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Banned
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Is "noise" a request to back-up an assertion of illegal activity with facts?
Does Kucinich provide proof that Cheney or Bush manipulated intelligence? What is it? Does anyone provide proof? What is it?
Did anyone other than Bush/Chaney bear any responsibility for the intelligence data used to support the war? Who?
Did you rely on statements from Bush/Chaney - if you actually ever supported the pre-emptive strike?
Did members of Congress lie when they made statements cosistent with the statements made by Bush/Cheney that Iraq was a threat? If not why not?
I agree there has been alot of "noise" in this discussion, I am just looking for some simple answers to basic questions. So far, I have not read any and at this point I don't expect any. It seems the general feeling is that bush and Cheney lied or illegally manipulated intlligence data and that facts don't really matter.
I saw the interview.
I agree, politics can be an ugly business. If I were Plame, I would not have allowed my husband to write editorial pieces for major newspapers while I was undercover, period. I don't excuse the White House for leaking her name, but if you are undercover, act like it.
The justification for going to war was a "slam dunk". I don't recall Bush saying Tenet's statement in that meeting was the reason he wanted to invade Iraq. Do you have that quote for Bush?
Sadaam had opportunity to comply with UN resolutions. Sadaam had opportunity to announce to the world and let the world verify that he had no stock piles of WMD. Saddam had opportunity to not shoot at our planes. Saddam had opportunity to not give $25k to terrorist's families. Sadaam had opportunity to be humble.
If I were against the war and in the President's circle, I would have said: Mr. President we should not invade Iraq for these reasons. There would not have been a need for the President to ask me the question. It seems Powell did that. So it looks like Powell was the only one with guts, or the only one against the war.
I find it not material to the OP.
He didn't ask me either? So what. When dealing with a man like Bush, you have to speak your mind. He knew what he wanted, the people around him needed to say what they thought if they actually thought it was a mistake. Congress needed to say what they actually thought if they thought it was a mistake.
Take Bush's upcoming veto of the military spending bill as an example. I bet he didn't ask anyone if he should veto the bill. He knew and knows what he was going to do. So, after the fact I can not accept people coming out of the closet with books or whatever, saying I thought the veto was a mistake, but Bush never asked me, so I did not say anything. That would truely be a line of bull.
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Here it is, ace:
Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...nterview_N.htm
....."And the hardest part of all this has been just listening to this for almost three years, listening to the vice president go on Meet the Press on the fifth year (anniversary) of 9/11 and say, 'Well, George Tenet said slam dunk,' " Tenet says. "As if he needed me to say 'slam dunk' to go to war with Iraq."........
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Cheney's justifications to Russert, last september were Tenet's "slam dunk", and Zarqawi "was present" in Iraq, "before we got there"....and "the poison camp at Kermal", that was in an area accessible to the Kurds and to the US military, but not to Saddam's troops or his government.
That was what was left of Cheney's justification to launch a preemptive invasion of another country ace..... 3300 dead US troops, 20,000+ wounded, close to a trillion dollars spent already, a destabilized Iraq in a destabilized region, a newly empowered Iran, with Iraq taken out, hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq.....AND NOW WE KNOW THAT NOT ONE OF CHENEY'S FEEBLE 9/10/07 EXCUSES TO JUSTIFY WAR TO RUSSERT, WAS EVEN TRUE....NOT ONE !!!!!
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Vice President
September 10, 2006
Interview of the Vice President by Tim Russert, NBC News, Meet the Press
NBC Studios
Washington, D.C.
.....Q But, Mr. Vice President, the primary rationale given for the war in Iraq was Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. In August of 2002, this is what you told the VFW. Let's just watch it.
(Video clip is played.)
Q In fact, there is grave doubt because they did not exist along the lines that you described, the President described and others described. Based on what you know now, that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction described, would you still have gone into Iraq?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, Tim, because what the reports also showed -- while he did not have stock piles, and clearly the intelligence that said he did was wrong. That was the intelligence all of us saw. That was the intelligence all of us believed. It was when George Tenet sat in the Oval Office and the President of the United States asked him directly, he said, George, how good is the case against Saddam and weapons of mass destruction, <h3>the Director of the CIA said, it's a slam dunk, Mr. President. It's a slam dunk.</h3>
That was the intelligence that was provided to us at the time, and based upon which we made --
Q So if the CIA said to you at that time, Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction, his chemical and biological have been degraded, he has no nuclear program under way, you'd still invade Iraq? ......
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...ace, you're making a comparison of not asking advice before vetoing a spending bill, vs. not asking for advice or for possible alternatives, from your sec'ty of Defense, and sec'ty of State and director of central intelligence, and your own father, himself a recent POTUS who had a similar decision to make during his own presidential term.......before launching a preemptive war against a country of 25 million, half way around the world, in a very unstable region that provides 40 percent of the world's petroleum supply?
....and president Bush launched an invasion, over the objections of the UN security council, while UN weapons inspectors were saying that they had found no evidence of WMD and wanted more time to complete their inspections, because Saddam was said to be paying $25000 to families in Palestine whose children had committed suicide via blowing themselves up in terrorist attacks that took place exclusively in Israel, and because Iraq had made feeble attempts, over 12 years, to counter "no fly zone" patrols of US and UK military aircraft, "attempts" that had not resulted, in the 12 year period, of the loss of a single US or UK aircraft, and attempts that were already being countered by:
Quote:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...icle535045.ece
June 19, 2005
British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
Michael Smith
A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.
The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.
The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.
The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.
Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.
Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.
Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the “spikes” began in May 2002.
However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.
The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.
The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003. ......
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....and Wolfowitz justified war as a "cost saving" strategy.....not a reaction to the "provocation" of Iraqi air defense responses to no fly zone patrol aircraft:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
Despite Obstacles to War, White House Forges Ahead
Administration Unfazed by Iraq's Pledge to Destroy Missiles, Turkish Parliament's Rejection of Use of Bases
By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 2, 2003; Page A18
......... Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz expanded on that reasoning in congressional testimony Thursday, saying, "if we get rid of the whole regime" in Iraq, "think about what the impact of that is going to be on the Arab-Israeli peace process." Wolfowitz said it was no coincidence that the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq preceded breakthroughs in the Mideast peace process. Other administration officials, however, have drawn the opposite lesson, attributing the breakthroughs at least in part to the decision of Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush, to end the war without seeking the demise of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. At the time, it was thought that deposing Hussein would risk inflaming the Arab world.
Wolfowitz also estimated the U.S. cost of Iraqi "containment" during 12 years of U.N. sanctions, weapons inspections and continued U.S. air patrols over the country at "slightly over $30 billion," but he said the price had been "far more than money." Sustained U.S. bombing of Iraq over those years, and the stationing of U.S. forces "in the holy land of Saudi Arabia," were "part of the containment policy that has been Osama bin Laden's principal recruiting device, even more than the other grievances he cites," Wolfowitz said.
Implying that a takeover in Iraq would eliminate the need for U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and thus reduce the appeal of terrorist groups for new members, Wolfowitz said: "I can't imagine anyone here wanting to spend another $30 billion to be there for another 12 years to continue helping recruit terrorists."
U.S. patrols over southern Iraq, flying from Saudi bases, are authorized to shoot at Iraqi defenses that threaten them, and bombing of Iraq's air defense system has greatly increased in recent months. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that the planes were now also authorized to attack surface-to-surface missile batteries deployed on Iraqi territory that do not threaten U.S. aircraft.
Four of the Iraqi sites were hit last week, and Myers said they had been targeted because they were within range of some of the tens of thousands of U.S. ground forces now deployed across the Iraqi border in northern Kuwait as part of an invasion force. "They become a threat to our forces, absolutely, because they are new deployments," Myers said.
Such attacks, along with expanded U.S. justifications for war, sometimes make negotiations difficult at the United Nations. For domestic consumption, the administration has concentrated on what it has described as a nexus between Hussein and international terrorist groups. Unless Hussein is removed, the administration has warned, he might turn over to terrorists -- like those who attacked on Sept. 11, 2001 -- the very weapons of mass destruction for which U.N. inspectors are searching. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that the administration's goal was both "disarmament and regime change."
But at the Security Council, where many countries are skeptical that such a nexus exists and leery of internationally authorized "regime change," the focus is solely on the need for U.N.-ordered disarmament. Many do not see the situation in the same urgent terms as the administration and feel that gradual progress, as opposed to the "full and immediate" disarmament they have demanded, should be enough to delay war.
Passage of a resolution in the 15-member council requires nine votes and no vetoes, and the council is currently split in three directions. Among the five permanent members with veto power, the United States and Britain are co-sponsoring the new resolution declaring that Iraq has failed to meet its disarmament obligations, a conclusion they have said would authorize disarmament by force. Among the nonpermanent members, Spain and Bulgaria support the U.S. position.
Although the administration has long said it does not need a new resolution to go to war, it has bowed to the wishes of Britain and Spain, which see new U.N. approval as a way to assuage overwhelming antiwar opinion in their countries. Both countries are willing to allow council negotiations to continue for at least another month, if necessary, to reach agreement. But U.S. officials have said they anticipate bringing the matter to a vote within a week after chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix delivers his latest report next Friday. If they have not amassed the necessary votes by then, officials have indicated they will skip a vote and move directly to war. .....
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Consider again, that the POTUS assured us in March, 2003, that he was doing "everything to avoid going to war".......yet he didn't even ask his key cabinet members and his intelligence chief whether they, if they were in his shoes, would attack Iraq, and he didn't ask them if they harbored alternatives to war.
.....ace, I did not think I would read an American writing that "if you're trying to maintain an undercover identity at the CIA, you should stop your husband from writing articles critical of the current political leadership, or expect that they'll retaliate against you, personally, by intentionally blowing your cover", or....words to that effect..... |