If you remember back to the last 7-10 days before the election, the polls made it seem like Kerry had a very good chance at being elected. The fly in the soup (from my perspective) was a great poll that broke down voters based on whether they were right or wrong about a basic objective fact regarding Iraq. (Can't remember what it was, but it was something like, was Saddam involved in 9/11, or, have we found WMDs in Iraq.) About 38% were ignorant on the question. Of those, they were for Bush nearly 100%. Of those who were not ignorant, they were for Kerry about 68%. But here's what was fascinating about the poll. Men got the question wrong about 25% of the time, while women got it wrong about 53% of the time. And that's why Kerry's gender gap was extraordinarily low. And almost certainly, therefore, the biggest reason he lost the election.* So hell yeah, it may not have had a political purpose, but it sure had a political effect. As to WHY he invaded...are you really this ill-informed? I'm embarassed for you. He wanted to take out Iraq from Day One. Google PNAC for Chrissakes. *All figures are to the best of my recollection, but I'm positive I'm real close on all of them.
While I am not disputing any of you or your remembrance of events past, but it seems to me that most people on this board did believe Iraq had WMDs. It seems to me that the discussion by those opposed to the war was much more of the "is this a sufficient reason to go to war" variety. One of the problems, as you may recall, is that Saddam Hussein would not categorically deny that he had WMDs. While IMO he did this to encourage the view of Iraq as a regional power, his unwillingness to allow inspections unless the UN (led by the US and GB in this case) threatened to go to war was certainly a contributing factor. It seems to me clear that the international intelligence information was analyzed to err on the side of caution and a very conservative view was taken of the information coming in. Another point is that the intel data was good enough to convince doubters in the cabinet. Powell is an ex-military man who knew both the abilities and limitations of intelligence and he was convinced enough to go before the UN and present a great deal of extracted intelligence to the world.
Not true. Again, not true. Powell's first response when handed the report to go to the U.N. with was to throw it across the room and say, "I'm not promoting this bullshit." Then he was connvinced to play the good soldier.
Link? I didn't realize you were there. Could you further enlighten us unworthy ones? As I recall, he was initially opposed, but was then convinced of the authenticity of the intel. Later, I seem to recall that he began to doubt the quality of the intel again and this was one of the factors that led to his departure.
There were two levels of skepticism. Some of us thought he had nuthin'*. Some thought he had chemical weapons, but not biological or nuclear weapons. These people didn't consider chemical weapons to be any reason to go to war. Remember that religious cult that released a chemical weapon in arguably the best place in the world to cause mass deaths which chemical weapons, the Tokyo subway? They killed, IIRC, 25 people. If Saddam wanted to f' with America, he could send two guys here, get them machine guns, and send them to a mall on the day after Thanksgiving. I'm more scared of that than terrorists with chemical weapons. *Just to be clear, by "nuthin", I mean, he had no stockpiles, but I always allowed for the possibility that there were some mislabeled, old, leftovers somewhere.
Are you serious? It's called reading. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/030609/9intell.htm On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -."
Yes. Despite your condescending tone (guaranteed to win folks over to your POV!), thanks for the cite.
Have you always been such a jerk? I remembered you as being a pretty good poster, without all of the "I'm so much smarter than you guys" attitude. Learn to take a joke.
In support of my previous statement that Powell initially disagreed with, and then concurred with the intelligence assessment, and then realized he had been misled. On Aljazeera: Powell defends WMD Intelligence http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2D35C6FC-5A47-41C1-8EFC-77F2123E669F.htm From the National Security Archibe at GWU http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/ Here's a source that is totally against the WMD argument; http://informationclearinghouse.info/article5878.htm There are many more. BTW, I actually thought this would be a minor point in my original post. It is clear that Powell had several changes of heart about the quality of the intelligence, as have many others.
Actually I do have a couple of Iranian-born freinds, but I haven't seen them in a long time... so I'm just guessing that they can still distinguish one decade from another. Perhaps Kurds can't? I'm pretty uncomfortable with that proposition, though-- smacks of racism...
I remember this being the consensus among the lefty moonbats, or at least I thought so. My guess was that Sadamm had relics of the Iran-Iraq war that the administration could conceivably call "weapons of mass destruction" but nothing that could threaten the US. And as I mentioned in another thread, Powell's UN presentation was the object of much derision and there was much skepticism about the Niger link.
Question for anyone who may know here. Does SecState get the same level of intelligence matter that the President does, or is he kept in on a need to know basis. I think he would be, but I don't want to assume.
SecState is a member of the NSC. By defnition NSC need to know is everything. In practice, this means that they will see highly summarized information that they can then ask for more detail on.
If your accusation is indeed true, then prove it, buttercup. BigSoccer has this nifty feature called "Search" that lets you search for people's posts in the recent or distant past. It'll make your life EASY. That Jesuit diploma mill that you're attending might accept "bullcrap without foundation in fact" in your coursework, but I'm not so lenient. Either come up with some proof or admit that you were posting right out your ass.
Eh. This moonbat thought he may very well have had lots o' stuff, but that just wasn't a reason to invade, 'specially when we could dig up the purchase orders somewhere, and just recall the items for poor craftsmanship or something. Turns out he had nothin'. Surprised the hell out of me, but gave me a chuckle at the same time. This whole long time and all these dead kids later makes it much less amusing. Let's just bring the kids home now.