DescentBB

both below, from CBS News:

"The key U.S. assertions leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq â?? that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons â?? were wrong and based on false or overstated CIA analyses, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report asserted Friday."

and

"The Senate report released Friday looked only at the performance of intelligence agencies, not whether Bush administration officials exaggerated the reports the CIA gave them. The White House's role will be examined in a second phase of the committee's investigation, which probably will not be finished until after the election."

Link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/ ... 0449.shtml...

Now hearken back to an earlier time...

below, from March of this year:

Palzon said:

"Without evidence that the intel about WMD was correct, it is perfectly logical to posit that one of 4 things occurred (in no paticular order):

1. Fabrication
2. Exaggeration
3. Misinterpretation
4. Saddam has succeeded in eliminating ALL substantial evidence that would have validated the intel.

I have never claimed to know which of the four possibilities is correct. I have never claimed to possess facts that would help me to determine conclusively which possibilty is correct. All i am claiming is that the intel has not been validated and that the intel was the argument most forcefully put forth by the administration. I am further arguing that IF the intel was wrong that this is relevant."

and

"if evidence comes forth showing they had them and disposed of them, i'll admit i was wrong about this. however, until then, there is no more reason to think those wmd existed than there is to believe that aliens cause crop circles."

and

"i am all for more pre-emptive invasions of those who would threaten democracy or tyrannize their own people. i just want them to be better executed operations. and i want them to be justified with more finesse in the theater of world politics."


the italicized words were modified from the original to be consistent with points i conceded later in the thread


linky:


phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=19301&highlight=#19301



First of all, option 3 - misterpetration and sometimes 2 are indicated, which is a facet of flawed fact gathering.

Second of all, i fully acknowledge that the findings themselves pertain to the intelligence community in general, and not the administration. Yet this still does not excuse the administration from not being more circumspect about believing what they had been told. they may not have gathered the intel, but they sure sold it to the press, government, and people.

it's kind of convenient when you consider they were bent on attacking iraq as early as September 12, 2001. This failure of intelligence matters. If the apparatus had been working maybe 9-11 could have been diverted.

i'm not putting all the blame on bush. i'm putting the blame on the whole system. it's a joke that this happened. bush may not be the big bad cause of it all. but he is a buffoon. even now he is sticking to his story that the intelligence was good and will not admit any fault. he should not be our leader. that's my take.

Third of all, what is now the significance of this news story to you?

The following story, for me anyway, pretty much puts the intel fiasco in it's proper perspective:
It's no big deal because the big picture still looks fine!


"Hillary, Top Dems Still Would Have Voted for War
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Last week Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said, "We in Congress would not have authorized that war â?? we would not have authorized that war with 75 votes if we knew what we know now."

ABCâ??s Ted Koppel, host of "Nightline," decided to put the words of the senior Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to the test.
Koppelâ??s findings, which aired on ABC Radio late Friday night, directly counter Rockefellerâ??s suggestion that the Senate would not have strongly endorsed the war against Iraq.

Koppel reported: "We wanted to see whether the conclusions reached by the Intelligence Committee would have made any difference to the other senators who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, so we called them.

"Of the 42 we reached, only three said they would have changed their minds had they known then 'what they know now.'

"Among those who say they would not have changed their minds, a number of prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Tom Daschle."

Despite the media buzz last week that suggested the U.S. Congress may have been hoodwinked by the Bush administration and a politicized CIA into voting for the Iraq war, many leading Democrats apparently do not see it that way.

The 511-page report released last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee debunked much of what American intelligence had reported about Iraq.

As summarized by Republican senator and chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, Pat Roberts:

"Here are some examples of statements from the key judgments. Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear program. Iraq has chemical and biological weapons. Iraq was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV, probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents."

But the explosive committee report that lambasted U.S. intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Iraqâ??s Saddam Hussein, has not changed the mind of President Bush, who steadfastly maintained, "I chose to defend the country, and itâ??s exactly what I would do again."

Bush has consistently argued that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States.

But John Kerryâ??s position on Iraq has vacillated â?? and may have put him at odds with Senate Democrats who told ABC News they still would have voted for the war.

Kerry, along with his running mate, John Edwards, voted for the war.

But during the Demcratic primaries, Kerry began distancing himself from his war vote and claimed the Bush administration had lied to Congress.

Appearing on "60 Minutes" last weekend, Kerry told Leslie Stahl: "I think the president made a mistake in the way he took us to war. I am against the war â?? the way the president went to war was wrong."

At the same time, Kerry said he voted to give Bush the authorization to go to war "as a last resort." He added, "I believe, based on the information we have, it was the correct vote."

But Kerry did not say, as Koppel asked knowing "what we know now," if he would still have voted for the war.

Kerry again claimed to Stahl that "the way [President Bush] went to war was a mistake."

But if the war is such a mistake, the question remains whether Kerry would have changed his vote.

Already the Bush administration has seized on Kerryâ??s equivocating.

In a speech Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney chided Kerry for "simply trying to rewrite history for his own political purposes."

"When Congress voted to authorize force against Saddam Hussein, Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards both voted yes," Cheney said. "Now it seems they've both developed a convenient case of campaign amnesia."

heh heh heh..

To put things back into perspective, I should note that you originally stated

the current administration either exaggerated, fabricated, or misinterpreted [NOTE: no option for Saddam eliminating OR hiding] the intelligence it gathered regarding Iraqi WMD.

and later removed the references to the current administration and added those to Saddam hiding WMD.

i fully acknowledge that the findings themselves pertain to the intelligence community in general, and not the administration. Yet this still does not excuse the administration from not being more circumspect about believing what they had been told.

Yet, after removing the "current administration" references, you bring it right back to blaming the current administration -- they shouldn't have believed the intelligence that the *entire world* believed previous to Bush's statements about declaring war on Iraq?

I again refer you to a point I made in the previous thread:

Frankly, I think the reason the Bush administration didn't back off when the charges of "Saddam doesn't really have WMD" started to fly is what I said above -- it was *consensus* up until that time that Saddam did have such things. Think about that -- if you were in the White House preparing to declare war on a nation that everyone said had WMD, and all of a sudden a bunch of people who tend to be on the other end of the political spectrum from you (including many whose nations have extensive dealings with the aforementioned one) start telling you that nation doesn't have WMD, are you going to take them seriously? Or, are you going to view it as political grandstanding?

Bush had no reason to view the intel with skepticism, because *nobody* viewed it with skepticism until it became politically fashinable to do so.

So yeah... you blame the "whole system", yet somehow find a way to blame Bush for something that, frankly, anybody in his same position who had any sort of cajones would have done. If the entire world intelligence committees agreed that Saddam had WMD and then you said you were going to act on that, and then the left-leaning ones started changing their tunes, I would expect a good leader to stick to his guns.

Here's another snippet to bring up:

(U) Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

This is from the recent Senate report on Iraq (from http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5403731/ )

That pretty well shuts down one of the major talking points coming from the left...

To put things back into perspective, I should note that you originally stated

the current administration either exaggerated, fabricated, or misinterpreted [NOTE: no option for Saddam eliminating OR hiding] the intelligence it gathered regarding Iraqi WMD.

I fully acknowledged all of this in the other thread and i have not revived any points from earlier parts of that thread that i later conceded. yes, my initial post made no allowance for saddam selling, hiding, or destryong the weapons because there is as much evidence for that as the tooth fairy.

later in the old thread, i fully conceded the possibility of that. in this thread i have left it as a possibility. so this is an utterly irrelevant point on your point.

As far as blaming Bush, your argument would make sense if i had a partisan point to make. so first, the democrats are equally responsible, especially those in congress. Who do you want me to blame, Nixon?

Yet, after removing the "current administration" references, you bring it right back to blaming the current administration -- they shouldn't have believed the intelligence that the *entire world* believed previous to Bush's statements about declaring war on Iraq?

I am making no equivocation here. if the administration bought the flawed intel from the CIA, then they, defacto, misinterpreted the intel. let me remind you that in the earlier thread i made the point that it was one thing to believe the intel, and another to believe the evidence strong enough to justify war. lots of people may have believed it, but only these dumba$$es believed it justified a war.

Frankly, I think the reason the Bush administration didn't back off when the charges of "Saddam doesn't really have WMD" started to fly is what I said above -- it was *consensus* up until that time that Saddam did have such things. Think about that -- if you were in the White House preparing to declare war on a nation that everyone said had WMD, and all of a sudden a bunch of people who tend to be on the other end of the political spectrum from you (including many whose nations have extensive dealings with the aforementioned one) start telling you that nation doesn't have WMD, are you going to take them seriously? Or, are you going to view it as political grandstanding?

Bush should have pulled his head out of his a$$ and not followed a bunch of lemmings into oblivion. He should have done some fact checking against his own intel. And he shouldn't have said he knew where they weapons were, if there were no f'ing weapons.

Bush had no reason to view the intel with skepticism, because *nobody* viewed it with skepticism until it became politically fashinable to do so.

I'll remind you that *nobody* used the flawed intel to justify a war except Bush and the British.

So yeah... you blame the "whole system", yet somehow find a way to blame Bush for something that, frankly, anybody in his same position who had any sort of cajones would have done. If the entire world intelligence committees agreed that Saddam had WMD and then you said you were going to act on that, and then the left-leaning ones started changing their tunes, I would expect a good leader to stick to his guns.

this has nothing to do with the left or the right. This has to do with faulty intelligence apparatus. this has to do with an overzealous president who lacked the foresight and consideration to check facts when war is at stake. I'd blame Warren Harding but he wasn't in power in March of 2003, and Teapot Dome was a long time ago. Yeah, Bush should shoulder much of the blame.

If it is your position that the mistakes that were made are perfectly understandable and anyone would have made them...then it is you who are cynical, because I have higher expectations of the leadership of the free world.

(U) Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

That pretty well shuts down one of the major talking points coming from the left...

It may shut down a talking point from the left - but not my point. My point is not that the intel community was coerced, influenced, or pressured. my point is that the the intel community fk'ed up royally, and the morons in power bought it hook line and sinker and then sold it to the american people and congress. and guess what...it doesn't matter if everyone believed it. then it is everyone's problem to fix! that doesn't mean it isn't a problem, and doesn't mean it doesn't need to be fixed.

one last point regarding Will's reply. I am not for the left. I am not a democrat. even if the democrats would have witheld their support knowing what we now know, it is irrelevant. They are just as responsible for this fk'ed up situation. as John Stewart said on the Daily Show: (paraphrase) "You can always count on the Democrats to stand behind what they later realized they should have believed".

Who really gives a flaming rats ass whether Saddam had WMD's or not, whether we knew of thier existance or not, or whether Bush lied to us about them or not. The simple fact of the matter is we have a job to do. Let's shut up and do it. Let history decide who to blame.

yours is the kind of attitude that gets people killed. do you really care if it's your family? do you not care if its someone elses? maybe you'd be more thoughtful if your family's ass were in flames instead of a rats ass. think about it dude.

shut up we have a job to do is a good attitude for a ctf game in d3, not for a war in real life. read a book or something.

You seem to have missed my entire point. I will take the blame for that on account of my being obtuse.

My point was this. Arguing over what got us there and if it was valid or not is not an effective use of energy right now. However we got there the result is the same, we are at war. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, finish the job and get home as fast as we can.

Could you follow it that time? I am only asking because I am trying to work on my communication skills.

dedman, i understand your point. but you have to understand this, we are at war, and these inquiries are important because we have to figure out what went wrong. now, obviously lothar, will, and woodchip will say nothing went wrong and that we can attack any country at any time for any reason

we have to figure out what went wrong so we can avoid it in the future,

While I agree with you that some things went wrong, I don't think that right now is the best time to discuss them. Wait until after the election when it won't be as politisized and we have some time to really do some root cause analysis.

Finding fault or blame at this point in time is only going to serve the candidates politically. Any information that comes out of the investigations will be near meaningless at this point.

think of this dedman, what if either Bush or Kerry had skewed the war to make them look better, then, you find out through one of these reports that the politician in question did something bad, might that change your vote?

Zuruck wrote:what if either Bush or Kerry had skewed the war to make them look better...

By spending so much time and energy to discuss the merits of going to war or what Bush knew or didn't know and when he might have known it we are allowing both Bush and Kerry to do just that. They are both taking positions and making statements about the war to make them selves look better.

I don't think we as a citizenry should let this election be solely about the war in Iraq. According to a report put out by Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court this country spends (on average I believe) $27,000 per year to keep an inmate in federal prison while we only spend $5,000 per year on students in primary school.

That has nothing to do with the war, yet it's a gross disparity that needs to be addressed IMO. I don't want discussion of the war to divert our attention from other pressing matters at home.

Palzon, I was responding to the only part of your post that matters as far as I'm concerned because the first 2 parts of it was simply you saying 'I told you so!' I was responding to the part where you asked:
"Third of all, what is now the significance of this news story to you?"

My point is that regardless of the degree of failure of the intelligence gathering system...or the credibility that Bush should, or shouldn't, have given that one part of the picture...the fact remains that the war in Iraq was the right thing to do for numerous other reasons! Many of those reasons were outlined by Bush prior to his ever mentioning WMD's.
Of course he thought we would find more than we have so far but he also knew there were many other good reasons for going so unless you're looking for a political advantage to play in the press I say congratulations, you were right and in the context of the big picture I give the whole thing a big 'Who Gives a Fork'!!

I'm still wondering where all this analysis was when we bombed the crap out of Bosnia. No wmd's, no threat to us whatsoever. NATO's response was a reaction to ethnic cleansing, in which 10's of thousands were killed or disappeared. In Iraq the numbers are in the 100's of thousand killed ... verified. The difference? Bush said Hussein had wmd's, (which he previously used as part of said genocide) and the assessment of his potential to kill more people may have been overestimated? That's it?

If the essence of someone's argument is "screw the Iraqis / Saddam should still be in power / genocide is okay with me" I could at least accept that as an honest position. Otherwise, wtf? If Bush had said this was purely a humanitarian effort (as in Bosnia), would that make the war in Iraq suddenly okay? If so, then good grief, that's just kind of pathetic.

Zuruck wrote:we are at war, and these inquiries are important because we have to figure out what went wrong. now, obviously lothar, will, and woodchip will say nothing went wrong

Straw man.

I will say lots of things went wrong. But, they went wrong on the level of intelligence gathering and interpretation. There's no point in blaming the administration for believing intel that every prior administration, as well as every foreign administration, believed.

I will not blame the Bush administration for believing the intel unless you can demonstrate that they should have known not to trust the intelligence community beforehand. If they were given similar intel with similar support with everything we know right now, I'd blame them -- but 2 years ago, they had no reason to mistrust the intel, because the only people questioning it were people who hadn't questioned it before and had partisan or profit interests in questioning it at the moment.

Palzon wrote:if the administration bought the flawed intel from the CIA, then they, defacto, misinterpreted the intel.

That depends very much on what intel they actually had.

Did Bush actually sit down and look at the original photographs, field reports, etc? If so, then he misinterpreted the intel. But if he sat down and listened to the summaries of the intel, or the conclusions drawn from the intel by others, then he did not misinterpret anything -- he simply bought into someone else's misinterpretation.

You keep saying he should have done more fact checking. And in retrospect, that's easy to say. But at the time, he had no reason to dig deeper into the intel. He's the president, not an intel agent -- it's the job of the intel community to present their analysis, and it's his job to act on it. It's not his job to do their jobs for them.

*nobody* used the flawed intel to justify a war except Bush and the British.

The UN used the very same intel to justify a resolution authorizing use of force to make Saddam comply.

Clinton used the very same intel to justify maintaining no-fly zones, weapons inspections, occasional missile strikes, etc.

Bush used the intel to justify taking out the guy who'd been causing problems for 12 years, and you treat this as a huge jump? Heh.

If it is your position that the mistakes that were made are perfectly understandable and anyone would have made them...then it is you who are cynical, because I have higher expectations of the leadership of the free world.

If the entire world intel committee told me Saddam had WMD and tortured his own people, and then I went to act on it and I got resistance from people who were profitting from Saddam and from people who had partisan reasons to oppose me, but those whose job it was to look at the intel kept telling me it was solid, I would have gone ahead and acted on the intel. I won't hold Bush to a higher standard.

Calling me "cynical" for this is low. I hold leaders to reasonable standards. I don't hold them to standards which are obvious in hindsight but would have been absurd to hold them to initially. I hold them to standards which would have been reasonable *at the time they acted*, *given the information they had*.

The Bush administration had no reason to mistrust what they were given. Yeah, the intel community needs fixed -- but looking back at "what went wrong" and then trying to blame the administration for inheriting an intelligence system that wasn't effective but overstated its conclusions... well, that's not going to benefit anyone but the partisan hacks.

I need to make a foot in mouth graphic just for you Paly

It's like a broken record with you when most of us have moved WAY beyond WMD.

1. ok, once again we knew he had them and had the means to create more.

2. We know he used them on his own people, whether or not he was a threat to the US is besides the point because virtually everyone here doesn't believe he was anyways. Again, it isn't important anymore.

3. The international community all agreed on what his capabilities were and were all aware of his violations of UN resolutions.

4. The US had full rights due to the violations of UN Resolutions to act such as we did, WMD or not.

5. Saddam was a major jacka[spoiler][/spoiler]ss, you supported the war but still you continue to harp on Bush about WMD! Nobody friggin gives a damn anymore. So what if he ran with WMD as one of the major factors of going to war. It was a stupid mistake, but regardless of any reason he went with you'd find fault with whichever other one he might have chosen. None of them even matter now, Saddam is gone and it is over with.

6. Get the fvck over it.

index_html wrote:I'm still wondering where all this analysis was when we bombed the crap out of Bosnia. No wmd's, no threat to us whatsoever. NATO's response was a reaction to ethnic cleansing, in which 10's of thousands were killed or disappeared. In Iraq the numbers are in the 100's of thousand killed ... verified. The difference? Bush said Hussein had wmd's, (which he previously used as part of said genocide) and the assessment of his potential to kill more people may have been overestimated? That's it?

If the essence of someone's argument is "screw the Iraqis / Saddam should still be in power / genocide is okay with me" I could at least accept that as an honest position. Otherwise, wtf? If Bush had said this was purely a humanitarian effort (as in Bosnia), would that make the war in Iraq suddenly okay? If so, then good grief, that's just kind of pathetic.

the difference between Bosnia and Iraq is enormous. We went into Bosnia because of ethnic cleansing and destabilization of the region. It was a good reason. It was the stated[/i] reason presented by our government for going there in the first place. Not one UN peacekeeper was killed and Milosovic is now standing tall before the Hague.

The stated reasons we went into Iraq were mainly based on the threat of WMD and terrorism, now apparently bull sh!t. If the stated reason had been ending a genocide you wouldn't hear one complaint from me now.

In Bosnia we had the full support of the UN and Nato and no one died - NO ONE! Coincidence? In Iraq we have virtually no allies and were losing more by the day. And guess what, our dudes are dying left and right.

Will, you have expressed this attitude in the past that it all comes out in the wash, or that in the end the right thing was done. First of all, there is no end. Nothing ends. Second of all, it doesn't work that way in the first place.

My attitude is not screw the Iraqis. I would've toppled Hussein in 1991. Wait, scratch that, I wouldn't have phucking armed him and Bin Laden in the first damn place. The enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend. My attidude is screw Bush, father and son.

Making it a purely humanitarian effort would have been a good start. However, we needed our allies on board. Watch the film Fog of War. If you're allies are not on board, you are asking for trouble.

The difference between Iraq and Bosnia? Bosnia was a successfully executed mission, carried out according to stated design, with the assistance of our allies, by a president who could spell C-A-T, and without the cost of one single allied life.

I am not some dove who dislikes republicans. I dislike idiots such as our current president. I dislike where he is taking our nation. And I would have been behind ANY plan to attack Hussein/Iraq that included accurate intel, sound planning, and with our allies on board. It took patience and brains they don't have. And i wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing was a bid for reelection as much as anything.

I'll go you one further. I would be up for smashing any dictatorship on the planet with our armed forces as long as it included accurate intel, sound planning, and our allies on board - even it were unpopular.

Pathetic is ANYONE who would minimize and apologize for the magnitude of this $hit sandwich.

Palzon wrote:Will, you have expressed this attitude in the past that it all comes out in the wash, or that in the end the right thing was done.

No, I think in the first place the right thing was done...finally!
I just want some perspective. Some attempt at recognizing Saddam was an impediment to the long term goal of eliminating terror states and powerful supporters of terrorists, because that is what Saddam clearly was.
Looking at the big picture, eliminating that impediment is what made Bush right from the very beginning.

WWII was a success regardless of the accounting mistakes or the mis read casualty reports.

Did Saddam have ten illegal missiles or just one. One gallon of poison gas or one hundred gallons...really who cares!

If WMD's are the only reason we should have gone then you are right.
In my mind WMD's were niether the only reason to go nor the only reason I was given. They were the only one that got the attention of the sensationalist media and the ignorant masses but those people don't mean much to me.

I'm not minimizing anything, I just refuse the premise of a question that blows it out of proportion. I also reject the assesment that it's a $hit sandwich. War is hell for those that live through it but in our wake is usually a better place to live than in Saddams.

Palzon wrote:The stated reasons we went into Iraq were mainly based on the threat of WMD and terrorism

Lothar, in [url=http://www.descentbb.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=35639#35639]this post[/url], wrote:Bush gave a lot of reasons, and the media hyped one particular reason.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 220-1.html

George W. Bush wrote:We defend the security of our country, but our cause is broader. If war is forced upon us, we will liberate the people of Iraq from a cruel and violent dictator. The Iraqi people today are not treated with dignity, but they have a right to live in dignity. The Iraqi people today are not allowed to speak out for freedom, but they have a right to live in freedom. We don't believe freedom and liberty are America's gift to the world; we believe they are the Almighty's gift to mankind. And for the oppressed people of Iraq, people whose lives we care about, the day of freedom is drawing near.

A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East. Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity, in a region that needs both. If we liberate the Iraqi people, they can rest assure that we will help them build a country that is disarmed and peaceful, and united, and free.

And from the State of the Union:

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation.

And Bush's justification given long, long ago

Saddam Hussein's regime continues to support terrorist groups and to oppress its civilian population. It refuses to account for missing Gulf War personnel, or to end illicit trade outside the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. And although the regime agreed in 1991 to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, it has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

Repeating the "this war was all about WMD" mantra will not get you anywhere. Those of us arguing with you were paying good enough attention back then to know better. It's unfortunate that so many on the other side weren't listening.

Bush gave lots of reasons, and the WMD evidence became the overhyped focus because it was the easiest way to oppose him. Nobody could say "gee, no, Saddam isn't oppressive" or "gee, Saddam doesn't trade illegally outside of the Oil for Food program" or "gee, the Iraqi people already have freedom" so they whined that "you haven't proven Saddam had WMD", which was absurd coming from the sort of people those claims came from.

i guess my point is so subtle that it is lost on you all.

the fact that the intel was wrong matters. the fact that important decisions were made about going to war based on false intel matters.

if you people don't see the significance of that then i would highly recommend you check your heads.

Of course it matters!
But unlike the spin from the left it isn't of the magnitude they want us to see it as. It isn't the only reason.

If anyone steps back and looks at the WoT from the long-term-objective point of view it becomes a minor blip, just an operational failure that needs fixing lest we one day end up going to war for the wrong reason. Instead of 'proofBushliedtogetrevengeforhisdaddyandstealtheoilsovoteforanyonebuthim!!!!'

Take the politics out of it and they would be singing a different song.

Palzon wrote:i guess my point is so subtle that it is lost on you all.

Nice "subtle" cheapshot.

the fact that the intel was wrong matters. the fact that important decisions were made about going to war based on false intel matters.

I guess my *agreement with this point* was so subtle that it was lost on you.

I agree -- the fact that the intel was wrong matters.

I also agree -- the fact that decisions were made based on wrong intel matters.

Where I disagree is in saying that it's the administration's fault -- that they should've dug deeper into the intel they were given and discovered it was flawed. I disagree that the president should be expected to dig deep into the intel he's been assured is a "slam dunk case" -- he should ask questions, and the intel community should answer his questions honestly, but he shouldn't have to do their job. He's not an intel agent; the government pays intel agents to do their job, and the president to do his.

Where this system seems to have broken down is in that second step -- the intel community answering honestly with "this is not all that solid" and "a lot of this is old data" and such. They didn't; they told him it was a "slam dunk case". So he took the "slam dunk case" and ran with it, and since the opposition that arose was from people with ulterior motives (political opponents, nations that were making hella bank from Saddam) he had no reason to dig deeper. The only thing I can blame Bush for is not knowing what a sorry state the intel community was in.

Now that it's become clear that some of the intel was flawed, what should be done? Well, the intel community should be revamped, and future presidents should know the state of the intel community and ask questions accordingly.

Where this system seems to have broken down is in that second step -- the intel community answering honestly with "this is not all that solid" and "a lot of this is old data" and such. They didn't; they told him it was a "slam dunk case". So he took the "slam dunk case" and ran with it, and since the opposition that arose was from people with ulterior motives (political opponents, nations that were making hella bank from Saddam) he had no reason to dig deeper. The only thing I can blame Bush for is not knowing what a sorry state the intel community was in.

Now that it's become clear that some of the intel was flawed, what should be done? Well, the intel community should be revamped, and future presidents should know the state of the intel community and ask questions accordingly.

this is the only concession for which i have ever asked. and as i tried to indicate in the first post above, it is yet to be seen whether the president and cabinet had any real culpability in the intel failure. i am completely satisfied with what you say and the prospective solutions.

my only differing complaint with the administration is that they have a responsibilty to acknowledge there was a failure and that practical solutions are needed.

Bosnia was a successfully executed mission, carried out according to stated design, with the assistance of our allies, by a president who could spell C-A-T, and without the cost of one single allied life.

For someone demanding accuracy, you sure aren't terribly picky about your own.

-The Iraq war hasn't been successfully executed? The Ba'athists were ousted in three weeks, Saddam is going on trial, reconstruction is well underway, sovereignty has been handed over, elections are being planned and the mass graves are being excavating rather than filled. Interesting notion of failure you have. If you think Kosovo is some post-war paradise, btw, you might want to read something current. Like this

-We haven't been assisted by our allies? I guess these guys are just props. You might look at the NATO numbers in Bosnia and see how little some of its members helped if your going to get picky over quantity. The U.S. provided a disproportionate committment.

-Bush can't spell "cat"? Not so, I suspect he can even spell "ad hominem".

-Not one single allied life was lost in Bosnia? Really, not one? If, you, say, so

In Bosnia we had the full support of the UN

Umm, no, we didn't.

Seems like your intel could use a little work, too. Off with your head.

Seems like your intel could use a little work, too. Off with your head.

You are certainly correct about my claim that no allied lives were lost. i was wrong.

it is still my understanding that no US lives were lost in the conflict. as far as the iraq conflict, it was definitely successful as far as ousting the Ba'athists. I certainly concede that. I have always claimed this was a good and neccesary thing. I think our casualities could have and should have been less though. i feel the occupation has not been as successful as the war itself.

Again, i was obviously wrong to say no allied troups died in Bosnia. Yet by comparison, i stand by my assertion that the war in Bosnia was better planned, better executed, conducted in better accordance with stated objectives, and with less loss of life relatively speaking.

I'd take the opinion of a person who's been there over an opinion of a person who has not any day of the week.

because usually when someone comments on something they have no experience about it's usually written off as a load of crap.

just an opinion.

one more thing...


i am sorry if i was overy hostile or defensive earlier. it's not neccesary. it doesn't serve my position (which i think has some merit). and if i was, it is disrespectful.

i like it around here. thank you for participating.

-your pally

I think what's really troubling is that there is no "buck stops here" attitude in the white house right now. It's someone else's fault for the failures with bush.

Palzon, I think the objective in Bosnia was much easier to attain. If all we had to do in Iraq was drop bombs from 20,000 feet on troop positions then grab Saddam for a trial we would have been done by now.

Sadly the decision to fly at such a high altitude was not made by soldiers who wanted more precision than that altitude provides, it was made by politicians who wanted you to be able to say 'We didn't lose any U.S. troops'. Yes the boys in the sky were safe, the people on the ground near our targets...well...

Birdseye, maybe the administration is a little gun shy when it comes to 'stopping the buck' because the opposition is so prone to counterfeiting the currency of blame and flooding the political economy with bogus dollars.

They all voted for the war, they all saw the same intel and preached from their soapboxes about Saddams WMD's when Clinton was president and during the build up to this war as well, etc. etc.
Then the press lets them do a complete 180 and call Bush a liar without once challenging the chorus of political opportunists screeching from both sides of their mouths!

Makes it kind of hard to take a bullet for such an undeserving bunch.

Interesting how belabored the fuss was over a couple of blow jobs in the Oval Office (and the lie about it), and yet we're not supposed to complain about controversial WMD evidence so we can "just get on with it". This, in the context of a historical event upon which thousands of lives lie in the balance. No, you don't just move on and let history decide without critical examination, otherwise you'll be repeating history.

Birdseye wrote:I think what's really troubling is that there is no "buck stops here" attitude in the white house right now. It's someone else's fault for the failures with bush.

I thought this quote was a little refreshing, although amazingly it sounds like Blair's actually out of his former hot water:

No one lied, no one made up the intelligence," Tony Blair told parliament. "I accept full personal responsibility ... for any errors that were made."

What a concept.

Nobody really cared about Clinton's BJ except for all the tighty whiteys either.

I don't remember the judge finding Clinton guilty of anything for getting a BJ.
She did take his law license away from him and fined him something like $25,000 but that was not for a BJ, it was for lying under oath to a grand jury to escape justice in a lawsuit that was reviewed and upheld by a federal judge.

The focus of the charge was his sexual misbehavior in the capacity as a employer/supervisor and his use of the power of his office to deny a citizen her day in court and in the process he probably raised the bar considerably to measure what it takes to prosecute future sexual discrimination lawsuits.
Coming soon to help scumbags everywhere: "The Clinton Defense".

So what's more belabored?
The attempt to make it sound like "just a BJ" or the attempt to make people see Bush isn't the only one responsible for using bad intel, intel that was just fine for the rest of the world?

it was just fine for the rest of the world? If my little libertarian memory serves me correctly, more people were skeptical about our intel than behind it. Quote from Rumsfeld "We know where the stockpiles of these weapons are at"...apparently not.

Zuruck, how many quotes of people questioning our intel before the war can you come up with?

On the other hand I've read probably 30 or 40 quotes from the Clinton administration, congress democrats and republicans...foreign leaders...the U.N. etc. etc.
ALL of them proclaiming Saddam had WMD's and we better not let him keep up his pursuits of building his arsenal or continue to refuse to comply with cease fire agreements and U.N. resolutions.

So really, do you want to compare actual data or just spout off from your memory?

Palzon wrote:both below, from CBS News:

First of all, option 3 - misterpetration and sometimes 2 are indicated, which is a facet of flawed fact gathering.

If one accepts a factual premise (intelligence), it is not misinterpretation. Misinterpretation of data is merely acceptance of a factual premise, which when viewed in the context of the totality of the circumstances, or other conflicting evidence, makes such acceptance unreasonable. (No one named Mister Petration had anything to do with the analysis leading to war, as far as I know.)

Second of all, i fully acknowledge that the findings themselves pertain to the intelligence community in general, and not the administration. Yet this still does not excuse the administration from not being more circumspect. . . ."

See my response to point number three, below.

Third of all, what is now the significance of this news story to you?

Let me answer your question with a question. What is the significance of this news story to you? What would you do, as President Palzon, in a post 911 world, when specifically confronted with the evidence that Iraq, while under penalty of U.N. sanction, had attempted to acquire "yellowcake" uranium from Niger? This, in conjunction with a refusal to permit inspections, a U.N. resolution demanding compliance, and the CIA's report of WMD?

Have a read.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial ... =110005354

My guess is you would not consider Hussein a sufficient threat to attack. That is because your world view is narrow, naive, and uncomplicated by the process of thinking through the consequences of your decisions. You represent the reason that democrats must be denied the office of the presidency. The choice is a clear one.

Ah but you would surely be the first to lead the attack against the "Administration" if that same uranium, covertly acquired and disseminated as a weapon in God knows what manner, were deployed against the U.S. as a nuclear weapon or perhaps a dirty bomb, if that's possible. You would cry "why didn't the Bush Administration take action when we knew!!!"

Your political motivation is transparent, and your opinions are offered at the expense of the blood of your own countrymen. That is why I'll be there to cancel your vote in November.

Watching,

Bold

BD, you represent why civilization is crumbling. I'm assuming a middle aged successful lawyer(?) who is a complete idiot

Tyranny wrote:I need to make a foot in mouth graphic just for you Paly

It's like a broken record with you when most of us have moved WAY beyond WMD.

1. ok, once again we knew he had them and had the means to create more.

2. We know he used them on his own people, whether or not he was a threat to the US is besides the point because virtually everyone here doesn't believe he was anyways. Again, it isn't important anymore.

3. The international community all agreed on what his capabilities were and were all aware of his violations of UN resolutions.

4. The US had full rights due to the violations of UN Resolutions to act such as we did, WMD or not.

5. Saddam was a major jacka[spoiler][/spoiler]ss, you supported the war but still you continue to harp on Bush about WMD! Nobody friggin gives a damn anymore. So what if he ran with WMD as one of the major factors of going to war. It was a stupid mistake, but regardless of any reason he went with you'd find fault with whichever other one he might have chosen. None of them even matter now, Saddam is gone and it is over with.

6. Get the **** over it.

HEH...wow...so stupid. Point 1 is incorrect, point 2 is irrelevant (and since it doesn't matter, why are you bringing it up) 3. and 4. are also incorrect, because if we were justified in our invasion, more of the UN would have backed us up, and point 5. I find the funniest. Saddam was a jackass? Heh! It was a stupid mistake indeed, especially since Saddam posed no threat to us whatsoever. Sure, Saddam is gone, but was it worth it? 1000 American casualties and the thousands of innocent Iraqi civillian casualties. Why don't we send your fat ass to Iraq and put you on the front line and see if you feel the war was justified? No threat to America, no threat to anyone, and we've got our youth there getting blown away every day because of what might have been? The war wasn't justified no matter how you slice it, and now because of our current administration's foolish shortsightedness, we've got our troops in a hellhole with their thumbs up their asses standing there saying "Now what?"

Edit: I'll also add that our reasons for going to the war were that Saddam had WMD and had helped fund AQ terrorist activities. Both of these reasons were later found to be WRONG.

I love it when the dedicated Pro-war advocates look at all the information that has come up showing that all our so-called "justifications" were wrong, and then proceed to say "well, we still removed an evil man from power." As if saying, "well, we f'ed up, but it wasn't a total loss." Trying to grasp at straws and find something to hold onto thats valid.

Beowulf wrote:our reasons for going to the war were that Saddam had WMD and had helped fund AQ terrorist activities.

Lothar, in [url=http://www.descentbb.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=35639#35639]this post[/url], wrote:Bush gave a lot of reasons, and the media hyped one particular reason.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 220-1.html

George W. Bush wrote:We defend the security of our country, but our cause is broader. If war is forced upon us, we will liberate the people of Iraq from a cruel and violent dictator. The Iraqi people today are not treated with dignity, but they have a right to live in dignity. The Iraqi people today are not allowed to speak out for freedom, but they have a right to live in freedom. We don't believe freedom and liberty are America's gift to the world; we believe they are the Almighty's gift to mankind. And for the oppressed people of Iraq, people whose lives we care about, the day of freedom is drawing near.

A free Iraq can be a source of hope for all the Middle East. Instead of threatening its neighbors and harboring terrorists, Iraq can be an example of progress and prosperity, in a region that needs both. If we liberate the Iraqi people, they can rest assure that we will help them build a country that is disarmed and peaceful, and united, and free.

And from the State of the Union:

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation.

And Bush's justification given long, long ago

Saddam Hussein's regime continues to support terrorist groups and to oppress its civilian population. It refuses to account for missing Gulf War personnel, or to end illicit trade outside the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. And although the regime agreed in 1991 to destroy and stop developing all weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles, it has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.

Gee, yeah, it looks like it was all about WMD and Al Qaeda. Someone is definitely "Trying to grasp at straws and find something to hold onto thats valid."

wow, all the personal jabs. I'm not sure if I even want to address that brilliantly written pile of trash.

You want to talk about shortsightedness beo? Did it ever occur to you that it might take years for us to find out the truth about all of what Saddam had. It might take years to find the so called "stockpiles" of WMD, that they were possibly exported out of the country in the few months before the strike ever took place? *gasp*! Years?!? OMG!?!

You obviously didn't get the point of my post. My point was WMD was hardly the only reason for going in. The media picked it up and so Bush and friends thought it would be good to run with that. Big surprise, it backfired. I won't ever claim Saddam was a threat to the US because quite frankly he was a gnat in the scheme of things. However he was a pimple about due to be popped and the world is better for it regardless.

Your casualties arguement in a feeble attempt to make me feel guilty is just a cheap shot. Also another example of your shortsightedness to think in the scheme of things 1,000 US soldiers dead means anything when it is a very small number in comparison to the amount of soldiers we have over there still.

Also, on another note, the war has been over for almost a year now. There is no war in iraq, we aren't fighting military forces. We're fighting terrorists now. So the casualties lost in this 'conflict' don't go with the tally on US Casualties from the war in Iraq. Sure, you can throw them into a lump sum of total dead in Iraq, but your arguements on their deaths are invalid because in essence there were two completely different causes being fought.

On another note of shortsightedness, we do happen to elect our own officials. Bush either has a few months or 4 more years. If you hate him so badly, go vote if you think Kerry can do a better job. If your vote doesn't matter then guess what? He'll HAVE TO LEAVE in 4 more years and we'll have a completely new president. Isn't that a novel idea? Well, fortunately for us that is how it has worked from the start and yet some people seem to always forget it.

There is a reason we elect new officials every 4-8 years. Just remember that by electing ★■◆● you're going to get ★■◆● and the only thing that will replace it is more ★■◆●. So don't think for a second Kerry is a better answer. He'd just be a different answer and still more crap then he's worth.

ahem....See, you can be a little bit dignified in replying to someone without calling them fat, or stupid or well....things a 12 year old can do.

BUT YOU'RE A STINKY POOP HEAD!!

Anyway,

Yeah, sure, its possible that Saddam moved his weapons somewhere else...anything is possible. But you can't invade a country on speculation. You can't put people's lives on the line based on speculation.


"Also another example of your shortsightedness to think in the scheme of things 1,000 US soldiers dead means anything"

Stop right there. You're saying that 1,000 people dead doesn't mean anything? Sure, we have a lot more troops over there that haven't died, but that doesn't mean that the small percentage of the ones who have died doesn't matter. Every single person who has put on the uniform and put his or her life on the line for me and the rest of the ungrateful in this country matters. It's not a cheap shot -- its a valid argument. Its a THOUSAND young people dead, a thousand families without sons, daughters, husbands, wives because of this unnecessary cause. Sure Saddam was evil, and sure his regime was oppressive, and woo democracy is great...but why do we have to put -our- youth on the line to police the world when its not our business to do so? As far as I'm concerned, Saddam and his regime wasn't oppressing us or our country, and its none of our business if he's oppressing his people or not. Like Barry put it in another thread...if its between them or us, I'm all about us. Which means preserving the lives of our young people and not throwing them into a meaningless conflict. Face it, this war was a sham. Lothar, Mr. Pacifist...you believe that war should only be a tool when its absolutely necessary, am I right? If so, just answer me this...was it necessary? There were no WMD, no ties to AQ, no harm done to us, and there was most definitley no business in our troops being sent over there to die.

As far as the fat part is being concerned, I guess that was uncalled for, but the fact remains that what these kids (and yes they are kids, only a year older than me) are doing for this country is an amazing service. They're being thrown into the most hostile environment thats made even moreso by fanatics who are completely obsessed with destroying them, and they're doing so for this America and its population of ungrateful lazy fatasses who sit around on an Internet bulletin board belittling their importance and heroic contributions to this country.