OMG Someone on CNN just said...

[slor]

that the war was Saddamn's fault. I was not in the room but I heard (it sounded like the the older gent from Senate Intelligence with glasses and he is bald/white haired) "why didn't Saddamn let the inspectors in" if he did not have the weapons!

[mdmc]

1. It WAS Saddam's fault.

He could have fully complied with the weapons inspectors. He played a game, and lost. Perhaps he can still 'win' at trial, by showing all that supported him.

[NNN0LHI]

3. I thought the UN inspectors were inspecting when Bush damanded...

...the they leave so he could begin "Shock And Awe"? Maybe I just dreamed that happened or something?

Don

[Atman]

4. That is completely wrong

Haven't you read a paper in the last two years? He ALLOWED them in! This war WAS predetermined. Saddam could have let the entire UN in, with Bush personally leading the team, and Bush still would have attacked. It was all in the plan.

[DarkPhenyx]

7. He did however continue to play them along...

...not giving complete access, hiding his programs, not letting tehm interview scientists w/o minders, etc. He isn't the only person to blame for the war, but he does have his share of it to carry.

I personally think we were going in no matter what, but Saddam made it much easier for them to do it. He gave them the "plausible excuse" they needed.

[treepig]

11. how can you hide a program you don't have?

by that logic, i'm hiding my 7 rolls royce's, my 6 lear jets, and my 3 million dollar summer vacation homes.

although i'm quite sure i don't have them, how can i prove it?

(basically, mr. bush was wish enough to set saddam up to prove a negative, which is a logical impossibility, and the american public failed to see through this ruse).

[jfxgillis]

16. Technically not true

The 1991 ceasefire agreement Saddam signed on to required him to "prove a negative."

So you have a point that compliance was impossible in the rigorously logical sense; however, that compliance was undertaken by Saddam.

[The Stranger]

21. You cannot seriously assert that the U.S. invaded because of a violation

of the 1991 ceasefire agreement. Let's all say it together so that everyone will now accept it:

THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION WHEN WE INVADED. THERE ARE NOT ANY NOW. THERE WERE NONE THEN.

[treepig]

22. in any event

based on paul o'neil's revelations, we now know for sure that the bush administration was planning the iraq war from day 1. there was nothing saddam could have done to prevent it. but it's always nice to blame the victim, especially when some cheap political points and faux patriotism can be whipped up at the same time.

[leesa]

15. Not true. He gave full access and he didn't hide anything

He simply didn't have it, which is what he stated over and over again.

[The Stranger]

19. Ludicrous.

Complete access to Nothing is Nothing.

THERE ARE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. THERE NEVER WERE.

[hang a left]

34. Yes I will agree that was suspicious, but what exactly

was his motivation? Was it that they would give him up or did he fear an inner revolt? Looking back in hindsight, now that we know that there were not any WMD, what was he actually afraid of? I think that there is more to this than meets the eye.

While we are on the subject of minders, why do witnesses that the 9-11 (farce, show, bs) commission want to question, have to have them as well?

[Caution]

5. Let's see here

Saddam HUssein - bad man...not in disopute

Inspectors? Well let's se, it was proven that the inspection regime had US spies on it, so saddam ejected them, then he proceeded to thoroughly destroy all weapons, then he let inspectors back in but tried to stop them from visiting sensitive government installations for fear there were still spies involved. However he gave a thorough and complete accounting for the destruction of all the weapons (remember that 700 page document?) and as war looked like it was coming pleaded with the UN and started to give the inspectors more and more access to the point where the inspectors themselves testified before the UN that the inspections were working and all they needed was more time to verify that nothing was left.

So what did Bush do? He tried to strong arm the CIA first of all, themn formed an intelligence group that was independent from the CIA whose sole job was to come up with the evidence required to invade Iraq, which they promptly did, ignoring warnings from the CIA that the intelligence in question was bad and then lied to the American people over and over again as the evidence mounted that the inspectors were right and for once hussein was telling the truth.

But instead of coming clean the bush criminal gang gives us nice orwellian doublespeak theme whereby over the course of about a year they slowly migrated from Massive Stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction to Weapons of Mass Destruction to unaccounted for Weapons of Mass Destruction to Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs and finally to Weapons of Mass Destruction Program-related Activities.

Yeh, this had nothing to do with Bush and his criminal gang's desire forge their own little American empire. Try readnig Paul O'Neill's book or read up on the Project for the New American Century and you'll see that these bastards were very up front about their deisre to invade and conquer Iraq.

[DarkPhenyx]

8. So are you saying the saddam bears no responsibility at all?

Goddess bless I hope you aren't.

[The Stranger]

23. I'm not sure who is blessing what, but what you have posted is incorrect.

The White House fabricated reason after reason to justify invading another country wholly without provocation and based upon what are now not even disputed to be lies. Trying to blame this on Iraq is buying into a pervasive, national state of denial to the war crimes that were committed. And none of these war crimes can be justified by anything that Saddam Hussein did, according to the news story in this thread.

[treepig]

26. well, he did offer to resign . . .

Saddam Offered Conditional Step-down before Bush Issued Ultimatum: Report
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein Monday offered a conditional step-down hours before US President George W. Bush gave him a 48-hour ultimatum to leave Iraq to avoid war, an Arabic website reported

http://english.people.com.cn/200303/18/eng20030318_113507.shtml

[Caution]

27. What part of

Bad man - not in dispute

did you not understand? As for bearing responsibility for this particular war? Frankly, no I do not feel he bears responsibility. He had an obligation to disarm which he did, he told us he did, he even went on tv with a major news network (brokaw? i cant remember) and told us he did. Bush decided he was going to war long before he told the American public abbout it and then altered the facts to lead us into that war.

Hussein is responsible for a lot of very bad things, including gassing his own people, torture, systematic brutality etc etc, but it is looking more and more like Bush took us to war over reasons that were invalid that hussein was telling us the truth about.

Do not forget that he did NOT take us to war to depose a brutal dictator. He took us to war because hussein supposedly represented a clear and present danger to the united states. This was categorically not true. Additionally it was just announced that a major human rights organization (on NPR this morning...i think it was Human Rights Watch) put out a document stating that a sovereign government could not and should not be threatened due to human rights violations except in the case of genocide (which was clearly not the case in Iraq).

Whether or not the world is a better place without saddam hussein running a country is not really a part of this equation. The real question here is whether or not the United States should engage in a policy of pre-emptive war and when that particular policy is the proper one. My conception of what the US stands for is most certainly not one where it starts a war and most certainly not where it starts a war where there is no true danger to the US itself.

When there is a need to overthrow brutal dictators it MUST be taken as an action by the UN and agreed upon by the world at large. If this is taken as precedent, what is to stop Germany from invading Poland under the guise of protecting ethnic germans from oppression by the Polish government (The stated reason Hitler used to invade Poland)? What is to stop China from invading Japan, stating that the Japanese economy represents a threat the Chinese national interests? International law exists for a very good reason.

[Virgil]

28. The issue is Bush and the illegal invasion

One thing is for sure. Iraq did not attack the US. The barely had helicopters that could fly. Yeah, he was going to take his $1 billion a year military on an invasion of the US while he was surrounded and hundreds of inspectors that went wherever they wanted when they wanted.

Bush is a war criminal. That is the point that needs to be made.

[many a good man]

20. Get it straight...SH did NOT "eject" inspectors

Clinton warned the UN to pull inspectors out in preparation for Operation Desert Fox in 1998. After the bombing campaign ended, SH did not allow the inspectors to reenter. This may be a technical point, but its a lot different than saying SH kicked the inspectors out...

[chelaque liberal]

31. The lie that was repeated so often that it was taken for truth

http://207.68.162.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=a2ee4ec213286cd2242adae43c11980a&lat=1075133111&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2efair%2eorg%2fextra%2f0210%2finspectors%2ehtml

[wildwww2]

6. Yes indeed! Reagan and Poppy Bu$h propped up Saddam and that is

a fact. I have seen good documentation on that. This Saddam thing is still a huge serpent. Lets see who it swallows next.
Peace
Wildman
Al Gore is My President

[bowens43]

9. No, it wasn't Saddam's fault.

He did let inspectors in and for the most part was cooperating. Even if he HADN'T allowed inspectors in it is not up to the US to enforce UN resolutions. The war against the people of Iraq is a criminal act perpetrated by an arrogant, ignorant , war criminal. There is NO justification for this war. If Saddam HAD WMD there would still be no justification for this war. Don't blame saddam for the murderous acts of the US government .

[chelaque liberal]

17. "If Saddam HAD WMD there would still be no justification for this war. "

I agree totally. There was no imminent threat. The inspections were working and the UN would have been able to continue their work without bloodshed if the US hadn't invaded.

It is wrong to refer to this as a "war." This was not a war, it was an invasion and now it is an occupation. Calling it a war give it justification.

[librechik]

32. thank you n/t

[ozymandius]

13. Why haven't you stopped being an arsonist?

The same matter - you are charged with proving a negative.

As I seem to recall, Hussein even invited the CIA unfettered access to all sites in Iraq. Yet, Bush refused to "play that game".

The war was contrived.

[InkAddict]

25. The whole mess is so bizzaro, illogical, irrational

I'm inclined to believe it was all a big computer demo for *Selected and Company. Now you can all get out the Tin Foil, but truth is often stranger than fiction, but what if the fiction was created electronically in the guise of "new, better ideas."

The St. Louis newspaper ran a piece yesterday about an AI company that has a host of clients that would benefit from "wagging the dog" and are doing just that with this "pre-emptive" conflict. Just feed the 'puter a few lines as fact and see what "creative ideas" can become reality.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Science+%26+Medicine/E981DA33F2CF718986256E250061FFF6?OpenDocument&Headline=Computer+Creativity+Machine+simulates+the+human+brain

http://www.imagination-engines.com/index.htm

Founded in 1997 by Dr. Stephen Thaler, Imagination Engines, Inc. (IEI) has pursued its long range objective of producing trans-human intelligence in machines, while supplying a range of more conventional neural network services to such customers as Gillette, Anheuser-Busch, Air Force Research Laboratory, Boeing, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Raytheon, General Electric, Ladish, and Bekaert. After all, who would be in a better position to provide such services than the most prodigious inventor of foundational neural network paradigms in the world?

So, if the Justice Dept. once wanted PROMIS...
OK, I guess there's just no accounting for some humans' creativity, but the last time I checked, when the "fantasies" are acted out, it's called psychotic/sociopathic behavior. Barring the "it's true because I told you so" parental admonition, *Selected and "friends" really have scored a whopper, and American's are very slowly waking up to the consequences of the "gameboys."

[leesa]

14. He DID comply with the UN resolution. He did nothing to provoke a war

[many a good man]

24. I'm not sure you can quite say that, either

In 1991 SH submitted his inventory of chemical and biological agents, including program plans. Some amounts were verified, others were just guessed at. UN inspectors, the American ones at least, estimated amounts that were greater than Saddam indicated and they were never verified. Scott Ritter speaks in depth of these. Saddam, of course, could not account for these in his report to the UN in 2002.

SH's report did not account for ALL the stockpiles requested by the UN. The first Gulf War and Desert Fox destroyed about 75% of this list. The rest were either imaginary or destroyed by SH without documentation. Most of these probably never existed; his people lied to him because they didn't want him to know they didn't meet his production quotas in the '80s.

Its now clear what Saddam's strategy was: comply with sanctions but NOT let the world know that you did. He wanted the US and Iran to think he still had some weapons as a deterrent against invasion. He wanted the UN inspectors in so they could eventually clear him and lift the sanctions. He fatally miscalculated when Bush* blew off the UN and invaded any way...

[Atman]

2. I think most people are waking up, though

On NPR yesterday, they read letters from listeners...most were from people upset with their coverage of the war. A typical one; re: a reporter interviewing a "man on the street" about the Iraq war, in which the man responded that he lost a friend in the WTC attack, and everything is different now. The letter admonished NPR for not asking the follow-up question "Do you still feel this way even though Saddam nor Iraq have been shown to have had nothing to do with 9/11?" The next letter was very similar. Basically a "stop whitewashing the truth" theme.

IOW, people are finally waking up. I don't think its to late.

[slor]

10. The point is...

that a high ranking official made a statement that was categorically untrue (just like the chief idiot said in early summer if you remember). The inspectors were on the ground, even destroyng missiles I should point out. When chimpface started the war, 1/5 of our force (and our most mobilized/rapid deployment units it should be mentioned) were sitting on boats off the shores of Turkey. The idiot did not even wait for our forces to get fully prepared or for the enemy to destroy the very weapons our troops might face! No Sir, this was not Saddamn's fault, evil though he may be! Chimp boy started this and even said it "feels good" when he did it!

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. There was nothing Saddam could say or do

that would have stop Bu$hler from invading Iraq.

There are plenty of bad brutal dictators in the world who threaten US interests. Saddam just happened to be the one with the most and cheapest light sweet crude.

[0007]

18. That older gent from Senate Intelligence with glasses

should go back to sleep. He hasn't a clue. LOL!!

Watching CNN will rot one's brain.

[truth2power]

29. Let me just toss this in here...

Arundhati Roy summed it up nicely in her speech at the opening Plenary of the World Social Forum on Jan. 16, 2004:

"Let's look this thing in the eye once and for all. To applaud the U.S. army's capture of Saddam Hussein and therefore, in retrospect, justify its invasion and occupation of Iraq is like deifying Jack the Ripper for disembowelling the Boston Strangler. And that — after a quarter century partnership in which the Ripping and Strangling was a joint enterprise. It's an in-house quarrel. They're business partners who fell out over a dirty deal. Jack's the CEO.
(emphasis added)

http://www.thehindu.com/2004/01/18/stories/2004011800181400.htm

edit to add:

They're both thugs - Bush and Sadaam. We went to war and over 500 of our young men and women have died because a couple of mafiosi were waving their d**ks at each other.

[Guaranteed]

30. Exactly...it was a corporate war.

On edit: Wouldn't you LOVE to see someone with Dean's position and courage call out Bush JUST LIKE THAT in a debate? Damn...that thought makes me drool.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

33. Proof that there were no WMD:

When the U.S. invaded, Saddam was unable to mount a credible defense.

Think about it. If you were the leader of a country that was being invaded by people who had it in for you, wouldn't you throw everything you had at them? If you had WMD, wouldn't that be the obvious time to use them?

If you didn't use them to ward off invaders, then what the hell would you be holding on to them for? As collector's items? ("Here's my exhibit of vintage mustard gas containers, old nuclear bombs, and vials of anthrax.") Waiting for something that was more of an emergency than your country being invaded?

I was 99% sure that Saddam Hussein didn't have WMD, and what happened during the invasion made me 100% sure.

[Moderator]

35. Not LBN

When someone says something outrageous on CNN or any other media outlet, it does not necessarily make it news. Thanks.