Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[bilmore]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Well okay then. My work here is done.

Could you maybe go help those two Korea leaders now?

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Well okay then. My work here is done.

Wow, has the Admin said that?

(not "my work here is done" but "we were mistaken about the level of threat")

[bilmore]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Wow, has the Admin said that?

(not "my work here is done" but "we were mistaken about the level of threat")

I believe at least Powell has.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
I believe at least Powell has.

I hadn't heard that. I would be interested to see it.

If I understand correctly, we both agree that the Administration said things that were not true. We perhaps disagree about their state of mind. You ascribe pure motives, and I am more suspicious. On what do you base your believe that the Administration honestly thought Iraq was an imminent threat?

I don't think the Bushies thought there was no threat at all. I think they didn't know, and were less than fully honest in presenting this to the world as if they were certain. I suspect that bad intel was stovepiped to Bush, who wasn't careful to make sure he got all viewpoints. (This would be Condi Rice's fault, really.) I also suspect that Bush is a man who tends to form strong views, and that the rest of the Administration picked up on his views and stuck to them, hard. Intentionally misleading? Perhaps not, but certainly reckless.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
Wow, has the Admin said that?

(not "my work here is done" but "we were mistaken about the level of threat")

We cannot know until we invade Syria.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by bilmore
I believe at least Powell has.

doesn't the rest of the admin hate him and disavow him?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
On what do you base your believe that the Administration honestly thought Iraq was an imminent threat?

You are unbelievable. Every time . . .

("I think it's been fairly well proven now that Bush was sleeping with Margaret Thatcher . . .")

(ETA - OK, I'll back up and give you the benefit of the doubt for a second, and assume you just threw in the wrong word. Was that "imminent" just a slip?)

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If I understand correctly, we both agree that the Administration said things that were not true.

This is where I lose respect for you. The Admin AND THE WHOLE FUCKING REST OF THE WORLD THOUGHT THERE WERE WMD's IN IRAQ. Stop trying to make it out like this was just the GWB Admin's belief prior to the invasion.

Even the fucking French thought there were WMDs in Iraq.

And there may have well been. And maybe they are now in Syria. We won't know until we invade.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
You are unbelievable. Every time . . .

("I think it's been fairly well proven now that Bush was sleeping with Margaret Thatcher . . .")

(ETA - OK, I'll back up and give you the benefit of the doubt for a second, and assume you just threw in the wrong word. Was that "imminent" just a slip?)

I really wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I thought you agree that they thought and said that Iraq was an imminent threat. If you were parsing the words more finely, I'll have to go back and read your posts again.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by bilmore


("I think it's been fairly well proven now that Bush was sleeping with Margaret Thatcher . . .")

So you refuse to deny he was sleeping with her?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
This is where I lose respect for you. The Admin AND THE WHOLE FUCKING REST OF THE WORLD THOUGHT THERE WERE WMD's IN IRAQ. Stop trying to make it out like this was just the GWB Admin's belief prior to the invasion.

Even the fucking French thought there were WMDs in Iraq.

And there may have well been. And maybe they are now in Syria. We won't know until we invade.

Go inform yourself and stop acting like a troll. Hans Blix was there, and he didn't find them. He looked in the places our intel said to look, and they weren't there. We all know there were WMD in Iraq years ago, but shit happens. We staged airstrikes in the Clinton Administration (Operation Desert Fox -- look it up) to try to destroy them. We had sanctions. And so on. Our leaders were making categorical statements, but the intel people weren't -- they were hedging their bets because they didn't know. And Blix and his people were there looking, and they couldn't find them. This upset the Admininistration, which had decided to invade and did not take the inspections seriously. Perhaps they thought, in good faith, that they were futile. Perhaps they were cynical. Who knows.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Yes, when we went to war we thought that the threat was more immediate than it has proven to be. We still think it was a good decision because we got that bastard dictator out.

I saw this post, and missed the next one. I thought you were conceding the imminent point here.

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03

OK, so the threat from Iraq was "serious," "mounting," and "real," but not "imminent"? Got it.

"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

Oops -- thought I had it, but I guess not.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Hans Blix was there, and he didn't find them. He looked in the places our intel said to look, and they weren't there. We all know there were WMD in Iraq years ago, but shit happens. We staged airstrikes in the Clinton Administration (Operation Desert Fox -- look it up) to try to destroy them. We had sanctions. And so on. Our leaders were making categorical statements, but the intel people weren't -- they were hedging their bets because they didn't know. And Blix and his people were there looking, and they couldn't find them.

There was enough of a world-wide belief that they were there, coupled with what you call hedging - i.e., "well, maybe yes, and maybe no" - from our intel, and Hans & Co. weren't finding them, but weren't saying NONE, and at that point, the choice was wait around and maybe find out the hard way.

Bush decided that waiting for a boom or a cough wasn't a good option. I still agree with that, given all of the above, given that he might well have been lining up a new customer whose airplanes had already been effective, given that SH was disrupting much of the chance to stabilize the ME, financing terrorism, hiding terrorists, and continually killing his own people. Granted, the french were still making a profit off of him . . .

[Tyrone Slothrop]

A final point: So maybe the intel was bad, and Bush got misled, right? Conceivable, but you know he's not disappointed, because heads aren't rolling. If Bush was misinformed, Tenet or Rice or somebody would be history. He'd be ripshit that someone gave him bad information and that he went to war as a result. Instead, they all have their jobs, and this is because the intel community is taking the fall for him, as is their job. The buck stops in the Oval Office.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
A final point: So maybe the intel was bad, and Bush got misled, right? Conceivable, but you know he's not disappointed, because heads aren't rolling. If Bush was misinformed, Tenet or Rice or somebody would be history. He'd be ripshit that someone gave him bad information and that he went to war as a result. Instead, they all have their jobs, and this is because the intel community is taking the fall for him, as is their job. The buck stops in the Oval Office.

You have built up a database of blog links, haven't you?