Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq | Iraq | The Guardian You can not forget the Downing Street memeos. Bush and Blair decided to go into Iraq. Bush told them he would fix the intelligence to justify it. They knew Saddam was not a threat. They sent Cheney over to baby sit the CIA until he got the info just right. He downgraded every bit of info that did not fit and forced agents to back the official view. It was corruption of the intelligence agencies plus lying to the world.
When it was determined by his own government that Iraq did not in fact pose the threat Bush lied to you about, what was the reaction? Apologize, withdraw, and make reparations? No, Bush made a funny movie about looking for Iraq’s alleged weapons in the Oval Office then proceeded to pretend the invasion was justified even though all the reasons given justifying it were false.
Why would anyone assume he was honest in light of that? As for proof, well I think big:
Bush said invading Iraq was justified.
It was not.
Therefore Bush was lying when he said it was. I’ve read enough about how he and his keepers wanted no truck with evidence that didn’t support policy to think he’s an honest lifeform.
Look it up yourself, just don’t claim that you know what Iran is up to when you don’t.
Loose talk like that is the sort of shit that got us into Iraq.
Bullshit.
I did try looking this up but unfortunately didn’t find info on the web on what we knew and when we knew it as regards nukes for these countries. Found nothing one way or another.
That said the US never wanted anyone else to have The Bomb (except maybe Great Britain). The US has always opposed proliferation. Not sure if we “knew” these other countries were getting nukes that we wouldn’t have been all over them with sanctions or whatever.
As for Iraq there is a BIG difference! We were already in Iraq. We had already stomped them several years earlier. We were already all over their country and poking our noses in wherever we could. We had no-fly zones. We had reports from all these inspectors that nothing was there (WMD-wise). All of that was ignored. We knew they were mostly harmless…went in anyway.
To be sure, the US stance is that the UN Resolution* authorized the legal use of force. Iraq breached that resolution. Therefore, this was not an aggressive war. It’s a stretch argument, but that’s the stance anyways.
*Either the recent 2003 resolution, or really, the “open-ended” resolution from Gulf War I.
The president tried looking up Iraq’s nuclear program too, but it was hard. Did you know that it’s hard being president? It’s a hard job. Anyway, he couldn’t find out the facts either, so he went with what he believed instead, and told the rest of us that his beliefs were cold, hard facts.
The result is hundreds of thousands dead, and hundreds of billions wasted for nothing.
Facts can be very hard to determine, but that is no excuse whatsoever for choosing to believe whatever the hell you want to believe, and certainly no excuse for lying to people and telling them that your beliefs are the stone cold truth.
Random thought:
Why bother trying to figure out if Bush lied? The Iraq invasion was clearly unconstitutional and illegal (no congressional vote) and he should be jailed for that alone, not to mention breaking international peace treaties (torture).
Except Bush had the facts…or near enough. His intel was pretty good. People were telling him there was nothing there. He ignored it. He wanted a different answer. He wanted to go to war. He took us to war.
The UN weapons inspectors had been there for 6 years until Clinton pulled them out.
Then they went back and Bush pulled them out again - no justification in either case except to attack (Clinton to distract from Lewinsky, Bush for the acquisition).
Just google Scott Ritter.
Congress voted for, and approved the 2003 War in Iraq. see “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002”
It was not unconstitutional. Or, I don’t see what your reasoning is.
Fine. Do you want to go to war with Iran? If not, why do you make claims about the threat of their nuclear program that are not based on facts?
He had 6 years of still on going UNSCOM inspections, and 6 years of reports from the inspectors, and technology in place to verify their findings. It’s beyond naive to think Bush didn’t have the materials at hand - the rest of the world somehow managed to form a pretty accurate view.
This is how/why the inspectors left it 1998. During those 6 years UNSCOM did destroy a lot of chemical weapons. That’s a fact and it’s undeniable.
But, Iraq also failed to disclose information about its programs and repeatedly interfered with the inspectors job. The job wasn’t complete. This was a violation under the 1991 resolution that ended the first Iraq war.
Also:
1998 - Congress states Iraq committed a material and unacceptable breach of UN resolutions. They urged the President to bring Iraq into compliance.
1998 - Congress stated, “It should be the policy of the US to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam from power in Iraq and promote the emergence of a Democratic government to replace that regime.” This was in response to Iraq’s kicking out Nuclear Weapons Inspectors.
1998 - Iraq quit cooperating with UNSCOM. Operation Desert Fox ensued in which numerous (100’s) Iraq targets were destroyed with missile attacks.
No no no, EVERYONE thought Saddam had WMD’s. 
That’s a lie that’s taken on almost religious truthiness here in the US.
If it’s not true, then maybe our boys really did die for nothing, and all that.
The alternative is just too horrible to contemplate, so it must be true.
I didn’t start this thread for nothing. I want to be educated. To be honest, I heard that the whole world thought that Saddam had WMDs. Educate me. Show me where other countries were telling us that he had nothing. That he was holding his dick in his hand and that was his only weapon.
It just doesn’t jive with my memory, but I am open to being corrected. No snark.
I gotta ask. Did you make up your mind about the invasion without this “education”? Did you simply rely on what you “heard” and decide that was enough to garner your support for the invasion? Where was this concern for evidence back in 2003? Why didn’t you do this thread back when it could have made an ounce of difference?
Again, you seem to misunderstand the entire point. Nobody KNEW he had nothing, just like nobody KNEW he had WMD’s. The entire point is that Bush sold the invasion as if we did know, as if we were sure, Saddam was a imminent threat. It seems to me you’ve shifted the burden from justifying the deaths and dollars that come with an invasion, to proving that countries knew we shouldn’t invade. That’s not realistic in the least.
And, just to help, some German intelligence officers certainly thought it was certainly overstated..
The cheese eating surrender monkeys provoked congress into eating ‘Freedom Fries’ with their unwillingness to go along with the ‘everyone believes’ meme:
U.S. Allies Were Not Persuaded By U.S. Assertions on Iraq WMD
I’m sorry, this is just nonsense. Again, I’m not defending his decision, but the CIA signed off on a National Intelligence Estimate that said, in part:
This is all part of the Tenet “slam dunk” comment. Of course, these judgments were also spectacularly wrong.
But as to your claim that Bush was being told there was nothing there: you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
Saddam was set up by Clinton. It’s not exactly news. As Scott Ritter says, Clinton politicised that which should not have been ( the inspection process) because it served his own ends, both personal and political.
Lest we forget Desert Fox began the day before the evidential hearing in relation to Monika Lewinski and ended the day after the hearing ended. He took the inspectors out of Iraq for that.
Some cold shit from Clinton.
And they were anodized, which Bushco said was what was needed for enriching uranium, but that is exactly backwards.