Interesting comment from Bush in 2000 on Iraq

[Almighty Colin]

Look what I ran across.

"The coalition against Saddam has fallen apart or it's unraveling, let's put it that way. The sanctions are being violated. We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He'd better not be or there's going to be a consequence, should I be the president." -10/11/2000

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/11/...ain240440.shtml (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/10/11/politics/main240440.shtml)

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by Colin@Jun 26 2004, 01:01 PM
We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He'd better not be or there's going to be a consequence
Bush should have added:

"And if he isn't developing WMDs or we can't prove it, then there will still be a consequence." :unsure:

[Mike AI]

The entire world thought Saddam had WMDs. the UN, the French, the German, Israelis, the English, the Russians, etc....

Clinton and Gore both assumed him had WMDs, and spoke about it while they were in office.

Bush beleived it, and acted upon it. History wil decide if there was ever any WMDS, or if they were hidden, destoryed or moved to Syria.

Bush did the right thing based on the information he had, based on the information the WORLD had.

OF course this war could have been averted if Saddam would had let inspectors in unfettered - even Saddam thought he had a WMD program, at least that is what he actions showed.

Things could have been different if the Russians and French would have back resolution for force at UN. Saddam thought that the Russiand and French would keep the US out of Iraq..... even up to the last days before the invasion.

Funny how the democrats on the 9-11 commission and the media keep trumpeting how the Bush administration in power for 9 months did not connect the dots and prevent this attack.

Yet when all the dots were connected in Iraq - Saddam has WMDS ( as the world beleived), Saddam would not back down and allow inspectors, etc.. etc... and strong action was taken, Bush gets blamed for lying by the same people.

[Almighty Colin]

Mike,

Here's where I am on the whole thing.

I supported the war before it started because I believed Iraq had WMDs. I believed Iraq had WMDs long before Bush made any mention of them. We've been hearing about them for years from so many sources that it was hard not to. Saddam's very actions and statements lead many of us to believe that. Certainly me. I believed that 911 was such a tremendous change in the way the US must think of its security that acting preemptively on that knowledge is justifiable. Now, with no substantial sign of WMDs in Iraq to date, this has to be rethought. Though I believe force should be used to enforce countries acquiring or developing WMDs in violation of any treaty or organization rules, the difficult is going to be in proving that they are. What to do? There is no reasonable solution.

Oh, and I think Bush has not done a very good of explaining what our new policy is to our allies. Maybe this is because he bet on the CIA Intelligence being right and it turned out to be, future finds notwithstanding, just wrong. What was the real deal with Tenet resigning anyway?

How will history judge this war? Well, I think most Americans will judge it on the merit of the results. If people feel the US won, it will be viewed more positively than negative. Some things have gone wrong. Many have also gone right. What will winning mean? Getting out with a reasonably low number of casualties and a political result that everyone looks back and is happy with. Vietnam was a failure because there were too many casualties and the political result was wrong. According to Gallup, people have a less negative view of Korea. I think that is because even though there were a lot of casualties the political result was acceptable. There are other reasons too like a lot of movies about Vietnam.

We shall see.

[Jesse_DD]

"The entire world thought Saddam had WMDs. the UN, the French, the German, Israelis, the English, the Russians, etc....
"

Mike, It is amazing how people seem to forget this. I think the average person now thinks that it was only the US that had this contention - in reality there wasn't a country or prominent person (Kofi Annan & Hans Blitz) who didn't think he had WMD's.

[OldJeff]

I also thought there were WMD's, I also believed the Admin when they said we have photos of them. That is where my problem lies.

Someone "invented" evidence to justify the war.

Of course Iraq had WMD's at one point, we sold some to them, they used some of them against their own people. But when just prior to the invasion we (administration) is waving around pictures of the exact location of WND facilities (production, military, whatever)

If they were moved to another country while we were prepping for war and we did not see it, it absolutely proves incompetence in our intelligence, military, and this administration.

There are MANY reasons for us to be in Iraq, Oil, big military presence in a big time world hot spot, we need to get out of Saudi Arabia, yet remain in the middle east.

The reasons given for justification of the Iraq war were lies, Iraq posed absolutely no threat to the US, there is absolutely no connection with Al Queda, and so far there are no real WND's. (don't even point ot the single spent US made chemical weapons shell)

I am not naive enough to think I will ever know all of the resons we are in Iraq, I think history will show that it was necessary, Hussain is a lunitic, the whole thing made Qadaffi (sp) shit his pants, and the ripples are still being seen.

I still can not get behind the whole "pre-emptive" action policy - If we are attacked, I think we should answer with FULL military might up to and including nuclear weapons. I am just more than a little bothered that it has become the policy of the worlds "democratic leader" to invade a country because "we think" they might attack us.

My primary problems with this administration is the attacks of or rights, with privacy being the biggest.

Saw a report last night (On FOX so please don't spout the liberal media bullshit) that almost 80% of US CITIZENS now have records in a nationwide database of information that can be accessed remotely by the police.

Now if this were a database of only criminal records I would not have a problem, but when they ran the reporters name, they got access to Credit Reports, Names of room mates she has had, every address that she ever lived at. - Sorry a little too Orwellion for "The Land of the Free"

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by OldJeff@Jun 27 2004, 06:09 AM
I also thought there were WMD's, I also believed the Admin when they said we have photos of them. That is where my problem lies.

Someone "invented" evidence to justify the war.

Of course Iraq had WMD's at one point, we sold some to them, they used some of them against their own people. But when just prior to the invasion we (administration) is waving around pictures of the exact location of WND facilities (production, military, whatever)

If they were moved to another country while we were prepping for war and we did not see it, it absolutely proves incompetence in our intelligence, military, and this administration.

There are MANY reasons for us to be in Iraq, Oil, big military presence in a big time world hot spot, we need to get out of Saudi Arabia, yet remain in the middle east.

The reasons given for justification of the Iraq war were lies, Iraq posed absolutely no threat to the US, there is absolutely no connection with Al Queda, and so far there are no real WND's. (don't even point ot the single spent US made chemical weapons shell)

I am not naive enough to think I will ever know all of the resons we are in Iraq, I think history will show that it was necessary, Hussain is a lunitic, the whole thing made Qadaffi (sp) shit his pants, and the ripples are still being seen.

I still can not get behind the whole "pre-emptive" action policy - If we are attacked, I think we should answer with FULL military might up to and including nuclear weapons. I am just more than a little bothered that it has become the policy of the worlds "democratic leader" to invade a country because "we think" they might attack us.

My primary problems with this administration is the attacks of or rights, with privacy being the biggest.

Saw a report last night (On FOX so please don't spout the liberal media bullshit) that almost 80% of US CITIZENS now have records in a nationwide database of information that can be accessed remotely by the police.

Now if this were a database of only criminal records I would not have a problem, but when they ran the reporters name, they got access to Credit Reports, Names of room mates she has had, every address that she ever lived at. - Sorry a little too Orwellion for "The Land of the Free"
OK, but the belief that Iraq has had WMDs and continued to develop WMDs has been prevalent at the highest levels of the government for both this administration and the past one. There are numerous statements by Clinton administration officials including Clinton himself to that effect. Recently, the Portuguese Prime Minister said that Clinton told him he was "absolutely convinced" that Iraq had WMDs based on his privileged information until the end of the Saddam regime. Given the above, who is lying? Just Bush because you are a Democrat or Bush and Clinton administrations? The CIA? Who exactly are you accusing of lying? Why is it difficult to believe that Bush (and Clinton for that matter) took CIA assurances that Iraq had WMDs?

So that leads me to believe either that Saddam did have WMDs and was able to move them out of the country or that that we were mistaken. "Intelligence" is, after all, intelligence. Not fact. I guess there could be lesser possibilities like a conspiracy between the Bush/Clinton administrations but that seems less likely.

Well, you say the US would be incompetent if WMDs were moved to another country. OK, let's assume they were moved to Syria. How would the inability to know or stop that prove US incompetence? You can only assume that is true if you assume intelligence is omnipotent which we all know is not true.

Now, about pre-emption. I completely understand your view. Pre-emption is one of the most dangerous and controversial policies any administration could possibly undertake. My question is what do you see as the solution to global terrorism and the threat of such actors working with states to acquire WMDs? Sanctions? Doesn't work. UN resolutions? Doesn't work. You can't stop proliferation with paperwork. I'm not saying that pre-emption works but I am saying that it is not clear that anyone else has come across a solution either. Id say it is absolutely in the interest of the world to step it up on the issue of nonproliferation? But how?

[OldJeff]

I don't think you are calling me a democrat, just making a point.

I have never voted for a democrat in my life (except one congressman I know personally)

The incompetence comes into play where Colin Powel is holding up photos at the UN of the WMD facilities stating we know they have them, we know where they are.

If you "know where they are" there is NO POSSIBLE EXCUSE for them being transported anywhere.

All politicians lie, and everything coming from both side is a simple matter of what a person chooses to believe. I have to conceed that Bush was most likly given mistaken information. By whom and for what purpose we may never know.

Pre-emption - there is a huge difference between destroying a known reactor facility and invading a country. ( I believe that we should destroy the Iranian nuke plants)

I guess my biggest problem with government in general is I simply do not believe anything they say (and it does not matter the party to which they belong)

Government, I believe, does not function in the interest of the people, they function in the interest of keeping their side in power.

[Almighty Colin]

Jeff,

Yes, just "making a point". The term Democrat, like Republican is a noble term to me. The political process may be ugly but I don't know of anything better. I think the US is better with both parties keeping a check on each other.

Good points. Here's the big question. What is the solution to international terrorism?

Every few days brings us new television images of disenfranchised Islamic kids with dirty socks pulled over their heads standing in back of a kneeling hostage. The AK47s and RPGs are standard issue. Whether in Mesopotamia, the Kingdom of Saud or the land of the Ottomans the message is the same. These people want to be disconnected from the rest of the world. They want to take their people back to medieval Arabia where Sharia is the only law of the land. They want to erase the state-system, they want to erase NATO, they want to erase the UN, they want to erase consensual governments. They want a world where women are subservient dogs and where the wrong speech is punishable by hangings in the town square and they want a world with no television or radio or other mass communications unless - in some cases - they are controlled by the states.

Will consensual governments change any of this? Will Middle Eastern Kingdoms, dictatorships, and emirships that connect to the world of free states by enrolling in organizations such as the WTO and expanding their economies with western styled economic systems have populations who feel they have something more to live for than the glory of their death? I don't know but I think it's worth the effort. The Middle Eastern world is being rocked by one of the biggest changes in its history. I, for one, hope it works.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by OldJeff@Jun 28 2004, 06:30 AM
Government, I believe, does not function in the interest of the people, they function in the interest of keeping their side in power.
While this is sometimes true it is also true that government has given us civil rights legislation, abolished slavery, and created by the force of law a more egalitarian society. Government often works for the people. We should never forget that those in government are just citizens - people who, yes, have an interest in furthering their careers and political parties but they also have the same interest in making the world a better place that any of us do. What is an interest in a person promoting their political party other than the wish for their view of the way the world ought to be coming to fruition? People who believe in "conservative" or "democratic" causes truly believe their point of view will make the world a better place.