What would YOU have done? [Bush and Iraq]

Great Debates
81

It is interesting to note that today the Democratic Leadershp Council said this about the hunt for WMD’s:

So it looks as though, at least some Dem’s are saying that if in fact no WMD’s are found, then they are okay with that, as Bush would not have been the only one who was fooled.

Jane Harman went on to say:

Now she is no pundit. She is not some op-ed writer either. she is a ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. You would think that she is in a position to know. Since she is a democrat, I find it hard to beleive she is just toeing the line on this.

Credit to Fox News for th above quotes

82

What about the uranium from Niger, the alumninum tubes and link to al-Qaida?
These were presented as evience AFTER the knowledge that these were shoddy, faked and what-have-you was publicly available.

Don’t these represent an example irresponsible misrepresentations, (at the least)?

83

Unfortunately, december, all you show with that cite is that Bushaholics not only are willing to tolerate lies by him, but are willing to lie themselves to support him.

I suggest reading Blix’s report instead of just hopping on some half-sentences from which the qualifications have been removed, and I suggest reading ALL reports, instead of starting to froth at the mouth as soon as Bush is packing out the guns. There were several reports after the one cited.

As for being in breach of the UN resolution, the US was just the same. The resolution did not just pose obligations on Iraq, you know? And being in breach of UN resolutions is no justification of an attack.

84

The problem is that the only thing it shows is that those Dems are unaware of what the other nations actually said. Which is neither surprising nor uncommon.

85

I am sure there are some democrats in congress and the HoR that would be SHOCKED to learn they are “Bushaholics”.

What say you about all the Dems and leaders of other countries that also thought the WMD’s existed?

86

If you had actually read my post, you would know what I say. Namely that those claims about leaders of other countries ‘who also thought’ is based on ignorance of what these people actually said.

But thanks for making such a huge effort to confirm what I just said.

87

My apologies for that, I began typing my post before your second post was on the board, so I didn’t get the chance to read what you had said in your second post. Your first post mentioned nothing about the leaders of other countries.

However, since you are so informed, please clarify the statements made by the leaders of the other countries, when they said they believed the WMD were there, and that Iraq was a threat. I mean, I know I am not a genius or anything, and I took there words at face values. Please enlighten all of us as to how we misinterperated (sp?) the following report (here) which says that Germany was one of the biggest suppliers of “equipment and expertise Iraq has needed to reinvigorate its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction”.

Or for that matter, please clarify:

That seems to be farily straight forward if you ask me.

88

I would say a hearty ‘so what’.

The real lie wasn’t simply saying “I believe the WMDs exist” and being wrong.

The real lie was justifying the war on the basis of the threat these WMDs would pose if they fell into terrorist hands, then implementing a war plan that made no attempt to secure the alleged WMDs once we drove Saddam’s troops away from the sites where they were believed to have been located, thereby enabling the looting of those sites.

Thus, the evidence of Bush’s actions in addition to his words is that he never believed the WMDs constituted a threat to begin with.

This is consistent with his postwar triumphalism too: if he believed the WMDs constituted a threat, then he’d be worried sick about them being loose in the Middle East, and wouldn’t be waving enormous “Mission Accomplished” banners in front of the TV cameras.

(Of course, if he really believed the WMDs constituted a genuine threat, and implemented the war plan as given, then he’s worse than a liar by a good margin. Your pick.)

89

Again, just because no WMD’s were found does not mean that they did not exist (or that we won’t find them in the future, that they weren’t moved, etc.) Bush said that SH had to obey the UN Resolutions or face military action. The UN Resolutions called for SH to account for his ADMITTED WMD’s, which he refused to do. I think that this was the original intent, and then Bush et al went more towards the “We believe he still has them” than “He refuses to obey the UN Resoltuions”. I think the former latter would have been a much better way to go, since if he would have gone that way, and no WMD’s were found, it wouldn’t mean a damn thing. That is just me though.

As far as not protecting the sites against looters, that is one are I will 100% agree with you on. That was pure stupidity and lack of planning. Though I still don’t believe that it makes anyone neccassarily a liar.

90

I apologize about that last post, I know it was kind of haphazard and the first paragraph is in no way related to your comments RTF. Believe it or not, I am carrying on the exact same debat on another site (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55546&perpage=25&pagenumber=4).

Next time I will try to pay more attention.

91

No problem about the confusion, MegaDave.

About the last paragraph, attributing that choice to careless planning is inconceivable to me. Bush was authorized by Congress to “(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq”, and the second of these is meaningless because it is up to the body that passes laws or resolutions to allow or arrange for their enforcement.

In addition, Bush justified our invasion to the nation and the world on that basis in his March 17 speech, as well as in numerous previous public statements of his own and his immediate subordinates.

The absence of any attempt to secure these sites in the invasion has to be regarded as a sin of commission, rather than one of neglect and omission; one doesn’t ‘just forget’ to include this item under these circumstances.

92

You sunk his battleship. He’s trying to have it both ways.

Another option is that the US is sinking into a quagmire right now, fighting SH loyalists, foreign troublemakers, and maybe some homegrown resistance. I’m not really sure, obviously. I just know the body bags are shipping out pretty regularly.

Moreover, Saddam has not been accounted for. This, I’ve thought since the statue came down, is a serious glitch in the so-called victory. If we had a surrender document I might scale back that comment. We don’t. In other words, the war is not over.

The WMDs (whatever, I’m in wait-and-see mode) being insecure–with particular emphasis on Tuwaitha–is an inexcusable mess. Rummy’s with-one-hand-behind-our-back strategies have failed to turn up many of the big fish in both Afghanistan and Iraq now. Obviously SH and UBL being the two that seem to matter most.

93

Well, the guy said “may” – as in, “Saddam might have them, and he might not. We don’t know.” That’s probably why he wanted to give Hans Blix and the inspectors more time to poke around Iraq and try to find an answer, remember?

94

Ok, let me get this straight. Bush wanted to go to war because of oil (we had no existing contracts with Iraq), but Chirac didn’t want to go to war because he wasn’t sure they had WMD’s (even though he did have existing multi-million dollar contracts that were in jeapordy)? That doesn’t seem a little asinine to you? Jacque Chirac didn’t want to go to war because he knew his countries affiliation with SH and Iraq would be exposed and he would lose his precious oil contracts, not because of some altruistic diplomatic reason. That is hogwash.

However, that is not the only time that Chirac said something about the WMD, and for that matter so did Gerhard Schroeder (sp?), and so did Vladimir Putin. They all, at one point in time, said they believe the WMD’s were there, and only started railing against it when Bush decided that he had had enough of SH and was going to take him out. (odd that those three leaders countries also had an economic stake in keeping SH in power huh? but then since they aren’t Bush, noone will ever rail against them)

95

I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to learn that Chirac had personal/selfish/non-altruistic reasons to avoid a war with Iraq. The problem is, those reasons are irrelevant to the point. Even if we simplify the positions into “France and the US all just want Iraqi oil,” the end result is that the American position resulted in the deaths of 15,000+ people, at a time when there was no eminent threat to the United States.

And George W. Bush wanted to go to war because he knew his country would benefit from sitting on top of the world’s second-largest oil supply, and his Texas petroleum buddies would make out like bandits from the aftermath, not because of some altruistic diplomatic reason. What’s your point?

I don’t recall Chirac or Putin or Schroeder arguing for the violent overthrow of the leader of a soverign nation, do you?

96

How soon we forget.

Yes, France had ulterior motives, as did we. If the SC vote came out with France vetoing when there was a majority for war, we would have been in pretty good shape. Remember, however, that we couldn’t even dig up a majority vote. One ex-intelligence analyst I heard on NPR noted that in these situations we share the proof with countries we want to convince. (Not France, but the other members.) That we did not might indicate that Bush had no good evidence to share.

The majority position was that the inspectors needed time, and continued pressure, and that they would find WMDs if they existed, and at the very least prevent or slow down the building of new WMDs. Now, why was Bush against this very reasonable position? One possibility is that he put himself in a corner by doing the troop buildup first, and it became a use them or lose them situation. Another one is that he knew damn well that there was a good chance that there were no WMDs, and having the inspectors prove this would prevent forever him getting his revenge on Saddam (or the oil, if you like.)

Bush justified the war by saying that he couldn’t wait any longer. If this was because there was an imminent threat, then he must have had evidence about the location of the WMDs - and their current location, not their location 10 years before. Now either Bush was misled about this, or he was lying. If he was misled, heads should be rolling now, and I don’t see any. If we find a tub of poison gas or a missile it doesn’t matter, because clearly whatever reasons Bush had for declaring an imminent danger are already proven bogus.

Quotes from democrats and other world leaders is a red herring. Sure, most everyone would have bet that SH had a lot more WMD than he turned out to have. But the world community was taking prudent steps to find them and prevent the creation of new weapons.

Look, no one could have proven the presence or absence of WMDs at the time - that is unless we had clear evidence of their presence and location. Since we didn’t have this, the only conclusion I can draw is that Bush wanted war, WMDs or no WMDs. If you are very charitable, he lied to get rid of an evil dictator. But do you want someone who lies to the American people for his own goals, like them or not?