Did President Bush lie to the American People? Did our Intelligence Agencies fail us?

ME | 2/8/04 | mjy1288

[MJY1288]

All you have to do is remove the willful distortions of the facts in the press lately and look at this whole thing realistically, I'll try to do so now

1. We know for a FACT that Saddam Hussein possessed and used both Chemical and Biological agents against his enemies and his own people. This is FACT

2. We know that he was trying to develop a Nuclear Weapon before Israel bombed their Reactor in the 1980's... FACT

3. We know that his Chemical Weapons development went undetected until after the Gulf War and undetected by Weapons Inspectors until his Son-in-Law defected and told us where they were being developed.... FACT

4. We know that after 6 years of obstruction, the U.N. Weapons inspectors could not find and destroy the WMD's Saddam himself declared he had, in 1998 the U.N. Inspectors left Iraq without destroying everything that Saddam still possessed....... FACT

5. We know that Saddam never verified the destruction of the unaccounted for WMD's he admitted having... FACT

6. We know that after 12 years of U.N. Sanctions and enforcing the No-Fly Zones, Saddam still never accounted for the WMD's he admitted having..... FACT

7. We know that after Saddam was overthrown, David Kay has reported that Saddam had "Many Clandestine Laboratories" that were in violation of U.N. Resolution 1441, and all of the other 16 U.N. Resolutions ......FACT

8. We know that Saddam was compensating the families of suicide bombers in Israel in the amount of 25,000.00 U.S. Dollars.... FACT

9. We know that after the Gulf War in 1991, we found out that Saddam was much closer to developing a Nuclear Weapon that we had estimated…. FACT

After all of this... we are supposed to believe that Saddam voluntarily destroyed his WMD's after we left Iraq in 1998? The only intelligent conclusion anyone with half a brain can come up with is that either we have yet to find them in Iraq, or Saddam had them moved to Syria, and since many in his Regime fled to Syria, my guess is that they are buried in Syria.

No President who respects the Oath he takes to defend this Country could ignore these facts in a post 9/11 world. It’s not like Iraq was some third world country that we had never had problems with before, in fact, we lost several hundred U.S. Soldiers in Operation Desert Storm and Saddam had agreed to terms of a cease fire that would allow him to remain in power.

After 12 years of violating every agreement he made after the Gulf War and as a Nation who expects the world to take us seriously, we needed to remove him for the sake of our fallen soldiers whose blood was used to sign that cease fire in 1991. For that reason alone, WE DID THE RIGHT THING.. Think about this...... :-)

Have you heard anything about Syria lately? any statements from the State Dept. or Defense Dept.? The answer is NO, Methinks, we are in the middle of serious negotiations with Syria as I type this. Much like the ones we were in with Libya before they capitulated. My question is... Where is Richard Armitage? he is the State Departments "Heavy Hand" and he is one hell of an asset to this country

[MJY1288]

No ends, we had every right to remove that mad man, if the press and the doubting Thomas's need WMD's for a justification, Well!!! We have that too :-)

[JulieRNR21]

You have summarized very well the main reasons why the war in Iraq was justified.

BRAVO BUMP!

[MJY1288]

I consider that a great compliment coming from you Sir,

Thanks for serving our Country,

god Bless you,

Mike

[MJY1288]

Thankx

[MJY1288]

god = God ..... of course

[Defender2]

Very, Very Best FReegards to You Always, Mike, Defender2 D2

[Defender2]

#25. :-)

[TruthNtegrity]

I agree with all the points you raise.

And that Pres. Bush did the right thing.

Just to let you know - the part of the Intelligence Community that I am in touch with, is twisting on itself to discover how this mistake was made.

Was the information so needed, that someone spiked a report to give credence, believability to something that should have read "might be", "best guesses at", "from past experience", "the general pattern of", and "may be rebuilding stockpiles" and on and on.

The real question is, how did so many intelligence analysts, here and abroad, come to the same conclusion if there wasn't hard evidence to support such a positive, unequivocal statement.

While I would hope that the group that Pres. Bush appointed to investigate the intelligence he received would have a clear shot at producing some good conclusions, I'm not sure that any of them are either qualified or cleared (a really BIG problem) to investigate the source information, or the systems from which that source information was extracted.

[chuckwalla]

Pre 9/11 it was just as important as after that we act, or should have acted. If clinton had done his job and stopped the growth of al-qaeda after Somalia then there would have been no need to find and destroy the numerous cells scattered throughout the world.
The towers would still be standing and the world would be a different and better place now.
Sure hussein might still have been a problem but the absence of the dispursement of terrorists that al-qaeda promotes would have made hussein more containable.
The fact that clinton for whatever reason almost completely failed means the work Bush is doing now is far greater, more difficult than just clean up.
Imagine al-qaeda being stopped in it's infancy in the early 90's before they could build financial and terrorist networks all over the world.
Thanks bill.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

Everything you said is correct. All are good reasons to go to war. Even if there was only ambiguous intel about WMD all the other reasons were more than enough to justify the war. It's just that at times there was rhetorical overreaching by members of the Bush Administration about how certain they were that Saddam had WMD. And now the Dems are taking advatage of it for political gain. I saw a poll on FOX where the American people understand all this. They don't care about the WMD and they know the Dems are driven by politics. They trust that Bush acted in good faith even if his rhetoric was overheated at times.

The public has been very steady in supporting the war and the way Bush has handled it.

[FairOpinion]

Great job!

We know liberals don't care about facts, but I wish the Republicans would be pointing out these facts, instead of letting the Dems lies stand, without refuting them.

[MJY1288]

I think the President did very well today. If you noticed, Tim (I'm for Kerry) Russert cut President Bush off both times he brought up how he objected to John Kerry's denigration of those who served in the Guard.

If President Bush avoided the badgering questions by Tim (I'm for Kerry) Russert and answered them with talking points, the Press would be all over him for it. The talking points are coming and all John F'n Kerry will be able to is take cover... because the facts hurt, and John F'n Kerry is going to be in a lot of pain :-)

[AgThorn]

I'm not so sure that the WMD are in Syria, and I am not in need to know they are there either. The fact that Sadam Hussein himself thought he had WMD, which says that his ruthless tactics made his direct reports probably lie to him, is all I need to know. No intelligence in the world is going to be better than what Hussein himself knows.

When the politicians in Washington start seeing this, then we will know that we are past all this election year nonsense.

[piasa]

Look here- Washington Post got it wrong again:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49199-2003Oct31.html

[MJY1288]

Those of us here who are political junkies need not to know, but the other 70% of the people who pay little attention to things other than the Headlines need to know. I'm hoping that this subject is debated and researched to its fullest, because I'm confident that this Country and our Cammander-in-Chief did the right thing, and these facts need to be screamed from the rooftops

Thanks for what you said,

Cheers,

Mike

[chuckwalla]

I believe it far worse than just trying to make political hay.
If we have to go to war again the whole world will question us vehemently perhaps to the point of stopping any necessary action we need to take.
They didn't question clinton about any of the illegal invasions of actions he took. Kosovo was illegal. He didn't even talk to congress before attacking a country that was not even a threat to it's neighbors let alone us. He went past the war powers limit of 60 days without getting congressional approval. He bombed civilian targets. Even the Chinese embassy.
They didn't raise an eyebrow.
Now the questions and furor they raise are dangerous to our safety.
Do they care?

[cat lover too]

Thank you Mike for a great summary.

I think President Bush did touch on these facts at one point or another in his interview today. However, I do think the reason he didn't forcefully say that the WMDs may be in other countries such as Syria is that we really don't know that for sure. Were he to say that with more certainty than he did today, he would be criticized on wanting to pick a fight with Syria.

The bottom line is that I believe the long term vision of freedom and democracy in Iraq and the Middle East is going to vindicate the judgment of President Bush.

[xrp]

People's (non-conservatives) ideas of what the President's job responsibilities are way out of whack. The President's (as CinC of US Armed Forces) 1st and most important job function is to defend freedom and liberty for all American citizens. If that means lying, so be it.

[dtom]

Has anyone seen this PBS special saddam’s ultimate solutions http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/saddam/ , I think the biggest problem is that Bush and the his staff are playing defense, we need to go on offence and really drill it home what kind of danger we could be in if mad men are left unchecked. I would have him and his staff put together presentation similar to this PBS special and break it down point by point just as mjy1288 has laid it out.

[MJY1288]

"Look here- Washington Post got it wrong again"

Well!!!!, One thing is for sure.... The Washington Post is Consistant :-)