Democrats Question Whether Bush 'Hyped' Iraq Threat

"The Democrats would wait for the nuclear explosion to happen before believing that we should do something."

And then if it were to actually happen, they would be the first and the loudest to gripe about why didn't we act pre-emptively in order to prevent this from happening.

You don't even have to speculate about this. Look how they eventually reacted to 9/11. They want to have their cake and eat it, too, i.e. gripe that we are doing too much now (e.g. complaints about the Patriot Act, opposition to the Iraq war, etc.) and gripe that we did too little later (e.g. reaction to the recent bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco). But all they are doing is crying wolf. The longer they continue to show that they have no constructive alteratives to offer other than whining, complaining, and relentless negatively, the sooner and longer sane, rational people will simply tune them out.

They can't be this stupid..

Yes they CAN be!

I just saw on Fox News that polling shows 74% of the Senate/Congress thinks that their budget money is theirs and not the peoples!

Okay, and I fully agreed with what you said.

Can you say 60 seats in the senate!!

You beat me.

Oh, I can't wait for the next election!

One question. Are the Iraqi people better off today than before our invasion and occupation?

Definitely. And so are we, and so is the rest of the civilized world.

Hmmm. It would seem to me that by all of the gloom and doom and massive demonstration predicted by the left, that it was the DEMOCRATS who 'hyped' the Iraq threat. More leftist hypocrisy...JFK

oops, demonstration=destruction...JFK

This deserves a huge BARF alert!! Nobody, not even the French, questioned this before the war. The disagreement centered on whether we should allow more inspections or not. These people are truly disgusting. I do not appreciate Biden, Rockefeller, or any RAT calling MY President a liar. That's what they really mean when they say "hype". If the intelligence was wrong (and I doubt that), it was intelligence they all believed.

However the Bush bashers doesn't give a damn no matter what.

Correct. And this goes for the bashers on the Left and Right.

The message from the Rats is loud and clear, the Rats value their party over the security of the nation.

...or may have had faulty intelligence on its alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Hey, demonrats, just who was it that cut funding and shackled and hobbled US intelligence over and over the past 20 years beginning with Senator church???

Why bother trying, Linda? These people are all True Believers. Their idea of a discussion is to just keep pumping each other up. Anyone expressing something different can depend on some name-calling.

They can't be this stupid.

Yes, they can.

They prove it just about weekly.

DimocommiecRATS....LLLLllllOOOOooooSSSSssssEEEEeeeeRRRRrrrrSSSSssss....LOSERS!!!!:-(

Should anyone be surprised by this? We have a partisan system for just such purposes. The GOP rightly called for many investigations of Clinton and members of his administration when they suspected something may be fishy. The Democrats do the same. It is called politics.

The Democrats have a particular nasty habit of using investigations when none are merited. But in this case I too would like to see one. This war was sold on the idea that WMD's in Iraq were an immediate threat to the USA. That they have not been found to date is distressing considering the administration was talking about tons of WMD's. Were they destroyed before the war? Why didn't Sadaam use them during the war? Their use could have slowed our offensive for weeks if not several months. Were they given to AQ or other terrorist forces when Sadaam knew he was going to be invaded no matter what he did? Was our intelligence faulty or was it "masauged" for a particular result? Over a hundred Americans were killed in this war and more are going to be killed in the coming weeks, months and years in Iraq. This nation, like it or not, is going to have to commit billions to rebuild Iraq and maintain it's security for some time. I would like an answer to these questions. I don't think they should be dismissed as mere "Bush bashing" even if that is the motive of the Democrats.

And as an aside- to use the discovery of mass graves of Shia from the uprising we encouraged and then abandoned in 91' (as some have hinted) as justification for the current war is truly shameless and disgusting.

They can't be this stupid..

Oh yes they can. And every day they become even more stupid. I wish the *elections* were this year. It's going to be fun to watch them consume themselves!

And the most troublesome aspect, the creation of more terrorists determined to eliminate us.

You must have an IQ approaching Pelosi's.

Wiping out Saddam's regime creates more terrorists? Taking his billions in oil revenue out of the terrorist pipeline creates more terrorists?

Don't bother with your entirely inane pretense that "making them mad" will make them terrorists. They already hated us enough without us knocking off one of their dictators. What makes terrorists is Islamic fascists reproducing. So are you suggesting mass abortion of Islamist pregnancies as the solution?

(At least that would be a step or two up on the intelligence scale from the rest of your arguements).

And Clinton's own words, Dec. 16, 1998

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

EXCERPT:

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.

Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

First, without a strong inspection system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can cripple the weapons inspection system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community -- led by the United States -- has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday -- make no mistake -- he will use it again as he has in the past.

First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging allied aircraft over Iraq or moving against his own Kurdish citizens.

The credible threat to use force, and when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people.

And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them.

But once more, the United States has proven that although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in the new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past, but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace.

More Clinton statements on Iraq & WMD:

Text Of Clinton Statement On Iraq
Text of President Clinton's address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff:

February 17, 1998

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

EXCERPT:

And I want them to understand what we must do to protect the national interest, and indeed the interest of all freedom-loving people in the world.

Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days this is way back in 1991 within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That's what he promised to do.

The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained international experts called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons, against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary, and even against his own people.

And during the Gulf War, Saddam launched Scuds against Saudi Arabia, Israel and Bahrain.

Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts:

Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.

For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.

Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit?

It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.

And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.

Despite Iraq's deceptions, UNSCOM has nevertheless done a remarkable job. Its inspectors the eyes and ears of the civilized world have uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War.

This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al Hakam equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly agents.

The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.

Six weeks after the invasion of Iraq, Pentagon officials are quietly beginning to acknowledge that their failure to find Saddam Hussein may be proof that the Iraqi leader never existed.

;-)