Posted on 06/17/2005 10:54:05 AM PDT by Graybeard58
WASHINGTON -- Congress should conduct an official inquiry to determine whether President Bush intentionally misled the nation about the reasons for toppling Saddam Hussein, a senior House Democrat suggested Thursday.
New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among Democratic House members who participated in a forum to air demands that the White House provide more information about what led to the decision to go to war in Iraq.
"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," said Rangel, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Rep. John Conyers and other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee organized the forum to investigate implications in a British document known as the "Downing Street memo." The memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.
Conyers pointed to statements by Bush in the run-up to invasion that war would be a last resort. "The veracity of those statements has -- to put it mildly -- come into question," he said.
In the opening hours of the forum, witnesses spoke mainly about their views on the decision to go to war and not the memo, which the Bush administration has dismissed.
"We are having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago when we went to war," former Ambassador Joseph Wilson said.
"It used to be said that democracies were difficult to mobilize for war precisely because of the debate required," Wilson said, going on to say the lack of debate allowed the war to happen.
Wilson wrote a 2003 newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. After the piece appeared someone in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, exposing her cover.
Wilson has said he believes the leak was retaliation for his critical comments. The Justice Department is investigating.
The Downing Street memo states the "intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
recounting a July 23, 2002, meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his national security team. The meeting took place just after British officials returned from Washington.
U.S. officials and Blair deny the assertion about intelligence and facts being "fixed," a comment that the memo attributes to the chief of British intelligence at the time.
"This is simply rehashing old debates that have already been discussed," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday.
The London Sunday Times disclosed the contents of the memo May 1. It also reported on an eight-page briefing paper prepared for Blair that concluded the U.S. military had given "little thought" to the aftermath of a war in Iraq.
The briefing paper of July 21, 2002, said that a postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise and that "as already made clear, the U.S. military plans are virtually silent on this point. Washington could look to us to share a disproportionate share of the burden."
"Explain to me what the rationale was for the US going after Germany in 1942"
To get our factories producing goods so that we could finally climb out of the Depression? Nothing else FDR was doing was working.
Explain to ME the rationale for NOT attacking Fidel Castro, since we're on the topic of 'removal of murdering dictators'.
Only democrats such as Kerry and his ilk but my point was Saadam needed to be stopped and defing U.N. resolutions was as good a reason as any.
For me the ends justify any means we saw fit to use.
Freedom is not free and we as a nation have historically paid the price in blood for our own freedom and that of others.
Yes, I would put my own life on the line. I am a 60 year old vet and they don't want me any more. My son however spent 16 months in the current war.
Because Germany declared war on the U.S.
Reason enough?
Hopefully not soon....but since the per capita Saudi income has decreased from $27 K in 1970 to $6K today, I beleive the royal families heads will soon be "smited" and the new state will,make Iran look moderate.
I love the way the detractors revise history and insist we should have attacked the country that was hosting 45K American troops for the last several decades. It's almost childlike.
Is Osama still a Saudi citizen?
"Nor was there any connection between Germany and Pearl Harbor, yet U.S. Marines landed in North Africa several months after 12/7/41 to fight the German Army. Yet there was no carping in the media about 'fighting an enemy that didn't attack us' when we took on Rommel's divisions."
To compare the threat of the well-organized Wehrmacht to that of Saddam's almost-completely destroyed, useless Republican Guard is laughable.
The Iraqi military posed ZERO threat to the USA, due to the actions of our Desert Storm vets who took care of business in 1991. We now know that the WMD crap was based on bogus, cooked intelligence, yet Bush rewarded Tenet for this screwup with a Medal of Freedom.
RE: Post 84.
I didn't ask the question ""Explain to me what the rationale was for the US going after Germany in 1942"" that you responded to. Please direct your response to the right source!
Read some history:
On the morning of Dec. 11 the Government of Germany, pursuing its course of world conquest, declared war against the United States. The long-known and the long-expected has thus taken place. The forces endeavoring to enslave the entire world now are moving toward this hemisphere. Never before has there been a greater challenge to life, liberty and civilization. Delay invites great danger. Rapid and united effort by all of the peoples of the world who are determined to remain free will insure a world victory of the forces of justice and of righteousness over the forces of savagery and of barbarism. Italy also has declared war against the United States.
I therefore request the Congress to recognize a state of war between the United States and Germany, and between the United States and Italy.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
No Italics when quoting threw me off.
"What has happened since 9/11 that comes anywhere close to the magnitude of 9/11? "
Nothing yet. But listening to Cheney, Ridge, et al, it's only a matter of time, regardless of what we do in Iraq before we get hit again. Hell, Bush himself admitted that the WOT is probably not winnable, in one of the more candid quotes of his first term. I mean, what do you do - kill every single Muslim on the planet? Impossible and immoral.
"Read some history:"
Dude, that's the SECOND time in 5 minutes you've mistakenly attributed a quote to me in your response. Please direct your responses to the sources of the quotes, not me (unless I happen to be the source:) )
Yet we went to war with Germany anyway. That was my point.
He voted for it. How could he not know?
As open as our country is I have expected another large scale attack ever since 9/11. I see nothing that we can do to prevent determined terrorists who are willing to die in order to attack us.
Our southern border is open and the northern one isn't any better.
Read number 89.
You want an apology to go with the explanation?
It had something to do with terrorist knocking down the World Trade Center Buildings. What a disingenuous political hack.
I can't believe that you're mouthing this tired old leftist talking point on FR. What did Saddam attack the Iranian army and defenseless Kurdish villages with back in the 1980's - spitballs?
Look - carping Democrats in Congress, State Department weenies, and Tony Blair attempting to appease his party delayed the inevitable start of the war long enough for Saddam to hide or disperse whatever chem/bio he most assuredly possessed. We have found remnants of the chem/bio arsenal all over Iraq; just no "smoking gun" stockpile. Common sense dictates that the stuff was not just simply "thrown away": genocidal dictators don't generally get rid of their weapons when politely asked. If Tenet (or the head of every other major intelligence service in the world, for that matter) is guilty of anything, it's underestimating just how desperate Saddam was embarrass the U.S. and not "lose face", even if it meant living at the bottom of a hole.
The question that people should be asking now is "where the hell did Saddam hide his arsenal?" I would venture to say that Syria is a damned good guess.
There was a clear, declared, documented connection between Germany and Japan, including the stated intent to cooperate on military and political objectives, which were clearly stated to be a whole reshaping of the world. Germany was on the march throughout Europe. There is no comparison.
"As open as our country is I have expected another large scale attack ever since 9/11. I see nothing that we can do to prevent determined terrorists who are willing to die in order to attack us. "
No argument here.
"Our southern border is open and the northern one isn't any better."
For supposedly be a nation at war, you couldn't tell by the condition of our unguarded borders!
Correct. And Saddam and the jihadists were not about to make the same mistake - because of our homegrown Bush-haters that carry water for them, "plausible deniability" is just what they need to sow dissention in our ranks.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.