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Question about Iraq..

ProudAmerican said:
LMAO.....funny stuff.



sorry dude, that doesnt sound like the words of a man that thought someone was a "minor threat to the area"

but watching you tapdance sure is entertaining.
Click to expand...


It is really quite simple. Did Clinton invade Iraq? You know he didn't and you know your position is weak, which is why you're not contributing anything of value to the discussion here. I'm disappointed.
 
Goobieman said:
Yeaaaaah.

Tell me:
Pearl Harbor.
That was 2 airstrikes in one day.
Did the Japanese go to war with us?

You people wil do anything and everything you can to avoid having to admit your hypocricy.
Click to expand...


Doesn't really work. Japan's intention was to go to war. They fully expected to be retailiated against. However, Clinton knew there was nothing Saddam could do. There was absolutely no chance of Saddam striking back, which BTW is more evidence of Saddam's impedence.

So, not the same as Peal Harbor.
 
BigDog said:
It is really quite simple. Did Clinton invade Iraq? You know he didn't and you know your position is weak, which is why you're not contributing anything of value to the discussion here. I'm disappointed.
Click to expand...


LOL.....Ive contributed the fact that you are a hypocrite. Thats enough for me.

My position is that Clinton said the SAME EXACT THING THAT BUSH SAID and there is no way two people can say the exact same thing and one be a liar and the other simply be missunderstood.

the WEAK position here is that Bush and Clinton can both say "Saddam is a threat" and somehow one lied and the other didnt.

You have been cornered and dont like it, so you want to divert and claim somehow my position is weak and im not contributing.


keep on :2dancing: im enjoying the show.
 

You can when you are comparing apples an oranges. If at a red stop light, Clinton says the light is red, he's not lying. If a minute later, the light turns to green, and Bush says it is red, he's lying. Even tho they said the same thing.

But they didn't say the same thing.

the WEAK position here is that Bush and Clinton can both say "Saddam is a threat" and somehow one lied and the other didnt.
Click to expand...

The WEAK position here is that you are trying to argue they said the same things under the same circumstances.

You have been cornered and dont like it, so you want to divert and claim somehow my position is weak and im not contributing.

keep on :2dancing: im enjoying the show.
Click to expand...

He hasn't been cornerdered at all -- its just that you're the one doing the dancing.
 
You can when you are comparing apples an oranges. If at a red stop light, Clinton says the light is red, he's not lying. If a minute later, the light turns to green, and Bush says it is red, he's lying. Even tho they said the same thing.
Click to expand...

LMAO. god you are funny. you are the one comparing apples to oranges.

The WEAK position here is that you are trying to argue they said the same things under the same circumstances.
Click to expand...

please explain the differences.

The WEAK position here is that you are trying to argue they said the same things under the same circumstances.
Click to expand...

uh huh. if hes doing such a fantastic job, why did you feel the need to interject?
 
Bush....



Clinton.....



now you hypocritical, intellectually dishonest lefties may dream there is a difference there......but there isnt.

EITHER THEY BOTH LIED OR NEITHER LIED.


now...........get to


:monkey
 
ProudAmerican said:
Bush....

Clinton.....

now you hypocritical, intellectually dishonest lefties may dream there is a difference there......but there isnt.

EITHER THEY BOTH LIED OR NEITHER LIED.

now...........get to

:monkey
Click to expand...

Even taking the statements out of context like you post them, one can see the difference. Bush is talking about a state that has WMDs, except for nukes, which he'll have "one day". Clinton is talking about a threat that Iraq poses -- a rouge state with WMDs. Read the statements in context makes it clear that what Clinton is talking about is the threat that Iraq will develop WMDs, where as Bush is talking about an Iraq that actually has them.
 

now you are just intentionally being a prick. sorry, hate to name call, but you are intentionally trying to deceive and thats just not right.

"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now:
Click to expand...

THAT MEANS IRAQ IS A THREAT RIGHT NOW. IRAQ POSESSES THE THREAT OF WMDs.

you know it, I know it, and everyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty that is reading this knows it.

have some class will ya??
 
Bush......


Albright.....

"Saddam's goal ... is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed." -- Madeline Albright, 1998
Click to expand...

SADDAMS GOAL IS TO HAVE SANCTIONS LIFTED WHILE retaining his WMDs
 
Part I of II


Instead of calling me a prick (yeah, that's showing us real class) and then citing the statement of someone else as proof of I misread Clinton's statement, let's be honest for a change and look at Clinton's statement as a whole, OK?

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

Text of President Clinton's address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff:

Please be seated. Thank you.

...

So first, let's just take a step back and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering.

This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower confrontation has ended; on every continent democracy is securing for more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take for granted. Bit by bit the information age is chipping away at the barriers economic, political and social that once kept people locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.

But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know very well that this is not a time free from peril, especially as a result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals.

We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century. They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information and ideas.

And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to build arsenals of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us.

I want the American people to understand first the past how did this crisis come about?

And I want them to understand what we must do to protect the national interest, and indeed the interest of all freedom-loving people in the world.

Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the United Nations demanded not the United States the United Nations demanded, and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days this is way back in 1991 within 15 days his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them, to make a total declaration. That's what he promised to do.

The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained international experts called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal, and he had used it not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used chemical weapons, against combatants, against civilians, against a foreign adversary, and even against his own people.

And during the Gulf War, Saddam launched Scuds against Saudi Arabia, Israel and Bahrain.

Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the facts:

Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would simply amend the reports.

For example, Iraq revised its nuclear declarations four times within just 14 months and it has submitted six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been rejected by UNSCOM.

In 1995, Hussein Kamal, Saddam's son-in-law, and the chief organizer of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and the capacity to build many more.

Then and only then did Iraq admit to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities and weapon stocks. Previously, it had vehemently denied the very thing it just simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan and told the truth. Now listen to this, what did it admit?

It admitted, among other things, an offensive biological warfare capability notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs.

And I might say UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly understated its production.

As if we needed further confirmation, you all know what happened to his son-in-law when he made the untimely decision to go back to Iraq.

Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them, disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the front door. And our people were there observing it and had the pictures to prove it.

Despite Iraq's deceptions, UNSCOM has nevertheless done a remarkable job. Its inspectors the eyes and ears of the civilized world have uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than was destroyed during the Gulf War.

This includes nearly 40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons facility at Al Hakam equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly agents.

Over the past few months, as they have come closer and closer to rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken yet another gambit to thwart their ambitions.

By imposing debilitating conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still not been inspected off limits, including, I might add, one palace in Baghdad more than 2,600 acres large by comparison, when you hear all this business about presidential sites reflect our sovereignty, why do you want to come into a residence, the White House complex is 18 acres. So you'll have some feel for this.

One of these presidential sites is about the size of Washington, D.C. That's about how many acres did you tell me it was? 40,000 acres. We're not talking about a few rooms here with delicate personal matters involved.

It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole history of this operation since 1991, to protect whatever remains of his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to deliver them, and the feed stocks necessary to produce them.

The UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons.

Now, against that background, let us remember the past here. It is against that background that we have repeatedly and unambiguously made clear our preference for a diplomatic solution.

The inspection system works. The inspection system has worked in the face of lies, stonewalling, obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. The people who have done that work deserve the thanks of civilized people throughout the world.

[Con'd next post]
 
Part II

It has worked. That is all we want. And if we can find a diplomatic way to do what has to be done, to do what he promised to do at the end of the Gulf War, to do what should have been done within 15 days within 15 days of the agreement at the end of the Gulf War, if we can find a diplomatic way to do that, that is by far our preference.

But to be a genuine solution, and not simply one that glosses over the remaining problem, a diplomatic solution must include or meet a clear, immutable, reasonable, simple standard.

Iraq must agree and soon, to free, full, unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country. There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place.

Now those terms are nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end of the Gulf War. The Security Council, many times since, has reiterated this standard. If he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or continues to evade his obligations through more tactics of delay and deception, he and he alone will be to blame for the consequences.

I ask all of you to remember the record here what he promised to do within 15 days of the end of the Gulf War, what he repeatedly refused to do, what we found out in 1995, what the inspectors have done against all odds. We have no business agreeing to any resolution of this that does not include free, unfettered access to the remaining sites by people who have integrity and proven confidence in the inspection business. That should be our standard. That's what UNSCOM has done, and that's why I have been fighting for it so hard. And that's why the United States should insist upon it.

Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who's really worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.

Now we have spent several weeks building up our forces in the Gulf, and building a coalition of like-minded nations. Our force posture would not be possible without the support of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the GCC states and Turkey. Other friends and allies have agreed to provide forces, bases or logistical support, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic, Argentina, Iceland, Australia and New Zealand and our friends and neighbors in Canada.

That list is growing, not because anyone wants military action, but because there are people in this world who believe the United Nations resolutions should mean something, because they understand what UNSCOM has achieved, because they remember the past, and because they can imagine what the future will be depending on what we do now.

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. We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.

I am quite confident, from the briefing I have just received from our military leaders, that we can achieve the objective and secure our vital strategic interests.

Let me be clear: A military operation cannot destroy all the weapons of mass destruction capacity. But it can and will leave him significantly worse off than he is now in terms of the ability to threaten the world with these weapons or to attack his neighbors.

And he will know that the international community continues to have a will to act if and when he threatens again. Following any strike, we will carefully monitor Iraq's activities with all the means at our disposal. If he seeks to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, we will be prepared to strike him again.

The economic sanctions will remain in place until Saddam complies fully with all U.N. resolutions.

Consider this already these sanctions have denied him $110 billion. Imagine how much stronger his armed forces would be today, how many more weapons of mass destruction operations he would have hidden around the country if he had been able to spend even a small fraction of that amount for a military rebuilding.

We will continue to enforce a no-fly zone from the southern suburbs of Baghdad to the Kuwait border and in northern Iraq, making it more difficult for Iraq to walk over Kuwait again or threaten the Kurds in the north.

Now, let me say to all of you here as all of you know the weightiest decision any president ever has to make is to send our troops into harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes, it's the only answer.

You are the best prepared, best equipped, best trained fighting force in the world. And should it prove necessary for me to exercise the option of force, your commanders will do everything they can to protect the safety of all the men and women under their command.

No military action, however, is risk-free. I know that the people we may call upon in uniform are ready. The American people have to be ready as well.

Dealing with Saddam Hussein requires constant vigilance. We have seen that constant vigilance pays off. But it requires constant vigilance. Since the Gulf War, we have pushed back every time Saddam has posed a threat.

When Baghdad plotted to assassinate former President Bush, we struck hard at Iraq's intelligence headquarters.

When Saddam threatened another invasion by amassing his troops in Kuwait along the Kuwaiti border in 1994, we immediately deployed our troops, our ships, our planes, and Saddam backed down.

When Saddam forcefully occupied Irbil in northern Iraq, we broadened our control over Iraq's skies by extending the no-fly zone.

But there is no better example, again I say, than the U.N. weapons inspection system itself. Yes, he has tried to thwart it in every conceivable way, but the discipline, determination, year-in-year-out effort of these weapons inspectors is doing the job. And we seek to finish the job. Let there be no doubt, we are prepared to act.

But Saddam Hussein could end this crisis tomorrow simply by letting the weapons inspectors complete their mission. He made a solemn commitment to the international community to do that and to give up his weapons of mass destruction a long time ago now. One way or the other, we are determined to see that he makes good on his own promise.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq reminds us of what we learned in the 20th century and warns us of what we must know about the 21st. In this century, we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination, and when necessary action.

In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

[The one paragraph you cited]

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.

But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect peace and security in a new era. That is the future I ask you all to imagine. That is the future I ask our allies to imagine.

If we look at the past and imagine that future, we will act as one together. And we still have, God willing, a chance to find a diplomatic resolution to this, and if not, God willing, the chance to do the right thing for our children and grandchildren.

Thank you very much.


+++


Nowhere in this speech does Clinton say that Iraq has WMDs. The most he says is that UNSCOM inspectors believe he still has stockpiles of chems.

Clinton talked about how Iraq had left over WMDs and how the inspectors went in and destoyed hundreds of tons of stuff. What Clinton talks about as the threat posed by Iraq now is rebuilding WMDs, allowing him to build WMDS, opportunity to develop his program for WMDs, rebuilding an arsenal, and his WMD programs or operations. It is clear that what Clinton is talking about the danger posed by Iraq being allowed to develop WMDs, not the danger of the WMDs it has. It is clear that he is talking about raids because Iraq is not allowing the inspectors to do their jobs.

You took one ambigous statement in a paragraph that you probably found on some right wing Clinton-hate site and decided that was sufficient to understand what he said about the subject. Then you called me a "prick" because I had the gall to suggest he said something different and that you should read the whole statement in context.

Next time you call some a prick because you think they are misquoting a statement, you might try actually reading the statement first. Because calling someone a prick doesn't really show a lot of class, in my book. Especially when the person doing the name calling is wrong.
 
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Originally Posted by ProudAmerican
now you hypocritical, intellectually dishonest lefties may dream there is a difference there......but there isnt.

EITHER THEY BOTH LIED OR NEITHER LIED.


now...........get to
Click to expand...
They both lied.
 
Originally posted by Iriemon
What did Clinton lie about?
Click to expand...
That he didn't have sex with Monica. I'm just trying to get PA to shut-up about this "if Bush lied then Clinton lied" crap when we are specifically talking about Bush. If we were talking about Clinton, I wouldn't be bringing Bush in to defend everything Clinton does (or did). That's all.

So don't bust my balls on this one, Irie!
 
ProudAmerican said:
Bush....




Clinton.....




now you hypocritical, intellectually dishonest lefties may dream there is a difference there......but there isnt.

EITHER THEY BOTH LIED OR NEITHER LIED.


now...........get to


:monkey
Click to expand...


No, there is a difference. Clinton did not invade anyone and did not claim that Saddam reached the level that demanded we invade. I know nuance is hard, but there is a nuanced difference here. And it is a meaningful one. Bush took it up a notch, and that notch wasn't justified by the evidence.
 

LOL OK ya got me.
 

You see, here's the problem. You keep quoting things that are not the bone of contention. Now, even if Clinton lied, it doesn't excuse Bush (amazing how you can't seem to defend Bush at all), but find Clinton saying the following and we may have soemthing to talk about:

1) Saddam is a growing and gathering danger.
2) Saddam has wmds and we know where they are.
3) We can't wait for a mushroom cloud.
4) Saddam attempted to buy Uranium from ***** (is that even in the NIE?)

Again, try actually defending Bush based on what he knew and what he said. I know it is a novel concept, but it is the only one I will really accept.
 
Originally posted by Iriemon
Jeez how many infantile times are you going to beat a dead horse?
Click to expand...
Thank you!
 
Originally Posted by Goobieman
Yeaaaaah.

Tell me:
Pearl Harbor.
That was 2 airstrikes in one day.
Did the Japanese go to war with us?

You people wil do anything and everything you can to avoid having to admit your hypocricy.
Click to expand...
This is a bad analogy because Japan attacked us. Iraq did not.
 
Billo_Really said:
This is a bad analogy because Japan attacked us. Iraq did not.
Click to expand...

Because you clearly are unable or unwilling to figure this out on your own...

Regarding the 1998 attack on Iraq, and that we didnt go to war with Iraq, we only made airstrikes, and how that relates to Pearl harbor:

Bill Clinton = Hirohito
Iraq = Pearl Harbor

Got it now?

Of course you don't. Let the inanity ensue.
 
Instead of calling me a prick (yeah, that's showing us real class) and then citing the statement of someone else as proof of I misread Clinton's statement, let's be honest for a change and look at Clinton's statement as a whole, OK?
Click to expand...

Im not sure how you think that lengthy post changes anything.

But if it makes you feel better.....rock on.

I did find the very first sentence interesting though......

So first, let's just take a step back and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is important to our security in the new era we are entering.
Click to expand...

Youre right, he wasnt saying the same thing as Bush. LOL

The fact that you posted that entire speech as a way to prove me wrong is simply laughable. It does the exact opposite. The fact that you went through and hand picked a few things to put in bold text is also amusing.


Thanks, the paragraph preceeding the quote ive been using only helps my case.

Nice try. I will leave you libs to pat each other on the back now. Thats also a hoot to watch.
 
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you are still dodging.

I will concede that one didnt invade. Thats obvious. He would have rather terrorized asprin factories than actually deal with the issue. But it doesnt change the fact that they BOTH MADE THE SAME CLAIMS.
 


I AM DEFENDING BUSH. I have the testicular fortitude to say NEITHER MAN LIED. NOT EVEN CLINTON.

Im not the kind of shallow, partisan hack that would claim a man did something he didnt because of his party affiliation.

BOTH MEN KNEW THE THREAT WAS REAL.

ITs YOUR SIDE that contends one man lied and the other didnt.
 
Irie ,

do me a favor and go dig up the speeches given by Albright, Berger, Ritter, Kerry, Dascle, and Fienstien.

Im gonna use this stuff in future debates. Your help is greatly appreciated.

 
BigDog said:
You see, here's the problem. You keep quoting things that are not the bone of contention. Now, even if Clinton lied, it doesn't excuse Bush (amazing how you can't seem to defend Bush at all),
Click to expand...
The salient point behind Clinton lying to go to war war is that few, if any, of the people trying to claim Bush lied are not also claiming Clinton lied - in fact, they are doing everyting they can to avoid having to do so.

Having said that:
Neither of them lied and so there's no need to defend either.

but find Clinton saying the following and we may have soemthing to talk about:
Click to expand...
No problemo.

And before you get all snooty, I'm presuming you arent looking for quotes containing the exact same words; that quotes expressing the same message are sufficient. if indeed this isnt the case, then youre request was not made in good faith.

Source for all quotes
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

1) Saddam is a growing and gathering danger.

2) Saddam has wmds and we know where they are.

3) We can't wait for a mushroom cloud.

4) Saddam attempted to buy Uranium from *****
I think you need to quote the entire claim here.
Bush claimed that UK intel said this.
It did, and the UK stands behind it - even today.

Again, try actually defending Bush based on what he knew and what he said.
Click to expand...
On what he "knew"?
In order for Bush to have lied, as you claim, he had to have "known: that the statements we made were not true.
Show that he knew this.
 
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