Quote:
Originally posted by bilmore
Well, shit, Gattigap, if your entire case on those issues is going to be based on a completely dishonest theme, let's not.
Your premise that we were lied to seems to involve this theme of "he said we had to because the threat was imminent", in the face of the clear truth that he explicitly SAID it wasn't imminent. How much weight should I give such an argument? I wasn't lied to becuase I could understand English, but you were because you still thought he was saying the threat was imminent?
I'm sorry if I'm sounding over the top here, but this just frustrates the hell out of me.
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A "completely dishonest" theme?
The point I'm trying to make is that it was presented to us as a war of necessity because of a nuclear threat that turned out to be much more remote than what was presented. If what you want to do is discard that point and end up quibbling over how "imminent" is "imminent", then I feel like we're both wasting our time.
FWIW, I concluded that the threat was "imminent" because of administration statements like these:
* In a radio address on September 14, 2002, President Bush warned, "Today Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear-weapons program, and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon. Should his regime acquire fissile material, it would be able to build a nuclear weapon within a year."
* On October 7, 2002, the President told a group in Cincinnati, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."
* On November 1, 2002, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told the Second Global Conference on Nuclear, Bio/Chem Terrorism, "We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material - whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile-material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year."
There was also
Bush's and Rice's statements that we can't wait, because while "there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
These statements told me that the Administration wanted to go to war because this process is inexorable, to their minds inevitable, and (however long it may be) most likely will be short. We've also got hundreds of thousands of troops sitting in Kuwait. So we've GOTTA go, and we've gotta go now.
If I'm missing something -- if at some point he "SAID it wasn't imminent," and that he moved on to other main reasons for this war, and that I was too fucking stupid to get it because I'm just not understanding English -- please let me know.
