Give War A Chance, The Next Generation
Ace of Spades -- Saturday, June 14, 2003 -- 09:35:20 PMTomorrow is the anniversary of the July 9 uprising. Fuck the Mullahs. Kill them All.
Question for the group: Apart from Colin Powell and George Bush, is there anyone in the world liberals are interested in fighting and/or imprisoning and/or executing?
They sure seem to have an evergrowing Rainbow Coaltion of protected persons (Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, etc.).
This thread is tagged: iraq(All users will see what tags exist for a thread. Please tag carefully!)
The Bush Lied Case Falls Apart
I still don't see the centrifuge story at the Times. Or am I missing it?
Maybe former defense secretary William Cohen was lying in April when he said, "I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out."
Rask
Give it up.
Bill Clinton, 9/6/02
"Saddam Hussein is not a good man by our definition . . . There's no question ... he has significant stocks of chemical and biological agents . . . I think we have to assume that if he knows we're coming ... he'll do everything he can to use them." Clinton 2002
Bill Clinton, 9/4/02
"If he has chemical and biological agents, and I believe he does, he would have no incentive not to use them then, if he knew he was going to be killed anyway and deposed. He's got a lot of incentive not to use them now because he knows he'll be toast if he does."
Now Rask, do you suggest Clinton was telling us that the stocks were going to be used as projectiles?
"Ouch! They're throwing canisters on our heads and when they hit, they're like snowballs!"
Or, Clinton was trumping shit up, I suppose.
Cal,
AFAIK, they're embargoing the story. The Wash Post is giving it minor, below the fold play.
Tom,
Didn't you see his earlier parsing? He claimed that those 2002 statements are irrelevant, because "Clinton was out of the intelligence loop" and "probably just relying on Bush's claims about WMD."
But, please.
Stop.
You're veering into Ohio Apparatchik territory.
You can still turn back.
Cal, there's a link on the bottom of the front page.
No. He's saying that when Clinton said there "are" stockpiles. He really meant that there "will be" stockpiles. You know, kind of like what is is.
I made that argument a lot last year, that one of the central questions deciding whether one was in favor or against the war was whether one trusted the administration. Liberals didn't trust Bush's intelligence claims, for partisan reasons. Conservatives and moderates (I include myself in the latter category) *did* trust Bush. I supported the war, substantially due to the belief that Iraq had WMDs. Now, it appears that this wasn't the case, and that the weapons inspection program reinstated late last year was actually working.
Those statements, like The New Republic editorial, were pre-Big Bad Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Blair UN Res. 1441, HJR 114 Lie Machine.
"Ouch! I just got hit with a castor bean! And they're driving those big mobile labs to throw metal centrifuges at our heads!"
Twenty-seven U.S. Senators sent a letter to then-President Bill Clinton on October 9, 1998, urging him to “take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraq sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq’s refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.” Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John F. Kerry, and Diane Feinstein were among the fourteen Senate Democrats to sign the letter. Levin, of course, is now saying that “there is too much evidence that the intelligence was shaded.” And apparently, although it was a real certainty back in 1998 when Levin sent the letter to Clinton, Bush was wrong to declare the presence of a weapons of mass destruction program.
I note that Ponytail is simply pretending that the most recent drubbing did not occur, and flitting, fairy-like, on to new, less embarassing topics.
Tom-
The mobile labs were just big barbecue pits. The gas centrifuge was just kinda like a propane tank. The beans are the side dish. Pretty soon we'll find the pigs that were intended for the big luau. Then you and Ace are going to be really embarassed.
Rask's performance and dalliance into Ohio-land is disappointing.
Come on down to Qsay's and see what Uday's Cookin' Up!
Mmmmmmmm . . . mmmmmmm
I disagree. I have seen Clinton's claim that the inspectors believed there were WMDs, but that is different from what Bush said. Clinton was citing an external source whose job it was to inspect for weapons. Bush was citing his own intelligence, some of which he, or his top people, probably knew to be false, despite counter-claims by the same UN organization that Clinton was citing.
Now, the UN may have been wrong when Clinton said that. I don't know. But the responsibility lies with the UN, not the Clinton Administration. The Bush administration was citing its own faulty intelligence, so the responsibility lies with the White House.
Tom:
We covered that upthread. Clinton clearly believed in 2002 that Iraq had WMDs. But he wasn't in the intelligence loop, and the responsibility for faulty intelligence doesn't rest with him.
"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," the president of the United States warned. "If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."
This quote isn't going away, Ponytail Jackass.
You can keep pretending it doesn't exist; I'll just keep reposting it until you manage to acknowledge it.
Won't happen.
He's gone to the dark side.
Did I mention the "President" referenced in that quote is not Number 43 but his predecessor, Number 41?
Ace:
I asked you to prove it last night, and you didn't. If you have more information now, let us hear it.
You ignored this:
Bush claimed, last October:
"After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon."
Do you *honestly* believe that this centrifuge buried in the desert proves this claim?
Clinton was citing an external source whose job it was to inspect for weapons. Bush was citing his own intelligence
No shit, Rask? You mean Bush actually went in with a SEAL team or somthing, while Clinton just asked someone else to do it? That is way cool.
"They lied to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
Rask-
Do you *honestly* believe that the centrifuge buried in a scientist's backyard under rose bushes -- not the desert -- means nothing?
Especially in light of the scientist's explanation that it was to be dug up when the UN went away?
That is such B.S.
At least be honest about the facts.
Jimmy-
For one thing, it means that the UN inspections were successfully keeping Iraq from carrying on a nuclear weapons program.
"There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein. His regime threats his people, his neighbors, and all of us.
...
"As a condition of the ceasefire of 1991... the UN demanded -- not the United States, the UN demanded -- and Saddam agreed -- that within fifteen days Saddam would declare all of his weapons of mass destruction..."
"Consider just some of the facts...
"In 1995, Saddam Hussein's son in law... defected to Jordan. He revealed that Saddam was developing nuclear and biological weapons... Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing weapons in significant quantities...
"Now Listen to this:
"What did it admit? It admitted an offensive biolical warfare capablity, notably 5000 gallons of botulinum, that's the agent that causes botullism, 2000 galons of anthrax, 25 biological-agent filled SCUND warheads, and 157 aerial bombs. ANd I note that UNSCOM thinks that Iraq has greatly understated its program..."
...
"Over the last few months, as UNSCOM has come *closer* to rooting out Saddam's *remaining* nuclear capablity, Saddam has again resorted to denying access to the inspectors..."
The President
William Jefferson Clinton
at the Pentagon
February 1998
Don't belive me?
Here's the fucking VIDEO TAPE, Ponytail. Check my hurried transcript yourself:
LB-
No their job in part was to make sure everything was destroyed. It didn't happened. They were duped. And as soon as they left the centrifuge would start spinnong. Please don't fool yourself on that.
Nothing.
It means nothing, Jimmy.
The suits, the atropine, the labs, the documents, the castor beans.
Mean nothing.
Why?
Because Bush lied to me! He said we'd find a big gleaming China Syndrome nuclear facility and big barrels of chemical weapons with VXVXVXVXVXVXVX stamped on the front.
Well.
It's been sixty days, and I haven't seen it.
Sure, the boys have been working on some little things like avoiding mines and bullets and mortar attacks and rebuilding a country.
But I want my evidence just as he said it would be.
You see, this is the great dividing line. It reveals the strong from the weak, the resolute from the fey, the honest from the slick - make no mistake -- Rask is lost
An the fact that they were duped is also a violation. Which they didn't catch.
That is in the same speech where he cites the UN as his source for the claim.
You have finally demonstrated, after lots of bogus attempts, that Clinton believed Iraq had WMDs in 1998.
But:
1) As Clinton was citing the UN, not his own administration, as the source, he isn't quite as accountable for any intelligence errors.
2) This doesn't have much to do with Bush's use of trumped up evidence over the past year. I have said this repeatedly, that bringing up Clinton is an obvious attempt on your part to distract from the lack of evidence to support the claims Bush made.
Jimmy:
You are being pedantic. By "his", I clearly meant "his administration's".
You need to actually read what I am writing. I have said several times that it means something. Taken at face value, it means that Iraq wasn't complying with the UN resolutions, and was a potential WMD threat, but that his nuclear program was dormant, not active. Bush claimed the program was active.
Hah, hah, hah.
You took an hour to come up with that?
I have said this repeatedly, that bringing up Clinton is an obvious attempt on your part to distract from the lack of evidence to support the claims Bush made.
It's an obvious attempt to show that this is a long-believed notion of American intelligence and it was not cooked up by Bush last year.
In other words, this is an obvious attempt to show the truth-- that Clinton and Bush both believed that Saddam had these weapons.
Neither man was "lying." At most, they both may have been *wrong*, but that's different than "lying."
You are the asshole attempting to square the impossibly round circle, claiming that Clinton told the truth when he said Saddam had WMD but that Bush lied-- not just that he was wrong, mind you, which would be odd enough, but that he lied.
By the way, Ponytail: Both men were correct.
In all the world, it is only leftists who believe Saddam Hussien.
Tom,
See, Clinton was just relying on The UN.
See, they're the bad guys in all this!!!
The Madmen-- they misled poor Bill Clinton. (Lucky for him, they misled him just when he needed it most, that is, during the Impeachment Trial.)
It was Bush's CIA Director who perpetrated the lie by giving Bush the information.
Wait.
Bush's CIA Director was Clinton's CIA Director.
Dope.
Remember when we all thought Jim McDermott was fringe?
See Lizard and Rask.
Ace
You're right.
It's fuckin' Blix.
That crafty SOB!
The whole time, I though it was
owitz
But it was Blix!