In this post I am going to deal with the current wisdom that President Bush fabricated the concept and evidence that Saddam Hussein had or was unilaterally suspected of having nuclear, chemical and biological weapons WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) so he could convince the American people to let him go to war. I will leave the idea that Saddam never had connections to al Qaeda for a future post. Below I have excerpts from speeches from both president Bill Clinton and George Bush just prior to their each taking military action against Saddam.
“That regime pledged to reveal and destroy all its weapons of mass destruction as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War in 1991.”
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq’s neighbors and against Iraq’s people.”
“The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now.”
AND
“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.”
“Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.”
“I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.”
“He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction, and someday — make no mistake — he will use it again as he has in the past.”
However you feel about sending in ground troops (both presidents attacked by air and with missiles) the concept that everyone knew he had WMDs is inescapable. I use the phrase “knew he had” very purposefully. As both presidents stated, and as is very well documented, he used chemical weapons against the Iranians and his own people. Read the text of the Clinton’s speech and Bush’s speech for yourself. As I said before I will get into the connection to terrorists in a future post but first we need to put to rest the concept that bush lied about WMDs.
Who do think supplied Saddam with those chemical, as well as other weapons during Iraq’s war with Iran?
Perhaps if the US Government could have figured out that if we take care of our own problems instead of using puppet nations like Iraq to deal with our enemies, it might not bite us in the ass in the future like it is now.
Comment by Eric — January 5, 2007 @ 12:02 am
[...] the time to point out the problem with this so I am going to give a little quiz, as I did in the Bush Lied About WMDs blog. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush talked about the crisis in Social Security during their State of [...]
Pingback by Bush Lied About Social Security? « Contrary Thought — January 5, 2007 @ 9:49 pm
Your writing could be a lot worse, but it’s bad enough. Just Stop.
Regurgitating Fox News is just plain pathetic.
And above all else, at least learn to use a spell checker if you don’t have what it takes to use proper english. Or better yet, leave it exactly as it spills out so people can figure out you’re an idiot before they waste too much time reading through the pile.
I don’t really hate you as much as it likely sounds, but you did decide to advertise your wonderful blog on Craigslist in a lengthy and egotistic spiel that left no doubt of your opinion of yourself. You’ve got a lot to learn, and should start with high school English. You could then work on basic composition. You could learn to frame an idea, for example. If you really applied yourself, you might learn to construct a decent essay in 18 to 24 months. THEN advertise your blog, if you really think you’re All That.
We won’t hold our breath.
Comment by Your Mother — January 31, 2007 @ 8:30 am
I don’t get Fox on my cable line up. I’m too cheap. So maybe they are regurgitating me…
I will just say again that people should read what both Presidents say, whether you read my misspelled poorly written post or follow the links to the text of their speeches, and then read the “Your Mother” comment again to see how well she refutes my contention…no wait…all she did was attack me personally.
This of course is no surprise. I expected it which is why I wrote in the “About This Blog” page that “If you want to attack peoples credibility while ignoring the logical positions they posit please feel free to frequent someone else’s blog” perhaps it was too poorly written for her to understand. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a writer. Though I don’t have to tell any of you that. But that’s not the point.
I will just say again read their speeches and decide for yourselves…wait I’ve got it…my new tag line. “I will Blog…You decide” Fox better not try stealing that one.
Comment by contrarythought — January 31, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
It wasn’t just Clinton, it was every leading Democrat ESPECIALLY those who call Bush a liar today who spent 13 YEARS leading up to the war, making the WMD case. Clinton in 1998 made Iraq regime change our policy a month before he attacked with even stronger WMD language. Putin called Bush and said his intelligence said Saddam had WMDs. I could go one, but it’s pointless. Liberals are dishonest and there is no helping them. Anyone who says Bush lied, is lying themselves.
Comment by Randy — February 1, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
Randy,
You bring up a good point about Clinton talking about regime change. It was in the speech I linked to. He said
“The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government…”
Liberals statements about Bush are almost surreal. A democracy needs to have informed voters to function properly. When liberal leader and the press either reiterated those statements or willfully ignore there hypocrisy they do democracy a disservice at best. Historical facts are too well documented now to leave history to be written by those who yell the loudest.
Comment by contrarythought — February 2, 2007 @ 9:31 pm
As we were preparing for war, many people in the intelligence community knew that Saddam had had WMD at one point. What they were extremely usure of, was whether or not he still had them.
What the Bush administration did was to ignore anybody who disagreed with their assessment that Saddam still had WMD, which, as we know in hindsight, turned out to be a large proportion of the intelligence community. They also snowed the American people about the amount of money the war would cost and the troop levels, despite warnings from army veterans such as General Shinseki (who was later reprimanded for publicly disagreeing with the administration’s estimates when testifying before congress).
When Colin Powell testified before the U.N., he basically threw away his career defending information that was known by many people at the time to be patently false. The odd thing is that I think W really believed much of the story Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were portraying (easy victory, WMD threat, etc.), as did much of the press (both left and right), as well as Congress.
Basically they twisted the truths to fit their story and oversimplified or ignored issues that contradicted their beliefs. I’d call that lying, but you may call it something else.
Two more things: Clinton is no liberal. Never has been, never will be. Second, you really should read the book Fiasco, it’s very enlightening.
Comment by dolan — February 18, 2007 @ 6:07 pm