Bush's own man trashes his SOTU claims on WMDs

[The Mad Viking]

Bush, October 7, 2002:

The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" -- his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America. And Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

You can play semantics all you want, but this is clearly a wilful misrepresenation of the facts intended to manipulate the American people to support a war against Iraq.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Ned


Alexander's Horse, who was risking World War III when they put missiles in the Cuba?

Who was a risking World War III when they actively supported the Vietcong in violation of the peace accords against a country they had a defensive treaty with the United States of America?

Who was risking World War III when they attacked the U.S. Navy on the open seas?

The problem of promoting aggression against a nation that is defended by a nuclear power is obvious. Now why does such aggression began in the first place one must ask. I submit that the aggression began because one signals that the aggression will not result in serious resistance.

The Korean aggression began after United States pulled out of South Korea. The Vietnam aggression began in earnest after Kennedy was elected and indicated his weakness at the Bay of Pigs. His weakness at the Bay of Pigs also brought on the Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin Wall crisis. In order to restore some credibility to American policy, Kennedy actually had to say publicly that an attack on West Germany would be met with a full-scale nuclear response on the Soviet Union. Perhaps this statement was the only thing that prevented World War III from happening from Soviet aggression in Europe.

Johnson had the opportunity of reversing all that by making it clear that North Vietnam had to stop its aggression or risk war with United States. He never did that. And that is why we lost 55,000 troops for no good reason.

The reason I say that had Johnson been firm the Communists would have backed down is that they did back down when threatened with war over Cuba and did back down and failed to support their client state the United Arab Republic.

So we're taking our standards of international behaviour from totalitarian dictatorships now?

I think there's a lot of nostalgia around about the Cold War - the major power blocs kept everybody in line and limited conflict.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


So we're taking our standards of international behaviour from totalitarian dictatorships now?

I think there's a lot of nostalgia around about the Cold War - the major power blocs kept everybody in line and limited conflict.

Tell that to the 38,000 Americans who died when Stalin OKed the invasion of South Korea. Tell that to the 55,000 Americans who died when Kruschev OKed the invasion of South Vietnam.

[Alexander's Horse]

It could have been a lot worse.

[mindseye]

Ned, throughout this thread you go on as if Hilary Clinton led the invasion of Iraq.

Simply repeating over and over that other people also espoused these things (sincerely or otherwise) is simply at odds with the fact that other people didn't start a war and at the same time alienate most of the civilized world as Bush did.

As much as you would like to blame the Clintons for all the out-and-out lying and dishonesty employed by the Bush admin to lead America into war, it won't wash. Clinton would never have presided over the foreign relations debacle which we have seen unfold under the "you're either with us or against us" Bush admin.

[Alexander's Horse]

It's all lies.

[Joseph]

Originally posted by Ned


Tell that to the 38,000 Americans who died when Stalin OKed the invasion of South Korea. Tell that to the 55,000 Americans who died when Kruschev OKed the invasion of South Vietnam.

50,000 in Korea and 56,000 in Nam.

[Alexander's Horse]

So why make the same mistake again?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
It could have been a lot worse.

True. But one has to ask why the commies suddenly became so aggressive. My point is that they always took as much as they could in the face of weakness and backed down in the face of strength.

Kennedy fully understood why things went badly so quickly when he became president, and was well underway at fixing his mistakes when he was assassinated. Johnson, however, understood nothing and even caused the Six Day War through his stupidity.

[Ned]

Originally posted by mindseye
Ned, throughout this thread you go on as if Hilary Clinton led the invasion of Iraq.

Simply repeating over and over that other people also espoused these things (sincerely or otherwise) is simply at odds with the fact that other people didn't start a war and at the same time alienate most of the civilized world as Bush did.

As much as you would like to blame the Clintons for all the out-and-out lying and dishonesty employed by the Bush admin to lead America into war, it won't wash. Clinton would never have presided over the foreign relations debacle which we have seen unfold under the "you're either with us or against us" Bush admin.

But, that is a different issue mindseye. I've already said that the diplomatic "fiasco" may be the best issue for the Democrats, not that Bush lied about WMD.

BTW, there are reports, it appears, that Saddam is saying he bribed Chirac into taking the stand he did.

[Patroklos]

Apparenty what Kay said to the interviewers, or what they manipulated his words to mean, have no relation to what he says when allowed to speak without a middle man.

See thread on Senate hearing, in progress now.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, Where is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Vietcong today?
Independent my a$$.

The Vietcong were more or less destroyed by the U.S. gov in the late 60s. After we were already fully committed to the war is when NV got fully involved.

Had the U.S. not got involved, the South Vietnamese gov would problably have fallen in the mid-60s, and the two countries would have united, as they should have after the elections in '56.

BTW, Kruschev was no longer in power when the NVA invaded the RVN. He hadn't been for about a decade.

[Ned]

Che, Khruschev was behind the aggression that occurred when Kennedy took power. I agree that he was ousted in 1964, the year before the NVA began operations in the South.

Now, is it your position that the NVA were in the South as invaders and not in support of the Vietcong?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Now, is it your position that the NVA were in the South as invaders and not in support of the Vietcong?

In the 60s they were supporting the VC, just as the US was supporting the RVN. In 1975, the North invaded for real. The VC began operations without and in spite of the North.

According to what I've read, the North wasn't real big on starting a new war so soon, but the VC never took orders from the North and launched their own war of liberation. As a newly established revolutionary state and as Vietnamese nationalists, the North couldn't sit by and not help their Southern brethren once they had begun to fight.

In 1962, the VC were very close to declaring a provisional government. It's too bad they didn't because it would have made intervention much more politically difficult for the U.S.

[Ned]

Che, unless the Vietcong somehow ceased to exist, the fact that there is no Democratic People's Republic of Vietcong tells anyone who is fair that the Vietcong were not independent of North Vietnam and were not fighting for their own country.