Clinton on Bush uranium line: 'Everybody makes mistakes'

Hey, umm, what happened to bringing integrity back to the White House?

Oh well, lying doesn't count when it's not perjury.


I'm all for removing blood thirsty tyrants, even though I'm beginning to feel that plans for "post war" Iraq weren't thought out very well, but I doesn't mean I have to like lying. How do we know this is the only time he's lied to us?

Anyways, now part of the blame falls on a White House Aid who doesn't recall reading but found CIA memos saying that the British inel was incorrect.

 

But he wanted to attack Iraq, he just didn't have the guts to go against the international "community" despite it being overwhelmingly in America's interest.

I never hated Clinton like many people on the right. I'm glad he is giving a strong, clear answer in response to this little controversy.

 

There is no question that the Bush Administration has fundamentally shifted our foreign policy aka the Bush Doctrine. The 'War on Terror' is really talking about all instability and our reaction to it. 9/11 shifted the focus from being reactionary to being proactive. 9/11 was what a reactionary policy gets you. Spending 10 years trying to disarm a country you already thumped it not being proactive. The 'War on Terror' is all about 'taking care of unfinished business.' And many of us don't think that's a bad thing.

FB says: The bottom line is that with the same intel, and the same conclusions, Clinton didn't invade Iraq preemptively. Clinton had the intel, and came to the same conclusions, but had the wisdom not to gather what few countries were eventually willing and invade preemptively.

Bush Jr invaded with as many countries as Bush Sr. As much as I like Clinton, it is much to his discredit that wishy-washy foreign policy didn't send the proper message to would be enemies (somlian withdraw cited by Osama, random missle attacks on afghanistan, random missle attacks on Iraq). That is the whole point of the Bush Doctrine, which is that the phone is not going to ring any louder than it did on 9/11. If we continue to passively deal with potential threats they will get stronger and more dangerously, bolder. Its what people like about Bush, he is doing what he thinks is right, rather than watching opinion polls and fearing the negatives that come with tough decisions so much that foreign policy is fly-by-night and unpredictable.

 

Interesting. It could be said that of course Clinton would support misleading the American people as a misdemeanor, and call for understanding of mistakes made while in office, but I actually don't think that that's his entire motivation here. He has pretty much backed this administration from the get go. Now as to why he is doing that, there is much area for speculation, but an observance of the statements he makes here are slightly enlightening.

Let's take a look at three quoted paragraphs...It does not surprise me that those supporting the war ommitted the middle paragraph when citing about how this supports their postition:


"Former President Clinton also said Tuesday night that at the end of his term, there was "a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for " in Iraq.

"At the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what [Saddam] had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes, and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it.

"But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say, 'You got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions.'"


Make note of this sequence:"We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it.

"But we didn't know."

See the distinction? He is not, contrary to what Bush and those in here are claiming, saying that we knew we had any WMD, let alone hundreds of thousands of gallons...And, in a similar situation, he never advocated war. Also recollect that we have ourselves admitted to increased reports of destroying anything connected to WMD in the wake of 9-11, and consider the possibilities. But to me the most interesting thing in Clinton's statement is in regards to his ackowledgment of the body of authority for dealing with the post GW1 treaty.

That has been the Achilles heel in the pro-war argument for going to war because of failure to fully comply with UN mandates and the treaty; both clearly outline who is...and as such who is not...the body of decision for A) What constitutes a breach of treaty, B) Whether Saddam is so doing, and C) What the consequnces of same would be. And that body is, defined in the treaty, and as such as binding as the conditions of the treaty such as allowing in inspectors, etc...the UNSC. Not the United States. It would be an interesting treaty between a nation and an international coalition which allows each and every participating nation in that coalition to decide thereafter any of those things independently...but that is what we have done. As such we stand in breach of the treaty ourselves. Clinton clearly states that the chain would be for the President to go to the UN, and that it is the UN's area of purvue to both dictate conditions and make demands of Iraq...not the US.


But that didn't happen. Based on our intel, we said, we breached the conditions of the treaty, overran the designated body of authority, and invaded. Everyone makes mistakes...

 

Why wouldn't I?

It doesn't take "guts" to show up in a thread.

 

MacBeth,

I am getting sick and tired of you being logical and rational and just plain shoving your intellect in our faces. So what if you formulate cogent thought independent of American 2-party partisanship. So what if you understand that there is a difference between having a good reason to go to war and deliberately misleading the public.

Why don't you just abandon logic, be a drone and take sides--Tree-hugging, capitalistic liberal left or Vampiric, capitalistic conservative right. Call someone a name, and end your post with "case closed" or any other appropriate "nana nana boo boo?"

 

First of all, there is very little to support your claim that this war was "overwhelmingly in America's interest" in any way. Clinton may have wanted to attack Iraq, but wouldn't have been foolhardy enough to do it without the backing of the international community. If he had tried a war that was not backed by the UN, had no post war security planning, had no plans for reconstruction, and was based on faulty intelligence, the Republicans would have tried to crucify him.

Clinton has more diplomat in his little finger than W has in his entire administration.

 

In retrospect, I believe it would have been a better course of action to let Blix et al continue their inspections to the point that THEY called for a regime change. The only reason I supported kicking the inspectors out when we did was due to WMDs and WMD programs that the administration claimed to know for a fact were there. They stated unequivocably that they knew, not just that Iraq had WMDs, but that they knew where they were.

Had we waited, we would have had the same support from the UN that we had for GWI and none of this faulty intelligence would ever have been an issue.

 

Except that Blix was employed by the UN and as soon as he is no longer needed he is out of a job.....thus why would he EVER call for regime change?

DD

 

Give me a break. Are you really claiming that Blix was holding such a recommendation so that he could stay in a desert where he wasn't wanted for longer than he had to?

Do you know Blix personally, or is this just you blowing smoke out of your a$$?

 

You have to be joking. So you wanted to wait for the inspectors to say "Hey, we suck at this. He's not listening to us, you guys take care of it." That would never happen. And why should the US let the UN dictate foreign policy in this way?

 

No security planning or reconstruction planning at all? Sounds like you are distorting evidence, using only data that supports your conclusion, and exaggerating.

If Clinton thought it was best for the US to attack Iraq, he should have done it, periood. He shouldn't have let anti-American grievances in the UN that have nothing to do with Iraq stop him.

 

So, in other words, you want U.S. foreign policy (at least in this instance) dictated by a Swedish lawyer and his underlings?

 

It wasn't the inspectors jobs to talk to Hussein. Their job was to find weapons.

Since we supposedly knew exactly where the weapons were, it should have been easy for the inspectors to find what they were looking.

 

Blix was completely happy to keep up the work of inspections. I don't think he would ever have supported war, and he said this....Hans Blix should not have ANY say in US defense policy.

Stick that in your pipe and blow it out your own A$$.

DD

 

That is the whole point of the Bush Doctrine, which is that the phone is not going to ring any louder than it did on 9/11.

It is all a question of priorities. Iran is a country very more so than Iraq that looks the other way wrt terrorists (if not outright supporting terrorists). The Iranian leaders are also ideologically alligned with the fundamental Islamic terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Iran unlike Iraq is also not on the Al Qaeda to-do list.

Fixing Iran instead of Iraq would have been more messy and not as easy, but it certainly is a higher priority and the right thing to do.

A rhetorical question for HayesStreet: Is Fidel and Cuba next? Fidel is a tyrant who has ill feelings toward the USA. A case could be made. If not now, when? Can we afford to live under the spectre of Cuban terrorism any longer?

 

What Cuban terrorism? Are you serious?

So you support democratizing Iran? Good, because it looks like that government won't last much longer.

 

Distinguish between proactive and liscence to do what we want where we want. No system of dealing with threats excludes the possibility that they will arrise; we used to know this. Being free comes with risk, we used to know this too. Now we find our comfort and safety threatened in a way that much of the rest of the world lives with daily, and we want to reverse course and go against what we have always maintained we are about.


This is not the first time in our history that we have faced potential threats, nor are we the first nation to face threats...yet history has shown us as clear as day that putting the power into the hands of those who will smite 'potantial' enemies on the frounds that dead men cannot be your enemy make you the enemy of all...How can any other nation trust us? Would you trust your safety to the perception of what the US feels you may or may not represent at some point in the futre?

And we have clearly shown just how efficient and open minded we are at assessing the reality of those potential threats...Amazingly enough I didn't see you in the thread about the revelation that the intel community was virtually unanimous pre-war in it's assessment that Iraq and Hussein represented no threat, but that is the organ with wi=hich we percieve threats, the basis for The Bush Doctrine. I disagree with theat kind of thinking for several reasons, but among them is the fact that, as already demonstrated, it relies on our ability and willingness to accurately and objectively assess who is and is not a threat. We have already shown that that is a failed preconception.

If the war is about "taking care of unfinished business', as you say, that makes us criminals and treaty breakers. The governing body of that 'old business' was as clarified in the treaty as were the conditions Saddam had to uphold...We agreed to those conditions at the time...I suppose we can pull another Roman Treaty ( ie a Roman Governor negotiated a peace treaty with Carthage wereupon Carthage disarmed and abandoned several territories...the Romans occupied them, and then said that the treaty was null and void because the Senate hadn't approved it...so that suddenyl Carthage was told that, due to political conflict/change of opinion within the nation with whcih he negotiated, that that nations was not honor bound to uphold it's treaties...sort of like our position on Kyoto) and say that Bush Jr. isn't responsible for treaties signed by Bush Sr...we have done that and worse before, and it would be as sound an argument as going to war over UN treaties while breaking them ourselves.


Hayes...you keep coming back to the number of countries as a means of guaging internationalsupport. It's not a flat electoral college...Bush Sr. represented a majority of the world ithout having to appeal to the likes of some of these nations so small most had never heard of them before, Bush Jr. represents a vast minority...are you really going to try and uphold a smeantic argument as basely void of reason as that? It would be like claiming that one Pres. candidate had California, New York, Texas, and Michigan supporting him, while amother had Rhode Island, Maine, Hawaii, and New Hampshire, and calling their support equal.

And the phone is ringing for the rest of the world, who are incresingly becomeing aware of a growing and bolder threat. More is the pity that the nation who once stood for real freedom and equality now represents that threat...or do you dismiss/ignore/rationalize the studies which have found that the world now...for the first time ever...sees the United States as the greatest threat to them and global peace...New policy indeed...

 

Tenet has got some company, a new player has stepped forward and is more than willing to receive the all powerful buck.

White House - AP

Bush Adviser Apologizes Over Iraq Claim
Tue Jul 22,11:08 PM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!


By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Stephen Hadley, President Bush's deputy national security adviser, on Tuesday became the second administration official to apologize for allowing a tainted intelligence report on Iraq's nuclear ambitions into Bush's State of the Union address.

Hadley, in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said that he had received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from agency Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons...


There must be a greater meaning behind Clinton's support of the Bush administration on this issue. I don't think hell has frozen over, therefore the Clintons must need a favor.
*or*
Clinton feels he is not able to move the Demo party in the direction he wants it to go (they are not paying attention to him), so he derails the Demos strongest issue against Bush with one statement of support. This shows everyone who has the loudest voice and the most power in the Demo party which quickly moves the focus back where Clinton wants it-- on his ideas for the future.

 

Wow, is there anything more funny than the group of board conservatives aligning themselves on this issue with the lying, two bit womanizer they've hacked, bashed, trashed, and ridiculed for years. Oh boy... Woohoohooo... lol