SEN. ROCKEFELLER: No. The – I mean, this question is asked a thousand times and I’ll be happy to answer it a thousand times. I took a trip by myself in January of 2002 to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and I told each of the heads of state that it was my view that George Bush had already made up his mind to go to war against Iraq – that that was a predetermined set course which had taken shape shortly after 9/11.
FP: Ok, so where did the WMDs go? Tierney: While working counter-infiltration in Baghdad, I noticed a pattern among infiltrators that their cover stories would start around Summer or Fall of 2002. From this and other observations, I believe Saddam planned for a U.S. invasion after President Bush’s speech at West Point in 2002. President Bush's West Point speech was given on June 1, 2002, and Tierney's timeline for WMD movement from Iraq seems tied with Rockefeller's visit as much as Bush's speech. Did Bush's speech confirm in Saddam's mind the information Assad had relayed to him from a member of the Senate Intelligence committee? "Mesh" away, if you know what I mean. (Powerline to Go)
Treason? In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation.
remember back in November of 2003 when Fox news reported:
WASHINGTON — Fox News has obtained a document believed to have been written by the Democratic staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee (search) that outlines a strategy for exposing what it calls "the administration's dubious motives" in the lead-up to the war in Iraq --- the memo that according to Rockefeller was not meant for public distribution?
In a statement, Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said that the memo "appears to be a road map for how the Democrats intend to politicize what should be a bipartisan, objective review of prewar intelligence."
It is obvious that the liberal plan which began over 2 years ago, is in full swing - today.
Great opinion piece, "But that doesn't diminish what was once reasonable to believe. He calls attention to the remarks of Chief Inspector Hans Blix in a briefing to the Security Council in 2002, that it was imperative that Iraq furnish strong proof of the claim that there were no biological, chemical or nuclear weapons left in Iraq. "[I]t would need to provide convincing documentary or other evidence," Mr. Blix said of Iraq at the time. "Production of mustard gas is not exactly the same as production of marmalade." Only months before we went to war against Iraq, Mr. Blix found 122-mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker 105 miles southwest of Baghdad, and wrote that "they could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg." (Icebergs in the desert? But we got his point.) If, as Mr. Blix now claims, he was only being cautious and that the president "misled himself," Mr. Blix gave the president considerable assistance"(A tangled web of lies
By Suzanne FieldsNovember
posted by Michele @ 6:32 AM
12 Comments:
At least the reps are calling them to task tonite at 7pm big vote...
pull out
or win?
it is so playing politics with the war; very sad statement about the Dem's desperation to achieve a victory.
they are ready to raise their arms and surrender
but thankfully; "we won't go down with the ship, we won't hold our arms up and surrender - there will be no white flags above our door -
We are bad and always will be.........
No Way Out for Bush and Co.
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, November 22, 2005; A29
As visual metaphors go, it was a lavishly gilded lily of an image, a hanging curveball across the plate, a George Tenet-style slam-dunk: A weary President Bush, trying to escape a news conference in Beijing on Sunday, strides away from the microphone to a pair of locked doors, which he pulls and tugs in vain. No exit , the image screamed. No way out. Of course, George Bush will inevitably get out of the mess he has made -- he leaves office in three years and two months, not that anyone's counting. But the rest of us will be left with his handiwork: crushing national debt, rising economic inequality, a poisoned political atmosphere and, oh, yes, the war in Iraq. We're the ones trapped in the dark with no exit sign in sight.
As the debate over the war grows in passion and bitterness, the administration can't seem to settle on the right way to answer its critics. Last week the party line was that attacking the war was somehow beyond the pale. The president quickly endorsed Vice President Cheney's snarling sound bite -- that it was "dishonest and reprehensible" to suggest that anyone cooked the prewar intelligence on Iraq. And when Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops, the White House response was to link the 73-year-old decorated Vietnam veteran with filmmaker Michael Moore and the "extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."
House Republicans dutifully followed the script and went on the attack, but before the weekend was over the White House had changed tack. Now the line is that criticism is to be expected in a democracy, even criticism of the war. The president is all but sprinkling Murtha with rose petals.
Even Cheney, the hawks' hawk, managed to turn conciliatory. Sort of. In a speech yesterday, he swallowed his castor oil: "I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof," he said, going on to describe Murtha as "a good man, a Marine, a patriot." He then repeated his "dishonest and reprehensible" line to describe those who would impugn the administration's honesty, and went on to give the same muddled rationale for U.S. Iraq policy that we've heard in the past. The fact is that the White House is losing the public debate over Iraq -- and it's not hard to understand why.
Cheney's umbrage aside, there are legitimate questions about whether the nation was snowed into a costly war. Even if you give the administration the benefit of the doubt and assume that the prewar intelligence failures stemmed from incompetence, not dishonesty, there's still no defense for the mistakes that were made in the conduct of the war. And the abuses that have been committed in the name of the United States -- arbitrary and indefinite detention, wholesale flouting of the Geneva Conventions, a string of secret prisons, interrogation by torture, Abu Ghraib -- should result in more people being sent to jail than a couple of ill-trained enlisted reservists.
The administration is losing the public debate because of its many missteps and failures, but also because of its insistence on conflating the war in Iraq with the larger "war on terror." Does anyone understand what "war on terror" means? The country was attacked by a murderous association of Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden. Last we heard, he was still alive and well, probably in some cave in northwestern Pakistan. That's a long way from Iraq.
The president says that Iraq is a test of our nation's resolve, that anything less than victory will confirm the enemy's view that America lacks the stomach for a fight. But "stay the course" doesn't play as a strategy when the course seems to lead nowhere. What is victory in Iraq? When will we know we've won? When the simmering, low-level civil war we've ignited sparks into full flame and somebody takes over the country? When a new government in Baghdad declares its eternal brotherhood and friendship with Tehran?
The mess that George Bush and Co. have created in Iraq doesn't have an unmessy solution. Murtha's plan -- just get out -- isn't really attractive, but at least it's a plan. The saying goes that when you're in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. But the president, like the optimistic kid in the old joke, just keeps burrowing deeper into the pile of manure, even though by now we can be pretty sure that there's no pony down there.
Amen brother...Semper Fi
Did you hear that the Iraqi government is trying to set a time table for withdrawal, too? Plus, a recent poll in Iraq showed not only that 85% of Iraqis want the U.S. out of Iraq, but 45% of them think it's ok to attack our soldiers! Now, please tell me why the Republicans are putting up such a fuss over the request for a plan for a withdrawal that may include a time line? The Iraq government wants it and the people want it. Could it be that they simply want to bitch about a plan laid out by a Democrat?
Having a selective memory comes in very handy for you, eh mooser? Who cut and run from Iraq in 1991 causing Saddam to gas his people? Was that Clinton? No. It was Bush I. As a matter of fact, how’s Bosnia doing these days? Unbelievably well, thank you. Do you know why? Because Clinton sent people in who knew what they were doing, with a well thought out plan for implementation of the peace after the fighting was done. You see, winning the peace meant a little something back then, even though once you’ve done so it’s a bit tough to fly in wearing a jumpsuit and a huge codpiece to claim victory without looking odd.
You don’t know about “people like me”, so save your weak ass accusations. Besides, what do you know about alternate ideas? Every time someone refers you to a piece from any source other than Fox News or the Wall Street Journal, you automatically dismiss it as “liberal junk” and refuse to read it. So until you pull your head out of your ass and start reading more broadly, don’t throw around accusations of “a party of no ideas”. Also, I’m not in the congress; it’s not my job to come up with the solutions, but I do have more than a few.
You said (as usual), “I wish dems. would care more about our country and less about elections”. First of all, I’d like to thank you for once again proving that you are the reigning king of blanket statements. Kudos! It’s no wonder the old guy doesn’t have the stomach for this place. But since it’s the simply Dems that care about elections, why did all the GOP senators and congress people support Bush so strongly leading up to the last election, but now they are distancing themselves from him for the upcoming mid-term elections? That sounds strange to me. Why has there been so much talk in the GOP about starting to get the troops out of Iraq before the mid-term elections next year, since the they know that the war is beating them up politically? In your mind, will that be “the right time”? That’s a rhetorical question, as any decision they make will be “right” in your eyes.
Since you’re such an idea man, do you think the invasion was well thought out? I thought going in that the biggest danger the troops would face was going to be allergy attacks, since Cheney made it so clear that we would be greeted as liberators, with flowers being thrown at their feet. I thought that they wouldn’t need Cipro, they’d need Allegra. How did that plan go? I notice you don’t bitch about that, just the fact that the Dems don’t have to correct plan to clean up the mess that your boys go us into. At the very least, you are consistent. Also, since you think Murtha’s plan is chicken shit, what is your plan? {By the way, the congress did not vote on Murtha’s plan the other day…it was simply a up/down vote on bailing out of Iraq immediately without a plan…sort of like how they went into Iraq.} What are the GOP’s plans? Are their plans better that the plans that have led to the current situation? Should we trust the basis of these plans, and if so, why? What will happen when we pull out of Iraq after you deem it to be ok? Civil war? A society where women can’t vote? Is that why what we’ve spent half a trillion dollars to achieve? Half a trillion, mind you, that is not budgeted anywhere. I suppose you think that’s fiscally responsible. My children and grandchildren thank you for supporting the passing the bill for this war to them. Seriously, thanks a million. No, make that “thanks a half a trillion” (and counting).
Lastly, radical Islamists are going to spill blood no matter what we do. You are disillusioned if you think that fighting them over there is going to stop them from striking over here. Ask Spain and London if that theory is working for them. Not only that, but it’s likely that our actions (the very torture that you applaud) is going to create even more people who hate this country. Plus, when they come here to this country to attack, they can simply walk across the border, since Dubya does absolutely nothing to shore up the borders. Can’t Halliburton build fences for a few billion dollars over budget? Or maybe they’ll simply send a bomb through our ports in a cargo container that doesn’t get checked.
Spare your “holier than thou” BS for someone dumber than me, mooser. You’re not nearly as bright as you’d like us to believe. If you truly held the GOP accountable for their shortcomings, you would bitch about them first. After all, it’s your party. If I have family problems, I tend to my family first; I don’t ignore the problems and criticize the neighbors instead. Clean up your own house before you accuse the Dems of fixing theirs. Read something besides GOP talking points so that you don’t live life in such ignorance. Who knows, at some point you may even stop driving people away from this blog with your utter nonsense.
If you didn’t like Bush 41 not finishing the job either, why didn’t you lump him in with the others that you listed? More selective memory, I suppose. The Republican Party is completely untarnished when you use your memory filter. Secondly, you don’t have to P.S. me with the exact same question that you asked in the first message. Are you asking for me to design the “then what” plan, as if I’ve spent time in the nation building business? How the hell should I know? What I do know is that we should already have a “then what” plan in place and it should have already been discussed and actually debated in the senate and the house. That’s what the senate demanded last week, in the meeting that has you in a total fit. The VAST majority of the senate, mind you, not just the Dems.
Tell me this: why is it that when the Dems suggest that we should start to get out of Iraq you call it “cut and run”, but when Condi says we’re going to do the exact same thing, you give her full glory? What’s the difference? Also, by what measure does she claim that they’re “winning”? What’s your definition of finishing the war? You tell me what benchmarks we can expect to achieve before the Moose will allow troops to be brought home. The world is waiting. There is only one thing that the Iraqi leaders agree with, and that’s that they don’t want us there anymore. Is your advice that we should ignore their desire for us to leave and stay beyond our welcome? What exactly are the nuances that separate the calls for withdrawal from the Dems and from Condi Rice?
“Winning the peace” does not have anything to do with how other countries view us. We rolled into Iraq and beat the hell out of them easily. Saddam’s armies folded like a house of cards. Controlling the region since then is what I mean by winning the peace. Defending the borders, protecting the caches of arms. Hell, they didn’t even have enough troops to actually protect the WMDS if they’d actually found some. Wasn’t that the reason that we went there in the first place?
As for the “trillions of dollars” stuff, yes Bush did want this war. If they ever actually allow the senate to investigate the role of intelligence manipulations (something that the first commission was not allowed to do, even though Bush et al. like to state that the commission found nothing – they were not allowed to look), we may find out how the war was “sold”. Speaking directly to the trillions, though, who was it that said the entire cost of the war was going to $1.7 billion? Look it up; it was Dubya’s boy. That was a reasonable cost; totally fabricated to get the congress to agree to the plan, but reasonable. Too bad it was off by a half trillion or so. Am I allowed to be pissed at that? Also, why not put the cost of the war in the budget? It might be that the true cost would be obvious to the American people, thereby causing the war to be less popular. More lies.
It’s interesting that you know what the terrorists are thinking; that you can tell what emboldens them. To me, they seem to be ideological bastards willing to kill innocents for no particular reason whatsoever, unprovoked. But you seem to know what makes them tick: anything that anyone does that is against the “coalition of the willing”. Spain gets hit because the showed weakness, is that right? Then that spilled directly into London, based solely on the word of the Moose. Interesting. Since you’re so hooked into that network, would you mind asking them to stop? I’m sure you’re the man to figure out how they operate.
The border issue will remain a card in my deck. I hate to deflate that ego of yours, but the card is not “in my deck” to argue with you. Its there because it worries the hell out of me, and to ACTUALLY try to stop terrorists from hitting us again here, we should have tightened the borders up immediately following 9/11. I know you agree, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pointed out. As for the other issues that you listed (flat tax, etc…), we agree on some and disagree on others. Whatever. I don’t feel like getting into an even bigger pissing match with you over every issue. This is America and we should be able to have our differences without accusing the others of being weak Americans or traitors, communists or whatever, a practice that idiots on both sides of the aisle are too often employing.
Also, please save your self-glorification for someone else. You can make the claim that you’re smarter than me all that you’d like, but why to what end? It’s certainly a sure sign of intelligence to point out your intellectual superiority over someone that you’ve never met. Although, since you appear to have the ability to read the minds of terrorists, you may be right. You may be The Amazing Kreskin for all I know. My favorite part is “it’s true”, as if saying it makes it so. It’s a ridiculous line of reasoning to even pursue, but a smarter man would know that.
Lastly, I’m not the one who “cuts and pastes”. You may notice that I am indeed typing in my own words. I’m not sure what the harm of pasting in certain stories is, though. The majority of what Maddie posts are cut directly from another source. You don’t go after her for it.
One more thing: I just read this on the National Journal website (http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm). Brace yourself, but I am going to paste a little something in for you which speaks to the honesty of the selling of the war by this administration. Here’s a snippet from the story:
“Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
The information was provided to Bush on September 21, 2001 during the "President's Daily Brief," a 30- to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services, as well as more mundane sources such as news reports and public statements by foreign leaders.
One of the more intriguing things that Bush was told during the briefing was that the few credible reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda involved attempts by Saddam Hussein to monitor the terrorist group. Saddam viewed Al Qaeda as well as other theocratic radical Islamist organizations as a potential threat to his secular regime. At one point, analysts believed, Saddam considered infiltrating the ranks of Al Qaeda with Iraqi nationals or even Iraqi intelligence operatives to learn more about its inner workings, according to records and sources. “
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell all had this information and have refused to share this knowledge with Congress. The assertion that the White House and Congress had the same information is a false one. The question you have to ask yourself is; why lie about things and hide documents when you believe in your reasons for going to war? Why did they have to repeat the lie regarding the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda over and over again (Cheney especially)? You see, this type of behavior causes logical people to not trust what you say or do in the future. Why should these people be believed about anything when this type of thing happens in the future. It reminds me of the PDB entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.”. If it was such an innocuous document, why did they hide it at first? {A quick lesson: PDBs are a break down of the information that is of the utmost importance to the President when it is written. It contains information that is at the top of the list of items that need the president’s attention. There are not, and never have been, “historical documents”, regardless of what the administration wants you to believe.} This is the type of evidence that I need that casts reasonable doubt of Condi’s assessment that we are WINNING the war.
I can provide numerous examples of the Bush team trying to link Iraq and Al Qaeda following 9/11 in an attempt to convince people that both were involved in 9/11. That's why they did it, to gain support for the invasion of Iraq. Deny that all you want, but that is the truth. Plus, please explain why they hid that new document from everyone if it doesn't matter (same thing for the first PDB). That's a simple litmus test. I'm not gathering evidence for you to immediately dismiss if you can't accept simple premises such as them hiding documents from congress.
Plus, remember when Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush were out there making their “imminent danger” speeches, only to claim that they never said anything of the likes (even thought they seem to be unaware that they are actually taped when they made the statements…idiots). Why deny it if their case is so tight? Is this the standard to which you believe our government officials should be held?
I’m not arguing that the majority of people thought Iraq did not have WMDs. What I’m arguing is that this administration started to see that the evidence was shaky, but suppressed the contrary evidence so that they could drum up the support for the war. Condi knew the tubes could be used for something besides centrifugation when she gave her speech where she described them as “having no other possible use” but for that. She lied. Add hidden documents and manipulated text in the Congress’ version of the “evidence” and smart people begin to get suspicious about the case. That’s all. Simple.
Mooser, after reading your assessment regarding why Spain was attacked, I wonder what you think about the chances of the U.S. being attacked again. If I follow your logic, since we are “staying the course”, then we should expect no attack to occur here. Is that correct? Please answer the post above this first, though. I know you were upset when I didn’t give my “what then”, but you are pretty good at ignoring what you choose to ignore.
I just don’t get why you continue to give support to an administration that you clearly think has failed on many levels. I’m an ex-Dem, ex-Republican Angry Independent who chooses to give them all hell, since nobody seems to be running things very well. I find it hard to support poorly acting parties, regardless of my past affiliations. Bush has not done well as a president, especially by conservative standards. Giving him support by default because you dislike the alternative choices only emboldens them to get away with whatever they want. I find that disturbing.
Anon said: I can provide numerous examples of the Bush team trying to link Iraq and Al Qaeda
I say: well? where are those numerous examples?
Maddie-
Sen. Rockefeller's going to go after we get rid of Byrd in WV!
Jim
What a happy day that will be!
Go Hiram Lewis!
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