President Clinton Supported Bush's Justification for War?!

[Copernicus]

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And "could be regime change" is not "invade and occupy".

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Yeah, sure it could, and a BJ isnt sex.

[Taso]

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Clinton says weapons were not accounted for. He advocated regime change. I advocated regime change in the US in 2004, I did not start a war -- I used less violent means to pursue my goals.

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So nice to live in a free society.

[Utah]

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There were weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq just prior to the invasion. They were about halfway through. Hans Blix. They found nothing. We didn't let them finish, the fact that they didn't find anything led Bush to conclude that Saddam wasn't cooperating with the inspectors. Dangerous indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]I think people are getting off of my main point. The question is if someone believes that Bush made the whole WMD stuff up to justify war then how do they square it with Clinton's argument that it was incontestable that Iraq had WMDs when he left office. ie, How does someone say Bush made it up when his predecessor (from the opposition) said it was incontestable?

[cardcounter0]

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There were weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq just prior to the invasion. They were about halfway through. Hans Blix. They found nothing. We didn't let them finish, the fact that they didn't find anything led Bush to conclude that Saddam wasn't cooperating with the inspectors. Dangerous indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]I think people are getting off of my main point. The question is if someone believes that Bush made the whole WMD stuff up to justify war then how do they square it with Clinton's argument that it was incontestable that Iraq had WMDs when he left office. ie, How does someone say Bush made it up when his predecessor (from the opposition) said it was incontestable?

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READ IT AGAIN.

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incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons.

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AND HOW DID HE KNOW THERE WAS SOMETHING THAT WASN'T ACCOUNTED FOR?

[Chips Ahoy]

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The question is if someone believes that Bush made the whole WMD stuff up to justify war then how do they square it with Clinton's argument that it was incontestable that Iraq had WMDs when he left office.

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I don't read what that Clinton quote as saying Iraq had WMDs. It said the WMDs were not all accounted for, not that Iraq had them. If he was saying Iraq incontestably had the unaccounted for WMDs, then that would account for them and he wouldn't call them not accounted for.

Does that square it?

[iron81]

Here's my thoughts on Bush & WMD. Yes, it seemed likely at the time to everyone including myself that Saddam had them. However, I and most of the world believed this because we trusted the American intelligence community. Also, if you advocate a solution as drastic as an invasion, your burdden of proof should be higher.

However, Cardcounter is super duper wrong when he says that its Rumsfeldt's fault that Clinton was misinformed. I mean, huh? And I'm almost positive that Clinton repeatedly asserted that Saddam had WMD. I doubt he justified his 98 bombing campaign by saying that Saddam might have them.

[Chips_]

Bill Clinton > February 17, 1998
"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."

October 9th, 1999 Letter to President Clinton Signed by Senators Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry

"We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."

Al Gore > September 23, 2002
"We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Al Gore > December 16, 1998
"[i]f you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many people is he going to kill with such weapons? He has already demonstrated a willingness to use such weapons..."

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."


Senator Hillary Clinton > October 10, 2002
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Dick Gephardt > September 23, 2002
"(I have seen) a large body of intelligence information over a long time that he is working on and has weapons of mass destruction.

Johnny Edwards > February 6, 2003
"The question is whether we're going to allow this man who's been developing weapons of mass destruction continue to develop weapons of mass destruction, get nuclear capability and get to the place where -- if we're going to stop him if he invades a country around him -- it'll cost millions of lives as opposed to thousands of lives."

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

[boracay]

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- January 1998: PNAC sends a letter to President Bill Clinton calling for war against Iraq. It calls for the US to go it alone and says the US should not be crippled by the UN. Ten of the 18 signatories end up in George W. Bush’s first administration (including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowtiz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, Presidential Advisor for the Middle East Elliot Abrams, and Special Iraq Envoy Zalmay Khalizad).

- September 2000: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” is published by PNAC. It is commissioned by future VP Dick Cheney, future Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, future Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, and future Chief of Staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby. Among the others it calls for preparations for multiple theater wars, the development of forms of biological warfare that can be used to target specific genotypes.

- January 30, 2001: First National Security Council meeting is held ten days after Bush’s inauguration. It was focused on Iraq, including finding a way to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

- February 1, 2001: Second National Security Council meeting in President Bush’s Administration is held and regime change in Iraq is a central topic. Rumsfeld talks in depth about what a post-Saddam Iraq would be like. Memo titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” is discussed.
February 2001: Documents planning regime change for Iraq in the Bush Administration are created, including one titled “Plan for post-Saddam Iraq” and another “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Contracts.”

- February 2001 – According to reporter Greg Palast: “The State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator. On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained, ‘It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime.’”

- March 2001 – Palast also reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq … Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose.

- April 30, 2001: First Deputies Meeting on terrorism is finally held in the Bush Administration. The discussion was focused on Iraq, not UBL or al-Qaeda.
April 2001: A report titled Strategic Energy Policy Challenges for the 21st Century commissioned by the Council on Foreign Relations and former US Secretary of State James Baker is submitted to Vice President Cheney. It argues that Iraq should be overthrown so that we can control its oil.

- Spring 2001: An article in the Army War College’s journal by Jeffrey Record, a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee says it is legitimate to shoot in the Persian Gulf on behalf of lower gas prices. He also says it is all right to use Presidential subterfuge in the promotion of a conflict. … in April 2001, Tommy Franks, Commander of US forces in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, says to Congress that his command’s key mission is “access to the region’s energy resources.”

- September 4, 2001 – CIA Director George Tenet stresses al-Qaeda, Secretary of State Colin Powell outlines a plan to pressure Pakistan to stop supporting them, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is only interested in Iraq.
September 11, 2001 – Donald Rumsfeld is given information hours after the attacks that three of the names on the airplane passenger manifests are suspected al-Qaeda operatives. In fact, it is reported that by May 2002 Rumsfeld has asked the CIA on ten occasions to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of 9/11.

- September 12, 2001 – Officials discuss attacking Iraq … Rumsfeld says Iraq should be part of the first round of the war on terrorism and that Iraq has better targets than Afghanistan … Colin Powell agrees with Richard Clarke that the focus should now be on al-Qaeda but also says: “Public opinion has to be prepared before a move against Iraq is possible.” Bush says the goal should be to replace the Iraqi government and the military warns him it will need a large force and months to prepare.
In the early morning hours of 9/12, the day after the attacks, Clarke walked into a White House meeting expecting to talk about “what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term.” Instead, he “walked into a series of discussions about Iraq.” According to Clarke, he had heard from friends in the Pentagon that word was we would be invading Iraq some time in 2002! Clarke claims that on 9/12, Paul Wolfowitz insisted the attacks were too coordinated to have been conducted without a state sponsor, and that Iraq had to be involved. In fact, Wolfowitz made the same argument in April 2001 at the first Bush Administration Deputies meeting on terrorism, saying that the first attack on the World Trade Center also was assisted by Iraq. By that afternoon, according to Clarke, Donald Rumsfeld also was talking about Iraq. Rumsfeld said there were no decent targets in Afghanistan and that Iraq had better targets. President Bush said we needed to change the government of Iraq, not just bomb it!

- Mid September 2001 – Retired General Wesley Clarke says there is a concerted effort to pin 9/11 on Iraq. He says he got a phone call from an overseas think tank urging him to push an Iraq connection on his TV appearances.

- September 17, 2001 – A top secret document signed by President Bush outlines a plan for going to war on Afghanistan and that directs the Pentagon to begin preparing for an invasion of Iraq. According to the media, Iraq becomes the central focus of the Bush Administration for the next nine months. Richard Clarke asserts that President Bush claimed on numerous occasions, as did other members of his Administration, that war on Iraq was a last resort, yet he began planning for the Iraq war early in his first term.

- September 19, 2001 – The Defense Policy Board has 19 hours of discussion on Iraq … attendees include Chairman Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, and Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi … Secretary of State Colin Powell is not invited! The attendees write a letter to President Bush calling for the overthrown of Saddam Hussein, which is published as a letter from PNAC on September 20, 2001. Secretary of State Colin Powell delays an attack on Iraq by stating there is no link between Iraq and 9/11.

- September 20, 2001 – President Bush says to Prime Minister Tony Blair that Afghanistan would be first and then Iraq would be next.

- September-December, 2001 -- President Bush says he wants UBL dead or alive. “If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.” “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, I recall, that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’”. Then on December 18, 2001, Bush says: “Our objective is more than bin Laden.” His January 2002 State of the Union speech lays out an axis of evil with no mention of UBL. On March 8, 2002, Bush says: “We’re going to find him.” On March 13, Bush says: “He’s a person who’s now been marginalized … I just don’t spend that much time on him … I truly am not that concerned about him.” On April 6, 2002, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers says: “The goals has never been to get bin Laden.” Finally, Bush starts answering questions about UBL by talking about Saddam Hussein


you might check some detailed info including war with afghanistan: http://www.justiceblind.com/wars.html

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror.” - George Bush 07 Sept. 2006

‘sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied
by a bodyguard of lies.’ - Donald Rumsfeld, US Department of Defense Briefing, September 25, 2001


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[Chips_]

The administration should have been suspecting Iraq in 9/11. The guy who made the bomb in the first World trade center attack in 1993 was from Iraq. Agressively pursuing the possibility that terrorists from that country were involved again is something the government should have been doing. However, it was clear to me at the time of the invasion that President Bush was NOT claiming that Iraq had attacked us on 9/11.

But here's what I think does not get mentioned enough in this whole scheme of things by virtually anyone: The US Constitution says that Congress declares war. Here we had Congress handing over that decision to the President. If the country is to go to war then the Congress should declare war - not vote to allow that decision to be made by the President. This violates the seperation of powers intended by the Constitution. If war opponents want to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, my suggestion is to focus on the Constitutional aspect - which involves Congress as much as the President.

[Copernicus]

Congress approved the war. It always turned over to the Commander-in-Chief for execution.