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Banned
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
O.k. if you reasonably (any third party can be the judge of if it is reasonable) address this point I will never comment on "the plan" or lack of "the plan" again on this forum since I am so, so unreasonable and out of touch with reality on this issue.
In order to believe there was no plan, you would have to believe that Congress would commit billions of dollars in subsequent funding with no plan in place, in essence flushing the money and lives away. Is that what you believe and why would they do that?
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....sigh.... the democrats tried to stop the plan to invade Iraq in the first place, then they tried to stop the supplemental funding for it....and they called the rationale for invading Iraq "a fraud" early, and often....but they didn't have the votes, and Bush had the "bully pulpit".....9/11.........9/11.......9/11.......9/11...
The Bush administration made sure that it would be a tough political fight...they still are....and they've actually reversed sentiment to an extent, with their bullshit propaganda....while the troops continue to die in Iraq:
(This is from just ten months ago 
Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...700189_pf.html
Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Monday, August 7, 2006; 6:24 AM
-- Do you believe in Iraqi "WMD"? Did Saddam Hussein's government have weapons of mass destruction in 2003?
Half of America apparently still thinks so, a new poll finds, and experts see a raft of reasons why: a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq.
People tend to become "independent of reality" in these circumstances, says opinion analyst Steven Kull.
The reality in this case is that after a 16-month, $900-million-plus investigation, the U.S. weapons hunters known as the Iraq Survey Group declared that Iraq had dismantled its chemical, biological and nuclear arms programs in 1991 under U.N. oversight. That finding in 2004 reaffirmed the work of U.N. inspectors who in 2002-03 found no trace of banned arsenals in Iraq.
Despite this, <h3>a Harris Poll released July 21 found that a full 50 percent of U.S. respondents _ up from 36 percent last year _ said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003, an attack whose stated purpose was elimination of supposed WMD.</h3> Other polls also have found an enduring American faith in the WMD story.
"I'm flabbergasted," said Michael Massing, a media critic whose writings dissected the largely unquestioning U.S. news reporting on the Bush administration's shaky WMD claims in 2002-03.
"This finding just has to cause despair among those of us who hope for an informed public able to draw reasonable conclusions based on evidence," Massing said.
Timing may explain some of the poll result. Two weeks before the survey, <b>two Republican lawmakers, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum and Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra, released an intelligence report in Washington saying 500 chemical munitions had been collected in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.
"I think the Harris Poll was measuring people's surprise at hearing this after being told for so long there were no WMD in the country," said Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware.</b>
But the Pentagon and outside experts stressed that these abandoned shells, many found in ones and twos, were 15 years old or more, their chemical contents were degraded, and they were unusable as artillery ordnance. Since the 1990s, such "orphan" munitions, from among 160,000 made by Iraq and destroyed, have turned up on old battlefields and elsewhere in Iraq, ex-inspectors say. In other words, this was no surprise.
"These are not stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," said Scott Ritter, the ex-Marine who was a U.N. inspector in the 1990s. "They weren't deliberately withheld from inspectors by the Iraqis."
<b>Conservative commentator Deroy Murdock, who trumpeted Hoekstra's announcement in his syndicated column, complained in an interview that the press "didn't give the story the play it deserved."</b> But in some quarters it was headlined.
"Our top story tonight, the nation abuzz today ..." was how Fox News led its report on the old, stray shells. Talk-radio hosts and their callers seized on it. Feedback to blogs grew intense. "Americans are waking up from a distorted reality," read one posting.
Other claims about supposed WMD had preceded this, especially speculation since 2003 that Iraq had secretly shipped WMD abroad. A former Iraqi general's book _ at best uncorroborated hearsay _ claimed "56 flights" by jetliners had borne such material to Syria.
But Kull, Massing and others see an influence on opinion that's more sustained than the odd headline.
"I think the Santorum-Hoekstra thing is the latest 'factoid,' but the basic dynamic is the insistent repetition by the Bush administration of the original argument," said John Prados, author of the 2004 book "Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War."
<b>Administration statements still describe Saddam's Iraq as a threat. Despite the official findings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has allowed only that "perhaps" WMD weren't in Iraq. And Bush himself, since 2003, has repeatedly insisted on one plainly false point: that Saddam rebuffed the U.N. inspectors in 2002, that "he wouldn't let them in," as he said in 2003, and "he chose to deny inspectors," as he said this March.</b>
The facts are that Iraq _ after a four-year hiatus in cooperating with inspections _ acceded to the U.N. Security Council's demand and allowed scores of experts to conduct more than 700 inspections of potential weapons sites from Nov. 27, 2002, to March 16, 2003. The inspectors said they could wrap up their work within months. Instead, the U.S. invasion aborted that work.
<h3>As recently as May 27, Bush told West Point graduates, "When the United Nations Security Council gave him one final chance to disclose and disarm, or face serious consequences, he refused to take that final opportunity."
"Which isn't true," observed Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a scholar of presidential rhetoric at the University of Pennsylvania.</h3> But "it doesn't surprise me when presidents reconstruct reality to make their policies defensible." This president may even have convinced himself it's true, she said.
Americans have heard it. A poll by Kull's WorldPublicOpinion.org <b>found that seven in 10 Americans perceive the administration as still saying Iraq had a WMD program. Combine that rhetoric with simplistic headlines about WMD "finds," and people "assume the issue is still in play," Kull said.
"For some it almost becomes independent of reality and becomes very partisan." The WMD believers are heavily Republican, polls show.</b>
Beyond partisanship, however, people may also feel a need to believe in WMD, the analysts say.
"As perception grows of worsening conditions in Iraq, it may be that Americans are just hoping for more of a solid basis for being in Iraq to begin with," said the Harris Poll's David Krane.
Charles Duelfer, the lead U.S. inspector who announced the negative WMD findings two years ago, has watched uncertainly as TV sound bites, bloggers and politicians try to chip away at "the best factual account," his group's densely detailed, 1,000-page final report.
"It is easy to see what is accepted as truth rapidly morph from one representation to another," he said in an e-mail. "It would be a shame if one effect of the power of the Internet was to undermine any commonly agreed set of facts."
The creative "morphing" goes on.
As Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas battled in Lebanon <b>on July 21, a Fox News segment suggested, with no evidence, yet another destination for the supposed doomsday arms.
"ARE SADDAM HUSSEIN'S WMDS NOW IN HEZBOLLAH'S HANDS?"</b> asked the headline, lingering for long minutes on TV screens in a million American homes.
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<b>The problem for democratic congressional leaders....they did resist, they did object, they did vote against the 2002 resolution and against the supplemental Iraq war funding appropriations....is that the Bush administration, with the cooperation of many partisan supporters and the sincere, gullible folks with misplaced patriotic sentiments and irrational fears that the partisans "played"....is that a common sense driven, "will of the majority", has still not coalesced around the five years old, consistent democratic opposition to all of the deception, wasted lives, wasted money.....</b>
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/18/kennedy.iraq/
Kennedy's 'Texas' remark stirs GOP reaction
<h3>Thursday, September 18, 2003</h3>
WASHINGTON (CNN) --Sen. Ted Kennedy's comment Thursday to The Associated Press that the Iraq war was "made up in Texas" provoked no White House response but did stir a Republican official.
In the AP interview, Kennedy questioned how much of a threat Saddam Hussein had posed in the U.S. fight against terrorism.
<b>"There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud," the Massachusetts Democrat told the AP.</b>
He said Bush officials employed "distortion, misrepresentation, a selection of intelligence" to justify the war.
As for the administration's current policy in Iraq, Kennedy called it "adrift."
He said Bush officials had failed to account for $1.5 billion of the $4 billion the war costs each month, citing a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office.
"My belief is this money is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops," he told the AP.
<h3>Kennedy was one of 23 senators who opposed the resolution last year authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq.
"The senator's comments reflect the tired old soft-on-defense attitude of the Democratic Party," the Republican official told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity.</h3>
"And the American people are thankful for a strong and decisive leader in President Bush who isn't afraid to make tough decisions."
According to a Kennedy aide, the senator in the AP interview was trying to point out there are "real questions" about the administration's intent in the war.
"The point is the administration has to be more accountable with the American public about the cost of the war," the aide told CNN.
"The fact is there are real questions about the administration's intent with this war, what their plan is for our troops and how the money is being spent."
The White House on Wednesday sent its $87 billion budget request to Congress for military operations and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan next year.
While no Democrats or Republicans have said they would oppose it, many said they want specifics on the president's plans for reconstruction.
Some Democrats, citing the $525 billion budget deficit, say they may push for a repeal of some tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to help pay for the Iraq mission.
Kennedy said in the AP interview the administration should be required to account to Congress on how the money is spent.
<b>"We want to support our troops because they didn't make the decision to go there ... but I don't think it should be open-ended. We ought to have a benchmark where the administration has to come back and give us a report," he said.
Earlier this year, Democrats tried and failed to pass an amendment that would have postponed most of the tax cuts and budget increases until Bush officials produced cost estimates of the Iraq war.</b>
Kennedy told the AP he also was worried the war in Iraq had drawn America's attention away from possible threats from al Qaeda, problems in Afghanistan and North Korea's nuclear program.
"I think all of those pose a threat to the security of the people of Massachusetts much more than the threat from Iraq. Terror has been put on the sidelines for the last 12 months," Kennedy said.
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Quote:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in574422.shtml
Bush: Kennedy Remark 'Uncivil'
President Denies U.S. Bribing Foreign Nations
WASHINGTON, Sept. 22, 2003
<b>(AP) President Bush described as “uncivil” Sen. Edward Kennedy's critical remarks of the administration's policies in Iraq.</b>
Kennedy said last week the case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud “made up in Texas” to give Republicans a political boost. The longtime senator also alleged that the money for the war is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send troops.
In an interview with Fox News, Mr. Bush said that while he respected Kennedy, the senator “should not have said we were trying to bribe foreign nations.”
“I don't mind people trying to pick apart my policies, and that's fine and that's fair game,” Mr. Bush said in the interview that will air Monday night. <b>“But, you know, I don't think we're serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people say — use words that they shouldn't be using.”
Kennedy's comments, part of the drumbeat of criticism Mr. Bush has received lately from Democrats, were described as a “new low” by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.</b>
Kennedy dismissed DeLay's comments, saying that once again GOP leaders are avoiding questions about Mr. Bush's policies “by attacking the patriotism of those who question them.”
Kennedy, D-Mass., elaborated on his comments in an interview on CNN, saying the administration is announcing an $8.5 billion loan to Turkey, and that country will then provide military assistance in Iraq.
“It didn't have to be this way,” he said. “We wouldn't have to be providing these billions of dollars to these countries to ... coerce them or bribe them to send their troops in, if we'd done it the right way, if we'd gone to the United Nations, if we had built an international constituency.”
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Here is the speech on the senate floor by the senior democratic senator, against the first supplemental appropriations request to fund the Iraq war:
Quote:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1018-01.htm
The Emperor Has No Clothes
by US Senator Robert Byrd
Senate Floor Remarks
October 17, 2003
......We were told that major combat was over but 101 [as of October 17] Americans have died in combat since that proclamation from the deck of an aircraft carrier by our very own Emperor in his new clothes.
Our emperor says that we are not occupiers, yet we show no inclination to relinquish the country of Iraq to its people.
Those who have dared to expose the nakedness of the Administration's policies in Iraq have been subjected to scorn. Those who have noticed the elephant in the room -- that is, the fact that this war was based on falsehoods – have had our patriotism questioned. Those who have spoken aloud the thought shared by hundreds of thousands of military families across this country, that our troops should return quickly and safely from the dangers half a world away, have been accused of cowardice. We have then seen the untruths, the dissembling, the fabrication, the misleading inferences surrounding this rush to war in Iraq wrapped quickly in the flag.
The right to ask questions, debate, and dissent is under attack. The drums of war are beaten ever louder in an attempt to drown out those who speak of our predicament in stark terms.
Even in the Senate, our history and tradition of being the world's greatest deliberative body is being snubbed. <b>This huge spending bill has been rushed through this chamber in just one month. There were just three open hearings by the Senate Appropriations Committee on $87 billion, without a single outside witness called to challenge the Administration's line.
Ambassador Bremer went so far as to refuse to return to the Appropriations Committee to answer additional questions because, and I quote: "I don't have time. I'm completely booked, and I have to get back to Baghdad to my duties." </b>
Despite this callous stiff-arm of the Senate and its duties to ask questions in order to represent the American people, few dared to voice their opposition to rushing this bill through these halls of Congress. <h3>Perhaps they were intimidated by the false claims that our troops are in immediate need of more funds.</h3>
But the time has come for the sheep-like political correctness which has cowed members of this Senate to come to an end.
The Emperor has no clothes. This entire adventure in Iraq has been based on propaganda and manipulation. Eighty-seven billion dollars is too much to pay for the continuation of a war based on falsehoods.
Taking the nation to war based on misleading rhetoric and hyped intelligence is a travesty and a tragedy. It is the most cynical of all cynical acts. It is dangerous to manipulate the truth. It is dangerous because once having lied, it is difficult to ever be believed again. <b>Having misled the American people and stampeded them to war, this Administration must now attempt to sustain a policy predicated on falsehoods. The President asks for billions from those same citizens who know that they were misled about the need to go to war. </b>We misinformed and insulted our friends and allies and now this Administration is having more than a little trouble getting help from the international community. It is perilous to mislead.
The single-minded obsession of this Administration to now make sense of the chaos in Iraq, and the continuing propaganda which emanates from the White House painting Iraq as the geographical center of terrorism is distracting our attention from Afghanistan and the 60 other countries in the world where terrorists hide. It is sapping resources which could be used to make us safer from terrorists on our own shores. The body armor for our own citizens still has many, many chinks. Have we forgotten that the most horrific terror attacks in history occurred right here at home!! Yet, this Administration turns back money for homeland security, while the President pours billions into security for Iraq. I am powerless to understand or explain such a policy.
I have tried mightily to improve this bill. I twice tried to separate the reconstruction money in this bill, so that those dollars could be considered separately from the military spending. I offered an amendment to force the Administration to craft a plan to get other nations to assist the troops and formulate a plan to get the U.N. in, and the U.S. out, of Iraq. Twice I tried to rid the bill of expansive, flexible authorities that turn this $87 billion into a blank check. The American people should understand that we provide more foreign aid for Iraq in this bill, $20.3 billion, than we provide for the rest of the entire world! I attempted to remove from this bill billions in wasteful programs and divert those funds to better use. But, at every turn, my efforts were thwarted by the vapid argument that we must all support the requests of the Commander in Chief.
I cannot stand by and continue to watch our grandchildren become increasingly burdened by the billions that fly out of the Treasury for a war and a policy based largely on propaganda and prevarication. We are borrowing $87 billion to finance this adventure in Iraq. The President is asking this Senate to pay for this war with increased debt, a debt that will have to be paid by our children and by those same troops that are currently fighting this war. I cannot support outlandish tax cuts that plunge our country into potentially disastrous debt while our troops are fighting and dying in a war that the White House chose to begin.
I cannot support the continuation of a policy that unwisely ties down 150,000 American troops for the foreseeable future, with no end in sight.
I cannot support a President who refuses to authorize the reasonable change in course that would bring traditional allies to our side in Iraq.
I cannot support the politics of zeal and "might makes right" that created the new American arrogance and unilateralism which passes for foreign policy in this Administration.
I cannot support this foolish manifestation of the dangerous and destabilizing doctrine of preemption that changes the image of America into that of a reckless bully.
The emperor has no clothes. And our former allies around the world were the first to loudly observe it.
<h3>I shall vote against this bill because I cannot support a policy based on prevarication.</h3> I cannot support doling out 87 billion of our hard-earned tax dollars when I have so many doubts about the wisdom of its use. ........
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Last edited by host; 06-25-2007 at 09:07 AM..
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