[CLUE-Talk] The military takes a cue from Microsoft

[Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 12:15, Randy Arabie wrote:
> On Sunday, 12 October 2003 at 10:42:14 -0600, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb at dissociatedpress.net> wrote:
> > 
> > What's done is done -- we can't take back the Iraq war, but we can do
> > the right thing and turn Iraq over to the U.N. and Bush can admit that
> > he lied repeatedly to push for this action. Until that happens, I will
> > continue to bash Bush because the son-of-a-bitch lied through his teeth
> > and hundreds of American soldiers and thousands of Iraqis have died
> > because of it. 
> 
> Bush lied through his teeth?
> 
> I'm sorry, I must disagree.  I'm tired of hearing people
> assert that, as if it were a fact.

You cannot tell me that you still believe that the Bush administration
really believed Iraq to be a threat to the U.S. -- as they repeatedly
asserted when making their case to go to war. Their story has changed
repeatedly from evidence of WMD to evidence of a WMD program to evidence
of INTENT to build a WMD program... Next it will be "in his heart,
Hussein thought naughty things, so we had to invade..." 

If I ever go into used car sales, I sincerely hope everyone is this
trusting. 

> It isn't.

It is. Some examples from this page
(http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030606.html):

"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used
for the production of biological weapons." -- Bush to the U.N. on Sept.
12th, 2002.

No evidence of this has been presented to date. If we had evidence of
this, why have we not been able to find it since?

There is no room for fudging here -- "Iraq *is* expanding and
improving..." -- that's not a "we think" or "maybe" or "evidence
suggests" -- "Iraq is" -- couldn't get much clearer than that. And yet,
they weren't. 

"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding
the facilities used to make more of those weapons." -- A radio address
on Oct. 5, 2002. 

Same thing.

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most
lethal weapons ever devised." -- Address on March 17, 2003

The evidence leaves PLENTY of doubt, thank you very much. 

How about this from Cheney: 

"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
(NBC's Meet the Press -- March 16, 2003)

Then Rumsfeld backtracked later:

"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that
Iraq had nuclear weapons."

(Hearing of the Senate's appropriations committee, May 14, 2003)

(Both from here: http://www.bushwatch.com/bushlies.htm)

Many of Bush's statements were qualified statements designed to scare
the public without being easily nailed down, for example "We know that
the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including
mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." -- Of course, that doesn't
say WHEN or whether the regime still has them. Just that they have at
some point. So later, when none of those things are found, they can just
say "well, they had done so in the past.." 

Bush also cited "evidence" claiming that Iraq had "enough materials to
produce more than 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin and as much as 500
tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents." 

Thus far, we've come up exactly 38,000 litres short of botulinum toxin
and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents. If we truly had this
evidence, shouldn't we have been able to find something? Hmmmm? Maybe
just a few litres of botulinum or maybe a few POUNDS of sarin? 

(http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/02/1054406134772.html)

If our "evidence" was so substantial and truly indicated a need to move
without U.N. approval and without any further diplomacy, why have we
been unable to uncover any conclusive proof of WMD? If our intelligence
was so infallible before the war, what has happened that has rendered it
useless since the war?

The administration cherry-picked "evidence" from reports and buried any
assertion that Iraq wasn't a threat. That's not a wild assertion, Randy,
it's a FACT. Deal with it. They did it knowingly, they did it
deliberately, and they did so with intent to deceive the American
public. 

Here's another page citing the lies from the Bush administration:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/07/22_lies.html

Sorry that you can't admit that you were snookered, Randy, but you and a
lot of other people were. Don't feel bad, it happened with Vietnam, the
Korean war and many other military actions -- but the fact (and yes, it
is a fact) is that the Bush administration and Bush himself lied
deliberately to push this war. They also fudged, hedged, mislead, and
told half-truths to build this case. C'mon, Randy, can you not admit
that Bush lied -- even to yourself? After all these months and deaths,
you can't admit that Bush was dishonest? 

As far as the terrorism -> Iraq link, even The New Republic admits that
Hussein had no ties to 9/11. Ties to terrorist groups in the region, yes
-- but not groups that were moving against the U.S.:

http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml/etc.mhtml?pid=698

Again, I'm not going to defend Saddam Hussein, that's not possible --
but I don't think the American public would have been behind this action
if the Bush administration's case had been "Saddam is a very, very bad
man who kills Iraqis and doesn't really pose a threat to the United
States, but we should spend billions of dollars and risk American lives
to remove him from power." 

Previously you said "I'm willing to bet my rat bitten ass that Saddam
already has weapons of mass destruction..." 
http://clue.denver.co.us/pipermail/clue-talk/2002-December/004643.html

Looks like you lose, Randy. 

And, it does look as if I were wrong about motives to an extent and I'll
admit it: I said it was "about oil" when it looks like that may not have
been the motive after all.

Another thing the Bush administration lied about was the ability of Iraq
to pay for reconstruction with oil money:
http://ogj.pennnet.com/articles/web_article_display.cfm?ARTICLE_CATEGORY=GenIn&ARTICLE_ID=189244
http://www.theweeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/955afmqa.asp

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier
jzb at dissociatedpress.net
http://www.dissociatedpress.net
http://www.corante.com/openmind