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Had we been told then what America knows now (Iraq WMD)
GoGov.com ^ | July 4, 2003 | Russell Betts

Posted on 07/05/2003 7:45:12 AM PDT by BJungNan

After what was found in Iraq and learned about Saddam and Sons, it is without question that the former Iraqi regime itself was a weapon of mass destruction. Biological dirty bombs, nuclear weapons programs or sponsoring terrorist for such acts as flying planeloads of people into buildings, it is all the same.

Liberal critics of the President, however, latch on to a different post war theme. "It is not what we were told we would find" is their complaint about White House communications prior to the war. For purely political ends, they beat this drum in hopes someone will listen.

Beat as they might, nearly everyone sees the effort in Iraq had good results for our country. Few listen when they can see for themselves what should be obvious to all – and is to most – that a man that would hold his own people in dungeons, torture and maim them would have no second thoughts about funding another major terror strike against our country.

The message of the war has been heard. No matter what the intelligence was before the war, no matter what we were told we would find, what we found was as bad or worse. Anything now about us being misled about weapons of mass destruction is only partisan background noise against an outcome an overwhelming majority of Americans agree with.

And had we been told then what America knows now, most Americans would still have given President Bush the go-ahead to move on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: iraq; wmd
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To: John H K
Do you think Saddam would have said no to any terrorist group seeking funds or supplies for a terror strike against the U.S. or U.S. interests? I ask to get your views.

21 posted on 07/05/2003 9:13:52 AM PDT by BJungNan
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To: John H K
There has been no definitive link,true.
22 posted on 07/05/2003 9:14:28 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: Mike4Freedom
Well said Mike, I agree with your post. I see the abuse being hurled your way by all the real good "conservative republicans" here. You're right, they're not.

It's refreshing to see posts like this here, they're much too rare. Well done.

23 posted on 07/05/2003 9:19:13 AM PDT by Dazedcat
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To: John H K
However, it's become some sort of ideological test here to blindly believe that Iraq and Al Queda were very closely tied.

Hmmmmmm..... I don't recall the President calling for a "War against Al-Queda and Al-Queda only as we wouldn't want non-related terrorist groups getting wiped out as well, so lets just go after Al-Queda OK?" I seem to remember that this was a war against terrorists.

BTW the war in Iraq that is claimed to have been all about WMD was in "fact" about the Iraqi Regime failing to live up to the commitments it signed to end the first Gulf War and its failure to abide by 17 seperate UN Resolutions calling for it to fully disarm and account for all known WMDs and WMD Programs.

President Bush framed these arguments with the idea that, until Iraq proves to the US that it no longer has the WMDs that it was both "known" to have or was suspected of having, both by the US and the UN, this administration would assume that they still had them and were a threat to the US as those weapons could find their way into the hands of terrorists that might use them against us. I do not remember the President saying that Iraq was a "threat to the US" in any other manner than perhaps providing weapons to terrorists. I may be wrong and if I am please provide a direct link to said claim and I will revise my words.

24 posted on 07/05/2003 9:35:25 AM PDT by The_Pickle ("We have no Permanent Allies, We have no Permanent Enemies, Only Permanent Interests")
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To: Mike4Freedom
If you believe for one minute that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, what do you think happened to those weapons, because everyone admits that he had them in 1998 and he never exposed their disposition?

I guess you would have let Hitler remain in power if he claimed to have closed his gas chambers, and I bet that you think that Stalin had only the highest altruistic interests of the people in mind as he sent them off to the Gulags and starved the Ukranians. Leftists like you always support the enemies of democracy.
25 posted on 07/05/2003 10:01:34 AM PDT by Eva
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: Mike4Freedom
If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us

Define "absolutely no danger to us" and tell us all how you know that to have been the case. Were you willing to bet your family's lives on your certainty of Saddam's impotence?

27 posted on 07/05/2003 10:28:37 AM PDT by laredo44
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To: John H K
On the other hand, the links between Iraq and Al Quaeda are incredibly tenuous.

So said the socialists about the Rosenbergs and the USSR.

28 posted on 07/05/2003 10:31:39 AM PDT by laredo44
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To: Dazedcat
It's refreshing to see posts like this here, they're much too rare. Well done.

For those of us that don't share your level of knowledge of the progress of the search for WMD, why not tell us just where we are in that search and how you and Mike come to the conclusion Saddam had none?

Also, why not tell us what happened to those WMD Hussein admitted to but have never been accounted for. I'm certain the Depts. of Defense and State would be grateful for that info.

29 posted on 07/05/2003 10:40:53 AM PDT by laredo44
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To: Mike4Freedom
Yes, it does bode ill for our future that so many Americans support taking out brutal dictators that murder millions of people and sponsor international terrorism. < / sarcasm >

Please.
30 posted on 07/05/2003 10:52:42 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat (Help us elect Republicans in Kentucky! Click on my name for links to all the 2003 candidates!)
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To: Dazedcat
Yes, sponsors of international terrorism are of absolutely no threat to our security. That's why he was right, and we are wrong. < / sarcasm >
31 posted on 07/05/2003 10:58:04 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat (Help us elect Republicans in Kentucky! Click on my name for links to all the 2003 candidates!)
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To: laredo44
I mean, just look at all of the facts he, and those other cheerleaders, provided to establish that they were "right", and we are "wrong." < / sarcasm >
32 posted on 07/05/2003 11:00:06 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat (Help us elect Republicans in Kentucky! Click on my name for links to all the 2003 candidates!)
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To: Grut; Frances_Marion
I think the post-conflict debate about the war is important. I also believe it is an unavoidable aspect of the human conscience - to judge our actions (for most of us anyway). If we were "fooled into war by our own government," we as Americans will not be satisfied to leave it at that.

As I understood the debate leading up to the war, much of the disagreement did focus on the issues being raised now.

1. Did Saddam's regime pose a threat, direct or indirect, to the US and/or her allies? What was the scope of the threat?

2. If yes, was that threat immediate (interchangeable with imminent for our purpose?) so as to justify a pre-emptive attack by the US, either unilaterally or with limited international support (because realpolitik would have authorized any action not opposed by UN veto holders)?

I think Wolfowitz accurately described the multiple concerns in the administration leading to war with Iraq. He stated those concerns in his Vanity Fair interview as, "One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people. Actually I guess you could say there's a fourth overriding one which is the connection between the first two."

I think even the critics of this administration recognize there was public debate about these multiple concerns (which included administration members/advisors) when they note the numerous, conflicting, failed reasons for attacking Iraq. Bookman listed them in his infamous September 2002 "empire" column, "It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions." I even remember reading commentary about how Bush needed a "bumper sticker" reason for the war and comparisons to similar arguments made by the Clinton administration.

Mixed in with this debate was the policy position expressed previously in the PNAC paper by many in, and advising, this administration. This was further buttressed by the similarities in the policy expressed in the NSS. This is where much of the material in the debate on pre-emptive, unilateral action by the US came from - and how it contrasted with other interpretations of international law.

But I don't think the administration ever put forward the immediate threat of Iraqi WMD to the US as a cause for war. The direct threat, yes. Which brought up comparisons with North Korea and the USSR. Those countries posed a direct threat (perhaps an even more imminent threat others argued) but we chose to contained them, or were demanding multilateral diplomatic solutions.

I offer the poll below as further argument that the administration did not try to convince the public that Iraqi WMD posed an immediate threat to the US. I could be wrong, and the administration did try and failed. But I don't think so, because I can't find where they made the "immediate" WMD threat argument.

CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Latest: March 14-15, 2003. N=1,007 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3 (total sample).

"Which comes closest to your view: Iraq poses an immediate threat to the United States, Iraq poses a long-term threat to the U.S., but not an immediate threat, or Iraq does not pose a threat to the United States at all?" Options were rotated. Form A (N=488, MoE ± 5)

Immed-
iate
Threat
Long-
term
Threat
Not a
Threat
At All
No
Opinion
% % % %
3/14-15/03 36 54 10 -
2/7-9/03 36 56 6 2
1/31 - 2/2/03 29 61 7 3

.

There was talk of the scope and mechanics of the threat, including drones and the danger of what we don't know, "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."

I think all this is important, because I don't think the issue of pre-emption, with it's precedence in history and attempts to restrain it in international law, became a part of the American collective consciousness. I think if we are really on the road to US dominated global empire, it is pre-emption that must be accepted. Unilateralism must merely be understood.

Personally, I think the US did face a threat from the Middle East of escalating, state sponsored, organized international terrorism. I think proliferation and terrorist's willingness to use deadlier weapons was part of that threat. I think ending our unresolved conflict with Iraq became necessary after 9/11. I think Saddam's actions leading up to the conflict justified our attack and, in a very Machiavellian way, strengthened our position (post-conflict) against other powers aspiring for multilateral or multipolar order in the world; and therefore more concerned with demonstrations of unquestionable US strength.

I'm also convinced Saddam had WMD in 1991, when we were exposed to chemical weapons at Khamisiyah and elsewhere during cleanup ops.

I think he still had them in 1995, when Kamel defected providing proof of Iraq's deception and continued efforts in it's WMD programs? Kamel said Iraq did not possess WMD in 1995. He also said it really was a baby milk factory we bombed in 1991 (and again in 1998) and there was no military significance to the air defense shelter we bombed (http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9509/iraq_defector/, http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/crafting.html).

But then the documents on his chicken farm and the discovery by Dr.Diane Seaman on 25 September 1997 throws into question what Kamel said.

You could also compare the remarks by Khidhir Hamza (http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1998/so98/so98hamza.html) and Kamel's comments on Hamza in UN transcript.

I think he had them in 1998, 2001 and 2002, when the world's intelligence agencies (including the CIA, Canadians and BND) and UNMOVIC were claiming Iraq was pursuing WMD? Personally, if he couldn't figure out after 12 years how to cooperate, meeting his cease fire obligations - using him as a pawn to achieve our regional objectives in the war on terrorism - doesn't tug at my conscience much or make me think the Bush administration needs to admit or apologize for anything.

Know what I mean, Verne?

33 posted on 07/05/2003 11:00:14 AM PDT by optimistically_conservative (Why isn't Cathryn Crawford pictured at http://www.jerseygop.com/R_babes/)
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To: John H K
Were these news stories established to be hoaxes?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/900988/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/900987/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/900978/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/900992/posts
34 posted on 07/05/2003 11:10:11 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat (Help us elect Republicans in Kentucky! Click on my name for links to all the 2003 candidates!)
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To: Republican Wildcat
I mean, just look at all of the facts he, and those other cheerleaders, provided to establish that they were "right", and we are "wrong."

The Blame-America-Firsters are unaccumtomed to presenting facts. Facts are not required when preaching to the choir.

35 posted on 07/05/2003 11:15:05 AM PDT by laredo44
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To: MEG33
The American Type Culture Collection is a non-profit science center that did provide pathogens to Iraq and others with the approval of Commerce in the late 80s.

Iraq says Virginia and French labs supplied all its germs

The Anthrax Slander

36 posted on 07/05/2003 11:17:11 AM PDT by optimistically_conservative (Why isn't Cathryn Crawford pictured at http://www.jerseygop.com/R_babes/)
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To: Mike4Freedom
I would be very interested in your reply to post #33
37 posted on 07/05/2003 11:20:28 AM PDT by optimistically_conservative (Why isn't Cathryn Crawford pictured at http://www.jerseygop.com/R_babes/)
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To: Mike4Freedom
I thought we told you to get over it.
38 posted on 07/05/2003 11:25:46 AM PDT by Consort
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To: BJungNan
the former Iraqi regime itself was a weapon of mass destruction

The "peace first" political wing of the demoocratic party still believes there is a way to stop terrorism with negociation and good will.

They could care less about mass rape and murder of those in places where there is no political leverage for their socialist causes.

39 posted on 07/05/2003 11:30:55 AM PDT by alrea
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To: optimistically_conservative
I would be very interested in your reply to post #33

Are you trying to say that the imminent threat of WMDs to the US was not the primary reason to go to war. Did you already forget things that happened in Feburary and March of this year?

I guess that is what makes me such an outcast here. I actually remember what happened. WMDs were ready to go on 45 minutes notice. There were tonnes of them. Isn't that what Powell said to the UN?

And while no one in the administration actually said that Saddam was behind 9/11, the propoganda machine sure confused the general public. Hell, people were confusing Saddam and Bin Laden. I actually had people asking me if they were two names for the same person.

At this point, it sure looks like we were lied into a war. It wouldn't be the first time either. Remember the Maine and Gulf of Tonkin come to mind immediately.

The more time goes by without finding anything, the more people will be forced into that conclusion. It is hard to imagine what the nation's thoughts will be by November 2004.

40 posted on 07/05/2003 11:42:21 AM PDT by Mike4Freedom (Freedom is the one thing that you cannot have unless you grant it to everyone else.)
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