BoatBanter.com - Cheney going to Hell

On 2/26/13 6:30 PM, Eisboch wrote:

"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
m...

On 2/26/13 6:09 PM, Eisboch wrote:

"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
m...

On 2/26/13 5:48 PM, Eisboch wrote:

wrote in message ...

On Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:50:06 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

"jps" wrote in message
...

And everybody in the room was signed up for the other's objective. It
all made sense to them but it was a giant miscalculation. They were
all looking for an excuse to invade Iraq, long before 911.

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Indeed. The stage was set back in 1998 when then President Clinton
signed the "Iraq Liberation Act" which passed the House by a vote of
360 to 38 and by the Senate by unanimous consent. The Act essentially
established a policy for regime change in Iraq. Here's what Clinton
had to say back then:

"Iraq admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare
capability, notably, 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes
botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud
warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might say UNSCOM inspectors
believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production....
Over the past few months, as [the weapons inspectors] have come closer
and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam
has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions by
imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key
sites which have still not been inspected off limits.... It is obvious
that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this
operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to
produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and
the feed stocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM inspectors
believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological
munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to
restart quickly its production program and build many, many more
weapons.... Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply
and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives
him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass
destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and
continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will
conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will
then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an
arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I
guarantee you he'll use the arsenal...." .... President Bill Clinton,
1998

One could say that Clinton talked the talk but Bush walked the walk.

People want to forget that.

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Some people also want to forget that Clinton ordered the bombing and
cruise missile strikes on targets in Iraq in 1998 based on "Iraq's
failure to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions as
well as their interference with United Nations Special Commission
inspectors."

And he also ordered the famous strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan. The
cruise missiles fired at suspected terrorist camps were an attempt to
kill bin Laden, who was thought to be connected to the bombing of the US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Problem was, bin Laden wasn't there.
It was also later determined that the strikes in Sudan at a
pharmaceutical plant was based on bad intel or just bad decision making:

"the evidence that prompted President Clinton to order the missile
strike on the Shifa plant was not as solid as first portrayed." Indeed,
officials later said that there was no proof that the plant had been
manufacturing or storing nerve gas, as initially suspected by the
Americans, or had been linked to Osama bin Laden, who was a resident of
Khartoum in the 1990s."

This is why I don't automatically buy into the "Bush lied us into war"
routine, favored by many. Seems there were enough mistakes and bad
intel to go around for everybody.

Once again, Clinton was smart enough to not invade Iraq with a huge
military force and depose Saddam Hussein. G.W. Bush was not that smart.

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One might say that Bush was successful whereas Clinton was not. :-)

We will never know what "could have been" had Hussein remained in
power. We can only speculate.
Not to dismiss or minimize the price paid in American or innocent Iraqi
lives, but the reality is that it is a price that sometimes has to be
paid and a pain to be borne. Dismissing it all as "lies" serves nothing
but to make those who lost a loved one (who was doing his/her job) even
more painful to bear.

It has happened before and will certainly happen again.

One might say that Clinton was smarter and more successul, because
during his watch, Americans weren't sent in to invade Iraq, 4000
Americans weren't killed, tens of thousands of Americans weren't
injured, at least 100,000 Iraqis didn't die, and we didn't blow what
will turn out to be $2 billion plus on a moronic war effort.

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Only time will tell. Until then, the debate will continue.

In the mid 1980's I had a friend from Iraq, a tech guy, who wanted me to
join him in an import/export venture with his native country. I don't
remember many of the details, but part of it involved exporting Pampers
and similar baby products to Iraq and importing dates or figs and rugs.

He gave up on that and actually started importing pretty decent leather
gear - handbags, briefcases, et cetera - from somewhere in South America.

He seemed to have some pretty decent contacts in Iraq. They're probably
all dead now.