"We now know that from the moment President Bush took office, Iraq was given high priority as unfinished business from the first Bush administration."
~Ted Kennedy
Posted on 03/16/2004 3:39:14 PM PST by MangoCrazy
Quoting Senator Kennedy: "We now know that from the moment President Bush took office, Iraq was given high priority as unfinished business from the first Bush administration."
What are the stubborn facts?
The policy to remove Saddam Hussein was not left over from the first Bush administration, but, rather, unfinished business from the Clinton administration.
Upon entering office in January of 2001, President Bush inherited from the Clinton administration a policy of regime change. That policy was based upon the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act (P.L. 105-338), which stated, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." This policy was unanimously approved by the Senate and strongly supported by the Clinton administration.
Not two months after he signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law, President Clinton delivered an address to the nation explaining his decision to order air strikes against Iraqi military targets. He discussed the potential long-term threat posed by Saddam Hussein, stating,
"The hard fact is that so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, he threatens the well- being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. ". . . Heavy as they are, the costs of inaction must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them." (Emphasis added)
The words, again, of President Clinton. It is hard to think of any Bush administration words more forceful, unqualified or expressive of the grave and growing danger posed by the Iraqi regime. Yet, I've heard no criticism of Clinton administration misuse of intelligence.
Senator Kennedy's primary source for his claim is former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who supposedly asserted that President Bush began planning for Saddam Hussein's removal upon taking office in January 2001. But the senator did not mention that O'Neill later clarified his comments. During an NBC interview on January 13 of this year, he stated: "You know, people are trying to make the case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq." Exactly; those darned stubborn facts!
(Excerpt) Read more at cfr.org ...
"We now know that from the moment President Bush took office, Iraq was given high priority as unfinished business from the first Bush administration."
~Ted Kennedy
It's always that way with the GOP. There's just no real balls in the party. We don't know how to fight.
Yes it has been noticed
"Sore/Loserman", "Get out of Cheney's House", the group in Florida that didn't let them go behind closed doors, etc,etc.
Spit on the ground (tell the truth) towards a Democrat and Carville, Clintons, Daschle, etc,etc,etc. all come running like the local fire department. Ready to go toe-to-toe. With one organized message. But the Republicans just sit back like wimps most of the time and let Bush and his crew do all the work. Or people like those that come here.
And .. many of those republican wouldn't have been elected if it wasn't for President Bush
Oh how they forget 2002
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