we and our coalition partners acted on the best intelligence we had available at the time — and intelligence collection and processing is an art, not a science.
This is not true. French intelligence and the CIA had flipped the Iraqi Foreign Minister, who backed up other claims that the WMD programs had ended. Some of that "best intelligence" was proved fraudulent even before the invasion began.
If anyone wants the actual pages that clearly show glaring evidence of "links" between pre-invasion Iraq and terrorists (and remember, after 9/11, America went to war against terrorists and those who would harbor them anywhere in the world)
I thought we went to war with Al-Qaeda and any terrorists who directly threatened us. Iraq's support for various other thugs is disgusting, but not relevant to American interests. Of course, the falsehood that Iraq was directly connected to the 9/11 attacks was conveniently used and abused by hawks to rile up the American people and motivate the soldiers. The hawks might not have invented that useful falsehood, but they never particularly cared to refute it.
(((I thought we went to war with Al-Qaeda and any terrorists who directly threatened us. ... Of course, the falsehood that Iraq was directly connected to the 9/11 attacks )))
Wrong and misleading. No one said anything about a “direct” link except you and your Demmasters. A “link”, showing rats involved in something together, is good enough for me.
There were Jihadists terrorists in Iraq prior to 9/11 and prior to the invasion 2003.
And al Qaeda was and is a loose network in which Jihadists of various allegiances move in and out of.
You and the other Defeatocrats are kidding yourselves because you hate Bush. It all goes back to Florida 2000 and you would send us all up the river just to justify your insane hatred of Bush.
So by your theory Saddam was not involved in WMD nor was he involved in sponsoring terrorism.
You sincerely don’t believe that, do you?
Saddam was up to his eyes in sponsoring terrorists. If you want to say that didn’t include Bin Laden, then have at it.
And Saddam was not about to give up his WMDs. From his perspective they were a source of power he could use against the US.
Chew on this: We couldn’t find Saddam’s Scud rockets during the Gulf War. Thousands of eyes on the ground, in the air and around the world looking for these things and yet he was able to keep them safe and kept firing them. Did we ever find them? If not, I suppose that means he never had them or got rid of them, right?