The Middle Finger Salute To The 'Bush Lied People Died' Hysterics

"Testa di Medusa" by Caravaggio 1598-99, Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

 

I was out yesterday evening, and unable to blog about the newly declassified information concerning chemical weapons discovered in Iraq, although my middle finger was firmly up throughout the late afternoon pointing to the left. "This is critically important information that the world community needs to know” From Sen. Rick Santorum's Press Release:

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, today announced that a declassified Army report provides further insight into the chemical and biological weapons programs in Iraq.

"Saddam's use of chemical and biological weapons to murder thousands upon thousands of Iranians and his own people confirmed long ago that he had them and was more than willing to use them," Hoekstra said. "The question has always concerned what happened to them."

The unclassified summary report of the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center states that since 2003, coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 munitions containing mustard or sarin nerve agent. It also states that chemical munitions are assessed to still exist in Iraq.

"The unclassified report provides further insight into Saddam's WMD, but it does not complete the picture of prewar Iraq," Hoekstra said. "The report simply provides additional evidence on what the Iraq Survey Group has already concluded - that Saddam Hussein was not in compliance with numerous U.N. resolutions requiring Iraq to destroy all of its WMD."

Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Pete Hoekstra, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on Hannity & Colmes video here.

It is clear to all of us that the President had his priorities firmly planted in the right place and felt that the co-operation of Russia and China, however uncertain, was more important than the hysterical left screaming "Bush lied people died". The left have been successfully throwing egg on the President's face, which has done little to uphold the credibility of the U.S. in the eyes of the world. This confidence has to be re-established now in view of the stand the world needs to take against Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"Probably more important is why has the administration not made this public beforehand," retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerny said of the report. "I think the fact is that the Russians moved large stocks [of WMDs] out in the fall of 2002. ... They went into three locations into Syria, in one location in the Bekaa Valley. If you get in there and if you found those weapons and found the precursors, the fingerprints would go back to Russia, China and France. Now those are the three countries that had the most conventional weapons sales to Saddam Hussein. ... I believe they were complicit. So I don't think the administration wants to trash three of the five members of the [U.N.] Security Council."

Michael Ledeen warns however (h/t Scott Johnson):

Please point out to your readers that Negroponte only declassified a few fragments of a much bigger document. Read the press conference and you will see that Santorum and Hoekstra were furious at the meager declassification. They will push for more, and we all must do that. I am told that there is a lot more in the full document, which CIA is desperate to protect, since it shows the miserable job they did looking for WMDs in Iraq.

It is important to re-establish credibility, and the President has played the diplomacy card like a true master. It is now time to squash the critics and prove beyond reasonable doubt that U.S. intelligence was indeed correct. Rick Moran quite rightly says that even if "underground bunkers filled with WMD created after the Gulf War would have to be discovered in Iraq or elsewhere" it would not satisfy the critics. Indeed.

It does however show that unlike the weasels of this world like Jacques Chirac, (whose fingerprints are no doubt all over these degraded WMD) the President understands that sometimes domestic political quibbling has to take second place to the bigger picture of global politics, even at the expense of his own reputation. Whilst the left play at politics, the Administration is getting on with the job, and so is the media with their complete coast to coast blackout. Shhhh....

Hugh Hewitt is however quite rightly not satisfied that the declassification was done soon enough, but if the Administration has compelling reasons for witholding, it needs to explain:

The failure to find WMD has had a corrosive effect on the public debate and on some support for the war.
There are only two reasons to have withheld such information.
First, that a political decision was made not to reveal the information until such time as the case could not be rebutted or disparaged except by the nutter fringe. That seems too cautious a move for the Administration.
The second reason is the fear that details of the discoveries would lead terrorists to similarly situated caches, endangering vast numbers of our troops and civilians.
This would be a compelling excuse for the refusal to release the details if in fact the war was carried to a successful conclusion, but ultimately not persuasive if in fact the war effort cannot be sustained because of a loss of support at home.

The Daily Kos PR machine is slashing their wrists as we speak, in the knowledge that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that the more sophisticated conspiracy theorists have to work hard and fast to drum up the "CIA or Pentagon planted them" stories, and the less talented ones will simply have to stick to the "are these degraded weapons all that we found?". Sorry, it's already been called "a scam" and "these are not the WMD for which this country went to war". Yeah right, and who said that they were? Can't the President find the "actual" weapons? That incompetent Administration coming out with one proof after another, it's just not good enough. The venom just keeps on spewing out, but the good news is, so does the comedy.

Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas has indeed been a busy boy with his newly discovered "diktats" sent via private e-mail to the leftie blogging troops, "secretly plotting strategy in the digital equivalent of a smoke-filled back-room? Stay mum!"

John Hinderaker, who provides the classified document:

There is no doubt about the fact that Saddam had, and used, chemical and biological weapons. Nor is there any doubt about the fact that he eagerly pursued nuclear weapons. Further, the Iraq Survey Group report says that he had every intention of resuming his programs as soon as the coast was clear and the U.N. sanctions were behind him. Add to that the fact that hundreds of chemical weapons, at a minimum, were secreted in various locations around Iraq--as also shown by this document--and it is reasonable to conclude that, even though the CIA and nearly all other observers over-estimated Iraq's WMD capabilities, the fear that Saddam might use such weapons, or slip them to a terrorist group, was well-founded.

We have been discovering WMD for a couple of years now, since at least 2004, together with documentation this year to prove that they did indeed exist, but of course you have to Google a little harder to find the squeaks from the MSM about that, buried somewhere in obscurity. Dan Riehl does the job for us here. And here is the table specifying Saddam's contracts for mustard gas and protective equipment in 1999. Ouch that hurt. 

The inimitable Col.Austin Bay fairs well to remind us:

In my well-documented view Saddam had to go because (1) our presence in Saudi Arabia was an Al Qaeda recruiting tool; which is intimately tied to (2) our 12 year war against Saddam had to end with victory, if UN resolutions were to have any substance (and his sanctions evading routines, including Oil For Food, were working); (3) tyrannies are the grounds that breed terrorists, and that is especially true in the Middle East; (4) rogue states want WMD– they are the most-likely supplier of WMD to a terror organization, and post-9/11 we had to show tyrants we mean it about stopping WMD proliferation; (5) Iraq, with its water, source of capital (oil), and comparatively well educated and motivated populace is the prime place to affect democratic change in the politically dysfunctional Middle East.

And finally Michael Ledeen classic assessment for me still has the money arguments. and all the proof I need.

Front Page has a must read today: "Then the president’s harshest detractors turned a blind eye to proof of Saddam’s verboten cache":

President Clinton, James Woolsey, David Kay, and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski indicated years ago they believed Saddam still had WMDs. Then the weapons themselves started turning up.

• In early 2004, Dutch officials discovered five pounds of yellowcake uranium ore in scrap metal imported from Iraq.
• In subsequent months, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) banned al-Samoud 2 (SA2) missiles shipped around the world as “scrap.
• In April 2004, Jordanian officials seize 20 tons of WMDs from al-Qaeda containing 70 different chemical agents, including Sarin and VX gas. King Abdullah announced on April 17 the stockpiles originated in Iraq. If detonated as planned, they would have killed at least 80,000 people.
• The following month, Saddam loyalists fired a “chemical binary projectile” filled with Sarin gas at U.S. troops in Iraq.
• In early 2006, Gen. Georges Sada, the number two man in the Iraqi air force, told American media outlets that Saddam Hussein buried some WMDs in concrete underground bunkers in Iraq; others he shipped or airlifted to Syria with Russian assistance.  

Comments

[Darrell]

That's too much like the Dems motto "Never in doubt, Always wrong."

Didn't the Bush Administration inherit the Dems intel? You're right, we should have known better!

[Kenny Pierce]

LOL, I don't know about the Republicans, but that could certainly be my motto. Or at least, it would be if I hadn't already gotten that buttcheek tattoo that says, "Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken."

I don't have the impression, my dear Ghost, that you're very often in much doubt yourself. ;-)

[Ghost Dansing]

"If there was evidence you could agree w/that Saddam + WMD = Terrorist haven and threat to all civilization..."

Yes, absolutely...I agree and it appears this incompetent Republican administration has totally botched the entire effort to rid Iraq of W.M.D.

"To be wrong, is not necessarily to be either incompetent or dishonest."

You're absolutely right...it could be both incompetent and dishonest. It isn't necessarily an "either, or" thing. In this case it probably is both.

I'm just really glad the Democrats aren't to blame for botching the W.M.D. thing.

The Republican Party should have as its motto: "Seldom in Doubt, Frequently Wrong".

[kevin]

Here's an optimistic comment from RunningRoach:

"... As we get closer to Nov. the sky is going to fall on these flaming libs."

Let me update you on the situation. Your party controls every branch of the government. Your president won the last two elections. You had two conservatives added to the Supreme Court who will be there for decades. You have thousands of radio stations playing conservative commentary.

Hasn't the sky already fallen on the liberals? No matter what happens, all the things above will still be true. I don't think you have much to worry about. Eventually, liberals like me will have to hide or flee the country.

[karen]

GDansing? If there was evidence you could agree w/that Saddam + WMD = Terrorist haven and threat to all civilization due to destruction of persons/places/things, would you admit to being mistaken?

Whether you admit this or not- 9/11 changed perception and heightened sensitivity to ~imminent threats~. Maybe Saddam, WMD & Terrorist havens could have been shrugged off pre-9/11, but to not take the devil by the horns afterward and go on the offensive (as opposed to always acting after the fact)makes more sense to me than waiting like a cowering dawg for the next kick.

Although, i have to remember... w/W either reaction would be wrong.

Not meaning to change the subject, GDansing: i really understood your feeling of doubt/Faith. I am a Catholic gal practicing NFP. I seriously question my sanity at times and my trust- but (as of yet) i'm true. It isn't God we doubt, it's ourselves and our strength to the task at had. It'd be so much easier to take the road that is travelled most, in my case.

I pray i never set foot upon it.

[Kenny Pierce]

Ghost,

To be wrong, is not necessarily to be either incompetent or dishonest.

[Ghost Dansing]

"G.D. and the others of your ilk: I normally prefer to disregard your defense of the "Bush Lied . . . ""

Well, they either lied, or they are incompetent.

Actually, I think Dubya, and this Republican administration is incompetent, and can't prosecute war effectively because they are chickenhawk politicians, not warriors.

Mr. Gaubatz is an earnest, Arabic-speaking investigator who spent the first months of the war as an Air Force civilian in southern Iraq, has said he has identified four sites where residents said chemical weapons were buried in concrete bunkers.

The sites were never searched, he said, and he is not going to let anyone forget it.

"I just don't want the weapons to fall into the wrong hands," Mr. Gaubatz, of Denton, Tex., said.

For the last year, he has given his account on talk radio programs, in Congressional offices and on his Web site, which he introduced last month with, "A lone American battles politicians to locate W.M.D."

Some politicians are outspoken allies in Mr. Gaubatz's cause. He is just one of a vocal and disparate collection of Americans, mostly on the political right, whose search for Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons continues.

More than a year after the White House, at considerable political cost, accepted the intelligence agencies' verdict that Mr. Hussein destroyed his stockpiles in the 1990's, these Americans have an unshakable faith that the weapons continue to exist.

The proponents include some members of Congress. Two Republicans, Representative Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania held a news conference on Wednesday to announce that, as Mr. Santorum put it, "We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

American intelligence officials held a background briefing for the news media on Thursday to clarify that. Hoekstra and Mr. Santorum were referring to an Army report that described roughly 500 munitions containing "degraded" mustard or sarin gas, all manufactured before the 1991 gulf war and found scattered through Iraq since 2003.

Such official statements are unlikely to settle the question for the believers, some of whom have impressive credentials. They include a retired Air Force lieutenant general, Thomas G. McInerney, a commentator on the Fox News Channel who has broadcast that weapons are in three places in Syria and one in Lebanon, moved there with Russian help on the eve of the war.

"I firmly believe that, and everything I learn makes my belief firmer," said Mr. McInerney, who retired in 1994. "I'm amazed that the mainstream media hasn't picked this up."

Also among the weapons hunters is Duane R. Clarridge, a long-retired officer of the Central Intelligence Agency who said he thought that the weapons had been moved to Sudan by ship.

"And we think we know which ship," Mr. Clarridge said in a recent interview.

The weapons hunters hold fast to the administration's original justification for the war, as expressed by the president three days before the bombing began in 2003. There was "no doubt," Mr. Bush said in an address to the nation, "that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

It is obvious that the W.M.D is still out there, and this Republican administration is doing nothing about it...join me in insisting that Dubya, Dick and Rummy finally and completely get the job done!

This Republican administration is beginning to talk about force reductions in Iraq while there remains W.M.D! Instead we should be surging and preparing for further actions against all nations that aided and abetted Saddam by allowing him to ship his W.M.D. out of the country before the war.

I say "stay the course" and "get 'r done"! Victory in Iraq can only be achieved by finally and fully accounting for ALL of Saddam's W.M.D.!

[Hawkeye]

I am not surprised at the dismissals and denials offered by the liberal establishment to this disocvery. I offer this challenge to any person who believes these 50 minutions were 'duds' or impotent: Please enter an enclosed chamber where this weapon will bedischarged in your presence. When you emerge, I will agree that you are right if you can still speak.

[Saul Davis]

PS: The "donkey (somewhat appropriate here)" reference was intended to refer to the anti-Bush LLL Democrats, and not specifically to G.D. or other commenters here; whether you feel it also applies to you, G.D., I will leave that up to you.

[Saul Davis]

G.D. and the others of your ilk: I normally prefer to disregard your defense of the "Bush Lied . . . " meme. My father is European, and I have found that the old Europeans usually developed quaint folk statements that, in a few words, aptly describe human frailties; one of these folk sayings I have generally followed is, roughly translated: when a donkey (somewhat appropriate here) breys, a civilized person does not respond by breying; however, after reading your responses to Alexandra's post, I decided that a civilized response may be called for. Initially I must ask -- did any of you bother to read the entire statement of the President justifying pre-emption in Iraq? Or is it your policy to simply disregard that which does not comport with your meme? But leaving, for now, all of the numerous justifications for the invasion of Iraq that were specifically enunciated by the President at the outset, I have stated on a number of occassions in the past that history does not unfold in 1 year, or 5 years, or even at times in decades; I believe that this latest disclosure of "tons" of WMD, together with the declassified of Iraqi documents, is only the tip of the proverbial iceburg; my philosophy is to simply sit back and observe how the correct information continues to unfold over time; the Bush lied meme was wishful thinking by those inflicted with BDS from the outset; we are now only beginning to see the hard evidence that demonstrates the extent of the derangement; when EVERY reputable intelligence service in the world (including the CIA in this group is debatable), and virtually every spokesperson in the Clinton Administration repeatedly stated that Hussein had WMD, to assert that the President lied is the height of BDS. Now when there is unequivocal bona fide evidence of WMD in Iraq (also taking into serious account the fact that extensive shipments were made to Syria during the debates that led up to the war), to denigrate this evidence simply demonstrates that you are unable to disassociate your BDS from reality.

[RunningRoach]

Alexandra,
Stand by. I believe this is only the beginning of what we have found. As we get closer to Nov. the sky is going to fall on these flaming libs.

Ghost,
Why do people with your views insist upon rewriting history? When you cut and paste these diatribes, it would be really cool if you would put them in quotes and/or give us a reference.

Regards,

JCC

[gringoman]

I could be wrong, but take gringoman as being full of satire- in the fact that there even is a choice in choosing which persident to support = our own- or a murdering freak.

Choose the freak- choose a lie. Or, to lie- re:Dan Rather.

Posted by: karen | Thursday, June 22, 2006 at 04:29 PM
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

And there I was, doing a little riff or gringotorial on what always seemed to me so plain and so obvious about the rationale for entering Iraq and taking Baghdad (and the attending super controversy of it with the blah-blah blah-blah ad infinitum, not to mention the yada-yada yada-yada ad nauseum.): You must give the benefit of a doubt either to George Bush or to Saddam Hussein. (One, you'll recall, claimed the invasion was just, while the other made the opposite case.) The choice is yours. Now stand up and choose. Tell us to which you gave the benefit of a doubt (unless you happened to be the all-knowing type who never had a shred of doubt.)

Karen, you gave me away!

[Ghost Dansing]

The Bush National Security Strategy prompted continuing discussion over the legal and policy implications of preemptive military action and its impact on the future of the global security system.

The strategy of addressing an emerging threat with a range of options including force was envisioned by the UN Charter. While traditional international law emphasized respect for state sovereignty by placing greater restrictions on the use of force, the literal language of the UN Charter has a more liberal standard when force is used under the auspices of the Security Council. For cases where force is used outside of the Security Council framework, it is not definitively clear whether under the UN Charter a state retains a traditional right of self-defense, including a right of anticipatory self-defense against an imminent threat, or if that right is curtailed to not include anticipatory self-defense. Some commentators argue that the UN Charter itself is no longer a valid source of international law, in which case a right of anticipatory self-defense would exist regardless and traditionally be limited to cases in which there is a threat of imminent attack.

Dubya and his guys did something very interesting...they implied imminent threat because, since they couldn't convince the UN of the immediate need for military action, imminent threat was the only legal circumstance from which to proceed.

The prevailing view probably is that, one way or another, anticipatory self-defense is permissible but traditionally has required the existence of an imminent threat.

The problem was Dubya didn't really have evidence of imminent threat...therefore his team carefully avoided the word "imminent", but implied it every chance it could.

This was probably deliberate...George Tenet said the CIA never indicated an imminent threat from WMD, and the Republican administration probably knew that at some point it would have to be able to deny having invoked "imminent threat" for casus belli.

The Bush Administration is now saying it never told the public that Iraq was an "imminent" threat, and therefore it should be absolved for overstating the case for war and misleading the American people about Iraq's WMD.

Ironically, that is the only condition in which the war would have been legal under international law.

With the exception of a comment by the White House Press Secretary...Dubya an his gang painted a pretty "imminent" picture without using the word "imminent"

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
• White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
• President Bush, 7/17/03

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

"Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States because we removed him, but he was a threat...He was a threat. He's not a threat now."
• President Bush, 7/2/03

"Absolutely."
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an "imminent threat," 5/7/03

"We gave our word that the threat from Iraq would be ended."
• President Bush 4/24/03

"The threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be removed."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 3/25/03

"It is only a matter of time before the Iraqi regime is destroyed and its threat to the region and the world is ended."
• Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, 3/22/03

"The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
• President Bush, 3/19/03

"The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
• President Bush, 3/16/03

"This is about imminent threat."
• White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

Iraq is "a serious threat to our country, to our friends and to our allies."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/31/03

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
• Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
• Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

"Iraq poses a serious and mounting threat to our country. His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/29/03

"Well, of course he is.”
• White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett responding to the question “is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?”, 1/26/03

"Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons. Iraq poses a threat to the security of our people and to the stability of the world that is distinct from any other. It's a danger to its neighbors, to the United States, to the Middle East and to the international peace and stability. It's a danger we cannot ignore. Iraq and North Korea are both repressive dictatorships to be sure and both pose threats. But Iraq is unique. In both word and deed, Iraq has demonstrated that it is seeking the means to strike the United States and our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 1/20/03

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
• President Bush, 1/3/03

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
• President Bush, 11/23/02

"I would look you in the eye and I would say, go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or two months before or three months before or six months before? When did the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?"
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 11/14/02

"Saddam Hussein is a threat to America."
• President Bush, 11/3/02

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
• President Bush, 11/1/02

"There is real threat, in my judgment, a real and dangerous threat to American in Iraq in the form of Saddam Hussein."
• President Bush, 10/28/02

"The Iraqi regime is a serious and growing threat to peace."
• President Bush, 10/16/02

"There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists."
• President Bush, 10/7/02

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
• President Bush, 10/2/02

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
• President Bush, 9/26/02

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

CIA Director George Tenet testified before Congress in February 2001 that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or to other countries in the Middle East.

George Tenet,in February 2004, contradicted claims made, or implied, by the Bush administration that Iraq had posed an imminent danger to the West before the United States-led invasion last March. Intelligence reports had "never said there was an imminent threat", he said.

It is/was an important issue...because without that circumstance, the UN would have had to approve the war in order to establish its legality in the eyes of the world.

[David]

As soon as I read Ghost Dansing's repetition of the lying meme, "After going to war on the basis of imminent threat from WMD... " I had to stop, wait a bit and then go on before I could even attempt to pay attention to the rest of the comment.

"Lying meme"? Well, yes. It's a case of fantasists building a whole lie out of partial truths, then erasing the truths leaving nothing but the lie.

See Spinsanity's (a decidedly and admittedly left-leaning site) debunking (and on record stating "iminent threat" to the U.S. as a cause for war with Iraq.

Ghost Dansing: when you stop demonstrating that you have little grasp of the basic facts, I'll have less difficulty trying to take anything else you say seriously.

Oh, and as for the rest of Ghost Dansing's lil taunt. *feh* nanny-nanny-boo-boo right back atcha.

*sigh*

Read Clauswitz, GD. If necessary, have someone explain him to you. Then get back to us about "incompetence" in securing the WMD.

Oh, and a word of advice, G.D.: lest your future pronouncements on WMD prove as silly as your lying "imminent threat" meme, better wait and see how much of the documents Santorum wants declassified reveal. We already know of TONS of WMD secured. Incompetence? Not nearly so incompetent as the lying "imminent threat" meme or the other "Bush lied" lies from the faux liberal leftists (commies without the conviction to admit in public that they are commies, for the most part).

Go. read SpinSanity's fisk of the "imminent threat" meme. If you dare.

[karen]

I'm trying to do a bit of math- and i wondered... if this Iraq war was the brainchild fo W- then what was Gen Zinni doing w/an Invasion plan in 1997-2000?

And if all Saddam had was ~left-over stuff~ what about the documented, 5-pointed list of Alexandra's up on yonder post?

[Ghost Dansing]

Look, it's not my fault if Republicans elect incompetent chickenhawks to wage their countries wars...at least John Kerry suited-up and showed-up for combat in the war of his generation...more than can be said for the Texas-Air-Guard crowd or "5 deferrments 'cause I have better things to do" crowd in the current Republican administration.

Gen. Anthony Zinni Commander in chief of the United States Central Command, 1997-2000

"When I was commander of CENTCOM, we had a plan for an invasion of Iraq, and it had specific numbers in it. We wanted to go in there with 350,000 to 380,000 troops. You didn't need that many people to defeat the Republican Guard, but you needed them for the aftermath. We knew that we would find ourselves in a situation where we had completely uprooted an authoritarian government and would need to freeze the situation: retain control, retain order, provide security, seal the borders to keep terrorists from coming in.

When I left in 2000, General Franks took over. Franks was my ground-component commander, so he was well aware of the plan. He had participated in it; those were the numbers he wanted. So what happened between him and Rumsfeld and why those numbers got altered, I don't know, because when we went in we used only 140,000 troops, even though General Eric Shinseki, the army commander, asked for the original number.

Did we have to do this? I saw the intelligence right up to the day of the war, and I did not see any imminent threat there. If anything, Saddam was coming apart. The sanctions were working. The containment was working. He had a hollow military, as we saw. If he had weapons of mass destruction, it was leftover stuff -- artillery shells and rocket rounds. He didn't have the delivery systems. We controlled the skies and seaports. We bombed him at will. All of this happened under U.N. authority. I mean, we had him by the throat. But the president was being convinced by the neocons that down the road we would regret not taking him out."

So...the figure was 350K-380K going in...and they didn't think he had WMD to speak of...

Now...if you are sure he has WMD...and you have to seize it and neutralize it, probably during the time you're driving to Baghdad...because you wouldn't want the Iraqi Army to use it, and you certainly don't want it falling in the hands of terrorists because the Iraqi Army was losing control...one would think say 350K-380K Plus, going in?

And the Chickenhawk Republican politicians had their Military yes-men doing what?

150K?...180K? And they didn't even have a corridor through Turkey.

Why...they planned almost as if they were SURE there was no WMD there to deal with. Or maybe they were just incompetent.

Come on...Republicans are supposed to be so "tough minded, do the math" kinda guys...why don't they just "do the math".

[Michael van der Galien]

Probligo:

are you actually comparing these chemical weapon shells with a ballpen?
What a ballpen is to me, is not what a chemical weapon is to a dictator.
Instead, what is a ballpen to me, is a ballpen to a dictator.

[David]

The Loony Left Moonbat Brigade, the Mass Media Podpeople's Army, the Academia Nut Fruitcake Bakeries and their fellow travelers amid congresscritters, judges and spooks (oh, my!) will go to any lengths to assure that their wilfull self-lobotomies are not exposed to healing Truth.

After all, it is only by deliberately crippling their own mental capacity that they can continue to sustain the myths of their "reality-based" fantasies. It's as though the Hive Mind of Faux Liberalism is comprised of children sticking their fingers in their ears, closing their eyes and chanting "La-la-la-la-..." in endless babble in order to avoid anything that would put the lie to their chosen lying memes.

T.S. Eliot could have written "The Hollow Men" as their theme song, sans tune (because, of course, being tone-deaf to truth, they'd sound pathetic attempting to actually sing it... )

"We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw...

"...This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

Yeh, especially for "girly men" who are self-lobotomized fantasist hollow men.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

Ah, GhostDansing rises to the occasion, and notice now how it goes: "oh the weapons really were there, so Bush didn't lie, but he was totally incompetent at securing them". Oh G-d help us...

What kept them from being captured, Mr Dansing, was the six month French-caused UN dog'n'pony show, allowing Mr Hussein all the time he needed to ship them to Syria. Hey it worked in Gulf War I, why not in the second iteration?

Oh so now the war was about freedom and democracy? Well thanks all. On that scorecard it is a resounding victory. (What did you actually think it was going to be a Westminster, Aussie or NZ-style country? Geez. Hey I'd settle for an India).

[probligo]

"What I find significant about this news, is simply that it proves that Saddam lied, he should have reported these to the UN weapon inspectors, so they could be destroyed and accounted for"

van der Galien, can you account for every ball-pen you have lost in the past three days?

They are more likely to be "fired" munitions that have "misfired" and have been retrieved as souvenirs, as anything that was still in an armoury.

But then, as we all know now, Iraq wasn't about the WMD, or oil, at all. WAS IT!! Iraq was REALLY about bringing freedom and democracy to an oppressed people, remember?

And isn't the timing rather curious - right about when the leak of Khaliljid's memo to his boss has reached a crescendo. Oh, but of course there is nothing in that we didn't already know, or try our damndest to deny is there!

[Ghost Dansing]

Perhaps this Republican adminstration could not reveal the great finds which would have vindicated the war, because they revealed an even greater demonstration of ineptitude and incompetence...perhaps the Republicans failed to provide a large enough force to actually seize and secure the WMD.

After going to war on the basis of imminent threat from WMD, is it possible the war planning was not sufficient to locate and neutralize the WMD threat in the first place?

Recall that the Al Qa'qaa high explosives controversy concerns the removal by Baathist insurgents of about 340 tonnes of high explosives HMX and RDX after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In addition to the explosives, al Qa'qaa held some of the remnants of Iraq's chemical warfare program from the early 1990s, "including 800 pieces of chemical equipment.

Unknown was the fate of such equipment there like separators, heat exchangers, mixers and chemical reactors, all of which can be used in making chemical weapons.

The kinds of machinery at the various sites included equipment that could be used to make missile parts, chemical weapons or centrifuges essential for enriching uranium for atom bombs.

The explosives, considered dangerous by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were certified by UN weapons inspectors to be inside facilities whose doors were fastened with chains and the United Nation’s seal, at the Al Qa'qaa industrial complex in Iraq in 2003. By October 2004, the facility was empty.

In late April IAEA's chief weapons inspector for Iraq warned the U.S. of the vulnerability of the site, and in May 2003, an internal IAEA memo warned that terrorists could be looting "the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

Seventeen months later, on Oct. 10, in response to a long-standing request from the IAEA to account for sensitive materials, the interim Iraqi government notified the agency that al-Qaqaa had been stripped clean. The White House learned about the notification a few days later.

Iraq's deputy minister of industry, noted that besides al Qa'qaa, looters had targeted explosives and other weapons material in the Nida Factory, the Badr General Establishment, Al Ameer, Al Radwan, Al Hatteen, and Al Qadisiya. Some of these factories had WMD significance, such as the Nida Factory and Al Radwan, which were part of Saddam's nuclear program in the early 1990s. The looting of five of these sites were also confirmed by the IAEA's satellite reconaissance.

Former U.S. Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith (who supported Bush's war in Iraq) reported two additional incidents of significant looting in post-invasion Iraq. He witnessed U.S. troops standing outside Baghdad's Disease Center as looters attacked the complex on 16 April 2003, "taking live HIV and black fever virus among other potentially lethal materials."

At the same time, looters attacked Iraq's nuclear facilities at Tuwaitha, taking "barrels of yellowcake (raw uranium), apparently dumping the uranium and using the barrels to hold water. US troops were at Tuwaitha but did not interfere." Galbraith noted that the facilities were all under IAEA seal and that "they remained untouched until the US troops arrived.

Because of incompetent decisions and planning overseen by this Republican adminstration troops our troops have been vulnerable to weapons looted from Saddam's munitions depots well after the fall of Baghdad.

Yet when The New York Times reported one such looting incident, in Al Qaqaa, before the election, the administration and many in the blogosphere reflexively branded the story fraudulent.

But the story was true. It was later corroborated not only by United States Army reservists and national guardsmen who spoke to The Los Angeles Times but also by Iraq's own deputy minister of industry, who told The New York Times that Al Qaqaa was only one of many such weapon caches hijacked on America's undermanned post-invasion watch.

[karen]

I could be wrong, but take gringoman as being full of satire- in the fact that there even is a choice in choosing which persident to support = our own- or a murdering freak.

Choose the freak- choose a lie. Or, to lie- re:Dan Rather.

[ScottG]

They'll never listen, they'll never learn. The deranged left will deny any fact, dismiss any truth and denigrate any person who dares to speak the real truth to the real power.

Totalitarians hate the fact that Americans voted for President Bush twice. They cannot lie their way out of it. The more people see and hear these people, the more they will reject them, then they will become more deranged until they actively try something. Unfortunately for them, they don't have the guns.

[Crusader.NoRegrets.]

gringoman,

I can't really make sense of what it is you are trying to say.

The facts on the ground haven't changed. Perhaps the correct question to ask Mr Hussein is "you led your country into this war to protect a few hundred decaying and inoperative artillery shells!!!??? Are you completely f_____g insane?"

I guess that does prove he was insane. Or was he defending a whole lot more? And rather like flying his air force over to Iran for "safekeeping" in Gulf War I, he figured it was worth a try shipping his REAL stuff over to Syria for safekeeping this time around. He miscalculated the US's willingness to take casualties I guess.

Ah well, even when the US finds all the remaining chem and bio weapons, the leftoids will scream about how the CIA must have the facts wrong yet again, and anyhow the war wasn't about oil, and it wasn't even about WMD's, it was all about resurrecting the Christian Right's fortunes in the US. Or some other fantasy.

And people wonder why the left is being annihilated year by year at the ballot box.

[Michael van der Galien]

What I find significant about this news, is simply that it proves that Saddam lied, he should have reported these to the UN weapon inspectors, so they could be destroyed and accounted for.

Plain and simple.

[gringoman]

Anyone can play the blame game---the great national pastime of U.S. politics. You can play it with the mudpies of the loons and the infantile, or even with the reams and reams and reams of factoidal data which the more serious and industrious (or grant-moneyed) can dig up. You can demonstrate the profound importance of the WMD issue, or its paltry insignificance, including the clumsiness of Bush and the diplomatic cunning of Saddam, or else the skill and boldness of Bush and the futile evil of Saddam. You can turn WMD into "Bush lied/people died." If that mantra doesn't fit your political needs, you can explore the thesis that America the Politically Correct, now openly mocked by every thug and high-level low-life on the planet had to kick ass in the Middle East and kick it good.

Complexities? Oh, yes. Immense complexities. Dive right in. But for Iraq, certainly for the decision to invade, it boils down (if you wish to boil it down.) You may give the benefit of a doubt to MBA grad/fighter pilot/sensitive White Guilt scion George Bush, or to homocidal despot Saddam Hussein, a convincing model or incarnation of The Slaughtering Sheikh. You make your choice. You know to which you give the benefit of a doubt, do you not? Ladies and gentlemen (and all those others) have made their choice, haven't they?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"CBS Expels Dan Rather." Historical archival foto.

[Tony Harrison]

Curiouser and curiouser.

How is it possible that we've heard so many leaks about a non-Secret Agent (Plame), eastern European "black-op" prisons, "rendition" flights hither and yon, NSA surveillance (international phone calls, gathering phone records), and no one has "leaked" a story that seemingly some (McInerny) already knew about?

Perhaps, Scott Ritter and his like-minded kind could explain this mystery to us.