why do some people pretend that bush had truly thought there were WMDs in iraq?

Question

It makes even less sense when people give us the "clinton thought he had WMDs too".
Clinton did say he thought they did, but seeing as he wasn't going to start a war over it, he didn't make much of an effort to find out (other than the regular intel), whereas bush did and found out that the claims were untrue.

With bush, in 2002, the CIA sent joseph wilson to niger (the country saddam was allegedly buying WMDs from). While there, wilson determined conclusively that there were no WMDs, and reported his findings to the u.s. government. the bush adminstration ignored his statements, and in the 2003 state of the union address bush claimed
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
He ignored wilson's findings. Moreover, the claim that the british government did find significant quantities was false, as testified by tony blair.

Months later, and only weeks before the start of the iraq war, the IAEA launched their own investigation to determine whether these claims had any validity. They determined that the documents claiming that iraq tried to buy the WMDs were “obvious” forgeries. Again, the bush administration ignored these claims, and continued saying there was “strong evidence” that iraq had WMDs, implying he had hard, factual evidence. Long before the war began, they found these claims to be false.

Months later, four months after the start of the iraq war, Wilson wrote an article for the NYTimes, entitled “what I didn’t find in Africa”. Conservative politician scooter libby retaliates by releasing the identity of wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, and the information later gets in the hands of Robert Novak, who released the information in a newspaper article.

KRR, you're more than welcome to post the "decade's worth" of information i've left out.

Answer 1

Your case is a good one, except you must substitute "nuclear weapons" for every instance of "WMD" in your supporting statement.

And for everyone else who writes about how the Dems also said there were "WMDs" in Iraq, show me ONE legitimate Democrat leader who specifically accused Saddam Hussein or Iraq of possessing or manufacturing NUCLEAR weapons, based on sound intelligence reports. I can name one Republican who did. In fact, I can name a LOT of Republicans who DID, but no longer WILL. I can even name one who went before the UN to plead the US's case, but has now gone on national TV to assert all those previous claims were just a false alarm to get into Iraq. And these are Republicans, not "turncoats", not "traitors", they simply will no longer bow to the pressure exerted by the Neo Con Right Wing, who think they are the judges and juries of who is "Patriotic" enough to "stay in the US".

No one on either side of the political aisle ever tried to deny Saddam's Iraq had both Chemical and Biological Weapons (also considered Weapons of Mass Destruction, or "WMD"s, so-named because, just as with nuclear weapons, Chem and Bio weapons kill soldier and civilian alike, unlike conventional weapons- a strong case could be made for asserting hijacked airplanes flown into buildings ALSO fit this criteria), primarily because the US SOLD him the capability to produce these two types of weapons, so he could defend his country (and the oil, it's ALWAYS about the oil, it's not about profit; it is about OBSCENE PROFITS; in the TRILLIONS of dollars range and Shell, Exxon and Gulf are working like crazy to get that oil locked up tight) against the Ayatollah and a hostile Iran.

When Bush told the American people Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, the US reaction was, "So?" it wasn't until Bush used the ONE word he knew would make Americans pay attention:

Nuclear.

And THAT'S when the lies started. But Conservative Republicans want you to forget all that, forgot how they threatened a scared but skeptical America, "you're either with us, or you're against us," so we gave Bush the benefit of the doubt, even though myself and MANY people from ALL shades of the political spectrum were still saying, "But what about Osama bin Laden? Isn't HE the one who attacked us on Sept 11th? Isn't HE the one we should be going after? If it's "Mission: Accomplished", in Afghanistan, where's bin Laden?"

We gave Bush the benefit of the doubt, even though the UN and the entire WORLD (who had sympathized with us and supported our invasion of Afghanistan almost unanimously) JUST as unanimously were against our invasion of Iraq. Even our staunchest ally, Great Britian, didn't agree with our president's incomprehensible decision to invade the ONE country in the Middle East where not ONE of the hijackers were born, not ONE dinari, deutschmark or dollar supporting their terrorist missions in the US came from Iraq, not ONE of al Qaida's operatives were allowed to operate in Iraq. In 2000, Osama bin Laden was quoted in Al-Jazeera, calling Saddam Hussein an "infidel", about the worst thing one Muslim can call another (I think the WORST thing is "Apostate", but I'm not sure). The reason? Hussein was taking Iraq in too secular (non-religious- in other words, WESTERN) direction, according to bin Laden. Iraq was the ONE country in the entire Middle East which we could be CERTAIN did not hide or support al Qaida. Can the same assertion be made (truthfully) SINCE the Invasion? And it seems odd bin Laden is still free and apparently lively enough to continue making videos, while our one actual ally against al Qaida in the Middle East was arrested, tried and executed (for actual crimes he was actually responsible for, no one's saying anything different- the man was a criminal, but he was a LAWFULLY ELECTED representative
of the Iraqi people, not one of whom made an appeal publically to the UN or a reporter anywhere in the world, pleading for Bush and America to invade and bomb their country, remove their leader and deny them food, water and hospital care for over 4 years.

Why would a US President, supposedly committed to eradicating terrorism in general, but al-Qaida in particular, remove the ONE leader (a legally elected President, just as the President of Iran is- some con labelling of these elected officials as "tyrants" and "dictators" seem rather narrowsighted, not to mention hypocritical) in the Middle East who was ALSO "anti al-Qaida"? Remember that phrase which cropped up in defense of re-arming the Sunni Death Squads in Iraq? That "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"? Shouldn't Saddam have been considered a friend since he, like us, worked against al-Qaida?

This is something I still do not believe our President has adequately explained to his employers (for those of you who are confused by whom I mean, I am referring to the American people, not the Saudis).

Answer 2

I guess you just sort of slept through the 1980s and 1990s? Or were you still in diapers and incoherent to the world at large?
You forgot to mention that Reagan sold WMD technology to Saddam that he then used on both Iran and the Kurdish people of his own country. Convenient. You also forgot to mention that the first U.N. weapons inspector resigned in total disgust over the lake of support by Clinton and the U.N. and the complete lack of cooperation by Saddam. Convenient.
Funny, you skipped by the Iraqi chemical engineer who defected to Germany, claiming Saddam was in the process of making WMD. Oops! That was that damnedable lie the dem.s keep crying about. Funny it wasn't Bush who lied.
Did you also forget that Carter had managed singlehandedly to gut the CIA back in the 1970s? He left us blind and dependent on the good graces of foreign intel. services to keep us informed. So, the one defector was about the only reliable source we had -- and because he went to Germany, we were never even allowed to question him directly. How much more damage must we allow the extremely myopic left before we finally succome to their B.S.?
And by the way, we have found stores of WMD such as Sarin -- but because it was produced BEFORE 1990, it doesn't REALLY count. Gosh, I wonder what the shelf life is on that stuff anyway.

Answer 3

You pretty much have been indoctrinated with political propaganda instead of facts.

The fact was that when the panel listened to Wilson testimony in secret, they went away with the feeling that Iraq may have been trying to buy yellow cake. He did this under oath and obviously faced the threat of perjury if he lied during his testimony. The details were never released and probably won't be for many years as this is top secret information (why we knew to investigate in the first place). However, two people on the panel said that they went away from Wilson's testimony with a belief that Saddam did in fact attempt to buy yellow cake.

Wilson was a loyal Democrat for many years and he was pushed aside by the White House... he thought the president would want to talk to him personally and the White House was only going by the congressional committee that he testified in front of. Wilson then started his campaign to tell the media (not under oath) that there was no attempt whatsoever of Saddam to buy yellow cake.

Only AFTER that point did it escalate to his wife and that overshadowed all the above that has been lost from political propaganda.

Just like many today believe Clinton was impeached for having sex, he was not. He was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Didn't have a single thing to do about sex other than he lied about it under oath.

If you don't pick Lavrenti Beria answer as the best then we will know who the liar is... bush or you.

Answer 4

Do you on the left actually believe the nonsense you continue to spout? I realize that you are determined to maintain the leftist template and all that goes with it in spite of the facts. Joe Wilson was shown to be a serial liar, even by the 9/11 committee. It really isn't arguable. So naturally you ignore the facts and continue on with the talking points.
But that has to be tough to do, day after day. Maybe that's why the left is always so angry... hoping that Bush and Cheney die, vandalizing recruiting stations, slashing tires, shouting down anyone with the temerity to disagree with you. It has to be maddening to find that facts are really never on your side... to know you must keep on ignoring the truth or admit that your world view is constructed on a fabric of lies and distortions. If you didn't represent such a danger to the well-being of this nation and to the rights and liberties of the American people, I'd actually feel almost sorry for you. Going through life knowing that your beliefs cannot withstand even the most basic scrutiny has to be very difficult.

Answer 5

There are those who left the Iraqi gov't & have stated that Hussein spent time destroying evidence of WMD's before he went into hiding because he knew that the US gov't was coming for him. Also don't forget the chemical weapons he used on those of his own country.
& it is rather a joke to believe anything that came from Wilson's supposed mission to discover the truth. He was & is an outspoken critic of the gov't, liberal to the core & went to Niger to prove that there was no such thing as WMD's in Iraq - not too biased there is he?

Answer 6

Here"s the truth. They did have wmd and Saddam had used
the ingredients on millions of his own population. They were
all found buried in a huge pit where he dumped their dead
bodies (that's why Saddam's demise was a good thing). He
deserved it. But, the U.N. sent inspectors in to find them but
they told the world and the inspectors didn't get there for
months and months (why? no one knows). In the meantime,
the wmd were hauled into passenger planes (to throw everyone off) and taken to Syria where they remain today.
Why won't people believe this? It's the darned truth!!!!!! even
if you don't believe it. It happened. Of course, by the time
the inspectors got to Iraq.....they couldn't find them as they'd
been taken to Syria.

Answer 7

Probably because there were. Saddam didn't kill all those Kurds with borrowed poisonous gas, he had his own stockpile. By the time we got around to looking for them, they were gone, (probably to Syria).
If you had some contraband in your house and you knew that the police were coming, but they had to ask permission first, (because they always play by the rules), and you had plenty of time to move your contraband, wouldn't you do it?
I don't think that Saddam was any smarter than any other thug, I just think he did what thugs do, and hid the evidence.
The problem here is that we are gullible enough to think that thugs, and Saddam, are gentlemen, and would never do something so dishonest.

Answer 8

Clinton said the same things Bush did about Saddam and WMD, and Clinton instituted the policies which called for Saddam to be removed.
As for Wilson, he lied about his own report and should have been prosecuted for perjury. Too bad Bush is too lenient with his critics. There are enough ropes in America. All we are waiting for is the courts to authorize their use on liberal traitors...

Answer 9

Wilson was a political hack, appointed by his Bush-hating wife to reach a specific conclusion before he ever left. Bush believed there were WMDs, and some WMDs have been found (though not nukes). I can't believe you are still stuck on this. I can't believe that so many liberals still claim "Bush is a total idiot- but managed to fool us all into believing something he knew wasn't true." Were the dems lied to and fooled by a complete idiot? Or did they really believe there were WMDs, as did Bush, because of the intel at the time?

Answer 10

You mean like Clinton did when he said something had to be done to take out Saddam's WMDs?

Besides, the WMDs were found but the captured general of Saddam told that the majority were shipped to Syria during all that waiting for the UN to approve the attack.

Answer 11

Simple answer? War for profit! Take the profit out of war, and you end pointless wars. I think war profiteers, and you must agree, should have their heads chopped off and their bodies drug through the streets! You know who you are!!! Peace, Betch!