Debunking 8 Anti-War Myths About The Conflict In Iraq

[Hayabusa Rider]

THis place is still as screwed up as it ever was. The Orwellian right is mad as ever.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Hayabusa Rider
THis place is still as screwed up as it ever was. The Orwellian right is mad as ever.

And in deep denial, too.

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Originally posted by: conjur
R E P O S T

But, for sh*ts and giggles, my response in that thread:

1) People "in the know" knew Saddam didn't have WMDs and many thought the WMD programs were non-existent (esp. the nuclear program). Inspections were finding that out so the Propagandist pulled the inspectors out and invaded Iraq before the charade was completely exposed.

2) Documented deaths are ~25,000 civilians (check out http://iraqbodycount.net) so it's rather conservative to estimate many more deaths that were not documented or were related to the invasion/occupation (most importantly, injuries/illnesses that went untreated due to non-existent or lacking healthcare due to the fighting)

3) Google for Devon Largio. Read the paper that shows how the administration intimated the two were linked. How else do you explain a sizable % of Americans that actually think Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks?? And there's this: "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

4) I don't know of many people, if any at all, that claim the invasion was planned in 1998. The Propagandist didn't have war plans for Iraq until after 9/11 when he had Rumsfeld task Gen. Franks with creating one. Although, Cheney was mapping out Iraq's oil fields within days of taking office.

5) Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror. There were no car bombings in Iraq. There were no suicide bombings of restaurants in Iraq. Women were part of the work force and encouraged to attend schools. Women were not forced to wear hijabs or even burqas (see current life in Basra, Falluja, etc.) Terror attacks have increased dramatically around world since Iraq was invaded/occupied and that doesn't even include the attacks within Iraq itself.

6) Saddam had no ties to terrorism. Any ties were tenuous, at best. Syria and Iran, however, were and are another story.

7) We've been over this MANY times up here. Go check out the utter pwnage of heartsurgeon in the archives. There was no collaboration between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Bin Laden despised Saddam and sought to have his Al Qaeda organization protect the Saudi holy cities of Mecca and Medina *from* Saddam.

8) The Downing Street Minutes and several other documents that have recently appeared show the state of mind of this administration. War was inevitable and evidence was being concocted to justify invasion. Just look at the massive ramp-up of bombing attacks in the no-fly zones in the months leading up to the invasion.

And now some new stuff:

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents.

Indeed, the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004, according to congressional sources. Both Republicans and Democrats requested then that it be turned over. The administration has refused to provide it, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

...

The conclusions drawn in the lengthier CIA assessment-which has also been denied to the committee-were strikingly similar to those provided to President Bush in the September 21 PDB, according to records and sources. In the four years since Bush received the briefing, according to highly placed government officials, little evidence has come to light to contradict the CIA's original conclusion that no collaborative relationship existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"What the President was told on September 21," said one former high-level official, "was consistent with everything he has been told since-that the evidence was just not there."

In arguing their case for war with Iraq, the president and vice president said after the September 11 attacks that Al Qaeda and Iraq had significant ties, and they cited the possibility that Iraq might share chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons with Al Qaeda for a terrorist attack against the United States.

...

But a comparison of public statements by the president, the vice president, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld show that in the days just before a congressional vote authorizing war, they professed to have been given information from U.S. intelligence assessments showing evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.

"You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

The next day, Rumsfeld said, "We have what we consider to be credible evidence that Al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts with Iraq who could help them acquire ? weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities."

The most explosive of allegations came from Cheney, who said that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, had met in Prague, in the Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, five months before the attacks. On December 9, 2001, Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press: "(I)t's pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in [the Czech Republic] last April, several months before the attack."

Cheney continued to make the charge, even after he was briefed, according to government records and officials, that both the CIA and the FBI discounted the possibility of such a meeting.

...

The Plame affair was not so much a reflection of any personal animus toward Wilson or Plame, says one former senior administration official who knows most of the principals involved, but rather the direct result of long-standing antipathy toward the CIA by Cheney, Libby, and others involved. They viewed Wilson's outspoken criticism of the Bush administration as an indirect attack by the spy agency.

Those grievances were also perhaps illustrated by comments that Vice President Cheney himself wrote on one of Feith's reports detailing purported evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In barely legible handwriting, Cheney wrote in the margin of the report:

"This is very good indeed ? Encouraging ? Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA."

No wonder Feith is now the target of a Pentagon information. It's as plain as the noses on everyone's faces that Feith and his OSP were stovepiping intelligence directly to the WH, bypassing the vetting process by the CIA so the WHIG could get the "intel" they wanted.


/thread

1. No, there were some people who didn't think the intel was correct, but there definately was intel that suggested there was. For you to claim inspections were finding that out is a lie. Inspections weren't doing anything more than they had in previous years.
2. Iraq body count :roll: Anyway, it seems that the "freedom fighters" (or rather terrorists) are the ones targeting and killing civilians. It's also difficult to say if these people were engaged or not in battle. Just because they wear civilian clothes doesn't mean they are civilians. It's pretty weak to attempt to claim those deaths are due to the US.
3. The war on terror included Saddam/Iraq. You may not think so but it is. But your opinion doesn't mean Bush tried to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks. He in fact stated outright that "It?s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11"
4. and?
5. Yeah, because Saddam was a brutal dictator. Yeah, I suppose it isn't a "terror attack" when you and your family are kidnapped and raped/beaten if the person doing it is in charge of the country.:roll:
6. There are ties. He did in fact pay suicide bomber's families. There were terrorists in Iraq, and training camps there. You can try to claim Saddam didn't like them or they weren't under his control but if there was one thing Saddam had in his country, it was control. He knew, and didn't remove them.
7. Not so fast. There was no collaberation shown in the 9/11 attacks. But to say anything definative beyond that is speculation. Are you calling Lee Hamiliton a liar?
8. Speculation at best. Trying to claim a document proves a state of mind is a rather pathetic attempt at trying to say Bush "lied"

I'm not sure what your other cut/paste is intended to show. Bush has said that Saddam wasn't involved. Keep trying to say he did though.:laugh:

 

[ZeGermans]

Ok, let me take a stab at this, since I'm moderate left and not rabidly wacko-left like many in this forum.

1. This is true, but under extenuating circumstances. Both sides were singing the same tune in that respect, but the information specific people saw is what's up for debate. The left is saying the president has access to more specific intelligence than congress. I'm included to agree with them. Did this intelligence go against the idea of WMDs? We'll never know, so it's pure speculation.

2. That's a pretty rediculous Confidence Interval. However, following a standard curve, the chances of the casualties being 8,000 or 294,000 are nearly zero. If a 70% or 80% confidence interval were chosen, the range would be MUCH slimmer. However, 95% is generally accepted as what's needed to make a statistical certainty, so that's what they'd have to go with.

Quick stat lesson:
CI 95% 8000-294,000 means that the actual value has a 95% chance of being in this range. So if it were, arbitrarily, CI 50% 70,000-130,000, there's a 50/50 shot it's in that range.

3. Politics. The Bush adminstration went to extreme lengths to never say it, but went to even further lenghts to make sure to insinuate a connection in almost every pro-war speech they came up with. They new the public remember 9/11 well, and wanted to use the horrors of that day to fuel support for the war. Only problem was Iraq had no influence on that attack, so their (admitedly) brilliantly crafted war campaign kicked in and got the ball rolling.

4. I don't know enough to make an educated reply, but I would think it's common sense to keep ready-to-go invasion plans for any non-friendly nation, so I don't see what the big deal is.

5. This is a sticky issue. Iraq has in the past supported terrorists. Anti-Israel terrorists. The administration loves to lump all terrorists into one camp, but that simply doesn't work. That'd be like saying we should invade chechnya because of ties to terrorism. Though, ironically, Iraq has far more anti-AMERICA terroists in it now than it ever had before. Guess Israel is at least relieved.

6. Same point as above, his most extensive ties are to groups like Hamas, etc. His links to groups like Al queda are not very strong. But this gets to the next point...

7. The 9/11 commision said there was no collaborative relationship. Isn't that what matters? So Saddam's regime talk to Al-Qaeda's guys. Big deal. You're probably thinking, "Well it could have led to more than 'talks'." My own personal opinion, if they've had mutual american hatred for more than 15 years now, wouldn't they have collaborated by now if such a relationship were idealistically possible?

8. Way to much conjecture in this memo to really enter into a logical discussion, so I'm not even gonna talk about it.

Figured I'd at least add something constructive to this discussion.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
1. No, there were some people who didn't think the intel was correct, but there definately was intel that suggested there was. For you to claim inspections were finding that out is a lie. Inspections weren't doing anything more than they had in previous years.

The only intel that suggested there were WMDs was the manufactured intel coming out of the OSP (courtesy "Curveball" and other INC toadies of Chalabi).

As for inspections:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iraq-04c.html

Kay told "Arms Control Today" that Iraq did not fully account for The destruction of their prohibited stockpiles because "some were destroyed in ways that the Iraqis were embarrassed to admit" and "some disappeared in the normal chaos and accidents that occurred" since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Kay said the final ISG report would document that some weapons material and biological agents were disposed of in ways that were not approved of by the regime and dangerous to the health of people in Baghdad.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1845

Until now, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who was killed shortly after returning to Iraq in 1996, was best known for his role in exposing Iraq's deceptions about how far its pre-Gulf War biological weapons programs had advanced. But Newsweek's John Barry-- who has covered Iraqi weapons inspections for more than a decade-- obtained the transcript of Kamel's 1995 debriefing by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. inspections team known as UNSCOM.

Inspectors were told "that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them," Barry wrote. All that remained ere "hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches" and production molds. The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Barry reported, and "a military aide who defected with Kamel... backed Kamel's assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks."

But these statements were "hushed up by the U.N. inspectors" in order to "bluff Saddam into disclosing still more."

CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek report. "It is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue," Harlow told Reuters (2/24/03) the day the report appeared.

But on Wednesday (2/26/03), a complete copy of the Kamel transcript-- an internal UNSCOM/IAEA document stamped "sensitive"-- was obtained by Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who in early February revealed that Tony Blair's "intelligence dossier" was plagiarized from a student thesis. This transcript can be seen at
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf.

In the transcript (p. 13), Kamel says bluntly: "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."

And I recommend the transcript of this Scott Ritter interview:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/11/int05045.html

Also, the U.S. rejected a French-German initiative to triple the number inspectors:
http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2003/0210/epf107.htm

The inspectors were asking the U.S. where to search and every place was turning up nothing.

This adminstration KNEW what was going on and ended inspections before the cover was pulled off of the charade and the justification for invading disappeared.

2. Iraq body count :roll: Anyway, it seems that the "freedom fighters" (or rather terrorists) are the ones targeting and killing civilians. It's also difficult to say if these people were engaged or not in battle. Just because they wear civilian clothes doesn't mean they are civilians. It's pretty weak to attempt to claim those deaths are due to the US.

Yes, http://iraqbodycount.net

Review their methodology and stop with the dismissive spin. Your response on this point is very weak.

3. The war on terror included Saddam/Iraq. You may not think so but it is. But your opinion doesn't mean Bush tried to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks. He in fact stated outright that "It?s not that Saddam Hussein was somehow himself and his regime involved in 9/11"

Oh?

"You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

What's that say to you? What's that say to the average American? Hmmm?

How about these?

http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_10...s/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf

?In a November 7, 2002, speech, President Bush stated: Saddam Hussein is a threat because he is dealing with Al Qaida. . . . [A] true threat facing
our country is that an Al Qaida-type network trained and armed by
Saddam could attack America and not leave one fingerprint.? 100
? In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, President Bush stated:
?Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and
statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and
protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without
fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or
help them develop their own.?101
? In his February 5, 2003, remarks to the United Nations, Secretary of State
Colin Powell stated: ?what I want to bring to your attention today is the
potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda
terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and
modern methods of murder. Iraq

4. and?

Exactly. Your OP's point #4 was very weak. But, everyone already knew that.

5. Yeah, because Saddam was a brutal dictator. Yeah, I suppose it isn't a "terror attack" when you and your family are kidnapped and raped/beaten if the person doing it is in charge of the country.:roll:

You mean like the increased kidnappings, executions, murders, and Taliban-esque rule throughout Iraq now? There have been MANY other brutal dictators and the U.S. hasn't invaded them. Your argument here is again very weak.

6. There are ties. He did in fact pay suicide bomber's families. There were terrorists in Iraq, and training camps there. You can try to claim Saddam didn't like them or they weren't under his control but if there was one thing Saddam had in his country, it was control. He knew, and didn't remove them.

Saddam did not have control over the areas protected by the no-fly zones, esp. not in the Kurdish areas. And, paying the surviving families of suicide bombers is such a tenuous link that even thinking of using that as justification to invade is simply astounding. Why didn't we invade Palestine and destroy it?

7. Not so fast. There was no collaberation shown in the 9/11 attacks. But to say anything definative beyond that is speculation. Are you calling Lee Hamiliton a liar?

I was simply quoting the 9/11 Commission's findings.

8. Speculation at best. Trying to claim a document proves a state of mind is a rather pathetic attempt at trying to say Bush "lied"

Far from speculation. I suggest you actually READ the DSM along with the article I linked earlier in this threa (and created a new thread for, in fact.)

I'm not sure what your other cut/paste is intended to show. Bush has said that Saddam wasn't involved. Keep trying to say he did though.:laugh:

See my response to #8. It goes to show the invasion of Iraq was premeditated and based upon falsified intelligence and a willful attempt by the administration to deceive the Congress and the American public and the UN.

 

[lanche]

Originally posted by: conjur
R E P O S T

But, for sh*ts and giggles, my response in that thread:

1) People "in the know" knew Saddam didn't have WMDs and many thought the WMD programs were non-existent (esp. the nuclear program). Inspections were finding that out so the Propagandist pulled the inspectors out and invaded Iraq before the charade was completely exposed.

2) Documented deaths are ~25,000 civilians (check out http://iraqbodycount.net) so it's rather conservative to estimate many more deaths that were not documented or were related to the invasion/occupation (most importantly, injuries/illnesses that went untreated due to non-existent or lacking healthcare due to the fighting)

3) Google for Devon Largio. Read the paper that shows how the administration intimated the two were linked. How else do you explain a sizable % of Americans that actually think Saddam was linked to the 9/11 attacks?? And there's this: "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

4) I don't know of many people, if any at all, that claim the invasion was planned in 1998. The Propagandist didn't have war plans for Iraq until after 9/11 when he had Rumsfeld task Gen. Franks with creating one. Although, Cheney was mapping out Iraq's oil fields within days of taking office.

5) Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror. There were no car bombings in Iraq. There were no suicide bombings of restaurants in Iraq. Women were part of the work force and encouraged to attend schools. Women were not forced to wear hijabs or even burqas (see current life in Basra, Falluja, etc.) Terror attacks have increased dramatically around world since Iraq was invaded/occupied and that doesn't even include the attacks within Iraq itself.

6) Saddam had no ties to terrorism. Any ties were tenuous, at best. Syria and Iran, however, were and are another story.

7) We've been over this MANY times up here. Go check out the utter pwnage of heartsurgeon in the archives. There was no collaboration between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Bin Laden despised Saddam and sought to have his Al Qaeda organization protect the Saudi holy cities of Mecca and Medina *from* Saddam.

8) The Downing Street Minutes and several other documents that have recently appeared show the state of mind of this administration. War was inevitable and evidence was being concocted to justify invasion. Just look at the massive ramp-up of bombing attacks in the no-fly zones in the months leading up to the invasion.

And now some new stuff:

Key Bush Intelligence Briefing Kept From Hill Panel
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm

Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.

One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources.

...

The Senate Intelligence Committee has asked the White House for the CIA assessment, the PDB of September 21, 2001, and dozens of other PDBs as part of the committee's ongoing investigation into whether the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information in the run-up to war with Iraq. The Bush administration has refused to turn over these documents.

Indeed, the existence of the September 21 PDB was not disclosed to the Intelligence Committee until the summer of 2004, according to congressional sources. Both Republicans and Democrats requested then that it be turned over. The administration has refused to provide it, even on a classified basis, and won't say anything more about it other than to acknowledge that it exists.

...

The conclusions drawn in the lengthier CIA assessment-which has also been denied to the committee-were strikingly similar to those provided to President Bush in the September 21 PDB, according to records and sources. In the four years since Bush received the briefing, according to highly placed government officials, little evidence has come to light to contradict the CIA's original conclusion that no collaborative relationship existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

"What the President was told on September 21," said one former high-level official, "was consistent with everything he has been told since-that the evidence was just not there."

In arguing their case for war with Iraq, the president and vice president said after the September 11 attacks that Al Qaeda and Iraq had significant ties, and they cited the possibility that Iraq might share chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons with Al Qaeda for a terrorist attack against the United States.

...

But a comparison of public statements by the president, the vice president, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld show that in the days just before a congressional vote authorizing war, they professed to have been given information from U.S. intelligence assessments showing evidence of an Iraq-Al Qaeda link.

"You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush said on September 25, 2002.

The next day, Rumsfeld said, "We have what we consider to be credible evidence that Al Qaeda leaders have sought contacts with Iraq who could help them acquire ? weapons-of-mass-destruction capabilities."

The most explosive of allegations came from Cheney, who said that September 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, had met in Prague, in the Czech Republic, with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent, Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, five months before the attacks. On December 9, 2001, Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press: "(I)t's pretty well confirmed that [Atta] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in [the Czech Republic] last April, several months before the attack."

Cheney continued to make the charge, even after he was briefed, according to government records and officials, that both the CIA and the FBI discounted the possibility of such a meeting.

...

The Plame affair was not so much a reflection of any personal animus toward Wilson or Plame, says one former senior administration official who knows most of the principals involved, but rather the direct result of long-standing antipathy toward the CIA by Cheney, Libby, and others involved. They viewed Wilson's outspoken criticism of the Bush administration as an indirect attack by the spy agency.

Those grievances were also perhaps illustrated by comments that Vice President Cheney himself wrote on one of Feith's reports detailing purported evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. In barely legible handwriting, Cheney wrote in the margin of the report:

"This is very good indeed ? Encouraging ? Not like the crap we are all so used to getting out of CIA."

No wonder Feith is now the target of a Pentagon information. It's as plain as the noses on everyone's faces that Feith and his OSP were stovepiping intelligence directly to the WH, bypassing the vetting process by the CIA so the WHIG could get the "intel" they wanted.


/thread

:gift:

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/ByronYork/111705.html

http://www.nationalreview.com/levin/levin.asp

 

[ShadesOfGrey]

Actually conjur, you are entitled to your opinions but just because you want to read into a bunch of links doesn't change what the facts are.
1. There is documented intel, you trying to play this "curveball" BS doesn't change that.
2. No spin, just the truth. You nor anyone else can seperate who caused the deaths, but the facts are that the terrorists are targetting them, and we are not.
3. Exactly, War on terror does not mean the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror does not only include OBL and Al Aqaeda.
4. No, your so-called response to #4 was what is weak. You offered nothing.
5. You were the one who tried to paint Iraq as nice before the evil Americans(TM) removed Saddam. I was pointing out that just because the person doing the terrorizing is the leader doesn't mean it isn't terrorism. Also, your straw man about evil dictators and invading is noted. Invasion isn't mandatory for all situations just because it is used in one.
6. BS, you can claim he didn't have control but if there is one thing Saddam had, it was control over his country. He showed he would put down anyone who he didn't like, so don't even try to say he didn't want them there. No one is using the paying to justify the invasion, but it is part of his link to terrorism which you and others keep trying to claim he didn't have. Quit with the "invasion" straw men.
7. No, you went way beyond what they said. They said no collaberation for the 9/11 attacks. "we don't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative, relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and these Al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States" Are you calling Hamilton a liar?
8. I have read them, it doesn't prove he "lied" nor does it prove his state of mind. You can speculate all you wish but that is all it is - speculation.

No, you extra cut/paste was more of the same lame attempts to try to suggest Bush said Saddam was involved in 9/11. Bush did not say that, he said the opposite.

It's hilarious that you people think the Bush did all these things yet he is some stupid "chimp" 😛 Somehow he and his neocon buddies got the UN to pass tons of resolutions and all these agencies to report all this intel before he was even the President. Oh, I forgot, history regarding Iraq restarted on day 1 of Bush's first term in office. :roll: Yeah, the CIA was the lap dog for Bush, the NIE was just a pack of "lies" that Bush told them to put in there. Do you people even realize what it is you are claiming with all this conspiracy BS?

 

[jackschmittusa]

ShadesOfGrey

You are a fool if you do not think that GWB and co. made constant references to Iraq and 9-11 for the purpose of having people form the mental link. It was a planned, concerted effort, and according to several polls, it worked.

 

[Future Shock]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
5. Yeah, because Saddam was a brutal dictator. Yeah, I suppose it isn't a "terror attack" when you and your family are kidnapped and raped/beaten if the person doing it is in charge of the country.:roll:
6. There are ties. He did in fact pay suicide bomber's families. There were terrorists in Iraq, and training camps there. You can try to claim Saddam didn't like them or they weren't under his control but if there was one thing Saddam had in his country, it was control. He knew, and didn't remove them.
7. Not so fast. There was no collaberation shown in the 9/11 attacks. But to say anything definative beyond that is speculation. Are you calling Lee Hamiliton a liar?

5) You answered (correctly this time) your OP - Saddam wasn't involved in terror attacks - he was the ruler of the country. Frankly, nothing he did is worse than is what is going on in Sudan right now in terms of it's overall impact on subgroups of the population - but I don't see us spending billions per month helping Sudan. Worse, anyone who is familiar with Pakistan's current regime (you know, our close friends in the war against terror) will quickly notice that many of the same behaviours you attribute to Saddam are currently practiced by Pakistan's secret police and military dictatorship...when do we invade?

The answer is that to even try to defend this point you have to define two different standards of judgement and action, one for Saddam, and one for every other country where we are either not helping, or even turning a blind eye and supporting the regime. Which, frankly, renders the arguement a lie, pure plain and simple...

6) Yes, Saddam has always been known to be anti-Israel, just like the governments of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran...well, virtually the entire Arab Middle East with the exceptions of Jordan and perhaps Egypt. Again - you are presenting a seperate standard for judging and taking action against Saddam - he paid compensation to those who suffered repraisals from the Israelis - but Lebanon continues to act as a staging area and have training camps, Syria funds, recruits terrorists, and provides training camps, Iran funds and provides expertise, Saudi Arabia funds...interestingly, I have never seen any report that Saddam had training camps, if you can provide a link for your assertion that he did (from a credible source, not a blog) I would be interested.

7) Actually, it is NOT speculation - right wing Secretary of State Brent Scowcroft stated VERY CLEARLY in his August 15th 2002 op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that they KNEW there was no relation between Saddam and Al Q...at all. This was pre-invasion. Are you calling Bush Sr.'s and Ford's Sec of State a liar???

Future Shock

NB- I will take time to respond to the rest later, gotta work...

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: ShadesOfGrey
Actually conjur, you are entitled to your opinions but just because you want to read into a bunch of links doesn't change what the facts are.
1. There is documented intel, you trying to play this "curveball" BS doesn't change that.

I see. You're in deep denial. It's ok. We forgive you. Years of Rush and FOX News will turn the brain to mush. It's not your fault.

2. No spin, just the truth. You nor anyone else can seperate who caused the deaths, but the facts are that the terrorists are targetting them, and we are not.

Start reading:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Any death from mortar rounds, bombs, bullets, car bombs, etc. are on the shoulders of this administration. There was NONE of that in Iraq before the U.S. invaded. NONE.

3. Exactly, War on terror does not mean the 9/11 attacks. The war on terror does not only include OBL and Al Aqaeda.

Never said it did. But to say Iraq is part of the war on terror ignores the FACT that the U.S. MADE Iraq part of it now. The U.S. invasion caused this to happen. We had most of Al Qaeda corraled in an area around the Afghani/Pakistani border. Now they're all over Iraq, too. "Heckuva job there, Georgie."

4. No, your so-called response to #4 was what is weak. You offered nothing.

Becase your original #4 wasn't even really worth responding to. It's making a mountain out of an anthill and is just looking to create an argument where none really exists.

5. You were the one who tried to paint Iraq as nice before the evil Americans(TM) removed Saddam. I was pointing out that just because the person doing the terrorizing is the leader doesn't mean it isn't terrorism. Also, your straw man about evil dictators and invading is noted. Invasion isn't mandatory for all situations just because it is used in one.

I was trying to paint Iraq as nice? Care to point out exactly where I was doing so? And I gave no straw man argument. There are other countries that actually do represent threats to the U.S. but they were ignored in order for the administration to go after the low-hanging fruit.

6. BS, you can claim he didn't have control but if there is one thing Saddam had, it was control over his country. He showed he would put down anyone who he didn't like, so don't even try to say he didn't want them there. No one is using the paying to justify the invasion, but it is part of his link to terrorism which you and others keep trying to claim he didn't have. Quit with the "invasion" straw men.

Again, repeating a lie doesn't make it true. But, keep on spinning. It's fun watching you make yourself dizzy. BTW, here's what your beloved Dr. Rice had to say in 2001:

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

7. No, you went way beyond what they said. They said no collaberation for the 9/11 attacks. "we don't have any evidence of a cooperative, or a corroborative, relationship between Saddam Hussein's government and these Al Qaeda operatives with regard to the attacks on the United States" Are you calling Hamilton a liar?

BZZZT! WRONG!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

The staff report said that bin Laden "explored possible cooperation with Iraq" while in Sudan through 1996, but that "Iraq apparently never responded" to a bin Laden request for help in 1994. The commission cited reports of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda after bin Laden went to Afghanistan in 1996, adding, "but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship. Two senior bin Laden associates have adamantly denied that any ties existed between al Qaeda and Iraq. We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

It goes beyond just 9/11 as you are trying to insinuate.

8. I have read them, it doesn't prove he "lied" nor does it prove his state of mind. You can speculate all you wish but that is all it is - speculation.

To anyone willing to look at the situation with a critical and probing mind, yes, it is proof (along with many other documents) that this administration was going to invade Iraq no matter what.

No, you extra cut/paste was more of the same lame attempts to try to suggest Bush said Saddam was involved in 9/11. Bush did not say that, he said the opposite.

Again, wrong. It's obvious you didn't read that article. That article states that the administration knew that there was NO link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. Yet, this administration (not just the Propagandist but others as well - Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Powell, etc.) worked diligently for the next several months to tie Iraq to 9/11 in the public's eye and persuade Congress of the same. I know it's a lot of reading but, here ya go:
http://www.pol.uiuc.edu/news/largio.htm

It's hilarious that you people think the Bush did all these things yet he is some stupid "chimp" 😛 Somehow he and his neocon buddies got the UN to pass tons of resolutions and all these agencies to report all this intel before he was even the President. Oh, I forgot, history regarding Iraq restarted on day 1 of Bush's first term in office. :roll: Yeah, the CIA was the lap dog for Bush, the NIE was just a pack of "lies" that Bush told them to put in there. Do you people even realize what it is you are claiming with all this conspiracy BS?

Again you try to pigeonhole the entire argument into it being just the Propagandist. It was FAR more than just him. FAR more.

 

[GoPackGo]

Im pretty sure their were plenty of people getting shot by bullets in Iraq pre-March 2003

 

[conjur]

Not to the extent they are now. Not by a long shot. I guess I did open myself to that criticism. 😉

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: conjur
Not to the extent they are now. Not by a long shot. I guess I did open myself to that criticism. 😉

Like I said before...we could have sent in a some teams to take out Saddam and his boys (his boys especially) and it would have been easier.

Remember all the talk about Saddam having a bunch of body doubles? Where are they? Was that all BS?

 

[conjur]

I think that's what the DB/ROCKSTARS were trying to do and they damn near got Saddam about 2 days before the initial invasion.

But, if he had been assassinated (which wouldn't have been a first time for the U.S. to have done so), who would have replaced him? It might have gotten worse. The best option was further containment but with modified sanctions as Powell was trying to get to.

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: conjur
I think that's what the DB/ROCKSTARS were trying to do and they damn near got Saddam about 2 days before the initial invasion.

But, if he had been assassinated (which wouldn't have been a first time for the U.S. to have done so), who would have replaced him? It might have gotten worse. The best option was further containment but with modified sanctions as Powell was trying to get to.

Any assassination of saddam would have had to include his sons...in fact you would kill them first before taking out saddam.

 

[conjur]

Coulda put Baghdad Bob in charge! Think of the fun that would have been!

 

[GoPackGo]

Originally posted by: conjur
Coulda put Baghdad Bob in charge! Think of the fun that would have been!

I liked him...felt sorry for him in a way...

"pay no attention to the US soldiers entering Baghdad"

 

[eilute]

1. The administration said things that were EXTREMEMLY misleading. Bush and Cheney repeatedly said that Saddam and al Qaida had links. The only way that this is not a lie is if you split hairs

2. A lot of people HAVE died.The possibility that it might be 194,000 would bother a lot of people.

3. He implied that there was a link.

4. I've actually never heard this one. Although Cheney has been a long time war proponent.

5. The Iraq war has nothing to do with the war on terror. Your debunking here is just plain false. Iraq did not support terrorism as we in America know it. In the wake of 9/11 the word "terrorist" did not reffer to the Isreal Palestine conflict.

6. Hussein and al Qaida were enemies. Removing Hussein means removing an enemy of al Qaida. Bush once said that Hussein "is a man that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army." This is either a lie or a demonstration of gross incompetence.

7. Covered in number 6

8. I'm not going to get into the Dwonign Street memo thing.

....I nominate ShadesOfGrey for the troll of the day award.