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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (123202)	1/14/2004 1:20:36 PM
From: aladin	Respond to of 281500

C2, Good argument, but it does bring up a reasonable issue - Presidents and their staff's make decisions based on intelligence. Some of these decisions are of the life and death level (Clintons bombings, Bushs war etc). So how do we go about improving our intelligence services? John

To: carranza2 who wrote (123202)	1/14/2004 3:18:50 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

What a fairandbalanced analysis. The rest is pure politics. The left will argue neocon skullduggery while the right will argue the facts. Right. This "neocon conspiracy" claptrap is nonsense. The war was driven by a handful of key people, maybe 10 or so. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby , maybe 3 or 4 others; W was apparently in on the program from the start of his term. That's the fact, Jack, if you want to argue the impetus for the war came from someplace else, you got quite a body of evidence going against you. Then there's these "facts": "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002. • "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." -- President Bush, Sept. 12, 2002. • "The Iraqi regime possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons." -- Bush, Oct. 7, 2002. • "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that would be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using the UAVs for missions targeting the United States." -- Bush, Oct. 7, 2002. • "The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his 'nuclear mujahideen' -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past."-- Bush, Oct. 7, 2002. • "We know for a fact there are weapons there." -- White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, Jan. 9, 2003. • "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of Sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." -- Bush, Jan. 28, 2003. • "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." -- Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5, 2003. • "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." -- Bush, March 17, 2003. • "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly." -- Fleischer, March 21, 2003. • "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." -- Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board, March 23, 2003. • "We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003. • "We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so." -- Bush, May 3, 2003. • "I never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." -- Rumsfeld, May 4, 2003. • "U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction." -- National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, May 12, 2003. • "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." -- Rumsfeld, May 27, 2003. • "We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the -- our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind." -- Bush, July 17, 2003. ( from dfw.com ) Simply stated, there is no doubt, said Cheney. Facts are stupid things, as that guy said.

To: carranza2 who wrote (123202)	1/14/2004 3:43:07 PM
From: GST	Respond to of 281500

<As it turns out, unless something dramatic occurs, the perceptions did not match the reality.> The rhetoric coming out of the Bush White House -- the emphatic statements full of absolute certainty about the WMDs supposed to be in Iraq -- this is what did not match the reality. The extreme and unfounded rhetoric was used to sell a war to the American people -- a war that has alrady cost hundreds of young American lives with thousands more wounded and no end in sight. It also cost hundreds of billions of dollars at a time when the US Government already has a massive budget deficit. And it cost us the credibility we need to be world opinion and thought leaders. The damage is not over yet, as we lurch towards an ugly showdown over our means of withdrawal and the political consequences for the region. Your assumption that the political consequences for the region are positive are no better founded than the reasons for the invasion and the post-war planning fiasco.

To: carranza2 who wrote (123202)	1/14/2004 4:30:27 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

It seems to me that you and GST are making a mistake that is grounded on your political predilections. And no offense taken, except that I believe you have mistaken my devil's advocate approach with GST for some political bias. I may vote Republican most of the time, but I'm a principled pragmatist, not an extremist, when it comes to political issues. And there's certainly a fare share of extremist bluster on the part of certain Republicans.. For me, the invasion of Iraq was a principled pragmatic approach aimed at removing a tremendous source of regional instability in the Mid-East, while ensuring the UN remained a viable organization for preserving peace and international order (as well as advancing personal and political rights for the whole of humanity). At the same time, the overthrow of Saddam's regime posed the promise of providing enough discomfort for the cabal of intransigent dictators in the region to coerce, political or physically, to restructure the nature of regional and international relations. The overthrow of Saddam inserted a "wedge of freedom" right into the heart of the Arab world, leaving many regimes isolated and feeling vulnerable.. And that's why I believe we're seeing nations in the region finally reading the hand-writing on the wall and realizing that they might wind up like Saddam if they refuse. And btw, I concur with your post. However, I might take issue with calling deliberate deception on the part of Saddam, with resultant misperception by the world of his capabilities and intentions, to equate to a mistake. Weapons are merely tools of destruction and deterrence wielded by those who have the will to use them for that purpose. Saddam expended his goodwill with the world (apart from France, Germany, and Russia.. :0) and was required to create an atmosphere of transparency and confidence related to his military capabilities. As an example, if I'm a police officer and you put your hand in your jacket and create the impression that you have a gun, when I tell you to "freeze", then shooting you would fall under self-defence, because you have reasonable expectation that bodily harm might befall you. That's the extreme case of split second decision making in the case of imminent threat. The more pertinent example would be a criminal with a history of extreme violence and anti-social behavior who, whole on parole has been instructed to surrender and never again possess certain weapons. We search his house, confiscating whatever weapons we find, checking his arsenal against a list he provided at the beginning. But then we find out that, not only has he been constantly uncooperative and evasive, but we find a receipt that indicates that he has more weapons than he claimed to possess.. And not only that, he grabs that list from the hands of your officers and shoves them out of the front door, refusing further cooperation. Under such circumstances, it's hard to claim that the police would be making a mistake in perceiving that the criminal has something to hide and that he is in violation of his parole, punishable by removal to prison.. They would take him into custody under very reasonable suspicion, as well as criminal parole violations (which require cooperation with the authorities). That's my perspective Carranza... As for moving on, I think that should be a no-brainer.. But we constantly have people like GST trying to make outrageous claims that just don't fit the facts.. And he's getting this kind of perspective from people who could, god forbid, become the next president of these United States. Which is why I feel compelled to continue discussing the facts. Hawk