Originally Posted By gadzuux >> Tony Blair and Howard from Austrailia are also big suckers duped by the " idiot " from Crawford Texas? << No. Remember the 'downing street memo'? The brits got it right - bush and his gang have already decided to go to war, and are now "fixing" the intelligence to support their pre-conceived agenda. And you're saying that they're wrong?
Originally Posted By cmpaley You mean the preconceived agenda that's been on the table since the late 1990's? The one where invading Iraq is one of the first things that need to be done?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <And you're saying that they're wrong?> I think you're reading way more into the Downing Street memo than was there.
Originally Posted By gadzuux <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0" target="_blank">http://www.timesonline.co.uk/a rticle/0</a>,,2087-1593607,00.html Direct quote - >> C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action. << It's there, douglas.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy Gadzuux, have you ever noticed that everything you base your opinions on regarding the war and Bush are all unprovable theories from people on the left? Everything is one big scandal and conspiracy with the left. Fact is, what Bush tells you, is what is actually going on. I know that reality destroys your entire life theory, but it's the truth.
Originally Posted By StillThePassHolder "If the memo's authentic, it's still one person's opinion." Translation: "I stubbornly refuse to acknowledge anything that contradicts me."
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> you base your opinions on regarding the war and Bush are all unprovable theories from people on the left? << Um - the 'downing street memo' is from british intelligence - are they on the "left"? Or is anything that contradicts bush considered "left"?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Um - the 'downing street memo' is from british intelligence> Is it? Have they confirmed its authenticity?
Originally Posted By gadzuux Well we went to war with iraq, so I'd say they were pretty accurate - yeah.
Originally Posted By gadzuux You doubt that the memo is from MI6? Really? This thing made worldwide news for weeks, and I never heard it's authenticity challenged - til now.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <You doubt that the memo is from MI6?> I have no idea. I do know that Prime Minister Blair said he didn't believe that intelligence was being "fixed", and that the Butler Report found no evidence that the intelligence against Iraq was "sexed up". The memo I read sure sounded like the people attending the meeting sure believed that Saddam was a threat to the civilized world.
Originally Posted By ElKay Beau: "The voters made this VERY clear last election. The anti war crowd had their butt kicked at the polls." ElKay: "2004 Election--USA Today Bush 51% Kerry 48%" Beau: "When the ENTIRE media ( well 90% ) was against Bush, forged documents hit the news 55 days before the election, it's a miracle Bush didn't lose by 20 million votes." You can't admit your comments are foolish, so you totally change your response. Talk about tinfoil alerts. YOU should be afraid of helicopters, they'll throw a net over you.
Originally Posted By ElKay Dougie: "Please show me one intelligence document that casts doubts on Iraq's WMD capacity that the President had that Sen Graham didn't have." What's your security clearance level, Dougie? gadzuux is 100% correct when he brought to your attention that the public nor the media has access to those documents, unless they are declassified by the Admin. We have to take the word of the members on the Intel. Committee that they didn't have the same access to intel that the President had. What is clear, however, is the fact Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy, and Powell had the ability to get access to all of the CIA's assessments whenever they wanted. That is not the case for individual members of Congress, especially Dems who are on the record as opposing the Admin's. policies. Congress doesn't get access to the Presidential Daily Briefings which is a summary of each day's intel intercepts and raw assessments of their meaning. The Admin. on two occassions pre-9/11 and involving the Saddam-bin Laden association PDA had evidence to the contrary that they choose to ignore or spin. So, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that there could have been intel. that Bush choose to ignore or likewise spin. Don't forget the Curveball intel. Clearly, the CIA and DIA had serious reservations of the verasity of Curveball. The German intel. service has recently gone on the record to say they warned the CIA of their lack of confidenct that Curveball was telling the truth. Why didn't Tenant or Condi or Cheney release those reservations to Congress. Why did they keep repeating those discredited allegations over and over again as "proof" of WMD programs in Iraq? Also, on the aluminum tubes that Cheney said were proof positive of a nuke program. Serious doubts were raised by the Energy Dept. that the tubes could have been used for bomb making. Dispite those reservations, that dissent by the Fed. agency responsible for our own nuke program was NEVER relayed to Congress. So Dougie, your assumption is off the mark to question the Dem members of the Intel. Committee not having exactly the same info that the President had. Bush is blatenly misrepresenting the truth of this when he claims otherwise. Truely, it's Bush who's re-writing history, not the Dems.
Originally Posted By ElKay crapshoot, post#159: "Actually, both sides of the aisle agreed that the combat opps against Hussein's Army went like clockwork. But then neither side of that same aisle predicted or calculated the overwhelming threat of the insurgency." Don't be so sure about that assessment. I was reading the Downing St. Memos (<a href="http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/836" target="_blank">http://www.afterdowningstreet. org/?q=node/836</a> ) and it looks like the Brits had serious doubts of the Admin's ability to execute this attack, going back to March 2002! "This could be critically important. I[Manning, UK foreign affairs advisor] think there is a real risk that the Administration underestimates the difficulties. They may agree that failure isn’t an option, but this does not mean that they will avoid it. Will the Sunni majority really respond to an uprising led by Kurds and Shias? Will Americans really put in enough ground troops to do the job if the Kurdish/Shi’ite stratagem fails? Even if they do will they be willing to take the sort of casualties that the Republican Guard may inflict on them if it turns out to be an urban war, and Iraqi troops don’t conveniently collapse in a heap as Richard Perle and others confidently predict? They need to answer there and other tough questions, in a more convincing way than they have so far before concluding that they can do the business." Crapshoot: "Would more troops have helped in reducing the threat? It's kind of doubtful since weeding them out of a large crowd is even hard for the Iraqi citizens to do. Not every square meter of the country can be watched for bombs being planted, no matter the size of the force in place." You forget about then Chief of Staff, Gen. Shinseki. He was asked his assessment on the number of troops needed to occupy post-war Iraq. He said it would take "serveral hundreds of thousands of troops. .. ". Gen. Shinseki was the US commander in the UN Bosian peacekeeping force, which hadn't lost a soldier in the whole operation. Rummy and Wolfowitz shot down Gen. Shinseki's estimates as "wildly off the mark" and questioned his judgement by asking: why would it take more soldiers to secure Iraq than it will take to overthrow Saddam? The fact of the matter was Saddam kept a tight lid on almost all aspects of Iraqi society, with a huge security apparatus that watched for opposition activity. By cutting off the head of that security apparatus, we caused a violent "decompression" in the whole of their society. That allowed the looting and ability to settle old scores with local enemies. Think of the LA Riots of 1992, with the LAPD not enforcing the laws. Having a large contigent of occupation troops (not necessarily all Americans, better to have use Arab peacekeepers), the Iraqi would have felt "comfortable" that everything is back to "normal", just Saddam's gone. The Pentagon has admitted that the lack of sufficent troops had allowed huge stockpiles of unguarded munitions to be used to kill our troops. Also each time we clear out a village or region, we don't have the troops to prevent insergents from coming back and causing trouble over and over again. "They are a low tech enemy force who has no radar, has minimal survellience capabilities and can go undetected while conducting their raids." So what, they likewise use low tech means of survellience against our troops. They use the civilian population that are sympathetic to their cause. In many respects having 1,000s of pairs of eyes and cell phones is more effective than all of the high tech equipment in the world. "The only method of truly combating such an enemy is to find and eliminate their sources of funding." That didn't work in Vietnam, why would it work in Iraq? As you said earlier, we're facing a low tech enemy. This enemy has 1,000s of people who are willing to die trying (mostly unsuccessfully, but enough) to kill our troops. The explosives are plentiful thanks to too few troops to guard them and small payments to the bomber's family will keep the pipeline of bombers flowing for years to come. The insergents don't need to field and equip a large regular army to fight us. All they need is a core of "full timers" directing the bombing and a whole host of "part timers" willing to give up their lives to force us out. What will dry up the "pipeline" of bombers is if we can show that we can improve their family's standard of living at a higher level than the small death benefits that are being paid out by the insergent leaders. So far, Bush and Rummy are not doing a terrific job. Without a realible electrical, water, and fuel systems, average Iraqi can't hope to rebuild their lives or reap the benefits of getting rid of Saddam.
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<What is clear, however, is the fact Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy, and Powell had the ability to get access to all of the CIA's assessments whenever they wanted.>> Yes, and they determined that Saddam was a threat and needed to be removed. Why is that such a huge problem to the left? Why do they insist Saddam should still be in power. These same people would DEMAND a local police chief be fired if he was caught making gay slurs, yet Saddam the mass murder was just fine to remain in power for the next 50 years? Nice logic from the tinfoil moonbat crowd. Clinton had the highest level of intellegence and he said Saddam was a threat, but Clinton was a chickenhawk also I suppose.... where is the attacks on Bubba from the " outraged " leftists? Elkay, nothing you ever say ever stands up to simple logic.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <We have to take the word of the members on the Intel. Committee that they didn't have the same access to intel that the President had.> So show me a quote from one that said that. <What is clear, however, is the fact Bush, Cheney, Condi, Rummy, and Powell had the ability to get access to all of the CIA's assessments whenever they wanted.> I've heard that members of the Intelligence committee have the same ability. <The Admin. on two occassions pre-9/11 and involving the Saddam-bin Laden association PDA had evidence to the contrary that they choose to ignore or spin.> According to who? I've read that, if anything, the PDA's were more alarming than what was in the NIE's. <Also, on the aluminum tubes that Cheney said were proof positive of a nuke program. Serious doubts were raised by the Energy Dept. that the tubes could have been used for bomb making. Dispite those reservations, that dissent by the Fed. agency responsible for our own nuke program was NEVER relayed to Congress.> Let's see what Lawrence Wilkerson,chief of staff to Sec. Powell, and critic of the Iraq invasion, said about the tubes: "The French came in in the middle of my deliberations at the CIA and said, we have just spun aluminum tubes, and by God, we did it to this rpm, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all, you know, proof positive that the aluminum tubes were not for mortar casings or artillery casings, they were for centrifuges. Otherwise, why would you have such exquisite instruments?"
Originally Posted By Beaumandy <<I've heard that members of the Intelligence committee have the same ability.>> Senator Rockefellar had it and so did many other democrats who voted for the war based on it being popular then. <<According to who? I've read that, if anything, the PDA's were more alarming than what was in the NIE's.>> What I want to know from the left who claim Bush had hidden evidence, is exactly what would these " hidden " documents say that would have made the spine of steel democrats change their vote to a no vote on the war? This information that they say Bush had hidden from them must have been incredible. Until the moonbats provide the documents that they claim Bush hid from them, they need to grow a pair and stop claiming defeat when our military is winning. It's getting old and the public is starting to actually see the liberals for who they are... which is a good thing.
