John Kerry is a Good Man

[ProSense]

147. Bullshit. Kerry

was not the President. Bush didn't just lie before the vote. He lied during and after the vote.

There were no UN inspectors in Iraq when Congress voted on the IWR, but they returned shortly after.

July 5, 2002

Iraq once again rejects new UN weapons inspection proposals.

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November 13, 2002

Iraq accepts U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 and informs the UN that it will abide by the resolution.

Weapons inspectors arrive in Baghdad again after a four-year absence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis_timeline_2001-2003

Following the mandate of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein allowed UN inspectors to return to Iraq in November 2002. UNMOVIC led inspections of alleged chemical and biological facilities in Iraq until shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, but did not find any weapons of mass destruction. Based on its inspections and examinations during this time, UNMOVIC inspectors determined that UNSCOM had successfully dismantled Iraq’s unconventional weapons program during the 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Monitoring,_Verification_and_Inspection_Commission

Bush removed the inspectors before launching the invasion. He had it all planned. He had a Senate that was in complete agreement that Saddam possesed WMD based on the bogus intelligence fed them. The Senate was voting on several versions of the resolution to authorize force, including the Byrd Amendment with an expiration date one year from passage.

Here is the Durbin Amendment, which only got 30 votes, including Feingold and Kennedy.

To amend the authorization for the use of the Armed Forces to cover an imminent threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction rather than the continuing threat posed by Iraq.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00236

The Byrd Amendment got 31 votes, Kennedy voted for, Feingold voted against.

To provide a termination date for the authorization of the use of the Armed Forces of the United States, together with procedures for the extension of such date unless Congress disapproves the extension.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=2&vote=00232

Bush only needed a few months to launch the war. Setting a date for the termination of the authorization would still have given Bush enough time to lie and launch a war. And as anyone could see, once the Iraq war was launched, none of these Senators committed to forcing a withdrawal. In 2006, Kerry-Feingold, setting a date for withdrawal, got 13 votes.

After the IWR vote, Bush lied, first in his state of the union:

Hubris: The Selling of the Iraq War - Monday 2/18 at 9 p.m. ET

By Will Femia

Last night Rachel pointed out that this year marks the tenth anniversary of President George W. Bush's State of the Union address containing the now infamous 16 words that turned out to be a very consequential lie:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

Included in a collection of web materials associated with Rachel's upcoming documentary "Hubris: The Selling of the Iraq War," is a longer cut of that 2003 State of the Union address. It's a powerful reminder of how thick the Bush administration laid it on to rally the nation to war in Iraq:

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http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/14/16966287-hubris-the-selling-of-the-iraq-war-monday-218-at-9-pm-et

How Powerful Can 16 Words Be?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0720-09.htm

...and then in the bullshit letter and report he sent to Congress claiming a link to the 9/11 attacks.

March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President: )

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-1.html

Hubris: Selling the Iraq War - The Rumsfeld memos
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022394769

Bush's signing statement spelled out his intent to ignore the conditional aspects of the IWR. He acknowledged that while Congress agreed that a threat existed, they didn't give him the full support to launch a war unconditionally.

Statement on Signing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002
October 16th, 2002

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The debate over this resolution in the Congress was in the finest traditions of American democracy. There is no social or political force greater than a free people united in a common and compelling objective. It is for that reason that I sought an additional resolution of support from the Congress to use force against Iraq, should force become necessary. While I appreciate receiving that support, my request for it did not, and my signing this resolution does not, constitute any change in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on either the President's constitutional authority to use force to deter, prevent, or respond to aggression or other threats to U.S. interests or on the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. On the important question of the threat posed by Iraq, however, the views and goals of the Congress, as expressed in H.J. Res. 114 and previous congressional resolutions and enactments, and those of the President are the same.

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=64386

Statements by Senators at the time.

We Still Have a Choice on Iraq

By John F. Kerry
Published: September 06, 2002

It may well be that the United States will go to war with Iraq. But if so, it should be because we have to -- not because we want to. For the American people to accept the legitimacy of this conflict and give their consent to it, the Bush administration must first present detailed evidence of the threat of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and then prove that all other avenues of protecting our nation's security interests have been exhausted. Exhaustion of remedies is critical to winning the consent of a civilized people in the decision to go to war. And consent, as we have learned before, is essential to carrying out the mission. President Bush's overdue statement this week that he would consult Congress is a beginning, but the administration's strategy remains adrift.

Regime change in Iraq is a worthy goal. But regime change by itself is not a justification for going to war. Absent a Qaeda connection, overthrowing Saddam Hussein -- the ultimate weapons-inspection enforcement mechanism -- should be the last step, not the first. Those who think that the inspection process is merely a waste of time should be reminded that legitimacy in the conduct of war, among our people and our allies, is not a waste, but an essential foundation of success.

If we are to put American lives at risk in a foreign war, President Bush must be able to say to this nation that we had no choice, that this was the only way we could eliminate a threat we could not afford to tolerate.

In the end there may be no choice. But so far, rather than making the case for the legitimacy of an Iraq war, the administration has complicated its own case and compromised America's credibility by casting about in an unfocused, overly public internal debate in the search for a rationale for war. By beginning its public discourse with talk of invasion and regime change, the administration has diminished its most legitimate justification of war -- that in the post-Sept. 11 world, the unrestrained threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein is unacceptable and that his refusal to allow in inspectors is in blatant violation of the United Nations 1991 cease-fire agreement that left him in power.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/opinion/we-still-have-a-choice-on-iraq.html

Feingold on the Senate floor, September 26, 2002:

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The threat we know is real--Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction or WMD--is unquestionably a very serious issue. What is the mission? Is the mission on the table disarmament or is it regime change? Has anyone heard a credible plan for securing the weapons of mass destruction sites as part of a military operation in Iraq ? Has anyone heard any credible plan for what steps the United States intends to take to ensure that weapons of mass destruction do not remain a problem in Iraq beyond the facile ``get rid of Saddam Hussein'' rallying cry?

Saddam Hussein is a vile man with a reckless and brutal history, and I have no problem agreeing that the United States should support regime change. I agree with those who assert that Americans, Iraqis, and the people of the Middle East would be much better off if he were no longer in power. But he is not the sole personification of a destabilizing WMD program. Once Hussein's control is absent, we have either a group of independent, self-interested actors with access to WMD or an unknown quantity of a new regime. We may face a period of some chaos, wherein a violent power struggle ensues as actors maneuver to succeed Saddam.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2002-09-26/pdf/CREC-2002-09-26-pt1-PgS9412-2.pdf#page=1
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2002-09-26/pdf/CREC-2002-09-26-pt1-PgS9413.pdf#page=1

Kennedy slams Bush on Iraq
'Wrong war at the wrong time'

By Sean Loughlin
CNN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration's foreign policy, Sen. Edward Kennedy predicted Tuesday that a military strike against Iraq would "undermine" the war against terrorism, "feed a rising tide of anti-Americanism overseas" and strain diplomatic ties.

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Kennedy said U.N. weapons inspectors need more time to discover what kind of weapons Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may be amassing in Iraq.

Bush, however, said Tuesday that Saddam was not disarming his nation and was giving the world community "the runaround." (Full story) ...But in an interview with CNN, Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged the Bush administration not to rush toward any confrontation with Iraq.

"We need to be patient here; time is on our side here," Hagel said. He added that a "precipitous" move would "endanger not just Americans around the world, but it would endanger this country, our security, stability in the world for a long time to come because we were rash in using our power."

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http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/21/kennedy.speech/index.html

Kerry Says US Needs Its Own 'Regime Change'
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0403-08.htm

Bush lied the country into war. He pulled the trigger despite protests even from members of Congress.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022537683