Maybe more of a vent than debate.. - Page 3 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Willravel · 01-15-2007, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Primary reason was our global war on terror.

No, the primary reason we were there was the WMDs and links to al Qaeda, if you judge by speeches given by Bush, Rice, etc.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

We were wrong about weapons of mass destruction. Isn't that a good thing? Al Qaeda was not directly linked to Sadaam, Bush has said that many, many times.

Is it a good thing there were no WMDs? Obviously. He has shown that he's not responsible enough a leader to have weapons when he attacked the Kurds. Bush said in mid 2004, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda." That's pretty cut and dry.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

We acted sooner in the war on terror than we did in WWII. Isn't that a good thing? If we had a re-do on WWII I know I would have acted sooner, not later.

That's not really an apt comparison. Germany had the power to take over all it's neighbors and had one goal: global domination. the al aeda, for example, has goals more like "removeal of Western militaries from the Middle East".

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

As long as others want to steal the lives and freedoms of others, the fight will continue, don't you agree at least in theory?

I will continue to figh Bush as long as he sees fit to steal our freedoms in the name of a fight that he is making worse. The real quesion is: Who wants to steal our lives and our freedom? There have been no real civilian targets hit on US soil by radical Islamic terrorists.
[QUOTE=aceventura3]This is real, not fantasy.[/QUOTE
Iraq being a threat to the US was fantasy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

They want us dead. They want our allies wiped off of the map. They want you to be Muslim and live by their rules or die. I don't understand your point.

You said they are a threat to our freedom. That's silly. How are they keeping us from practicing free religion, press or speech? It's nonesense language intended to stir motions and cloud logic. If there is anyone or any organziation that is a threat to our freedoms, it has been made clear it is the current administration.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Perhaps some kind hearted person can go and interview them and findout what they want? I think that person would be murdered.

And if they sent someone over here to figure out why we keep bombing them and attacking them and getting into wars with them, they would be tortured. So?

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why did Sadaam invade Kuwait?

Saddam invaded Kuwait because of he made the false assumption that Kuwait was a part of Iraq and that Kuwait had been slant drilling in other Iraqi territories.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why do you think he would not want to do it again?

He can want to do things all he wants but Kuwait has a lot of allies because of their oil, and Saddam had lost his ability to make war.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why did Sadaam send missles into Isreal?

You mean the scuds back in 1991? Iraq was trying to provoke Israel into unilateral action. Again, we're talking about then, when Saddam has military power, and 2003, when he had almost none.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why don't you think he would want to again?

He can't. After the early 90s, Saddam no longer had the means to wage war.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why did Sadaam declare war on Iran?

Saddam invaded Iran after many border disputes and after Iran was calling for Saddam's regime to be overthrown.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why do you think he would not do it again?

Why? Iran would have raped Iraq had he tried anything after the early 90s. Iran is actually quite powerful. Iraq became nothing more than a bug.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why did Sadaam kill thousands of his own people?

He couldn't control his family, government and he is quick to rash action.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why do you think he wouldn't do it again?

Again, he lacks the means.

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Originally Posted by aceventura3

Why did Sadaam burn oil fields?

Duh.

Mojo_PeiPei · 01-15-2007, 05:20 PM

Actually Will Saddam had well documented ties to Palestinian terror groups and Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda who operate out of Kurdistan. As for the weapons issue, there have been weapons found, there have been precursors found, there has been evidence found atesting to programs being in place, just because we didn't a million gallons of Anthrax doesn't mean there weren't weapons found.

Also last time I checked Bush hasn't suspended Habeaus Corpus as no American citizens, except for Jose Padilla, have been held in any matter contrary to normal American common/criminal/civil law, and at the same time if memory serves Padilla's detention was upheld by the courts; also his FISA wire taps have not been deemed illegal by American courts, so unless I missed something in recent months that would counter my statements made you should really stop levying such accusations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

No, the primary reason we were there was the WMDs and links to al Qaeda, if you judge by speeches given by Bush, Rice, etc.

Agreed.

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That's not really an apt comparison. Germany had the power to take over all it's neighbors and had one goal: global domination. the al aeda, for example, has goals more like "removeal of Western militaries from the Middle East".

Such a statement about Al Qaeda is disingenuous, their purpose is Jihad and establishing the Caliphate again.

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I will continue to figh Bush as long as he sees fit to steal our freedoms in the name of a fight that he is making worse. The real quesion is: Who wants to steal our lives and our freedom? There have been no real civilian targets hit on US soil by radical Islamic terrorists.

What Freedoms have been stolen from me again? I've asked this many times here, never gotten a legit straight forward answer... if I didn't know better I'd think it was baseless...

Oh yeah and (cough) 9/11.

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You said they are a threat to our freedom. That's silly. How are they keeping us from practicing free religion, press or speech? It's nonesense language intended to stir motions and cloud logic. If there is anyone or any organziation that is a threat to our freedoms, it has been made clear it is the current administration.

They seemed to do a decent job of disrupting things in Spain a few years back, perhaps if they were able to strike here again, and more people had a mentality such as yours our freedoms could be in trouble.

Willravel · 01-15-2007, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Actually Will Saddam had well documented ties to Palestinian terror groups and Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda who operate out of Kurdistan. As for the weapons issue, there have been weapons found, there have been precursors found, there has been evidence found atesting to programs being in place, just because we didn't a million gallons of Anthrax doesn't mean there weren't weapons found.

I guess the question was: if you were the president and had the benifit of hindsight, would you have attacked a basically defenseless country?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Also last time I checked Bush hasn't suspended Habeaus Corpus as no American citizens, except for Jose Padilla, have been held in any matter contrary to normal American common/criminal/civil law, and at the same time if memory serves Padilla's detention was upheld by the courts; also his FISA wire taps have not been deemed illegal by American courts, so unless I missed something in recent months that would counter my statements made you should really stop levying such accusations.

Habeaus Corpus was suspended when the Senate that passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The habeays provision in the act violates a clause in the Constitution that says the right to challenge detention shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion. As it is clear that we are not dealing with a rebelion or invasion, this is a breach of the Constitution.

Why does Habeaus Corpus hate America?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Such a statement about Al Qaeda is disingenuous, their purpose is Jihad and establishing the Caliphate again.

Jihad isn't a purpous. Jihad is a call to arms, but it doesn't give the "why". As far as Caliphate, that is a long term goal. The immediate goal is to remove all outside influences, mainly including Western powers, but also including Israel.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

What Freedoms have been stolen from me again? I've asked this many times here, never gotten a legit straight forward answer... if I didn't know better I'd think it was baseless...

Habeaus Corpus can be suspended legally now. Let me break down what that means:
First Ammendment: if you're in prison, you wave your rights
(as we already see in our prison system)
Second Ammendment: do you think you can have a gun in prison?
Third Ammendment: A OK
Fourth Ammendment: you can be searched for any reason a any time in prison.
Fifth Ammendment: Due process? Obviously not.
Sixth: No lawyers if you skip the trials.
Seventh: Speedy trials? It happened so fast that no one saw it!
Eighth: No bail if you skip the trial.
You get the idea....

NOT ONLY THAT, but wiretaps no longer require the FISA court, apparently. You can be wire tapped for no reason at any time, be you a US citizen or not. You ask how your freedoms have been effected, and I've answered.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

They seemed to do a decent job of disrupting things in Spain a few years back, perhaps if they were able to strike here again, and more people had a mentality such as yours our freedoms could be in trouble.

Again, how in God's name does a terror attack effect my freedoms? The only way it effects our freedoms is it allows our leaders, and their enemies, to make bullshit laws that don't even take into consideration that we have a Bill of Rights.

BTW, the 9/11 attack was a military operation and struck 2 military targets. Let's not pretend that the attacks on the Twin Towers or the Pentagon would be the same as a biological attack in downtown Baltimore or a nuke going off in Denver.

shakran · 01-15-2007, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by desal75

I'm intrigued by the way this thread has become less about politics and more about teaching me how to use this forum.

Well, be glad. Instead of ignoring you for posting pointless posts, we're trying to bring you into the fold. Smile, and join us

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What is Fark anyway?

http://www.fark.com

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As for palatable, I wasn't trying to force what I think is or isn't on anyone. I was simply stating that what is needed is different to different people. Some would argue that any loss of life due to war is unnecessary. Others see justifiable reasons for killing and death, no matter on what scale.

so in other words you didn't say much of anything. That's kind of like saying "you're either 100% wet, or 100% dry, or somewhere in between." We all already know that there are lots of opinions on what is or is not palatable. We want to know YOUR opinion.

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The grey area is that in any conflict there is no easy answer.

When did you get the idea that I thought any of the possible answers would be easy? They're not. They're all hard. Unfortunately ALL of the possible answers end up in a worse situation than we had before.

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Especially in conflicts like Iraq where the opposition isn't easily distinguished and the goals not easily expressed.

Well that's half the problem isn't it. The goals keep changing, and they've always been nebulous. Hell that's more than half the problem, that's the whole problem.

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Even the notion of winning or losing a conflict such as this is not easily defined.

It would be if we'd set solid goals and work toward them, but the Incompetent-In-Chief won't do that, so we shouldn't be there until we can define it.

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Some would say victory has already been achieved

Yeah, Bush tried that from the deck of a carrier. Unfortunately for him, no one buys it any more.

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while some would argue that victory can never be attained. The grey is that both arguements have merit.

No, they don't, and they can't until as you said, we know what victory is. Once we've defined what victory is, we can determine whether we can do it, and how to do it. Until then, we're just spinning our wheels getting our troops killed.

host · 01-15-2007, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

No

Other reasons were given as well....

...No civilian casualties due to terrorists attacks in our borders.

Not in my view. My biggest concern is that we don't have the will to finish the job and we will leave it for future generations to fight.

If you disagree on strategy that is one thing, <b>but I am not sure you agree with the threat to our freedom.</b> If that is true why are you concerned about North Korea, etc, etc.

ace, sometimes I envy you. It is so much easier to blot out all of the contradictions and simply <b>believe....like you do.</b> My head is about ready to explode, because of one question....believe ??? Believe what ???

Quote:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charle...i_b_37443.html

He didn't attack us on 9/11, nor did any of the hijackers act on his behalf.

He didn't finance the Bin Laden construction company or Osama Bin Laden in any way.

He didn't give safe haven to Bin Laden or any of the terrorists.

He did not condone Al Quaeda.

He did not have weapons of mass destruction.

He did not have a nuclear program.

He posed no credible threat to the safety or security of the United States directly.

He never said he wanted us all dead and then followed that statement up by testing a nuclear device.

He did not financially support madrases directly, training radicalized Islamic fascists that would later threaten our country (that's Saudi Arabia).

He did not cut off the oil supply to the world, or to us.....

....And the truth is the only reason I can come up with as to why he is dead is because George W. Bush wanted him that way, and in a hurry. Bush wanted him dead before our new Congress was even seated, odd, don't you think? Hundreds of my listeners do, people that email my radio show on KGO AM 810. The fact that he was killed before our new lawmakers took to their seats was not lost on them. When opening the phones after Hussein's death, the key phrase for the evening was "dead men tell no tales." Because the Iraqis had plenty of time to rise up and kill him and they didn't, and the international community had almost 25 years to take him to task for the gassing of the Kurds, the killings in a village, but instead of killing him they continued to do business with him, ourselves included....

They've consistently used the troops as props, cannon fodder, and muzzled them:

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nat...ck=1&cset=true
Better armor lacking for new troops in Iraq

By David Wood
Sun reporter
Originally published January 10, 2007
WASHINGTON // The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said.

Vehicles such as the Cougar and the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle have proven ability to save lives, but production started late and relatively small numbers are in use in Iraq, mostly because of money shortages, industry officials said.

More than 1,000 American troops have been killed by roadside bombs since the war began in March 2003. At present there are fewer than 1,000 of the new armored trucks in Iraq. At $500,000 to $700,000 each, they cost more than twice as much as a standard Humvee, but already they are proving their worth.

"They are expensive, but they are going to save lives," said Gen. James T. Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, during a recent trip to Iraq, where he reviewed the service's effort to get more of the vehicles.

Most American troops patrol in the 20,000 Humvees the Pentagon has sent to Iraq. Most of those vehicles have been layered with added armor plating as the Pentagon has struggled over the past three years to counter the increasingly powerful and sophisticated roadside bombs,....

....Today, the Marines are moving quickly to buy and deploy combat vehicles with a key design improvement over the Humvee: They are built with a V-shaped hull that deflects a blast up and outward, leaving passengers shaken, but alive.

Under a $125 million contract, the Marines are buying 100 Cougar and 44 Buffalo armored trucks, known collectively as MRAP, for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, made by Force Protection Inc., a small company in Ladson, S.C. The firm is producing 40 vehicles a month, said its vice president, Mike Aldrich, a retired Army officer educated at West Point.

Aldrich said the design grew out of a joint Army and Marine Corps request "designed to literally stop the bleeding from up-armored Humvees in some of the most dangerous areas in Iraq and Afghanistan."

The military services said last month that they need 4,060 of the MRAP vehicles, with 2,500 for the Army, 538 for the Navy and 1,022 for the Marines. The delivery schedule is uncertain. Meanwhile, a permanent replacement for the Humvee, incorporating the latest design and armor improvements, is years away, Pentagon officials said, and mired in technical and cost disputes.

Separately, the Army is buying the 15-ton M1117 armored vehicle for its military police. The V-hull vehicles were in production in the late 1990s but were canceled by the Army as unnecessary. In June 2004, the service decided that it needed them after all. The Army has said it needs 2,600.

Today, Textron Inc. is producing 48 per month at its New Orleans plant under a contract for 1,250 vehicles.

"That's all they had the money for," said Clay Moise, vice president for business development for Textron's Marine and Land division.

But a lack of money only partly explains why, four years into the war, there is a shortage of vehicles that can effectively survive an IED.......

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011100389.html
At Fort Benning, a Quiet Response to a Presidential Visit

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 12, 2007; Page A12

....To ensure that there would be no discordant notes here, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the base commander,

<b>prohibited the 300 soldiers who had lunch with the president from talking with reporters..</b> If any of them harbored

doubts about heading back to Iraq, many for the third time, they were kept silent.......

The Iraq war is in "the shit", ace. Gates is not qualified and he knows that it is a hopeless situation for US troops to be in the midst of:
[quote]

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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2353049.shtml
Iraq Plan Draws Criticism, Mockery On Hill
President's Plan To Send More Troops To Iraq Meets Opposition From Both Democrats And Republicans
Jan. 11, 2007

.....At one point Gates, just three weeks on the job, told lawmakers, "I would confess I'm no expert on Iraq."

Later, asked about reaching the right balance between American and Iraqi forces, he told the panel he was "no expert on military matters." .....

Quote:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002330.php
Gates: Iraq is Four Wars in One
By Paul Kiel - January 12, 2007, 12:19 PM

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, like his infamously inconstant predecessor, still won't admit that Iraq is in a state of civil war, but that non-civil war is apparently, one of four ongoing wars in Iraq.

From today's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

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There are four wars going on in Iraq right now, simultaneously: Shia on Shia conflict in the south; sectarian violence, particularly in Baghdad, but also in Diyala and a couple of other provinces; an insurgency; and Al Qaeda.

Watch Robert Gates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw6owUAmeXY&eurl=
<br><br>

Quote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1989397,00.html

'The jihad now is against the Shias, not the Americans'

As 20,000 more US troops head for Iraq, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, the only correspondent reporting regularly from behind the country's sectarian battle lines, reveals how the Sunni insurgency has changed

Saturday January 13, 2007
The Guardian

.....On his mobile phone he proudly showed me grainy images of dead bodies lying in the street, their hands tied behind their backs . He claimed they were Shia agents and that he had killed them. "There is a new jihad now," he said, echoing Abu Omar's warning. "The jihad now is against the Shia, not the Americans."

In Ramadi there was still jihad against the Americans because there were no Shia to fight, but in Baghdad his group only attacked the Americans if they were with Shia army forces or were coming to arrest someone.

"We have been deceived by the jihadi Arabs," he admitted, in reference to al-Qaida and foreign fighters. "They had an international agenda and we implemented it. But now all the leadership of the jihad in Iraq are Iraqis.".....

Since it's 2006 purchase of Knight-Ridder, ace, McClatchy is one of the largest US new services. Read this. It is not an op-ed, it is a news article:

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http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwash...hington_nation
Posted on Sun, Jan. 14, 2007
Administration leaving out important details on Iraq
By MARK SEIBEL
McClatchy Newspapers

<h3>WASHINGTON - President Bush and his aides, explaining their reasons for sending more American troops to Iraq, are offering an incomplete, oversimplified and possibly untrue version of events there that raises new questions about the accuracy of the administration's statements about Iraq.</h3>

President Bush unveiled the new version on Wednesday during his nationally televised speech announcing his new Iraq policy.

"When I addressed you just over a year ago, nearly 12 million Iraqis had cast their ballots for a unified and democratic nation," he said. "We thought that these elections would bring Iraqis together - and that as we trained
Iraqi security forces, we could accomplish our mission with fewer American troops.

"But in 2006, the opposite happened. The violence in Iraq - particularly in Baghdad - overwhelmed the political gains Iraqis had made. Al-Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq's election
posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis.

"They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam - the Golden Mosque of Samarra - in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq's Shia population to retaliate," Bush said. "Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today."

That version of events helps to justify Bush's "new way forward" in Iraq, in which U.S. forces will largely target Sunni insurgents and leave it to Iraq's U.S.-backed Shiite government to - perhaps - disarm its allies in Shiite
militias and death squads.

But the president's account understates by at least 15 months when Shiite death squads began targeting Sunni politicians and clerics. It also ignores the role that Iranian-backed Shiite groups had in death squad activities
prior to the Samarra bombing.

Blaming the start of sectarian violence in Iraq on the Golden Dome bombing risks policy errors because it underestimates the depth of sectarian hatred in Iraq and overlooks the conflict's root causes. The Bush account
also fails to acknowledge that Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite groups stoked the conflict.

President Bush met at the White House in November with the head of one of those groups: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. SCIRI's Badr Organization militia is widely reported to have
infiltrated Iraq's security forces and to be involved in death squad activities.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recited Bush's history of events on Thursday in fending off angry questioning from Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., about why Rice had offered optimistic testimony about Iraq during a Senate

Foreign Relations Committee hearing in October 2005.

"The president has talked repeatedly now about the changed circumstances that we faced after the Samarra bombing of February `06, because that bombing did in fact change the character of the conflict in Iraq," Rice said. "Before that, we were fighting al-Qaida; before that, we were fighting some insurgents, some Saddamists."

She cited the version again in an appearance later that day before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "This is a direct result of al-Qaida activity," she said, asking House members not to consider Iraq's sectarian violence as
evidence that Iraqis cannot live together.

Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley used the same version of events in an appearance Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Much like the administration's pre-war claims about Saddam's alleged ties to al-Qaida and purported nuclear weapons program, the claims about the bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra ignore inconvenient facts and highlight questionable but politically useful assumptions........

.....Beginning in 2002, the administration's case for a pre-emptive war in Iraq was plagued by similar oversights, oversimplifications, misjudgments and misinformation. Unlike the administration's claims about the Samarra bombing,

however, much of that information was peddled by Iraqi exiles and defectors and accepted by some eager officials and journalists.

The best known of those pre-war claims was that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and had reconstituted his nuclear weapons program - Bush's primary stated reason for invading Iraq.

Administration officials and their allies also claimed that Saddam had trained terrorists to hijack airplanes; that a Saddam emissary had met with lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta in Prague; that Iraq had purchased aluminum
tubes that could be used only to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons; that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from the African country of Niger; that Iraqis would greet American troops as liberators; and that Iraqi oil revenues
ould cover most of the cost of the war.

The administration has continued to offer inaccurate information to Congress, the American people and sometimes to itself. The Iraq Study Group, in its December report, concluded, for example, that the U.S. military was
systematically under-reporting the violence in Iraq in an effort to disguise policy failings. The group recommended that the military change its reporting system.

Whether many of the administration's statements about Iraq for nearly five years have been deliberately misleading or honest but gullible mistakes hasn't been determined. The Senate Intelligence Committee has yet to complete an
investigation into the issue that was begun but stalled when Republicans controlled the committee.....

..."Madam Secretary," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., "I have supported you and the administration on the war, and I cannot continue to support the administration's position. I have not been told the truth over and over again by administration witnesses, and the American people have not been told the truth."

Both of Bush's press secretaries have been habitual liars, ace:
[quote]

Quote:

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/12/...kin-media-war/

Snow: Michelle Malkin Is A Soldier In The ‘New Media War’ On Biased Iraq Coverage

The American public overwhelmingly opposes Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and the White House blames the media.

Yesterday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Tony Snow vowed to fight a <a href="http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=3cebc08f-de3c-4c12-9135-16c922d27712">“new
media war”</a> to combat the coverage:

HH: All right, yesterday, the President also mentioned that there will be lots of carnage on television

screens. Is the administration, and especially the Pentagon, prepared to fight the new media war when that starts

to happen, Tony Snow?

TS: We’ve been fighting it. I mean, it’s not that it has started to happen, it’s been going on for some time.

Snow specifically <a href="http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=3cebc08f-de3c-4c12-9135-16c922d27712">cited
right-wing blogger</a> Michelle Malkin, who is currently embedded in Iraq, as a soldier for truth in the “media

war”:

What is interesting, Hugh, and you know this as well as anybody else, you’re also starting to see little

glimmers of guys like Michael Yon and others who get over there and they basically embed themselves in Iraq, and

Michelle Malkin’s over there now.

Several times during the interview, Tony Snow referenced Malkin’s work on the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/columns/200612120001">Jamil Hussein “story</a>.”

Michelle Malkin has been obsessed in recent months claiming that Hussein — an Iraqi policeman cited as a source by

the Associated Press in a story about the burning of six people during a sectarian attack — <a href="http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/01/credibility-of-right-wing-blogosphere.html">does not exist</a>.

The Iraqi government recently debunked the conspiracy theory, acknowledging that the AP’s source was in fact a <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_jamil_hussein_1">police officer in Iraq.</a>

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0070109-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 9, 2007

Press Briefing by Tony Snow
White House Conference Center Briefing Room

...Q Tony, this goes to your previous acknowledgment that the President is aware of public anxiety about the

situation in Iraq. What would your guidance be to a public that has seen the President stand under a "Mission

Accomplished" banner, proclaim an end to major combat operations, the Vice President talking about the "last

throes" -- how should the public go into viewing this speech tomorrow?

MR. SNOW: I think the public ought to just listen to what the President has to say. <b>You know that the "Mission

Accomplished" banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln. And the President, on that very speech, said

just the opposite, didn't he? He said it was the end of major combat operations, but he did not say it was the end

of operations. Instead, he cautioned people at the time that there would be considerable continued violence in

Iraq, and that there would be continued operations for a long period of time. That single episode has been more

widely mischaracterized than just about any aspect of the war.</b>

Q We can debate whether the sign should have been there, whether the White House should have not had it there, but

the fact is he stood under it and made the speech.

<h3>MR. SNOW: You're right, after people had been on a 17-month deployment, and had said "Mission Accomplished" when

they're finally able to get back to their loved ones, the President didn't say, take down the sign, it will be bad. </h3>

Instead what he did is he talked about the mission. And I would direct you back to the speech he gave then, Peter,

because the President -- .....

The preceding indicates that Tony Snow dredged up lies told by Bush and McClellan, et al, that were already exposed as such, by the press in 2003:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030501-15.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 1, 2003

President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended
Remarks by the President from the USS Abraham Lincoln
At Sea Off the Coast of San Diego, California

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham

Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States

and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that

country.....

Quote:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/05/16/nyt.bumiller/
<h3>Keepers of Bush image lift stagecraft to new heights</h3>

By Elisabeth Bumiller
New York Times
Friday, May 16, 2003 Posted: 1108 GMT ( 7:08 PM HKT)

.....The most elaborate — and criticized — White House event so far was Mr. Bush's speech aboard the Abraham

Lincoln announcing the end of major combat in Iraq. White House officials say that a variety of people, including

the president, came up with the idea, and that Mr. Sforza embedded himself on the carrier to make preparations days

before Mr. Bush's landing in a flight suit and his early evening speech.

Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even

down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the

"Mission Accomplished" banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single

shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call "magic hour light," which cast a golden glow on

Mr. Bush.

"If you looked at the TV picture, you saw there was flattering light on his left cheek and slight shadowing on his

right," Mr. King said. "It looked great.".....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0031028-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 28, 2003

President Holds Press Conference
Press Conference by the President
The Rose Garden

..... Q Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that

said, "Mission Accomplished." At that time you declared major combat operations were over, but since that time

there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action

since that date. Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?

THE PRESIDENT: Nora, I think you ought to look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got

hard work to do, there's still more to be done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I

was there to thank the troops.

<b>The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their

mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed some how to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they

weren't that ingenious, by the way.</b> But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase

of the war for Iraq was over and there was a lot of dangerous work. And it's proved to be right, it is dangerous in

Iraq. It's dangerous in Iraq because there are people who can't stand the thought of a free and peaceful Iraq. It

is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we're soft, that the will of the United States can be

shaken by suiciders -- and suiciders who are willing to drive up to a Red Cross center, a center of international

help and aid and comfort, and just kill.

It's the same mentality, by the way, that attacked us on September the 11th, 2001: we'll just destroy innocent life

and watch the great United States and their friends and allies crater in the face of hardship. It's the exact same

mentality. And Iraq is a part of the war on terror. I said it's a central front, a new front in the war on terror,

and that's exactly what it is. And that's why it's important for us to be tough and strong and diligent. ....

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0031029-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 29, 2003

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
The James S. Brady Briefing Room

... Q Scott, did the President misspeak yesterday in the Rose Garden when he talking about the banner that was

behind him when he was on the USS Abraham Lincoln? Did he misspeak when he said the White House --

MR. McCLELLAN: In what way?

Q When he said the White House press advance had nothing to do with --

MR. McCLELLAN: That's not what he said. That's not what he said. Do you recall what he said?

Q He said, I believe --

MR. McCLELLAN: He said -- he said that it was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln saying that their

mission was accomplished. The President was pleased to personally thank our sailors and aviators and naval officers

on board the USS Lincoln for their service and sacrifice after what was a very lengthy deployment. It was the Navy,

the people on board the ship who had the idea of this banner and made the suggestion, because they wanted to have a

way to commemorate the fact that these sailors and the crew on board the ship had completed their mission, after a

very lengthy deployment. And the President was --

Q He also said that his advance team hadn't had any part in it. And you're now -- you're now saying that you

actually did create the banner.

MR. McCLELLAN: That's not what he said. That is not what he said. Look back at what he said. We said all along, and

we said previously that it was the idea -- that the idea of the banner -- for the banner was suggested by those on

board on ship. And they asked --

Q So who ordered --

MR. McCLELLAN: And they asked -- they asked if we could help take care of the production of the banner. And we more

than happy to do so because this is a very nice way to pay tribute to our sailors and aviators and men and women in

the military who are on board that ship for a job well done.

Q Scott, just to follow up , did you not have anything to do, though, with the placement of the banner? I know the

White House often makes sure that things are placed right, behind the President so that when it's on the TV --

MR. McCLELLAN: Of course, our advance people work closely with people at event sites when the President is

participating in an event. But again, this was an idea that was suggested by those on board the ship.

Q Scott, knowing what we know now, that the Navy, apparently they say that they did request this banner, that what

the President said was technically accurate, but would you concede that the gist of what he was saying was

misleading because it left the impression for -- that he was saying that the White House didn't have anything to do

it. You don't think it was misleading?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's not what he -- no, that's not what he said.

Q It's not what he said literally, but --

MR. McCLELLAN: And keep in mind what this -- what this --

Q It's what he suggested.

MR. McCLELLAN: That is not what he said. This was about paying tribute to our men and women in the military for a

job well done, for a mission that they had accomplished after a very lengthy deployment. And the President was

proud to do that.

Q Now, given the fact that this was six months ago, and there were lots of questions about this, why did he feel

the need to talk about who made this banner now, as opposed to --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, one, it came up in a question. But there's been some reporting --

Q -- specifically asked --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- there has been some reporting that mischaracterized the actual event.

Q What do you mean by that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Mark.

Q Are you denying now that the President had the distinct intention at the time of that speech that Americans would

see that picture and think the mission in Iraq has been accomplished, the overall mission?

MR. McCLELLAN: What I'm saying is that this was about paying tribute to our sailors and aviators and naval officers

on board the USS Lincoln. That's what this was about. Let's keep that in context. And the President was pleased to

personally go on board the USS Lincoln and thank our men and women in the military for an outstanding job, for

accomplishing their mission, and for -- when they were returning to the United States.

Q The President did not want Americans to see "mission accomplished" and think, great, the war is over?

MR. McCLELLAN: The idea for the banner and the idea for the sign was suggested by those on board ship. And we were

pleased to help them with that.

Q And he never knew that would be the interpretation, that the mission -- his mission was accomplished?

MR. McCLELLAN: The mission for those people on board the ship was accomplished.

Q But the President didn't know that this would be interpreted throughout the world that we had -- that the combat

mission was over, basically?

MR. McCLELLAN: The major combat operations were over. That's what the President said in his remarks. But he also

went on to say that there are difficulties that remain and dangers that continue to exist, and that it's important

that we stay the course and finish our work and continue to work with the Iraqi people to help them realize a

better future. And that's exactly what we are doing right now.

Q Let me follow up on that. When this happened, when the event happened, all of us reported that the President made

this speech under a banner "mission accomplished." Why at the time did you not say -- take pains to tell us,

actually, it was the Navy's idea, it wasn't ours?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think the reports -- it was later, after the fact, that some of the reports mischaracterized what

had happened. You had a number of men and women in the military on board that ship, sailors, aviators, naval

officers, that were on board that ship, they were returning back to the United States and returning to -- one stop

along their way -- to their home port up in Washington, I believe -- the state of Washington, stopping in San

Diego. And those on board the ship thought it was nice way to say to all those on board the ship, thank you for a

job well done. And the President personally went there to do that.

Q But the President did --

Q I just want to take a break from bannergate for a minute --

Q Could we stay on this, Scott?

MR. McCLELLAN: We can stay on banner. We can stay on banner, and I'll come to it. Go ahead, Ken.

Q I believe you said a little while ago that we previously said that the banner was the idea of the Navy. When did

you previously say that? Can you point to any statements before yesterday?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I think that some of our staff has previously pointed out when asked that the Navy came up with

the idea for the banner. The Navy themself -- if you'll call the people involved --

Q I understand yesterday --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- they would say that.

Q Before yesterday, when did you say that? Can you point us to something?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, there was reporting -- I believe others had said previously that this was something

that was asked for by the Navy because there was previous reporting about this, about the whole banner. And we

pointed out at that point that the banner was something that was suggested by the Navy.

Q When was that?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't have the exact dates. I didn't bring the articles with me, but if you look back at some of

the coverage, I think you will find it.

Did you have one?

Q Why wasn't this said at the very beginning? Because any reasonable person would look at the photographs and look

at the video and say the President is saying that what the U.S. forces have been doing in the Iraq theater is

essentially over.

MR. McCLELLAN: He said the major combat operations were over in his remarks.

Q That's right. Why wasn't -- but why wasn't it clarified --

MR. McCLELLAN: He was on board the USS Lincoln --

Q -- that the "mission accomplished" banner --

MR. McCLELLAN: He was on board the USS Lincoln that was returning home and there were --

Q But that wasn't said -- .....

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/...in580661.shtml
'Mission Accomplished' Whodunit
W. House Changes Stories On Much-Mocked Banner At Carrier Speech

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2003

(CBS/AP) Six months after he spoke on an aircraft carrier deck under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished,"

President Bush disavowed any connection with the war message. Later, the White House changed its story and said

there was a link.

The "Mission Accomplished" boast has been mocked many times since Mr. Bush's carrier speech as criticism has

mounted over the failed search for weapons of mass destruction and the continuing violence in Iraq.

When it was brought up again Tuesday at a news conference, Mr. Bush said, "The 'Mission Accomplished' sign, of

course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying that their mission was accomplished."

"I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff — they weren't that ingenious, by the

way."

That explanation hadn't surfaced during months of questions to White House officials about proclaiming the mission

in Iraq successful while violence continued.

After the news conference, a White House spokeswoman said the Lincoln's crew asked the White House to have the sign

made. The White House asked a private vendor to produce the sign, and the crew put it up, said the spokeswoman. She

said she did not know who paid for the sign.

Later, a Pentagon spokesman called The Associated Press to reiterate that the banner was the crew's idea.

"It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew," Navy Cmdr. Conrad Chun said, adding the president's

visit marked the end of the ship's 10-month international deployment.

The president's appearance on the Abraham Lincoln, which was returning home after service in the Persian Gulf,

included his dramatic and much-publicized landing on the ship's deck.....

.....Since Mr. Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 115 U.S. soldiers have been killed by hostile

fire — more than died in combat before the speech.

In his Rose Garden press conference, Mr. Bush told the reporter who asked about the sign: "I think you ought to

look at my speech. I said, Iraq is a dangerous place and we've still got hard work to do, there's still more to be

done. And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops."

The president said his statement "was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq

was over and there was a lot of dangerous work. And it's proved to be right, it is dangerous in Iraq."

In the May 1 speech, Mr. Bush did note that the job in Iraq was not complete, promising "difficult work" in Iraq

"bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous," he said.

Later he added: "The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our

coalition will stay until our work is done."

But Mr. Bush also sounded a triumphant note, describing the Iraqi operation as a "victory in a war on terror."

"In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," he said. "And now our coalition is

engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."

The president's USS Lincoln speech came under scrutiny almost immediately. Democrats claimed the White House wasted

taxpayer dollars and sailors' time on a publicity stunt.

Despite initial claims that the ship was too far out to sea for a helicopter landing, forcing the president to use

a jet, the Lincoln was actually within helicopter range when Mr. Bush arrived.

The jet flight was much more dramatic than a helicopter arrival would have been, as the president took the control

stick for part of the flight and emerged on deck wearing a flight suit and helmet.

In addition, Pentagon officials told the Washington Post that after the president's speech, the Lincoln waited

offshore for hours while he slept rather than heading into port after its 10-month voyage.

On Sept. 16, 2001, Cheney told us that Saddam was "bottled up" and that bin Laden "hated us because of our freedom and democracy.
Cheney and Bush did attempt to address bin Laden's grievance, <h3>by lessening freedom and democracy in the US:</h3>

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresid...p20010916.html
Camp David, Maryland
September 16, 2001

The Vice President appears on Meet the Press with Tim Russert

....MR. RUSSERT: Osama bin Laden released a training video, 100 minutes long, which was obtained by the Western

media this summer, and I want to show a portion of that to you and give you a chance to respond to it, and we'll

play it right now. ......What's your message this morning to Osama bin Laden?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I think he seriously misreads the American people. I think the--I mean, you have to ask

yourself, why somebody would do what he does. Why is someone so motivated? Obviously he's filled with hate for the

United States and for everything we stand for...

MR. RUSSERT: Why?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: ...freedom and democracy. ......

........MR. RUSSERT: Saddam Hussein, your old friend, his government had this to say: "The American cowboy is

rearing the fruits of crime against humanity." If we determine that Saddam Hussein is also harboring terrorists,

and there's a track record there, would we have any reluctance of going after Saddam Hussein?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No.

MR. RUSSERT: Do we have evidence that he's harboring terrorists?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: There is--in the past, there have been some activities related to terrorism by Saddam Hussein.

But at this stage, you know, the focus is over here on al-Qaida and the most recent events in New York. <b>Saddam

Hussein's bottled up, at this point</b>, but clearly, we continue to have a fairly tough policy where the Iraqis

are concerned.....

Quote:

http://aclunc.org/issues/government_...urn_home.shtml
U.S. Citizens Exiled are Allowed to Return Home

A California father and son, who are both American citizens, were finally allowed to re-enter the U.S. on Sunday

after being barred from returning when they refused to cooperate with the FBI....

...Muhammad Ismail, a naturalized U.S. citizen, and <b>his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in Lodi,

California were stuck in legal limbo in Pakistan, separated from the rest of their family, for nearly half a year.
</b>
The Ismail family's ordeal started on April 21, 2006, when Muhammad, his wife, Jaber, a teenage daughter, and

younger son boarded a plane in Islamabad, excited about returning home to Lodi. The family had moved to Pakistan in

order for Jaber to study the Quran.

On a layover in Hong Kong, airport employees told the family that Muhammad and Jaber could not continue on to the

U.S. The family was told that there was “no record” of Muhammad and Jaber Ismail in the U.S. and that their

passports did not appear in the computer system. This was the only explanation they were given.

“I showed them my birth certificate, my school ID, but they wouldn’t listen,” said Jaber Ismail.

While the rest of the family was allowed to continue home to Lodi, father and son returned to Pakistan--a country

where neither holds citizenship. ..

....After waiting nearly two weeks for their luggage to be returned to them, Muhammad and Jaber Ismail made a second

attempt to return home. Following the embassy's advice, they booked a direct flight from Islamabad to Chicago, with

a connecting flight to San Francisco.

Upon arriving at the Islamabad airport, the Ismails were told by a Pakistani International Airline employee that

they were on the “no-fly” list and could not board the plane without clearance from the U.S. Embassy.

The Ismails returned to the embassy, where a consulate official said that he would contact them with information

about how to proceed. “I couldn’t believe this was happening to us again,” said Jaber Ismail.

Later that week, Jaber was interrogated by two FBI agents, and the source of the ban surfaced. On his passport

application, Jaber had listed his uncle, Umer Hayat, as an emergency contact. Hayat’s son, Hamid Hayat, had been

convicted in Lodi of a terrorism-related crime earlier this year.

Jaber and his father spent several weeks attempting to complete the interrogations and lie detector tests that FBI

agents said were required before they could return home. When family members advised them not to speak to the FBI

further without legal representation, the Ismails invoked their right to remain silent and sought help from the

ACLU-NC.

“In effect, they were being held hostage in Pakistan by the U.S. government and told they could not come home

unless they gave up their right to remain silent,” said ACLU of Northern California (ACLU-NC) staff attorney Julia

Harumi Mass, who filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on behalf of the Ismails in

August. ..

....On September 6, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties contacted

the ACLU-NC. The Homeland Security spokesperson said that DHS had reviewed the complaint and that “changes have

been made as appropriate,” but refused to confirm that the Ismails were free to return home or to provide any other

information.

On Sunday, October 1 the Ismails attempted, for the third time, to return home. This time they

succeeded......

Quote:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...r-powers_x.htm
Posted 12/28/2005 8:57 PM Updated 12/28/2005 9:17 PM
War-powers debate on front burner

......The disputes underscore an old power struggle between the presidency and Congress. <b>Sen. Russ Feingold,

D-Wis., said that if Bush "is asserting a doctrine that he can do anything to protect the American people without

the basis of law, we need to know what those things are."</b>

Some conservatives question Bush's decision to forgo court warrants in conducting the NSA surveillance. Bruce Fein,

who worked in the Justice Department under President Reagan, said Bush acted "with a flagrant disregard for the

separation of powers."

"Will Bush concede there are any limits to his authority to conduct the war on terror?" Fein asked.

A few Democrats are throwing around the "I word": impeachment. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., wrote to presidential

scholars, asking them about comments by Richard Nixon's lawyer John Dean that <b>Bush is "the first president to

admit to an impeachable offense."</b>.......

Bush took a record amount of vacation time, and each August, Cheney was on vacation at the same time Bush was.:

Quote:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...03&postcount=9

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2676-2004Apr10&notFound=true">(Bush

Gave No Sign of Worry In August 2001 By Dana Milbank and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, April 11,

2004)</a>

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...080201703.html
Vacationing Bush Poised to Set a Record
With Long Sojourn at Ranch, President on His Way to Surpassing Reagan's Total

By Jim VandeHei and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 3, 2005; Page A04

WACO, Tex., Aug. 2 -- President Bush is getting the kind of break most Americans can only dream of -- nearly five

weeks away from the office, loaded with vacation time.

The president departed Tuesday for his longest stretch yet away from the White House, arriving at his Crawford

ranch in the evening to clear brush, visit with family and friends, and tend to some outside-the-Beltway politics.

By historical standards, it is the longest presidential retreat in at least 36 years.

The August getaway is Bush's 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and Tuesday was the 319th day

that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford -- roughly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according

to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president's travel than the White

House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents' compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the

proportion of Bush's time away from Washington even further....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...123001326.html
Bush Conscripts Aides in Tireless Pursuit of Clearing Ground
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 31, 2005; Page A03

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 30 -- <b>On most of the 365 days he has enjoyed at his secluded ranch here,</b> President

Bush's idea of paradise is to hop in his white Ford pickup truck in jeans and work boots, drive to a stand of

cedars, and whack the trees to the ground
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000553.html">The president rarely

travels domestically on the weekend and almost never spends the night in a city within easy flying time of

Washington.</a>

Just as he was "working from Wyoming, last year, when Bush was playing guitar and delivering a birthday cake to

John McCain, while Katrina was destroying New Orleans, Mr. Cheney was again on vacation, at the same time that Mr.

Bush was....this year, when the first "red alert" terror warning in post 9/11, US history was issued:

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0060810-2.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 10, 2006

Press Gaggle by Tony Snow
Aboard Air Force One
En route Green Bay, Wisconsin

9:33 A.M. CDT

.........Q When did the President first learn about this plot and the investigation into it?

MR. SNOW: Again, we're being a little careful on operational details. I think it's safe to say to what I said

before, which is he certainly has been extensively briefed over the last few days as the operation that took place

became more and more imminent.

Q Was part of that during the teleconference on Sunday?

MR. SNOW: Let's see, what day was Sunday, that was the 6th? Yes. Yes. ....

.........Q Are there details about his talk with Blair overnight, you can give? What time it occurred?

MR. SNOW: There was no overnight. That report is false, so there are no details on the fallacious report.

<h3>Q But the President, himself, approved the red alert?

MR. SNOW: Correct. It was a recommendation by the Homeland Security Council, by Secretary Chertoff and others.

Q When did he approve it?

MR. SNOW: Yesterday..........</h3>

.......Q Can I ask you about timing again -- not to keep harping on this, but yesterday when you talked about

raising the white -- you know, saying the Democrats might want to raise the white flag --

MR. SNOW: This was not done in anticipation. It was not said with the knowledge that this was coming.

<b?Q So the Vice President, when he did his incredibly rare conference call with reporters, also didn't know about

it at the time?</b>

MR. SNOW: I don't think so. You'll have to ask, but I can say from our point of view at that point we didn't.....

....."yesterday"....that would be on Aug. 9th, the day that Cheney was making a rare teleconference from his vacation

location in Jackson, Wyoming, sending the message of fear against more voting, that is anything similar to the

Connecticut "anti-war" vote agains Joe Lieberman.

<b>Read my "sig", ace, the quote about how often "we have to be right"! </b>

Quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n2359119.shtml

.....PELLEY: Instability in Iraq threatens the entire region?

BUSH: If the government falls apart and there is sectarian enclaves and violence, it'll invite Iran into the Shia neighborhoods, Sunni extremists into the Sunni neighborhoods, Kurdish separatist movements.....which will end up creating conditions that could lead to attacks here in America.

PELLEY: But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq?

BUSH: Well, our administration took care of a source of instability in Iraq. <b>Envision a world in which Saddam Hussein was rushing for a nuclear weapon to compete against Iran.</b> My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the correct decision in my judgment. We didn't find the weapons we thought we would find or the weapons everybody thought he had. <b>But he was a significant source of instability.

PELLEY: It's much more unstable now, Mr. President.</b>

If Bush's GWOT was intended to be something other than an "Op" to terrorize, and thus, control me, I'd need to see a li'l more truth from the white house, more concern and empathy for "the troops" and their families, a president who guesses correctly at least once in a while, and a lot less grandstanding photo ops and vacation time.

mixedmedia · 01-16-2007, 03:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

O.k. you were lied to. Bush tried to sugar coat the fact that we wanted to use Iraq as the global front in the war on terror. Removing Sadaam was a secondary benefit. But, wait - he actually said that, he just did not put enough emphsis on it, so you are still right you were lied to.

Also, he lied because he left some with the impression the threat was more imminent than it actually was. I think we are splitting hairs. I think it all depends on how you define imminent, as Bill would say.

I believe were lied to because certain strategists in Washington believed that removing Saddam Hussein would inspire a far different reaction from Iraqis than it did and that Iraq would shortly become a model democracy in the ME from which would flow a regional renaissance toward free and open societies which would, in effect, fight terrorism for us. Not an ignoble vision, no. Ignorant of ME history and the level of sectarian volatility? Absolutely, yes.

We were lied to because they knew that Americans would never accept such a grand and visionary adventure. "The threat" was pure smoke and mirrors. But I guess I'm still splitting hairs.

I love it, now when a president lies and someone calls him on it, they're splitting hairs.

I tend think it's very important that they lied. I think it's very important that they decided to use 9/11 to try and make America into the purveyors of an unpopular and untested worldview while Bush and Cheney and Condi and Powell did a little softshoe number in front of the curtain.

I'm probably the most forgiving liberal on this board when it comes to our epic failure. I agree that opening up the ME to democracy and the global economy will marginalize terrorism. As well as make a lot of rich folks a lot richer - that was the "added benefit" - and as a matter of fact, it was what led to one of our biggest mistakes. We pushed away the ME strategists and people in the neo-con movement who would question the efficacy of our plan and strategy in favor of the businessmen who understood it as a monumental opportunity to make money without really understanding the risks involved. As businessmen so often do. They are impatient and under the illusion of their own infallibilty until they lose. And they lost.

shakran · 01-16-2007, 06:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

I believe were lied to because certain strategists in Washington believed that removing Saddam Hussein would inspire a far different reaction from Iraqis than it did and that Iraq would shortly become a model democracy in the ME from which would flow a regional renaissance toward free and open societies which would, in effect, fight terrorism for us. Not an ignoble vision, no. Ignorant of ME history and the level of sectarian volatility? Absolutely, yes.

You're forgetting the other 2 reasons. Bush wanted to play army, and Bush wanted revenge because Saddam tried to kill his daddy.

Quote:

We were lied to because they knew that Americans would never accept such a grand and visionary adventure. "The threat" was pure smoke and mirrors.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. . .

Quote:

I tend think it's very important that they lied. I think it's very important that they decided to use 9/11 to try and make America into the purveyors of an unpopular and untested worldview while Bush and Cheney and Condi and Powell did a little softshoe number in front of the curtain.

I tend to think you're absolutely right. I also tend to think it's pathetic that the American public fell for it, considering the lies were never very good to begin with.

Quote:

I'm probably the most forgiving liberal on this board when it comes to our epic failure. I agree that opening up the ME to democracy and the global economy will marginalize terrorism. As well as make a lot of rich folks a lot richer - that was the "added benefit" - and as a matter of fact, it was what led to one of our biggest mistakes. We pushed away the ME strategists and people in the neo-con movement who would question the efficacy of our plan and strategy in favor of the businessmen who understood it as a monumental opportunity to make money without really understanding the risks involved. As businessmen so often do. They are impatient and under the illusion of their own infallibilty until they lose. And they lost.

Very good summary, and you're right on the money. They purposely excluded anyone with any expertise on the middle east because they knew full well that someone who knew what they were talking about would tell them things they didn't want to hear, such as "it will never work."

aceventura3 · 01-16-2007, 06:36 AM

O.k. let's start fresh with two questions.

Are we at war?
Who declared war first?

mixedmedia · 01-16-2007, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

O.k. let's start fresh with two questions.

Are we at war?
Who declared war first?

We were at war with Iraq. Now we are mercenary referees in a civil war.

We declared war on Iraq.

shakran · 01-16-2007, 07:08 AM

1) yes.

2) We did.

Yes, I know, you're going to say that the terrorists declared war first, and that's true. But we chose not to pursue that war. Instead we abandoned Afghanistan (where the guy who declared war on us was hiding) and declared war on Iraq (which was not threatening us, and where NONE of the 9/11 terrorists came from)

dc_dux · 01-16-2007, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

O.k. let's start fresh with two questions.

Are we at war?
Who declared war first?

In one respect, we are starting fresh with the re-opening of the internal DoD investigation of Douglas Feith on the manipulation of pre-war intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq. Along with the release of the full Phase II Senate Intel Committee investigaton of the use of pre-war intelligence.

The DoD internal investigation focused specifically on the actions of Feith and the Office of Special Plans (OSP). As earlier as 1998 while at a neo-con think tank, Feith called for the US to remove Saddam, and when he came to the DoD as Rumsfeld's second highest deputy, he created the OSP for the purpose of creating the intelligence to justify such action:

Quote:

Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon from September 2002 to June of 2003. This now defunct intelligence gathering unit has been accused of manipulating intelligence to bolster support for the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, "This rightwing intelligence network [was] set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force." According to Feith's former deputy, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, the Office of Special Plans was "a propaganda shop" and she personally "witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."

The Dems on the Senate Armed Services Committee did release a report in 2004 detailing how Feith manpulated intelligence to show a Saddam-al Queda connection (link - pdf)

Rumsfeld and the interim DoD Inspector General successfully stalled the DoD investigation for more than two years, but Gates has assured the new chair of the Armed Servies Committee and the Intel Committee that it will proceed (we shall see).

In any case, how the war (invasion) started is only helpful for historical purposes at this point. The issue that matters is where we go from here to end the quagmire created by such an ideologically driven and ineptly managed folly.

Ace...lets start again with a question that really matters and not rehash why we got to where we are today.

Why do you think the Bush plan is better, and has a greater likelihood of success, than the Biden plan or even the Iraq Study Group recommendations, both of which put a much greater emphasis on political and diplomatic options as the best way forward?

aceventura3 · 01-16-2007, 10:54 AM

I believe we are at war.

I believe war was decared on us by Islamic extremists. I believe we have been in an undeclared war for decades in the ME. Isreal has been at war since it came into being as a country, we are hated in-part due to our support of Isreal. We are also hated because of our freedom and our culture, many Islamic leaders fear both for some reason. We are also hated because we have a presence in the ME, commercially, culturally and militarily.

Quote:

Why do you think the Bush plan is better, and has a greater likelihood of success, than the Biden plan or even the Iraq Study Group recommendations, both of which put a much greater emphasis on political and diplomatic options as the best way forward?

The Bush plan is better than the Iraq Study Group recommendation because the recommendation includes items outside of our control.

Quote:

In this report, we make a number of recommendations for actions to be taken in Iraq, the United States, and the region. Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...1206_btext.pdf

I think we have to get the situation under control before any diplomatic efforts will be effective. Also, diplomacy requires a willingness from at least two parties. Nations in the ME have historically been slow to use diplomacy to solve problems.

I don't know what the Biden plan is.

dc_dux · 01-16-2007, 11:00 AM

Quote:

The Bush plan is better than the Iraq Study Group recommendation because the recommendation includes items outside of our contro

Ace...the Bush plan is totally dependent on items outside of our control, specficially, the will and capacity of Maliki to control the sectarian militias - the SCIRI Badr Brigade and al Sadr and his 50,000+ thuggish militia, the Mahdi Army, that has as much support among Shias as does the fragile government.

From the NY TImes yesterday:

Quote:

Just days after President Bush unveiled a new war plan calling for more than 20,000 additional American troops in Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials.

American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad. With the first American and Iraqi units dedicated to the plan due to be in place within weeks, time is short for setting details of what American officers view as the decisive battle of the war.

But the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems — ranging from a contested chain of command to how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts — that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”
...
Compounding American doubts about the government’s willingness to go after Shiite extremists has been a behind-the-scenes struggle over the appointment of the Iraqi officer to fill the key post of operational commander for the Baghdad operation. In face of strong American skepticism, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has selected an officer from the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq who was virtually unknown to the Americans, and whose hard-edged demands for Iraqi primacy (of command) in the effort has deepened American anxieties.
...
For the Americans, accustomed to clear operational control, the partnership concept is troublesome — full of potential, some officers fear, for dispute with the Iraqis over tough issues like applying an equal hand against Shiite and Sunni gunmen.

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/wo...in&oref=slogin

And here is the Biden plan again: http://www.planforiraq.com/

aceventura3 · 01-16-2007, 11:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

Ace...the Bush plan is totally dependent on items outside of our control, specficially, the will and capacity of Maliki to control al Sadr and his 50,000+ thuggish militia, the Badr Brigrade that has as much support among Shias as does the fragile government.

I guess the amout of control we have in Bush plan depends on one's perspective. I put my focus on our military being freed to do what an army is designed to do. I again say - we have to get the situation under control. After that, then I think Maliki will be tested. If he fails he will be removed from power, one way or another.

I read the five point Biden plan. It may be the long-term or mid-term solution. I think in the short-term there has to be a strong show of force.

Quote:

Sectarian violence among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds is now the major impediment to stability and progress in Iraq. No number of troops can solve that problem. The only way to hold Iraq together and create the conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw is to give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully. That requires a sustainable political settlement, which is the primary objective of our plan.

The plan would maintain a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their own regions - as provided for in the Iraqi constitution. The central government would be responsible for common interests, like border security and the distribution of oil revenues. We would secure support from the Sunnis - who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share (about 20 percent) of oil revenues. We would increase economic aid, ask the oil-rich Arab Gulf states to fund it and tie all assistance to the protection of minority rights and the creation of a jobs program. We would convene a regional conference to enlist the support of Iraq's neighbors and create a Contact Group of the major powers to enforce their commitments. And we would ask our military to draw up plans to responsibly withdraw most U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2007 - enough time for the political settlement to take hold.

I am not sure how Biden determined which incentives to include or exclude, but it seems to me that Shiites, Sunnis, and the Kurds need to determine what they would accept. The question is how do you get them to sit down and talk. My answer is - A show of force to put an end the the chaos. We won't stop all violence, but we can not expect any long-term solutions when the parties are in the current circumstances.

host · 01-17-2007, 04:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mojo_PeiPei

Actually Will Saddam had well documented ties to Palestinian terror groups and Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda who operate out of Kurdistan. As for the weapons issue, there have been weapons found, there have been precursors found, there has been evidence found atesting to programs being in place, just because we didn't a million gallons of Anthrax doesn't mean there weren't weapons found......

Apologies in advance for such a loooonnnnng detailed post, but the quote above of your opinion, indicates that you aren't yet grokking the details..so..

Mojo, please consider that there is overwhelming support for my contention that <b>there is nearly a 100 percent probability that you are wrong</b> about Saddam's "well documented ties" to "Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda", and about the WMD and WMD programs assertions of Bush, Cheney, and yourself:

Quote:

http://archive.salon.com/politics/wa...awi/index.html
<b>"Taking out Zarqawi"</b>

When Gwen Ifill first asked Dick Cheney about the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20041011051926/http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6422548">new CIA report</a> delivered to the White House last week that said
there was "no conclusive evidence" that the Saddam Hussein regime had harbored Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- he dodged the question. But Ifill later returned to the topic, and <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/debatereferee/debate_1005.html">Cheney had this to say:</a>

"But let's look at what we know about Mr. Zarqawi. We know he was running a terrorist camp, training terrorists in Afghanistan prior to 9/11. We know that when we went into Afghanistan that he then migrated to Baghdad. He set up shop in Baghdad, where he oversaw the poisons facility up at Kermal (ph), where the terrorists were developing ricin and other deadly substances to use."

"We know he's still in Baghdad today. He is responsible for most of the major car bombings that have killed or maimed thousands of people. He's the one you will see on the evening news beheading hostages. He is, without question, a bad guy. He is, without question, a terrorist.

He was, in fact, in Baghdad before the war, and he's in Baghdad now after the war."

"The fact of the matter is that this is exactly the kind of track record we've seen over the years. We have to deal with Zarqawi by taking him out, and that's exactly what we'll do."

But what Cheney didn't mention is that the administration had <a href="http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/archive.html?day=20040304">several chances to "take out" Zarqawi</a> in the run-up to the Iraq war, but chose not to.

Quote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5329350.stm

Last Updated: Saturday, 9 September 2006, 00:04 GMT 01:04 UK

Iraq war justifications laid bare
By Adam Brookes
BBC News, Washington

The Senate Intelligence Committee has found no evidence of links between the regime of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

In a report issued on Friday, it also found that was little or no evidence to support a raft f claims made by the US intelligence community concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The 400-page report was three years in the making, and is probably the definitive public account of the intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq.One starting point is this:

In a poll conducted this month by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN, a sample of American adults was asked: "Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 11 September terrorist attacks, or not?"

Forty-three percent of those polled answered yes, they believed Saddam was personally involved.

Even though it is well-established that Saddam Hussein was no ally of al-Qaeda, nor did he possess weapons of mass destruction, the original justifications for the invasion for Iraq inger on, often in ways that have strangely mutated on their journey through politics and media.

<h3>Cheney claims 'untrue'</h3>

In fact, the intelligence agencies had been extremely cautious in suggesting links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.

It was Vice-President Dick Cheney who asserted most strongly in public that Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda had an operational relationship.

<b>In a television interview in September 2003, he said there was "a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s... al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained... the Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organisation."

It was "clearly official policy" on the part of Iraq, he said.</b>

Friday's report, issued by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, provides another definitive statement <b>that that assertion is simply not true.</b>

It says that debriefings conducted since the invasion of Iraq "indicate that Saddam issued a general order that Iraq should not deal with al-Qaeda. No post-war information suggests that the Iraqi regime attempted to facilitate a relationship with [Osama] Bin Laden.

<b>"Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda... refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support."</b>

Administration confusion

The report supports the intelligence community's finding that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - the man who was al-Qaeda's chief operative in Iraq between the invasion and his death in June this year - was indeed in Baghdad in 2002.

Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support.

Was this an Iraqi link to al-Qaeda?

<h3>No, says the report. Far from harbouring him, Saddam's regime was trying to find and capture him.</h3>

But the Bush administration has a way, still, of confusing this issue.

<b>As recently as 21 August this year, President Bush said that Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi".</b>

Quote:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=1
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 21, 2006

Press Conference by the President
White House Conference Center Briefing Room

....Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi.
<b>Highlighted in blue, near bottom of the page.....</b>
Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

Now, look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. <b>It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. ......</b>

The Senate report is scathing of the intelligence community's product concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"Post-war findings", it reads, "do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate judgement that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."

Nor do "post-war findings" support the 2002 NIE's assertions that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons.

Political fallout

It remains to be seen if the Democrats can use the Senate report to damage the Republican Party in the run-up to Congressional elections in November by reminding the American public of the intelligence debacle that preceded the invasion of Iraq, and ascribing that failure to the leadership of the Bush administration.

It is far from clear they'll be able to do so.The president has been extremely active in the last week, selling his successes in the "war on
terror" in a series of speeches; demanding Congress give him greater powers to fight it; and announcing that the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will be brought to trial.

The Democratic Party still seems unable to find a concerted critique of President Bush's handling of the "war on terrorism" and the conflict in Iraq, without themselves appearing defeatist.

<h3>During his Aug. 21 ,2006 press conference, Bush falsely said that Saddam "had relations with Zarqawi, and Bush directly contradicted the Duelfer report's finding that Iraq had no plan or capacity to make WMD at the time of the March 2003 US invasion. Cheney, however....chose to tell identical lies on Sept. 10, the day after the BBC article, as well as numerous other reports, made clear that there were no "ties" found between Saddam and Zarqawi / Ansar Al-Islam !</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.

......Q The bottom line is the rationale given to the American people was that Saddam had

weapons of mass destruction, and he could give those weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda,

and we could have another September 11th. And now we read that there is no evidence according

to Senate intelligence committee of that relationship. You said there's no involvement. The

President says there's no involvement --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, no involvement in what respect?

Q In September 11th, okay? And the CIA said leading up to the war that the possibility of

Saddam using weapons of mass destruction was "low." It appears that there was a deliberate

attempt made by the administration to link al Qaeda in Iraq in the minds of the American

people and use it as a rationale to go into Iraq.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Tim, I guess -- I'm not sure what part you don't understand here. In 1990,

the State Department designated Iraq as a state sponsor of terror. Abu Nidal, famous

terrorist, had sanctuary in Baghdad for years. Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took

Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons

facility run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda. You had the fact that Saddam

Hussein, for example, provided payments to the families of suicide bombers of $25,000 on a

regular basis. This was a state sponsor of terror. He had a relationship with terror groups.

No question about it. Nobody denies that.

The evidence we also had at the time was that he had a relationship with al Qaeda. And that

was George Tenet's testimony, the Director of CIA, in front of the Senate intelligence

committee. We also had knowledge of the fact that he had produced and used weapons of mass

destruction. And we know, as well, that while he did not have any production under way at the

time, that he clearly retained the capability. And the expectation from the experts was as

soon as the sanctions were lifted, he'd be back in business again. Now, this was the place

where probably there was a greater prospect of a connection between terrorists on the one hand

and a terror-sponsoring state and weapons of mass destruction than anyplace else. .......

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Oct6.html
U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons
Report on Iraq Contradicts Bush Administration Claims

By Dana Priest and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 7, 2004; Page A01

...Charles A. Duelfer, whom the Bush administration chose to complete the U.S. investigation

of Iraq's weapons programs, said Hussein's ability to produce nuclear weapons had

"progressively decayed" since 1991. Inspectors, he said, found no evidence of "concerted

efforts to restart the program."

The findings were similar on biological and chemical weapons. While Hussein had long dreamed

of developing an arsenal of biological agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research

stopped years before the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Duelfer said

Hussein hoped someday to resume a chemical weapons effort after U.N. sanctions ended, but had

no stocks and had not researched making the weapons for a dozen years.

Duelfer's report, delivered yesterday to two congressional committees, represents the

government's most definitive accounting of Hussein's weapons programs, the assumed strength of

which the Bush administration presented as a central reason for the war. While previous

reports have drawn similar conclusions, Duelfer's assessment went beyond them in depth, detail

and level of certainty.

"We were almost all wrong" on Iraq, Duelfer told a Senate panel yesterday.

President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials asserted before

the U.S. invasion that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, had chemical and

biological weapons and maintained links to al Qaeda affiliates to whom it might give such

weapons to use against the United States.

But after extensive interviews with Hussein and his key lieutenants, Duelfer concluded that

Hussein was not motivated by a desire to strike the United States with banned weapons, but

wanted them to enhance his image in the Middle East and to deter Iran, against which Iraq had

fought a devastating eight-year war. Hussein believed that "WMD helped save the regime

multiple times," the report said......

....Hussein, the report concluded, "aspired to develop a nuclear capability" and intended to

work on rebuilding chemical and biological weapons after persuading the United Nations to lift

sanctions. But the report also notes: "The former regime had no formal written strategy or

plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD

policy makers or planners separate from Saddam" tasked to take this up once sanctions

ended......

<b>Mojo, the following is an excerpt from my Sept. 16, 2006 post, refuting your assertion about Saddam's "ties":</b>
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=47

As stated inside the following quote box, there is a link to an early Sept. 2006 post that contains 16 links to articles that support the "notion" that Saddam's regime had no ties with Cheney's "poison camp", and some evidence that the US knew about the "camp" and deliberately allowed it to continue to operate:

Quote:

..In a post earlier this week, here:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...24&postcount=3
I offered at least 16 news reports, many with links, that contradicted VP Cheney's comments, last sunday, to Tim Russert, on national TV, with regard to Cheney's "answer", that invasion of Iraq was justified, because

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea.../20060910.html
.....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......
.......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......

.........<b>Zarqawi was in Baghdad after we took Afghanistan and before we went into Iraq. You had the facility up at Kermal, a poisons facility</b> run by an Ansar al-Islam, an affiliate of al Qaeda......

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0030205-1.html
<img src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/images/iraq_header_final.gif">
For Immediate Release
February 5, 2003

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Addresses the U.N. Security Council
..... But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated in collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialities and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqaqi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.
Colin Powell slide 39
<img src="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/powell-slides/images/39-350h.jpg">
Slide 39

POWELL: You see a picture of this camp. ....

..... Zarqawi's activities are not confined to this small corner of north east Iraq. He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day.

During this stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base of operations there. These Al Qaida affiliates, based in Baghdad, now coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital for more than eight months.......

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/in...st/06ANSA.html
C. J. Chivers

Dateline: ERBIL, Iraq, Feb. 5
Threats and Responses: Northern Iraq
Section: A
Publication title: New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Feb 6, 2003. pg. A.22

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's assertion today that Islamic extremists were operating a poisons training camp and factory in northern Iraq appeared to surprise Kurdish officials, who greeted the claim with a mix of satisfaction and confusion.

The officials were pleased to hear an American effort to discredit their Islamist enemies, and to sense momentum toward war to unseat Saddam Hussein. But some also wondered if the intelligence Mr. Powell presented to the United Nations Security Council was imprecise.

As part of his presentation to the Security Council, Mr. Powell said a terrorist network run by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an operative of Al Qaeda, had ''helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.''

As he spoke, a monitor displayed a photograph with the caption: ''Terrorist Poison and Explosives Factory, Khurmal.''

The network that Mr. Powell referred to appeared to be Ansar al-Islam, an extremist group controlling a small area of northern Iraq. Ansar has been accused of dispatching assassins and suicide bombers, of harboring Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan and of training several hundred local fighters.

The secular Kurdish government has been battling the group since 2001, and, since December, there have been indications that Mr. Zarqawi may have spent time in Ansar's territory last year.

But no Western officials had gone as far with claims of Ansar's danger as Mr. Powell did when he showed a photograph of the Khurmal factory. Mr. Powell also said that Baghdad has a senior official in the ''most senior levels'' of Ansar, a claim apparently intended to build a case that Baghdad is collaborating with Al Qaeda and, by extension, in a chemical factory.

Some here quickly seconded Mr. Powell's opinion. ''We have some information about this lab from agents and from prisoners,'' Kamal Fuad, the Parliament speaker, said.

But Mr. Powell's assertion also produced confusion tonight. One senior Kurdish official, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who is familiar with the intelligence on Ansar, said he had not heard of the laboratory Mr. Powell displayed.

''I don't know anything about this compound,'' he said.

Kurds also questioned whether Mr. Powell was mistaken, or had mislabeled the photograph. Khurmal, the village named on the photo, is controlled not by Ansar al-Islam but by Komala Islami Kurdistan, a more moderate Islamic group.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which is allied with Washington and has been hosting an American intelligence team in northern Iraq for several months, maintains relations with Komala. It has been paying $200,000 to $300,000 in aid to the party each month, in an effort to lure Komala's leaders away from Ansar.

So Mr. Powell's photograph raised a question: Is the laboratory in Komala's area, meaning the Kurdish opposition might have inadvertently helped pay for it, or has the United States made a mistake?

''My sources say it is in Beyara,'' one Kurdish official said. ''Not in Khurmal.'' Ansar has a headquarters in Beyara, a village several miles from Khurmal.

Abu Bari Syan, an administrator for Komal Islami Kurdistan, the party that controls Khurmal, took an even stronger stand about Mr. Powell's claim. ''All of it is not true,'' he said.

Quote:

http://www.rcfp.org/behindthehomefro...20030210a.html
Associated Press Newswires
Copyright 2003. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Saturday, February 8, 2003

Islamic militants show press the camp Powell called poison site
By BORZOU DARAGAHI
Associated Press Writer

SARGAT, Iraq (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the
camp in northern Iraq a terrorist poison and explosives training center,
a deadly link in a "sinister nexus" binding Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

But journalists who visited the site depicted in Powell's satellite
photo found a half-built cinderblock compound filled with heavily armed
Kurdish men, video equipment and children - but no obvious sign of
chemical weapons manufacturing.

"You can search as you like," said Mohammad Hassan, a spokesman for
the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam, which controls the camp and
the surrounding village. "There are no chemical weapons here."

Ansar al-Islam, believed to have ties to al-Qaida, says the camp
serves as its administrative office for Sargat village, living quarters
and a propaganda video studio.....

........During his appearance before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday,
Powell displayed a satellite photo of this camp, which was identified as
"Terrorist Poison and Explosive Factory, Khurmal."

Powell said the camp was run by al-Qaida fugitives from Afghanistan
who were under the protection of Ansar al-Islam here in the autonomous
Kurdish area of Iraq in a region beyond Saddam Hussein's control.

But Powell maintained that a senior member of Ansar al-Islam was a
Saddam agent, implying a tenuous link between Baghdad and the terrorists
who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

Western journalists were brought to this camp, with its distinctive
polygon-shaped fencing and nearby hills, by the Islamic Group of
Kurdistan, a moderate Muslim organization which maintains good relations
with Ansar al-Islam.

The compound, accessible by a long dirt road, is in a village of
several hundred people at the base of the massive Zagros mountains
separating Iraq from Iran.

Security appeared lax at the compound, whose jagged barbed-wire
perimeter matched a satellite photograph Powell displayed in his
Security Council presentation.

As evidence that the camp serves as a housing area, child-sized
plastic slippers could be seen in the doorways. A refrigerator had been
turned into a closet and filled with colorful women's clothes. The most
sophisticated equipment seen at the site was the video gear and
makeshift television studio Ansar says it uses to make its propaganda
films.

Ansar officials speculated that Powell was misled in his accusations
of a poison factory by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two
parties governing the autonomous northern Kurdish section of Iraq. Ansar
has been at war for two years with the PUK.

"Everything Powell said about us is untrue," said a man calling
himself Ayoub Hawleri. Other Kurds referred to him as Ayoub Afghani, who
manufactures explosives for suicide bombers.

"He was just repeating the PUK's lies," Ayoub said.

The Patriotic Union said Powell's allegations about the poison
laboratory were correct and it was in the Sargat compound in an area
accessible only to those who had come from Afghanistan and had "ties to
al-Qaida." A PUK spokeswoman said Saturday that Ansar could have moved
the facility before the journalists got there.

Though Ansar officials allowed the journalists access to the site,
they did not permit reporters to talk to anyone except two designated
Ansar officials.

Hawleri said he was shocked and surprised after watching Powell's
speech, which said Ansar harbored Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, a suspected
al-Qaida operative and alleged assassin of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley
in Jordan last year.

"The first time I even heard of al-Zarqawi was on television," he
said.

The name on the photo Powell showed to the world was Khurmal, a
nearby town that is under the control of Islamic Group of Kurdistan.

Islamic Group denies there is such a camp at Khurmal and believes
Powell's satellite photo evidence misidentified the site's location.

An official at the equivalent of the local social security office
said the Sargat compound is in the district of Biyare, near the town of
Biyare where Ansar has its headquarters.

Before taking journalists to Sargat, Islamic Group took them to
Khurmal to show them the camp was not there.

Group official Fazel Qaradari said he welcomed the large contingent
of Western media to "see for themselves" that there is no such factory
in Khurmal.....

Quote:

http://web.archive.org/web/200306040...alsealarm.html

False Alarm?
Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information

By Brian Ross and Jill Rackmill
ABCNEWS.com

Feb. 13 [2003]— A key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to two senior law enforcement officials in Washington and New York.

.......It was only after the threat level was elevated to orange — meaning high — last week, that the informant was subjected to a polygraph test by the FBI, officials told ABCNEWS.

"This person did not pass," said Cannistraro.

According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was "not familiar with the scenario," but did not think it was accurate.

Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted. .........

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by host

Mojo, please consider that there is overwhelming support for my contention that <b>there is nearly a 100 percent probability that you are wrong</b> about Saddam's "well documented ties" to "Ansar Al-Islam a group with ties to Al Qaeda", and about the WMD and WMD programs assertions of Bush, Cheney, and yourself:

I think this issue is being made more complicated than it needs to be. To me - I look at the fundemental questions - because we may never know all of the facts.

Did Sadaam, Ansar Al-Islam and Al Qaeda have a common enemy?

Was their focus on that enemy greater than their focus on any of their other enemies?

If given the opportunity would they have cooperated against their common enemy?

If you are in battle with one do you have to watch your "6" ("3" and "9") against the others?

So depending on how one answers those questions, second guessing after the fact is pointless. Or, we can simply say you were lied to, when you were not lied to, but that would be a lie too, wouldn't it?

But I am sure you would answer those questions honestly, and if you did - you would see a connection. No, no, no, you say - because we can not prove they had lunch together, or sent each other birthday cards. Now I am getting all confused - how do you define "ties" in this context? Would it be like - them holding hands walking in the park? Text messaging each other on their cell phones? Drawing pictures in their note books of each other with little hearts? Please help clarify.

mixedmedia · 01-17-2007, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I think this issue is being made more complicated than it needs to be. To me - I look at the fundemental questions - because we may never know all of the facts.

Did Sadaam, Ansar Al-Islam and Al Qaeda have a common enemy?

Was their focus on that enemy greater than their focus on any of their other enemies?

If given the opportunity would they have cooperated against their common enemy?

If you are in battle with one do you have to watch your "6" ("3" and "9") against the others?

So depending on how one answers those questions, second guessing after the fact is pointless. Or, we can simply say you were lied to, when you were not lied to, but that would be a lie too, wouldn't it?

But I am sure you would answer those questions honestly, and if you did - you would see a connection. No, no, no, you say - because we can not prove they had lunch together, or sent each other birthday cards. Now I am getting all confused - how do you define "ties" in this context? Would it be like - them holding hands walking in the park? Text messaging each other on their cell phones? Drawing pictures in their note books of each other with little hearts? Please help clarify.

The answer to any or all of those questions is hardly a reason to attack a country unprovoked causing the deaths of over a hundred thousand people and unleashing a brutal civil war on their streets.

Being made more complicated than it seems. How can you even bring yourself to type something like that? This is exactly the sort of sentiment that gives Americans the reputation of being obtuse.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

The answer to any or all of those questions is hardly a reason to attack a country unprovoked causing the deaths of over a hundred thousand people and unleashing a brutal civil war on their streets.

Let's be fair. In previous posts I gave the reasons why I support the war in Iraq. This is a different question. The US military is not responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dead. Today the UN released a report saying the Iraqi death toll was about 34,000 in 2006, the headline in my local paper blamed Bush's invasion. I was shocked. Terrorists make a choice to kill women, children, elderly, red cross workers, and other non-military personnel - but we get blamed like we are forcing people to kill their fellow country men and women.

Quote:

Being made more complicated than it seems. How can you even bring yourself to type something like that? This is exactly the sort of sentiment that gives Americans the reputation of being obtuse.

It is not difficult. When people say they want to kill me, my family, friends - simply because of our national origin - it is pretty simple and I take it serious. Don't you?

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

It is not difficult. When people say they want to kill me, my family, friends - simply because of our national origin - it is pretty simple and I take it serious. Don't you?

"When PEOPLE say they want to kill me.." What people? You think farmers in Iraq really want to kill you and your family? They don't give a crap about you just like you don't give a crap about them. They hate our government, not our people. You haven't dropped thusands of bombs on them. You didn't invade them. You aren't arresting people and holding them without trial. You're just supposrting the people that do that.

mixedmedia · 01-17-2007, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Let's be fair. In previous posts I gave the reasons why I support the war in Iraq. This is a different question. The US military is not responsible for hundreds of thousands of people dead. Today the UN released a report saying the Iraqi death toll was about 34,000 in 2006, the headline in my local paper blamed Bush's invasion. I was shocked. Terrorists make a choice to kill women, children, elderly, red cross workers, and other non-military personnel - but we get blamed like we are forcing people to kill their fellow country men and women.

We are to blame for invading and crippling the social structure that kept this violence at bay. It is our war, our responsibility and we are to blame.

Quote:

It is not difficult. When people say they want to kill me, my family, friends - simply because of our national origin - it is pretty simple and I take it serious. Don't you?

Who in Iraq vowed to kill you, your family and friends?

Flimsy rhetoric finds no purchase here. Sorry. Save it for the water cooler.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 08:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

We are to blame for invading and crippling the social structure that kept this violence at bay. It is our war, our responsibility and we are to blame.

After Sadaam was removed from power, two options existed for the Iraqi people. They could have accepted his removal, came togeter, institue a new government, and move forward peacfully. We would have "redeployed". Or, they could respond the way they have. I understand that most Iraqi people are good, honest, hard working people who want the same for their families as I want for mine, but the other element has been the cause of the violence and the current state of affairs. We need to do our job to get the mess under control, hence more troops.

Quote:

Who in Iraq vowed to kill you, your family and friends?

Flimsy rhetoric finds no purchase here. Sorry. Save it for the water cooler.

I could give a long list of terrorists attacks against Americans, and acts and statements made by Sadaam. But I don't think it would help. Somehow I think many believe it was all our fault anyway.

I am close friends with a lady who lived in Isreal when Sadaam was lobbing missles into Isreal, her mother still lives in Isreal. That was and is a big threat to someone I care about. That is not flimsy rhetoric to me.

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I could give a long list of terrorists attacks against Americans, and acts and statements made by Sadaam. But I don't think it would help. Somehow I think many believe it was all our fault anyway.

Do you know why it would help? Those terrorists that attacked the US had nothing to do with Saddam, and Saddam made statements about several countries without ever attacking them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

I am close friends with a lady who lived in Isreal when Sadaam was lobbing missles into Isreal, her mother still lives in Isreal. That was and is a big threat to someone I care about. That is not flimsy rhetoric to me.

OH, you're Israeli. Yes, if you live in Israel, Saddam was a threat to you 15 years ago.

Of course it's not 1991, and you don't live in Israel. Oops.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

"When PEOPLE say they want to kill me.." What people? You think farmers in Iraq really want to kill you and your family? They don't give a crap about you just like you don't give a crap about them. They hate our government, not our people. You haven't dropped thusands of bombs on them. You didn't invade them. You aren't arresting people and holding them without trial. You're just supposrting the people that do that.

Bush attempted to make it clear that we were not attacking the Iraqi people. We attack Sadaam and his military to remove him from power. We are at fault for making the country of Iraq the global front in the war on terrorist, but the terrorist didn't have to respond the way they have.

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Bush attempted to make it clear that we were not attacking the Iraqi people. We attack Sadaam and his military to remove him from power. We are at fault for making the country of Iraq the global front in the war on terrorist, but the terrorist didn't have to respond the way they have.

If you slap a bear in the face, the bear has a choice: go back to sleep, or rip your arms off and eat your head.

The thing is, we have been bombing Iraqi civilians for a long time, and Clinton was absolutely wrong to do it, and Bush was absolutely wrong to do it. The embargos killed millions (?) of Iraqis that had nothing to do with Saddam's policies. As I've said time and again: Saddam was no threat to the US coming up to and as the US invaded in 2003. There was no real reason to invade them. It would have been much better to allow Iraq to have a civil war that removed Saddam from power, while carefully monitoring the situation (and providing the resistence secretly with intel on Saddam). We would have experienced 0 casualties, we could have concentrated our military and intelligence services on actually fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I have no doubt we would have already found Osama and been able to put him on trial. Instead of a world that resents us for invading a country that was no threat to us, the world would cheer as a major battle against radical militants was won.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Do you know why it would help? Those terrorists that attacked the US had nothing to do with Saddam, and Saddam made statements about several countries without ever attacking them.

How many people was Sadaam responsible for killing?

Quote:

OH, you're Israeli.

No, I am not.

Quote:

Yes, if you live in Israel, Saddam was a threat to you 15 years ago.

O.k. so you don't think sadaam was a threat. And he was made powerless. And he had no plans to harm anyone. And he only talked about harming others but would never act on his threats. Is that your position?

Quote:

Of course it's not 1991, and you don't live in Israel. Oops.

True.

Moskie · 01-17-2007, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

After Sadaam was removed from power, two options existed for the Iraqi people. They could have accepted his removal, came togeter, institue a new government, and move forward peacfully. We would have "redeployed". Or, they could respond the way they have.

I think that's unfair... "Choosing" between forming a peaceful government and rebellion isn't a simple choice, like picking what you're going to wear for the day. Obviously, tons a factors exist that affect the reaction of the Iraqi people, and the designers of this invasion seriously misjudged it. It's not like the decision was made on a whim, or by a flip of a coin.

Yes, I believe the people behind the insurgency are misguided (i'm don't want to call them all "bad"....). But our invasion paved the road for them. The US can't completely wash its hands of that fact, and place blame soley on the Iraqi people.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

If you slap a bear in the face, the bear has a choice: go back to sleep, or rip your arms off and eat your head.

Good. a green light for analogies.

Quote:

The thing is, we have been bombing Iraqi civilians for a long time, and Clinton was absolutely wrong to do it, and Bush was absolutely wrong to do it. The embargos killed millions (?) of Iraqis that had nothing to do with Saddam's policies. As I've said time and again: Saddam was no threat to the US coming up to and as the US invaded in 2003. There was no real reason to invade them. It would have been much better to allow Iraq to have a civil war that removed Saddam from power, while carefully monitoring the situation (and providing the resistence secretly with intel on Saddam). We would have experienced 0 casualties, we could have concentrated our military and intelligence services on actually fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I have no doubt we would have already found Osama and been able to put him on trial. Instead of a world that resents us for invading a country that was no threat to us, the world would cheer as a major battle against radical militants was won.

If you are the leader of a pack and you let a member of your pack get away with defiant behavior (the way Sadaam was acting against UN resolution after UN resolution) the order of the pack will eventually be destroyed. We had an obligation to act against Sadaam, it is a responsibility the comes with being the lead nation in the world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moskie

I think that's unfair... "Choosing" between forming a peaceful government and rebellion isn't a simple choice, like picking what you're going to wear for the day. Obviously, tons a factors exist that affect the reaction of the Iraqi people, and the designers of this invasion seriously misjudged it. It's not like the decision was made on a whim, or by a flip of a coin.

Yes, I believe the people behind the insurgency are misguided (i'm don't want to call them all "bad"....). But our invasion paved the road for them. The US can't completely wash its hands of that fact, and place blame soley on the Iraqi people.

You sound like the people on my local school board. People know right from wrong. They either choose to do what is right or they don't. Killing women, children, elderly, etc, etc is a strategic choice they made and is wrong. They target non-military personnel to break the will of the people.

And if you read what I wrote, I agree we need to clean the mess up. We need to send in more troops, and have a show of strength and power. We need to give the good people in Iraq an opportunity to succeed.

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 09:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

If you are the leader of a pack and you let a member of your pack get away with defiant behavior (the way Sadaam was acting against UN resolution after UN resolution) the order of the pack will eventually be destroyed. We had an obligation to act against Sadaam, it is a responsibility the comes with being the lead nation in the world.

The US isn't the UN. The US tried to get the UN to take more substantial action, and the UN said it was not warranted, yet. The US has no jurisdiction over Iraq unless they attack us or pose some realistic threat to us.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

The US isn't the UN. The US tried to get the UN to take more substantial action, and the UN said it was not warranted, yet. The US has no jurisdiction over Iraq unless they attack us or pose some realistic threat to us.

The US is the top dog. We can accept that responsibility or pass the responsibility on to another country. I want to keep our top dog status, don't you?

And before I get all the comments about being an arrogant American, I already know it. And I don't care who doesn't like it, just don't make threats against me and mine. SEMPER FI

dc_dux · 01-17-2007, 10:30 AM

Quote:

I am close friends with a lady who lived in Isreal when Sadaam was lobbing missles into Isreal, her mother still lives in Isreal. That was and is a big threat to someone I care about. That is not flimsy rhetoric to me.

The woman I live with is Israeli. I just read this to her and she was amazed at the naivete and ignorance (her words) of some Americans.

Iraq hasnt been a serious threat to Israel since they bombed the Iraqi nuclear facilities in the early 80s. The scud missles of the first gulf war were hardly considered a threat. Saddam's payment of money to suicide bombers was also tragic, but not a serious security threat to Israel. The Israelis have recognized for years that Saddam had neither the capacity nor the ideological interest to instigate anything beyond those limited symbolic actions because he knew it would result in a deadly reprisal.

The real threat to Israel is the instability in Iraq and the growing influence of Iran, all brought about by our invasion of Iraq.

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

The US is the top dog. We can accept that responsibility or pass the responsibility on to another country. I want to keep our top dog status, don't you?

Top Dog? At what?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

And before I get all the comments about being an arrogant American, I already know it. And I don't care who doesn't like it, just don't make threats against me and mine. SEMPER FI

Another military officer who thinks it's okay to kill anyone as long as you're ordered top do it, eh?

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 11:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willravel

Top Dog? At what?

"THE" Top Dog, not "A" top dog.

Quote:

Another military officer who thinks it's okay to kill anyone as long as you're ordered top do it, eh?

No. Take another guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

The woman I live with is Israeli. I just read this to her and she was amazed at the naivete and ignorance (her words) of some Americans.

I don't know if you read her my position in context or just choose to pick that quote out of the blue. If she has an opinion encourage her to share them. I know there are many Israeli people against our military action in Iraq, my Isrraeli friend is against our military action in Iraq also.

Quote:

Iraq hasnt been a serious threat to Israel since they bombed the Iraqi nuclear facilities in the early 80s. The scud missles of the first gulf war were hardly considered a threat. Saddam's payment of money to suicide bombers was also tragic, but not a serious security threat to Israel. The Israelis have recognized for years that Saddam had neither the capacity nor the ideological interest to instigate anything beyond those limited symbolic actions because he knew it would result in a deadly reprisal.

O.k. you didn't think Sadaam was a threat. I did. What's next.

You say the missles fired at Isreal were not considered a threat. I did, on two levels. The first is obvious. The second had to do with his unsuccesful attempt to get Ireal involved in the war offensively. If he had suceeded what do you and your friend think would have happened? Didn't that plan put Isreal at risk? What makes you and your friend think his goals changed? What was he doing with the billions he was getting through the Oil for Food scandal?
I stand by my position - Sadaam needed to be removed from power, and it should have happend during the first Gulf War.

Quote:

The real threat to Israel is the instability in Iraq and the growing influence of Iran, all brought about by our invasion of Iraq.

I say this for the last time. Iraq is in chaos. We are in-part to blame. We need to fix it. Sending in additional troops with a show of force is needed to get the situation under control. When the situation is under control, it will be up to the Iraqi people to determine their futures.

On a side note. I am amazed by the number of people who would ignore direct verbal threats. I guess I was raised on the "wrong side of the tracks", when people make direct verbal threats, I always assume they intend to act on the threat.

roachboy · 01-17-2007, 12:46 PM

ace: much of what you are saying relies on a TON of assumptions, most of which square with standard-issue neoconservative arguments about the war in iraq. the premise is, as you have stated, that the united states is "top dog"--by which i assume you mean that the us is the dominant military power in the world on paper at least. in technological terms, maybe, insofar as what counts is expensive shiny deadly toys. from this premise follows thatthe americans need to figure out a way to act on the world, only being to a certain extent in the world as a function of having more shiny expensive deadly toys than anyone else. from this problem follows a rationale for the invasion of iraq: it is about the first gulf war and the neocon interpretation of that war (lunatic though it is) which assumes that the otherwise totally victorious americans were hamstrung by the evil un and so could not invade iraq in 1991 and "finish the job"---so the invasion this time has nothing to do with any of the absurd justifications floated by the bush people: it was supposed to be a huge fuck you to the international community and the moment across which the united states would assume its predestined role in the world as military hegemon.

except that the bush people screwed it up.
the gambled and they lost.
all i see in your arguments about the war up to this point is an inability to get your head around this basic reality.
then i see a refusal to even consider that a central problem with iraq may follow from this hyper-nationalist go-it-more-or-less alone attitude particular to the neocons. you treat that logic as a straightjacket and seem to think that there is no way to alter it: which means that you, like your more prominent neocon bretheren, have turned a massive defeat into a parameter for thinking, and you positions, like those of the "bush plan" follow in a straight line from that.
it seems to me that this entire line of argument is at best circular, and at worst simply nuts.
the problem--well there are a lot of them, but i have to go so i'll outline one--is that the americans are a faction within the iraqi civil war and, as others have said above, are the CAUSE of the institutional breakdown that has (arguably) generated that civil war (this from the un assessment of the situation in yesterday's ny times--not sure if i agree with it, but it is convenient)....if anything about that is true, then the only rational way out of this mess is for the americans to begin constructing frameworks internationally that would enable them to begin rolling themselves out of iraq. because there is no way--no bloody way--that the americans can do anything constructive in iraq within the present logic of the conflict. these frameworks--maybe something on the order of another congress of vienna--will not happen overnight, and so would have to operate as a strategic element. there is no such strategy in the bush plan. so the troop "surge" seems absurd: a walk down the primrose path that the americans walked down in vietnam, escalation as a device to engender de-escalation blah blah blah: all because the neocon worldview is constructed to the exclusion of any such internationalization of this debacle, and that (i think at least) because to entertain such an option would be to concede defeat on their own terms. and that it seems they cannot do. and it seems that you cannot do it either.

host · 01-17-2007, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

"THE" Top Dog, not "A" top dog.

No. Take another guess.

I don't know if you read her my position in context or just choose to pick that quote out of the blue. If she has an opinion encourage her to share them. I know there are many Israeli people against our military action in Iraq, my Isrraeli friend is against our military action in Iraq also.

O.k. you didn't think Sadaam was a threat. I did. What's next.

You say the missles fired at Isreal were not considered a threat. I did, on two levels. The first is obvious. The second had to do with his unsuccesful attempt to get Ireal involved in the war offensively. If he had suceeded what do you and your friend think would have happened? Didn't that plan put Isreal at risk? What makes you and your friend think his goals changed? What was he doing with the billions he was getting through the Oil for Food scandal?
I stand by my position - Sadaam needed to be removed from power, and it should have happend during the first Gulf War.

I say this for the last time. Iraq is in chaos. We are in-part to blame. We need to fix it. Sending in additional troops with a show of force is needed to get the situation under control. When the situation is under control, it will be up to the Iraqi people to determine their futures.

On a side note. I am amazed by the number of people who would ignore direct verbal threats. I guess I was raised on the "wrong side of the tracks", when people make direct verbal threats, I always assume they intend to act on the threat.

Quote:

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache...s&ct=clnk&cd=1
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 21, 2006

....THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi.....

Lying through his teeth, ace....and just 3 weeks before this was finally released:

Quote:

http://intelligence.senate.gov/phaseiiaccuracy.pdf
From p. 70 of "Phase II" of the "Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq" we read:

(U)The FBI provided two summaries of statements made by Saddam Hussein regarding his regime's relationship with al-Qa'ida. The summary said that when told there was clear evidence that the Iraqi government had previously met with bin Ladin, Saddam responded, “yes.” Saddam then specified that Iraq did not cooperate with bin Ladin. In response to the suggestion that he might cooperate with al-Qa’ida because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Saddam answered that the United States was not Iraq’s enemy. He claimed that Iraq only opposed U.S. policies. He specified that if he wanted to cooperate with the enemies of the U.S., he would have allied with North Korea or China.

Beginning on p. 93 of "Phase II" of the "Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq" we read:

According to the DIA, detainee information and captured document exploitation indicate that the regime [of Saddam Hussein] was aware of Ansar al-Islam and al-Qa'ida presence in [Kurdish-controlled] northeastern Iraq, but the groups' presence was considered a threat to the regime and the Iraqi government attempted intelligence collection operations against them. The DIA stated that information from senior Ansar al-Islam detainees revealed that the group viewed Saddam's regime as apostate, and denied any relationship with it. The DIA stated that one detainee speculared that al-Zarqawi may have had contacts with the former regime prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, but all other detainees' information from both the former regime and members of al-Zarqawi's network, denied such contacts occurred.

(U)The FBI provided the Committee with a summary of a statement made by a captured forme Iraqi regime official regarding connections to al_zarqawi. The official stated that "following the Secretary of State's 2003 speech to the United Nations alleging links to al-Zarqawi, he traveled to Saddam's Presidential Palace to refute allegations and explain the details of the case to Saddam". The detainee claimed that the government of Iraq "considered al-Zarqawi an outlaw and blamed Ansar al-Islam for two bombings in Baghdad".

(U)The intelligence Community did not uncover information suggesting Iraqi regime involvement in the production of poisons or toxins in Kurdish controlled iraq prior to the war. Little information has emerged since the war to clarify the extent of the CBW programs conducted by the Ansar al-Islam in Ku rdish controlled Iraq. Several detained members of Ansar al-Islam reported that Abu Taisir was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom air strikes.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 01:18 PM

Here is a link to Bush's speach in October 2002. Feel free to pick pieces of it to support your positions, I can do the same. Regardless, at that time we did not have the benifit of hindsite. If you guys think our long-term situation would be better with Sadaam a live, re-building his military, etc., I can accept it because its no longer an issue since he is dead.

If you objectively read what Bush said, and still you belive he lied, that's o.k. too because I know he did not.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0021007-8.html

Quote:

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism, and practices terror against its own people. The entire world has witnessed Iraq's eleven-year history of defiance, deception and bad faith.

We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On September the 11th, 2001, America felt its vulnerability -- even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Since we all agree on this goal, the issues is : how can we best achieve it?

For those of you who are humanitarian, and want to understand why we need to get the situation in Iraq under control, not leave but send in more support here is a link to the UN.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.as...1&Cr=iraq&Cr1=

Quote:

“No religious and ethnic groups, including women and children, have been spared from the widespread cycle of violence which creates panic and disrupts the daily life of many Iraqi families, prompting parents to stop sending their children to school and severely limiting normal movement around the capital and outside,” the report says, also citing a “dramatic increase” in abductions in recent months.

It notes a rapid erosion of women’s rights in the central and southern regions. “Women are reportedly living with heightened levels of threats to their lives and physical integrity, and forced to conform to strict, arbitrarily imposed morality codes,” it says, with cases of young women abducted by armed militia and found days later sexually abused, tortured and murdered.

“Female corpses are usually abandoned at the morgue and remain unclaimed for fear of damaging the family honour,” it adds. “More than 140 bodies were unclaimed and buried in Najaf by the morgue during the reporting period.” In a suspected honour crime case, a secondary school student was publicly hanged in east Baghdad by armed militia and her brother shot dead when he tried to rescue her.

dc_dux · 01-17-2007, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

ace: much of what you are saying relies on a TON of assumptions, most of which square with standard-issue neoconservative arguments about the war in iraq.
...
all i see in your arguments about the war up to this point is an inability to get your head around this basic reality.

then i see a refusal to even consider that a central problem with iraq may follow from this hyper-nationalist go-it-more-or-less alone attitude particular to the neocons. you treat that logic as a straightjacket and seem to think that there is no way to alter it: which means that you, like your more prominent neocon bretheren, have turned a massive defeat into a parameter for thinking, and you positions, like those of the "bush plan" follow in a straight line from that.

it seems to me that this entire line of argument is at best circular, and at worst simply nuts.

I agree, which is why any further discussion is an exercise in futility.

One last reaction to this:

Quote:

For those of you who are humanitarian, and want to understand why we need to get the situation in Iraq under control, not leave but send in more support here is a link to the UN.

Here is the response of Gen Abizaid to a similar comment by Sen. McCain several weeks ago:

ABIZAID: Senator McCain, I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the core commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American Troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no. And the reason is because we want the Iraqis to do more. It is easy for the Iraqis to rely upon to us do this work. I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more, from taking more responsibility for their own future.

Now I am done.

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

I agree, which is why any further discussion is an exercise in futility.

What is the point of saying further discussion is an excercise in futility? If you believed that why read what I write, why waste time responding? There have been several occations were you have written comments like this that strike me as very odd. I am going to assume when your argument is weak, that is when you revert to such tactics. I also note that you continually refuse to respond to simple direct questions. I am going to assume when you don't respond, that your response won't support your previous argument.

Until next time.

dc_dux · 01-17-2007, 01:44 PM

LOL....you do have a unique view of the world and the responses to those in the smaller TFP community with whom you disagree. Maybe one day, when you look at your questions objectively in the broader context of the discussion, you will understand why people choose not to respond. As Roach noted, it just goes round and round with you.

This is definetely a vent...you have the ability to bring that out in people

aceventura3 · 01-17-2007, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

LOL....you do have a unique view of the world and the responses to those in the smaller TFP community with whom you disagree. Maybe one day, when you look at your questions objectively in the broader context of the discussion, you will understand why people choose not to respond. As Roach noted, it just goes round and round with you.

I had a boss once who said i was like a pit bull. I said thanks. She said it wasn't a compliment. Through self analysis, I have come to realize it is both a blessing and a curse. Just as, perhaps, getting in the last word is with you. Can you do it?

Willravel · 01-17-2007, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

"THE" Top Dog, not "A" top dog.

And what does top dog mean? Our military is obviously not the best, as we've not actually won a war since WWII, our econemy isn't really the best anymore, our schools are crap, our health is crap. We're not really top dog in anything except for cowboy diplomacy.

Bush is a traitor for having mislead congress into a war of vengence and agression, and those that follow him can't really say much since we've uncovered the reality that there were no WMDs, there were no links to the al Qaeda, and Bush took steps to hand-pick intel to support his invasion.

01-16-2007, 06:36 AM	#88 (permalink)
aceventura3 Junkie Location: Ventura County	O.k. let's start fresh with two questions. Are we at war? Who declared war first? __________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch." "It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion." "If you live among wolves you have to act like one." "A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

01-17-2007, 12:46 PM	#113 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	ace: much of what you are saying relies on a TON of assumptions, most of which square with standard-issue neoconservative arguments about the war in iraq. the premise is, as you have stated, that the united states is "top dog"--by which i assume you mean that the us is the dominant military power in the world on paper at least. in technological terms, maybe, insofar as what counts is expensive shiny deadly toys. from this premise follows thatthe americans need to figure out a way to act on the world, only being to a certain extent in the world as a function of having more shiny expensive deadly toys than anyone else. from this problem follows a rationale for the invasion of iraq: it is about the first gulf war and the neocon interpretation of that war (lunatic though it is) which assumes that the otherwise totally victorious americans were hamstrung by the evil un and so could not invade iraq in 1991 and "finish the job"---so the invasion this time has nothing to do with any of the absurd justifications floated by the bush people: it was supposed to be a huge fuck you to the international community and the moment across which the united states would assume its predestined role in the world as military hegemon. except that the bush people screwed it up. the gambled and they lost. all i see in your arguments about the war up to this point is an inability to get your head around this basic reality. then i see a refusal to even consider that a central problem with iraq may follow from this hyper-nationalist go-it-more-or-less alone attitude particular to the neocons. you treat that logic as a straightjacket and seem to think that there is no way to alter it: which means that you, like your more prominent neocon bretheren, have turned a massive defeat into a parameter for thinking, and you positions, like those of the "bush plan" follow in a straight line from that. it seems to me that this entire line of argument is at best circular, and at worst simply nuts. the problem--well there are a lot of them, but i have to go so i'll outline one--is that the americans are a faction within the iraqi civil war and, as others have said above, are the CAUSE of the institutional breakdown that has (arguably) generated that civil war (this from the un assessment of the situation in yesterday's ny times--not sure if i agree with it, but it is convenient)....if anything about that is true, then the only rational way out of this mess is for the americans to begin constructing frameworks internationally that would enable them to begin rolling themselves out of iraq. because there is no way--no bloody way--that the americans can do anything constructive in iraq within the present logic of the conflict. these frameworks--maybe something on the order of another congress of vienna--will not happen overnight, and so would have to operate as a strategic element. there is no such strategy in the bush plan. so the troop "surge" seems absurd: a walk down the primrose path that the americans walked down in vietnam, escalation as a device to engender de-escalation blah blah blah: all because the neocon worldview is constructed to the exclusion of any such internationalization of this debacle, and that (i think at least) because to entertain such an option would be to concede defeat on their own terms. and that it seems they cannot do. and it seems that you cannot do it either. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-17-2007, 01:44 PM	#118 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	LOL....you do have a unique view of the world and the responses to those in the smaller TFP community with whom you disagree. Maybe one day, when you look at your questions objectively in the broader context of the discussion, you will understand why people choose not to respond. As Roach noted, it just goes round and round with you. This is definetely a vent...you have the ability to bring that out in people __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire Last edited by dc_dux; 01-17-2007 at 02:00 PM..

01-16-2007, 07:08 AM	#90 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	1) yes. 2) We did. Yes, I know, you're going to say that the terrorists declared war first, and that's true. But we chose not to pursue that war. Instead we abandoned Afghanistan (where the guy who declared war on us was hiding) and declared war on Iraq (which was not threatening us, and where NONE of the 9/11 terrorists came from)