Clinton believes Iraq had weapons of mass destruction

I think, like a lot of people, Clinton has lied to protect his own interests. But I don't think that means everything out of his mouth is a lie. In this case, one would wonder what his personal interests are in the case (i.e. what would be his reason to lie). I can't think of a reason off hand, but there may well be a reason (it could be like T_J said. Maybe Clinton doesn't want Dean to win. I don't know what the former President's motivations are).

To me, Clinton seems credible on this.

Now the bigger question is: does it matter? It doesn't matter to me. I think we can say that, at the very least, the threat from Iraq was exagerated. How much of that came from faulty intelligence and how much came from willfull manipulation of the facts is open to debate. The only think this proves is that those who claim that the Bush Administration made the whole thing up (and there are a few of those) are incorrect.

Those who are saying that the threat was exagerated by the Bush Administration? They've still got a good case.

I don't recall being a person who ragged on Clinton all that much for lying from time to time. I've not known many politicians who weren't prone to telling some fibs to protect their own interests. But I'm still one who believes the "gotcha" efforts of the more conservative elements of the Party were ill-advised politically and stooping to the level of the Democrats who practically invented it.

To me, if the only way you can win is by painting the other side as a monster, then your ideas must not be very good.

 

I obviously like mrpaige's post.

For what it's worth, for the topic of this thread, Clinton made these comments in October. So, politically, it's not as if he is just now saying something before the Iowa primaries or some such.

 

Once again, Paige, you're right on the mark.

Clinton's comments here are relevant to the Righties (must we always be so damned partisan??) BECAUSE of their distrust of him. They are saying 'look EVEN Clinton thought they had WMD's"

Some opponents of the war have implied the whole WMD was a ruse. It wasn't. I can accept that at the time, the genuine belief of those in the know was that there were WMD's.

Those of us who opposed the war, at that time, did not agree that the belief was sufficient. We can (and have) debated the degree of evidence that should be on hand before 'pre-emptive' war, but i confess that some of the war opponents have been as or more guilty of downplaying the WMD threat as the administration may have been in exagerating it.

 

That's a great spin,

I do believe Clinton's comments are relevant to the argument, I just can't let that pass by that conservatives are using his judgement to make their case.

 

Didn't mean it as spin PG.

Just its common for both the Reps and Dems to quote someone on the other side as vindication of their postition when that person agrees with them. A Republican supporting the official administation position is not news.

If Colin Powel came out and said the intelligence was manipulated, i would expect the Dems to be quoting him as support for their position.

 

Look, I don't know what kind of stuff Clinton was privy to, but I have a hard time believeing he would have ever said some of the things the administration did regarding the level of threat, I don't think he would have politicized the intelligence like this administration did, and I don't believe he would have never intentionally confused and mixed chemical, bio, and nukes so that they were indistinguishable in the discourse leading up to the war (and after).

It's also clear that the path to war was set and justifications presented after the decision was made. I don't think Clinton would have approached it that way. Not saying his motives would be pure and he's an angel, but his policy would have been more sane. Also, I seriously doubt that even had he gone into Iraq, he would not have pressed for a tax cut at the same time.

 

I believe what is backed up by the evidence. The evidence is clear that are no WMD in Iraq (owned by Iraqis) and there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda for 9/11. There were more WMD in the United States owned by white supremacists in the same time period of post Gulf War 1 and end of Gulf War 2 as far as I can tell.


The article states what Clinton *believed* in Oct 2003. So what, he's a private citizen now like the rest of us. He was fooled by the Bushies persistent repetition of 9/11/Saddam/WMD mantra like a large percentage of the American public.

 

Although Clinton may have been out of the loop for awhile, I believe his remarks carry a little bit more weight based on his level of knowledge about the situation during his stay at Pennsylvania Ave. His words at least make me think that he *knew* some things about this possibly as late as Jan 2001. Also, there was evidently nothing about what was reported after Clinton's presidency ended that caused him to believe differently. On this issue, I'd trust Clinton's educated guess before trusting the opinions of those among us who have always been private citizens.

 

On this issue, I'd trust Clinton's educated guess before trusting the opinions of those among us who have always been private citizens.

How about the CIA? Private citizens aren't making this stuff up on their own. It's coming directly from the people who spend their careers doing the analysis.

 

I didn't say that Clinton's opinion ought to be the last word on the subject. But I still believe he had to have a reason to make those claims, and I don't think it was just to undermine Dean. That's all I was saying. I suspect, however, that his views were based, at least in part, upon info received from the CIA while he was still in office. I also assume he was able to view more of the data. I doubt we (i.e., the public) are getting all the available information from the CIA. I'm not saying that the info we're getting from the CIA is intended to be misleading or necessarily wrong, but I'm sure Clinton was able to pry just a little deeper than any of us. Often, we get the conclusions reached, not the actual data by which the conclusions have been reached. I wish we could get a little more info. For example: Did anyone in the CIA who was responsible for investigating the data disagree with the conclusions reached? If so, how many? What was the percentage? In brief, how did this become the position of the CIA?

 

Fair enough. The manipulation of the minimal data to get American public support behind the war is a pure Bushism. We couldn't fool many of our allies into joining. Guess Fox needs to start broadcasting worldwide.

 

This IS a stale topic.

It has been mentioned several times previously that ALL of Clinton's senior staff believed that Iraq was a direct threat to the US; I'm not certain about whether all others specifically stated that Iraq had WMD.

The only one who expressed reservations about the war early on was Albright, and that was not WRT to whether Iraq was a threat (she blieved it also), but the timing of the War.

I also don't think Clinton would have screwed-up the foreign policy issues like Bush, but many quite bright people from both parties agreed that the threat from Iraq was real.

(And attempts to belittle the information that the previous, 2-term President and his staff would have is self-delusional).

 

I don't doubt that Clinton believed it. Judging from other intel released and things post war, I believe that in this case Clinton was probably wrong.

The Clinton team may have believed that Iraq was a threat. But they did not feel that he was a threat that warranted an invasion. They didn't plan for one. They did believe that Osama was the greatest threat to the U.S. and they were correct about that one.

I guess with Clinton I agree with some of views and disagree with him on others.

 

Clinton was a major foot-dragger when it came to investigating the Saudis' links to terrorism. Oil money in our economy, you know. Although Bush killed all investigations into the Saudis when he took office, William Jefferson Clinton has a small share of culpability, and if Bush goes down over 9/11----unlikely; the U.S. media is completely cowed----then he will likely make sure that Clinton is threatened as well.

Besides, it was no secret that Bush the Elder and Jeb, through government and private business, had sold chemical weapons to Iraq. So of course Bill believes they had something.

 

Can you site sources for this, please? Not left-wing conspiracy sources, but mainstream sources like ABC, NBC, CNN, etc...

 

Footdragging by Clinton is a revisionist history. It's footdragging by the Bushies that led to 9/11.

If we're having threads on what Clinton was doing, yall keep forgetting about this one - with the intel we had on Iraq, they still determined enemy number one was Bin Laden after the Cole attack and gave the Bushies a plan of action during the changeover process, which they only committed to after 9/11. They told the Bushies that counter terrorism would be their number one issue and the Bushies dropped the ball. This whole thing on Iraq would not have happened if the Bushies had just simply continued what the Clinton adminstration had started. There is no shame in continuing a policy. Heck, Reagan was only continuing what Patton and Truman started in confronting the Soviet Union.


August 12, 2002 Time Magazine


"Clarke's proposals called for the 'breakup' of al-Qaeda cells and the arrest of their personnel. The financial support for its terrorist activities would be systematically attacked, its assets frozen, its funding from fake charities stopped. Nations where al-Quaeda was causing trouble . . . would be given aid to fight the terrorists. Most important, Clarke wanted to see a dramatic increase in covert action in Afghanistan to 'eliminate the sanctuary' where al-Qaeda had its terrorist training camps and bin Laden was being protected by the radical Islamic Taliban regime. . . . Clarke supported a substantial increase in American support for the Northern Alliance, the last remaining resistance to the Taliban. . . . At the same time, the U.S. military would start planning for air strikes on the camps and for the introduction of special-operations forces into Afghanistan. . . . In the words of a senior Bush Administration official, the proposals amounted to 'everything we've done since 9/11.'"



I'm coming to this briefing to underscore how important I think this subject is. I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject."

— Clinton National Security Adviser SANDY BERGER, to Condi Rice, January 2001