Confed999

Who said it was a found "arsenal"?
Ummmm, what about that one? LOL

Either way, what does your post have to do with what you quoted?

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Ballguy

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He's not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq's recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.


From Bush's State of The Union Address, 2003. I'm pretty sure that almost 30,000 shells accounts for at least the 500 plus tons needed to make my statement true.

__________________
The Ball Mall, LLC: Your Central Ohio Source for Used and Recovered Golf Balls.

Confed999

Which of these were the conservatives? IIRC, those quotes were about the document Shek suggested you view.

Ballguy

He posted the link to a CIA document. I used Bush's quotes from his State of The Union Address.

Bush is a conservative, and those are his quotes. I doubt that's the answer you were looking for, but that is what I meant originally.

Shek

So President Bush was basing his statements on the intelligence estimate produced by the non-partisan CIA that was led by a Clinton appointee, in a process that was not influenced by the administration as determined by a bipartisan Senate Committee in a report that was unanimously adopted, using intelligence and information provided by Iraq, UNSCOM, and HUMINT, and you wish to blame conservatives for making the exact same pronounciations as leading liberals? I'm not buying that snake oil.

FYI, the Democrats all claimed the same thing using the same intelligence service that advised President Bush. I don't like linking to such a clearly partisan site, but since it's only using quotes, it's hard to spin someone's direct quote.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/sta...rat.guest.html

Also, you can do some research on UNSCOM and UNMOVIC so that you can see that it was the UN's own inspectors that declared that Saddam failed to provide the proper accounting for his WMD.

Thanks for playing the blame the Bushitler-Cheney-Haliburton Coalition game.

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

Ballguy

The UN and the Liberals are not the President of the United States. Of course they made mistakes, but they do not have the power to send us to war.

Shek

Thank goodness for that. I definitely agree with you there.

Confed999

But isn't that what Bush is refering to?
Ummm, but Bush said "Our intelligence officials estimate... U.S. intelligence indicates... From three Iraqi defectors...", and you said it came from a conservative. So, was the conservative "intelligence officials", the "intelligence" itself, or "three Iraqi defectors". Those phrases were used for a reason, you cannot discount them.
Neither does the President. It takes an act of Congress to do it. The vote was amazingly one-sided...

Shek

Technically, the President has the ability to commit troops for up to 60 days without Congressional approval under the War Powers Resolution. So, the President could in theory send us to war and create a scenario where Congress has no choice but to then authorize the action.

However, that certainly doesn't apply to Iraq just as you pointed out since the President received the authorization for the use of military force against Iraq in October 2002.

Here's the resolution, which was signed into law by the President on 16 October 2002.

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-...114enr.txt.pdf

Confed999

Everyone would freak out about a deployment of that scale, with that many allies, without approval. If Congress wanted to stop something as long in preperation as a full scale invasion and occupation force, it seems like they could. Now, I agree, the Prez could get the country in alot of trouble in 60 days with a smaller force, or in someplace adjacent to an allready large force. Am I totaly off base here?
Thanks, hadn't read it in PDF form before.

Shek

Agreed - Congress would have seen the deployment for Iraq and if there was explicit opposition, it would have come to a vote before the President could have initiated action. However, in the Iraq case, part of the diplomatic case put on the table by the Bush Administration was that the use of force was an option on the table and not an empty threat or just a wham! bam! thank you ma'am! Tomahawk cruise missile attack. It was only after the initial deployments were made and the Iraq AUMF was passed that Saddam took 1441 seriously (wow - I just double checked the UNSCR site - http://www.un.org/Docs/scres.htm - to make sure my timeline was good, and I noticed that 1441 and 1454 both were titled "The Situation between Iraq and Kuwait," reinforcing the fact that UNSCR 678 provides a solid legal basis for OIF).

Use the Thomas search engine for Congressional record queries. It will have PDF versions of all legislation.

http://thomas.loc.gov/

Here's the detailed information about the Iraq AUMF

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquer...:@@@L&summ2=m&

Officer of Engineers

I guess Bosnia and Kosovo didn't count.

__________________
Chimo

Confed999

Humbug, he never took it seriously. Between his defiance, forced by previous statements, his insanity or stupidity or both, and the reassurances of his allies, he just played games.
Nice one, thanks Bud.

Confed999

In what way(s)?

Officer of Engineers

Initial entry forces were not American but it was an American war.