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

To: jlallen who wrote (691363)	7/11/2005 2:48:41 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"I agree with the CIA analysis..." I have never doubted that at several times in the past (especially during the heights of the decade-long Iraq/Iran Gulf War... up until Dessert Storm destroyed most of his dual-use infrastructure) Saddam was actively seeking advanced weapons... remember the giant natural gas-fired cannon he tried to build???? But in this particular case (the forged 'Niger documents') and in the aluminum tube debacle and the 'mobile bioweapons laboratory' alarmist claim (and the 'unmanned aircraft' fancies) it seems pretty clear that emotions and fantasies were allowed to run riot over the hard-nosed analysis of the career Intelligence analysts. I have grave doubts that actions like that serve our nation well... (in fact, I am most reminded of the Hearst-initiated fantasies that propelled the US into the Spanish American War). Re: "...but I think it is part of the short term consequence we need to be willing to bear to reach the longer term goal which is the central thesis driving the WOT." I'm not at all sure what you are saying here, JL. I am personally quite prepared to have my nation go to war for national interests... but I'm not at all sure that the negative effects were ever properly considered (see the admonitions against long-term occupation of Iraq published in the first President Bush's, and in his Defense Secretary Scowcroft's, books....) Nation building (especially in the 'hot zone' of a bubbling civil war between powerful ethnic & religious enemies) is ALWAYS a dangerous and expensive task --- as the second President Bush said during the campaign leading up to his first term.