Study: False statements preceded war

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Geez Loise people....Are you really so delusional and conspiratorial that you actually beleive that sitting U.S. President, along with a select group of "insiders", conspired to lead this country into war.....WHILST......nobody else noticed, for reasons UNKNOWN???? Is this what is known as "fuzzy logic"?

Poleeze, pass out the tin foil hats for everyone here that subsribes to this nonsense as CLEARLY the far left loones are abound in this forum!

Someone else who only got half the story from the US corporate media.

[HAL 9000 96]

Geez Loise people....Are you really so delusional and conspiratorial that you actually beleive that sitting U.S. President, along with a select group of "insiders", conspired to lead this country into war.....WHILST......nobody else noticed, for reasons UNKNOWN???? Is this what is known as "fuzzy logic"?

Poleeze, pass out the tin foil hats for everyone here that subsribes to this nonsense as CLEARLY the far left loones are abound in this forum!

Truthiness is the best word to describe what the Bush Administration did. I don't think it was some diabolical scheme, but more of an ideological viewpoint taken to catastrophic extremes. Read about the PNAC and look who's who. Regardless of whether 9/11 happened or not, there were key members of the Bush Administration who thought, ideologically, that removing Saddam Hussein by force would a successful strategy and then after 9/11, to put in the best of terms, did their very best to try to win over public support for the invasion.

I find more fault in the media and those who just rolled over for not asking the right questions (including many Democrats in congress). It's a lesson learned for all of us....never again let power go unchecked.

President Clinton moved our national focus in Iraq from containment to a change in leaders. Clinton also said after he left office in an interview with Larry King that he was sure that Saddam had WMD's and was striving to get more. The policy that resulted in the war started long before Bush was elected.

Clinton did not dictate Bush policy. That would be completely insane to try to blame a rush to war based on lies.

Again, logic dictates that if he really was into replacing one dictator with another leader due to having sure-fire proof of there being new, non-US derived WMDs in Iraq, then Clinton would have done something about it. What I do take issue with Clinton over is his failure to take out Bin Laden while he had viable intelligence of his actual whereabouts.

[HAL 9000 96]

Let alone Dems and Repubs....look at what many world leaders were saying about their intel on SH and his plans....

France didn't stand against us cos they didn't believe he was a threat...they were against making a move before we were officially attacked.

Most of Europe was in bed with Saddam and the oil for food scam. France and Germany didn't want to join in because they were getting rich.

And I remind you Saddam was a big US ally in the 80s, during the gassing of the Kurds.

[GaryC 7]

The irony to this thread is the "fact" that the only U.S. President in the past 20 years, having been proved to actually be a consistant pathological liar is a democratic president, Bill Clinton; having been impeached for the that very infraction......

Let's not even dwell on the fact that he was asleep at the wheel for eight years as the islamic jihadist attacked us.....

Yet he did not partake in the unnecessary loss of human life as a result of his lies. Apples and oranges again.

If Clinton got impeached for killing his own sperm and lying about it, then we should apply the same illogical argument and have Bush impeached for lying to get our soldiers killed.

Which proves, that as much as you want to believe it, Bush didn't lie to get us into war. If he did the dems would have impeached Bush and Cheney and we would be calling Pelosi Madam President right now. This is all azz covering for the dems. They were all on board for the war in 2003. They went one by one to the mic and said we needed to take him out. Bush didn't force or lie his way to war. The entire country wanted it. President Clinton said the exact same things Bush did using the very same intel.

The Bush lied mantra is nothing more than political hackery. Only the tin foil hat types really believe that Bush lied his way into war. To believe he did requires a "willing suspention of disbelief" in order to forget the run up to the war. The rest are just using the mantra to try and make political points.

Ho-hum.... That simply isn't true.

In addition to the DIA evaluation Big Dog has posted many times - I've referenced (also many times) the Downing Street Memo (big story in the UK, didn't break water over here) in which the then director of MI6 was quoted as saying that Bush had already decided upon war and was essentially fixing the evidence around the pre-determined policy. The UK govt I believe, even admitted of its own volition that it was genuine...

Then there's also the fiasco over the dodgy dossier which was publicly revealed to have been plagiarised from Ibrahim al-Marashi's university thesis (right down to the typos); and the subsequent September Dossier which included highly controversial, badly worded claims and totally untrue claims relating to national security threats. Not least of course that Bush's 2003 State of the Union address contained an explicit reference to the Nigerian Yellowcake story, which by the time it was included in the speech was already known to be a completely false claim.

Again with this so called Downing Steet Memo. A secret and unsubstanciated piece of political BS. If this were real the dems would have been all over it. But not one word of it here. Why is that? Because it isn't real. Is that all you got?

It's useless arguing with the tin foil hat Bush derangment sufferers. They want to blame Bush then that is what they will do. Forget the facts just blame Bush!! What a bunch of tools.

Withy all due respect - piss off Gary. You didn't receive any exposure to the war debate in Europe, so you write off the whole thing as some sort of fabrication. How f*cking arrogant can you get?

I will not "piss off". I consider myself very well informed. I saw what was going on in europe via the BBC. The downing street memo didn't prove a thing. There wasn't anything in it that wasn't already known. Sure Bush wanted to take out Saddam. It was known long before that "memo" you wave around came out. It was our policy here to take out Saddam starting in 98 with Clinton. The fact that Saddam ignored every UN Mandate gave Bush and Blair the validation to go in. The rest of europe was to busy lining their pockets with the oil for food scam to care about anything else. In short they were bought off. How fukcing arrogant can you get trying to tell me I don't know what I am talking about? Piss off.

Edited January 24, 2008 by GaryC

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

[HAL 9000 96]

And somehow these UN "mandates" were not mentioned when Bush lied about WMDs and a threat to the security of the USA to the "well-informed."

That is selective memory.

[GaryC 7]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

[HAL 9000 96]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

Bush lied and that is the whole darn point of this thread. Don't try to cover the sun with one hand.

Heck, Saddam was just as hated (in the US) as, say, Mr. Lonely-Glorious-Illustrious Leader in North Korea, and even though Bush has placed him on an imaginary Axis of Evil, and even having confirmation that they had actual nuclear weapons. Funny to say that the country that IS a threat to our security HAS nuclear weapons, has an unstable leader, and is still ignored from military action. The one that did not have verifiable WMDs with a leader that was not a threat to US security, was taken out. Interesting double standard we defend.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

And somehow these UN "mandates" were not mentioned when Bush lied about WMDs and a threat to the security of the USA to the "well-informed."

That is selective memory.

Also the UN Resolutions didn't authorise the use of military force. That's why there was all the wrangling with the UN to push through a second UN resolution in addition to Resolution 1441. Bushco. wanted to do it in complete disregard of International law and any consideration of the damage it would do to international relations (which they ended up doing anyway).

Then there's this little tid-bit about the Joint Resolution passed by the US Senate. Provides a bit of context (of course its all lies designed to smear the President, who apparently become the target of a vast, global conspiracy - bigger even than the "vast right-wing conspiracy" alluded to during the last months of President Clinton's tenure...

Congressional Record: January 28, 2004 (Senate)

Page S311-S312

NEW INFORMATION ON IRAQ'S POSSESSION OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I express my appreciation to

the Senator from North Dakota for the case that he has made, which has

been very disturbing to us as two Senators, because the information we

have received over the last several days causes us not only to scratch

our heads but to shake our heads--that the intelligence we received in

the secure rooms of this Capitol complex was either so faulty that we

are in a considerable degree of vulnerability, that we are not getting

accurate information upon which to defend this country, or that the

information that was presented to us was faulty not because of the

sources of that information and the analysis but there was some

suggestion of coloring that information to reach a certain conclusion.

I think this is far beyond Republicans and Democrats. This is about

defense of the homeland. This is about America. Just because this has

come up in January of an election year, with Dr. Kay coming forth and

telling us today in the Armed Services Committee that he concluded this

last November, then it is sure time for us to get some answers for the

protection of this country and its people.

I want to take this occasion to inform the Senate of specific

information that I was given, which turns out not to be true. I was one

of 77 Senators who voted for the resolution in October of 2002 to

authorize the expenditure of funds for the President to engage in an

attack on Iraq. I voted for it. I want to tell you some specific

information that I received that had a great deal of bearing on my

conclusion to vote for that resolution. There were other factors, but

this information was very convincing to me that there was an imminent

peril to the interests of the United States.

I, along with nearly every Senator in this Chamber, in that secure

room of this Capitol complex, was not only told there were weapons of

mass destruction--specifically chemical and biological--but I was

looked at straight in the face and told that Saddam Hussein had the

means of delivering those biological and chemical weapons of mass

destruction by unmanned drones, called UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.

Further, I was looked at straight in the face and told that UAVs could

be launched from ships off the Atlantic coast to attack eastern

seaboard cities of the United States.

Is it any wonder that I concluded there was an imminent peril to the

United States? The first public disclosure of that information occurred

perhaps a couple of weeks later, when the information was told to us.

It was prior to the vote on the resolution and it was in a highly

classified setting in a secure room. But the first public disclosure of

that information was when the President addressed the Nation on TV. He

said that Saddam Hussein possessed UAVs.

Later, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in his presentation to

the United Nations, in a very dramatic and effective presentation,

expanded that and suggested the possibility that UAVs could be launched

against the homeland, having been transported out of Iraq. The

information was made public, but it was made public after we had

already voted on the resolution, and at the time there was nothing to

contradict that.

We now know, after the fact and on the basis of Dr. Kay's testimony

today in the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the information was

false; and not only that there were not weapons of mass destruction--

chemical and biological--but there was no fleet of UAVs, unmanned

aerial vehicles, nor was there any capability of putting UAVs on ships

and transporting them to the Atlantic coast and launching them at U.S.

cities on the eastern seaboard.

I am upset that the degree of specificity I was given a year and a

half ago, prior to my vote, was not only inaccurate; it was patently

false. I want some further explanations.

Now, what I have found after the fact--and I presented this to Dr.

Kay this morning in the Senate Armed Services Committee--is there was a

vigorous dispute within the intelligence community as to what the CIA

had concluded was accurate about those UAVs and about their ability to

be used elsewhere outside of Iraq. Not only was it in vigorous dispute,

there was an outright denial that the information was accurate. That

was all within the intelligence community.

But I didn't find that out before my vote. I wasn't told that. I

wasn't told that there was a vigorous debate going on as to whether or

not that was accurate information. I was given that information as if

it were fact, and any reasonable person then would logically conclude

that the interests of the United States and its people were in

immediate jeopardy and peril. That has turned out not to be true.

We need some answers, and I saw the ranking member of the Armed

Services Committee ask the chairman for a further investigation into

this matter. I heard the chairman say: I will take it under

consideration.

I hope that is a positive sign and not a negative sign. We need to

get to the bottom of this for the protection of our country. It is too

bad this is coming up in the year 2004, which happens to coincide with

the Presidential election, because people are going to immediately say

this is partisan politics.

The fact is, this is the politics of the protection of our country,

and we need some answers. I don't want to be voting on war resolutions

in the future based on information that is patently false when

everybody is telling me, looking me eyeball to eyeball, that it is

true.

I am hoping, as the Senator from North Dakota has suggested, that we

have a convening of the appropriate intelligence officials in the

secure room and that members of the intelligence community, as well as

members of the administration, will come and explain, in addition to

what Dr. Kay has explained on the public record--which is revealing

enough in itself--what, in fact, happened and how we are going to

correct the process and the analysis of information so that we never

have this kind of miscalculation and misinformation again.

Either the intelligence community's self-examination, its analysis

was hugely faulty, or there were the hints at taking information and

coloring it, called stacking the news and coming out with a conclusion

that was wanted. I think we have to find out what happened.

It is not a question of whether or not Saddam Hussein ought to be

gone. Thank goodness he is gone. That probably had a very salutary

effect on the United States in that part of the world, that the United

States will back up its intentions with force. But when the United

States makes decisions about a preemptive war, a war now that has

claimed the lives of over 500 American men and women, then we have to

have a much higher standard of accuracy of the information upon which

we make the judgments to send America's finest on to the battlefield.

I can tell you about all the soldiers from Florida who are now laid

to rest. There are plenty of reasons I am raising these questions, but

if for no other reason than to raise the questions for the mamas and

the daddies and the spouses and the children of those soldiers. That is

plenty justification enough. But the justification is much greater, and

that is the justification of making sure we can protect ourselves in

the future.

In a war against terrorists, our defense is only going to be as good

as the information we receive to stop the terrorists. We had a colossal

failure of intelligence on September 11, 2 years ago. We can't afford

that kind of failure again. Yet we have just found out that when we

were given the reasons for going to war, that was faulty intelligence.

America can't afford too many more of these, for the protection of

ourselves and our loved ones.

[[Page S312]]

This is something of considerable concern to me personally. I know it

is of considerable concern to the rest of the Senate. I hope the

majority leader of this Senate, Senator Frist, is going to listen to

those of us in this Chamber who say that this request has nothing to do

with politics. Let's get to the bottom of what is the truth and how we

make sure that information in the future is true.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.

The assistant journal clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for

the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/s012804b.html

[LuzyC 0]

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

I'll cool you down sweetie..

Come home and your iced tea (and me) waiting for you ..

Take care driving baby, love u!

[HAL 9000 96]

International What? Remember, it was all according to Dubya... with us or against us. Not much room to objectively think there.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

Sure - but Bush was the boss. He started the war. Buck stops with him. No?

He was in charge when his administration misrepresented the facts - and its a case of simple deduction to put the various accounts together and read between the lines as to what was going on.

Has nothing to do with Saddam IMO either - Bush widened a limited war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to include a secular (yes brutal, evil whatever you want to call it) regime that had nothing to do with Bin Laden's lot; and... I should add... playing off of the ignorance of the general public (not for the first time) that all those "arab types" are the same in terms of politics and ideology.

[GaryC 7]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

Sure - but Bush was the boss. He started the war. Buck stops with him. No?

He was in charge when his administration misrepresented the facts - and its a case of simple deduction to put the various accounts together and read between the lines as to what was going on.

Has nothing to do with Saddam IMO either - Bush widened a limited war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to include a secular (yes brutal, evil whatever you want to call it) regime that had nothing to do with Bin Laden's lot; and... I should add... playing off of the ignorance of the general public (not for the first time) that all those "arab types" are the same in terms of politics and ideology.

So no one else has any responsibility at all? You seem to be missing my point all together. I am objecting to the Bush lied mantra. He may have had bad intel, he may have emphasized some points and soft soaped others but I remember that there was an entire country that WANTED to go to war. I remember congress person after congress person come to the mic and profess that they saw the intel and stated that Saddam must go. I remember President Clinton saying that he thought Saddam had WMD's and needed to go. I remember Tony Blair saying that Saddam had WMD's and he needed to go. I remember an entire western world crying for war and now all we get is Bush lied and people died. How disingenuous can you get? I personally don't care if there were WMD's. I wanted Saddam out even if all he had were pop guns. So I don't care if the intel was wrong or over stated. But I think the real lier's here are the Bush haters that will not acknowledge that those that are calling Bush a lier are themselves a lier.

[Dan J 277]

Then you'll know all about the incidents with the fabricated dossier's and Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's Karl Rove?

Gary - all of these things are pieces of the same puzzle that points to the exact same conclusion. However you want to slice it - different sources, different accounts - same story. How do you explain that...?

Bush lied/exaggerated/misrepresented the available evidence to push a pre-medidated case for war - whatever euphemism you want to use to describe it, it still amounts to same thing. Which is what many people have been saying all along.

There were misrepresentations all around. I don't deny that. I just get steamed when people do the Bush lied BS. Bush, Blair, the US congress, the American people and at least some of the people in the UK all wanted to take out Saddam. But for some reason it all comes down to Bush lied. Saddam needed to go. He should have been taken out in the first gulf war. A great many people saw that and made a case to do it. When it got messy they all fell back on the Bush lied ####### in an attempt to deflect their own role in it. That is what I object to. At least be honest about what you (the in general you) did.

Sure - but Bush was the boss. He started the war. Buck stops with him. No?

He was in charge when his administration misrepresented the facts - and its a case of simple deduction to put the various accounts together and read between the lines as to what was going on.

Has nothing to do with Saddam IMO either - Bush widened a limited war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to include a secular (yes brutal, evil whatever you want to call it) regime that had nothing to do with Bin Laden's lot; and... I should add... playing off of the ignorance of the general public (not for the first time) that all those "arab types" are the same in terms of politics and ideology.

So no one else has any responsibility at all? You seem to be missing my point all together. I am objecting to the Bush lied mantra. He may have had bad intel, he may have emphasized some points and soft soaped others but I remember that there was an entire country that WANTED to go to war. I remember congress person after congress person come to the mic and profess that they saw the intel and stated that Saddam must go. I remember President Clinton saying that he thought Saddam had WMD's and needed to go. I remember Tony Blair saying that Saddam had WMD's and he needed to go. I remember an entire western world crying for war and now all we get is Bush lied and people died. How disingenuous can you get? I personally don't care if there were WMD's. I wanted Saddam out even if all he had were pop guns. So I don't care if the intel was wrong or over stated. But I think the real lier's here are the Bush haters that will not acknowledge that those that are calling Bush a lier are themselves a lier.

Lets get away from this entire country stuff. Apparently your selective memory has blocked out all those anti-war protests.

[HAL 9000 96]

Please give us actual citations that state your claims, not what you believe you can remember. Not to insult your memory, but those are easily suggested ex post facto. You've been repeatedly proven wrong time and time again here. Lets see if you can substantiate your claims.

And yes... Bush has been the most repulsive US President we've ever had. Not one single man has done more to damage the very principles we as a Democracy stand for.

Edited January 24, 2008 by maviwaro