You list a number of reasons why you believe a war was justified, and I imagine you could care less if Bush did in fact lie to the American people as long as the job got done. Many people will feel this way if it comes out that Bush did in fact lie, not unlike many felt Clinton's lie was nothing to be concerned with. Some other people in the case of both Clinton and Bush are interested in the system and process of government over the end the justifies the means mentality that is seen in many people. Some argue that the principles and practices of government are what keeps us a sovereign nation, not our military power to overthrow a country like Iraq.
Blix slams UK Iraq WMD claim Sunday, July 13, 2003 Posted: 8:55 AM EDT (1255 GMT) Blix: "They over-interpreted the intelligence they had." LONDON, England -- Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said it was "highly unlikely" that Saddam Hussein could have deployed weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. Blix told the Independent on Sunday newspaper that the claim, made in the British government's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's weapons program, was a "fundamental mistake." "I don't know exactly how they calculated this figure of 45 minutes in the dossier of September last year. That seems pretty far off the mark to me," Blix said. "I think that was a fundamental mistake. "It seems to me highly unlikely that there were any means of delivering biological or chemical weapons within 45 minutes." Asked if British Prime Minister Tony Blair had relied on flawed intelligence or misinterpreted it, he said: "They over-interpreted the intelligence they had." Blix said he had talked to Blair several times and that the prime minister was "strongly convinced" of the the existence of weapons of mass destruction. "In fact, I was the one who was skeptical and critical, and said that I didn't think that the evidence was so strong, and said so to the Security Council," Blix said. Britain's September dossier on Iraq also has come under fire for its claim that Saddam tried to buy uranium from an African nation. U.S. President George W. Bush included that claim in his January State of the Union address, but the White House now says the allegation was unsubstantiated. CIA Director George Tenet has since taken responsiblity for allowing Bush to include the claim in his speech. (Full story) However, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has defended Britain's decision to include the claim in its September dossier. Straw acknowledged Saturday the CIA expressed reservations about the claim, but he insisted it was based on what British officials regarded as "reliable intelligence" that had not been shared with Washington.
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." ______________________________ C&P from the 2003 State of the Union speech taken from its' text from www.whitehouse.gov. Exactly as quoted before. You are struggling with a straight, simple answer. Speaking of honesty!
LOL! You imagine many things. Typical Optional. If you would care to go beyond your ravings and actually review the justifications the Bush administration laid out prior to the war, they include those reasons I've stated and more. That list I provided is hardly my opinion alone but stated justifications by our President. You lose on that one. What did Bush lie about? That British intelligence stated that Iraq had "sought" uranium from Niger? Um, no, they did indeed say that - even you have to admit that. You lose on that one. To even compare this with Clinton's outright lying to the American public is beyond the boundaries of both common sense and objective analysis. I too believe in the system and process of government. It was used quite efficiently in the context of this war. You may not agree with the end result, but you cannot deny that the administration followed the law/system/process to accomplish its objective. Pray tell, what process was not followed? What laws were broken? You MAY argue over the diplomatic process, nothing more. If you require consensus by a global organization - that backtracked on its own resolutions - to determine your own country's fate and policies, you're worse than naive. What keeps us a sovereign nation is the continued existence of our system of government, which is predicated first and foremost upon our ability to defend ourselves and our interests. Our government's highest duty is to protect the citizens of this country, and that is what it has done and, God willing, will continue to do. You have nothing but conjecture based on ridiculous and outlandish suppositions. You debate merely for the sake of debating; in this case that addiction is not serving you well as Kymar continues to dissect your hysterical assertions with the efficiency of a surgeon's scalpel. It is truly enjoyable to observe this masochistic trait of yours lead you yet again to verbal suicide.
If you go back a few pages, you will find a Daily Telegraph article that quotes British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defending the claim that SH was seeking uranium from Africa, and referring to sources other than those available to the CIA. Unless you possess a direct connection to Miss Moneypenny and she's willing to blab, or you possess your own intelligence assets in Africa, you're probably not going to do much better.
CAIRO, Egypt - A group claiming to be an Iraqi branch of al-Qaida said it is behind recent attacks on U.S. forces â not Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) â according to a videotape aired on an Arab TV station Sunday. The tape couldn't be immediately Al-Arabiya, a satellCAIRO, Egypt - A group claiming to be an Iraqi branch of al-Qaida said it is behind recent attacks on U.S. forces â not Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) â according to a videotape aired on an Arab TV station Sunday. The tape couldn't be immediately verified. Al-Arabiya, a satellite station based in Dubai, aired the 4-minute video showing a black-and-white still photograph of an unidentified man dressed like an Islamic cleric in a robe and white turban. He has a long white beard, also typical of Islamic clerics. A distorted male voice reads a message warning American forces to "leave Iraq (news - web sites)'s territories and to live up to their promises." The voice describes himself as a member of the "Islamic Armed Group of al-Qaida, Fallujah branch." He says his group is behind the attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. "By God, not one of (Saddam's) followers carried out any of the Jihadi (holy war) operations like he claims," the voice said, saying "our Mujahedeen brothers" did instead. The voice promised more attacks: "The coming days ... will show you the strike that will break America's back." The claim is the first by a purported Iraqi group linking itself to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terrorist network. An executive from the station had no details on the man pictured in the video, which was delivered recently to the station's Baghdad office, U.S. forces in Iraq have been targeted daily by ambushes, and dozens have died, including in Fallujah, an especially restive city west of Baghad. Satellite station based in Dubai, aired the 4-minute video showing a black-and-white still photograph of an unidentified man dressed like an Islamic cleric in a robe and white turban. He has a long white beard, also typical of Islamic clerics. A distorted male voice reads a message warning American forces to "leave Iraq (news - web sites)'s territories and to live up to their promises." The voice describes himself as a member of the "Islamic Armed Group of al-Qaida, Fallujah branch." He says his group is behind the attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. "By God, not one of (Saddam's) followers carried out any of the Jihadi (holy war) operations like he claims," the voice said, saying "our Mujahedeen brothers" did instead. The voice promised more attacks: "The coming days ... will show you the strike that will break America's back." The claim is the first by a purported Iraqi group linking itself to Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terrorist network. An executive from the station had no details on the man pictured in the video, which was delivered recently to the station's Baghdad office, U.S. forces in Iraq have been targeted daily by ambushes, and dozens have died, including in Fallujah, an especially restive city west of Baghad. ____________________________
Bush Aides Seek to Put Out Credibility Firestorm Reuters Sunday, July 13, 2003; 5:38 PM By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top aides to President Bush insisted on Sunday he did not hype Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction as they sought to put out a political firestorm ignited by a disputed statement he made in his case for war. But questions about Bush's credibility persisted, threatening to further erode public support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and create more difficulty at home for U.S. ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Appearing on Sunday television shows, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated that it was a mistake for Bush to cite in his State of the Union address a British finding, which U.S. intelligence was unable to confirm, that former Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa for Iraq's nuclear program. The White House first acknowledged the error last week. CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility, saying his agency should not have signed off on the one-sentence inclusion in the president's speech last January. But Rice and Rumsfeld brushed off suggestions Bush had manipulated intelligence in making his case for war. "The notion that the president of the United States took the country to war because he was concerned with one sentence about whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa is clearly ludicrous," Rice told CBS's "Face the Nation." "And this has gotten to that proportion." "End of story," Rumsfeld declared on ABC's "This Week." On CNN's "Late Edition" Rice also said Tenet should not step down. "Absolutely not. The president has confidence in George Tenet," she said. Yet, with recent polls showing an erosion of support for the Iraqi operation, there was heavy criticism from Democrats, some of whom hope to replace Bush in the White House in 2004. "This is not an issue of George Tenet. This is an issue of George Bush," Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democratic presidential hopeful, told NBC's "Meet the Press." "There was a selective use of intelligence -- that is, that information which was consistent with the administration's policy was given front-row seat," said Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the intelligence committee, said in a radio interview the panel may call Tenet to answer questions this week. But he criticized Rice for being "dishonorable" in letting Tenet take the blame and said she must have known about the suspect uranium report long before Bush's State of the Union address. "The entire intelligence community has been very skeptical about this from the very beginning," Rockefeller told National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" program. "And she (Rice) has her own director of intelligence, she has her own Iraq and Africa specialists, and it's just beyond me that she didn't know about this, and that she has decided to make George Tenet the fall person... I think it's dishonorable." Rice went to lengths to state that the British intelligence was not inaccurate, just unproven by the United States. "We have never said that the British report was wrong," she said. Blair arrives in Washington on Thursday for talks with Bush. Both leaders have been criticized for overplaying intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, one of the prime justifications cited in the attack on Iraq. Three months after Saddam's fall, no such weapons have been found.
The biggest threat to the free world since the superpower USSR is by far the proliferation of extremist muslim fundamentalist groups. These groups are not even true muslims in many cases, but they highjack this religion to subvert the true culture and lives of very descent middle eastern people. The abominable lack of education in many middle eastern countries makes easy prey for an uneducated citizenship. The middle eastern citizens are pimped out like used whores for the extremists to advance their power grab. Even governments like Saudi Arabia have sold their soul to the terrorists in a "clintonesque" play of appeasement. Yes, the world turned very dirty as we looked the other way to the stain on the blue dress. From 1992 on, for 8 long years, we taught the extremists a new chapter in appeasement. From the failure to send a message with the capture of Gen. Aidid in Somalia, to the allowance of freedom for Bin Ladin twice within our capture. We enabled the disaster which finally hit the U.S. on September 11th. Our weakness and our contempt of reality by the previous administration has left the world in unsettled circumstances. Now, as a result of the 9/11 attacks, our country and our current administration has been thrusted into the dirty responsibility of restoring peace to the world. Lets face it, the U.S. is the only country capable of achievement in the destruction of terrorism. It will be an extended operation filled with grief and funded by the blood of many. It is unfortunately a requirement for the potential of freedom and peace to return to the world as we all so rightly deserve. In my opinion, President Bush fully understands the task ahead, and he is the only person I see that has the perseverance and conviction to weather the contemptuous attacks from the historically vacant left. Most Americans know what needs to be done and they will overwhelmingly re-elect President Bush to do it.