16 words; 16 questions.

[Joe]

Please. The same case could be made against Bill Clinton.

So in which manufactured scandal did Clinton defraud the American government? Actually, during the Clinton affair, the GOP was defrauding the American government, as they were using Government money to finance a partisan vendetta against a sitting president with no evidence.

He engaged in no actual defrauding, and neither did Bush. But using the standards that Dean apparently uses, yes, there is a case against Clinton. He lobbed cruise missiles at aspirin factories on faulty intelligence to cover up his sexual conquests and we have yet to find those mass graves in Kosovo that we were assured were there before going into that country.

And what fucking part of "perjury" and "obstruction of justice" do you not understand? He lied to deny a individual her day in court and no amount of spin is going to change that.

[Iceberg]

He engaged in no actual defrauding, and neither did Bush. But using the standards that Dean apparently uses, yes, there is a case against Clinton. He lobbed cruise missiles at aspirin factories on faulty intelligence to cover up his sexual conquests and we have yet to find those mass graves in Kosovo that we were assured were there before going into that country.

Sometimes I think the country would have been better served overall if Clinton had said, "Yeah, she gave me a blowjob. What the fuck are y'all going to do about it? Bend over and kiss my Presidential hinder."

And what fucking part of "perjury" and "obstruction of justice" do you not understand? He lied to deny a individual her day in court and no amount of spin is going to change that.

Perjury was based on an improper spin on the events - Clinton answered the question truthfully per the court's definitions. The court explicitly defined sex as male-female vaginal intercourse, which Clinton and Lewinsky had not done; therefore Clinton was correct in answering that he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Since the charge of perjury is therefore false, there is no obstruction of justice.

[Joe]

Oh, and by the way, it was CLINTON who switched the U.S. policy on Iraq to regime change (and correctly so) and engaged in air strikes on the country a number of times during his tenure as President, and he justified this with much of the same intel used to justify the Iraq war. The intelligence we received during the Clinton years seemed to confirm with out a doubt that Saddam Hussein had the WMD in question.

[Iceberg]

So Bush based a war on intel that was at minimum three years old.

That's not exactly a glowing recommendation, given how fast Republicans seem to claim that the Iraqis can hide and move bioweapon laboratories.

[Vympel]

I want irrefutable proof. Find me the source in which George W. Bush claims he knows exactly where weapons of mass destruction are being hidden.

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003

but, wait, what's this!

We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.

Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003

Can anyone here say "bunch of fucking liars"?

[Joe]

Perjury was based on an improper spin on the events - Clinton answered the question truthfully per the court's definitions. The court explicitly defined sex as male-female vaginal intercourse, which Clinton and Lewinsky had not done; therefore Clinton was correct in answering that he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Since the charge of perjury is therefore false, there is no obstruction of justice.

Using the letter of the law to get around the spirit of the law. Paula Jones had a civil right to her day in court, under a law which President Clinton signed, and he was not truthful with the court in this regard.

[Iceberg]

Perjury was based on an improper spin on the events - Clinton answered the question truthfully per the court's definitions. The court explicitly defined sex as male-female vaginal intercourse, which Clinton and Lewinsky had not done; therefore Clinton was correct in answering that he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Since the charge of perjury is therefore false, there is no obstruction of justice.

Using the letter of the law to get around the spirit of the law. Paula Jones had a civil right to her day in court, under a law which President Clinton signed, and he was not truthful with the court in this regard.

The letter of the law is what counts. You can't try somebody for a crime that wasn't committed, which is why the Senate refused to try Clinton after the House Republicans impeached him.

[Joe]

That's hardly irrefutable proof. I am no expert on Iraq's geography, but that sounds like a reasonably large area to search. Rumsfeld never said that the WMD would be found instantly.

[Iceberg]

That's hardly irrefutable proof. I am no expert on Iraq's geography, but that sounds like a reasonably large area to search. Rumsfeld never said that the WMD would be found instantly.

He said "We know where they are." And guess what - they didn't. Every time the Bush Administration has made a testable statement about where Iraqi WMDs were, it's proven false.

[Joe]

He said "we know where they are" and laid out a pretty big area that likely hasn't been completely searched yet. He NEVER said that he knew exactly where they were, just a general area in which they would be located.

By the way, is it so difficult to accept that some of these intelligence bumbles may have been good faith mistakes rather than an attempt to defraud the American people?

[Joe]

Perjury was based on an improper spin on the events - Clinton answered the question truthfully per the court's definitions. The court explicitly defined sex as male-female vaginal intercourse, which Clinton and Lewinsky had not done; therefore Clinton was correct in answering that he had not had sex with Monica Lewinsky. Since the charge of perjury is therefore false, there is no obstruction of justice.

Using the letter of the law to get around the spirit of the law. Paula Jones had a civil right to her day in court, under a law which President Clinton signed, and he was not truthful with the court in this regard.

The letter of the law is what counts. You can't try somebody for a crime that wasn't committed, which is why the Senate refused to try Clinton after the House Republicans impeached him.

It's still hairsplitting, and a ridiculous legalistic defense. In any case, the Starr Report reveals that Clinton likely did engage in some of the behaviour considered sex under the Court's defintion (fondling, the infamous cigar incident).

[Vympel]

He said "we know where they are" and laid out a pretty big area that likely hasn't been completely searched yet. He NEVER said that he knew exactly where they were, just a general area in which they would be located.

Oh come on. It's been months. The US has already arbitrarily lowered its standard of proof to "he had this much WMD" to "he had a weapons program". The war was sold on the notion that Iraq was an imminent, clear and present danger to the United States- not that sometime in the future, maybe, after sanctions were listed, Iraq might again attempt to pursue NBC weapons.

I called it overblown bullshit then and I find it infuriating that they (the media) make a big deal about it now, when the informtion was out there since at least February-March- however, there is too much focus on this forgery claim. There was an army of half-truths and out and out bullshit deployed, of which this is just one- not to mention disgusting backpedalling and outrageous statements like "oh, he destroyed them *just* prior to the war".

By the way, is it so difficult to accept that some of these intelligence bumbles may have been good faith mistakes rather than an attempt to defraud the American people?

Considering that the documents in particular were crude forgeries that were spotted in moments by the IAEA, I'm highly skeptical of such 'good faith mistakes'.

[Stravo]

What is starting to disturb me was the level of concern and urgency that the Administration was pushing, almosy as if they knew something bad was going to happen and were going to war to prevent it or head it off. Unfortunately for them it now looks like one of two things:

They were simply wrong, whatever intel they were relying on was VERY wrong.

or

They were intentionally playing the urgency game to scare people into agreeing with their position.

I'm not sure which to believe at the moment.

[Joe]

Oh come on. It's been months. The US has already arbitrarily lowered its standard of proof to "he had this much WMD" to "he had a weapons program". The war was sold on the notion that Iraq was an imminent, clear and present danger to the United States- not that sometime in the future, maybe, after sanctions were listed, Iraq might again attempt to pursue NBC weapons.

Uh, no. If Iraq represented a clear and present danger to the United States there would have been none of this preemption business, only the United States acting quickly to take out an already well-established threat. Bush never made the case that Iraq was a clear and present danger (Blair did, however), he only focused on the danger that it could present in the future. In his SoTU address, Bush flat out said there was no imminent threat from Iraq.

I called it overblown bullshit then and I find it infuriating that they (the media) make a big deal about it now, when the informtion was out there since at least February-March- however, there is too much focus on this forgery claim. There was an army of half-truths and out and out bullshit deployed, of which this is just one- not to mention disgusting backpedalling and outrageous statements like "oh, he destroyed them *just* prior to the war".

What is so difficult about digging a hole and putting a WMD inside of that hole?

[Axis Kast]

LOL! I live here. I voted on it. I know people who voted on it.

You live half a world away.

And you have the balls to question my interpretation of my fellow voters just from your own personal beliefs?

In case you weren't aware, I am an American citizen living in New York. The reference to South Africa is as relevant as all the other sham locations floating around.

Remember, never before has a situation like September 11th come up. Bush’s bullish approach has already solidified him as the most security-oriented candidate.

We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Read that statement again. He starts from Tikrit and the capital of Baghdad, then setting an unspecified range. What this all boils down to is: “We’ve received intelligence that dictates that weapons of mass destruction are in the country of Iraq – specifically in and around a pair of cities we’ve yet to fully pacify and in an area the size of some American states.” You’re going to town on your own biased analysis of what was said, Vympel. This kind of statement is more or less hot air. Rumsfeld might have been privy to electronic intelligence that spoke of a weapons program and then referenced Baghdad. Great. He has his case. That doesn’t mean he pinpointed specific sites.

Oh come on. It's been months. The US has already arbitrarily lowered its standard of proof to "he had this much WMD" to "he had a weapons program". The war was sold on the notion that Iraq was an imminent, clear and present danger to the United States- not that sometime in the future, maybe, after sanctions were listed, Iraq might again attempt to pursue NBC weapons.

That’s right. Months. Armed with nothing more than Rumsfeld’s blanket statements – which could very easily cover the whole of the country from a broad point-of-view. It took the Allies five years to uncover the Reich’s hidden stockpiles in Germany. The Soviet Union couldn’t locate a pair of nuclear boreholes in South Africa until two years after they were built – at a time when their satellites were tracking the SADF regularly and ANC agents were scattered throughout the country.

Iraq was a clear and present danger to United States national security interests. There’s a difference.

[Vympel]

What is so difficult about digging a hole and putting a WMD inside of that hole?

Because biological and chemical weapons have limited half-lifes that make them useless after storage- you can't just stick a barrel of shit in the dirt and expect it to remain lethal. Storing such arms requires special facilities, not holes in the dirt. In particular with Iraq's, which became useless quite quickly (Iran experience). And in the case of both nuclear, biological and chemical facilities, you need large, costly facilities to produce such weapons. You can't just dig them underground and expect

a: noone to notice ever

b: noone who built them to never say anything about it ever again (witness German contractors offering the US details of its Baghdad bunkers)

c: anyone who ever put anything in them not to say anything

Quite frankly, that any people still think that Iraq has the amounts of WMD that Bush claimed it had hidden somewhere in Iraq has lost touch with reality.

It took the Allies five years to uncover the Reich’s hidden stockpiles in Germany

With 1945 technology. Hidden stockpiles of what, where, and most importantly, what was invested in the search? The credibility of a US administration? I think not. That Bush and Rumsfeld have already abandoned their previous claims and resorted to claiming that Iraq had a 'program' should tell you something.

The Soviet Union couldn’t locate a pair of nuclear boreholes in South Africa until two years after they were built – at a time when their satellites were tracking the SADF regularly and ANC agents were scattered throughout the country.

And you bring up this useless false analogy for the umpteenth time, and I knock it down for the umpteenth time: the Soviet Union has not 'liberated' South Africa, nor was there any UN sanctioned inspections regime on South Africa.

In fact, out of curiosity more than anything else I'd like to see a source for this favorite claim of yours.

[Howedar]

In case you weren't aware, I am an American citizen living in New York. The reference to South Africa is as relevant as all the other sham locations floating around.

In case you weren't aware, New York is for all intents and purposes a full world away from the entire West Coast.