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  • Clinton and Iraq war

    I wonder what would have happened if we had a Democratic president in office when the Iraq war started.



    "When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for. That is, at the end of the first Gulf War, we knew what he had. We knew what was destroyed in all the inspection processes and that was a lot. And then we bombed with the British for four days in 1998. We might have gotten it all; we might have gotten half of it; we might have gotten none of it. But we didn't know. So I thought it was prudent for the president to go to the U.N. and for the U.N. to say you got to let these inspectors in, and this time if you don't cooperate the penalty could be regime change, not just continued sanctions."
    --Bill Clinton, July 22, 2003


    FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON is right about what he and the whole world knew about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs. And most of what everyone knew about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with this or any other government's intelligence collection and analysis. Had there never been a Central Intelligence Agency--an idea we admit sounds more attractive all the time--the case for war against Iraq would have been rock solid. Almost everything we knew about Saddam's weapons programs and stockpiles, we knew because the Iraqis themselves admitted it.

    Here's a little history that seems to have been completely forgotten in the frenzy of the past few months. Shortly after the first Gulf War in 1991, U.N. inspectors

    discovered the existence of a surprisingly advanced Iraqi nuclear weapons program. In addition, by Iraq's own admission and U.N. inspection efforts, Saddam's regime possessed thousands of chemical weapons and tons of chemical weapon agents. Were it not for the 1995 defection of senior Iraqi officials, the U.N. would never have made the further discovery that Iraq had manufactured and equipped weapons with the deadly chemical nerve agent VX and had an extensive biological warfare program.

    Here is what was known by 1998 based on Iraq's own admissions:

    * That in the years immediately prior to the first Gulf War, Iraq produced at least 3.9 tons of VX, a deadly nerve gas, and acquired 805 tons of precursor ingredients for the production of more VX.

    * That Iraq had produced or imported some 4,000 tons of ingredients to produce other types of poison gas.

    * That Iraq had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax.

    * That Iraq had produced 500 bombs fitted with parachutes for the purpose of delivering poison gas or germ payloads.

    * That Iraq had produced 550 artillery shells filled with mustard gas.

    * That Iraq had produced or imported 107,500 casings for chemical weapons.

    * That Iraq had produced at least 157 aerial bombs filled with germ agents.

    * That Iraq had produced 25 missile warheads containing germ agents (anthrax, aflatoxin, and botulinum).

    Again, this list of weapons of mass destruction is not what the Iraqi government was suspected of producing. (That would be a longer list, including an Iraqi nuclear program that the German intelligence service had concluded in 2001 might produce a bomb within three years.) It was what the Iraqis admitted producing. And it is this list of weapons--not any CIA analysis under either the Clinton or Bush administrations--that has been at the heart of the Iraq crisis.

    For in all the years after those admissions, the Iraqi government never explained, or even tried to explain, to anyone's satisfaction, including most recently, that of Hans Blix, what had become of the huge quantities of deadly weapons it had produced. The Iraqi government repeatedly insisted that most of the weapons had been "secretly" destroyed. When asked to produce credible evidence of the destruction--the location of destruction sites, fragments of destroyed weapons, some documentation of the destruction, anything at all--the Iraqis refused. After 1995, the U.N. weapons inspection process became a lengthy cat-and-mouse game, as inspectors tried to cajole Iraqis to divulge information about the fate of these admitted stockpiles of weapons. The inspectors fanned out across the country looking for weapons caches, stashes of documents, and people willing to talk. And sometimes, the inspectors uncovered evidence. Both American and French testers found traces of nerve gas on remnants of warheads, for instance. The Iraqis claimed the evidence had been planted.
    After 1996, and partly as a consequence of the documents they had discovered and of Iraqi admissions, weapons inspectors must have started getting closer to uncovering what the Iraqis were hiding. For at about that time, inspectors' demands to visit certain facilities began to be systematically blocked by Saddam. There was the famous confrontation over the so-called "presidential palaces," actually vast complexes of buildings and warehouses, that Saddam simply declared off-limits to inspectors.

    At the end of 1997, this limitation on the inspectors' freedom of movement precipitated an international crisis. The Clinton

    administration demanded that the inspectors be given full access to the "palaces." The Iraqis refused. Instead, Saddam demanded the removal of all Americans from the U.N. inspection team and an end to all U-2 flights over Iraq, and even threatened to shoot the planes down. In case there was any doubt that his aim was to conceal weapons programs that the inspectors were getting close to discovering, Iraq at this time also began moving equipment that could be used to manufacture weapons out of the range of video cameras that had been installed by the U.N. inspection team.

    The New York Times reported at the time that the U.N. weapons inspectors (not American intelligence) believed that Iraq possessed "the elements of a deadly germ warfare arsenal and perhaps poison gases, as well as the rudiments of a missile system" that could launch the warheads. But because of Saddam's action at the end of 1997, the Times reported, the U.N. inspection team could "no longer verify that Iraq is not making weapons of mass destruction" and specifically could not monitor "equipment that could grow seed stocks of biological agents in a matter of hours." Saddam's precipitating of this crisis was a bold move, aimed at splitting the U.N. Security Council and isolating the Clinton administration. And it worked. The Clinton administration tried but failed to get French and Russian support at the Security Council either for military action or for a tightening of sanctions to force Saddam to cease these activities and comply with his commitment to disarm. The French and Russian position by 1997 was that the "books" should be closed on Iraq's WMD programs, sanctions should be lifted, and relations with Saddam should be normalized. That remained the French position for the next five years.

    It was in response to this crisis that we at this magazine began calling for Saddam Hussein's ouster by means of a ground invasion. And in a letter sent to President Clinton on January 26, 1998, we and a number of other former government officials urged military action against Saddam on the grounds that the situation had become untenable and perilous. As a result of recent events, we wrote, the United States could


    no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades U.N. inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq's chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam's secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons. Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.

    IN EARLY 1998, the Clinton administration, following this same logic, prepared for war against Iraq. On February 17, President Clinton spoke on the steps of the Pentagon to explain to the American people why war was necessary. The speech is worth excerpting at length, because it was then and remains today the fundamental case for the invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein from power.

    President Clinton declared that the great threat confronting the United States and its allies was a lethal and "unholy axis" of international terrorists and outlaw states. "They will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them." There was, Clinton declared, "no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us." Before the Gulf War of 1991, Clinton noted, "Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it. Not once, but many times in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary and even against his own people." At the end of the Gulf War, Saddam had promised to reveal all his programs and disarm within 15 days. But instead, he had spent "the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment." As Clinton explained:


    Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave the lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months, and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.
    In 1995 Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more. Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities--and weapons stocks. Previously it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth.

    Now listen to this: What did it admit? It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production. . . .

    Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door, and our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it. . . .

    Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits, including, I might add, one palace in Baghdad more than 2,600 acres large. . . .

    One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. . . .

    It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons. . . .

    Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

    And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal. . . . In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now--a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

    If we fail to respond today, Saddam, and all those who would follow in his footsteps, will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council, and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

    The Clinton administration did not in fact respond. War was averted by a lame compromise worked out by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. But within a few months, Saddam was again obstructing U.N. inspectors, driving a deeper wedge into the U.N. Security Council and attempting to put a final end to the inspections process. He succeeded. At the end of 1998, the Clinton administration launched Operation Desert Fox, a four-day missile and bombing attack on Iraq that was aimed principally at known and suspected facilities for producing weapons of mass destruction and missiles. The effect of the bombings on Iraq's programs and stockpiles, however, was unknown, as Clinton acknowledges. But one effect of Operation Desert Fox was that Saddam expelled the U.N. inspectors altogether. Beginning in December 1998 and for the next four years, there were no U.N. inspectors in Iraq.

    What did Saddam Hussein do during those four years of relative freedom? To this day, no one knows for sure. The only means of learning Iraqi activities during those years were intelligence, satellite photography, electronic eavesdropping, and human sources. The last of these was in short supply. And, as we now know, the ability to determine the extent of Saddam's programs only by so-called technical means was severely limited. American and foreign intelligence services pieced together what little information they could, but they were trying to illuminate a dark cave with a Bic lighter. Without a vast inspection team on the ground, operating unfettered and over a long period of time, it was clear that the great unanswered questions regarding Iraq--what happened to the old stockpiles of weapons and what new programs Saddam was working on--could never be answered.

    The rest of the story, we assume, most people remember. The Bush administration's threat of war beginning last summer led France and Russia to reverse themselves and to start taking the Iraq weapons issue seriously again. In U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, the Security Council agreed on a new round of inspections, during which Saddam was to do finally what he had promised to do back in 1991 and ever since: make a clean breast of all his programs, answer all the unanswered questions about his admitted stockpiles of weapons, and fully disarm. Resolution 1441 demanded that, within 30 days, Iraq provide "a currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects of its programmes to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles and dispersal systems designed for use on aircraft, including any holdings and precise locations of such weapons, components, sub-components, stocks of agents, and related material and equipment, the locations and work of its research, development and production facilities, as well as all other chemical, biological, and nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material."

    Iraq did not comply with this demand within 30 days--or, for that matter, within 90. In his March 6, 2003, report to the U.N. Security Council, Hans Blix reported that the declared stocks of anthrax and VX remained unaccounted for. In the last chance given to Iraq by Resolution 1441, Iraq had failed to provide answers. As Blix reported again in May 2003, "little progress was made in the solution of outstanding issues....the long list of proscribed items unaccounted for and as such resulting in unresolved disarmament issues was not shortened either by the inspections or by Iraqi declarations and documentation."

    We have retold this long story for one simple reason: This is why George W. Bush and Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar led their governments and a host of others to war to remove the Saddam Hussein regime in March 2003. It was not, in the first instance, to democratize the Middle East, although we have always believed and still believe that the building of a democratic Iraq, if the United States succeeds in doing so, will have a positive impact on the Arab world. It was not to increase the chances of an Arab-Israeli peace, although we still believe that the removal of a dangerous radical tyrant like Saddam Hussein may make that difficult task somewhat easier. It was not because we believed Saddam Hussein had ordered the September 11 attack, although we believe the links between Saddam and al Qaeda are becoming clearer every day (see Stephen F. Hayes's article on page 33 of this issue). Nor did the United States and its allies go to war because we believed that some quantity of "yellowcake" was making its way from Niger to Iraq, or that Saddam was minutes away from launching a nuclear weapon against Chicago. We never believed the threat from Saddam was "imminent" in that sense.

    The reason for war, in the first instance, was always the strategic threat posed by Saddam because of his proven record of aggression and barbarity, his admitted possession of weapons of mass destruction, and the certain knowledge of his programs to build more. It was the threat he posed to his region, to our allies, and to core U.S. interests that justified going to war this past spring, just as it also would have justified a Clinton administration decision to go to war in 1998. It was why Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, and many other top officials had concluded in the late 1990s that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable menace to his neighbors, to American allies, and ultimately to the United States itself, and therefore had eventually to be removed. It was also why a large number of Democrats, including John Kerry and General Wesley Clark, expressed support for the war last year, before Howard Dean and his roaring left wing of the Democratic party made support for "Bush's war" untenable for Democratic candidates.


    NOTHING THAT HAS or has not been discovered in Iraq since the end of the war changes this fundamental judgment. Those who always objected to the rationale for the war want to use the failure so far to discover large caches of weapons to re-litigate the question. Democrats fearful of their party's left wing are using it to jump off the positions they held last year. That's politics. But back in the real world, the fact that David Kay's inspections teams have not yet found out what happened to Saddam's admitted stockpiles is not surprising. U.N. weapons inspectors did not find those caches of weapons in 12 years; Kay and his team have had about four months. Yes, we wish Saddam had left his chemical munitions and biological weapons neatly stacked up in a warehouse somewhere marked on the outside with a big, yellow skull and crossbones. We wish he had published his scientists' nuclear designs in the daily paper. Or we wish we could find the "Dear Diary" entry where he explains exactly what happened to all the weapons he built. But he did not leave these helpful hints behind.

    After Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. military was led by an Iraqi to a part of the desert where, lo and behold, a number of MiG fighter jets had been buried under the sand. Note that the Americans did not discover the jets themselves. Discovering chemical and biological munitions will be somewhat harder. Kay recently reported to Congress that there are approximately 130 Ammunition Storage Points scattered across Iraq, a country the size of France. Many of the ammunition depots take up more than 50 square miles. Together they hold 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs, and other ordinance. Under Saddam, U.N. inspectors learned, the Iraqi military stored chemical ordnance at the same ammunition depots where the conventional rounds were stored. Do you know how many of the 130 Iraqi ammunition depots have been searched since the end of the war? Ten. Only 120 to go.

    Saddam Hussein had four years of unfettered activity in which to hide and reconfigure his weapons programs. Our intelligence on this, as we noted earlier, may have been lousy. David Kay's task has essentially been to reconstruct a story we don't know. In fact, he's learned quite a bit in a very short time. For instance, as Kay reported to Congress, his team has uncovered "dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the U.N. during the inspections that began in late 2002" (emphasis added). In addition, based on admissions by Iraqi scientists and government officials, Kay and his team have discovered:

    * A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment suitable for research in the production of chemical and biological weapons. This kind of equipment was explicitly mentioned in Hans Blix's requests for information, but was instead concealed from Blix throughout his investigations.

    * A prison laboratory complex, which may have been used in human testing of biological weapons agents. Iraqi officials working to prepare for U.N. inspections in 2002 and 2003 were explicitly ordered not to acknowledge the existence of the prison complex.

    * So-called "reference strains" of biological organisms, which can be used to produce biological weapons. The strains were found in a scientist's home.

    * New research on agents applicable to biological weapons, including Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing research on ricin and aflatoxin--all of which was, again, concealed from Hans Blix despite his specific request for any such information.

    * Plans and advanced design work on new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1,000 kilometers--well beyond the 150-kilometer limit imposed on Iraq by the U.N. Security Council. These missiles would have allowed Saddam to threaten targets from Ankara to Cairo.

    In addition to these banned activities, which were occurring right under the noses of the U.N. inspectors this past year, Kay and his team also discovered a massive effort to destroy evidence of weapons programs, an effort that began before the war and continued during it and even after the war. In the "looting" that followed the fall of Baghdad, computer hard drives were destroyed in government buildings--thus making the computers of no monetary value to actual looters. Kay also found documents burned or shredded. And people whom the Kay team tried to interview were in some cases threatened with retaliation by Saddam loyalists. Indeed, two of the scientists were subsequently shot. Others involved in the weapons programs have refused to talk for fear of eventual prosecution for war crimes.

    Nevertheless, Kay has begun piecing together the story of what happened to Saddam's weapons and how he may have shifted direction in the years after 1998. It is possible that instead of building up large stockpiles of weapons, Saddam decided the safer thing would be to advance his covert programs for producing weapons but wait until the pressure was off to produce the weapons themselves. By the time inspectors returned to Iraq in 2002, Saddam was ready to be a little more forthcoming, because he had rejiggered his program to withstand somewhat greater scrutiny. Nevertheless, even then he could not let the inspectors see everything. Undoubtedly he hoped that if he could get through that last round, he would be home free, eventually without sanctions or further inspections.

    There are no doubt some Americans who believe that this would have been an acceptable outcome. Or who believe that another six months of inspections would have uncovered all that Saddam was hiding. Or that a policy of "containment"--which included 200,000 troops on Iraq's borders as an inducement to permit inspections--could have been sustained indefinitely both at the U.N. Security Council and in Washington. We believe the overwhelming lesson of our history with Saddam is that none of these options would have succeeded. Had Saddam Hussein not been removed this year, it would have been only a matter of time before this president or some future president was compelled to take action against him, and in more dangerous circumstances.

    There are people who will never accept this logic, who prefer to believe, or claim to believe, that the whole Iraq affair was, in the words of Ted Kennedy, a "fraud" "made up in Texas" for political gain, or who believe that it was the product of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by a tiny little band of "neoconservatives." Some of the people propagating this conspiratorial view of the Iraq war are now running for the Democratic nomination for president; one of them is even a former general who led the war against Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. We wish them the best of luck selling their conspiracy theories to the American people. But we trust Bill Clinton won't be stumping for them on this particular issue.



    http://www.weeklystandard.com/conten...3/236jmcbd.asp

  • #2
    hmmm
    Last edited by nickshepAK; 24 Dec 04,, 04:39.

    Comment


    • #4
      For the Weekly Standard, not too overly partisan. It is ironic to hear them defending Clinton.

      A couple of missing points:

      Saddam's principle strategic concern was Iran. Saddam saw his chemical rocket and artillery arsenal as a deterent against Iran's dense human-wave infantry formations. Whether Saddam destroyed his chemical weapons or not, he wanted to keep Iran guessing whether or not he really had.

      Most of the chemical weapons listed in the Weekly Standard article were built during the Iran/Iraq war. The US had a pretty thorough understanding of Iraq's chemical program from our involvement at that time.


      Originally posted by Major_Armstrong
      I wonder what would have happened if we had a Democratic president in office when the Iraq war started.
      http://www.weeklystandard.com/conten...3/236jmcbd.asp
      If it were Clinton after 9/11, I would be surprised if he didn't go after Afghanistan, seeing how he was so preoccupied with bin Laden and the Al Quada camps in 1999. I would also be surprised if he invaded Iraq.

      A problem any President would have faced, in deciding whether to invade or not, was Saddam's oil bribery of the Russians, Chinese and the French.
      Last edited by Broken; 24 Dec 04,, 09:42.

      Comment


      • #5
        Originally posted by Major_Armstrong
        Hassan Nemazee was Clinton's nominee for ambassador to Argentina. We could also discuss the close links of the Bush family to the Saudi Royal family.

        Comment


        • #6
          "If it were Clinton after 9/11, I would be surprised if he didn't go after Afghanistan, seeing how he was so preoccupied with bin Laden and the Al Quada camps in 1999."

          Hmmm. Indeed.

          So preoccupied that he treated Bin Laden as a LE problem. So preoccupied that when the Sudan offered Bin Laden up on a silver platter Clinton's State Dep't and the US Attorney General couldn't be bothered.

          Pffft.

          Comment


          • #7
            "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to
            develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them.
            That is our bottom line."
            - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998
            "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear.
            We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass
            destruction program."
            - President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998
            "Iraq is a long way from [the USA], but what happens there matters a great deal
            here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear,
            chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest
            security threat we face."
            - Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998
            "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times
            since 1983."
            - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
            "[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S.
            Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate,
            air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to
            the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction
            programs."
            - Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin,
            Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998
            "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass
            destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he
            has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
            - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998
            "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass
            destruction and palaces for his cronies."
            - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999
            "There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has invigorated his weapons
            programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs
            continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam
            continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a
            licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten
            the United States and our allies."
            - Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,)
            and others, December 5, 2001
            "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a
            threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the
            mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction
            and the means of delivering them."
            - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002
            "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical
            weapons throughout his country."
            - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
            "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
            deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in
            power."
            - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002
            "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing
            weapons of mass destruction."
            - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002
            "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are
            confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and
            biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to
            build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence
            reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..."
            - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002
            "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority
            to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe
            that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real
            and grave threat to our security."
            - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002
            "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively
            to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the
            next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated
            the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction."
            - Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002
            "He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every
            significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his
            chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has
            refused to do" Rep.
            - Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002
            "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that
            Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weap ons
            stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has
            also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members
            .. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will
            continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare,
            and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
            - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
            "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam
            Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for
            the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction."
            - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002
            "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal,
            murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a
            particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to
            miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his
            continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction
            ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real
            ..."
            - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

            ------------------------------------------------------------------

            December 5, 2001
            The Honorable George W. Bush President of the United States The White House Washington, D.C. 20500
            Dear Mr. President:
            The events of September 11 have highlighted the vulnerability of the United States to determined terrorists. As we work to clean up Afghanistan and destroy al Qaeda, it is imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq.
            This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf war status. In addition, Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies.
            For much of the last year, the Administration has struggled to plug loopholes in the international sanctions against Iraq. Unfortunately, efforts to coopt Saddam's illegal trading partners -- particularly Syria -- have failed. In the meantime, the illegal oil trade from Iraq has flourished, and Saddam now earns an estimated $2 billion annually, much of which he has devoted to his military and his illegal weapons programs.
            If we have learned one thing from the ongoing battle in Afghanistan, it is that working effectively in coordination with locals on the ground can significantly leverage our own use of military farce. While we have no doubt that in the long run, the United States will always prevail in battle with the likes of the Taliban (not to speak of Saddam Hussein), we also know that we can minimize casualties and shorten conflict by cooperating with opposition forces. That has been a key element of U.S. strategy for several decades.
            Since the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act three years ago, we have fought to provide support for Iraqis inside Iraq. The Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella group of all the significant anti-Saddam forces inside Iraq, has consistently requested Administration assistance for operations on the ground in Iraq ranging from the delivery of humanitarian assistance and information-gathering to military and technical training and lethal military drawdown.
            Despite the express wishes of the Congress, the INC has been denied U.S. assistance for any operations inside any part of Iraq, including liberated Kurdish areas. Instead, successive Administrations have funded conferences, offices and other intellectual exercises that have done little more than expose the INC to accusations of being "limousine insurgents" and "armchair guerillas". We note the troubling similarity of these accusations to charges made against the Afghan guerillas now helping us win the war against the Taliban.
            The threat from Iraq is real, and it cannot be permanently contained. For as long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, he will seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. We have no doubt that these deadly weapons are intended for use against the United States and its allies. Consequently, we believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later. Without allies on the ground inside Iraq, we will be handicapping our own efforts. Each day that passes costs us an opportunity to unite and professionalize the Iraqi opposition, thus ensuring it will be less capable when the conflict begins.
            Again, we can learn from our experience in Afghanistan. We cannot be drawn into the ethnic politics of any particular nation, but should find a way to work with all the opposition in a unified framework. The Iraqi National Congress is the only umbrella organization comprising all elements of the Iraqi opposition. No one group is excluded, no one group is favored.
            Mr. President, all indications are that in the interest of our own national security, Saddam Hussein must be removed from power. Let us maximize the likelihood of a rapid victory by beginning immediately to assist the Iraqi opposition on the ground inside Iraq by providing them money and assistance already authorized and appropriated.
            We look forward to working with you on this most important matter.
            Sincerely,
            (signed) John McCain
            (signed) Jesse Helms
            (signed) Henry Hyde
            (signed) Richard Shelby
            (signed) Harold Ford, Jr.
            (signed) Joe Lieberman
            (signed) Trend Lott
            (signed) Ben Gilman
            (signed) Sam Brownback
            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

            Comment


            • #8
              I think it was a mistake to topple Saddam.

              He was the most non Moslem fundoo bloke around town.

              It would have been better to leash that bloke and use him to spread the wrod againat Islmaic fundoos around ME.

              A big mistake.

              Now, Iraq will be Islamist and Iran controlled!


              "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

              I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

              HAKUNA MATATA

              Comment


              • #9
                Originally posted by M21Sniper
                "If it were Clinton after 9/11, I would be surprised if he didn't go after Afghanistan, seeing how he was so preoccupied with bin Laden and the Al Quada camps in 1999."

                Hmmm. Indeed.

                So preoccupied that he treated Bin Laden as a LE problem. So preoccupied that when the Sudan offered Bin Laden up on a silver platter Clinton's State Dep't and the US Attorney General couldn't be bothered.

                Pffft.
                According to Richard Clarke, who ran the CSG in 96 when bin Laden was in Sudan, this is a myth. According to him, CSG had probed a number of governments about handing over bin Laden, but there were no takers.

                Later, when Clarke learned of another Al Quada operative, Abu Hafs al-Muratani in Kartoum, Berger pushed for a snatch operation. The CIA said "they had no capability". DoD said they would do it, but only if they could take a very large force. This was despite the fact that Special Forces colonel Mike Sheehan said,

                "This guy doesn't even have bodyguards. Hit him over the head and throw him in a Chevy Suburban."

                Anyway, that is Clarke's account. I know Richard Miniter differs, but Miniter's book is mostly concerned with blaming Clinton for 9/11, not giving a useful account. Any way, Miniter is a reporter and Clarke ran the Counterterrorism Security Group.

                Comment


                • #10
                  Originally posted by Ray
                  He was the most non Moslem fundoo bloke around town.
                  Saddam was a self-declared holy man.
                  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

                  Comment


                  • #11
                    Originally posted by Broken
                    blaming Clinton for 9/11
                    It is partly the fault of Clinton, and every President, Legislator, leader in every country, and citizen of every country, for the last couple hundred years, for letting it get this bad. Stand up to the bad guys, or keep watching things get worse...
                    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

                    Comment


                    • #12
                      Originally posted by Confed999 View Post
                      Saddam was a self-declared holy man.
                      Only when he was to be hanged.

                      That too to save his neck!

                      He was a self centred man, who cared a damn about Islam.


                      "Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

                      I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

                      HAKUNA MATATA

                      Comment

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