(Click me).
Posted on 04/12/2006 12:01:03 PM PDT by Caleb1411
Among the allegations leveled at President Bush by his critics, probably the most serious is that he took the United States to war in Iraq on false pretenses. He told the American people that Saddam Hussein had a collection of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when Mr. Hussein did not. In retrospect it is clear that the weapons did not exist, although they had in the past, and Hussein had used them against his enemies. But what is also clear from captured documents now coming to light is that Mr. Bush had every reason to believe they still existed at the time he launched the military campaign in Iraq. Not only did US and allied intelligence agencies assert that the weapons were there, but Hussein himself played a dangerous game of convincing enemies such as Iran, and even his own generals, that he had such weapons, while protesting to United Nations inspectors that he did not.
While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed.
From thousands of official Iraqi documents captured by American forces, and dozens of interviews with captured senior military and political leaders, a picture is now emerging of the world of delusion in which Hussein lived when he was in power. It is being chronicled in magazines such as the Weekly Standard and a forthcoming issue of Foreign Affairs and books such as "Cobra II." Written by New York Times reporter Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor, the book is being hailed as one of the most comprehensive accounts of the war in Iraq.
Hussein was much more concerned about an internal coup, or a rebellion by dissident Shiites, or even an attack by Iran (with which he had fought a long war), than he was with an invasion by the US. Though he had largely disposed of his stocks of chemical and biological weapons in the 1990s, he encouraged the Iranians to believe he might have a hidden cache of them, a strategy called "deterrence by doubt." He did not take seriously a military threat from the US because he believed France and Russia would block the US diplomatically at the UN, and that in any event the Americans had little stomach for taking heavy casualties.
The Americans, however, took seriously the probability of confronting Hussein's WMD. When the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had close ties with Hussein, told Vice President Cheney that Hussein did not want war but would use chemical weapons if attacked, Mr. Cheney did not blink. The Americans, said Cheney, would deal with them.
Bush ordered that, when the US assault started and the anticipated stockpiles of WMD were seized, they must be publicized. Gen. Tommy Franks, his military commander, arranged for specially trained public affairs camera crews to document the discoveries.
Initially it was planned that seized samples of WMD would be shipped to Kuwait for analysis, but when Kuwait balked at this, the 75th Field Artillery Brigade headquarters at Fort Sill, Okla., was assigned the task.
Messrs Gordon and Trainor say in their book that German agents in Baghdad tipped the American military to Hussein's plan for defending his capital. Concentric rings were to be manned by Iraqi units of varying trustworthiness. One of the circles was called the "red line." This was to be the final barrier, manned by Hussein's elite and most reliable troops. US military intelligence reasoned that as American troops reached this defense line they would be met by poison gas or germ weapons.
But within Hussein's war council, the story was very different. In December 2002, Hussein called his generals together for a surprising announcement: Iraq did not possess WMD. The generals were stunned. They had long assumed that they could count on a hidden cache of chemical or biological weapons. Iraq had used such weapons in the war with Iran. Hussein had convinced his generals that it was the threat of WMD that had enabled him to stop the Americans moving on Baghdad after the 1991 war.
According to "Cobra II," Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, told American interrogators after the 2003 war that Hussein's stunning admission to the generals "sent morale plummeting."
The Bush critics can argue that the president was too gullible in accepting the conclusion of his intelligence agencies. But the evidence does not suggest that he knowingly lied to the American public about the existence of WMD.
• John Hughes, a former editor of the Monitor, is editor and chief operating officer of the Deseret Morning News.
is that you again cd4U???
i noticed you just signed on today.
My duaghter is a Chemical specialist who spent 15 months in Iraq in 2004/5. While at Camp Victory they were mortared. The rounds used contained cyanide. They were "chemical" rounds. Fortunately, the idiots firing them were bad shots, the wind was wrong, and the rounds failed to detonate because they were improperly assembled.
Anybody remember hearing about that in the news?
The UN's and the media rules for being able to label something a WMD are ridiculous. It's like saying you are going to search a house for a gun. You go in, find 99% of the pieces and a few bullets hidden in various locations, but are not allowed to say you found a gun.
LOL, much better than the way CD4U attempted to ask the question.
And establishing a democracy is the best way to fight the ideology of terrorism, because it is combating an idea (Wahhabism, Mujahideenism, Jihad) with another idea (capitalism, liberty, human rights).
Go back to DU, troll.
try reading the documents that jveritas has translated you will get your answers.
How should he secure the borders?
By bringing home all our troops and posting them along the border?
How about we all show how much we want to secure our borders by holding hands along the border so that we can have an international game of red rover with the Mexicans.
Red Rover
Red Rover
Send Pedro
Right over the border.
and what if anything does your comment have to do with what I have said on this thread on WMD's?
"While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed."
Think about this.
EVERY intelligence service in the world believed Saddam had WMD. His arab neighbors thought he had WMD. The Clinton Administration said he had WMD. Refugees from Iraq said he had WMD.
We invade Iraq and "can't find" WMDs. Ergo, Saddam must have fooled the British inteligence, American intelligence under at least two Prisdents, his own people, all his neighbors and the intelligence networks of numerous other nations.
Does THAT sound plausible??? I don't think so.
He had them. We missed them. He got them out of there to Syria or even possibly Libya before we invaded or they are secreted somewhere in Iraq.
Well, we have more than enough stationed in places all over the world where we don't need them, like France and Germany.
he is still with us but only posted twice since he signed on. Not long for this thread i suspect.
His own generals thought he had them.
Dems and Pubs alike knew they were there and I'd make a small wager, truth be known, that Israel was getting ready to do something about it if we didn't.
I'd be willing to bet Bush going in to remove Saddam kept WWIII from starting, at least for now.
He'll get his. Once Chuck Norris or the Viking Kitties (or both) find him, he's done for!!! And they miss no one.
Who dares stand up to the almighty power of the ZOT????
And we also found 36 mortar shells full of blister gas buried in the sands of the Iraqi desert.
Blister gas is one of the deadliest chemical weapons in the world.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.