Do you want to know what's so fustrating about the WMD debate?

[Big Questions]

A lot of conservatives on television are framing this as an "all or nothing" situation. That's not the case. We know there were some weapons in Iraq. That's a given. At this point, however, we don't know exactly what is there, or at least we haven't been told what is there. When I see someone like Sean Hannity say something like, "Democrats are attacking President Bush, saying there are no weapons in Iraq" or "Democrats are blasting the president claiming he lied about weapons in Iraq." Then he'll say, "We know Iraq had weapons. Why are Democrats denying this?"

It's fustrating because it completely distorts the argument at hand. No Democrats, except for maybe a fringe candidate like Kucinich, is saying this. Even more fustrating is that no liberals point this out, or at least none that I have seen.

Why is this allowed to happen?

[Big Questions]

1. bump

bump

[TiredTexan]

2. I'm very frustrated by

the failure of anyone to mention the most fundamental problem with the WMD debaucle. Bush instituted a "preemptive" war policy never before contemplated by this country. Combine that with bad intelligence, false intelligence or incomplete intelligence, and you have simply naked aggression. The crux of the preemptive doctrine is that you must know that the other country is an imminent danger to us, otherwise you have no basis to attack them.

Thus, the all or none argument, the humanitarian argument, the "well the best intelligence indicated WMDs were there" argument all fail when combined with the preemptive war doctrine.

Israel used this doctrine in the 6 day War when Egyptian, Saudi and Jordanian troops were amassed on its borders. That is a true preemptive attack.

You can't justify preemption when you can't prove the danger.

And if WMDs were not the reason we went in, then we, the people, still don't know the actual reason.

And finally, now that we have squandered our credibility, how can we convince anyone to join us if a real danger exists?

[onecitizen]

6. PLUS we were already at war with Afghanistan and......

Bin Laden. We diverted our attention from the REAL enemy to go bomb Iraq. And Al queda is still out there.

This was the wrong war at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. bush knew the world was against this war. They needed to do something drastic to get people on his side for war now.. So, he feigned nuclear weapons when he knew there were none. This is abuse of Presidential powers. It was a shill game.

[sandnsea]

3. Weapons in Iraq a given?

I might have thought that before April, I don't anymore. The Administration hyped the intelligence because they wanted to take over Iraq regardless of weapons. When they couldn't find proof, they hyped it up and went ahead with their preemptive war anyway. I don't know Iraq had weapons, not in 2003. I know he had them years ago, but not recently. There was not one shred of evidence that would show that was the case. Saddam was a dangerous man, that's a fact. But we don't go to war unless we're threatened. Bush had no proof of that fact so he lied. That's the argument at hand.

[Big Questions]

4. I disagree

Clinton said we had weapons. I think there's something there, but it's becoming increasingly obvious that something was done to manipulate the intelligence.

[Eloriel]

5. That was 1998

We're talking 2002/2003.

Maybe Clinton was wrong. Maybe he was right then, but thing have changed.

The fact of the matter is that there were plenty, plenty, plenty of credible sources saying all last fall, including leaks from the CIA, DIA, and their counterparts in UK (IIRC) that it was most likely Iraq had no WMD. That has turned out to be the case.

Google on Glen Rangwala. Go look up some Scott Ritter remarks. Retired generals in the U.S., UK and Australia were warning against going to war, and active duty Pentagon brass were leaking like seives about the ill-advisedness of going to war.

Most DUers understood all this, which is a key reason most of us were stridently opposed to the war.

The rest of the WORLD understood this, which is why so very few of our allies decided to join us, and why we got shot down in the U.N. Security Council. Not even Saddam's neighbors were worried. And do remember: the U.S. is not the only country with relatively sophisticated intelligence operations. Many of these same countries warned US about the possibility of terrorist attack on our soil, some of them mentioning hijack, before 9-11. Yet none of them found the threat of Iraq's purported WMDs sufficient to join us in going into Iraq. Why?

No, there were no WMD and everybody knew it EXCEPT those who believed Ahmed Chalabi and his ne'erdowell friends in high places. That would be the OSP and the Wolfowitz/Perle clan.

Eloriel

[sandnsea]

8. Ah, it's Big Questions

I think I remember you. Clinton said, Clinton did, hey hey hey, what about Clinton.

Forget about Clinton, he's off making a million a speech and gets to keep even more of it thanks to Bush's tax cuts.

Read the DoD "Denial and Deception", read Colin Powell's testimony to the UN. Compare each and every picture and piece of information to the actual facts and opinions by numerous sources. If you choose to think, it's easy to figure out.

It's all out there. So if you've got Big Questions, I'd suggest you've got some Big Reading to do.

[ChillEB]

10. Allow me to refresh your memory...

From 1991-1998, UN weapons inspectors found large amount of the WMD that Saddam had, and destroyed them.

By 1998, most of the WMD that records showed Saddam had were accounted for, the number I've seen bandied about the most is 98% of them. However, there were still large amounts of "Sarin, Anthrax, Mustard Gas, etc" that remained UN-accounted for. This was the basis for Clinton's remarks in 1998.

Despite the fact that these weapons were not accounted for, Saddam, in 1998, was still actively forbidding the UN inspectors from going into a whole bunch of locations in Iraq to do their work. Clinton finally became fed up with Saddam's lack of cooperation, and proceeded to bomb the living shit out THE LOCATIONS THAT REMAINED UNINSPECTED.

Flash forward to 2002, Bush is still railing about the unaccounted for weapons, Saddam says they've all been destroyed by the UN and the US bombings, but he cannot prove they have been - which is logical, because bombs don't usually leave calling cards describing exactly what they've just blown up, now, do they?

Eventually, in late 2002, Saddam allows the inspectors unfettered access to all of Iraq, despite the fact that he has every reason to believe that the Bush Regime is going to attack Iraq no matter what he does, and all he is really doing is giving the US a huge advantage when they actually do attack.

Now, we are seeing that their ARE NO WMD's in Iraq.

An EXTREMELY logical conclusion to come to, in light of the facts at hand, is that Clinton succeeded in destroying the remaining 2% in the bombing raids of 1998. This explains quite handily why Saddam could not 'account' for the remaining 2%, except to say that they were blown up. Which IS what he said.

The right-wing simply cannot bring themselves to admit that Clinton succeeded in doing ANYTHING right or good. The facts on the ground today would seem to indicate that BILL CLINTON, working in tandem with the UN, succeeded in ridding Saddam of his WMD. PERIOD. Any other conclusion about the situation is nothing but SPIN on the part of the Right-Wing and their complicit media whores...

[ChillEB]

7. When do 'liberals' EVER GET A CHANCE...

To 'point out' stuff like this, anyway? I guarantee you, if a REAL liberal like Bernie Ward got asked onto Hannity's show to talk about this stuff, he'd blast Sean a new asshole.

I mean, we see this crap EVERY DAMN DAY, don't we? The GOP spin-meisters are CONSTANTLY annointing themselves as arbiters of what 'The Left' thinks or is saying. Nevermind that nobody on the left actually thinks or says ANYTHING he (or Ann-the-Man, or The Wiener, or Pigboy) says we do. It's just part of their rhetorical strategy to always be the one to frame the debate, so that spokespeople on the left have to spend so much time defending crap they never said that NO REAL DISCUSSION of the REAL ISSUE at hand.
Issues which, inevitably, the Right is completely in the wrong about.

Hannity, Pigboy, Wiener, et al, are MASTERS at this shit, man. They always succeed in making the issue "Look at What the Liberals are Saying About The Issue", instead of EVER discussing the actual issue. And then they ALWAYS misrepresent what the liberals are actually saying. Like I said, we spend all our time defending ourselves from their ad hominem bullshit, and never get to actually dig into the meat of the issue before it's time for 'a word from our sponsor'...

It makes me sick, too, BTW ;)

[sandnsea]

9. I see the point more clearly now

You're right, that's what happens. Maybe it's time people say, "as a liberal I'd be happy to tell you what liberals say, but first what do conservatives have to say about the actual issue".

[Must_B_Free]

11. You see, you're starting to figure it out

you've been through it enough times now tht you can smell the set up as it is happening.

They control the media and they created this little flap because they were pissed that the dems all voted for the war.

Actually the best thing the dems could do right now is support the president until he caves from his side...

It's kind of like Iraq - you have to let the people take care of their own despots.

The repukes need to start having Bushitis coming of on them, then the tarbaby will be out in a flash.