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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (535584)	2/5/2004 8:13:00 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Fair enough. I just want to point out that Kay is not implying that the failure to find WMDs means that there was no reason to overthrow the Ba'athist regime. You, of course, do not have to agree. For myself, I would say that the brutal character of the regime was sufficient reason to overthrow it, if we had a good chance at success. Of course, I think we should have intervened in Rwanda; that we were right to intervene in the Kosovo matter; and that we should have intervened in Bosnia before the ethnic cleansing was essentially over, if only by supplying the Muslims with materiel to fight back better.......

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (535584)	2/5/2004 8:35:20 AM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 769670

It's amazing the kind of information that's now being found here--and more mounts every day! Subject 54632 Howard: Blair should resign over WMD claim Tom Happold, Matthew Tempest and agencies Thursday February 5, 2004 Michael Howard today called on Tony Blair to resign, accusing him of failing to ask basic questions before committing Britain to war. The Tory leader's comments come after Mr Blair revealed to MPs yesterday that he was unaware that the intelligence that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes referred only to battlefield munitions, not any missile capability. Speaking in Portsmouth, Mr Howard said: "I am accepting what the prime minister told us at face value. He said he never knew, he never bothered to ask this question. "If I were prime minister and I had failed to ask that basic question before committing our country to war I would be seriously considering my position." Mr Howard's comments shift the debate over the pre-war intelligence about WMD from questions about Mr Blair's integrity to ones about his competence. This morning, Mr Blair's spokesman and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, both played down the significance of the so-called 45-minute claim, which appeared in the government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons capacity. Appearing before the defence select committee Mr Hoon said that the claim "was not a big issue at the time", and it was "only after unfounded claims by the Today programme" that it became one. He also said that he did not see wildly inaccurate headlines about the 45-minute claim in the Sun and Evening Standard because he been in Ukraine and Poland at the time. The Sun and the Evening Standard both carried banner headlines on the 45-minute claim, but Mr Hoon insisted he had not even had access to press cuttings while away on Nato business for two days during the furore. He added: "I didn't know they were misleading because I didn't see them at the time because I was out of the country". He said he had "hugely sensitive" meetings with the leader of the Ukraine and in Warsaw from 9am on September 24 until 6pm on the 26th and "my concentration was on that." Under questioning Mr Hoon said: "I can't say precisely when I was aware such stories were written." Mr Hoon was grilled by MPs, as he was by the Hutton inquiry, as to why neither he nor the Ministry of Defence had tried to correct the misleading assumption that the 45-minute claim, now widely discredited anyway, applied to strategic missiles rather than battlefield munitions. He did reveal that he thought "battlefield" munitions could, in any case, travel 40km. Mr Hoon's comments were echoed at this morning's lobby briefing, where Downing Street warned against exaggerating the importance of the 45-minute claim. Mr Blair's spokesman told reporters: "The 45-minute point played little part subsequent to the dossier in the discussion about Iraq. There were two questions in 38,000 written parliamentary questions about it. "The prime minister did not draw attention to it in his statement to the house in March. "We never claimed that Saddam Hussein could attack the UK in 45 minutes or within any time scale. "The prime minister and the government believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was able to deploy them both in a tactical and strategic way. We never claimed in the dossier that the 45 minutes referred to ballistic missiles in this way." The spokesman went on: "The dossier did not say that Iraq could deliver ballistic missiles within 45 minutes. "We are in danger of making this 45-minute point some sort of totemic trigger for military action which it never was." Earlier in the questioning, Mr Hoon admitted "more widespread and serious than expected" equipment shortages among British troops during the Iraq war. He conceded to MPs that the "system struggled to cope", and that the logistics broke down tracking pieces of equipment through the theatre of war. And he volunteered that the well-known shortage of boots, in particular, had had "an impact on morale". But he warned that a change in balance between "holding" stores of equipment, and "generating" supplies during warfare would have "major resource implications". politics.guardian.co.uk

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (535584)	2/5/2004 8:37:15 AM
From: PartyTime	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

>>> That is not necessarily true. I can credit him for accuracy on his assessment of the wmd issue because he had an incentive to find them, special knowledge as a result of his investigation and his statement that they aren't there is reliable as a statement against interest. The statement that the war was "worthwhile" reflects no special knowledge on his part. That statement is simply one that reflects his political view of the relative costs and benefits, including those that involve his OWN self interests. I'd rather make that decision for myself based on my own values, knowledge of the relevant facts and projection of where this will likely lead in terms of helping or hurting the interests of America.<<< Great point! I remember Kay very well before the war began. He was an avid hawk--and a paid television analyst, as I recall. I forget which network--do you know?