Reply #15: Ooooh, it burns me up when they continue to say that! [View All]

They are completely separated from reality!

"The President made the decision to go to war using the same facts as the previous administration and the United Nations, which judged Saddam Hussein as a threat to the region."

LIKE HELL!!! Clinton, and even the U.N., at some point since the Gulf War, may have thought that Iraq was reconsituting WMDs. But neither KNEW or had FACTS, much less ones that were strong enough to convince them to go to war. They did not know because U.N. inspectors were no longer on the ground in Iraq to make such a judgement. Clinton suggested U.N. Inspectors leave in 1998 (Saddam did not kick them out) because he felt that Iraq was not being forthright enough and may have been hiding elements of WMD programs. He ordered limited military action because he felt inspections were not working at that point.

With the return of weapons inspectors in 2002, we were able to get a much clearer picture of what the state of Iraq's weapons programs were, and what level of threat they were. Because of the return of inspectors, Bush had MORE FACTS than the previous administration to judge whether Iraq was a threat, and, yes, at that point, the same evidence that the U.N. had. Trouble is, Bush chose to ignore most of this evidence and rely on his own. Cheney even said point blank that the U.N. was flat out wrong, and the White House presented much "evidence" of its own. Most of Bush's evidence and claims contradicted the U.N.'s conclusions, which were basically that Iraq had NOT re-constituted nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs.

The U.N. passing Resolution 1441 in no way meant that the U.N. had drawn the same conclusions about the threat Iraq posed. It merely put pressure on Iraq (yes, along with U.S. military presence), to allow inspectors back in so that we could determine the true extent of any possible banned weapons programs. Res. 1441 did NOT authorize any use of force (it was only passed unanimously specifically because there was no "automaticity", or trigger for use of force). It allowed us, in fact, to gather evidence which we needed to find out WHETHER Iraq was a threat or not. The U.N. concluded that inspections were working and that there was no new development of WMDs. Ignoring most of this evidence and manufacturing their own, the Bush administration concluded that Iraq WAS a dire threat and had, in fact, reconstituted nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. This is a VERY different conclusion than the U.N.'s, and the evidence the Bush administration used to justify its war was VERY different from what the U.N. testified to, as far as the threat Iraq posed. Most of Bush's evidence was openly questioned at the time by the U.N. and many others, and most of it has since been proven false.

It is the Bush administration that has been shown to be flat out wrong.