Posted on 10/15/2014 5:35:37 AM PDT by shuck and yall
Many of us always believed there were WMD. W covering it up is unacceptable.
What they are doing is spinning the historical record. Number one, they can excuse past reporting by citing this report. Number two, they can still claim that what is found now in Syria or shows up being battled with ISIS is still left over from “Bush’s War.”
It is all backfilling the record to support positions they will take later.
Because "expired and degraded chemical" weapons were not the kind of WMDs we were duped into go to war for. "Mushroom Clouds" was the picture they were painting.
The media are scum.
Remember this story headline from July 2008... “Uranium shipped to Montreal from Iraq in top secret mission”... “The removal of 550 metric tones of “yellowcake,” the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment, included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a voyage across two oceans.”
Yes... There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but then again. Why advertise that fact to your enemies?
“It wasn’t a secret. I distinctly recall a NYT article in 2007 or so that discussed 500 tons of yellowcake in Iraq and what to do with it.”
My 2¢…In hindsight, I completely agree that it would have been better to leave Saddam at the wheel. But at the time I figured Iran would eventually get it's hand on Iraq, so going in was at least an attempt to head that off. Well, THAT didn't work….
Anyone wanting to read the principle speech that Bush gave to the UN can look the text up at the link below.
Bush did not claim that Iraq had nuclear weapons. He outlined how Iraq had had a program which was dismantled in part but the main issue was the ten year failure to comply with the UN inspections and settlements of the first Iraq war in a manner that let the world know it was a safe and compliant nation.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/text-of-bush-iraq-speech-to-un-12-09-2002/
It was the repeated failure to comply and the inability of the world to ascertain if WMD programs were proceeding that led to the declarations from the UN.
During the questioning of Sadam after capture it became apparent that he wanted everyone to think he had a more active program to keep other Arab nations and Iran in fear of his possible abilities. That is why he didn’t comply.
The older WMDs were hidden and sent to Syria but what was found was from that earlier period and never met the media’s standard for the narrative that THEY adopted about the war. A narrative the Bush administration never outlined in a manner that the media later knocked down as a “straw man” argument.
And this was only one of the reasons we invaded. Saddam was shooting at our pilots, playing footsie with the inspectors and had violated UN resolutions for years. All very very good reasons for invasion.
I remember clearly that WMD was only one of the reasons for invasion. Saddam needed to be gotten rid of. He was removed successfully and everyone was better off until Obama refused to allow a residual force.
The Bush administration was it’s own worst enemy. If they had fought back against the democrats and leftist media the way they did against Saddam it would have made a world of difference.
So...the invasion was sold on the basis of obsolete weapons that might not work and in any case could not be delivered to the US?
So all that talk from the White House about mushroom clouds and uranium enrichment and aluminum tubes is down the memory hole? Condi Rice’s continuing assertions that “this regime was pursuing a nuclear weapon” are now inoperative?
Also, Saddam was in bed with Osama. Don’t forget that; it also was part of the narrative you fell for and amazingly to this day can’t admit to yourself was a pile of steaming BS.
No, it was sold on WMD dangers as well as the flaunting of UN rules, shooting at our planes in no fly zones, funding suicide bombers and now allowing inspectors access.
No, I never thought Saddam was in bed with Osama. Saddam himself was enough to justify invasion.
And you conveniently ignore the fact that the Duelfer Report reported that hundreds of Iraqis had looted Saddam's WMD sites when we attacked. No one knows what they took. Also, Duelfer said Saddam would have re constituted his weapons if allowed to stay in power.
Well we certainly taught those Iraqis a lesson they won’t forget! I gather no one you care about had to die or suffer grievous injury for it. I gather you are fine with the entire islamic middle east in flames, with Christians butchered in the streets. I’ll put you down as a Satisfied Customer.
Personally, I miss Saddam. He’s looking better every day.
Nonsense. This is the very reason Obama should have left a residual force...to keep this from happening. I am not happy with it at all.
If we had not done this in Japan and Germany they would have slumped back into totalitarianism. Why wouldn't you leave a force in Iraq as well?
It is Obama who has squandered the gains made in Iraq. Bush won the war...Obama is losing it.
But Bush should have made it clear that once we moved in, we would occupy Iraq for at least 20 years.
If we didn’t have the will to do it, we never should have gone in.
more like Ronald Reagan
You can't make prognostications like this before the war starts.
But good people had the will to do it. It was the rabidly anti war left that did not.
Well we sure as heck didn't say we'd leave right away, neither.
No, it was Obama who said that. Bush would never have said it. He would have negotiated at least 10,000 troops staying which would have been the correct thing to do.
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