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To: nuconvert

I don't see how he can be wrong all the time. Before, he was in favor of the war. Now, he's opposed to it. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.


5 posted on 11/18/2005 6:04:32 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: Brilliant
Just in case some people want a little reminder of things Clinton said about Iraq prior to the war. Here is a link to a speech he gave at the UK Labour Party conference in 2002.

Speech

Some interesting highlights:

"I take it almost everybody in this room supports what Prime Minister Blair and I did in Kosovo. It was a clear and present emergency, you had a million people being driven from their homes, but in the end, even though we had all the Muslim world for it and most of the developing nations for it, all of Nato for it, we could not get a UN resolution because of the historic ties of the Serbs to the Russians. So we went in anyway and as soon as the conflict was over the Russians came in and did a very responsible job participating with the United States in an international UN sanction peacekeeping environment. Why? Why did that happen? Because the UN is still becoming..."

"A few words about Iraq. I support the efforts of the Prime Minister and President Bush to get tougher with Saddam Hussein. I strongly support the Prime Minister's determination if at all possible to act through the UN. We need a strong new resolution calling for unrestricted inspections. The restrictions imposed in 1998 are not acceptable and will not do the job. There should be a deadline and no lack of clarity about what Iraq must do... There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime poses a threat to his people, his neighbours and the world at large because of his biological and chemical weapons and his nuclear programme.

In December of 1998 after the inspectors were kicked out along with the support of Prime Minister Blair and the British military we launched Operation Desert Fox for four days. An air assault on those weapons of mass destruction, the air defence and regime protection forces. This campaign had scores of targets and successfully degraded both the conventional and non-conventional arsenal. It diminished Iraq's threat to the region and it demonstrated the price to be paid for violating the Security Council's resolutions. It was the right thing to do, and it is one reason why I still believe we had to stay at this business until we get all those biological and chemical weapons out of there.

What has happened in the last four years? No inspectors, a fresh opportunity to rebuild the biological and chemical weapons programme and to try and develop some sort of nuclear capacity. Because of the sanctions Saddam Hussein is much weaker militarily than he was in 1990, while we are stronger, but that probably has given him even more incentive to try and amass weapons of mass destruction. I agree with many Republicans and Democrats in America and many here in Britain who want to go through the United Nations to bring the weight of world opinion together, to bring us all together, too offer one more chance to the inspections.

President Bush and Secretary Powell say they want a UN resolution too and are willing to give the inspectors another chance. Saddam Hussein, as usual, is bobbing and weaving. We should call his bluff. The United Nations should scrap the 1998 restrictions and call for a complete and unrestricted set of inspections with a new resolution..."
15 posted on 11/18/2005 6:39:49 AM PST by elc
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