Based on this LA Times story I propose the following debate topic:
Resolved: The whole damned Bush crowd ought to be kicked out after one term because of incompetence. The example being that they utterly failed to exercise due prudence in starting a war on scant evidence and in that process pissed off almost everyone that we need to help us with the effort to reduce terrorists’ resources.
I’ll let my example stand as my argument for the time being.
This is the latest I can find regarding Donald Kay’s Survey Group, taken from the cited story; *"The current focus on Iraqi defectors reflects a new skepticism within the Iraq Survey Group, the 1,400-member team responsible for finding any illicit arms. In interviews, several current and former members expressed growing disappointment over the inconclusive results of the search so far.
“We were prisoners of our own beliefs,” said a senior U.S. weapons expert who recently returned from a stint with the survey group. “We said Saddam Hussein was a master of denial and deception. Then when we couldn’t find anything, we said that proved it, instead of questioning our own assumptions.”*
I think that the big bang september disclosure will be a long range missle. I saw an article where David Kay said that that was the big thing. While not actually a WMD it could have been used to deliver WMDs further than other missles had there been any WMDs in the country.
Well, that last paragraph pretty much sums it up. At least on what the general pro-war folks where thinking.
But I think it was not entirely a case of incompetence of GWB and friends.
Let’s not forget that the whole WMD issue was only an excuse “that everybody could agree on”, according to Rumsfeld.
The top notch players in the US admin probably were after:
A) Strategic military interests in the region
B) Strategic economic interests in the region (aka: OIL)
So, essentially, thousands of innocents where killed for money and power. Same old same old.
They sure were cynical, thats a fact.
Now… incompetent? the evidence is mounting that they were also incompetent. Iraq is bleeding the US economy. And that might make the US public turn back and go for GWB’s throat.
Well,…for myself, WMD’s were never the larger issue. Which is not to say that I don’t think they’re not their or never were. But i think the larger issue was ridding ourselves of a guy who was not shy about sponsoring terrorism and was really just a first-class baddy in all respects.
I’m of the mind that the weapons they had were either destroyed in the last hours before the bombs fell, or they were parcelled out to other countries.
*"WASHINGTON — Frustrated at the failure to find Saddam Hussein’s suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, U.S. and allied intelligence agencies have launched a major effort to determine if they were victims of bogus Iraqi defectors who planted disinformation to mislead the West before the war.
…
As evidence, officials say former Iraqi operatives have confirmed since the war that Hussein’s regime sent “double agents” disguised as defectors to the West to plant fabricated intelligence. In other cases, Baghdad apparently tricked legitimate defectors into funneling phony tips about weapons production and storage sites.
“They were shown bits of information and led to believe there was an active weapons program, only to be turned loose to make their way to Western intelligence sources,” said the senior intelligence official. “Then, because they believe it, they pass polygraph tests … and the planted information becomes true to the West, even if it was all made up to deceive us.”*
I’ve read about this story during the day, and I just don’t get it. Are they suggesting that Saddam deliberately deceived the US by manufacturing a cassus belli where none existed? To what end, pray?
Very, very crafty, that Saddam character. He 1) stated publicly that he didn’t have “WMDs,” but 2) planted evidence that he actually did have “WMDs”, thereby 3) managing to start a war against the world’s last remaining superpower, so that 4) it could oust him from power, giving him 5) an opportunity to go underground, get a face lift, and resurface as an Ibiza DJ.
Or something.
And just when I was beginning to think that Bush & Co. couldn’t possibly get any more pathetic.
Unfortunately, the WMDs were the only legal justification for the invasion. The UN Charter does not recognize “Saddam is a bad guy” as a legitimate excuse for an attack on another country’s sovereignty. Without an imminent threat to the US the invasion was illegal.
I see, should we expect the U.N. to come arrest Bush?
The UN might not recognize that Saddam is a bad guy as a legitimate excuse for war but I along many Americans do view it as a legitimate justification for war. Since the American voters not the U.N. determines the actions of our government Bush justified the war with the people that controlls his Job. If you don’t agree with Bush you can vote him out of office, I can’t do that with the U.N.
The whole thing is pathetic. The ‘Weapons of mass destruction’ which posed an ‘imminent threat’ to the United States (which I didn’t believe in the first place) has now morphed into ‘weapons programs’.
Whatever the army reports next month is not likely to show that the United States was in imminent danger of attack by Iraq; but you can be sure that Bush will be out there touting the findings and saying: “I told you so!”.
And, tchocky77, because of our illegal invasion of a soverign country, the United States has damaged it’s credibility in the rest of the world. No wonder no one wants to help us bail ourselves out of the mess we (the administration) got ourselves into. And, yes, welcome to the SDMB.
The “sponsoring terrorism” accusation is bullshit. It is a lie. And “being a bad guy” is not any justification for declaring war on a country and invading it but, if it was, then Saddam would not even make the top ten.
The US has meddled before, the Mexico, Caribbean, Phillipines, China and so on. But we always had at least a fig leaf such as, Panch Villa’s claimed raids, an ongoing insurrection against an existing, recognized government, protection of US citizens and property, etc. I can’t recall reading about any such case were we attacked an existing government with our whole armed force. It was always a few marines; a relatively small expeditionary force; a few river-going gunboats or the like.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of a large number of people also, there was an outstanding lack of any justification for a preemptive war with Iraq. And I heard on CNN just a day or so ago that North Korea justifies its need for nuclear weapons by citing US “beligerence” and “hostile actions.” Given our recent record, it just might score points in a propaganda campaign.
In just a couple of years, GW, Rummy, Wolfie et al have managed to isolate us from friends and allies of many years standing. What a wonderful accomplishment!
I wonder how long will it be before someone answers along the lines of, “Who needs 'em? We saved the world from Hitler without their help didn’t we?”
No, they’re saying that since the Bush brain trust (Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/etc.) couldn’t stick the blame on George Tenet, they’re now going to blame the faulty intel on Saddam Hussein. “It’s all Saddam’s fault! He tricked us! That’s why we had to go to war!” :rolleyes:
Actually, my pet theory is that they’re blaming Saddam because they don’t dare blame Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress…
