111chase111, I never said that Bush motivated them to start a nuclear program. By invading and occupying Iraq, and getting us into that morass, he both spurred them into accelerating their nuclear programs, because of their belief that they could be next on the agenda, and emboldened them in doing so because of the bulk of our military, ground forces in particular, being tied down in a conflict with no apparent end in sight. It is the perception of our weakness from being overextended in Iraq, unable to deal decisively with it, and having limited resources left to act elsewhere that, in my opinion, has spurred them into greater action re their nuke programs. A double whammy, if you will. Had Bush declined to have his Iraq adventure, the perceived might of the US military would have given Iran, in particular, pause to accelerate their nuclear development. North Korea, being run by certifiable nut-jobs, may, or may not, have done things differently, but they certainly have seen both the US striking at a country which posed no clear and present danger to the United States, and our weakness, as already mentioned, by going so far as to withdraw troops from South Korea. There may be sound strategic reasons for the reduction of forces in South Korea, and the planned withdrawal from the DMZ of much of our "trip-wire," which has been there for decades. In my opinion, NK sees it as weakness, not as strength. I never mentioned Carter and Clinton, and fail to see how they are pertinent to my points... those being that Iraq was a disaster of huge proportions for our country, on many levels, and that it has spurred Iran and NK to greater efforts re their nuclear programs, both because of our perceived weakness because of the invasion and, particularly, the occupation of that country. My main point, and one made better by others, is that despite the fact that Bush lied to the country regarding his reasons for his Iraq War, as illustrated by the secret British memo I posted, and several others have discussed, seems to be of little concern to many of his supporters. I find that more than a bit amazing. Clinton is vilified for lying to a grand jury about having sex in the Oval Office (you brought him up), and Bush is given a pass regarding lying to the nation, and the world, about the invasion and occupation of a sovereign country. Astonishing. That sovereign country may have had a terrible dictator, who we did business with and cooperated militarily with in the past, regardless, but we have dealt with terrible dictators for a couple of centuries when it suited our national interests. Why don't Republicans feel betrayed by their President? I felt betrayed by Clinton's inability to keep his fly zipped in the White House around an intern during an era when every sneeze is reported with due diligence by the press. I felt betrayed by LBJ, a man I admired, for fabricating the Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to go to expand our presence in South Vietnam In your eyes, and the eyes of the rest of Bush's supporters, is it impossible for the man to ever be wrong? And it's worse than that... he lied to the country and the world to get the United States into a war. It was wrong when LBJ did it, and it is just as wrong today. What do I think we should do with regard to Iran and NK? Any ideas I may have are limited, as are the Pentagon's, by what Bush did in Iraq. I suspect we are doing things with regard to Iran right now. It is very likely that we have intelligence and special forces exploring where targets may be, and the best way to deal with them. Whether we will act, what the effects might be in damaging and/or destroying their programs, and what the reaction from Iran would be, which is the real question, unknown by me. I would hope any action we take would be successful, and that Iran's reaction would be relatively restrained. I don't have much hope for a restrained reaction from Iran. North Korea? They already have nukes, apparently, and much better missiles than they use to possess. Seoul is, what, about as far from the border as Houston is from Galveston? You tell me. Keep D&D Civil!!
That is the heart of the matter for me. I find it curious/troubling, and I'm trying to find insight to why people seemingly lay down like suckers when it comes to being lied to by this man.
Thanks. Pretty much ignored by those it was aimed at, but thanks anyway. And thanks to FB for responding. I intended to give a "nod" to Mango for the thoughts about how Iran may play out. He's a fountain of information, which wouldn't surprise anyone. Keep D&D Civil!!
I'm sorry nobody responded, because that was probably the best summation of where I'm at regarding the issue that I've ever read. It was my own thoughts but worded more concisely, and articulately than I could ever hope. So much of what happens these days with this administration and the support they get seems surreal. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Very interesting article in Yesterday's WaPo Prewar Findings Worried Analysts By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 22, 2005; A26 On Jan. 24, 2003, four days before President Bush delivered his State of the Union address presenting the case for war against Iraq, the National Security Council staff put out a call for new intelligence to bolster claims that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or programs. The person receiving the request, Robert Walpole, then the national intelligence officer for strategic and nuclear programs, would later tell investigators that "the NSC believed the nuclear case was weak," according to a 500-page report released last year by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. It has been clear since the September report of the Iraq Survey Group -- a CIA-sponsored weapons search in Iraq -- that the United States would not find the weapons of mass destruction cited by Bush as the rationale for going to war against Iraq. But as the Walpole episode suggests, it appears that even before the war many senior intelligence officials in the government had doubts about the case being trumpeted in public by the president and his senior advisers. The question of prewar intelligence has been thrust back into the public eye with the disclosure of a secret British memo showing that, eight months before the March 2003 start of the war, a senior British intelligence official reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that U.S. intelligence was being shaped to support a policy of invading Iraq. Moreover, a close reading of the recent 600-page report by the president's commission on intelligence, and the previous report by the Senate panel, shows that as war approached, many U.S. intelligence analysts were internally questioning almost every major piece of prewar intelligence about Hussein's alleged weapons programs. These included claims that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa for its nuclear program, had mobile labs for producing biological weapons, ran an active chemical weapons program and possessed unmanned aircraft that could deliver weapons of mass destruction. All these claims were made by Bush or then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in public addresses even though, the reports made clear, they had yet to be verified by U.S. intelligence agencies. For instance, Bush said in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address that Hussein was working to obtain "significant quantities" of uranium from Africa, a conclusion the president attributed to British intelligence and made a key part of his assertion that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. More than a year later, the White House retracted the statement after its veracity was questioned. But the Senate report makes it clear that even in January 2003, just before the president's speech, analysts at the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center were still investigating the reliability of the uranium information. Similarly, the president's intelligence commission, chaired by former appellate judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.), disclosed that senior intelligence officials had serious questions about "Curveball," the code name for an Iraqi informant who provided the key information on Hussein's alleged mobile biological facilities. The CIA clandestine service's European division chief had met in 2002 with a German intelligence officer whose service was handling Curveball. The German said his service "was not sure whether Curveball was actually telling the truth," according to the commission report. When it appeared that Curveball's material would be in Bush's State of the Union speech, the CIA Berlin station chief was asked to get the Germans to allow him to question Curveball directly. On the day before the president's speech, the Berlin station chief warned about using Curveball's information on the mobile biological units in Bush's speech. The station chief warned that the German intelligence service considered Curveball "problematical" and said its officers had been unable to confirm his assertions. The station chief recommended that CIA headquarters give "serious consideration" before using that unverified information, according to the commission report. The next day, Bush told the world: "We know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile weapons labs . . . designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors." He attributed that information to "three Iraqi defectors." A week later, Powell said in an address to the United Nations that the information on mobile labs came from four defectors, and he described one as "an eyewitness . . . who supervised one of these facilities" and was at the site when an accident killed 12 technicians. Within a year, doubts emerged about the truthfulness of all four, and the "eyewitness" turned out to be Curveball, the informant the CIA station chief had red-flagged as unreliable. Curveball was subsequently determined to be a fabricator who had been fired from the Iraqi facility years before the alleged accident, according to the commission and Senate reports. As Bush speeches were being drafted in the prewar period, serious questions were also being raised within the intelligence community about purported threats from biologically armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In an Oct. 7, 2002, speech, Bush mentioned a potential threat to the U.S. mainland being explored by Iraq through unmanned aircraft "that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons." The basis for that analysis was a single report that an Iraqi general in late 2000 or early 2001 indicated interest in buying autopilots and gyroscopes for Hussein's UAV program. The manufacturer automatically included topographic mapping software of the United States in the package. When the list was submitted in early 2002, the manufacturer's distributor determined that the U.S. mapping software would not be included in the autopilot package, and told the procurement agent in March 2002. By then, however, U.S. intelligence, which closely followed Iraqi procurement of such material, had already concluded as early as the summer of 2001 that this was the "first indication that the UAVs might be used to target the U.S." When a foreign intelligence service questioned the procurement agent, he originally said he had never intended to purchase the U.S. mapping software, but he refused to submit to a thorough examination, according to the president's commission. "By fall 2002, the CIA was still uncertain whether the procurement agent was lying," the commission said. Nonetheless, a National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002 said the attempted procurement "strongly suggested" Iraq was interested in targeting UAVs on the United States. Senior members of Congress were told in September 2002 that this was the "smoking gun" in a special briefing by Vice President Cheney and then-CIA Director George J. Tenet. By January 2003, however, it became publicly known that the director of Air Force intelligence dissented from the view that UAVs were to be used for biological or chemical delivery, saying instead they were for reconnaissance. In addition, according to the president's commission, the CIA "increasingly believed that the attempted purchase of the mapping software . . . may have been inadvertent." In an intelligence estimate on threats to the U.S. homeland published in January 2003, Air Force, Defense Intelligence Agency and Army analysts agreed that the proposed purchase was "not necessarily indicative of an intent to target the U.S. homeland." By late January 2003, the number of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf area was approaching 150,000, and the invasion of Iraq was all but guaranteed. Neither Bush nor Powell reflected in their speeches the many doubts that had surfaced at that time about Iraq's weapons programs. Instead, Bush said, "With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region." He added: "Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/21/AR2005052100474.html
Thank you for the article, Mc Marc. Hopefully this will stop the already refuted claim that it is only hindsight that Iraq's WMD's weren't a threat. People knew before the war that Bush's claims were BS. They were fired when they voiced it. This war is a complete sham.
We can agree to disagree. I think it's clear that NK, from the start, was working on Nukes. So was Iran and Saddam. I think Iran was working on them because they thought Saddam was working on them (and you know the history there) but it takes years and years for those programs to get going and Bush has only been "evil Bush" for about 3 1/2 years or so (remember, he started his first term pretty low key). BTW, the Euros aren't having much luck with regard to Iran, are they? I only brought Clinton up because it was him and Carter that got hoodwinked by NK with regard to their nuclear program. Clinton appeased NK by giving them reactor technology which they then used to build nuclear weapons after promising not to. It should go down as one of the classic sucker punches of all time. But that's okay. You have to give those countries and opportunity to "do the right thing", however, when they don't you have to back up the good cop with the bad cop or negotiations simply don't work. No one thinks that war is good or desireable (except, maybe, bullet factories), however, what do you do with regimes like Saddam's, NKs or Irans who are going to do what they want regardless of what the International community thinks? All of those countries are great examples of how useless the U.N. is. I really, really wish we didn't go into Iraq. I really wish that the U.N. had decided to do something with Iraq that would have worked (remember, the only reason the inspectors were allowed back in was because of Bush) but with Saddam, NK or Iran they U.N. is just looking stupid and silly. The problem with the memo is that you're taking it and running with it as if it were true. It might be true but that hasn't been proven yet. However, if that memo were the slam dunk that you say it is don't you think that the Democrats in congress would be pushing for impeachment right now? Even Howard Dean isn't pontificating on that memo (at least not in the main stream news). If it was such a magic bullet how come the Democrats aren't using it politically? So, with regard to the memo, we have some options: 1)The Democrats don't believe it will hold water and thus aren't dwelling on it 2) The Democrats are waiting for verification before acting on it. 3) the Democrats believe the memo to be genuine and have irrifutable proof but are waiting for the right time to press charges against the President. To me, the last scenario makes no sense and the first two imply that the memo has issues. Memo's have been forged before. And don't even try to imply that the Democrats wouldn't try to impeach Bush - some called for Bush 1's impeachment with regard to the first Gulf War and some caled for Bush 2's impeachment before the second. I don't really hear any calls for it now by Democrats.
The Dems don't control congress and dont' really have that option. There was a thread earlier that a group of Senaters did send concern in writing over the matter the whitehouse. They won't press the issue beacause they are vulnerable and weak. They gave authorization. The GOP will ask why they didn't bring up the issues earlier instead of giving the Pres authorization. They have had ample evidence to press a number of things and haven't done so yet including contempt of congress for Ashcroft. The memo itself comes directly from the govt. and is an official memo put out by the by the British govt It was then exposed by the press, and hasn't been discredited at all. There is no way while our troops are over there that they will push for impeachment. That would be political suicide, but it doesn't reflect on the veracity of the document. Put that together with everything else know, members of the President's own staff saying he was planning attack long before the actual invasion, the article posted a few posts up talking about intel being skeptical of what the whitehouse was doing. Now this piece of evidence that lends credibility to the conjecture.
First, let me say that I'm not arguing that the memo is fake, I'm just waiting until it plays out. You know, not jumping to conclusions. After all the Rather memos were government memos and they were not refuted by the government; rather by people who understand fonts really well. Second, you are trying to paint a picture that Bush lied about the WMDs. In other words, he knew they were not there but said so anyways to sell his war. However, what about the fact that Clinton said the weapons were there? I heard him say it with his own mouth. Madeline Albright said they were there as well. Once again I heard her say it on Meet the Press after the war was over and they hadn't been found. John Kerry said they were there. Clearly it wasn't clear. You can argue that Bush rushed to war before getting the facts straight. You can argue that he wanted to go to war and was using WMDs as a justification. However, you can't really say he lied about WMDs yet as too many other, credible people (in your eyes at least) thought they were there as well. What is clear is that our intel about Iraq was really wrong. Besides, the memo doesn't say that there were no WMDs and Bush knew it, it says that the Bush administration decided Saddam had to be removed earlier than claimed.
No, the memo said that the policy had been set and that the intelligence was being "fixed" around this policy.
Wouldn't you consider that lying to the American public? Wouldn't you consider that lying to congress? (an impeachable offense) Wouldn't you consider that lying to our allies?
I'm not saying he or anyone knew they werent' there. I am saying that they knew they weren't as big of a threat as they portrayed in order to start a war, and that they didn't really know one way or the other, but mandated the pull out of the inspectors who were there that could have found out.
I think that's pretty much where we're at. Thanks for the good reply. You're an example of the "Anti-Trader_J," and it's appreciated. Keep D&D Civil!!
Not saying it is or isn't. But not knowing who or how Cheney's energy task force was set up and what recommendations were made leaves a lot to speculation. And we'll never know now that the lawsuit has been dropped.
Guys, oil is clearly a reason for our presence in the Middle East regardless of Iraq. To say that oil is not a reason for getting rid of Saddam would be disingenuous. However, we did not go to war in order to take over the oil fields and get cheap oil to make U.S. oil firms rich. Our economy and our military strength (not to mention the economies of pretty much all of the Western world) rely on the consistant, predictable flow of oil. People like Saddam are a threat to that consistant, predictable flow. Militaristic Muslim theocracies are, potentially, a threat to that consitant predictable flow as well. Stable, democratic nations like that which exist in Europe would probably be the best scenario with regards to who controls the oil. So, all U.S. presidents work to ensure that nothing happens to the oil supply. However, there is no truth nor any historical evidence to back up the conspiracy theories that the U.S. is intent on occupying territory to steal oil. The U.S. was accused to going to war against Saddam the first time for that reason and it never bore out. We did not, nor do we now, get any special consideration from Kuwait with regard to oil. Nor do we get any special considerations from Saudi Arabia. As a matter of fact, Saddam offered the U.S. special oil prices if we didn't invade (protection money so to speak). Clearly we didn't take him up on his offer. Also, for people to say that oil is not worth fighting for... you are essentially saying our way of life is not worth fighting for. Regardless of whether you like it or not, our economy is dependant on cheap oil. It gets our food to our tables, it powers our cities and makes everything "go". You can argue that we should find an alternative form of energy and I'm all for it but until then we are stuck with oil and we are stuck with defending the free flow of oil from wherever it happens to come from.
I would just like to add to 111chase111's post that not only is access to cheap oil a priority for our economy, but also the practice in which said cheap oil is traded/sold for US dollars and US dollars only. If at some point OPEC were to lose influence or if somehow major oil producing nations were to sell their oil for Euros, Yen, bartered goods, etc, then the reserve currency status of the US dollar would diminish. This would eventually have catastrophic effects on our entire debt structure that would make the Great Depression of the 30's look like a mild recession. Needless to say, Bush and his crew really had no choice but to go into Iraq and gain a stronghold there. I suspect this is why even the vast majority of Democrat congressmen voted YES for the war and why they continue to vote YES to the tens of billions worth of Bills in periodic funding of it. Is it right to occupy another land, killing thousands of civilians in the process, just to maintain our extravagant way of life? To be honest, I'm not really sure and even if I said NO I'd be a hippocrit considering the amount of energy/resources I use myself on a daily basis.
