Rumsfeld, caught on tape.

[epicstruggle]

kyleb, I read your post and can just see that no amount of facts will ever satisfy you. Can you agree that the intelligence gathering comunity could have been wrong about how big a threat Sadam was? The cia was not the only one who was fooled by Sadam, other govermnent thought the same thing, hell even the UN thought they had WMDs, even clinton did too. So dont go of the deep end.

Now the bush admin based their war on this intelligence, which now has mostly been proven wrong. I wish they would have based the war more on other issues (which I thought were more important).

later,
epic

 

[chavvdarrr]

kyleb, I read your post and can just see that no amount of facts will ever satisfy you. Can you agree that the intelligence gathering comunity could have been wrong about how big a threat Sadam was? The cia was not the only one who was fooled by Sadam, other govermnent thought the same thing, hell even the UN thought they had WMDs, even clinton did too. So dont go of the deep end.

Now the bush admin based their war on this intelligence, which now has mostly been proven wrong. I wish they would have based the war more on other issues (which I thought were more important).

later,
epic

uhm. AFAIK the question is which was first - the egg or the chicken.... ie if first came intelligence info about Saddam, or first Bush decided that a war with Iraq will both guarantee him 2nd election and put some oil-money in someone's pockets

 

[kyleb]

i freely admit that the intelligence community thought Saddam had banned weapons, of course we did as we still had the receipts. however, the assumption of Iraq having some weapons and the argument of requiring a preemptive strike to keep those weapons being used against us are two very different things. you may not see the difference, but the intelligence community obviously did as is evident in George Tenet's letter to congress back in October of 2002. so what facts do you think i am overlooking, eh epic?

 

[epicstruggle]

i freely admit that the intelligence community thought Saddam had banned weapons, of course we did as we still had the receipts.

x 10^10...0
later,
epic

 

[kyleb]

what is that about? are you in denial of the fact that our goverment had previously supplied Saddam with chemical and biological weapons? would you like me to site sorces for this information?

 

[epicstruggle]

what is that about? are you in denial of the fact that our goverment had previously supplied Saddam with chemical and biological weapons? would you like me to site sorces for this information?

This is such a tired argument. And not only that its been debated endlessly in these very forums. Do a search on it. Youll see my replies (among others who are more elloquant) to this red herring.

later,
epic

 

[RussSchultz]

what is that about? are you in denial of the fact that our goverment had previously supplied Saddam with chemical and biological weapons? would you like me to site sorces for this information?

No, because you can't.

As epic said, we've gone over this stupid farcity before. The US government did NOT supply any chemical or biological weapons. US companies, and those from all sorts of other nations, were possibly willfully blind in selling chemicals that could be processed into chemical weapons.

Except all those chemicals were dual use chemicals that are commonly used in things like....oil refining, or agriculture.

US research houses also sold biological samples that could be used in weapons research. Just like they did to universities around the world. There is a compelling reason to research anthrax that has nothing to do with weaponizing it.

 

[Clashman]

kyleb, I read your post and can just see that no amount of facts will ever satisfy you. Can you agree that the intelligence gathering comunity could have been wrong about how big a threat Sadam was? The cia was not the only one who was fooled by Sadam, other govermnent thought the same thing, hell even the UN thought they had WMDs, even clinton did too. So dont go of the deep end.

I would argue that much of the Intelligence community didn't agree with the assessments being brought out by the Bush administration. There is ample evidence that the CIA was actually cut out of the debate on Iraq's WMD's, in favor of a specialized intelligence house set up by Dick Cheney which basically interviewed members of the Iraqi National Congress and took their words as gold. There was alot of debate in the intelligence community, and most of the conclusions they came to, if they came out against the Iraqi government, were filled with caveats and disclaimers. The Bush Admnistration never went through the effort of informing the public about these disclaimers, and made significant attempts to make the intelligence sound more alarmist than it actually was. And so I think placing the onus of blame on the CIA for intelligence failures isn't really fair, and could even be erroneous.

 

[epicstruggle]

clashman, if we could all step back from all our partisian bickering. We would see some simple facts:
-The UN thought Iraq had WMDs
-Foreign nations thought Iraq had WMDs
-Clinton and his admin thought Iraq had WMDs
-Bush and his admin thought Iraq had WMDs

The whole CIA thing is troubling in the sense that parts thought wmds were there and others did not think it. IF tenent thought there werent any, he should have spoken up during the months running up to the war. Not after.

later,
epic

 

[Clashman]

I don't think most intelligence agencies were convinced that Iraq had WMD's, nor was the UN. There were chiefly concerns that Iraq hadn't completely and totally accounted for the destruction of it's WMD's, which is alot different than saying "we know you have them".

And I think George Tenet did actually come out and say that the CIA thought that Iraq didn't pose any significant threat to the United States, and this was significantly before the war started. It's a matter of whether or not it was actually picked up in the major media and treated as a significant story.

 

[davepermen]

-The UN thought Iraq had WMDs
-Foreign nations thought Iraq had WMDs

actually, they didn't. but they thought "well then, if you think there are, lets check if there are", and they started to search for them.

this is true for the un, and at least for switzerland, one foreign nation out there. about nobody believed bush's statements, but even if we didn't, we all supported the fact that we could simply check to see who is right.

at the moment everything looked like bush is wrong, the war started, and the search couldn't get continued.

and now, after the war, and after the afterwar, we can nearly 100% state there aren't any WMD's. bush was wrong, and the reasons he went into war where not true, and never got proved to be.

it's rather understandable they always struggle if you ask them about their reasons.

but it's a (very sad) fact, that foreign countries let the us behave as they want rather silently, because they are too small and too dependent on the us in the end. thats why nobody cried out loud.

but in europe, nobody believed in the WMD fuzz.. except spain and england possibly.

 

[RussSchultz]

but in europe, nobody believed in the WMD fuzz.. except spain and england possibly.

If that were true, why did resolution 1441 pass unanimously?

 

[davepermen]

to check if we, or the us, are wrong.

 

[kyleb]

The whole CIA thing is troubling in the sense that parts thought wmds were there and others did not think it. IF tenent thought there werent any, he should have spoken up during the months running up to the war. Not after.

later,
epic

epic, Tenet did speak up, you obviously didn't listen to him or my recounting of what he spoke up about in the post above.


as for the "we have receipts comments"; the components we thought he made weapons with is what i was referring to, sorry i wasn't more clear.

 

[John Reynolds]

Actually Russ is a fairly articulate and intelligent poster... Just one question though, what rock did you crawl out from under?

I don't know but this isn't going to last for long.

 

[Sabastian]

Actually Russ is a fairly articulate and intelligent poster... Just one question though, what rock did you crawl out from under?

I don't know but this isn't going to last for long.

Good!

 

[John Reynolds]

Good!

Can I vote linthat22 village dumbass?

Umm, no. I can't exactly tell him to raise the bar of his posts and then let others blast him.

Edit: In fact, I'm just going to clean this thread up.

 

[Sabastian]

Edit: In fact, I'm just going to clean this thread up.

Good..

 

[RussSchultz]

AIIIIEE!

Don't delete posts.


Turn them into "...", but don't delete them.

At least until you get the forum software fixed.

 

[John Reynolds]

AIIIIEE!

Don't delete posts.


Turn them into "...", but don't delete them.

At least until you get the forum software fixed.

Hehe, I thought of that. . .after I hit the delete button a few times. D'oh!