Debating The War With Bushies

[JinnRikki]

PeaceNik: Why did you say we are we invading Iraq?

Warmonger: We are invading Iraq because it is in violation
of security council resolution 1441. A country cannot be
allowed to violate security council resolutions.

PeaceNik: But I thought many of our allies, including Israel,
were in violation of more security council resolutions than Iraq.

Warmonger: It's not just about UN resolutions. The main point
is that Iraq could have weapons of mass destruction, and the
first sign of a smoking gun could well be a mushroom cloud
over NY.

PeaceNik: Mushroom cloud? But I thought the weapons
inspectors said Iraq had no nuclear weapons ?

Warmonger: Yes, but biological and chemical weapons are
the issue .

PeaceNik: But I thought Iraq did not have any long range
missiles for attacking us or our allies with such weapons ?

Warmonger: The risk is not Iraq directly attacking us, but
rather terrorists networks that Iraq could sell the weapons to.

PeaceNik: But couldn't virtually any country sell chemical
or biological materials? We sold quite a bit to Iraq in the
eighties ourselves, didn't we?

Warmonger: That's ancient history. Look, Saddam Hussein
is an evil man that has an undeniable track record of
repressing his own people since the early eighties.
He gasses his enemies. Everyone agrees that he is a power-
hungry lunatic murderer.

PeaceNik We sold chemical and biological materials to a
power-hungry lunatic murderer?

Warmonger: The issue is not what we sold, but rather what
Saddam did. He is the one who launched a pre-emptive first
strike on Kuwait.

PeaceNik: A pre-emptive first strike does sound bad. But didn't our Ambassador to Iraq - April Gillespie - know
about and green-light the invasion of Kuwait?
Warmonger: Let's deal with the present, shall we?
As of today, Iraq could sell its biological and chemical weapons
to Al Quaida. Osama Bin Laden himself released an audio tape
calling on Iraqis to suicide-attack us, proving a partnership
between the two.

PeaceNik: Osama Bin Laden? Wasn't the point of invading
Afghanistan to kill him?

Warmonger: Actually, it's not 100% certain that it's really
Osama Bin Laden on the tapes. But the lesson from the tape is
the same: there could easily be a partnership between al-Quaida
and Saddam Hussein unless we act.

PeaceNik: Is this the same audio tape where
Osama Bin Laden labels Saddam a secular infidel?

Warmonger: You're missing the point by just focusing on the tape.
Powell presented a strong case against Iraq .

PeaceNik: He did?

Warmonger: Yes, he showed satellite pictures of an Al Quaida
poison factory in Iraq.

PeaceNik: But didn't that turn out to be a harmless shack in
the part of Iraq controlled by the Kurdish opposition?

Warmonger: - AND a British intelligence report.......

PeaceNik: Didn't that turn out to be copied from an
out-of-date graduate student paper?

Warmonger: - AND reports of mobile weapons labs....

PeaceNik: Weren't those just artistic renderings?

Warmonger: - AND reports of Iraqis scuttling and hiding
evidence from inspectors.. ....

PeaceNik; Wasn't that evidence contradicted by the chief
weapons inspector, Hans Blix?

Warmonger: Yes, but there is plenty of other hard evidencethat cannot be revealed because it would compromise our
security .

PeaceNik : So there is no publicly available evidence of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Warmonger: The inspectors are not detectives, it's not their JOB to find evidence. You're missing the point.

PeaceNik: So what is the point?

Warmonger: The main point is that we are invading Iraq
because resolution 1441 threatened "severe consequences."
If we do not act, the security council will become an irrelevant
debating society.

PeaceNik: So the main point is to uphold the rulings of
the security council?

Warmonger: Absolutely. ...unless it rules against us .

PeaceNik: And what if it does rule against us?

Warmonger: In that case, we must lead a coalition of the
' willing ' to invade Iraq.

PeaceNik: Coalition of the willing? Who's that?

Warmonger: Britain, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, and Italy, for
starters.

PeaceNik: I thought Turkey refused to help us unless we gave
them tens of billions of dollars ?

Warmonger: Nevertheless, they may now be willing.

PeaceNik: I thought public opinion in all those countries was
against war ?

Warmonger: Current public opinion is irrelevant. The majority
expresses its will by electing leaders to make decisions.

PeaceNik: So it's the decisions of leaders elected by the
majority that is important?

Warmonger: Yes.

PeaceNik: But George Bush wasn't elected by voters.
He was selected by the US Supreme C...-
Warmonger: I mean, we must support the decisions of our
leaders, however they were elected, because they are acting
in our best interest. This is about being a patriot. That's the
bottom line.

PeaceNik: So if we do not support the decisions of the
president, we are not patriotic?

Warmonger: I never said that .

PeaceNik: So what are you saying? Why are we invading Iraq?
Warmonger: As I said, because there is a chance that they have
weapons of mass destruction that threaten us and our allies.

PeaceNik But the inspectors have not been able to find any
such weapons.

Warmonger: Iraq is obviously hiding them.

PeaceNik: You know this? How?

Warmonger: Because we know they had the weapons ten years
ago, and they are still unaccounted for.

PeaceNik: The weapons we sold them, you mean?

Warmonger: Precisely.

PeaceNik: But I thought those biological and chemical weapons
would degrade to an unusable state over ten years ?

Warmonger: But there is a chance that some have not degraded.

PeaceNik: So as long as there is even a small chance that such
weapons exist, we must invade?

Warmonger: Exactly .

PeaceNik: But North Korea actually has large amounts of usable
chemical, biological, AND nuclear weapons, AND long range
missiles that can reach the West coast AND it has expelled nuclear
weapons inspectors, AND threatened to turn America into a sea
of fire.

Warmonger: That's a diplomatic issue .

PeaceNik: So why are we invading Iraq instead of using
diplomacy?
Warmonger: Aren't you listening? We are invading Iraq because
we cannot allow the inspections to drag on indefinitely. Iraq has
been delaying, deceiving, and denying for over ten years, and
inspections cost us tens of millions.

PeaceNik: But I thought war would cost us tens of billions ?

Warmonger: Yes, but this is not about money. This is about
security.

PeaceNik: But wouldn't a pre-emptive war against Iraq ignite
radical Muslim sentiments against us, and decrease our security?

Warmonger: Possibly, but we must not allow the terrorists to
change the way we live. Once we do that, the terrorists have already won.

PeaceNik: So what is the purpose of the Department of
Homeland Security, color-coded terror alerts, and the Patriot Act?
Don't these change the way we live?

Warmonger: I thought you had questions about Iraq ?

PeaceNik: I do. Why are we invading Iraq?

Warmonger: For the last time, we are invading Iraq because
the world has called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he has
failed to do so. He must now face the consequences .

PeaceNik: So, likewise, if the world called on us to do
something, such as find a peaceful solution, we would have an
obligation to listen?

Warmonger: By "world", I meant the United Nations .

PeaceNik: So, we have an obligation to listen to the
United Nations?

Warmonger: By "United Nations" I meant the Security Council.

PeaceNik: So, we have an obligation to listen to the
Security Council?

Warmonger: I meant the majority of the Security Council.

PeaceNik: So, we have an obligation to listen to the majority
of the Security Council?

Warmonger: Well... there could be an unreasonable veto .
PeaceNik: In which case?

Warmonger: In which case, we have an obligation to ignore
the veto.

PeaceNik: And if the majority of the Security Council does
not support us at all?

Warmonger: Then we have an obligation to ignore the
Security Council.

PeaceNik: That makes no sense .

Warmonger: If you love Iraq so much, you should move there.
Or maybe France, with the all the other cheese-eating surrender
monkeys. It's time to boycott their wine and cheese, no doubt
about that.

PeaceNik: I give up!

 

[JudgeWapner]

Actually would be funny,if not true.

 

[docmercer--banned]

and dont forget Cheneys in a 1992 news briefing:

"A final point that I think is very important. Everybody is fond of looking back at Desert Storm and saying that it was, in fact, a low cost conflict because we didn't suffer very many casualties. But for the 146 Americans who were killed in action and for their families, it was not a cheap or a low cost conflict. The question, to my mind, in terms of this notion that we should have gone on and occupied Iraq is how many additional American casualties would we have had to suffer? How many additional American lives is Saddam Hussein worth? And the answer I would give is not very damn many."

 

[wilheim]

WASHINGTON: Now that President George W. Bush's allegations about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and ambitious weapons programmes have been thoroughly discredited, another outstanding charge remains to be resolved.

During a campaign speech in September 2002, Bush cited a number of reasons - in addition to alleged terrorist links and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) about why Saddam was so dangerous to the US, noting, in particular that, "After all, this is the guy who tired to kill my dad."

He was referring, of course, to an alleged plot by Iraqi intelligence to assassinate Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush, during his triumphal visit to Kuwait in April, 1993, 25 months after US-led forces chased Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War and three months after Bush Sr. surrendered the White House to Bill Clinton.

Although he did not name his father, Bush Jr. also cited the assassination attempt in his September 2002 address at the United Nations General Assembly where he called on the UN Security Council to approve a tough resolution demanding that Saddam fully give up his (non-existent) WMD weapons and programmes.

While the alleged plot was never cited officially as a cause for going to war, some pundits - including Maureen Dowd of the 'New York Times'- have speculated that revenge or some oedipal desire to show up his father may indeed have been one of the factors that drove him to Baghdad - as the sign of one demonstrator suggested in a big anti-war march here just before the war: "I love my dad, too, but come on!"

The circumstances of the alleged plot, which ended in a trial and conviction of 11 Iraqis and three Kuwaitis, have always evoked scepticism, although Clinton himself was apparently sufficiently convinced after receiving reports from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to order a missile strike on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad that killed six civilians in June, 1993.

But a closer look at the 11-year-old plot, particularly in light of the findings by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the special team of experts that spent 15 months investigating Baghdad's WMD programmes, that they were all dismantled in 1991, shortly after the end of the Gulf War, may now be warranted, especially if Bush is still labouring under the impression that Saddam "tried to kill (his) dad".

While the ISG's 960-page report, known as the Duelfer Report, does not address the assassination attempt, its chronology and depiction of Saddam's worldview - adduced through lengthy interviews by one Arabic-speaking FBI investigator and other interviews of Saddam's closest advisers - make the notion that the Iraqi dictator tried to kill Bush all the more implausible.

For one thing, Saddam, according to the report, was convinced that the CIA had thoroughly penetrated his regime and thus would know not only that he had dismantled his WMD (which the CIA apparently did not), but also would know about his plans for important intelligence operations. Under those circumstances, it is hard to understand why he would then order an assassination attempt on the former US president.

Even more interesting, according to the report, was Saddam's "complicated" view of the US While he derived "prestige" from being an enemy of the US, he also considered it to be "equally prestigious for him to be an ally of the United States - and regular entreaties were made during the last decade to explore this alternative".

Indeed, beginning already in 1991, according to the report, "very senior Iraqis close to the President made proposals through intermediaries for dialogue with Washington."

"Baghdad offered flexibility on many issues, including offers to assist in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Moreover, in informal discussions, senior officials allowed that, if Iraq had a security relationship with the United States, it might be inclined to dispense with WMD programmes and/or ambitions," it added.

The report even concluded that Iraq was willing to be Washington's "best friend in the region bar none".

The fact that the US, under Bush Sr. and Clinton, did not show interest was apparently a source of bewilderment to the Iraqi leader, according to the Duelfer report.

If Saddam had tried to kill the ex-president, he probably would not have been bewildered by Washington's lack of interest, but, by all accounts, he was.

"From the report, Saddam seems to be not a madman, but someone who would understand very well the consequences of an assassination", notes Gregory Thielmann, a former senior State Department analyst who specialised in Iraq's WMD programmes.

"If his top priority was getting the (UN economic) sanctions lifted (as indicated by the report), then it doesn't follow that he would try to kill the president of the United States," added Thielmann.

As portrayed by both the alleged assassins and the Kuwaitis who grabbed them, the plot was itself deeply amateurish, dependent on the leadership of Wali Abdelhadi Ghazali, a 36-year- old male nurse, Raad Abdel-Amir al-Assadi, from Najaf, and a dozen Iraqi whiskey smugglers led by a 33-year-old owner of a coffee shop in Basra that was meeting-place for cross-border smugglers. Despite his age, al-Assadi confessed to being a colonel in the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, according to the Kuwait authorities.

Ghazali, who initially said he was approached and supplied with explosives and cars by the Mukhabarat was the only person in the group who knew that Bush was the target. Other defendants confessed to transporting explosives across the border from Iraq but insisted they had no idea what they were for.

Both Ghazali and Assadi retracted their confessions during the trial, claiming that they were extracted by repeated beatings. At the time, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International expressed strong doubts that the trials could be fair, noting that it had received credible reports of severe beatings meted out to defendants accused of capital crimes in Kuwait. Assadi insisted that he was asked by the Mukhabarat to plant bombs around shopping centres in Kuwait City.

US investigators, however, reported that they believed the confessions were not coerced and noted the similarity in the construction of the bombs found with the Iraqis with one known to have been built in Iraq in 1991.

In October, 1993, however, New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh assailed the government's case as "seriously flawed", noting among other problems that seven bomb experts had told him that the devices were mass-produced and probably not even manufactured in Iraq.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who met with Saddam when he served as US charge d'affaires in Baghdad during the Gulf War, said he found the plot "odd".



-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.

 

[eek.]

There is still this suppressed 9/11 report too.


http://www.robertscheer.com/


The 9/11 Secret in the CIA's Back Pocket
The Agency is withholding a damning report that points at senior officials
October 19, 2004 – It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

When I asked about the report, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she and committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a letter 14 days ago asking for it to be delivered. "We believe that the CIA has been told not to distribute the report," she said. "We are very concerned."

According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.

The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress.

"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

By law, the only legitimate reason the CIA director has for holding back such a report is national security. Yet neither Goss nor McLaughlin has invoked national security as an explanation for not delivering the report to Congress.

"It surely does not involve issues of national security," said the intelligence official.

"The agency directorate is basically sitting on the report until after the election," the official continued. "No previous director of CIA has ever tried to stop the inspector general from releasing a report to the Congress, in this case a report requested by Congress."

None of this should surprise us given the Bush administration's great determination since 9/11 to resist any serious investigation into how the security of this nation was so easily breached. In Bush's much ballyhooed war on terror, ignorance has been bliss.

The president fought against the creation of the Sept. 11 commission, for example, agreeing only after enormous political pressure was applied by a grass-roots movement led by the families of those slain.

And then Bush refused to testify to the commission under oath, or on the record. Instead he deigned only to chat with the commission members, with Vice President Dick Cheney present, in a White House meeting in which commission members were not allowed to take notes. All in all, strange behavior for a man who seeks reelection to the top office in the land based on his handling of the so-called war on terror.

In September, the New York Times reported that several family members met with Goss privately to demand the release of the CIA inspector general's report. "Three thousand people were killed on 9/11, and no one has been held accountable," 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser told the paper.

The failure to furnish the report to Congress, said Harman, "fuels the perception that no one is being held accountable. It is unacceptable that we don't have [the report]; it not only disrespects Congress but it disrespects the American people."

The stonewalling by the Bush administration and the failure of Congress to gain release of the report have, said the intelligence source, "led the management of the CIA to believe it can engage in a cover-up with impunity. Unless the public demands an accounting, the administration and CIA's leadership will have won and the nation will have lost." <!--STORY ENDS-->

 

[JinnRikki]

If ignorance is bliss bush supporters surely must be the happiest people on the planet.

arty:

 

[Shotgun]

WASHINGTON: Now that President George W. Bush's allegations about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ties to Al Qaeda and ambitious weapons programmes have been thoroughly discredited, another outstanding charge remains to be resolved.

Someone should read the 9-11 commision report regarding ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda...all depends on the definition of "ties" I guess:

Page 58 - Bin Laden built his Islamic army with groups in various countries, including Iraq.



Page 61 - Bin Laden willing to explore a relationship with Iraq.



Page 61 - Bin Laden agrees to stop supporting activities against Saddam; Reports indicate Saddam may have supported, or at least tolerated, Ansar al-Islam.



Page 61 - Bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, and asked for assistance. No evidence of an Iraqi response. This was not the last attempt.



Page 66 - Iraq took the initiative to contact Al Qaeda.



Page 125 - Clarke points out that Iraq had discussed hosting Bin Laden.



Page 128 - Clarke suggests that a chemical factory is probably the result of an Iraq-Al Qaeda agreement. Chemical evidence backs that up.



Page 134 - Clarke discusses the possibility--even likelihood--that Bin Laden would move to Baghdad, if attacked in Afghanistan, and cooperate with Saddam.


Page 334 - Clarke's report found anecdotal evidence of an Iraqi link to Al Qaeda, but no compelling case that Iraq was involved in 9/11.

Page 335 - DoD presents the three priorities: al Qaeda, the Taliban, Iraq


Page 335 - Bush did not accept that Iraq was an immediate priority.



Page 335 - Bush decides Iraq is off the table, barring new information.


Page 335 - A WoT Phase Two could include Iraq, if necessary.


Page 335 - Wolfowitz continues to push for Iraq.


Page 336 - Blair asks about Iraq; Bush tells him Iraq is not the immediate problem.



Page 336 - CENTCOM/General Franks wanted to plan for possible movement against Iraq. Bush rejected it.


Page 502 - Iraqi Fedayeen member not involved with 9/11 plot.

Page 559 - Clarke and Bush dispute versions of post-9/11 meeting. Clarke's secretary claims they did meet, but Bush's manner was not "intimidating".


Page 559 - No credible evidence of Iraqi involvement in 1993 WTC bombing.

 

[GAMEFACE]

All of you'd be the first to say Bush didn't connect the dots if we got hit again. Bush did the right thing, he had no other option. Bushs #1 job is national security, it's not abortion, gay marriage or animal rights. France, clinton, Kerry, the UN and saddam all agreed he had/has the weapons.

 

[Marco]

I would be surprised to even see the report coming out at all, factoring in the level of corruption and secrecy the current administration has achieved....

As far as the "go after Iraq because they tried to kill my daddy" charge.....

I'm pretty sure an Iranian farted in the same room as Dubya Senior at one time or another, and this is clearly grounds to invade Iran come the 3rd or 4th of November....:heh:

Should Dubya win, please take the invisible cap off the national credit card so Mr Dubya can continue spending the USA into oblivion.....I'd hate to take a trillion dollar hit from a terrorist when I can take a 3 or 4 trillion dollar hit (or more) from a president on a spending spree....:biglaugh:

"Mission Accomplished".....:biglaugh: :biglaugh:

 

[Marco]

"Bushs #1 job is national security, it's not abortion, gay marriage or animal rights"

Seems like Dubya spent a lot of quality homophobic time worrying about who was getting married....how much money did he piss away on that issue?