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Banned
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Originally Posted by ubertuber
I suppose it's an impasse. Thanks for your post.
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No, it's not an impasse. ace has been complimented, even praised in some posts here, for participating....for coming back again, and again, with his argument. The problem I have, is that ace is an enabler of Bush, especially if he voted for members of congress who will not vote to override Bush's veto yesterday, of the supplemental spending bill that contains a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
As long as there are people with similar opinions to ace's, there will be no impeachment of Cheney or Bush, and US troops will continue to die and be maimed in Iraq.....(for what ????)....$100 billion "supplemental" will continue to eb appropriated (so Bush can continue to point to the budget, instead of the Fed. treasury debt increases that continue at a $500 billion annual rate, and boast in the 2008 SOTU, on how he's reducing budget deficits...)....and what is "praiseworthy", about thinking like that.....when ace cannot make a coherent argument to support his position.
Take his last post, and contrast it to the following:
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
Bush thought Sadaam was a threat. I thought he was a threat, even without any access to classified information.
Bush thought he needed to be removed from power. I thought he needed to be removed from power, even without access to any classified information.
Bush thought Sadaam had or was seeking nuclear weapons. I thought Sadaam had or was seeking nuclear weapons, even without access to any classified information.
Bush thought Sadaam would cooperate with terrorists in future attacks - if he hadn't already. I thought Sadaam would cooperate with terrorists in future attacks - if he hadn't already.
Today you folks sit around and think that if you only had access to classified information, some information that verified spefics actions and other information that contradicted spefic actions, everything above would not matter. Bush clearly communicated what he thought, and what he thought was true. if you thought his statements were lies, and that caused you to go from Sadaam is not a threat to Sadaam is a threat, there is nothing that can be said that will make a difference.
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.....I can make a coherent, airtight case that supports the opposite of what ace posted. He posted earlier that the opposite of attacking Iraq was for the US to continue "taking it up the @ss....". "Taking it", from whom.....ace??? You "feel" what you believe, but I see that you have nothing to post that makes your argument rational or coherent, if it is to compete with this:
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...235395,00.html
May 5, 2002
<h3>............Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle strongly believe that after years of American sanctions and periodic air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe.</h3> Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of Sept. 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed. The best hope for Iraqi ties to the attack — a report that lead hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in the Czech Republic — was discredited last week...............
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Quote:
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/08/22/...omacy-started/
................As David Gregory (of "Meet the Press") notes, this runs completely counter to how President Bush describes the decision to invade Iraq:
“I want to share something with you. Committing troops into harm’s way is — in harm’s way is the most difficult decision a President can make. That decision must always be last resort. That decision must be done when our vital interests are at stake, but after we’ve tried everything else.” [President Bush, 8/5/04]
“The use of force has been — and remains — our last resort.” [President Bush, 5/1/03]
“But a President must always be willing to use troops…as a last resort… I was hopeful diplomacy would work in Iraq… So we use diplomacy every chance we get — believe me.” [President Bush, 10/1/04]
“As a last resort, we have turned to our military.” [President Bush, 4/16/03]
“As a matter of fact, military action is the very last resort for us… this nation is very reluctant to use military force. We try to enforce doctrine peacefully, or through alliances or multinational forums. And we will continue to do so.” [President Bush, 10/28/03]
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/...mep.saddam.tm/
First Stop, Iraq
By Michael Elliott and James Carney
Monday, March 24, 2003 Posted: 5:49 PM EST (2249 GMT)
How did the U.S. end up taking on Saddam? The inside story of how Iraq jumped to the top of Bush's agenda -- and why the outcome there may foreshadow a different world order
"F___ Saddam. we're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
It was March 2002, and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. <b>Bush wasn't interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase......</b>
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Quote:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...ium-usat_x.htm
Posted 7/8/2003 9:46 PM Updated 7/9/2003 10:07 PM
.............Back home, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that the administration decided to use military force in Iraq because the information about the threat of Saddam's regime was seen with a different perspective after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
<b>"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder," Rumsfeld said.</b> "We acted because we saw the existing evidence in a new light through the prism of our experience on Sept. 11."...............
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<b>Between Feb. 2001, and Sept. 16, 2001, Tenet, Powell, Rice, and Cheney, are all on record, document in the following citations (with links....) telling us that Saddam needed to be "watched", but that he had not rebuilt his military or his WMD capacity, after the 1991 Gulf war....and Rumsfeld, above, said after the US invasion of Iraq, that "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass murder,". Furthermore....when Tim Russert challenges Cheney about his 9/16/01, "We have Saddam bottled up", statement, Cheney said the following.
I think that it is especially revealing that all Cheney had to defend the attack on and occupation of Iraq, was the long discredited "Zarqawi was present, before we got there", and the "poison camp" BS. Russert pointed out that the senate intel. committee report had finally been released, discrediting Cheney's justifications for the Iraq invasion. Cheney responded that he "hadn't read it. Cheney had access to the senate intel committee conclusions, in classified form, for at least 2 years before he told Russert that he was unfamiliar with the conclusions. All intel findings.....in official Iraqi records and in post Iraq invasion interviews with Iraqi officials, proved that Saddam and his government had no control over Zarqawi or a relationship with him...the record shows that they wanted to capture him....and post invasion news reporting clearly shows that the "poison camp" was located near the Iran border, in an area controlled by land and air access, by Kurdish militia and their US allies, not by Saddam's government....</b>
<h3>....But there was Cheney, on 9/10/2006, telling Russert about Zarqawi and the Poison Camp....because that was all he had....flimsy....untrue....pathetic reasons to justify a preemptive invasion and occupation of a sovereign, foreign country....</h3>
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.
.......THE VICE PRESIDENT: But let's go back to the beginning here. Five years ago, Tim, you and I did this show, the Sunday after 9/11. And we learned a lot from 9/11. We saw in spite of the hundreds of billions of dollars we'd spent on national security in the years up until 9/11, on that morning, 19 men with box cutters and airline tickets came in the country and killed 3,000 people. We had to take that and also the fact of their interest in weapons of mass destruction and recognize at that time -- it was the threat then and it's the threat today that drives much of our thinking -- that the real threat is the possibility of a cell of al Qaeda in the midst of one of our cities with a nuclear weapons, or a biological agent. In that case, you'd be dealing -- for example, if on 9/11 they had a nuke instead of airplanes, you'd have been looking at a casualty toll that would rival all the deaths in all the wars fought by America in 230 years. That's the threat we have to deal with, and that drove our thinking in the aftermath of 9/11, and does today.
Now, what Saddam represented was somebody who had for 12 years defied the International Community, violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions, started two wars, produced and used weapons of mass destruction, and was deemed by the intelligence community to have resumed his WMD programs when he kicked out the inspectors. Everybody believed it. Bill Clinton believed it. The CIA clearly believed it. And without question that was a major proposition.
But I also emphasize while they found no stock piles, there was no question in the minds of Mr. Duelfer and other in that survey group that Saddam did, in fact, have the capability, and that as soon as the sanctions were ended -- and they were badly eroded, he'd be back in business again.
Q But let's look at what you told me on that morning of September 16, 2001, when I asked you about Saddam Hussein. Let's watch.
(Video clip is played.)
THE VICE PRESIDENT: At this stage, the focus is over here on al Qaeda and the most recent events in New York. Saddam Hussein's bottled up at this point.
(Video clip concludes.)
<b>Q Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.
Q You said Saddam Hussein was bottled up, and he was not linked in any way to September 11th.</b>
THE VICE PRESIDENT: To 9/11.
Q And now we have the select committee on intelligence coming out with a report on Friday that says here:
"A declassified report released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed that U.S. intelligence analysts were strongly disputing the alleged links between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, while senior Bush administration officials were publicly asserting those links to justify invading Iraq."
You said here it was pretty well confirmed that Atta may have had a meeting in Prague -- that, that was credible. All the while, according to the Senate intelligence committee, in January and in June and in September, the CIA was saying that wasn't the case. And then the President --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Let me on that. Well, go ahead.
Q Go ahead.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I want a chance to jump on that.
Q Okay, but you said it was pretty well confirmed that it was credible. And now the Senate intelligence committee says, not true. The CIA was waving you off --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No.
Q -- any suggestion there was a meeting with Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers with officials Iraqi officials.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, the sequence, Tim, was when you and I talked that morning we had not received any reporting with respect for Mohamed Atta going to Prague. Just a few days after you and I did that show, the CIA -- the CIA -- produced an intelligence report from the Czech intelligence service that said Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers, had been in Prague in April of '01 and had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. That was the first report we had that he'd been to Prague and met with Iraqis.
Later on, some period of time after that, the CIA produced another report based on a photograph that was taken in Prague of a man they claimed 70 percent probability was Mohamed Atta on another occasion. This was the reporting we received from the CIA When I responded to your question and said it had been pretty well confirmed he had been in Prague. Later on, they were unable to confirm it. Later on they backed off of it. But what I told you was exactly what we were seeing at the time -- it never said -- and I don't believe I ever said specifically that it linked the Iraqis to 9/11. It specifically said he had been in Prague, Mohamed Atta had been in Prague. We didn't know --
Q Well, I asked you. I said, is there a connection between Saddam and 9/11 on September '03, and you said, we don't know.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's right.
Q So you raised that possibility.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was raised by the CIA who passed on from the report from the Czech intelligence service.
Q All right, now the President was asked what did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center. And he said nothing. Do you agree with that?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: I do.
Q So it's case closed?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We've never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Q And the meeting with Atta did not occur?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: We don't know. We've never been able to link it. And the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say at this point nobody has been able to confirm --
Q Then why in the lead-up to the war was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's a different issue. Now, there's a question of whether or not al Qaeda -- whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11; separate and apart from that is the issue of whether or not there was a historic relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. The basis for that is probably best captured in George Tenet's testimony before the Senate intel committee in open session, where he said specifically that there was a pattern, a relationship that went back at least a decade between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Q But the President said they were working in concert, giving the strong suggestion to the American people that they were involved in September 11th.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, they are -- there are two totally different propositions here. And people have consistently tried to confuse them. And it's important, I think -- there's a third proposition, as well, too, and that is Iraq's traditional position as a strong sponsor of terror.
So you've got Iraq and 9/11: no evidence that there's a connection.<b> You've got Iraq and al Qaeda: testimony from the Director of CIA that there was, indeed, a relationship; Zarqawi in Baghdad, et cetera. Then the --
Q The committee said that there was no relationship. In fact, Saddam --
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I haven't seen the report. I haven't had a chance to read it yet --</b>
Q But, Mr. Vice President, the bottom line is --
<b>THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- but the fact is, we know that Zarqawi, running a terrorist camp in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, after we went into 9/11 -- then fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02, and was there from then basically until the time we launched into Iraq. ........</b>
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...and here is Cheney, denying what he said earlier...when it is still located on a white house web page, today:
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20011209.html
....RUSSERT: The plane on the ground in Iraq used to train non-Iraqi hijackers.
Do you still believe there is no evidence that Iraq was involved in September 11?
CHENEY: Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, <b>was that report that's been pretty well confirmed,</b> that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack.
Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point. But that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue. ....
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.....he was responding to the 2004 conclusions in the 9/11 commission report.....spewing the same examples about Zarqawit that were dismissed by the 9/11 commission, doubted in many news articles when Powell presented them to the UN in Feb., 2005, and totally debunked when Cheney was stilling using the "Zarqawi and his poison camp BS", and Bush, too..... in Aug., 2006, through Cheney's interview with Rush, just 4 weeks ago:
Quote:
http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/...202_flash3.htm
CHENEY: CLEAR LINKS BETWEEN SADDAM, AL-QAEDA; CALLS NY TIMES ARTICLE 'OUTRAGEOUS'
Thu Jun 17 2004 19:00:33 ET
In an EXCLUSIVE interview with CNBC's 'Capital Report':
....BORGER: Well, my reading of the report is that it says that, yes, contacts were made between al-Qaida and Iraq, but they could find no evidence that any relationship, in fact, had been forged between al-Qaida and Iraq.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: And you're talking generally now, not just 9/11.
BORGER: Not just 9/11. And let's talk generally and then we'll get to 9/11.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Talk generally.
BORGER: Generally.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: That's not true.
BORGER: So you disagree?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely. Look at the Zarqawi case. Here's a man who's Jordanian by birth. He's described as an al-Qaida associate. He ran training camps in Afghanistan back before we went to war in Afghanistan. After we went in and hit his training camp, he fled to Baghdad. Found safe harbor and sanctuary in Baghdad in May of 2002. He arrived with about two dozen other supporters of his, members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was Zawahiri's organization. He's the number two to bin Laden, which was merged with al-Qaida interchangeably. Egyptian Islamic Jihad, al-Qaida, same-same. They're all now part of one organization. They merged some years ago. So Zarqawi living in Baghdad. We arranged for information to be passed on his presence in Baghdad to the Iraqis through a third-party intelligence service. They did that twice. There's no question but what Saddam Hussein really was there. He was allowed to operate out of Baghdad. He ran the poisons fact ory in northern Iraq out of Baghdad, which became a safe harbor for Ansar al-Islam??? as well as al-Qaida fleeing Afghanistan. There clearly was a relationship there that stretched back over that period of time to at least May of '02, a year before we launched into Iraq. He is the worst offender. He's probably killed more Iraqis than any other man in Iraq today. He is probably the leading terrorist still operating in Iraq today.
BORGER: Now some say that he corresponded with al-Qaida only after Saddam was deposed.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: That's not true. He had been involved working side by side, as described by the CIA, with al-Qaida over the years. This is an old established relationship. He's the man who killed our man Foley in Jordan, an AID official, during this period of time. To suggest that there's no connection between Zarqawi, no relationship if you will, and Iraq just simply is not true.
<h3>BORGER: Well, let's get to Mohammad Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No, I never said that.</h3>
BORGER: OK.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Never said that.
BORGER: I think that is...
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.
BORGER: Well, now this report says it didn't happen.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No. This report says they haven't found any evidence.
BORGER: That it happened.
Vice Pres. CHENEY: Right.
BORGER: But you haven't found the evidence that it happened either, have you?
Vice Pres. CHENEY: No. All we have is that one report from the Czechs. We just don't know.
BORGER: So does this put it to rest for you or not on Atta?......
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I posted this on 11/14/2005
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...3&postcount=34
Quote:
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Originally Posted by djtestudo
Clinton, as much of an idiot as he was for doing/saying what he did, was still the president and as such it can be assumed that he was privy to the same quality of intellegence as the present administration. Therefore, if he is coming out and saying that there are WMDs in Iraq, then that shows that Bush didn't "lie", like the accusations say.
Just like many on the right post quotes from Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, and others who are now coming after Bush for starting a war "under false pretenses". If they saw the intellegence and believed it, how can they go after the president for it?
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Clinton's CIA director, George Tenet, refuted some of your points, just three weeks after Bush took office in 2002. Powell and Rice made statments in 2001 that were identical to what Tenet said:
Quote:
http://www.usembassy.it/file2001_02/alia/a1020708.htm
07 February 2001
Text: CIA's Tenet on Worldwide Threat 2001
.............IRAQ
Mr. Chairman, in Iraq Saddam Hussein has grown more confident in his ability to hold on to his power. He maintains a tight handle on internal unrest, despite the erosion of his overall military capabilities. Saddam's confidence has been buoyed by his success in quieting the Shia insurgency in the south, which last year had reached a level unprecedented since the domestic uprising in 1991. Through brutal suppression, Saddam's multilayered security apparatus has continued to enforce his authority and cultivate a domestic image of invincibility.
High oil prices and Saddam's use of the oil-for-food program have helped him manage domestic pressure. The program has helped meet the basic food and medicine needs of the population. High oil prices buttressed by substantial illicit oil revenues have helped Saddam ensure the loyalty of the regime's security apparatus operating and the few thousand politically important tribal and family groups loyal.
There are still constraints on Saddam's power. His economic infrastructure is in long-term decline, and his ability to project power outside Iraq's borders is severely limited, largely because of the effectiveness and enforcement of the No-Fly Zones. His military is roughly half the size it was during the Gulf War and remains under a tight arms embargo. He has trouble efficiently moving forces and supplies-a direct result of sanctions. These difficulties were demonstrated most recently by his deployment of troops to western Iraq last fall, which were hindered by a shortage of spare parts and transport capability........
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Quote:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/forme...s/2001/933.htm
Press Remarks with Foreign Minister of Egypt Amre Moussa
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Cairo, Egypt (Ittihadiya Palace)
February 24, 2001
(lower paragraph of second Powell quote on the page)
.............but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.................
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Quote:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../29/le.00.html
...........KING: Still a menace, still a problem. But the administration failed, principally because of objections from Russia and China, to get the new sanctions policy through the United Nations Security Council. Now what? Do we do this for another 10 years?
RICE: Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions.
We'll work with the Russians. I'm sure that we'll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work.
But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.
This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we're going to go about doing that..............
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The article linked here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/in...er=rssuserland
and other links displayed in my post earlier today, persuasively indicate that congress did not have access to the comprehensive, and contradictory intelligence information that the Bush administration had access to before congress had to make the decision to vote for authorization for a possible war in Iraq..... http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...05&postcount=3
It does take time to examine these details. The alternative is to listen to Bush's Nov. 11 speech or Ken Mehlman's statements on Russert's "Meet the Press", yesterday. Bush and Mehlman are both "on message" concerning the intelligence information that congress was privy to....the problem is that what those two are saying is not backed up by news reporting, including the WaPo reporting on Nov. 11:
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...111101832.html
Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument
By Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page A01
President Bush and his national security adviser have answered critics of the Iraq war in recent days with a two-pronged argument: that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence.
Neither assertion is wholly accurate...........
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<b>If I am mistaken about the deficiencies in your arguments, show me ace....</b>
Last edited by host; 05-02-2007 at 10:51 AM..
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