Posted on 02/18/2016 6:37:53 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Surely, to all but Donald Trump's ardent supporters – which, sadly, probably is all of them – there can be no doubt, after Saturday's Republican debate, that except on the sole issue of immigration, Trump is a Democrat. Space and the need to stay on point preclude listing all of the Democratic talking points Trump parroted in South Carolina, so this essay focuses on the most egregious one – the "Bush lied, people died" libel – and on Trump's view, unfortunately shared by many Republicans, that, the Iraq war was, in Trump's words, a "big mistake" and that "we got nothing out of it."
First, as Powerline's Paul Mirengoff writes, there is no evidence that Trump opposed the Iraq pre-invasion (emphases added):
Last night, Donald Trump repeated his claim that "I'm the only one on the stage that said we should not go into Iraq." As I've pointed out before, however, there is no credible evidence that Trump said any such thing.
Trump voiced public opposition to the war for the first time… in the summer of 2004… [by which time] he was following a fairly large pack.
[O]pposing our actions in Iraq once they went pear-shaped is just Monday morning quarterbacking — a Trump specialty.
Second, the Democrats' (and Trump's, but the writer repeats himself) accusation that Bush ordered the Iraq invasion knowing that there were no WMD is flat-out false. In fact, Bush was skeptical until then-CIA director George Tenet assured Bush that, based on CIA intelligence, Saddam's possession of WMD was "a slam dunk."
As to Trump's criticism that Bush "failed to prevent 9/11" (and was therefore responsible for 9/11?), here is Tenet again (emphasis added):
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Words from the man himself. Why in earth would he say that then? Is he masochistic (cough)?
ISIS is not in control of Iraq. Your question is meaningless.
ISIS is the direct result of the Democrats’ 2007 demand to cut funding and pull out of Iraq in 2007. The rest is history.
Iraq was won, WON up until the point US troops were removed in 2009. There was no ISIS, Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq (aka ISIS) was in exile in Syria, Baghdad was secure. When I departed Baghdad in July 2007 there had been 7 attacks across all of Iraq the prior week and no Coalition casualties.
Up until 2009 Iraq was won, it was stable and secure.
Then the Dems cut off OCO funding in the 2007 budget forcing the US withdrawal.
Iraq went to HELL when the US had to pull out due to Dems’ and the media’s treachery.
Iraq wasn’t lost. It was won, then thrown to the wolves for the sake of Democratic party optics and budgetary greed. They lost it because they didn’t want it won. They wanted Iraq OCO funds for their own programs. They didn’t give a rat’s A for US foreign policy or veterans -and never have btw.
EVERYONE knew what would happen if the US pulled out. And the Dem Congress MANDATED withdrawal by cutting funding for the US to stay.
The US military won the Iraq war. The Democratic party and the liberal MSM lost Iraq and allowed ISIS to achieve regional strength. They own it.
Good questions.
Likely won’t know the “why” of it -unless- we kept it quiet either to prevent the terrorists, Al-Qeada at the time, from grabbing it OR we found them, knew where they were and waited for AQ to go looking for them.
So the provable fact that we found sarin and sulfur mustard is magically waved away by that?
Lol.
The left tried crap like that.
Thankfully, the WMD existed regardless of words.
Again you are trying to take miniscule amounts of whatever and project it out to be massive stockpiles.
What could have been done with a air strikes and Special Forces, did not require shipping a huge army across the ocean to get mired in a war that we are technically STILL fighting and blowing money on.
Not quite true, the southern part of Iraq was in turmoil (being supplied by Iran). Yes, the surge did help. And yes, Obama pissed it all away. But, in retrospect, it was a mistake to go in there since we would have to spend many decades there ensuring their stability. I’m not saying that we should have pulled out like Obama did (once in, your commited), but in the end, the region is worse off now.
Back in WW2, the sacrifice of dead and maimed soldiers were worth it to get rid of Hitler. Was it worth it to get rid of Saddam? In retrospect, we can say “no”.
Saddam was convicted of genocide against the Kurds, more genocide would or could have happened without the intervention.
“Never Forget” means nothing.
OTOH, we did help Saddam in the war against Iran it appears, the Russians also helped him. The whole situation is complex.
We may have well staved off genocide on a massive scale by going in there; just my view.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, former Senator Rick Santorum said he and his staff began receiving photographs of discarded Sarin and Mustard shells from U.S. soldiers in 2004. Two years later, when he was up for re-election, Santorum even went public with some of this information in a press conference disclosing a Pentagon report that found 500 chemical weapons shells had been found in Iraq.
Did you miss the part of Jebis, using his brother as example...for US security, And it was the Bush doctrine that opened the door for Obama... Some people live in the real world. You know there is an old saying that goes something like, 'good intentions paves the road to hell',
From one of your own links:
“Kimmitt said the shell belonged to a class of ordnance that Saddam’s government said was destroyed before the 1991 Gulf war (search). Experts believe both the sarin and mustard gas weapons date back to that time.”
There was no active Chemical or Nuke program in Iraq when we invaded. We were told there was. The stuff they found was very old and in total disrepair. Finding stuff lying around that was from the Iran-Iraq War or pre-Desert Storm isn’t really proof of anything or anything that could be considered news.
If there was actually proof uncovered of ACTIVE programs, I’m pretty sure that W would have made sure that it was known.
“Try to keep in mind the fact that âWMDâ does not rely on age or quantity.”
Except in this case, it most certainly does.
Again, from your own links:
“Testing done by the Iraqi Survey Group (search) â a U.S.-organized group of weapons inspectors who have been searching for weapons of mass destruction (search) since the ouster of Saddam Hussein â concluded that the mustard gas was “stored improperly” and was thus “ineffective.””
Clinging to the discovery of decade-old munitions that pre-dated Desert Storm are hardly proof of an ACTIVE Chem & Nuke program, which is what we were told by the Admin.
Jeb is irrelevant and hardly the reason Trump started blaming his older brother.
http://www.chemwatch.net/189229/how-chemical-weapons-from-the-first-world-war-never-went-away-2
Yeah, miniscule.
And it is “weapons of mass destruction”, not “ weapons of massed weapons”.
Quantity is irrelevant to the definition.
http://www.britannica.com/technology/weapon-of-mass-destruction
weapon of mass destruction (WMD), weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction on such a massive scale and so indiscriminately that its very presence in the hands of a hostile power can be considered a grievous threat. Modern weapons of mass destruction are either nuclear, biological, or chemical weaponsâfrequently referred to collectively as NBC weapons.
But the reality is that George W. Bush did NOT stay out.. and he multiplied his error in NOT controlling that oil.
The sarin ied was of a shell type iraq did not possess prior to 1995.
1995 being when the inspectors were kicked out.
The mustard gas is still dangerous even after a century.
And, the existence of the shells show WMD existed.
Try again.
Because George W. Bush was a 'compassionate' conservative..../s
ISIS In Iraq Find Saddam Husseinâs WMD Stockpiles Of Chemical Weapons⦠George W Bush Was Right?
That’s because to stabilize them would have taken decades. The cost of doing that was never weighed against the American public’s appetite for being in there that long. I agree Obama should have never withdrawn the military and allowed it to collapse. But, that still does not belie the fact that we shouldn’t have gone in there in the first place.
Either way, they turned their other cheek and the rest of us got slapped with the ‘07 Pelosi/Reid Congress and the Seven Year Plague of Obama. Unforgiveable.
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