regards to the are we at war in Iraq issue, I would have thought that in the May 2003 through March 2004 timeframe stating that we were no longer at war in Iraq was more or less the White House’s line. Yes, we were dealing with some renegade Baathists and imported terrorists, but we were dealing with them, so the long hard job of rebuilding Iraq could move forwards. If we were at war (rather than in a somewhat problematical occupation) in Iraq why were we trying so hard to get American (and other western) civilians into the war zone?
Given that the Bush Administration had handwaved away every other attempt Saddam Hussein made to avoid a war, do you seriously believe they’d have followed through with this claim?
(Now, IMO, if Saddam agreed to sign over all of Iraq’s oil assets to the United States, and blew out his brains on national Iraqi TV, then Bush would have been glad to avoid a war…)
I am not sure that an extra few years would have been enough for the Iraqi army to be lined up and ready, as opposed to in a vaguely warlike state. Given that we had bribed a reasonable number of Iraqi generals to avoid blowing up bridges etc and that our prewar positioning showed we were unconcerned with WMD issues I don’t think it is reasonable to say that standing down is a preposterous concept.
With the Iraqi army already mobilized it could be argued that Iraq would be in better shape to handle transitional issues than if not. If it were argued that Saddam fleeing with his army and government attack would just mean a different Baathist or military strongman I would have to agree, although that would also suggest that if such a regime “change” were unacceptable we would have gone in no matter what.
