A Challenge to My LIBERAL friends - Who Told Bush that IRAQ had no WMD's in 2003?

Question

US Veteran just made this claim

"The lame duck was in office for more than a year, and everybody that told him the truth about Iraq, not possessing weapons of mass destruction were shot down by the dictator wannabe."

Can you name ONE - JUST ONE -Person with a reputation to lose, elected officials, Newpapers ect... Who said "Mr. Bush - Iraq has NO WMD's NONE, ZERO, You are lying". Mr. Veteran this should be pretty easy for you since you said 'Everyone told him'.

Here is what I remember;

John Kerry > January 23, 2003
"Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. His consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction."

Senator Carl Levin > September 19, 2002


"We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them."

John Kerry > October 9, 2002


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


Ted Kennedy > September 27, 2002


"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."

Nancy Pelosi > October 10, 2002
"Yes, he has chemical weapons. Yes, he has biological weapons. He is trying to get nuclear weapons."



Evan Bayh > August 4, 2002
"I'm inclined to support going in there and dealing with Saddam, but I think that case
needs to be made on a separate basis: his possession of biological and chemical weapons, his desire to get nuclear weapons, his proven track record of attacking his neighbors and others."

Answer 1

UN weapons inspectors, France, Malaysia, Canada, and countless other countries.

I'm not a liberal, I'm hardcore conservative, and i think most American conservatives are really liberals

Answer 2

cantcu:
"Yes he had WMD's! We ALL know that."
"...invaded a country on a FALSE premise, and the person who did knew he was LYING..."

Pick a side of the argument and stay there... : )

The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.

A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.

But what he said – that Iraq sought uranium – is just what both British and US intelligence were telling him at the time. So Bush may indeed have been misinformed, but that's not the same as lying.

Answer 3

Iraq actually did possess WMD when Bill Clinton was the President. Those programs were terminated in the late 1990s, before GW Bush became President. I know that this is a difficult concept to understand, but if you say that Iraq had WMD during the time span that they actually HAD WMD, that's the truth. Stating that Iraq had WMD after they no longer did is a lie, and setting up the Office of Special Plans to "sex-up" intelligence doesn't make it any less of a lie.

Answer 4

Not ONE of the people you quote said Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, and Iraq needed to be invaded because of them.

Only Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Powell, and ONE discreditted Intel report from ONE unreliable informant in Great Britian claimed Saddam had nuclear material to make weapons.

The US considers ALL Nuclear, Biollogical or Chemical Weapons to be "Weapons of Mass Destruction" or WMDs, because they don't differentiate between military and civilian targets.. The US has stated over and over, if a country attacks us with Chemical or Biological Weapons, the US would respond with Nuclear, simply because thats what we have.

We have known for years Saddam Hussein had Chemical Weapons, Reagan sold him the technology in 1982, to combat the Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. It's an even bet as to whether Hussein had Biological Weapons, he certainly had the technology for that as well.

What he NEVER had (according to the UN weapons inspectors prior to the invasion and 4 years of looking by the US have confirmed) was NUCLEAR weapons, ther material to MAKE Nuclear Weapons or an adequate delivery systems for ANY WMDs he may have had.
You can't just "bury" fissible material, it would set off geiger counters as far away as Australia. Bush pushed the invasion, based on "incontrovertible" proof Iraq was developing or had developed NUCLEAR weapons.

Read some of the transcripts of the speeches Bush gave before the invasion, you will see a very marked shift from referring to the weapons Hussein had as "WMDs" to "Nuclear" weapons. Most in the US were wondering why he was focussed so hard on Iraq when it was Afghanistan which harbored the terrorists who attacked us on Sept 11, 2001.

Answer 5

UN weapons inspector Hans Blix
Following the mandate of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, Saddam Hussein allowed UN inspectors to return to Iraq in November 2002. UNMOVIC led inspections of possible chemical and biological facilities in Iraq until shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, but did not find any weapons of mass destruction. Based on its inspections and examinations during this time, UNMOVIC inspectors determined that UNSCOM had successfully dismantled Iraq’s unconventional weapons program during the 1990s.

Answer 6

The CIA told Bush before the invasion, that the intelligence he read, that stated Saddam had WMDs, was most likely inaccurate.
And they should know, because Reagan's state department either sold or gave most everything he was mixing together to make chemical weapons, along with a few pathogenic bacteria species from the ATCC.

Answer 7

Clinton took most of them out in Operation Desert Fox and the UN the rest.

Pat Buchanan didn't think he had any, and go read Bush's fathers speech to the troops, some of which is in his book!

Yes he had WMD's! We ALL know that. We should! We sold them to him or arranged to have them sold to him! We were still selling him dual use technology right up until the war!

None you mentioned invaded a country on a false premise, and the person who did knew he was lying, so don't don't try and claim people who were lied to had any accurate data on which to base their opinion! Just like you!

Funny, in 2001 Rice and Powell were saying he had none!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjFrezxIMAQ

His track record of attacking whom? Yes he did Kuwait, but that was in the early 90's! The CIA put Saddam in power to attack Iran. He was doing our fighting for us. When it was suggested at the UN that he used gas, we, the US, used our veto power against any sanctions!

And we have used a lot of gas in many countries! Where do you think Saddam got his! From us of course! But that was over a decade ago and pre-dated his fathers own presidency!

Besides, what did Iraq have to do with 9/11, and exactly when did the UN Security Council, and they are the only ones who can, give us permission to attack a country that didn't do a damn thing to us?

Saddam was our good buddy until he shut off 3 contracts to US Oil companies and gave them to France and Russia! That was the real start of this war!

And of course Bush wants to stay there. Iraq has 1/5 of the worlds oil reserves! Duh!!!

Answer 8

Does it matter. It was the "Decider" that got this current situation going, and without a plan if I made add. So, he has had 5 years to decide, direct and control this war. What next?
And when do the statutes of limitations of Blame Clinton run out?

Answer 9

Ambasador Wilson, against whom Bush retaliated by disclosing the fact that Wilson's wife was not a cultural officer at the embassy, but a spook.

Just one among many in the administration who tried (and failed) to stop the headlong rush to war.

Answer 10

What makes you think that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction? Do you really think that Saddam Hussein would have left these weapns out for the UN inspectors to see? Especially when the inspectors would let it be known when they would be there & the places they were going,times they would be there. How stupid can you be? If you know they are coming than you move things. Saddam had friends that would hide these things for him.

Answer 11

wow, you have a great memory...I would have thought that you just copied and pasted this from somewhere...BTW, what I remember is Carl Levin voting against going into Iraq, and I remember him taking a great deal of effort to participate in the writing and research of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. See, if you want to take a quote from someone, you should take it in context, not just the bits and pieces that promote your personal agenda, which is to justify a horrible policy, called the Iraq war.