51% STILL BELIEVE SADDAM HAD WMD - HARRIS POLL

New York Post ^ | 4/22/04 | ALY SUJO

[kattracks]

April 22, 2004 -- Most Americans continue to believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when the war began, a new poll yesterday showed. The Harris Poll found that 51 percent believe Iraq had WMD, compared with 38 who don't believe the White House claim, a leading rationale for the U.S. invasion. The numbers have barely changed since February, when the last poll was conducted, despite the fact that weapons of mass destruction have yet to be uncovered.

[johnb838]

Welcome to FR. We know he had 'em. He couldn't account for them. We still have to account for them. Nothing has really changed since before the war. Personally I believe that the opposition from the French and Russians allowed him time to get rid of the evidence and they are scattered far and wide by now.

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

Oh, and it was Iran/Contra, not Iraq/Contra. We were actively supplying Iraq's mortal enemy. Not something you do to your ally.

Oh, and WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? We were ACTIVELY supplying Iraq. We were COVERTLY (and illegally) supplying Iran. But thanks anyway.

Maybe you need a refresher course:

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

"It's all ball bearings these days."

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

His (Reagan's) idea was if Saddam was getting his butt kicked by Iran we would help Saddam and If Saddam was really kicking Iranian butt we would help the Iranians

There's this great thing called the Constitution. Read it. Congress forbade the arming of Iran at the time. Remember?

[Liberty Valance]

Reagan saw it comming nearly 20 years before it happened. Had not the media and the Democats stopped him, todays problems would not exist.

Bump

[LanaTurnerOverdrive]

And don't get me wrong....Bonesaw is an idiot.

[Atlantic Friend]

Quite so. The American weapons (assault rifles, portable missiles, etc) ended up in the hands of the Islamic Iranian Republic's army, not in Iraq.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

"war in Iraq which is KILLING WAY MORE PEOPLE that Saddam ever did"

300,000 bodies found SO FAR in mass graves in Iraq. don't know how many he killed in kuwait, iran, etc. no way have we killed more than saddam.

you're an idiot.

[bondjamesbond]

I said: I do not believe that the White House used the actual possession of WMD as a major rationale for the war.

You say: I believe that you discredit yourself COMPLETELY by stating this.

OK, show me where. Show me where the Bush White House, in a major policy address, said we had to invade Iraq because they had actual, usable WMD.

Oh, sure, they said Iraq had an active WMD program. True, BTW.

They said Iraq violated the Desert Storm Cease Fire. Also true, BTW.

They said Iraq was in violation of multitudinous UN Security Council Resolutions, which specifically authorized the use of force. Again, true.

They said Iraq had non-compliant long range missiles (true), experimental facilities (true) and never documented destruction of known stock-piles (true).

But show me where the White House said as a major justification for the War that Saddam was sitting there with a usable WMD bomb, nuclear, chemical, biological or otherwise. And don't give me some Undersecretary for Planning speaking to some Bozo on background.

We had all the reasons we needed without deployable WMD.

[bondjamesbond]

Maybe you need a refresher course: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/

OK, I'm back, all refreshed...

I see two civilian helicopters sold after Iraq started using WMD in the Iran/Iraq war.

I see that the US wanted closer ties with Iraq, but was unable to make that happen because Iraq kept on using Chemical Weapons.

I see that the US recognized that it had common interests with Iraq, but that Iraq was impossible to work with because they were an outlaw regime.

There is nothing in that briefing document you pointed me to where we actively supported Iraq with military hardware. The only thing we did to support them was not condemn them as strongly as we might have for their use of CW. We actually stopped shipment of dual-use precursor chemicals to Iraq.

Look at the facts. In Desert Storm, we were up against massive amounts of Soviet supplied hardware. Back in the bi-polar 80's, Iraq were a Soviet client, not an American one. Of course we were always interested in peeling Soviet client states away from Moscow's orbit, but Iraq proved itself to be an outlaw regime, so nothing came of it.

So we are back to hanging geopolitical fantasies on that one grainy photo of Rumsfeld and Hussein from 1984. Well, how about this:

or this:

Just because she's doing "I'm a Little Teapot" in Pyongyang does not mean we were "allies" of North Korea.

[Dr. Frank fan]

there are other REAL terrorists that we couldve been hunting down

Give me names and locations.

For example you can't just say "Osama" without telling me WHERE HE IS. We can't send the military someplace to catch "Osama" without knowing WHERE HE IS.

Sept 11 had nothing to do with Iraq its kinda of a dissrespect to say that Sept 11 had, im some way justified a war in Iraq, why?

Who exactly is saying that Sept 11 justified the war in Iraq? Personally I believe that invading Iraq would have been perfectly justified even if 9/11 had never happened. Ok?

which wouldve been better, an army in Afghanistan and the areas around it hunting down Osama and the rest of them

Putting "an army" in Afghanistan would be rather senseless. To fly "an army" into Afghanistan and have them SIT THERE in military bases/camps like SITTING DUCKS would, in fact, be the height of idiocy.

You say they would be "hunting down Osama". HOW EXACTLY? Without knowing WHERE HE IS, are you saying that they'd march around in circles or figure-8s on a fricking WILD GOOSE CHASE "looking for him"? In the desert plains and mountain rocks of Afghanistan?

So that the locals could take potshots at them? What the heck are you thinking?

As for "the around around it", I guess you mean Pakistan. That is: NUCLEAR ARMED Pakistan. In other words you are saying we should launch a ground invasion of NUCLEAR ARMED Pakistan.

Suppose Pakistan doesn't approve? Then what?

Seriously, your ideas here are messed up. The fact is we HAVE military in Afghanistan and we have about as big a footprint as would be useful. Multiplying the number of troops in Afghanistan by 10 would not accomplish all that much except to make them sitting ducks. Know why? Because we don't know WHERE OSAMA IS that's why. If we DID get reliable (RELIABLE) intelligence of where he is, we could easily go take him with special ops force or just a bomb.

So having "an army" SITTING THERE in Afghanistan is USELESS.

wasting billions of dollars causing a 500 billion dollar deficit costing 23 million jobs on a war in Iraq?

Are you just making numbers up? How is the deficit "costing" 23 million jobs exactly? Show us your math.

Anyway, your idea (to send large numbers of infantry to Afghanistan to SIT THERE and/or march in circles aimlessly Looking For Osama) seems pretty wasteful to me given that it accomplishes NOTHING.

[CyberAnt]

"38% don't believe"

This figure is interesting because it is the average number of the hate-Bush crowd. I have noticed this number hovering between 35-39%.

Also .. several polls say that Kerry has hit the 40% mark on some polls - which tells me his popularity resides only with the hate-Bush crowd.

[Delta 21]

100% of these people know for a fact that Saddam had and used weapons of mass destruction.

Graphic Photo

[Common Tator]

There's this great thing called the Constitution. Read it. Congress forbade the arming of Iran at the time. Remember

Congress did not forbid arming Iran. It forbid the funding of the anti Communist Contras in South America with the Boland amendment. Boland kept attaching his amendent to help the Castro Allied Communists in South America. It is typical of Democrats to support tyrany. That is why they like Iran, Saddams Iraq, Castro's Cuba and the Sandanistas. The Democrats and especally Boland did not want tyranical states overthrown. Better lots of Americans die than evil be overthrown.

People like you either don't know the truth or enjoy lying. Perhaps you try to do both as often as possible.

There was nothing at all illegal in Reagan selling munitions to Iran. What was illegal was sending the money from the sales to the Contras.

But even that was debatable. The Boland amendment said funds appropriated by congress could not be used to help the Contras. The mone gained from selling weapons to Iran was not money appropriated by congress.

You wil notice tha Poindexter and North are not felons. They were not found guilty of any crime. You will note a convintion overturned is not a conviction anymore.