Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Dustin, your argument is well made in my opinion. We must have foresight and whatif scenarios. And I agree that Hussein aided his own invasion and capture by falsely representing that the WMD may be ready for use.

And I agree with the headline, having Iraq war plans is not an idictment of Bush or Clinton. From this point forward, however, we probably part ways.

We had UN inspectors in Iraq for a a very long time, and they found nothing. Yet, Bush and Cheney stated there were, not there might be, but, that there were WMD in Iraq and the Administration represented to the people of America and the Congress that they had intelligence which demonstrated the WMD existed, to include location.

Current reality has demonstrated that this characterization of certainty about WMD was a falsehood deliberately and calculatedly perpetrated to gain support for a war that otherwise may not have been forthcoming.

Second, the President and the administration perpetrated the false claim that imminent threat was posed to the U.S. and/or its allies.

Third, the administration calculatedly created the link in the minds of the American audience between the 9/11 terrorists and Saddam Hussein. A link which the President refuted when pressed later on, and which Secretary of State Powell refuted just last week in terms of convincing evidence of such a connection.

Paul O’Neil’s “revelation” simply supports other evidence that 9/11 was falsely used as a pretext for radically altering America’s foreign policy and for establishing a U.S. military presence in an area of the world near and dear to Petrol profit addicts.

The absolute shame of it in my opinion, is that had we invested what we have spent in Iraq into short and long term petroleum independence projects, our human losses would not have occured and our nation would be much, much further along toward the goal of energy independence.

I know that many people do not believe that the war in Iraq was necessary and that it was all about oil and what not, but, in my own mind I can not condemn Bush for going to war with Saddam. Maybe he could have gone about it a different way but regardless, think about all of the evil that Saddam visited on his own people. Think about how he tested chemical agents on his own countrymen in northern Iraq. His rule was one of fear. If he had the means I am sure that he would have aspired to become the next Hitler trying to rule the world. I am a sailor in the United states navy and I am proud to say that I was a part of the organization that took a ruthless killer out of power. No matter what people think or say, this war was about freeing the Iraqi people from the tyranny of a lunatic who had some way found his way to power. While there are people like myself who believe this and are in the armed forces that will hold true because think about it, who is REALLY fighting this war ???? I don’t care about his reasons, and I am sure that the people there really don’t either. You can say, what about the anti-American protesters there, but what you have to realize is that these are people who have been raised to hate Americans and more than likely live in fear of what their neighbors will do if they show their support of us. It is amazing what fear will make you do and say.

Slightly off topic, but I find it hilarious that Clinton is now being credited/blamed for wanting to go to war in Iraq. I thought the official GOP line on Clinton was supposed to be that he endangered American by not standing up to the bad guys. Now it turns out he was all ready to invade Iraq. Who knew?

Current reality has demonstrated that this characterization of certainty about WMD was a falsehood deliberately and calculatedly perpetrated to gain support for a war that otherwise may not have been forthcoming.

Really? If so, then Bush and Cheney were the only ones who knew there were no WMD. Even the French agreed that the weapons were there, just disagreed on the means to bring Saddam to heel. To characterize the (perhaps) mistaken impression that there were WMD in Iraq as a “falsehood deliberately and calculatedly perpetrated” is pure spin.

Second, the President and the administration perpetrated the false claim that imminent threat was posed to the U.S. and/or its allies.

This canard is so tired! The President, in his State of the Union speech, said explicitly that the threat was NOT imminent, but that he would not wait until it was. And this case has not been refuted. Suppose that the inspections concluded, finding only evidence of “programs” (of which there is plenty) but not actual weapons, and then sanctions were lifted. Is there anybody, including you, who believes that production of said weapons would not start immediately?

Third, the administration calculatedly created the link in the minds of the American audience between the 9/11 terrorists and Saddam Hussein. A link which the President refuted when pressed later on, and which Secretary of State Powell refuted just last week in terms of convincing evidence of such a connection.

This would have been very clever trick of the Bush administration - to create the link in people’s minds while refuting the link. Perhaps the CIA is controlling our minds. Of course there is no evidence that there was any “calculation” in creating the link, since the President did not say anything to create any such link. The fact that the president refuted such a link “when pressed” is bizarrely presented as evidence that he was responsible for the link in the first place.

The absolute shame, in my opinion, is that we are still arguing about whether this was a good thing to do. If we had not spent the money and lives that we have spent in Iraq, Iraq would still be in the clutches of a murderous regime and furthermore, there would be no hope of that changing for generations.

From the looks of it, Dustin may be right. But Paul O’Neill still doesn’t think well of other things, including the big old tax cuts. The CNN Money people have him saying that the tax cuts reduce our financial flexibility, especially as regards medicare and social security.

Bush seems to have high dollar tastes, for the corner-cutting he’s done on the revenues. I know people are saying that revenues will increase with Bush’s tax cuts, but in my mere two-and-a-half decades of life, I’ve already seen a number of such tax cuts come to nothing.

If this were some business on wall street, such debt financing might be appropriate, but we should not have to tolerate a government putting us into debt now for uncertain returns later.

If we are going to spend high, we should tax appropriately, or else we pay more later. If the GOP thinks tax-and-spend attitudes are bad, I would expect them to be horrified at such fiscal irresponsibility as shown here.

Jonathan, I would like to respond to your comment: “No matter what people think or say, this war was about freeing the Iraqi people from the tyranny of a lunatic who had some way found his way to power.”

That is what the adminstration says it is about now. It was not the primary premise used to sell Americans on the necessity for the costs we would incur prior to invasion.

I agree, Hussein needed to be deposed. My disagreement is in how and when it occured. International news from Singapore, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Russia and other nations contains two parallel stories. These nations no longer trust the Bush administration’s representation of what it calls intelligence. And, these nations are very actively and quickly growing their own militaries and forming alliances of their own. They recognize the potential of the Bush foreign policy shift as a threat, specifically, economic retalliation against nations that won’t tow the American dictates and requests, and initating war under false pretext.

Hussein could have been removed in a couple of different ways without this kind of harm to our international relations. I see the Bush administration backing off his axis of evil aggressive talk, and his preemptory strike policy, and just this week sending out letters to 140 nations announcing the hope for renewed economic trade summits and agreements. It is apparent the Bush administration has recognized the errors and harm caused by the manner and timing of our invasion of Iraq. Mending the fences is not going to possible as long as Bush remains in office. He has become an unpredictable wild card in international relations, and the goal of reestablishing trust in the U.S. in the world will require a new administration.

Jason, your comment “Even the French agreed that the weapons were there, just disagreed on the means to bring Saddam to heel.” Is factually in error. They recognized the potential of his having WMD, but, they also stated they had no solid evidence of that. Unlike Bush, they wanted to be sure, before shooting, instead of shooting first and then checking to see if the shooting was necessary.

France and Germany and Russia were all in agreement that Iraq posed no imminent threat to neighboring nations in 2003, let alone, to the U.S. They did acknowledge that he posed a potential future threat if not monitored and inspected.

There is no canard here, Jason. Note the following two quotes from the very State of the Union address you reference:

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.

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country and our friends and our allies.

These words constitute a statement of potential imminent threat. No where, I can find, in that speech does what your reference regarding his denial of imminent threat appear. If you have a quote of same, please provide it.

Your following comment deserves a reply. “This would have been very clever trick of the Bush administration - to create the link [between Hussein and Al-Queda] in people’s minds while refuting the link.

Jason, he created the link, invaded Iraq, and then a few months later refuted the link when pressed by journalists after evidence of links failed to be credible.

Bush’s linking of Al-Queda and Hussein are evident in his State of the Union since you use that document for reference. Note the following quotes from it:

Before September 11, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents and lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained.

Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraq’s illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors and its links to terrorist groups.

Finally, there is this quote of doublespeak from the same speech:

If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means, sparing, in every way we can, the innocent. And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military and we will prevail. And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies and freedom.

We went to war in Iraq, but it was hardly forced upon us. It was an elective war and the people of most other nations in the world recognized the duping of the American public and Congress by this President, referencing a war being forced upon us when even the ability of Iraq to attack us was non-existent. Dupe me once, shame on you, dupe me twice, shame on me. The American public will awaken to their duping as we approach November, and it will take every lie and distortion 100 plus million dollars of campaign money Bush has to try to dupe the American people twice. If he is successful, this nation deserves what it gets out of Bush’s next 4 years, every last ounce of it.

According to O’Neill the spin is way out of context from his book. He says: “”People are trying to make the case that I said the president was planning war with Iraq early in the administration. Actually, it was a continuation of work that was going on in the Clinton administration, with the notion that there needed to be regime change,”.

David your Al-Qaeda link is incorrect. Bush linked Saddam with Arab terrorism, a link which is quite well established. He realized that the war was much broader than Al-Qaeda. It is people who think the war is tightly limited that believe this linkage was inappropriate.

RE: “They did acknowledge that he posed a potential future threat if not monitored and inspected.” (When speaking about France, Germany and Russia.

This isn’t really true. They acknowledged that he might pose a future threat, in word, but they attempted to remove all monitoring and inspecting to normalize relations by ending sanctions. They were done with containing Saddam.

Dean,

The French repeatedly called for “disarming” of Iraq. What did they mean?

The quote you pull from the State of the Union as proof that he called the threat imminent was precisely the quote to which I was referring as a denial that the threat was imminent. “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.” In other words, the threat is NOT imminent, but it would not be prudent to wait until it is.

The quote about “before September 11” is simply a reference to how the world changed and more importantly, how seriously we must take those who are sworn enemies of the United States. If you took it another way, as you say, shame on you.

The “war being forced upon us” refers to whether Saddam would cooperate with the UN, which he never did. To call the war “forced upon us” only rises to the level of normal political rhetoric.

You seem to think that lots of Americans were duped by the President, but this is simply not the case. My evidence is this: Everyone who is saying “Bush lied” and “Bush duped us” was never for the war in the first place. In other words, they were not “duped”. Their minds were not changed. For those that were for the war before the war, show them all of these things that you call lies and they say, “Oh, that’s what you mean? That’s not what he meant.” In other words, they don’t feel decieved now, even with all the facts. I would be very interested to hear any counter-examples (other than maneuvering Presidential candidates).

The French did not mean to imply weapons present as much as weapons found. They agreed, diplomatically at least, that there might be weapons to be found. They did not agree that weapons were obviously there.

Our nations had different positions, officially speaking, on how to react to the suspicion thaty there might be weapons still there.

So much of Bush’s case for war rested on could be’s, would be’s and should be’s, but not enough on what just was. With no hard evidence, American paranoia hardly qualified in the rest of the world as reason to stir up war in Iraq.

Sebastian, if Bush the administration was following a Clinton policy with regard to Iraq, why then did the PNAC have to write a letter in 1998 to Clinton urging a policy of regime change?

This letter was signed by, among others, Abrams, Armitage, Bolton, Dobriansky, Khalilzad, Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz. These people are either members of the administration or have deep ties with it and by implication (and according to O’Neill) devise policy for the President.

The opening line of the PNAC letter to Clinton states that “We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding” and it goes to mention removing regimes and weapons of mass destruction. The similarity to the language used half a decade later in building the case for war is uncanny. Also worth noting is the complete absence of any reference to democracy or freeing the Iraqi people. These were after thoughts.

These people waited six years. Once they were in a position to carry through their plans they did so. Sept 11th was used shamefully to suit their ends. And to suggest, as Dustin does, that the removal of the regime in Iraq was not inevitable is incorrect. It was preordained.

I think Bob hit upon what many Democrats think of the War- That it’s political opportunism.

I don’t mind that Saddam no longer has his power or freedom. Why would I?

I mind that my administration picked a fight to take those things from that man based on shoddy evidence. I mind that Bush’s people had no plan B. I mind that they don’t admit their mistakes, that they just move the goalposts to cover for where their policies and predictions have failed.

I mind that years after the Homeland Security Department was created, that I’m still hearing about widespread security lapses at the ports and chemical plants.

I mind that the justice department is giving classes as to how to stretch the already excessive powers of that law to cover non-homeland security issues like drugs, pipe bombs, and two boys planning a Columbine style massacre. While bad, these things are covered by other laws, laws that don’t interpret losers planning a school shooting as terrorism, Methamphetamine as a chemical weapon, or pipe bombs as WMDs

Overall, what bugs me the most about Bush is just how lacking in integrity his administration has been. They are willing to do anything to hold on their dogmatic political beliefs. They are willing to uphold deregulation as the law of the land, even while our corporations roil with corruption and decay as a result. He is willing to uphold free trade ideology, even while the cost to American workers and it’s economy make’s itself known again and again. And those damn tax cuts-God knows I want more money like everybody else-But I’m looking ahead, and I see us losing more money, having our dollars buy less, and seeing our economy go down the tubes, just so Bush can claim he’s stimulating the economy without having to make hard economic policy decisions that might look ugly in the short term.

I’ve never once heard this man ask for a sacrifice from the American people. He tells us, live your lives normally, go about your business, spend your money as you would. This after one of the most catastrophic events in our history. Is there no pause to consider what changes this has wrought in our nation?

One of the lessons of 9/11 was just how unimportant many of the things we valued so much were. But Bush’s administration said, “go back to sleep, we’ll take care of it.” And when we try to wake, they say “Don’t you trust us, aren’t we on the same side? Go back to sleep.”

It seems like every time I wake, I see the Bush administration once again callously disregarding other people’s worries and misgivings about their policies, across the board. I see many in the GOP taking on more of the Cold War “liberals are traitors” attitude, more of this egotistical insistence that their course of action is wise beyond reproach, even when the errors and the disasters are plain for even their political comrades to see.

I do not need to agree with some cutely acronymic piece of invasive legislation, or some badly justified, clumsily-administrated war and occupation to call myself a patriot.

I believe in this country, and would call myself a citizen of no other.

But what my nation’s history tells me is that we’ve been wrong before, and that we’ll be wrong again, and that the only thing that has saved our nation and kept it together, over two centuries of existence, has been the ability of good leaders to recognize error and correct it, and the public’s ability and right to continually demand such leaders out of the political parties that run the country.

Right now, I, and many like me, are demanding just that. If Bush is not prepared to fit the bill, then we will do our damnedest to find somebody who will. And if that doesn’t work, well then, we’ll just try again.

That’s Democracy. We get the government we fight for. Thanks to our forefathers, we only have to use words to get it done. Let’s hope that never changes.

Bob, the date of the letter you reference is January 26, 1998. If you look into Clinton’s actions and policy later in that year, you see a decided shift in policy from ‘containment’ to ‘regime change’. Bush’s meetings were a continuation of the later 1998 ‘regime change’ policy. Clinton articulated this change in policy in his February 18, 1998 speech at the Pentagon.

Which makes Stephen’s point about “I think Bob hit upon what many Democrats think of the War- That it’s political opportunism.” a bit overblown at least in the context of the discussion thusfar.

So, Sebastian- Why didn’t Clinton invade Iraq? Don’t tell me he was too scared to do it, because he ordered a sustained bombardment of Serbia over the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

Wait, I can tell you why: we don’t fight pre-emptive wars. We don’t take the Pearl Harbor side of things. At least we did before Bush.

Bush could have made his foreign policy one of reciprocity against terrorist supporting nations. That is: state-supported terrorism against the united states will be considered an act of war, and any WMD that can be traced back to a government source will merit a regime change at best, and a nuclear attack on the capital if the terrorist act is nuclear.

We should also return to a criminal approach to hunting down terrorists, only graduating to blackbag capture and interrogation when it’s absolutely necessary. Why? It makes it harder for people to scream bloody murder about it, and it also makes for discouraging perp-walks. Smile for the camera, mr. terrorist.

I mean, we got the people who planned and carried out the first WTC attack, back in 1993. They’re in jail. Why? because the evidence tracks back to them. Bombs and other devices require technical training and supplies, all of which can lead investigators back to the culprits, or failing that, (due to reasons of extreme deadness) to those who aided them.

My worry in doing it any other way is that we will develop our “feelings” as to what’s going on, instead of going after the evidence and working out our intuitions then. I worry about this because it’s been my experience that it’s easier to fall into predictable patterns of behavior when one just tries to wing it without preparation. My theory is that we approach things like that, we generally work things out from engrained habits of thought. Habits, which within a culture, often repeat.

It’ll be much easier to protect this country when we know how to parcel out our attention. If we can do that better, we don’t have to waste our time on suspicions whose targets never materialize.

Sebastian the point is they were not following Clinton policy as the letter predates his policy change. This was their policy all along, irrespective of what Clinton wanted. They (Abrams, Armitage, Bolton, Dobriansky, Khalilzad, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz - the people currently in power)publicly stated what they felt the policy towards Iraq should be. Once they were appointed they carried through this policy. They were following their own policy, not Clinton’s. And any mention of whatever his policy was, seems to me to be quite disingenuous.

As a result I think Stephen’s remark about “political opportunism” is reasonable.

Argh, Bob Hope you just can’t have it all ways at once. Do you believe that people can influence policy? Do you believe that Democrats and Republicans can work together on foreign affairs. Your cabal-conspiracy theory tone doesn’t help anything. Yes people like Wolfowitz wanted regime change, and so did people like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Albright. The policy of regime change doesn’t smack of political opportunism, it smacks of Democrats and Republicans agreeing on something which is obvious. The fact that catering to the obvious can sometimes be politically advantageous isn’t the same as saying that it is opportunism.

Stephen, what method would you have employed to disabuse millions of Arabs of the notion that if you bloody us, we run? It is that notion that allows those who use suicide-bombers as tools to believe that they can get away with killing thousands of us and avoid retribution. The myth of Saddam’s invincibility was perhaps the defining bit of proof offered in support of that notion. He also was the world’s most obvious test case. He violated the terms of the ending of the Gulf War nearly monthly, and defied the UN in the most public way possible for more than a decade. I’m not going to mourn his passing from power, nor am I going to complain about the general method used. Diplomatic pressure had its 12 years. It failed. It utterly, completely and obviously failed.

When did it fail? When war became out of the question after Bush signed his cease-fire with Saddam, what would you have had us do? Yes, it began to break down. We should have pushed harder when he stopped cooperating. But this strategy was better than simply leaving him completely sovereign, or fighting a war which had no international support as of that time.

It is documented fact that Wolfowitz was chomping at the bit to get back into Iraq as soon as we signed the cease fire, even to the point that Cheney felt he had to pull back on Wolfowitz’s reins.

Flash-forward a few years, and who’s an undersecretary of defense? You guessed it. And what is the first thing Wolfowitz does when 9/11 jolts the country out of it’s military complacency? Suggest an invasion of Iraq! Not only that, but a preemptive attack as well!

Something he’d been advocating for quite some time, at this point. And a policy Clinton never took on. He may have planned for an Iraq invasion, but he never made it a doctrine of his presidency that we would pre-emptively attack those we consider a threat.

That’s the important thing, really. It’s our standard for going in to armed combat. Do we do so on suspicion, even short of hard evidence, or do we wait for our enemies to violate international law, and then strike them down, with at least the grudging backing of the international community?

All in all, war is too expensive, in lives, dollars, and generated hostility, to be so easily entered into. And that is what your people did, and what this country will have to deal with for the decades to come.

Sebastian said, “Stephen, what method would you have employed to disabuse millions of Arabs of the notion that if you bloody us, we run?”

I’m wondering what your source is for claiming millions of Arabs want to bloody us. Last I heard from the state department was that Al-Queda was estimated somewhere in the range of a few thousand maximum. Other Arabic groups who employ terrorism as a methodology can hardly be represented as millions without some authoritative source, in my opinion.

I would hate to see such claims, if unsubstantiated, be used by radicals of a different nature launch a racist campaign against all Arabs.

Sebastian, while I agree that there are substantial numbers of Arabs dislike us, I think most of them hold a kind of guarded suspicion akin to that of some conservatives and moderates in this country. My impression of most of them, is that like Americans, like most people, they really try to mind their own business and live productive lives.

As for teaching them a lesson, I addressed this in paragraphs 3,4, and 5 of my previous post. I think we can be more intimidating to rogue states supporting terrorism if they know they won’t get sympathetic treatment from any other nations in the world when their state-sponsored terrorists strike at us. I want them to get that sinking feeling when they realize that the terrorist we caught, or who committed that act was one of the ones they harbored.

What I don’t want is the big diplomatic mess and stew of resentment that gets left in the trail of a pre-emptive war. I want a war that already has the causus belli plain to all concerned, where counterfactual denial is the only defense left to these people. In short, I want my enemies in their weakest possible position. I’d want this done instead of giving them all kinds of errors and half baked suspicions they can opportunistically turn against me.

Unfortunately, Bush couldn’t be that patient.

Ok Sebastian, I accept the points you make at the start of your last post, and can appreciate you feel that I may be splitting hairs, but I still don’t feel that you have addressed my underlying concern.

If we both agree that regime change in Iraq is/was the policy of the last two administrations pre 9/11, then was 9/11 used by the current administration in order to expedite their agenda for Iraq?

Regime change in Iraq is probably one concept that most, if not all, Americans could/would endorse. Afterall, Hussein was a brutal dictator to his people as well as a thorn in the side of the free world. He is a dishonest, self-serving man and was so as leader of Iraq. A pre-emptive strike at Hussein was most likely the most expedient method to effect regime change, but at what cost to our reputation in the world community?

The issue that the “Bush detractors” have about President Bush is not THAT he imposed a regime change in Iraq, but HOW he did it and WHAT he did to implement it…and WHY. “Bush detractors” are not detractors because they think Bush is an open, honest fellow.

The world was, at best, reluctant and, at worst, opposed to the pre-emptive war that the Bush administration initiated, obstensively, to protect the American people from WMD’s. Later, as everyone knows, he changed his reason for the unprovoked invasion, thus creating questions in the minds of many.

It may not be clear to all, or perhaps some do not want to see it, but it appears to many that President Bush, at least, suggested that there was an imminent danger from Hussein. Not only was this implied in his State of the Union address it was also the theme of Powell’s speech shortly afterwards. He seemed to me to be making several “stretches” regarding the facts to justify going to war. It seemed more like a sales pitch rather than an objective presentation of the situation, thus creating questions in the minds of many.

It appears that in an attempt to serve himself and his cronies, he could not muster the patience to move more slowly and carefully in achieving his goal to depose Hussein. It is curious that one of the companies that is profiting from all this was, and still is, connected to Mr. Cheney. It is curious that Mr. Bush and his family are in the oil business and have been so for some time. It is curious that both Bush and Cheney are directly connected to the energy business, along with the moguls of that industry. Thus, creating questions in the minds of many.

I, personally, do not pretend to know the real reason WHY Bush invaded Iraq, but questions like this raise an eyebrow, or two,

The sad truth about Iraq is that we did not “know” if Hussein had WMD, however GWB, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfield told us that they did and that Iraq was an imminent threat and a preemptive strike was necessary to ensure the safety of the USA.

The Bush administration had bits and pieces of evidence that some analysts in our government thought looked suspicious and others in our government thought did not.

That isn’t “certain knowledge”, and without certain knowledge we did not have proof the sanctions weren’t working, despite Bush insisting the sanctions were a failure.

The difference between what Bush Jr. did, as opposed to what Clinton and George Bush Sr. did is pretty clear. 41 and Clinton didn’t trust Hussein and kept the pressure on relying on sanctions to do the job. Both suspected and believed Hussein had undeclared WMD, but they didn’t have the proof so they relied on sanctions.

43 and his neocon advisers suspected and believed there were WMD, and lied about that suspicion by saying it was “certain knowledge” which led to this bit of logic “Since we know he has WMD, we now have proof the sanctions aren’t working. Therefore we must go to war.”

And as it turns out, not only did Bush lie to America but was completely wrong about the existence of WMDs and it has cost us dearly in money, lives, and diplomatic goodwill, the fight against terrorism and will continue to cost us dearly for many years to come.

In March, May, and August of 2001 in speeches to the CIA, National Defense Univerity, and the American Legion resctively (Bush 2001), President Bush addressed the issue of terrorism and rogue regimes in possesion of weapons of mass destruction without uniting the two concepts as if the posed a unique threat to Americans’ pyhsical safety. After the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center his method of presentation changed; in his speeches he began to follow references to AL Qaeda and terrorism with a short paragraph about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction as if a relationship exsisted between Saddam and Osama Bin Laden. President Bush made these inferences in the face of CIA assurances that no such relationships exsisted.
Bush’s status as an expert (POTUS with a high favorabitity rating) allowed him to influence what the American people would percieve. The public was swayed by use of priming (simple regular repition untill what is recalled by the listeners becomes fact due to primacy of recalled memories) and spin (e.g. the phrases weapons of mass destruction and homeland security).
As one of the many individuals who do not believe that G. W. Bush is intellectual enough to develop and practice such a strategy on his own, I was not conned (convinced) by his ploy. In other words; I was skeptical because I did not see him as an expert at that time. On the other hand he appears to have learned rapidly.