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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (53065)	11/6/2006 3:29:31 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

>>Because of concerns about WMD does not equal because of current large stockpiles of WMD. And even more latent WMD concerns were not the only reason, just the number one reason.<< Tim - Right. WMDs past, present, and future were given as the number one reason we should attack Iraq. And as the Senate Intelligence Committee that investigated the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that formed the main basis for the Administration's claims about WMD found, the raw intelligence we had did not support the contention that Saddam had any WMDs, nor did it support the contention that he had an infrastructure for developing them. Some people here have suggested that my view on this matter isn't grounded in reality. Well, I don't have access to the raw Intelligence data and you don't either. So I'm forced to look for authoritative sources of information. Here's why I choose to believe the Senate Intelligence Committee. They had access to the raw intelligence, and they spent a long time looking at it before making their report. I'm just going to go along with their conclusions, because it seems that a bipartisan Senate committee chaired by a Republican wouldn't have reached that conclusion if it weren't so. As I said before, if we knew then what we know now about the absence of WMDs in Iraq, there would never have been a vote to authorize the use of force, and we wouldn't be stuck there now. It would be an irrelevant discussion at this moment, but some people keep insisting that the case for WMDs has been proved. All I'm saying is that I haven't seen any such proof from any authoritative source. - Allen

To: TimF who wrote (53065)	11/6/2006 3:56:28 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

"And even more latent WMD concerns were not the only reason, just the number one reason." A case can certainly be made for self defense. Certainly, the world is a far safer place with the military in gear and the terrorist issues in the open and with the U.S. presence in the Middle East. Bringing it to them rather than waiting for them to keep bringing it to us was the right thing to do. Intelligence can never know for certain beforehand whether or not a rogue nation has WMD's. It is necessary to err on the side of caution when dealing with issues of self defense. Any sense of likelihood when it comes to WMD's threatening our allies and indirectly world peace overall is sufficient to warrant the consideration of preemptive measures.

To: TimF who wrote (53065)	11/6/2006 10:07:51 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

>>The idea that Saddam's regime was a threat to our national security because of the WMDs was the number one most important reason given for that invasion, and no amount of denying it will change that. Because of concerns about WMD does not equal because of current large stockpiles of WMD. And even more latent WMD concerns were not the only reason, just the number one reason.<< Tim - Wow. And talk about spinning and obfuscating. The Administration made it quite clear that they believed there were huge stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Just look at the text of Bush's State of the Union address for 2003. It's not about the future weapons, Tim. Powell's entire presentation to the UN was about the weapons that were supposed to be there. He didn't say, "They may build some dangerous stuff in the future, so we need to invade now." And if he had said something like that, he would have been laughed right out of the building. Now you attempt to revise history by saying our self defense claim was based on the possibility that Saddam could produce WMDs at some point. That is simply ludicrous. I believe that attacking another country because you think they MIGHT do you harm cannot be justified as self defense. Were the Japanese justified in attacking Pearl Harbor? They did think we meant them harm, you know. And we absolutely did have a lot of weapons. - Allen