Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs

[BlkbrryTheGreat]

They should have done this from the start.

Bush, Cheney Concede Saddam Had No WMDs

By SCOTT LINDLAW

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush and his vice president conceded Thursday in the clearest terms yet that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, even as they tried to shift the Iraq war debate to a new issue - whether the invasion was justified because Saddam was abusing a U.N. oil-for-food program.

Ridiculing the Bush administration's evolving rationale for war, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry shot back: ``You don't make up or find reasons to go to war after the fact.''

Vice President Dick Cheney brushed aside the central findings of chief U.S. weapons hunter Charles Duelfer - that Saddam not only had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991, but that he had no capability of making any either - while Bush unapologetically defended his decision to invade Iraq.

``The Duelfer report showed that Saddam was systematically gaming the system, using the U.N. oil-for-food program to try to influence countries and companies in an effort to undermine sanctions,'' Bush said as he prepared to fly to campaign events in Wisconsin. ``He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program once the world looked away.''


Duelfer found no formal plan by Saddam to resume WMD production, but the inspector surmised that Saddam intended to do so if U.N. sanctions were lifted. Bush seized upon that inference, using the word ``intent'' three times in reference to Saddam's plans to resume making weapons.


This week marks the first time that the Bush administration has listed abuses in the oil-for-fuel program as an Iraq war rationale. But the strategy holds risks because some of the countries that could be implicated include U.S. allies, such as Poland, Jordan and Egypt. In addition, the United States itself played a significant role in both the creation of the program and how it was operated and overseen.


For his part, Cheney dismissed the significance of Duelfer's central findings, telling supporters in Miami, ``The headlines all say `no weapons of mass destruction stockpiled in Baghdad.' We already knew that.''


The vice president said he found other parts of the report ``more intriguing,'' including the finding that Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.


``As soon as the sanctions were lifted, he had every intention of going back'' to his weapons program, Cheney said.


The report underscored that ``delay, defer, wait, wasn't an option,'' Cheney said. And he told a later forum in Fort Myers, Fla., speaking of the oil-for-food program: ``The sanctions regime was coming apart at the seams. Saddam perverted that whole thing and generated billions of dollars.''


Yet Bush and Cheney acknowledged more definitively than before that Saddam did not have the banned weapons that both men had asserted he did - and had cited as the major justification before attacking Iraq in March 2003.


Bush has recently left the question open. For example, when asked in June whether he thought such weapons had existed in Iraq, Bush said he would ``wait until Charlie (Duelfer) gets back with the final report.''


In July, Bush said, ``We have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction,'' a sentence construction that kept alive the possibility the weapons might yet be discovered.


On Thursday, the president used the clearest language to date nailing the question shut:


``Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there,'' Bush said. His words placed the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies.


In recent weeks, Cheney has glossed over the primary justification for the war, most often by simply not mentioning it. But in late January 2004, Cheney told reporters in Rome: ``There's still work to be done to ascertain exactly what's there.''


``The jury is still out,'' he told National Public Radio the same week, when asked whether Iraq had possessed banned weapons.


Duelfer's report was presented Wednesday to senators and the public with less than four weeks left in a fierce presidential campaign dominated by questions about Iraq and the war on terror.


In Bayonne, N.J., Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Thursday called ``amazing'' Cheney's assertions that the Duelfer report justified rather than undermined Bush's decision to go to war, and he accused the Republican of using ``convoluted logic.''


Kerry, in a campaign appearance in Colorado, said: ``The president of the United States and the vice president of the United States may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq.''


A short time later, while campaigning in Wisconsin, Bush angrily responded to Kerry's charge he sought to ``make up'' a reason for war.


``He's claiming I misled America about weapons when he, himself, cited the very same intelligence about Saddam weapons programs as the reason he voted to go to war,'' Bush said. Citing a lengthy Kerry quote from two years ago on the menace Saddam could pose, Bush said: ``Just who's the one trying to mislead the American people?''



10/07/04 20:56

[Illuminatus Primus]

You gotta be shitting me.

Abusing oil-for-food = invasion? And they didn't even know about that at the time - it cannot be a justification.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Why doesn't Kerry hit them on this "flip-flopping"; some Democrat strategist needs to come up with a clever term for how the Administration's post-facto reason for invading Iraq changes faster than the weather.

[Stormbringer]

Why not tell them the truth. We invaded because Saddamn messed with Daddy Bush and they're Ay-Rabs. And we all know that Ay-rabs are all damn dirty terrorists.

At least that would be more rational and consistent than this Flavor of the Week crap. They just need to pick a scanty justification and run with it. At the very least they'll embarass America less if they stick with their lies.

[Darth Wong]

The really sad thing is when their supporters parrot their bullshit word for word, and they're completely sincere too. It's as if they honestly don't seem to realize that there's anything wrong with the justification for the war changes like the weather.

[Macross]

Why doesn't Kerry hit them on this "flip-flopping"; some Democrat strategist needs to come up with a clever term for how the Administration's post-facto reason for invading Iraq changes faster than the weather.

Hopefully he will during the next presidential debate.

[Equinox2003]

And he blames it on his intelligence sources!! I thought Bush was the one
who gave the orders. All those lives lost...and he will not even say 'oops!'
No, he just points his finger at his sources. I guess the thought of...oh,
I don't know....CONFIRMING what they told him BEFORE he acted was
just not a good idea to him......I am stunned people are actually going
to vote for him.

[Darth Wong]

As I might have said elsewhere, Bush is basically a generic incompetent manager. The first thing one of these ass-clowns will do after any fuck-up is to point fingers at the people who were doing his bidding.

[Patrick Degan]

Bush: "It's not my fault; I was only giving orders."

[Ender]

So much for "The Buck Stops Here".

[Equinox2003]

You said it Ender! Reminds me of what Conan said the other night:
President Truman had a sign on his desk that said:The buck stops here,
while Bush has a sign on his desk that says:desk

[Durandal]

Bush: "It's not my fault; I was only giving orders."

"I can't be held responsible for what my goons were ordered to do!"
-C. Montgomery Burns.

[jegs2]

Intelligence at the time led the President (and everyone else) to believe that Saddam had WMD. If someone is pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer, that officer doesn't know the gun is unloaded until he after the incident, perhaps only once he's pumped some rounds into the perp. It's all too easy to say, "See! He wasn't even armed! The gun wasn't even loaded! I'd have never shot him as you did!"

Kerry and his ilk have made excellent fifth-quarter quarterbacks, hindsight being an excellent gift. He's also been an excellent stone-thrower from his glass house with his double-speak and outright lies, with his empty rhetoric of "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"

"While our actions should be thoughtfully and carefully determined and structured, while we should always seek to use peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve serious problems before resorting to force, and while we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise," Kerry stated. "I believe this is such a situation, Mr. President. It is time for resolve."

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

Notice also that Bill Clinton has not rushed in to condemn Bush, because he too had the same intelligence:

"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."

"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."

Most intelligence now suggests that Saddam fully intended to reconstitute his WMD program, and he worked hard to hide as much as he could from inspectors. But then it's easier to throw stones at leaders and decision makers than to have to make hard decisions oneself based on available intelligence at the moment of truth.

While most here may not like Bush, picking a walking disaster like Kerry as one's champion is simply pathetic. The whole "Bush lied about WMD" is a dead end, and there are many things one can genuinely oppose him for based on his policies.

For those of you who simply must have a Liberal in the Whitehouse, you might do well to wait until '08 to pick the ultimate of Liberal Heroes, someone who at least speaks her mind and leaves little doubt as to her intent: Hillary.

[Darth Wong]

Intelligence at the time led the President (and everyone else) to believe that Saddam had WMD. If someone is pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer, that officer doesn't know the gun is unloaded until he after the incident, perhaps only once he's pumped some rounds into the perp. It's all too easy to say, "See! He wasn't even armed! The gun wasn't even loaded! I'd have never shot him as you did!"

Nice analogy. Too bad it's totally false. This is more like somebody cowering in a corner while the cop beats the shit out of him with a nightstick, screaming "I'm pretty sure he's armed! I know because I gave him a gun last year!"

Kerry and his ilk have made excellent fifth-quarter quarterbacks, hindsight being an excellent gift. He's also been an excellent stone-thrower from his glass house with his double-speak and outright lies, with his empty rhetoric of "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"

Are you suggesting that it was the right war, in the right place, at the right time? As I recall, even you had your doubts before the war actually began.

"While our actions should be thoughtfully and carefully determined and structured, while we should always seek to use peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve serious problems before resorting to force, and while we should always seek to take significant international actions on a multilateral rather than a unilateral basis whenever that is possible, if in the final analysis we face what we truly believe to be a grave threat to the well-being of our Nation or the entire world and it cannot be removed peacefully, we must have the courage to do what we believe is right and wise," Kerry stated. "I believe this is such a situation, Mr. President. It is time for resolve."

That says "we need to take action". It does not say that action must be a full-scale invasion and occupation. Clinton took action against Hussein on a number of occasions.

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

So in your view, the word "disarm" necessarily means "invade and occupy his country"?

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."

Notice also that Bill Clinton has not rushed in to condemn Bush, because he too had the same intelligence:

"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."

"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."

Most intelligence now suggests that Saddam fully intended to reconstitute his WMD program, and he worked hard to hide as much as he could from inspectors. But then it's easier to throw stones at leaders and decision makers than to have to make hard decisions oneself based on available intelligence at the moment of truth.

And Clinton did take action on a number of occasions, albeit without the disastrous recklessness of Bush. What's your point?

While most here may not like Bush, picking a walking disaster like Kerry as one's champion is simply pathetic. The whole "Bush lied about WMD" is a dead end, and there are many things one can genuinely oppose him for based on his policies.

The fact that it's true or that the Bush Administration hushed up the infighting in both its own energy and intel departments over this supposedly open-and-shut case doesn't bother you at all, does it? You just call it a "dead end", bash Kerry, and try to change the subject.

For those of you who simply must have a Liberal in the Whitehouse, you might do well to wait until '08 to pick the ultimate of Liberal Heroes, someone who at least speaks her mind and leaves little doubt as to her intent: Hillary.

Ah yes, I almost forgot that it's necessary to use the word "Liberal" as an insult before signing off. Very doctrinaire of you; did you copy this rant from a right-wing blogger?

[Ender]

Intelligence at the time led the President (and everyone else) to believe that Saddam had WMD. If someone is pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer, that officer doesn't know the gun is unloaded until he after the incident, perhaps only once he's pumped some rounds into the perp. It's all too easy to say, "See! He wasn't even armed! The gun wasn't even loaded! I'd have never shot him as you did!"

Bush & Co keep talking about how they ahve kept the country safe. Since it was an intelligence failure that led to 9/11, this means that part of keeping us safe would mean fixing the intelligence service so it provided accurate information. After 2 years, it still wasn't doing that. He mroe then failed in his responsibility to correct the error, he made zero attempt to correct it until recently.

No matter how you try and spin this jegs, you cannot get away from the fact that the man simply didn't do his fucking job.

[jegs2]

Are you suggesting that it was the right war, in the right place, at the right time? As I recall, even you had your doubts before the war actually began.

Before hostilities began, I felt invading Iraq was not the wisest course of action. Once the invasion was on, you will find no greater supporter. Once committed, victory is the only allowable outcome, lest all sacrifices have been in vain. We should leave only once a stable government friendly to the US is firmly in place. That has always been my stance.

[Darth Wong]

Are you suggesting that it was the right war, in the right place, at the right time? As I recall, even you had your doubts before the war actually began.

Before hostilities began, I felt invading Iraq was not the wisest course of action. Once the invasion was on, you will find no greater supporter. Once committed, victory is the only allowable outcome, lest all sacrifices have been in vain. We should leave only once a stable government friendly to the US is firmly in place. That has always been my stance.

I understand that, and expect nothing less. However, if you concede that before the war, there were serious doubts about the wisdom of this action, then you concede that the wisdom of the man who made this decision is also questionable. Moreover, you also concede that the "hindsight is 20/20" argument is actually an evasion, since there were valid reasons to doubt the wisdom of this action before the war (especially now that some of the Bush Administration's dishonesty has been revealed, and that they suppressed dissent even within their own ranks on this matter).

[jegs2]

I understand that, and expect nothing less. However, if you concede that before the war, there were serious doubts about the wisdom of this action, then you concede that the wisdom of the man who made this decision is also questionable. Moreover, you also concede that the "hindsight is 20/20" argument is actually an evasion, since there were valid reasons to doubt the wisdom of this action before the war (especially now that some of the Bush Administration's dishonesty has been revealed, and that they suppressed dissent even within their own ranks on this matter).

Had Kerry been strident about not invading Iraq before the decision was made, then I could actually possess some respect for him. As it is, nobody can figure out where he stands, or for what he stands. As to dishonesty on the part of President Bush, I don't buy it. In regards to the Iraq war, one can argue recklessness on the part of President Bush, but not dishonesty. From all accounts, he was very zealous and appears to have rushed in without a good plan. One should now be arguing on what a coherent and workable plan for outright victory should be. To my knowledge, no candidate has put forth such a plan to date.

[Darth Wong]

I understand that, and expect nothing less. However, if you concede that before the war, there were serious doubts about the wisdom of this action, then you concede that the wisdom of the man who made this decision is also questionable. Moreover, you also concede that the "hindsight is 20/20" argument is actually an evasion, since there were valid reasons to doubt the wisdom of this action before the war (especially now that some of the Bush Administration's dishonesty has been revealed, and that they suppressed dissent even within their own ranks on this matter).

Had Kerry been strident about not invading Iraq before the decision was made, then I could actually possess some respect for him.

Actually, I don't have much respect for him either, but at least he was not responsible for the cover-ups and deceptions and corporate cronyism that Bush has been over the last 4 years. The lesser of two evils does not merit respect per se, but it's still the lesser of two evils.

As it is, nobody can figure out where he stands, or for what he stands. As to dishonesty on the part of President Bush, I don't buy it. In regards to the Iraq war, one can argue recklessness on the part of President Bush, but not dishonesty.

Yes you can. There was dissent from his own energy and intel departments about his WMD claims, and his administration hushed it up in order to present a unified front to the world, to the public, and to the Congress. That's dishonesty. We even have quotes and video clips from Conoleeza Rice and Colin Powell both testifying in 2001 that Saddam was harmless, had been declawed, and had been successfully contained. "Flip-flop" indeed.

From all accounts, he was very zealous and appears to have rushed in without a good plan. One should now be arguing on what a coherent and workable plan for outright victory should be. To my knowledge, no candidate has put forth such a plan to date.

So at least we should punish the one who got us into this mess. You're a military officer; you should know perfectly that when you fuck up, you're supposed to accept responsibility rather than arguing that nobody can come up with a better plan to dig out of the hole you made.

[salm]

Intelligence at the time led the President (and everyone else) to believe that Saddam had WMD.

actually that´s a lie. large fractons of the entire world never believed that saddam had WMD. just because you believed bush doesn´t mean that everybody believed bush.
there were truckloads of people who wanted to continue the search for WMD before actually claiming that there ARE WMD.

If someone is pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer, that officer doesn't know the gun is unloaded until he after the incident, perhaps only once he's pumped some rounds into the perp. It's all too easy to say, "See! He wasn't even armed! The gun wasn't even loaded! I'd have never shot him as you did!"

so remind me, which were these unloaded WMD which saddam aimed at bush you are taliking about?
that anology is simply crapatular.

[Patrick Degan]

Intelligence at the time led the President (and everyone else) to believe that Saddam had WMD. If someone is pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer, that officer doesn't know the gun is unloaded until he after the incident, perhaps only once he's pumped some rounds into the perp. It's all too easy to say, "See! He wasn't even armed! The gun wasn't even loaded! I'd have never shot him as you did!"

Right... except for the qualifiers the CIA placed on its reports, and the continuing results of the UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections running up to the war which failed to support the White House's case, we can believe this theory.

Kerry and his ilk have made excellent fifth-quarter quarterbacks, hindsight being an excellent gift. He's also been an excellent stone-thrower from his glass house with his double-speak and outright lies, with his empty rhetoric of "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"

Except the issue isn't what Kerry believed at the time based on the filtered reports Congress received which led them to support the Bush resolution to authourise force if needed. Nor does this touch upon the fact that Bush simply could not wait for confirmation before beating the war drums. And let's have an end to this horseshit analogy of the cop facing a gun he doesn't know is loaded or unloaded, shall we? The United States was never faced with an immediate threat requiring immediate action to put a stop to it even assuming that Saddam Hussein had the CBW arsenal he was alleged to have and would have been only months away from an atomic bomb.

Most intelligence now suggests that Saddam fully intended to reconstitute his WMD program, and he worked hard to hide as much as he could from inspectors. But then it's easier to throw stones at leaders and decision makers than to have to make hard decisions oneself based on available intelligence at the moment of truth.

Nice. But the case for war was based on "imminent threat" from an already-extant arsenal, not "intent to one day seek the means to initiate the first steps toward resuming 'Weapon of Mass Destruction Related Programme Activities™' to one day pose a threat, maybe". And Saddam could have intended something to his heart's content. Intent without the capacity to actually follow through on it means exactly dick.

And there was no "moment of truth" being faced even assuming Iraq possessed the Vast WMD Arsenal™ it was alleged to have, and far less of one with the question seriously in doubt even at the time.

While most here may not like Bush, picking a walking disaster like Kerry as one's champion is simply pathetic. The whole "Bush lied about WMD" is a dead end, and there are many things one can genuinely oppose him for based on his policies.

Sticking with the known disaster that is Bush as your champion, whose dishonesty and incompetence have been demonstrated beyond doubt, is even more pathetic.

For those of you who simply must have a Liberal in the Whitehouse, you might do well to wait until '08 to pick the ultimate of Liberal Heroes, someone who at least speaks her mind and leaves little doubt as to her intent: Hillary.

Invoking the "Hillary in '08" bogeywoman doesn't make for an argument on any issue relevant to today.

[The Kernel]

Had Kerry been strident about not invading Iraq before the decision was made, then I could actually possess some respect for him. As it is, nobody can figure out where he stands, or for what he stands. As to dishonesty on the part of President Bush, I don't buy it. In regards to the Iraq war, one can argue recklessness on the part of President Bush, but not dishonesty. From all accounts, he was very zealous and appears to have rushed in without a good plan. One should now be arguing on what a coherent and workable plan for outright victory should be. To my knowledge, no candidate has put forth such a plan to date.

It's really not that hard to see where Kerry stands on this issue. He agreed that Saddam was a potential threat to his neighbors and had to be disarmed, either through negotiation or through military action.

Here's the rub though, at no time to my knowledge has Kerry stated that invading and occupying Iraq was the proper course of action. I'm actually quite surprised that GWB took it this far; Saddam was far more dangerous during the first Gulf War and yet Bush Sr. had the minimum of good sense to know that while repelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait and destroying their ability to make war was the proper course of action, occupation of Iraq would never make much sense as it would have required an enormous amount of resources and still would have probably turned out badly.

What people like GWB obviously don't realize is that occupying Iraq has led to the same problems that previous American meddling in the region has caused in the past. The Iranian theocracy can be seen as a direct result of US governmental support in Iran which meant that when the revolution came, the US was the first that the Iranians pointed the finger at after the Shah. Despite all this, the secularist movement has been gaining momentum in Iran and was probably going to replace the Iranian government eventually through sheer weight of numbers...until the US invaded their neighbor and called Iran part of the "Axis of Evil". That right there probably set back the Iranian secularist revolution by at least a decade.

What we can take away from all these lessons is that nation building simply doesn't work, these countries have to learn how to grow up on their own. This is not to say we shouldn't police them to ensure that dangerous regimes don't end up with WMD's (which IMO justified a strike against Saddam) but conquering and occupying these nations is an ass backwards approach and will only increase the backlash against the Western nations. THAT is where GWB fucked up in my mind: he wasn't completely forthright to the American people about either our reasons OR our chances of success. He knew that the odds were heavily slanted against our ability to make any useful change through force, yet he went ahead and did it anyways. Worse, he did it on a unilateral basis (don't bother mentioning the US coalition, we all know that this is the United States' war) which makes our credibility even more strained, which is essential to any kind of progress in the region.

Now, I am aware that any kind of work in Iraq would take time in order to see any success, so I'm not going to really count the various terrorist attacks in the region against Bush. What I WILL hold against him is that the anti-American feelings in the entire greater Middle East has shot up to an alarming degree. We are seen as conquerors, not liberators. Worse, although there might conceivably be time to turn things around, the situations in Iraq show that the US is completely out of touch with both the leadership and good decision making regarding reconstruction. Afghanistan has come under the control of local warlords, we turned a theocractic society into one that has utter anarchy. Power in Iraq is shifting more and more to religious leaders who are carving out there own groups and getting ready to fight one another as soon as Americas back is turned. And instead of working to create jobs in Iraq by hiring them to do the reconstruction, we instead bring in contractors like Halliburton and Bektol which are more expensive and are getting no-contract bids to boot. Those jobs could have helped revitalize the Iraqi labor market and economy, but instead all they are doing is going back to American contractors.

THESE are the mistakes that I place squarely on GWB. Everyone looks at the decision to go to war as if that was the biggest point of dissension without realizing that it was the time, place and how the war was fought that is really the key issue here. GWB's handling of Iraq is a textbook example of how NOT to handle a hostile Middle Eastern nation, yet everyone is acting like this was a simple yes/no decision of whether or not to go to war while the actual truth is FAR more complicated.

[Sokartawi]

Are you suggesting that it was the right war, in the right place, at the right time? As I recall, even you had your doubts before the war actually began.

Before hostilities began, I felt invading Iraq was not the wisest course of action. Once the invasion was on, you will find no greater supporter. Once committed, victory is the only allowable outcome, lest all sacrifices have been in vain. We should leave only once a stable government friendly to the US is firmly in place. That has always been my stance.

Can't you admit that your country made a big mistake? They said things along these lines during the Vietnam war too, that the US had to win this war at ANY cost. At least 1.5 million Vietnamese CIVILIANS died there, how much more innocents would have had to die for a US victory?

Problem is now that Iraq, if not the entire middle-east, has been set back by decades at best and damaged beyond repair at worst, and all of this stuff only incites more hate and terrorism instead of cooling it down, as there are many people who have lost friends, families or their house and property due to this screw-up of the US.

What to do now I don't know, but a big formal apology and payment of reparations to Iraq would be a start. And do not interfere in the elections. If these people want a bunch of US-hating theocrats to lead them, then they have every right.

[Ma Deuce]

At least 1.5 million Vietnamese CIVILIANS died there,

Civilian deaths during Vietnam were closer to 4 million. 1.5 milion sounds like the combined casualties for VC/NVA combatants...

[Sokartawi]

At least 1.5 million Vietnamese CIVILIANS died there,

Civilian deaths during Vietnam were closer to 4 million. 1.5 milion sounds like the combined casualties for VC/NVA combatants...

I know they were much higher but got into problems with certain people at another board which immediately demanded proof and links for such numbers and I couldn't immediately find one from a source these idiots found acceptable, everytime I brought something up they just said the site was a known anti-US propaganda site , so I'd rather not risk that stuff again...