"I take serious exception to your questioning my honesty."


Cordelier blithley skips the part about honest assessment or responsibility for relating the truth to the people. Or how his outrageously arrogant and contemptuous statement above relates to Bush's WMD claims or their soundness. It's easy to argue the UN resolutions used for the war if you don't care about lying or misinforming.

Jetblast - This whole intelligence question is a red herring... first off, you're never going to have an Administration who discloses all of the information they have - intelligence gathering isn't Sunday school - you've got people's lives on the line. Assets get compromised. Secondly, if you release what you know, the enemy knows it as well - not only does he now know what you know, more importantly, he also now knows what you don't know. So any Administration who went down that road would be extremely irresponsible.

The most important reason why intelligence was irrelevant, though, boils down to this... the burden of proof was on Iraq to prove that it didn't have WMD's - not on the US to prove that it did. The Bush Administration didn't have to say a damned thing beyond that - it didn't have to get into specifics on anything. All it had to do was to prove that Iraq wasn't forthcoming, and Blix himself did that with his assessment of Iraq's WMD declaration.

Truth be told, if I were President, it wouldn't matter to me if all my intelligence guys came and told me that they had no direct evidence of Iraqi WMD's... in the end, they could be wrong. They were wrong about the collapse of the Soviet Union - why not this? In fact, if they did all agree, I think that'd be a pretty clear indication that they were wrong.

Intelligence assessments are an important tool in decision-making, but they're just one tool in the box. Anyone who says they're the end-all and be-all of coming to a decision doesn't know what they're talking about. The plain and simple fact of the matter is that until Iraq could meet it's burden of proof under the terms set forth by Resolution 687, it had to be assumed that they were hiding something.

Yeah...he sure stepped in that one.

Interesting question...one that could possibly lead to some other answers as to the why we didn't dissuade him from going into Kuwait...bear with me for a minute...

687 exercises some clout through this interesting statement...

So, I do believe they had a pretty persuasive argument defending the notion.

But the question that comes to mind is, since Saddam had apparently been in violation for some time...what kind of UN sanctioning was he under prior to Kuwait? I don't recall any...hell, he was our buddy fighting the Iranians and although we had him on some bad guy lists...it didn't stop Reagan/Bush and gang from dealing with him...so why the change of heart and let him screw up?

Well done...how many troops and casualties?

Hell no, it's not necessary for the public to be privy to every piece of intelligence but we should be able to feel secure in the feeling that the government is looking out for us...and that there is sufficient oversight to keep a bit of honesty in the process...I remember full well the Condi interviews where she was saying that the aluminum tubes "could only be used for"...knowing full well there was intelligence available at the time that said they were not suitable for what she was claiming they were...a little honesty would be appreciated.

Yeah...we really put him in a tough spot...we took away his power and he felt a need to project that wasn't the case...it's a screwed up region of the world.

I dont recall a complaint but...

Blix indicated progress was being made...wouldn't it be our responsibility to present it to Blix if we wanted to prove our claims?

__________________
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Which side will you be on?


OBAMA/PEROT

I tend to agree with you, Areyou - the West should have done more in 1988. Pete Galbraith had a good article about that in the Boston Globe:

The true Iraq appeasers - The Boston Globe

As far as the Bush, Sr. Administration statements before the invasion of Kuwait, goes, though, I don't see them as being any different than Secretary of State Acheson's "defensive perimeter" speech in 1950. He said the US defensive line in the Pacific connected Alaska, Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines... but he unfortunately left out South Korea. Critics later said this emboldened the North to attack later in the year. It was an unfortunate miscommunication.

We've got about 2500 troops in theater - mainly around Kandahar, and we've suffered our 85th KIA just the other day.

Canadian death rate in Kandahar outpacing that of U.S. in Iraq

I don't know, Areyou... that whole Aluminum Tubes controversy seems like so much "inside baseball" to me. I'm no nuclear centerfuge expert, but didn't even the DOE's own scientists dispute the uses? Presumably, there were a significant portion of them who thought that they could only be used for centerfuges. I don't know. I do know, though, that regardless of their intended use, Iraq was barred from obtaining them and the very fact that they were trying to obtain them illicitly justifiably raised alarms.

Agreed... but how do you resolve that impasse by trying to keep up the facade of the eroding sanctions regime?

I was under the assumption that Blix received regular intelligence briefings on what the US thought Iraq was up to. It's a difficult balancing act, though... if you tell Blix everything, then how do assess his effectiveness? Say, for instance, you know about a suspect WMD installation at Al'Holinhell... if you sit back and wait and see if Blix finds out about it himself, then you can see how effective he is on his own. If he doesn't find it, then you have to wonder what else he hasn't found. Intelligence is a complicated web - sometimes you've got to watch the watchers, do you not?

Amazing the bullshit gets larger and the posts longer and still nothing but lies and the smae blowhard pompuss nonesnece. YOu call can hide. But there inst one amonug you that could come close to proiding anything that would explain how theese nations could threaten the United States. The FACT makes the rest of this bullshit a meaningless waste of time.

Thanks for your input, Nefarious... I can't help but wonder, though, if this conversation is, as you put it, a meaningless waste of time, how pathetic must your life be that you feel the need to come in here and state that? *L* The only thing more meaningless than a meaningless conversation has got to be someone who feels they have to point out the meaninglessness of it all.

Like you say, "Smae blowhard pompuss nonesnece" (Is that your family motto, by any chance? Sounds Latin to me)

"Like you say, "Smae blowhard pompuss nonesnece" (Is that your family motto, by any chance? Sounds Latin to me)"



Too funny...I'll get back to you later on the other.

__________________
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Which side will you be on?


OBAMA/PEROT

Please don't get me wrong, I appreciate you contribution in Afghanistan but I still don't see how that is a contribution to Iraq...I can appreciate your argument that you are replacing troops and freeing them up...well done but I'm sure we could come up with necessary troops somehow...hell, we're drawing down from what? 155,000? in Iraq.

Sorry for your losses...yeah, pretty amazing that all we hear is generally along the lines of we won, dang, ain't things goin' good? and then again, there's a greater percentage of KIA...what's up with that?

If you don't know there intended use how do you know they were barred from obtaining them? Where did they come from? How do you know they were obtained through illicit means? Just curious.

Impasse? It seems to me that it only remains as such as long as you are unwilling to compromise and come up with some faith in the inspection process...you want to defeat Saddam? Give him a clean bill of health.

Saddam already lost way back when...he didn't know it because by his way of thinking...as long as he was alive he was winning...dumb shit.

Tell Blix everything? Hell, seems I recall Powell on tv with friggin' satellite photos and some pretty direct claims...why didn't anyone say, "Here's the photos...we think these are mobile chemical labs, and over here we know..."...go check it out and let us know...if it turns out that the trailers are used for gassing up weather balloons...I'd sure like to know for sure before I bomp the crap out of the place...what was the hurry?

__________________
"All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian."

Which side will you be on?


OBAMA/PEROT

God on and on they got posting the same crap. Thats the biffest lot of nothing I ever seen. BLOW hards.

__________________
Cussing out low class inbreds isnt uninteligent, its honest

Good typing is not inteligent its dexiteritous.

Everything you just said is total bullshit

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V8Ek...eature=related

I didn't say that Canada was contributing to Iraq, though - only that we were paying a price for the US fighting a two-front war. If you weren't in Iraq, odds are that you've have more troops in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is pretty tame except for along the Pakistani frontier; the East (where the bulk of US forces are) and the South (where the Canadians, British, and Dutch are... although the Dutch are rotating to more secure areas and are getting replaced some US forces from the East, who themselves are being replaced by some French paratroopers). Overall, I think the area around Kandahar is the main Taliban hotbed of resistance - it's like their version of the "Bible Belt" - lots of rednecks in the hills taking shots at our guys.

I got it from the Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on Prewar Intelligence Assessments (WARNING: Before you click the link, it's a PDF), Page 88:

"In 2001, the IC [Intelligence Community] became aware that Iraq was attempting to procure 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes manufactured from 7075-T6 aluminum, with an outer diameter of 81 mm... Seven-thousand series aluminum alloy is extremely hard and strong and when formed into a tube of more than 75 mm in diameter, is a controlled item under the Nuclear Suppliers Group and Annex III of UNSCR 687 and 707 which Iraq is prohibited from importing because it could have nuclear applications."

The Security Council had compromised with Iraq for 11 years, Areyou - and what had it gained? Every time Saddam was given an inch, he took a mile. What makes you think it would have been any different in 2002-03? Besides, what else was Resolution 1441 about than to signal that the time for compromise had come to an end? Given the uncompromising language of 1441, if the Security Council had continued the policy of compromise with Saddam how much credibility do you think it would have continued to have with Baghdad?

He wasn't that dumb... he was doing a better job running the country than anyone has done since, hasn't he? Besides, why shouldn't he think he was winning? He pretty much got away with doing whatever he wanted... up until Bush started getting tough with him. Without a Bush-style aggressive approach to Iraq, what makes you think he ever would have complied? I'm sure that from his perspective, all he had to do was outlast the Security Council. He was more determined to get out from under the sanctions than the Security Council seemed to be to enforce them.

That's the thing about trailers, though... they move. And they can be hidden - even from satellites. A few dozen weapons inspectors can't be everywhere all at one time in a place the size of Iraq, can they?