Update on the case of why we went to war

Here is an interesting article about a Washington "insider" commenting on Colin Powell's testimony about going to war.

Ex-Aide: Powell Misled Americans

I watched the 60 Minutes segment tonight; pretty damning of the administration's case.

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

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

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

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

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with
the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
- Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle,
John Kerry, and others, Oct. 9.1998

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports
show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and
biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

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

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a
brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for
weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with
weapons of mass destruction is real ..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003


wow. it looks like everyone was bamboozled, including the UN who unanimously accepted resolution 1441.

Bob

gotta ruffle your hair a bit, ikendu! you are the knucklehead that got me started on this flashlight addiction: my first light was an attitude, recommended by you!

Yes it is IF you take the words of those two guys as the gospel truth and assume Powell intentionally mislead the UN and the country. What makes them any more credible than Powell, their opinions?

I don't know either way but certainly would take Powell's version over some fella I have never heard of until the time it can be proven he's not an agenda driven pundit.

I tend to agree that the evidence was used in a selective, or even potentially misleading way to get the american people behind what we needed to do.

But this doesn't really bother me as I think I have a handle on what our government is trying to do in the middle east. I have a great deal of hope that what I think is actually true and that it can be pulled off. I hope for this because I can see no alternative that will alleviate their hatred of me, my country, my countries friends and everything that we value. Appeasement does not work, we've proven it over and over again. The reasons for this are complicated.

First it might be useful to categorize the Islamist government experiment and understand these countries a bit. Some good reading is an article called Seven Signs of Non-Competitive States This article contains some one liner gems too like "Today's "flat-worlders" are those who believe that information can be controlled. " and "The availability of free, high-quality information, and a people's ability to discriminate between high- and low-quality data, are essential to economic development beyond the manufacturing level. Whether on our own soil or abroad, those segments of humanity that fear and reject knowledge of the world (and, often, of themselves) are condemned to failure, poverty, and bitterness. " For those unwilling to wade through the rest I'll include the list here:

These key "failure factors" are:

Restrictions on the free flow of information.
The subjugation of women.
Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
Domination by a restrictive religion.
A low valuation of education.
Low prestige assigned to work.

This is an excellent article. Read it and see what you learn about our own country and the others around us.

Though is does have some one line summaries of complicated issues that some might consider slightly inflamitory a truly excellent clearing house of information and links on what we're doing and how was written by Stephen DenBeste in his Strategic Overview If the first few line items where he characterizes Islamist government as a total failure bug you then skip them and go down to the meat of the article.

Some quick quotes from that article:

"we had to conquer one of the big antagonistic Arab nations and take control of it.

To directly reduce support for terrorist groups by eliminating one government which had been providing such support.

To place us in a physical and logistical position to be able to apply substantial pressure on the rest of the major governments of the region.

To force them to stop protecting and supporting terrorist groups

To force them to begin implementing political and social reforms

To convince the governments and other leaders of the region that it was no longer fashionable to blame us for their failure, so that they would stop using us as scapegoats.

To make clear to everyone in the world that reform is coming, whether they like it or not, and that the old policy of stability-for-the-sake-of-stability is dead. To make clear to local leaders that they may only choose between reforming voluntarily or having reform forced on them.
"

The aritcle goes on to explain why Iraq was the chosen country. Some of that was simply that we had a case against them that we could use. I don't disagree that this is calculated, but it's not dishonest. Motivating the people is a strange job for the government. They have a long history of lying to us and using us and misrepresenting to us. I find it interesting that in this argument I'm on the opposite side that I usually take. I actually find this all to be a good thing as I can see no other route to success.

Believe it or not, I'm not a republican. But I have become convinced of the value of what we are doing.

Wow! Bob, you must have this all summarized somewhere ready to post at a moment's notice if anyone happens to link to a story that casts doubt on the case the Bush administration made for taking our country to war.

Great research!

Although, one difference between the what the Bush administration did and Clinton, Gore, Albright, Berger, Levin, Daschle, Kerry, Graham, Kennedy, Byrd, Rockefeller and Waxman thought (and said)... is that the Bush administration actually did take us to war. So...I figure actually going to war requires some little higher standard of certainty than talking about a potential threat.

If we don't find actual weapons of mass destruction, can we conclude that all of the actions the Clinton administration took that fell short of actual war worked? After all, your first quote from Clinton is "...we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them".

So far...apparently they were denied the capacity to develop those weapons...without going to war.

The interesting thing is (for me)... there was no doubt that the Soviet Union was a grave threat to the U.S. And...that they were developing every conceivable weapon of mass destruction. And...the Soviet Union was defeated and collapsed under its own weight...without our ever invading them.

How? By having a very strong military, forcing them to keep up, and simply waiting them out until the fundametally less productive nature of communism simply caused then to exhaust themselves and collapse. We contained them while their own population grew more and more discontent under the totalitarian rule. Thank God we never engaged the Soviet Union in direct conflict. We never had to. Just imagine the vast scale of death and destruction (for all parties) if we had listened to those that wanted to take them on to eliminate the threat. Now...instead, they are beginning to develop a democracy (won't be easy) and a free economy (all not easy). I wish them the best and I'm glad that we didn't kill off millions of them (and us in the process) because of a difference in philosophy.

Seems like the former Soviet Union is still a threat as their technology was used (and still is) by the Iraqi and foreign national insurgents in Iraq. Oh and I think that due to corrupt arms dealings of former Soviet Block countries we are still trying to stem arms (and possibly WMD technologies) flowing into terrorist organizations and anti government insurgents the globe over. For a "vanquished" enemy their "legacy" (military hardware to whoever can pay the price) has one hell of a staying power! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

EDIT: Even if Iraq did not have WMD's I've heard that it (the entire country) is the largest Armory for conventional weaponry that any of our troops have ever encountered. (and yes, we have lots of weapons too, not nearly as many as we should have had thanks to "Twisted Willie" Clinton.)

TSG /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

tsg68 said: ...For a "vanquished" enemy their "legacy" (military hardware to whoever can pay the price) has one hell of a staying power! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

Well, I won't disagree with that.

Although, I'm still glad we never went all out with them.
At least we are only dealing with the trickles here and there of Soviet weaponry...not the full force we would have felt by invading their country.

You know, Patton wanted to take them on right after WWII, with conquered Germans as allies. He might have been right. But...IMO, we were still better off containing them. Apparently our Presidents all agreed with that point of view.

[ QUOTE ]
ikendu said:
Although, one difference between the what the Bush administration did and Clinton, Gore, Albright, Berger, Levin, Daschle, Kerry, Graham, Kennedy, Byrd, Rockefeller and Waxman thought (and said)... is that the Bush administration actually did take us to war.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmmm...
I could have sworn it was our Congress that took us to 'war'.
Wasn't there some pesky 'vote' thingy?
Wasn't it something like 296 to 133 in the House and 77 to 23 in the Senate authorizing the President to use military force?
Didn't the Senate Intellignece and Senate Foreign Relations Committees have access to all this same evidence when they reached the same conclusions as Powell?

[ QUOTE ]
ikendu said:
Although, one difference between the what the Bush administration did and Clinton, Gore, Albright, Berger, Levin, Daschle, Kerry, Graham, Kennedy, Byrd, Rockefeller and Waxman thought (and said)... is that the Bush administration actually did take us to war. So...I figure actually going to war requires some little higher standard of certainty than talking about a potential threat.

Are you implying you can use a lower degree of certainty if you are only going to fire a few cruise missiles and kill a few hundred people?

If we don't find actual weapons of mass destruction, can we conclude that all of the actions the Clinton administration took that fell short of actual war worked? After all, your first quote from Clinton is "...we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them".

What is non-actual war? Firing cruise missiles into another country and killing people but not having our troops on the ground?

Maybe we could conclude that during the 4 years Saddam had no one looking over his shoulder he went a different direction. But that's assuming he doesn't have or had WMD's which I believe he did or does. Well, we know he had them at one point, he used them.

So far...apparently they were denied the capacity to develop those weapons...without going to war.

Yes, so far no weapons have been found and so far no other terrorist attacks have occurred on our soil.

The interesting thing is (for me)... there was no doubt that the Soviet Union was a grave threat to the U.S. And...that they were developing every conceivable weapon of mass destruction. And...the Soviet Union was defeated and collapsed under its own weight...without our ever invading them.

What gives you the impression Iraq would have ever collapsed?

How? By having a very strong military, forcing them to keep up, and simply waiting them out until the fundamentally less productive nature of communism simply caused then to exhaust themselves and collapse. We contained them while their own population grew more and more discontent under the totalitarian rule... Thank God we never engaged the Soviet Union in direct conflict. I wish them the best and I'm glad that we didn't kill off millions of them (and us in the process) because of a difference in philosophy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Amen we didn't go to war with the Soviet Union.
Our beef with Iraq was not a philosophical one and they were not collapsing that I am aware of. 11 years of sanctions and Saddam didn't appear any weaker, maybe smarter but not weaker.

<font color="red">This is how a political thread should run on CPF. No flames, no hate, just an exchange of opinions and ideas in a civil manner.

Way to go Ikendu and others! </font>

GJW said: Hmmm...
I could have sworn it was our Congress that took us to 'war'.
Wasn't there some pesky 'vote' thingy?
Wasn't it something like 296 to 133 in the House and 77 to 23 in the Senate authorizing the President to use military force?

Well, a very good question to ask.

My opinion is... the Congress is the only part of our gov't with the power to declare war. The framers of our constitution set it up that way. What our Congress did in this case...was to be somewhat timid (geez...I almost said "gutless") and gave the President a "blank check" to do whatever he felt was necessary. This gave them the ability to always say (as some are now)..."Well, I never really thought we'd go to war...that's why I voted for it". It gave them a weasely "way out" if the war turned out badly. NOT what the framers of the constitution had in mind (IMO). Although, (and this surprises me that there aren't at least some conservatives concerned about this)...it doesn't seem likely that anyone will make any serious effort to explore the constitutionality of what was done. I thought conservatives were "strict constitutionalists"?

Sure seems like we "went to war". Sure seems like the constitution proscribes the Congress to "Declare war". But...that would have required them to go on record on a clear side of the issue...no wiggle room.

Pedalinbob! Awesome collection!! Well done.


Kuwait busted some smugglers with chemical weapons and biological warheads last week. They came from Iraq.


edited at Saha's request.

<Post no longer applicable...>

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/popcorn.gif

DieselDave said: Are you implying you can use a lower degree of certainty if you are only going to fire a few cruise missiles and kill a few hundred people?

Yeah... I think so. All out war with 150,000 troops (right number?) might require a higher degree of certainty. BTW...I do very much agree that Saddam was unlikely to do anything positive "out of the goodness of his heart"... a thoroughly evil guy if there ever was one (I always wondered why President Bush '41 built him up to be "worse than Hitler" ...but left him in power). Only the threat of undesireable consequences was likely to get him to behave.

DieselDave said: What is non-actual war? Firing cruise missiles into another country and killing people but not having our troops on the ground?

Yeah...again, I think so. Seems like this is about "measured responses". I will say this though, it IS a heck of a lot clearer when you invade as to what the heck is going on in a country. I mean, before the war, we used to hear "If only we could get 1 or 2 scientists out of the country...then they'd talk and we know for SURE". Well, we are running the country now...seems like we ought to be able to know for sure.

DieselDave said: ...WMD's ...we know he had them at one point, he used them.

Yup. Can't fault your logic there. He definitely gassed the Kurds and used chemicals (correct?) against the Iranians (with us as a willing ally providing money...and technology too if I'm not mistaken).

DieselDave said: and so far no other terrorist attacks have occurred on our soil.

Yup. Again...can't fault your facts here. Although, IMO, the biggest contributer to that was our action in Afganistan. After all, it was Al Quaeda that hit us on 9-11. We really haven't been able to show substantial connection between the secular, out-for-personal-power Saddam and the must-set-up-non-secular-Isalmic-states Bin Laden. Bin Laden is on record as wanting to overthow Saddam.

DieselDave said: What gives you the impression Iraq would have ever collapsed?

Didn't say that I did. Although, if the tightly controlled and thoroughly repressed people of the Soviet Union threw off their yoke...seems like it could have happened in Iraq too.

DieselDave said: Amen we didn't go to war with the Soviet Union.

Ah Dave, those times when we agree... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
(I bet your agreeable to the need for that strong military too...am I right?)

DieselDave said: 11 years of sanctions and Saddam didn't appear any weaker, maybe smarter but not weaker.

Yup. I haven't completely decided what I think about the sanctions thing. It's clear that Saddam didn't suffer personally...and still managed to channel money into at least some weapons programs...all the while letting his population suffer hugely (great guy, huh?). Might have been just a lot cleaner (and more humane?) to get rid of him right after the first Gulf War instead of leaving him in power...think so?

[ QUOTE ]
(I always wondered why President Bush '41 built him [Sadddam] up to be "worse than Hitler" ...but left him in power).

[/ QUOTE ]

He did it because he didn't want anarchy and didn't want to own the country and have to occupy it for years afterward. He hoped Iraq's people would manage a coup on their own. He did it because he went in as part of a UN mandate and all the countries would have had a fit and defaulted on aiding with the cost of the war. He did it because the resolution to go to war at all passed by a pretty slim margin in Congress, if I recall correctly. People against this war who say we should have overthrown Saddam back then are the worst kind of revisionist historians.

Looks like Bush really lied...

this is an interesting quote/excerpt from the president:

"Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave the lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months, and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

In 1995 Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more. Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities--and weapons stocks. Previously it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth.

Now listen to this: What did it admit? It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production. . . .

Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door, and our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it. . . .

Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits, including, I might add, one palace in Baghdad more than 2,600 acres large. . . .

One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. . . .

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons. . . .

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal. . . . In the next century, 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, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."

that was quoted not from Bush, but from then president Bill Clinton from the steps of the pentagon on Feb 17, 1998.

why do i post this?

because if people think that Bush lied/mislead/deceived, etc, then you must also believe that Clinton and his administration did as well.


i dont understand how so many people can slam Bush while supporting the previous administration's statements/actions.

Here is another example:

"The American people were told Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. He was not. We were told he had stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction. He did not. We were told he was involved in 9/11. He was not. We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from Al Qaeda. It was not. We were told our soldiers would be viewed as liberators. They are not. We were told Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction. It cannot. We were told the war would make America safer. It has not."

Ted Kennedy

if the above quotes are correct, it appears that Mr Kennedy is a hypocrite, based upon his own words.

a big issue for me: he stated that the American people were told that Hussein was involved in 9/11. Im not sure who stated this, but Bush did not. he NEVER stated that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11.

i have no issue with anyone that does not agree with the Iraq war based upon the above assumed "false" statements, or any other reason, for that matter.
however, i feel, in my opinion, that those judgements should be passed equally to all administrations who came to the same conclusion based on similar info.

Bob

edited to prevent a really hard slap from Sasha!

Re: Looks like Bush really lied...

Bob... excellent points! Would be even MORE excellent without the sarcasm... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Can you do a little clean up on that post please? The points are great... the sarcasm is baiting. Thanks Bob! Keep pedalin... you're doing a great job... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif

Re: Looks like Bush really lied...

Thanks Bob! MUCH better now... and adds just that litle extra bit of credibility that rational thought rather than emotional reaction gives... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif