CONNECTED
Posted on 11/19/2005 12:55:30 PM PST by new yorker 77
Vietnam was a democrat led war.
This one is not.
Same to you, brother.
You ever spend any time at "beautiful" NAS Kingsville or Fallon before you went on the canoe ride?
If we had decided in 2003 to let it go, Al Qaeda would be mor epowerful, and Saddam would be sitting on WMD's or WMD capability. The combination is scary.
Vietnam was a democrat led war.
This one is not.
We need to fight for our young brave soldiers.
They will fight the enemy abroad.
We will fight the enemy within.
Plus, boycott the biased MSM.
This has been their goal from the beginning!
They started during the thunder run into Baghdad - calling it a quagmire!
An NEGAT on the MSM.
Thank you- I will add this to my links.
What do you mean "trying"? They did!
"You ever spend any time at "beautiful" NAS Kingsville or Fallon before you went on the canoe ride?"
No I have not.
You're right. The President didn't make 9-11 or Al Qaeda centerpieces for invading Iraq. But its no myth, WMD were the major reason behind PresBush ultimately ordering the invasion of Iraq, or as you say "the centerpiece" for war.
You need to go back and read the speeches Bush, Cheney and others gave prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom being undertaken. Example. More then half of Bush`s speech to the UN on September.12,2002 was aimed at Saddam Hussein and his WMD programs. A few snippets.
"In cells and camps, terrorists are plotting further destruction, and building new bases for their war against civilization. And our greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies to kill on a massive scale.
In one place -- in one regime -- we find all these dangers, in their most lethal and aggressive forms, exactly the kind of aggressive threat the United Nations was born to confront.
"... Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger.
"... Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction."
Here's another example.
"Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament."
--- PresBush, March.6,2003
I don't think the President could have been more clear. There were other reasons for invading Iraq. Saddam thumbing his nose at endless UN resolutions. Oppression of the Iraqi people. Keeping a free flow of oil from Iraq. Removing a haven for terrorists. But the WMD issue was the premier issue for Bush invading Iraq. As it turned out, WMD were found, just not in the quantities that were anticipated. Human Events recently gave this account of WMD found in Iraq.
• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin
That's exactly what they're doing. It worked once.
"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations. He is a danger to his neighbors. He's a sponsor of terrorism. He's an obstacle to progress in the Middle East. For decades he has been the cruel, cruel oppressor of the Iraq people."
--- PresBush 3-16-2003, Azores Portugal
"My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision. For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991."
"The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."
--- PresBush 3-17-2003, Address to the Nation
"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger."
--- PresBush 3-19-2003, Address to the Nation
Exactly. Mr. Levin's essay proves nothing. In fact, I am embarrassed for him. He takes the ambiguous language of the 9/11 Commission Report and creates a definitive conclusion that ignores the definitive and all important conclusion of the Report.
Read the excerpts carefully. You will find these kind of caveats are littered throughout: "reportedly, apparently, There are indications, may even, is said to have, may have occurred ,indicate." That is why the Report concludes that "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States." and that there was no evidence that a "collaborative operational relationship" existed between Al Quaida and Iraq.
Yet Mr. Levin claims that all these weasel words support his contention that there were "serious connections between Iraq and al Qaeda."
Did Iraq pose a serious threat to our national security? Yes. Did Congress believe Iraq posed a serious threat? Yes. Did Iraq have or seek to obtain weapons of mass destruction? Yes. Those are the facts.
Those are not the facts. We know that Iraq did not pose a serious imminent threat to our national security because Iraq did not have WMD's. It had no delivery system to attack the U.S. with WMD's even if it did have them. According to the Duelfer Report, all of Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were abandoned or had decayed after Desert Storm and sanctions were applied to Iraq. Congress was misinformed, as we now know, " We were wrong about almost everything" Mr. Duelfer told the Senate committee, echoing David Kay's findings. Mr. Levin ignores facts.
Riiiight.
Just like your statements in the other thread.
Thanks for confirming what you are.
"• Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
• Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
• Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
• Found: 1,000 radioactive materials--ideal for radioactive dirty bombs
• Found: 17 chemical warheads--some containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin"
Never found: the ability of most liberal Democrats to put the US ahead of petty, partisan, political gain.
You mean the Dems, like you, ignore facts.
Like Salman Pak terrorist training camp in Iraq, and how it was there BEFORE we went into Iraq?
I agree. The more stridently and desperately conservatives defend the pretext for the war the more foolish we look.
We need to focus the reality that we are there now, the consequences of leaving early, the humanitarian good that we have done, what a bad guy Saddam was and our plan to leave Iraq with a stable friendly democracy. That is the way to get the support we need to finish the job - and to not lose the house and senate in the process.
Well said. The facts as they are now need to be dealt with, not the facts as they weren't then.
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