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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (52011)	6/29/2004 8:55:21 AM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Respond to of 793838

Good Times, Bad Times p.2 From the July 5 / July 12, 2004 issue: The New York Times can't decide whether or not there's a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. by William Kristol 07/05/2004, Volume 009, Issue 41 Page 2 of 2 < Back More important, we look forward to the Bush administration seriously and relentlessly engaging the debate over the Saddam-al Qaeda terror connection. We hope we do not wait in vain. Vice President Cheney did sally forth last week, the day after the release of the 9/11 Commission staff report. But he hasn't much followed up since then, and others have been mostly silent. Does the Bush team really think it can command majority support for the war in Iraq if it allows its opponents an uncontested field to make the case that Saddam had no significant links to terrorists? After all, the situation on the ground in Iraq is likely to remain ambiguous over the next few months. So simply depending on things to turn out well after the June 30 turnover of power is, to say the least, politically risky. Large caches of weapons of mass destruction are unlikely to turn up soon. This does not mean Saddam's history of concealing his weapons programs from inspectors was not a solid ground for his removal. But it does mean that the WMD issue is not a likely winner for the administration. The terror link issue, by contrast, should be a clear winner. Saddam and Osama had a "relationship" in the past, and sought continuing "cooperation" between their two "organizations." Could the president of the United States have simply left Saddam in power, with sanctions coming off, reconstituting his weapons programs, confident that Saddam and al Qaeda would not work together again in the future? Would this have been a reasonable course of action? This is a genuinely important debate for the country to have in this election year. It is a good debate for the Bush administration--if it has the wit and the nerve to engage it. --William Kristol

To: michael97123 who wrote (52011)	6/29/2004 11:56:58 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793838

By the way Dick Clarke said he authorized the departure of the bin laden family on his own. Doesnt moore blame bush for that? Clarke does say that but that struck me as a stretch. They left well after 9/11, I think it was the 13th or 14th. And I doubt Clarke had the ongoing capability to insist that the FBI not interview them. But who knows. Read Juan Cole's piece I posted for some other issues I have with the film. Nonetheless, it's well worth seeing. Whatever your political persuasions. Moore gets better at using the power of film with each work. I don't think he's yet at the level of the HBO film of the late 80s on AIDS but he's certainly getting there.