The guys who have been where bullets and AAA are coming in with your name on them are the last ones to support a valueless conflict, we're the ones who have to do the job. But it's unconscionable to use lies to motivate those of us who have flown, walked or sailed into the crucible. It's even more egregious to do the same to gain an enthusiastic endorsement from the populace.
It's equally incomprehensible why FR posters would reach into infinity to rationalize Sec. Powell's speech based upon false information.
"Yet, it is clear that we were lied to by this administration. I would have been 100% in support of knocking off the tyrant in Iraq if told the truth."
While I appreciate and honor your service, I think you stretch mightily to say the administration lied about WMD. IF they were the only ones saying that, then you'd have a point. But the Clinton administration, the Congress, the UN, and every Western intelligence agency had the intel. about Saddam and WMD and came to the same conclusion: That Saddam had WMD. All these groups and every top Democrat from Bill Clinton on down were saying Saddam had WMD long before W. Bush did.
Bill Clinton stated in October 2003 on CSPAN "Based on the intelligence I left office believing Saddam had large stockpiles of unaccounted for WMD." Now yes, Bill Clinton isn't the most credible guy on the planet, but his conclusions squared with the conclusions of the experts and the prevailing opinion in both the intelligence and political community at the time.
Were they all wrong? Perhaps. Did Saddam have WMD that were later moved out ahead of the invasion? Maybe. There is little evidence to base such arguments on. But there is even less evidence to claim the administration set out to lie about WMD and was the originator of later disproven claims of their currently being WMD in Iraq at the time of the invasion. That just argues against all logic since so many disparate forces came to the same conclusion.
We do know Saddam had WMD at one time. That is not in dispute. What became of them is the question. That Saddam never provided that information was alone a violation of his 1991 UN Ceasefire agreements and justified ending his regime. The burden of proof was on Saddam, NOT THE UN or the US, to prove he did not have WMD. Saddam never did.
Indeed, some have speculated that perhaps Saddam went about creating the impression of having WMD to keep his neighbors on edge after in fact they had been destroyed in Desert Storm. Indeed, Saddam's own generals believed he had WMD, but that it was other units that were in possession of them. Again, that all came from the signals Saddam sent. It wasn't based on some supposed lie by the administration.
In any event, despite the claims by the media most of what Powell spoke about at the UN has not been proven as false. Yes they'll latch on the aluminum tubes things to claim everything else in his presentation was phony. But what of NSA intercepts that Powell played of Iraqi officers warning their men of the arrival of UN inspectors and telling them to santize the place of any evidence? What of pictures of UN inspectors arriving at the front gate of a facility and Iraqi convoys beating their escape out the back?
And what of the fact that 3 separate investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee (in a biparisan, unanimous finding), the British intelligence and the European Intelligence Agency ALL concluding last summer that the controversial yellow cake story is in fact credible and had sound basis? I bet you weren't even aware of that because the US media is out to deceive you about the war and to create the kind of opinions you hold about it. Yes, their hero Joe Wilson even admits that there was some truth to the claim in his book. But of course that's not what he told us when he was working to undermine the Bush administration's case on the war for the Kerry campaign.
At the very least Saddam created the impression he had something to hide. This cannot be denied. Was the intelligence all or mostly wrong? I guess for now until we have more evidence to the contrary we have to say it was. Keep in mind in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack" about the planning for the war, Bush was told by the CIA director George Tenent that the case for Saddam having WMD was a "slam dunk." Perhaps he was terribly wrong.
But was it because Bush and the administration lied? Your logic would have to be that somehow Bush got Clinton, Blair, France, the UN, Iran, etc. all to lie about Saddam having WMD even before he was president to be able to support a claim that the Bush administration lied.
Again, their claims of Saddam having WMD were not contrary to conventional wisdom in which case you could claim the Bush administration deceived the country. What Bush was saying was the CONSENSUS opinion prevailing at the time.
Again, thank you for your service to the country. I hope you're not just inventing that to give yourself credibility. I will go with the assumption that you are a bigger person than that. But I would ask you to re-examine the idea that the administration lied. Surely you can see that the president would have to know if he lied he would be quickly found out. And if he would go to such lengths to invent the claim of Saddam having WMD, wouldn't he then go so far as to plant them too??
With all respect, your comments just don't hold up to logic. I urge you to reconsider them in the light of both facts and logic and encourage you to beware of those peddling such fallacies all to further an extreme political agenda.
Have a good weekend and thank you again for what you've done for the country.