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To: GraniteStateConservative
I accept that Saddam was a threat to the world and deserved to be ousted. That's not the point here. The point is that the system failed. We need to have the system fixed.

I am not so sure that there was a failure at all here. I am certain that the Bush administration did not lie to us or exaggerate their claims of danger. If anything, they understated the danger (probably being politically careful). We know that in the past, Iraq had large stockpiles of various weapons because they admitted it. They then claimed to have destroyed it all but could never convince anybody that they were telling the truth. Our intelligence services reported various facts (most of which are not public), but I have not seen any of them refuted yet. They also presented many partial pictures of what was going on in Iraq and the Bush administration chose to act on a conglomeration of past facts, current facts, and possible future scenarios that included unacceptable levels of risk.

This is not failure, it is making decisions that have to be made with incomplete data and making them in the best possible manner within the limitations. These limitations were known at the time, and any guesses on filling the unknown data were just that - guesses. We did not know how far along his weapons programs were and we did not know what had happened to all his weapons stockpiles, but that lack of knowing, and Iraq's determination to keep us in the dark was threat enough to act.

David Kay said today that while the corruption in Iraq may have disguised how active the weapons programs actually were, that same corruption made Iraq an even MORE DANGEROUS place than was previously thought, because it was nearly inevitable that in such an environment, a terrorist buyer would connect with an Iraqi seller.

690 posted on 01/28/2004 2:31:49 PM PST by tentmaker
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To: tentmaker
Right, President Bush did NOT lie. There are as many intelligence failures as there are successes, depending on the "is" type interpretation used. Actual intelligence failures, such as the CIA is being accused of, are extremely rare. Saddam had a WMD program. Intelligence was correct on that. The details were a little screwed up, but the extent of THAT isn't known. The pertinate fact here is that Saddam DID have an active WMD program. THAT is the ONLY fact that matters.
697 posted on 01/28/2004 2:52:46 PM PST by cake_crumb (UN Resolutions = Very Expensive, Very SCRATCHY Toilet Paper)
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