clifto wrote:
John Barnard wrote:
The war started with lies
Repeating that lie hasn't made it true yet, and it won't. But just for
entertainment purposes, why not cite us one of those lies?
--
If John McCain gets the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination,
my vote for President will be a write-in for Jiang Zemin.
Here goes:
In August 2002, Cheney insisted: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that
Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
In a March 2003 address to the nation, Bush said: "Intelligence gathered by
this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
In April 2003, Fleischer claimed: "But make no mistake--as I said
earlier--we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction.
That is what this war was about and it is about."
In February 2003, Powell said: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to
keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
But on 24 Feb 2001, Powell made the following statement while in Cairo,
Egypt:
"We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and
I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that
the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but
for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward
developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing
our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that
they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as
important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they
have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to
weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power
against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the
security of the neighbors of Iraq..."
On 15 May 2001, Powell testified before the Foreign Operations, Export
Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations
Committee.
Senator Bennett: Mr. Secretary, the U.N. sanctions on Iraq expire the
beginning of June. We've had bombs dropped, we've had threats made, we've
had all kinds of activity vis-a-vis Iraq in the previous administration. Now
we're coming to the end. What's our level of concern about the progress of
Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons programs?
Secretary Powell: The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the
last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from
actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily
remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago.
It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the
Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction --
chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates
suggest that they have not been terribly successful. There's no question
that they have some stockpiles of some of these sorts of weapons still under
their control, but they have not been able to break out, they have not been
able to come out with the capacity to deliver these kinds of systems or to
actually have these kinds of systems that is much beyond where they were 10
years ago.
Condoleeza Rice gets in on the act (29 July 2001, CNN Late Edition with Wolf
Blitzer) and her statement seems to support Powell's position:
"But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country
is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country.
We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been
rebuilt."
Check out the following links:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/08/19/powell.un/
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/...aq.wmd.report/
I don't believe that Hussein was able to go on a WMD after the Powell/Rice
statements and managed to obtain a huge aresenal between then and 2003.
JB