Kerry will never send troops overseas for oil...

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Defiant
Well, our intelligence said so, so did, Russian intelligence, Egypt's, British all 17 memebers of the security council.
If your mom, dad, sister, brother told you your house was on fire, would you believe them????

Hindsight is always a wonderful tool to measure the past.

Except France didn't think we'd find any, and other allies were doubtful as well. We also had intelligence reports that indicated they were destroyed; those were ignored. Also, if we had just let the Weapon Inspectors do their job, we would have found out for certain, instead we kicked them out when they were begging for more time.

Bushian Blind-sight is always 20/-

-Drachasor

[Defiant]

Originally posted by Drachasor


My larger point was that you must put forth an effort to try in negotiate, even if it is highly unlikely the other side will listen.

Anyhow, I was talking about the first Gulf War, pay attention. This was about him leaving Kuwait.

-Drachasor

My answer is still the same, he was eying Saudi Arabia, he wasn't going to leave Kuwait, either.

[Defiant]

Originally posted by Drachasor


Except France didn't think we'd find any, and other allies were doubtful as well. We also had intelligence reports that indicated they were destroyed; those were ignored. Also, if we had just let the Weapon Inspectors do their job, we would have found out for certain, instead we kicked them out when they were begging for more time.

Bushian Blind-sight is always 20/-

-Drachasor

Yea, France,
There is a measure of reliable intelligence, don't consider that they were in the Oil for food fraud with Saddam and they were in negociations with Saddam for cheaper oil if they could get the US sanctions and fly zones removed. I sure would place my bet with that country, yikes.

[Arrian]

The "intelligence" was WRONG! It's been admitted by Blair, and Bush won't because he's either incapable of seeing that or his handlers are smart enough to know you cannot admit to that type of mistake in an election year (or probably both).

-Arrian

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Defiant
Gibbymeister,
Reality check, Saddam did have WMD, remember the Kurds or Iraq-Iran war.

I thought of adding "at the time we invaded second-time round", but I thought that such an obvious condition was redundant. Perhaps if Bush and co. had stated "way back in 1991" after every confident statement of how Saddam had WMD's you right-wingers wouldn't have gotten so confused over whether he had WMD's "at the time we invaded second-time round" or not

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Defiant
Yea, France,
There is a measure of reliable intelligence, don't consider that they were in the Oil for food fraud with Saddam and they were in negociations with Saddam for cheaper oil if they could get the US sanctions and fly zones removed. I sure would place my bet with that country, yikes.

Right, and the United States is running child labor camps to make shoes.

There is a difference between companies and the country they reside. Additionally, there is no evidence that there was any serious desire to have sanctions removed, or that the OfF program gave Saddam any leverage in that. The sanctions were international (U.N.) too, not just the U.S.

Lastly, you completely ignored my point about the inspectors wanting to finish their job and give us much more reliable intelligence and the fact we had some intelligence (from our own sources) indicating Saddam had gotten rid of all of his WMDs.

Lastly, the U.S. was in no immediate threat. We could afford to wait a year quite easily.

-Drachasor

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Drachasor
Kerry's fellow senators agree that he is a man of conviction. Therefore I think it is more likely that Howard Dean made it clear that he could make some of his real reasons public, rather than not mention them. Dean demonstrated that the voters were willing to listen to that.

-Drachasor

You got a polling to indicate this. Likewise I am supposed to believe the body of folk that are least likely to be believeable and/or trustworthy.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Drachasor


If find it especially ironic you quote the 9/11 commision which, as I said above, found *no collaboration* between Saddam and Al Qaeda. They even reported that Osama tried to have training camps in Iraq and other Iraqi help, but Saddam never responded to those requests.

There is simply no collaboration here, only a few random interactions here and there.

-Drachasor

There was no collaboration wrt 9/11 according to the commission.

[Defiant]

Originally posted by Gibsie


I thought of adding "at the time we invaded second-time round", but I thought that such an obvious condition was redundant. Perhaps if Bush and co. had stated "way back in 1991" after every confident statement of how Saddam had WMD's you right-wingers wouldn't have gotten so confused over whether he had WMD's "at the time we invaded second-time round" or not

Everybody wants to isolate it to just us, remember, there were 17 countries on the security council who also thought it, everybody's intelligence was wrong and in order to prove it, we had to go there. They just didn't want to contribute troops because of self-serving national interests, regardless of what Drachasor says. I just saw it again tonight where Chirac's number 1 man was up to his eyeballs in oil for food fraud, as well as the UN(joke of an institution).

Drachasor,
There is no way to tell if the US was in danger within a year, we do know, Saddam put a contract out on Bush Sr., we do know Saddam used WMD, we do know at that time 17 countries on the security council thought he had WMD, we do know he was the biggest Muslim killer in the world, we do know he violate 17 security resolutions, we do know that a common enemy brings together strange bedfellows, so as Al Queda got hit in Afhanistan and Saddam could secretly get a WMD to one of their operatives, think he would? I wouldn't my life on it.
I have always said the Iraq war is not about Saddam, WMD or oil, it is all about bringing democracy to the ME. That region floats on oil, yet the ME GNP is less than that of Spain's, there is only one democratic country in the ME, there are schools teaching no tolerance for other religions, all this together creates a breeding ground for bin laden recruits, we need to give the people in the ME something to live for not to die for.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Defiant
Everybody wants to isolate it to just us, remember, there were 17 countries on the security council who also thought it, everybody's intelligence was wrong and in order to prove it, we had to go there.

Strange, it seems nearly every other day I read how a piece of intelligence that said there was a very little evidence to indicate Saddam had WMD's was talked about by our countries' leaders as if it was concrete fact.

[Defiant]

Originally posted by Gibsie


Strange, it seems nearly every other day I read how a piece of intelligence that said there was a very little evidence to indicate Saddam had WMD's was talked about by our countries' leaders as if it was concrete fact.

Gibsie,
Go to the records all 17 countries on the security council thought he had WMD that is why the vote was 17-0, that's not misleading.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Defiant
Gibsie,
Go to the records all 17 countries on the security council thought he had WMD that is why the vote was 17-0, that's not misleading.

17-0 to go in and investigate the situation, to put pressure on so that those investigations could take place.

Not 17-0 to go to war without extensive investigations.

Given all of the sanctions and watching, especially with the investigators, Saddam was no threat as long as that was going on. We had time to let the investigators do their job. We rushed to war instead, and that was why the Security Council and most nations didn't back us. Saddam simply wasn't a threat at the time.

-Drachasor

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
There was no collaboration wrt 9/11 according to the commission.

They concluded that, but also every piece of evidence that the administration used to justify a connection was invalidated. Additionally, the conclusion was that there was no collaboration against America's interests in general.

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx@docID=203.html

-Drachasor

[Ned]

Originally posted by Drachasor
I think you have forgotten that the 9/11 Commision found no good evidence a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam. Rumsfeld, who is someone that would know, has backed this up. There were contacts here and there, but no cooperation, that is the conclusion of the 9/11 Commision, which examined all of the evidence.

To be precise, the Commission did find links between Saddam and al Qaeda, just not operational links and nothing to confirm that Saddam was involved in 9/11.

Zarqawi is not a member of Al Qaeda, he merely has some contacts to that organization. If you have to say well, "Iraq knew this guy, who knew these guys" to get to "Iraq and Al Qaeda were allies" then the arguement falls apart. Additionally, latest intelligence indicates Zerqawi links with Al Qaeda have lessened in recent times.

He ran an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and was wounded in the war there. What more do you want. A membership card?

[q]You use a similar circuitous route with the Food for Oil program, though I'd like to see your evidence for this, for I have seen, nor can find, any credible evidence indicating Food for Oil money was being funneled to that organization. I have only seen evidence indicating that Saddam used Food for Oil fraud to help maintain his palaces and power base. In any case, have links to a group which has links to another group, does not mean you have direct links to that second group.[\q]

I saw this on a special report two weeks ago on FoxNews. I could not find a link to the transcript of that report on their site.

There is evidence that money from Saudi Arabia and Iran (among other places) goes to Al Qaeda, and there are many ways to get money beyond this.

Iran? I was aware of Saudi Arabia.

If find it especially ironic you quote the 9/11 commision which, as I said above, found *no collaboration* between Saddam and Al Qaeda. They even reported that Osama tried to have training camps in Iraq and other Iraqi help, but Saddam never responded to those requests.

You have to ignore the evidence of Zarqawi to make this statement.

There is simply no collaboration here, only a few random interactions here and there.

Again, Zarqawi.