I can only infer from the current administration that they, and only they, have a pipeline on the truth, except when they've been tricked....

Why did they even bother with a rationale for invading Iraq? It's not like family feuds haven't ever driven any world history.

Might one be led to think that this is a blatantly partisan political document?

Why did they even bother with a rationale for invading Iraq?

Forgive my lack of a time line here but didn't Iraq already have 17 resolutions that they broke? So why is that not a good enough reason to remove Saddam? Really, how many resolutions do you want?

"O.K. Saddam I really mean it this time"
"No No I really mean it THIS time!"
"NO... I mean THIS time!"

Also, during the no fly zones were they not firing at our planes? That right there is a good enough reason for me to remove that nut.

I think it comes down to doing what we say we are going to do. If someone like Saddam wants to test the resolve of the U.S. again they are going to think twice about it now.

Also, during the no fly zones were they not firing at our planes?

Oh right. The no-fly zones.

Those ones that were created to allow us to protect the ethnic and religious groups that Saddam was persecuting.

The ones that we also conveniently used to allow us to covertly take out Iraqi command and control infrastructure before we launched our war of aggression.

There's nothing like getting a little head start on your invasion under cover of humanitarianism.

I think it comes down to doing what we say we are going to do. If someone like Saddam wants to test the resolve of the U.S. again they are going to think twice about it now.

Doing what we say we're going to do?

As I recall what we, and the U.N., said we were going to do was to disarm Saddam Hussein.

I believe that's what the inspectors were actively trying to verify when George Bush told them they had 48 hours to get out of the country or they risked becoming collateral damage. Now tell me if I'm wrong but to my knowledge we haven't found any banned weapons or banned programs.

So I guess the concept is if your a fucking moronic macho bully who only thinks with his fist its ok as long as you're the biggest moron in the neighborhood.

Is that about right?

quick points: the no-fly zone was never ratified by the UN, it was strictly a US deal, and so the Iraqis had every right to shoot at our planes. Next, the UN was actively searching Iraq for weapons (and finding none) when told to leave or be blown up by the US. Next, Bush himself repeatedly said he was getting "good intelligence" from Tenet and the CIA (look it up, trolls). So we are now to conclude that either #1 he doesn't know good intel from bad and didn't have the brains to ask for proof before he took the nation, and now 880 GI lives have been wasted for nothing, or #2 he didn't give a rats butt about the intel, he wanted to fight. Next, exactly what was in the 12,000 pages of Iraqi WMD papers that were excised by BushCo from the 16,000 pages Saddam willfully supplied the UN when ordered to do so.

Is the CIA taking the fall here, at least to some degree?

Lets not forget about the Office of Special projects that was set up in the Pentagon and headed up by Doug Feith a neocon.

from: Bush special office 'justified war'
The intelligence, based largely on that from Iraqi exiles, went directly to George Bush, who used some of it to justify war. Mr Wolfowitz became frustrated that the CIA and the defence intelligence agency were failing to uncover any evidence of a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein. Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker magazine, said that most intelligence experts derided the office's information.

So Wolfie and his cabal weren't getting what they wanted so they set up a way of getting what they wanted and bypassing the CIA sent it directly to Bush. The neocons didn't care if it was right only that it fit their needs.

Dont forget it was Wolfowitz and Perle who overhyped the Russian threat during the Reagan administration as part of "Team B". Also remember that Wolfie and Perle tried to peddle their mideast strategy to Israel first back around 1995.

The "intelligence failure" was intentional at least as to how it pertains to OSP in the pentagon.

The erroneous judgments delivered by the CIA and other intelligence agencies about Iraq's alleged nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs do not excuse the president and senior administration officials for misrepresenting U.S. intelligence and for ignoring contrary findings by UN weapons inspectors in order to justify toppling the Iraqi dictator," said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
Senate Intelligence Committee Report Overlooks Handling of Iraq Intelligence and UN Inspectors' Findings

What's missing is the ways intelligence was used, misused, misinterpreted or ignored by administration policymakers in deciding to go to war and in making the case to the American people that war with Iraq was necessary. The intelligence committee leadership chose to defer these issues to a second report -- one that will not be released until after the November elections.
Holes in America's Defense

Forgive my lack of a time line here but didn't Iraq already have 17 resolutions that they broke? So why is that not a good enough reason to remove Saddam? Really, how many resolutions do you want?

So you believe the United States should do the U.N.'s work for it? If it's U.N. resolutions you're worried about, it's up to the U.N. to decide what to do. They didn't think it was worth it, and most Americans agree.

If someone like Saddam wants to test the resolve of the U.S. again they are going to think twice about it now.

Actually, with our military overcommitted, we don't have the capacity to do anything about it if a rogue state acts up. It's a pretty bad situation for us to be in.

I watched about 20 minutes of the Roberts / Rockefeller press conference. Roberts was asked directly - "Doesn't the public deserve this to know about the bushco role before the election?" His non-response was that there were only 20 days left before the recess, so he didn't think it could get done.

Rockefeller kept referring to bushco's role and stated the committee should work straight through the recess so that "Phase 2" (i.e. bushco's role) could be made public before November.

I also noticed that Rockefeller was sweating profusely. Interesting.

the real bottom line with this report, and it is getting totally buried by the Media, is that there were NO WMD.
No "mushroom cloud" threat, no 45 minute to attack threat, nada, zip. The whole thing was a fake. Bush's War was built on falsehoods sold to the gullible here in the US (but not the millions the world over who protested the War) as fact. If Cheney/Bush/Rove now wish to contend they were misled.............why should even the most diehard Repugs every believe them again. What a nest of clowns, liars and crooks.

RC, How many UN resolutions did Isreal Or the US Break?

If someone like Saddam wants to test the resolve of the U.S. again they are going to think twice about it now

I'd suggest that 20K insurgents aren't thinking twice. They're killing our troops now. And for what purpose? How much does macho posturing cost - 1K lives ... 10K ... 58K? And if you're so full of resolve, why aren't you in the service instead of spending time on a comment board?

bush invaded Iraq to dominate the ME and for Oil. bush failed. But also, bush knew Iraq did not have WMD and that Iraq would be easy to invade. But, if bush is re-elected, countries around the world are going to figure (and are now figureing) that they better get some nuclear weapons because there is a nut in the white house and he may decide they are next. Got Nukes? You better as long as bush is around!

He's untouchable!

No, he's not untouchable. The problem is - the only way for the rest of the world to get some kind of control over BushCo is to pull down the temple roof on all our heads. This would involve demanding payment on the trillions of dollars of Federal debt Bush has run up in his misguided effort to do a better job of having guns AND butter than Lyndon Johnson did. Because so much of the national treasuries of Japan and China (to name just the two biggest debtors we have) is tied up in US debt instruments, it would take them down as well. But aren't both nations proud of their heroes who did just such things in their history? (Think kamikaze here - the ones most familiar to Americans). If taking a big hit was the only way to ensure survival, would they not take it?

I believe they would.

So you believe the United States should do the U.N.'s work for it?

I think the U.N. is a waste of space that can't wipe it's own ass with out our help. That sum it up for ya?

If the U.N. can put Cuba in charge of human rights what does that say about the U.N.? Worthless that's what.

the no-fly zone was never ratified by the UN, it was strictly a US deal, and so the Iraqis had every right to shoot at our planes.

The U.N. had nothing to do with the terms of surrender. That was our deal yes. But it also was part of the surrender package. SO if Saddam broke the surrender deal that still gives us every right to remove him.

This report absolves the White House from all the charges the left have been leveling at it for the last two years. I believe the most productive thing now, would be to conduct an investigation into the CIA and try and figure out what went wrong.

Regarding the UN, I don't think the UN is very effective at trying to achieve its mission. It's been a failure. And that's being kind.

Saddam did not attend the surrender and signed no terms......on purpose. Old Man Bush and Colin Powell let him get away with it. But you are correct about the UN role.........I keep forgetting the #1 Rule of Rightwingers - "we are always right and never wrong". So thats the new reason huh? He broke the terms of surrender, so we had the right to invade. He also tried to kill W.'s daddy, too. That can work if all the rest of the lies are exposed.

...bad intelligence, ...exaggerated threats, ...imaginary dangers

Hussein's military had been beaten and remained contained for several years, the US/UK bombed the country with impunity, inspections would have cost upwards of $200 million a years... but the current administration has spent a thousand times as much, $200 BILLION to do some freaking fact-checking...?!

Scared, angry people who can be duped (and gladly run up the change card) shouldn't be running the last superpower on the planet.

$200 BILLION to do some freaking fact-checking...?!

LOL!

Never heard it put that way!

BTW, are kuwait and SA forgiving any of Iraq's debt for the good of the new Iraq? cause they're owed about three times what the evil french and germans are owed. i know the saudi regime is held in the highest esteem by some here, after all they've done to, i mean for us.

rhetorical question. of course they're not forgiving any debt.

While the current administration admits Saddam Hussein didn't have anything to do with the airliner attacks, they continue to conflate the Iraqi's with Al-Qaeda.

Cheney, preaching to the choir at the Heritage Foundation in October, 2003, threatened us with "the ultimate nightmare, (one that) could bring devastation to our country on a scale we have never experienced. Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of lives in a single day of horror."

Bush, frightened us with imaginary dangers during the 2003 State of the Union address: "...chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans -- this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known."

They like to portray themselves as cowboys. But they don't following the cowboy codes, not the least of which is: "Never start a fight…most of ‘em will find you easy enough,
But when it starts you finish it, without bein’ unduly rough." This bit of wisdom found at http://www.cowboypoetry.com/dk.htm under "Dad's Trail."

So I want to know will Cheney,Shrub, Condi, Wolfie, Rummy et al finally admit there were no WMD's? Or will they continue to go out and say we are sure he has them or we already found them like so many people who watch Faux News believe? Hmm why is it that those Faux News people would believe that the wmd's were already found? Now where would they get that impression from??? And lastly if the misdadministration admits there were no wmd's,then their premises they based their war on were also wrong, will they admit they were wrong about rushing us to Mistaken War and Quagmire? Will they accept full responsibility for the the biggest and costliest blunder in foreign policy in our lifetime? I won't hold my breath waiting for it.

Move along people...terra, terra, terra, hussein had rape rooms, john edwards and kerry have a full head of hair, they are clearly unqualified to even run for the office of the presidency, michael moore is fat, whoopi goldberg pulled a cheney last night...oh the humanity. Plus, Tenet is gone and it was all clearly all his fault. The buck stopped at his desk.

Now watch this drive.......

admit there were no WMD's?

Prove there are no WMD's. We can make claims all day and no one can prove either.
I don't know why you can't fathom that someone could take 500 barrels of WMD's and bury them in a sand lot the size of TEXAS or just drive them to Syria.

Then what really gets me is you want us to find them as soon as we get their.

Give it time boys and girls.

Tell ya what. If you find Jimmy Hoffa first then I'll admit their are no WMD's.

RC, said like a true believer.
When the facts hit you in the face, the facts be damned!

It isn't possible to respect the judgement of those who excoriate this Administration for believing our country's intelligence services' threat assessments, but exonerate Democratic members of Congress for believing the same things. That is the essence of the Left's hypocrisy. They are not to be taken seriously on this issue, nor on the question of whether a liberated, democratized Iraq is in our best national interests, which it obviously is.

The case for starting a fight with Saddam Hussein left plenty of room for reasonable doubt.

The "cascade failure" of bad intelligence just shows the egregious fallacy of "pre-emptive" invasion. As a progressive, liberal democrat, I observed how the citizenry, including the congress, was stampeded by fear-mongering and rabble-rousing on tenuous evidence.

Like the vigilantes of old, the current administration went after the bad guys (al-Qaeda), after guys who weren't good (Hussein), and after guys who weren't good enough (as evidenced by the term "traitor" applied to anti-Iraq-invasionists) such as myself, or allies such as France and Germany.

Bush said, "You're either with us, or with the terrorists." Given that choice and seeing how the administration sacrifices the American ideals to hold "unlawful combatants" beyond the reach of any law, foreign or domestic... well, I'm pretty much with the terrorists on that one. Better to die standing than live on one's knees.

If Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice and any other of those folks told you to kneel down... would you?

Live free or die.

It is indefensible that the other side of the story (the administration's culpability)will not be released until after the election - we, the voters, are entitled to the info before the election.
Senator Roberts comes across as an ass.

That is the essence of the Left's hypocrisy. They are not to be taken seriously on this issue, nor on the question of whether a liberated, democratized Iraq is in our best national interests, which it obviously is.

You obviously haven't been around here long, Toby, as alot of us have been quite critical of those Democrats who voted for the war. It's too bad we don't have a liberated, democratized Iraq, Toby! It's also too bad we didn't spend the last 2 years and 200 billion dollars destroying al-Qaeda instead!

That is the essence of the Left's hypocrisy. They are not to be taken seriously on this issue, nor on the question of whether a liberated, democratized Iraq is in our best national interests, which it obviously is.

Junkie:

You obviously haven't been around here long, Toby, as alot of us have been quite critical of those Democrats who voted for the war.

That won't keep you from voting for Kerry and Edwards, both of whom voted to authorize force. But maybe there are other reasons to hate the Bush Administration. (Just guessing.)

It's too bad we don't have a liberated, democratized Iraq, Toby!

Rome wasn't built in a day. I would counsel patience.

It's also too bad we didn't spend the last 2 years and 200 billion dollars destroying al-Qaeda instead!

What is your opinion of the Flypaper Theory of the War for Iraq? Since everybody seems to agree that Iraq is now where a lot of the al-Qaedists have come to have it out with Uncle Sam, maybe the invitation has been all the difference between thousands of dead civilians on our own soil and hundreds of dead servicemen in Iraq who have, in the meantime, exterminated many thousands more of these savages. Our men and women in uniform are literally giving their lives to protect us.

I thought we weren't going to feed trolls. It's so annoying to have to scroll through the same tired crap every time there's a new post. If the UN is irrelevant, then you can't use the broken resolutions for backup. And we all know that the stepped up missions over the no fly zone were in hopes of having a plane shot down so bushie could skip the whole "diplomacy" thing and just start shooting anyone that moved in Iraq.

You can't build a democracy and use the same place as a flypaper-battlefield... they're mutually exclusive. You can't build a democracy and deny the rights of your enemies, revel in their humiliation, cause them pain, and anguish.

The fights were already on our American territories. The country was so distracted that the terrorists hit us several times over many years... embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, and Tanzania, government buildings in Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, financial/business buildings in New York. Different groups, different reasons, all had the same tactic.

What did Bush ask of us in the days after 9-11-2001? Continue shopping. The gov't will take care of this.

Good, honest people who had some unfiltered information were able to stop one of those attacks. The passengers on Flight 97 over Pennsylvania, getting the truth over their cellphones learned what was happening. They took it upon themselves to stop the attackers. They died. And in doing so preserved their ideals of community service and personal responsibility.

this place is creepy with trolls, the nation is divided. blah, blah.
we made and use the united nations. so what if it is bunk. it serves empire.
the reactionares and their insect cohorts are pretty set on there predictable agenda.
they lead the masses into some christian crusade about divine rupture.
some lame war for the war machine. who is in that slave army? people of color and trailer trash, history.
kerry or bush. get rid of bush, at least we can have somenone that can speak something intelligent.
heh, oligarchies are all we have ever knowm.

After President Truman, every administration, be they Repub or Demo, the buck always stops with a lower level official. The Bushies wanted to invade Iraq. Why would a political animal do such a stupid thing, and crush his hopes for reelection? This time next year, it will be President Kerrys and the silkey ponys problem. Wonder how it will look then?

That won't keep you from voting for Kerry and Edwards, both of whom voted to authorize force. But maybe there are other reasons to hate the Bush Administration. (Just guessing.)

Naturally. Neither would have started a war with Iraq under false pretenses or for political reasons. There are a million other reasons (fiscal, social, economic) to vote for K/E too, of course.

What is your opinion of the Flypaper Theory of the War for Iraq? Since everybody seems to agree that Iraq is now where a lot of the al-Qaedists have come to have it out with Uncle Sam, maybe the invitation has been all the difference between thousands of dead civilians on our own soil and hundreds of dead servicemen in Iraq who have, in the meantime, exterminated many thousands more of these savages.

This assumes a fixed quantity of people who hate America. I think this assumption is ridiculous. Most of the attacks in Iraq aren't from al-Qaeda, since there are assorted insurgents, Baathists / Saddam loyalists, Sadrists, freelance jihadists etc. who are all attacking our troops. The more people we "exterminate", the more people will rise up in opposition. Just ask Israel about the feasibility of exterminating terrorists.

Our men and women in uniform are literally giving their lives to protect us.

Except that Iraq didn't pose a threat to us. They are giving their lives for a horribly misguided PNAC pipe dream.

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER

I have had time only to download the 511-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on Intelligence and Iraq (plus another 50 or 60 errata pages), skim the whole thing, and do a quick word search. Neither "Cheney" nor "vice president" nor any obvious variations thereon appear to be in the report.

In case you are as puzzled by this omission as I am, you may need to remember a little-noticed news item from the third week in June. As reported in Time Magazine's archives:

Never mind the fact that Dick Cheney’s hands-on role in developing the prewar intelligence picture of Iraq is, by now, a matter of public record — the CIA has asked that the declassified version of a highly critical Senate Intelligence Committee report to redact references to the Vice President. The classified version of the document does not use names, referring to actors by their title instead. But the Agency sought to have even references to titles be excised on national security grounds.

* * *
The Committee is extremely disappointed by the CIA’s excessive redactions to the report," Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, and West Virginia Democrat, said in a statement last week, without mentioning any specific CIA-proposed edits.

If the committee leaders' words -- "the CIA asked" -- can be taken at face value (admittedly a naive hypothesis), it is the post-Tenet CIA that is protecting Cheney's butt just as willingly as the pre-McLaughlin CIA did. Now, why would they do that? Especially when it is one of the worst kept secrets in the Kingdom of George the 43rd that high level CIA administrators were behind many of the leaks to Seymour Hersh and others about the "stovepiping" of Chalbai's lies directly to Cheney and the Oval Office?

The most benign reason I can imagine is that there's an internal turf war going on inside the CIA. That's not especially surprising in any bureaucracy, least of all one like the CIA loaded with bright, independently minded bureaucrats with too much time on their hands. But it raises some intriguing questions about what may come next.

Tenet and McLaughlin by turns have steadfastly defended the agency and covered ass for Cheney and Bush. Someone not far below them just as steadfastly has been shoveling straight to Hersh inside news that undermines the Bush-Cheney administration.

Does neither side over there have a smoking gun against the other -- or the White House? What was in it for Tenet, and what's now in it for McLaughlin, to continue propping up with silence the criminal Bush regime at the expense of the agency's reputation -- and possibly its continued existence? Is there nothing at all behind that big black curtain? Are they merely hoping to stave off Bush from gutting the agency by combining it with Homeland Security or U.S. Fish & Game or something else?

Plenty of people in D.C. assume the CIA has the real goods on a number of Bush associates and quite probably on Bush himself. Lots of them were dumfounded when Tenet didn't play his ace-up-the-sleeve but quit instead.

Another possibility: If the CIA doesn't have the goods on key administration officials, the agency really is incompetent. If it does have the goods and doesn't put them out soon, the agency is both stupid and crazy.

After all, the present political winds hardly look favorable for Bush's chances at being around after January 20. Those responsible for protecting Bush at the expense of the agency itself are unlike to find a welcome mat with a Kerry administration.

Unless, of course, a third and more malignant explanation is possible: the spooks at the CIA know something even bigger and more powerful, something that makes them believe, no matter what, that the odds heavily favor having to deal with Bush for another four years instead of Kerry.

I wonder what that might be.