If 9/11 never happened would we have gone to war with Iraq?

[AccruedExpenditure]

IIRC the Bush Administration was pushing for a more isolationist policy until 9-11... Correct me if i'm mistaken?

 

[bdude]

Somewhat. That still doesn't mean Iraq wasn't on the radar of the Bush Admin.

 

[rickn]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
IIRC the Bush Administration was pushing for a more isolationist policy until 9-11... Correct me if i'm mistaken?

yes, I think Bush planned to attack Iraq long time ago, well before 9/11. He didn't like Saddam putthing out a hit on his daddy. Texas justice.

 

[techs]

Yes. It was Bushes plan all along. We have SO much evidence that he was planning to invade Iraq during his presidency from SO many people who were inside the government it has to be the truth.
Plus, the neo-con agenda had as its CENTRAL point the invasion of Iraq.

 

[johnnobts]

irrelevant

 

[Genx87]

No, I think we would still be in a pissing contest with Saddam.
And we would have more leverage and ability to deal with Iran.

 

[Red Dawn]

Nah without 9/11 he would never of had the ability to scare us into supporting his ill advised invasion and ill planned occupation.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: johnnobts
irrelevant

Explain

 

[Electric Mayhem]

http://www.newamericancentury.org/


Read "Rebuilding America's Defenses".....this was written pre 9/11...they called for a "Pearl Harbor" type event to galvanize support for their plans.

Letter to Clinton wanting to bomb Iraq in 1998.

If you notice who signed this letter, many of them are involved in Bush's gov't in many different positions....

so I'd say yes....Iraq was within their crosshairs for a while....9/11 was a convenient "excuse" to declare preemptive war...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

 

[Orignal Earl]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Nah without 9/11 he would never of had the ability to scare us into supporting his ill advised invasion and ill planned occupation.

Agreed, I would say Afghanistan would not of happened either. And

Originally posted by: Genx87
And we would have more leverage and ability to deal with Iran.

this pissin contest would be no where near what it is today

 

[Jaskalas]

Even after 9/11 happening we have a very strong movement in this country, lead by the Dems, which is to burry our heads in the sand. With a solid percentage of American people deep in the belief that nothing could ever alter their way of life, the concept of a nuclear weapon somehow crossing our non existent borders appears impossible to them.

Of course, while they assume nothing will happen, I too am only assuming something will happen. All I know is I'm going by what Iran itself is telling us with its hostile tone of wiping Israel and us off the face of the planet. The Muslims chanting ?the mushroom cloud is coming? in downtown New York also strengthens my resolve to stop Iran.

As for Iraq, we never did the job right, and our true reasons for being there never properly explained if at all. So I'd say it's a pretty bad screw up at this point. If we would have gone in without 9/11? No way.

 

[lozina]

Without 9/11 the Bush Administration would not have the right post-disaster fear mentality in American people to take advantage of to go to war with Iraq or bring to light the Patriot Act. We would all be happier now with normal gas prices, 2,600 more young Americans, and the trillion or so dollars would have went into improving our lives- our country. Of course this is assuming no other comparable event to 9/11 occurred either.

 

[Electric Mayhem]

the Iran-Israeli problem is not new and Iran has been saying that about Israel for yearS and the other way around. The "wiping off the map" is old news, the context is just emphasized (spun in the MSM) more these days since Iran is looking to have nuclear power (according to them). Iran is has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Israel has not.....if you were in Iran's position....wouldn't you be afraid.....?

There is some question about whether the English idiom "wiped off the map" accurately corresponds to what Ahmadinejad said in Farsi. Juan Cole, University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History translates the Farsi phrase as "vanished", claiming an "inaccurate translation ["wiped off the map"] has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers".[4] MEMRI, a translation service founded in part by former members of Israel's intelligence services, translates the sentence as 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history' [5]

On 20 February 2006, Iran?s foreign minister denied that Tehran wanted to see Israel ?wiped off the map,? saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. "Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime," he said.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12763.htm

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: techs
Yes. It was Bushes plan all along. We have SO much evidence that he was planning to invade Iraq during his presidency from SO many people who were inside the government it has to be the truth.
Plus, the neo-con agenda had as its CENTRAL point the invasion of Iraq.

QFT

Originally posted by: lozina
Without 9/11 the Bush Administration would not have the right post-disaster fear mentality in American people to take advantage of to go to war with Iraq or bring to light the Patriot Act.

If 9-11 hadn't happened, they would have fabricated another scenario to do it. Going after Iraq was at the top of their agenda before they even took office.

O'Neill: Bush planned Iraq invasion before 9/11

In new book, ex-Treasury secretary criticizes administration

Wednesday, January 14, 2004 Posted: 0712 GMT ( 3:12 PM HKT)

(CNN) -- The Bush administration began planning to use U.S. troops to invade Iraq within days after the former Texas governor entered the White House three years ago, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' 60 Minutes.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told CBS, according to excerpts released Saturday by the network. "For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap."

O'Neill, who served nearly two years in Bush's Cabinet, was asked to resign by the White House in December 2002 over differences he had with the president's tax cuts. O'Neill was the main source for "The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill," by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind.

The CBS report is scheduled to be broadcast Sunday night; the book is to be released Tuesday by publisher Simon & Schuster.

Suskind said O'Neill and other White House insiders gave him documents showing that in early 2001 the administration was already considering the use of force to oust Saddam, as well as planning for the aftermath.

"There are memos," Suskind told the network. "One of them marked 'secret' says 'Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.'"

Suskind cited a Pentagon document titled "Foreign Suitors For Iraqi Oilfield Contracts," which, he said, outlines areas of oil exploration. "It talks about contractors around the world from ... 30, 40 countries and which ones have what intentions on oil in Iraq."

In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting asked why Iraq should be invaded.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,'" O'Neill said.

Suskind also described a White House meeting in which he said Bush seemed to waver about going forward with a second round of tax cuts.

"Haven't we already given money to rich people... Shouldn't we be giving money to the middle?" Suskind says Bush asked, according to what CBS called a "nearly verbatim" transcript of an economic team meeting Suskind said he obtained from someone at the meeting.

O'Neill also said in the book that President Bush "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people" during Cabinet meetings.

One-on-one meetings were no different, O'Neill told the network.

Describing his first such meeting with Bush, O'Neill said, "I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage [him] on. ... I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening. It was mostly a monologue."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan brushed off O'Neill's criticism.

"We appreciate his service, but we are not in the business of doing book reviews," he told reporters. "It appears that the world according to Mr. O'Neill is more about trying to justify his own opinion than looking at the reality of the results we are achieving on behalf of the American people. The president will continue to be forward-looking, focusing on building upon the results we are achieving to strengthen the economy and making the world a safer and better place."

A senior administration official, who asked not to be named, expressed bewilderment at O'Neill's comments on the alleged war plans.

"The treasury secretary is not in the position to have access to that kind of information, where he can make observations of that nature," the official said. "This is a head-scratcher."

Even before the interview is broadcast, the topic became grist for election-year politics.

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who is the early front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, issued a statement in response.

"I've always said the president had failed to make the case to go to war with Iraq," Dean said. "My Democratic opponents reached a different conclusion, and in the process, they failed to ask the difficult questions. Now, after the fact, we are learning new information about the true circumstances of the Bush administration's push for war, this time, by one of his former Cabinet secretaries.

"The country deserves to know -- and the president needs to answer -- why the American people were presented with misleading or manufactured intelligence as to why going to war with Iraq was necessary."

Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts also issued a statement. In 2002, Kerry voted to support a resolution giving Bush authority to wage war against Iraq if it didn't dismantle its presumed illegal weapons program.

"These are very serious charges. It would mean [Bush administration officials] were dead-set on going to war alone since almost the day they took office and deliberately lied to the American people, Congress, and the world," Kerry said. "It would mean that for purely ideological reasons they planned on putting American troops in a shooting gallery, occupying an Arab country almost alone. The White House needs to answer these charges truthfully because they threaten to shatter [its] already damaged credibility as never before."

Richard Clarke, Former security advisor to four Presidents on 60 Minutes

Clarke's Take On Terror

March 21, 2004

(CBS) In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President Bush ordered his then top anti-terrorism adviser to look for a link between Iraq and the attacks, despite being told there didn't seem to be one.

The charge comes from the adviser, Richard Clarke, in an exclusive interview on 60 Minutes.

The administration maintains that it cannot find any evidence that the conversation about an Iraq-9/11 tie-in ever took place.

Clarke also tells CBS News Correspondent Lesley Stahl that White House officials were tepid in their response when he urged them months before Sept. 11 to meet to discuss what he saw as a severe threat from al Qaeda.

"Frankly," he said, "I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know."

Clarke went on to say, "I think he's done a terrible job on the war against terrorism."

The No. 2 man on the president's National Security Council, Stephen Hadley, vehemently disagrees. He says Mr. Bush has taken the fight to the terrorists, and is making the U.S. homeland safer. Clarke says that as early as the day after the attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushing for retaliatory strikes on Iraq, even though al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.

Clarke suggests the idea took him so aback, he initally thought Rumsfeld was joking.

Clarke is due to testify this week before the special panel probing whether the attacks were preventable.

His allegations are also made in a book, "Against All Enemies," by Free Press, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster. Both CBSNews.com and Simon & Schuster are units of Viacom.

Clarke helped shape U.S. policy on terrorism under President Reagan and the first President Bush. He was held over by President Clinton to be his terrorism czar, then held over again by the current President Bush.

In the 60 Minutes interview and the book, Clarke tells what happened behind the scenes at the White House before, during and after Sept. 11.

When the terrorists struck, it was thought the White House would be the next target, so it was evacuated. Clarke was one of only a handful of people who stayed behind. He ran the government's response to the attacks from the Situation Room in the West Wing.

"I kept thinking of the words from 'Apocalypse Now,' the whispered words of Marlon Brando, when he thought about Vietnam. 'The horror. The horror.' Because we knew what was going on in New York. We knew about the bodies flying out of the windows. People falling through the air. We knew that Osama bin Laden had succeeded in bringing horror to the streets of America," he tells Stahl. After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'

"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer." Clarke was the president's chief adviser on terrorism, yet it wasn't until Sept. 11 that he ever got to brief Mr. Bush on the subject. Clarke says that prior to Sept. 11, the administration didn't take the threat seriously.

"We had a terrorist organization that was going after us! Al Qaeda. That should have been the first item on the agenda. And it was pushed back and back and back for months.

"There's a lot of blame to go around, and I probably deserve some blame, too. But on January 24th, 2001, I wrote a memo to Condoleezza Rice asking for, urgently -- underlined urgently -- a Cabinet-level meeting to deal with the impending al Qaeda attack. And that urgent memo-- wasn't acted on.

"I blame the entire Bush leadership for continuing to work on Cold War issues when they back in power in 2001. It was as though they were preserved in amber from when they left office eight years earlier. They came back. They wanted to work on the same issues right away: Iraq, Star Wars. Not new issues, the new threats that had developed over the preceding eight years."

Clarke finally got his meeting about al Qaeda in April, three months after his urgent request. But it wasn't with the president or cabinet. It was with the second-in-command in each relevant department.

For the Pentagon, it was Paul Wolfowitz.

Clarke relates, "I began saying, 'We have to deal with bin Laden; we have to deal with al Qaeda.' Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, said, 'No, no, no. We don't have to deal with al Qaeda. Why are we talking about that little guy? We have to talk about Iraqi terrorism against the United States.'

"And I said, 'Paul, there hasn't been any Iraqi terrorism against the United States in eight years!' And I turned to the deputy director of the CIA and said, 'Isn't that right?' And he said, 'Yeah, that's right. There is no Iraqi terrorism against the United States."

Clarke went on to add, "There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda, ever."

When Stahl pointed out that some administration officials say it's still an open issue, Clarke responded, "Well, they'll say that until hell freezes over." By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism, even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous chatter.

The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in June, July, August."

Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter was in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White House.

Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations-- meaning, they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day.

That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with Canada, driving a car full of explosives.

Clarke harshly criticizes President Bush for not going to battle stations when the CIA warned him of a comparable threat in the months before Sept. 11: "He never thought it was important enough for him to hold a meeting on the subject, or for him to order his National Security Adviser to hold a Cabinet-level meeting on the subject."

Finally, says Clarke, "The cabinet meeting I asked for right after the inauguration took place-- one week prior to 9/11."

In that meeting, Clarke proposed a plan to bomb al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan, and to kill bin Laden. The president's new campaign ads highlight his handling of Sept. 11 -- which has become the centerpiece of his bid for re-election.

"You are writing this book in the middle of this campaign," Stahl tells Clarke. "The timing, I'm sure, you will be questioned about and criticized for. Why are you doing it now?"

"Well, I'm sure I'll be criticized for lots of things," says Clarke. "And I'm sure they'll launch their dogs on me."

Does a person who works for the White House owe the president his loyalty?

"Yes ... Up to a point. When the president starts doing things that risk American lives, then loyalty to him has to be put aside," says Clarke. "I think the way he has responded to al Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he's done after 9/11 has made us less safe. Absolutely."

Hadley staunchly defended the president to Stahl: "The president heard those warnings. The president met daily with ... George Tenet and his staff. They kept him fully informed and at one point the president became somewhat impatient with us and said, 'I'm tired of swatting flies. Where's my new strategy to eliminate al Qaeda?'"

Hadley says that, contrary to Clarke's assertion, Mr. Bush didn't ignore the ominous intelligence chatter in the summer of 2001.

"All the chatter was of an attack, a potential al Qaeda attack overseas. But interestingly enough, the president got concerned about whether there was the possibility of an attack on the homeland. He asked the intelligence community: 'Look hard. See if we're missing something about a threat to the homeland.'

"And at that point various alerts went out from the Federal Aviation Administration to the FBI saying the intelligence suggests a threat overseas. We don't want to be caught unprepared. We don't want to rule out the possibility of a threat to the homeland. And therefore preparatory steps need to be made. So the president put us on battle stations."

Hadley asserts Clarke is "just wrong" in saying the administration didn't go to battle stations.

As for the alleged pressure from Mr. Bush to find an Iraq-9/11 link, Hadley says, "We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred."

When told by Stahl that 60 Minutes has two sources who tell us independently of Clarke that the encounter happened, including "an actual witness," Hadley responded, "Look, I stand on what I said."

Hadley maintained, "Iraq, as the president has said, is at the center of the war on terror. We have narrowed the ground available to al Qaeda and to the terrorists. Their sanctuary in Afghanistan is gone; their sanctuary in Iraq is gone. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are now allies on the war on terror. So Iraq has contributed in that way in narrowing the sanctuaries available to terrorists."Does Clarke think that Iraq, the Middle East and the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power?

"I think the world would be better off if a number of leaders around the world were out of power. The question is what price should the United States pay," says Clarke. "The price we paid was very, very high, and we're still paying that price for doing it."

"Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda," adds Clarke.

"So what did we do after 9/11? We invade an oil-rich and occupy an oil-rich Arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us. In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden's propaganda. And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened."

When Clarke worked for Mr. Clinton, he was known as the terrorism czar. When Mr. Bush came into office, though remaining at the White House, Clarke was stripped of his Cabinet-level rank.

Stahl said to Clarke, "They demoted you. Aren't you open to charges that this is all sour grapes, because they demoted you and reduced your leverage, your power in the White House?"

Clarke's answer: "Frankly, if I had been so upset that the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism had been downgraded from a Cabinet level position to a staff level position, if that had bothered me enough, I would have quit. I didn't quit."

Until two years later, after 30 years in government service.

A senior White House official told 60 Minutes he thinks the Clarke book is an audition for a job in the Kerry campaign.

"I'm an independent. I'm not working for the Kerry campaign," says Clarke. "I have worked for Ronald Reagan. I have worked for George Bush the first, I have worked for George Bush the second. I'm not participating in this campaign, but I am putting facts out that I think people ought to know."

60 Minutes received a note from the Pentagon saying: "Any suggestion that the president did anything other than act aggressively, quickly and effectively to address the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in Afghanistan is absurd."


© MMIV, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.

This post would be longer than my arm if I included all the links and sources I found supporting this. :|

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: Electric Mayhem
the Iran-Israeli problem is not new and Iran has been saying that about Israel for year and the other way around. The "wiping off the map" is old news, the context is just emphasized (spun in the MSM) more these days since Iran is looking to have nuclear power (according to them). Iran is has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Israel has not.....if you were in Iran's position....wouldn't you be afraid.....?

There is some question about whether the English idiom "wiped off the map" accurately corresponds to what Ahmadinejad said in Farsi. Juan Cole, University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History translates the Farsi phrase as "vanished", claiming an "inaccurate translation ["wiped off the map"] has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers".[4] MEMRI, a translation service founded in part by former members of Israel's intelligence services, translates the sentence as 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history' [5]

On 20 February 2006, Iran?s foreign minister denied that Tehran wanted to see Israel ?wiped off the map,? saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. "Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime," he said.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12763.htm

Interesting, so yet another botched interpretation job by the media. And how convenient for them too... botch the interpretation to breed hate in Americans minds then if they get called out on it just a simple apology ... and unfortunately the hate that was bred does not go away with their apology.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: Orignal Earl

Originally posted by: Red Dawn
Nah without 9/11 he would never of had the ability to scare us into supporting his ill advised invasion and ill planned occupation.

Agreed, I would say Afghanistan would not of happened either. And

Originally posted by: Genx87
And we would have more leverage and ability to deal with Iran.

this pissin contest would be no where near what it is today

And? It would still be a pissing contest.

 

[Electric Mayhem]

Interesting, so yet another botched interpretation job by the media. And how convenient for them too... botch the interpretation to breed hate in Americans minds then if they get called out on it just a simple apology ... and unfortunately the hate that was bred does not go away with their apology.

I'm sure Fox News caught it....they're so fair and balanced"...no wonder GWB hired Snow as the new press secretary.....and I'm sure Bill O'Reilly didn't spin it since he's in the "no spin zone."


'The American public is traditionally and tragically ignorant about foreign countries in general and little interested in foreign events, as often noted by outsiders who visit our shores. This ignorance and lack of interest makes it easy to propagandize Americans about foreign affairs. The Bush administration has benefitted from this in that its inept foreign policy seldom comes under serious criticism and blind, jingoistic support for anything claimed to relate to ?the war on terrorism? is now the order of the day.'

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure
IIRC the Bush Administration was pushing for a more isolationist policy until 9-11... Correct me if i'm mistaken?

In their campaigns they were saying that, but in reality they wanted in. If 9/11 hadn't happened, Bush would still be an oil man with a vendetta against Hussein and Cheney would still be the ex-CEO of Haliburton.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Genx87
No, I think we would still be in a pissing contest with Saddam.
And we would have more leverage and ability to deal with Iran.

And credibility, too

 

[Darkstar757]

YUP BUSH HAS A HARD ON FOR IRAQ

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: Electric Mayhem
the Iran-Israeli problem is not new and Iran has been saying that about Israel for yearS and the other way around. The "wiping off the map" is old news, the context is just emphasized (spun in the MSM) more these days since Iran is looking to have nuclear power (according to them). Iran is has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Israel has not.....if you were in Iran's position....wouldn't you be afraid.....?

There is some question about whether the English idiom "wiped off the map" accurately corresponds to what Ahmadinejad said in Farsi. Juan Cole, University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History translates the Farsi phrase as "vanished", claiming an "inaccurate translation ["wiped off the map"] has now become a tag line for all newspaper articles written about Iran in Western newspapers".[4] MEMRI, a translation service founded in part by former members of Israel's intelligence services, translates the sentence as 'This regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history' [5]

On 20 February 2006, Iran?s foreign minister denied that Tehran wanted to see Israel ?wiped off the map,? saying Ahmadinejad had been misunderstood. "Nobody can remove a country from the map. This is a misunderstanding in Europe of what our president mentioned," Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference, speaking in English, after addressing the European Parliament. "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognise legally this regime," he said.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12763.htm

Shows what a signatures worth huh?

 

[ntdz]

I don't think we would've had the full scale war, 9/11 somewhat justified it for Bush and the country at the time. (Note: I'm not saying Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, just that we faced a new danger)

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Without a doubt. This war was pre-packaged, pre-planned and sitting on the conveyor belt waiting for an opportunity. The fact that 9/11 was used to spark the fire for this war makes me sick (not saying you said it ntdz). They used the lives of ~3000 innocent civilians to go to war against a nation that had as much to do with 9/11 as Luxomburg. I really hope this administration goes down hard. From dumbya to dead-eye dickie to dumbsfeld and kindasleazy.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: AccruedExpenditure

Originally posted by: johnnobts
irrelevant

Explain

The whole question is moot. 9/11 happened. Any speculation as to what may or may not have happened without 9/11 is meaningless debate/conjecture.


Now for my own useless conjecture...
Personally I think that while Bush may have wanted to go to Iraq from day one, without 9/11 and the war on terror he would have never received the UN's vote to go. We'd still be thumb wrestling with the security counsel.

 

[Electric Mayhem]

Now for my own useless conjecture...

Where do you get your information from? A box of Cracker Jacks?



"The Bush administration failed to get a U.N. endorsement for war against Iraq on March 17, 2003 and began the invasion on March 20, 2003. [6] The Iraqi Military was defeated, and Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003. On May 1, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations, terminating the Ba'ath Party's rule and removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from office. Coalition forces ultimately captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003.

Extensive inspections after Iraq's invasion failed to find substantial proof of weapons of mass destruction.[7][8] This has once more brought the various already controversial justifications for the invasion into dispute.[9] Post-invasion Iraq has experienced violence from warring sects and an Iraqi insurgency. Numerous terrorist groups have become active in the area. Elections were held in January 2005."

Yup...I'd say you have a useless conjecture....