Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq statements were untrue

reply to post by MidnightDStroyer


I too dont agree with EVERYTHING that RP stands for but you said it perfect when you said he is the only one out there who stands for what our government was founded on and that is the constitution. That is why Ill be writing him in.

Originally posted by Eyemagistus
Well, isn't that just special.
Not one other person here ever bothered to consider the actual issues timeline and the consequences of the only choices congress could make about invading Iraq. Lies, or no lies.
You all just assumed we could have had a Teddy Bear Picnic for the last 5 years, if only a majority had voted with Barack Obama against invading Iraq once the troops were already there.

Or we could have let the inspectors do their jobs and been done with it.

The president, as Commander in Chief, has the sole authority to deploy troops anywhere and any time he wants, to support his foreign policy objectives. Congress only gets to say whether or not they can fight, not whether they may be deployed as a threat.

Not entirely true:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;

I'd argue this means the President cannot just order the military to do "whatever"; Congress must "call them into the actual Service". The military is meant to do nothing, and the President unable to use them, without Congressional approval.

It was obvious to me that public opinion was irrelevant as soon as Bush began deploying an invasion force.
If Saddam did not submit, there were only 3 choices -- let them sit in the desert heat indefinitely, invade, or turn tail and come home.
The propaganda value to our enemies would have been disastrous if the greatest military power in the world had brought home a massive invasion force that had achieved absolutely nothing.

Except for a glaring fact that not one person here, that I've noticed, has mentioned:

Saddam DID submit.

UN Inspectors were on the ground and had been for weeks, finding absolutely NOTHING, when we invaded--based on ANOTHER lie.

Remember that the resolution for the use of force against Iraq had two conditions, either of which would be grounds for our attack:

1) Saddam refused inspections (to which he capitulated), and

2) The Bush Administration could provide evidence proving Saddam had a hand in 9/11 (impossible, as Saddam and bin Laden were mortal enemies).

While UN inspectors were looking for the WMDs Bush lied to Congress, stating they had evidence of Saddam's involvement in 9/11, and Bush sent the troops in to invade based on this lie.

There was no need to lie about WMD's, but they did and they should pay for it. Ignoring UN resolutions for 12 years and the humanitarian disaster he created should have been reason enough to remove Saddam by force if necessary.

Had the UN wanted to, they should have done so. They didn't, because they knew Saddam was getting ready to play ball and trade his oil in Euros and undercut OPEC. Most of the members of the UN wanted a piece of that action, or were already getting cheap oil from Iraq through back-room deals and the Oil for Food Program.

It could be argued that the UN, under US leadership, created this whole problem from the beginning with draconian measures after Desert Storm. The sanctions placed on Iraq were brutal and unnecessary. Considering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was given quiet approval from the first Bush admin, and that Saddam's military after that conflict had been largely decimated, there was little more that could be done to punish Iraq. The whole WMD issue was ludicrous--considering we had given them WMDs ourselves, we had little right to tell them what to do with them--and besides, tying the end of sanctions to an open-ended inspections process all but guaranteed Iraq could never fully satisfy the UN resolutions and have the sanctions lifted, at least not without some dirty dealing or Saddam's removal.

In light of this I can't really blame Saddam for kicking inspectors out--what would we, as US citizens, do if the UN placed sanctions upon us that required in a near-impossible level of compliance, and that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands due to starvation, lack of medical care, etc.? Can you even imagine that? Having to dismantle our military, our citizens disarmed, our nukes gone (both weapons and power plants), our exports unwelcome, imports curtailed--it wouldn't be a pretty sight.

The bigger disaster that resulted from the irresponsible failure to adequately plan for the aftermath is a totally separate issue, and those people must still be held accountable. The career professionals, who understood the local history and culture, were in the State Department and were totally cut out of the planning. It was run totally under the DOD. Knowledge and experience were considered undesirable. All that mattered was political loyalty.

And there was a reason for that. What you mistake for irresponsibility was, in fact, deliberately tailored to keep this occupation going indefinitely. A nation the size of Iraq cannot be pacified and rebuilt using an occupation force of less than 500,000 and the administration KNEW that. They did it this way on purpose to ensure perpetual profits for their corporate masters, and because the nation would not have accepted the draft we would need to field those numbers.

I have been a liberal Democrat for half a century, and I will still vote for Obama because I can't stand the thought of another Republican president. I would have preferred Hillary, or Joe Biden.

I would have preferred Kucinich myself, but Obama's good enough.

Obama's NO vote, without ever having to face what the consequences of that vote would have meant is a big strike against his "judgment" for me.
I am fed up with the thin gruel of liberal dogma on the military. Is it any wonder that is our weakest issue?

My problems with the military have nothing to do with the soldiers and everything to do with expenditures and pointless procurement of obsolete, unworkable and/or unnecessary systems. How many Marines does the Osprey have to kill before we abandon it? Why are we spending over $150 Million on each and every Raptor when it has no clear role in the current world theatre? Why spend so much to get so little? And why do we need to meddle in other countries' sovereign affairs and keep creating new enemies? These are valid, important questions EVERY American should ask, not just Liberals.

Originally posted by Eyemagistus
Does anyone seriously think that bringing 160,000 troops home, leaving Saddam in power and abandoning all the UN sanctions would have had NO consequences? Anyone but Barack Obama? I sent several messages to Hillary's campaign, trying to get her to raise the obvious question.
Obama's "better judgement," to vote NO, would have set back the UN decades. What country would bother listening to them about anything if nothing could ever be enforced? Why does everyone give France, Germany and Russia a pass on scamming the OIL For Food program, then blaming the US for starving women and children?

The UN had twelve years to enforce the sanctions and did nothing precisely because they (member nations) were profiting from the situation. We were too, since our presence in the ME required constant procurement and maintenance of new equipment, fuel, food, etc. The main reason Iraq's defeat became imperative was because of Saddam's plan to undercut OPEC and especially Saudi Arabia, whose Royal Family the Bushes are beholden to.

Backing away would obviously have been seen as a humiliating defeat of the Great Satan and emboldened the entire Jihadist movement and Libya would still have a nuclear program. Saddam would have no reason NOT to start up his WMD programs again. The ones eliminated in the 1990's by UN inspections.

Not one person has yet answered to my satisfaction why other sovereign nations are not allowed the right to pursue the same weapons technology we take for granted. We have the largest WMD stockpile in the world and to date we are the only nation to use nukes against another. Why should we should spank the kids for wanting parity with the big boys?

Yes, they lied. Ahmed Chalabi used 9/11 to tell them anything they wanted to hear just to get us into Iraq and they believed him. I'm all for pursuing the bastards to the fullest extent of the law, but that won't happen until there is enough of a Democratic majority to pass gas again. We still haven't recognized the authority of The Hague.

Finally, someone who understands why impeachment is currently off the table. Since the vote will split on party lines, it's useless to bring impeachment proceedings without having the numbers to make it stick.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in registered voters, they just don't show up as reliably. Conservatives don't just get mad, they study the system and plan how to get more than even. Liberals just get mad and throw tantrums.
You can blame everything on stolen elections all you want, but if everyone registered actually paid attention and voted, it wouldn't be close enough to steal.

I would argue the reason registered Democrats stay home in droves is because more registered Dem voters are hard-left Liberals (myself included), who see the party leadership again and again front candidates who do not share our values. It's hard to get excited about candidates who you know won't do a damn thing about health care, shrinking our military to a more defensive posture, ending our meddling in foreign affairs, bringing jobs back, etc. and instead sound like "conservative lite". It's also hard to be excited about candidates who don't fight back in the face of lies and deception, as in the case of Kerry in '04. The Democratic Party leadership does its best to distance itself from its liberal base (incorrectly fearing defeat if they take a Liberal stance, thus defeating themselves anyway through voter apathy), while the Republican Party leadership openly panders to and flaunts its hard-right conservative base. That said, I still vote Democratic, every time, because I know the consequences of Republican leadership are invariably worse for the working class. I also think too many registered Democrats also don't make themselves heard to the Party leadership because they're wary of the cultural stigma attached to the "liberal" label, regardless of how correct liberalism is.

I don't care much for conspiracy theories, because it just makes people feel even more hopeless and it gives them another reason to stay home and not give a damn.

To some degree you are correct. However the conspiracy DOES exist, and it falls upon We the People to resist it in whatever manner we are comfortable with.

If people had a better idea of just how corrupt and incompetent the post invasion was, they would do more to expose that. Everyone is stuck on the idea that the mistake was to go in at all, not that it was criminal negligence to go in so irresponsibly unprepared.

It wasn't negligence. The lack of preparation was deliberate, as was the set-up to put us there. One cannot be separated from the other. The PNAC papers offer proof of this; the plan all along was to turn Iraq into a base for perpetual war for profit.

Going home was not an acceptable option once the troops were there and the neocons knew it.

Sure it was. The troops were only truly needed to back up the UN inspectors if Saddam kicked them out again, at which time our invasion would have been justified. But, that's precisely why they invaded when they did--with inspectors on the ground, the possibility of the inspectors finishing the process, and finding nothing, thus undermining the entire plan, would have been too much for their corporate masters to bear.

It wouldn't have mattered as much that Bush stole the 2000 election if they didn't control every other branch of government as well.

Absolutely true. And, unfortunately, the cleanup from this mess could take decades. Assuming, of course, the USA has decades of life left to it after the debacle that is the Bush Administration.

[edit on 6/9/2008 by The Nighthawk]

NightHawk:

Like it or not, the world needs a cop and we are the only ones big enough to be one. Maybe you would have enjoyed seeing Europe reduced to ashes again if we had not kept the Balkan conflicts from spreading out of control. Wesley Clark would make an excellent VP for Obama.

(Would you prefer China, or Russia as cops? We will probably get to find out in our lifetime.) Ocean piracy is increasing because we are already cutting back on naval patrols.

We are the only means the UN has to ENFORCE anything. Saddam was certainly scamming the UN, but did not maintain his oil fields and had no ability to produce any significant quantity of oil.
If you think Saddam controlling ME oil would be a good thing, we really do have some problems.
The UN is corrupt and intentionally ineffective because so many members do not believe in it's charter.

You can't understand why everyone shouldn't have WMD's to settle their petty little disputes? Do you think Bin Laden would have hesitated? Please!
Maybe you think we deserve it.
Using atomic bombs on Japan ended the war sooner and resulted in fewer casualties, on both sides, than what had been estimated with an invasion. Keeping them in fewer hands is what has prevented them from ever being used again.

So, if a candidate is not pure enough to meet all of your standards, you either stay home, or throw your vote away and allow a greater evil to prevail?
How much of the horrors of our one party government the last 6 years is due to people exactly like you? Some of the blood is on your hands too.

I do believe much of the chaos in Iraq was intentional, after reading PNAC before 2000, and "Imperial Life in the Emerald City."
The Pentagon is crawling with Christian Zionist zealots, especially the Air Force.

Originally posted by Eyemagistus
NightHawk:

Like it or not, the world needs a cop and we are the only ones big enough to be one. Maybe you would have enjoyed seeing Europe reduced to ashes again if we had not kept the Balkan conflicts from spreading out of control. Wesley Clark would make an excellent VP for Obama.

(Would you prefer China, or Russia as cops? We will probably get to find out in our lifetime.) Ocean piracy is increasing because we are already cutting back on naval patrols.

I would prefer the UN do its own enforcement. If the world "needs cops" then let's create cops the world as a whole can agree on. Isn't that the whole point? Which leads me to...

We are the only means the UN has to ENFORCE anything.

Then we should be using our power at the behest of the UN, not bullying the UN into essentially doing OUR bidding. And, if OUR military is to be the primary enforcement arm of UN objectives, then Dammit, the UN SHOULD PAY FOR IT and get the insane costs of running a military designed around "force projection" OFF the backs of American taxpayers.

I read a dozen times every day about how this or that person doesn't want their tax money paying for someone else's health care, or whatever. Fine. I don't want MY tax money to be spent on killing people. If we need the huge military to be the world's police let the rest of the world pay the bills.

Saddam was certainly scamming the UN, but did not maintain his oil fields and had no ability to produce any significant quantity of oil.

Saddam wasn't, and isn't, the only one scamming the UN. You mentioned France, Germany and Russia; the oil-for-food program was essentially a criminal syndicate within the UN.

If you think Saddam controlling ME oil would be a good thing, we really do have some problems.

I didn't give a damn what Saddam did with HIS country's oil. That's what the concept of "national sovereignty" is all about. Or would you prefer that every nation's resources be stripped from those nations' control (ours included) and placed under the auspices of an independent international authority?

The UN is corrupt and intentionally ineffective because so many members do not believe in it's charter.

And what would you do to fix it?

You can't understand why everyone shouldn't have WMD's to settle their petty little disputes?

No, I DO understand THAT. What I refuse to ACCEPT is that the US has some magical moral authority to tell other nations what to do and what they can and can't have, especially when we're sitting on the single largest stockpile of said weapons on the face of the Earth. Most of the UN "Big Boys" on the Security Council are the same way. And, while claiming authority to decide for others how they live their lives, we also meddle by providing those we deem "friendly" with those very same weapons to use against someone else we deem "unfriendly". Why was Saddam such a bastard? Because WE had his back for so long and let him do as he pleased. Those Kurds he gassed? The ones he was hung for? The weapons had American labels on them. Oh yeah, but the world needs cops, and we're the only ones who can do the job. Give me a freakin' break.

Do you think Bin Laden would have hesitated? Please!

Speaking of, where is he? Why is he not in custody?

I think Bin Laden is a patsy. The CIA trained him, the CIA funded him, the CIA gave him marching orders against the Soviets. I think he's either still in our employ to be dragged out like the Boogeyman in order to frighten the masses, or he's been left to run free because capturing him would end the game early.

Maybe you think we deserve it.

Wow. I've NEVER said that. You call yourself a Liberal? You act more like a neocon.

Using atomic bombs on Japan ended the war sooner and resulted in fewer casualties, on both sides, than what had been estimated with an invasion.

I won't dispute this. But, it raises legitimate questions about our moral authority in regards to the nuclear aspirations of other countries.

Keeping them in fewer hands is what has prevented them from ever being used again.

Unless they're our "friends". I highly doubt Israel just "happened" to get nukes on their own, without our knowledge.

So, if a candidate is not pure enough to meet all of your standards, you either stay home, or throw your vote away and allow a greater evil to prevail?

Where did I say THAT?!?!? I said I vote Democratic because I don't want Republican rule. What part of that did you not understand? What I DID say is that a LOT of Democrats (probably a majority of those registered) don't vote because they see no point, since the party leadership flatly ignores its true, heavily Liberal base and fronts candidates who are mostly indistinguishable from Republicans. I am NOT among those who feel this way, because I know all too well what the consequences are.

How much of the horrors of our one party government the last 6 years is due to people exactly like you? Some of the blood is on your hands too.

Thanks for not reading what I stated AT ALL.

Here's a recap:

I still vote Democratic, every time, because I know the consequences of Republican leadership are invariably worse for the working class.

Where in that sentence does it say I don't vote at all?

I do believe much of the chaos in Iraq was intentional, after reading PNAC before 2000, and "Imperial Life in the Emerald City."
The Pentagon is crawling with Christian Zionist zealots, especially the Air Force.

That is no bull, hands-down. Scary thing is, when these zealots leave the military, Blackwater (created, run by, and also full to the brim with Christian Zionist zealots) and other "private contractors" snap them up and shift their focus from defending our nation to getting maximum cash for their actions. No more pesky loyalty to the Constitution or the People of the USA. Combine that with the murky langauge of all the "security resolutions" passed in the last few years and America as we know it is in real danger.

reply to post by Eyemagistus


You want to be the worlds police? Then triple your taxes because being the worlds police costs money and right now we have a crumbling infrastructure and education and the world is leaving us behind. Im sorry this country was not founded to be the worlds police. If you think we need to be then join the army and up your taxes and you go police the world.

My apologies Nighthawk, it was Midnight Destroyer who said just previous to your 2 posts that he has spent the last 28 years voting for "No Confidence."

Read the actual charter of the UN and tell see if it is still relevant to the current members:
www.un.org...

It is going to take a hell of a lot of work to undo the damage Bush has done, but returning to isolationism isn't the solution. I would like to see NATO countries increase their military capacity so we don't have to spend so much on ours. They could have dealt with Darfur long ago if they gave a damn. It's so much easier to just blame the US for everything.

We are way off topic. I'm sure we'll meet again.
Let's hope Scott McClellan can get the impeachment fires burning when he testifies next week.