Kerry Talks to Imus: “They Were Hell Bent for Leather, to Take Out Saddam

[kerrygoddess]

Kerry Talks to Imus: “They Were Hell Bent for Leather, to Take Out Saddam
December 9, 2005

{snip}

IMUS: OK — that they lied. Why mislead us?

KERRY: Because they were hell bent for leather, determined to take out Saddam Hussein and go to war on a theory of Middle East transformation. And it was the theory of Mr. Wolfowitz and Doug Feith over at the Pentagon and others who had this view. And in retrospect, that’s what was driving things.

IMUS: Remember, for a long time, they tried to tie — I mean, for a long time, you take these polls, people thought that Iraqis were in those planes and flew them into the World Trade Center and in the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

KERRY: Yes, they did. And in fact — in fact, the president helped lend to that belief.

Last year during the election, we observed that about 70 percent of the American people or higher, 77 percent of the people supporting George Bush believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Now, they didn’t just get there by accident.

And what’s really disturbing about this — and it ought to be to every single person in New York, especially, is that the people we were after who did what they did to New York, and to the Pentagon, and to, you know, the country, came out of Afghanistan, out of al Qaeda, out of Osama bin Laden.

We had Osama bin Laden trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora . But the president and Donald Rumsfeld decided not to use Americans, the best fighting in the world — we have SEALS on the ground there. I’ve talked to some of them.

They wanted to go up after Osama bin Laden. And the orders were never given to bring in the 82nd Airborne or the Marines, or others, surround that mountain, do anything necessary. We outsourced that job to Afghans, who went up in the hills and Osama bin Laden escaped.

There were other ways we could have gotten Osama bin Laden. I think the whole beginning of the war, you know, the three weeks of bombing, lost us the opportunity to take advantage of the fact that we knew they used cell phones, we knew they traveled in convoys.

We have the best special forces in the world, and I think that was the time to have an entebbe-type raid, where you take the time to know with certainty where they are, and then you envelop, and then you go in, and then you can do your bombing and the other things necessary. But the object was to get Osama bin Laden, and frankly, through a series of decisions, they allowed Osama bin Laden to escape.

And I think that’s a much larger issue than a lot of people focus on.

MORE - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1356

[killbotfactory]

1. Right. The inspections process was just a ruse.

Powell and Blair wanted a fig-leaf of justification for attacking a crippled nation.

So when are the criminal charges forthcoming?

[Dances with Cats]

2. And Kerry voted for them to...

...go right ahead.

[StClone]

3. Who didn't?

Feingold and a few others this is no biggy unless you live in a black and white extremist and unforgiving world.

[killbotfactory]

5. They laid out specific conditions for support of a war in Iraq.

And said they would speak out if Bush violated those condidtions.

Bush then proceeded to violate every condition democrats laid forth.

It's taken them over two years to even think about protesting about this. Two years too long. Some democrats have the same blood on their hands as the president.

[fedupinBushcountry]

8. Funny

I heard Dems speak out on this over 2 years ago, starting in Jan. '03, before Bush went to war. Of course, I didn't depend on the media to let me know what Dems were saying.

[killbotfactory]

9. So did I, they were called traitors and fools

By republicans and democrats who supported the war. I never heard anyone who voted for the IWR speak out against the war.

[karynnj]

15. Kerry did

In op-eds and speeches before the war. Remember who asked for regime change here - No not Dean, Kerry. Kerry was against the war as early as Dean was.

[karynnj]

14. Speaking out BEFORE the war when Bush asked the inspectors

to leave because we were going in and calling for Regime change here shortly after Bush invaded is that fast enough. There are many that were still for the war 1 or 2 years later, Kerry was clearly not one of them.

[LittleClarkie]

4. He voted to get the inspectors in. And they did go in. But they were

disregarded when the time came.

He did not vote for Bush Co. to creat the biggest FUBAR in the last 100 years.

He has said he was wrong.

He has accepted his part of the responsibility for us being there.

Unless you like him to slit his wrists or something, I don't know what else you're looking for.

[killbotfactory]

13. And he never denounced the war in clear terms

It was always, "well I didn't want this, but we are where we are." It's better than some democrats like Lieberman, but I'll still always have a problem with it.

[doc03]

6. Well he voted for it before he voted against it!

[fedupinBushcountry]

7. Stupid remark

took a lot of thought, huh? :boring:

[doc03]

10. Yes it was, on Kerry's part.

He goes to Vietnam then protests the war. He votes to outlaw shotguns then claims to be a hunter. That's why the flip-flop tag stuck to Kerry. If he thought they were "hell bent for leather' why didn't he say something then? He voted for the IWR because it was politically popular at the time then he voted against the funding because Dean was nipping at his heels.

[fedupinBushcountry]

11. Lame remarks

and so Rovian.

Another added to my ignore list.:nuke: Like talking to a brick wall.

[ProSense]

12. Takes guts.

The soldiers who fought in Iraq and are now speaking out against this war should shut up? No, it takes guts.

Do you need an assault weapon to hunt game?

Voting based on the evidence is about popularity?

[karynnj]

16. He's speaking of what he knows now.

They specifically REMOVED anything that would consider transformation of the region as valid justification when it was negotiated. The new information is from DSM and some of Fitspatrick's work.

[kerrygoddess]

17. Uninformed. WTF?

Do you know anything about Kerry or do you just like to spread untruths?