Would our real President (Gore) have led us into Iraq?

[senseandsensibility]

I just heard Scott Ritter say that he would have on c-span 2. Agree, disagree?

[Kralizec]

1. He said Gore would have been forced to confront Iraq, though he may

have not used the same means as this administration.

[senseandsensibility]

3. It sounded to me like he was saying that we would have

invaded. But there was a lot of audience "feedback", so it's possible I misheard.

[Kralizec]

35. Yeah there were a lot of people who made "groaning" noises as he was

finishing his answer.

[liberalnurse]

50. I heard the same......

Gore would of tried negociations.....

[Nitrogenica]

2. Scott Ritter is SO IGNORANT. Who in their right mind would

believe that crap. Theres no way that Gore would have sold a WAR like a used car salesman selling a lemon. Never.

[Kralizec]

10. Question out of context. Ritter said that Gore was already, via Clinton,

involved with Iraq and Saddam's removal. He said that Gore would have has to have had a confrontation of some sort with Iraq, though he may have not used the same means Bush did.

This is not as cut and dry and the original questioner made it to seem.

Ignorance works both ways.

edit: clarification and spelling

[blm]

4. Not AFTER weapons inspections were proving invasion unnecessary.

Gore said he's get tougher on Iraq than Clinton during his campaign. But, that would have done what the IWR did do...put weapons inspectors back in FIRST and work on diplomatic measures.

No Democratic president would have invaded AFTER weapons inspections.

I don't believe that.

[leftofthedial]

5. absolutely not

it's a neocon chimera

[Yavin4]

6. I Disagree.

Gore gave an eloquent speech in SF during the build up to the war opposing it strongly. He probably would have continued the policy of containment and worked with the international community and the UN.

Only the neocons wanted this war, and 9/11 gave them the window of opportunity to do it. They took advantage of a traumatized nation to exact revenge on the wrong target.

[abluelady]

23. More than the neocons

Bush wanted this war. We now know that he was going to find a way to have it. Gore would not have invaded Iraq. He didn't have to show off for his daddy.

[bemildred]

7. Confrontation with Iraq has been US policy since the late 80s.

Pres. Gore would have had to deal with that. No doubt
he would not have been such a bonehead in pursuing that
policy. Whether he would have abandoned it for the stupid
policy that it is, is another matter.

[PowerToThePeople]

8. I like most everything Ritter says, but that was a stretch imo. n/t

[Kralizec]

19. Ritter has long said that Clinton's hands were not clean when it came

to handling Iraq. If you have heard Ritter explain his experience when he was Weapons Inspector (Clinton era), he'll say that Clinton wasn't as pure as you might think. Knowing that, why would his Vice-President Gore not be involved similarly?

[PowerToThePeople]

33. I would have to read more first. I have wanted to read Ritter's...

books. I think I'll pick his recent one up once I finish my current stack of reading...

[drummo]

47. Because Clinton is not Gore and Gore is not Clinton. Duh!

Why do people link these two as if they were joined at the brain?
Gore was already dealing with the Iraq problem in the Seante long before you ever heard about Bill Clinton.

He would have been very tough on Saddam. But he wouldn't have invaded Iraq as he understood the enourmeous difference between the two.

[noahmijo]

9. Gore being an intelligent sane human being would not have done that

I believe he wouldn't have likely stopped sanctions and he would probably talk tough with Saddam but create Iraqnam? No he would've known better.

[The2ndWheel]

27. So killing the average Iraqi

with sanctions, is better than sending in troops to do it instead? That would mean Gore was a sane AND intelligent human being?

Iraqnam, or just a completely out-of-sight-out-of-mind sanction approach, is different how? One was done by a Republican, the other a Democrat?

[noahmijo]

45. yea you're right bloodthirsty murderers all of em

let's just say fuck it all and move to New Zealand.

I meant sane as in he wouldn't be stupid enough to invade Iraq and create the quagmire we're living in today.

The fact is you're not Al Gore and I'm not Al Gore, but given the fact that the Clinton administration rejected an Iraqi Invasion policy drafted by the PNAC in '98 leads me to believe he wouldn't order an invasion but little evidence shows he would've stopped the sanctions.

Do I know for sure? no, but you know maybe instead of playing armchair problem solver why don't you write an angry letter to Al Gore instead of trying to pick an argument with me?

[drummo]

51. Yes it's better. Not the sanctions killed Iraqis. Saddam did.

He had more money in 2000 than he had in 1991 when the sanctions started. He should have spend it on his palaces and then the Iraqis would have had food and medicine.

[obxhead]

11. Disagree.... I hear a LOT of people say....

I'm glad Gore wasn't in charge on 9/11 because he wouldn't have done anything.

Well maybe he wouldn't have gone to war, but I'm sure he would have done something. Like secure our borders, Establish a true airline safety protocol, and establish a DHS that responds to American emergencies instead of diverting money into the pockets of people that already have more money than they can use.

[NYCGirl]

17. But I suspect the same people who say that...

are the same people who think Iraq had something to do with the attacks on 9/11.

[obxhead]

21. you would be exactly correct. What baffles me is that

they still support our brain child peznit.

[drummo]

52. Tell those idiots that 9/11 would have been prevented on Gore's watch.

And even if it had happened Gore would have gone to war.
Against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
But not against Iraq. That had nothing to do with 9/11.

Those people know nothing about Gore. They have only silly fantasies fueled by a false image built up by the mass media.

In reality Gore has been a hawk ever since he enterred the Congress in 1977. But he is not a hawk for the sake of being a hawk -- like Bush, for example.
Gore has a very good track record of getting it right with regard to military internventions. If it made sense he supported combat operations if it didn't make sense he opposed them. That's the only reasonable national security policy.

He would have invaded Afghanistan without a wink after 9/11, but 9/11, in all likelihood, would have been prevented on his watch, just like the Millenium Attacks were.
Tell those idiots that you don't connect the dots with firepower but with brainpower. Not much of that in the Bush administation but there wouldn't have been a shortage of brainpower in the Gore administration.

[Raksha]

12. Yeah, I heard that and I was pretty upset about it.

Al Gore is currently my first choice for 2008, but hearing Scott Ritter say he was "totally committed to regime change in Iraq" is causing me to have second thoughts. Does anyone have more information?

[senseandsensibility]

34. Is that a direct quote?

the audience was quite vocal, and I had trouble hearing Ritter after his initial statement.

[Raksha]

61. It's a paraphrase but I think it's pretty close to what he actually said.

I posted it right after I heard it while it was still fresh in my mind.

[drummo]

53. Yes. Gore was totally committed to regime change in Iraq. Who

wasn't who had a brain? Did you like Saddam or what?
I didn't. He should have been killed back in 1967 after the second Baathist coup. But at least after Hallabjah in 1988.


Gore was one of the very first members of the US goverment who spoke out against Saddam before it was politically correct to do so in the 1980s. His uncle was killed by chemical weapons in WWI and he has been obsessed with the WMD proliferation ever since his Harvard years.

No question that as President he would have been very strong on WMD proliferation and Saddam was certainly a big chunk of that problem, because if the sanctions had been lifted he would have started his programs all over again. But the containment policy (with sanctions and targeted bombings and the no-fly zone and US troops in Saudi Arabia) was itself a harsh, costly and imperfect solution.
Negotiations with Saddam of course were off the table. A fool would have trusted the thug.

That left only one option: regime change which Gore wanted and he made that clear during the 2000 campaign. After 1998, thanks to the Iraqi Liberation Act, regime change became official US policy. I don't know why Ritter talks about it as if it was a big revelation. That most in the government wanted reimge change in the 90s was not the issue. Of course they wanted it. The question was how to achieve it.
And that's where Bush and Gore differ dramatically.

Unlike Bush and the neocons Gore never promoted the invasion of Iraq let alone a permanent US military presence in the country. He wanted regime change done by the Iraqis themselves with foreign assistance.
Therefore Gore would have continued what the Clinton administation did:
-containment
-support the opposition
-multilateral pressure
-targeted bombings
-possibly covert action to topple Saddam

But NOT a full-scale unilateral invasion of Iraq.
Do you understand the difference?

[Mr_Spock]

13. No way in HELL Gore would have done a full invasion.

Sure, he would maybe have even blown Saddam's palaces all to hell, but there's no way he would've manipulated the American People into a full invasion war based on such flimsy evidence - NO FRIGGIN' WAY!!

Only another of these RW braindead morons I've seen too many of in my lifetime could have done something so entirely STUPID.

Reagan & Bush II - proving that a brain is not required to lead a great country into a ditch...

[Kralizec]

20. Once again, Ritter never said "full invasion," he said Gore would have

been forced, by his policies under Clinton I assume, to confront Iraq and Saddam on some level.

edit: spelling

[Mr_Spock]

26. You prove my point - the O/P overstated the significance of his statement

I agree - he wouldn't have said that - so this entire thread is based on nothing.

[Kralizec]

29. Good, glad I could help! I agree with you. This thread started out in the

wrong context.

[jwirr]

14. I think you need to go back further than that. Would 9/11

have happened or was it a part of the oil wars between the Saudi's and the bushies? We have no way of knowing for sure that any of this would have happened.

[drummo]

54. It not the oil wars. It was just the result of plain incompetence

ignorance and total lack of understanding of transnational terrorism and counter-terrorism.

Those guys around Bush were all out during the 90s. They were in the private sector, they had no idea about al Qaeda and what they were doing.

So they came in 2001 Jan 20 and they picked up where they left off in 1993: Iraq, Iraq and Iraq and a little missile defense.

They were totally out-of-touch with the new reality.
Wolfowitz told Tenet in the spring of 2001 I don't know why are are so concerned about this one man, bin Laden. The real threat is from Iraq.

Rice told the 9/11 commission:
"But you heard the character of the threat report we were getting: something very, very big is going to happen. How do you act on "something very, very big is going to happen" beyond trying to put people on alert? Most of the threat reporting was abroad."

Gee, really how do you act on something like that? Maybe by calling the FBI counter-terrorism division and telling them to go and get all info the JTTFs had about suspected terrorists inside the United States. Or call the FBI HQ and tell them to dig out every damn memo they had realting to suspected terrorists inside the US.
Wait. That was done in the Clinton administration in 1999 Dec.
You have to be an Einstein to contemplate that when the system is blinking red, obviously.
What an asshole!

If you take a close look at the statements of administration officials after 9/11 where they tried to explain why they did shit in the summer of 2001 to prevent the pending attack it's clear as hell that they didn't have a clue about the entire al Qaeda problem. Nor did they seem to understand the chain of command inside the executive branch:

Take this for example from Condi Rice:

RICE: And I take it very seriously. I know that those who attacked us that day -- and attacked us, by the way, because of who we are, no other reason, but for who we are -- that they are the responsible party for the war that they launched against us...

They didn't attack us because of who we are but because of where we are: in the Middle East, primarly in Saudi Arabia, the land of the two Holy Mosques.
But Rice didn't get it.

Or this:

RICE: ... Dick Clarke never asked me to brief the president on counterterrorism. He did brief the president later on cybersecurity, in July, but he, to my recollection, never asked.

Huh? Since when was Dick Clarke the boss of Condi Rice?
Clarke produced this memo as early as 2001 Jan.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm

It says "we urgently need such a Principals level review on the al Qaida network."
If that was not enough for Rice WTF would she have needed to wake up
and brief Bush on counterterrorism?

Or this:

ROEMER:
...
So, Dr. Rice, let's say that the FBI is the key here. You say that the FBI was tasked with trying to find out what the domestic threat was.

We have done thousands of interviews here at the 9/11 Commission. We've gone through literally millions of pieces of paper. To date, we have found nobody -- nobody at the FBI who knows anything about a tasking of field offices.

We have talked to the director at the time of the FBI during this threat period, Mr. Pickard. He says he did not tell the field offices to do this.

And we have talked to the special agents in charge. They don't have any recollection of receiving a notice of threat.

Nothing went down the chain to the FBI field offices on spiking of information, on knowledge of al Qaeda in the country, and still, the FBI doesn't do anything.

Isn't that some of the responsibility of the national security advisor?

RICE: The responsibility for the FBI to do what it was asked was the FBI's responsibility. Now, I...

ROEMER: You don't think there's any responsibility back to the advisor to the president...

RICE: I believe that the responsibility -- again, the crisis management here was done by the CSG. They tasked these things. If there was any reason to believe that I needed to do something or that Andy Card needed to do something, I would have been expected to be asked to do it. We were not asked to do it.


Since when is the FBI the boss or the national security advisor?
Rice turned the entire chain-of-command upside down.

And then look at Bush in that Florida school! Totally clueless. The idiot even forgot to order a complete evacuation of major government and financial centers in the country.
Such order came but only after the fourth crash in PA. Too little too late.

Gore understood the al Qaeda threat. So did his national security advisor, Leon Fuerth. Dick Clarke would have stayed in the cabinet.They would have known how to "shake the trees"
in the summer of 2001 and find the info about Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq al-Hazmi, two hijackers who were indentified by both the FBI and the CIA as suspected al Qaeda terrorists before 9/11.

The key to prevent 9/11 was to connect the dots. In order to connect the dots you have to find the dots. In order to find the dots you have to look for the dots. And where does a president look for the dots?
Within the Intelligence Community i.e. place like the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department intel bureau etc.
We now know that these agencies had enough info. It was just ignored by the NSC because "they were not asked" to do something.

Not to mention that there were a lot of publicly available information about al Qaeda and transnational terrorism in general.
Like this report by the CIA for the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Soc_Psych_of_Terrorism.pdf
Or this:
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/Future_trends.pdf

Why on the fuck do we have the Federal Research Division if those at the top do not read what they produce?

Bush said he didn't read it. Who can be surprised? What does he read?
There was the Gilmore Report, the Gore Report, the Bremer report, the Hard-Rudman Report. There were books about terrorism and al Qaeda and bin Laden. There were court papers, interviews, videos. The internet was full of info about terrorism.
There were a lot of info about this matter but Bush&Co. didn't read them, didn't listen to them, didn't watch them.

So after 9/11 all they could say: we don't think anybody could imagine an attack like this.

Duh!

And I couldn't imagine that there is a thing called gestational diabetes before I actually learned about it.

[don954]

15. I think Gore would have let the inspectors do their jobs

then he would have started removing our military guard we have had there since 1990. After that, if Saddam fucked up again, he would have crushed him in such a way that it would make "shock and awe" look more like a hiccup. He would also have followed the CIA plan to stabilize post Saddam Iraq, instead of throwing the book away like Bush did...

[Xipe Totec]

16. Disagree

Gore is a cautious man. He would have exhausted all diplomatic avenues first. He would have been lambasted for it by the right-wing chicken-hawks, but he would have waited for world-opinion to come to a consensus.

The consensus would have been, there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein possesses WMD, but there is enough evidence to show that Saddam, given an opportunity, would try to rebuild WMD capabilities.

The UN sanctions would have continued, Saddam would still be contained, and the NeoCon Chicken-hawks would be having shit-fits.

[The2ndWheel]

30. And that

"The UN sanctions would have continued"

would've been the right thing to do?

[drummo]

67. Yes. But one of the reason why Gore wanted to get rid of Saddam

was that the sanction regime was an imperfect solution.

But let's be real: you couldn't lift the sanctions while Saddam was there. Saddam would have used it to restart his WMD programs, no question about that.

[Lindsay]

18. Ritter may have the credentials on WMD,

but I think he has a strictly Repug view of the Democrats.

[realFedUp]

22. Ritter said Gore was plugged into the "regime change" thinking

I wouldn't disagree since the Clinton administration
was clearly plugged into the same course, although
I believe that a full out invasion wouldn't have
been their method for removing him. Covert action
was clearly going on along with the inspections,
as Ritter pointed out. Attempts were being made.

I also have to believe that the Clinton administration,
along with most other intelligent life understood
that removing Saddam and not replacing him with a
similar thug was going to end up with the chaos
and deaths we have now.

Ritter said the neo-cons like this chaos. It works for
them.

[Lindsay]

25. Sociopaths like creating chaos.

It keeps everybody else off balance, which gives them an even greater sense of power. (I speak from the bitter experience of having worked for a couple of them.)

[realFedUp]

28. and it's so much easier to hide the accounting....

on all sorts of actions, like the 100 bombing
missions over Talifar recently, pumping oil
and passing out WAM

[realFedUp]

24. Ritter also said that Hillary is moving to the right on Iraq

so the rightwingnuts can't accuse the Dems of
being soft on fighting terror. What the Dems,
or a Dem candidate has to point out is that
we are creating more terrorists in that region
by our actions.

Sy said that the first candidate to say he or she
opposes this continuing bombing and occupation
by the U.S. would be a shoe-in for prez.
Of course Dean said it early on and was basically
shut down, as was Kucinich. But maybe American
people have finally seen the truth and are willing
to vote for those who tell it and understand
the kind of diplomacy it will take, the really
hard work, in that region.

[AndyTiedye]

31. No, But President Lieberman Would Have

Gore would have refused.:D
Gore would have gotten gored.:cry:and they'd blame it on "terrorists".
Then President Lieberman would have given them their war.:grr:

[Spazito]

32. I think he was correct in what he said and the context in which he said it

Regime change didn't just rear it's ugly head with baby bush's administration, it is has been a long-held policy with both repub and dem governments. Ritter's point was that Gore would have been forced to continue with the regime change policy and, within that, would have been forced to deal with Saddam at some point. He made it clear it would not necessarily have been in the same way that the bush cabal did it which you don't mention in your OP.

[senseandsensibility]

37. As I've said

the audience started catcalling and it was difficult to hear beyond a certain point. But the part I did hear, which is why it garnered such a reaction from the audience, suggested that Gore would have gone into Iraq. Then he began backpeddling and talking about different methods. However, to me it is ofbvious that Gore would not have invaded Iraq before the weapons inspections were completed, and since there were no weapons....the invasion wouldn't have occurred. That's a huge difference, and Ritter seemed to be downplaying it.

[drummo]

66. Inspections in 2002 started only because Bush threatened to invade

Ritter knows that. He himself told the Iraqi general assembly if you don't let the inspectors in you will be invaded. He couldn't have said that under a President Gore.

The deployment was already going on in the summer of 2002. If those troops hadn't been in Kuwait Saddam wouldn't have let the inspectors back in.

But inspections were not really needed after 1998. Saddam was contained effectively without them in the following 4 years.

Gore wouldn't have threatened to invade Iraq, wouldn't have deployed 130,000 troops to Kuwait and therefore Saddam wouldn't have let the inspectors in.

He would have focused on how to get rid of Saddam himself and not
how to get yet another cat-and-mouse inspection, anyway.
Not the least because new inspections might have revealed that Saddam was already disarmed and under the existing UN resolutions the sanctions should have been lifted which would have been simply insane since the very reason why Saddam was not able to produce any WMD after 1991 was that he was under tough sanctions.

So if Gore had pushed for another round of inspections and if Saddam had let them in and if the inspectors had concluded that Iraq had nothing to hide anymore then Gore should have obtain another UN resolution with new demands such as permanent presence of inspectors in Iraq and noone can know whether that would have succeeded.

Of course Saddam would have said that he had no intention to produce WMD in the future but obviously only an idiot would have trusted Saddam.

[drummo]

55. Forced by who? Gore would have been at the top. Noone could have

forced him to do anything other than himself.

Ritter misunderestimates Gore. Heck he doesn't even know him.

Gore wanted regime change in Iraq because he himself thought it was the right policy not because he was forced to think that by someone else.

[Greeby]

36. President Gore would have faced the same Congress Clinton faced

Republicans in their typical hypocrisy (look at the Kosovo quotes) would not have allowed a Democrat to do this.

They can't even be consistent on being pro-war :eyes:

[senseandsensibility]

38. LOL

So sad and so true.

[newspeak]

39. Personally, I don't think he would have resorted to war

however, he may have increased weapons inspections and further the embargo. An embargo should not include food, medicines or medical equipment.

[realFedUp]

40. 100 bombing missions over Talifar

Sy Hersch mentioned this was going on while
we were all preoccupied with Katrina...
can anyone find a news link on this story...
am not finding anything. TIA

[Spazito]

41. Here are some links

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/07/iraq.main/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/middle_east_shooting_in_tal_afar/html/11.stm

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20050916&articleId=959

[realFedUp]

69. thanks so much! nt

[newspeak]

43. didn't Sy Hersch also say

that an officer, disgusted, mentioned "genocide" and that the Red Crescent from Turkey offered medical help to civilians and the US turned them down?

[welshTerrier2]

44. here you go ...

try this link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090500313_pf.html

here's an excerpt:

"Marines conducted heavy airstrikes in the past week on suspected insurgent safe houses in the area."

the truth is, US forces caused an evacuation of a city of 200,000 Iraqis ... innocent citizens were forced to abandon their homes and flee into the desert with virtually no supplies ...

[welshTerrier2]

42. not sure ... probably agree with Ritter ...

i saw Ritter say that ... my first reaction was, Ritter hasn't seen "the new Gore" ... i don't think Gore supports any aspect of the policy right now ...

but didn't Gore support the bombing of Baghdad while he was VP ... didn't he support regime change as Ritter alleged??

i have good things to say about "the new Gore"; i'm less certain about the old one ...

[senseandsensibility]

48. I agree that the new Gore is more liberal in every sense,

but can you imagine him overriding the inspectors even in his old persona? I can't.

[welshTerrier2]

49. i'll go as far as a "maybe"

would Gore, or Clinton for that matter, have invaded Iraq? i really have no idea ... i'd like to think, as you said, they would have relied on a weapons inspection process ...

but regime change? assassination? yeah, maybe ... from what Ritter said, it sounds like that's what they were trying to do ...

[drummo]

57. He is not more liberal at all. Prove it. Name anything where

he has changed his position since 2000.

There's nothing.

This "shift to the left" story is just the usual oversimplified spin.

And keep in mind: just because someone disdains the Bush administration he will not be a liberal.

[drummo]

56. That "new Gore" is just like the "old Gore" on Iraq.

You bet he would have pushed for regime change. But not by invading Iraq! He never proposed invading Iraq. Not in the 90s not after 2001.

Can you understand the difference?

There are plenty of different ways to change a regime. In fact the US did that in several countries without invading them.

Iraq was not that unique. Sooner or later Saddam would have been kicked out just like Suharto, Marcos, Milosevics, Pinochet, Ceaucescu and many others.

[welshTerrier2]

60. well, let's add on a couple of more pieces ...

you suggested Gore would not have "invaded" Iraq ...

again, i'm somewhat neutral on this point at least in the context of what you mean by "invade" ... i assume by "invade" you mean the use of American ground forces ...

but bombing is a form of invasion ... and one might liberally interpret the no-fly zone enforced under Clinton-Gore a form of invasion ... and one might even interpret the UN sanctions as a form of invasion ... and Gore sanctioned all these activities ...

in the context of the above, assuming you agree Gore was supportive of the activities listed, i personally am critical of Gore's position ... the sanctions, at least by the accounts i read, put a horrible burden on innocent Iraqi citizens ... some accounts say a million Iraqis, most of them children, died as a result of the sanctions ...

i don't write this to condemn Gore ... i think he's a new man since he left office ... but i also don't condone the Clinton-Gore record on Iraq while they were in office ... my focus on this issue is how the US has treated the Iraqi people ... frankly, while one can certainly make legitimate distinctions between "invasion" and other forms of conflict, the distinction becomes far less relevant than the impact of the policies on innocent, defenseless people ...

[drummo]

64. Re:

but bombing is a form of invasion ... and one might liberally interpret the no-fly zone enforced under Clinton-Gore a form of invasion

Noone calls a bombing campaign an invasion.

and one might even interpret the UN sanctions as a form of invasion

Sure and one might even interpret a kick in the ass as a form of invasion.

and Gore sanctioned all these activities

Of course he did. Saddam had to be contained. Period.
If you didn't like that why didn't just go out and convince him to change his behavior and give up his militarism? If the sanctions had been lifted he would have stated all over again.

in the context of the above, assuming you agree Gore was supportive of the activities listed, i personally am critical of Gore's position

Yeah man because liberals like you just don't see evil where there is evil.

the sanctions, at least by the accounts i read, put a horrible burden on innocent Iraqi citizens


It was not the sanctions but Saddam who put a horrible burden on innocent Iraqi citizens.
In 2000 he had more money than he had in 1991 when the sanctions started. He could have used that money to buy food and medicine but instead he used those funds to boost up his and his friend's luxury.

some accounts say a million Iraqis, most of them children, died as a result of the sanctions ...

Not because of the sanctions but because of Saddam.
Many countries were far poorer than Iraq in the 90s because of the same corrupt leadership Iraq had under Saddam. Let's blame the UN and the US for those conditions, too.

i don't write this to condemn Gore ... i think he's a new man since he left office

He is not a new man. The world has changed since 2000 not Gore.
There was no 9/11, no Patriot Act, no Iraq invasion, no record deficit, no "mushroom cloud in New York" in 2000.

but i also don't condone the Clinton-Gore record on Iraq while they were in office

Sure you would have done it better.

my focus on this issue is how the US has treated the Iraqi people

That's the core of the problem. You don't care how the Saddam regime treated the Iraqi people.
You only care about how the US has treated the Iraqi people.
Let me tell you something: it is not the job of the US to treat the Iraqi people in any way.
Just like it was not the job of Saddam to treat the American people in any way.
And it is not the job of the president of Congo to treat the people of Libya in any way.
And so on.

frankly, while one can certainly make legitimate distinctions between "invasion" and other forms of conflict, the distinction becomes far less relevant than the impact of the policies on innocent, defenseless people ...

I guess those 2000 Us troops who died during this invasion and occupation agree with you.
I'm sorry if you can't see the difference between having 150,000 US troops in Iraq and not having
150,000 US troops in Iraq. Above 80% of the Iraqis understand that all too well. That's why they want the US out.

[welshTerrier2]

68. see ya ...

you had such a remarkably snotty tone in your response that i'm not going to waste my time discussing this with you any further ... i'm sure you'll take great pride in that ...

but i will highlight the most asinine thing you said ...

here was the exchange:
me: but i also don't condone the Clinton-Gore record on Iraq while they were in office
you: Sure you would have done it better.

you see, in a democracy, we don't require that our citizens are able to "do it better" before they're entitled to an opinion ... we each get to look at a situation and make our decisions based on the information we have ... apparently, no one should criticize anyone in office unless they can prove they "can do it better" ...

bye bye ...

[drummo]

76. Re:

you had such a remarkably snotty tone in your response that i'm not going to waste my time discussing this with you any further ... i'm sure you'll take great pride in that ...

Whining.

in a democracy, we don't require that our citizens are able to "do it better" before they're entitled to an opinion .

In our democracy you don't have any credibility if you criticize someone while you have no idea how to do better. And guess what? That is true in non-democratic societies as well.
Of course you can have an opinion even about the relativity theory and could claim that it's utter hogwash if you can't prove it who would take you seriously?
Opinion alone is not enough.

we each get to look at a situation and make our decisions based on the information we have

So what?
The whole problem is that amateurs pretend to be experts on issues they know almost nothing about. And they judge other people (in this case members of the Clinton administration) based on their own ignorant fantasies. You clearly demonstrated that with your comments about the Iraq sanctions. I'm not sure that you are indeed interested in information about Iraq's financial and economic situation in the 90s since you have a strong ideological approach toward the whole issue. And an ideologue does not feel he needs information before forming an opinion. (Check out Rush Limbaugh, for example)

apparently, no one should criticize anyone in office unless they can prove they "can do it better" ...

Exactly.

[drummo]

46. Bullshit. Gore said that he would have never started this war.

He also said he would have voted against the resolution.

Ritter hates the Clintonites because he blames them for shutting down the inspections in 1998. But he has no evidence against Gore. He just pseculates because Gore was very anti-Saddam -- actually he was very anti-Saddam before it was politically cool, in the 1980s.

Gore would have kicked Saddam's ass but not with an invasion of the country. It's one thing to change the regime it's another to invade Iraq.

The Iraqi Liberation Act made regime change in Iraq official policy of the United States. It was passed and signed by Clinton in 1998. But the ILA, unlike the IWR, focused on triggering an internal revolt not to use the US military to change to regime.
I think we can all agree that it would have been much better if the Iraqis themselves had toppled Saddam instead of the US military.

Gore was interviewed on CNN in Oct 2002 (or maybe Nov, I don't remember) where he said he would have continued to contain Saddam and at the same time support the opposition -- in the spirit of ILA.
But it would have been done in a multilateral fashion.

[Kralizec]

58. This question was asked way out of context. Ritter said that Gore was on

a similar mindset of "regime change" that clinton had. Ritter said that if Gore was elected he would have had to confront Iraq, albeit not the same way as Bush. For examples of what he may have done, there are some very good explanations on this thread.

[drummo]

62. And how did Ritter say that? Just as a matter of fact or as a sort of

accusation?

[Kralizec]

63. Everything he says is "matter of fact" style.

[drummo]

65. Not exactly. Watch this interview:

http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2005/oct/video/dnB20051021a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=33:46

He is clearly accusing the Clinton administration of killing the inspection regime by spying on Saddam.

[Kralizec]

70. self-delete (dupe)

dupe

[Kralizec]

71. Yes, but he is not doing it in partisan form. He's attacked both

administrations for their faults in dealing with Iraq. His voice on this administration is all too familiar and clear. However, he was actually the head Inspector during Clinton's time. He has firsthand knowledge of what went on. The matter of the CIA spying on Saddam via the UN Weapons Inspectors is true, a matter of fact. He talks about how hard it made his job from the point that the Iraqis discovered the spies.

Word.

[drummo]

77. Maybe it is true maybe it is not true. I was not there and one

source is no source.

I'd like to know more before I decide whether Ritter's interpretation of the events is correct.

But even if it's true Ritter talks about the whole episode as if it had been a bad thing. I don't think spying on Saddam is a bad thing. Quite to the contrary. I don't thing plotting a coup or assassination against Saddam is a bad thing. I don't think Operation Desert Fox was a bad thing. In fact Saddam himself should have been one of the targets.
In fact if it had succeeded the neocons would have been deprived from their favorite invasion and then Ritter himself wouldn't even be a subject.
Just think about that.

Ritter clearly bashes the Clinton administration for
spying on Saddam. He doesn't talk about it as merely a matter of fact.

I don't know what's his point with the "this was not about disarmament this was about regime change" line.
Since Saddam was Saddam the two objectives were inseparable.
It was about counter-proliferation and because of that it was about regime change since no sane person could believe that if the sanctions
had been lifted Saddam would become a good boy and would not re-start his programs once again.

[Pirate Smile]

59. I completely disagree. I heard him say it and groaned at home. No way!

[MrBenchley]

72. For what?

Do you think President Gore would have ignored terrorism?

You might recall that when Bill Clinton was warned terrorists might strike at the Millennium celebrations, he warned the public to be alert, put law enforcement on high alert, and nabbed Al Qaeda members trying to sneak across the Canadian border....

[mmonk]

73. It depends on how much influence

the neocon movement would have in the corridors of his government. Nobody would think up pre-emptive war and full spectrum dominance on their own.

[Kralizec]

74. RITTER NEVER SAID WAR! TIRED OF HEARING THAT HERE!

Look I've said it on several other replies here, you can read them too. But Ritter never said Gore would have "gone to war" just like Bush has.

First of all, on a place like DU there should be more people who watch it before rushing to an opinion about Ritter. Before I got on let me remind everyone that Ritter has been one of the few people who has been correct since the beginning. Even before the beginning. Remember? He was written off as crazy because he predicted exactly what ended up happening? Funny how that works. So as for trusting anyone out there right now, Ritter is pretty damned high on my list.

As I was saying, please watch the interview yourself if you haven't. This whole question, from the get go, was OUT OF CONTEXT. It's framed as a cut and dry "with or against me" attitude, and that is not what Ritter was implying. There is some audience noise during this part of the conversation, so listen closely.

Ritter says that Gore was "married to the same Regime-change process as Clinton was." What he said that is being taken out of context is the process of that regime change. Many others on this thread have commented that it probably would have been in the form of continued vigilance combined with bombings, much like Clinton did. Ritter even said at the end (which is muffled by reactionary audience members who can't hold their emotional wads until he is done talking) that Gore would have not done it the way Bush has.

Once again, this point is discussed several times throughout this thread. I'm tired of seeing one of the only consistent TRUTHTELLERS out there getting whacked around so easily, with NEARLY NO ONE helping to defend him. When has he been wrong?

Wow.

[AlGore-08.com]

75. BS! Gore has said repeatedly since Sept. 2002 that he opposes the invasion

His first speech against the war was given on Sept. 23, 2002 - - several weeks before the Congress voted to authorize the invasion:

http://www.algore.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=84

From November 24, 2002 after Congress voted to authorize the invasion but prior to the actual invasion:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030217082353/www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/11/21/MN58265.DTL

(snip)

For the first time, Gore -- who was one of the few Democratic senators to vote in support of the Gulf War in 1991 -- said he would have voted against authorizing the White House to use force against Saddam Hussein had he been a member of Congress last month.

(more... )

The most recent, on th record quote is from Oct. 12th:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1206630

(snip)

When asked how the United States would have been different if he had become president, though, (Gore) had harsh criticism for Bush's policies.

"We would not have invaded a country that didn't attack us," he said, referring to Iraq. "We would not have taken money from the working families and given it to the most wealthy families."

"We would not be trying to control and intimidate the news media. We would not be routinely torturing people," Gore said. "We would be a different country."

(more... )

Ritter's comment was complete and total bullsh*t. To try and back peddle and then say "Gore would have had to deal with Saddam", "Gore would have had the same Congress", "Gore considered Sadam a brutal dictator" etc., etc., etc. is nowhere close to the same thing as "Gore would have lead us into Iraq".

Yes, Gore supported the first Gulf War, but so what? Assuming that support for the first Gulf War automatically means support of the second is bullsh*t: it's the same as assuming that anybody who supported World War II would automatically support invading Germany and Japan right now.

It was the Bush Admin that was pimping "we have to invade Iraq". Gore has said over and over and over "I never would have invaded Iraq". How would the invasion of Iraq then happened under Gore? You'd have to believe that the following would have happened:

1.) 9/11 would have happened under Gore's watch. This is possible, although IMNSHO unlikely. As VP, Gore was part of the NSC which was totally focused on the threat of Osama bin Ladin by the end of the Clinton/Gore admin. Also as VP, Gore read all the PDBs, and he has said that he never saw any that came close to "Bin Laden determined to strike US"; and has said that if he had seen a PDB like that he would have responded vigorously.

2.) The GOP would decide that the best way to attack Gore for his response to 9/11 would NOT be to harp on the fact that 9/11 happened on Gore's watch, would NOT be to harp on the fact that Osama bin Laden had not been killed or captured (because it still would have been very difficult to locate bin Laden) - - but that the best way to attack Gore for his response to 9/11 would be to claim that Sadam was behind the attacks and Iraq needed to be invaded. Again, possible, but much, much, more difficult than just standing up in Congress and screaming "Where's bin Ladin?"

3.) That the Congress would then manage to pass a declaration of war even with the President actively opposed to that declaration of war.

4.) That Gore would sign a declaration of war against Iraq, even though he opposed the war.

- - or - -

5.) That after the President had vetoed a declaration of war, the Congress would then vote again in sufficient numbers to pass the declaration of war.

- - or - -

6.) Without 9/11, the GOP Congress is still able to convince the American people that Iraq needs to be invaded (repeat #3 through #5)

- - or - -

7.) That Sadam would have done something that actually warranted a U.S. invasion, and Gore called for an invasion as a result.

Again, all of that's possible... but it ain't very likely.

[goodhue]

78. Gore would not have led us to war & I doubt Ritter said so

eom

[MrSlayer]

79. No. And I believe we'd still have our World Trade Center to boot.

Gore would not have sat idle on terrorist threats nor would he benefit in any way from terrorist acts occurring. Same goes for going to war, there is no benefit in it for him as he isn't beholden to oil companies and defense contractors. He would be directing things the way the people he is beholden to would like.