Two Fools Run Off At The Mouth Re WMD
The shameless justification of the unjustifiable Iraq war reached a new low yesterday.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.
"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Santorum said.
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
What can be next?
These prevaricators will probably say that we didn't invade Iraq -- Saddam invaded the United States.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told reporters yesterday that weapons of mass destruction had in fact been found in Iraq, despite acknowledgments by the White House and the insistence of the intelligence community that no such weapons had been discovered.
"We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons," Santorum said.
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
The U.S. military announced in 2004 in Iraq that several crates of the old shells had been uncovered and that they contained a blister agent that was no longer active. Neither the military nor the White House nor the CIA considered the shells to be evidence of what was alleged by the Bush administration to be a current Iraqi program to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
What can be next?
These prevaricators will probably say that we didn't invade Iraq -- Saddam invaded the United States.
posted by Effwit at 8:52 AM
23 Comments:
For a good 80+ % of the population...if it echoes then it's true.
M1:
True. I saw a study that said something like 70-80% of the enlisted men in Iraq believe that they are there because of Saddam's involvement in 9-11
hmmm... I dunno Mr. F... I somehow thought this war was completely justifiable... as in... we see you've got something that we are entitled to... so hand it over...
If only God had been smarter and put all the world's oil reserves in Texas - or at least in countries already owned by the U.S. - such as Canada -- all this unpleasantness might have been avoided . But then again, we need to find a niche for the General Dynamics and Haliburton's of the world to operate in too -- it's not easy to make a living these days...
Dena
Dena:
I guess I shouldn't have been so unequivocal in saying that the war was entirely unjustifiable.
You have correctly pointed out a major flaw in my post--there are of course a myriad of valid justifications--mostly economic or criminal (or both) motivations.
It is just that pro-war folks hesitate to state such rationales publicly.
There's no flaw in your post -- I'm just being cynical I guess....
Of course from all moral points of view the war is unjustifiable -- but from -- as you say economic -- points of view it is... And further, as with all such economic wars, it's understood that you can't blatantly say it's about $$. That would be crass.
Dena
Dena:
Not as much cynical as realistic, I would say.
Were we over there for WMD?
I thought we were over there to remove a sick dictator that gased his own people and paid homicide bombers $25,000 each to blow themselves up in falafel shops full of teens.
You know get rid of a guy who had active teror camps going on, who supported honor killings and even blew away his own son in law.
No? It was just WMD? Oh, heck I know where those are, that'd be Iran and Syria. A few probably are chillin' out in Pakistan and UAE too.I mean we gave the guy like 17 resolutions, and umpteen years to hide or get rid of his little playthings.
Jenn:
The only argument that the Bush administration made was WMD and the threat to the USA. Otherwise, the U.S. attack would have been clearly illegal. You cannot invade a sovereign country just because you don't like the leader.
The subsequent justifications only came after the WMD turned out to be illusory.
The WMD "revelation" yesterday had nothing to do with Saddam having an active program--which was the rationale for our attack.
Gooper bloggers are frothing over a "discovery" that the intelligence community acknowledged was a non issue.
You are just so full of shit.
Jenn, Jenn, Jenn!
My God, what an idealist your are!!
Would that the U.S. could somehow be the "good cop of the world (!)"
I'd like a strong - but fair - daddy to take care of me too!
It's just when I learn of how cosy Rumsfeld was with Saddam in years gone by, how the U.S. purposely interfers with democratic elections around the world (e.g Venezuela, Iran), etc. that I think this "good" cop might just have gone bad, and only purports to have such altruistic intentions as of which you speak.
Why not fix the (unholy) mess in your own house before deigning to "help" others? That's my thinking -- and, you know, I think it says that in the Bible too...
Dena
Wait a minute Dena...I thought that Bush said, in the 2000 Debates, that the U.S. "should not be the world's policeman."
But, you know...fallacy of logic, all that stuff...
Okay, so let's sum this up, shall we? We went over there because Dub told us, all of us, that Iraq had WMD's they were "about to use". Then we run the U.N. out, bomb the everlivin' shit out of the country, topple Hussein's government, but...don't find the WMD's were looking for, yet declare the war over. Oh, but we went over there to "establish a democracy", "freedom on the march", "when they stand up, we'll stand down", and all this other crap...and now, all of a sudden after three years of this "last throes of the insurgency, and other random bullshit, all of a sudden it turns out that...we found the WMD's? Two damned years ago?
And I'm supposed to actually believe their bullshit this time?
Not gonna happen.
VCIII:
Dena does not wish anyone to buy Dub's BS. She was using irony to mock a troll.
It is the odious Jenn who thinks that Bush can do no wrong.
On a related note, I found the FBI's Mueller's comments today about the Miami arrests to be very...arresting. He essentially said that we must be more concerned about home grown threats than those from abroad. Scary stuff. Seems to justify - at least in the government's little collective mind - the spying on and surveillance of U.S. citizens...all U.S. citizens. Listening to Mueller, we're a nation laden with dangerous cells just waiting to attack.
Honestly, his comments were some of the most disturbing I've heard in the last five years. Not from the nature of the "threat", but rather from the government's potential to grossly overstep its bounds. Chilling, to say the least.
DrewL:
The "home-grown" terrorist cells meme does indeed help to kill multiple birds with the same stone.
It is impossible to refute that there may be lone wolf groups or even sleeper cells hidden within our country. Thus, any time a valid criticism of overreaching domestic measures is made, the government can point to the possibility that there are already terrorists in our midst.
It makes the government's job of selling their "anti-terror" policies all the more easy.
Dena does not wish anyone to buy Dub's BS. She was using irony to mock a troll.
No, no...I wasn't responding to Dena in that post. I agree with Dena; I was being sarcastic in those first few lines...sorry, Dena, if I didn't make that clear.
The crux of that post was in response to the notion that here's yet another excuse/cover-up from the Bush administration sycophants, and it's only the 175th in a series of excuses coming out of this Iraq war as to why we went there, why we are there, and why we should remain there...until the twelfth of never.
Basically, I wouldn't be so pissed about it, if anyone from the Administration just came out and told us all the truth--that we went to Iraq because we wanted Saddam out; not for WMD's, not so much for "restoring democracy". We wanted that fucker out of there, and we had contracts and government hookups to hand out. Period. But what we get is, "Restore democracy...err, regime change...err, weapons of mass destruction...err, Axis of Evil...err, elections...err, national security..."
And again, while we're fucking around in Iraq...let's not get off the subject of why the hell haven't we caught the proprietor of 9/11 yet? We still haven't heard a significant answer as to why OBL hasn't been caught yet, but we're all set and raring to go to Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and all this other shit. They promised us Americans that this asshole would be caught--here it is, approaching the 5-year anniversary, and that asshole still lives. I'm done with all the fucking excuses, the subterfuge, the bullshit--there is no reason why it takes more than five years to catch that asshole bin Laden; not if you can start a war that lasts for three years, and it took all of 8 months of that to find Saddam hiding in a hole.
VCThree:
No harm, no foul. It was my misunderstanding of your--now obvious--meaning. Sorry.
I share your feeling of being fed up with all the excuses. The latest, and one of the most sickening is when they point to all the dead and wounded soldiers and marines and declare that if we pull out now we will be dishonoring their sacrifice.
The unfortunate dead and wounded were dishonored by the people who sent them over there in the first place. Playing dice with peoples' lives is way beyond wrong.
Re Iran and North Korea next in line for the treatment, we are apparently gearing up for a perminent state of war--very profitable for some people.
VCIII, thanks for clairifying...
(I wasn't exactly sure of what you were saying either ...
that's the thing about the written word -- you can be lost when it comes to tone... :-)
Dena
Um, actually, I may loathe liberals, but Bush sucks, and I can't wait till his time's up. He's no Republican.
I assure you, I think he has done plenty of wrong. It's just that Iraq is not one of the things. Well, the way he's carried out the war, sure, but getting rid of Saddam. No problemo.
Jenn:
Thanks for clearing that up.
Jenn, the problem that I have with the whole Iraq thing is that the Bush administration made this Priority #1 in the War on Terror, when they left the old "Priority #1", bin Laden, unchecked. It's great that they got him, but...it should have been next on the to-do list after killing or capturing Bin Laden. I don't have a problem with "getting rid of Saddam", per se. I have a problem with "getting rid of Saddam" as the chief strategic priority in the "War on Terror" over capturing/killing bin Laden, to the point where they just skipped out on that whole mission, a year into the mission, to focus solely on Iraq. And there's still security leaks here that allow for other attacks to happen. So, in my opinion, despite all their tough talk, the Bush administration is doing a half-assed job on terrorism. Speculate as you wish as to the reason why that is, but that's the fact, Jack.
And certainly, I'll agree with you that Bush, at least in fiscal terms, is nowhere close to conservative. Yet what I don't see is his padres in Congress challenging him much on fiscal responsibility either, as they have passed bills that leak so much money, you can see dollar bills dripping out of the rotunda of the Capitol dome. So either they aren't that conservative, or they're just complicitly doing this because they know they have rubber stamp authority to do so. Either way, it's insane.
Jenn,
I understand your hatred of the despotic Saddam -- But consider that he is only a pathetic 2-bit thug/tyrant artfully played by your own gov't for their own ends. When Saddam gassed, posioned, raped , murdered in the '80s + '90s he was using arms/poison provided by your gov't and with the tacit approval of your gov't. It's just when he got uppity that the U.S. decided to get all holier-than-thou with him with the first Gulf War.
So again, save a little contempt for all those nice clean-cut Rethugs (such as Rumsfeld) in shiny suits who pat the heads of babies while munching Girl Guide cookies. They will end up harming your country more than you realize in their never ending quest for domination and power.
Dena
Jenn. You typedity typed, I thought we were over there to remove a sick dictator that gased his own people and paid homicide bombers $25,000 each to blow themselves up in falafel shops full of teens.
1 On gasing - the infamous gas attack you in all likelihood refer to remains rather shrouded as pertains to pinning it to a specific nation state perp. Though you'd be forgiven for believing otherwise if you love your MTV and cherry Pop Tarts, it is reasonable to believe that the Iranians hit the village - though it's not beyond reasonable belief that the Iraqis hit it. The village in question was in unfortunately situated in a no mans land that saw Iranian and Iraqi forces flowing back and forth over it during a conflict that predated the date of your high school drop out. But why should I care about details when you don't.
2 25K* buckaroos per suicide bomber? I think you've mixed up your theaters of conflict, pasty baby. Are you a dumbassed girdle strangulate or just another genuinely disinterested yackity yacker of self-derogatory truisms?
* K= thousand, Jenna.
And, Dena, in addition to the U.S. support for Saddam throughout the 80s, let's not forget another certain individual who received weapons and money - lots of both - from the U.S. back during the same period. Yep, none other than our favorite fugitive, Osama (Usama) bin Laden. The mujahedeen put up a good fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, but it wasn't until they received stinger missiles from the U.S. that they were able to turn the tide in that messy conflict. No doubt, the lines of communication that bonded OBL with U.S. covert operations 20 years ago haven't exactly gone dead in the meantime. Scratching one another's back is a mutually beneficial endeavor in most instances.
So true Drewl. I hadn't even thought about OBL. What a bitter pill for the U.S. to swallow... to realize that they were the first to offer OBL Terror 101 lessons -- Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!
Dena
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