Bush: "And knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again."

[sabra]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Bush_Text_2nd_Take.html

Text of Bush Speech on Iraq, part two

<snip>

QUESTION: Mr. President, I would like to know why it is that you and others in your administration keep linking 9/11 to the invasion of Iraq when no respected journalists or Middle Eastern expert confirmed that such a link existed.

BUSH: What did she - I missed the question. Sorry.

I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you. Seriously.

QUESTION: I would like to know why you and others in your administration invoke 9/11 as justification for the invasion of Iraq when no respected journalists or other Middle Eastern experts confirm that such a link existed.

BUSH: Oh, I appreciate that.

9/11 changed my look on foreign policy. I mean, it said that oceans no longer protect us; that we can't take threats for granted; that if we see a threat, we've got to deal with it. It doesn't have to be militarily necessarily but we got to deal with it. We can't just hope for the best anymore.

So the first decision I made, as you know, was to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan because they were harboring terrorists. This is where the terrorists plan and plotted.

And the second decision - which was a very difficult decision for me, by the way, and it's one that I didn't take lightly - was that Saddam Hussein was a threat. He is a declared enemy of the United States. He had used weapons of mass destruction. The entire world thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations had declared in more than 10 - I can't remember the exact number of resolutions - that disclose or disarm or face serious consequences.

I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein: `You're a threat.' And the 9/11 attacks accentuated that threat, as far as I'm concerned.

And so we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm. And he refused.

And I made a tough decision. And knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again. Removing Saddam Hussein makes this world a better place and America a safer country.

Last question. I've actually got something to do. You're paying me all this money; I'd better get back to work.

[acmavm]

1. Which proves that he's too damn stupid and arrogant to learn anything,

.

[Tesha]

2. "'cause I'm *STILL* too stoopid to be Pretzeldent!" (NT)

[liveoaktx]

3. VIDEO of that queston

Ass

[sabra]

4. he keeps reaffirming our belief that he is a POS.

[goclark]

7. Your link name is so appropriate

That is exactly what he is LOL

[Bluestar]

5. Make the same decision again . .

Well, you're just stupid then aren't you?? The rest of us are not and we see through your macho BS.

[billybob537]

6. WHAT BULLSHIT

And so we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm. And he refused.
Bush pulled the inspectors out thus stopping the effort to prove he {Saddam} had disarmed.

[adarling]

8. ANY OTHER president would be tarred and feathered

for what he did. So because the rest of the world thought it that means its okay we did what we did. its like the jumping off a bridge if everyone else did scenario. what the hell!!! this shows what kind of mind is in this "man". this logic suggests he has the mind of a boy and may be mildly retarded.

[LoKnLoD]

9. Holy Shit

He ACTUALLY took unscripted questions.....mark your calendars, that's a first.

[sabra]

11. yeah, it was great

2 planted questions, and 2 real questions.

[adarling]

14. probably because he had to

when addressing this group. when you have major foreign policy people and such in one room, there seems to be a lack of village idiots in this room for them to manipulate.

[savemefromdumbya]

10. maybe he didn't know where I-raq was?

it's easy to get the names mixed up with Iran? Strange how no one else thought he was a threat?

[TahitiNut]

12. "oceans no longer protect us"??

Strange. That was the lesson of December 7th, 1941. It took the fucker long enough!

We can be certain that this was a planned, crafted, and rehearsed response ... completely consistent with the PNAC intent to have a "new Pearl Harbor" to precipitate the takeover of US politics.

[flordehinojos]

13. a truthful question, deserving an honest answer got a mouthful of lies for

an answer which must have made your anxiety level go up very high as it happens with liars (that is why lie detectors work) and must have sent your head spinning in dizziness from the lies.

that is why all of a sudden you remembered you had something to do, work to do being paid for by taxpayers' money. what a damn sorry excuse mr. bush for not facing the people, not facing the truth, not taking it like a man.


what a sorry liar you are.

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. Arrogant and condescending as usual.

"Last question. I've actually got something to do. You're paying me all this money; I'd better get back to work." :rofl: Right! Too bad us regular people aren't getting our monies' worth with him. Overpaid and under worked, that's Georgie! Oh and actually having to answer questions from his employers' isn't what he considers too be part of his job? His bosses were wanting some answers. Arrogant a$$hole!

[SeattleVet]

16. Well, *that* explains a lot...

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Albert Einstein

[quiet.american]

17. Between the arrogance and the lies, what's left?

Perhaps history will look at the "democracy" brought to Iraq by way of this administration's:

wave of lies

gleeful unleashing of thousands of tons of bombs on a population composed significantly of children

violation of the Geneva conventions

monstrous torture at Abu Ghraib

distribution of tens of billions of cash U.S. dollars hand over fist without accountability to...who?

heinous use of white phosphorous

bottomless spending of billions of U.S. dollars per day on this invasion

authorization of mercenary contractors to kill at will without accountability

payment of tens of millions of U.S. dollars to a fugitive from the law -- Chalabi

casual failure to properly arm U.S. troops

use of depleted uranium which for years to come will cause hundreds of thousands of deaths

gruesome wholesale slaughter of civilians in Fallujah

war profiteering

killing of journalists

betrayal of a CIA agent specializing in WMD

dismal and casual failure to safeguard Iraq munitions from being pillaged and plundered

insert the stuff we don't know about yet here

and the creation of many new generations of terrorists... as a triumph, but I venture to say those with conscience and reason will not drink the Kool-Aid.

The McLaughlin Group:
http://www.mclaughlin.com/library/transcript.asp?id=498
U.S. military dead in Iraq, including suicides, 2,125; US military amputeed, wounded, injured, mentally ill, all now out of Iraq, 49,500; Iraqi civilians dead, 118,900

[Johonny]

18. refused

And so we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm. And he refused.


Weren't there weapon ispectors in the country? Did we find any WMD? I guess Bush has a higher standard than me. If Bush thought Saddam was a threat to the USA then he thinks pretty little of the average American.