Real World Event Discussions

Bush = Dumb Ass

POSTED BY: Succatash
UPDATED: Friday, August 20, 2004 04:20
VIEWED: 16362
PAGE 9 of 12

CONNORFLYNN

Monday, August 9, 2004 5:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
Quote:
Whether it was for a lie or not is still a matter of opinion.

Yours or David Kay's? Which do you think is better informed?

Key Excerpts from David Kay's Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee

Acting in Iraq was justified to protect the United States and the world

Senator McCain: "[Y]ou agree with the fundamental principle here that what we did was justified and enhance the security of the United States and the world by removing Saddam Hussein from power?"

David Kay: "Absolutely."

"It would be hard to come to a conclusion other than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat"

Senator Kennedy: "Many of us feel that the evidence so far leads only to one conclusion: that what has happened was more than a failure of intelligence, it was the result of manipulation of the intelligence to justify a decision to go to war..........."

David Kay: ".......All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with regard to WMD."

"Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of Resolution 1441"

"In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities: one last chance to come clean about what it had. We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material."

"Iraq was in clear and material violation of 1441. They maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had the intentions at a point to resume their program. So there was a lot they wanted to hide because it showed what they were doing that was illegal. I hope we find even more evidence of that."

"The world is far safer with the disappearance and removal of Saddam Hussein"

"I think the world is far safer with the disappearance and the removal of Saddam Hussein. I have said I actually think this may be one of those cases where it was even more dangerous than we thought. I think when we have the complete record you're going to discover that after 1998 it became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection. And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out not to be a fully accurate estimate."

Analysts were not pressured

"And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation. And never -- not in a single case -- was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was, very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it' ...... And each case was different, but the conversations were sufficiently in depth and our relationship was sufficiently frank that I'm convinced that, at least to the analysts I dealt with, I did not come across a single one that felt it had been, in the military term, 'inappropriate command influence' that led them to take that position."

"Absolutely no doubt" Saddam harbored ambitions to develop and use WMD

Senator McCain: "Saddam Hussein developed and used weapons of mass destruction; true?"

David Kay: "Absolutely."

Senator McCain: "He used them against the Iranians and the K

CONNORFLYNN

Monday, August 9, 2004 5:49 PM

Quote:
nonetheless no matter how great the reasons sound it is the same mistake that we have been making in the Middle East for decades. You cannot "free a people" if you insist on taking their assets. Quite naturally, they will eventually want it back and then you have to install yet ANOTHER dictatorship to maintain control.

I think Colin Powell put it best -
Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return.

SIGNYM

Monday, August 9, 2004 5:56 PM

Over the years, the United States has sent its finest to makes sure that we had cheap oil, cheap bananas, and cheap labor. With the exception of WWII (which had a purpose), Vietnam (which was pointless on all counts), Bosnia and Somalia virtually all of our engagements, large and small, had something to do with resources.

I don't think you can prove to me otherwise.

GEEZER

Monday, August 9, 2004 6:03 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
Quote:
Whether it was for a lie or not is still a matter of opinion.

Yours or David Kay's? Which do you think is better informed?

I haven't seen any statements from David Kay indicating that he believed that Pres. Bush intentionally lied to anyone about WMD. He did note rather egregious failures in intelligence about WMD provided by several countries bureaus.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 12:57 PM

BTW- Did you not find it strange that Sistani should suddenly disappear for treatment of a "heart condition" just before all hell breaks loose in Najaf?

Now, ths isn't a prediction, more of a "I wouldn't be surprised if..." But I wouldn't be surprised if Sistani returns with clean hands when (if) al Sadr is killed to resume the throne of heir apparent of to the Shiite faction.

Did you not find it strange that Allawi should issue arrest orders against Chalabi and nephew Chalabi, making a political comeback impossible?

GEEZER

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 2:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
BTW- Did you not find it strange that Sistani should suddenly disappear for treatment of a "heart condition" just before all hell breaks loose in Najaf?

Now, ths isn't a prediction, more of a "I wouldn't be surprised if..." But I wouldn't be surprised if Sistani returns with clean hands when (if) al Sadr is killed to resume the throne of heir apparent of to the Shiite faction.

Did you not find it strange that Allawi should issue arrest orders against Chalabi and nephew Chalabi, making a political comeback impossible?

I don't find anything strange about anything since I stopped wearing my aluminum foil hat.

The Chalabi warrant is more suspect to me, but I do tend to see it as business (unfortunately) as usual during political in-fighting, not part of a bigger deal.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

HJERMSTED

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 5:02 PM

RE: John Kerry "flip-flopping" on the issue of Iraq...

The facts about the invasion of Iraq are out (spoilers ahead for Fox News fans):

Select to view spoiler:

DOH!!
NO connection between Iraq and Al Queda before the invasion as stated by the Bush administration.
NO weapons of mass destruction as stated by the Bush administration.

Support for the invasion of Iraq has dropped dramatically (as much as 25%!) so that now less than half of the American people support what Bush is doing over there.

Are we to believe that all of these citizens are "flip floppers" because they've changed their minds? Are politicians not allowed to change their minds? Must politicians be completely rigid in their beliefs for the course of their entire lives?

The whole "flip flopping" thing has no substance to it. It's just another Republican talking point that gets parroted over and over and over (by conservatives with microphones in front of them on their official network, Fox News). It actually means very little.

mattro

SIGNYM

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 5:03 PM

Still, I wouldn't be surprised... and now, neither will you!

RUE

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 4:57 AM

Geezer,
We'll just have to do this the tedious way, then. I'm going to make a number of assumptions to speed things up. I'm going to assume you're familiar with or have access to the text of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, comments by Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al regarding Iraq's WMD, Colin Powell's UN address, David Kay's final report (his final report, not 'the' final report), the Senate report and the 9/11 Commission report. I'm also going to assume you have sufficient memory of, or access to, news reporting from that time frame.

A 'yes' answer will also speed things up, a 'no' answer will take more of your time.
----------
1) Do you agree that the DIA, Office of Special Plans and the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group answer to Rumsfeld?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not. A 'no' explanation also requires references to ORIGINAL documents only, with links. I'm not going to spend time addressing some flack's 'interpretations'.
----------
From the Senate Armed Services Committee

Quote:
MR. KAY: Senator Warner ... I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons there..

Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: Dr. Kay, on the question of stockpiles, you have stated, I believe, that in your opinion Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in 2002. Is that correct?
MR. KAY: That's correct, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: Do you have any evidence that they had any stockpiles,
large or small, in 2002?
MR. KAY: Simply have no evidence, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: You have not uncovered any evidence of small stockpiles?
MR. KAY: We have not uncovered any small stockpiles, that's correct.

2) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no large or small biological or chemical weapons stockpiles?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.

Since Iraq did not have existing nuclear weapons, the question was one of nuclear weapons programs rather than stockpiles.

Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: -- in your judgment, had Iraq reconstituted its nuclear weapon program, in the way you understand the word "reconstitute"?
MR. KAY: It was in the early stages of renovating the program,
building new buildings. It was not a reconstituted, full-blown nuclear program.

Quote:
SEN. ALLARD: Did they use the aluminum tubes at that point in time to enrich their uranium? Do we know --
MR. KAY: No, they did not. They relied on different processes.

3) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no nuclear programs?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.
----------

Quote:
On October 4,2002, the NSC (Condoleezza Rice) sent a draft of a speech they were preparing for the President to deliver in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was draft six of the speech and contained the line, “and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa -an essential ingredient in the enrichment process.”
On October 5,2002, the ADDI .. asked the analysts to bring forward any issues that they thought should be addressed with the NSC. The ADDI said an Iraq nuclear analyst raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq.
Based on the analyst’s comments, the ADDI drafted a memo for the NSC outlining the facts that the CIA believed needed to be changed, and faxed it to the Deputy National Security Advisor and the speech writers. Referring to the sentence on uranium from Africa the CIA said, “remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory.”
The NSC staff prepared draft seven of the Cinc

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GEEZER

Wednesday, August 11, 2004 12:20 PM

Rue,

Good tactic. I either have to write a masters thesis with volumes of cites to respond to your every point, in most cases trying to prove a negative, or you claim victory. But most of your points are not germaine to the original question.

Back to the Original Question: Did Bush know there were no WMD in Iraq and lie to the American people, prior to the beginning of the war, about Iraq possessing them?

So

1) not sure what this has to do with proving or disproving the OQ.

2 & 3)Yes, we all know this now. Bad intelligence, similar to the surprises of the revolution in Iran, the fall of the Soviet Union, the invasion of Kuwait, could easily be responsible for this. Note the CIA comment from Oct. 2002 you quoted "Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory.”

4 thru 9) So the whole argument is down to one sentence in the State of the Union address. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Not knowing what information the White House had from the British government, It's difficult to know why this line might have been included over the objections of the CIA.

But way back up to the original point. Somewhere in a statement of my beliefs about the war (in response to your question)I had the sentence, "Whether it was for a lie (WMD in Iraq) or not is still a matter of opinion." You decided to pick out that one sentence (much like you did the one in the State of the Union above)and responded that David Kay's opinion was better informed. I then asked when he had said anything about Bush lying, that being the topic of discussion, and you launched the same arguments I've heard 100s of times.

Sorry, but I have still not seen anything that proves to me that the president knew, prior to the war, that there were no WMD in Iraq, and lied about it.

Now, please give me your general response to my entire original statement.

"But, yes, it bothers me that anyone died, it bothers me that people are still dying. Whether it was for a lie or not is still a matter of opinion. I've been thoroughly propagandized by both sides of the argument and am planning to suspend judgement until I see something that proves it to ME, one way or the other. The fact that I don't believe as you do doesn't automatically mean I believe the other side's stance either.

I believe there is a possibility that Iraq can come out of this with a stable and reasonably representative government. I believe it will take a lot of work, and will probably cost more lives. I believe it is a worthwhile goal. I believe that until the U.N. is willing to take the risk of moving their folks back into Iraq to support the formation of such a government, that the CPA and the provisional government, supported by American arms to provide security, is their best bet.

I believe that some folks will make money off the whole thing, just as some were making money off the UNs "Oil for Food" programme. I don't believe that this invalidates the entire concept."

"Keep the Shiny side up"