Thread: Downing Street Memo

Originally Posted by sean_mackrory

Yes we have - just not in amounts large enough to be considered, "stockpiles". And once again - Saddam had plenty of time to ship the WMDs elsewhere and there is evidence that he very well may have.



They're not the majority.



My personal opinion is, "Why go to the U.N.?"

Sorry sean, but I'm bored at work, aka time for me to tear you a new arsehole...


A) Saddam had WMD's? According to what, our little CG graphics we showed to the UN? I'm sure the purple boxes were real convincing. Need the Kennedy pictures of nukes in Cuba be brought up again as a form of comarison? Would the leader of any nation say "the word of the US president is good enough for me?"


B) Already refuted.


C) Why go to the UN? I don't know, maybe because the UN and not the US is the world police? If the UN decides to take Saddam out of power, it's the world's decision; that carries a bit more weight than the decision of a single (and yes fallible) nation.

If the UN's there we need to go to them, but the number of times that this country's been screwed over or messed around by the UN leads me to believe that the US would be a lot better off if the UN never existed at all.

And after some research I was thinking of the shells govt talked about - looks like I'll have to concede defeat on this one - but I still stand by my other points that WMDs were not the only reason for going to Iraq.

Originally Posted by sean_mackrory

but I still stand by my other points that WMDs were not the only reason for going to Iraq.

They were in 2003.

UN:

http://patriotpetitions.us/intro.asp?id=4

And I agree with govt's second paragraph.

I still don't believe bush lied. I think he was simply given information on how it is most likely that Iraq had WMDs...so likely that it is pretty much guaranteed. Much like the OJ trial. He then used that as the biggest point because if we said Sadam is a bad man, people would say "So what...it's none of your business to tell people how their country should be". If we said he was a direct threat to America and harboring terrorists(especially after 9/11) then there would be a whole lot more support for the war.

I also think that instead of trying to defeat our invading armies, sadam instead hid WMDs and also traces to terrorists he supported in order to make America look bad and instead of him defeating us we would defeat ourselves and the world would hate us. That seems a whole lot more effective than trying to fight us.

I do miss the Iraqi Minister of Information... he was a hoot. "This is a complete lie. American forces are nowhere near Baghdad"... and there's a tank rolling through in the back.

Well we're having our floors redone with wood, and I'm not gonna have much access to the PC for a week, so this is probably my last post for a while (govt - you better not forget that letter!) - so here's my final two cents:

Before we invaded Iraq, Bush gave a speech outlining the reasons. WMDs were first on the list, but they were by no means the only reasons. Among others were the aforementioned rape chambers, mass graves, etc... (whether you think that's any of our business is debatable - I think it should be, personally). We knew he had WMDs that were given to Iraq when they were helping us in the middle east, I think in the 70's. Some of this stuff had gone missing - which leads to wonder what else has gone missing.

I'll try and find some information to document this (though that may take a while), so for the mean time this is, as govt said, just an unsupported theory: In the weeks before the imminent invasion - hundreds of trucks were seen leaving for Jordan. Somehow or another our inteligence lost track of them - but the contents of those trucks was never accounted for. I agree with Girk Client - I don't think Saddam thought he had any chance of winning a war against the US. He still claims he won Desert Storm, but thats... well we all saw the tanks driving out of Kuwait. Look at it this way - he either spends resources fighting, which wouldn't have workd because he either loses the long way, or actually does use WMDs if has them, but at that point other world forces would just join and kill him quicker. Or he spends his resources hiding WMDs and when he finally does lose, he looks innocent.

The only things I think Bush did wrong were push the WMDs as the main issue (though in that situation I very well have misconstrued things the same way), and although he planned the invasion quite well (his generals, at least), I think a long-lasting guerilla war was inevitable, and perhaps could've prepared better for the current situation.

But of course, the main reason I support Bush is just the social issues, so most of this is irrelevant for me - I would still support him.

edit: on top of the information in the link I sent govt (which isn't all the well argued, I will admit), here's a slightly forgotten story from the first night of the invasion. A "target of opportunity" arose when inteligence located the bunker where the Hussein's and most of the deck of cards would be sleeping. They sent in an F-117 to take out the bunker, but somehow, the Iraqis managed to track the stealth fighter and put enough AA fire in the air to compromise the mission (the F-117 was never hit, but had to leave before the job was finished). Anyone know who taught the Iraqi's how to track stealth Aircraft? The French.

No, I think he should've gone to war. I disagree with some of the stuff that went on the background like if evidence really was doctored, (though I'm not entirely convinced of that) and things like that. I still think he should've gone to war.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Rea...e.asp?ID=13835

Granted, I'm sure this is biased, but that's the kind of think I'm talking about. Do a google search for "WMDs Jordan", and I found a lot of interesting stuff (this website included). I'm not saying this is proof, but I'm sure it's better than nothing.

Gosh, cheez, use Google!

Originally Posted by Govtcheez

Oh ok. So he just led us to war on intelligence that pretty much everyone else thought or knew was faulty. He's not a liar, he's just incompetent. That's fine with me! And what is pretty much guaranteed?

When you are given a piece of paper that says Iraq has WMDs and has 50 pages of evidence, why would he say Nah, theres no way...especially when theres so much evidence its almost a joke to say he doesn't. Of course he would believe them telling him there is for certain WMDs in Iraq. To go to war on this evidence isn't Bush's fault but the people who came up with false evidence. It is their job to make sure what they are telling the president is 100% correct.