"When we look back on this, ten years hence," he insisted, "we will [see that we] have fundamentally changed the course of history in that part of the world." - Dick Cheney

Well, he is right. We took a relatively stable dictatorship and turned it into a battleground in which more were killed by our forces than were by the dictator. We turned a secular nation into one or more theocracies. It's nice to know that finally, the Vice President got something right.

'Q Quick follow-up. A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

THE PRESIDENT: I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

Now, look, part of the reason we went into Iraq was -- the main reason we went into Iraq at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. But I also talked about the human suffering in Iraq, and I also talked the need to advance a freedom agenda. And so my question -- my answer to your question is, is that, imagine a world in which Saddam Hussein was there, stirring up even more trouble in a part of the world that had so much resentment and so much hatred that people came and killed 3,000 of our citizens.

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

Q What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case.

And one way to defeat that -- defeat resentment is with hope...'
www.whitehouse.gov

So, the official position is that it was a mistake about WMD. And Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but is somehow connected with 9/11, and 9/11 must be mentioned when discussing Iraq.

And the US invasion of Iraq has furthered 'hope' and a 'freedom agenda'.

It's sad to see the President of the US come up with lame ideas that look like they were lifted from blogs to justify attacking Iraq, isn't it? Hussein wasn't paying 'suiciders'. The idea is absurd. He was giving extra money to families of suicide bombers in Palestine - as were others. Every country has the capacity to make WMD. And 'relations with Zarqawi'? What is Bush trying to suggest?

quote:

Hussein wasn't paying 'suicides'. The idea is absurd. He was giving extra money to families of suicide bombers in Palestine - as were others.

Oh! He wasn't paying suicides', he was only paying their families.

It wouldn't do much good to pay the suicide bombers, would it? Unless they could take it with them, to spend on all of the virgins waiting for them.

Do you think that this just might encourage other nuts out there to follow?

You are right, this is absurd.

quote:

What is Bush trying to suggest?

Could it be that he is suggesting that Saddam was encouraging terrorism?

He's not making a very good job of suggesting it.

'A Hamas suicide bomber's family got $25,000 while the others - relatives of militants killed in fighting or civilians killed during Israeli military operations - all received $10,000 each.' news.bbc.co.uk

The potential for that extra $15,000 couldn't have made the difference between a terrorist attack and no terrorist attack. The Palestinian attacks did not end with Hussein's fall. Others have encouraged such attacks more openly or effectively. Hussein's monetary grandstanding is certainly not a justification for a war in which tens of thousands have died. Is that really the best that Bush can do in trying mitigate his awful mistake?

If Bush has something convincing to say about a connection between Hussein and Zarqawi, surely he could just tell us about it. Instead, he clumsily implied a Clintonian 'relationship'. Obviously there's nothing very concrete to say.

Bush started a war, and all he can come up with are half-baked talking points about it. A better person would have resigned long ago.

'Vice President Cheney and President Bush have repeatedly claimed that al-Qaeda had a working relationship with Saddam Hussein which justified the invasion of Iraq. The key piece of evidence Cheney and President Bush have used to support this claim was that Hussein harbored Abu Musab al Zarqawi - a suspected associated of al-Qaeda. For example, on 6/21/04 Cheney said "Mr. Zarqawi, who is in Baghdad today, is an al Qaeda associate who took refuge in Baghdad, found sanctuary and safe harbor there before we ever launched into Iraq."1 President Bush said on 6/15/04 "Zarqawi's the best evidence of a [Hussein] connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda."2 One problem: there is no evidence to support these claims.

Knight Ridder reports "a new CIA assessment undercuts the White House claim that Saddam Hussein maintained ties to al Qaeda, saying there is no conclusive evidence that the regime harbored terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi."3 According to a senior U.S. intelligence official "The evidence is that Saddam never gave Zarqawi anything."4 Ironically, the assessment was requested by Cheney.5'
www.misleader.org

'ABC quoted an unnamed senior U.S. official as saying that the CIA document raises “serious questions” about Bush administration assertions that Zarqawi found sanctuary in pre-war Baghdad.

“The official says there is no clear cut evidence that Saddam Hussein even knew Zarqawi was in Baghdad,” ABC reported.

The CIA report concludes Zarqawi was in and out of Baghdad, but cast doubt on reports that Zarqawi had been given official approval for medical treatment there as President Bush said this summer, ABC said.

Earlier on Tuesday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan reasserted that there was a relationship between Saddam and Zarqawi...' CIA report finds no Zarqawi-Saddam link

(Jack Nicholson voice needed here) "Please tell me you've got something more, President. Please tell me there's an ace up your sleeve. This war has killed and maimed thousands of people. Please tell me you haven't pinned its justification on visits by Zarqawi to Baghdad....."

'On September 10th in a televised interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney stated with little ambiguity that we would have invaded Iraq in 2003 even if we knew that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction...' www.commondreams.org

I haven't read of a retraction. It was never really about the WMD?

'"My decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision, and the world is better off for it," Mr Bush said to crowds of supporters in Florida on Monday.' news.bbc.co.uk

That seems to identify it clearly as a war of choice - an illegal one. Regime change is not a legitimate cause for war - legally, morally or even practically. But does what Bush says in the final hours of a bittelry fought election campaign count?

'“One of the lessons of September the 11th is that when we see a threat we have got to take that threat seriously before it materializes,” Bush told a cheering throng in Springfield, Missouri, on Nov. 3. “It’s an essential lesson in this new war. I saw a threat in Saddam Hussein.”

In that remark, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to what he calls “preemptive war,” but what others call “preventive war” and we have termed “predictive war.” Bush’s strategy is not classically “preemptive,” which implies the other country is poised to strike. Bush’s idea is to predict a future threat and then attack before the threat “materializes.”

While “preemptive” invasions are illegal under international law, “preventive” or “predictive” wars represent even greater threats to world order. They effectively guarantee endless warfare based not on real security threats but on vague perceptions of the future, a prescription for one, two, many Iraq Wars.

But on the stump, Bush’s talking point about this “essential lesson” is greeted like a golden oldie from the rally-round-the-President days after 9/11. Though the consequences of Bush’s faulty prediction about Iraq can now be measured in the deaths of more than 2,800 American soldiers and other horrible costs, it still works as an applause line.' www.consortiumnews.com

Even though they had to 'sex up' the evidence to make it look like a possible threat, and even though after the invasion it became undeniable that there hadn't been much of a threat at all, Bush is still able to use the idea that he countered a threat as an applause line?

'Most Americans initially believed that the U.S. went into Iraq to shut down Saddam Hussein's WMD programs and/or simply to topple a dangerous dictator (or even a dictator somehow connected to the 9/11 attacks). Of course, had that really been the case, the Bush administration should have withdrawn almost immediately. Even today, it could, at least theoretically, withdraw and declare victory the day after Saddam Hussein is executed, since the WMDs and the 9/11 connection were evanescent. In this scenario, the dismal post-invasion military failure would represent nothing but the defeat of Bush's personal crusade -- articulated only after the Hussein regime was toppled -- to bring American-style democracy to a benighted land...

...However, a more realistic look at the original goals of the invasion makes clear why withdrawal cannot be so easily embraced by anyone loyal to the grandiose foreign policy goals adopted by the U.S. right after the fall of the Soviet Union. The real goals of the war in Iraq add up to an extreme version of this larger vision of a "unipolar world" orbiting around the United States.

The invasion of 2003 reflected the Bush administration's ambition to establish Iraq as the hub of American imperial dominance in the oil heartlands of the planet. Unsurprisingly, then, the U.S. military entered Iraq with plans already in hand to construct and settle into at least four massive military bases that would become nerve centers for our military presence in the "arc of instability" extending from Central Asia all the way into Africa -- an "arc" that just happened to contain the bulk of the world's exportable oil.

The original plan included wresting control of Iraqi oil from Saddam's hostile Baathist government and delivering it into the hands of the large oil companies through the privatization of new oil fields and various other special agreements. It was hoped that privatized Iraqi oil might then break OPEC's hold on the global oil spigot. In the Iraq of the Bush administration's dreams, the U.S. would be the key player in determining both the amount of oil pumped and the favored destinations for it. (This ambition was implicitly seconded by the Baker Commission when it recommended that the U.S. "should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise")

All of this, of course, was contingent upon establishing an Iraqi government that would be a junior partner in American Middle Eastern policy; that, under the rule of an Ahmed Chalabi or Iyad Allawi, would, for instance, be guaranteed to support administration campaigns against Iran and Syria. Bush administration officials have repeatedly underscored this urge, even in the present circumstances, by attempting, however ineffectively, to limit the ties of the present Shia-dominated Iraqi government to Iran.' Why Withdrawal Is Unmentionable

What every American should know about Iraq.

Great Link N.N.

Be interested to see what Scotty and Lightningrodd have to say about it.

Ok, some of that article is factual, but most is speculation, and with no citation. One could just as easily write a similar article justifying the Iraq war. I would begin here.

Specifically, Resolution 1441. (PDF)

Resolution 1441. (Wikipedia)

Resolution 1441 did not make the war necessary. It did not provide legal backing for Bush's actions, and the US itself didn't seek to justify the invasion through 1441.

'While certain aspects of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 are remarkably vague, two things are clear. First, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein must accomplish a sequence of tasks over the next few months or almost certainly face serious consequences, most likely a US-led invasion. Second, in the event of non-compliance the United States is not automatically authorized to take unilateral military action to effect regime change in Iraq, certainly not before another meeting of the Security Council....

...members of the Security Council have not acquiesced in using force in connection with Iraqi weapons inspections. The ceasefire resolution declares that sanctions will remain on Iraq until inspectors certify it is free of weapons of mass destruction. The debate since 1991 has been about lifting or leaving the sanctions, not whether states should be able to use military force to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them[4]. No acquiescence has occurred to allow force for enforcing weapons inspections, and certainly none has developed to authorize ousting Saddam Hussein.

This conclusion was underscored when President Bush acknowledged as much in his speech to the UN on September 12[5]. He said the US would pursue the necessary resolutions in the Security Council, meaning that new resolutions, authorizing force, would be necessary before the US or any other country could carry out lawful enforcement action in respect to any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Resolution 1441 provides no new authorization for using force. It states in paragraph 12 that a meeting of the Security Council will be the first step upon a report by inspectors that Iraq has obstructed their activities. Consequences will follow a meeting...' jurist.law.pitt.edu

Bush did actually attempt to get further resolutions backing war, but failed:

'...then the US went back to the Security Council for a second and follow-up resolution to 1441, this one to provide authorization to proceed to war against Iraq, the Security Council refused to comply with the US demand for such authorization on the grounds that it wanted to give the UN inspectors more time to finish their work.

Rather than awaiting authorization from the Security Council or abiding by the Council's unwillingness to provide such authorization, the US, under the Bush administration, which had been gradually repositioning its military forces into the Middle East in preparation for war with Iraq, abandoned its quest for UN authorization and proceeded to attack and invade Iraq. The Bush administration sought to justify its illegal actions on the basis of Security Council Resolution 678, a 1990 resolution that authorized 'all necessary means' to uphold previous resolutions related to Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait and to restore peace and security in the area. The resolution authorized the use of force unless Iraq fully complied with previous Council resolutions by January 15, 1991. This resolution was used as legal justification for the attack against Iraq on that date by the US-led coalition and also by the Bush II administration for its attack in March 2003. While the justification is relevant, at least legally, to the 1991 Gulf War, it is basically used as sophistry in relation to the 2003 attack...' www.usiraqprocon.org

On resolution 687: 'The argument that the council alone is authorized to decide how to deal with a violation of Resolution 687 is bolstered by the text of the resolution itself. Paragraph 34 says: "The Security Council decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required." This language indicates that the decision to use "all necessary means" is left to the Security Council—not to individual states.' www.worldpress.org

On Resolution 1441, not even the US saw it as legal justification for the invasion: 'At that time, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte said: "This resolution contains no 'hidden triggers' and no 'automaticity' with respect to the use of force. If there is a further Iraqi breach, reported to the council by UNMOVIC, the IAEA, or a Member State, the matter will return to the council for discussion….[But] if the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of further Iraqi violations, this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce the relevant United Nations resolutions and protect world peace and security."'

In other words, the US did not invade Iraq on the basis of Resolution 1441, but of pre-emptive self-defence (a basis which turned out to be mistaken, to put it mildly). Resolution 1441 was not used by the US as a justification, and certainly did not make it necessary for the US to invade.


In short, if the UN found Hussein to have missed deadlines, obstructed inspectors or whatever, it was - legally - up to the UN to decide on the next step, not Bush.

You might try to justify Bush's decision to invade on pragmatic grounds, or moral ones - but then you face the problem that there was no imminently threatening arsenal of WMD, and thus hundreds of thousands have died for no good reason. Bush was out on a limb legally, which he might have gotten away with, but he has blown it, catastrophically, in practical terms too.

'On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.'
Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

quote:

Originally posted by newnickname:
Un petit scoop sur Bush, Chirac, Dieu, Gog et Magog

He's looking in the wrong place.They are buried under some hills ( I'm typing this in a house on one) south of Cambridge, England. The Gog Magog Hills rise to a dizzy 71m (234 feet, yes, two hundred ) above sea level. He can find statues of Gog and Magog in the City of London, in the Guildhall. You don't suppose he's going to bomb here,in some confused moment, do you ?