The NHS & the United States of America

[gerbick]

I never stated that the Iraq war was about oil. I stated that we did not invade Israel because they have no oil.

Now, by full retraction... I meant exactly that. Explain why he didn't listen to reports that said overwhelmingly otherwise instead of zeroing in on the few that said "perhaps" and made those into "definite".

Apologies that only say very little in the way of how wrong you truly were might as well be kept in your damn head because they mean very little.

And besides... we know the two reasons we went to Iraq was because "He tried to kill my Daddy" and Saddam had a mustache that was second to only Magnum P.I.

[FlashLackey]

And having no proof shown that supports your original statements, a gentleman worth anything usually will issue a sincere retraction of prior stated "truths" with actual truths.

The intelligence agencies in the US and UK are generally considered to be very capable. So, when they were concluding that Saddam had or was developing WMDs, it wasn't unreasonable that most, if not all, political leaders in the world took it as a given to be true.

On balance, I'll add that I also find it surprising that those agencies could be as wrong as they apparently were. However, I think that is more a product of people (myself included) to generally over-estimate the intelligence gathering capability of the CIA, etc. For whatever reason, it feels like those guys know everything. But, maybe there's a lot more room for error and misinterpretation in that business than we realize.

In hindsight, if our ability to know those things via CIA were solid, why would UN inspections be necessary at all? The bottom line is that UN resolution 687 required Iraq to comply with the inspections so that we could know.

It's like a criminal who tries to rob a bank with a toy gun hidden in his jacket. You don't blame the police for using lethal force against the criminal when he points the toy gun at them. The criminal had the option to surrender and disclose that the gun was fake. The police had to assume the gun was real in order to protect themselves.

Like I said before; we will have to disagree here.

Fair enough.

Strange the US hasn't invaded Israel yet.

Not all violations are equal.

Some would certainly argue that Israel has committed questionable acts. However, I think most would agree that they were not on the scale of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and subsequent disregard for UN resolution 687 (and so on up to the final 1441).

[gerbick]

Reminds me of a joke I heard last week...

Reporter: Why did you say that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?
George Bush: Heh. I have the receipt.

[Loyal Rogue]

The intelligence agencies in the US and UK are generally considered to be very capable.

They are, and they both concluded that Iraq had no WMDs and was no threat before the invasion.
That is why Bush had to manipulate and cherry-pick the intelligence, and outright lie to the American public via the media to build a case for war.

So, when they were concluding that Saddam had or was developing WMDs, it wasn't unreasonable that most, if not all, political leaders in the world took it as a given to be true.

Wrong.
The Downing Street Memos showed that the UK knew the "facts were being fixed" around Bush's political policy and they had to make the decision to either stand with the truth against their longtime ally or support the conspiracy.
http://downingstreetmemo.com/memotext.html

Remember "Freedom Fries"? LOL
France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada were just some of our allies that were against the invasion and argued that there was no evidence of WMDs beforehand.

On balance, I'll add that I also find it surprising that those agencies could be as wrong as they apparently were. However, I think that is more a product of people (myself included) to generally over-estimate the intelligence gathering capability of the CIA, etc. For whatever reason, it feels like those guys know everything. But, maybe there's a lot more room for error and misinterpretation in that business than we realize.

I find it surprising that you would continue to try and pull that old lie out as if you really believe it.

Bush had to create his own alternative "intelligence" office to support his case because the the real intelligence agencies including the CIA didn't.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020802387.html

Intelligence provided by former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith to buttress the White House case for invading Iraq included "reporting of dubious quality or reliability" that supported the political views of senior administration officials rather than the conclusions of the intelligence community

Feith's office "was predisposed to finding a significant relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda," according to portions of the report, released yesterday by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.). The inspector general described Feith's activities as "an alternative intelligence assessment process."

the inspector general concluded that Feith's assessment in 2002 that Iraq and al-Qaeda had a "mature symbiotic relationship" was not fully supported by available intelligence but was nonetheless used by policymakers.

Feith, who was defense policy chief before leaving the government in 2005, was one of the key contributors to the administration's rationale for war. His intelligence activities, authorized by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul D. Wolfowitz, and coordinated with Vice President Cheney's office, stemmed from an administration belief that the CIA was underplaying evidence of then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's ties with al-Qaeda.

The two key pieces of "evidence" Bush used as the basis for the invasion were both known to be unreliable and false long before the invasion.
1) The drunken liar "Curveball" who the Germans warned us against using.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/apr/03/iraq.usa1
and
2) The infamous aluminum tubes which Condoleezza Rice got up in front of the nation and told us were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," and "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." a full year after our own government's nuclear experts told her were not usable for a nuclear program and were most likely only for small artillery rockets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/03/in...rint&position=

And lets not gloss over the fact that Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector told us that there was no evidence of WMDs or nuclear programs before the invasion and that Saddam was providing full access even while Bush was on TV telling the American public the exact opposite... which SOME people on here would still have us believe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...raq.iraq/print

But Mr Blix, who has since retired to Sweden, said his inspectors found no compelling evidence that Iraq had a hidden arsenal or was blocking the work of the inspectors. He said there had been only small infractions by Iraq.

"We did express ourselves in dry terms but there was no mistake about the content," he said. "One cannot say there was compelling evidence. Iraq was guilty only of small infractions. The government should have re-evaluated its assessment in the light of what the inspectors found.

"We reported consistently that we found no weapons of mass destruction and I carried out inspections at sites given to us by US and British intelligence and not found anything."

Or the fact that 2 weeks before the invasion the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told us the same thing.

the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any nuclear weapons or was in the process of acquiring them.

With all the exposed lies and the information available in this day and age, for anyone to try and pretend that the Iraq invasion was based on anything even remotely legitimate is nothing more than an attempt to play us all for a fool... again.

It's like a criminal who tries to rob a bank with a toy gun hidden in his jacket. You don't blame the police for using lethal force against the criminal when he points the toy gun at them. The criminal had the option to surrender and disclose that the gun was fake. The police had to assume the gun was real in order to protect themselves.

Actually it was more like a crooked cop who shoots an unarmed suspect for personal reasons and then plants a gun on the body afterwards... except in this case Bush forgot to plant the gun.

[david petley]

Some would certainly argue that Israel has committed questionable acts.

'bout time you called a spade a spade....more than just questionable I think.
I'm just surprised that you didn't think to slip an 'apparently' in that statement somewhere.

The only WMD* deployed in the Iraq war was by the US administration of the time...Weapons of Mass Deception...leading to the death of thousands of US citizens as they fought a dirty little war that didn't need to be fought.

...but, from outside observation, I still think that Obama's reforms to the health care of a nation are probably overdue.

david

[Frets]

This battle has been fought for so many years. Unfortunately sometimes a great speech isn't enough.
The question is who has a greater control over congress.
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/vi...money.cnn.html

[gerbick]

Something to be real proud about... http://bit.ly/yIjCA

[FlashLackey]

They are, and they both concluded that Iraq had no WMDs and was no threat before the invasion.
That is why Bush had to manipulate and cherry-pick the intelligence, and outright lie to the American public via the media to build a case for war.

Wrong.

http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd-nie.pdf

The Downing Street Memos showed that the UK knew the "facts were being fixed" around Bush's political policy and they had to make the decision to either stand with the truth against their longtime ally or support the conspiracy.
http://downingstreetmemo.com/memotext.html

lol

You mean the document typed up by an anti-war "journalist"? For which no authentic document has been provided or confirmed by anyone who would have knowledge of the event?

Good one, LR. Good one.

France, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada were just some of our allies that were against the invasion and argued that there was no evidence of WMDs beforehand.

Some of our allies disagreed with the invasion. I don't recall any of them arguing that there was no evidence of WMDs.

I find it surprising that you would continue to try and pull that old lie out as if you really believe it.

The intelligence referred to in the article you posted was regarding the relationship between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. Not WMD in Iraq. Furthermore, it confirms that the CIA conclusion was that there "was an evolving association [of Iraq with Al-Qaeda] based on sources of varying reliability."

You don't know what Feith's basis was for using stronger language. Perhaps he saw the same evidence offered by the CIA and felt that it was conclusive.

You haven't any idea what intelligence was "key" because much intelligence remains classified. All you know is what has been publicized in the media.

And lets not gloss over the fact that Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector told us that there was no evidence of WMDs or nuclear programs before the invasion and that Saddam was providing full access even while Bush was on TV telling the American public the exact opposite... which SOME people on here would still have us believe.

And let's not gloss over that Hans Blix was hired to do one thing, report on whether or not Saddam Hussein complied with UN resolution 1441. He reported that he was not.

Blix not finding WMD was an unremarkable fact given that the point of 1441 was that Saddam had to cooperate with the UN to show that they didn't have WMD to hide. They were not cooperating with that effort, thus the toy gun comparison that I provided.

[FlashLackey]

'bout time you called a spade a spade....more than just questionable I think.
I'm just surprised that you didn't think to slip an 'apparently' in that statement somewhere.

I guess I could have forgotten some argument from the past. Why should it be "about time" that I acknowledged that people think Israel has done something wrong? Was I disagreeing with that at any time?

[moath86]

Originally Posted by FlashLackey
It's like a criminal who tries to rob a bank with a toy gun hidden in his jacket. You don't blame the police for using lethal force against the criminal when he points the toy gun at them. The criminal had the option to surrender and disclose that the gun was fake. The police had to assume the gun was real in order to protect themselves.

to make it clearer, it's like the cop knew it was fake, the cop posted the pictures inorder to scare another nations police station, to justify stealing the ["criminal's"] wallet, then shot the criminal, shot everyone in the bank and bombed the whole neighborhood....to liberate them!

this is a picture a little closer to reality i think.

[FlashLackey]

Are you a "truther"?

[moath86]

Are you a "truther"?

Are you a "shoe dodger" ?

[Loyal Rogue]

You mean the document typed up by an anti-war "journalist"? For which no authentic document has been provided or confirmed by anyone who would have knowledge of the event?

No... I meant the document that was reported on by an extremely reputible, award winning journalist and former British military specializing and working in military intelligence, along with several other documents at the time, none of which have been questioned in their legitimacy or denied by officials who had firsthand knowledge of the event including Prime Minister Tony Blair, and has been confirmed unofficially by multiple sources contacted by multiple media outlets... but I applaud your failed attempt to throw sand in the umpire's eyes.

*golf clap*

[Loyal Rogue]

Are you a "truther"?

LOL, I love this term... so I guess this makes you "anti-truth", FL?

[gerbick]

You mean the document typed up by an anti-war "journalist"?

As opposed to a war obsessed "president"?

[TallGuyLittleCar]

I never stated that the Iraq war was about oil.

I didn't say you did. I appologize for implying that you did. Some of the questions were quite open ended.. just the concept that the war was for oil sets me on edge.

I stated that we did not invade Israel because they have no oil.

my feelings have always been that our friendship with isreal is based on what nation in the mid east was best equiped to secure and protect the oil fields form the communists. by earlier 70s after a few wars that choice became clear.

Explain why he didn't listen to reports that said overwhelmingly otherwise instead of zeroing in on the few that said "perhaps" and made those into "definite".

I think in the conditions of the time he may have felt it was best to err on the side of caution. Honestly i really believe he needed a legal marketable reason to invade iraq to set up a representative government. Or perhaps just set up a killing field for various islamic radicals.

Is that a much greater bending, or downright breaking, of the truth than Obama on healthcare. I would say so.
If Obama was a republican would the people calling him a liar support him and those supporting him call him a liar.. probably.

And besides... we know the two reasons we went to Iraq was because "He tried to kill my Daddy" and Saddam had a mustache that was second to only Magnum P.I.

now I have a vision of Saddam getting out of a 308 with tight op shorts and a Hawaiian shirt... thanks.

[FlashLackey]

Are you a "shoe dodger" ?

Do you have any substantial arguments to make or are you just a shoe thrower?

No... I meant the document that was reported on by an extremely reputible, award winning journalist and former British military specializing and working in military intelligence, along with several other documents at the time, none of which have been questioned in their legitimacy or denied by officials who had firsthand knowledge of the event including Prime Minister Tony Blair, and has been confirmed unofficially by multiple sources contacted by multiple media outlets... but I applaud your failed attempt to throw sand in the umpire's eyes.

*golf clap*

None of those qualities that you rattled off change the fact that nobody has ever provided an actual Downing Street Memo. There's a word for what was provided: hearsay. [And you are mistaken that it has not been denied by those with first-hand knowledge, "including Prime Minister Tony Blair." Read more, err less.]

You can call that fact a "failed attempt" all you want. You go ahead and enter hearsay evidence in a court of law and get back to me whether or not it succeeds or fails to be accepted.

LOL, I love this term... so I guess this makes you "anti-truth", FL?

Do you know what the term means?

I am not anti truth. But, I am certainly anti "truther". Are you?

[gerbick]

now I have a vision of Saddam getting out of a 308 with tight op shorts and a Hawaiian shirt... thanks.

Oh my.

[Loyal Rogue]

There's a word for what was provided:

Investigative journalism.

Fixed.

Do you even know what the term means?

Yes, I do, but I do have to question if you know the meaning of the term "truth" sometimes...

[gerbick]

I'm a truther.

Now. What does it mean?