Finally, Bush admits no WMD in Iraq
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Wannabe yuppie
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From: Madison, WI
Finally, Bush admits no WMD in Iraq
From AP:
President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue—whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.
...
Bush and Cheney acknowledged more definitively than before that Saddam did not have the banned weapons that both men had asserted he did — and had cited as the major justification before attacking Iraq in March 2003.
Bush has recently left the question open. For example, when asked in June whether he thought such weapons had existed in Iraq, Bush said he would "wait until Charlie (Duelfer) gets back with the final report."
In July, Bush said, "We have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," a sentence construction that kept alive the possibility the weapons might yet be discovered.
On Thursday, the president used the clearest language to date nailing the question shut:
"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," Bush said. His words placed the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies.
So now finally Bush has admitted that there were no WMDs in in Iraq. I just reread that ultimatum, and rationale for the war, condensed, is as follows (full text here):
The UN passed resolutions requiring Saddam to disarm with penalty of military force. He has disregarded those resolutions by not complying with inspectors, and also because we have intelligence which says he actually has WMDs. Terrorists could potentially use these WMDs without warning. The longer we wait, the bigger this threat becomes. Before terrorists have a chance to get WMDs from Saddam, he must be disarmed. Some countries have decided to not yet act with force. We disagree, so we are going to use force.
That's the reason he gave in his speech, and that's the reason he was giving to the UN prior to giving that speech. Now, even as he admits that reason was totally incorrect, he is still defending the war. That's totally unacceptable.
Regardless of any benefits of getting rid of Saddam, those do not justify going in and doing it at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and without the support of any sort of formal treaty organization.
That is all.
President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue—whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.
...
Bush and Cheney acknowledged more definitively than before that Saddam did not have the banned weapons that both men had asserted he did — and had cited as the major justification before attacking Iraq in March 2003.
Bush has recently left the question open. For example, when asked in June whether he thought such weapons had existed in Iraq, Bush said he would "wait until Charlie (Duelfer) gets back with the final report."
In July, Bush said, "We have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction," a sentence construction that kept alive the possibility the weapons might yet be discovered.
On Thursday, the president used the clearest language to date nailing the question shut:
"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there," Bush said. His words placed the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies.
So now finally Bush has admitted that there were no WMDs in in Iraq. I just reread that ultimatum, and rationale for the war, condensed, is as follows (full text here):
The UN passed resolutions requiring Saddam to disarm with penalty of military force. He has disregarded those resolutions by not complying with inspectors, and also because we have intelligence which says he actually has WMDs. Terrorists could potentially use these WMDs without warning. The longer we wait, the bigger this threat becomes. Before terrorists have a chance to get WMDs from Saddam, he must be disarmed. Some countries have decided to not yet act with force. We disagree, so we are going to use force.
That's the reason he gave in his speech, and that's the reason he was giving to the UN prior to giving that speech. Now, even as he admits that reason was totally incorrect, he is still defending the war. That's totally unacceptable.
Regardless of any benefits of getting rid of Saddam, those do not justify going in and doing it at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and without the support of any sort of formal treaty organization.
That is all.
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From: Bay Area, CA
I'd rather not debate the entire Iraq war all over again. Yes, there were no WMD stockpiles, that's been proven and admitted to.
Saddam still should have been removed, the Middle East still needs to be reformed, starting with a Democracy in Iraq; and Saddam was still a threat to the United States, it's allies and the rest of the world, and he still supported terrorism on a very active and regular basis - by paying Palestinian families whom had a family member act out a suicide bombing.
Saddam still should have been removed, the Middle East still needs to be reformed, starting with a Democracy in Iraq; and Saddam was still a threat to the United States, it's allies and the rest of the world, and he still supported terrorism on a very active and regular basis - by paying Palestinian families whom had a family member act out a suicide bombing.
CHRISTMASTIME IN IRAQ
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From: Bay Area
... I don't think it's necessarily our place to force regime changes in sovereign states... Anyways, while I agree Saddam was a dangerous and vile man, that did in fact need to be removed (If only by the fact that we put him there), I don't agree with Bush's timeline for doing it. It's also startling that he would suggest that he would charge blindly in again in exactly the same way, knowing what he now knows.
He's far less of a threat than Kim Jong Il or the Iranian state... Hell, I'd venture to say that drunk driving, cigarettes, fast food, or SUVs are far more dangerous to the american public than Saddam has been for the past half decade.
He's far less of a threat than Kim Jong Il or the Iranian state... Hell, I'd venture to say that drunk driving, cigarettes, fast food, or SUVs are far more dangerous to the american public than Saddam has been for the past half decade.
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Originally Posted by antarius
Saddam still should have been removed, the Middle East still needs to be reformed, starting with a Democracy in Iraq; and Saddam was still a threat to the United States, it's allies and the rest of the world, and he still supported terrorism on a very active and regular basis - by paying Palestinian families whom had a family member act out a suicide bombing.
They're saying he was planning to get WMDs in the event that the sanctions were lifted, and that was a good enough reason. That's bunk. The sanctions were holding. We had time to get rid of Saddam without invading the whole freakin country and without the support of a treaty organization.
The overall concept of getting rid of Saddam is not one that I disagree with. However (this is where in a presidential debate one of the candidates would say, "here is a fundamental difference of opinion") the ends do not in my mind justify the means of an all-out military engagement costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives.
I, as a tax paying, voting, citizen of the United States, do not approve of my government going to war at the wrong time and giving a reason for it that turns out to be false, and then after the fact giving a bunch of other reasons why it was still necessary.
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There were more reasons than specified to go to war. You don't go out and mention every single reason why you are going to remove a regime, you state the most dangerous reasons and make those public. President Bush has stated time and time again that we need to Reshape the Middleeast. He has stated time and time again that Saddam Hussein was a supporter of Terrorism - both before and after the Iraq war; and he stated that Saddam Hussein had WMD.
You act as if President Bush lied about the WMD. President Bush went off the same intelligence that the United States had been using for the past 12 years. The same information that caused Bill Clinton to bomb chemical plants in Iraq. The bottom line was the intelligence was wrong. It wasn't that President Bush lied about the intelligence, it was that it was flat out wrong. The director of the CIA resigned because of it, we reformed the CIA and added more funding to the intelligence community so that sort of thing doesn't happen again, and they admitted their fault (the CIA).
The fact remains that there were other reasons to go to war with Iraq, and President Bush did state those prior to the war. Were they the main reasons? Were they the reasons that made us have the urgency that we did? Admittingly, no. They were very valid and important reasons nonetheless; and given the information President Bush had in front of him the WMD threat was real, present, and had to be dealt with right then and right there.
Just because he now states some of the other reasons, as being more primary of reasons for the war, does not make the war any less just, important, or necessary.
You hit the nail on the head though, it really comes down to a difference of opinion o what needed to be done and when.
You act as if President Bush lied about the WMD. President Bush went off the same intelligence that the United States had been using for the past 12 years. The same information that caused Bill Clinton to bomb chemical plants in Iraq. The bottom line was the intelligence was wrong. It wasn't that President Bush lied about the intelligence, it was that it was flat out wrong. The director of the CIA resigned because of it, we reformed the CIA and added more funding to the intelligence community so that sort of thing doesn't happen again, and they admitted their fault (the CIA).
The fact remains that there were other reasons to go to war with Iraq, and President Bush did state those prior to the war. Were they the main reasons? Were they the reasons that made us have the urgency that we did? Admittingly, no. They were very valid and important reasons nonetheless; and given the information President Bush had in front of him the WMD threat was real, present, and had to be dealt with right then and right there.
Just because he now states some of the other reasons, as being more primary of reasons for the war, does not make the war any less just, important, or necessary.
You hit the nail on the head though, it really comes down to a difference of opinion o what needed to be done and when.
Stuff and things.
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From: New York
Weapons of mass destruction were the excuse du jour.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/...5025024.htm?1c
A portion of the above article follows:
Posted on Mon, Jan. 27, 2003
Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique
4 years before 9/11, plan was set
By WILLIAM BUNCH
bunchw@phillynews.com
It was 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, and rescue crews were still scouring the ravaged section of the Pentagon that hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 had destroyed just five hours earlier.
On the other side of the still-smoldering Pentagon complex, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was poring through incoming intelligence reports and jotting down notes. Although most Americans were still shell-shocked, Rumsfeld's thoughts had already turned to a longstanding foe.
Rumsfeld wrote, according to a later CBS News report, that he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at the same time. Not only UBL" - meaning Osama bin Laden. He added: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
"S.H.," of course, is Saddam Hussein. The White House has long insisted its strategy for a war against Saddam's Iraq - a war that could now begin in a matter of days - arose from the rubble of the deadly attack that day.
But in reality, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and a small band of conservative ideologues had begun making the case for an American invasion of Iraq as early as 1997 - nearly four years before the Sept. 11 attacks and three years before President Bush took office.
An obscure, ominous-sounding right-wing policy group called Project for the New American Century, or PNAC - affiliated with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's top deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Bush's brother Jeb - even urged then-President Clinton to invade Iraq back in January 1998.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/...5025024.htm?1c
A portion of the above article follows:
Posted on Mon, Jan. 27, 2003
Invading Iraq not a new idea for Bush clique
4 years before 9/11, plan was set
By WILLIAM BUNCH
bunchw@phillynews.com
It was 2:40 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, and rescue crews were still scouring the ravaged section of the Pentagon that hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 had destroyed just five hours earlier.
On the other side of the still-smoldering Pentagon complex, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was poring through incoming intelligence reports and jotting down notes. Although most Americans were still shell-shocked, Rumsfeld's thoughts had already turned to a longstanding foe.
Rumsfeld wrote, according to a later CBS News report, that he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. at the same time. Not only UBL" - meaning Osama bin Laden. He added: "Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
"S.H.," of course, is Saddam Hussein. The White House has long insisted its strategy for a war against Saddam's Iraq - a war that could now begin in a matter of days - arose from the rubble of the deadly attack that day.
But in reality, Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and a small band of conservative ideologues had begun making the case for an American invasion of Iraq as early as 1997 - nearly four years before the Sept. 11 attacks and three years before President Bush took office.
An obscure, ominous-sounding right-wing policy group called Project for the New American Century, or PNAC - affiliated with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's top deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Bush's brother Jeb - even urged then-President Clinton to invade Iraq back in January 1998.
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So we've laid out the differences in opinions, now let's get the facts straight.
WMD was THE reason stated for going to war. It was what was brought to the UN's attention, it was what was brought to the public's attention. It's not like things like abuses of the oil-for-fuel program or Saddam paying suicide bombers were only on a need-to-know basis as you seem to be implying. In fact as you've already stated they were known. The difference is that while they were known they were not used as justification; unless of course they were somehow implied through omission, which is a pretty stupid way to imply something.
I haven't said Bush lied, I said he used one reason for going to war, that reason was met with much skepticism at the time, and that reason has turned out to be wrong.
Blaming it only faulty intelligence is a cop out in my book. A crutch. The only way the blame could be placed squarely on the CIA is if anyone and everyone, when presented with that information, would have done the same thing as Bush.
Originally Posted by antarius
There were more reasons than specified to go to war. You don't go out and mention every single reason why you are going to remove a regime, you state the most dangerous reasons and make those public. President Bush has stated time and time again that we need to Reshape the Middleeast. He has stated time and time again that Saddam Hussein was a supporter of Terrorism - both before and after the Iraq war; and he stated that Saddam Hussein had WMD.
Originally Posted by antarius
You act as if President Bush lied about the WMD. President Bush went off the same intelligence that the United States had been using for the past 12 years. The same information that caused Bill Clinton to bomb chemical plants in Iraq. The bottom line was the intelligence was wrong. It wasn't that President Bush lied about the intelligence, it was that it was flat out wrong. The director of the CIA resigned because of it, we reformed the CIA and added more funding to the intelligence community so that sort of thing doesn't happen again, and they admitted their fault (the CIA).
Blaming it only faulty intelligence is a cop out in my book. A crutch. The only way the blame could be placed squarely on the CIA is if anyone and everyone, when presented with that information, would have done the same thing as Bush.
