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Question about Iraq..

goobieman,

are you able to receive private messages here?
 
ProudAmerican said:
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.

:cool:

Suit yourself. You've demonstrated it doesn't matter to you what was actually said.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by Goobieman
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.
It's right there in my sig.
 
Billo_Really said:
It's right there in my sig.

If that constitutes "proof" in your mind, it's no wonder you are the way you are.
 
Billo_Really said:
It's right there in my sig.
In reality though Billo, the N/ger disinformation was tangential to but not one of the core reasons for intervention. Even without WMD, Iraq and the world are much better off without Saddam and the fascist Ba'ath Party.
 
Originally posted by Goobieman:
If that constitutes "proof" in your mind, it's no wonder you are the way you are.
And if you think it doesn't, no wonder you are the same.

In addition, when you say you "know" something [location of WMD's in Iraq], and you don't, that's a lie!

And when you make the case that Iraq was a threat to the United States, that is also a lie!

Finally, my sig proves he new the "uranium tubes" story was fraudulent, but went ahead with it anyway. Just like it was stated in DSM.
 
And when you make the case that Iraq was a threat to the United States, that is also a lie!
Did you lie about UNSCR1441 and HR114, or where you just wrong?

Finally, my sig proves he new the "uranium tubes" story was fraudulent, but went ahead with it anyway. Just like it was stated in DSM.
Tell me, in specific terms how someone that "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-N.i.g.e.r deal were forgeries." proves Bush's claim was fradulent.
 
Tashah said:
In reality though Billo, the N/ger disinformation was tangential to but not one of the core reasons for intervention. Even without WMD, Iraq and the world are much better off without Saddam and the fascist Ba'ath Party.

That will remain to be seen. With Hussein there was a neutralized petty tyrant, who like to goad the US to improve his image as standing up to the great indifel leader. But he was not a radical Islamist, was relatively secular, and Iraq was at least stable.

Now we have an Iraq that is destabilized, in civil war, held together by the presence of 125,000 US troops that are costing US taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. You have a magnet for Al-Queda converts and other radicals converving in Iraq. You have separatists and radicals vying for control of the country. There has been a tremendous explosion of terrorist activity in the country and the war is imflaming radical Islam. Scores of thousands are dead, many times more maimed. The world is a more dangerous place. I'm not so sure the US is better off at all, much less much better off, or will be in the long run.
 
Lachean said:
Its the "before he started" part....
the Democrats like to push and they LOVE people like you who ask questions without knowing the whole truth.

There have been so much documentation and witnesses who have come forward to admit/testify that Hussien did have a stockpile of chemical and biological weapons but moved them across the border in the days before the war started.
One of Hussein's top Generals....

Another base Commander who personallyinspected a truck filled with them that were supposed to be used against our troops before it was pulled out and sent to Syria days before the attack.......

UK Special Ops stopped a truck heading from Iraq into Iran several days before the war began - the truck was filled with nuclear material. Since the war had not started they could not legally confiscate the cargo, but they did take down the serail numbers of the nuclear material and gave it to the UN's nuclear commission, a fact that they have acknowledged. The commission has asked Iran repeatedly to inspect its nuclear program to compare the serial numbers - the Iranians STILL REFUSE to allow the U.N. to inspect. That nuclear material is now what Iran is using in its own nuclear program today.

A syrian General reported to us that he has witnessed the off-loading some of the trucks to Syria.......

Our military watched the long convoys from Iraq into Syria in the days leading up to the war....

We have the recordings of Hussein and his cabinet talking in the days before the war discussing the paln to ship all the WMD into Syria.....

Yet the Bush-hating Libs STILL refuse to acknowledge any of the evidence! They demand to have proof. what about the cannisters of biologican and chemical weapons, used as mortars, found in Iraq - weapons that had been reported as having been destroyed already by Hussein. The Libs then declared that not enough of the weapons were found, which obviously approved that Hussein had just overlooked those instead of having LIED and HIDDEN HIS WMD! (Yeah, come on everyone! Youcan trust Saddam - he just forgot about these!) How about the several tons of the Yellowcake Uranium found in baghdad we found the day we pulled into town, the uranium, which the Dems had previously labeled as WMD but said Iraq had never received? All of a sudden the same democrats who had called yellowcake uranium WMD earlier were beginning to declare that now it was NOT. The argument made to me by someone on this board was that yellowcake was the same as the ingredient SALT - just an ingredient. While i conceded that yellowcake was just an ingredient like salt, unlike salt, it is the primary ingredient for making NUKES!


Blah, blah, blah....on and on. People on this board keep doing what even the most liberal bush-bashering politicians have stopped doing - trying to deny the idea that Hussein did not have any WMD weapons! Instead, those politicians have forgottenthat lame argument and moved on to other more win-able arguments.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, floats like a duck, quacks like a duck, and you overhear the farmer say he going to hide the duck so you can't find it, no matter how much anyone else wants to say otherwise, its a freakin' duck!

taking down Hussein, however, quite possibly made us less safe because it put Iraq's nuclear material in the hands of a nation who hates Americans almost as much as Isreaelis and a country who actually aided the perpetrators of 9/11! Iran has declared that it would sell its nukes to anyone wo wanted them, especially to anyone who would use them to target this nation. The UK should have seized the shipment when they had the chance!
 
Iriemon said:
That will remain to be seen. With Hussein there was a neutralized petty tyrant, who like to goad the US to improve his image as standing up to the great indifel leader. But he was not a radical Islamist, was relatively secular, and Iraq was at least stable.

Now we have an Iraq that is destabilized, in civil war, held together by the presence of 125,000 US troops that are costing US taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. You have a magnet for Al-Queda converts and other radicals converving in Iraq. You have separatists and radicals vying for control of the country. There has been a tremendous explosion of terrorist activity in the country and the war is imflaming radical Islam. Scores of thousands are dead, many times more maimed. The world is a more dangerous place. I'm not so sure the US is better off at all, much less much better off, or will be in the long run.
Secularist doesn't equate to harmless. Iraq was unstable even under Saddam's control. The mass graves at Abu Ghraib, al-Hillah and Halabja serve as grisly reminders that both Iraq and Saddam were internally unstable. The Iraqi Mukahbarat (Security Service) was involved in training foreign terrorists at its Salman Pak facility. Saddam also supported and protected the al-Ansar terrorist organization which is strongly affiliated with al-Qa'ida.

The overwhelming preponderance of Iraqi's are overjoyed that Saddam's tyranny is now relegated to the ash-heap of history. The 'insurgency' is composed of hard-core Ba'athists, foreign Islamicists like al-Zarqawi, and an unknown number of the 100,000 criminals Saddam released from prison just prior to the invasion. Common sense tells us that it is better to engage these enemies in a known theater of operations rather than try to hunt them down on a global scale. The cost of the war is indeed high in blood and money, but nowhere near the bloody and economic costs of unfettered terrorist attacks in the homeland. September 11 is testament that the world was a dangerous place long before US intervention in Iraq. Since the invasion, rogue nations such as Syria, Sudan, and Libya have modified their behavior.

Hiding one's head in the sand is temporarily comforting, but it is a faux comfort. Islamist fanaticism and terrorism would only be emboldened and even more dangerous if the US withdrew into isolationism. Much like Nazism and Stalinist communism, it is necessary and incumbent for the US to engage Islamist terrorism well before it arrives in force at the threshold.
 
My Opinion; Saddam had WMD, Saddam used WMD against the Iranians and his own people, Saddam was a Bad Bad Man, and I thought they would find the generic WMD. I am really suprised they have not found any, and I am sure that at some point in time they will find some buried in an old bunker or something. I was one of those rare people who thought that it wasn't about the WMD----It was about the urgency of the threat. The Threat level introduced by our government suggested that Saddam was at least an "Urgent" Threat, if not imminent. The fact of the matter is that if he had them or did not have does not MATTER. We are in Iraq right now, debating why we got there is no longer an issue.

You see, no one is going to talk me out of believing that the greatest threat to the world in March 2003 was not Iraq. It was another country whose human rights violations are almost a kept secret in America, and its connections to those who would hurt us are much greater than Saddam would or could ever be. Alas, they have no oil, and they could fight back.
 
Tashah said:
Secularist doesn't equate to harmless. Iraq was unstable even under Saddam's control. The mass graves at Abu Ghraib, al-Hillah and Halabja serve as grisly reminders that both Iraq and Saddam were internally unstable. The Iraqi Mukahbarat (Security Service) was involved in training foreign terrorists at its Salman Pak facility. Saddam also supported and protected the al-Ansar terrorist organization which is strongly affiliated with al-Qa'ida.

I didn't say he was harmless. Iraq was and has been inherently unstable, I agree. It is more unstable now.

The evidence on Salman Pak I've seen is sketchy. The US govt was quite, but there the reports that after the invasion based on inspection by US intellegence was that there was no evidence that it was being used to train terrorists. Someone posted something to the contrary more recently, I haven't investigate that.

The overwhelming preponderance of Iraqi's are overjoyed that Saddam's tyranny is now relegated to the ash-heap of history. The 'insurgency' is composed of hard-core Ba'athists, foreign Islamicists like al-Zarqawi, and an unknown number of the 100,000 criminals Saddam released from prison just prior to the invasion. Common sense tells us that it is better to engage these enemies in a known theater of operations rather than try to hunt them down on a global scale.

I don't necessarily agree. Hussein was a bad guy; but the blood was on his hands. We have gone in and started a civil/terrorist campaign in the country that arguably is killing Iraqis as fast as they were dying under Hussein. But now the blood is on our hands, and we are getting the blame.

The cost of the war is indeed high in blood and money, but nowhere near the bloody and economic costs of unfettered terrorist attacks in the homeland.

Maybe. US casualties from the Iraq war are about 7x higher than from 9-11, the number of US deaths will be higher in a few months. The blood from the overall dead is many multiple times higher than 9-11. The economic costs of the war is far higher.

Plus there is no evidence I have seen that Iraq was ever implicated in a terrorist attack against the US, or was ever directly implicated in any terrorist attack, that I am aware of. So I don't see the connection between invading Iraq and the costs of attacks on the US.

September 11 is testament that the world was a dangerous place long before US intervention in Iraq. Since the invasion, rogue nations such as Syria, Sudan, and Libya have modified their behavior.

So has Iran.

Hiding one's head in the sand is temporarily comforting, but it is a faux comfort. Islamist fanaticism and terrorism would only be emboldened and even more dangerous if the US withdrew into isolationism. Much like Nazism and Stalinist communism, it is necessary and incumbent for the US to engage Islamist terrorism well before it arrives in force at the threshold.

War is not always the best answer, and not always the answer at all. The idea that because the US made a mistake invading Iraq we have to stay there indefinitely to save face is a path toward greater blood and destruction.
 
DiavoTheMiavo said:
I am really suprised they have not found any, and I am sure that at some point in time they will find some buried in an old bunker or something.

But, as I pointed out, they have already found some of the WMD. Cannisters filled with chemical and biological agents reportedly having already been destroyed was found in Iraq bunkers, just not in the hundreds of thousands. Sarin gas was found, but again, it was reported as the 'wrong gas' or not in enough quantity, even though there was enough found to kill thousands. The Marines found those tons of yellow cake uranium in baghdad when they rolled in. The UK Special ops guys stopped the nuclear material going into Iran.......There HAS been some material found.....just never enough or the worng type for the Bush-bashers.

I agree with you on the threat Hussein posed.
 
DiavoTheMiavo said:
My Opinion; Saddam had WMD, Saddam used WMD against the Iranians and his own people, Saddam was a Bad Bad Man, and I thought they would find the generic WMD. I am really suprised they have not found any, and I am sure that at some point in time they will find some buried in an old bunker or something. I was one of those rare people who thought that it wasn't about the WMD----It was about the urgency of the threat. The Threat level introduced by our government suggested that Saddam was at least an "Urgent" Threat, if not imminent.

How was Iraq an "urgent" if not imminent threat to the US if he didn't have WMD?

The fact of the matter is that if he had them or did not have does not MATTER. We are in Iraq right now, debating why we got there is no longer an issue.

It does matter, because most the world thinks we invaded on false pretext. It affects our credibility in everything we do in Iraq and the ME.

You see, no one is going to talk me out of believing that the greatest threat to the world in March 2003 was not Iraq. It was another country whose human rights violations are almost a kept secret in America, and its connections to those who would hurt us are much greater than Saddam would or could ever be. Alas, they have no oil, and they could fight back.

Huh? ARe you talking about Saudi Arabia?
 
ProudAmerican said:
ohhh thats gonna leave a mark!!!!

Another member of the "Mark Gastineau debate society" chimes in.
 
Iriemon said:
How was Iraq an "urgent" if not imminent threat to the US if he didn't have WMD?



It does matter, because most the world thinks we invaded on false pretext. It affects our credibility in everything we do in Iraq and the ME.



Huh? ARe you talking about Saudi Arabia?


Thank you for replying. As to your questions, I will answer them in order with no hesitation.

1. Packistan had WMDs and was much more vocal in the support of the Taliban an OBL prior to 9/11. There are, virtually, missing weapons from the former Soviet Arsenal and we do not know where they are. We have not spent enough time and money procurring the old Soviet stockpiles which is more dangerous now than it was when their empire reigned. India has Nukes, North Korea has Nukes. UAE, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Palestine, and damn near every other Middleeastern country are just as "Urgent" as Iraq.

2. If our Image was ever considered, don't you think it would have been contemplated just a little bit before our nation pissed away the sentiment and world unity after 9/11? Truly, when George Bush stated that nations like Germany, France, and Russia (Free market Companies from those Nations) could not share in the spoils (Contracts for privatizing the military) of the Iraqi War, our image and reputation meant nothing. Our image has been tarnished, that is a fact, finding an old Binary agent we sold to Saddam is not gonna change that.

3. No, North Korea-----remember them----the ones with real WMD.
 
Iriemon said:
Another member of the "Mark Gastineau debate society" chimes in.


i noticed he never responded to it. maybe you would like to do it for him.

you think he was lying? or just wrong?
 
Originally posted by ProudAmerican:
i noticed he never responded to it. maybe you would like to do it for him.

you think he was lying? or just wrong?
I thought I already answered this. How much longer are you going to act like a kid in a playground?
 
easyt65 said:
But, as I pointed out, they have already found some of the WMD. Cannisters filled with chemical and biological agents reportedly having already been destroyed was found in Iraq bunkers, just not in the hundreds of thousands. Sarin gas was found, but again, it was reported as the 'wrong gas' or not in enough quantity, even though there was enough found to kill thousands. The Marines found those tons of yellow cake uranium in baghdad when they rolled in. The UK Special ops guys stopped the nuclear material going into Iran.......There HAS been some material found.....just never enough or the worng type for the Bush-bashers.

I agree with you on the threat Hussein posed.

I was trying to say they would find a stockpile, not a couple cannisters, and I believe they eventually will. WMD is truly a generic phrase intended to bring up visions of the Boogie-Man. When I went through both of my Basic trainings, I had NBC training, because it was assumed everyone we were gonna fight had Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons. Had to learn about Atropine Injectors and Amyl Nitrate.

I'm old, so if I learned about the dreaded WMD back when wagons were still running, that means we have been expecting it from lots of potential enemies for a long time. Which means there are a whole lot of other countries that had WMD long before our Buddy Saddam.
 
Billo_Really said:
I thought I already answered this. How much longer are you going to act like a kid in a playground?

You already answered it?
You were...wrong?

YOU make a statement based on flawed information and you're "wrong"
GWB makes a statement based on flawed information and he "lied".

How does that work?
 
Originally posted by Goobieman:
You already answered it?
You were...wrong?

YOU make a statement based on flawed information and you're "wrong"
GWB makes a statement based on flawed information and he "lied".

How does that work?
Have you ever tried to help? Have you ever tried to do anything good? Or are you one of those punks who like to throw gasoline on a fire?

Just what was I wrong about? I said 1441 was not in HR114. A true statement? I asked why it wasn't in 1441? Just a question. At the time I asked that question, I did not know that HR114 was issued a month before 1441 was. How is that a lie? Since I have found out, I have admitted to the faux paux, and have not tried to say (or indicate) anything different. Which actually would be a lie (if I did). So, like any mistake, I admit it, take my beating like a man, and move on. However, you don't seem to want to see me do that. You seem to want to beat a dead horse...

What's your f_cking problem?


Bush new it was not true, but went ahead with it anyway. If I would have said,
"Hey, 1441 is not in HR114, and therefore, HR114 is not authorization from the UN..."
now that would be the equivalent to what Bush did. And that would be a lie, mis-representation of the truth or whatever you want to call deceit.

By the way, do not confuse that analogy with my contention that the US received authorization from the UN, because they did not. HR114 did not justify the attack. 1441 did not justify the attack. And there is nothing you have ever said on this subject that has justified the attack. And I really don't think you care too.
 
Originally Posted by ProudAmerican
ohhh thats gonna leave a mark!!!!
Wishful thinking. How are we any better off by your comment?
 
Iriemon said:
I didn't say he was harmless. Iraq was and has been inherently unstable, I agree. It is more unstable now.
Any theater of war or conflict is unstable. Just this past week armed elements of Fatah and Hamas were openly shooting at each other in Palestine, another unstable country.

Iriemon said:
The evidence on Salman Pak I've seen is sketchy. The US govt was quite, but there the reports that after the invasion based on inspection by US intellegence was that there was no evidence that it was being used to train terrorists. Someone posted something to the contrary more recently, I haven't investigate that.
I highly doubt the Iraqi Mukhabarat was using a passenger jet fuselage to train flight attendants at Salman Pak. What abour the al-Ansar? US forces found evidence (dead animals in cages) that chemical weapons experiments were conducted by this terrorist organization east of Sulaymaniyah.

Iriemon said:
I don't necessarily agree. Hussein was a bad guy; but the blood was on his hands. We have gone in and started a civil/terrorist campaign in the country that arguably is killing Iraqis as fast as they were dying under Hussein. But now the blood is on our hands, and we are getting the blame.
Show me any viable citation which states that it was US policy to foment or encourage an Iraqi insurgency. You are confusing an insurgency (mostly foreign) dedicated to grab power by force and defeat Iraq's march to democracy with an all-inclusive grass-roots Iraqi revolt against democracy and the US. Clearly, the latter is not the case. No amount of military forces would suffice to quell an insurgency composed of the entire Iraqi populace.

Iriemon said:
Maybe. US casualties from the Iraq war are about 7x higher than from 9-11, the number of US deaths will be higher in a few months. The blood from the overall dead is many multiple times higher than 9-11. The economic costs of the war is far higher.
You are extrapolating from just one homeland terrorist event. Every C-T expert agrees that just one homeland terrorist attack with a dirty bomb or weaponized virus would incur monumental human and economic consequences.

Iriemon said:
Plus there is no evidence I have seen that Iraq was ever implicated in a terrorist attack against the US, or was ever directly implicated in any terrorist attack, that I am aware of. So I don't see the connection between invading Iraq and the costs of attacks on the US.
Although there exists (as of today) no direct link between Iraq and al-Qa'ida, Iraq posed the same strategic problem then as Iran poses today... possible WMD proliferation to non-state agents. To say today that Iraq possessed no WMD is disingenuous because no one knew that with certainty before the invasion. Hindsight is always 20/20 and convenient.

Iriemon said:
War is not always the best answer, and not always the answer at all. The idea that because the US made a mistake invading Iraq we have to stay there indefinitely to save face is a path toward greater blood and destruction.
I don't think the invasion per se was a mistake. The invasion itself was a tremendous success in both the strategic and tactical spheres. Where the US failed was in planning post-invasion strategy and necessities. Clearly, the DoD underestimated what would be required to occupy and stabilize a country of 25 million people the size of California. This failure in linnear planning was the genesis and catalyst of the situation that exists today.
 
Originally posted by Tashah:
I don't think the invasion per se was a mistake. The invasion itself was a tremendous success in both the strategic and tactical spheres. Where the US failed was in planning post-invasion strategy and necessities. Clearly, the DoD underestimated what would be required to occupy and stabilize a country of 25 million people the size of California. This failure in linnear planning was the genesis and catalyst of the situation that exists today.
That invasion was not only illegal according to International Law, it has completely destroyed US credibility throughout the world. We attacked a country that did nothing to us. Doesn't anyone see just how wrong that is? By attacking Iraq, we have de-stabilized the entire world. Now Russia is talking about arming up. They signed a defense pact with China. You can't tell me that we weren't the driving force behind that.

In addition, according to DSM (which no one in the Adminstration has questioned its authenticity), Bush new Iraq didn't have the weapons and he knew they weren't a threat, but he had it in his mind to attack. So he did. Which resulted in the UN inspectors work being pre-empted before their mission was completed.
 
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