Food Eater Lad

Wow! If we are to believe the left - That Bush misled America on Iraq having WMD, we have to give him a hell of a lot of credit. He's had these people snowed for years before he was president...


"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." --President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." --President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." --Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." --Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." --Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." --Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." --Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." --Letter to President Bush, signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL) and others, Dec, 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." --Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." --Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." --Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." --Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." --Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."--Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working
aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." --Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" --Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." --Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 1, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." --Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"[W]ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." --Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

The_Dude

and..............?

Regardless of what anyone said about Iraq having WMD's, we still havent found any.

As for the above statements, all I see are threats, not actions, which our great leader took.

Bush also conveyed a message that Iraq was an imminent threat to our security and Blair followed up with the "45 minutes" deal.

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Food Eater Lad

So these democrates are not liars if Bush is one?

Mojo_PeiPei

It's all politics FEL. Very good points, but if you remember back in 98' when Clinton moved in most republicans were against the action, they thought it was all about waging the dog (except Wolfowitz who oddly enough was pushing for a full invasion back then).

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popo

Exactly. The Repubs, particularly Trent Lott, voiced extreme opposition to anything Clinton proposed regarding OBL. They screamed that it was a simple matter of a blow-job receiver trying to change the subject.

The 2 party system in the US makes me ill. It forces one party against the other in virtually every single issue. You need 3 electorable parties for people to begin to speak the truth about what they think.

Conclamo Ludus

Clinton's threats certainly didn't help the Iraqi people any. Threats are useless if one isn't willing to take action. The old flip-flop game from the conservatives and the liberals. Jump on board whatever truck your party is driving. If the other team starts driving your truck jump off and open fire on it. These political games hurt everyone. I think Clinton was right about it back then. Something had to be done.

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chavos

do you honestly think that the clinton presidency could have survived a pre-emptive war, pre-9/11, post-monica? I don't know what you would have had him do.

Mojo_PeiPei

He easily could've survived, he wasn't facing re-election, might've been alot of heat on him though.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

The_Dude

good question.

did the democrats have strong contrary evidence when they made these statements?

did gwb have strong contrary evidence while he made his?

__________________
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Darrel K Royal

ObieX

I see sadam looking at all this and laughing his ass off. Chances are he had WMD and passed them off to another country. Who the fuck gives a damn anymore. The world has one less fuck tard to deal with that is preventing world unification. A person who tortured and killed hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of people. All this political hoop-jumping needs to go. Humans, as a whole, need to get their heads out of their asses and need to start thinking about the big picture here.

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Mojo_PeiPei

I couldn't agree more Obie, but aslong as there is politics involved people will be inclined to disagree.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

MrSmashy

I'm not convinced those other people weren't also putting a spin on it for their own reasons.

Besides, I do agree that Sadam was a long term threat to American dominance in the region in that he'd like to get his hands on weapons - just like many other governments - but as to the 'imminent' threat accusation...that hasn't been substantiated. However, does posing an eventual threat to American dominance in a region mean that the Administration should have pushed for an attack...if yes...then you should be ready to attack a lot of places...

chavos

He wasn't facing election. He was facing impeachement. Point is, i think it is hardly likely that he would have gotten war powers from congress.

prb

Good Point, Dude.

onetime2

There is little doubt Saddam was a bad person. Iraq will be better off without him.

What would be said if a wmd from Iraq showed up in the US or a neighboring country to Iraq in the hands of terrorists? The fact was we didn't know for sure and the risk was there and still is there since we don't know that he DIDN'T have a wmd program and we still DON'T know that wmds didn't make it out of the country.

The point is, we are in Iraq. The focus should be on what we will do to decrease our risk there and increase the responsibilities of the Iraqis. All the BS from those that just want to attack Bush takes much needed emphasis away from what needs to happen over there now.

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BigGov

He magically survived bombing some country we couldn't name though. Those actions are acceptable?

__________________
One day an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman walked into a pub together. They each bought a pint of Guinness. Just as they were about to enjoy their creamy beverage, three flies landed in each of their pints. The Englishman pushed his beer away in disgust. The Scotsman fished the fly out of his beer and continued drinking it, as if nothing had happened. The Irishman, too, picked the fly out of his drink but then held it out over the beer and yelled "SPIT IT OUT, SPIT IT OUT, YOU BASTARD!"

maximusveritas

"He (Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." --Colin Powell, Feb. 24, 2001

One thing you've got to remember is that these guys are all politicians. The Democrats didn't want to look weak on foreign defense, so they supported this unjustified war. They should be held accountable for their actions, essentially handing the keys to a drunk driver. To continue that analogy, however, it is the driver who bears the final responsibility for any damage he or she might cause to the car.

Food Eater Lad

So them giving speaches that we should go and take out Saddam didnt influnce the nation at all and theirfore they are not accountable? They had access to different information? I mean Bush used information that was uniamously passed by the senate intellegence committee, which had a lot of dems on the panel.

josobot

If a person enters a bank and says he has a gun...for all practical purposes he has a gun. What happens after that has little to do with there actually being a gun.

rgr22j

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

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- Alvin

Arc101

Well only attack places with oil and no WMD. I see North Korea is in no danger of being invaded, he most be a good guy after all !

tekaweni

Food Eater Lad: Thanks for the many many quotes.

But one thing....

There fucking WEREN'T any!

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Food Eater Lad

Tell that to the piles of the dead Saddam killed. Tell that to the people that now have locally elected leaders. Tell that to the people that can complain without getting killed. Tell that to the peolpe now with hope for a better life. If it were up to the liberals, Saddam would still be murdering right now. Buts thats ok, cause liberals are for whats right in the world....


Remember the only people resisiting in Iraq are Baath party members that dont like that their elite status is now gone and they might be held accountable for their crimes.

Zeld2.0

And FEL - what about the dictators around the world still killing?

its true its better off with him gone - BUT its not a good reason if you're going to turn a blind eye to everyone else. Its hypocritical reasoning.

And were you present when he executed those masses of people? Everyone knows he kills, but saying he's murdering millions of Iraqis a day is really trying to stretch whats going on. No one even knows what the hell is going on in Iraq - much less do we have counts of how many he killed.

Its enough with stretching the truth - whats done is done - now to fix or get out of this mess.. take your pick.

Food Eater Lad

Where did I say he was killing millions a day?

MuadDib

What's important to keep in mind is that the folks FEL sites did not launch an invasion into Iraq to remove the "impending threat" that the alleged weapons proported. They did not enact a first-strike policy, they did not snub the U.N. to go it alone, and they did not jump the gun on their intelligence.
No reasonable person will argue about Saddam's moral goodness. The fact is he was/is a bad, bad man and needed to be removed from power for what he was doing internatonally and within his own borders. However, our former administration had the common decency not to give the people of this country, and their representatives in Congress, a series of blanket assertions and lies about our security being in immediate danger to justify a rush to war all by our lonesome. We wanted Saddam out, but the American people are always slow to warm to a war where we are not threatened. This administration constructed that threat in order to remove Saddam from power and gain sole occupation of the area long enough to sell the reconstruction rights to corporations in bed with this administration and gain political favor for 2004. This war did not have to cost this many American lives! It could have waited, without danger, for as long as it took to get the international cooperation to take care of it quickly and effectively with minimal US casualties. The only reason for the pre-emption was political and the Clinton administration did not spend lives for political gain.

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almostaugust

Well said. Its so freaking ludicrous how all the gunheads are saying, 'well WMDs dont matter any more'. While the half the world took to the streets in protest, the WMDs were the moral ammunition needed to at least justify the war-machines logic of invasion. I guess those in power can just move the goal-posts when they want to. Accountability is paramount in any democracy.

rgr22j

No, instead they jumped the gun on their intelligence and launched missiles on an aspirin plant in the Sudan, bombed Baghdad from the air (Clinton Press Release, December 17, 1998), and snubbed the UN and the EU to go it alone in a high-altitude bombing campaign in Kosovo so ineffectual that NATO Commander Wesley Clark -- yes, that Wesley Clark -- threatened to begin World War III (the Guardian, August 3, 1999).

As for a first-strike policy, "At least once before, the Clinton administration has reacted to perceived threats attributed to bin Laden's associates, and that resulted in the August 20, 1998, cruise missile attacks on sites in Afghanistan and Sudan." (CNN, October 24, 2000) Sounds an awful lot like a first-strike policy in response to "imminent threats."

Look, I supported Clinton's foreign policy in Kosovo and Iraq, including the Iraq Liberation Act, which he signed. I don't believe all this horse manure coming out about "How Clinton caused 9/11" or "How Clinton failed in the War on Terrorism" or other such nonsense. However, it's simply nonsensical to believe that the so-called "Bush doctrine" has inaugurated some new era of American foreign policy.

Had the timing been different, i.e. had Republicans not wasted millions of dollars pursuing a non-issue sex case, had they not distracted the country by turning the Congress into a gossip session, I believe Clinton may have led his own larger campaign into Iraq. As an example, I strongly believe he stopped his bombing campaign in response to "Wag the Dog" accusations. See former Clinton administration official Ken Pollack's "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq."

I also believe that had Clinton done exactly the same things that Bush has done, the world press would be lauding Clinton as the heir apparent to the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln legacies. It's too bad most anti-liberation critics seem intent on discrediting the Bush administration, to the point of lunacy ("There were never WMD in Iraq!"). Where were the "massive worldwide" protests when Clinton was killing civilians with low-precision, high altitude bombings in Baghdad? How about the calls for "quagmire" in Kosovo, where after four years we still have troops performing peacekeeping? Does not capturing Ratko Mladic somehow delegitimize the whole campaign? We understand that these questions do little to detract from the worth of our objective, the value of which has nothing to do with who happened to be president.

Unfortunately, for some reason it seems to take great fortitude to admit that someone you do not like may be doing the right thing. Because one thinks the leader is stupid or unworthy does not mean that one cannot agree that his course is correct. I, for one, do not think highly of Bush's intelligence, but based on the confederation of dunces the Democrats have arrayed against him, I might be swayed by Jonathan Swift's observation regarding genius. However, that would stretch even my credulity, so instead I defer to Robert Kagan, "Yesterday's liberal interventionists, in Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti, are today's liberal abstentionists. What changed? Just the man in the White House."

I fail to see how any of the quotes above are any more specific than the "blanket assertions and lies" that Bush is currently being lambasted for. For example, "Is a real and grave threat to our security," "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear" both could have easily been attributed to the Bush administration, and are not particularly detailed in any way that I can see.

Ironically, just recently the US-backed CDMA technology was rejected in favor of GSM for Iraq's lucrative mobile phone market. Or are you referring to KBR (Halliburton's subsidiary), who won the blanket emergency reconstruction contract LOGCAP under the Clinton administration?

You're right. It could have taken another 12 years, at a cost of many Iraqi lives. But at least US soldiers wouldn't be killed. Better to air-mail destruction than to enact real change on the ground.

-- Alvin

onetime2

Alvin,

Thank you.

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