Iraqi Invasion

[BeFree]

My impression is that Iraq was part of the whole 'war on terror' idea from the very beginning of the Bush error administration, and that they were looking high and low for any reason to invade Iraq.

And that the aftermath from 9/11 gave them the opportunity to gin up the "Iraq has WMD" thereby coercing the frightened public to go along with the invasion.

[vincent_vega_lives]

1. I don't disagree eom

[Bolo Boffin]

2. Which is why "9/11 is an inside job" is such an odd position

Why didn't the Bush Administration frame Saddam for 9/11 while they were planning it? If invading Iraq was the purpose of Bushco participating in the 9/11 attacks, why didn't they do a better job of baking Iraq into the evidence?

Instead, what we see is the Bush Administration pulling every trick in the book after the attack to try to pin it on Saddam. Why didn't they pull every trick in the book before the attacks to frame the Iraqi government for the attack?

Why didn't they bake Iraq into the 9/11 attack?

[BeFree]

3. Well

Lets look at who they did frame. It wasn't Saudi Arabia even tho most of the hijackers were Saudi. Which brings up the theory that it was Saudi Arabia who wanted the US to invade Iraq in order to keep Iraq from becoming even more secular and end up challenging the Saudi Royals hold on the region.

Nope, the US attacked Afghanistan. They framed al-Queda, and Osama, who was a Saud. So Bushco went out of the way to make war, which is overall what Bushco wanted.... and got.

Bushco did try to place al-Queda in Iraq, repeatedly. They tried to frame Saddam in an al-Queda frame, but were not successful.

The problem Bushco had with framing Saddam was that Saddam was not friendly toward Bushco, while Afghanistan and SA to a greater extent were. So they went with what they could count on: SA and former allie Afghanistan. (Allies against Russia.)

Remember that the US had been bombing Iraq regularly for years? The US had no friends in Iraq and if some Iraqis were over here learning to fly, the FBI would be hard pressed to let them... such was not the case with 'friends' Saudi Arabians, one of whom Bush held hands with and kissed, and let SA's leave the country right after 9/11.

It would have been impossible for the hijackers to have been Iraqi. To have done so would have really exposed Bushco for what it is, as it was 'friends' of ours did the dirty deed.

Hey, Bolo, have you ever tracked where the money came from to support the hijackers? Did you know Iraqi money in this country was frozen?

[Bolo Boffin]

5. BeFree, have fun playing Calvinball. n/t

[wildbilln864]

9. why are you afraid to answer the question? nt

:shrug:

[Bolo Boffin]

17. No fear, just no desire to chase BeFree's goalposts. n/t

[BeFree]

24. Ok

I understand that you may not have been capable of following what my answer to you was... so, I'll make it simple:

Bushco didn't frame Iraqis for 9/11 because they weren't able to. They tried, but they couldn't do it, so they used our 'friends' instead.

Even shorter:
They woulda if they coulda but they couldn't so they didn't.

[noise]

38. If the goal was to invade both countries

then it is possible that Afghanistan was viewed as the more difficult justification. As it turned out, they were able to use 9/11 to justify invading Iraq as well. If it were reversed, could they have invaded Afghanistan after invading Iraq? Perhaps but it sure seems like a difficult sell. After all, Hussein had been viewed as a menace to world peace since 1991.

[CJCRANE]

40. Form what I've read

it seems that Iraq was the main prize. Bush and Rumsfeld wanted to go after Iraq straight after 9/11 (remember Rumsfeld's leaked comment about no infrastructure targets in Afghanistan?)

But moderates like Clarke and Powell and main ally Tony Blair pushed to go into Afghanistan first to take out al-Qaeda (which seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time). So Afghanistan was a bonus and I think you're right that they did have to do it first.

[Old and In the Way]

11. 17 of 19 hijackers were Saudis.

None were Iraqi's. OBL was a Saudi. We know money from the Royal Family was funneled to these hijackers. We know there were many connections with AQ to the Royal Family.

So, how did Bush react?

* Safe passage to the extended Royal family in getting them out after 9/11.
* We took out their #1 secular threat (Saddam) from their Eastern border.
* We exited our US military presence from SA.
* We kept the #2 Iraqi oil reserves off the market, making SA crude oil much more valuable.

Instead of attacking SA who were the alledged perps, we made their lives much better. Sweet.

[Ghost in the Machine]

4. If they solely framed Saddam, they wouldn't have been able to invade Afghanistan too...

Do you remember them trying to make it out like Saddam & Osama were all "buddy buddy"?


Don't forget that part of the goal of "Rebuilding America's Defenses" was to transform our military and have them where they could operate in "multiple theaters of war" at the same time.

[LARED]

6. I'm pretty sure if your read "Rebuilding America's Defenses"

you will discover that operating in multiple theaters was already a capability, but was something the PNAC boys wanted to ensure America would continue to posses into the future because they felt China was a threat. It's been awhile since I read it, so please feel free to correct me if I am in error.

[Ghost in the Machine]

12. From Page 3 of Rebuilding America's Defenses (page 15 in the .pdf file)

"The most immediate effect of reduced defense spending has been a precipitate decline in combat readiness. Across all services, units are reporting degraded readiness, spare parts and personnel shortages, postponed and simplified training regimens, and many other problems. In congressional testimony, service chiefs of staff now routinely report that their forces are inadequate to the demands of the “two war” national military strategy."


Doesn't sound like they were capable of multiple theaters, does it?


Peace,

Ghost

{edited: page 15 instead of page 8}

[LARED]

22. There is a distinction to be made between

the capabilities thought to exist by the Pentagon Planners and what other may believe.


The one constant of Pentagon force
planning through the past decade has been
the recognized need to retain sufficient
combat forces to fight and win, as rapidly
and decisively as possible, multiple, nearly
simultaneous major theater wars. pg 20

Thus, the understanding that U.S. armed
forces should be shaped by a “two-majorwar”
standard rightly has been accepted as
the core of America’s superpower status
since the end of the Cold War. pg 21

While, broadly
speaking, the United States now maintains
sufficient active and reserve forces to meet
the traditional two-war standard, this is true
only in the abstract, under the most
favorable geopolitical conditions. As the
Joint Chiefs of Staff have admitted
repeatedly in congressional testimony, they
lack the forces necessary to meet the twowar
benchmark as expressed in the warplans
of the regional commanders-in-chief. pg 18



So it seems we are each about half right.

The Pentagon has planned for a two theater effort for a number of years. The PNAC guys believed the present plan was lacking.

[Ghost in the Machine]

26. "So it seems we are each about half right."

It would seem that way, huh?

:hi:


Peace,

Ghost

[Old and In the Way]

13. The point was any excuse to get us into the ME with our military.

1st Iraq...then Syria.....then Iran...than Saudi Arabia. They really thought that the combo of US military and "democracy" would allow us to run the table in the ME. Obviously a bunch of delusional morons with no clue about life in the ME. No surprise that Dimson got installed with "5 deferments" doing the heavy lifting. Why anyone would think Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfield was some kind of brilliant tacticians/stratiticians is beyond me.

[Bolo Boffin]

16. "1st Iraq..." So why did they go to Afghanistan first?

Just to rub Russia's nose in it?

[Old and In the Way]

18. Any entrance into the MidEast Bolo.

The point was, getting our US military into the ME. Believe it or not, I'm really not sure why Afghanistan was the interdiction point. I know we paid the Taliban $40MM, probably to secure the oil pipeline route. Other than that and the whole OBL @ "Tora Bora"..I really can't explain why. But maybe you can explain why the Bush administration gave AQ safe passage out of Tora Bora?

[Bolo Boffin]

20. Yes, because the first thing to do in a protracted multi-front conflict

is to add an unnecessary one.

Maybe you can't explain why because your premise is wrong? Just a thought.

[CJCRANE]

41. They couldn't avoid it - see my post upthread about Clarke, Powell , Blair nt

[Bolo Boffin]

42. Another contestant in the ongoing game show "Miss Bolo's Point!"

If they had baked Iraq into the 9/11 attacks, then they COULD have avoided going into Afghanistan!

Understand: I'm not saying you or anyone has to change your mind and believe this. I'm just asking you to understand and deal with this simple argument.

If Bushco planned the 9/11 attacks so they could generate an excuse to attack Iraq, why didn't they frame Iraq for it instead of Al Qaeda?

[CJCRANE]

43. That's already been answered - they didn't have Iraqi operatives.

All they needed was arab operatives because the public's knowledge of the ME was very sketchy at that time, all arabs were rpetty much viewed as being the same.

[Bolo Boffin]

45. Did they use Iraqi operatives to forge a paper trail to yellowcake?

No.

And thanks very much for condemning the American public as racists that can't tell the difference between Iraqis and Afghanis. Somehow I don't think that's going to play well in Peoria.

[CJCRANE]

46. It isn't about racism, it's about the "public perception" at the time

and the blurred lines between definitions of "they"/"them" as arabs/muslims, as in "they hate us for our freedoms" and "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here".

[noise]

47. What if the real goal was to invade

both countries? If Iraq was baked into the plot could the Bush administration have made the case for the invasion of Afghanistan? For example, say the 19 hijackers were declared Iraqi and Cheney started saying they were aided by Bin Laden. It appears the order of invasions was an important consideration.

[Bolo Boffin]

48. But Bush and Cheney had to be talked into invading Afghanistan!

Rumsfeld was gung-ho for Iraq from the start. Both Clarke and Powell had to get their eyes on the prize!

[noise]

49. Afghanistan invasion plans were on Bush's desk before 9/11

This was basically Clarke's plan for dismantling al Qaeda. So it appears somebody in the US government was thinking about invading Afghanistan and not Iraq.

Why Afghanistan if Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld wanted to invade Iraq? Perhaps this is explained by competing factions within the government. If so, then it turns out that both factions got what they wanted.

[Bolo Boffin]

50. But that doesn't fix your problem

Ok, they faked the 9/11 attacks to invade Iraq, but they didn't frame Iraq. They framed people in Afghanistan.

Well, now you say, "They wanted both. They had to invade both to get everyone on board."

So why didn't they frame both?

What they really wanted was to invade Iraq, but they had to do Afghanistan first, why? Why first Afghanistan? Why frame Afghanistan and then do the haphazard "Saddam helped 9/11, wink wink, nudge nudge" act?

Why not bake Iraq into the 9/11 attacks if they wanted to invade both? Why only one?

[noise]

52. I don't know

It is a good question.

But you also suggest that this failure simply must mean that Bush/Cheney weren't involved in the 9/11 plot. After all, they made things so much harder for themselves by not baking Iraq into the 9/11 plot.

I look at the bizarre conduct of government officials to suspect their involvement in 9/11:

CIA: Withholding information about al Qaeda operatives inside the US for 20 months.

FBI: UBLU withholding information from Cole investigators.

NSA: Failing to use FISA or alert the FBI.

Tenet briefed Bush. Rice was briefed by the CIA. They all talk of a lot of terrorist chatter. Yet known al Qaeda operatives were not apprehended. The public information suggests intel agents were ordered to back off. Those orders seem to have come from the White House.

If everything is above board then why is there still so much secrecy? Why do 9/11 books (Kean/Hamilton, Tenet, Farmer) keep coming out while many key 9/11 Commission records are still classified?

[Ghost in the Machine]

51. Solely framing Iraq would only give them...... Iraq!

Al Qaeda gives them a lot of boogeymen in the other countries they wanted to invade, too.

It's really not all that difficult to understand...


Peace,

Ghost

[noise]

53. I would guess

he is suggesting an al Qaeda/Iraq operational relationship (i.e. planted evidence intended to point to both Iraqis and al Qaeda).

[Ghost in the Machine]

32. Wasn't the plan something like "7 Countries in 5 years" ?

I remember reading that a couple of years ago...

[SidDithers]

33. That was the alleged plan in 2001...

but it hasn't really happened in the 8 years since then, has it.

Here's a thread by the recently pizza'd seemslikeadream for the previous discussion.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=125&topic_id=171756

Sid

Edit: spelling

[Ghost in the Machine]

35. Thanks Sid....

No, it never really happened like they wanted it to. The biggest mistake was going into Baghdad. Poppy Bush was smart enough not to go there in the first Gulf War because he knew what would happen. The neocons, however, thought that Iraq was going to be a cakewalk and that the Iraqis were going to just lay down arms and surrender like they did in the 1st Gulf War... they got fooled, and got bogged down in the quagmire they're in now... and they still don't know how to get themselves out.


Peace,

Ghost

[noise]

37. Cheney did know

And if anyone gave Bush/Cheney the benefit of the doubt before the invasion, their occupation policies made it clear that they weren't seeking stability in Iraq. Rather, Bremer implemented "Shock Doctrine" plans which helped fuel the insurgency.

[Ghost in the Machine]

39. Oh, they were seeking instability in the Middle East, I have no doubt about that.

A destablized ME raises oil prices due to speculation and supply. The Bush Oil Cronies make out like bandits. Let's not forget about the No Bid contracts to Halliburton/KBR. The Cheney War Profiteer Cronies make out like bandits....

Dick Cheney in 1994:

CHENEY: Because if we'd gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn't have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.

Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein's government, then what are you going to put in its place? That's a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it --- eastern Iraq --- the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you've got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.

It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.

The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families --- it wasn't a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth?

Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4947

The question I've been asking my is "was Cheney still banking on this to be the case, or did he think that Iraqi response/resistance would be weaker than before, due to sanctions, and they'd just steamroll through on their imperialistic march towards their New American Century"?

I don't think Gee DUHbya was in the loop very much, if at all, in the planning of these policies. Little Boots was just a puppethead who got to prance around in various costumes and wave to his mommy, always seeking her approval. Don't forget that Brother JEB is a PNACer too, and he was there in Florida for the stolen elections of 2000 and to grab the records from the Venice flight school.

PNACers played a strong role in the Bush/Cheney Junta:

Associations with Bush administration
After the election of George W. Bush in 2000, a number of PNAC's members or signatories were appointed to key positions within the President's administration:

Name Position(s) held
Elliott Abrams - Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations (2001–2002), Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African Affairs (2002–2005), Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy (2005-2009) (all within the National Security Council)

Richard Armitage - Deputy Secretary of State (2001-2005)

John R. Bolton - Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs (2001-2005), U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2005-2006)

Dick Cheney - Vice President (2001-2009)

Eliot A. Cohen Member of the Defense Policy Advisory Board (2007-2009)<61>

Seth Cropsey Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau (12/2002-12/2004)

Paula Dobriansky Under-Secretary of State for Global Affairs (2001-2007)

Francis Fukuyama Member of the The President's Council on Bioethics (2001-2005)

Zalmay Khalilzad U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (11/2003 - 6/2005), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq (6/2005 - 3/2007) U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (2007-2009)

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States (2001-2005) under Dick Cheney

Richard Perle Chairman of the Board, Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee (2001-2003)

Peter W. Rodman Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security (2001-2007)

Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense (2001-2006)

Randy Scheunemann Member of the U.S. Committee on NATO, Project on Transitional Democracies, International Republican Institute

Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary of Defense (2001-2005)

Dov S. Zakheim Department of Defense Comptroller (2001-2004)

Robert B. Zoellick Office of the United States Trade Representative (2001-2005), Deputy Secretary of State (2005-2006), 11th President of the World Bank (2007-2009)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC#Associations_with_Bush_administration

It's not hard to connect the dots...


Peace,

Ghost

[CJCRANE]

44. And Bremer disbanded the entire Iraqi army, police force and gov't

which created a huge pool of potential insurgents.

[noise]

7. Atta met an Iraqi intel agent in Prague!

Why are you pretending there was no link between Hussein's regime and al Qaeda/9/11 hijackers? Your attempt to rewrite history is astonishing.

[noise]

8. To clarify my point

Just as some 9/11 truth advocates like to pick and choose when to believe the FBI (i.e. claim the FBI lied about the ID's of the hijackers but believe the FBI is sending a secret message by not listing 9/11 as a Bin Laden crime), so too do some debunkers pick and choose when to believe government officials. If Cheney lied about Atta/Iraq to bolster the case for invading Iraq then what else did he lie about? Could he have possibly lied about his pre-9/11 conduct too? Or his reasons for advocating torture? Feel free to explain how we can determine when Cheney was being honest and when he wasn't.

[Bolo Boffin]

15. How can it be that people are missing my point so thoroughly?

Yes, Cheney tried scraping up whatever link he could after the attacks to link them to Saddam. It appears that they were even willing to torture people into confessing links between Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. And yet none of them, NONE OF THEM, tried before the attacks to lay down any case or any evidence whatsoever, WHATSOEVER, that Saddam was supporting the 9/11 terrorists. After the attack, they send out the word, they grab anything they can, they even waterboard and worse to find the connection.

But before? NOTHING.

Almost as if they didn't know the attacks were going to happen at all, and then scrambled to take advantage of them for their own well-documented aims.

You know, REALITY.

[noise]

25. Why didn't Cheney have WMD planted in Iraq BEFORE the invasion?

That he didn't proves Cheney believed Hussein had WMD. Period. Case closed.

ETA:

This is the best explanation I've come across:

I have a section in the book about how lies in a fascist shift serve a different purpose than they do in a democracy. In a democracy, people lie to deceive. In a fascist shift, lies serve to disorient. Lies in the service of a fascist shift make it hard for citizens to trust their own judgment about what's real and what's not. Once citizens don't know what's real and what's not real, they are profoundly disempowered. The Bush administration seems to have learned that lesson, and they regularly name things the opposite. And there's a long historical precedent for making people feel that there is no such thing as truth.

Buzzflash interview with Naomi Wolf

[Bolo Boffin]

29. Wow, it would be really nice to talk about what I'm talking about rather than

what you continue to want to believe I'm talking about.

Why didn't Cheney have WMD planted in Iraq before the invasion? Cheney thought he had them. Fine by me.

What's more, I'll add that he couldn't have planted them before, because he didn't have the capability to do so.

But that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying why didn't Cheney or whoever else is running around in your mind in control of all the switches -- why didn't they frame Saddam for 9/11 before the 9/11 attacks?

It takes sheer dedication to miss this extremely simple point I'm making.

[Old and In the Way]

28. So, should Bush-Cheney be indicted and tried for gross criminal negligence?

3,000 people died on 9/11 because they weren't paying attention/refused to consider and react to the intel that they were receiving. Let's assume they were entirely without malice. Did they not violate their oath of office by letting 3000 Americans die on 9/11? We impeached a President for lying about sex. What should the punishment be for letting 3,000 people die because you fail to react to the intelligence you receive? If I'm driving my car and not paying attention and kill someone...I can be tried for manslaughter. How should the only people tasked with defending this country who failed us on 9/11 because they weren't paying attention and never did anything to prepare us for these attacks, be handled?

Do you agree that's a capitol crime?

[Bolo Boffin]

30. Sounds good to me!

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!

[Old and In the Way]

10. Interesting question Bolo.

We now know that the frame-up on Iraq started in January of '01 when the stationary was stolen from the Nigerian embassy. We know Dick was plotting the hostile takeover of Iraqi National Oil in his secret energy meetings in the Spring of '01....before the events of 9/11. I suspect that the 9/11 attacks were easy justification to get us into the MidEast and reprogram the American people for Bush's GWOT. Once there, the marketing of war with Iraq was much easier. Certainly Cheney had no problem tying Iraq to 9/11. Why add more baking when events played out so this administration could hammer the IWR through Congress? Remember, this was done even before we had an public investigation into 9/11. They got their PNAC underway...why add yet more spice to the recipe?

[Bolo Boffin]

14. Oh, brother

Are you all constitutionally unable to understand what I am saying? The stationary from the Nigerian embassy had nothing at all to do with 9/11. That was about the yellowcake trump-up, right? How does that play into the 9/11 attack at all? You're saying that the Bush Administration is willing to forge documents and build a paper trail to Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium but none of them, not a single one of them, thought, "Hey, while we're at it, let's lay a paper trail for the 9/11 hijackers to Saddam!" There isn't a hint of Saddam supporting the 9/11 attack (which is because he didn't). Wouldn't it have been easier to "hammer the IWR through Congress" with that?

But of course, the evil 9/11 Bushco conspirators had to do everything the hard way. Fly planes into the building so that they could then blow them up with their never-before-or-since-used demolition tactics (instead of just blowing them up with car bombs - dear God, New York would have just yawned at that). In the case of the Pentagon and Shanksville, they didn't even use planes or they conducted a complicated aerial ballet with bombs going off and faked body parts (or were they real? I guess they took the soldiers who killed and chopped up and burned the civilians and sent them right over to Gitmo and Abu Ghraib... :eyes: ). Nothing easy for this crew. And then drop little Merry Pason hints to the public here and there, little maddening "slips of the tongue" to taunt the Internet detectives hot on their trail.

So why not frame Osama and Al Qaeda for 9/11 when all they really wanted to do was invade Iraq? Just one more needless fucking insurmountable obstacle in the middle of the most whacked-out convulted conspiracy plot ever, EVER.

Jesus Christ. You all have brains. THINK.

By the way, am I defending Saddam Hussein? By some posters' logic here, I am. I said, Saddam didn't have anything to do with 9/11. Neither did Pol Pot. Neither did Rasputin. Dear God, is there an evil leader in the world I won't defend?????

No, of course Saddam is evil enough without tying 9/11 to him. Bush and Cheney are evil enough as well.

Side topic: Old, you say, "They got their PNAC underway." Could you point out in the New Pearl Harbor document the exact goals mentioned and figure out the progress made toward them? Are invasion of Iraq plans in there anywhere at all?

[noise]

19. There is nothing suspect about 9/11 at all

Period. We know this because there is no planted trail of evidence that links Hussein to 9/11. End of story. Case closed.

Yet there has been a huge cover up of 9/11. Why is that? Why doesn't your theory (no planted Hussein links=no conspiracy) account for the cover up?

[Bolo Boffin]

21. If I had said something so silly, your sarcasm would be justified.

But I didn't, so have fun with that straw man.

[noise]

23. Please clarify

Are you stating that no planted Hussein links to 9/11=no complicity of government officials in relation to 9/11?

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Are you stating

"tried to frame Saddam for 9/11 after the 9/11 attacks" = "tried to frame Saddam for 9/11 before the 9/11 attacks"?

No one in the United States government planted or tried to link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks before they occurred.

They were quite willing to frame up any excuse for attacking Hussein both before and after the 9/11 attacks.

They were quite willing to move heaven and earth to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks after the 9/11 attacks.

They took no steps whatsover before the 9/11 attacks to link them to Saddam.

To me, that says that they had no hand in planning the 9/11 attacks.

They clearly wanted to invade Iraq, as their behavior both before and after the 9/11 attacks shows.

They were not above using unsavory and illegal methods to create excuses to invade Iraq, as their behavior both before and after the 9/11 attacks shows.

And yet....

Only after the 9/11 attacks happened did any of them try to link 9/11 to Saddam.

You are positing that they did have a hand in planning these attacks. This would mean that they weren't above killing Americans, destroying massive amounts of property, possibly even flooding Manhattan's subways. And yet for some unknown reason, they stayed their hands in creating evidence that would have irrevocably tied Saddam to this attack, giving them the clear path into invading the country. Only after the attacks (yes, even minutes after, thanks, Mr. Rumsfeld) did they start scheming to use these attacks in the quest to invade Iraq.

To me, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to say they had no hand in planning these attacks than to say they planned the attacks so they could invade Iraq but didn't frame Saddam for them. Can you not see that?

[noise]

36. I understand your concept

I agree it is puzzling. Yet I think you will admit that their methods did work. The means is quite hard to understand but the ends appear to have been achieved. Consequences? None. Impeachment was off the table and now investigations are too divisive.

Everything about 9/11 is confusing, in large part because too much information has been classified.

[Old and In the Way]

27. Hey Bolo...I'm unable to get into thecollective PNAC minds.

Do you agree there was a frame up by the Bush-Cheney government to go after Saddam and invade Iraq? If so, a 9/11 event would have been a great cover to start their war. You do remember some Bush parrot that told us (and I paraphrase), "while you're still trying to understand what just happened, we're busy constructing new realities for you to deal with." Problem is, they aren't constructing much of anything today...just playing defense.

Regarding the IWR, you'll love this. Here's my perspective. Democrats were reeling from 9/11 and Bush's poll #'s were still artificially high (no Katrina or 9/11 Commission, yet)...this IWR was thrust on the country just before the 2002 elections. Why did the Democrats let Bush sledgehammer them on invading Iraq when we knew then that Iraq had nothing to do with it? I'm betting that the same people who couldn't stop 9/11 had a nice trap set for the Democrats. Vote, en masse, against the IWR. Then...another 'event' happens-this time Iraq is fingered for the it. Martial law gets declared...game changes completely. Democrats then become the party of Al Qaeda/Iraqi appeasers and game is over. You are un-American if you are a Democrat. Iraq gets invaded anyway. Interestingly, John Kerry votes against the 1st Iraqi War...but votes for this one? Does not compute. Unless they gamed this out and, given their predicament, elected to vote for it and piss off their base....while taking away the club that would have been used to beat them (and us) into submission.

Sorry Bolo...I read the PNAC docs years ago. At that time I was struck with the number of country's that they were going to take on. They had a list of countries that we'd do up. Iraq was 1st on the list and Saudi Arabia was last.
But, by all means, keep defending the Bush-Cheney legacy. Until we get a real investigation into 9/11, we can only speculate as to why these criminals did what they did.

[Realityhack]

34. You are not asking the question you seem to think you are asking. n/t