The Downing Street Memo: Just another empty Anti-War Leftist canard

POSTED BY: lynchaj
UPDATED: Sunday, June 19, 2005 09:05
VIEWED: 15313
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SIGNYM

Saturday, June 18, 2005 1:26 AM

Well, that's another "How" but you missed my point: WHY? Why would Saddam do something like that? It was not in his interest. What he really wanted to do was stay in power in Iraq and skim lots of oil money. He already knew he couldn't beat the USA, and if he created such a disaster we'd bomb the snot out of him... with full international backing. His dreams of wealth would disappear. This seems to be a criticla flaw in your thinking- your suspicions are unbounded by any other consideration.

You know what? We've been through this before, several times. You have not come up with any rational, plausible scope to your suspicions. I'm going to quit discussing this with you.

VETERAN

Saturday, June 18, 2005 11:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dionwr:

Did IQ's suddenly drop while I was away?

As a recently returned Iraq vet (with one less leg than I went in with), I can tell you that the average soldier in Iraq is actually better informed than you are....

...What this administration has done must be fought. If we allow them to get away, with no accountability, then we might as well stop referring to ourselves as a free nation

diownr
(dee-uh-NOOR; it's Welsh)

I think everyone on this board deeply appreciates your sacrifice. Thanks for letting us know what's really going on out there. God bless you man.

RUE

Saturday, June 18, 2005 11:45 PM

dionwr,

I thank you, though I know no amount of 'thank you's' will suffice.

Rue

RUE

Saturday, June 18, 2005 11:52 PM

Quote:
Now this, this I KNOW is completely false. The military was absolutely terrified of the Apocalypse Scenario where Saddam attacked US and coalition forces with massive WMD, primarily to provoke the anticipated US nuclear response.

Yuh.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=18&t=10773

The first time I clued into the fact it wasn't about WMD (well before the US attacked) was when I realized that Bush could not politically or strategically afford to send a couple of hundred thousand US personnel into a situation where tens of thousands were certain to die. (You know, from those massive stockpiles of WMD.)

Then when I saw him moving the goalposts every time Hussein complied with each new demand, it became completely clear that war was pre-ordained.

One motive, which set the timing, became clear to me when I learned that Iraq was about to sign oil development contracts with France and Russia, and that any contracts, once signed, were legally binding on any subsequent occupying force.

Powell's UN presentation, which I studied carefully, was a masterwork of deception, mixing old information with unsupported speculation, and relying heavily on 'information' that he 'couldn't' provide to the UN.

That US ground troops weren't directed at any time to investigate and secure WMD sites made the lie more apparent. (Also, that the US had to be pressured into formally looking for WMD at all, and only months after the 'end' of the war.)

I learned that Bush 'fixed intelligence around' his goal from carefully reading the Senate Report. That is how I knew years ago about Bush's specific lies about yellowcake, aluminum tubes, and CW and BW. What, when, where, who, and how.

Other people relied on other information to come to the same conclusions.

What BUSH told the military and what he thought were simply two different things.

But what he thought and what he did were congruent. The lack of adequate protective gear or detection equipment, quickly moving ground troops forward into what could have been harm's way, were all based on the knowledge there were NO WMDs.

HOTPOINT

Sunday, June 19, 2005 9:05 AM

The Sunday Times today (June 19th 2005) continues to produce interesting documentation:

Quote:
A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.

Quote:

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, one of the Foreign Office lawyers who wrote the report, resigned in March 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war without a UN resolution specifically authorising military force.

Further intensification of the bombing, known in the Pentagon as the Blue Plan, began at the end of August, 2002, following a meeting of the US National Security Council at the White House that month.

General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, recalled in his autobiography, American Soldier, that during this meeting he rejected a call from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to cut the bombing patrols because he wanted to use them to make Iraq’s defences “as weak as possible”.

The allied commander specifically used the term “spikes of activity” in his book. The upgrade to a full air war was also illegal, said Goodhart. “If, as Franks seems to suggest, the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,” he said.

Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.

The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1660300,00.html

The full text of the legal advice is here. It's pretty long but worth reading.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1654697,00.html

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