Re: safety and politics
 

Not what your wife said.
















qolled! :p

Re: safety and politics
 

Not what yo mamma said either.

Re: safety and politics
 

Nice Wolfenstein ad. Makes 'em ready for The War.

Re: safety and politics
 

Exactly.
So why is it OK to start an attack war on rumors?
There were no reliable proofs of WMD and in my world that's a reason to NOT start a war.
Why are you suggesting the proper way is to start a war first and only avoid it when someone finds undeniable evidence that it is ********?

And if your thesis about the bush administration being stupid is true, that worries me even more.
What is democracy worth, with all its safety nets and control instances when a couple of lunatics can start a war?

Re: safety and politics
 

I think the war was long planned and the evidence that there were no WMD made it possible to start the war. I don't think the US would have attacked Iraq if they knew that they had WMD. Way too dangerous.

Re: safety and politics
 

The nail on the head. Too bad it wasn't the nail in their coffin. Your quote should be this outgoing administration's epitaph.

bully = p*ssy

How many Cheney draft deferments?

Unf*ckinbelievable

Re: safety and politics
 

Really?

According to the BBC, in a Feb 2003 one-on-one interview with Dr. Rihab Taha, leader of Iraq's Bio-weapon's team, The team, under her coordination, grew about 19000 liters of botulinum, 2000 liters of aflatoxins. However, she denied they had been weaponized. But UN inspectors discovered munitions filled with these same chemicals, dumped in an Iraqi river.

On July 17, 2003, according to the senate report of prewar Intelligence on Iraq, Tony Blair stated that history would forgive the United States and United Kingdom, even if they were wrong about weapons of mass destruction. He still maintained that "with every fiber of instinct and conviction" Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction.

According to the British Butler Report, (commissioned after we failed to find any WMDs, to find out what was wrong with the intelligence.), “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit [in 1999] was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible."

In the buildup to the 2003 war, the NYT published several articles alleging to "prove" that Iraq had nuclear weapons. For instance, in Sept 2002, they stated that a shipment of aluminum tubes were intercepted, which were used to make nuclear material. (note that this turned out to be blatantly false, as admitted by the NYT in 2004. Interesting they stated that dissident Iraqis (who were America's and Britain's chief intelligence source.) were either quite ignorant of actual progress, or deliberately manipulating western news to encourage such an attack on Iraq.)

In May of 2004, some chemical WMDs were found, including one that exploded, injuring two American troops. Fortunately, most chemical weapons are extremely volatile, and will degrade rapidly if not properly stored, and so they were not severely injured.

According to David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, systematic looting occurred during and after the invasion, with (his words, not mine,) "the clear aim of concealing pre-OIF activities of Saddam's regime." He stated that they found dozens of WMD related labs, and equipment, that were hidden from UN inspectors. They were doing new research into "Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF)," both Bioweapon material. They were continuing work on ricin and aflatoxin. They had pieces of Uranium enrichment centrifuges, buried in a scientist's yard, waiting for the Iraqi government to reactivate that program (which it appears they never did.) The Iraqi Intelligence Service took an active role in supporting overseas graduate research in the biological sciences, as applicable to biological weapons. This was the only area of research sponsored by the IIS. Furthermore, the scientists would have two lines of research, one overt, and one covert. For instance, they would study B. Thurengiensis with anthrax, or medicinal plants with ricin.

So, was Bush sincere in his belief? Or, better still, is it conceivable that a reasonable person, thus briefed, could conclude that there was too big of a threat to ignore?

Would you consider David Kay a reasonable person who is reasonably proficient on the subject? He was on the ground in Iraq search for WMDs for more than six months before resigning, stating he did not think a substantial WMD production capability existed in Iraq after 1991. He would seem fairly unbiased, having resigned from his post on the basis that he felt the Iraq study group was overly “optimistic” about finding WMDs.

Well, David Key said, when inquired of by Tom Brokaw about whether the administration's characterization of Iraq as a “gathering storm” was accurate:
“Tom, an imminent threat is a political judgment. It’s not a technical judgment. I think Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened.”

How about Barbara Boxer?
"Iraq made commitments after the Gulf War to completely dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, and unfortunately, Iraq has not lived up to its agreement." -- Barbara Boxer, November 8, 2002

How about Madelaine Albright?
"Saddam's goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998

Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Advisor? He should surely know what he was talking about:
"(Saddam) will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and some day, some way, I am certain he will use that arsenal again, as he has 10 times since 1983" -- National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Feb 18, 1998

Jacques Chirac? He had his own intelligence to go on:
"What is at stake is how to answer the potential threat Iraq represents with the risk of proliferation of WMD. Baghdad's regime did use such weapons in the past. Today, a number of evidences may lead to think that, over the past four years, in the absence of international inspectors, this country has continued armament programs." -- Jacques Chirac, October 16, 2002

Bill Clinton?
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow." -- Bill Clinton in 1998

How about Hillary? We know her stance, right?
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security." -- Hillary Clinton, October 10, 2002

Ted Kennedy?
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." -- Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002

Many of these people have high security clearances, with access to nearly all the intelligence that Bush had. I chose these people in particular, because there is little doubt that they do not have the same donors, pet causes, allies, or allegiances as Bush. Therefore, they are beyond suspicion as being in on the same conspiracy. Furthermore, any plea of ignorance of theirs is only barely more credible than that of the president. Certainly, there is much uncertainty in the intelligence they had access to. But the administration's intelligence was so uncertain, that they actually relied on the NYT investigations for some of their facts.
So, what was true? What did the Iraq Survey Group irrefutably find? Saddam did support research into both biological and chemical weapons during the period discussed (1998 onward) Saddam did not have any real production capability. Saddam had nuclear enrichment programs in reserve, waiting to be activated. Iraq did have some stockpiles of WMDs, but they were old, and improperly stored. Saddam did organize evidence destroying operations before, during, and after the war.
Saddam's programs were so committed to secrecy however, that they would intentionally mislead even people inside the project as to how much had been achieved, and media leaks were punished with death.
Given the existence of such programs, it seems reasonable that dissident Iraqis may have overestimated the progress of the programs.
At any rate, the case against the administration is hardly open and shut. They may be (are, IMHO) very wrong on many subjects, but we cannot impute malice here.

Re: safety and politics
 

Oh, who knows for sure what Bush's motives where for attacking Iraq. You have repeated his case I guess.

So, in the context of this thread which I started by implying we need to get out of Iraq and spend our safety dollar in more effective ways, I guess you are saying ( and this was implied heavily in the sales pitch back then) that we should have an open check book since he might have wmds.

This is the thing about politics. When are we going to ( I know, now I'm dreaming) get to the point that we can analyze what it is we want, then make a conscious decision about what we want to do to get there rather than being controlled by our emotions? Back when we where getting our pitch from the Bush administration I felt all along like we where getting fear mongering and not a reasoned response. And given that we had recently been attacked on 9/11, this was easily done.

btw, did anyone check out those links I posted in my last post? A few pages back I posted links to a NYT article where the author contrasts what has been spent in Iraq and what could have been done with that instead. The other link is to a fellow that after years of philanthropy now finds that the government just shugs him off. It can offer him no help for his desease even though it is something that kills far more Americans than terrorists have in the years since 9/11.

So, we talk about motives.

Were we going to Iraq for the fact that Iraq might have WMDs ?
Why not North Korea then?

Were we going because we simply wanted to help Iraqis? What about Rwanda where millions were killed? And what about the genecide going on in Darfur right now? What about what's going on right now in Congo? Millions have died there in that war. So, we are humanitarians and we went to Iraq to help Iraqis and save them from Sadam? That's great with me, but lets be consistant and at least try to do it in a lot more places too.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/relea.../18_blix.shtml

The above is a link to an Article about Hans Blix. Why did the Bush administration not want to listen to Hans? Hans accused Blair and the Bush administration of having a severe lack of "critical thinking"

Hans knew what was there then. He knew very little was there, but we ignored what he was saying, why?

This is what I think happened. You are not going to like it. And Bush couldn't say it this way. How could he? I feel this was all about the control of that oil rich part of the world. I know we could just go buy oil on the open market. But could we, in the Bush administration's mind, allow Saddam to be that powerful?

Well, I really wish Bush would have just said that. I could see legitimate reasons for this. If he had said it this way, then we could have had an open discussion about the idea of whether we wanted to put American lives and unknown amounts of money into basically a part of our energy policy.

Why else?

And what drives me nuts is this? If we could have been open about this question, ( If the question is: how do we continue to have a reliable energy source) maybe the answer could have been: gee, how about we take a trillion dollars and develope a fully viable new energy industry focused on alternate energy sources? This wouldn't happen because we don't have powerful lobbyists from those industries yet, right?

So, as usual, the answer depends on what the question is. If the question is "how do we keep Americans safe?", is the answer, we need to take control of Iraq?

Or is the question, how do we have a reliable energy source?

Or is the question " how do we keep ourselves safe from terrorists? Isn't attacking Iraq just kind of a crazy answer to that one? Don't we just make more terorists than we kill doing that stuff? And why not listen to what the 9/11 commission concluded and pay for some of what they suggested as a way to stay safe from terrorism? I don't think that went very far.


Back to my original point, want to be safer? Lets talk about how to make the most Americans the safest. I dare say we have not been made safer with what we have done in Iraq. But again, why was it really that we went there? AND, what are the things we can do to really make ourselves safer in America?

Neil

Re: safety and politics
 

Sorry, Byrel, that's been thoroughly debunked. Only the neocons keep perpetuating the myth that it hasn't.

Wrong.

There was indeed malice in the willful manipulation of facts... including presenting a student's thesis as an invasion rationale. Even Colin Powell nearly rebelled when he was handed (at the last minute) the bs he was instructed to read before the UN. He grit his teeth and obeyed the wishes of his boss and then resigned soon afterward. A shame he didn't follow his instincts and quit sooner.

There's plenty to hang Bush and Company on over the Iraq debacle. All one has to do is look.

Re: safety and politics
 

Funny thing Texrat. We both quoted Byrel on the same line. But I think my emphasis is more that Bush manipulated the country through the use of fear by manipulating the 'facts' as the neocons wanted us to see them. Their maliciousness entered where they did things like expose Valerie Plame, the undercover agent when they where trying to discredit Joe Wilson, her husband on the article he wrote denying that the aluminum tubes from Niger were for Iraq's nukes.

But true, the whole thing did seem pretty malicious. The hardball Bush was willing to play was pretty scary, I thought. And all this for the betterment of the nation, right?

Neil