Which leading Democrats also thought Saddam had WMD programs?

[magellan01]

@Lynwood Slim

Voyager: Since I began this thread to gather information (and some posts have been truly helpful; thank you), could you point me to the place where Bush uses the phrase, “imminent threat”? I thought he said, “growing threat” but you may be right.

Lynwood Slim: Here are the two mentions of imminent coming from the President’s mouth that I am aware of. The first one is more what you are looking for.

From President Bush’s State of the Union address, January 28, 2003:

"Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans – this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option." (Applause.) [Emphasis mine.]
From Remarks by the President, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 7, 2002:

“Later this week, the United States Congress will vote on this matter. I have asked Congress to authorize the use of America’s military, if it proves necessary, to enforce U.N. Security Council demands. Approving this resolution does not mean that military action is imminent or unavoidable. The resolution will tell the United Nations, and all nations, that America speaks with one voice and is determined to make the demands of the civilized world mean something. Congress will also be sending a message to the dictator in Iraq: that his only chance – his only choice is full compliance, and the time remaining for that choice is limited.”

You may want to also read this.

[Marley23]

@Lynwood Slim

Voyager: Since I began this thread to gather information (and some posts have been truly helpful; thank you), could you point me to the place where Bush uses the phrase, “imminent threat”? I thought he said, “growing threat” but you may be right.

I remember Rumsfeld used the exact phrase “imminent threat” and got nailed for it on CNN (after denying he’d ever said it).

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

Which leading Democrats were so wedded to their position that they outed a CIA agent to try to fend off the revelation of a truth that ran counter to their argument?

When you get right down to it, isn’t the fact that they chose to respond to Joe Wilson in this way evidence enough of the Bush administrations’ intention to deceive? Who behaves in that way when they are honestly evaluating the evidence and putting forth a portrayal that they feel is accurate?

[Sevastopol]

@Lynwood Slim

Sevastopol: would you please point me to the evidence that Bush did not act in good faith. I have read many opinions in that light, but nothing that would persuade a neutral person. I read, for example, Woodwards book “Plan of Attack”, certainly no whitewash and not terribly sympathetic to Bush. The book does not prove, though, that Bush knew one thing for certain, but told something else.

It depends what evidence you require of bad faith. As a general proposition people who argue as you have require more evidence than is necessary to convince a neutral person. E.g. Solid evidence that Bush knew for a fact Iraq did not possess WMD.

However I do not despair, here are some examples:

1. Creating the OSP. A body the sole purpose of which was to contradict the findings of the administration’s intelligence professionals in regard to Iraq. Is this an action undertaken in good faith?
2. Agressively pursuing and investigating links between Al-Quada and Iraq. There were none. Again an effort to create evidence favouring the pre-determined outcome. Acting in good faith means policy follows the evidence, not the contrary.
3. Taking positive steps to curtail the Hans Blix weapons inspections. As the true facts on the ground came to be known they collapsed the case for war. Had Bush not commenced military agression at that time, but waited a short time for the inspections, as advised, then his war case would have collapsed publicly and had he gone to war it would have been in the face of the evidence on the public record.
4. As a corollary to 3: Asserting that his intelligence information was certain as to the threat posed by Iraq, when by no reasonable measure was it. Again, had he frankly and in good faith publicy acknowledged the uncertainty, then the case for continued Weapons Inspections have completely overwhelmed the case for war. Which is why he didn’t.

And what is your evidence that I am following a cue from “Republican Central”? I must say I fight that rather inappropriate and uncalled for.

Your argument precisely mirrors the widespread strategy observable in all places GOP talking points can be planted:

1. Redefine the case for war as mere possession. i.e. “Everyone believed he had them”.

It was no such thing, instead being;

Possession +
Links to Al-Quada +
A likelihood of passing on weaponry to Al-Quada.

2. Equate belief in Possession with consent to and culpability with the case for war. It was no such thing.

Now it may be simple co-incidence on your part, but it seems unlikely to me. Even so I apologise for any offense you may feel.

[Sevastopol]

@jshore

Yes, the Bush defenders have made much of this word parsing in saying that Bush never in fact used the phrase “imminent threat”. But, that is what he communicated to the point where this article in the Los Angeles Times characterized him as having said that (in the title of their article on his State of the Union address in January 2003). Given that the L.A. Times serves a large population, you would think that the Bush Administration would have been quick at the time to correct this if they saw it as a severe mis-characterization of what Bush had in fact said. So, I guess all you have to do is go to whitehouse.gov and dig up where the Administration set the record straight, right?

Lateline

TONY JONES: Finally, then, how quickly do you think we’ll see real evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq that pose an imminent danger to the United States or the rest of the world?

JOHN BOLTON: I think we already see evidence, substantial evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs and I think we’re going to see more.

I think the question of imminent threat is a matter when you have a regime like Saddam Hussein’s that has a proven record of using chemical weapons against Iran, against its own people, that’s plenty imminent enough for me.

That’s why our policy in the United States on a bipartisan basis for several years had been we have to change the regime in Baghdad because the possession of weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs was integral to the regime itself and, as long as that regime stayed in power, the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction was more imminent than I would be willing to risk.

TONY JONES: But you’d acknowledge it didn’t pose an imminent threat to the United States?

JOHN BOLTON: I just said that it did to the extent they had WMD programs that they could have shared with terrorists or used in and of themselves – that’s a risk…

[Voyager]

@Lynwood Slim

Voyager: Since I began this thread to gather information (and some posts have been truly helpful; thank you), could you point me to the place where Bush uses the phrase, “imminent threat”? I thought he said, “growing threat” but you may be right.

Well, others have answered. Whether he used the phrase or not is not something I’m hung up about. He did say that we couldn’t wait to invade - despite the fact that inspections were ongoing. If he did not believe there was an imminent threat, then his sin is even greater.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@tomndebb

The rest of you: control your knees when someone so blatantly taps them. If someone posts completely off-topic, then just ignore it or report it. Otherwise, you are simply feeding each others’ ill will and no serious discussion is possible.

I apologize for my crankiness here and elsewhere yesterday. I got an unexpected car repair bill that is very difficult to afford right now, and it left me in a foul mood all day. Still, I shouldn’t have let it spill over into my discussions. Sorry!

Daniel

[Shodan]

@tomndebb

Shodan, if you want to launch a diatribe against your political opponents, then open said diatriabe up in the Pit, don’t deliberately answer a question with a false response in order to set up a strawman effigy that you can burn in the middle of the thread.

Your accusation that I deliberately answered a question with a false response is unfounded.

The fact that you don’t like my answer to the question posed in the OP has no effect on its truth value.

I take your point about the diatribe.

Regards,
Shodan

[tomndebb]

@Shodan

Your accusation that I deliberately answered a question with a false response is unfounded

The fact that you don’t like my answer to the question posed in the OP has no effect on its truth value.

I take your point about the diatribe.

Regards,
Shodan

You deliberately answered a question that was not asked in a way so as to pretend that you were responding. That meets my standard of false response. Thus:

@Shodan

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Once more, if you’ve got this evidence of a Clinton lie about military matters that is analogous to Bush’s referenced lies, put up or shut up. Bloviating generalities are unhelpful.

You want a cite that Clinton said that Saddam had WMD?.

I’ve done that in other threads. Here is it again for you to disregard. Here’s where we trigger a whole slew of “that doesn’t count! BUSHLIEDBUSHLIEDBUSHLIEDBUSHLIED” in increasingly shrill voices.

Clinton’s actions (good, bad, high-handed, or whatever) were taken at a point where all intelligence agreed that Hussein probably had WMD. As noted in the more serious concurrent thread to which several posters have linked, the lies attributed to President Bush are not the statements made prior to the autumn of 2002, but the (allegedly manufactured) evidence and (allegedly false) claims made subsequently. The statements are not equal and your attempt to equate them is dishonest.

I neither like nor dislike your opinons on the topic of this OP: you have presented some correct observations on general board behavior amid several statements demonstrating that your behavior is the same as that which you criticize and I do not find enough substance in this thread to bother getting worked up over who believes what.

It is well that you take my point on the diatribe.

[jshore]

@Sevastopol

Your argument precisely mirrors the widespread strategy observable in all places GOP talking points can be planted:

1. Redefine the case for war as mere possession. i.e. “Everyone believed he had them”.

It was no such thing, instead being;

Possession +
Links to Al-Quada +
A likelihood of passing on weaponry to Al-Quada.

I would add another “plus” that at least ought to have been there, which is “+ a plan of action that would reduce rather than increase the likelihood of the weaponry finding its way to al Qaeda”. It looks like in the end, they were 0 for 4.

So, as you said, even if people can make the case that the best available evidence supported possession (which, in any event, was probably true in October 2002 but not by March 2003) they haven’t gotten very far!

[Clothahump]

@Lynwood Slim

Does anyone know of a good source that lists what leading Democrats said and did during the final buildup toward war ? Didn’t most agree with Bush? Didn’t leading Democrats sit on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, with their own access to intelligence estimates? If they thought Bush was spinning it wrong, did they publicize this?

I am looking for facts and sources, in my debate with others.

Check out this page .

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Clothahump

Check out this page .

@article

The next time one of these “Demon-crats”, masquerading as a politician, start spewing their Verbal Weapons of Mass Destruction; send them a copy of this web page.

Ahh, the word “Demon-crats,” inspirer of confidence to the masses. It’s a list, in any case, that I think has already been provided; as stated previously, I doubt anyone disagrees that, prior to 2002, many Demon-crats believed that there were WMDs in Iraq.

Daniel

[John_Mace]

I can never figure out which party is worse. Those Demon-crats or those Repug-licans.

[XT]

Its a devil and the deep blue sea kind of choice John.

-XT

[Mtgman]

@xtisme

The point (or what I’d think is the point) is that the information was wrong…and the president is ultimately responsible for taking us to war on wrong information. Oh, Congress and the Senate come in for their share too, but it was the president who pushed for war…on bad info.

What information are we talking about here? The reports I was following pre-war were coming from the UNMOVIC(Hans Blix’s team) and they were’t wrong in any way I’ve ever been able to discern or been made aware of. If you’re talking about the info coming out of the Office of Special Plans or the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, that’s a different matter entirely. If you’re talking about stuff from “think tanks” and defectors like the Iraqi National Congress then those would probably most fairly be characterized not as “wrong” but as “bullshit” or “damn lies.” What bugs me is that reports from the OSP and PCTEG were given as much, or more, weight than report from UNMOVIC. It also bugs me that Chalabi and others in the INC were given any weight at all.

Analysis is the art of putting together these disparate sources of information to balance and create an accurate picture. Analysis can be skewed by ideology. We see it on the SDMB all the time. I am saying the Administration’s analytical skills were seriously screwed up. Giving weight to the statements of exiled criminals on the lam after embezzling millions? Criminals who also have ambitions to restore themselves or their family to the seat of power in Iraq? Discounting the reports from the US-recommended head of the inspection team? I haven’t seen any kind of justification for these decisions during an analytical process. I can’t really imagine any good faith reasons for discounting Blix et al while believing Chalabi et al. If I’m missing something please let me know.

@xtisme

Bush was the president, he committed the US to war, a war that is still dragging on, and he did so on information that was wrong. He’s responsible.

This I agree with but I don’t think you go far enough. The existance and mission of the OSP and PCTEG make it difficult to believe this was a good faith failure of analysis on the part of the administration. As I’ve said before, Blix et al should have been the best allies the Bush administration could have ever had. If Bush was right they could prove it. If they couldn’t find fire when the admin shouted “smoke!” then the war machine should have ground to a halt.

Enjoy,
Steven

[Lynwood_Slim]

@Sevastopol

It depends what evidence you require of bad faith. As a general proposition people who argue as you have require more evidence than is necessary to convince a neutral person. E.g. Solid evidence that Bush knew for a fact Iraq did not possess WMD.

However I do not despair, here are some examples:

1. Creating the OSP. A body the sole purpose of which was to contradict the findings of the administration’s intelligence professionals in regard to Iraq. Is this an action undertaken in good faith?
2. Agressively pursuing and investigating links between Al-Quada and Iraq. There were none. Again an effort to create evidence favouring the pre-determined outcome. Acting in good faith means policy follows the evidence, not the contrary.
3. Taking positive steps to curtail the Hans Blix weapons inspections. As the true facts on the ground came to be known they collapsed the case for war. Had Bush not commenced military agression at that time, but waited a short time for the inspections, as advised, then his war case would have collapsed publicly and had he gone to war it would have been in the face of the evidence on the public record.
4. As a corollary to 3: Asserting that his intelligence information was certain as to the threat posed by Iraq, when by no reasonable measure was it. Again, had he frankly and in good faith publicy acknowledged the uncertainty, then the case for continued Weapons Inspections have completely overwhelmed the case for war. Which is why he didn’t.

Your argument precisely mirrors the widespread strategy observable in all places GOP talking points can be planted:

1. Redefine the case for war as mere possession. i.e. “Everyone believed he had them”.

It was no such thing, instead being;

Possession +
Links to Al-Quada +
A likelihood of passing on weaponry to Al-Quada.

2. Equate belief in Possession with consent to and culpability with the case for war. It was no such thing.

Now it may be simple co-incidence on your part, but it seems unlikely to me. Even so I apologise for any offense you may feel.

You raise good points that I will consider.

Regarding your apology: I recommend that you consider the possibility that if person A happens to agree with some position of person B, it does mean that A is taking cues from B. People actually forms opinions without being directed to form them.

Normally, one does not apologize for another person’s feelings.

You may feel badly that I took offense, but all the while claim you did nothing offensive, and therefore no apology is due, just sympathy.

An apology, when truly offered, is for what you did, not for what I felt. What you did was assume since I have an opinion similar to some other group, that I am taking my “cues” from that group, i.e., unable to form such an opinion independently

Such an assumption is derisive. The anti Bush passion here palpable, but those who feel such passion ought not that think that those who disagree are automatons. There are those who disagree with the Bush haters who are thoughtful and who have good reason to disagree. I will carefully examine the evidence that claims that Bush acted in bad faith, that he knew he was lying, that he did not think that Saddam had WMD’s, that he knowingly fabricated evidence to the contrary. I am still not convinced, but I am open minded.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Lynwood Slim

Such an assumption is derisive. The anti Bush passion here palpable, but those who feel such passion ought not that think that those who disagree are automatons. There are those who disagree with the Bush haters who are thoughtful and who have good reason to disagree. I will carefully examine the evidence that claims that Bush acted in bad faith, that he knew he was lying, that he did not think that Saddam had WMD’s, that he knowingly fabricated evidence to the contrary. I am still not convinced, but I am open minded.

I agree absolutely. Just as there are some people who hate Bush reflexively at this point, there are those who defend him reflexively; just as there are those who defend Bush based on careful consideration of the issues, there are those who condemn him based on careful consideration of the issues. I do not believe you are behaving as an automaton, and I think implying anything of the sort about you is inappropriate.

On the other hand, I’m not sure that’s what Sev is doing. He may simply be observing that if you’ve previously paid a lot of attention to conservative opinion pieces, you may have heard many arguments that seem persuasive on their face, and you may not have heard (or formulated on your own) the persuasive rebuttals to those arguments. That’s not a sign of automatonity (fun to say!): it’d simply be a sign that you, like lots of folks, pay more attention to arguments that come from your political allies. As long as you also pay attention to folks that are your political opponents, there’s no shame at all in that, I think.

So, have you gotten a chance to look over the links I provided earlier? You may also want to take a look at xtisme’s Factcheck link, and my responses to a couple of its claims.

Daniel

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

I think the new information coming out clearly demonstrates the deceit inherent in the Bush administration’s case for war. The argument frequently thrown up in defense of the administration is that it isn’t clear that they were lying. It is often said that they selected information to support their claim, but, the argument goes, that is different than outright fabrication.

Let’s take the new information coming out about the forged Niger documents. It appears to be the case that these documents were shopped by members of the Italian intelligence community to various agencies. They were rejected as useless and possibly fraudulent by our CIA and State Department. Eventually, however, they found their way in through Stephen Hadley. Now, one has to presume that an administration acting with honesty would know or would seek the opinion of the CIA and/or State Department about these documents. It is also known that the CIA made clear its reservations about making a claim on the topic, reservations which Bush apparently agreed with (Cincinnati speech) before he disagreed with (State of the Nation address).

If you accept suspect documents that have already been rejected by others, refuse to listen to the objections of others, and make a statement of fact based on them, how is this deception not sufficiently intentional as to be called a lie? This is not at all like “cherry picking,” where one is selecting some cherries and rejecting others. In that case, one is choosing among items of presumably equivalent validity to assemble support for an argument.

This is making use of a fraudulent document because it supports your argument, and relying on the “I didn’t do it” excuse to try to evade culpability. It is hard to see how this is meaningfully different from making up the forgeries themselves, and in my book it remains to be seen whether they had a hand in encouraging or assisting the Italians to make up the documents and shop them around in the first place.

As I have argued before, their behavior on the back end of the whole deal, when Joe Wilson was revealing the fraudulence of the claim itself, certainly is more in keeping with one guilty of a deception or fraud than with one who made an honest mistake in judgment.

Furthermore, it isn’t as if this piece of the picture is markedly different than others. If Bush is allowed to escape responsibility for not taking into account information contained in parts of reports that goes against his argument “because he is not a fact checker,” while it is also known that the administration was knowingly introducing suspect information, aren’t these acts linked? Isn’t the larger picture more clearly supportive of willful, intentional deceit?

As a final note, I would point again to the concerted effort of three administration officials over a two day span making a claim that al Quada was known to be operating in Iraq (prior to our invasion), with Rumsfeld stating that this information was multiply sourced, as evidence of a concerted effort to deceive.

Hey, I learned when I was five that it was deceitful and wrong to ask my dad for permission to do something after my mom had already told me know. And I felt remorse for acting deceitfully at the time. Why is it so hard to hold the Bush administration to at least the standards of a five year old boy?

[DirkGntly]

As John Mace pointed out earlier from HJ 114, Oct. 2002:

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations…

(my emphasis)
The whole WMD argument is a complete rabbit-trail, and I honestly wish Bush hadn’t used it to try to convince America to go to war with Iraq, since it has provided significant ammunition to his critics in the last few years. What many forget is that after Sept 11, 2001, official US government policy was to bring force to bear against nations that also “…support(ed) and harbor(ed) terrorist organizations”…point being, aggression against Iraq was justified, even without WMDs, according to the official US policy at the time. (We can argue if the policy was acceptable or not, but the argument that US policy did not justify the war in the first place is in error.)

Now I expect to get either totally savaged or totally ignored…

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@DirkGntly

As John Mace pointed out earlier from HJ 114, Oct. 2002:
(my emphasis) […] Now I expect to get either totally savaged or totally ignored…

Your cropping is interesting, and one wonders why you chose to leave out the text you did. Suffice it to say that a war against Iraq could not have been supported on the basis of their “terrorist activities,” since they were not involved in the attacks of September 11th, had no relationship with al Quada, and were not really involved in terrorism anyway.

The justification would have had to be based on whatever evidence there may be that Iraq was involved in providing financial support for Palestinian terrorism. I don’t know the state of that evidence, but it is not at all reasonable to suggest that there would have been popular or political support for invading Iraq solely because of some money given to Palestinian terrorists, and there would, I strongly suspect, be a lot of other countries far higher on the priority list for our invasion simply on the principal of fighting international terrorism.

For example, wouldn’t it make more sense for us to directly attack the Palestinians for their terrorism than to invade Iraq because they sent money to the Palestinians (again, presuming that Iraq did so in the first place)?