The surge is working! (Or, Unity07, Iraqi style)

WMD Justification for Iraq war (0.00 / 0)

Many Democrats who sat on the Senate intelligence committee saw the same intelligence data that the Bush administration saw and chose to vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq. And Bill Clinton has said that his administration also thought that Saddam Hussein had WMD's.

"If I had been in the Senate I would have voted for the resolution that would have given the President the authority to use force." Bill Clinton

"The intelligence showed that there was a substantial amount of unaccounted for - that is we don't know what happened to it - biological and chemical agents and that there was some limited laboratory capacity and a nuclear deal, but I never thought he had a serious nuclear program." Bill Clinton

Source: http://www.clintonfo...

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 18:30:21 PM UTC

Bill would say otherwise because..? (0.00 / 0)

Hillary's stance on Iraq is her achilles heel in the race.

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by: Scarce @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:10:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Denying the truth (0.00 / 0)

Clinton has consistently said this since the Iraq war started. Just because it doesn't fit your biased view doesn't mean it's not true

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:19:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You don't know what my views are (0.00 / 0)

And Kerry said much the same thing as Clinton. Even a few years ago in 2004. The difference between Kerry and Hillary Clinton, or even Bill here, is that he's accepted his role in supporting an illegal war based on flawed, fraudulent intelligence whereas Hillary has not.

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by: Scarce @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:26:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Biased view (0.00 / 1)

Yes, you have a biased view. What's your definition of an illegal war. Sending troups to Somalia or Haiti, do you include that. How about sending military helicopters to Iran as Carter did. Is it the number of troops that make it illegal in your warped view. Neither Carter or Clinton got Congress to approve those actions, whereas the Congress did authorize the Iraq war. 

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:38:09 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Preemptive war (0.00 / 0)

..is an entirely new concept invented by the Bush administration. The UN has already expressed its opinion in the negative, as have almost every other nation on the planet. History will not look favorably on the Bush administration or those who enabled them.

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by: Scarce @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:47:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

reality testing time (0.00 / 0)

If the Syrian Army were to break into the US Embassy in say Lebanon, capture US Embassy employees, take the computers and data and do it all with an armed military, would that be an open act of war on the United States?

If not, why not?

If so, then why did the United States perform an open act of war on Iran by doing just that to their people in Kurdish Iraq? And do you support that?

By what logic does any country have the right to invade any other country half way around the world from them without open provication (ie: an attack on that country first)?

Finally, when an NIE generally takes six months to generate, how good could the data be in one that was generated in less than one month? Good enough to go to war on?


The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 23:43:39 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What exactly are you talking about? (0.00 / 0)

Iran has Kurdish people in Iraq? Are those the ones that Saddam used poison gas on? The ones the U.S. liberated?

You seem to have forgotten that Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam violated the cease fire agreement, which gives the U.S. the right to renew hostilities.

Was the NIE good enough to go to war on? Ask all the democrats that voted to go to war. As mention before the Clinton administration had believed Saddam had WMDs. That was before 9/11 and the NIE report you are referring to.

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by: georgebush @ Thu Apr 12, 2007 at 17:00:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If you got your news from someone other than Faux News (0.00 / 0)

`US raid on Iranian office unacceptable'
MOSCOW: A raid by US troops on an Iranian office in Iraq was "absolutely unacceptable" and violated international law, Russia's foreign ministry said on Friday. The raid on Thursday in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil was "absolutely unacceptable" and "the crudest possible violation of the Vienna convention on consular relations," ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement.

The statement referred to the raid as being directed against "the Iranian consulate general" and described five Iranians arrested as "diplomats." Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, denied this Friday, saying that the Iranians had been working officially in Iraq but as part of a "liaison office" that was yet to be classified as a consulate with diplomatic protection.

The swoop by US troops triggered a diplomatic row, with Tehran accusing the US force of violating the building's diplomatic status. Kamynin also expressed scepticism over George W. Bush's new Iraq strategy and troop buildup, saying the plan amounted to admitting mistakes in the campaign.

"We are talking about recognition of the need to correct the previous course, based on thinking over mistakes made in Iraq that we had previously pointed out to our American colleagues," Kamynin said. However, Bush's new plan, which centres on deploying an additional 21,500 soldiers to Iraq, shows the "calculation remains as it was-to resolve the Iraqi crisis through force," Kamynin said. Whether this will work, "time will show," he said, adding that the only solution was to foster a "broad and real inter-Iraqi dialogue."

http://www.thenews.c...

Then Thursday came a U.S. raid on an Iranian consulate in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. By the end of the day, rumors of war with Iran had spread to normally cautious corners of the Internet. The Washington Note wondered aloud if Bush had issued an executive order to commence military action against Iran and Syria. Was the raid a deliberate provocation and the preface to war?

An eyewitness report briefly posted in Arabic to the Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan reported that two U.S. helicopters hovered near the building for a quarter of an hour early Thursday morning, then dropped off several soldiers. They approached the consulate and used megaphones to demand that those within surrender. They then tossed stun grenades inside before attacking it and detaining five persons within, three of whom were Iranians. The U.S. soldiers confiscated computers and records from the building. According to the Associated Press, U.S. troops also hurried to the Irbil airport in hopes of detaining persons suspected of trying to flee the country.

The Iranian mission's application to the Kurdistan Regional Government to be recognized as a consulate is still in process, but it would be sophistry to argue, as the U.S. has done, that its status as a diplomatic mission is questionable. American forces did, indeed, raid an Iranian government installation. Thursday's events, however, are unlikely to be the immediate preface to wider action against Iran, since the operation appears to have been carefully targeted and limited in scope. It was also not the first action taken against Iranian targets inside Iraq. Last month, U.S. forces raided the compound of influential Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and netted Iranian intelligence officers.

http://www.salon.com...

So, as you can see, the US attacked Iran back in Jan 2007. But why would they US do that?

The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Exclusive Report: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security officials sparked a diplomatic crisis
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 03 April 2007

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil - and the angry Iranian response to it - should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.

The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.

"They were after Jafari," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. "The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there," said Mr Hussein.

Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. "His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard]," said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani's political party.

The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.

http://news.independ...

Seems we were trying to snatch and grab the head of Iran's CIA. NOw, please tell me how some foreign government, attempting to snatch and grab the head of the CIA from the US at a foreign consulate with their military wouldn't be an unprovoked attack on the US?

Seems that we have a simple case of "do as I say, not as I do from glorious leader and his boss  Dick Cheney (or was that Karl Rove?).

That was before 9/11 and the NIE report you are referring to.

You mean the one Senator Graham demanded that was produced in less than a month, that was the one that was before 9/11? Please learn to read, and stop watching Faux News, don't you know that they lie?

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Thu Apr 12, 2007 at 21:03:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What are you talking about (0.00 / 0)

Your responses would be more effective if they actually referred to the statements rather than pontificating.

Yes, I believe Bill Clinton was president before 9/11 and his administration believed that Saddam had WMDs. Duh!

Maybe you were not born yet but Iran attacked the U.S. embassy in 1979 and held Americans hostage for more than a year.
http://www.jimmycart...

It appears that the office was not a consulate.

From your source "liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. "

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by: georgebush @ Fri Apr 13, 2007 at 01:20:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Lying liars and the lies they tell (4.00 / 1)

Many Democrats who sat on the Senate intelligence committee saw the same intelligence data that the Bush administration saw and chose to vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

Lies, more lies and big fat lies from another georgebush....

At a meeting of the Senate intelligence committee on Sept. 5, 2002, CIA Director George Tenet was asked what the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) provided as the rationale for a preemptive war in Iraq. An NIE is the product of the entire intelligence community, and its most comprehensive assessment. I was stunned when Tenet said that no NIE had been requested by the White House and none had been prepared. Invoking our rarely used senatorial authority, I directed the completion of an NIE.

Tenet objected, saying that his people were too committed to other assignments to analyze Saddam Hussein's capabilities and will to use chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons. We insisted, and three weeks later the community produced a classified NIE.

There were troubling aspects to this 90-page document. While slanted toward the conclusion that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction stored or produced at 550 sites, it contained vigorous dissents on key parts of the information, especially by the departments of State and Energy. Particular skepticism was raised about aluminum tubes that were offered as evidence Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program. As to Hussein's will to use whatever weapons he might have, the estimate indicated he would not do so unless he was first attacked.

Under questioning, Tenet added that the information in the NIE had not been independently verified by an operative responsible to the United States. In fact, no such person was inside Iraq. Most of the alleged intelligence came from Iraqi exiles or third countries, all of which had an interest in the United States' removing Hussein, by force if necessary.

The American people needed to know these reservations, and I requested that an unclassified, public version of the NIE be prepared. On Oct. 4, Tenet presented a 25-page document titled "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs." It represented an unqualified case that Hussein possessed them, avoided a discussion of whether he had the will to use them and omitted the dissenting opinions contained in the classified version. Its conclusions, such as "If Baghdad acquired sufficient weapons-grade fissile material from abroad, it could make a nuclear weapon within a year," underscored the White House's claim that exactly such material was being provided from Africa to Iraq.

From my advantaged position, I had earlier concluded that a war with Iraq would be a distraction from the successful and expeditious completion of our aims in Afghanistan. Now I had come to question whether the White House was telling the truth -- or even had an interest in knowing the truth.

On Oct. 11, I voted no on the resolution to give the president authority to go to war against Iraq. I was able to apply caveat emptor. Most of my colleagues could not.

That was from the only Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Commitee to see the classified version of the NIE before the vote. Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) at the time.

They LIED! and you are lying still.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:23:30 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

What no source? (0.00 / 0)

I noticed you don't back up your facts with a source!

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:33:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Um, (4.00 / 1)

Bob Graham, former senator from Florida isn't a good enough source for you?

Here's a hyperlink if that's what you're looking for.

http://www.washingto...

You may also find this useful.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." - Warren Buffet

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by: joesaho @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:42:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Exactly (0.00 / 0)

Where does it say Graham was the only Democrat to see the report?

Committee who saw the intelligence.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence members
Senators Graham, Levin, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Wyden, Durbin,
Bayh, Edwards, Mikulski, Shelby, Kyl, Inhofe, and DeWine.

  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence members
present: Representatives Goss, Bereuter, Castle, Boehlert,
Gibbons, LaHood, Hoekstra, Burr, Everett, Pelosi, Bishop,
Condit, Roemer, Harman, Boswell, Peterson, and Cramer.

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 20:07:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And (0.00 / 0)

Graham pushed for its declassification. He got it on Oct. 4, 2002, only a week before the Congress voted on the Iraq war resolution.
http://dir.salon.com...

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 20:08:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

what he got (0.00 / 0)

was a "sales brochure" for going to war that left out every caveat from the NIE.

Also called "the big lie".

Just like your posts.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 23:34:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You are the liar (0.00 / 0)

  Graham was not the only Democrat on the Intelligence  Committee who saw the intelligence. 

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence members
Senators Graham, Levin, Rockefeller, Feinstein, Wyden, Durbin,
Bayh, Edwards, Mikulski, Shelby, Kyl, Inhofe, and DeWine.

  House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence members
present: Representatives Goss, Bereuter, Castle, Boehlert,
Gibbons, LaHood, Hoekstra, Burr, Everett, Pelosi, Bishop,
Condit, Roemer, Harman, Boswell, Peterson, and Cramer.

http://frwebgate.acc...

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by: georgebush @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 19:58:12 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well (0.00 / 0)

Durbin, Graham, Levin, Mikulski, and Wyden all voted against the AUMF. Edwards now says his vote for authorization was the wrong choice. Feinstein and Rockefeller are the only other Democratic senators on your list who voted for the war. That's three Senators.

The list of House members is irrelevant since the meeting Levin was talking about was comprised of Senate members.

So here's your original assertion:

Many Democrats who sat on the Senate intelligence committee saw the same intelligence data that the Bush administration saw and chose to vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq.

How many is "many"? Three? Doesn't seem like "many" to me. But then, I can count to one hundred, maybe I'm biased because three seems small in comparison.

"There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." - Warren Buffet

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by: joesaho @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 21:13:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Every once in a while (0.00 / 0)

They self-destruct...

The Bush administration's use of intelligence on Iraq did not just blur this distinction; it turned the entire model upside down. The administration used intelligence not to inform decision-making, but to justify a decision already made. It went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq. (The military made extensive use of intelligence in its war planning, although much of it was of a more tactical nature.) Congress, not the administration, asked for the now-infamous October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's unconventional weapons programs, although few members of Congress actually read it. (According to several congressional aides responsible for safeguarding the classified material, no more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary.) As the national intelligence officer for the Middle East, I was in charge of coordinating all of the intelligence community's assessments regarding Iraq; the first request I received from any administration policymaker for any such assessment was not until a year into the war.

And we have to assume that some of those six Seantors were members of the GOP...

Oh, yes... http://www.foreignaf...
gtreat reading if your a wonk (which you aren't) from someone who was in the middle of the mess (PAUL R. PILLAR is on the faculty of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Concluding a long career in the Central Intelligence Agency, he served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.)

This war has now gone on so long that we tend to forget the early history that foretold the present. Yet this is the history we must remember now more than ever, because it keeps repeating itself, with ever more tragic results. In the run-up to the war, it should be recalled, the administration did not even bother to commission an N.I.E., a summary of the latest findings from every American intelligence agency, on Iraq's weapons.

Why not? The answer can be found in what remains the most revealing Iraq war document leaked to date: the Downing Street memo of July 23, 2002, written eight months before the invasion. In that secret report to the Blair government, the head of British intelligence reported on a trip to Washington, where he learned that the Bush administration was fixing the "intelligence and facts" around the predetermined policy of going to war in Iraq. If we were going to fix the intelligence anyway, there was no need for an N.I.E., except as window dressing, since it might expose the thinness of the administration's case.

A prewar N.I.E. was hastily (and sloppily) assembled only because Congress demanded it. By the time it was delivered to the Capitol after much stalling, on Oct. 1, 2002, less than two weeks remained before the House and Senate would vote on the Iraq war resolution. "No more than six senators and only a handful of House members got beyond the five-page executive summary," according to an article last spring in Foreign Affairs by Paul Pillar, the C.I.A. senior analyst for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005. In a White House press briefing after the war started, an official said Condi Rice hadn't read it at all, leaving that menial duty to her retinue of "experts."

When one senator who did read the whole N.I.E., the now retired Democrat Bob Graham of Florida, asked that a declassified version be made public so that Americans could reach their own verdicts on the war's viability, he was rebuffed. Instead the administration released a glossy white paper that trumpeted the N.I.E.'s fictions ("All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons") but not its doubts about much-hyped evidence like aluminum tubes and uranium from Africa. The only time the president cared about the N.I.E., a document he never wanted, was when he thought it would be politically useful in fighting growing criticism in 2003 that he had manipulated prewar intelligence. Then he authorized his own cherry-picked leaks, which Scooter Libby fed to Mr. Woodward and Judith Miller of The Times. (Neither wrote about it at the time.)

cite: http://welcome-to-po...

Now, let's see if you can deal with reality yet?

There is nothing I like more than blasting lying scum with cites and facts. Anytime you want to prove that the Bush team didn't lie, feel free.

The question is not what you are, we already determined that, we are now negotiating price.
electrealdemocrats.com Online since 3/07 -- TimetogoJoe.com Online s

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by: Met00 @ Wed Apr 11, 2007 at 23:32:33 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It always comes down to the My Pet Goat defense (0.00 / 0)

Just another page. One more. Really.

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by: notcho @ Sun Apr 15, 2007 at 00:32:52 AM UTC