johnheath and jorge, you two are ****ing idiots. The requirement for the administration was to prove that Iraq was a clear and present danger to the US. At some point evidence like that may emerge, but to say that the proof is here in a couple of tools buried 12 years ago (and not fashioned in the 4 years w/o inspectors) is moronic. Maybe you guys should go back to forging documents and talking up little flying machines that are going to cross the oceans and start dropping some of these 'reconstituted nuclear weapons' on our heads.
just so i understand...the requirement to do what?? 1441 said that iraq had the burden of showing how they disposed of weapons we knew they had in 1991. this is like a breach of fiduciary duty case. normally when you sue someone you have the burden of proof....but that gets minimized in cases where there's fiduciary duty...if i hand you stock certificates and say, "watch these for me...i'm asking you to hold them in trust for me," and then i ask for them back 10 years later and you say, "i don't have them...i don't know where they are," that's not good enough. the burden is on me to prove you assumed the duty...but the burden to account for the shares is squarely on you. you're the only one in a position to know where they are. analogy is true here...that's why the UN put the burden squarely on Iraq to account for weapons.
That's odd, cause it always seemed to me that stupidity was driving your posts in the first place....
Max, people like Achebe are making this up as they go along. I stopped banging my head against the wall (arguing this subject with the Achebe and Sam Fishers of this world) because facts are irrelevant to them. The majority of House and Senate Democrats voted to give President Bush the authority to attack Iraq because Iraq was refusing to comply with the UN, Iraq was a threat to Americans, and Iraq had connections to Al Queda. Those exact charges are in the House and Senate resolutions that congressional Democrats OVERWHELMINGLY voted to pass. Now, the Democrats are using this topic to brand Bush as a liar. I don't think I have seen many things more unpatriotic in my lifetime, because our country's credibility is at stake in the world today. If President Bush lied about WMD in Iraq, then so did the majority of Democrats, including John Kerry. As TJ said, the attitudes of the ideological lefties is indeed "sickening".
Making it up as we go along? Sort of like going from chemical weapons to nigerien uranium purchases to mobile weapons/weather balloon trailers to humanitarian reasons to premption to specious al qaeda connections to defunct remnants of Iraq's 80's wmd program. As long as some of the spaghetti sticks to the wall in the end I guess. I do give you credit for not waving your ignore list around like a white flag though as some do around here.
When are going to take the blinders off! --------------------------------------- U.N. panel finds no evidence linking Iraq to al-Qaida By DAFNA LINZER, ASSOCIATED PRESS UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. terrorism committee has found no evidence to support Bush administration claims of a link between Iraq and al-Qaida, and the United States has provided the committee with no proof, officials said Thursday. The committee, charged with investigating al-Qaida and the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, circulated a draft report on progress made to shut down Osama bin Laden's network worldwide. "Nothing has come to our notice that would indicate links between Iraq and al-Qaida," said Michael Chandler, the committee's chief investigator. http://www.newsobserver.com/24hour/world/story/928197p-6467254c.html
You know there is something fishy about this WMD stuff but I don't really think it's simply the Bush administration lying. After all, if they knew there were no WMDs don't you think they'd realize that they'd be busted as soon as the went into Iraq? Clearly if the administration was simply lying about WMDs they would have made damn sure something was found to justify their position. And while you may not think Bush was smart enough to think it through, surely you can't think that Powel, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfield are that dumb? It just makes no sense. Where are the WMDs is a great question. Clearly most of the world's intelligence agencies were pretty sure they were there (including the Germans, French and the previous administration). So where are they? Did all those intel agencies get duped? Hard to believe. Did Saddam more/hide them in the weeks before the war? IMO, way more plausable. "Where are the WMD's?" is a great question and one that has to be answered and soon. All the people claiming the administration lied are just grasping at any thing they can to make a case against a president they hate. If this exact same scenario were playing out with Gore in office they would all be defending him. Politics sucks. When we should all be worried about where the WMDs are, instead we are using their disappearance as an excuse to take pot shots at the president.
McMark, why don't you read the thread before popping off with an inane point? The vast majority of Congressional Democrats voted that there was a connection between Iraq and Al Queda when President Bush was given the authorization to use force. Are the Democrats liars? By the way, you should read articles before you post them. The UN committee in question did not even investigate Powell's claims in regards to the Iraq/ Al Queda connection (good detective work there one world government dudes). "Good work" to you too McMark- once again your evidence is underwhelming.
First of all the congress votes on the info given to them. If the govt. lies about the info then congress voting on it doesn't make them liars too. Where did they vote on an alliance between Saddam and Al Qaeda? WB JH
sorry..i just saw this, glynch. honestly, i don't have a position yet. i'm not sure if they lied or not.
Max, I agree that he wasn't following all UN resolutions, but I think the case being argued is if his not following those resolutions were grounds for invasion at the present time. Or would other options, including just 30 more days of inspections before military action have been sufficient?
i agree with the administration that it's not a smoking gun...i would hope if they were trying to say it was a smoking gun that i'd stand up and say i disagree...
fair enough...that's what i was trying to ask Achebe about. because 1441 put the burden pretty squarely on saddam, as best i could tell.
No FB, that is incorrect. The Senate and House have intelligence committees that see the same classified information given to the President. For example, Democrat Carl Levin serves on the Senate intelligence committee, and before the war he said that Iraq had WMD, and there was an Iraq / Al Queda link. You can find this in the Senate resolution authorizing the President to use force against Iraq. Now, that same Carl Levin is saying that the President may have misled us. HELLO!!!! Carl and President Bush had the same material to work with, and came to the same conclusions before we invaded. Now Carl is using this situation to call Bush a liar? If so, Carl is also calling himself a liar! The people misleading the nation right now are the Democrats who voted to authorize force, and I find them to be repulsive.
I understand that committees see intel info also, that doesn't mean they weren't lied to prior to their vote. Please see Gulf of Tonkin resolution for historical reference.
I have tried to have an open mind and listen to your arguments. You know John people would listen to you a bit more if you weren’t so condescending and insulting.
For historical reference, please note that President Clinton and every damn one of his former advisors said that Iraq had WMD, and they were a threat to the United States. Remember when we sent cruise missiles into their country after Sec. of Defense Cohen went on national television, held up a pound of sugar to demonstrate how much WMD it would take to kill thousands of Americans, and clearly stated that Iraqi WMD were a clear and present danger to America? You cannot make the argument that President Bush lied to us without accusing President Clinton and the vast majority of congressional Democrats of also lying if you want to be taken seriously by anybody knowledgable about this subject.
Really? Well, if you would respond to the discussion at hand, and read your articles before you post them, then I would take you seriously.
At this rate, we will have one soldier dead for every gram of WMD program evidence. This discovery sounds more promising. But anyone could make this anywhere in the world, like those cats in London. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/26/sprj.irq.main/index.html . . . • U.S. troops in Iraq have found 300 bags of a type of bean used to produce a deadly poison, U.S. officials said. The discovery was made in a former brake fluid plant. The bags of castor beans were marked "urea," which is a fertilizer compound. Castor beans are used in the production of ricin, a poison that can be used in biological weapons. U.S. officials said the discovery is under investigation. . . . The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday the parts that were found in Baghdad are not "evidence of a smoking gun" that proves Iraq had a current weapons of mass destruction program. . . .
johnheath, you're such a simpleton. You have a couple of points... now try to put them together in a coherent argument. MadMax, I believe FranchiseBlade argued my pov in a very succint way. Sadaam is a b*stard, he was breaking UN resolutions... we can assert this w/ all kinds of certainty. Hell, imo... in my jejeune opinion and lack of concern for treaties and what not... it would have been great to assassinate the guy at any given opportunity. But the grounds for going to war, for attacking a sovereign nation... have to be pretty compelling. I can think of a ton of good reasons for going to war w/ Iraq... but I always had difficulty coming up w/ that little silly Kantian one... the one that abides by the intuition of international precedent (ie don't preemptively attack a sovereign nation that hasn't done anything to you yet). Even when I said "ok, do it for my personal reasons", do it for reason 'C2' the administration always kept to a specific charge. As you concede the administration isn't seeing if this dog hunts. As always, johnheath is off on his own tangent, and isn't aware that he's the only one pursuing his asinine point. Incidentally jh, congress was always begging for all of the information, you liar. And Graham did ask to make all of the information that read "we don't know this", and "we don't know that" to the public so that other senators could make a more informed decision, but he was shot down. Furthermore, the charge is that congress was already handed baked information... the same sort of nonsense that made Powell say "I'm not repeating this bull****". The information was hokey at best. It might pan out, but only b/c of the same reasons others have given.... ie, every country has something.
