Better wake up from that nap, my friend. If you so energetically believe that there are/were no ties then you are dangerously naive and likely beyond recovery. If you have a limited understanding of International Terrorism and Middle Eastern governments, you should impose on yourself a limited voice. If your most insightful commentary is that Bush is evil, there is no point in attempting conversation. Your anger has clouded any possibility of rational objectivity. You are, however, a mild source of entertainment. Thank you for that.
My pleasure, I'm sure, even though I find it mind boggling that this incredible nonsense is not only still being spouted, but is actually, according to polls, still believed by quite many Americans. That the alleged huge and imminent threat of Saddams WMD's to the USA, as Bush claimed, were in reality Weapons of Mass Deception, is by now self evident. As for the other claims ? Here we go: "Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda By Christopher Marquis The New York Times Friday 09 January 2004 WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 � Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no "smoking gun" proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3909150/ "Memoir Criticizes Bush 9/11 Response President Pushed Iraq Link, Aide Says By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 22, 2004; Page A01 On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, according to a newly published memoir, President Bush wandered alone around the Situation Room in a White House emptied by the previous day's calamitous events. Spotting Richard A. Clarke, his counterterrorism coordinator, Bush pulled him and a small group of aides into the dark paneled room. "Go back over everything, everything," Bush said, according to Clarke's account. "See if Saddam did this." "But Mr. President, al Qaeda did this," Clarke replied. "I know, I know, but . . . see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred." Reminded that the CIA, FBI and White House staffs had sought and found no such link before, Clarke said, Bush spoke "testily." As he left the room, Bush said a third time, "Look into Iraq, Saddam." Acknowledged by foes and friends as a leading figure among career national security officials, Clarke served more than two years in the Bush White House after holding senior posts under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He resigned 13 months ago yesterday. Although expressing points of disagreement with all four presidents, Clarke reserves by far his strongest language for George W. Bush. The president, he said, "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks." The rapid shift of focus to Saddam Hussein, Clarke writes, "launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide." Like former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill, who spoke out in January, Clarke said some of Bush's leading advisers arrived in office determined to make war on Iraq. Nearly all of them, he said, believed Clinton had been "overly obsessed with al Qaeda." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Clarke wrote, scowled and asked, "why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden." When Clarke told him no foe but al Qaeda "poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States," Wolfowitz is said to have replied that Iraqi terrorism posed "at least as much" of a danger. FBI and CIA representatives backed Clarke in saying they had no such evidence. "... continued http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...ode=&contentId=A13607-2004Mar21¬Found=true ..."It is the attempt by both the White House and the Pentagon to make a clear and definite link between al-Zarqawi, Ansar al-Islam and Saddam Hussein that has infuriated many within the United States intelligence community. "The intelligence is practically non-existent," one exasperated American intelligence source said. Most of the intelligence being used to support the idea of a link between al-Qa'eda and Saddam Hussein comes from Kurdish groups who are the bitter enemies of Ansar al-Islam, he said. "It is impossible to support the bald conclusions being made by the White House and the Pentagon given the poor quantity and quality of the intelligence available. There is uproar within the intelligence community on all of these points, but the Bush White House has quashed dissent." This could all be dismissed as a turf war between rival intelligence agencies were it not for the near unanimity across the British and American intelligence communities..." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/02/04/wirq04.xml/ "Tony Blair: "No Link Between Saddam and Osama" "Bush Flatly Declares No Connection Between Saddam and al Qaeda" http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/no-saddam-qaeda.htm http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/020403B.htm
very very true. the new Spanish PM said long time ago that he would withdraw the troops. He is just delivering now. bush might have been under an impression that troops are being sent in sympathy. meanwhile everybody hoped for a piece of cake in rebuilding iraq. since the US is eating all of it, it only makes sense to pull out, why fight an unjustifiable for europeans war for bush??
...Europe has always been a little slow in recognizing gathering threats. History repeats itself. We can agree to disagree with the details of this and that, but the fact that you think the war is being faught 'for Bush' is telling in itself. So long as you continue to try and justify actions as if it were a legal trial, you will continue to sit on the sidelines waiting for something and limited to merely reacting to catastrophe. The 'evidence' that is demanded will rarely if ever present itself undeniably. Not in the past and certainly not now with a clever organization that is not itself a nation/state. Most of the argument in here seems not to come from those who want to get to the bottom of the issue (so to speak) but rather more from those whose disdain for Bush and/or America has them on a quest to find a way to prove to others that Bush and/or America is/are evil warmongers. Face it. Ask yourselves if (honestly) your minds are not already made up before you hear/read/see things...furthermore that you hear/read/see what you wish to interpret from them. Some of your points are not neccessarily wrong. However, it is your visibly blind passion that mutes their value in the argument. Just an observation. Objectivity lost.
Uh. You mean "huge and imminent" threats like Iraq, an Iraq that according to you had undeniable links to Al Qaeda, as you incredibly choose to believe in the face of all facts ? ? "Tony Blair: "No Link Between Saddam and Osama" "Bush Flatly Declares No Connection Between Saddam and al Qaeda" http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/no-saddam-qaeda.htm http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/020403B.htm
Gleefully quoting press conferences from January 2003 is hardly a convincing argument, nor in either of them did Bush 'flatly deny' a connection. I believe his words in response to the reporter were "I cannot make that claim." Far from a flat denial, but spin it up if you must. I am however pleased that you trusted me to hit the link rather than cut and paste the entire article in your post. Study Salmon Pak. Study the mukhabarrat. From there, follow the web that is woven for you. It doesn't take a rocket scientist, my friend. If you have not recognized that Arab (and Persian) adversaries with common immediate enemies are friends of convenience, then Don't bother. You don't understand the culture and it will be impossible for you to see unless it's in a zip-lock evidence bag. You won't see what you don't want to see. On the 'War for Oil' nonsense, it holds water only with the uninitiated. It is a popular slogan. Why is it that Germany, France and Russia were so adamantly opposed to the war? Their love of peace and harmony? What were their interests? That again does not take a rocket scientist. The Roland Missile System, on the other hand, indeed does take a rocket scientist. Many of them. French ones at that. A system banned by UN conventions, but in place in Iraq with missile mfg dates of Feb 2003 during the war that started March 2003. What did Hussein pay in return? What did he pay the Germans, Russians and, lest we forget, the Chinese? You're a trader, right? You should know the answer to that. If you bought into the UN and French/German/Russian cries for 'peace' then you paid with Intellectual Food Stamps. What did the French/German/Russians have? (Extra Credit: Check the price of gas/petrol/fuel in the US lately? Where are the dividends of all of those oil fields Bush 'conquered' last year?) Don't get angry. Don't get offended. Don't get passionate. Get objective and think.