Bush Lied

[mrroqout]

Again you trot out the Quagmire line.

It's not. We're making headway...bummer for you.

Liberal jerks would like nothing more than a COMPLETE failure in Iraq so they can "told you so" for years to come. This is just sick and sad and says much about you and your type.

I SO SO SO WISH it was WWII era, when people were AMERICAN and not "Progressive Globalists". Not to mention the treason laws etc...

[saunterelle]

This is a bipartisan committee. Republicans reached the same conclusions as the Democrats. Check it out.

[bolverk]

Jun 10, 2008 17:18:33 GMT -5 saunterelle said:

This is a bipartisan committee. Republicans reached the same conclusions as the Democrats. Check it out.

I already have. Now tell me, exactly how much of it did you read? And two of the six republicans concurred, and eight out of eight democrats. Does not sound so bi-partisan to me. Sounds more like a partisan snow job.

[bolverk]

Jun 10, 2008 17:18:33 GMT -5 saunterelle said:

This is a bipartisan committee. Republicans reached the same conclusions as the Democrats. Check it out.

I also noticed that you did not comment on the numerous statements made by committee members and other Democratic Senators on the Congressional record as well. Why is that? Are you just ignoring what they believed and said?

Or, are they not responsible for their words and actions, like most democrats believe. What ever happened to Personal Responsibility?

[mrroqout]

All seems awfully funny once you read the Original 1998 Indicment of OBL..

Guess Clinton laid the groundwork for these "Lies"..

[bolverk]

The first three paragraphs of the US GRAND JURY INDICTMENT AGAINST USAMA BIN LADEN
United States District Court
Southern District of New York

New York -- A U.S. Federal Grand Jury in New York on Nov. 5 issued an
indictment against Usama Bin Laden alleging that he and others engaged
in a long-term conspiracy to attack U.S. facilities overseas and to
kill American citizens.


The indictment noted that Al Qaeda, Bin Laden's international
terrorist group, forged alliances with the National Islamic Front in
Sudan and with the government of Iran and with its associated group
Hezballah to "work together against their perceived common enemies in
the West, particularly the United States."


Additionally, the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement
with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that
they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons
development.

[bolverk]

Actually, Bush was following U.S. Policy and Law, which was signed by Bill Clinton:

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338), (codified in a note to 22 USCS § 2151) is a United States Congressional statement of policy calling for regime change in Iraq; it was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Findings and declaration of policy
The Act found that Iraq had between 1980 and 1998 (1) committed various and significant violations of International Law, (2) had failed to comply with the obligations to which it had agreed to following the Gulf War and (3) further had ignored Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. The Act declared that it was the Policy of the United States to support "regime change." The Act was passed 360-38 in the U.S. House of Representatives [2] and by unanimous consent in the Senate. [3] US President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law on October 31, 1998. The law's stated purpose was: "to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq." Specifically, Congress made findings of past Iraqi military actions in violation of International Law and that Iraq had denied entry of United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) inspectors into its country to inspect for weapons of mass destruction. Congress found: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." On December 16, 1998, President Bill Clinton mandated Operation Desert Fox, a major four-day bombing campaign on Iraqi targets.

Precursor to war
President George W. Bush has often referred to the Act and its findings to argue that the Clinton Administration supported regime change in Iraq and further that it believed that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. The Act was cited as a basis of support in the Congressional Authorization for use of Military Force Against Iraq in October of 2002 (Public Law 107–243—OCT. 16, 2002)

[saunterelle]

It doesn't matter what Clinton believed. Bush acted. The responsibility falls squarely on Bush's shoulders.

If Clinton told Bush to jump off a bridge would he?

[saunterelle]

Plus,

Myth: The Bush Administration Had the Same Intelligence As The Previous Administration



► Defense Secretary Rumsfeld: “The information that he based his decision on was the same information that President Clinton and the previous administration had.” (Press Briefing, 11/15/05)



► RNC Chairman Mehlman: “The fact is since 1998, this administration and the previous administration had the same policy. It was regime change in Iraq…They all agreed that this guy has WMD.” (Meet the Press, 11/13/05)



Fact: Some intelligence was the same, but the fact that the intelligence was outdated weakened, not strengthened, the Administration’s case. While the Bush Administration has tried to shift blame to President Clinton by saying it relied on the same intelligence as the previous administration, the Bush Administration’s reliance on outdated intelligence was one of the key flaws in its case for war. As the New York Times recently editorialized, it “is true that Mr. Bush was working off the same intelligence Mr. Clinton had. But that is scary, not reassuring. The reports about Saddam Hussein’s weapons were old, some more than 10 years old. Nothing was fresher than about five years, except reports that later proved to be fanciful.” (11/15/05) Saddam Hussein ousted U.N. weapons inspectors, who had served as the primary intelligence source on Iraq’s WMD programs, in 1998. As the CIA noted in a 2000 report, “having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the US to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.” (Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Related to WMD, January through June, 2000) The fact is that the Bush Administration made several key judgments about Iraq’s WMD programs based on outdated and uncertain, but never revealed the extent to which it was relying on old intelligence.



Fact: Some intelligence was new – and it came largely from sources discredited by the Intelligence Community. The new intelligence mentioned above by the New York Times editorial came largely out of sources that the Intelligence Community warned were not credible, but were was used by the Bush Administration despite these warnings. Among these sources were several Iraqi defectors:



* The CIA and the Defense Department both warned that “Curveball,” a pseudonymous defector who provided information that “became the centerpiece of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s presentation to the United Nations,” was not a credible source and was even suspected of being a “drunk.” (Washington Post, 7/10/04; Los Angeles Times, 4/2/05)



* A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report warned that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an Iraqi defector who was the sole source of intelligence about Iraq’s alleged training of al Qaeda terrorists in the use of chemical and biological weapons, was not credible and was likely to be “intentionally misleading the debriefers.” (New York Times, 11/6/05)



* The CIA and DIA both warned that several defectors provided by the Iraqi National Congress were not credible, and that the evidence they provided “was assessed as not reliable and, in some cases, pure fabrication.” (Senate Intelligence Committee Report, 7/7/04)



The Bush Administration relied heavily upon each of these sources in making its case for military action against Iraq in spite of the warnings from the Intelligence Community. Unfortunately, this discredited intelligence constituted a significant portion of the intelligence used by the Administration in making the case for war.



Fact: There were significant differences between intelligence assessments during the Clinton and Bush Administrations. A careful look at declassified intelligence assessments during the Clinton and Bush Administration reveals some key differences. For example, a CIA report in 1999 asserted that “we do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since [Operation] Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs.” (Report to Congress on Acquisition of Technology Related to WMD, January through June, 1999) In addition, biannual CIA reports on Iraq’s efforts to acquire WMD-related technology show that several key qualifiers – language suggesting uncertainty about Intelligence Community conclusions – were eliminated between the publication of reports during the last years of the Clinton Administration and the period leading up to the war under the Bush Administration.



Moreover, the Silverman-Robb Commission notes a critical difference between the two administration: “After the departure of inspectors, the Intelligence Community assumed that Iraq had the opportunity and the desire to jumpstart its covert nuclear weapons program; by the end of 2000, however, the Community had seen no firm evidence that this was actually happening.” (Silverman-Robb Commission report) Obviously, the Bush Administration asserted that Iraq’s nuclear program had been reconstituted; the Silverman-Robb Commission makes clear that, at least through the end of the Clinton Administration, the Intelligence Community did not believe this to be the case.



Fact: Whether or not the intelligence was the same, the two Administrations reached much different conclusions about our policy toward Iraq. The simple fact is that, regardless of how similar or different intelligence assessments were under the current and previous administrations, only one President reached the decision to take our country into a very costly war in Iraq. Previous administration officials believed that a combination of UN Weapons Inspectors, a credible threat of U.S. force, and economic sanctions had effectively contained Iraq from threatening its neighbors or fully restarting its WMD programs. As Bruce Riedel, National Security Council Director of Near East and South Asian Affairs under President Clinton, stated in 1999, “the first goal of American foreign policy is to contain this very dangerous regime and to keep it from acquiring the means to again threaten its neighbors. We do this through strict enforcement of the UN economic sanctions of the no-fly zones and by making clear that we can and will use force if Saddam threatens his neighbors, the Kurds, or tries to rebuild his WMD arsenal. We have been successful in this endeavor despite repeated challenges.” (Address, 6/18/99)

[iraqvet2003]

It doesn't matter what Clinton believed. Bush acted. The responsibility falls squarely on Bush's shoulders.

If Clinton told Bush to jump off a bridge would he?



No one is trying to put responsibility on Pres. Clinton. Mentioning him, posters are trying to tell you that, historically, it has been the policy of the US to enact regime change in Iraq.

[bolverk]

Jun 11, 2008 14:26:50 GMT -5 saunterelle said:

It doesn't matter what Clinton believed. Bush acted. The responsibility falls squarely on Bush's shoulders.

If Clinton told Bush to jump off a bridge would he?

Actually, you are wrong. Clinton established a policy of regime change, Bush actually followed through. The actual responsibility lays squarely on the shoulders of every congressman who voted for going to Iraq, a true bipartisan vote, unlike the report, and on Bush's shoulders as well.

Like they say, hind sight is 20/20. To bad when the Democrats look back they blame someone else for their decisions. That is what I see. Just because you have your blinders on, it does not alter the truth.

[bolverk]

Jun 10, 2008 17:18:33 GMT -5 saunterelle said:

This is a bipartisan committee. Republicans reached the same conclusions as the Democrats. Check it out.

Two of seven Republicans. None of the Democrats had the balls to vote they way they did on Iraq. And most of those who claimed to have always been against the war, signed on supporting regime change with the bill passed by Clinton. Including the ever loving Lynn C. Woolsey.