Jeb Bush again changes Iraq answer

Ummm, the United States never stopped gathering intelligence after the gulf war....lol

 

Exactly. By the time of the war we knew that the "threat" that had been publicized by the administration was false.

And, I don't see that as a laughing matter.

 

I'm laughing at you not disproving anything I have stated this entire time. Follow along...

 

You supported what I said and then you laughed.

Now, you claim I didn't disprove what you said. But, I was pointing to something where we agree.

And, then you laugh again.

And, you have every right to be nervous.

 

I present a link of which you have presented no rebuttal, and I am debating myself? I agree. Because there is nothing from the Hubris documentary that you can counter with any rebuttal, so you are right. There is nothing left to debate other than myself. It's obvious you can't continue the debate, or you wouldn't have posted nonsense.

 

From what I saw it isn't any worse than being for the war then against it for political points, seems to me some few liberals did just that...

 

And I've already known about RELIABLE sources.

I agree. This bull(*)(*)(*)(*) about Bush lying about Iraq didn't hold up when those mother(*)(*)(*)(*)ers first did it ten years ago and it's not going to (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hold up now.

Nope. They are right. YOU are the one quoting lies.

The left wing New York Times? DailyKOS? Seriously?
Your sources are wrong. My sources are right.

He is an opinion journalist. He has the highest rated cable news show in prime time. And he affirms the TRUTH that you history revisionists are still trying to turn around.
It's not going to work.

Elected LIBERAL DEMOCRATS? Seriously?

 

No problem

Hardly my friend.

Complete 911 Timeline - The Hunt for Osama Bin Laden before 9/11

They were VERY aware of Bin Laden even before Clinton was elected. Bin Laden was on the U.S. watch list since 1993.

 

Here is a Washington post article that goes into this in detail

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ing-relationship-between-al-qaeda-and-saddam/

Imo there are a few different issues at play here

Do i think bush intentionally lied
Imo no
The intelligence could lead to the conclusions he drew

Did the bush admin over state the certainty of the intelligence
Imo yes

Did the bush administration make statements that implied things like a nuclear threat from iraq
With out actually saying a lie?
Imo yes


Did the bush admin have a sanguine over confidence about the invasion
Imo yes

did the admin have a clear game plan for post saddam iraq
no

did the admin have realistic and coherent goals beyond a sort of utopian remaking the middle east by bringing the wonders of democracy to a newly free people?
not really

was bush a great commander in chief
well he supported the people he put in charge
but being so supportive
he failed to exercise oversight
deferring to others is not leadership imo

the conversation with george tenet is an example.
bush comments that evidence of wmd seems thin
tenet says it is a slam dunk
end of discussion
if you think the evidence is thin
then a leader needs to insist on understanding what is the basis for it being a slam dunk
not just say
well ok then, lets invade iraq

 

What would they have done about Saddam instead?
1. I think Saddam would have continued to be the open sore that he was throughout the 1990's. I realize people now forget but from the end of the Gulf War until 9/11, Iraq was our primary foreign policy concern. That wouldn't have changed.

Would they still be containing Saddam today?
2. Possible, but he might have eventually given us another reason to attack him. Saddam did allow Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who later became the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq) into the country for treatment after he was wounded in Afghanistan. Although not an Islamist himself, Saddam wasn't above pretending to be pious, and he might have wanted to tweak the US by allowing Iraq to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. If he had done that, we would have invaded anyway.

Would they still be launching aircraft every day from Turkey and Saudi Arabia to contain Saddam?
3. I don't see any reason that we would have stopped Operations Northern and Southern Watch. Only if he had decided to come clean and abide by the Gulf War cease fire.

Would terrorist individuals and organizations have developed anyway under this approach?
4. Probably. We didn't invade Syria and look what happened. So since they were on the upswing in popularity anyway, I imagine their growth would have continued, although it might have played out differently.

After all, wasn't AQ's primary goal the removal of US forces from the very bases that we were using to contain Saddam?
5. Irrelevant. We mostly pulled out of Saudi Arabia, which was their biggest issue, and Al Qaeda declined to declare mission accomplished and go home.

How would we be handling the Iran nuclear crisis simultaneously with containment of Saddam today?
6. That's strictly depending on US policy based on who the President is. I assume without the Iraq War, there would be no President Obama.

If Saddam died without US intervention, who is to say the same chaos that we see today wouldn't have occurred anyway?
7. One of his sons would have taken over, and since they were at least as bloodthirsty, I imagine it would....still be the same. Assad was plenty bloodthirsty.

How long would we have to contain Saddam, especially if his sons successfully succeeded him?
8. Maybe one of his sons would want to get rid of the sanctions...who knows?

 

Ahh no we didn't and after we removed him from office we found the threat was even greater than we had envision.

David Kay: Saddam's Lack of Control over WMD Program Made it More Dangerous
Spectator Online ^ | 11/21/05 | George Neumayr
Posted on 11/22/2005, 9:53:44 AM by Jacksonville Patriot

Given the nonstop talk about what the Bush administration didn't find in Iraq, it is high time Bush officials remind people of what they did find there: a chaotically administered, out-of-control weapons program that was easily accessible to terrorists. As inspector David Kay reported, Iraqi scientists up until the beginning of the war were "actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin"; "We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq. And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities....The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country -- and no central control." Iraq under Saddam Hussein was arguably more dangerous than even Bush had assumed, Kay said: "I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was before the war."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1526748/posts

Do you REALLY believe the danger Saddam posed all began and ended with the WMD arsenal USCOM was looking for?

 

The US wasn't maintaining a carrier fleet in the Gulf since 1971. In 1990, when Saddam invaded Kuwait, it was the first time a US aircraft carrier was in the Gulf since 1971. We weren't able to withdraw them as of the 2003 invasion.

As someone just posted, in 1998, even Nancy Pelosi said Saddam had made a mockery of the weapons inspections program. I agree. If we wanted a deal in 2003, it was too late; we didn't believe him.

The Arab Spring becomes relevant when people say that leaving Saddam in place would have been preferable from a stability standpoint. I say the Arab Spring would have hit Iraq as well, and we would have chaos in Iraq anyway, just like we do in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Mali, and Nigeria.

Containing Saddam was already a quagmire for the US. We could have just left, and let Saddam rampage through Kuwait and anywhere else he wanted, or we could have stayed, indefinitely expending massive resources to contain Saddam, while the terrorist movement opposing our ME presence grew. That's the choice in 2003. You can complain about how much we spent after that decision, and I agree. We should have went in with a 30 year spending plan. We went in spending money like it was going to last 2 or 3 years, and that was a huge mistake. But the Iraq invasion didn't have to be like that.

And I think you are confusing me with another poster on the AQ ties to Saddam. I'm not saying that Saddam and AQ were in bed. I'm saying that because of containing Saddam, AQ emerged to attack the US.

 

ROFL oh how gracious of this unnamed fellow. The fact is the evidence not only could lead to the conclusions reach that is the only place the evidence led.

No, as no investigation showed they did. UNSCOM was kicked out during the process of rounding up his WMD having cataloged numerous stores for destruction. They were never full accounted for again. THAT is what they were looking for when they went back in just before the war in 2003. And Saddam still refused to account for it all. Yes we later found he had tried to hide it and during that lots of it deteriorated but so what, WMD nonetheless he just couldn't keep them hidden very well. But SO WHAT, he could easily and quickly rearm with the proscribed chemicals and biologicals we found. He didn't need to stock up until after the sanctions were lifted and the inspections ended.

A current threat? No. An imminent threat no. A threat down the road if left in power? Yes, and they were correct.

No but if a leader DOESN'T have confidence then he has no business ordering the invasion. And the invastion, defeat and removal of Saddam and his government was quick and very successful with a minimum of casualties. The long term war came when al Qaead and other terrorist groups made the strategic decision to move their fronts to Iraq to kick the American out. THAT is when we suffered the highest loses. But that was a strategic mistake on the part of al Qaeda where they had the advantage in Afghanistan but we had it in Iraq. And when Bush ordered the surge we defeated them costing them heavily.

There is never a "clear game plan" before the war is over. You deal with what is presented to you which is impossible to predict with absolute accuracy.

And what they didn't predict was the Democrat Party and the MSM become the 5th army for the terrorist in their opposition and demands of surrender declaring us defeated. This bolstered our enemies and made our friends wary. It was disgraceful and cost us lives and treasure.

You do realize we succeeded in our goals. Defeat Saddam have free and open elections and install a new government. Those were the goals, and they were accomplished.

Yes he was a good wartime President who was able to make the tough decisions this President cannot.

Had practicee proper delegation of authority and listened to, questioned and ran them them through the ringer and then trusted his leaders and those leaders trusted him. Something I find sorely lacking in this administration.

And a commander in chief questions his leaders on their conclusions, put them to the hard test, makes them stand solidly by them and then trust them on them.

So if you don't belief the people who decided we should go to war with Saddam surely you do not believe Hillary Clinton should be elected President do you?

 

Kay changed his assessment. Who got to him? His bosses? Nothing we knew about in Iraq justified conquest - nor did your post facto stuff that does not have a bearing on the war decision that was made.

If there were reasons for the war other than WMDs, they should have been stated.

In fact, I find it ludicrous to believe that we went to war over factors that were never brought up. We have laws about going to war, by the way. And, Bush was under the orders of the joint resolution, besides the rest of our law.

If you were to want to open this discussion to secret reasons for war, I would point you to the Project for a New American Century, where Wolfowitz and the many others in the Bush administration who were part of that cabal argued that we should conquer Iraq purely to use it as a base for US military operations in the region. And, I'll point out that Bush was building fabulous new military bases that were not required if our intent was to leave. We also had key congressmen such as McCain stating that our objective should be to have operational levels of military force remain in Iraq for at least 50 years. Our objective!


Has Iraq turned out to be "a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was before the war"???

That one I'll hand to Kay.

 

That is NOT what the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded. What you linked was the press release in May, 2008. Here is the actual report, and its conclusions, which are different from the conclusions you posted:

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf

You claimed that the report concluded: Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

But that is not so, because the entire section on postwar findings is deleted in Amendment 43, on page 133.

You claimed the report concluded: Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

Again, that is not what it included, as this sentence was struck from the record in Amendment 58 on page 135.

You claim the report concluded that: The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

Amendments 81-83, on pages 139-140, exonerate Rumsfeld, so again, that is not what the report concluded.

You stated that the report concluded that:Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

Again, not what it concluded. Amendment 99 on page 146 specifically states: We do not believe the President ever stated or implied that Saddam Hussein was harboring AQ.

Also Amendment 119 struck your exact words from the conclusion, inserting instead: Statements by the President and Secretary Powell that Iraq had provided AQ with weapons training were supported by the intelligence.

You claimed the report concluded: The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

Again, your exact sentence was struck from the record in Amendment 121. It was confirmed that Atta met with Iraqi intel in Prague.

And finally, your claim that the report concluded: Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

Shocker, those exact words were also struck from the record in Amendment 125 on page 150. Bush and his admin expressed concern that Iraq would share WMD's, but they didn't indicate that he intended to do so, or was preparing to do so.

I vehemently oppose the Iraq War naysayers, and it is stuff like this that leads me to believe I am right. You were either mistaken, or misleading in posting the Senate Intelligence Committee press release, and not the actual report, which concluded the opposite of all 6 of the assertions you claim.

 

I don't find it ludicrous, that's how war works. Please bear with me, and I'll attempt to explain the concepts at work:

We can definitely say that on Dec 7, 1941, the US was justified to go to war. But what about a few days prior? Would the US be justified in attacking the Japanese fleet at sea? During construction of the fleet? You see the dilemma here, regarding democracy and war? When it comes to the decision to go to war, it either can be preemptive, or it can wait until the population clearly sees the need to go to war. There are problems on both ends of the spectrum. If the president is too preemptive, the population won't see the need for the war, and he or she will be lambasted like Bush. But wait too late to go to war, and a president can find themselves in position of FDR, and be thrown into a war unprepared, and at a disadvantage.

 

I gotta say that i am amazed that there are still enthusiastic supporters of the iraq debacle

So many issues that could be addressed

Here is one
Is it certain that m atta 9-11 conspirator traveled to prague and met with iraqi intelligence?



Shortly after September 11, Vice President Dick Cheney asked Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to look into the claim that Atta had met an Iraqi intelligence agent. Tenet put the Directorate of Operations Jim Pavitt on the case, who reported back to Tenet. On September 21, 2001, Tenet told the President, "Our Prague office is skeptical about the report. It just doesn't add up." Tenet also indicated that other evidence the CIA was able to find, including credit card and telephone records, made such a meeting highly unlikely.[15]

According to columnist Robert Novak, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "confirmed published reports that there is no evidence placing the presumed leader of the terrorist attacks in the Czech capital." [16] According to the January 2003 CIA report Iraqi Support for Terrorism, "the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility" that such a meeting occurred.[17] Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet released "the most complete public assessment by the agency on the issue" in a statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2004, stating "Although we cannot rule it out, we are increasingly skeptical that such a meeting occurred."[18]

John E. McLaughlin, who at the time was the Deputy Director of the CIA, described the extent of the Agency's investigation into the claim: "Well, on something like the Atta meeting in Prague, we went over that every which way from Sunday. We looked at it from every conceivable angle. We peeled open the source, examined the chain of acquisition. We looked at photographs. We looked at timetables. We looked at who was where and when. It is wrong to say that we didn't look at it. In fact, we looked at it with extraordinary care and intensity and fidelity."[19]

FBIEdit
A senior administration official told Walter Pincus of the Washington Post that the FBI had concluded that "there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the U.S. at the time he was supposed to be in Prague." FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III outlined the extent of their investigation into the hijacker's whereabouts in a speech in April 2002: "We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts."[20] There are no known travel records showing Atta leaving or entering the US at that time, and everything known about Atta's whereabouts suggests that he was in Florida at that time.

Czech police and intelligenceEdit
The Czech police chief, Jiří Kolář, "said there were no documents showing that Atta visited Prague at any time" in 2001.[21]

In August 2002, Czech foreign intelligence chief František Bublan publicly backed away from the claim that Atta met al-Ani, saying that rumors of such meetings "have not been verified or proven." The Prague Post reported that "Bublan said that promoting a so-called 'Prague connection' between Atta and al-Ani might have been a ploy by U.S. policymakers seeking justifications for a new military action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein."[22]

According to an article in the Washington Post more recently, the Czechs backed away from the claim: "After months of further investigation, Czech officials determined last year that they could no longer confirm that a meeting took place, telling the Bush administration that al-Ani might have met with someone other than Atta."[23] This perception seems confirmed by an associate of al-Ani's who suggested to a reporter that the Czech informant had mistaken another man for Atta. The associate said "I have sat with the two of them at least twice. The double is an Iraqi who has met with the consul. If someone saw a photo of Atta he might easily mistake the two."[21]

In 2014 Jiří Růžek, the former head of Czech intelligence agency BIS, published his memoirs.[24] Here he claims that the USA tried to push Czech prime minister Miloš Zeman to announce that 9/11 attack was planned with the help of Iraq in Prague. All blame for the false cause of conflict would then fall on Czech authorities.[25]

9/11 CommissionEdit
The 9/11 Commission also addressed the question of an alleged Prague connection and listed many of the reasons above that such a meeting could not have taken place. The report notes that "the FBI has gathered intelligence indicating that Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs, Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased an apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular telephone was used numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites within Florida. We cannot confirm that he placed those calls. But there are no U.S. records indicating that Atta departed the country during this period." Combining FBI and Czech intelligence investigations, "[n]o evidence has been found that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001." The Commission assessed that "There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had completed most of their training, and the muscle hijackers were about to begin entering the United States. The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting."

In the final analysis, the 9/11 Commission Report makes this statement: "These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip)." (p. 229)

 

Attacking an incoming fleet is not even remotely equivalent to conquering Iraq for unannounced justification.

The situation in Iraq was stable. Iraq was NOT going to attack the US. It's military was highly compromised due to the previous war from which it never recovered. In fact, Saddam couldn't even move his military inside his own country!

And, we had every right to ensure inspections moved forward. There was no justification for pulling them out and then conquering the nation - a move that was so thoroughly botched that it has made things throughout the region and even here in the US more dangerous than they ever were under Saddam.

 

So? What does this have to do with the fact that the Iraq war belongs to George W Bush?

 

The justifications had been announced for 13 years. And I wasn't comparing the 2 events. I was using Pearl Harbor to show you a problem between war and democracy that you obviously didn't get. That would be my fault, but the concept exists.

All of the above were true because the US was expending massive effort and resources containing Saddam for 12 years. I was there for 6 months to witness that effort and expense. I don't agree with the mindset that all of your above facts just happened. A lot of people worked hard to make it happen.

I remember that it was Saddam who was messing around with inspectors for 12 years prior. Bush had made the decision at the point the inspectors were withdrawn. What, you wanted Bush to leave them in there for the invasion?

 

What the Democrats and vulnurable Republicans thought was that they had better vote the way the President wanted, or they would be roundly called un American by every crackpot in right wing media.

The vote was deliberately scheduled days before the 2002 Mid Term election for the purpose of placing maximum political pressure for a yes vote.

That was the White House's strategy. They turned a matter of life and death into one of electoral politics.

 

I was not aware of Ruzek's memoirs.

I am aware that the Atta thing was always a lie. I'm fairly certain the White House knew it was a lie as well, although Cheney made the claim several times in national television.

But then, he also made the claims about Hussein's nuclear program, when the world's intelligence communites were aware that Iraq had ended its nuclear program and dismantled it.

The final report of the Senate Intelligence Committee dispatches the Atta myth once and for all.

 

It belongs to Hillary as well and Obama isn't innocent.

 

Well, this thread seems to have devolved to a debate between two Bush dead enders and everyone else.

The Bushies are doing two things.

One, they are repeating dubious excuses for war. They're looking around for old articles that made the original bogus claims used to sell the war, and spin pieces.

In every case, subsequent investigations and events thoroughly debunked all of these claims.

Another keeps insisting that we were expending "massive" sums on the No Fly zone, dispite documentation that notes that the operation cost about $1 a year. At that rate, the US could have maintained the No Fly zone for the rest of the century and well beyond on what US would eventually borrow and spend on Mr Bush's disasterous war.