Lieberman: "A just war."

CNN - 8/3/03

(snip)

BLITZER: Let's get to the issues right now. First of all, you supported the war, a strong supporter of the war.

LIEBERMAN: I did.

BLITZER: So far, no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Limited programs of weapons of mass destruction.

Was it a mistake?

LIEBERMAN: It was certainly not a mistake. We know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After all, he used them against the Iranians and the Kurds. He used chemical weapons.

BLITZER: But that was in the '80s, before the first Gulf War.

LIEBERMAN: That's correct. After the first Gulf War, the Iraqis declared to the United Nations, they admitted that they had chemical and biological weapons, tough stuff, in large quantities, sarin, botulin toxin, anthrax, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

They never owned up to what they did with those weapons. In fact, right through last fall and into this year, when the U.N. passed its resolution asking Saddam Hussein to come clean, "Tell us, have you kept the promises you made at the end of the Gulf War to do away with your weapons of mass destruction?" he never did.

Hans Blix agreed with that. He just wanted more time to have inspections.

BLITZER: Some of your Democratic colleagues say, "That's all true. The U.N. inspectors, the weapons inspectors, they could have gotten the job done. The war was not necessary, the lives lost."

LIEBERMAN: Well, I'm afraid it was necessary, and this is where I go back to the rest of the argument, beyond the weapons of mass destruction.

Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator. We know that better today than we did before the war, because we found more than 60 mass graves of people his troops and forces murdered. We know his people were suppressed. We know that he had a plan, he wanted to dominate the Arab world. He wanted the capital of the Arab world to be in Baghdad. That would have been terrible for the Arab world, and terrible for the rest of the world. We know he was supporting terrorists.

BLITZER: But there are a lot of brutal dictators out there who have awful human rights records. Should the U.S. go out and engage in regime change of all of these brutal dictators out there?

LIEBERMAN: There are different responses to every situation. It seemed to me that after 12 years in which we gave Saddam Hussein, after the Gulf War, the opportunity to keep the promises he made to end the Gulf War, particularly to come clean on his weapons of mass destruction program, we gave him a last chance last fall. He didn't take it, and we had to act. And remember, we were acting at the beginning of a new era, post- September 11th. A lot of us looked back after September 11th and said, "Wasn't there something more we could have done to stop al Qaeda, to have broken this plot before it occurred?"

The answer was yes. And I believe it was through that new filter that we began to look at Saddam. We didn't want to look back after he attacked us and say, "Why didn't we stop him before then?"

BLITZER: So what I hear you saying is you support the president's use of preemptive strikes to deal with potential threats.

LIEBERMAN: Well, I never viewed this as a preemptive war against Saddam. I viewed this as the last battle of the Gulf War, because it was all about Saddam's refusal to keep the promises he made to attain the peace he attained at the end of the Gulf War.

No, I don't support the Bush administration's preemptive military policy. Obviously, any nation always reserves the right to take military action in self-defense, to stop an attack against itself before it occurs.

But all of -- that policy was totally unnecessary. To declare it unsettled our allies and made our enemies very anxious, including Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang.

BLITZER: Do you believe the president exaggerated the threat from Iraq going into the war?

LIEBERMAN: In some ways, I'm afraid, as I look back, that he did, and he did it unnecessarily.

So, I supported the war. I believe it was the right thing to do. I think with Saddam Hussein gone, the world is safer. America is safer.

But some of the behavior that the Bush administration followed in the lead-up to the war, that we now know was at least exaggeration, maybe untrue, this is the 16 words, plus their total lack of preparedness to deal with Iraq after Saddam Hussein was gone, has threatened, as I've said, to give a bad name to what I believe was a just war.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/03/le.00.html

...and, you know, we wouldn't want to give a bad name to a just war, would we?

He doesn't have to worry about writing an acceptence speech.

What an amazing POS.

who believes in using force against anyone who he considers a threat to Israel. Anyone who supports this present administration and their corrupt dealings is not getting my vote.

killed in that bogus, lyin', manipulative, treasonist, rush to attack Iraq.

We could have gotten rid of sadam through the UN and I know why bush didn't want to do that...because of the oil and the pnac. I suppose lieberman is a pnacer, too.

That's what his pollsters told him anyway.

The pollsters and the pundits are all full of shit.

I'm confused about your position.

n/t

He's parroting the speeches of the right-wingnuts. He's so desperate to be the Commander in Chief he'll be a perfect duplicate of Duhbya if it helped him win. In that definition, he probably is a coward.

If he wasn't running for President then I'd love to hear what he has to say. Until then,
Lieberman is trying to be a "I can do it too, where's my lollipop?" candidate, trying to convince the war supporters he's just as good as Bush. He is a phony.

And why hinge on Iraq when there are other issues that would make an even louder noise? Iraq is now becoming old news. "Another soldier is dead" reports the media. "We know, now say something else" we reply.

Now for the key issue here: Is America really safer? Judging by the # of attempted attacks on this country, there's no change. But judging by the number of people who truly hate this country and want it destroyed, America is far LESS safe. Bush and everybody supporting the Iraq invasion have placed America in a greater level of danger because the amount of people who want America and all Americans exterminated. It is NOT making America safe when one crackpot and his despicable sons are killed when in turn it angers everybody else in the country they're "liberating", yet alone people in other countries who just happen to be looking at this exercise in futility.

And "liberation" is another lie too.

We don't want him as a candidate. Not one bit.

We appear to have created a real threat in place of a theoretical one. An Iraq where Saddam Hussein himself can elude our troops is an Iraq where al Qaeda can recruit and prosper. More than half of our army has been placed there, overextending the U.S. for all the world to see.

Bush needlessly alarmed North Korea and Iran expediting their nuclear programs, and alienated the United States from the rest of the world. Both NATO and the United Nations were weakened by Bush at a time where international cooperation to combat international terrorism is key to U.S. safety.

Not ever! IF he were president he would do the same as * is now doing. Then all the rightwing would have to do is say: See it is all the dems fault. The economy and the war would be dumped in our lap and we would be put on the defensive.

If we are going to have a rightwinger in office, let it be the idiot. At least we can be on the offense. We could only hurt the party by hammering Lieberman for making the same errors Bush is doing.

Do this make any sense. My writing brain is paralyzed tonite.

I wish someone could get through to him, to Gephardt and a few others that they just don't have what it takes....at all! Rove is salivating about the disarray of the Dem candidates. My paper today had a front page article called "Blown Away" about how easy it will be for Bush to win because of the superb organiztion of his party and ALL the money he's raking in. They say Rove wants him to go down in history as not just a good president, but a "great" president......gag!

Lieberman in the WH, imho, will make it hard for me as a progressive/liberal to defend any and all the neo-con and corperate positions he will obviously champion inspite of the token pseudo-liberal scraps he will dish out to us - underlings - once awhile. I will rather be on unihibited offensive in battling the neo-cons and corperatist agenda than fudge and shift uncomfortably to excuse the unexcusable.

anyone lamenting the decline of the dem. party need look no further than this guy.

Read Carter's Nobel Lecture, delivered in Oslo on Dec. 10, 2002.
Carter warns against 'catastrophic' war (December 10, 2002)
A Statement By President Carter: An Alternative To War (January 31, 2003)
Carter: Iraq threat does not justify war (January 31, 2003)
Carter Says Bush Has 'Not Made a Case' for War (February 1, 2003)
Carter Urges More Diplomacy on Iraq - Ex-President Blames Neglect of Mideast for Anti-American Mood (Feburary 25, 2003)
Just War — or a Just War? (March 9, 2003)

and tell him just how divisive and treacherous he is.

I don't think I could get off an e-mail to Holy Joe without it beginning something like,
"Dear Senator Dimwitted Warmongering Bush Bootlicker..."

today proved me wrong. I'll stay home if he wins the nomination

And people are okay with this from a Democratic candidate?????????????

He claims that the Iraq war was just even after the lies justifying this war have been exposed.He now says that he is looking at it from the prism of the 9/11 events. Even this event now looks shaky what with the 9/11 report saying there was prior knowledge on the part of
Bush about this event. Did he even bother to question what this administration did to stop that terrible disaster?

This man is a disgrace.If he has delusions about becoming the democratic candidate, somebody quickly tell him he doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell.

I would soon rather vote for Kerry or Nader than Holy Joe. He is just too right-wing for the Democrats on many issues. He is a big part of the problem with the Democrats these days.

John