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It doesn't ban the president from using the US Military to aid an Iraqi organization in liberating Iraq, which is what was done beginning in 2003 (Iraqi National Congress).[/url]
The bill specifically limits the expense to $97 million. Would you care to provide us with an estimate - did Bush's Folly exceed that figure? Rough numbers are fine.
And the Iraqi National Congress, oh my. Ahmed Chalabi, I'd almost forgotten that little unprintable. Another GWB foreign policy success. It turned out that if you promise someone they'll get to run Iraq if there's evidence of WMD, they will provide evidence of WMD. Who could have predicted that?
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If Blix didn't support US Military action in Iraq, he shouldn't have been reporting to the UN as late as the end of January 2003 that Iraq was still violating UN sanctions, and that there were still unaccounted for Iraqi WMD materials and weapons.
Blix operated under the endearingly naive assumption that the US had decent intelligence regarding WMD and were interested in his findings. Of course, as it became evident from Blix's reports that the US intelligence was worse than useless, he was pulled out - on US' insistence - before being allowed to finish the job.
Sure. But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, yet somehow during the year of 2002, they got solidly linked in the minds of a lot of Americans.
Not at all. Al Q. could have only dreamed of having a propaganda arm like the one run by Murdoch.
They don't need a Murdock. Their propaganda machine, is the most powerful, word of mouth. Not a hard sell, if you think about it.
Osama bin Laden was tried in the court of public opinion. All one has to do to know that is true is to pull up the broadcast of all the networks coverage of 9/11.
The bill specifically limits the expense to $97 million. Would you care to provide us with an estimate - did Bush's Folly exceed that figure? Rough numbers are fine.
The Bush Admin asked for and got appropriations that fulfilled the stated mission of Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act.
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And the Iraqi National Congress, oh my. Ahmed Chalabi, I'd almost forgotten that little unprintable. Another GWB foreign policy success. It turned out that if you promise someone they'll get to run Iraq if there's evidence of WMD, they will provide evidence of WMD. Who could have predicted that?
How does that disqualify the INC as an opposition organization under Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act? It doesn't.
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Blix operated under the endearingly naive assumption that the US had decent intelligence regarding WMD and were interested in his findings.
Blix reported his own findings to the UN. Blix reported 6,500 unaccounted for Iraqi vx agent (nerve gas) bombs, and the fact that Iraq was violating UN sanctions by importing weapons materials as late as December 2002.
The Bush Admin asked for and got appropriations that fulfilled the stated mission of Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act.
A weird post from someone who just spent 3 pages arguing that the 1998 act authorized the Iraq invasion. Why would the Iraq War Resolution be necessary?
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How does that disqualify the INC as an opposition organization under Clinton's 1998 Iraq Liberation Act? It doesn't.
Absolutely. Under the 1998 act, Chalabi's organization could have received support up to $97M. But - that's not exactly what happened, is it?
The 1998 act was carefully written to not let some overeager warmonger decide on a land, sea and air invasion. Even the GWB administration had the integrity to ask for and get a resolution that authorized military force against Iraq.
Clinton and Bush Senior both expressed a desire for regime change in Iraq. It's just that - neither of them being idiots - they abstained from an Iraq invasion. It's the difference between wanting a Fidel Castro gone and the Bay of Pigs - only GWB's Bay of Pigs was costlier and ultimately had a worse outcome.
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Blix reported his own findings to the UN. Blix reported 6,500 unaccounted for Iraqi vx agent (nerve gas) bombs, and the fact that Iraq was violating UN sanctions by importing weapons materials as late as December 2002.
Those rocket engines were then publicly destroyed, as I'm sure you know. UNMOVIC found no evidence of WMD programs, no evidence of a nuclear program and no positive evidence of any WMD except for 50 liters of mustard gas, some empty warheads and some precursor chemicals.
Since then, after a decade of occupation and colossal loss of lives, limbs and treasure: 5,000 shells in different degrees of decay, all of them left over from before 1991.
Incidentally, I looked for a source for the December 2002 report, - can you provide one?
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Your lame excuses are a joke.
As jokes go, the Iraq War was not a very funny one.
The only failure on Bush's part, was believing in the intelligence he was handed. Every thing that happened after that was the domino effect. Which in essence as you have pointed out, has left us with egg on our face.
Bush's administration purposely ignored intelligence contrary to their public story and highlighted low-quality intelligence. We can't treat this as an innocent failure unless we refuse to hold Bush responsible for appointing: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Condoleeza Rice, and Colin Powell.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Because as late as the end of January 2003, Hans Blix was reporting unaccounted for Iraqi WMD materials and weapons to the UN.
Unaccounted for materials from a weapons program dismantled a decade earlier. Materials found by UNMOVIC Inspectors on the ground, inspecting Iraqi facilities, and not being impeded by Iraq.
Perhaps your out-of-context statement is as misleading as you hope it will be. In January 2003, UNMOVIC inspectors were in Iraq, monitoring and verifying compliance w/ Iraq's obligations under UNSC resolutions.
Blix Feb. 2003:
"In my 27 January update to the Council, I said that it seemed from our experience that Iraq had decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, most importantly prompt access to all sites and assistance to UNMOVIC in the establishment of the necessary infrastructure. This impression remains, and we note that access to sites has so far been without problems, including those that had never been declared or inspected, as well as to Presidential sites and private residences."
Less than 2 months after the invasion Blix publicly indicated that he thought that Iraq had no WMD.
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Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Again, if Hans Blix didn't support military action in Iraq (and it wasn't just the US, it was a coalition), perhaps he shouldn't have reported to the UN in late January 2003 that Iraq still had unaccounted for WMD materials and weapons.
Blix's role was to head UNMOVIC and report on progress. He did that, and explained that they had found isolated materials from the old program, inspections were continuing, and Iraq was not hampering the inspectors.
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Originally Posted by cachibatches
Syria can and has built their own WMD regardless.
It is now common knowlege that up to 5000 poison gas shell were found, as well as the 500 tons of yellowcake which we knew was there, and duel use high explosive which is itself WMD. There were almost certainly another few thousand shells that were destroyed by US military without being declared.
It was all from the 80s, but a lot of it was still functional.
I linked all the articles, explained why it was downplayed, and debunked all the usual canards, and do not intend to do it all again. See follwing thread:
While it is significant that unsecured old munitions can be located and used by insurgents (although by the sounds of the NY Times article they will probably harm themselves more than they will be able to deploy them against US interests). But these old munitions do not provide anything like support for the claims made by the Bush Administration in the run up to Iraq. I think these revelations are only damning--they show that not only were there no active weapons programs, but the invasion planning and execution failed to provide adequate facilities and training for troops to protect themselves against exposure to old munitions (and even after the old munitions were discovered to have active chemical agents, failed to share that information with ordinance disposal teams and medical teams).
Also, keep in mind that the vast majority of the old chemical munitions were unusable militarily. They were no longer WMDs, but a small (though significant) percentage were essentially active toxic waste.
As to the nuclear material, it was secured in the early 90s by the IAEA. Getting it out of country was necessary because the invasion destabilized Iraq.
There is simply no evidence that Iraq was pursuing a dirty bomb, building centrifuges, or had any active WMD program at all. The "dual-use" explosives had been secured by IAEA and were part of the old weapons programs. The invasion itself unsecured them. There were no centrifuges.
What you are saying is that Bush "had to" invade a country that didn't need invading at all, before the hot summer was upon us. So, he lied to the American people to achieve that goal. Yet, we ended up being in that country for may hot summers. I agree.
Exactly. That's why he didn't let Hans Blix finish his job. He would have lost the opportunity to start a needless vanity war.
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