There are and there were.
Posted on 04/12/2006 12:01:03 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Among the allegations leveled at President Bush by his critics, probably the most serious is that he took the United States to war in Iraq on false pretenses. He told the American people that Saddam Hussein had a collection of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when Mr. Hussein did not. In retrospect it is clear that the weapons did not exist, although they had in the past, and Hussein had used them against his enemies. But what is also clear from captured documents now coming to light is that Mr. Bush had every reason to believe they still existed at the time he launched the military campaign in Iraq. Not only did US and allied intelligence agencies assert that the weapons were there, but Hussein himself played a dangerous game of convincing enemies such as Iran, and even his own generals, that he had such weapons, while protesting to United Nations inspectors that he did not.
While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed.
From thousands of official Iraqi documents captured by American forces, and dozens of interviews with captured senior military and political leaders, a picture is now emerging of the world of delusion in which Hussein lived when he was in power. It is being chronicled in magazines such as the Weekly Standard and a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs and books such as "Cobra II." Written by New York Times reporter Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, the book is being hailed as one of the most comprehensive accounts of the war in Iraq.
Hussein was much more concerned about an internal coup, or a rebellion by dissident Shiites, or even an attack by Iran (with which he had fought a long war), than he was with an invasion by the US. Though he had largely disposed of his stocks of chemical and biological weapons in the 1990s, he encouraged the Iranians to believe he might have a hidden cache of them, a strategy called "deterrence by doubt." He did not take seriously a military threat from the US because he believed France and Russia would block the US diplomatically at the UN, and that in any event the Americans had little stomach for taking heavy casualties.
The Americans, however, took seriously the probability of confronting Hussein's WMD. When the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had close ties with Hussein, told Vice President Cheney that Hussein did not want war but would use chemical weapons if attacked, Mr. Cheney did not blink. The Americans, said Cheney, would deal with them.
Bush ordered that, when the US assault started and the anticipated stockpiles of WMD were seized, they must be publicized. Gen. Tommy Franks, his military commander, arranged for specially trained public affairs camera crews to document the discoveries.
Initially it was planned that seized samples of WMD would be shipped to Kuwait for analysis, but when Kuwait balked at this, the 75th Field Artillery Brigade headquarters at Fort Sill, Okla., was assigned the task.
Messrs Gordon and Trainor say in their book that German agents in Baghdad tipped the American military to Hussein's plan for defending his capital. Concentric rings were to be manned by Iraqi units of varying trustworthiness. One of the circles was called the "red line." This was to be the final barrier, manned by Hussein's elite and most reliable troops. US military intelligence reasoned that as American troops reached this defense line they would be met by poison gas or germ weapons.
But within Hussein's war council, the story was very different. In December 2002, Hussein called his generals together for a surprising announcement: Iraq did not possess WMD. The generals were stunned. They had long assumed that they could count on a hidden cache of chemical or biological weapons. Iraq had used such weapons in the war with Iran. Hussein had convinced his generals that it was the threat of WMD that had enabled him to stop the Americans moving on Baghdad after the 1991 war.
According to "Cobra II," Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, told American interrogators after the 2003 war that Hussein's stunning admission to the generals "sent morale plummeting."
The Bush critics can argue that the president was too gullible in accepting the conclusion of his intelligence agencies. But the evidence does not suggest that he knowingly lied to the American public about the existence of WMD.
• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News.
There are and there were.
LOL!
Why would Bush lie about WMDs to lead us to war? If he had known there weren't really any over there, it wouldn't have made sense to lead us to war on that pretense because he would know none would be found and that his lie would be exposed.
So far, the only "proof" is that WMDs haven't been found -- yet. What will all these critics say when they are uncovered?
grow up people. maybe if we did the president would treat us like adults. we can't handle the truth. requires too much intestinal fortitude and we've just about legislated that out of existence.
...any more. I guess he didn't tell his Generals the rest of it: that Putin had helped transport the whole load to Syria for safekeeping. ;)
You gotta slow down a little; you're going too fast for Democrats, whose already-diminished capacities for following logical arguments have been further vitiated by 8 years of Clinton's baloney.
No way this is ChriSci Monitor!!
If you’ll take a look at the websites, below, you’ll see that Iraq DID have WMD’s, but the main stream media doesn’t want to report it.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05310/600991.stm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14295
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/28/110744.shtml
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=1&issue=20060224
I know, it doesn't fit the template so it doesn't get reported. (sigh)
Then why were the Iraqis modifying SA-2 missiles into surface to surface missiles and why were the Iraqis engaged in ballistic missile manufacturing in violation of U.N. range restrictions?
I've made that agument from the begining. Why would he intentionally set himself up for failure?
FYI: Guess what?
On a personal bone-fide'.
We've found them, continue to find them, documented them along with a few tons Saddam regime documents that acknowledge(d) their presence. and the administration/military has ordered their continued removal with the cover up.
What I'd like to know is why?
Dude, it's cool. I told him, like, you, had, like, chemicals weapons, you know, like you wanted.
ping
However the mushroom cloud may not have been the reason Bush went into Iraq. If it was, the troops would be home by now. We know that Iran is of no immediate mushroom threat and we got them in our sights now. We want a presence there. Iraq was a doable start, or so it was reported.
......Michael Moore, Kris Matthews, Barbara Streisand, Howie Dean, Ted Kennedy, Rob Reiner, Dan Rather, etc., etc., etc. are lying, NOT Bush.
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