tycho

Im not trying to point fingers or play the blame game, but I think thats a pretty crappy attitude to live by. Its like, if you know some guy next door goes around murdering the folks in your neighborhood its not your problem...untill he kills one of your family members.

Thats pretty bunk if you ask me.

_Ender_

Thats the problem though, we didnt know he had anything. Our own reports never conformed any of the Presidents claims of Saddam having weapons. In fact a former US intelligence official who worked under Bush said that "Iraq posed no imminent threat to either its neighbors or to the United States".

Now if Bush said "We believe Iraq has weapons, and since he isnt cooperating with the UN we're going to go in and see for ourselves" instead we send a million troops over there on a lie, and thats it. End of story.


Its funny, get a blow job, be impeached, lie to America so you can get backing to go into a war, become a hero.. this country is amazing..


EDIT> Besides this isnt the point of the topic. I just wanted to get people's opinions on the President "making fun" of the Iraqi... whatever the hell it is... Not whether or not our reason for going there was justified or not because we will be arguing that for the rest of our lives.

leejo

Get a blowjob and lie about it under oath, get impeached.

CingularDuality

Isn't that what he did say? I don't understand your argument.

We (The US and every other member of the UN security council) had intel that indicated Iraq has weapons. He obviously wasn't cooperating with the UN, so we went in with a strong show of force.

I don't know where you get this "lie" that you keep referring to. If you're talking about inaccurate intel, then you are really reaching...

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fr1j0l3

The collective "we" did indeed have information pointing to SH and his aquiring of WMDs. We ALSO had intel that showed otherwise. The administration picked and chose (stovepiped) which parts to put together, and ran with it under false pretenses.

There was no "hey, they might have some weps" it was "hey we know where the weps are, lets go, it's our only hope".

leejo

Exactly. Excellent point Frijole. Nobody in this administration said "but wait, we aren't CERTAIN about his posession of weapons that can fit inside a briefcase and kill millions, are we? We're not POSITIVE that he has them and won't sell them to his terrorist buddies, are we?"

In any case it's done, and the lesson is: if you hang out with terrorist groups AND there's a lot of evidence that you have a mature WMD program, you might be a redneck. I mean you might get invaded.

USN_Squid

Just FYI, I have seen Tenet say several times (under oath at the 9/11 commission too) say there was never any pressure to selectively filter intel, or other wise manipulate intel to say one thing or another.

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fr1j0l3

Actually, I have an article that describes otherwise.. I'll look it up for you. Bunch of ex-intelligence agency guys put it together...

The "pressure" may not have explicitly been there, but the way the administration set up it's collection processes, it short-circuited the system by design. Placing high-ranking (but not high-knowledge) people in places to hear "unfettered" snippets of data, and not allowing for the "fettering" of this data allowed those in power to pick and choose as they saw fit. (and stovepipe it up the chain as fast as they could)

This is all outside "the agency", so Tenet is correct in his testimony.


I'll hunt it down.

Wolfie

Remember, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.

There were plenty of opportunities in the 1930s to remove the threat of Hitler in Europe. However, the overall feeling was that as long as it wasn't "our" problem, there was no need to get involved.

Millions of war casualities later, the Holocaust, the atomic bomb being dropped on Japan to force them to surrender, etc... a little proactive response by Europe and the USA would have been much prefered.

RandomGuy

You lose, Wolf. Godwin's law.

Wolfie

Figured that. But what can you do about it when you minored in history at college and your field of study was WWII?

DrCruel

As Godwin's Law has already been invoked, I feel frre to comment:

During WW II, it was contended that the Nazis were attempting to build an atomic bomb. Some extreme efforts were made, particularly in Norway, to forestall such an eventuality. After the war, it was found that the Nazis had not been attempting to build an atomic bomb, and did not even have significant chemical weapon resources.

I thus contend, using the logic of the Left, that the US war against the Nazi regime was illegal. We were obliged, regardless of the Nazi declaration of war, to negotiate further. QED.

I might add, that at the time we did not have permission to liberate France from the standing government of that country, namely the Vichy regime of General Petain. Just thought I should point that out.