The US's stated foreign policy goal wrt Iraq from the end of the Gulf War was to remove Saddam from power. The WMD arguments were always secondary. That is until, Bush make them primary last fall.
if that was the goal...then wasn't finding whether or not he's in violation of umpteen UN orders a means to that end?? trying to build global support for the idea that enough time had been given...that enough chances had been granted?? doesn't that all lend itself towards that goal? again...if clinton relied on it too...then were they both lying? i don't think so. as pgabriel says, maybe they were both duped. but you guys are talking about something much more sinister. i don't see it....bush didn't make this stuff up any more than clinton did. they were presented with intelligence information and took steps acting upon that. both said he was developing wmd and already had them..both said he was a threat to the US.
No worries, Please answer Max's question. Do you think Clinton was lying when he talked about Iraq and their WMD? DD
It could be that neither Bush nor Clinton was lying about WMD. Could it be that the lie "lies" somewhere in the fact that Bush used WMD as the #1 reason to attack Iraq?
What I don't understand is when a question is posed that may be a negative to Bush, why does the word "Clinton" and "Liberal" and "Democrat" always come up. We are talking about policies by the administration and not what someone else did do or would do. I have always voted Republican and will continue to, yet I do feel we as the public were misled with the issue of the degree of threat from the Iraqi regime. I don't care about polls of how people feel now, I just care that I feel my government was not ENTIRELY truthful to me as a citizen. Being in finance, I see myself as a shareholder in this country and that being said, maybe we need to have politicians sign off on things and be held liable the way CEO's and CFO's are.
Thank you, its a very kindergardenish position to take. We are talking about the here and now. It amazes me when some rebublicans call liberals cry babies and then when you point out something negative about Bush they bring up Clinton.
As others have said, polls just means Americans don't care that they were deceived. That doesn't mean it's ok to mislead the public for war. I think we can all agree that we are happy Saddam is gone, and that outcome of the war was great, but it was never in doubt. That could have been at any point in time with the same result. If the investigation turns up more, people may start to care more than they currently do. If not it says more about the sad state of affairs of American apathy, than it does about whether it's ok to mislead people.
Yeah, my post was a little cryptic. I guess what I meant was that, it is true that Saddam had weapons of WMD. I don't think anyone is disputing that. The rub is that WMD was repeatedly cited as the #1 reason we had to attack Iraq. Now that we cannot find WMD, has it become a credibility issue?
As the pressure to explain its case for war in Iraq increases, the administration has developed a multi-pronged response to deflect critics' charges. Key elements: * Provide evidence: The CIA is preparing to send congressional oversight committees thousands of pages of documents that were the basis for key intelligence assessments of the Iraqi weapons threat, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The material includes raw intelligence reports, electronic intercepts, information collected from human sources and information provided by allied intelligence services. * Emphasize other reasons for the war: Administration officials point to the mass graves in Iraq, the importance of spreading democracy in the Mideast and the need to make an example of a country that supported terrorist groups as key reasons for the war. * Urge patience: The evidence will be found, administration officials insist. The first members of a new team of up to 1,400 specialists began arriving Wednesday in Iraq to intensify the search for weapons of mass destruction. Feith told Congress last month that it could take years to unravel the mystery. * Lower the bar: Administration officials choose words carefully in discussing Iraq. They say they will find evidence of weapons ''programs'' -- such as substances that might be used to make chemical or biological weapons -- not necessarily the weapons themselves. That would make it easier to prove the case against Saddam.
WMD disarmament was a weak means to an end. The disarmament process provided a vehicle for the US to spy on Saddam and Iraq. WMD disarmament along the US/UK no-fly zone also mitigated the possiblity that Saddam would use WMD against his own people, in order to supress a Shiite or Kurd uprising. But disramament in and of itself would not have lead to a IRaqi regime change. The US did little actually to assist the disarmament process. And when they did provide WMD intel, the UN inspection team found it useless. Seeing now that after two months and 200+ site inspections have yielded little (two mobile bio labs), the US must also now admit that its intel is useless. The casual observer can even be suprised.
At various points in our history, most people believed that: * Slavery was a viable economic entity, and morally supportable. * WWII was none of our affair. * Stealing a horse should be punishable by hanging. * Being, or having ever been a member of a Communist party should be grounds for dismissal from your job, and social otsracization. * State power should supercede federal power. * Homosexuality should be illegal. * Native Americans were a constant menace to 'real' Americans, and ought to be removed as a danger, one way or another. etc. Now this in no way invalidates the democratic principle of the power of the majority...but it is interesting to note that on those issues where we were wrong, and have come to recognize that we were wrong, and were also issues of concern to the rest of the industrialized world, the majority opinion here reflected a minority opinion worldwide...just like now.
As a Republican, I can say that in many cases this is true, especially the average conservative talk host boob. However, IN THIS CASE I think Clinton is being brought up because Clinton and Bush shared the same intel. Both of them (and the UN for that matter) believe(d) Iraq has WMD's. The point is that if someone is going to accuse Bush of lying about WMD's, then you must also accuse Clinton and the UN of the same thing. That's not happening. Only Bush.
A few things: 1) I expected the "well, what does this say about our country? / our country is full of idiots" defense. All I can say is... what does resorting to that defense say about the poster? And his weak-ass arguments, if that is the best he can come up with? 2) The poll does *not* indicate that Americans simply don't care whether Bush lied, what it says is that most Americans do not *believe* that Bush lied. There is a huge difference. 3) The poll *does* indicate that most Americans aren't too concerned about the WMD issue, yet still believe that the war was justified. That would indicate that much of the public actually understood the multiple reasons for doing what we did, and was not simply swayed by the WMD argument - and therefore could not have been "duped", as so many here try to argue. In short, this poll indicates that most Americans think that those of you who think that Bush lied and/or that the war was unjustified are just blowing smoke out of your asses.
And BTW, MacBeth - couldn't you have just said "They're all wrong and I'm right"? I mean, sometimes you are long-winded for no reason...
Uh...forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exactly what you have advocated America says to the world? Short enough for you, twiggy?
I haven't called Bush a liar, but yes a lot of people have, as someone earlier stated, he probably over emphasized the intelligence that made his case stronger.
Most Americans seem to think we were right, MacBeth. But I forgot, you want the Frogs' permission before we can declare ourselves right...
