No need to be amazed if we get the facts straight. He wasn't impeached for sexual misconduct. He was impeached for obstruction of justice (same thing Marth Stewart was found guilty of) and for lying under oath (Martha didn't go that far). So are we to conclude that it's okay for Democrats to lie but not Republicans? What's more, if Bush lied about what Saddam had, so did the entire Clinton administration and the UN. Everyone pointing their hypocritical finger at Bush was saying the exact same stuff within the last six years. More on that in a minute.Zivo wrote: It amazes me that the same right-wing voices who impeached a president for lying about a sexual affair have decided that the ends justify the means when a president lies to a nation about the most serious cause we collectively can be involved in: war.
Again, let's get the facts straight. First off, he never said imminent. But more importantly, if you go back and look at the speeches GW made while making the case for going into Iraq, WMD was only one item in a long list of reasons, most of which were humanitarian. I thought the left were all supposed to be amnesty international types. But when it came to Iraq their mantra seemed to be, "Saddam only kills his own people! It's none of our business!"Zivo wrote: The case for war in Iraq was not made for humanitarian reasons but instead because our president claimed that Iraq presented an imminent threat to the national security of the United States. Repeatedly the spectre of 9.11 was raised...
It did bug me when he started trying to link Iraq to 9/11. I remember wishing that he'd stop saying that. Then, what did we find in there within a couple of weeks? al-Qaeda training camps, that's what! Obviously he had intelligence information that hadn't been available to me. In any case, that linkage turned out to be quite real.
One reason I'm so upset about the constant whining of the press that Bush lied about WMD is that we've found chemical agents, chemical factories, and plenty of evidence of long-range missles that far exceed the UN mandates. You just have to look hard for it ... usually in the European news. CNN ins't going to report it.
And the knowledge of what was going on in Iraq goes back before the GUlf War of 91. As the Kurds remind us, WMD were conventional tools of repression for Saddam. Chemical weapons were used more than 200 times, and the Kurds had every expectation they would be used again.
The regime cost the lives of at least 2 million people through its wars and internal oppression, and 4 million Iraqis were forced to become refugees. According to estimates from USAID, more than 270 mass graves have been found in Iraq. These alone should vindicate the war.
"Iraq is not the only nation in the world to possess weapons of mass destruction, but it is the only nation with a leader who has used them against his own people." -- Tom Daschle in 1998
"As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I am keenly aware that the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons is an issue of grave importance to all nations. Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." -- Nancy Pelosi, December 16, 1998
"I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons...I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out." -- Clinton's Secretary of Defense William Cohen in April of 2003
"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal." -- John Edwards, Oct 10, 2002
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." -- Ted Kennedy, September 27, 2002
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed." -- Ted Kennedy, Sept 27, 2002
"I will be voting to give the president of the United States the authority to use force - if necessary - to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." -- John F. Kerry, Oct 2002
"The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation." -- John Kerry, October 9, 2002
And as to us acting aginst the wishes of "the rest of the world" (even though the majority of NATO nations were with us), here's a great one from Kerry: "(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America?s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, Jan 23, 2003
"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." -- Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998
"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the Administration?s policy towards Iraq, I don?t think there can be any question about Saddam?s conduct. He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do. He lies and cheats; he snubs the mandate and authority of international weapons inspectors; and he games the system to keep buying time against enforcement of the just and legitimate demands of the United Nations, the Security Council, the United States and our allies. Those are simply the facts." -- Henry Waxman, Oct 10, 2002
