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Ummmm…Bush did lie and nothing he or you can say will convince me otherwise…the war was unjust, and uncalled for. The real War on Terror is not taking place in Iraq. I didin’t beleive then, and i do not beleive now that there was a connection between Hussain and Terror Inc. run by Bin Laden.

Posted by: V. Edward Martin at July 31, 2004 06:45 PM

Ah, thank you V. those are the the lies based on lies I was talking about before.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at July 31, 2004 07:43 PM

> I can hardly believe that elevating any
> commercial service to the status of a right
> will make us safer from terrorists or
> somehow save us money …

Fire departments used to be an entirely commercial enterprise, but their duties have been taken over by the government and are virtually an American right. And they do make us safer from terrorist and they do save us money.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 31, 2004 08:45 PM

> What did Bush say was the reason we went
> into Iraq? And is that reason still valid?

Nice excerpt, Eric. You ask about his reasons, so let’s look at his reasons. The single reason he gives is, in essence, to prevent Saddam from attacking the United States and our friends and allies. He specifically says that a driving reason is to prevent Iraq from attacking American soil, our cities. Is that reason still valid? I didn’t think so then, and we all know now that it was not.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at July 31, 2004 08:51 PM

Fire departments used to be an entirely commercial enterprise, but their duties have been taken over by the government and are virtually an American right. And they do make us safer from terrorist and they do save us money.

First, services are not civil rights, Chris. I have a right not to have my house burned down by the government, but I don’t have a right to demand the government save my house from buring down per se. Having it be a right means that it must be provided to me and if it isn’t I can sue for compensation.

If healthcare is so important that the state must take over it’s production and distribution, what about food? Without food we will die. This is very important and we can’t leave such an important service to the private sector can we? And according to Edwards and Kerry people are starving right here in America as we speak.

And by the way, Firehouses do not make us safer from terrorists. Like the police, they are there after the fact. Which, seems to be what Kerry’s War on Terror will consist of. Waiting for the next attack.

The single reason he gives is, in essence, to prevent Saddam from attacking the United States and our friends and allies. He specifically says that a driving reason is to prevent Iraq from attacking American soil, our cities. Is that reason still valid? I didn’t think so then, and we all know now that it was not.

We are constantly talking about strawman arguments, here’s one of your own. Bush didn’t give just a single reason for war. In the beginning of this very quote he gives three good reasons, which are all valid. “To disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.”

Another strawman argument is Iraq attacking US soil. That was not the argument either.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at July 31, 2004 10:18 PM

If Bush wanted to keep us safer, we would be attacking Saudi Arabia. After all, 15 of the hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi, and zero were Iraqis. Over 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been murdered, fueling anger for more terrorism. We are not safer, contrary to what Bush claims with nearly every public appearance.

Yes, Bush is a dishonest man. Yes, Bush has lied repeatedly.

Posted by: entertainment news at July 31, 2004 10:37 PM

EN, such bloodlust! We conservatives just don’t agree with your opinion that we should go around attacking everybody, especially those we can work more effectively with using diplomacy.

Isn’t it that funny that Kerry attacks the Saudis out of one side of his mouth while saying out of the other that he wants to work with allies? I guess when he says “allies” he means just one country, France. Quick: how many military missions in the Afghan or Iraqi war were launched from France?

So much for fine, nuanced diplomacy. Kerry’s not even president, but he’s already deeply alienated one of our chief sources of intelligence (not to mention the home of many of our best military assets in the Middle East). What a cowboy that Kerry is! What shoot from the hip arrogance!

The Saudis are a problem, but sound diplomacy in their case (to use that old mafia saying) requires that we keep our friends close and our enemies closer. That’s been Bush’s strategy with Saudi Arabia, and it’s working marvelously. We now have the potential for basing in Iraq, which raises pressure on the Saudis and removes their ability to negotiate coercively with us.

The idea that we should attack countries because hijackers originated from there is just ridiculous—should we attack Tacoma because Ted Bundy lived there? Bin Laden himself is at war with the Saudis.

The left has never caught on to this, but the war against terrorists is not, nor has it ever been, about blindly getting revenge for 9-11. It’s about preventing further 9-11s, which unfortunately would be much harder to accomplish under the soft-willed and unrealistic policy of appeasement
advocated by that guy in the pea-green teletubby costume.

Posted by: Martin at July 31, 2004 11:30 PM

Eric-
What did we disarm Iraq of? What grave danger did we defend the world from? And having freed the Iraqi’s from Saddam, just where are we in the process of freeing Iraq from us, and us from Iraq? Can you explain to me in non-theoretical, specific terms how this has furthered the war on terror? Can you show us what active collaboration you ended?

Your people seem lost in a fantasy land of good intentions. The rest of us recognized something was going wrong when the WMDs failed to turn up, and the body counts started to rise. The rest of us became alarmed when we started losing cities from our control, started losing soldiers at a rate of hundreds a month. The rest of us became concerned when nearly every element of our case against Iraq turned out to be crap.

I’m at loss to figure out what would make you feel uncomfortable about the conduct of this war. What worries me, is that your president’s persistence will lead to an aggravation of this already terrible situation. That it already has. That new errors are being ignored in the name of not bringing old ones to mind. That the egos of those in charge of the defense department are being coddled at the expense of this nation’s safety and security.

At the very least, have your people clean house. It’s embarassing how few heads have rolled for a set of screw ups this blatant.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 1, 2004 12:38 AM

Stephen,

What did we disarm Iraq of?

Posted: December 30, 2003
10:23 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
A trading company led by the cousin of Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad, smuggled millions of dollars worth of sophisticated arms and equipment to Saddam Hussein for three years prior to the Iraqi leader’s overthrow, reports the Los Angeles Times.
At least one shipment of arms was completed with the help of the Syrian government in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36376

What grave danger did we defend the world from?

Posted: June 25, 2004
3:23 p.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
The head of the CIA weapons team in Iraq says insurgents are seeking chemical arms left over from the Saddam Hussein regime to use against coalition troops.

Charles Deulfer said in a television interview his inspectors have discovered as many as a dozen chemical-filled bombs, the Washington Times reported.
>
>
The inspectors are watching “very closely” whether the insurgents actually are prepared to use the expertise, but Deulfer has no doubt al-Qaida associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will acquire and use chemical weapons “if he gets his hands on it.”

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39151

Posted: May 17, 2004
1:25 p.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Two separate discoveries of chemical weapons, possibly among the weapons of mass destruction Saddam hid from inspectors, were reported today in Iraq by U.S. officials.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38528

And having freed the Iraqi’s from Saddam, just where are we in the process of freeing Iraq from us, and us from Iraq?

Posted: June 30, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Following the formal handover of sovereignty to Baghdad, 15 Iraqi and Iraqi-American groups have issued an open letter to the American people, thanking them for the sacrifices they endured to liberate their country.

Can you explain to me in non-theoretical, specific terms how this has furthered the war on terror?

Libya declares chemical weapons

Libya has declared a 20-ton stockpile of deadly mustard gas in a full report on its chemical weapons programmes submitted to the UN on Friday.
The Libyans also detailed large amounts of chemicals used to make nerve gas.
The UN says the declaration is a major step towards eliminating Libya’s weapons of mass destruction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3535177.stm

Can you show us what active collaboration you ended?

Palestinians get Saddam funds

Saddam Hussein has paid out thousands of dollars to families of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel.
$10,000 per family
$25,000 for family of a suicide bomber
$35m paid since September 2000

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2846365.stm

Posted by: MAW at August 1, 2004 07:23 AM

MAW

A trading company led by the cousin of Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad, smuggled millions of dollars worth of sophisticated arms and equipment

Where does this mention chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? We didn’t go there to take away his artillery, to take away just any equipment. We went to war to disarm one of the worlds worst tyrants of some of the world’s worst weapons, weapons that didn’t show up. Bush, as Woodward’s Plan of Attack records, accepted a case he knew to be weak, and then had his lieutenants give it a trial lawyer treatment.

It might have been of value to you to track down the Los Angeles Times report on the subject mentioned in your quote. The source might say something substantially different than that site, which, if you read the attribution, seems to be mostly a cherrypicking of other publications. If you want to think for yourself, you have to look for yourself.

As for your response to my question about grave dangers, You’ve missed one very important detail- Zarqawi enjoys whatever access he has because we’ve left a power vacuum.

Charles Deulfer said in a television interview his inspectors have discovered as many as a dozen chemical-filled bombs, the Washington Times reported.

Question: How old, in what condition, and from where? If they’re old enough, then they’re likely from the Iran/Iraq war of the eighties. They’re also likely spoiled, which is why Deulfer is not claiming they have actual chemical agents inside of them.

The other find you relate is well known to me, because I actually posted this sites first and perhaps only article on it. A number of things must be taken into account- This was a binary shell, meaning the chemicals mixed in the bomb, instead of being premixed. They wouldn’t have survived as long as they did had it been otherwise, and neither would the people around the explosion site. In practice, a shell like that uses the spin that the rifled grooves in the barrel put on it in flight to mix the chemicals. A simple explosion doesn’t mix it too well.

Additional reporting since then places the shell in question as being pre-gulf war. It also rules out the idea that it’s a new shell, which would have been indicative of the picture your people were painting. Aside from these isolated, ancient finds, there is no evidence that Saddam had any kind of WMD infrastructure up and running that he could use to create these most feared weapons.

If Bush’s people are finding the weapons, you must ask yourself, why aren’t we hearing about them? What possible benefit would Bush gain by a conspiracy of silence regarding the very weapons he’d most benefit from finding?

As for the handover of sovereignty, I’d like you to take notice of where our troops are, and where they aren’t. Right now, they are a country without an army, which cannot police its own borders and cities, and which we still maintain a massive military presence in. So the Iraqis and us signed a piece of paper. Big whoop. What has changed? As my old professor use to say, A difference, to be a difference, must make a difference.

Are our troops home? Are they no longer having to fight insurgents? Do we still effectively own Iraq? Yes, to all three. The test of whether Iraq is truly sovereign, and trully free is our ability to withdraw all but a nominal presence there, and have Iraq remain together, and protected from its neighbors.

So, what’s changed? Nothing. And while Libya’s declared its weapons, it’s so far the only rogue state to do so, and North Korea and Iran have taken precisely the opposite course. So little’s changed there.

Palestinians get Saddam funds

Saddam Hussein has paid out thousands of dollars to families of Palestinians killed in fighting with Israel.
$10,000 per family
$25,000 for family of a suicide bomber
$35m paid since September 2000

These people are killing, what, ten or twenty people at a pop? We didn’t need to go to war to address that threat. Bush could have committed himself like every other president in the last half century to working out a peace between the palestinians and the Israelis. But he didn’t. he dropped it about the time he picked up Iraq. That’s the account of Paul O’Neill, who attended a National Security Council meeting ten days after Bush’s inauguration. Disengagement they called it, if my memory serves me right.

Meanwhile, Osama Bin Laden remained free in central asia. A man, who urged to make contact with Iraq, to make friends with Saddam, made contact…
…And never got his phone call returned.

Saddam brushed him off, and with good reason. Saddam didn’t survive three decades of totalitarian rule at the top by letting rivals set up shop. In the end, even the mutual friend, Hasan Turabi, got tired of Osama’s control freakiness and kicked him out of Sudan.

The conspiracy that would have mattered, the one that would have justified this as part of the war against terror, is the one conspiracy that never really occured. Meanwhile, they’re still out there, and our troops, our deterrent against any country that would harbor terrorist and permit them to plan and execute plans from their territory, are stuck in a country where terrorism had to be imported after the fact.

Do I paint a pretty picture? We need new leadership.

Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at August 1, 2004 09:23 AM

We conservatives just don’t agree with your opinion that we should go around attacking everybody,

At least not until we’ve pacified and consolidated our new Middle Eastern military base - Fort Apache: Iraq. :)

This is an interesting article, Eric. You’re accusing Kerry of lying because he “subliminally” called Bush a liar.

Please don’t stop with the baseless negative attacks, Eric. This is what America really wants. Ignore those who say there is too much petty negativity in presidential campaigns. Ignore the message of optimism and hope that the Democrats are offering. Please make cynacism and bitterness the theme of the GOP convention.

In short, keep up the good work, Eric. The check from Kerry campaign HQ is in the mail. :)

Posted by: American Pundit at August 1, 2004 11:04 AM

MAW, if you wish your news citations to be taken even remotely seriously by anyone besides right wing dittoheads, please cite sources other than WorldNetDaily (which is basically the Weekly World News with a political bent) or the Washington Times (which is both edited and owned by certifiable lunatics). These discovered WMD’s are not even mentioned by any other mainstream media outlets! Now, before you start yelling “liberal bias” I should note that these WMDs aren’t even mentioned by the Bush Administration. If there was even a grain of truth to them, then they would certainly be mentioned by Bush & Cheney.

But I’ll pretend that your “news” sources are accurate and reliable just for tne sake of argument.

> A trading company led by the cousin of Syria’s
> dictator, Bashar Assad, smuggled millions of
> dollars worth of sophisticated arms and
> equipment to Saddam Hussein

This was a reference to Iraq’s “disarmament”… If they have been “disarmed”, then where are these weapons now? Are they possibly in the hands of the various Iraqi insurgencies? Have they been shipped out of the country to Iran or Syria? We don’t know. Just because we’ve toppled Saddam doesn’t mean that we’ve “disarmed” our enemies. In fact, the opposite may have occurred (more on that below).

Plus, Stephen’s point trumps the whole question: When Bush said “disarm” he meant to disarm Iraq of WMDs. These conventional weapons from Syria are a red herring.

> The head of the CIA weapons team in Iraq says
> insurgents are seeking chemical arms left
> over from the Saddam Hussein regime to use
> against coalition troops.

LOL, yeah, well, we’re seeking them too, and we haven’t found them either. Just because the insurgents are looking for them doesn’t mean they exist!

> Charles Deulfer said in a television interview
> his inspectors have discovered as many as a
> dozen chemical-filled bombs, the Washington
> Times reported.

Yeah, from among 8,700 known weapons depots that he’s inspected, they’ve found “10 or 12 sarin and mustard rounds”. No mention of whether or not those rounds were still usable, but even if they were they hardly constitute a military threat to the US or Iraq’s neighbors.

And finally, your citations ironically only make your case for war even more weak: The weapons we were seeking to keep Saddam from using or, worse, from handing over to shadowy stateless terrorist groups are apparently now being sought by those same terrorist groups. It seems much more probable that Al Qaeda will get their hands on Saddam’s WMDs (if there are any, which there apparently are not) today than it did two years ago when Saddam was in power, don’t you think?

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 1, 2004 04:43 PM

This is an interesting article, Eric. You’re accusing Kerry of lying because he “subliminally” called Bush a liar.

Actually Kerry pretty much said bush lied several times over.

…that starts by telling the truth to the American people. …As President, that is my first pledge to you tonight. As President, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House. …I will be a Commander-in-Chief who will never mislead us into war. …Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn’t make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn’t make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn’t make it so. …until we have a president who restores America’s respect and leadership,

Which is funny because it’s basically all they get from the Kerry campaign. Attacks on Bush. But of course if you say you really aren’t being negative while you do it and blame the other guy for being negative… then you really aren’t in liberal minds. It’s one of those alternate liberal realities where there are no absolutes and Republicans are the real enemy.

Please don’t stop with the baseless negative attacks, Eric. This is what America really wants. Ignore those who say there is too much petty negativity in presidential campaigns. Ignore the message of optimism and hope that the Democrats are offering. Please make cynacism and bitterness the theme of the GOP convention.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 1, 2004 05:06 PM

> First, services are not civil rights, Chris.

That’s why I said “virtually an American right”.

> And by the way, Firehouses do not make us safer
> from terrorists. Like the police, they are there
> after the fact.

Um, I’d like to see you tell that to the thousands of people who were safely escorted out of the World Trade Center by FDNY, people who likely would have died without their help.

I understand your distinction perfectly, but you must agree that is of critical importance that we sharpen our ability to withstand a terrorist attack in addition to being able to prevent them. Some argue that we can never truly be safe from terrorists - that 50 years from now any old Dylan Klebold or Bernhard Goetz will be able to build a neve gas bomb anyway - so the best we can do, really, is be prepared to absorb the blow and recover quickly. I don’t agree with that philosophy, but I do think that we should be as prepared as possible for attack - and I do consider such preparations as ways to “make us safer from terrorists”.

> Which, seems to be what Kerry’s War on Terror
> will consist of. Waiting for the next attack.

Imagine if I used your statements above and elsewhere, where you criticise the use of law enforcement and fire departments as tools in the war on terrorism, to argue that you think that we shouldn’t prepare for the aftermath of terror attacks. That you think that as long as we keep invading terrorist-sponsoring nations that we’ll be safe and that spending money on the FBI and the OEM and FEMA is a complete waste of time. That accusation is about as credible as your accusation that Kerry’s strategy is to wait for an attack.

> We are constantly talking about strawman arguments,
> here’s one of your own. Bush didn’t give just a
> single reason for war.

But “in essence” (the words I used) there was only one reason given. The overall gist of his speech is clearly that the goal of the invasion is to disarm Iraq. The “free its people” stuff, which he barely mentions in passing, was fig-leaf rhetoric meant to make the mission seem just a little bit more noble. The WMD threat - and specifically the WMD threat to American soil - was clearly the core of the argument, and the one about which he and his spokespeople spent the vast majority of their time using as the central case for war. It’s hardly a “straw man” to say that Bush made WMD the main argument for invading Iraq - its common sense, and I guarantee you that the history books will bear me out and that they will write that the single reason Bush gave for invading was WMD.

> Another strawman argument is Iraq attacking US
> soil. That was not the argument either.

So what exactly did he mean by this, Eric?:

We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

Of all the possible reasons for invading Iraq, this is the only one that more than a tiny fraction of Americans would ever support (few would have supported a war simply to liberate Iraq from a dictatorship!). Thus, this was the crux of Bush’s case.

I can’t think of a more powerful and clearer way to make Americans think that Saddam has both the plans and the ability to attack American soil.

-Cf

Posted by: Christopher Fahey at August 1, 2004 05:07 PM

Eric,

You can argue that Bush didn’t lie about Iraq, but there was one thing that is fairly clear at this point: He was wrong about the WMD, and wrong about how the war would progress.

If you still want to vote for him after those glaring mistakes, be my guest.

Posted by: Woody Mena at August 1, 2004 08:42 PM

…that starts by telling the truth to the American people. …As President, that is my first pledge to you tonight. As President, I will restore trust and credibility to the White House. …I will be a Commander-in-Chief who will never mislead us into war. …Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn’t make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn’t make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn’t make it so. …until we have a president who restores America’s respect and leadership,

Which of those points do you disagree with, Eric? Do you want a commander in chief who will mislead us into war? Do you want to fight a war on the cheap? Don’t you want a president who will restore America’s respect and leadership?

Ohh… I get it. You believe Bush mislead us into war, and that he fought the war on the cheap, and that he caused America to lose respect. Now I can understand why you’re a little sensitive about it.

Eric, I think your anger and bitterness stems from the fact that you’re actually a repressed liberal. Maybe it’s time to “come out”. :)

Eric, You can argue that Bush didn’t lie about Iraq

Woody, he can argue all he wants, but Bush is still a liar.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 2, 2004 03:59 AM

When Clinton lied, he got two second orgasm, a couple of months on the couch and a $75 million headache. When Bush lied, people died, for no reason. Despite all the doublespeak, terrorism is on the rise and the economy is still in the tank, due to outsourcing, deficit spending and home bred corruption. Bush is unique in his ability to never let a fact get in the way of policy making.

Posted by: bayviking at August 2, 2004 10:03 AM

cf-

Part of what troubles me about Kerry and the left’s war on terror, is that they see firefighters having more of a role- in the aftermath. Which means defensive, not offensive. Kerry laid down the law saying that we will not go to war unless we are under an immediate and imminent threat of attack.

Which means waiting for the next attack.

Any attack will be met with a swift and a certain response.

Your argument is that Al Qaeda attacked us from Afghanistan, so Afghanistan should have been the end of any military operations. Some of the left, like Michael Moore, were against even that.

Bush was right when he said, “We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

Al Qaeda is not bound to the arbitrary borders of Afghanistan… as so many liberals are fond of saying, “Why don’t we attack Saudi Arabia, that’s where the hijackers were from.”

According to the 911 commission report:

Proven: there were Iraq - Al Qaeda links.
Proven: Saddam Hussein was an enemy of the US
Proven: Iraq planned terrorist attacks against the US and European targets
Proven: Iraq actually attempted to carry out several terrorist attacks
Proven: Iraq attempted to assasinate a US President
Proven: Iraq had WMD
Proven: Iraq thwarted every effort to inspect for WMD
Proven: Saddam was and is a pathological mass murderer

How much more do you need? Remember the August PDB saying Al Qaeda was determined to strike the US? If we were to follow the left’s hindsight directions Bush was supposed to invade Afghanistan on that alone. The left was ready to impeach Bush for not acting on that generic warning yet he should have ignored all of these facts about Iraq?

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 2, 2004 12:53 PM

American Pundit,

Which of those points do you disagree with, Eric?

All of them. Because they are mischaracterizations at best. Tell me, American Pundit, when did you stop beating your wife? A month ago? A year ago? or just last night?

Kerry is not only wrong here, he is engaging in negative partisan attacks.

Posted by: Eric Simonson at August 2, 2004 12:57 PM

American Pundit

I will be a Commander-in-Chief who will never mislead us into war…

Assuming the pejorative meaning of mislead is ‘to lead in the wrong direction’ and not that he lied. Assuming that Bush did just that and assuming I buy your argument that he did in fact mislead us, is it also your premise that he did this intentionally?

That being the case, other than he tried to kill his daddy, or to line the pocket books of his good ole buddies in the oil business just what is your reasoning that prompted him to go to war?

What did he have to gain by this since an action this daring would put his entire Presidency on the line and risk losing a reelection bid?

Are you willing to consider the possibility, just the possibility, that his primary and utmost motives were to protect the American people and had the safety of the country at heart?

Posted by: MAW at August 2, 2004 03:11 PM

According to the 911 commission report:

Proven: there were Iraq - Al Qaeda links.
Proven: Saddam Hussein was an enemy of the US
Proven: Iraq planned terrorist attacks against the US and European targets
Proven: Iraq actually attempted to carry out several terrorist attacks
Proven: Iraq attempted to assasinate a US President
Proven: Iraq had WMD
Proven: Iraq thwarted every effort to inspect for WMD
Proven: Saddam was and is a pathological mass murderer

What report have you been reading? The 9/11 report said almost nothing about Iraq, since 9/11 wasn’t about Iraq. Did you mean the Senate Intelligence Committee report? If so, your interpretation is very misleading. Most of conclusions 1-11, 27-61, 77-81, and others say there weren’t WMD. The “links” were not a relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda.

What have you been reading?

Posted by: LawnBoy at August 2, 2004 07:44 PM

Speaking of the intelligence report…

I was just looking for a good place to post a couple links on watchblog that I stumbled on today. Last week the only thing I remember hearing regarding the Intelligence Report was “BUSH WASN’T LYING!” and “JOE WILSON WAS LYING!” - not only on watchblog, but elsewhere in the media, so much in fact that Mr. Wilson took it upon himself to publish a public response in Salon.

Anyhow, as the smoke is clearing, people are looking at the report a little closer and it appears neither of the above statements is reaching a consensus of true or false, and they are likely some shade of dirty gray inbetween (as often seems to be the case). For further analysis of the intelligence report - esp concerning the whole Niger ordeal- as considered from lefty blog braniacs (feel free to link some right wing ones later to balance my bias)- I would strongly urge each and every one of you to look at what Kevin Drum has to say as well as what Josh Marshall has to say.

The first link takes a deeper look at the timeline of intelligence communities handling of Niger related documents, and the second looks at the source of the forged Italian documents. These are not meant to validate some viewpoint or prove anyone right or wrong, but rather to encourage all of us to continue looking deeper into the facts rather than to just settle for media opinions, partisan conclusions, and otherwise useless soundbite quotes.

ps - whatever you do- dont reply saying - “Joe Wilson is still a liar - this doesn’t prove anything” - because I am not trying to disprove that notion. I am trying to open the discussion to the broader concern of intelligence that existed and yet was not addressed for some reason or another. Wilson is partly involved in this, but he is not at the center of the issue as many seem to think.

Just because he had a loud mouth, which I’m sure was in no small part because of his anger of his wife’s ordeal- doesn’t mean his initial concerns about mishandled intelligence are not valid concerns both then and now.

Posted by: peezee at August 2, 2004 10:32 PM

Assuming the pejorative meaning of mislead is ‘to lead in the wrong direction’ and not that he lied. Assuming that Bush did just that and assuming I buy your argument that he did in fact mislead us, is it also your premise that he did this intentionally?

Yes.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 3, 2004 04:41 AM

Which of those points do you disagree with, Eric?

All of them. Because they are mischaracterizations at best. Tell me, American Pundit, when did you stop beating your wife? A month ago? A year ago? or just last night?

Touche. :)

Kerry is not only wrong here, he is engaging in negative partisan attacks.

If the shoe fits.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 3, 2004 04:43 AM

That being the case, other than he tried to kill his daddy, or to line the pocket books of his good ole buddies in the oil business just what is your reasoning that prompted him to go to war?

MAW, I’m going to give you a serious response because I haven’t seen too much non-partisan straight talk around here lately. Here’s my take on it:

There wasn’t one single reason. I think, as you point out, that Bush was really worried that Saddam might have WMD. I think Bush really thought (still does, probably) he could stabilize the Middle East by replacing Saddam. I think Bush believes a stable Middle East is necessary to securing the oil that this country chugs like Super Big Gulps. There was also the matter of increasing resistance to the stationing of US troops in the region that were doing containment duty.

I also think that - because of the reasons I mentioned - Bush was eventually going to invade whether there was evidence of WMD or not. In fact, I think he worried the UN inspections wouldn’t find any WMD and cut his legs out from under him on that argument and so refused to wait the extra month for the inspections to end. If you’ll remember, he didn’t want to go to the UN in the first place.

All the arguments that came and went about nuclear weapons, then nuclear weapons programs, then nuclear weapons program activities, and al Qaeda cooperation, then al Qaeda connections, then al Qaeda passing aquaintances, etc. make it clear to me that the invasion plan was a done deal. Bush just needed a fig leaf.

And that’s the part that ticks me off. Rather than work with the international community to solve some legitimate (non-immenent) problems, Bush decided that was too constraining. It was easier and quicker to blow off the UN and NATO, lie to the citizens he is supposed to serve, and just get the job done. I don’t believe the ends justify the means.

It’s no secret that Democrats supported regime change in Iraq - but not at the expense of credibility, integrity, alliances and security. Bush took the easy way out, and made a major international brewhaha that undercut American leadership on the world stage out of a non-immenent threat that could have been solved to everyone’s satisfaction by exercising more patience and diplomacy. And yes, probably fighting - but at the side of French, German, and Russian troop, as well as Micronesia if they still wanted to.

That’s already longer than I like to write, if you want to continue this discussion seriously, I’m happy to expound or clarify. If you’re just going to make some silly “Kerry wants to ask France’s permission” remarks, I’m usually too busy to do more than shoot some quick zingers at ‘em.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 3, 2004 05:35 AM

peezee

Wasn’t the whole Joe Wilson case blown a little out of proportion.

I never could figure out what the hoopla was since Bush’s State of the Union address clearly attributed that whole Niger thing to British Intelligence, which they clearly stood by then and today.

The outing of his wife though is an entirely different story.

Posted by: MAW at August 3, 2004 01:44 PM

AP,
Thanks for those thoughtful insights. And I do notice that your responses are short and Pithy (to borrow a phrase from our so-called Independent FNC commentator). I do enjoy them and they don’t anger me like some do.

So to make a long story (response in this case) short. I will simply say that I can not for the life of me understand the hatred, the Bush bashing books, the Moore film, the anybody but Bush rhetoric. Hatred that I have never seen since in this country, not even with Nixon. With the possible exception of the anti-war era, but it did not seem to be directed at anyone in particular or take on attacks at a personal level.

What I see today is an active and preemptive rounding up of Al Qaeda members and terrorists cells all over the world. And yesterday’s announcement of the capture of Muhammed Naeem Moor Khan whose computer was a treasure chest of information drive that point further home for me. Maybe you subscribe to the philosophy that things are much worse. I choose not to and feel that for the first time there is active participation and co-operation on the war on terror by the US and all legitimate countries in the world.

I do not want the war on terror to stop and to answer your question before about whether I would consider voting for Kerry. This is my reasoning of why that would never be a consideration for me. I do not want to go back to that head in the sand philosophy that we once adopted.

Great Posting….

Posted by: MAW at August 3, 2004 02:11 PM

I think 90% of Bush bashing comes from the Iraq situation. From the onset there was no doubt in my mind (and in many people’s minds) that the administration was seeking intelligence to push their agenda for war. As it has been iterated 1000 times before by democrats and leftists everywhere - I think action in Irag was a good idea, but not the way Bush went about it.

Bush was doing okay up until post Afghanistan, pre-Iraq, I didn’t like a few of the decisions, but typical and predictably republican. But once they started pushing the whole Iraq thing, and all this imminent threat stuff- I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they were full of it. It’s not one of those things where you can point to one thing, but all the pieces just didn’t add up right. You had Cheney bitching about Aluminum tubes that were not even capable of WMD use, you had officials resigning, people who supported the administration up until that point suddenly questioning what was going on, you had reports of unfinished intelligence gathering followed by speeches of WMDs that could be launched in 30 minutes, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc…

And from there it has been all downhill. We haven’t been able to get out of Iraq. It’s eating our precious tax dollars that are needed to support our hurting economy and growing deficit. Not to mention the loss of life over the past year. There was no exit strategy, especially on the fiscal end of things. And after all this, we are less safe and less welcome in the rest of the world.

Had this been handled differently, I think we could have been rid of Saddam or at least kept him powerless, and worked on domestic issues to prevent terrorism as well as keeping outside of the middle east without the UN. Our middle east presence is a big reason for US centered terrorism in the first place. Fundamentalists see western culture as a threat to their way of life, and the US had large communities in Saudi Arabia and other smaller outfits around the area. Rather than work with international forces to keep peace in the regions without beefing up the overt “Western/US Influence” we just ran in with a handful of allies and got stuck there. This is part of the reason we are now seeing increased acts of terror. All of the kidnappings confirm this- they kidnap members of allied nations and tell them to I think Bush would have been better off if he had let Colin Powel or someone with more middle-east background have more say in the time leading up to the war. Regardless, others may have other opinions on the “anyone but bush” syndrome, but thats my feeling on the matter.

Posted by: peezee at August 3, 2004 02:57 PM

lost part of a sentence there near the bottom-

regarding kidnappings -
they are trying to get allied forces to withdraw from the area. This supports the notion that they are really just against western influence on their culture. Too bad western culture is too interested in their oil to stay the f#c% out of their business.

Posted by: peezee at August 3, 2004 03:01 PM

From the onset there was no doubt in my mind (and in many people’s minds) that the administration was seeking intelligence to push their agenda for war.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence says just the reverse of what you believe and many people believe to be factual.

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRICTION (WMD) PRESSURE CONCLUSIONS

(U) Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

(U) Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President’s visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.

http://intelligence.senate.gov/conclusions.pdf

Posted by: MAW at August 3, 2004 04:29 PM

first of all - by ‘seeking intelligence to support their agenda’ i don’t mean coercing agencies- I mean they were picking and choosing from the intelligence. How else do you explain the whole Niger thing based on one unsubstatiated report when there were plenty of other reports that conflicted, and the state department told Bush & others not to mention it in speeches and they did it anyways.

Not to knock the Intelligence commitee - but they were looking for hard evidence from an administration that knows what they’re getting into and knows better to leave hard evidence. Thats why you can’t call Bush a liar outright, because he has talented speech writers. But it was still pretty obvious from the beginning.

Posted by: peezee at August 3, 2004 04:39 PM

even beyond the intelligence issue, you have to look at Iraq under Saddam post 2000. How could that guy really pose an imminent threat to the US. He was too happy being the big fish in the small pond, and to try to get out of that pond would basically be a suicide move under the watchful eye of both the US and the UN. Saddam is not a terrorist, he is a ruthless dictator. Dictators are concerned about strategically maintaining power, whereas terrorists usually act in desparate and violent extremes because they have little power to flex.

All the pieces just didn’t add up the way the administration was claiming.

Posted by: peezee at August 3, 2004 04:51 PM

MAW, is important that one note the words in the report and in the passages you quote, “DID NOT FIND”.

These words are not the same as “THERE WERE NO”.

The Committee’s investigation is not finished. They will be resuming it and have a second report based on further investigations sometime after the election (convenient eh?) regarding how intelligence was used by the Whitehouse.

More may be found when the investigation is finished, or not. But, did not find is the same as the reports “we did not find any WMD in Iraq” which the Whitehouse replied - Just because you didn’t find them does not mean they aren’t there - Dick Cheney.

See how that works?

Posted by: David R. Remer at August 3, 2004 04:52 PM

David,

More may be found when the investigation is finished, or not. But, did not find is the same as the reports “we did not find any WMD in Iraq” which the Whitehouse replied - Just because you didn’t find them does not mean they aren’t there - Dick Cheney.

So judging from your comment here, you are willing to assume there are WMDs, if I am willing to assume there was coercion on the part of the Administration?

Agree? Disagree?

Posted by: MAW at August 3, 2004 07:11 PM

Peezee,

How could that guy really pose an imminent threat to the US.

I don’t recall the Administration using imminent threat to describe Saddam. I recall the words ‘grave and gathering danger’ and not waiting for it to become an imminent threat. However said, there was a cost in containing him. The biggest and often most ignored was the fact that we were in Saudi Arabia to contain him which ultimately led to OBL and 9/11. The USS Cole was another cost of containing him. How long were we to contain him?

He was too happy being the big fish in the small pond, and to try to get out of that pond would basically be a suicide move under the watchful eye of both the US and the UN.

Possibly because when he battled Iran, he had our support. When he went into Kuwait, he thought he had our support. Who knows why, we can only speculate. We all can agree he was a ruthless dictator, what we can not agree on is did he pose an imminent threat or a grave and gathering danger. I choose to believe he was, you don’t. So we can agree to disagree, but remember what they say about hindsight?

Thanks.

Posted by: MAW at August 3, 2004 07:27 PM

I don’t recall the Administration using imminent threat to describe Saddam.

MAW, that’s what peeze means by “you can’t call Bush a liar outright, because he has talented speech writers.”

Bush was very careful not to say the words, “imminent threat”, because that has a legal connotation. Instead he used words like “mushroom clouds over American cities”, and “only weeks away from giving terrorists chemical or biological weapons.” To most of America, that means “imminent threat.”

I was totally blown away by Bush’s Clintonesque lawyering of the language on that and on the al Qaeda “connections” claims. Bush technically never claimed al Qaeda worked with Iraq on 9/11, but he sure implied it.

That must have been really embarrassing to Republicans who were still gloating over the whole, “It depends on what the definition of is, is” thing. It turns out George W. “I’ll return dignity and honor to the White House” Bush could give Clinton lessons on parsing statements for the lawyers.

How long were we to contain him?

Until we could whip up support for regime change from our allies. After all, Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, right? And Bush’s snippy “irrelevent” remarks, and the insistence that bad intelligence trumped the conclusions of on-site inspections didn’t help.

Just out of curiosity, why do you think Iraq was an imminent threat?

Posted by: American Pundit at August 4, 2004 07:50 AM

BTW, thanks for the positive response to the other post, MAW. :)

I can not for the life of me understand the hatred, the Bush bashing books, the Moore film, the anybody but Bush rhetoric. Hatred that I have never seen since in this country, not even with Nixon.

Were you out of the country, or in jail during the Clinton years?

When David Corn says, “Bush habitually lies, even when the truth would serve him better,” how is that worse than the Wall Street Journal accusing Hillary Clinton of murdering Vince Foster to suppress evidence in the Whitewater investigation?

When Moore points out that if Bush wasn’t reporting for duty he’s a deserter, how is that worse than FOX News reporting that Clinton murdered 47 people in Arkansas to cover up his sexual devience?

To tell you the truth, I’m both disappointed and proud that the left isn’t coming down as hard as we can on Bush.

Post the most hateful thing you’ve heard about Bush (from a fairly mainstream source). Then we’ll look at the kinds of things people like Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, and their ilk are saying about Kerry and Democrats.

I don’t want this to devolve into a “But they started it!” argument, but if you think Michael Moore is spewing hate, you’re not paying attention.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 4, 2004 08:03 AM

AP,

I was totally blown away by Bush’s Clintonesque lawyering of the language on that and on the al Qaeda “connections” claims. Bush technically never claimed al Qaeda worked with Iraq on 9/11, but he sure implied it.

Actually I remember him saying they found no connections between 9/11 and Iraq. Not sure how that translates to implication? So no, I was not embarrassed by anything in this case.

Until we could whip up support for regime change from our allies. After all, Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat, right? And Bush’s snippy “irrelevent” remarks, and the insistence that bad intelligence trumped the conclusions of on-site inspections didn’t help.

And when was this support for our allies (translation the French and the Germans) suppose to come? After they had admitted to the world they were stealing money from sick and impoverished people while Saddam was building palaces and the world blaming the US for those sanctions that were killing all those ‘sick and impoverished people.’ This was going to happen when?

Just out of curiosity, why do you think Iraq was an imminent threat?

I never believed Iraq was an imminent threat. So I guess I wasn’t as gullible (as I said in my other post) as some people.

Posted by: MAW at August 4, 2004 06:10 PM

AP,
Thanks AP, but no I was not in jail. I like that! It was kinda funny.

I am paying attention, maybe too much attention. And yes, I believe it started with Nixon. They ran him right out of Washington and I could make a case that he lied to protect his employees. Which to me was better than lying about an illicit relationship. In Nixon’s case you did not see Republicans standing behind him and making accusations about how hateful the left was. They knew he was wrong and they admitted it. Could we agree on that? This is never done on the left by anyone. No matter what the case. They ran Trent Lott out of the Senate Majority chair and give Senator Dodd a pass for the very same thing. Because Rep politicians don’t do that. So to go any further would be a complete digression into a conversation about who was worse Nixon or Clinton. And neither of us want to go there.

To tell you the truth, I’m both disappointed and proud that the left isn’t coming down as hard as we can on Bush.

And David Corn, are we talking about the same David Corn that writes for The Nation? If it is, I certainly don’t take anything that David Corn has to say seriously. I will agree that I do take the WSJ more seriously than The Nation. But who doesn’t? And I have written before that I don’t consider The Clinton Chronicles or The Hunting of a President or Primary Colors to have any particular value. So why would I consider Michael Moore’s film to have any value?

I have heard Bush called Hitler, the Taliban, murderer, Hate-Riot (in this site), dictator, deserter, worst President in our history. He concocted the events of 9/11 by Howard Dean. And by prominent Democrats such as Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Kweisi Mfume, Julian Bond with their name-calling and the Ad about the killing of James Bird and that Bush killed her father twice! The Bush bashing books, Richard Clarke, Carl Bernstein, to name a few. These are mainstream prominent politicians and journalists and you cite me Talk Show Hosts. Please! So why don’t you name me one prominent politician that has spewed these rank types of smut on Clinton? Notice I don’t even mention Michael Moore here. He doesn’t bother me. It’s the insults from the mainstream Democrats that I am citing here.

This makes you proud! I should hope not. It would not make me proud!

But again, we are digressing to a place that neither of us wants to be. This is nothing but an old fashion pi__ing contest. And no one wins.

So if your hatred for Bush comes from whatever rags and movies and talk show hosts had to say about Clinton. It does not support your argument where I am concerned. The 2 are not comparable.

So you see, I am paying attention.

Posted by: MAW at August 4, 2004 07:09 PM

Haha! MAW, none of the names you’re citing (except maybe “worst president in histoy - which is fact, not hate) were said by the politicians you name. They all come from the rags and talk show hosts on the left (and in this site).

If you’re going to stick to prominent politicians, then neither of us is going to prove any hate mongering. They’re all too shrewd for that. :)

Because Rep politicians don’t do that.

Oh, please! $70 million, eight years, and reams of printed and televised smears, and all the Reps could dig up was that Clinton went hogging. Bill and Hillary must have been squeaky clean if that’s all they find. The Republicans never did apologize for hounding them so hatefully on Whitewater. :)

I could make a case that he lied to protect his employees.

But you won’t, because that’s even more illegal. Makin’ extra-marital whoopie isn’t.

Which to me was better than lying about an illicit relationship.

That’s an interesting moral code you live by. :)

But again, I don’t want to get involved in a “but they started it” argument. I just didn’t understand how you can say you haven’t seen that kind of hatred since Nixon. I remember Nixon’s impeachment being pretty clinical, rather than impassioned and hateful.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 4, 2004 11:32 PM

I never believed Iraq was an imminent threat. So I guess I wasn’t as gullible (as I said in my other post) as some people.

I’m sorry, MAW. I must have misunderstood your post,

what we can not agree on is did he pose an imminent threat or a grave and gathering danger. I choose to believe he was, you don’t.

Actually I remember him saying they found no connections between 9/11 and Iraq. Not sure how that translates to implication?

He also said silly things like, “You can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”

To about 60% of Americans, talk like that made them think Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. Congratulations on not being fooled, but it was solely due to your superior reasoning skills. Bush didn’t clearly deny it until after the invasion - after the the innuendo had served its purpose.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 4, 2004 11:43 PM

Haha! MAW, none of the names you’re citing (except maybe “worst president in histoy - which is fact, not hate) were said by the politicians you name. They all come from the rags and talk show hosts on the left (and in this site).

I guess you never heard that speech when Al Gore sounded like a lunatic, yelling and screaming and said, He betrayed this country, He Lied.. Sure sounded like him. I have heard it many times. Oh, I have seen it on tape also. I must get my eyes checked.
Oh and that famous audio of Ted Kennedy where he keeps saying over and over ‘he told lie after lie after lie after lie after lie…. I must have made that up too. And the interview with Howard Dean where he talked about Kennedy’s claim that 9/11 was concocted by Bush et al in Crawford. And the NAACP that had their name on an Ad in the 2000 election calling him a murderer, you are saying that was not their Ad. If I were the NAACP, I would sue.
And Mfume and Bond, of course they never called him worse than Hitler or The Taliban like Jesse Jackson. No, I don’t think these politicians are shrewd. Check the records, they said these things and I have heard them and in some cases seen videos where they are saying them.

They said these things. If you did not hear them then you have been in jail or something, not me.

Oh, please! $70 million, eight years, and reams of printed and televised smears, and all the Reps could dig up was that Clinton went hogging. Bill and Hillary must have been squeaky clean if that’s all they find. The Republicans never did apologize for hounding them so hatefully on Whitewater. :)

Bill and Hillary could have avoided most of that starting with not contesting the Paula Jones accusations and legal action. But he chose to fight it. He was his worst enemy. So what does he do? He denies having relations with Monica. Denied and denied until whadya know, a little blue dress showed up. Golly! He did more to perpetrate this fiasco than any Republican could have ever done. Don’t blame Republicans for his own stupidity.

But you won’t, because that’s even more illegal. Makin’ extra-marital whoopie isn’t.

More illegal? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Oh of course there is that lying under oath and obstruction of justice thing.

I remember Nixon’s impeachment being pretty clinical, rather than impassioned and hateful.

Of course it was pretty clinical. Because he chose not to put the country through the mess that Clinton did and to him it was more honorable to resign. He knew that it was not good for the country. So he put his country’s honor before his own. Something Clinton would not, nor could not conceive of doing. Ego-Centric come to mind here?

Unlike the Clinton impeachment where every single Democrat and a few Republicans voted no, it was more bi-partisan. As I said, Republicans knew he was wrong and said just that.

And yes, I chose to believe that he was a grave and gathering danger. I also believed that he was a menace and a threat to the entire area, a bully and someone that needed to be watched for as long as he was in power. I just was not hysterical when there were no WMDs found. Didn’t care then, don’t care now. You do.

He also said silly things like, “You can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.”

And that statement is wrong why? Saddam was not a threat to the area or guilty of paying suicide bombers, killing thousands of Kurds? Seems indistinguishable to me.

To about 60% of Americans, talk like that made them think Saddam was personally involved in 9/11.

Guess what. Last polls I saw they still do. Go figure.

I will go out tomorrow and promptly get my hearing and my eyes checked.

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 03:00 AM

:) That’s whay I didn’t want this thread to devolve into “but they started it.”

We could go back & forth on this for a long time and you’re not going to convince me that the left is more vindictive than the right. And vice versa, I’m sure.

Posted by: American Pundit at August 5, 2004 03:22 AM

On Bush & the Iraq/AlQueda links as told by this article (which by the way, has hundreds of useful links to news stories, declassified intelligence, white house releases, interviews) :

In the summer of 2002, USA Today reported White House lawyers had concluded that establishing an Iraq-al Qaeda link would provide the legal cover at the United Nations for the administration to attack Iraq…

It started on September 25, 2002, when Bush said, “you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam.” This was news even to members of Bush’s own political party who had access to classified intelligence. Just a month before, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Saddam is not in league with al Qaeda“‚ and “I have not seen any intelligence that would lead me to connect Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda.”

To no surprise, the day after Bush’s statement, USA Today reported several intelligence experts “expressed skepticism” about the claim, with a Pentagon official calling the president’s assertion an “exaggeration.” No matter, Bush ignored these concerns and that day described Saddam Hussein as “a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda.” Meanwhile, Rumsfeld held a press conference trumpeting “bulletproof” evidence of a connection;a sentiment echoed by Rice and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

Posted by: peezee at August 5, 2004 08:48 AM

We could go back & forth on this for a long time and you’re not going to convince me that the left is more vindictive than the right. And vice versa, I’m sure.

On this I completely agree. As long as we both know that each side considers the other as more vindictive, then we can move to a better understanding of each other’s positions.

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 09:25 AM

AP,

But then you probably don’t have to listen to a lot of what Maxine Waters has to say…. lucky for you…

Thanks

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 09:38 AM

Peezee,

On Bush & the Iraq/AlQueda links as told by this article (which by the way, has hundreds of useful links to news stories, declassified intelligence, white house releases, interviews) :

Your reference from 9/25/2002 in USA Today, before the war on Iraq and during the run up to the war;

PRESIDENT BUSH: That’s a — that is an interesting question. I’m trying to think of something humorous to say. (Laughter.) But I can’t when I think about al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. They’re both risks, they’re both dangerous. The difference, of course, is that al Qaeda likes to hijack governments. Saddam Hussein is a dictator of a government. Al Qaeda hides, Saddam doesn’t, but the danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world.

Both of them need to be dealt with. The war on terror, you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror. And so it’s a comparison that is — I can’t make because I can’t distinguish between the two, because they’re both equally as bad, and equally as evil, and equally as destructive.

..you consider the words ‘you can’t distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror.’, means he thinks that they are collaborating with each other and that they conspired to attack the US and are (were) continuing to make plans to commit more attacks on the US. Is that your conclusion? Is this where you get the idea that President Bush misled people to think that Iraq was involved with al Qaeda and therefore involved in the planning of 9/11 with al Qaeda?

Your other reference from 7/29/02 from USA Today, again before the Iraq war….

The idea of using that connection as legal grounds for military action has gelled only recently, however, as the administration has developed its military options and confronted the difficulty of gaining support from allies for attacking Iraq. Countries such as Russia and France, both permanent U.N. Security Council members, have been pushing to ease sanctions on Iraq and have raised concerns about an unprovoked attack.

I might point out in the same paragraph that

‘Countries such as Russia and France, both permanent UN Security Council members, have been pushing to ease sanctions on Iraq and have raised concerns about an unprovoked attack.

Doesn’t this indicate to you, in light of the Oil for Food program of the Useless Nations that France was deeply involved with, combined with the fact that France was pushing to lift sanctions, would have resulted in the world to start looking the other way where Iraq was concerned? And your contention is, to do this would have been the responsible thing for the Administration to do? Especially after there was never any clear indication or proof that weapons had been destroyed. Your reference to NYT 9/28/02 citing ‘bulletproof’ evidence which actually says this…

“If our quest is for proof positive, we probably will be left somewhat unfulfilled,” Mr. Rumsfeld said at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon here. “We‘re not going to have everything beyond a reasonable doubt.”

and

Administration officials say there is still no evidence to link Mr. Hussein directly to the attacks on Sept. 11 in the United States. Some intelligence and law enforcement officials said today, in addition, that there was little new in what Mr. Rumsfeld and others were describing.

concludes that the Administration misled!

If you are suggesting that the Administration was looking to find links between al Qaeda and Iraq you are correct. If you are suggesting that this was an irresponsible thing to do, I fail to see why.

Look just a bit further and you will see what James Woolsey, former CIA Director 1993 –1995 during the Clinton Administration has to say in a Frontline interview in October 2001.

It’s become pro forma. Can you think, in American history, of any military action that we have taken sort of pro forma, regularly, for a decade, and it doesn’t even make the news until recently? I think that our policy toward Iraq, beginning with first President Bush’s decision not to support the Shiites in the south and the rebels in the north after the Gulf War when they rebelled against Saddam, and continuing through the eight years of the Clinton administration, has been remarkably flaccid and feckless. It sets some kind of a record, I think, for fecklessness.

Fecklessness? What do you mean, “fecklessness?” Indecision, lack of will, not making a decision and following it through. I don’t know what the reasons were for the eight years, particularly during the Clinton administration, of their continuing to let him buffalo them and get rid of the inspections and get rid of UNSCOM and work his way gradually out from under most of the sanctions that meant anything. But by the end of those eight years, I think he was sitting there laughing at us, and understandably so.

He has also said on many occasions when interviewed on TV and I am paraphrasing here, that to conclude that there was not a link between all different terrorist entities in the Middle East to form some sort of an alliance when it relates to the US is simply a foolish way of thinking.

Peezee, I still don’t see the point where you contend that Bush lied and he misled. In fact I see just the opposite. That he did in fact say they found no connections between Iraq and 9/11 and in the articles you have just directed to me shows that they knew the connections with al Qaeda were tenuous at best. But James Woolsey did! Not a part of the Bush Administration, I might add.

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 11:08 AM

Your first half changes the topic.

Rest of it focuses more on the facts that I agree with. But when you get into the quotes, between Bsuh, Rumsfeld, Rice - sure they left some small hint of doubt so they could back-pedal in the present day - but they kept pushing the assertion. THIS IS MISLEADING. How can it not be when many americans ended up believeing there was a link there.

Posted by: peezee at August 5, 2004 11:37 AM

Because most Americans are too busy living their lives and listening to what is being reported. Not reading articles in Newsweek, NYT, USA Today or PBS. So if they were misled, it was done by their own volition and not by anything Bush did or said.

But it does not seem to stop the vicious attacks on his character and motives. Even by informed people like you. And I do consider you to be informed. Biased but informed.

Great posts!

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 12:13 PM

So basically you’re conceding that Bush wanted to go to war and was telling the people selectively what they should hear in order to support him. It is up to them to research the rest of the facts on their own if they think he might be full of it. And this is not considered misleading?

The public did not even have access to all the intelligence that Bush had access to at that time, so the public can’t even properly weigh the decision. Now that we have access to more of the intel, we see that there is a much less convincing argument. But apparently Bush is not held responsible for hearing selectively when it came to all the intelligence that he had leading up to March 2003.

Posted by: peezee at August 5, 2004 12:26 PM

Peezee,
Yes it is obvious that Bush wanted to go to war. Who could deny that? But I take offense to the word ‘selectively’. There is a connotation in that word that implies ‘misled’. And I could not say in all certainty that it was done selectively, since I did not have privilege to the same Intel. And since by all the accounts I have heard is that the Intel was wrong. Tenet quits!

Based on that, plus Clark’s insistence that Bush was obsessed with Iraq pre 9/11 and wanted to make certain that Iraq was not involved the day after 9/11. Clark clearly left the impression that he did not focus on al Qaeda; thereby he was a bad, bad, bad man and was responsible for 9/11. He conveniently changed his story to blame Bush for 9/11, possibly for shock value and to sell his book. Contrast that with what James Woolsey, whose interview I posted earlier, has to say and does not get nearly the attention that Clark and all the Bush bashing does.

The public did not even have access to all the intelligence that Bush had access to at that time, so the public can’t even properly weigh the decision.

That is the problem. The media sells sensation. That is what the average American hears. So you can put Iraq war people in 3 categories. Those that were totally against the war no matter what was there, those that were for it conditionally, as long as WMDs were found and lastly those that were in favor of it no matter if WMDs were found or not. I am in the 3rd category, as you can guess. So when the first group starts in with their Bush Lied campaign, those in the middle listen and hear that and make assumptions. The assumptions that yes, Bush lied, then he mis-led. The rest of the story is history.

Posted by: MAW at August 5, 2004 02:52 PM

Goggle Gropups might be usefull for it.
http://groups.google.com/
………
Chadwick Hinkle
(ozofrowo)

Posted by: Chadwick Hinkle at August 31, 2004 06:25 PM