President George W. Bush is accusing his Iraq War critics of rewriting history and endangering U.S. troops. In a Veterans Day speech at an Army depot in Pennsylvania, the president said Democrats and other critics who claim he manipulated pre-war intelligence to justify war are flinging "false charges." He called them "baseless attacks," and said they send the wrong signal to U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as an enemy bent on shaking America's will.
No wonder a majority of American's think Bush is a liar. He simply cannot stop lying. It is without dispute that his administration lied America into Iraq. There were no WMD there as he claimed, there were no nukes there as he claimed, there were no ties to Al-Qaeda as he claimed, Iraq did not attack us on 9-11 as he claimed, the war was not going to make us safer as he claimed, and muslims were not going to embrace American imposed Democracy as he claimed.
For a proven liar to mount a "comeback" by continuing the same lies when time has proven them false is sickening. For Bush and Cheney to use the troops for this campaign style activity on Veteran's Day, and to speak for them, when both of them ran like cowards from the front line is even more sickening.
The fact that many Democrats and other Americans once believed his wild claims about the need for a pre-emptive war does not prove that Bush was right, it proves that Bush is an effective liar.
More liberal politics at Alpha Liberal Blog, News, and Opinion.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - DJRadiohead
In the spirit of Eric's wishes that we comment on the posts we read... I don't agree with all (or necessarily even most) of your post but I also don't want to get into any flaming arguments. I generally shy away from the Politics section (although there are these times when I allow myself to be sucked in).
Anyway... I appreciate your taking the time to make your voice heard. I know many share your sentiments even if I am not one of them.
2 - alienboy
Well, really lay your views on the line, dontcha?
3 - Mark
The intelligence, as every Democrat also believed, showed WMD and Saddam said he had WMD. We have found cyclosarin and other WMD. The others may easily have been moved. We have found enriched uranium, Iraq, as even Joe Wilson found WAS trying to buy uranium in Africa. So, no lies there.
Well, yes there were ties to Al-Qaeda and terror. Saddam was paying for suicide bombers, his son was named as representative to Al-Qaeda, and Zarqawi was training and living there, with Abu Nidal. The 1993 World Trade Center bombers were living in Baghdad and traveled on Iraqi passports.
Iraq did not attack us on 9-11 as he claimed. Why are you lying? He didn't EVER make this claim.
Can you see the future? We were attacked because we did nothing when hit through the '90's. The war is making us much safer.
The Iraqis did greet our soldiers as liberators and most still do want them there for a while. They are adapting to Western style democracy quite well.
So, maybe you should look in the mirror before calling someone a liar.
4 - balletshooz
"The intelligence, as every Democrat also believed"
I guess you didnt bother reading the post. Bush LIED, Some Democrats believed him --not all. It is proven he hid intelligence he didnt like, so since he was succesful in lying to the Democrats, this is evidence he is not a liar? sounds far-fetched to me.
5 - David
When Bush accuses his Iraq War critics of rewriting history, lying and endangering U.S. troops, you can bet it is BUSH who has been re-writing history, lying and endangering US troops. A common Karl Rove tactic is to loudly and repeatedly accuse others of what they themselves are doing. No wonder 57% of Americans think Bush is dishonest.
Balletshooz: "It is without dispute that his administration lied America into Iraq. There were no WMD there as he claimed, there were no nukes there as he claimed, there were no ties to Al-Qaeda as he claimed, Iraq did not attack us on 9-11 as he claimed, the war was not going to make us safer as he claimed, and muslims were not going to embrace American imposed Democracy as he claimed."
Bush lied and defrauded Congress about why he took the US to war. Read George Bush's official Presidential Letter to Congress on March 18, 2003 to declare war on Iraq Compare it with what we know today that the Bush admin probably knew long before that date.
Bush's fraudulent letter was based on lies and other false impressions. These facts were all available to the Bush administration before March 18, 2003:
- In March 2003, Iraq was not a threat or continuing threat to the US national security (even Iraq's neighbors, including Kuwait, said Iraq was not a threat anymore; Colin Powell and Condi Rice said something similar in 2001).
- Iraq had not been involved in 9/11.
- Iraq had no relationship with al Qaeda and terrorist organizations (the major terrorist group in Iraq was operating in the Northern no-fly zone area under US and Kurdish control).
- Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (virtually all destroyed in 1991 and 1992; the UN Inspectors, CIA and MI-5 interogated Iraq's WMD program chief in the mid 1990s in Jordan).
- Virtually all UN Security Council resolutions were fulfilled before the war (the few outstanding issues required only a few months from being completely fulfilled according to the UN inspectors).
- The UN and its weapons inspectors said that diplomatic and other peaceful means had been working reasonably well with Iraq in March 2003.
- To avoid war, Saddam Hussein had even tried to make a deal with the US before the war (give the US whatever it wanted including oil rights and go to exile in Qatar or another country) but the Bush admin rejected Saddam’s offer.
Now the Bush admin is setting up a case to invade Syria and/or Iran. Who benefits most? Osama Bin Laden is sitting in a cave laughing. So is Israel, which has been encouraging the US to attack all three countries. The consequences so far are that the probability of terrorism has increased for innocent Americans and Britons.
6 - RedTard
"A common Karl Rove tactic is to loudly and repeatedly accuse others of what they themselves are doing. No wonder 57% of Americans think Bush is dishonest."
How strange, I had picked that as your tactic. Keep repeating the phrase "Bush lied" until all the left wing sheep believe it. By the way, you are doing a great job, opinion has started to shift against the prez. Some of your real loons even protest at military funerals and harass disabled vets. Not even Rush Limbaugh has gotten the right to sink that low...yet.
The world goes round on lies and extremist propaganda. Isn't it a great place!
7 - David
If anyone is still not convinced that the Bush admin defrauded Americans and the UN about Iraq's non-existent WMDs:
Yes the Bush admin lied on WMDs
I have more information that proves the Bush admin should have known that Iraq had no WMDs.
As for some of Mark's comments:
- Saddam didn't say he had WMDs prior to the illegal US-led invasion. Saddam kept repeating that he didn't have any, but the Bush admin kept claiming Saddam was lying. Saddam Hussein did disclose, in the fall of 2002, detailed documentation regarding the destruction of his WMDs, WMD programs, and offensive delivery systems as required. In addition, the U.S. government now admits that Saddam had in fact disarmed as much as a decade earlier. So, at the time of the invasion, the Iraqi government had already disclosed and disarmed, and was thereby in compliance with the major provisions of UN Security Council resolution 1441. Diplomacy had, in fact, worked. Who is the liar today? It's difficult to say this, but Saddam Hussein has become more honest than George Bush.
- The Democrats, who should have been more critical, were duped by the Bush admin. In any case, Congress was not given the full intelligence, which contained the dissents and caveats. The Bush admin further exaggerated the already exaggerated intelligence on Iraq's non-existent WMDs. There were contradictory intelligence and numerous dissentors in the intelligence community who were shut out because the Bush admin had already decided to go to war regardless of the intelligence. The Bush admin failed to show any evidence that Iraq still had chemical weapons or any other WMDs for at least five years prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion. Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNMOVIC's predecessor agency, the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), declared that Iraq was 'fundamentally disarmed' as early as 1996. Given that it was only as a result of the import of technology and raw materials from the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany and France that Iraq was able to develop its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs in the 1980s in the first place, the Bush admin was never able to make a credible case how Iraq could reconstitute such programs, as long as sanctions remained in effect.
- Where did the US find cyclosarin? Are you talking about the one sarin chemical artillery shell that the US military found rigged as an improvised explosive device? That sarin shell is not part of a secret WMD cache. It is believed to have been a dud fired a long time ago, a single left over from the past. Remember that Iraq once had a chemical weapons program and used such weapons against the Iranians " so Iraq is an archaeological site for such shells. There have been many claims of sarin and other chemical weapons finds trumpeted in the news, but later all have been quietly shown to be negative. So many people still believe Judy Millers lies about chemical weapons finds. No hidden sarin has been found as far as I recall. What is the source or details of your story, Mark?
- Even if chemical weapons were moved and hidden, they would be useless after a few years bacuse they have a short shelf live. So once Iraq's chemical weapons factories were destroyed in the early 1990s, any hidden chemical weapons have become useless a long time ago.
- Where did the US find enriched uranium in Iraq that was not under UN protection? There is no evidence of Iraqis hid enriched uranium from the UN in 2003.
- Joe Wilson did not find any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium in Africa. Is the Weekly Standard still pimping those forged documents claiming he did?
- There is no evidence to support the Bush admin's claims that Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda, and they were forced to stop using that lie. However, incredibly, Dick Cheney still kept repeating the lies for several more months.
- Saddam had no known ties to operational terrorist groups in recent years. According to both U.S. government agencies and independent researchers, Iraqi support for terrorism primarily took place in the 1980s, when the United States was quietly supporting the regime, and had dropped off dramatically since then. No significant Iraqi links have been found to Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups that currently threaten the United States. The terror group that the Bush admin claims has ties to Saddam operated in Northern Iraqi in the no-fly zone areas under the control of the Kurds and US airforce. Saddam had no control over them.
- Saddam did not pay suicide bombers, that was also a Bush admin lie. Saddam gave money to the families of Palestinians killed by Israelis after the individuals were killed and houses demolished, regardless of who the killed people were (most were not suicide bombers). The money Saddam Hussein transferred to the Arab Liberation Front " the tiny Palestinian faction that passed some funds on to families of suicide bombers " was relatively insignificant: it went to only a small minority of the families, it was less than what they generally received from U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. What a charitable man.
- What evidence do you have that Saddam's son was named as representative to Al-Qaeda? All evidence points to the lack of a relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime.
- The Bush admin misled you when they said Zarqawi was training and living there. First of all, the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his followers were not based in Baghdad, but in the far northeastern corner of Iraq inside the Kurdish safe havens established by the United Nations in 1991 and US no-fly zones, well beyond the control of the Saddam's government. The only evidence the Bush Administration has been able to put forward linking the al-Zarqawi terror network to the Iraqi capital was a brief stay that al-Zarqawi had in a Baghdad hospital at the end of 2001, apparently having been smuggled by supporters into the country from Iran and smuggled out days later. Secondly, not only was the Khurmal area in Kurdish areas far outside of Saddam's reach, but journalists who visited the supposed poisons factory within hours of it being identified by Bush Administration officials from satellite photos found nothing remotely resembling such a facility. U.S. Special Forces that seized control of the area weeks later came to a similar conclusion. Finally, Zarqawi and his followers established a presence in Baghdad only after U.S. forces overthrew the Iraqi government in March 2003. In other words, the Bush led invasion brought Zarqawi to life. Good work George Bush, you created a very big terrorist.
- Saddam Hussein had Abu Nidal killed in his Baghdad apartment in 2002. At the time, Abu Nidal was retired and the Abu Nidal’s group was inactive for over a decade. Here is the hypocrisy: At the height of Iraq’s support for Abu Nidal, during the mid-1980s, the Reagan Administration dropped Iraq from its list of states sponsoring terrorism in order to sell arms and technology to Saddam Hussein’s regime that would have otherwise been illegal. So why is the Bush admin making a terrorist mountain out of a dead molehill?
- Mark: "The 1993 World Trade Center bombers were living in Baghdad and traveled on Iraqi passports" You got me there. Do you know which bombers lived in which of Saddam's palaces, how long they lived there, and whether they had real or forged passports?
- The Bush admin may not have directly said "Iraq attacked the US on 9-11" but they deliberately and repeated mentioned Iraq and 9/11 in in one breath to create a clear mental association. It's the same beer commercial trick -- beer bottles, boobs, beer bottles, boobs, sexy girls, beer, party time, beer... get it? Polls showed that the majority of Americans mistakenly believed Iraq was responsible for 9/11.
- The US was attacked by Arabs/Muslims on 9/11 because the US has been attacking or interfering in the Middle East for decades, supporting Israel's policies toward the Palestinians, exploiting their oil and resources, putting in power and supporting the Arab dictators, killing 1.5 milion Iraqis with sanctions, keeping a massive Us military force in the Middle East, etc.
- The war has not made Americans much safer. Most terrorism experts agree that the threat of terrorism has dramatically increased because of the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq. You just need 1% of the world's 1.2 billion muslims and Arabs to be angry to have 12 million potental terrorists. It doesn't take a genius to realize that Bush's actions have pissed far more than 12 milion Muslims.
- Initially, some Iraqis greeted US soldiers as liberators and others greeted them as occupiers. Within months, the US occupying force's own polls showed that Iraqis considered US troops to be occupiers and wanted them out. In the poll of who they would elect Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein was ranked third.
- The majority of Iraqis are not interested in Western-style democracy, they are simply trying to survive -- food, shelter, jobs, electricity, etc. all of which have worsened since the invasion. The democractic process so far has been a sham in many respects, but that's another issue.
- The Bush admin is hypocritical about the elections. In 2003, the Bush admin tried to delay elections in Iraq but Grand Ayatollah Sistani sent thousands of Iraqis to protest in the streets and threatened to issue a fatwa against the US puppet council. If the Shiites pulled out that would have been the end for the US so that's why elections were even held. Why did Sistani want elections? Because he knew his majority Shiites would win power in Iraq.
- The US invasion and subsequent elections have brought into power a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim government in Iraq allied with Iran, and whose key leaders were exiles in Iran before the invasion. In Saddam's secular Iraq, woman's rights were the most advanced in the Arab world.
Yup, the Bush administration is chockfull of liars who got the US into a mess in Iraq.
8 - Bennett
David - Comment #7 - YOU, need to start a blog and then start writing for BC. Or if you have a blog, get in here!
My two cents.
Great comment.
9 - Bennett
btw - Balleshooz - that animated gif is SO disturbing!!!
:-[
10 - Silas Kain
In all fairness, David, there was an underlying sentiment that anyone who dared criticize the Administration would suffer from voter retribution. Most Democrats feared losing their constituencies and exercised caution by going along with poll numbers. The Democrats have failed America on a Federal level. The GOP hasn't done much better especially when it comes to budget matters. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, denied an appeal by Democrat members to have oil executives swear an oath before his committee met to question the executives about rising energy prices. What is it that Ted Stevens has to hide? This is the same Senator who refused to turn back the millions of dollars allocated for that bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
11 - Dave Nalle
Anyone who thinks that the WMD issue is even vaguely relevant at this point is totally blinded by a partisan agenda which doesn't take the best interests of America, the Iraqi people or the world into account in even the slightest way.
Dave
12 - Silas Kain
I don't know why we're so preoccupied with uncovering whatever lies were told to get us into Iraq. Sooner or later Hussein had to go. I don't think anyone disagrees with that point. We're there now. We're invested in Iraq - militarily, financially and morally. There's plenty of time down the road to assign blame, if there need be any to dole out. In the meantime, however, we owe it to the Iraqi people and to ourselves to finish the job we started and leave them in better political shape than they were previously.
13 - TheKid
If one says that Bush lied, and therefore mislead all the poor Democrates, where does that leave Bill Clinton's assertions that Saddam was a threat to the U.S. two years before Bush took office?
Saddam was identified as a threat before 9/11, and before Bush took office. There is a rather long list of U.N. resolutions and sanctions that existed before the current Bush administration to back that up.
14 - Dave Nalle
Silas, I guess the question for some is whether going into Iraq was something we would ever have done had it not been for the WMD issue. But the truth is that someone would have had to deal with Iraq eventually, and it would likely have been us no matter what. Bush chose to take up that burden, and is paying the price for it. The unfortunate thing is that he's being pilloried by people who apparently don't acknowledge the idea that these problems have to be dealt with at all.
Dave
15 - alienboy
Anyone who thinks that the WMD issue is not even vaguely relevant at this point is totally blinded by a partisan agenda which doesn't take the best interests of America, the Iraqi people or the world into account in even the slightest way.
16 - Dr. Kurt
Some excellent info here.
Many of us are glad to see Saddam gone; I would've given everything I owned for the chance to shoot the bastard myself. The problem, indeed, is the hypocricy and distortions. We armed and supported Saddam. We destroyed democracy in Iran (read your history). We should be embarrased by the actions of our servants, who continue to disemble and, in the process, bankrupt us.
We could have helped the Iraqi people to help themselves - money, communications equipment, and weapons. Instead, we took their nation and their pride away from them. Does anyone really think that our ancestors would have meekly allowed the French to do that to/for us in 1777? Our public servants have shown stupidity and arrogance; we need to acknowledge that, and make things right.
17 - Michael
Here are my opinions:
This was a "War of Choice", there was no imminent threat to the United States.
Saddam Hussein was "cooperating" with weapon inspectors, which given time, would have stated Iraq has not reconstituted its weapons of mass destruction program.
Being patient and using war as A LAST RESORT (bush lie), congress and the american people would not have chosen to go to war because someday saddam would be a threat.
In all accounts, saddam was powerless and was puffing his chest.
Diligence would have saved American troops from death and mutilation.
Congress gave authority to deal with Saddam, war as A LAST RESORT.
We have lost the sympathy that we received after 9/11 to be seen as an imperliast, crusader to the muslim world. That is a complete utter failure by this administration to understand the world stage.
And to use Vetrans Day, Mr. Bus, please make that same speech in front of all the families that have lost sons and daughters next time.
War as a last resort, what complete bullshit!
18 - voltairean
Those damn democrats are always distorting the truth!
Iraq is the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,"
William E. Odom, Three star general and head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration
Thus, in March, 2003, Bush, in perhaps the greatest strategic blunder in U.S. history, invaded an Arab nation that had not attacked us, did not want war with us, and did not threaten us"to strip it of weapons we now know it did not have.
Result: Shia and Kurds have been liberated from Saddam, but Iran has a new ally in southern Iraq, Osama has a new base camp in the Sunni Triangle, the Arab and Islamic world have been radicalized against the United States, and copy-cat killers of Al Qaida have been targeting our remaining allies in Europe and the Middle East: Spain, Britain, Egypt and Jordan. And, lest we forget, 2055 Americans are dead and Walter Reed is filling up.
Pat Buchanan Nov. 10, 2005
“To this day I still don’t know why we went to war in Iraq.”
Richard Haass, director of the policy-planning staff at the State Department
“I can go through all the things we listed, from WMD to human rights to " I can go through it " terrorism, but I really can’t sit here and tell you, why we went to war in Iraq.”
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, USA (RET.)
FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, 2002-2005
"In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
Retired General Anthony Zinni
"But he wasn't really a threat. His Army was weak, and the country hadn't recovered from sanctions."
"This was said to be part of the war on terror, but Iraq feeds terrorism,"
Brent Scowcroft
19 - Baronius
In all accounts, saddam was powerless and was puffing his chest.
All accounts except for US, British, French, German, Israeli, and Russian intelligence (and the UN inspectors who found repeated violations when they were allowed in).
20 - David
#8 Bennett:
Your comments are very appreciated. Thanks. I don’t have a blog, because I don’t have consistent time to cultivate it. And if I did, I would probably have to write shorter comments, behave more cordially and be more facilitative rather than writing what’s necessary. I wish I could just start an occasional blog topic here, but I don’t think it’s allowed.
For example, it would be great to start a blog on the US military’s use of chemical weapons against Iraqi rebels and civilians in 2004 (click link to see video). Or Winston Churchill’s use of chemical weapons against Iraqi rebels in the early 1920s. After all, that mother of all evil, Saddam Hussein, also used his Western-acquired chemical weapons against insurgents and rebels to his regime during the 1980s, with the Reagan admin’s acquiescence. He too used the same reasons as the US military is using.
Or the use and impact of radioactive weapons by the US military in Iraq.
http://www.traprockpeace.org/depleted_uranium_children.html
How different is the US regime from Saddam's regime? Which is worse?
21 - Anthony Grande
Any Repulican, Democrat or Libertarian who claims that Clinton had a good presidency is re-writing history.
22 - David
#10 Silas Kain:
Silas, first of all, let me say that the Bush admin is the primary culprit who failed America. Most, not all, Congress people. military leaders and mainstream press who deliberately pimped the war knowing that it was unjustified are the secondary culprits who failed America and the world.
Imagine your neighbor, a Mafia family, tells you that they want to murder someone named John Smith because he has been molesting children in your neighborhood. You encourage and support what the Mafia family wants to do and keep silent even though you don't believe their claims. Your other neighbors also urge, encourage and support the Mafia family out of fear or because they see the Mafia family going to church and praying to God every Sunday. A few days later, John Smith's mutilated body is found floating in a nearby lake. You and your neighbors all abetted that grave crime. Of course, the primary criminals are the Mafia family who committed the murder, and we should never forget that. But they can't defend their crime by saying that their neighbors supported them.
Regardless, the Democrat politicians abetted grave war crimes and failed their constitutional responsibilities. Before the Iraq invasion and before even the Congressional vote, Congress members were informed by Traprock and other anti-war groups that the Bush admin's claims were at least dubious or even lies. Traprock used reports or dossiers written by Dr. Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge university expert who had done one of the most comprehensive and well researched analysis on Iraq's alleged WMDs (See Counter Dossier II in the link). Virtually all of his analysis is proven to be correct today, which means the information was available long before the invasion. On September 30, 2002, before Congress voted to give Bush power to declare war on Iraq, Traprock lobbyists visited the offices of most Congress members " Republicans and Democrats " to give them the facts and truth (e.g., Counter Dossier II) about the Bush admin's false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It's open to debate whether particular Members of Congress believed Bush's lies, or whether they voted for war for their own political reasons. But it is not debatable that they were clearly warned the Bush admin's claims were lies and misrepresentations.
It's true that Democrat Congress people, if they criticized the Bush admin in 2002 " 2003, feared retribution from voters. American voters were brainwashed by the Bush Administration's massive advertising public relations campaign to demonize Saddam's regime and build support for the war. The administration spent a few hundred million on that psyops campaign on Americans. But it was also easy for most Democrats to acquiesce because they had powerful political lobbies lobbying them to invade Iraq such as Israel, certain mega corporations and ant-Saddam Iraqi groups.
It's a sad state of affairs: the US is a pathetic example of a democracy. US citizens have no alternative except the Republicans and Democrats, and Ralph Nader sucks. The US political system is more a polyarchy, in which two political parties serve similar economic and political special interests. Citizens are manipulated and controlled with public relations campaigns and a relatively compliant mainstream press that helped create support for an unjustified invasion that even I knew was unjustified at the time.
_________________________________________________
#12 Silas Kain:
On the contrary, you should be preoccupied with uncovering whatever lies were told to get the US into an illegal, unjustified, unprovoked, costly, deadly and mass destructive invasion of a defenseless Iraq. Lies are the stuff of war criminals such as Adolf Hitler, and you don’t want America to be in that evil league do you? After all, Hitler used similar lies to justify his invasions in Europe.
Saddam Hussein was a CIA agent in the early 1960s and was supported by the Reagan and Carter administrations in the 1980s. Whether or not Saddam "had to go" sooner or later is for the Iraqi people to decide, not the US through an illegal war of aggression. I don’t care for Saddam's brutal methods, but it is clear that the US military applied as bad or worse methods in many cases, for similar reasons as Saddam did against Shiite and Kurdish rebels. Most people don't even know that during the 1980s, at the height of his atrocities with US help, secular Saddam Hussein's Iraq was considered one of the most advanced Arab countries in terms of health, education, social and women’s rights. Unlike most Arab countries, Saddam actually spent some oil money on Iraqis, partly to keep them from getting too unhappy. Today, Iraq is worse in basic necessities than even during Saddam's last days.
Let's not kid ourselves that we owe it to the Iraqi people to finish the job. Simon Jenkins writes: "No statement about Iraq is more absurd than that 'we must stay to finish the job.' What job? A dozen more Fallujahs? The thesis that leaving Iraq would plunge it into anarchy and warlordism defies the facts on the ground. Iraq south of Kurdistan is in a state of anarchy already, a land of suicide bombings, kidnapping, hijackings and gangland mayhem. There is no law or order, no public administration or police or proper banking. Its streets are Wild West. The occupying force is entombed in bases it can barely defend or supply. Occasional patrols are target practice for terrorists. Iraq is a desert in which the Americans and British rule nothing but their forts, like the French Foreign Legion in the Sahara." The unjustified job is done, and many Iraqis want the US military out of their country. The US military is simply mass murdering Sunni Iraqi Arabs for the Kurds and Shiites.
The US may be "there now. We're invested in Iraq - militarily, financially and morally" (you really mean "immorally") but that's not the point. The US needs to pay Iraq massive reparations, probably $200 billion, for the mess created. The US and Britain, as the aggressors, should be immediately removed from Iraq. Grave international war crimes of aggression were committed by US and British leaders and those people who committed them should be brought to justice under international law, just like the Nazis were. Responsibility for the country should be handed to the UN, which has far more experience in such matters. Remember Vietnam didn't disintegrate after the US left, and still managed to climb back on its feet inspite of isolation imposed by the US after that war.
The Job is Done: The British Prime Minister Must Accept That Most British People Want the Troops Out of Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0509-26.htm
23 - David
#19 Baronius: "'In all accounts, saddam was powerless and was puffing his chest.' All accounts except for US, British, French, German, Israeli, and Russian intelligence (and the UN inspectors who found repeated violations when they were allowed in)"
Iraq was powerless before the war, and Saddam wasn't even puffing his chest. According to John Pilger: Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East. In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours." This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public. Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box". Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." So here were two of Bush's most important officials putting the lie to their own propaganda, and the Blair government's propaganda that subsequently provided the justification for an unprovoked, illegal attack on Iraq.
If you don't believe it, you can watch Colin Powell and Condi Rice saying those exact things in this link to the John Pilger video: "Breaking The Silence."
Before MArch 2003, the UN did not find repeated violations, just a few minor ones that were resolved. It was the Bush admin and the war pimps who were claiming that the UN found repeated violations. In fact Saddam's Iraq was cooperating with the UN before March 2003, and the UN was just a few months away from completing their work. If that happened, the Bush admin would have no excuse left to go to war, so that's why they pushed the UN aside and invaded at the time. UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix: Iraq War Was Illegal. Blair's defense is bogus, says the former UN weapons inspector.
The US, Israeli and British intelligence were pimping questionable or false intelligence, aided by other European intelligence agencies. Almost everything they brought about was found to be questionable by other experts. Remember the forgered Niger documents claiming Iraq wanted to buy uranium?
24 - Dave Nalle
"Imagine your neighbor, a Mafia family, tells you that they want to murder someone named John Smith because he has been molesting children in your neighborhood. You encourage and support what the Mafia family wants to do and keep silent even though you don't believe their claims. Your other neighbors also urge, encourage and support the Mafia family out of fear or because they see the Mafia family going to church and praying to God every Sunday. A few days later, John Smith's mutilated body is found floating in a nearby lake. You and your neighbors all abetted that grave crime. Of course, the primary criminals are the Mafia family who committed the murder, and we should never forget that. But they can't defend their crime by saying that their neighbors supported them."
Nice example. Now replace 'mafia family' with 'local judicial system' and keep in mind that the guy is a proven child molestor. That makes the example just a bit more accurate.
BTW, David. I find your entire comment absolutely reprehensible - so much so that I can hardly bring myself to read it again in order to respond. It shows such a callous disregard for human life and such an outrageous distortion of the realities behind the Iraq war that I can't imagine what benefit you gain from such naked, twisted hatred. Is there no distortion and attack from the extreme left which you don't accept at face value?
Dave
25 - David
Also see, The 36 Lies That Launched the Iraq War for examples of how the Bush and Blair governments misused the UN Weapons Inspection to justify their false case for war.
Finally, for those people bringing up Bill Clinton's assertions that Saddam was a threat before Bush took office. Yes, Clinton also lied to keep pressure on Saddam. Clinton's illegal, massive missile attack on Baghdad in 1998 was based on bullshit reasons, because they already knew Saddam was disarmed and weak, and the UN weapons inspectors were about to say so. That's how the Bush admin knew that Saddam was disarmed and weak " from the Clinton admin's good work in disarming Saddam in early 1990s. But, unlike Bush, Clinton did not take America into an illegal, unjustified, unprovoked, aggressive, costly, deadly and mass destructive invasion of a defenseless Iraq. Instead, Clinton just killed over one million Iraqis, half of them children, with his genocidal economic sanctions to motivate the Iraqi people to topple Saddam themselves. It didn't work, as the Iraqi weren't angry enough at Sadam to want to topple him.