FOX Article: "How was the President suppossed to know?"

[camitche]

(snip)

"So now we have Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and Harry Reid and those types wanting hearings on how the president used wrong information to lead us into war.

First, do we not like the results of the war? Yes, we do. Do we think these results could have been achieved without the war? Don't make me laugh, but not a chance.

So, once again we have anti-war Democrats denouncing a successful war that accomplished what it set out to accomplish. And we have a president who is unhappy that intelligence was faulty, that he could not know for certain WMD were not in Iraq, and he was left to make a prudent decision on what turned out to be faulty information.

So we're going to have hearings on why the president didn't know information that was dead wrong was dead wrong? If the information was "dead wrong" — let's recall George Tenet's slam-dunk line — how was the president supposed to know?"

check it out: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152117,00.html

[dave29]

1. 2+ per gallon 1500+ dead ten of thousands wounded, insurgency

no end in sight

What's not to love??

[bitchkitty]

30. 1500 dead?

That is a VAST understatement. You're not counting the thousands and thousands of dead Iraqi children.

[EstimatedProphet]

2. That little snip right there had so many things wrong

it would be difficult to lit them all.
Does Fox even understand the concept of "facts"?

[rodeodance]

3. would there have been a 2nd Bush Presidency without Fox news? I think

NOT.

[FreedomAngel82]

33. Obviously not

They also missed when Rumsfeld went on "Meet the Press" and he said he knew EXACTLY where the WMD's were. In Baghdad. :eyes:

[alcuno]

4. They're called WEAPONS INSPECTORS!

When they came back reporting that the stuff we said was there was not, it was time to pick up the clue phone!

[rkc3]

16. Absolutely correct.

However, while all other presidents would have asked questions bush did not. Asking questions was not in his best interest - he and his admin wanted this war and would have gone regardless of the intel.

Now we're watching country after country pull out and leave the mess for us to clean up. The Iraqi oil fortunes are not helping to finance the repairs made to the country and the gov't's own contractors are screwing every one of us out of our future.

And somehow, this is still Clinton's fault.

[FreedomAngel82]

34. I feel so bad for Clinton

always blamed for everything. *sigh* It must get really old. I know I get tired of hearing it and Bush never getting blamed for ANYTHING. :banghead:

[camitche]

5. It's not like we didn't see this type of thought coming.

There were several DU threads that foresaw this very argument.

I think it's stunning that people will just chalk it up to an honest mistake. I mean, are they serious. It's not like Bush accidentally erased my Madden 2005 playoff season. He went to war. Whoops is right.

[caledesi]

8. And what does "one" get for his mistakes? A promotion of course.

and if he really screwed up, a medal - Bremer, Tenet, and Frank!

Makes sense to me. Not!

[Zinfandel]

6. Yet the same exact people blamed Clinton personally, for the intelligence

screw-ups & reports he received on the bombing of the asprin factory? Clinton was blamed completely, the neocons never for a moment spoke about CIA, the Pentagon and the other intelligence sources that gave the green light.

According to Fox and the rest of the right-wing, Clinton was the president and he should accept all the blame.

[TheFarseer]

9. yes yes yes

only the asprin factory bombing(and it's not proven that that's all that was going on there) didn't kill 1500+ of our soldiers and lose the respect of the world community. Another example of republicans believing what they want to believe facts be damned.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Oh, that's right, leave the poor guy alone already.

It wasn't his fault, he's only human, it could of happened to anybody.

Imagine what those bastards would be doing if a dem had pulled at shitty stunt like the invasion and occupation of Iraq, after a 6 month all-out propaganda assault?

[wabranty]

10. But if the CIA gave W faulty intelligence that pushed him. . .

into declaring war on Iraq, how do the PNACs explain the arguments in this book? Bush vs. the Beltway : How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060580127/qid=1112634757/sr=1-17/ref=sr_1_17/102-7492013-4937742?v=glance&s=books)

So we went to war based on bad intelligence from a drunk relative of Chalabi who fed misinformation to the CIA that convinced W there were WMDs but at the same time the CIA was downplaying the evidence in order to persuade W not to go to war with Iraq? Try that on your favorite W-Backer and watch them try to explain their way out of that?

:dilemma: :rofl:

[tanyev]

11. How in the world was he supposed to know?

When you only listen to people who already agree with you and tell you what you want to hear, it's very difficult to learn the truth.

[bowens43]

12. It's irrelevant.

Even if saddam had WMD , that alone would not have justified the invasion.

[Gman]

13. Unbelievable

They have no shame whatsoever.

[Dawgs]

14. This is a fucking joke right?

"How was the President supposed to know?"

How about...
- The Weapons Inspectors!!
- The Intelligence Community having doubts about mobile labs!!
- The Intelligence Community having doubts about report of tubes used for WMD!!
- It's his fucking job... If he doesn't know, then he sure as hell better not take us to war!!
- If it was up to him(prudent decision), then it's his fucking fault.
- Bush and his butt-buddies lying to us everyday that it was a fact, not a probability, a fact!!

Also, can someone explain to me what this set out to accomplish? I thought it was to disarm Saddam. If he didn't have any weapons, then we've killed, or lost many people, for NOTHING. Freeing the Iraqi people was NEVER one of the reasons we went to war.

What world are these people living in?

[jonnyblitz]

15. they insult the intelligience of their viewers with this article

I wouldn't even know where to begin deconstructing this mess of an attempt.:crazy:

[rodeodance]

18. what intelligence?

[Capn Sunshine]

17. Note that typical RW tactic

Of assuming a fact with no evidence. Like

"could we have achieved this without a war? Don't make me laugh, but not a chance."

Yet when we get Ghaddaffy to knuckle under in Libya, and this is a guy who has bought and brokered nuclear bomb technology AND has funded and aided terrorist attacks ( Flight 603 for ex, hosting terrorist camps from around the world in the Libyan desert)
THAT is wonderful. Could we have gotten Saddam to do this? Hell YEAH! He was secular and desperate for parts for his infrastructure.

Oh wait , I mean, "not a chance".

Face it folks, unless we get control of the media again their unreality will continue to be reality

[meganmonkey]

19. Considering Bush** and Cheney** all but asked for made-up intel

for an excuse to bomb Iraq...Remember Richard Clarke?

---snip---

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

---snip---
"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.' "He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

--snip---

more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/19/60minutes/main607356.shtml

[chomskysright]

20. My letter to this incredibly poor writer...

April 4, 2005

RE: your story: "Spy Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMD"

Dear Mr. Gibson (of Fox News):


You stated: "First, do we not like the results of the war? Yes, we do.

No we don't, Mr. Gibson. To suit:

'Testimonies from Falluja'
Sonia Nettnin, PalestineChronicle.com
“Testimonies from Falluja,” is a collection of testimonies from Iraqis who experienced the U.S.-attack on Falluja in October and November 2004. Their firsthand accounts describe the aerial bombardment and video footage shows burned, blown-up bodies lying in the streets, children included, alongside destroyed buildings. U.S. mainstream media did not report this side of the war. With explosions in the background, cameraman Isam Rashid follows the peo! ple running for their lives...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10860


You stated, Mr. Gibson: "If the intelligence that seemed to show a threat from a guy we knew was malevolent and, in fact, an overall threat, and if that intelligence later turned out to be wrong because he ran a government of murder and thuggery and fear and we couldn't get spies in there — then how is that Bush's fault?"

Relatedly:

How to Interpret the Critique of America's Intelligence Community, Commissioned by the Bush Administration
Walter C. Uhler
...Yet, the commission's report fails to consider the Bush administration's early obsession with Iraq, which predates the March 2001 intelligence about aluminum tubes. Thus, the commission does not report that, during Bush's first principals meeting of the NSC (on January 30, 2001), National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice justified the NSC's early focus on Iraq, because "Iraq might be the ! key to reshaping the entire region . It was not flawed intelligence from the IC that persuaded her to say that. Neither does flawed intelligence explain why Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were obsessed with Iraq...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10867



I find it hard to comprehend how you are in a position to write for the public, frankly. You don't do your research; you're extremely opinionated; and you turn my stomach.

Sincerely,

[gratuitous]

21. We like the results of the war?

Is Fox talking about the tens of thousands dead? Or the hundreds of thousands wounded, living without limbs or eyes? Or perhaps it's the deficit that Fox likes so much? After all, if we hadn't spent over $200 billion lining the pockets of the likes of Halliburton, who knows what the bad ol' gummint might have done with that money? Maybe Fox likes the bodies hanging from the bridge in Fallujah? Or the torture, murder and rape of civilians in U.S. military custody? Could even Fox like all the new terrorists spawned by this imperial misadventure?

You're a bunch of lying sacks of shit, Fox News. But you probably knew that already.

[Jim Lane]

23. The result Fox is talking about...

is indeed one that the RW likes. Fox is correct that the war "accomplished what it set out to accomplish" -- it got Bush re-elected.

No incumbent President, seeking re-election during wartime, has ever been removed from office. Somehow I suspect that this historical fact was known to the White House.

[Arkana]

22. "A successful war that accomplished what it set out to accomplish?!"

Buddy, there's a few thousand families of American soldiers--as well as about 57 million Americans--who disagree.

[ComerPerro]

24. John Gibson is a pathetic whore

He went on the Daily Show once and Jon Stewart owned him.

He even tricked Gibson into admitting that Faux News and Al Jezeera are pretty much the same thing!

[npincus]

25. so much for "THE BUCK STOPS HERE"

what else is there to say?

[mcscajun]

27. You took the words right out of my mouth.

In the Bush White House, the line is:

The Buck Stops Anyhere BUT Here.

Isn't there some principle in the Navy where a Captain is responsible for EVERYTHING that happens on board his ship, whether he "knew about it" or not?

Feh.

[Skinner]

26. What a disgrace.

How was the president supposed to know, indeed?

It's not like it was any fucking secret! WE KNEW, FER CRYINOUTLOUD.

[DesEtoiles]

28. Why didn't God tell him it was wrong?

[Catchawave]

29. The Pope told him....and the world !

Is Pope John Paul II telling the world that if President George W. Bush goes ahead with his plans to invade Iraq without United Nations sanctions, the Catholic Church will consider Bush a war criminal?

“A war would be a defeat for humanity and would be neither morally nor legally justified,” the Pope told Bush in a papal message delivered last week by a special envoy. “It is an unjust war.”

This leads even conservatives like John McLaughlin, host of the syndicated McLaughlin Group and a longtime supporter of both conservative and Republican causes, to have second thoughts.

“The Pope is saying an invasion of Iraq would be criminal,” says McLaughlin, who is also a former Jesuit priest. “A statement that strong cannot be ignored.”

more...http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=15&num=1904

[Zhade]

31. Gee, how the fuck did *I* know?

How did I know about Hussein Kamel telling our government the weapons had been destroyed?

How did I know that 95% of the weapons Hussein had were destroyed by the UN inspection teams, and that whatever might be left was past its shelf life?

There are so many more examples, and the LIES told to get us into this illegal war are being whitewashed in front of our eyes.

Maybe America doesn't deserve to exist anymore, the way things are going.

[Dr Fate]

32. Then Bush should have no problem going under oath then.

If this is just "crazy Democrats"- then let Bush clear up the whole matter by going under oath and letting the "chips fall where they may."

Of course, no Democrat will ever have the courage to go on TV and say what I just said. Why?

[peacetalksforall]

35. We like the results of the war. How could any human say that?

Unbelievable. War loving killers...Murdoch and his corporation.

Don't let them convince us that imperialistic killing is just fine.

[dave29]

36. How was the buck supposed to stop?

I mean, for God's sake, the laws of inertia do not allow for this sort of thing.