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

To: Neocon who wrote (437526)	8/3/2003 12:06:45 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

Neocon, re: >>"I do not think that you quite understand the article. As noted, while it may undermine a notion of imminent threat, it does make the matter of invasion a reasonable judgment call......."<< I do understand the article and I understand the assertion in the article that there are bases upon which one could assert that invasion and occupation was a "reasonable judgement call." I agree that there are rationales which could have been presented for an invasion of Iraq. In the minds of some, those rationales could be thought to constitute "a reasonable judgement call" on whether to go in, especially after we went in. It's human nature that, after the fact, many that supported the war so strongly will find ways to justify their positions; no on likes to feel like a fool. Looking back, however, I think it's clear that the congress and a majority of the American people would not have risked American blood if they had known the truth of the article's assessment. As you'll note, the article states that prior to invasion "American intelligence [had] concluded that Mr. Hussein was unlikely to conspire with terrorists to attack America and would do so only if his regime was threatened. It now seems virtually certain that Iraq did not have the stocks to provide weapons of mass destruction, despite the Bush administration's repeated contention that it believes it will find them...... Certainly, the portrait of Iraq that was initially put forward by the Bush administration appears to have overstated the immediacy of the danger. I think it's clear that if the threat had not been exaggerated and if the American public had not felt an "imminent threat," the Bush people would have faced extreme opposition from congress, and from moderate and liberal Americans. Through their campaign of overstatement they achieved their ends and now it's academic for all purposes other than "4 more years."