North Korea says they have Nuclear Weapons

[Guest MikeSC]

I think the point of the criticism of Bush in this thread is that Iraq was hardly the biggest threat to us, so drawing their name first in the "Here We Come to Take Your WMDs" sweepstakes maybe wasn't the sharpest move.

It is better to attack a country BEFORE they have WMD than it is to try and attack them afterwards.

Yes, of course. You're 100% right on this point.

 

However, I thought when we went into Iraq we thought Iraq DID already have them.

Bush argued that Saddam DIDN'T have nuclear weaponry yet and we couldn't afford to wait for him to get them. The concern was not him using them, but him selling them.

Add into that our UTTER lack of any kind of good human intel in N. Korea and going there isn't a great move for us yet. Our intel in Iraq wasn't good --- our intel in N. Korea is significantly worse.

No, of course invading North Korea is a bad idea. But, in my opinion, so was invading Iraq. I'm not saying we should invade North Korea, I'm saying we should not have invaded Iraq.

Iraq is an effective site for us.

 

We know Iran has a burgeoning democracy movement amongst the youth. Our hope is to fire them up more by having a democracy next door. Iraqis in neighboring countries (such as Syria) voted. We're hoping that seeing them voting might inspire the Syrians to demand democracy.

 

We're hoping to infect the Middle East with democracy and using Iraq as the means of doing so.

 

N. Korea is not nearly as useful, since nobody has much use for them.

 

I think Iraq was a worthwhile expedition for us. We did a good thing there and it might lead to major changes in that region. I don't see any major changes arising from N. Korea.

-=Mike

[SuperJerk 0]

I think the point of the criticism of Bush in this thread is that Iraq was hardly the biggest threat to us, so drawing their name first in the "Here We Come to Take Your WMDs" sweepstakes maybe wasn't the sharpest move.

It is better to attack a country BEFORE they have WMD than it is to try and attack them afterwards.

Yes, of course. You're 100% right on this point.

 

However, I thought when we went into Iraq we thought Iraq DID already have them.

Bush argued that Saddam DIDN'T have nuclear weaponry yet and we couldn't afford to wait for him to get them. The concern was not him using them, but him selling them.

No offense, but I seem to recall that differently. I'll look into this before commenting further on Iraq.

[Guest MikeSC]

I think the point of the criticism of Bush in this thread is that Iraq was hardly the biggest threat to us, so drawing their name first in the "Here We Come to Take Your WMDs" sweepstakes maybe wasn't the sharpest move.

It is better to attack a country BEFORE they have WMD than it is to try and attack them afterwards.

Yes, of course. You're 100% right on this point.

 

However, I thought when we went into Iraq we thought Iraq DID already have them.

Bush argued that Saddam DIDN'T have nuclear weaponry yet and we couldn't afford to wait for him to get them. The concern was not him using them, but him selling them.

No offense, but I seem to recall that differently. I'll look into this before commenting further on Iraq.

Well, if you can provide proof of him saying otherwise, I'll sit here and say "RobotJerk is right".

 

I don't do that often, ya know.

-=Mike

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Well, if anything, China needs to step in and make sure North Korea doesn't get out of control, since China is basically the DPRK's only ally in the world. Hopefully the US can work with China and the other Asian powers to make sure things don't get out of hand.

[Guest MikeSC]

Well, if anything, China needs to step in and make sure North Korea doesn't get out of control, since China is basically the DPRK's only ally in the world. Hopefully the US can work with China and the other Asian powers to make sure things don't get out of hand.

How close is China and N. Korea? I have the impression that N. Korea is basically on its own. I didn't think China liked them to any great degree.

-=Mike

[NoCalMike 0]

I think the point of the criticism of Bush in this thread is that Iraq was hardly the biggest threat to us, so drawing their name first in the "Here We Come to Take Your WMDs" sweepstakes maybe wasn't the sharpest move.

It is better to attack a country BEFORE they have WMD than it is to try and attack them afterwards.

Yes, of course. You're 100% right on this point.

 

However, I thought when we went into Iraq we thought Iraq DID already have them.

Bush argued that Saddam DIDN'T have nuclear weaponry yet and we couldn't afford to wait for him to get them. The concern was not him using them, but him selling them.

No offense, but I seem to recall that differently. I'll look into this before commenting further on Iraq.

Well, if you can provide proof of him saying otherwise, I'll sit here and say "RobotJerk is right".

 

I don't do that often, ya know.

-=Mike

Are you we talking exclusively about nukes here, or just WMD period, because I am looking at a speech right now from Bush that says Iraq possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons, which right there is not true.

 

And just for further reference....

 

Bush’s WMD Flimflams

by James Bovard, September 2003

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0309d.asp

 

The Bush administration’s rush to war against Iraq was justified largely by the danger that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction supposedly posed to the United States and to U.S. allies. In his January 28, 2003, state of the Union address, Bush denounced Saddam as “the dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons” and listed vast quantities of biological and chemical weapons that few independent experts believed Saddam possessed. Bush concluded, “A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all.” In his March 17 “ultimatum address,” after listing Saddam’s alleged WMDs, Bush declaimed, “And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail.”

 

In that same speech, Bush declared that

 

the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised…. Under [uN] Resolutions 678 and 687 — both still in effect — the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

Bush warned,

 

In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.

But there was no evidence that the Iraq “threat” had increased in recent years and no reason to expect it to “multiply many times over” in the following 12 months — especially since UN weapons inspectors were busily ferreting in Iraq at that moment.

 

At a time when the allegations of Iraqi WMDs are unraveling, it is important to recognize the extent of the frauds that preceded the war.

 

The Bush team waved nuke after alleged Iraqi nuke over Americans’ heads in the run-up to the war. On August 26, 2002, Vice President Cheney, speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, warned that Saddam could have nuclear weapons “fairly soon.” Two weeks later, President Bush told reporters,

 

I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA [international Atomic Energy Agency] — that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need.

On March 16, 2003, Cheney announced on NBC’s Meet the Press that “we believe [saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

 

But the Bush administration never presented any evidence to support these assertions. The IAEA — the UN organization that was conducting inspections for nuclear weapons in Iraq — never produced the report Bush “reminded” reporters of in September. Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA’s director general, informed the UN Security Council that “there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities” in Iraq. And although Cheney and Bush repeatedly invoked some aluminum tubes that Iraq sought to purchase as key steps toward making a nuke, UN experts investigated and concluded that the tubes were not intended for use in nuclear weapons production.

 

Perhaps the most decisive piece of evidence offered by the Bush administration was the fact that Iraq sought to buy 500 tons of uranium oxide for use in nuclear weapons from uranium mines in Niger.

 

CIA chief George Tenet gave a classified briefing to congressmen on this and other charges in September 2002, a few weeks before Congress voted to endorse war with Iraq.

 

Secretary of State Colin Powell also informed a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two days later of the Iraq attempt to secure the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon. The revelation sent shock waves through Capitol Hill and helped squelch resistance to going to war.

 

In his January 28 state of the Union address, Bush declared,

 

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

 

The forgeries

 

In early March, the IAEA announced that the documents detailing the attempted purchases of uranium were frauds. One senior IAEA official told the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh,

 

These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped.

The British government had long refused to give the documents to the IAEA; when the Brits finally passed along the “smoking gun,” it took IAEA inspectors “only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake,” Hersh reported.

 

The letters appeared to be a crude cut-and-paste operation with Niger government letterhead; however, the names of officials in power did not match the dates on the letter and the signature of Niger president Tandja Mamadou was an obvious forgery.

 

A senior IAEA official observed that the flaws in the letters could have been “spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.” Hersh, who wrote a superb exposé on the scam, noted,

 

Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.) requested that FBI chief Robert Mueller investigate the document fraud because “there is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” The FBI effectively brushed off Rockefeller’s request.

 

Six weeks after Hersh’s piece appeared, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that the vice president’s office began a much earlier investigation into the Iraq-Niger nuclear documents, sending a former U.S. ambassador to Niger. Kristof reported that in February 2002

 

that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.... The envoy’s debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.

 

A tardy admission

 

After months of the story of the false Niger claims festering in the media, a senior Bush administration official — unnamed, of course — formally announced on July 7, 2003,

 

Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the state of the Union speech.

This greatly belated admission by an unnamed official was taken by senior Republicans as the proper close of the entire episode. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, declared,

 

Obviously, when you use foreign intelligence, you — we don’t have necessarily as much confidence or as much reliability as you do your own. It has since turned out to be, at least according to the reports that have been just released, not true. The president stepped forward and said so. I think that’s all you can expect.

But it is ludicrous to assert that “the president stepped forward and said so.” Bush never conceded his statements were false; instead, he busied himself in late June denouncing “historical revisionists” who were examining the administration’s record on Iraq. The Bush administration did not even have the gumption to permit the “senior administration official” to be named — and yet Santorum believes Bush deserves a “that’s all you can expect” response.

 

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) derided concerns over the administration’s confession that it had used false statements on the path to war:

 

It’s very easy to pick one little flaw here or one little flaw there. The overall reason we went into Iraq was sound and morally sound. And it’s not just because somebody forged or a made a mistake on whether Saddam Hussein was looking for nuclear material from Niger or whatever.

Whatever. Hundreds of American soldiers are dead and thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed. It is not a question of “one little flaw here or one little flaw there.” Instead, it is a question of plank after plank of the Bush administration’s justification for going to war being rotten to the core. And leaders like DeLay respond by rushing to attempt to close the subject and to portray any further curiosity as pettifogging — or worse.

 

Bush White House aides sought to defend the president by blaming the CIA for failing to warn them that the Niger story was as bogus as a three-dollar bill. However, on July 22, Bush’s Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and his chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, conceded that the CIA had sent two warnings to the White House in early October 2002 casting grave doubts on the Iraq-Niger uranium claims.

 

The Washington Post noted the following day that

 

yesterday’s disclosures indicate top White House officials knew that the CIA seriously disputed the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa long before the claim was included in Bush’s January address to the nation.

Most of the American media ignored the revelations amidst widespread exulting over the killing of Saddam’s sons by the U.S. military in Iraq.

 

The Bush administration knew — at least as of early March — that the president’s statements in the state of the Union address on Iraq’s pursuing uranium in Africa were false and misleading. Yet the administration made no effort to correct its falsehoods until a British parliamentary inquiry had bludgeoned the Blair government on the same issue.

 

There is no reason to presume that Bush was more deceptive and manipulative on the war on Iraq than he is on the war on terrorism or other subjects. The main difference is that the evidence of false claims on Iraq is now stark, especially after the U.S. invasion.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Well, if anything, China needs to step in and make sure North Korea doesn't get out of control, since China is basically the DPRK's only ally in the world. Hopefully the US can work with China and the other Asian powers to make sure things don't get out of hand.

How close is China and N. Korea? I have the impression that N. Korea is basically on its own. I didn't think China liked them to any great degree.

-=Mike

They don't.

[Guest MikeSC]

I think the point of the criticism of Bush in this thread is that Iraq was hardly the biggest threat to us, so drawing their name first in the "Here We Come to Take Your WMDs" sweepstakes maybe wasn't the sharpest move.

It is better to attack a country BEFORE they have WMD than it is to try and attack them afterwards.

Yes, of course. You're 100% right on this point.

 

However, I thought when we went into Iraq we thought Iraq DID already have them.

Bush argued that Saddam DIDN'T have nuclear weaponry yet and we couldn't afford to wait for him to get them. The concern was not him using them, but him selling them.

No offense, but I seem to recall that differently. I'll look into this before commenting further on Iraq.

Well, if you can provide proof of him saying otherwise, I'll sit here and say "RobotJerk is right".

 

I don't do that often, ya know.

-=Mike

Are you we talking exclusively about nukes here, or just WMD period, because I am looking at a speech right now from Bush that says Iraq possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons, which right there is not true.

 

And just for further reference....

 

Bush’s WMD Flimflams

by James Bovard, September 2003

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0309d.asp

 

The Bush administration’s rush to war against Iraq was justified largely by the danger that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction supposedly posed to the United States and to U.S. allies. In his January 28, 2003, state of the Union address, Bush denounced Saddam as “the dictator who is assembling the world’s most dangerous weapons” and listed vast quantities of biological and chemical weapons that few independent experts believed Saddam possessed. Bush concluded, “A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all.” In his March 17 “ultimatum address,” after listing Saddam’s alleged WMDs, Bush declaimed, “And this very fact underscores the reason we cannot live under the threat of blackmail.”

 

In that same speech, Bush declared that

 

the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised…. Under [uN] Resolutions 678 and 687 — both still in effect — the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

Bush warned,

 

In one year, or five years, the power of Iraq to inflict harm on all free nations would be multiplied many times over.

But there was no evidence that the Iraq “threat” had increased in recent years and no reason to expect it to “multiply many times over” in the following 12 months — especially since UN weapons inspectors were busily ferreting in Iraq at that moment.

 

At a time when the allegations of Iraqi WMDs are unraveling, it is important to recognize the extent of the frauds that preceded the war.

 

The Bush team waved nuke after alleged Iraqi nuke over Americans’ heads in the run-up to the war. On August 26, 2002, Vice President Cheney, speaking to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, warned that Saddam could have nuclear weapons “fairly soon.” Two weeks later, President Bush told reporters,

 

I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied, finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic — the IAEA [international Atomic Energy Agency] — that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don’t know what more evidence we need.

On March 16, 2003, Cheney announced on NBC’s Meet the Press that “we believe [saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

 

But the Bush administration never presented any evidence to support these assertions. The IAEA — the UN organization that was conducting inspections for nuclear weapons in Iraq — never produced the report Bush “reminded” reporters of in September. Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA’s director general, informed the UN Security Council that “there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities” in Iraq. And although Cheney and Bush repeatedly invoked some aluminum tubes that Iraq sought to purchase as key steps toward making a nuke, UN experts investigated and concluded that the tubes were not intended for use in nuclear weapons production.

 

Perhaps the most decisive piece of evidence offered by the Bush administration was the fact that Iraq sought to buy 500 tons of uranium oxide for use in nuclear weapons from uranium mines in Niger.

 

CIA chief George Tenet gave a classified briefing to congressmen on this and other charges in September 2002, a few weeks before Congress voted to endorse war with Iraq.

 

Secretary of State Colin Powell also informed a closed hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two days later of the Iraq attempt to secure the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon. The revelation sent shock waves through Capitol Hill and helped squelch resistance to going to war.

 

In his January 28 state of the Union address, Bush declared,

 

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

 

The forgeries

 

In early March, the IAEA announced that the documents detailing the attempted purchases of uranium were frauds. One senior IAEA official told the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh,

 

These documents are so bad that I cannot imagine that they came from a serious intelligence agency. It depresses me, given the low quality of the documents, that it was not stopped.

The British government had long refused to give the documents to the IAEA; when the Brits finally passed along the “smoking gun,” it took IAEA inspectors “only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake,” Hersh reported.

 

The letters appeared to be a crude cut-and-paste operation with Niger government letterhead; however, the names of officials in power did not match the dates on the letter and the signature of Niger president Tandja Mamadou was an obvious forgery.

 

A senior IAEA official observed that the flaws in the letters could have been “spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.” Hersh, who wrote a superb exposé on the scam, noted,

 

Forged documents and false accusations have been an element in U.S. and British policy toward Iraq at least since the fall of 1997, after an impasse over U.N. inspections.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.) requested that FBI chief Robert Mueller investigate the document fraud because “there is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” The FBI effectively brushed off Rockefeller’s request.

 

Six weeks after Hersh’s piece appeared, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that the vice president’s office began a much earlier investigation into the Iraq-Niger nuclear documents, sending a former U.S. ambassador to Niger. Kristof reported that in February 2002

 

that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.... The envoy’s debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.

 

A tardy admission

 

After months of the story of the false Niger claims festering in the media, a senior Bush administration official — unnamed, of course — formally announced on July 7, 2003,

 

Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq’s attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the state of the Union speech.

This greatly belated admission by an unnamed official was taken by senior Republicans as the proper close of the entire episode. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, declared,

 

Obviously, when you use foreign intelligence, you — we don’t have necessarily as much confidence or as much reliability as you do your own. It has since turned out to be, at least according to the reports that have been just released, not true. The president stepped forward and said so. I think that’s all you can expect.

But it is ludicrous to assert that “the president stepped forward and said so.” Bush never conceded his statements were false; instead, he busied himself in late June denouncing “historical revisionists” who were examining the administration’s record on Iraq. The Bush administration did not even have the gumption to permit the “senior administration official” to be named — and yet Santorum believes Bush deserves a “that’s all you can expect” response.

 

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) derided concerns over the administration’s confession that it had used false statements on the path to war:

 

It’s very easy to pick one little flaw here or one little flaw there. The overall reason we went into Iraq was sound and morally sound. And it’s not just because somebody forged or a made a mistake on whether Saddam Hussein was looking for nuclear material from Niger or whatever.

Whatever. Hundreds of American soldiers are dead and thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed. It is not a question of “one little flaw here or one little flaw there.” Instead, it is a question of plank after plank of the Bush administration’s justification for going to war being rotten to the core. And leaders like DeLay respond by rushing to attempt to close the subject and to portray any further curiosity as pettifogging — or worse.

 

Bush White House aides sought to defend the president by blaming the CIA for failing to warn them that the Niger story was as bogus as a three-dollar bill. However, on July 22, Bush’s Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and his chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson, conceded that the CIA had sent two warnings to the White House in early October 2002 casting grave doubts on the Iraq-Niger uranium claims.

 

The Washington Post noted the following day that

 

yesterday’s disclosures indicate top White House officials knew that the CIA seriously disputed the claim that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa long before the claim was included in Bush’s January address to the nation.

Most of the American media ignored the revelations amidst widespread exulting over the killing of Saddam’s sons by the U.S. military in Iraq.

 

The Bush administration knew — at least as of early March — that the president’s statements in the state of the Union address on Iraq’s pursuing uranium in Africa were false and misleading. Yet the administration made no effort to correct its falsehoods until a British parliamentary inquiry had bludgeoned the Blair government on the same issue.

 

There is no reason to presume that Bush was more deceptive and manipulative on the war on Iraq than he is on the war on terrorism or other subjects. The main difference is that the evidence of false claims on Iraq is now stark, especially after the U.S. invasion.

I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I was referrring specifically to nukes.

-=Mike

...We know he had other WMD...

[SuperJerk 0]

If you make the distinction between WMDs (a broad term) and nukes (a specific kind of WMD), then I can say that I do not recall Bush ever actually saying that Iraq had nukes. I think a lot of people just assumed Bush meant nukes when he talked about WMDs, since he also talked about uranium.

 

I think the most shocking thing about that article was:

 

Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate

 

The hell...?

[2GOLD 0]

We rank them with numbers now?

Are they like draft picks?

I want to know if Ted Kennedy has a tremendous upside or not.

 

What about Joe Biden?

[NoCalMike 0]

If you read the article though, it points out misleading statements by Bush, where he was specifically sent memos from the CIA regarding statements he was preparing to make in the SOTU speech regarding Iraq trying to buy necessary things to make a nuke. They sent him a couple of memos saying not to say it because it wasn't true, and he went ahead and said it anyway to try and convince us Saddam was on the verge of having Nukes.

[SuperJerk 0]

On March 16, 2003, Cheney announced on NBC’s Meet the Press that “we believe [saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

 

I love the wording on this. Very loophole friendly.

 

 

As in (not actual quotes): "I said we BELIEVE he had them, not that he actually had them."

 

or

 

"Depends on what your definition of 'reconstituted' is."

[NoCalMike 0]

On March 16, 2003, Cheney announced on NBC’s Meet the Press that “we believe [saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

 

I love the wording on this. Very loophole friendly.

 

 

As in (not actual quotes): "I said we BELIEVE he had them, not that he actually had them."

 

or

 

"Depends on what your definition of 'reconstituted' is."

Exactamundo. That was just a small sample of the loose language and vague statements made that definately fed into the "politics of fear" tactic, that led the drum beat to war, that and the fact that the media did a piss poor job questioning, refuting or even asking for any proof to backup these claims.

[Guest INXS]

Surely there can be no arguement that bush conned the naive us people into attacking iraq

[Jingus 0]

Do you think Saddam Hussein was a good man and a kind leader? Would you rather he was still dictator-for-life of his country?

[Vyce 0]

Surely there can be no arguement that bush conned the naive us people into attacking iraq

Surely there can be no argument on this board that you're a complete moron.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Q for Cerebus (or anyone else who knows):

 

How do India & Pakistan get off scot free w/ nuke development?  Are they not party to the treaty?  (I guess I could look this up, I just thought you might know)

Wow, you just want to attack everybody, don't you?

-=Mike

Yeah, cuz that's what I said.

 

All I did was ask a question. See link.

[SuperJerk 0]

Do you think Saddam Hussein was a good man and a kind leader?  Would you rather he was still dictator-for-life of his country?

Option A: Saddam Hussein, ruthless dictator who has never attacked us but really hates us and may develop WMDs at some point in the future even though the embargo was working.

 

Option B: Iraq ran by democratically elected Islamic extremists who really hate us and may develop WMDs at some point in the future uninhibited by any UN embargos.

 

 

Can't say I prefer one to the other, to be honest.

[Guest Vitamin X]

In addition to that, I'll just keep saying what I've been saying all along in that there are more imminent threats than Iraq was. I still don't quite understand why we haven't done the noble thing in just overthrowing the Cuban dictatorship already, and I can guarantee you the citizens would be much more grateful than the Iraqis are.

[Guest MikeSC]

If you read the article though, it points out misleading statements by Bush, where he was specifically sent memos from the CIA regarding statements he was preparing to make in the SOTU speech regarding Iraq trying to buy necessary things to make a nuke. They sent him a couple of memos saying not to say it because it wasn't true, and he went ahead and said it anyway to try and convince us Saddam was on the verge of having Nukes.

The Senate Select Intel Committee stands by the yellowcake story.

 

As does British Intel.

Surely there can be no arguement that bush conned the naive us people into attacking iraq

I agree. There can be no argument for a viewpoint so asinine.

 

And, Robot, it does seem only fair that we help Iraq have a chance to make their choice. Might they make a choice that is against our interests?

 

Yes.

 

But they might make a decision that benefits the world.

-=Mike

[Jobber of the Week 0]

The NK situation is the embodiment of Bush's concept of why we cannot wait until there is an imminent threat. The Japanese are probably shitting bricks if this is true. And now we're going to have to dance on egg shells to figure this out.

Not really. There's little to no chance they'll launch the weapon.

 

The threat of launching a nuke is the only thing NK has to bargain. If they go ahead and do it, it'll be raining bombs from pretty much every global player there is. Their only real tactic is the threatening gestures of having a nuke, and to see exactly what they can milk out of everyone else for that.

 

 

Also, you lefts who are turning this into Bush/Iraq are derailing the thread. The point that Iraq isn't the most threatening country to us is a good arguement (even if Saddam had WMD, his weapons would have to go longer to reach us than NK's) but getting into what Dumbya did/didn't know is really in the wrong place. Ditto Mike for taking the bait that NoCal and Robo threw out.

[The Czech Republic 0]

In addition to that, I'll just keep saying what I've been saying all along in that there are more imminent threats than Iraq was. I still don't quite understand why we haven't done the noble thing in just overthrowing the Cuban dictatorship already, and I can guarantee you the citizens would be much more grateful than the Iraqis are.

I love my friend who went nuts upon arriving at college:

 

"Castro is more educated than Bush. Cuba will rise above America because they will be educated."

 

I'm going to create a drinking game based on his use of the word "educated" and die of alcohol poisoning. When I stop posting at TSM, you'll know why.

[Guest MikeSC]

The NK situation is the embodiment of Bush's concept of why we cannot wait until there is an imminent threat. The Japanese are probably shitting bricks if this is true. And now we're going to have to dance on egg shells to figure this out.

Not really. There's little to no chance they'll launch the weapon.

 

The threat of launching a nuke is the only thing NK has to bargain. If they go ahead and do it, it'll be raining bombs from pretty much every global player there is. Their only real tactic is the threatening gestures of having a nuke, and to see exactly what they can milk out of everyone else for that.

 

 

Also, you lefts who are turning this into Bush/Iraq are derailing the thread. The point that Iraq isn't the most threatening country to us is a good arguement (even if Saddam had WMD, his weapons would have to go longer to reach us than NK's) but getting into what Dumbya did/didn't know is really in the wrong place. Ditto Mike for taking the bait that NoCal and Robo threw out.

And you ignore that the fear was NEVER that Saddam would fire the weapons.

 

The fear was always that he'd sell them to people who'd have no problems using them themselves.

 

And, if you love the idea of us go into a country we don't know a damned thing about, well, that is just peachy.

-=Mike

[SuperJerk 0]

And, Robot, it does seem only fair that we help Iraq have a chance to make their choice. Might they make a choice that is against our interests?

 

Yes.

 

But they might make a decision that benefits the world.

Seems like too big of a gamble to me. Especially when the war was sold as being as an issue of national security. Iraq could end up being an even bigger threat than before.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

The Senate Select Intel Committee stands by the yellowcake story.

 

As does British Intel.

 

But the White House doesn't.

 

And the SSCI report didn't establish that that the yellowcake story was true. All it did was state that it couldn't be disproven.

[Guest MikeSC]

And, Robot, it does seem only fair that we help Iraq have a chance to make their choice. Might they make a choice that is against our interests?

 

Yes.

 

But they might make a decision that benefits the world.

Seems like too big of a gamble to me. Especially when the war was sold as being as an issue of national security. Iraq could end up being an even bigger threat than before.

Robot, we have taken that chance many times in the past. We took the risk that Germany could've fallen apart again after WW II. We took the risk that Japan could have resorted to its militaristic gov't that dominated after the 20's after WW II.

 

It was a risk, a big one, but one that history shows was worth the effort.

 

We cannot make changes, we cannot improve things if risks such as these are not taken. I really expect democracy to take hold in Iraq. I truly do. And I think it'll influence the rest of the Middle East.

 

But, I also acknowledge I could be wrong.

 

But there is no chance of what I think could happen possibly happening if the first steps are not tried.

But the White House doesn't.

 

And the SSCI report didn't establish that that the yellowcake story was true. All it did was state that it couldn't be disproven.

Um, Joe Wilson's REPORT --- you know, the one he actually submitted --- backed up the yellowcake story. In fact, nobody can figure out why his report to Congress and his public statements correlate so poorly.

 

And, when somebody says a story can't be disproven, it means it's probably true.

 

Just saying.

-=Mike

[Guest Vitamin X]

In addition to that, I'll just keep saying what I've been saying all along in that there are more imminent threats than Iraq was. I still don't quite understand why we haven't done the noble thing in just overthrowing the Cuban dictatorship already, and I can guarantee you the citizens would be much more grateful than the Iraqis are.

I love my friend who went nuts upon arriving at college:

 

"Castro is more educated than Bush. Cuba will rise above America because they will be educated."

 

I'm going to create a drinking game based on his use of the word "educated" and die of alcohol poisoning. When I stop posting at TSM, you'll know why.

Ha. He wouldn't last a week at my school before getting his ass kicked, let alone a semester for the teachers to view him as a complete idiot.

 

Even if his first statement was correct, that second one is completely reprehensible.

[Guest MikeSC]

In addition to that, I'll just keep saying what I've been saying all along in that there are more imminent threats than Iraq was. I still don't quite understand why we haven't done the noble thing in just overthrowing the Cuban dictatorship already, and I can guarantee you the citizens would be much more grateful than the Iraqis are.

I love my friend who went nuts upon arriving at college:

 

"Castro is more educated than Bush. Cuba will rise above America because they will be educated."

 

I'm going to create a drinking game based on his use of the word "educated" and die of alcohol poisoning. When I stop posting at TSM, you'll know why.

Ha. He wouldn't last a week at my school before getting his ass kicked, let alone a semester for the teachers to view him as a complete idiot.

 

Even if his first statement was correct, that second one is completely reprehensible.

I'd like to know in what alternate universe somebody can attempt to argue that Castro is well-educated.

-=Mike

[Guest Brian]

Well, he was trained as a lawyer at the University of Havana.

[Guest MikeSC]

Well, he was trained as a lawyer at the University of Havana.

Which sounds about as good as being a doctor from a Mexican University.

 

I've not heard anything profound uttered by Fidel --- and he's had a while to churn out something.

-=Mike