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The buck always stops somewhere else with these guys, doesn't it?
Apparently so. Bush had been President for TWO YEARS before the Iraq invasion even STARTED.
Yeah, the intelligence was bad (as gathered under BOTH Administrations) - but it's STILL the President who makes the DECISION what to DO based on that intelligence. There were plenty of other options besides an invasion - BUSH decided to invade (the most extreme response). That was his call to make (that's part of the job after all) - but it was a really EXPENSIVE decision (both in blood AND treasure) - and in truth completely unnecessary.
Top United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council today that over the past month Iraq has displayed "active" or even "proactive" cooperation, which has allowed the inspection process to make significant progress, although a number of key disarmament tasks remained to be resolved.
Addressing (http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusnewsiraq.asp?NewsID=414&sID=6 - broken link) a ministerial-level meeting of the Council, Mr. Blix cited in particular Baghdad's move to begin UN-supervised destruction of the Al Samoud 2 missiles, which had been declared by Iraq last year, but were later found to be outside the permissible range by UN experts.
"The destruction undertaken constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament - indeed the first since the middle of the 1990's," Mr. Blix said. "We are not watching the breaking of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed."
Of course, that sort of news suggests that we needed to invade a couple of weeks later. Hussein had clearly not cooperated, and Hans Blix was either a collaborator or completely deluded, as our subsequent finding of an active and dangerous WMD program showed, right?
Yeah but Saddam was playing a double game. On the one hand he cooperated with the UN inspectors - and then on the other had he was dropping hints that he was was deceiving them. It's pretty clear in hindsight what was going on - and Saddam even admitted as much, as did his generals (who believed all along that Saddam DID have a secret stash of WMD's - right up until they BEGGED him to release the weapons to them so that they could use them in their defensive campaign, at which point Saddam ADMITTED to his deception).
Yeah but Saddam was playing a double game. On the one hand he cooperated with the UN inspectors - and then on the other had he was dropping hints that he was was deceiving them. It's pretty clear in hindsight what was going on - and Saddam even admitted as much, as did his generals (who believed all along that Saddam DID have a secret stash of WMD's - right up until they BEGGED him to release the weapons to them so that they could use them in their defensive campaign, at which point Saddam ADMITTED to his deception).
It's all be pretty well documented now.
Ken
Ken, I'm going to ask you to provide some of the documentation on this, that Saddam Hussein was dropping open hints to his subordinates and his country that he did have an active WMD program during the runup to the war while still providing enough cooperation with UN inspectors for them to say to the Security Council that Hussein's cooperation was "proactive."
Ken, I'm going to ask you to provide some of the documentation on this, that Saddam Hussein was dropping open hints to his subordinates and his country that he did have an active WMD program during the runup to the war while still providing enough cooperation with UN inspectors for them to say to the Security Council that Hussein's cooperation was "proactive."
Here you go (direct from the FBI):
Saddam misled the world into believing that he had weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to the war because he feared another invasion by Iran, but he did fully intend to rebuild his WMD program.
As I said, it's pretty well documented that Saddam was conning both the world at large (including - in fact especially - Iran) AND his own generals.
It was a HUGE bluff on his part - that eventually blew up in his face.
Ken
Last edited by LordBalfor; 02-21-2011 at 06:32 PM..
Saddam misled the world into believing that he had weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to the war because he feared another invasion by Iran, but he did fully intend to rebuild his WMD program.
As I said, it's pretty well documented that Saddam was conning both the world at large (including - in fact especially - Iran) AND his own generals.
It was a HUGE bluff on his part - that eventually blew up in his face.
Ken
And on the other hand we have UN inspectors who are stating that Saddam was actively cooperating with the weapons inspectors, and statements from Saddam to the world that he had disarmed (as useless as his word was worth).
I really don't recall any stories at the time where Saddam was saying to anybody that he actually did have any program at all. I think this is pretty revisionist history. A secondhand story told by an FBI interrogator years after the fact isn't quite a substitute for anything first-hand stories from the time.
And on the other hand we have UN inspectors who are stating that Saddam was actively cooperating with the weapons inspectors, and statements from Saddam to the world that he had disarmed (as useless as his word was worth).
I really don't recall any stories at the time where Saddam was saying to anybody that he actually did have any program at all. I think this is pretty revisionist history. A secondhand story told by an FBI interrogator years after the fact isn't quite a substitute for anything first-hand stories from the time.
Saddam didn't SAY IT - in fact, publically he said just the opposite. What he DID do was purposely LEAK fake information to known US sources that hinted that the UN inspectors were being tricked. He also assured his generals that he DID have a stockpile of hidden WMD's. As I said, postwar interviews with numerous Iraqi generals all tell the same story. Upon the imminent invasion of Iraq his generals met with him & asked him to release the stockpiled WMD's - and then were STUNNED when Saddam admitted there were NONE. General after general told the very same story when interviewed after the war.
It's NOT revisionist history - it's merely bringing to light what previously only Saddam & (later) his generals knew at the time.
As I said, Saddam WANTED us to think he had the WMD's. He really didn't think that we would invade. It was a HUGE miscalculation on his part - all well documented now by the postwar interviews with Saddam & his generals.
Rumsfeld: If we'd known there were no WMDs, we probably wouldn't have invaded
Rummy, Dick and Dubya had LOTS of intel people telling them that Iraq had no WMDs. They invaded anyway. I mean, what the heck, right? They didn't have any family members serving. No skin off their noses. Besides, taking out Saddam was good for their Saudi pals.
Turns out it was good for Iran, too. Oh, well...
These bums will never be honest about why they really wanted to invade. I'm convinced it was to keep Iraq's oil off the market.
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Rumsfeld: If we'd known there were no WMDs, we probably wouldn't have invaded
