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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (125125)	2/26/2004 3:45:40 PM
From: GST	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<This has ALL been about politics> For you that applies Hawk -- it explains why the truth does not play an important role in your rants. It is incorrect to say that intelligence services of ANY country, much less all of them, supported the uneqivocal statements coming from the White House (from Bush, from Cheney, from Powell, from Rumsfeld) as they beat the war drum. The Russians made their doubts clear, and agreed to change their minds on an invasion if there was any concrete proof of Iraqi WMD -- but there was no proof from the White House. Without WMD the Russions saw no justification for an invasion -- a view shared by most of the people in the rest of the world. They, like France and Germany, favored inspections which had proven to be highly effective to develop further intelligence as to whether or not there were any WMD in Iraq before signing on to a UN-authorized invasion. There could not have been proof as we now know because, in the words of Mr. Kay, "we were wrong" and the deep Russian, German, French and Chinese skepticism proved to be right. The UN inspectors had indeed done an extraordinarily effective job under very trying circumstances. That is the truth.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (125125)	2/27/2004 2:06:34 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "You continue to harp about missing WMDs, claiming that Bush "lied" about them, when EVERY FRIGGIN' INTELLIGENCE SERVICE PROVIDING EVIDENCE TO THE UN ASSERTED THAT THEY PROBABLY EXISTED. EVERY ONE OF THEM pal. Every one." Cool rant! But you're, at the very least, avoiding the issue. The problem is not that Bush said that "Iraq probably has WMDs", the problem is that Bush said that "Iraq has WMDs". There's a hell of a lot of difference between those statements. Re: "Otherwise, there would have been NO CAUSE to justify a 15-0 UNANIMOUS vote to declare Iraq in material breach via UNSC 1441." The votes were unanimous due to (a) a lot of US pressure, and (b) a promise by the President of the United States, that he had secret evidence that proved that Iraq had WMDs. So the vote is not evidence that everyone thought that Iraq had WMDs, it's evidence that Bush's lies were effective. Hey, if Bush hadn't been able to start a war based on flimsy evidence that he sold as solid, we wouldn't be having this argument. Instead, you'd still be sitting there smug as a bug in a UN office rug, completely certain that Iraq still has WMDs. (And that the locals will welcome us, our Allies will come around, the neighboring nations will send troops and police, that the UN will stick it out, and, most recently, that the UN will come in and save our bacon.) And the President would probably have reelect numbers that were considerably more positive. -- Carl