Why is it nobody commented on Obama's 2006 donations?

[sirs]

Your opinion on that matter, would be thoroughly refuted by the likes of the NIE, CIA, and nearly every other country's intellgence agencies, including that of the UN.  Just because they got it wrong, doesn't mean it didn't exist

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I have read articles in the New Yorker and Harpers that refute all this crap.

Op-eds disputing the facts are common place, when this topic comes up.  Facts are messers CIA, NIE, and the vast majority of the rest of the world's intel agencies claimed Saddam had his stockpiles, and that Iraq contined to have ties with militant Islamists, both direct and indirect.  Facts are that investigation after investigation after the fact found no unehtical or illegal manipulation of the intel. 

So are your left with are op-eds and unsubstantiated opinions that those facts are somehow bogus, or that it was 1 big massive cover-up, or that Bush hoodwinked everyone, or that little green men actually roam the dark side of Venus, yada, blah, etc.  In other words, you read other people's opinions who have no connection what-so-ever to the intelligence gathering apparati, that dovetail with your opinion, and claim "taadaaaaa.......Bush lied us into war"

Whatever makes you feel better, Xo

 

Had the various European intel services really believed the lying crap Juniorbush, Rumsfeld and Cheney was spouting, they would have joined in the invasion, just as they did in the first Iraq War. Observe how they did nothing of the kind.

Again, WRONG.  France was even up front in claiming, yes, we know Saddam has them, but we're still not authorising anything.  Doing nothing doesn't equate to the conclusions brought forth by their intelligence agencies, not existing.  Recall, they weren't attacked on 911.  They had very little reason to invade.  We were attacked, we were told of these connections Saddam had with Islamic militants, by the intelligence agences, some of whom had just murdered 3000 american citizens with simple box cutters.  It was really unthinkable to consider what they might do if they could get their hands on some of Saddam's WMD, even if it was small cannisters of Mustard Gas, or Sarin

[BSB]

Look Sirs, they had no intelligence. They had nothing. They were using old, out of date, information, and then made a bunch of suppositions based on an agenda not on relevent, up to date, intelligence.

 

[sirs]

Look BSB, they DID.  Despite the fact the Intelligence agencies made the wrong conclusions, doesn't negate the fact that those were the conclusions presented to Bush. 

Intelligence gathering has always been what its been, their best guess, based on all aspects of intel gathered, be it electronic, visual, covert, etc.  The intel was up to date.  They weren't using intel estimates from the 80's.  The Bush administration was using what the global intelligence agencies had acrued to that point......and the agencies got it wrong.  BUT, that doesn't infer that they had none.  They had a mountain load.....that turned out to be wrong.

Simple as that.

[Xavier_Onassis]

sirs is obsessed with this. Long after Rummy, Cheney and Juniorbush have all admitted that they were lying sacks of sh*t, he will still be saying the same stuff. Don;t trouble him with facts: he's like the "Knights of Ni". Any day now, he will demand we send him a shrubbery.

[sirs]

Actually, what I'm "obsessed" about is in highlighting either leftist hypocrisy and/or distortions of actual facts regarding Bush.  I do appreciate yours and Tee's frequent contributions

[Plane]

There was a reason for Saddam to try to maintain an illusion of power he did not have, Iran.


Saddams holster was empty and this was not good for him , so he stopped the inspectors from their job of certifying the truth and acted as if his sleeve was ful of aces.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Saddams holster was empty and this was not good for him , so he stopped the inspectors from their job of certifying the truth and acted as if his sleeve was ful of aces.


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Obvious as hell, but not to Soviet expert Condi or know-it-all Cheney or Rummy. Saddam was a ruthless, sly, ignorant fool. This was obvious from his invasion of Kuwait.

[Plane]

Saddams holster was empty and this was not good for him , so he stopped the inspectors from their job of certifying the truth and acted as if his sleeve was ful of aces.


======================
Obvious as hell, but not to Soviet expert Condi or know-it-all Cheney or Rummy. Saddam was a ruthless, sly, ignorant fool. This was obvious from his invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam needed to trick the Iranians , don't you suppose that Iran had a clandestine effort in Iraq trying to learn the truth?Iranians that are able to learn the proper accent could not be differentiated even with a DNA test.

So Saddam successfuly simulated stockpiles of secret Sarin , and quashed spying ruthlessly , his succes was so complete that there were no US spys on the ground in Baghdad at all.

It may be odvious now but at the time all we had was Saddams history of developing wepons eagerly and a very tightly closed curtain. How was Saddam supposed to know that allowing a few CIA operatives to operate rather than die would have been a good idea?

Calling the invasion of Iraq a bad idea implys that there was a better idea availible , and there really was not.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Calling the invasion of Iraq a bad idea implys that there was a better idea availible , and there really was not.

=================================

The better idea was NOT INVADING Iraq. Iraq was no threat to anyone in the US, and not likely to have become one.
Juniorbush wanted to get the guy that tried to kill his paw. Everyone said that Olebush was a wimp who did not finish the job. He wanted to do better than his paw. There are some deeply psychological issues here.

Ten billion dollars a month.

Ten.  thousand. million. dollars a month. Borrowed at interest from the Communist Chinese.

Three thousand plus dead Americans, tens of thousands of disabled Americans.

For what?

[BSB]

Saddams holster was empty and this was not good for him , so he stopped the inspectors from their job of certifying the truth and acted as if his sleeve was ful of aces.


======================
Obvious as hell, but not to Soviet expert Condi or know-it-all Cheney or Rummy. Saddam was a ruthless, sly, ignorant fool. This was obvious from his invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam needed to trick the Iranians , don't you suppose that Iran had a clandestine effort in Iraq trying to learn the truth?Iranians that are able to learn the proper accent could not be differentiated even with a DNA test.

So Saddam successfuly simulated stockpiles of secret Sarin , and quashed spying ruthlessly , his succes was so complete that there were no US spys on the ground in Baghdad at all.

It may be odvious now but at the time all we had was Saddams history of developing wepons eagerly and a very tightly closed curtain. How was Saddam supposed to know that allowing a few CIA operatives to operate rather than die would have been a good idea?

Calling the invasion of Iraq a bad idea implys that there was a better idea availible , and there really was not.

That's largely right. Except there was a better way to invade Iraq. Wait. Slowly build a coalition to share the burden and defrey the blame for mistakes made and civilians killed. Etc., etc, you get my point, Plane. 

[BSB]

I'd continue the debate with you, Sirs, but I don't think you understand the issue. No reason you should, you never gathered intelligence for military purposes. 

[Plane]

Saddams holster was empty and this was not good for him , so he stopped the inspectors from their job of certifying the truth and acted as if his sleeve was ful of aces.


======================
Obvious as hell, but not to Soviet expert Condi or know-it-all Cheney or Rummy. Saddam was a ruthless, sly, ignorant fool. This was obvious from his invasion of Kuwait.

Saddam needed to trick the Iranians , don't you suppose that Iran had a clandestine effort in Iraq trying to learn the truth?Iranians that are able to learn the proper accent could not be differentiated even with a DNA test.

So Saddam successfuly simulated stockpiles of secret Sarin , and quashed spying ruthlessly , his succes was so complete that there were no US spys on the ground in Baghdad at all.

It may be odvious now but at the time all we had was Saddams history of developing wepons eagerly and a very tightly closed curtain. How was Saddam supposed to know that allowing a few CIA operatives to operate rather than die would have been a good idea?

Calling the invasion of Iraq a bad idea implys that there was a better idea availible , and there really was not.

That's largely right. Except there was a better way to invade Iraq. Wait. Slowly build a coalition to share the burden and defrey the blame for mistakes made and civilians killed. Etc., etc, you get my point, Plane. 

I suppose so ,...

But I don't see that the potential allies didn't have plenty of time to join up if they wanted to.

[BSB]

Plane, the idea is to outlast and outwit these guys. Patience goes a long way in that kind of a contest.

[Plane]

Plane, the idea is to outlast and outwit these guys. Patience goes a long way in that kind of a contest.

I don't think that itme was hurting Saddam as much as that , twelve years?

All of the dieing was happening with Saddams enemys.

[Xavier_Onassis]

But I don't see that the potential allies didn't have plenty of time to join up if they wanted to.


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It seems to me that no allies wanted to join up for an invasion, because they did not see any threat from Saddam. I don;t think any of them were threatened by Saddam.

After all, the fact is that none of the supposedly deadly WMD's that Saddam had were used against the US invasion forces. One can only wonder why not.

President Gore would not have invaded.

Had there been no 9-11 attacks, Juniorbush would never have gtten the OK from Congress, and 9-11 was entirely unrelated to Iraq.