Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette has compiled a must-read History of a Long War (Iraq, 1990-2003). He added these comments in an e-mail: Michelle – I’ve been in the military since 1985, and one thing that truly gets me is the…

Your post doesn’t make sense. I was laughing at you all weekend. You parrot someone, then you aren’t using his quote? Take a few courses in logic and debate. You’d flunk both unless taught by a liberal ideologue who got his tenure by being Liberal rather than being accomplished.

Leaf: Your source was an “arms control” website … not the UN or IAEA websites.

I can only assume that the Democrats that made these statements had their reasons. Either they were politically motivated or they actually believed the intelligence they were shown since it was being fixed around the policy of war with Iraq.

I’m not sure what you mean by “unbiased source.” Are you saying the IAEA and the UN are biased or that you don’t trust the site I linked to to report their conclusions accurately?

Uh uh. Please explain then the quotes that came after 1999 from Democrats on Iraq. There were quite a few of them.

BTW, do you have an unbiased source for the above claim?

Iraq also sought to mislead the IAEA, but IAEA inspectors were largely successful in obtaining a relatively complete picture of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program and dismantling it. The IAEA, which removed from Iraq all known fissile material that could be used to make weapons, reported in February 1999 that there were no indications that meaningful amounts of weapon-usable material remained in the country or that it possessed the physical capability to produce significant amounts of such material indigenously. But the IAEA cautioned that because nuclear weapons material or infrastructure could be hidden, it could not verify with absolute certainty that Iraq had no prohibited materials.

A UN panel of experts tasked in 1999 with reporting on the results of the UNSCOM and IAEA efforts concluded that “the bulk of Iraq’s proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated” but the experts emphasized that important issues remained unresolved. They further warned that, if weapons inspectors were kept outside Iraq, the risk that Iraq might reconstitute its programs would grow, and the initial assessments from which inspectors had been working would be jeopardized. The experts said the status quo was unacceptable, and they called for re-establishing an inspection regime in Iraq that was “effective, rigorous and credible.”

Source

So it’s possible that Iraq had nuclear weapons at the time Clinton said this, but by early 1999 it is unlikely that Iraq had them. Conditions can actually change over time. Inspections were working. There was no reason to go to war.

Like PCD, you completely misunderstood my post and my reason for quoting Richard Clarke (see my above post).

You continue to repeat the same distortion about the Republican Medicare cuts. You have no understanding of how budgets work, that there is no relationship between one year’s budget and another year’s budget, or that the value of the dollar goes down from one year to the next.

You said:

Democrat leaders have NO plan, do not wish to debate on the playing field of ideas, are offering no solutions and are only continuing to attack, lie and scare people.

Once again you are doing nothing more than repeating Rush Limbaugh’s lies. Why aren’t you able to think for yourself? Why do you let someone that is very dishonest and hateful influence you so much? Rush is constantly lying. Once again here are some his lies and distortions from his book and from listening to his show for a few weeks:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895

I don’t just parrot certain people or organizations like you do. My views are based on facts and evidence, not on what someone says.

Apparently you were completely unable to understand what I said in my post. I was not parroting Richard Clarke. I was quoting him. I was not even using his quote to support his position. I was using it to show that it’s not just Democrats who are criticizing President Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq. Whether or not what he said is credible is irrelevant to what I was discussing.

The Democrats held the closed door sessions to discuss an investigation of the administration’s use (or misuse) of intelligence prior to the Iraq war, not to label the President a liar. It’s not necessary to hold a closed door session in order to do that.

Part of your justification for supporting the President on this issue in your post was Bill Clinton launched attacks in 1998 against Iraq. The difference between the attacks in 1998 and the invasion in 2003 is that in 1998, President Clinton launched attacks against Iraq because Iraq refused to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. Prior to the 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein agreed to allow weapons inspectors back into his country, and was not hindering them in their work. President Clinton should have taken a stronger stance towards Iraq and should have demanded that he cooperate with the U.N. weapons inspectors. He should not have let up in using force in order to get Saddam Hussein to cooperate with the inspectors and follow all of the terms of the surrender agreement he made at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. President Clinton also should not have allowed Saddam Hussein to starve his own people after the war.

President Bush was absolutely right to demand that Saddam Hussein allow weapons inspectors back in his country and also to abide by all U.N. resolutions and all terms of his surrender agreement from 1991. By all appearances, Saddam Hussein was cooperating in 2003. It’s debatable whether or not it was necessary to use force in order to overthrow Saddam Hussein or whether just the threat of force, or using limited force to get him to cooperate would have been enough. I do not know what intelligence the president was basing his decision on and I don’t know what the president knew at the time. Based on what I know, it’s possible that President Bush did really consider Iraq to be a threat, so I would not accuse him of lying about weapons programs to justify invading Iraq. I do think that Bush/Cheney were dishonest when they tried to justify invading Iraq by claiming there was cooperation between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin. I don’t know of any evidence that supports this.

I don’t see anything unreasonable in wanting to investigate the intelligence that was used in President Bush’s decision to go to war.

So you disagreed with going to war. Why then do you contend that one of the presidents lied? Your tactic is a lie.

h.garner lied and said , “He retracted 16 words”.

Case dismissed.

You’re kidding right? did you really think I mean they were operatives? I’m talking about the intelligence we heard about from their administrations. If it was the same, so be it. But the problem is, one administration took us to war on that intelligence. The other did not.

“It is apparent that the intelligence agencies were fooled by Saddam ”

I thought he would say that he didn’t have any WMD’s.

“And to further prove that you are lying, I’d like you to say to us what Bush manipulated or lied about concerning intelligence.”

He retracted 16 words….

Let’s say that Iraq is building a new car.

All of the other car companies have intelligence/spy shops trying to keep up to speed on what that new car that Iraq is building has to offer.

All of the car company intelligence/spy shops are saying the same things. That this new car from Iraq will be able to go from 0-60 in 10 seconds, get 20 MPG and transport up to 5 people. Nothing spectacular. Many countries have these cars already.

From year to year the intelligence gathers new information all leading to the same conclusions. In 1998, the CEO of the United States said that Iraq is building a car that goes from 0-60 in 10 seconds, gets 20 MPG and will transport up to 5 people. A bunch of underlings say the same thing. People in the purse string department (accounting) say the same things.

The CEO is replaced with a new CEO at United States.

All of the other companies and United States continue to gather data and issue the same conclusion with their intelligence/spy opeations.

The new CEO says the same thing as the past CEO.

The world finds out that Iraq wasn’t building a car that could go 0-60 in 10 seconds and get 20 MPG and hold 5 people.

The Democrats shout over and over again:
1) The new CEO is lying
2) The new CEO manipulated intelligence

With logic and reasoning the american people figure out that the new CEO is just being attacked by the Democrats (and Brian) inaccurately. And so… the Democrats think they are intelligent by saying, “But Bush got us into war and 2,000 serviemen have died”.

Well. #1) That means you simply disagreed with going to war, but your methods of calling Bush a liar is contemptable. You could just say, you never wanted us to go to war and that you disagree with the war instead of “attacking” with lies.
#2) Now we are there what is your solution today? Bush and we are saying you can’t leave a power and security vacuum to let the Baathists take the country back over. tens of thousands of people would die and it would be on our hands for pulling out too early. What is the liberals response to this? I’ve heard NONE!:???: other than to reiterate that we shouldn’t be there. We need to progress in the conversation. Can you liberals do this and answer the presented problem with us pulling out too early? Or just continue to attack ?

Where did I say that?
1) Was Clinton in the intelligence business?
2) Was Bush in the intelligence business?

Answers no and no. Therefore the answer to your ridiculous question is that neither Bush or Clinton did better on intelligence. They simply told the public what the intelligence agencies of the United States, Britian, France, Russia and Germany found.

They ALL said the same things. Clinton, Albright, Gore, Kerry etc ALL said the same things.

It is apparent that the intelligence agencies were fooled by Saddam and the Democrats as I said are lying now when accusing Bush of manipulating intelligence.

And to further prove that you are lying, I’d like you to say to us what Bush manipulated or lied about concerning intelligence. Be careful what you say!

A must read editorial from the Wall Street Journal today:

The Clare Luce Democrats
How they’re lying about “he lied us into war.”
Harry Reid pulled the Senate into closed session Tuesday, claiming that “The Libby indictment…