Putin: Russian Intel indicated threat to US from Iraq

[Uraniun235]

Maybe Putin wants Bush reelected in hopes that the U.S. loses even more respect and power in the world.

[Axis Kast]

Absolutely it is the President’s duty to assess threats and judge how to respond to them, a duty he performed very poorly (and not just in hindsight, many called Iraq correctly before the war) in relation to Iraq, this is exactly why he is coming in for so much critiscism.

We’ve been over this before. Conventional wisdom agreed with the President when he first made noises about Iraq. There were very few who would have bet their chips on Saddam’s being clean at the time.

Most of this forum argues that Bush should have left off with Blix, however, and accepted the findings of UNMOVIC as satisfactory evidence of Saddam’s disarmament. Yet unfortunately, in doing so, they ignore the fact that Bush had good reason to fear that Blix’s reports weren’t as comprehensive as was claimed – after all, Iraq had led inspectors astray many times in the past, and though Blix had theoretically unfettered access to chosen facilities throughout Iraq, there was no way he could realistically provide the same kind of certain coverage that would accompany only an invasion and occupation. Given the example of the damage wrecked by another small country despite poverty and isolation – Afghanistan –, Bush decided that Blix’s certainty wasn’t certainty enough. And that’s why we chose to invade. It’s a line of reasoning with which I agree.

Yes 9/11 justifies everything.

If you refuse to accept that September 11th greatly lowered the threshold by which we measure acceptable threats, you refuse to accept reality.

It’s almost funny how often it is claimed that Iraq’s conventional weakness meant they were powerless entirely – when even worse derision could have been made in reference to Afghanistan.

When you say “virtually any nation on Earth could pose mortal danger to the United States” do you seriously mean that you think practically any nation could pose a serious threat to the survival of the US? Which is the literal meaning of what you wrote or are you just so used to lapping up the bullshit alarmist rhetoric of Bush and his Neo-Con chums that you are now spouting it yourself without realising what you’re saying.

No; I mean that practically any nation could pose a serious threat to American lives and property on the scale of September 11th. I mean that the United States government has adopted a new calculus, and is clearly willing to tollerate much less uncertainty than before.

And definitely not as somebody with an agenda which involved invading Iraq and toppling Saddam.

Fear of a worst-case scenario probably motivated that agenda. In case you never noticed, I’ve agreed in the past that Bush was the only candidate who would have gone after Iraq – but whereas some see it as vindication for his father or a conspiracy theory to make Dick Cheney fatter in the wallet, I see it as a fear cultivated during a half-lifetime of intimate relationships with people who saw the rise and fall of Iran and Iraq as power brokers in the Middle East.

Even if all your bullshit assertions of France and Germany’s security assessments’ were right, why didn’t France, Germany and Russia (yes and that means your new best friend Mr Putin) then agree that “The only choice left was to mount the invasion”?

Invasion was never “the only choice” it was simply the only thing on GW’s mind.

Perhaps because they were never afraid that Saddam’s first target was Europe, or that they would be the first to pay for underestimating Iraq. Perhaps because their resources, so much less than those of the United States, simply didn't allow such wide-ranging activities.

[Elfdart]

If you refuse to accept that September 11th greatly lowered the threshold by which we measure acceptable threats, you refuse to accept reality.

It’s almost funny how often it is claimed that Iraq’s conventional weakness meant they were powerless entirely – when even worse derision could have been made in reference to Afghanistan.

But Al-Queda was based in Afghanistan, not Iraq. How well armed a country is has no bearing on whether a war is justified when compared to who attacked whom.

Bush might just as well have attacked Greece -except Greece has no oil (olive doesn't count) and a better army than Iraq did.

[Axis Kast]

The group performing the terrorist activities need not be al-Qaeda. Iraq had its own intelligence agencies. There didn't even need to be a link to a third organization. This was almost certainly prominent among the Bush administration's greatest fears. That Iraq would not merely look the other way as Afghanistan had, but use its resources to put its trained intelligence forces in positions to harm the United States or its interests overseas.

The point about armament was merely to point out that conventional war-making potential has nothing to do with the capacity to support or succor terrorists.

[Elfdart]

The group performing the terrorist activities need not be al-Qaeda. Iraq had its own intelligence agencies. There didn't even need to be a link to a third organization. This was almost certainly prominent among the Bush administration's greatest fears. That Iraq would not merely look the other way as Afghanistan had, but use its resources to put its trained intelligence forces in positions to harm the United States or its interests overseas.

The point about armament was merely to point out that conventional war-making potential has nothing to do with the capacity to support or succor terrorists.

The whole notion that Iraq would help Al-Queda carry out attacks on this country is silly. Once it was discovered that an Iraqi agent had something to do with 9-11 or even the embassy bombings, Saddam was toast no matter who was in office (yes Kucinich, too). As it turns out, Iraq had not attacked this country and they were invaded anyway.