Aspirin factory vs. Iraq

[usurper4]

Had an argument with one of my Republican friends today about Bin Laden and who's to blame for his eluding capture. My friend insisted that Clinton not only didn't go after him, but went out of his way to bomb an aspirin factory in Sudan (was it Sudan?). He tried to make out Clinton as a bumbling idiot, "I mean, he couldn't even tell where Osama was, so he goes and destroys an aspirin factory."

I stared at him for a couple seconds and said, "Uh, Bush couldn't find Bin Laden, so he just destroyed Iraq."

My bud had no answer to that one.

[Parche]

1. Iraq

Iraq gives me an Excedrin headache

[TheFarseer]

2. That't the best comeback ever!

[RobertSeattle]

3. Whenever you hear "Aspirin Factory" you know where they are coming from

It was a pharmecutical plant that could have made any number of types of drugs. The intel probably was bad, but calling in an "Aspirin Factor" was a standard "meme" put out by the Right Wingers. Funny how back then they were pretty cynical of intel regarding chemical munitions and now they believe anything.

[DrWeird]

4. The El Shifa Pharmaceutical plant.

Intelligence informed President Clinton (and the UN, btw, who approved of the attack) that agents had sampled soil from outside the plant and discovered synthetic phosphorous compounds that were intermediates to the production of chemical weapons, but were not any of the intermediates or reagents used in what El Shifa claimed was its product line.

Turned out it was fertilizer or pesticides used on the rose bushes from where the sample was taken. It remains a textbook example of bad analytical chemistry sampling methods and was not the sign of any incompetence on Clinton's part. As opposed to 9-11, which the Bush Administration had plenty of warnings for.

[Lefty48197]

5. This is what Richard Clarke had to say about that "pharmaceutical" plant

This was from his television testimony on March 25, 2004 - 3:25 P.M. Regarding the so-called "pharmaceutical plant" (or "aspirin factory", as the reich wingers like to call it), Clarke said, "To this day, there are people who believe that facility was not related to a terrorist organization, or to chemical weapons, or to weapons of mass destruction. Those people are wrong".


Of course, this is the same guy who tried to con George Bush into believing that Osama bin Laden was "determined to attack inside the U.S.".

[mistertrickster]

7. Right--it is an ongoing controversy. But they had a lot more evidence

for bombing it than Bush had for Iraq.

Also, OBL used to live in the Sudan until the Saudis and the US (under Clinton) had him driven out.

[creeksneakers2]

6. Your friend is behind on his wingerism

After the factory was bombed, the Clinton White House said they had solid intelligence that Iraqi WMD scientists had traveled to, and helped design the factory. The wingers all said it was an aspirin factory, and Clinton only bombed it because he wanted to distract the public from Monica Lewinsky. (as if even a nuclear war could have gotten that trash off of TV)

Now, the same RW propagandists who called it an aspirin factory before, have come back to this to dredge up links between Iraq and Al Queda. The RW propagandists now swear it was a chemical weapons facility. I tell them it was an aspirin factory.

Arguing with wingers is fun.