Some examples:
Zinni .
As Brit Hume implies, some of the pronouncements of the retired generals amounts to good old fashioned CYA.
Former Clinton CENTCOM commander, Anthony Zinni — the most prominent of the retired generals attacking Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — now says that, in the run-up to the war in Iraq, “What bothered me … [was that] I was hearing a depiction of the intelligence that didn’t fit what I knew. There was no solid proof, that I ever saw, that Saddam had WMD.”
But in early 2000, Zinni told Congress “Iraq remains the most significant near-term threat to U.S. interests in the Arabian Gulf region,” adding, “Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, [and] retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions … Even if Baghdad reversed its course and surrendered all WMD capabilities, it retains scientific, technical, and industrial infrastructure to replace agents and munitions within weeks or months.”
Yes well, like the man said consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Or something like that.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies. ... [I]f Saddam persists in thumbing his nose at the inspectors, then we're clearly going to have to do something about it." (CBS' "Face The Nation," 9/29/02)
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE): "It would be unrealistic, if not downright foolish, to believe we can claim victory in the war on terrorism and a more secure world if Saddam Hussein is still in power five years from now, at least acting as he has the last five years." (Sen. Joe Biden, Remarks At Center For Strategic And International Studies Forum, Washington, D.C., 2/4/02)
Rep. Ford : "For anyone to suggest or pretend that Saddam Hussein is not a threat or a menace, I think he or she is fooling himself or herself, and is misleading the nation." (MSNBC's "Buchanan & Press," 10/8/02)
Yes, he or she certainly would be. I think the thing that annoys me the most here is the idea that there was no need to go to Iraq because AlQaida did not run the place.... Saddam did and he was just a harmless little homicidal maniac dictator with oil. And yet AlQaida is there right now and most of these folks have no desire to fight them, so what does it matter to them one way or another since reverse is the only gear they got that works?
My personal favorite :
Back on Feb. 17, 1998, Hayes notes, Clinton – speaking at the Pentagon – warned of the "reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals." He said these "predators of the twenty-first century," who are America's enemies, "will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen. There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq."
And later the same spring, Clinton's Justice Department prepared an indictment of al-Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, in which a prominent passage located in the fourth paragraph reads:
"Al-Qaeda reached an understanding with the government of Iraq that al-Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al-Qaeda would work cooperatively with the government of Iraq."
14 comments:
And Clinton blew up the aspirin factory in Sudan because of claims of Iraqi-al Qaeda cooperation. But what the heck, it was just a few cruise missiles. Who would remember such a thing?
CYA is right. Seems to me that some in the military may have been touting the danger of Saddam in order to get funding for pet projects.
If they didn't know for sure what was up then, they certainly wouldn't want us to go to war and FIND OUT for sure whether Saddam had WMD or not.
So, you CYA peeps, were you lying then or are you lying now? And if you were lying then---why?!?!?
If they were lying then, why believe them now?
Barry:
They have smoked a lot of crack since then.
I just figured out the BIG LIE by the Democrats.
During the Clinton years ties between bin laden and Saddam were very frightening. Saddam had ambitions for WMD and it was feared they would get into Osama's hands.
So the Democrats screamed about Iraq's WMDs so sanctions could be imposed. After all, just having ties to Osama was not enough for the U.N. to start a sanctions regime back then.
The Left and the Human Rights Orgs (same thing) were crying about Iraqi babies (and making bin laden furious at the sanctions). So the Dems screamed even louder about Saddam's WMDs to keep the sanctions going.
No WMDs. No active programs. Ties to al Qaeda. Sanctions to prevent new programs from emerging.
But the sanctions were breaking down. (Iraq babies, no evidence of new programs, muslim world anger, cost of maintaining no fly zones, etc.)
That was the situation in Sep 2001 when 9/11 hit.
The real fear was that (1)sanctions would disappear allowing Saddam free rein to reinstitute his programs (2)ties with bin laden still existed and would become more important (3)fear that Afghanistan would make bin laden 'boogie to Baghdad' for sanctuary.
Bush went to the U.N. and touted WMDs because that's all the U.N. would understand.
Bush invaded. No WMDs were found.
Bush didn't lie about WMDs any more than the Democrats had.
The BIG LIE by the Democrats is that they claim NOW that there were no ties at all between Saddam and bin laden because it was those very ties, before Bush, that made the Dems lie about WMD!
'No WMDs' is just a red herring because they do not matter!
The same fear the Democrats had under Clinton existed under Bush. That Saddam would reconstitute his programs and share with bin laden.
The Dems believed that THEN and are LYING now.
I wrote too fast and probably wasn't clear.
The Dems lied about WMDs before Bush. The Dems believed Saddam had ties with bin laden before Bush and that these ties were dangerous for the future. The WMD lie was for the purpose of getting and maintaining U.N. sanctions against Saddam.
NOW the Dems are saying everyone knew there were no WMDs (true) but they're not being upfront about WHY they were lying before.
So instead of simply pointing out quotes of Dems talking about Saddam's WMDs (which everyone seems to ignore) we must ask them WHY they lied, and point out they LIED about WMD because of fears over all those ties between Saddam and bin laden!!
Syl:
I see what you are saying, but I am not sure anyone was lying then. Remember we still do not know what happened to the weapons. I just think they had it in their heads that the stuff was there and if Saddam had made even a half assed attempt to go along with the program they would probably have cut him some slack.
As for the ties between Saddam and AlQaida... well how many people would have known and how many of them are still alive? In this recent report the Senate just asked the Iraqi detainees if they had ties and when they said no sir, not us..well that was good enough for them. I have some swamp ground I would like to sell Levin.
We know that there was this big meeting back in 98 with Saddam raving about the British and Americans bombing Iraq... and yet this most recent report does not mention it because they had no briefings on it...aricles in newspapers like the Gaurdian are not enough.
I think they had ties, but they did not trust each other. They were willing to use each other when it worked, but there might never be a lot of overt evidence of that.
Saddam will give money to suicide bomber families, but he will never tell them what to blow up.And Saddam has his own terrorists, the Fadayeens. He is not going to be giving orders to Zarqawi, but I think he let him come in there with the understanding that he would not mess with Saddam and would be available to fight infidels if and when an invasion took place. I doubt if they ever met face to face. That is not how these people operate.
So I think the Democrats were sure the stuff was there but did not know where it was and they felt there were some ties between Saddam and AlQaida but they were not sure how many.
And so they just juggled it all as long as they could hoping they could maintain some sort of status quo..but then 9/11 happened and they really needed to know what was going on and they needed to know fast.
Now rather than admit the obvious, which is that if Gore had won in 2000, he would have been getting the same briefings from Slam Dunk Tenet that Bush did, the Democrats in an attempt to cover up for their own carelessness have decided that the best defence is a good offence.
Of course bin Laden connected his cause to Iraq explicitly, complaining about dead Iraqi babies. How soon we forget. I wonder if bin Laden worries about Benan Sevon's dead aunt.
This week, Bin Laden went out of his way to announce in his obviously pre-prepared videotape: "A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt."
In an interview with Nida'ul Islam magazine in October 1996, Bin Laden was quoted as referring to: "America and Israel killing the weaker men, woman and children in the Muslim world and elsewhere... the death of more than 600,000 Iraqi children because of the shortage of food and medicine... resulted from the boycotts and sanctions against the Muslim Iraqi people."
Well, we did end the sanctions.
But I do agree that they felt that Saddam had ties with terrorists and they did not trust him one little bit.
BTW, I just watched an interview on BookTV with Jessica Stern, author of a book on Terrorism.
She's very knowledgable but from Harvard so her slant is not quite mine. Though she does not believe poverty causes terrorism. She's not into that garbage.
Anyway she interviewed many terrorists and terror supporters and some clerics and visited madrassas. But on this show, quite often she characterized those she interviewed as 'morally confused'.
She's dead wrong. And that bothers me. They are not morally confused, they simply have a different morality.
Unless we understand that, we are in deep deep trouble.
Via Jonah Goldberg Here's an except from ABC News from January 14, 1999 (when someone else was President, by the way):
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) It is a sensitive time for the Taliban. They are looking for international recognition, but bin Laden is getting in the way. There is other pressure. The Saudis, long-time allies of the Taliban, cut off diplomatic relations and, more important, the flow of funds.
The Taliban begins suggesting they might put him on trial as a solution to their problem. The pressure is affecting his whole network. By September 23, this man, sent to London to spread bin Laden's message, has been arrested and alleged to be part of bin Laden's conspiracies.
In Germany, Mamdouh Salim, alleged to be a key military advisor and believed to be privy to bin Laden's most secret projects, is also apprehended. The U.S. government alleges he was under secret orders to procure enriched uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. These are allegations bin Laden does not now deny.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims. But how we could use these weapons if we possess them is up to us.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) With an American price on his head, there weren't many places bin Laden could go, unless he teamed up with another international pariah, one also with an interest in weapons of mass destruction.
VINCE CANNISTRARO: Osama believes in "the enemy of my enemy is my friend and is someone I should cooperate with." That's certainly the current case with Iraq.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
Three weeks after the bombing, on August 31, bin Laden reaches out to his friends in Iraq and Sudan. Iraq's vice president arrives in Khartoum to show his support for the Sudanese after the U.S. attack. ABC News has learned that during these meetings, senior Sudanese officials acting on behalf of bin Laden ask if Saddam Hussein would grant him asylum.
(on camera) Iraq was, indeed, interested. ABC News has learned that in December, an Iraqi intelligence chief, named Farouk Hijazi, how Iraq's ambassador to Turkey, made a secret trip to Afghanistan to meet with bin Laden. Three intelligence agencies tell ABC News they cannot be certain what was discussed, but almost certainly, they say, bin Laden has been told he would be welcome in Baghdad.
(voice-over) And intelligence sources say they can only speculate on the purpose of an alliance. What could bin Laden offer Saddam Hussein? Only days after he meets Iraqi officials, bin Laden tells ABC News that his network is wide, and there are people prepared to commit terror in his name who he does not even control.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) It is our job to incite and to instigate. By the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation.
barry:
That is worth a post of its own. I have heard of that Hajazi before. If I understand it correctly, most of the 'changes' Demcoratic Senators have made in their conclusions are based upon evidence given by Iraqi detainees. Gee,why would they lie?
How can they just wipe away a decade of this kind of reporting.
Now one thing is true, Saddam had his own terrorists, the Fedayeen and he might have wanted to make sure that no one else's terrorists would be stronger than his own. He is a very paranoid person.
The Democrats want to impeach Bush and they are hoping they can use this. I don't know why Hagel and Snowe voted this socalled conclusion out of committee. How many more times are they going to change and rearrange things? After awhile you have to wonder if they know what they are talking about.
Syl:
They are not confused, they know exactly what they believe. It just sounds bizarre to other people.
terrye
I heard it said before (Hitchens especially comes to mind) that Saddam and sons were more like the mafia. Saddam had his "guys" and sometimes worked with other "guys", whatever he needed at the time. He was a practical man. And I just finished watching Goodfellas. Maybe some of our "esteemed" Senators should watch that instead of "analyzing" intelligence.
Feel free to use the info for a post. I would, but I'm pressed for time.
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