Why does the Right have such a hard-on for blaming Clinton?

[SirNitram]

Now you're pretending to be psychic. Which is really quite amusing. By the way, it's not belligerance, it's contempt.

I see. So I have to be a psychic huh? I have to be psychic to discern that when you refer to me as a "monkey" in a debate over the actions of a conservative politician whom you clearly despise, that you are allowing your political views and your own now admitted contempt of my more conservative political views to color your reactions to my remarks?

I don't have to be psychic to pick up on the blindingly obvious.

Here's a hint, kiddo. Unlike some people here, I don't base my opinion on politicians simply because of whether they've got blue or red on their ballot. That's because they're all far Right of me and my ideals. So, despite your 'YOU'RE A LIBERAL AND YOU HATE ME!' bullshit, no, it's not from your political views. It's from your laughable hypocrisy, which I will get to in one moment.

I am not suggesting that this "vital information" that was in the hands of the intelligence agencies somehow never reached the president. I am suggesting that this information was not in the hands of the intelligence agencies in the first place - at least not at that time. Why? Because if these things had been known at CIA and elsewhere at that time, why is it that no one can be found who said so at the time? Joseph C. Wilson, for example, is now saying that he knew then. But in the first place, when you look at his quotes from the time period in question, he does not express any certainty about the matter, and in the second place, he is an avowed bitter opponent of Bush, and may have an axe to grind. If this information was in the hands of CIA personnel or administration officials at the time, why is it that no one ever says unequivocally that this is bad info based on obviously forged documents? The most they say is that it was doubtful.

Wait, wait, wait. And you're claiming you're not suggesting incompetence instead of ill intent? So the Bush administration goes ahead on doubtful intel that no one was sure on, and this is somehow a good thing? How is this anything but incompetence, precisely?

Nice bait and switch there. You put words in my mouth, and characterized me as advocating the position that the administration is staffed by such dunderheads that they couldn't manage to pass vital information up the chain. Now that I point out clearly that was not my poistion, rather than admit that you erected a strawman, you switch to a different definition of incompetence.

No, I consider it all to be incompetence. You can try and yell and scream and cry fallacy, but I am honestly having trouble seeing how you can categorize these actions as competent. I await your explanation.

As I said, Bush seems to have apparently believed that Saddam really had WMDs. And before you crow about what an idiot he was to believe that based on such shaky evidence, I should point out that just about everybody else seems to have thought so at the time as well. You can check here for a list of prominent politicians, many of whom had access to high level intelligence, who never doubted Saddam had WMDs and was seeking to devolop more:

What is it, sixty percent of the US population beleives the Earth is less than 10,000 years old? The man had the resources of the President, are you telling me he never checked if the man making the statements in the Niger reports was still employed at the time?

Weapons of Mass Destruction

And note this list includes plenty of people from the democratic party and the political left.

If I was as partisan as you, that would mean something to me. Over here in the land of rational thinking that just tells me all political parties have ignorant people in them.

So Bush decided the threat was serious enough to be worth going to war over. And if he'd found WMDs people would be praising him for his decisive action. But he didn't so people are either accusing him of lying, or of being an incompetent, or of being a trigger happy cowboy.

Well, you see, all the reports coming in of how he was trying to get to go to war with Iraq from the day he was in office and the frantic attempts to connect it to 9/11 tend to suggest to people that yes, he's a trigger happy cowboy. His incompetence in overseeing the invasion and occupation are only reaffirming this.

This is what I was saying, and it's different from the argument you are attributing to me, so you are shoving words in my mouth.

I'm really wondering about you. You're suggesting that they went ahead on intel they at very least knew was shoddy, and you're not suggesting they acted incompetently?

The knots you twist yourself in to get out of admitting Bush has lied and will lie and is probably lying currently are really getting insane. He's a politician. Welcome to reality. They lie. Get over your goddamn self.

Gee, no shit, politicians lie. I never would have thought that!

You certainly yell and stamp your foot when it's suggested the one you're fellating due to his party is a liar.

But the fact that politicians in general are known to lie occasionally does not constitute proof that this particular statement by Bush is a lie. So all this smug posturing and all the smarmy little comments you want to make don't change the fact that as the person making the assertion that the president lied, it's up to you to prove it, and you haven't done it. The best you can do is show evidence that he may have.

Yes, the best I can do is prove it to all the reasonable people, the ones who don't invent endless reasons and demand ridiculous, impossible evidence.

Now, I will reveal the reason I've been winding you up. It's called irony, and while I love it, it appears to not be hitting you. I'll skip to the end. Your tactics in this entire off-topic ramble(Who did start it, anyway? Was it me? I apologize to the thread starter if so.) are pretty much what you complain the Left is using for Clinton. In fact, you say as much, complaining that Clinton defenders demand irrational levels of proof, so you'll do the same. Know what that's called, sparky? Hypocrisy. And of course, since you are so obsessively partisan, you claim it's only which politician you approve of..

It's not, of course. It's whether the lies actually hurt. With the US military stretched too far, the US' international relations weakened, and with Iraq much worse than when we went in, we can safely say that all the lies about Iraq(The Niger bullshit, the imminent threat, and the 45 minute warning time.. By Bush, Rumsfeld, and Blair, respectively) hurt. Much worse than a blowjob.

[Perinquus]

Here's a hint, kiddo. Unlike some people here, I don't base my opinion on politicians simply because of whether they've got blue or red on their ballot. That's because they're all far Right of me and my ideals. So, despite your 'YOU'RE A LIBERAL AND YOU HATE ME!' bullshit, no, it's not from your political views. It's from your laughable hypocrisy, which I will get to in one moment.

Right, every word of yours has dripped disdain from your very first response to me. But you would never, never allow contempt for certain political viewpoints to affect your response. Right. Sure.

Nice bait and switch there. You put words in my mouth, and characterized me as advocating the position that the administration is staffed by such dunderheads that they couldn't manage to pass vital information up the chain. Now that I point out clearly that was not my poistion, rather than admit that you erected a strawman, you switch to a different definition of incompetence.

No, I consider it all to be incompetence. You can try and yell and scream and cry fallacy, but I am honestly having trouble seeing how you can categorize these actions as competent. I await your explanation.

Bush thought Saddam certainly had WMDs he was hiding. Based on what every other politician was saying, democrat and republican alike, they did too. The only people who have changed their tunes since then are democrats who have obviously done so for political reasons. Bush apparently turned out to be wrong, but had he not been, and had WMDs been found, it would have proven that a threat did exist, and it would be awfully hard to characterize acting to pre-empt it as incompetent. The fact that there apparently are no WMDs - a possibility no one seriously considered before the invasion - has only been confirmed in hindsight.

As I said, Bush seems to have apparently believed that Saddam really had WMDs. And before you crow about what an idiot he was to believe that based on such shaky evidence, I should point out that just about everybody else seems to have thought so at the time as well. You can check here for a list of prominent politicians, many of whom had access to high level intelligence, who never doubted Saddam had WMDs and was seeking to devolop more:

What is it, sixty percent of the US population beleives the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?

Red Herring, whether it's true or not. This is relevant because the people quoted on that page are people who have access to sensitive intelligence that you and I don't, and are in a much better position to evaluate the threat.

The man had the resources of the President, are you telling me he never checked if the man making the statements in the Niger reports was still employed at the time?

Since when is it a president's job to do that exactly? That's what his intel people are supposed to do. So now you are going to require Bush to do the jobs his staffers and advisors are supposed to do. Of course, micromanaging like this is not efficient, and won't leave him time to do his actual job, but that's beside the point.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

And note this list includes plenty of people from the democratic party and the political left.

If I was as partisan as you, that would mean something to me. Over here in the land of rational thinking that just tells me all political parties have ignorant people in them.

There's that 20/20 hindsight again. It's awfully easy to Monday morning quarterback.

So Bush decided the threat was serious enough to be worth going to war over. And if he'd found WMDs people would be praising him for his decisive action. But he didn't so people are either accusing him of lying, or of being an incompetent, or of being a trigger happy cowboy.

Well, you see, all the reports coming in of how he was trying to get to go to war with Iraq from the day he was in office and the frantic attempts to connect it to 9/11 tend to suggest to people that yes, he's a trigger happy cowboy. His incompetence in overseeing the invasion and occupation are only reaffirming this.

How about citing some of these reports? If they were really credible, and really show an almost frantic commitment to get us into war, no matter what, I'd expect to have heard more about them, and I'd expect them to have done more damage to Bush politically than they appear to have done. Given that I haven't, I'd expect they merely show a high level of focus on Iraq, and so what? Every president makes some issues prioroties.

Gee, no shit, politicians lie. I never would have thought that!

You certainly yell and stamp your foot when it's suggested the one you're fellating due to his party is a liar.

It's not "suggested". It's asserted as though it has been proven beyond all doubt. I merely point out that it hasn't been. I have not even dismissed the possibility that he did, as you may notice. But to you that is "fellating". (And this is you very assiduously not allowing your political viewpoint to affect your response.)

But the fact that politicians in general are known to lie occasionally does not constitute proof that this particular statement by Bush is a lie. So all this smug posturing and all the smarmy little comments you want to make don't change the fact that as the person making the assertion that the president lied, it's up to you to prove it, and you haven't done it. The best you can do is show evidence that he may have.

Yes, the best I can do is prove it to all the reasonable people, the ones who don't invent endless reasons and demand ridiculous, impossible evidence.

Now, I will reveal the reason I've been winding you up. It's called irony, and while I love it, it appears to not be hitting you. I'll skip to the end. Your tactics in this entire off-topic ramble(Who did start it, anyway? Was it me? I apologize to the thread starter if so.) are pretty much what you complain the Left is using for Clinton. In fact, you say as much, complaining that Clinton defenders demand irrational levels of proof, so you'll do the same. Know what that's called, sparky? Hypocrisy. And of course, since you are so obsessively partisan, you claim it's only which politician you approve of..

Bullshit, since a credible witness can refute Clinton's testimony, and since he has been caught dead in a lie on that very subject, I think it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he lied while he was under oath. In Bush's case, it hasn't, because the kind of evidence that would prove it - even one person in a position to know stating unequivocally prior to the 2003 SOTU speech that this intel was false, not just doubtful or suspect or unconfirmed, but false because it was based on forged documents - is simply not there.

It's not, of course. It's whether the lies actually hurt. With the US military stretched too far, the US' international relations weakened, and with Iraq much worse than when we went in, we can safely say that all the lies about Iraq(The Niger bullshit, the imminent threat, and the 45 minute warning time.. By Bush, Rumsfeld, and Blair, respectively) hurt. Much worse than a blowjob.

It's not, of course, (despite my saying it over and over and over) whether Clinton actually broke the law, and therefore committed an impeachable offense. And it's not, of course, the fact that even if Bush did lie in this case, he broke no law, and is therefore not impeachable. And it's not, of course, that even if impeachment proceedings are initiated because enough people in congress think that he lied in order to lead us into war, they will have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he lied, and it does not look like they will be able to do that any more than they did for Clinton. Yet still people like you will say Clinton didn't lie and Bush did.

[SirNitram]

Here's a hint, kiddo. Unlike some people here, I don't base my opinion on politicians simply because of whether they've got blue or red on their ballot. That's because they're all far Right of me and my ideals. So, despite your 'YOU'RE A LIBERAL AND YOU HATE ME!' bullshit, no, it's not from your political views. It's from your laughable hypocrisy, which I will get to in one moment.

Right, every word of yours has dripped disdain from your very first response to me. But you would never, never allow contempt for certain political viewpoints to affect your response. Right. Sure.

I have contempt for the Religious Right and the BNP, if it makes you feel better. I have contempt for Republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative but chuck money around like crazy.

Nice bait and switch there. You put words in my mouth, and characterized me as advocating the position that the administration is staffed by such dunderheads that they couldn't manage to pass vital information up the chain. Now that I point out clearly that was not my poistion, rather than admit that you erected a strawman, you switch to a different definition of incompetence.

No, I consider it all to be incompetence. You can try and yell and scream and cry fallacy, but I am honestly having trouble seeing how you can categorize these actions as competent. I await your explanation.

Bush thought Saddam certainly had WMDs he was hiding. Based on what every other politician was saying, democrat and republican alike, they did too. The only people who have changed their tunes since then are democrats who have obviously done so for political reasons. Bush apparently turned out to be wrong, but had he not been, and had WMDs been found, it would have proven that a threat did exist, and it would be awfully hard to characterize acting to pre-empt it as incompetent. The fact that there apparently are no WMDs - a possibility no one seriously considered before the invasion - has only been confirmed in hindsight.

'No one' seriously considered there were no WMD's? Man, you just eat up the propaganda you're fed.

As I said, Bush seems to have apparently believed that Saddam really had WMDs. And before you crow about what an idiot he was to believe that based on such shaky evidence, I should point out that just about everybody else seems to have thought so at the time as well. You can check here for a list of prominent politicians, many of whom had access to high level intelligence, who never doubted Saddam had WMDs and was seeking to devolop more:

What is it, sixty percent of the US population beleives the Earth is less than 10,000 years old?

Red Herring, whether it's true or not. This is relevant because the people quoted on that page are people who have access to sensitive intelligence that you and I don't, and are in a much better position to evaluate the threat.

And never noticed that the man making these claims was not in a position to make them. It's relevent: People with access to information are not automatically competent.

The man had the resources of the President, are you telling me he never checked if the man making the statements in the Niger reports was still employed at the time?

Since when is it a president's job to do that exactly? That's what his intel people are supposed to do. So now you are going to require Bush to do the jobs his staffers and advisors are supposed to do. Of course, micromanaging like this is not efficient, and won't leave him time to do his actual job, but that's beside the point.

No, I require someone whose going to make a statement to his nation actually make sure it's a legit one. Heaven forbid we have integrity.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

And note this list includes plenty of people from the democratic party and the political left.

If I was as partisan as you, that would mean something to me. Over here in the land of rational thinking that just tells me all political parties have ignorant people in them.

There's that 20/20 hindsight again. It's awfully easy to Monday morning quarterback.

Here you go again, assuming absolutely everyone must be as stupidily, ridiculously partisan as you. They talk about this in first year Psych, it's called Projection.

So Bush decided the threat was serious enough to be worth going to war over. And if he'd found WMDs people would be praising him for his decisive action. But he didn't so people are either accusing him of lying, or of being an incompetent, or of being a trigger happy cowboy.

Well, you see, all the reports coming in of how he was trying to get to go to war with Iraq from the day he was in office and the frantic attempts to connect it to 9/11 tend to suggest to people that yes, he's a trigger happy cowboy. His incompetence in overseeing the invasion and occupation are only reaffirming this.

How about citing some of these reports? If they were really credible, and really show an almost frantic commitment to get us into war, no matter what, I'd expect to have heard more about them, and I'd expect them to have done more damage to Bush politically than they appear to have done. Given that I haven't, I'd expect they merely show a high level of focus on Iraq, and so what? Every president makes some issues prioroties.

You're also someone who thinks no one seriously considered the possibility Iraq was really as destitute as it was. You have that wall of ignorance around your skull.

Gee, no shit, politicians lie. I never would have thought that!

You certainly yell and stamp your foot when it's suggested the one you're fellating due to his party is a liar.

It's not "suggested". It's asserted as though it has been proven beyond all doubt. I merely point out that it hasn't been. I have not even dismissed the possibility that he did, as you may notice. But to you that is "fellating". (And this is you very assiduously not allowing your political viewpoint to affect your response.)

Here we go again, you try to make it look like I'm partisan. Here's a hint, retard: I'm partisan against all US politicians, because they're all ridiculously Right Wing compared to my political viewpoint. Does that make your 'MUST FIND PARTISANSHIP' node feel better? It's a lie, of course, but maybe it'll make you stop trying to insinuate everyone's like you.

And no, inventing ever-more-ridiculous demands of proof is not 'pointing out it hasn't.'.

But the fact that politicians in general are known to lie occasionally does not constitute proof that this particular statement by Bush is a lie. So all this smug posturing and all the smarmy little comments you want to make don't change the fact that as the person making the assertion that the president lied, it's up to you to prove it, and you haven't done it. The best you can do is show evidence that he may have.

Yes, the best I can do is prove it to all the reasonable people, the ones who don't invent endless reasons and demand ridiculous, impossible evidence.

Now, I will reveal the reason I've been winding you up. It's called irony, and while I love it, it appears to not be hitting you. I'll skip to the end. Your tactics in this entire off-topic ramble(Who did start it, anyway? Was it me? I apologize to the thread starter if so.) are pretty much what you complain the Left is using for Clinton. In fact, you say as much, complaining that Clinton defenders demand irrational levels of proof, so you'll do the same. Know what that's called, sparky? Hypocrisy. And of course, since you are so obsessively partisan, you claim it's only which politician you approve of..

Bullshit, since a credible witness can refute Clinton's testimony, and since he has been caught dead in a lie on that very subject, I think it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he lied while he was under oath. In Bush's case, it hasn't, because the kind of evidence that would prove it - even one person in a position to know stating unequivocally prior to the 2003 SOTU speech that this intel was false, not just doubtful or suspect or unconfirmed, but false because it was based on forged documents - is simply not there.

It's not, of course. It's whether the lies actually hurt. With the US military stretched too far, the US' international relations weakened, and with Iraq much worse than when we went in, we can safely say that all the lies about Iraq(The Niger bullshit, the imminent threat, and the 45 minute warning time.. By Bush, Rumsfeld, and Blair, respectively) hurt. Much worse than a blowjob.

It's not, of course, (despite my saying it over and over and over) whether Clinton actually broke the law, and therefore committed an impeachable offense. And it's not, of course, the fact that even if Bush did lie in this case, he broke no law, and is therefore not impeachable. And it's not, of course, that even if impeachment proceedings are initiated because enough people in congress think that he lied in order to lead us into war, they will have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he lied, and it does not look like they will be able to do that any more than they did for Clinton. Yet still people like you will say Clinton didn't lie and Bush did.

You're a grade A moron, I see. I never said Clinton didn't lie. I said the lie was meaningless to his position are President.

The more one reads your responses, the more blindingly obvious it becomes that you can't actually consider the possibility people don't fall into your little pre-set categories for them. You insist I must be partisan, that I must be doing just what these mythical 'Clinton defenders' are doing, and so on. Maybe you'll have more luck debating the man of straw you've made up with my avatar pasted on it's head.

[Perinquus]

I have contempt for the Religious Right and the BNP, if it makes you feel better. I have contempt for Republicans who claim to be fiscally conservative but chuck money around like crazy.

Since I am not religious, I don't liek them either. And just to show you I am not the mindless republican partisan you'd like to think, I am highly critical of the current spate of spending, and of Bush for jumping on that band wagon. I am rather suspicious of Sen. John McCain ever since McCain/Feingold passed, but I agree with him completely that the spending of this congress and this administration is extremely reckless. I approve of tax cuts, but only when they are accompanied by commensurate reductions in spending.

'No one' seriously considered there were no WMD's? Man, you just eat up the propaganda you're fed.

Then explain all those quotes from people before Bush ever took office, expressing conviction that Saddam was armed with WMDs and was seeking more. It's awfully funny that Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Robert Byrd, John Kerry, Henry Waxman, Bob Graham, Jay Rockefeller Ted Kennedy, - democrats all - would spread republican propaganda.

And never noticed that the man making these claims was not in a position to make them. It's relevent: People with access to information are not automatically competent.

So now Bush is supposed to know who occupies every office in the Iraqi or any other government? Again, that's what his intel people are for.

No, I require someone whose going to make a statement to his nation actually make sure it's a legit one. Heaven forbid we have integrity.

You realize, of course, you've just disqualified every president who's ever held the office.

Here you go again, assuming absolutely everyone must be as stupidily, ridiculously partisan as you. They talk about this in first year Psych, it's called Projection.

And this statement is called an ad hominem.

Well, you see, all the reports coming in of how he was trying to get to go to war with Iraq from the day he was in office and the frantic attempts to connect it to 9/11 tend to suggest to people that yes, he's a trigger happy cowboy. His incompetence in overseeing the invasion and occupation are only reaffirming this.

How about citing some of these reports? If they were really credible, and really show an almost frantic commitment to get us into war, no matter what, I'd expect to have heard more about them, and I'd expect them to have done more damage to Bush politically than they appear to have done. Given that I haven't, I'd expect they merely show a high level of focus on Iraq, and so what? Every president makes some issues prioroties.

You're also someone who thinks no one seriously considered the possibility Iraq was really as destitute as it was. You have that wall of ignorance around your skull.

So you can't cite any of these reports? I thought not. Thank you.

You certainly yell and stamp your foot when it's suggested the one you're fellating due to his party is a liar.

It's not "suggested". It's asserted as though it has been proven beyond all doubt. I merely point out that it hasn't been. I have not even dismissed the possibility that he did, as you may notice. But to you that is "fellating". (And this is you very assiduously not allowing your political viewpoint to affect your response.)

Here we go again, you try to make it look like I'm partisan. Here's a hint, retard: I'm partisan against all US politicians, because they're all ridiculously Right Wing compared to my political viewpoint. Does that make your 'MUST FIND PARTISANSHIP' node feel better? It's a lie, of course, but maybe it'll make you stop trying to insinuate everyone's like you.

And this proves you're not partisan? It looks more like it just proves you are partisan - merely anti-US rather than anti-Republican. And this is supposed to give you the moral high ground? In any case, I don't see how this is supposed to prove you are not letting your political ideology color your responses.

You're a grade A moron, I see. I never said Clinton didn't lie. I said the lie was meaningless to his position are President.

Excuse me, is this the same person who just a few lines above said a US president should have integrity? And committing a felony wouldn't in any way tend to undercut one's credibility, would it?

The more one reads your responses, the more blindingly obvious it becomes that you can't actually consider the possibility people don't fall into your little pre-set categories for them. You insist I must be partisan, that I must be doing just what these mythical 'Clinton defenders' are doing, and so on. Maybe you'll have more luck debating the man of straw you've made up with my avatar pasted on it's head.

As I said, you basically admitted you are partisan - merely anti-US rather than anti-Republican. You angrily demand that a US president should have integrity, but when a different (and less right wing) president commits an act that any reasonable person would certainly say reveals a lack of integrity, you simply dismiss that as inconsequential, revealing a nice little double standard. It looks suspiciously like the farther a US president leans to the right, the less willing you are to extend any benefit of doubt, and the less willing you are to listen reasonably to any opinion which differs from yours, and the less willing you are to respond without resorting to insults.

[BoredShirtless]

Bullshit, since a credible witness can refute Clinton's testimony, and since he has been caught dead in a lie on that very subject, I think it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he lied while he was under oath. In Bush's case, it hasn't, because the kind of evidence that would prove it - even one person in a position to know stating unequivocally prior to the 2003 SOTU speech that this intel was false, not just doubtful or suspect or unconfirmed, but false because it was based on forged documents - is simply not there.

Come on Perinquus. You know as well as I do that Wilson came back from Niger with news that they were forgeries. The lack of an unequivocal press release was more the result of who his employer was at the time and him fulfilling one of his mandates as a diplomat; to cause the least amount of embarrassment to the British government as possible.

Don't throw common sense out the window.

[Patrick Degan]

It had not been demonstrated to be baseless, it had been revealed as doubtful.

Wrong again. The very evidence of the tubes themselves disproved the claim in regards to those and the documentation supporting the Niger Yellowcake Myths were revealed to be forgeries. You're demonstrating Axis Kast-level stupidity again.

Then it should be easy for you to answer the question. Why wasn't anyone telling the president this at the time? If these were known to be such clear forgeries at the time, why is that nowhere in all the quotes you posted before does anyone indicate that they knew so at the time? All the quotes you produced have people saying how doubtful, dubious, or shaky the info was, and how it was merely "single source" intel. Where is the quote of someone telling Bush: "we can't rely on this report sir, we've discovered it's a forgery and therefore certainly false." If they knew at the time that this material was forged, why be so obviouly less than forthright in saying so?

They were telling Bush, Mr. Apologist. It was in the NIE on Iraq compiled in 2002. Bush and his puppeteers simply weren't interested in any report which didn't support their claims about Saddam Hussein.

Do you understand the difference between baseless - as in known to be false - and doubtful? One indicates certainty, the other does not. As I said, it is quite possible that Bush lied, but it is also plausible that Bush had convinced himself that Saddam really did have weapons, and simply thought that he had done a good enough job hiding them that we had no hard evidence of it, and that he also thought that we would find such evidence once we overran Iraq and had access to Iraqi documents, scientists, military personnel, etc. You have not eliminated this possibility, and until you do, you have not proven that he lied. I don't care if he has proven it "for you". Try again.

I don't have to "try again", numbskull —history has made that demonstration for me. And your Appeal to Ignorance does not alter that fact one jot. Until evidence is actually revealed to the contrary, the default assumption is that the WMDs don't exist.

History has made no such thing. You are assuming that everything that is known now was also known prior to the 2003 SOTU speech. Again, numbskull, you have not demonstrated that it was.

History has indeed made that demonstration, numbskull, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not. The WMDs have not been demonstrated to exist. The records and the evidence demonstrates that Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was defunct. And for you to state that we didn't know the Aluminium Tubes Myth was just that, that the Niger Yellowcake Myth was just that, is again a demonstration of Axis Kast-level stupidity on your part. This had become public knowledge before the SOTU.

It is utterly immaterial whether or not the UN or the current White House engaged in a huge Burden of Proof Fallacy. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It is not immaterial. U.S. relations with Iraq were not a debate society. We were perfectly capable of telling him: "you've revealed yourself to be an unscrupulous and untrustworthy aggressor. We will now deal with you as such. If you want to restore your status, it is now up to you to demonstrate your good intent by being fully cooperative and providing full and complete disclosure of your WMD program and your efforts to fulfill your obligation to dismantle it. Failure to be cooperative in this fashion will be taken as evidence of bad faith." And that, in fact, is basically what the relevant U.N resolutions did say, divested of their diplomatic language.

While the restoration of relations depended upon Saddam being fully cooperative about inspections, justifications for war depend upon a lot more than "I believe he has WMD and threatens us, therefore War". There was no evidence to justify a war on spec no matter how much you wish to believe otherwise, and the results of every inspection postwar has borne out the critics of Bush policy, not its architects.

[Patrick Degan]

Oh, and BTW:

Linky

Uranium imports

UK dossier, 24 September 2002, p.25: "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium."

State Department, 19 December 2002: "The [Iraqi] Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?"

White House, January 2003, p.5: "The [Iraqi] Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from abroad."

Secretary Powell, 26 January 2003: "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium [...]?"

Evaluation. Iraq is indeed known to have sought to import significant quantities of uranium (yellowcake) from Niger; this was in 1981-82. The absence of any detail in the reports cited above - such as the year (or even the decade) in which this purported attempt to obtain uranium, and the quality of the uranium sought - may indicate that this is the incident referred to by the UK dossier and the State Department. According to a retired senior official who spoke to AFP, Niger cannot export uranium without the consent of its three partners, France, Japan and Spain. Niger's Prime Minister has stated that permission was not granted for uranium to be sold to Iraq (Voice of America, 27 December 2002).

The Director General of the IAEA indicated in his briefing to the Security Council (9 January 2003, para.12) that he had not received "any specific information" from the States making these allegations. This point was expanded upon in an interview on 12 January 2003: "There were reports from different member states that [...] [the Iraqis] were importing uranium from Africa [...]. They deny they have imported any uranium since 1991. (From) the U.S., the U.K. and others— we need to get specifics of when and where. We need actionable information."

On 7 March 2003, ElBaradei revealed to the Security Council that the allegations were centred around "documents provided by a number of States that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium between 1999 and 2001." After reviewing the evidence extensively - including "correspondence coming from various bodies of the Government of Niger" - and "compar[ing] the form, format, contents and signatures of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation", ElBaradei gave his assessment of the reliability of this information:

"the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents - which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger - are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."

ElBaradei concluded: "There is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990."

Key post-war readings:

* Seymour M. Hersh, "Who lied to whom?", The New Yorker, 31 March 2003.
* Joseph C. Wilson, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", The New York Times, 6 July 2003.
* Walter Pincus, "White House Backs Off Claim on Iraqi Buy", Washington Post, 8 July 2003.
* Dana Priest, "Uranium Claim Was Known for Months to Be Weak: Intelligence Officials Say 'Everyone Knew' Then What White House Knows Now About Niger Reference", Washington Post, 20 July 2003.
* David Pallister, "Uranium that never was", The Guardian, 31 July 2003.
* Walter Pincus, "Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation: Officials Made Uranium Assertions Before and After President's Speech", Washington Post, 8 August 2003.
* Seymour M. Hersh, forthcoming, The New Yorker, 22 October 2003.

And:

Linky

Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation
Officials Made Uranium Assertions Before and After President's Speech

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 8, 2003; Page A10

Since last month, presidential aides have said a questionable allegation, that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium for nuclear weapons, made it into President Bush's State of the Union address because of miscommunication between the CIA and Bush's staff.

But by the time the president gave the speech, on Jan. 28, that same allegation was already part of an administration campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. In January alone, it was included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by the president's four most senior national security officials.

The White House has acknowledged that it was a mistake to have included the uranium allegation in the State of the Union address. But an examination of how it originated, how it was repeated in January and by whom suggests that the administration was determined to keep the idea before the public as it built its case for war, even though the claim had been excised from a presidential speech the previous October through the direct intervention of CIA Director George J. Tenet.

Dan Bartlett, White House director of communications, said yesterday that the inclusion of the allegation in the president's State of the Union address "made people below feel comfortable using it as well." He said that there was "strategic coordination" and that "we talk broadly about what points to make," but he added: "I don't know of any specific talking points to say that this is supposed to be used."

The allegation appeared in a draft of a speech Bush was to give Oct. 7 to outline the threat that he said Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. In that draft, an unnamed White House speechwriter wrote, "The [Iraqi] regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa."

The statement the Iraqis "had been caught" was described as "over the top" by a senior administration official familiar with the sketchy intelligence on which the statement had been based. Tenet succeeded in having it stricken the day the speech was given on the grounds that intelligence did not support it.

The CIA arranged to have a similar allegation deleted from a speech that John D. Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was to give Dec. 20 before the U.N. Security Council.

Yet in the days before and after the president's State of the Union address, the allegation was repeated by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and in at least two documents sent out by the White House.

The first of those documents was a legislatively required report to Congress on Jan. 20 on matters "relevant to the authorization for use of military force against Iraq." It referred to Iraq as having failed to report to the United Nations "attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it." The second document, a report distributed to the public Jan. 23 covering Iraq's weapons concealment activities, highlighted Baghdad's failure to explain "efforts to procure uranium from abroad for its nuclear weapons program."

The same day, the op-ed page of the New York Times included a piece by Rice that said Iraq's Dec. 7 declaration of its weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad." In a speech that same day before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Wolfowitz said: "There is no mention [in the declaration] of Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from abroad."

Three days later, Powell, in a speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, asked: "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?"

And the day after the State of the Union address, Rumsfeld opened a news conference by saying of Hussein: "His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

When it came to the State of the Union speech, the White House has said that it was an unnamed speechwriter who reviewed a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq and perhaps a British intelligence dossier and came up with the 16-word sentence that Bush delivered: "The British government has learned Saddam Hussein has recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The NIE, dated Oct. 2, 2002, carried only four paragraphs on the subject, on page 25 of the 90-page document, according to unclassified excerpts released last month.

The first of those paragraphs said: "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake." Support for that characterization was an item saying "a foreign government service reported" that Niger was planning to send several tons of "pure uranium" to Iraq and that, as of early 2001, the two countries "reportedly were still working out arrangements" for as much as 500 tons. A second item said: "Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

According to the intelligence official, the "vigorously" language was "quoted verbatim out of a [Defense Intelligence Agency] paper," along with other paragraphs relating to Niger, Somalia and Congo.

The CIA, which had its doubts about the intelligence, did not include the uranium item in the NIE's "key judgments," nor even as one of six elements supporting the key judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, Tenet said in written answers to questions posed by The Washington Post. He added that the four paragraphs, which had originated from the Defense Intelligence Agency, were kept in the NIE for "completeness."

Tenet, in a statement July 11, described the CIA as having only "fragmentary intelligence" related to what he termed "allegations" of Hussein's efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa.

The British dossier, published Sept. 24, said in its executive summary: "We judge that Iraq . . . sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power program that could require it." It did not say the British had "learned" anything about Iraq and uranium. Support for that judgment was the single statement, "There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA suggested that the judgment be removed, but the British maintained then, as they do today, that they have their own source, which has not been disclosed.

Two congressional committees, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the inspectors general of the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon are all investigating how the material got into the president's speech.

There is one congressional query into how other administration officials came to repeat the allegation.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing July 9, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) asked Rumsfeld to supply information for the committee record on why he, on Jan. 29, and the president, the day earlier, had made this "very significant statement" at the same time "the intelligence community knew in the depths of their agency that this was not true."

Nothing had been supplied as of Wednesday, a committee aide said.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

And:

Linky

Bush Team Kept Airing Iraq Allegation
Officials Made Uranium Assertions Before and After President's Speech

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 8, 2003; Page A10

Since last month, presidential aides have said a questionable allegation, that Iraq had tried to buy African uranium for nuclear weapons, made it into President Bush's State of the Union address because of miscommunication between the CIA and Bush's staff.

But by the time the president gave the speech, on Jan. 28, that same allegation was already part of an administration campaign to win domestic and international support for invading Iraq. In January alone, it was included in two official documents sent out by the White House and in speeches and writings by the president's four most senior national security officials.

The White House has acknowledged that it was a mistake to have included the uranium allegation in the State of the Union address. But an examination of how it originated, how it was repeated in January and by whom suggests that the administration was determined to keep the idea before the public as it built its case for war, even though the claim had been excised from a presidential speech the previous October through the direct intervention of CIA Director George J. Tenet.

Dan Bartlett, White House director of communications, said yesterday that the inclusion of the allegation in the president's State of the Union address "made people below feel comfortable using it as well." He said that there was "strategic coordination" and that "we talk broadly about what points to make," but he added: "I don't know of any specific talking points to say that this is supposed to be used."

The allegation appeared in a draft of a speech Bush was to give Oct. 7 to outline the threat that he said Saddam Hussein posed to the United States. In that draft, an unnamed White House speechwriter wrote, "The [Iraqi] regime has been caught attempting to purchase substantial amounts of uranium oxide from sources in Africa."

The statement the Iraqis "had been caught" was described as "over the top" by a senior administration official familiar with the sketchy intelligence on which the statement had been based. Tenet succeeded in having it stricken the day the speech was given on the grounds that intelligence did not support it.

The CIA arranged to have a similar allegation deleted from a speech that John D. Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was to give Dec. 20 before the U.N. Security Council.

Yet in the days before and after the president's State of the Union address, the allegation was repeated by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz and in at least two documents sent out by the White House.

The first of those documents was a legislatively required report to Congress on Jan. 20 on matters "relevant to the authorization for use of military force against Iraq." It referred to Iraq as having failed to report to the United Nations "attempts to acquire uranium and the means to enrich it." The second document, a report distributed to the public Jan. 23 covering Iraq's weapons concealment activities, highlighted Baghdad's failure to explain "efforts to procure uranium from abroad for its nuclear weapons program."

The same day, the op-ed page of the New York Times included a piece by Rice that said Iraq's Dec. 7 declaration of its weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council "fails to account for or explain Iraq's efforts to get uranium from abroad." In a speech that same day before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Wolfowitz said: "There is no mention [in the declaration] of Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from abroad."

Three days later, Powell, in a speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, asked: "Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?"

And the day after the State of the Union address, Rumsfeld opened a news conference by saying of Hussein: "His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

When it came to the State of the Union speech, the White House has said that it was an unnamed speechwriter who reviewed a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq and perhaps a British intelligence dossier and came up with the 16-word sentence that Bush delivered: "The British government has learned Saddam Hussein has recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The NIE, dated Oct. 2, 2002, carried only four paragraphs on the subject, on page 25 of the 90-page document, according to unclassified excerpts released last month.

The first of those paragraphs said: "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake." Support for that characterization was an item saying "a foreign government service reported" that Niger was planning to send several tons of "pure uranium" to Iraq and that, as of early 2001, the two countries "reportedly were still working out arrangements" for as much as 500 tons. A second item said: "Reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

According to the intelligence official, the "vigorously" language was "quoted verbatim out of a [Defense Intelligence Agency] paper," along with other paragraphs relating to Niger, Somalia and Congo.

The CIA, which had its doubts about the intelligence, did not include the uranium item in the NIE's "key judgments," nor even as one of six elements supporting the key judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, Tenet said in written answers to questions posed by The Washington Post. He added that the four paragraphs, which had originated from the Defense Intelligence Agency, were kept in the NIE for "completeness."

Tenet, in a statement July 11, described the CIA as having only "fragmentary intelligence" related to what he termed "allegations" of Hussein's efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa.

The British dossier, published Sept. 24, said in its executive summary: "We judge that Iraq . . . sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power program that could require it." It did not say the British had "learned" anything about Iraq and uranium. Support for that judgment was the single statement, "There is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The CIA suggested that the judgment be removed, but the British maintained then, as they do today, that they have their own source, which has not been disclosed.

Two congressional committees, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the inspectors general of the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon are all investigating how the material got into the president's speech.

There is one congressional query into how other administration officials came to repeat the allegation.

At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing July 9, Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) asked Rumsfeld to supply information for the committee record on why he, on Jan. 29, and the president, the day earlier, had made this "very significant statement" at the same time "the intelligence community knew in the depths of their agency that this was not true."

Nothing had been supplied as of Wednesday, a committee aide said.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company