|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469
Hard-core CEG\'er
|
Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469 |
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
I will conclude that Bush lied when he told us there was "no doubt" that Iraq had WMDs.
I will not cover what Jato has said and I have said but my question is..
Why did he lie?
So Cheney could make money from Halliturton stocks he divested himself from?
So he could get re-elected, given that after Afganistan his popularity was 80%?
To avenge the assasination attempt on his dad?
To get oil for his oil company buddies?
You seem willing to believe the worst in the President...that in a post 9/11 environment that he should have "assumed" the 4 best intel agencies in the world were providing weak intel. He should have assumed that the UN sanctions were "legit" and doing the job (they failed to find plenty BTW..prohibited Al Saamood II missiles, Mirage fighters). We know now even Sadam's generals thought WMD existed because...SADDAM them so. Putin even called Bush and said Saddam was a THREAT to U.S. interests. The bipartisan Senate intell and 9/11 committees both concluded that white House applied no pressure to the CIA in reaching their conclusions.
This is partisan bias, plain and simple...though partisans will not see this (like a blind spot). Non partisans however, will and I think it unlikely that they will be sold on "Bush is a lier". Non partisans will decide this election, either that or voter fraud. I have said why I think Iraq was worthwhile beyond WMD and why I think Bush is likely to be a better man to deal with terrorist in general. I think terrorsim is the key issue. At this point, I am ready to let the people vote.
1999 Amazon Green SVT Contour (#554/2760)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 3,115
Hard-core CEG\'er
|
|
Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 3,115 |
Originally posted by PDXSVT:
Aren't we overdue for some Winston Churchill quotes?
"I'm not prejudiced, I hate EVERYONE equally." W.C.
But I prefer Mark Twain "The lack of money is the root of all evil."
"Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 3,115
Hard-core CEG\'er
|
|
Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 3,115 |
Originally posted by TexasRealtor:
"I'm not prejudiced, I hate EVERYONE equally." W.C.
Crap! Sorry, that was W.C. Fields 
"Eagles may soar high, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637
Veteran CEG\'er
|
|
Veteran CEG\'er
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637 |
Originally posted by Dan Nixon:
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
I will conclude that Bush lied when he told us there was "no doubt" that Iraq had WMDs.
I will not cover what Jato has said and I have said but my question is..
Why did he lie?
So Cheney could make money from Halliturton stocks he divested himself from?
So he could get re-elected, given that after Afganistan his popularity was 80%?
To avenge the assasination attempt on his dad?
To get oil for his oil company buddies?
Are you implying Bush had no motivation to lie? That is absurd. He had the biggest possible motivation: he planned and started an unpopular and unnecessary war, and he had to justify it!! Bush and his advisors (Rove, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc.) were determined to invade Iraq even before 9/11 (the news reports on this are readily available, feel free to ask for examples). They published papers during the 1990s in which they cited many reasons for a unilateral US invasion of Iraq, including bringing regime change, initiating a "democratic revolution" in the middle east, and putting oil supplies into the hands of leaders more friendly to U.S. interests. They had a radical new agenda, so radical that they knew the public would not support it unless they lied. Is that motivation enough for you?
You Bush supporters on CEG are in denial about the Bush administration's true agenda in Iraq and the middle east. I have pointed out many times that Rice, Perle, Wolfowitz, etc. have long advocated (even before Bush was elected) a radical new middle east agenda, which was formulated by neo-conservatives over the last decade. Throughout the 1990s they advocated U.S. invasion and regime change in Iraq to force democracy into the middle east, to replace Islamic regimes with U.S.-friendly regimes, and to improve our future access to oil. These policy goals were created by people like Wolfowitz and Perle over the last decade in various corporate-funded think-tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for a New American Century. The media have covered this fairly extensively, yet you refuse to acknowledge it. You freak out when I say you are supporting this radical new agenda by supporting Bush. Wake UP! The Bush administration is LED by people with these goals! You almost all declined to identify yourselves with this radical agenda (shouting "I am not a neo-con!"), yet you support Bush stridently. Feel free to ignore the contradiction, but it really detracts from your credibility.
Originally posted by Dan Nixon:
You seem willing to believe ...that in a post 9/11 environment that he should have "assumed" the 4 best intel agencies in the world were providing weak intel.
Who said the president should have "assumed" anything? Not me. Rex and I said quite the opposite. We said that the president should have weighed the evidence himself. He should have taken the (presumably extensive) report given to him by the CIA and read it carefully to see whether the conclusions were supported by the evidence. He should have determined whether, for example, the evidence of Al Quaeda-Iraq ties, uranium sales, and VX factories was corroborated by reliable information and witnesses, or whether it was just jittery speculation. Judges and juries do this all the time. If the president can't do it, he is unfit for the job.
Tell me this: why are you so eager to excuse the president from his duty to weigh the evidence? You seem to be saying that it was OK for him to just accept the CIA's conclusions, when the weakness of the evidence was readily apparent. You pretend that since the CIA is also responsible for weighing the evidence, the president need not bother to do it. This makes no sense at all; it seems to me you are just covering up for Bush's mistakes.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 706
Veteran CEG\'er
|
|
Veteran CEG\'er
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 706 |
Quote:
Are you implying Bush had no motivation to lie? That is absurd. He had the biggest possible motivation: he planned and started an unpopular and unnecessary war, and he had to justify it!!
That is entirely different from what you were stating before. You just said he lied to justify the war, when all of the arguments thus far have been he lied and took us to war. Two completely different thoughts there, bub.
Quote:
Who said the president should have "assumed" anything? Not me. Rex and I said quite the opposite. We said that the president should have weighed the evidence himself.
Ok, you're line of thinking makes no sense.
- The President should have weighed all of the evidence himself. (Most of us assume he did this, you assume he did not.)
- The entire World was showing intel that supported our own intel, that Saddam had WMD's. (Yet you believe somehow if the President would have looked closer he could have have come to a different conclusion, even though he is not an intel analyst.)
- You claim "weakness of the evidence was readily apparent". (Yet no-one in the world's intelligence community agreed with you at the time, remembering that hindsight is 20/20.)
Tell me again how you rationalize this train of thought?
E1
1999 Cougar - Supercharged 3L
1992 Talon TSi - AWD Turbo
1992 Eclipse GSX - AWD Turbo
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637
Veteran CEG\'er
|
|
Veteran CEG\'er
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637 |
Originally posted by EternalOne:
Quote:
Are you implying Bush had no motivation to lie? That is absurd. He had the biggest possible motivation: he planned and started an unpopular and unnecessary war, and he had to justify it!!
That is entirely different from what you were stating before. You just said he lied to justify the war, when all of the arguments thus far have been he lied and took us to war. Two completely different thoughts there, bub.
You claim those points are "entirely different", yet you don't bother to explain why. I therefore have no idea what you mean.
BTW, you and JaTo are apparently no longer on the same page. He says Bush didn't have to (and apparently didn't) weigh the evidence for himself, as he was entitled to rely on the CIA's conclusions. You, on the other hand, say that you "assume" Bush weighed all the evidence. Who's right?
Originally posted by EternalOne:
Quote:
Who said the president should have "assumed" anything? Not me. Rex and I said quite the opposite. We said that the president should have weighed the evidence himself.
Ok, you're line of thinking makes no sense.
- The President should have weighed all of the evidence himself. (Most of us assume he did this, you assume he did not.)
Why do you "assume" the president weighed the evidence? The facts indicate just the opposite:
Look at the facts. The evidence Bush saw showed that the alleged uranium sale was based primarily on an unverified document and uncorroborated rumors, that the aluminum tubes were not likely to be usable in a WMD centrifuge program, and the allegations of an existing WMD program were largely from disgruntled exiles. (There was more "evidence", but none of it was any stronger than these examples). No rational person could conclude from this "evidence" that there was "no doubt" that Saddam had WMDs. So I conclude that Bush either failed to analyze the evidence (unlikely - he's not that stupid) or he lied when he said it was strong (i.e. "no doubt" or "slam dunk").
Originally posted by EternalOne:
- The entire World was showing intel that supported our own intel, that Saddam had WMD's. (Yet you believe somehow if the President would have looked closer he could have have come to a different conclusion, even though he is not an intel analyst.)
The "entire world's" intel did NOT support ours. Sure, many countries' intel agencies also concluded that Saddam probably had WMDs. But most of them admitted their evidence was not yet strong or reliable enough to support war. Their intel did not corroborate the CIA's evidence with anything the CIA didn't already have (I think we would have heard about it if, say, Italy had come up with new evidence that strongly supported one of Bush's main justifications for the war). The truth is that foreign agencies were just about as clueless as the CIA about Iraq. Your sweeping exaggeration is misleading and false. Prove me wrong.
Originally posted by EternalOne:
- You claim "weakness of the evidence was readily apparent". (Yet no-one in the world's intelligence community agreed with you at the time, remembering that hindsight is 20/20.)
See above. I explain there (as I have in many previous posts) why the weakness of the evidence was readily apparent.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,718
Hard-core CEG'er
|
|
Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,718 |
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
I looked at that CIA report, JaTo. Perhaps I missed something, but I didn't see any information in there that speaks to the reliability of the "evidence" in the report. In other words, it does not tell us where the information comes from, whether it can be verified, who supplied the information, and so forth. (You can be sure Bush got something much more detailed than this report)
Count the number of CIA dossiers that come along with an appendix that list the names of the agents, there whereabouts, the date they dug up this information, etc., etc.
From what I'm hearing, the only thing that would have convinced you that invasion was the correct course of action would be for a rogue nation to use WMD on the US or it's allies, as the level of evidence you are asking for was IMPOSSIBLE to come by.
This is PRECISELY the type of "reactive" instead of "proactive" thinking that will be the utter ruin of our way of life, in instances like this where taking preventative, proactive measure offers the . There comes a point when after a decade of walking like a duck, quacking like a duck and flying like a duck, the majority of the WORLD called Iraq a duck.
Again, we aren't talking about someone making vague accusations of WMD towards a spit of land on the South Pacific that are still playing with transistor radios; the accusations were leveled at Iraq, who had for 10+ years strug the WORLD along.
There are numerous points made that discuss intelligence coming from UNSCOM, UNIMOVIC and CIA activities. It also discusses the FACT in detail that Iraq never made a full accounting of missle programs, WMD, technical programs that dealt with nuclear/chemical/biochemical R&D, etc., etc.
Since, for all intents and purposes, was impossible to penetrate Husein's inner circle of leaders, we had to use the facts that we knew in conjunction with the best estimates that we could coroberate (i.e., that said pretty much what every other intelligence agency said).
If you are looking for an iron-clad guarantee in life and on intel, you know NOTHING about the business. The CIA, again, deals in probability as in many cases the only way to be proven 100% correct of someone'e nuclear/chem/biochem capabilities is either:
1) Have it used on you.
2) Have the party that has the equipment give a TOTAL accounting of it and allow unfettered access to all levels of the weapons programs.
We tried getting 2) done for a decade. It didn't work. Since we weren't too fond of risking 1) ever happening in light of 9/11, and after stating that we needed 2) countless times through the UN and 3 US administrations, the informed members of Congress and the House decided to agree upon invasion.
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
To use the example in my last post, it's like having several witnesses who claim they heard the defendant state his intention to commit fraud, but having no information by which to judge the credibility of those witnesses.
If this was a trial on fraud, Hussein would have been taken out and locked up the FIRST time we found out he lied.
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
We don't know if they are friends of the plaintiff, or convicted felons, or the Dalai Lama. Likewise, we don't know if the "witnesses" the CIA relied on are axe-grinding exiles, former Baathists angling for clemency, or the Pope himself. We don't know whether the CIA's statements about the various industrial sites are from unbiased witnesses, or from half-stoned goat-herders.
Again, some of the verbage against Hussein was taken directly from UNSCON and UNIMOVIC activities, CIA activities, as well as regime deserters and informers. These are the KNOWN sources. I can't and won't speculate on unknown sources...
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
It's so easy to throw together a lot of alarming claims (and pictures, too!), but they don't prove anything unless you can assess their reliability.
The world's intelligence communities gave it a high probability of being accurate. I would trust this over anyone who practices bumper-sticker politics, any day of the year...
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
With this report, we cannot assess the reliability of the evidence at all. (Note: that doesn't make it a bad report - I know the CIA can't reveal its sources. It just makes the report useless to prove your point that Bush didn't lie.)
A lie is to INTENTIONALLY and KNOWINGLY deceive someone, when you factually know the opposite of what you are stating to be true.
If you choose to use such black and white language, then you are telling me that Bush, along with Congress, the House, the CIA and everyone else that raised alarm and concerns, and acted upon them, FACTUALLY knew that Hussein had ZERO WMD, was NEVER moving forwards with R&D plans on chemical/biochemical agents and was FULLY compliant with UN 1441 in meeting the letter of international LAW?
You and others have dodged countless questions I've posed. I REALLY want this one answered.
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
I also had a problem with the tone of the report. It reads like it is trying to persuade the reader, like it has an agenda. Not like a straightforward, factual, impartial intel analysis. I smell administration pressure on Tenet to produce the goods Bush wanted.
I won't say what I smell here...
If this was a partisan piece, then why does it often use the qualifiers like "probably, likely" and admit to inconclusive evidence in places?
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
You boldy stated that the report proved the CIA had strong evidence of WMDs, but it doesn't prove that at all. The report is a summary of evidentiary points, but it does not address the STRENGTH of the evidence.
It addresses, at a very high level, the mass of circumstantial and factual evidence gathered over 10 years (maybe longer) on Iraq, their programs and our concerns relating them.
Your response? It's a lie, as the CIA belived the same that Bush did (i.e., Iraq had WMD).
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
Unless you can prove the CIA had STRONG, RELIABLE evidence of WMDs in Iraq, I will conclude that Bush lied when he told us there was "no doubt" that Iraq had WMDs.
Fine. I can live with that as I would conclude that those who think this way to the exclusion of the actions and reams of circumstantial and FACTUAL evidence that suggested the contrary then are utter fools.
JaTo
e-Tough Guy
Missouri City, TX
99 Contour SVT
#143/2760
00 Corvette Coupe
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469
Hard-core CEG\'er
|
|
Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469 |
Originally posted by Red1998SVT:
Are you implying Bush had no motivation to lie? That is absurd. He had the biggest possible motivation: he planned and started an unpopular and unnecessary war, and he had to justify it!! Bush and his advisors (Rove, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc.) were determined to invade Iraq even before 9/11 (the news reports on this are readily available, feel free to ask for examples).
Tell me this: why are you so eager to excuse the president from his duty to weigh the evidence? You seem to be saying that it was OK for him to just accept the CIA's conclusions, when the weakness of the evidence was readily apparent. You pretend that since the CIA is also responsible for weighing the evidence, the president need not bother to do it. This makes no sense at all; it seems to me you are just covering up for Bush's mistakes.
Yes..I am.
You are apparently saying that Bush deliberatly lied because he "he planned and started an unpopular and unnecessary war". Knowing he lied, it is clear he must have known it would be unlikely to find WMD. So he assumed the dems & the media would just ignor this? Give him a pass. Bush lied but thats OK it was a meaningless war. Wait thats what Kerry and the liberal media have been saying all along. I can only believe you think Bush wanted to be a one termer?
"Determined to invade Iraq"...OF COURSE there were plans to invade. OLD PLANS, NEW PLANS, MANY PLANS for different senerios. Since 1998 Clinton made regime change the policy for Iraq. Military contingency plans seems a good idea. hey, since Gulf war, 1991..and Saddam failed to comply..Military contingency plans seems a good idea here too. I think sec defense would be NEGLIGENT not to have plans. I hope they have invasion plans on the table for Iran, Syria, N.Korea, etc. etc...but I hope we don't need em..
I am just not sure what I can say...CIA, MI-5, Putin, Massad all saying the same. You cannot understand how one could have looked at the intell, post 9/11, and not concluded a threat may exist. Was "slam dunk" overstated..probably, but Tennant is the one who overstated to the Pres. Tennant is gone, as he should be. But I must conclude that to accuse Bush of deliberately lying is intellectually dishonast.
1999 Amazon Green SVT Contour (#554/2760)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469
Hard-core CEG\'er
|
|
Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 1,469 |
Originally posted by Red1998SVT:
[:
Look at the facts. The evidence Bush saw showed that the alleged uranium sale was based primarily on an unverified document and uncorroborated rumors
Quick point, as you keep saying this..
You know that British MI-5 still stands by the documents authenticity, and that Ambassador Wilson's report led the 9/11 commission to conclude that his observations actually supported rather than refuted the Niger yellowcake story...
You know Duelfer's report details that Saddam took pains to keep his nuclear braintrust intact, and these scientists actually individually hid various nuclear related information with the understand that Saddam planned to reconstitute when sanctions were lifted.
You know, granted there may be no clear proof at present that vast stockpiles of old WMD or attempts to rebuild a nuclear program or actionable links to Al Qaeda but there still are ALOT of unanswered questions despite several major investigations.
Bill Gertz's report of Russian special ops (rouge?) moving out something to Syria just before we came. Maybe just some of the tech they were selling Saddam illeagally, maybe the explosives everyone is talking about, maybe WMD...think back 2 years to the Israeli satellite photos of convoys leaving Iraq for Syria...WHAT were the hell Russians doing??
Funding Al Qaeda...why all the meetings with Iraqi intell, at leat 3 pretty certain and 1-2 other possiblities all detailled in 9/11 commision report. And then there is HSA. Some 400 million in OFF funds to the HSA group owned by one Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed, who is also a founding member of the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (MIGA). MIGA and other founding members are known to the UN and the CIA as major Al Qaeda financers and are terror watch-listed, though Hayel Saeed and his HSA group not been linked directly to Al Qaeda but are still under investigation.
Heck..what was Saddam doing with hundreds of tons of RDX, hot enough to ignite a nuke, let alone nearly a billion tons of high explosives.
He gamed billions from oil for food, paid off UNSC members for vetos, was paying them off to lift sanctions and planned to resume WMD per Duelfer's report. Saddam was a VERY bad dude, world class lier, yet liberals act like we invaded a monastary...really weak!
Point is, we have been looking around Iraq for 18 months with VASTLY better access that UN inspectors had, we have captured and interrogated hundreds, we have captured thousands of Iraqi documments and we STILL do not really know what was going on. Yet the left expects Bush to have been clarvoient with the intell he had at hand. None of the UN coutries that opposed the president in 2003 argued that they doubted the intel that I know of..do you know of any. As I said in the past..it is just flat out intellectual dishonsatly to call Bush a lier with the info you have.
1999 Amazon Green SVT Contour (#554/2760)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
-Soren Kierkegaard (as posted by Jato)
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637
Veteran CEG\'er
|
|
Veteran CEG\'er
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 637 |
Originally posted by JaTo:
From what I'm hearing, the only thing that would have convinced you that invasion was the correct course of action would be for a rogue nation to use WMD on the US or it's allies, as the level of evidence you are asking for was IMPOSSIBLE to come by.
You're jumping to unsupported conclusions again, JaTo. Rex never said he would only support the invasion if we were actually attacked. Remember all that stuff about the "presence of sufficient evidence"? Sufficient evidence means that there is enough reliable evidence for a reasonable person to believe that an attack on us or an ally is going to occur in the reasonably forseeable future. That's a fair standard, and this war did not meet it. You (and Bush) may have a different standard (such as "we can attack if we are concerned, based on evidence that may or may not be reliable, that Iraq will attack us or an ally"). That is a very different standard, and I think it is an immoral one. It is a recipe for perpetual war.
Originally posted by JaTo:
If you are looking for an iron-clad guarantee in life and on intel, you know NOTHING about the business. The CIA, again, deals in probability as in many cases the only way to be proven 100% correct . . . :
Who's asking for guarantees? Who's asking for "100% correct"? There you go with the dramatic overstatement again. All I am calling for is a reasonable standard based on reliable evidence.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
It's so easy to throw together a lot of alarming claims (and pictures, too!), but they don't prove anything unless you can assess their reliability.
The world's intelligence communities gave it a high probability of being accurate. I would trust this over anyone who practices bumper-sticker politics, any day of the year...
I am not aware that any agencies (other tha US and UK) gave it a "high probablility."
You still haven't addressed the main point: the evidence Bush claims to have relied upon was largely unverified and uncorroborated. He took us to war on the kind of evidence that wouldn't support a $500 judgment in small claims court. You and Dan haven't shown me anything to support Bush's evidence as being the kind on which a reasonable person would decide to launch a $200 billion war, in which tens of thousands of human beings will die. You just keep saying that "everyone thought Saddam had WMDs." Well BIG F****** DEAL!! That doesn't make the evidence any stronger, nor does it make Bush any less at fault. Any judge or jury would laugh you out of court if you tried to convince them it was OK to drive 100 mph in a 35 mph zone, because several people told you it was OK.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
With this report, we cannot assess the reliability of the evidence at all. (Note: that doesn't make it a bad report - I know the CIA can't reveal its sources. It just makes the report useless to prove your point that Bush didn't lie.)
A lie is to INTENTIONALLY and KNOWINGLY deceive someone, when you factually know the opposite of what you are stating to be true.
If you choose to use such black and white language, then you are telling me that Bush, along with Congress, the House, the CIA and everyone else that raised alarm and concerns, and acted upon them, FACTUALLY knew that Hussein had ZERO WMD, was NEVER moving forwards with R&D plans on chemical/biochemical agents and was FULLY compliant with UN 1441 in meeting the letter of international LAW?
That is not what Rex was saying at all, and you know it. Nobody knew anything for certain. All he's saying is that Bush almost certainly knew the evidence was weak, too weak for the public to support the war. Sure, we all thought Saddam had something, otherwise, what was he hiding? But most of us (and remember, most Americans did not support the war in Iraq, and do not support it now) thought the case for war was not good enough yet. We were correct.
Originally posted by JaTo:
Originally posted by Rex Barnes:
You boldy stated that the report proved the CIA had strong evidence of WMDs, but it doesn't prove that at all. The report is a summary of evidentiary points, but it does not address the STRENGTH of the evidence.
It addresses, at a very high level, the mass of circumstantial and factual evidence gathered over 10 years (maybe longer) on Iraq, their programs and our concerns relating them.
I read it, and I don't think it makes its case. It is provocative and even alarming. But anyone who is trained to analyze masses of evidence would ask for the substance behind it.
|
|
|
|
|
