Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (410393)	5/30/2003 12:24:46 PM
From: Land Shark	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

DUBYA'S PHONY WAR May 29 2003 From Richard Wallace, who reported on the war from New York Bush has ensured his place in the history books - as the first man to wage a war and then dream up the excuse for it once the fighting's over. His administration has spent the weeks since the fall of Baghdad in a slow but deliberate retreat as the goalposts on why the US launched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq haven't just moved - they've positively revolved. The President's presumption of mass destruction - that coalition forces would be tripping over weapons of mass destruction after defeating Saddam Hussein's troops - has proved wrong. The justification for a pre-emptive strike was that Saddam had failed to co-operate with inspectors, therefore he was concealing these illegal weapons. Now Bush aides are pushing a new line - confirmed by Donald Rumsfeld's astonishing declaration yesterday -that Saddam may have destroyed the WMD as demanded by the UN after all. Instead of looking for banned materials, it is now pinning its hopes on finding documentary evidence. A 2,000-strong special forces team has been scouring Iraq for such evidence. So far around 200 of 640 potential weapons sites have been searched and nothing has been found apart from a pair of converted Iraqi army lorries - alleged mobile biological laboratories - where preliminary tests show no trace of banned substances. In an extraordinary leap of faith National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice now claims Iraq had a virtually "inspections proof" system and the new inspectors will be, ahem, "more expert" at following the paper trail. Inevitably evidence will be found in a filing cabinet not unadjacent to that other devastating "smoking gun" folder marked "Galloway, G." But how soon the White House forgets. Remember how Saddam was a direct and imminent threat? His weapons of mass destruction were primed and ready to launch. Remember the three rogue Iraqi ships roaming the earth ready to unleash their deadly cargo of biological terror? Forget inspections, said the US, we need Saddam toppled right now before he murders us all in our beds. But the solid gold, on-the-record evidence remains as elusive today as Clare Short's spine. AFTER Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden couldn't be found, so Saddam took his place as America's bogeyman, a revenge figure for the September 11 atrocities. But the Bush-Rumsfeld mantra that al-Qaeda was in its death throes has proved false as the horrific bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca illustrated. Yes, it's a good thing that Saddam is gone, but that wasn't why we went to war. We were told he was about to do his worst against us. How wrong does the President - and by proxy our own PM - need to be before there's an acknowledgement that Iraq was a terrible mistake and we've allowed bin Laden's hydra-headed terror network to spread like poison ivy?