rgr22j

I disagree. From Bush's 2003 State of the Union address :

"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."

Note that he clearly does not state that the threat was imminent. Instead, he says we should not wait until the threat was imminent.

With respect with the 45 minutes deal, on the basis of Andrew Gilligan's retraction in the face of the entire British Government, we can at worst say it still remains to be verified, and at best that it is true. The dossier that Gilligan accused of being "sexed-up" (oh, those British) formed the basis for the controversy surrounding Bush's "16 words" in the very same SOTU address. This, in turn, morphed into the "Bush Lied!" myth. With the retraction and admission of wrongdoing by Gilligan, I think we ought to finally put the rest the notion that Bush had "contrary evidence" or somehow or another that "Bush LIED!!!!!!"

But, like the myth of the "stolen election," as I have said before it looks like it will never die. Such is politics. Clinton was not immune to being tarred with wildly ridiculous smears either.

This is because Wolfowitz has been warning of the threat from Saddam Hussein since 1979. (New York Times, July 22, 2003). I don't think it's odd at all, and I think it does much to disabuse the myth that Bush 43 went into Iraq to avenge Bush 41. Wolfowitz is simply being consistent, and not partisan, to his credit.

The Republicans were wrong in 1998, just like the Democrats were wrong in 2002. Clinton suffered from bad timing; I do not believe that bombing Iraq was intend to create a distraction. He may lack a little something in the morals department, but it's a stretch to say he authorized the wholesale bombing of a city to cover up illicit private behavior. He needed to make a point to Saddam, and he did. I suppose, though, this is an example of a myth clinging to Clinton.

I find it unbelievable that any reasonable person buys into the myth that Saddam had no WMDs, and the failure to find them somehow constitutes that the liberation of Iraq was illegal/unjustified/wrong. Perhaps some have forgotten that Saddam unleashed them on the Kurds, or that the IAEA declared Saddam to be far ahead of worldwide intelligence estimates in his goal of acquiring nuclear weapons. Mayhaps it was a worldwide intelligence failure (however unlikely), but by even the most briefest skim of the news earlier this year would reveal that, to every major intelligence agency in the world, it was an unquestioned fact that Saddam had (and used) and was continuing to pursue WMD. Were this not the case, and some countries reasonably believed that Saddam had indeed stopped his WMD program, there would not be a reason to pass UN Resolution 1441, under threat of "dire consequences" for non-compliance. Perhaps those same critics have forgotten that too.

To double back in the face of history tells me either some have admirable selective amnesia or are willing to look stupid in an effort to discredit Bush and the liberation of Iraq.

-- Alvin