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General Schwarzkoph and LtGen Scowcroft are two of the most clued-in retired officers around, and are well aware of what we do and don't know. When they speak publicly, you can bet that they are speaking on behalf of senior uniformed leadership which has been muzzled by Rumsfeld. There are no great secrets which Dubya and Rumsfeld are harboring -- there is just a huge difference of opinion about the threshhold of a just war upon a nation which has not attacked us.

By the way, Dick Armey has also seen the evidence. Is he a traitor to the GOP for voicing his principled opposition to going to war against Iraq?

I called none of the names you listed a "traitor", for starters.

Furthermore, there's no more deader fish than retired generals and even retired CEO's. They may be revered, admired, honored and listened to politely, but it's always the leaders in the catbird seats that do the filtering and deciding.

We have a difference of opinion, AAM. Only time will tell if the two retirees hearing back-door military scuttlebutt are correct or not. I put my pesos on Mssrs. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and those who know daily the complete picture of what's going on.

Leni

I'd say this kind of stuff is always tricky, because the vast majority of people don't have access to the intelligence reports that inform the decisions of our leaders (I'm a brit by the way so *my* leader isn't Bush).

If you're late for a meeting, and driving fast, you and your passenger can have a perfectly sensible discussion of what speed is 'too risky' because one of the things you learn as a driver is how to *directly* measure such risks, with nobody's help.

With something like this though, almost everyone on the planet, lacks any right of access to the information they'd need in order to make their own evaluation of one risk over another, so they are forced to rely on experts.

The problem is that the 'experts' are all saying different things, have different levels of access to actual information about the matter in question and have various different qualifications for being an expert.

Question is, do you decide which expert to believe based on astrology, the colour of their tie, their skin colour, gender, political/religious/sexual/other preferences or their practical experience of the matter in hand?

I'm kind of colour-blind anyway when it comes to internal US politics, but I'll tell you what. When it comes to deciding who is best qualified to assess and balance military risk, I'll take Stormin Norman's view over a bunch of civilians any day.

nation which has not attacked us

Thats bullshit.

We were attacked on September 11 by Islamic extremists that are a part of an international Jihadist terrorist network, of which Iraq is a sponsor and a very real threat to the security of our country.

3,000 Americans died in an hour that day, that will NOT happen again, and towelheads will NEVER BE ALLOWED to get the bomb or any other chemical or biological weapons.

BUH BYE Saddam.

The next raghead who thinks he is going to support actions against the USA is going to think twice after Saddam and his country are DESTROYED.