I don't think lying is an impeachable offense...impeachment should be reserved, as the Constitution says, for high crimes and misdemeanors. It should be a last drastic step and as much as I hate Bush and his administration, he shouldn't be impeached just because he fudged a bit on the war.
The reason Clinton wasn't convicted, IMO, is because the crimes just weren't high enough. This surely is high enough. It's difficult to imagine a higher crime. What in the world would be impeachable, if not something like this?
And John Dean, a Republican who knows something about impeachable offenses, has this to say:
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President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"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."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17. 2003
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So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
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Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
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But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.
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In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause.
Um, no. The only person in the world who has made that claim has been Bush, while every expert, intel analyst or inspector says otherwise. Deal with it.
He cited a non-existant IAEA report to pretend Iraq had a nuke program, saying, and I quote, "What more justification do you need?"
You really need to come back to reality some time, chief.
I agree that wasn't accurate. A lie, though? I don't know. That would be tough to prove. I know the speech you are talking about...he didn't reference any specific report. He said "There was a report that came out of that agency that said Saddam may be 6 months away from developing a nuclear weapon". There could be any number of reasons he said this. He could have been thinking of a much earlier report. He could have just been mistaken. Who knows. This is the best "evidence" you have and it's pretty damn weak. And really, do you honestly mean to tell me that Saddam didn;t have a nuke program or WMD program? Do you honestly believe that if we don;t find it, it means it wasn't there? Come on. Try to inject SOME common sense into your argument.
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SDW, how about you just not participate in my threads? You whine and moan about how everyone else has wronged you but you add absolutely nothing to the conversation here other than a "no it's not" or "liar liar" to any number of "i believe this and here's why and here's evidence as to why" statements. Shit man, you've even topped me in the derisive laughter category. That's ****in hard to do. Just keep this shit to your own wacky threads, ok?
Right BR, all I do is make unsuported and illogical statements that no one on planet Earth would agree with.
The fact is that this thread and many others simply serve to demonstrate what many people already know: The Democrats will use ANY possible point to humiliate and hopefully defeat Bush. It's as if there is a personal hatred of the man. I love how you post this thread under the unquestioned assumption that Bush lied. It's just an accepted fact to you.
This issue has now become the new "last issue" for the Democrats. The economy was all they had, and now that's starting to get better. They would LOVE to see Bush go down in some sort of scandal.
As far as me adding nothing to the conversation: I think what you really mean is that I present a point of view that few here want to hear. I am a proud conservative and I will back up ANY position I have with a detailed explanation. I, like 75% of the country, supported the war. I think Bush is doing a superb job as President, and will get credit for it too. I don't agree with each and every thing he does. He needs to stand for more limited government, for example. That's a failing of his. However, the assumption here is that anyone who supports Bush must be a Big Mac eating, WWE watching, pickup truck driving moron. In short, you can go on insulting me. It's not going to stop me from arguing your absurd ideas and points, though.
Political boost. In fact, the release of the report probably did more harm than good, since it allowed experts everywhere to analyze it more. Here's an example, and is really just the tip of it:
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One biologist, looking at CIA-released photographs of a trailer, noted that the pipes feeding into the chamber appear to have threaded or bolt-flange joints, which he says would cause leaks?both from the inside and to the outside. The former might contaminate the bioproduction, the latter might kill the bioworkers. Another biologist said he would like to know whether the trailer has a thermal-control meter that could keep the chamber to within one or two degrees of body temperature; if there is such a meter, the trailer might have been used to grow toxins; if there isn't, it couldn't possibly have been.
Another question is raised by the following passage in the May 29 New York Times story about the CIA report: "And the mobile factories were poorly designed. For instance, one official noted, Iraqi biologists running the plants would have had a hard time getting raw materials into the production gear and removing multiplied colonies of deadly germs." One wonders: How hard is "a hard time"? If a worker couldn't get raw materials in or the deadly germs out, then what kind of bio-production plant was this? Was it "poorly designed" or designed for some other purpose?
What are you, 10? Al-Tuwaitha was sealed by the UN until a group of marines broke the seals. The material stored there was low-grade uranium.
So this "low-grade" uranium was part not part of a Nuke program? Perhaps they were using it as fertilizer in an attempt to speed up plant evolution?
Oh but that's right, they had every bit of radioactive material under lock and key in the entire country.
NO Nuke program, no reasearch at the universities, and no reasearch by the military?
Oh, wait....it's all coming back to me.....you guys read it in Time or saw it on CNN. Where, of course, our intelligence agencies get 95% of their "sensitive" information.
What was Blair's motivation? The war was hugely unpopular. Why would he have done it?
I have no idea...he's no fool, so I'm sure he had reasons other than the pitifully transparent ones being trotted out for public consumption...but I really cannot imagine what his true motivation was. Suffice it to say that a lot of people were very surprised with the position he took.
As for Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush profiting from the war? I believe that they will. But its not central to the questions at stake here (that is - did they lie or make representations that they knew to be untrue or highly unlikely in order to start a war), so I'm willing to drop it for now. At the very least you have to admit they will benefit from the fact that winning a war helps build popular support back home. Sure, they pissed off some liberals and lefties, but they also managed to move a lot of attention away from the fact that the economy is fuxxored and that rascally Osama Bin Laden is still running about out there somewhere.
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Originally posted by SDW2001
That is 100% wrong. 100%
Why are you so deep in denial? There is as of yet no evidence that indicates these mobile labs/plants were definitely used to make weapons. Even the CIA report that you link to admits that the mobile labs could have been used for legitimate agricultural purposes and that further testing will be required before they can say with 100% certainty that bio weapons were being produced.
So this "low-grade" uranium was part not part of a Nuke program? Perhaps they were using it as fertilizer in an attempt to speed up plant evolution?
Oh but that's right, they had every bit of radioactive material under lock and key in the entire country.
You are 10, aren't you? really. you must be
Why do people find it so necessary to comment about things they so obviously know nothing about? Do some people just really get a kick out of making asses of themselves?
Quote:
Oh, wait....it's all coming back to me.....you guys read it in Time or saw it on CNN. Where, of course, our intelligence agencies get 95% of their "sensitive" information.
Maybe when you make it out of the seventh grade you will learn what 'open sources' means. Until then, though, focus on your abc's
Read closely, though, [I think they are directing that at you, SDW] the CIA report reveals considerable ambiguity about the nature of these vehicles. For example, it notes that Iraqi officials?presumably those currently being interrogated?say the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather-balloons. (Many Army units float balloons to monitor the accuracy of artillery fire.) In response to this claim, the report states:
Some of the features of the trailer?a gas-collection system and the presence of caustic?are consistent with both bioproduction and hydrogen production. The plant's design possibly could be used to produce hydrogen using a chemical reaction, but it would be inefficient. The capacity of this trailer is larger than the typical units for hydrogen production for weather balloons.
One could ask: Since when was Saddam's Iraq considered a model of efficiency?
I don't understand what you're saying here. It certainly is a matter of opinion - the opinion of Congress acting as the jury. What constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors is not laid out, except for treason or bribery I believe. But I think the assumption is that speeding wouldn't be an impeachable offense, nor would shoplifting. The "highness" of the offense is critical.
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2) Clinton *was* impeached.
What do you mean "wasn't convicted"?
He was impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate. An impeachment is like an indictment - it's saying "we think he should be tried for this." The Senate holds the trial, and he was acquitted on all counts (I think there were two or three). He was not convicted, which is why I said, well, that he wasn't convicted.
But seriously, folks how in the sam hill are we supposed to take any of this seriously?
First we have to believe:
[list=1][*]Bush is a lair---(and not just a political liar)[*]The Hussien administration was honest and forthcoming in all matters relevant to the preceeding list item.[*]The information in the public domain is all there is to know.[/list=1]
Now, if any one of those three are faulty for any reason, it puts Mr. Giant in quite a precarious position.
We know for a fact that #2 is dubious, and #3 is not realistic.
In fact, the question was never whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We know he had weapons of mass destruction. He used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds, against the Iranians and against his own people.
The United Nations weapons inspectors repeatedly found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, right up until Saddam threw them out in 1998. Justifying his impeachment-day bombing, Clinton cited the Iraqi regime's "nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs." (Indeed, this constitutes the only evidence that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction: Bill Clinton said he did.)
Liberals are now pretending that their position all along was that Saddam had secretly disarmed in the last few years without telling anyone. This would finally explain the devilish question of why Saddam thwarted inspectors every inch of the way for 12 years, issued phony reports to the U.N., and wouldn't allow flyovers or unannounced inspections: It was because he had nothing to hide!
Next...
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Rather, it was that there were lots of reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein and none to keep him. When President Bush gave the Hussein regime 48 hours' notice to quit Iraq, he said: "(A)ll the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end." He said there would be "no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near."
More...
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Contrary to their current self-advertisements, it was liberals who were citing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction ? and with gusto ? in order to argue against war with Iraq. They said America would suffer retaliatory strikes, there would be mass casualties, Israel would be nuked, our troops would be hit with Saddam's chemical weapons, it would be a Vietnam quagmire.
Anyone remember this nice WW3 link posted on here?
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In January this year, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof cited the sort of dismal CIA report that always turns up in the hands of New York Times reporters, warning that Saddam might order attacks with weapons of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." He said he opposed invading Iraq as a pure matter of the "costs and benefits" of an invasion, concluding we should not invade because there was "clearly a significant risk" that it would make America less safe.
In his native tongue, weaselese, Kristof claimed he would be gung-ho for war if only he were convinced we could "oust Saddam with minimal casualties and quickly establish a democratic Iraq." We've done that, and now he's blaming the Bush administration for his own idiotic predictions of disaster. Somehow, that's Bush's fault, too. Kristof says Bush manipulated evidence of weapons of mass destruction ? an act of duplicity he calls "just as alarming" as a dictator who has weapons of mass destruction.
If Americans were lied to, they were lied to by liberals who warned we would be annihilated if we attacked Iraq. The left's leading intellectual light, Janeane Garofalo, was featured in an anti-war commercial before the war, saying: "If we invade Iraq, there's a United Nations estimate that says, 'There will be up to a half a million people killed or wounded.'" Now they're testy because they fear Saddam may never have had even a sporting chance to unleash dastardly weapons against Americans.
I just love how the progressive folks here can ALWAYS be on the correct side of any issue. They screamed that Sadfdam would kill hundreds of thousands of our men, and they scream now that we were too successful and he must have been a disarmed paper tiger. It must be nice to live in their self-rightous world.
I love Ann Coulter, she just puts things in perspective so well.
It's the end of the day, but if you remove the errors in fact, attempts at rewriting history and strawman portrayals, you end up with a post that looks like this:
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I would say nice try, but quoting a radical like Ann Coulter spouting off her delusional world view really hurts your credibility.
Look, I found this quote from her:
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The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster -- Ann Coulter
So this is where folks like SDW get their directions. The blind leading the blind
The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster -- Ann Coulter
You are either with us or against us.
It is either black or white.
She must believe that the two party system is the most representative possible.
Comments
Originally posted by ena
Iraq has NO nuke program?
....don't tell those looters with radiation poisoning.
What are you, 10? Al-Tuwaitha was sealed by the UN until a group of marines broke the seals. The material stored there was low-grade uranium.
Originally posted by Naderfan
I don't think lying is an impeachable offense...impeachment should be reserved, as the Constitution says, for high crimes and misdemeanors. It should be a last drastic step and as much as I hate Bush and his administration, he shouldn't be impeached just because he fudged a bit on the war.
The reason Clinton wasn't convicted, IMO, is because the crimes just weren't high enough. This surely is high enough. It's difficult to imagine a higher crime. What in the world would be impeachable, if not something like this?
And John Dean, a Republican who knows something about impeachable offenses, has this to say:
President George W. Bush has got a very serious problem. Before asking Congress for a Joint Resolution authorizing the use of American military forces in Iraq, he made a number of unequivocal statements about the reason the United States needed to pursue the most radical actions any nation can undertake - acts of war against another nation.
Now it is clear that many of his statements appear to be false. In the past, Bush's White House has been very good at sweeping ugly issues like this under the carpet, and out of sight. But it is not clear that they will be able to make the question of what happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) go away - unless, perhaps, they start another war.
That seems unlikely. Until the questions surrounding the Iraqi war are answered, Congress and the public may strongly resist more of President Bush's warmaking.
Presidential statements, particularly on matters of national security, are held to an expectation of the highest standard of truthfulness. A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson's distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon's false statements about Watergate forced his resignation.
Frankly, I hope the WMDs are found, for it will end the matter. Clearly, the story of the missing WMDs is far from over. And it is too early, of course, to draw conclusions. But it is not too early to explore the relevant issues.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"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."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17. 2003
So what are we now to conclude if Bush's statements are found, indeed, to be as grossly inaccurate as they currently appear to have been?
After all, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, and given Bush's statements, they should not have been very hard to find - for they existed in large quantities, "thousands of tons" of chemical weapons alone. Moreover, according to the statements, telltale facilities, groups of scientists who could testify, and production equipment also existed.
So where is all that? And how can we reconcile the White House's unequivocal statements with the fact that they may not exist?
There are two main possibilities. One that something is seriously wrong within the Bush White House's national security operations. That seems difficult to believe. The other is that the President has deliberately misled the nation, and the world.
Even before formally declaring war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the President had dispatched American military special forces into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction, which he knew would provide the primary justification for Operation Freedom. None were found.
Throughout Operation Freedom's penetration of Iraq and drive toward Baghdad, the search for WMDs continued. None were found.
As the coalition forces gained control of Iraqi cities and countryside, special search teams were dispatched to look for WMDs. None were found.
During the past two and a half months, according to reliable news reports, military patrols have visited over 300 suspected WMD sites throughout Iraq. None of the prohibited weapons were found there.
But, as Time magazine reported, the leads are running out. According to Time, the Marine general in charge explained that "[w]e've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad," and remarked flatly, "They're simply not there."
Perhaps most troubling, the President has failed to provide any explanation of how he could have made his very specific statements, yet now be unable to back them up with supporting evidence. Was there an Iraqi informant thought to be reliable, who turned out not to be? Were satellite photos innocently, if negligently misinterpreted? Or was his evidence not as solid as he led the world to believe?
The absence of any explanation for the gap between the statements and reality only increases the sense that the President's misstatements may actually have been intentional lies.
In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed.
As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable.
To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause.
Um, no. The only person in the world who has made that claim has been Bush, while every expert, intel analyst or inspector says otherwise. Deal with it.
Really?
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...nts/index.html
He cited a non-existant IAEA report to pretend Iraq had a nuke program, saying, and I quote, "What more justification do you need?"
You really need to come back to reality some time, chief.
I agree that wasn't accurate. A lie, though? I don't know. That would be tough to prove. I know the speech you are talking about...he didn't reference any specific report. He said "There was a report that came out of that agency that said Saddam may be 6 months away from developing a nuclear weapon". There could be any number of reasons he said this. He could have been thinking of a much earlier report. He could have just been mistaken. Who knows. This is the best "evidence" you have and it's pretty damn weak. And really, do you honestly mean to tell me that Saddam didn;t have a nuke program or WMD program? Do you honestly believe that if we don;t find it, it means it wasn't there? Come on. Try to inject SOME common sense into your argument.
SDW, how about you just not participate in my threads? You whine and moan about how everyone else has wronged you but you add absolutely nothing to the conversation here other than a "no it's not" or "liar liar" to any number of "i believe this and here's why and here's evidence as to why" statements. Shit man, you've even topped me in the derisive laughter category. That's ****in hard to do. Just keep this shit to your own wacky threads, ok?
Right BR, all I do is make unsuported and illogical statements that no one on planet Earth would agree with.
The fact is that this thread and many others simply serve to demonstrate what many people already know: The Democrats will use ANY possible point to humiliate and hopefully defeat Bush. It's as if there is a personal hatred of the man. I love how you post this thread under the unquestioned assumption that Bush lied. It's just an accepted fact to you.
This issue has now become the new "last issue" for the Democrats. The economy was all they had, and now that's starting to get better. They would LOVE to see Bush go down in some sort of scandal.
As far as me adding nothing to the conversation: I think what you really mean is that I present a point of view that few here want to hear. I am a proud conservative and I will back up ANY position I have with a detailed explanation. I, like 75% of the country, supported the war. I think Bush is doing a superb job as President, and will get credit for it too. I don't agree with each and every thing he does. He needs to stand for more limited government, for example. That's a failing of his. However, the assumption here is that anyone who supports Bush must be a Big Mac eating, WWE watching, pickup truck driving moron. In short, you can go on insulting me. It's not going to stop me from arguing your absurd ideas and points, though.
The reason Clinton wasn't convicted, IMO, is because the crimes just weren't high enough.
1) None of that can be a matter of opinion.
2) Clinton *was* impeached.
What do you mean "wasn't convicted"?
Originally posted by SDW2001
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...nts/index.html
Political boost. In fact, the release of the report probably did more harm than good, since it allowed experts everywhere to analyze it more. Here's an example, and is really just the tip of it:
One biologist, looking at CIA-released photographs of a trailer, noted that the pipes feeding into the chamber appear to have threaded or bolt-flange joints, which he says would cause leaks?both from the inside and to the outside. The former might contaminate the bioproduction, the latter might kill the bioworkers. Another biologist said he would like to know whether the trailer has a thermal-control meter that could keep the chamber to within one or two degrees of body temperature; if there is such a meter, the trailer might have been used to grow toxins; if there isn't, it couldn't possibly have been.
Another question is raised by the following passage in the May 29 New York Times story about the CIA report: "And the mobile factories were poorly designed. For instance, one official noted, Iraqi biologists running the plants would have had a hard time getting raw materials into the production gear and removing multiplied colonies of deadly germs." One wonders: How hard is "a hard time"? If a worker couldn't get raw materials in or the deadly germs out, then what kind of bio-production plant was this? Was it "poorly designed" or designed for some other purpose?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2083760/sidebar/2083762/
SDW: He could have been thinking of a much earlier report. He could have just been mistaken. Who knows.
I know! That's exactly the excuse the White House tried to pull, and then the IAEA came back and said that that report was also non-existant.
Man, you really are clueless.
Originally posted by giant
What are you, 10? Al-Tuwaitha was sealed by the UN until a group of marines broke the seals. The material stored there was low-grade uranium.
So this "low-grade" uranium was part not part of a Nuke program? Perhaps they were using it as fertilizer in an attempt to speed up plant evolution?
Oh but that's right, they had every bit of radioactive material under lock and key in the entire country.
NO Nuke program, no reasearch at the universities, and no reasearch by the military?
Oh, wait....it's all coming back to me.....you guys read it in Time or saw it on CNN. Where, of course, our intelligence agencies get 95% of their "sensitive" information.
Originally posted by SDW2001
What was Blair's motivation? The war was hugely unpopular. Why would he have done it?
I have no idea...he's no fool, so I'm sure he had reasons other than the pitifully transparent ones being trotted out for public consumption...but I really cannot imagine what his true motivation was. Suffice it to say that a lot of people were very surprised with the position he took.
As for Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush profiting from the war? I believe that they will. But its not central to the questions at stake here (that is - did they lie or make representations that they knew to be untrue or highly unlikely in order to start a war), so I'm willing to drop it for now. At the very least you have to admit they will benefit from the fact that winning a war helps build popular support back home. Sure, they pissed off some liberals and lefties, but they also managed to move a lot of attention away from the fact that the economy is fuxxored and that rascally Osama Bin Laden is still running about out there somewhere.
Originally posted by SDW2001
That is 100% wrong. 100%
Why are you so deep in denial? There is as of yet no evidence that indicates these mobile labs/plants were definitely used to make weapons. Even the CIA report that you link to admits that the mobile labs could have been used for legitimate agricultural purposes and that further testing will be required before they can say with 100% certainty that bio weapons were being produced.
Originally posted by ena
So this "low-grade" uranium was part not part of a Nuke program? Perhaps they were using it as fertilizer in an attempt to speed up plant evolution?
Oh but that's right, they had every bit of radioactive material under lock and key in the entire country.
You are 10, aren't you? really. you must be
Why do people find it so necessary to comment about things they so obviously know nothing about? Do some people just really get a kick out of making asses of themselves?
Oh, wait....it's all coming back to me.....you guys read it in Time or saw it on CNN. Where, of course, our intelligence agencies get 95% of their "sensitive" information.
Maybe when you make it out of the seventh grade you will learn what 'open sources' means. Until then, though, focus on your abc's
Originally posted by giant
You are 10, aren't you?
Double dumbass on you!!!!
Originally posted by ena
Double dumbass on you!!!!
I'll take that as a yes.
Read closely, though, [I think they are directing that at you, SDW] the CIA report reveals considerable ambiguity about the nature of these vehicles. For example, it notes that Iraqi officials?presumably those currently being interrogated?say the trailers were used to produce hydrogen for artillery weather-balloons. (Many Army units float balloons to monitor the accuracy of artillery fire.) In response to this claim, the report states:
Some of the features of the trailer?a gas-collection system and the presence of caustic?are consistent with both bioproduction and hydrogen production. The plant's design possibly could be used to produce hydrogen using a chemical reaction, but it would be inefficient. The capacity of this trailer is larger than the typical units for hydrogen production for weather balloons.
One could ask: Since when was Saddam's Iraq considered a model of efficiency?
http://slate.msn.com/id/2083760/
And the fact that you would need to have a few other trailers in conjunction to constitute a bio-weapon production facility is pretty damn important.
Originally posted by groverat
1) None of that can be a matter of opinion.
I don't understand what you're saying here. It certainly is a matter of opinion - the opinion of Congress acting as the jury. What constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors is not laid out, except for treason or bribery I believe. But I think the assumption is that speeding wouldn't be an impeachable offense, nor would shoplifting. The "highness" of the offense is critical.
2) Clinton *was* impeached.
What do you mean "wasn't convicted"?
He was impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate. An impeachment is like an indictment - it's saying "we think he should be tried for this." The Senate holds the trial, and he was acquitted on all counts (I think there were two or three). He was not convicted, which is why I said, well, that he wasn't convicted.
First we have to believe:
[list=1][*]Bush is a lair---(and not just a political liar)[*]The Hussien administration was honest and forthcoming in all matters relevant to the preceeding list item.[*]The information in the public domain is all there is to know.[/list=1]
Now, if any one of those three are faulty for any reason, it puts Mr. Giant in quite a precarious position.
We know for a fact that #2 is dubious, and #3 is not realistic.
Uh-oh!!!!!
I completely misunderstood your post. I know how the impeachment process works, I just misunderstood what you were saying.
Since you were injecting your opinion about why the Senate conviction didn't happen I thought you were talking about something else.
Crossed wires, shorted-out brain.
Originally posted by giant
about the trailers
http://slate.msn.com/id/2083760/
And the fact that you would need to have a few other trailers in conjunction to constitute a bio-weapon production facility is pretty damn important.
ah ha! says i. they were using hydrogen to make an h-bomb.
you know a hydrogen bomb. that has something to do with hydrogen right?
(mind you, deuterium is the form of hydrogen used in h-bombs but if you ask me i will disavow any knowledge of this that and the other
We Don't Care
Some choice excepts...
In fact, the question was never whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We know he had weapons of mass destruction. He used weapons of mass destruction against the Kurds, against the Iranians and against his own people.
The United Nations weapons inspectors repeatedly found Saddam's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, right up until Saddam threw them out in 1998. Justifying his impeachment-day bombing, Clinton cited the Iraqi regime's "nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs." (Indeed, this constitutes the only evidence that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction: Bill Clinton said he did.)
Liberals are now pretending that their position all along was that Saddam had secretly disarmed in the last few years without telling anyone. This would finally explain the devilish question of why Saddam thwarted inspectors every inch of the way for 12 years, issued phony reports to the U.N., and wouldn't allow flyovers or unannounced inspections: It was because he had nothing to hide!
Next...
Rather, it was that there were lots of reasons to get rid of Saddam Hussein and none to keep him. When President Bush gave the Hussein regime 48 hours' notice to quit Iraq, he said: "(A)ll the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end." He said there would be "no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near."
More...
Contrary to their current self-advertisements, it was liberals who were citing Saddam's weapons of mass destruction ? and with gusto ? in order to argue against war with Iraq. They said America would suffer retaliatory strikes, there would be mass casualties, Israel would be nuked, our troops would be hit with Saddam's chemical weapons, it would be a Vietnam quagmire.
Anyone remember this nice WW3 link posted on here?
In January this year, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof cited the sort of dismal CIA report that always turns up in the hands of New York Times reporters, warning that Saddam might order attacks with weapons of mass destruction as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him." He said he opposed invading Iraq as a pure matter of the "costs and benefits" of an invasion, concluding we should not invade because there was "clearly a significant risk" that it would make America less safe.
In his native tongue, weaselese, Kristof claimed he would be gung-ho for war if only he were convinced we could "oust Saddam with minimal casualties and quickly establish a democratic Iraq." We've done that, and now he's blaming the Bush administration for his own idiotic predictions of disaster. Somehow, that's Bush's fault, too. Kristof says Bush manipulated evidence of weapons of mass destruction ? an act of duplicity he calls "just as alarming" as a dictator who has weapons of mass destruction.
If Americans were lied to, they were lied to by liberals who warned we would be annihilated if we attacked Iraq. The left's leading intellectual light, Janeane Garofalo, was featured in an anti-war commercial before the war, saying: "If we invade Iraq, there's a United Nations estimate that says, 'There will be up to a half a million people killed or wounded.'" Now they're testy because they fear Saddam may never have had even a sporting chance to unleash dastardly weapons against Americans.
I just love how the progressive folks here can ALWAYS be on the correct side of any issue. They screamed that Sadfdam would kill hundreds of thousands of our men, and they scream now that we were too successful and he must have been a disarmed paper tiger. It must be nice to live in their self-rightous world.
Nick
Originally posted by trumptman
I love Ann Coulter, she just puts things in perspective so well.
It's the end of the day, but if you remove the errors in fact, attempts at rewriting history and strawman portrayals, you end up with a post that looks like this:
I would say nice try, but quoting a radical like Ann Coulter spouting off her delusional world view really hurts your credibility.
Look, I found this quote from her:
The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster -- Ann Coulter
So this is where folks like SDW get their directions. The blind leading the blind
The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster -- Ann Coulter
You are either with us or against us.
It is either black or white.
She must believe that the two party system is the most representative possible.