[Mike4Freedom]

I disagree completely with the premise of this article. If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us, that it had no WMDs, that it was an economic basket case, the American public and Congress would not have signed off on a war. The obvious rejoinder is that many nations are evil to their own people, as much or more so that Hussein was, but, as long as they are no threat to us, it is not our business to put our troops at risk and our money in the pot to do something about it.

All this discussion after the fact, in an attempt to make excuses for what happened is actually embarrassing. I am embarrassed that most of the public apparently accepts it. It bodes ill for our future.

[Wonder Warthog]

"All this discussion after the fact, in an attempt to make excuses for what happened is actually embarrassing. I am embarrassed that most of the public apparently accepts it. It bodes ill for our future."

Oh, please! The only thing that should embarass you is your own stupidity. We KNOW Iran had chemical weapons of mass destruction, because he used them in the Iran-Iraq war. We KNOW that he never accounted to the UN Inspectors that those weapons and the materiel used to produce them had been destroyed. It has been PROVEN (by documentation found on-site in Iraq) that Iraq had contact with and was supporting Al Quaeda. These were (and are) good and sufficient reason for the action taken by the US with respect to Iraq.

[The_Pickle]

Yeah the vast majority of the citizens still feel that the war was justified despite the fact that we haven't found any weapons yet. What a bunch of twits, right Mike? You are so justified in being "embarrased" about freeing the Iraqi people and eliminating the dictator Saddam from power. What a horrible, wretched thing for us to have done. I mean to feel justified in freeing the Iraqis from decades of oppression and torture is just not cool because Bush said it was about the weapons and we haven't found any yet. I think that as soon as we find Saddam we ought to give him his country back, round up all those kids that we unlawfully released from prision, fill back in the mass graves, turn off the water and power, pack up and get the heck out of Iraq seeing as we didn't find any weapons yet.

[WarrenC]

If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us, that it had no WMDs, that it was an economic basket case, the American public and Congress would not have signed off on a war.

Really? We now know all those things? This is news to me. How did I miss this memo?

And what relevance does Iraq's being an "economic basket case" have? Castro's Cuba has been an economic basket case for 40 years and it hasn't prevented him from being an enthusiastic supporter of terrorism and Marxist governments.

[BJungNan]

I disagree completely with the premise of this article. If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us...

I did not see that as the premise. I think it say that Iraq itself is a WMD. It definately is not saying "Iraq was absolutely no danger to us." By the way, I don't know any that thinks Iraq was no danger to us at all.

[billbears]

Well said, the first sentence of the article automatically goes into excuse mode

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

Well that's not what the President told us in the SOTU address now is it? Where are the thousands of tons of WMD that were an imminent danger?

[MHGinTN]

You start with the wrong premise and expect folks to give some credulity to your attack post? Get awake, mike. Stop being a deceiving liberal being deceived by fellow elitist liberals.

You wrote, "If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us, that it had no WMDs ..." Absolutely no danger to us? You're delusional! You and your liberal ilk choose to ignore the Salman Pak (terrorism training camp in Iraq; one of several discovered, but the one with the jetliner fuselage for training terrorist to take over planes with nothing but knives) evidence and choose to ignore the terrorists being trained in Iraq to work terrorism around the world. As long as you doofuses choose to be ignorant, choose to twist the truth, choose to ignore threats to US and the world, how do you ever expect to be trusted to have control of the helm of state again? You and your ilk cannot be entrusted with power again until you start admitting truths that are not ignored by rational people.

[Dazedcat]

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.

[Eva]

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.

[laredo44]

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?

[Republican Wildcat]

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.

[optimistically_conservative]

I would be very interested in your reply to post #33

[Consort]

I thought we told you to get over it.

[squidly]

Best short explanation I've read of the threat Saddam's WMD program posed is here. It's by Rolf Ekeus, the Swede who was Hans Blix's predecessor as chief weapons inspector in Iraq, 91-97. If somebody from the Bush administration said the same things Ekeus said, I might dismiss it as after-the-fact spin, but from Ekeus, who would know as much about Saddam's WMD as any non-Iraqi, and who owes no allegiance to the Dubya administration, these comments carry a lot of weight with me.

[Jennikins]

Thoughtful and well-said post. The war was determined to be over, according to President Bush, however what concerns me today, are our young military kids getting killed, bombed and shot at, and in temperatures of 115 deg. F. Add to that, a foreign country,where you never know who's friend or foe. The heat alone is enough to kill.

[Nick Danger]

If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us, that it had no WMDs... the American public and Congress would not have signed off on a war.

What the Congress might have done is conjecture, but I will sign up as one who would not have been in favor of this without a direct threat. I'm not big on sending our troops around the world to play Superman, righting the world's wrongs.

The problem for me with all this noise is that I have zero doubt that they had this stuff. I suspect that most of it is still there.

They sprayed people with poison gas. We know this. They had high-level officials in charge of these kinds of programs. We know this, and we know their names. We knew many of their names before the war even started. The UN people had documented tens of thousands of tons of these materials.

Now the story is that, well, it looks like maybe they really did destroy this stuff like they said they did.

I'm not buying. We know more now about the character of that regime than ever before, and nothing we have learned points to UN-compliant disarmers hoping to live in peace. That was as brutal, secretive, and inhumane a regime as has ever existed on planet Earth. They disarmed because the UN said so? It is to laugh.

The discovery of uranium-enrichment equipment buried under a rose bush in some guy's back yard gives us a clue about what we're up against trying to find this material. Nobody ever said Saddam Hussein was stupid or lacked cleverness. If he set out to hide this stuff, we can assume he hid it real well.

I figure I'm just going to have to grin and bear it while the liberals dance on the stage with their "have you found it yet?" hoo-hah. It is their nature to do that, and there they are doing it.

I believe the stuff is there, and that we will -- if we persist -- find it. I also believe that when we do, the liberals will not stop dancing. They will just move on to the next item on their list of things to carp about.

[Principled]

For you to believe that Iraq was no danger, you would have to believe that they had no WMD.

If Iraq had no WMD, Clinton lied repeatedly.
If Iraq had no WMD, the UN lied and falsified numerous international reports.
If Iraq had no WMD, then those thousands of Iraqis and Iranians must have died by spontaneous human combustion.

The reasonable conclusion is that they indeed did have them- but they have either been transferred elsewhere or they are still hidden. Your post is foolish in that it ignores the plain truth that CLinton and UN have said FOR YEARS that Iraq possesses tons (literally) of WMD. Look at the UN report yourself.

I respect you for posting your view, but you failed to address even one of the obvious facts that entirely rebutt your assertion. How about addressing them? Then you could have a discussion.

[Matchett-PI]

"If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us..."

What planet have you been living on? Your remarks are waaaaaay out there

Here are the facts about what you were told right from the horses' mouth. Where were you when they were spoken by G.W. Bush, himself? Get your facts straight:

The UN, DemocRATS and other Marxists accuse President Bush of going to war when there is no "imminent threat" against America.

But they conveniently ignore what President Bush plainly told them in his latest State of the Union address this Spring, 2003, when he said this, EXCERPTED:

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?"

==

And here is the bottom line excerpt from President Bush's speech aboard The USS Abraham Lincoln:

"Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all:

*Any person* involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice.

Any person*, *organization*, or *government* that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and SEEKS or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world -- and will be confronted.

In just a minute, I'm going to be furnishing you with some more facts straight from the horses' mouth when "W" gave Saddam 48 hours to get out of Baghdad.

[Matchett-PI]

"If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us..." ~ Mike4Freedom

Here's even more that you were told *before the war*. The question is 'Where WERE you' *before the war* when Bush was saying all these things?:

Text Of Bush Speech On Iraq - WASHINGTON, March 17, 2003

(AP) Below is the text of President Bush's prime-time address Monday on Iraq, as transcribed by eMediaMillWorks Inc.:

My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of decision.

For more than a decade, the United States and other nations have pursued patient and honorable efforts to disarm the Iraqi regime without war. That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq.

Our good faith has not been returned. The Iraqi regime has used diplomacy as a ploy to gain time and advantage. It has uniformly defied Security Council resolutions demanding full disarmament.

Over the years, U.N. weapons inspectors have been threatened by Iraqi officials, electronically bugged and systematically deceived. Peaceful efforts to disarm the Iraq regime have failed again and again because we are not dealing with peaceful men.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.

The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends and it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al-Qaida.

The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.

The United States and other nations did nothing to deserve or invite this threat, but we will do everything to defeat it. Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course toward safety.

Before the day of horror can come, before it is too late to act, this danger will be removed.

The United States of America has the sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security. That duty falls to me as commander of chief by the oath I have sworn, by the oath I will keep.

Recognizing the threat to our country, the United States Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to support the use of force against Iraq.

America tried to work with the United Nations to address this threat because we wanted to resolve the issue peacefully. We believe in the mission of the United Nations.

One reason the U.N. was founded after the Second World War was to confront aggressive dictators actively and early, before they can attack the innocent and destroy the peace.

In the case of Iraq, the Security Council did act in the early 1990s. Under Resolutions 678 and 687, both still in effect, the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

This is not a question of authority, it is a question of will.

Last September, I went to the U.N. General Assembly and urged the nations of the world to unite and bring an end to this danger. On November 8th, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441, finding Iraq in material breach of its obligations and vowing serious consequences if Iraq did not fully and immediately disarm.

Today, no nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed. And it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power.

For the last four and a half months, the United States and our allies have worked within the Security Council to enforce that council's long-standing demands. Yet some permanent members of the Security Council have publicly announced that they will veto any resolution that compels the disarmament of Iraq. These governments share our assessment of the danger, but not our resolve to meet it.

Many nations, however, do have the resolve and fortitude to act against this threat to peace, and a broad coalition is now gathering to enforce the just demands of the world.

The United Nations Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities, so we will rise to ours.

In recent days, some governments in the Middle East have been doing their part. They have delivered public and private messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq so that disarmament can proceed peacefully.

He has thus far refused.

All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict commenced at a time of our choosing.

For their own safety, all foreign nationals, including journalists and inspectors, should leave Iraq immediately.

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you.

As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need.

We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free.

In free Iraq there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms.

The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

It is too late for Saddam Hussein to remain in power. It is not too late for the Iraq military to act with honor and protect your country, by permitting the peaceful entry of coalition forces to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Our forces will give Iraqi military units clear instructions on actions they can take to avoid being attacked and destroyed.

I urge every member of the Iraqi military and intelligence services: If war comes, do not fight for a dying regime that is not worth your own life.

And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning: In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."

Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war and every measure will be taken to win it.

Americans understand the costs of conflict because we have paid them in the past. War has no certainty except the certainty of sacrifice.

Yet the only way to reduce the harm and duration of war is to apply the full force and might of our military, and we are prepared to do so.

If Saddam Hussein attempts to cling to power, he will remain a deadly foe until the end.

In desperation, he and terrorist groups might try to conduct terrorist operations against the American people and our friends. These attacks are not inevitable. They are, however, possible.

And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail. The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed.

Our government is on heightened watch against these dangers. Just as we are preparing to ensure victory in Iraq, we are taking further actions to protect our homeland.

In recent days, American authorities have expelled from the country certain individuals with ties to Iraqi intelligence services.

Among other measures, I have directed additional security at our airports and increased Coast Guard patrols of major seaports. The Department of Homeland Security is working closely with the nation's governors to increase armed security at critical facilities across America.

Should enemies strike our country, they would be attempting to shift our attention with panic and weaken our morale with fear. In this, they would fail.

No act of theirs can alter the course or shake the resolve of this country. We are a peaceful people, yet we are not a fragile people. And we will not be intimidated by thugs and killers.

If our enemies dare to strike us, they and all who have aided them will face fearful consequences.

We are now acting because the risks of inaction would be far greater. In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.

With these capabilities, Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies could choose the moment of deadly conflict when they are strongest. We choose to meet that threat now where it arises, before it can appear suddenly in our skies and cities.

The cause of peace requires all free nations to recognize new and undeniable realities. In the 20th century, some chose to appease murderous dictators whose threats were allowed to grow into genocide and global war.

In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth. Terrorists and terrorist states do not reveal these threats with fair notice in formal declarations.

And responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense. It is suicide. The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.

As we enforce the just demands of the world, we will also honor the deepest commitments of our country.

Unlike Saddam Hussein, we believe the Iraqi people are deserving and capable of human liberty, and when the dictator has departed, they can set an example to all the Middle East of a vital and peaceful and self-governing nation.

The United States with other countries will work to advance liberty and peace in that region. Our goal will not be achieved overnight, but it can come over time. The power and appeal of human liberty is felt in every life and every land, and the greatest power of freedom is to overcome hatred and violence, and turn the creative gifts of men and women to the pursuits of peace. That is the future we choose.

Free nations have a duty to defend our people by uniting against the violent, and tonight, as we have done before, America and our allies accept that responsibility.

Good night, and may God continue to bless America.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/17/iraq/main544377.shtml

[Matchett-PI]

"If we had been told before the war that Iraq was absolutely no danger to us.."

On July 4, 2003, Bush continued saying the same things he has been saying all along. He said nothing different, and his meaning is the same. I hope these quotes I'm sending you will get you up to speed, since you must have missed them first time around. Here's the latest:

Bush Vows Pre-Emptive Attacks Against Enemies Excerpts:

President Bush said on Friday the United States is still at war and vowed to attack any "terrorist group or outlaw regime" that threatens the United States with mass murder.

Bush's tough message came as he marked the July 4 Independence Day holiday with a flag-waving speech before 25,000 or so military personnel and families ....

"The United States will not stand by and wait for another attack or trust in the restraint and good intentions of evil men," Bush said ...

"We are on the offensive against terrorists and all who support them. We will not permit any terrorist group or outlaw regime to threaten us with weapons of mass murder. We will act, whenever it is necessary, to protect the lives and the liberty of the American people," he said. ...

"Our nation is still at war. The enemies of America plot against us. And many of our fellow citizens are still serving and sacrificing and facing danger in distant places," Bush said. ...

"Without America's active involvement in the world, the ambitions of tyrants would go unopposed, and millions would live at mercy of terrorists. With Americans' active involvement in the world, tyrants learn to fear, and terrorists are on the run," he said. ....

Excerpted from: WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (Reuters)-Fri July 4, 2003 by Patricia Wilson

[GatekeeperBookman]

Bogus.