Same policies, same shit every candidate, only the R and D are different.
Can list many things that would of been different if McCain or Romney were elected. Yes not a total change between parties but there are differences.
True. I voted for Nader believing there was no difference between Bush and Gore. The Iraq debacle showed that I was wrong. But too often they have their hands out to the same influence peddlers. Many things don't change regardless of which party is in power.
If 9/11 happened while Gore was President he probably would have been equally as hawkish. The Clintons supported the Iraq war. His VP nominee Joe Lieberman supported it big time. Gore would have been right there and the democratic party would have championed him as the greatest war time president in history.
I'm not sure I'd say he would have been "hawkish" but I'll bet he would have had little choice but to respond. Don't want to get into conspiracy theories too much here but that whole issue is definitely rather clouded. I will say this though, Gore would have held the book right side up and actually been reading to the kids and would not have had such a blank stare.
You do realize that the "upside down book" thing is a hoax right? Seriously can't tell if you are joking.
Oh yeah, maybe, maybe not. I should have used one of those crazy sound bites to get the point across. You know, one of those exemplary moments of verbal prowess he so frequently employed in order to vociferate an articulate announcement. Smoke 'em out! LOL!
So your claiming, via your claim of collapsing sanctions and Saddam firing on the aircraft enforcing the no fly zone, that somehow Iraq was a threat and needed to be addressed with military power and that because Gore was one of 10 democrats to vote for the first gulf war and the Israeli bitch Lieberman was his running mate, the dems, had they been elected,would have done something militarily to deal with Saddam and Iraq? Right, that's what you implied, correct? If your position is/was, "we'll never know" then why all your gobblygook about Tenet, post 9/11, blah, blah, blah.
Why not just say, "it's an answer we cannot know" like you did after I called you out? You are slippery BS, I'll give you that.
It was only "inevitable" with GWB, Cheney and the neocons in office. Circle in the Sand or not.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
It doesn't make me uncomfortable but it is a rewriting of history. Bush had an Iraqi focus that Gore did not. Whether it be because of the alleged plot against his father or a desire to finish the job his father started, the Bush administration had a desire to go back to Iraq before 9/11. The Democrats did not. A President Gore does not deliver David Frum's Axis of Evil speech and would have been lampooned if he did.
The Iraqi invasion was inevitable, but only after George W. Bush became POTUS.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
Well clearly you just can't let this go. There was no lie man. No "ginned up intelligence". You can argue the decision was wrong but the "lie" angle has been disproven again and again. As per Bob Woodward...
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
Well clearly you just can't let this go. There was no lie man. No "ginned up intelligence". You can argue the decision was wrong but the "lie" angle has been disproven again and again. As per Bob Woodward...
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
Members of the intelligence community would beg to differ. The pressure put on them to come up with something, anything, to justify the pre-determined decision to invade. Valerie Plame would beg to differ as having been outed because her husband questioned the yellow cake and aluminum tubes story that was "mysteriously" leaked to a breathless NYT reporter. The constant belittling and smearing of Hans Blix and Scott Ritter and dismissal of their findings by the US intelligence community, the intelligence that Saddam Hussain's agents met with Al Qaida operatives in Prague, dismissed by German intelligence. Bob Woodward promoting his book doesn't dismiss the facts. The Iraq invasion was a colossal mistake as the book you've referenced twice points out. Own it.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
Well clearly you just can't let this go. There was no lie man. No "ginned up intelligence". You can argue the decision was wrong but the "lie" angle has been disproven again and again. As per Bob Woodward...
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
Members of the intelligence community would beg to differ. The pressure put on them to come up with something, anything, to justify the pre-determined decision to invade. Valerie Plame would beg to differ as having been outed because her husband questioned the yellow cake and aluminum tubes story that was "mysteriously" leaked to a breathless NYT reporter. The constant belittling and smearing of Hans Blix and Scott Ritter and dismissal of their findings by the US intelligence community, the intelligence that Saddam Hussain's agents met with Al Qaida operatives in Prague, dismissed by German intelligence. Bob Woodward promoting his book doesn't dismiss the facts. The Iraq invasion was a colossal mistake as the book you've referenced twice points out. Own it.
You're giving him facts H2M, we all know he doesn't do well with facts.
Same policies, same shit every candidate, only the R and D are different.
Can list many things that would of been different if McCain or Romney were elected. Yes not a total change between parties but there are differences.
True. I voted for Nader believing there was no difference between Bush and Gore. The Iraq debacle showed that I was wrong. But too often they have their hands out to the same influence peddlers. Many things don't change regardless of which party is in power.
If 9/11 happened while Gore was President he probably would have been equally as hawkish. The Clintons supported the Iraq war. His VP nominee Joe Lieberman supported it big time. Gore would have been right there and the democratic party would have championed him as the greatest war time president in history.
I'm not sure I'd say he would have been "hawkish" but I'll bet he would have had little choice but to respond. Don't want to get into conspiracy theories too much here but that whole issue is definitely rather clouded. I will say this though, Gore would have held the book right side up and actually been reading to the kids and would not have had such a blank stare.
You do realize that the "upside down book" thing is a hoax right? Seriously can't tell if you are joking.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
You are playing what ifs rather than What Actually Happened. We can go on and on about hypotheticals. Yes I followed the flow of posts and you saw an opportunity to defend indefensible and jumped on it like stink on shit.
What Actually Happened is Cheney presidency trotted out false information to get the masses foaming at the mouth and we wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand human lives and now the place is in worse shape
And now same crap is happening with ISIS. Sensationalized stories spread by people like you again working up a lather to get the Evil doers with billions more wasted and many thousand lives.
Get a hanky and wipe that drool off your chin. Not very becoming.
It doesn't make me uncomfortable but it is a rewriting of history. Bush had an Iraqi focus that Gore did not. Whether it be because of the alleged plot against his father or a desire to finish the job his father started, the Bush administration had a desire to go back to Iraq before 9/11. The Democrats did not. A President Gore does not deliver David Frum's Axis of Evil speech and would have been lampooned if he did.
The Iraqi invasion was inevitable, but only after George W. Bush became POTUS.
And let's not forget about motive number one in a crime. $$$$$$$$
Same policies, same shit every candidate, only the R and D are different.
I've thought about this a lot since you posted it bb. It's a disturbing thought because it so very often seems to be true. Someone on FB suggest that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should be on the same ticket. An interesting thought. But any more it seems that no president alone will make enough difference and that many the difference has to come from the people standing up and demanding the changes be made. Check out the "Elizabeth Warren is mad as hell" in the "Your pick for first female pres" thread.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
I know you don't listen to them, but frankly, it is more disturbing to me if you come to the same conclusions on your own. It seems always 1 it 2 days after a new "Limbannity" talking point comes out, you post it on here. My guess is that they filter down through other conservative media to you. If you come to the same conclusions on your own, doesn't it bother you to almost always adopt the same talking points as die-hard ppropagandists who are proven over and over to lie, distort, and misrepresent boldly.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
I know you don't listen to them, but frankly, it is more disturbing to me if you come to the same conclusions on your own. It seems always 1 it 2 days after a new "Limbannity" talking point comes out, you post it on here. My guess is that they filter down through other conservative media to you. If you come to the same conclusions on your own, doesn't it bother you to almost always adopt the same talking points as die-hard ppropagandists who are proven over and over to lie, distort, and misrepresent boldly.
No. It actually makes me wonder if they are speaking more truth then people give them credit for?
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
I know you don't listen to them, but frankly, it is more disturbing to me if you come to the same conclusions on your own. It seems always 1 it 2 days after a new "Limbannity" talking point comes out, you post it on here. My guess is that they filter down through other conservative media to you. If you come to the same conclusions on your own, doesn't it bother you to almost always adopt the same talking points as die-hard ppropagandists who are proven over and over to lie, distort, and misrepresent boldly.
No. It actually makes me wonder if they are speaking more truth then people give them credit for?
Wow, just wow. More truth? That's priceless, just priceless.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
Well clearly you just can't let this go. There was no lie man. No "ginned up intelligence". You can argue the decision was wrong but the "lie" angle has been disproven again and again. As per Bob Woodward...
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
Members of the intelligence community would beg to differ. The pressure put on them to come up with something, anything, to justify the pre-determined decision to invade. Valerie Plame would beg to differ as having been outed because her husband questioned the yellow cake and aluminum tubes story that was "mysteriously" leaked to a breathless NYT reporter. The constant belittling and smearing of Hans Blix and Scott Ritter and dismissal of their findings by the US intelligence community, the intelligence that Saddam Hussain's agents met with Al Qaida operatives in Prague, dismissed by German intelligence. Bob Woodward promoting his book doesn't dismiss the facts. The Iraq invasion was a colossal mistake as the book you've referenced twice points out. Own it.
But Plame wasn't outed. You do know that don't you? Are you for real? Richard Armitage was the one who first discussed her previously public credentials and he was not even charged with a crime. Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury on testimony given during the discovery process. No one leaked her name and Britain still stands by Saddam's attempt to buy yellow cake. I can't believe this has to be rehashed! Call the war a colossal mistake if you want but "Bush Lied, People Died" never happened. It was a fiction created to absolve all those pro-Iraq war democrats who got weak kneed when the war got tough.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
You are playing what ifs rather than What Actually Happened. We can go on and on about hypotheticals. Yes I followed the flow of posts and you saw an opportunity to defend indefensible and jumped on it like stink on shit.
What Actually Happened is Cheney presidency trotted out false information to get the masses foaming at the mouth and we wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand human lives and now the place is in worse shape
And now same crap is happening with ISIS. Sensationalized stories spread by people like you again working up a lather to get the Evil doers with billions more wasted and many thousand lives.
Get a hanky and wipe that drool off your chin. Not very becoming.
Another straw man argument. My post wasn't to "defend the indefensible". It was just to question the certainty that Gore/Lieberman would have acted differently. Therefore hanky not needed.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
Because they wouldn't have asked the CIA and NSA to gin up the intelligence to fit their, the neocons, pre-determined outcome and already planned invasion. How stupid do you think we are? You said it yourself, "we'll never know what Gore/Lieberman would have done" so why the hypothesis? Unless of course you're trying to justify your abject failure. I suggest you re-read Circle in the Sand and not the Belinda Carlisle song either.
Well clearly you just can't let this go. There was no lie man. No "ginned up intelligence". You can argue the decision was wrong but the "lie" angle has been disproven again and again. As per Bob Woodward...
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
Members of the intelligence community would beg to differ. The pressure put on them to come up with something, anything, to justify the pre-determined decision to invade. Valerie Plame would beg to differ as having been outed because her husband questioned the yellow cake and aluminum tubes story that was "mysteriously" leaked to a breathless NYT reporter. The constant belittling and smearing of Hans Blix and Scott Ritter and dismissal of their findings by the US intelligence community, the intelligence that Saddam Hussain's agents met with Al Qaida operatives in Prague, dismissed by German intelligence. Bob Woodward promoting his book doesn't dismiss the facts. The Iraq invasion was a colossal mistake as the book you've referenced twice points out. Own it.
But Plame wasn't outed. You do know that don't you? Are you for real? Richard Armitage was the one who first discussed her previously public credentials and he was not even charged with a crime. Scooter Libby was found guilty of perjury on testimony given during the discovery process. No one leaked her name and Britain still stands by Saddam's attempt to buy yellow cake. I can't believe this has to be rehashed! Call the war a colossal mistake if you want but "Bush Lied, People Died" never happened. It was a fiction created to absolve all those pro-Iraq war democrats who got weak kneed when the war got tough.
Hahahahahahahaha. Wow, it DIDNT happen? Hahahaha, you're too much.
I listen to conservative media, and BS gets his arguments directly from Rush and Hannity, knowingly or not. This is the BS they are trotting out now, about how the invasion was inevitable and it was never about WMD to begin with, it was the no fly zones and the contravention of UN resolutions. Now all the sudden they care about the UN lol
First I don't listen to either Rush or Hannity...a man can come to these conclusions on his own. You throwing that comment out there is essentially to say "shut up" and "no one pay attention to BS"...clearly you fear the alternative point of view. Second I never said it wasn't about WMD. The discussion...if you are willing to follow the flow...is about what might have been if it was Gore/Lieberman in charge. I am questioning the certainty, previously mentioned, that they would have responded any differently considering they would have been acting on all the same info W was acting on? Why would they and Tony Blair not have partnered up to do the same thing? I get how pondering this makes you uncomfortable....it is just so much easier to hate on W then to entertain any other possibility.
I know you don't listen to them, but frankly, it is more disturbing to me if you come to the same conclusions on your own. It seems always 1 it 2 days after a new "Limbannity" talking point comes out, you post it on here. My guess is that they filter down through other conservative media to you. If you come to the same conclusions on your own, doesn't it bother you to almost always adopt the same talking points as die-hard ppropagandists who are proven over and over to lie, distort, and misrepresent boldly.
No. It actually makes me wonder if they are speaking more truth then people give them credit for?
Wow, just wow. More truth? That's priceless, just priceless.
Reminds me of that Bender Futurama meme I posted first time I posted here a month ago and encountered that BS partisan hack apologist. He's still making me laugh harder with his seriousness and it's only just begun
Say what? Where is your source that "her previously public credentials" were, well, public? She was considered NOC, non-official cover, which is to say she was under cover, working for front organizations while employed by the CIA. She was not deskbound at Langley, but rather traveled and was employed outside the US in covert roles. Again, want to share where her "previously public credentials" were made public prior to Richard Armitage leaking them in his column?
Because the British Government stands by its assessment doesn't mean the assessment was correct. Please point me to the source that "Plame wasn't outed." Also, because no one was personally held accountable for the leak and the misuse and mischaracterization of the raw intelligence occurred, doesn't mean that it wasn't purposefully, publically misstated, all in an effort to "sell" a war. Condi Rice and other administration officials later retracted their statements or further explained what they meant when pressed to explain. Its called plausible deniability. And Scooter Libby was the fall guy. Bush commuted his sentence and he barely served time.
"Yellow cake" became "nuclear material" in GWB's 2002 SOTU speech. The amount of effort to get from A to B hardly constituted a "smoking gun that we cannot allow to be in the form of a mushroom cloud."
From Vanity Fair:
By this point members of the intelligence community were complaining behind the scenes about pressure from the administration to find evidence of links between Saddam and international terrorism, and also between Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. According to an October 27, 2003, story by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, there seemed to be a tendency by Cheney’s office, among others, to bypass the analysts and use raw intelligence given directly to the administration. There was also increased reliance on intelligence provided by Ahmad Chalabi, the charismatic head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, from Iraqi defectors. They gave a grisly picture of secret nuclear facilities, terrorist training camps, and chemical- and biological-weapons factories spread throughout Iraq, which the C.I.A. and the International Atomic Energy Agency—which had monitored Iraq until its inspectors left the country in 1998—could neither corroborate nor refute outright. The C.I.A. did not trust Chalabi or his men. Cheney and the Pentagon, on the other hand, stood firmly behind him.
Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, visited the C.I.A. several times at Langley and told the staff to make more of an effort to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to uncover Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities. One of the people who objected most fervently to what he saw as “intimidation,” according to one former C.I.A. case officer, was Alan Foley, then the head of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center. He was Valerie Plame’s boss. (Foley could not be reached for comment.)
In October 2002 additional documents relating to an alleged uranium sale in Niger surfaced in Italy, according to the Hersh article, where they were obtained by a journalist, Elisabetta Burba, at Panorama magazine. Burba took them to the American Embassy and made her own fact-finding trip to Niger, where she concluded the documents were not reliable. She did not even bother to write a story. Yet the documents apparently were given credence by the administration. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell started to talk and write publicly about Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium.
Former federal prosecutor James Orenstein says, “They are pulling punches.… They haven’t subpoenaed reporters. When [White House counsel Alberto] Gonzales asked the prosecutor at the Justice Department for a chance to vet the information [the White House was turning over], they said yes. There may be good reason. But they can’t say that they’re not pulling punches.”
Nope, nothing misleading, nefarious, dishonest or ginning of intelligence there to falsely justify a war that had been planned beginning in 1998. Bush did lie and his justice department conveniently covered it up. And I'm ashamed that Obama, as one of his first acts as president was to refuse to investigate the Iraq war and Bush and Cheney's role in deceiving the American people and congress, saying, "the country needed to move on."
Say what? Where is your source that "her previously public credentials" were, well, public? She was considered NOC, non-official cover, which is to say she was under cover, working for front organizations while employed by the CIA. She was not deskbound at Langley, but rather traveled and was employed outside the US in covert roles. Again, want to share where her "previously public credentials" were made public prior to Richard Armitage leaking them in his column?
Because the British Government stands by its assessment doesn't mean the assessment was correct. Please point me to the source that "Plame wasn't outed." Also, because no one was personally held accountable for the leak and the misuse and mischaracterization of the raw intelligence occurred, doesn't mean that it wasn't purposefully, publically misstated, all in an effort to "sell" a war. Condi Rice and other administration officials later retracted their statements or further explained what they meant when pressed to explain. Its called plausible deniability. And Scooter Libby was the fall guy. Bush commuted his sentence and he barely served time.
"Yellow cake" became "nuclear material" in GWB's 2002 SOTU speech. The amount of effort to get from A to B hardly constituted a "smoking gun that we cannot allow to be in the form of a mushroom cloud."
From Vanity Fair:
By this point members of the intelligence community were complaining behind the scenes about pressure from the administration to find evidence of links between Saddam and international terrorism, and also between Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. According to an October 27, 2003, story by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, there seemed to be a tendency by Cheney’s office, among others, to bypass the analysts and use raw intelligence given directly to the administration. There was also increased reliance on intelligence provided by Ahmad Chalabi, the charismatic head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, from Iraqi defectors. They gave a grisly picture of secret nuclear facilities, terrorist training camps, and chemical- and biological-weapons factories spread throughout Iraq, which the C.I.A. and the International Atomic Energy Agency—which had monitored Iraq until its inspectors left the country in 1998—could neither corroborate nor refute outright. The C.I.A. did not trust Chalabi or his men. Cheney and the Pentagon, on the other hand, stood firmly behind him.
Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, visited the C.I.A. several times at Langley and told the staff to make more of an effort to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to uncover Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities. One of the people who objected most fervently to what he saw as “intimidation,” according to one former C.I.A. case officer, was Alan Foley, then the head of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center. He was Valerie Plame’s boss. (Foley could not be reached for comment.)
In October 2002 additional documents relating to an alleged uranium sale in Niger surfaced in Italy, according to the Hersh article, where they were obtained by a journalist, Elisabetta Burba, at Panorama magazine. Burba took them to the American Embassy and made her own fact-finding trip to Niger, where she concluded the documents were not reliable. She did not even bother to write a story. Yet the documents apparently were given credence by the administration. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell started to talk and write publicly about Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium.
Former federal prosecutor James Orenstein says, “They are pulling punches.… They haven’t subpoenaed reporters. When [White House counsel Alberto] Gonzales asked the prosecutor at the Justice Department for a chance to vet the information [the White House was turning over], they said yes. There may be good reason. But they can’t say that they’re not pulling punches.”
Nope, nothing misleading, nefarious, dishonest or ginning of intelligence there to falsely justify a war that had been planned beginning in 1998. Bush did lie and his justice department conveniently covered it up. And I'm ashamed that Obama, as one of his first acts as president was to refuse to investigate the Iraq war and Bush and Cheney's role in deceiving the American people and congress, saying, "the country needed to move on."
Keep living the fantasy.
This guys good, knows his shit.
As for Obama not investigating the Iraq war, I believe cuz they're all on the same side. Look who was involved in the project for the new American century think tank. All sides represented there.
Here's another repudiation of your fantasy BS. Read it if you dare but I don't believe you will. Your mind is a closed mind, set in its mistaken ways of thinking:
And before you dismiss it as coming from the Huff Post and can't be trusted because its a "liberal blog," you see the links in the article? See those? They link to source documents and such that back up the points being made by the author. Facts, you know those pesky little things.
From the Downing Street Memo, from the British Intelligence Service:
• As originally reported in the The Sunday Times, May 1, 2005 SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING From: Matthew Rycroft Date: 23 July 2002 S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)
Say what? Where is your source that "her previously public credentials" were, well, public? She was considered NOC, non-official cover, which is to say she was under cover, working for front organizations while employed by the CIA. She was not deskbound at Langley, but rather traveled and was employed outside the US in covert roles. Again, want to share where her "previously public credentials" were made public prior to Richard Armitage leaking them in his column?
Because the British Government stands by its assessment doesn't mean the assessment was correct. Please point me to the source that "Plame wasn't outed." Also, because no one was personally held accountable for the leak and the misuse and mischaracterization of the raw intelligence occurred, doesn't mean that it wasn't purposefully, publically misstated, all in an effort to "sell" a war. Condi Rice and other administration officials later retracted their statements or further explained what they meant when pressed to explain. Its called plausible deniability. And Scooter Libby was the fall guy. Bush commuted his sentence and he barely served time.
"Yellow cake" became "nuclear material" in GWB's 2002 SOTU speech. The amount of effort to get from A to B hardly constituted a "smoking gun that we cannot allow to be in the form of a mushroom cloud."
From Vanity Fair:
By this point members of the intelligence community were complaining behind the scenes about pressure from the administration to find evidence of links between Saddam and international terrorism, and also between Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. According to an October 27, 2003, story by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, there seemed to be a tendency by Cheney’s office, among others, to bypass the analysts and use raw intelligence given directly to the administration. There was also increased reliance on intelligence provided by Ahmad Chalabi, the charismatic head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, from Iraqi defectors. They gave a grisly picture of secret nuclear facilities, terrorist training camps, and chemical- and biological-weapons factories spread throughout Iraq, which the C.I.A. and the International Atomic Energy Agency—which had monitored Iraq until its inspectors left the country in 1998—could neither corroborate nor refute outright. The C.I.A. did not trust Chalabi or his men. Cheney and the Pentagon, on the other hand, stood firmly behind him.
Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, visited the C.I.A. several times at Langley and told the staff to make more of an effort to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to uncover Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities. One of the people who objected most fervently to what he saw as “intimidation,” according to one former C.I.A. case officer, was Alan Foley, then the head of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center. He was Valerie Plame’s boss. (Foley could not be reached for comment.)
In October 2002 additional documents relating to an alleged uranium sale in Niger surfaced in Italy, according to the Hersh article, where they were obtained by a journalist, Elisabetta Burba, at Panorama magazine. Burba took them to the American Embassy and made her own fact-finding trip to Niger, where she concluded the documents were not reliable. She did not even bother to write a story. Yet the documents apparently were given credence by the administration. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell started to talk and write publicly about Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium.
Former federal prosecutor James Orenstein says, “They are pulling punches.… They haven’t subpoenaed reporters. When [White House counsel Alberto] Gonzales asked the prosecutor at the Justice Department for a chance to vet the information [the White House was turning over], they said yes. There may be good reason. But they can’t say that they’re not pulling punches.”
Nope, nothing misleading, nefarious, dishonest or ginning of intelligence there to falsely justify a war that had been planned beginning in 1998. Bush did lie and his justice department conveniently covered it up. And I'm ashamed that Obama, as one of his first acts as president was to refuse to investigate the Iraq war and Bush and Cheney's role in deceiving the American people and congress, saying, "the country needed to move on."
Keep living the fantasy.
According to Bob Novak, who's article started the whole thing, he found Valerie's name in the Washington's "Who's who journal" after the CIA confirmed to him that she was just an analyst working on non-proliferation.
"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators,"
Essentially it was DC pubic knowledge for anyone who cared to do a minute of digging. That is why there were no charges filed. If Armitage was charged then the prosecutor would have to explain exactly how Valerie Plame was covert. She might even had to take the stand herself and explain her status. Since she/fitzgerald couldn't do that without losing it was better to just let the "leaking" narrative stand and run with the broader "conspiracy". A genius play on their part I might add. Guys like you bought it hook, line and sinker.
I saw an Interview with Bernie today. God help us all and hope he's the real deal. Loved what he said. But I'm such a skeptic. Don't want to believe there's no hope.
I saw an Interview with Bernie today. God help us all and hope he's the real deal. Loved what he said. But I'm such a skeptic. Don't want to believe there's no hope.
He's absolutely the real deal. I wouldn't say that about many politicians, but this particular guy from that particular state...he is for real.
Here's another repudiation of your fantasy BS. Read it if you dare but I don't believe you will. Your mind is a closed mind, set in its mistaken ways of thinking:
And before you dismiss it as coming from the Huff Post and can't be trusted because its a "liberal blog," you see the links in the article? See those? They link to source documents and such that back up the points being made by the author. Facts, you know those pesky little things.
Read it. Will have to go through the links but you can tell from the outset that its full of mistatements of fact. Even if we just stick to the current topic the author says the leaking of Plame's name was a "Rove/Cheney plot" with know mention of Richard Armitage. As we both know this is a lie.
Comments
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
The Iraqi invasion was inevitable, but only after George W. Bush became POTUS.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Also...Circle in the Sand is very critical of both Bush 1 and Bush 2. It is the furtherst thing from being pro-invasion. One of the main points of the book is how decisions made during the first gulf war pretty much made the second gulf war inevitable. Not right but inevitable.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
What Actually Happened is Cheney presidency trotted out false information to get the masses foaming at the mouth and we wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand human lives and now the place is in worse shape
And now same crap is happening with ISIS. Sensationalized stories spread by people like you again working up a lather to get the Evil doers with billions more wasted and many thousand lives.
Get a hanky and wipe that drool off your chin. Not very becoming.
H A L I B U R T O N
O I L
C O N T R A C T S
S A U D I A R A B I A
B I G O I L.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Say what? Where is your source that "her previously public credentials" were, well, public? She was considered NOC, non-official cover, which is to say she was under cover, working for front organizations while employed by the CIA. She was not deskbound at Langley, but rather traveled and was employed outside the US in covert roles. Again, want to share where her "previously public credentials" were made public prior to Richard Armitage leaking them in his column?
Because the British Government stands by its assessment doesn't mean the assessment was correct. Please point me to the source that "Plame wasn't outed." Also, because no one was personally held accountable for the leak and the misuse and mischaracterization of the raw intelligence occurred, doesn't mean that it wasn't purposefully, publically misstated, all in an effort to "sell" a war. Condi Rice and other administration officials later retracted their statements or further explained what they meant when pressed to explain. Its called plausible deniability. And Scooter Libby was the fall guy. Bush commuted his sentence and he barely served time.
"Yellow cake" became "nuclear material" in GWB's 2002 SOTU speech. The amount of effort to get from A to B hardly constituted a "smoking gun that we cannot allow to be in the form of a mushroom cloud."
From Vanity Fair:
By this point members of the intelligence community were complaining behind the scenes about pressure from the administration to find evidence of links between Saddam and international terrorism, and also between Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. According to an October 27, 2003, story by Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, there seemed to be a tendency by Cheney’s office, among others, to bypass the analysts and use raw intelligence given directly to the administration. There was also increased reliance on intelligence provided by Ahmad Chalabi, the charismatic head of the opposition Iraqi National Congress, from Iraqi defectors. They gave a grisly picture of secret nuclear facilities, terrorist training camps, and chemical- and biological-weapons factories spread throughout Iraq, which the C.I.A. and the International Atomic Energy Agency—which had monitored Iraq until its inspectors left the country in 1998—could neither corroborate nor refute outright. The C.I.A. did not trust Chalabi or his men. Cheney and the Pentagon, on the other hand, stood firmly behind him.
Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, visited the C.I.A. several times at Langley and told the staff to make more of an effort to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and to uncover Iraqi attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities. One of the people who objected most fervently to what he saw as “intimidation,” according to one former C.I.A. case officer, was Alan Foley, then the head of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center. He was Valerie Plame’s boss. (Foley could not be reached for comment.)
In October 2002 additional documents relating to an alleged uranium sale in Niger surfaced in Italy, according to the Hersh article, where they were obtained by a journalist, Elisabetta Burba, at Panorama magazine. Burba took them to the American Embassy and made her own fact-finding trip to Niger, where she concluded the documents were not reliable. She did not even bother to write a story. Yet the documents apparently were given credence by the administration. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell started to talk and write publicly about Iraq’s attempts to procure uranium.
Former federal prosecutor James Orenstein says, “They are pulling punches.… They haven’t subpoenaed reporters. When [White House counsel Alberto] Gonzales asked the prosecutor at the Justice Department for a chance to vet the information [the White House was turning over], they said yes. There may be good reason. But they can’t say that they’re not pulling punches.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/01/plame200401
Nope, nothing misleading, nefarious, dishonest or ginning of intelligence there to falsely justify a war that had been planned beginning in 1998. Bush did lie and his justice department conveniently covered it up. And I'm ashamed that Obama, as one of his first acts as president was to refuse to investigate the Iraq war and Bush and Cheney's role in deceiving the American people and congress, saying, "the country needed to move on."
Keep living the fantasy.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
As for Obama not investigating the Iraq war, I believe cuz they're all on the same side. Look who was involved in the project for the new American century think tank. All sides represented there.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/jeb-bush-iraq-war_b_7445472.html
And before you dismiss it as coming from the Huff Post and can't be trusted because its a "liberal blog," you see the links in the article? See those? They link to source documents and such that back up the points being made by the author. Facts, you know those pesky little things.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
• As originally reported in the The Sunday Times, May 1, 2005
SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell
IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY
Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq.
This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDS said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August.
The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option.
The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDS said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real.
The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDS should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDS would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam.
He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT
(Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)
[end text - emphasis added]
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators,"
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/novak.cia/
Essentially it was DC pubic knowledge for anyone who cared to do a minute of digging. That is why there were no charges filed. If Armitage was charged then the prosecutor would have to explain exactly how Valerie Plame was covert. She might even had to take the stand herself and explain her status. Since she/fitzgerald couldn't do that without losing it was better to just let the "leaking" narrative stand and run with the broader "conspiracy". A genius play on their part I might add. Guys like you bought it hook, line and sinker.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I still can't find any toffee coffee crunch in my area for some time but would love some of this.