New Poll:Majority Of Americans Don't Think Iraq War Is Worth Fighting

[lucky wilbury]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Nice pic's though. By the way, which one is Osama...Oh I forgot...we haven't gotten him yet!

yep osamas the only one we want lets just forget about the first world trade center bomber i mean what thats 11 years ago lets forget about him. and the murders that the other two were behind lets just throw them out the window right?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
yep osamas the only one we want lets just forget about the first world trade center bomber i mean what thats 11 years ago lets forget about him. and the murders that the other two were behind lets just throw them out the window right?

Yeah! I guess he's closer to the oil right? Even if he did kill about 2950 less people. Priorities! By the way, did we get him?

If the choice is to arrest a serial killer or a man who murdered once out of passion, I'll take the former.

[lucky wilbury]

we are still looking for yashin,the 93 bomber. he's slipped the net a few times and is currently involved with attacks on us forces. abbas we caught. he later died in our custody. and were still after zarqawi who was on the "al aqaeda scorecard" before the iraq war.

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Lucky 1
Nick 0

See what happens when you let the Republicants count the votes?

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
lets see hes the genral in charge so i think he would be the ultimate authority on it

Oh no! Rumsfeld had nothing to do with it! Who hired him? Why did the last guy quit? The buck stops on that guy I guess.



yep thats it. i'm delude and which one of us believes the pnac bullshit?

Which one grasps at straws when it comes to WMD's and nonexistent ties between Saddam and Al-Qaida? Not me.



so which is it low intensity or major combat? under the definition that has been laid out its not major combat

I saw that interview actually. He looked as if he was to be shot or maybe Paula was unzipping her shirt or giving him pussy flashes or something, but he clearly looked unconfortable! He clearly contradicts himself (paraphrase) no I didn't have enough troops, but actually I was quite confortable with the troops levels...He was qualifying his words, because he knows Low-intensity conflict is exactly the kind of war this Military has been trying to avoid because the Army is not trained or equipted to fight prolonged guerilla conflicts. The whole point has been to avoid them since Vietnam. The insurgents are doing just what they want, BLEEDING us to the point Iraq is not economically viable. That's how they win, when we leave and they have a really big civil war followed by wonderful days of ethnic cleansing!


and what did the world say about iraq and wmd? france said they had them but the time wasen't right to remove saddam. germany said the same thing yet those. yes what did the world say. i guess these countries said lets take out saddam:

Weapons of mass destruction? They thought Saddam had precisely because of what Franks said, "We can't prove they don't." Saddam didn't really fear the US or Europe, he was far more afraid of Iran invading, and that's why he always implied he still had chemical weapons, they were the only thing the Iranians still feared of the Iraqi Military.

As of November 4, 2004, there were 28 non-U.S. military forces participating in the coalition and contributing to the ongoing stability operations throughout Iraq. These countries were Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Ukraine, and the Kingdom of Tonga.

and these countries were with us as well:

Nicaragua (Feb. 2004); Spain (late-Apr. 2004); Dominican Republic (early-May 2004); Honduras (late-May 2004); Philippines (~Jul. 19, 2004); Thailand (late-Aug. 2004); and New Zealand (late Sep. 04).

seems most of the world were with us

In very tiny contingents. The only parts of the world that are with us are the ones that want something (i.e. NATO membership or investment). And some of those countries will shortly pull out (Ukraine) or will withdraw after their next elections (the UK).



again you've proven that you don't read anything any one posts. half those quotes were from the 90s so how can bush be behind it? oh thats right he wasen't. or better yet again i quote tommy franks:

http://archive.parade.com/2004/0801/...my_franks.html

No, most of those quotes were from late 2002 during the drums of war "Super-patriot, Freedom Fry land" period. The drums of war were beating, and anyone who tried to speak up was drowned out politically by them (i.e. Howard Dean). They were all trying to sound like Republican Hawks. Unfortunately they didn't realize the hawks were really wrong this time.

And we were never about to invade Iraq in 1998 to deprive Saddam of purported chemical weapons.

In January 2003, two months before the Iraq War, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak both told Franks that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction, or WMD. According to Franks, Mubarak told him point-blank: “Saddam has WMD—biologicals, actually—and he will use them on your troops.” Within an hour, he relayed that message to Washington.

were they lying as well? unless your going to read what people post don't respond to peoples posts otherwise your just wasting everyones time

Yes they were! Because they were ironically trying to deter us from invading and causing a massive qaugmire on their borders. If they were so gung-ho about Iraqi WMD's, where was the Egyptian and Jordanian armies? Why did they not invade and relieve the Middle East of this pestulance? Those dictators stay in power for a reason.





you want to talk about clark you want me to bump the threads where in the 90's he connected iraq to al aqeda?

http://archive.parade.com/2004/0801/0801_tommy_franks.html

In a bit of score-settling, Franks says: “I never received a single page of actionable intelligence from Richard Clarke.”

Who did give him his INTELLIGENCE? Franks is an ass coverer who talks out of two sides of his mouth. Is he going to admit that he was hoodwinked?




really fixated thats why the people who would know these things say no to that

yes lets have some quotes shall we:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/13/oneill.bush/index.html

"People are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration," O'Neill said.

"Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq."


or better yet

Retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he saw nothing to indicate the United States was close to attacking Iraq early in Bush's term.

Shelton, who retired shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, said the brass reviewed "on the shelf" plans to respond to crises with the incoming Bush administration.

But in the administration's first six months, "I saw nothing that would lead me to believe that we were any closer to attacking Iraq than we had been during the previous administration," Shelton told CNN.

Okay, lets examine some other stuff. Let's see the opinions of retired senior officers that are not directly connected to this mess:



(Lt. Gen., U.S. Marine Corps-Ret.).


…Presumably before the war, somebody was saying: "What about the other end of this thing? What if they take to the streets? What about suicide bombers?"

There were many voices who spoke both openly in public testimony to the media, and I'm aware of many cases where they spoke privately to those in key positions in the administration and warned them that this could be the result. They were dismissed, some publicly, like Gen. Shinseki, when he said several hundred thousand soldiers would be needed, and Mr. Wolfowitz said, "I can't imagine you'd need any number like that." So there was this humiliation whenever you challenged. …

…I didn't see a plan unfolding that was a plan that would really fight a war, fight this campaign. I saw one that would take care of a single operation, the capture of Baghdad, the takedown of the Saddam regime. And the question is, all right, what are you going to do with the country after you have it? How are you going to get this thing under control? I saw no planning, heard of no planning worthy of the name for the aftermath of the fighting.

And I said to myself, because I look back at history, and even in 1943 when what the results were going to be in Europe was still in question, the United States had people planning for what happened after the military operations, the active forces passed through. They were talking about how you reestablish civil government. They were talking about how you deal with a people that are occupied. There's a rich body of literature that was written after the Second World War. I knew of no one inside the Pentagon even looking at that. All that work was being done over in the State Department, and the Pentagon was ignoring it, and in fact, when they were offered, simply just refused to even look at it.


So the statue of Saddam falls. What are you thinking?

I was thinking two things -- one, obviously proud that this happened. As a Marine, I was proud that the Marines were involved as they were, that they moved so quick and as well as they did. I was proud of the Army forces, proud of all the joint forces. In the back of my mind, though, I had two concerns. One is, what are you going to do with the rest of the country, the northern part of the country that you haven't gone to? What is it you're going to do with all these places you bypassed down south? Literally, what is your plan now that the regime has fallen? I didn't know of one.

I guess deep in my heart I hoped that there was some sort of a secret plan that they were going to follow. ... Just imagine if the follow-on and support forces that were in the original plans had been there, [if] divisions had simply gone around Baghdad and gone up into what we now know is the Sunni triangle; clamped down; let them see the hard heel of occupation, at least for a short period; get secured; prevent the looting; go into places in the South that were bypassed; get ahold of the weapons; get them under control; get into some of these places where there were alleged weapons of mass destruction, find out what was really there; prevent this radioactive material from escaping. That's the kind of forces you needed. No one can quibble over the right size force for capturing Baghdad. But for a war with the nation of Iraq and for actually occupying the country as we claimed we wanted to do, totally insufficient. This is literally Operations 101.


…It's September of '03, and Rumsfeld has gone with a press entourage to Baghdad. Did you know then that the insurgency was more than just a handful of people?

I don't think anyone truly knew what the scope of this was going to be after the active fighting ended in May of 2003, but we understood what Saddam claimed he was going to do; we understood the possibilities of what you could do. And not to be prepared for that, even if you didn't know what was going to happen, to be prepared for all of the eventualities, is what I'm critical of.


Why would the secretary of defense not say: "We've got this problem here. We're going to go get it"?

I think to a degree, he's stubborn. Being stubborn, holding to your convictions, is good to a point, but when the evidence around you indicates your position is not tenable, then you ought to start to adapt to the situation. It got well beyond where it was tenable, and he was still holding the position. …



(Gen., U.S. Marine Corps-Ret), Commander, CENTCOM (1991-1994).


…With Desert Storm …..I never once, in all the conversations that took place between August and February, heard a discussion about war termination. What were the terms of ending the war? What kind of requirements were we going to impose on the Iraqis after we had thrown them out of Kuwait? Because you remember, the military mission was beautifully defined: Liberate Kuwait. That doesn't give you either peace or stability; it just gives you a liberated Kuwait. And I guess I'm as guilty as everybody else. I might have raised my hand in a meeting and said, "What are we going to do after we throw them out?" I never heard anybody talk about this.


This has weird and faint echoes into the future [Iraq] doesn't it, that we're not thinking about the aftermath of these things?

It's the human condition that we do the things we understand best. So the military planned for the military mission of liberating Kuwait. The State Department or somebody else should have been thinking, what are we going to do after we do this? We've got a bad guy, a thug, that runs that country. We used to help him, you'll recall, during the war with Iraq and Iran. But now he was a bad guy, bona fide bad guy. What are we going to do? How are we going to change the relationship here? ...

The interesting thing from my point of view was that President Bush had said, "I had been told that if we decisively beat the Iraqis in Kuwait that Saddam Hussein would throw in the towel and leave, that he'd abdicate." And I often thought that didn't square with my knowledge of that part of the world; that people gave up office usually after they'd been hung up at the end of a rope. ... Some years later, a distinguished admiral who I knew, who's since passed on, said that he had been in the White House when this discussion had come up, and he said that the president had indicated that Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, had told him that Saddam Hussein wouldn't stay if the forces were defeated.

Now, I can't speculate on why Mr. Mubarak said that, but the Egyptians have a very different agenda in that part of the world than in the United States, and so it would seem to me that in this instance, that kind of information might not be very reliable if you were getting it from the head of state of Egypt. …


General, let's talk about the war plan. One fellow we talked to said, "We could have gone in there with 50,000 or less, decapitated the regime; it would have been over in nothing flat." The reason I'm quoting him is this is what the secretary of defense read and said, "Send this guy down to CENTCOM to talk to the other generals sitting around the table." That was in January of 2002. What do you think Gen. [Tommy] Franks' answer to that was, and what do you think of the idea?

I know what my answer would have been. I can't say it on public television. You can't get there from here. This is a labor-intensive business. If you're going to go in and change a country of 25 million people, you've got to have boots on the ground. The way you minimize casualties is you fight aggressively and with overwhelming strength. And so when you start up the road to Baghdad, you've got to have enough guys to protect your supply lines so hapless guys driving tanker trucks and supply trucks don't get shot and get captured. When you get into the big city, you have enough people to flood that city, that city that's second only in size to New York City in terms of how big it is. It's 6.5 million people.

50,000 people -- where would they go in Baghdad? What would they secure? Even if they were successful, how would you manage all of that? What would be the next step? I think it's absolutely impractical. And 50,000 people would have meant more casualties, because there would have been more of them caught on the roads. There would have been more of them that would have been killed in these small firefights around the city. It's just not workable.


Why would this be attractive to the secretary of defense?

There is this thread that moves through the Defense Department regardless of who's in charge, whether it's Democrats or Republicans ... that technology will take care of all of this. The more technology you have, the fewer guys you need on the ground. That's true for some missions, but it's not true when you're about to undertake a counterinsurgency campaign in a country of 25 million people. And the idea that they were going to dance in the street and welcome us when we got to Baghdad was just wrong. The last time they danced in the street in Baghdad was 9/11. Don't count on it.


Why did they count on it?

Because guys like [Iraqi National Congress founder Ahmad] Chalabi told them what they wanted to hear. This guy has been a fraud since the early '90s, and all of us have known that and spoken out publicly against him. But he told these guys what they wanted to hear: "It'll be easy. We'll take over the country. When I'm running the country, we'll recognize Israel. We'll reconstitute the pipeline to Haifa. It hasn't been in working order since 1948" -- all of the kinds of stories that these guys wanted to hear. …


At the same time that the war plan is finally evolved and guys are getting to the ground, you would think there's also a reconstruction plan.

I think that because it's essentially a political process, the principal person in the U.S. government to manage this should have been the secretary of state, not the secretary of defense. So decisions about military activity should have been cleared by this senior guy in the country who would have been described, I think, as the presidential special envoy to Iraq. And so it isn't that the military couldn't do what it wanted to do. ... It would have been a cooperative process. But the person that reported back would report primarily to the secretary of state and the secretary of state to the president, in my judgment.


That didn't happen. Why?

Because the president chose to have the Defense Department do this work and be preeminent, to be the agency that had the primary responsibility for the reconstruction.


Once that decision is made, what are the implications?

Well, I think there's a couple problems. First of all, [former Director of Operations in Somalia, Gen.] Tony Zinni, when he was at CENTCOM, had started to think about this and had a plan. Nobody ever asked to see it. Nobody ever looked at it. I'm told that the Army War College up at Carlisle in Pennsylvania put together a plan for the reconstruction. Nobody ever asked to look at it. ...

Now, the developmental piece has been equally screwed up. As you know, there was $18 billion authorized and appropriated for the rebuilding of Iraq. Only $600 million has been spent today. The fiscal year is about ready to end, and a very small portion of that money has been spent thus far. Clearly we're not doing very well on the developmental side either. I don't know why. But clearly the wrong people are out there trying to do the job.


The State Department did have a team, 60 or 70 people, who wrote a plan for what to do. The State Department people get moved over to the Defense Department, and then Rumsfeld tells all of them fairly quickly they've got to get out of the building before sunset. He doesn't like the idea of having the State Department people in the building. What is going on?

Well, I'm not encumbered with any firsthand knowledge, but I would say that this is the problem that you have when you're dealing with true believers. One thing that I have learned as a senior commander is, if you already know the answer to the questions, [and] you can be sure if you've already made it clear what the answers are, people are going to feed you back that information. That's the nature of the ways things are done in the military. Rare occasions you'll get guys who say, "Hey, General, your fly's open," or "You've got it wrong," but not many.


What does it mean to the uniformed services to have all this happen?

This is a very tough issue. Eliot Cohen wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal last week saying generals shouldn't be getting involved in the politics, that they're generals and they weaken the resolve, and this is the issue of supporting the troops. Attacking the political leadership and supporting the troops are two very different things, in my judgment. But if you're on the ground and you're a commander, you have got to put whatever personal views you have about the war aside and meet your day-to-day commitments. And I believe that. We can't just fold up and get away. The second- and third-order consequences of failure in Iraq are enormous. We would have another theocratic state in Iraq. We would destabilize, potentially, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all of those countries.

But the sure way, in my judgment, of getting that kind of a state is continually trying to influence the outcome. Sooner or later you're going to make these people so angry that the dominant force in this country, which is Shia Islam, is going to wind up running the country.


When did you know that it was a serious insurgency?

I've never heard Mr. Cheney characterize any of our opposition in Iraq as anything but terrorists, and that's pretty big spin in my judgment. Many of these people are people that have no work because of either their political connections or their service in the army before. They've been badly treated by the U.S. military for whatever reason, justified or not. To say that some of these people don't have legitimate reasons for wanting to see the United States out of there is to not understand the problem.

Hmmmm...People that don't understand the insurgency. "Know thy enemy" -Sun Tzu

I don't doubt that there are foreign terrorists there, but their numbers seem to be relatively small. I saw a figure that there were 12,000 detainees in Iraq that were held by the U.S. armed forces there, of whom 92 were foreign-born. Now, if you extrapolate that figure to our opposition countrywide, it would seem to me that the number of foreign people is relatively small. The guys that we're having so much trouble with -- whatever their motivations, there is certainly a nationalist overtone. I don't think you could fairly describe them as terrorists. You'd have to talk about them as insurgents.…



(Gen., U.S. Army-Ret.), Secretary of the Army, 2001-2003.

…Face-forward planning: What happened?


The working assumptions were that the Iraqi people would behave themselves. There will be a few dead-enders and former Baathists that will have to be dealt with, but by and large, they assumed away the problem. ... Now, mind you, Gen. Rick Shinseki was the only guy in the whole senior structure who had actually had hands-on, on-the-ground experience in running a stabilization force. In his case, it was Bosnia. So you would think that his views on the subject would have carried some weight, and unfortunately, they did not.

Wolfowitz says to a congressional committee that he can't conceive of a situation where the forces required for the stabilization phase would be greater than the forces required for the military operation. All of us in the Army felt just the opposite, that there was a long history of that being absolutely true; that the defeat of the Iraqi military would be a relatively straightforward operation of fairly short duration for all the reasons Doug Macgregor had to say. That was all true. ... But the securing of the peace and the security of a country of 25 million people spread out over an enormous geographic area would be a tremendous challenge that would take a lot of people, a lot of labor, to be done right. And nobody wanted to hear that. And we are dealing with the consequences of that to this day.

Gee, really?


What I don't understand is how a guy like Don Rumsfeld, who you've described as micromanager, down in the muck, wanting to know everything, can let the "winning the peace" side of the equation go.

A part of it was that we had had this operation in Afghanistan, and in the post-combat phase, the difficulties never bubbled up to significant levels. So there was kind of this mind-set, and also that the postwar deal is kind of a lower form of life; it's kind of a necessary evil. But they've got Chalabi and all these other guys who are blowing in their ear that this will not be a problem. ... To do that portion of the operation justice, you probably would have had to slow down the military operation itself, because you'd have to convince yourself you would be ready to do a phase four of that magnitude. It would have slowed down the whole thing because you would have needed to have the additional forces in place. An enormous amount of planning would have had to go on, and none of it went on. It was easier just to keep on the short track of the logic of the war: the imminent threat to the United States. Therefore we have to attack quickly, and oh, by the way, we'll just kind of bumble along when the war's over, and hopefully it will turn out okay. And it didn't.


In the planning phase, or lack-of-planning phase, there has been State Department activity.

Lots of people, lots of smart people, experienced people in that region. But that is an issue -- that means if we take in their views and their thought and ideas, apparently we have to give up control of this thing. And the Defense Department is going to exercise rigid control over this whole operation, and therefore none of those people, some of whom Jay Garner apparently wanted to hire, are deemed to be acceptable. And so we just exclude that.

Maybe some of it didn't track to this party line. The Iraqi planning group got into the details of currencies and markets and all of these things that would be necessary to consider to get the country back on its feet and moving. Secretary Wolfowitz goes in front of a congressional committee and says, "Well, the Iraqi oil revenues will pay for all of this, basically." We're $200 billion into this thing now, and the Iraqi oil, when it flows, is not paying for very much of it.


Is that idealistic or ideological?

I think it's ideological. I think he is a true believer in the neocon agenda, and that colors the way he looks at this. This business of the way to deal with the Islamic issue of fundamentalism is to make the world democratic or make it look like us, and therefore planting our flag in the middle of the Arab world and making Iraq a showplace for democracy is the right thing to do regardless of what the cost is. And I think he truly believes that.

You were saying about Neocons and PNAC?


When Gen. Shinseki testifies, he's uncomfortable answering the question, "What's the number? How many do we need?" He doesn't want to answer it, and then he kind of does a math problem, and then he answers it. I think it's two days later Wolfowitz comes in.

Oh, yeah. First of all, it's the Senate Armed Services Committee, and it's Sen. Carl Levin. And Levin wants a number, which is not an unreasonable thing for Sen. Levin to be asking for -- "What's going to happen when the war's over? How many people?" -- right? That's a reasonable question to ask.

And so Shinseki tells him, "Maybe as many as 200,000," or some words to that effect. But the number 200,000 was out there. I thought that was perfectly reasonable. So the next morning, I get a call from Wolfowitz, who is upset that Shinseki would give this number. And I forget exactly what I said, but I said: "Well, he's an expert. He was asked. He has a fundamental responsibility to answer the questions and offer his professional opinion, which he did. And there was some basis to the opinion because he is a relative expert on the subject ."... They go public shortly thereafter to discredit Shinseki. And [Wolfowitz] says "wildly off the mark," and he gives this little speech about he "couldn't conceive of how you would have a case where it takes more people to secure the peace than it does to win the war." Well, you can look over the past 50 years in stability operations, and it's quite clear that that's precisely how the equation normally comes out, that Shinseki has a basis for this view. And Rumsfeld says something about it as well at the time.

You mean they fired something because he told them what they don't want to hear?

So they discredit Shinseki. Then a week later, I get in front of the same committee. I see Sen. Levin before the hearing starts, and he says, "I'm going to ask you the same question." I said: "Good. You're going to get the same answer."

At that point, Shinseki and White are not on the team, right? We don't get it. We don't understand this thing, and we are not on the team. And therefore, actions are going to be taken.


And the implications for you personally were what?

That would have been April. And on the 26th of April, I was called in late on a Friday afternoon and told by Rumsfeld, with Wolfowitz standing there, that I was going to be replaced. And that was it. ... I said something to the effect of "Well, thank you very much." I consider the fact that I was secretary for two years to be an honor, and the chance to serve in the president's administration and to represent soldiers and their families. And the secretary is free to fire me anytime he wants. And if our positions were reversed, I would have fired him. …


The Army had been kind of getting out of the business of training for counterinsurgency, and now, of course, it seems to be job one.

Well, you'll recall when the administration came to office, the view was we've gotten too much into this nation-building stuff. And so we were looking seriously at how to reduce the commitment in the Balkans and those types of things, which I think were all appropriate things for us to be concerned with. And we were focusing our national training centers -- the one at [Fort] Polk [in Louisiana] and the one at [Fort] Irwin [in California] and the one in Hohenfels in Germany -- on complex situations, but mainly with combat-related tasks against a very disparate style of enemy, not just the Soviets reincarnate but lower-end-of-the-spectrum types of things. But we were not going to be in the stabilization business once we extricated ourselves from Bosnia.

And of course, you see, it really creates a conflict. On the one hand, you want to transform an Army using information technology and so forth that would cause you to be more labor-efficient, less labor-intensive. The Army's the most labor-intensive of all the services. And that would permit you to do more with a smaller force eventually. So you have that trend on the one side. On the other side, you have this trend towards stability operations in Iraq on a very large scale, which by definition are labor-intensive, take enormous numbers of boots on the ground to do these things right. So the Army's caught in the middle going in both directions. …

[LoungeMachine]

Nick,

You're spending Bandwidth on someone who wouldn't admit a Bush Administration mistake if it came from Jesus on stone tablets.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
Nick,

You're spending Bandwidth on someone who wouldn't admit a Bush Administration mistake if it came from Jesus on stone tablets.

Such good sport though.

[rustoffa]

The majority of Americans don't know their refridgerator is about to burn their fucking house down.

Slack-jawed by sensationalism, they just stare and stare.

Ask the majority to define "rationale".....

"Druhhhh....that's the moist fancy feast packets".

Society Shmociety.

[Roth-Halen]

Russtofa!
Keep in touch, bro!

[Seshmeister]

I cunt believe that there are people out there like Lucky still trying to justify this war particularly comparing it to Kosova.

Let's get down to the fucking bare bones.

3 weeks after the intervention in Kosova Blair walked through the streets there to cheering crowds.

If Bush or Blair have the fucking guts to walk through Bagdhad in the next month and the people come out and cheer them then I will completely back down, say I was wrong, and suck Sammy Hagars dick.

Cheers!

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Such good sport though.

If you call shooting Lame Ducks or Busheep in a barrell "sport"




Hey man, nice shot.

[lucky wilbury]

Originally posted by Seshmeister
I cunt believe that there are people out there like Lucky still trying to justify this war particularly comparing it to Kosova.

Let's get down to the fucking bare bones.

3 weeks after the intervention in Kosova Blair walked through the streets there to cheering crowds.

If Bush or Blair have the fucking guts to walk through Bagdhad in the next month and the people come out and cheer them then I will completely back down, say I was wrong, and suck Sammy Hagars dick.

Cheers!

first off sesh i used it as a comparison secondly i never saw blair go down the streets of belgrade. you know they place that was bombed the shit out off. i sure bush could go to notrhern iraq and be welcomed with open arms by the kurds same way blair was like in kosovo but i'm bet anything he would have been a dean man in belgrade.us troops in the kurdish areas are extremly well liked

[lucky wilbury]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Oh no! Rumsfeld had nothing to do with it! Who hired him? Why did the last guy quit? The buck stops on that guy I guess.

the last guy didn't quit its customary for the former centcom commander to stay on till the president picks a new one and they rotate about every two or three years

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Which one grasps at straws when it comes to WMD's and nonexistent ties between Saddam and Al-Qaida? Not me.

would you be refering to what previous administrions said about al qadea and wmd? sort of like the other article about this

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
saw that interview actually. He looked as if he was to be shot or maybe Paula was unzipping her shirt or giving him pussy flashes or something, but he clearly looked unconfortable! He clearly contradicts himself (paraphrase) no I didn't have enough troops, but actually I was quite confortable with the troops levels...He was qualifying his words, because he knows Low-intensity conflict is exactly the kind of war this Military has been trying to avoid because the Army is not trained or equipted to fight prolonged guerilla conflicts. The whole point has been to avoid them since Vietnam. The insurgents are doing just what they want, BLEEDING us to the point Iraq is not economically viable. That's how they win, when we leave and they have a really big civil war followed by wonderful days of ethnic cleansing!

right and im sure you said the same thing about afghanisthan as well when thigs were hairy there for a while.

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Weapons of mass destruction? They thought Saddam had precisely because of what Franks said, "We can't prove they don't." Saddam didn't really fear the US or Europe, he was far more afraid of Iran invading, and that's why he always implied he still had chemical weapons, they were the only thing the Iranians still feared of the Iraqi Military.

yep thats it all the previous administrations were wrong the world was wrong the un was wrong and bush was just making it all up

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
In very tiny contingents. The only parts of the world that are with us are the ones that want something (i.e. NATO membership or investment). And some of those countries will shortly pull out (Ukraine) or will withdraw after their next elections (the UK).

thousands of troops aren't small contingents

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
No, most of those quotes were from late 2002 during the drums of war "Super-patriot, Freedom Fry land" period. The drums of war were beating, and anyone who tried to speak up was drowned out politically by them (i.e. Howard Dean). They were all trying to sound like Republican Hawks. Unfortunately they didn't realize the hawks were really wrong this time.

thats funny they don't look like they were from 2002

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.

"There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001.

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
And we were never about to invade Iraq in 1998 to deprive Saddam of purported chemical weapons.

but wait you just claimed saddam never had them bush lied about them so which is it they only had them under clinton and bush made them up or was clinton lying about them and just made them up? its one or the other

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Yes they were! Because they were ironically trying to deter us from invading and causing a massive qaugmire on their borders. If they were so gung-ho about Iraqi WMD's, where was the Egyptian and Jordanian armies? Why did they not invade and relieve the Middle East of this pestulance? Those dictators stay in power for a reason.

same place they were in the first gulf war on the sidelines

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Who did give him his INTELLIGENCE? Franks is an ass coverer who talks out of two sides of his mouth. Is he going to admit that he was hoodwinked?

hood winked by who? do tell since it's been standing us policy that saddam had wmd and that he needed to be removed. i noticed you didn't say much about pl 235 or the iraq liberation act why is that? can't let the truth deflate your bull shit? don't like it how the iraq liberation act debunks you pnac theory that it was all their idea to get rid of saddam and democrotize the middle east? if you want i could post the whole things but i doubt you'd read them

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
Okay, lets examine some other stuff. Let's see the opinions of retired senior officers that are not directly connected to this mess:

yes lets do that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/p...print&position=

Tape Shows General Clark Linking Iraq and Al Qaeda
By EDWARD WYATT

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 11 — Less than a year before he entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president, Gen. Wesley K. Clark said that he believed there was a connection between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda.

The statement by General Clark in October 2002 as he endorsed a New Hampshire candidate for Congress is a sign of how the general's position on Iraq seems to have changed over time, though he insists his position has been consistent.

"Certainly there's a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda," he said in 2002. "It doesn't surprise me at all that they would be talking to Al Qaeda, that there would be some Al Qaeda there or that Saddam Hussein might even be, you know, discussing gee, I wonder since I don't have any scuds and since the Americans are coming at me, I wonder if I could take advantage of Al Qaeda? How would I do it? Is it worth the risk? What could they do for me?"

At numerous campaign events in the past three months and in a book published last year, General Clark has asserted that there was no evidence linking Iraq and Al Qaeda. He has also accused the Bush administration of executing "a world-class bait-and-switch," by using the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as an excuse to invade Iraq.

At a town hall meeting here on Jan. 4, for example, General Clark said, "There was no imminent threat from Iraq, nor was Iraq connected with Al Qaeda."

"If Iraq had been there as the base of Al Qaeda to organize and train everybody, then maybe we could have justified the attack on Iraq," he added.

In an interview, General Clark said his more recent remarks were not inconsistent with what he said in 2002. In those remarks, he said, he was trying to explain that based on his knowledge of how the intelligence community works, low-level contacts almost certainly existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda, But, he said, that does not mean that Iraq had anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks.

The 2002 comments, he said, were based in part on a letter to Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, from George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, which said that the C.I.A. had credible reporting that Al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire weapons of mass destruction. The content of the letter was reported in a front-page article in The New York Times on Oct. 9, 2002, the day that General Clark made the comments at the New Hampshire endorsement.

"I never thought there would be any evidence linking Sept. 11 and Saddam Hussein," General Clark said. "Everything I had learned about Saddam Hussein told me that he would be the last person Al Qaeda would trust or that he would trust them."

"All I was saying is that it would be naïve to say that there weren't any contacts," he said. "But that's a far cry from saying there was any connection between the events of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein."

In his most recent book, "Winning Modern Wars," (Public Affairs, 2003), General Clark states, "No evidence thus far suggests any link between Saddam Hussein and the terrorists of Al Qaeda."

On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no concrete evidence of a link between the terrorist organization and Iraq.

The general's 2002 comments appeared on a home video of the press conference in Nashua at which he endorsed Katrina Swett for New Hampshire's Second Congressional District. A copy of the videotape was made available by a rival presidential candidate's campaign.

General Clark's appearance with Ms. Swett has come up before in the presidential race. He advised her at the time that if she were in Congress, she should vote for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut used that statement to accuse General Clark of inconsistency on Iraq. General Clark subsequently said that at the time he did not understand exactly what was in the resolution and would have voted against it.

Similarly, on the first day of his campaign, General Clark said that he probably would have voted for the resolution on Iraq. He later said he "bobbled" the question and has asserted that he made clear well before the start of the war his belief that Iraq was not an imminent danger to the United States and, therefore, that an attack was not justified at that time.

General Clark had known Ms. Swett and her husband, Richard N. Swett, a former congressman and ambassador to Denmark, when they lived in Denmark and General Clark lived in Belgium as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO.

In an interview, Ms. Swett, who is a national co-chairwoman of Mr. Lieberman's campaign, said she recalled General Clark as "saying pretty unequivocally" that a link existed between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

Within days of the endorsement, General Clark was reported to be considering a run for the Democratic nomination. He had come to New Hampshire as a guest of George Bruno, a former ambassador to Belize who is now a co-chairman of General Clark's campaign in that state.
----------------

or better yet

http://www.drudgereport.com/mattwc.htm

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX WED JAN 15, 2004 11:28:25 ET XXXXX

WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED

**World Exclusive**

Two months ago Democratic hopeful Wesley Clark declared in a debate that he has always been firmly against the current Iraq War.

"I've been very consistent... I've been against this war from the beginning," the former general said in Detroit on October 26.

"I was against it last summer, I was against it in the fall, I was against it in the winter, I was against it in the spring. And I'm against it now."

But just six month prior in an op-ed in the LONDON TIMES Clark offered praise for the courage of President Bush's action.

"President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt," Clark wrote on April 10, 2003. "Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled."

MORE

Even the most ardent Clark supporter will question if Clark's current and past stand on the Iraq war -- is confusion or deception, after the DRUDGE REPORT reveals:

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CONGRESS PASSED THE IRAQ CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION WESLEY CLARK MADE THE CASE FOR WAR; TESTIFIED THAT SADDAM HAD 'CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS'

Less than 18 months ago, Wesley Clark offered his testimony before the Committee On Armed Services at the U.S. House Of Representatives.

"There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self defense," Clark told Congress on September 26, 2002.

"Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization there. There were some people who didn' t agree with that decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a resolution."

Clark continued: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we."

More Clark: "And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that's longstanding. It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this."

Clark explained: "I think there's no question that, even though we may not have the evidence as Richard [Perle] says, that there have been such contacts [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. It' s normal. It's natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat."

-----------

i figured i'd use him since you seemed to think highly of him that you used him in your avatar but let me guess he's lying as well

[blueturk]

Originally posted by Big Train
If you want points, which you obviously do, you can call it a flip flop. With this type of engagement, it is never really "over", so it was a huge tactical mistake to call it that. Left a gaping hole libs can run up and down repeatedly (as blue turk has shown to be his favorite-perhaps only-point to make).

First, what kind of "points' am I obviously wanting? You lost me on that one, but let's move on.
Why would I have any desire to call anything a "flip-flop"? I really don't see why you made this indirect reference to Kerry.If you've read my posts (and you have) you know that I'm no big Kerry fan.
"A huge tactical mistake"? That's good! That's right up there with "catastrophic success" for Orwellian Bushspeak..Dubya LIED.Tell the troops that major combat operations are over.A war is a war.We've got more troops in Iraq than ever,but that's not a "major combat operation"? Give me a fucking break!
As for your final comment,I feel confident that as long as Dubya is president, I'll have no shortage of points to make.
Why don't you go write another interminable economics essay? By the time you're done,I'm sure another "gaping hole" (that's a good one too!) will open up.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally posted by lucky wilbury
the last guy didn't quit its customary for the former centcom commander to stay on till the president picks a new one and they rotate about every two or three years

And the last Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Kinsheki was marginalized and attacked by Rumsfeld and Wolfoshitz for giving his military opinion. You see, he, unlike you does not selectively cite facts to justify stupid policy. Because he knew this would be, Rummy's favorite word....A QUAGMIRE!

would you be refering to what previous administrions said about al qadea and wmd? sort of like the other article about this

I've been saying WHO CARES about them. THEY DIDN"T INVADE IRAQ! Do you think Clinton would have invaded and gotten us pinned down in a guerilla war, NO! For all of his failings, he was too smart for that.

right and im sure you said the same thing about afghanisthan as well when thigs were hairy there for a while.

You don't have a clue as to what I said or thought about Afghanistan. Are you posting for me again now...I will say this, when we were still in "major combat" there, I thought the neocons were joking when they were talking about invading Iraq and to how easy it would be. I bet you thought we could take the place with 50K troops, eh?

yep thats it all the previous administrations were wrong the world was wrong the un was wrong and bush was just making it all up

Who cares what they said. The policy was containment and to try to get the Iraqis to change their own regimes. See first rebuttal. Also not ACTIONS vs. Rhetoric.

thousands of troops aren't small contingents

They sure as hell aren't dying in the thousands like are. There are 148K Americans in Iraq. How many Britons or Poles are there?

thats funny they don't look like they were from 2002

No, I just noticed you used your typical sophist modus operandi to not post the 2002 comments and only th 98' comments, which have a completely differnet conotation. Again, where were we talking about invasion and occupation?

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998.

Right, by using "Containmant", the policy Bush overthrew against the advice of his Pentagon.

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998.

Mission Accomplished! Clinton apparently did just that! There were no WMD's in Iraq.

"Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."
Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998.

He wasn't just talking about Iraq there. He was also talking about Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Israel, India,...And every non-Western Nation possessing Nukes. This war has seriously diminshed our ablitiy to deal with them unless we...DRAFT and train a new wing of the land forces.

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

On who? Kurds. Iranians? He never used them on us during the Gulf Wars. And why ever would he give them to terrorists?

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.

Again, policy of containment, not INVASION! Which obviously worked better than invasion. You are essentually quoting him out of context! THis is again about policy, not rhetoric!

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.

Where did she mention invasion?

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999.

So let's invade and take over those palaces?

"There is no doubt that . Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies."
Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001.

I wonder who was feed the shitty intellignece in order to justify their march to invade Iraq and falsy combine AL-Qaida with The Iraqi Baath Party, two distinctly different movements that are diametrically opposed philosophically!

but wait you just claimed saddam never had them bush lied about them so which is it they only had them under clinton and bush made them up or was clinton lying about them and just made them up? its one or the other

When did I say he never had them. He hasn't had them since the early 90's. Again, you cite rhetoric, I cite policy blunders!

same place they were in the first gulf war on the sidelines

No! They weren't. Egypt was on the ground with us! And Jordain was aligned with Iraq because they feared the wrath of Saddam! But again they live there and have to deal with the consiquences of our arrogant policy failures.

hood winked by who? do tell since it's been standing us policy that saddam had wmd and that he needed to be removed. i noticed you didn't say much about pl 235 or the iraq liberation act why is that?

Why? If Saddam needed to be removed, then why didn't we do it in 91'? Why did they leave him in power then. Because we knew the balance of power in the Middle East would be upset and cause a huge power vacuum in which Islamic Fundimentalism would fester and we have created far more terrorists than we have killed.

Why don't you read "Imperial Hubris" by anonymous. Oh, that would be nagative information you wouldn't want to hear.

can't let the truth deflate your bull shit? don't like it how the iraq liberation act debunks you pnac theory that it was all their idea to get rid of saddam and democrotize the middle east? if you want i could post the whole things but i doubt you'd read them

Truth. Ha ha, you speak of truth. You repeatedly deny that we are in a big fight in Iraq and you have compared the situation there to post-War Germany circa 1945. I called you on it because I am well read on the subject of WWII, apparently you are not. Ha ha, tell me all about the truth Busheep. You find quotes that are misrepresentative and out of context and imply that that is a logical proof!

Tell me how we are mopping up. Are things getting better, no, pick up a news paper and read how the insurgents are in a stronger position and the Iraqi security forces are in a shambles. You can appologize for this Administrations poor planning and blunders all you want. But sophist arguments that are not based on logic are not "proofs."

yes lets do that

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/12/p...print&position=

Tape Shows General Clark Linking Iraq and Al Qaeda
By EDWARD WYATT

MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 11 — Less than a year before he entered the race for the Democratic nomination for president, Gen. Wesley K. Clark said that he believed there was a connection between the Iraqi government and Al Qaeda....[/quote]


What the fuck "does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" Gen.Clark? He wasn't even on the ticket. Why do you not mention that this supposed link has been admitted to be wrong, even by Pres. Bush in the first debate (right after he implied there was one and got "called on it")
----------------

or better yet

The Matt (I like fudge) Drudge report is accurate or "better yet?" This guys a fucking partisan hack posing as an internet journalist. Who cares?

http://www.drudgereport.com/mattwc.htm

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX WED JAN 15, 2004 11:28:25 ET XXXXX

WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED

**World Exclusive**

Two months ago Democratic hopeful Wesley Clark declared in a debate that he has always been firmly against the current Iraq War.

"I've been very consistent... I've been against this war from the beginning," the former general said in Detroit on October 26.

"I was against it last summer, I was against it in the fall, I was against it in the winter, I was against it in the spring. And I'm against it now."

But just six month prior in an op-ed in the LONDON TIMES Clark offered praise for the courage of President Bush's action.

"President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt," Clark wrote on April 10, 2003. "Can anything be more moving than the joyous throngs swarming the streets of Baghdad? Memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the defeat of Milosevic in Belgrade flood back. Statues and images of Saddam are smashed and defiled."

How did it all change? Why don't you address that one Lucky?

MORE

Even the most ardent Clark supporter will question if Clark's current and past stand on the Iraq war -- is confusion or deception, after the DRUDGE REPORT reveals:

TWO WEEKS BEFORE CONGRESS PASSED THE IRAQ CONGRESSIONAL RESOLUTION WESLEY CLARK MADE THE CASE FOR WAR; TESTIFIED THAT SADDAM HAD 'CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS'

Less than 18 months ago, Wesley Clark offered his testimony before the Committee On Armed Services at the U.S. House Of Representatives.

"There's no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self defense," Clark told Congress on September 26, 2002.

"Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He's done so without multilateral support if necessary. He's done so in advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization there. There were some people who didn' t agree with that decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a resolution."

Clark continued: "There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... Clark explained: "I think there's no question that, even though we may not have the evidence as Richard [Perle] says, that there have been such contacts [between Iraq and al Qaeda]. It' s normal. It's natural. These are a lot of bad actors in the same region together. They are going to bump into each other. They are going to exchange information. They're going to feel each other out and see whether there are opportunities to cooperate. That's inevitable in this region, and I think it's clear that regardless of whether or not such evidence is produced of these connections that Saddam Hussein is a threat."


i figured i'd use him since you seemed to think highly of him that you used him in your avatar but let me guess he's lying as well

I guess the fact that he mentioned "we do not have evidence as Perle said" means nothing huh?

Again, a useless article that adds nothing to the discussion. And I'd rather think highly of Clark than of Rumsfeld.

Dude, you should be embarressed and ashamed to defend anything that asshole says or does!