The Making of “Operation Iraqi Freedom†By Jason Leopold The Iraq war, which was predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 US troops and has cost taxpayers roughly half-a-trillion dollars. The invasion of Iraq was conceived prior to 9/11, according to Paul O'Neill, President Bush's former Treasury Secretary. Intelligence gathered by US agencies that claimed Iraq was possessed WMD's was cooked to justify a preemptive strike. In his book, "The Price of Loyalty," journalist Ron Suskind interviewed O'Neill who said that the Iraq war was planned just days after the president was sworn into office. "From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told Suskind, adding that going after Saddam Hussein was a priority 10 days after the Bush's inauguration and eight months before Sept. 11. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime," Suskind said. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed." As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked. O'Neill was fired from his post for disagreeing with Bush's economic policies. In typical White House fashion, senior administration officials have labeled O'Neill a "disgruntled employee," whose latest remarks are "laughable" and have no basis in reality. A little known article in the January 11, 2001, edition of the New York Times titled "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets with Joint Chiefs" confirms that the administration was working on a plan to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. "George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," the Times story says. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The Times reported that "half of the 75-minute meeting focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said.'" "Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point." WMD's Cited for "Bureaucratic Reasons" On September13, 2001, during a meeting at Camp David with President Bush, Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials, Wolfowitz said he discussed with President Bush the prospects of launching an attack against Iraq, for no apparent reason other than a “gut feeling†Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks, and there was a debate “about what place if any Iraq should have in a counter terrorist strategy.†“On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when,†Wolfowitz said during a May 9, 2003 interview with Vanity Fair, a transcript of which is posted on the Department of Defense website www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html. “There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first..."the decision to highlight weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for going to war in Iraq was taken for bureaucratic reasons...." When the United Nations chose Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspector, in January 2002 to lead a team of U.N. weapons inspectors into Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction Wolfowitz contacted the CIA to produce a report on why Blix, as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency during the 1980s and 1990s, failed to detect Iraqi nuclear activity, according to an April 15, 2002 report in the Washington Post. The CIA report said Blix "had conducted inspections of Iraq's declared nuclear power plants fully within the parameters he could operate as chief of the Vienna-based agency between 1981 and 1997," according to the Post/ Wolfowitz, according to the Post, quoting a former State Department official familiar with the report, "hit the ceiling" because it failed to provide sufficient ammunition to undermine Blix and, by association, the new U.N. weapons inspection program." "The request for a CIA investigation underscored the degree of concern by Wolfowitz and his civilian colleagues in the Pentagon that new inspections – or protracted negotiations over them – could torpedo their plans for military action to remove Hussein from power," the Post reported. Blix accused the Bush administration of launching a smear campaign against him because he did not find evidence of WMD in Iraq and, he said, he refused to pump up his reports to the U.N. about Iraq's WMD programs. In a June 11 interview with the London Guardian newspaper, Blix said "U.S. officials pressured him to use more damning language when reporting on Iraq's alleged weapons programs." "By and large my relations with the U.S. were good,'' Blix told the Guardian. "But toward the end the (Bush) administration leaned on us.'" The White House Iraq Group The Bush administration needed a vehicle to market a war with Iraq. In August 2002, Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card formed the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) to publicize the so-called threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The WHIG was not only responsible for selling the Iraq War, but it took great pains to discredit anyone who openly disagreed with the official Iraq War story. The group's members included Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Bush's former advisor Karen Hughes, then Senior Advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, former Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - Chief of Staff to the vice president and co-author of the administration's pre-emptive strike policy. Rice was later appointed secretary of state; her deputy, Hadley, became national security advisor. Wilkinson departed to become a spokesman for the military's central command, and later for the Republican National Convention. Rove chaired the group's meetings. Moreover, Rove's "strategic communications" task force, operating inside the group, was instrumental in writing and coordinating speeches by senior Bush administration officials, highlighting in September 2002 that Iraq was a nuclear threat, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal in October 2005. Another member of WHIG, John Hannah, along with former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith and Wolfowitz, were interviewed by FBI officials in 2004, according to a report in the Washington Post, to determine if they were involved in leaking US security secrets to Israel, former head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). "A senior official who participated in its work called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities," according to an August 10, 2003, Washington Post investigative report on the group's inner workings. "Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. [Karl] Rove and [Lewis] Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion," the Journal reported. During its very first meetings, Card's Iraq group ordered a series of white papers showing Iraq's alleged arms violations. The first paper, "A Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons," was never published. However, the paper was drafted with the assistance of experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office. "In its later stages, the draft white paper coincided with production of a National Intelligence Estimate and its unclassified summary. But the WHIG, according to three officials who followed the white paper's progress, wanted gripping images and stories not available in the hedged and austere language of intelligence," according to the Washington Post. Judith Miller, Aluminum Tubes, and the Mushroom Cloud The group relied heavily on New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who, after meeting with several of the organization's members in August 2002, wrote an explosive story that many critics of the war believe laid the groundwork for military action against Iraq. On Sunday, September 8, 2002, Miller wrote a story for the Times, quoting anonymous officials who said aluminum tubes found in Iraq were to be used as centrifuges. Her report said the "diameter, thickness and other technical specifications" of the tubes - precisely the grounds for skepticism among nuclear enrichment experts - showed that they were "intended as components of centrifuges." She closed her piece by quoting then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who said the United States would not sit by and wait to find a smoking gun to prove its case, possibly in the form of a "a mushroom cloud." After Miller's piece was published, administration officials pursued their case on Sunday talk shows, using Miller's piece as evidence that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear bomb, even though those officials were the ones who supplied Miller with the story and were quoted anonymously. Rice's comments on CNN's "Late Edition" reaffirmed Miller's story Rice said that Saddam Hussein was "actively pursuing a nuclear weapon" and that the tubes - described repeatedly in US intelligence reports as "dual-use" items - were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs ... centrifuge programs." Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press," also mentioned the aluminum tubes story in the Times and said "increasingly, we believe the United States will become the target" of an Iraqi atomic bomb. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, on CBS's "Face the Nation," asked viewers to "imagine a September 11th with weapons of mass destruction." The Cincinnati Speech In October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in Cincinnati and spoke about the imminent threat Iraq posed to the U.S. because of the country's alleged ties with al-Qaeda and its endless supply of chemical and biological weapons "Surveillance photos reveal that the (Iraqi) regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons," Bush said. "Iraq possesses ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles -- far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations -- in a region where more than 135,000 American civilians and service members live and work. We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it." Also in October 2002, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered the military's regional commanders to rewrite all of their war plans to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq. The goal, Rumsfeld said, was to use fewer ground troops, a move that caused dismay among some in the military who said concern for the troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory. Those predictions have been borne out over the past five years. Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that his plan would allow "the military to begin combat operations on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or thought wise - before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," the New York Times reported in its October 13, 2002, edition. "Looking at what was overwhelming force a decade or two decades ago, today you can have overwhelming force, conceivably, with lesser numbers because the lethality is equal to or greater than before," Rumsfeld told the Times. Rumsfeld said too many of the military plans on the shelves of the regional war-fighting commanders were freighted with outdated assumptions and military requirements, which have changed with the advent of new weapons and doctrines. It has been a mistake, he said, to measure the quantity of forces required for a mission and "fail to look at lethality, where you end up with precision-guided munitions, which can give you 10 times the lethality that a dumb weapon might, as an example," according to the Times report. Through a combination of pre-deployments, faster cargo ships and a larger fleet of transport aircraft, the military would be able to deliver "fewer troops but in a faster time that would allow you to have concentrated power that would have the same effect as waiting longer with what a bigger force might have," Rumsfeld said. Critics in the military said there were several reasons to deploy a force of overwhelming numbers before starting any offensive with Iraq. Large numbers illustrate US resolve and can intimidate Iraqi forces into laying down their arms or even turning against Hussein's government. The new approach for how the US might go to war, Rumsfeld said in a speech in 2002, reflects an assessment of the need after 9/11 to refresh war plans continuously and to respond faster to threats from terrorists and nations possessing biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. Administration Tries to Silence Experts One of the most vocal opponent of the administration's prewar Iraq intelligence was David Albright, a former United Nations weapons inspector and the president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington, D.C. based group that gathers information for the public and the White House on nuclear weapons programs. In a March 10, 2003 report posted on the ISIS website, Albright accused the CIA of twisting the intelligence related to the aluminum tubes. "The CIA has concluded that these tubes were specifically manufactured for use in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium," Albright said. "Many in the expert community both inside and outside government, however, do not agree with this conclusion. The vast majority of gas centrifuge experts in this country and abroad who are knowledgeable about this case reject the CIA's case and do not believe that the tubes are specifically designed for gas centrifuges. In addition, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have consistently expressed skepticism that the tubes are for centrifuges." "After months of investigation, the administration has failed to prove its claim that the tubes are intended for use in an Iraqi gas centrifuge program," Albright added. "Despite being presented with evidence countering this claim, the administration persists in making misleading comments about the significance of the tubes." Albright said he took his concerns about the intelligence information to White House officials, but was rebuffed and told to keep quiet. "I first learned of this case a year and a half ago when I was asked for information about past Iraqi procurements. My reaction at the time was that the disagreement reflected the typical in-fighting between US experts that often afflicts the intelligence community. I was frankly surprised when the administration latched onto one side of this debate in September 2002. I was told that this dispute had not been mediated by a competent, impartial technical committee, as it should have been, according to accepted practice," Albright said. "I became dismayed when a knowledgeable government scientist told me that the administration could say anything it wanted about the tubes while government scientists who disagreed were expected to remain quiet." Albright said the Department of Energy, which analyzed the intelligence information on the aluminum tubes and rejected the CIA's intelligence analysis, is the only government agency in the U.S. that can provide expert opinions on gas centrifuges (what the CIA alleged the tubes were being used for) and nuclear weapons programs. "For over a year and a half, an analyst at the CIA has been pushing the aluminum tube story, despite consistent disagreement by a wide range of experts in the United States and abroad," Albright said. "His opinion, however, obtained traction in the summer of 2002 with senior members of the Bush Administration, including the President. The administration was forced to admit publicly that dissenters exist, particularly at the Department of Energy and its national laboratories." But Albright said the White House launched an attack against experts who spoke critically of the intelligence. "Administration officials try to minimize the number and significance of the dissenters or unfairly attack them," Albright said. "For example, when Secretary Powell mentioned the dissent in his Security Council speech, he said: "Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher." Not surprisingly, an effort by those at the Energy Department to change Powell's comments before his appearance was rebuffed by the administration." Powell Remains Loyal The lack of evidence and public blunders by other high-ranking officials in the Bush administration is endless. Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal February 3, 2003 a day before his famous meeting at the U.N. where he presented "evidence" of an Iraqi weapons program, which turned out to be the empty trailers the U.S. military found earlier this month, that there was no "smoking gun" "While there will be no "smoking gun," we will provide evidence concerning the weapons programs that Iraq is working so hard to hide," Powell said in his op-ed. "We will, in sum, offer a straightforward, sober and compelling demonstration that Saddam is concealing the evidence of his weapons of mass destruction, while preserving the weapons themselves." However, Powell did no such thing. Instead, Powell held up a small vial of anthrax at the U.N. meeting to illustrate how deadly just a small vial can be and then used that to couch his claims that Iraq's alleged stockpile of anthrax would be much deadlier. The same day, February 3, 2003 White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer dodged a dozen or so questions about the intelligence information from sources in Iraq and from the CIA that showed, without any doubt, that Iraq possessed WMD. "I think the reason that we know Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons is from a wide variety of means. That's how we know," Fleischer said.
article continued here: The 16 Words Were False Eleven days before President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address in which he stated that the United States learned from British intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Africa the State Department told the CIA that the intelligence the uranium claims were based upon were forgeries. The revelation of the warning was contained in a closely guarded State Department memo. The memo, released in April 2006 under a Freedom of Information Act request, subsequently became the the first piece of hard evidence and the strongest to date that shows the Bush administration knowingly manipulated and ignored intelligence information in their zeal to win public support for invading Iraq. On January 12, 2003, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries," the memo dated July 7, 2003, says. Moreover, the memo said that the State Department's doubts about the veracity of the uranium claims may have been expressed to the intelligence community even earlier. Those concerns, according to the memo, are the reasons that former Secretary of State Colin Powell refused to cite the uranium claims when he appeared before the United Nations in February 5, 2003, - one week after Bush's State of the Union address - to try and win support for a possible strike against Iraq. "After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the (State) Department, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Association), and the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the U.N. Security Council did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement," the memo further states. Iraq's interest in the yellowcake caught the attention of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association. ElBaradei had read a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate and had personally contacted the State Department and the National Security Council in hopes of obtaining evidence so his agency could look into it. Vice President Dick Cheney, who made the rounds on the cable news shows in March 2003, tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that the documents were forged. "I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past." As it turns out, ElBaradei was correct, the declassified State Department showed. Monday's declassified State Department memo was obtained by The New York Sun under a Freedom of Information Act request the newspaper filed in July 2005. The Sun's story, however, did not say anything about the State Department's warnings more than a week before Bush's State of the Union address about the bogus Niger documents. The memo was drafted by Carl Ford Jr., the former head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, in response to questions posed in June 2003 by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, about a February 2002 fact-finding trip to Niger that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson undertook to investigate the uranium claims on behalf of the CIA. The Ambassador Emerges A day after Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, former ambassador Joseph Wilson said he reminded a friend at the State Department that he had traveled to Niger in February 2002 to investigate whether Iraq attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium from Niger, according to a July 6, 2003, Op-Ed he published in the New York Times. In his book, The Politics of Truth, Wilson's said his State Department friend replied that "perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case." But Wilson was certain that the administration was trying to sell a war that was based on phony intelligence. In March 2003, Wilson began to publicly question the administration's use of the Niger claims without disclosing his role in traveling to Niger in February 2002 to investigate it. Wilson's criticism of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence caught the attention of Cheney, Libby and Hadley. In an interview that took place two and a half weeks before the start of the Iraq War, Wilson said the administration was more interested in redrawing the map of the Middle East to pursue its own foreign policy objectives than in dealing with the so-called terrorist threat. "The underlying objective, as I see it - the more I look at this - is less and less disarmament, and it really has little to do with terrorism, because everybody knows that a war to invade and conquer and occupy Iraq is going to spawn a new generation of terrorists," Wilson said in a March 2, 2003, interview with CNN. "So you look at what's underpinning this, and you go back and you take a look at who's been influencing the process. And it's been those who really believe that our objective must be far grander, and that is to redraw the political map of the Middle East," Wilson added. During the same CNN segment in which Wilson was interviewed, former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright made similar comments about the rationale for the Iraq War and added that he believed UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to search the country for weapons of mass destruction A week later, Wilson was interviewed on CNN again. This was the first time Wilson ridiculed the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Well, this particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by the US - the US government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early 1960s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers," Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview. "For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq." Less than two weeks later, on March 19, 2003, the US bombed Iraq.
Browntown: I read the book by Suskind and don't recall a specific sentence or acknoledgement by either O'Neill or Colin Powell that the very first meeting of the National Security Council specifically outlined that there was a plan to go to war against Iraq at that time. It is a difference in degreee. My recollection of it was that in that very first meeting O'Neill was surprised that the focus was on Iraq and that the focus of the administration's middle east perspective was going to be Iraq and not Israel/Palestine. Additionally my recollection of the reading was that O'Neill commented that Powell was also surprised by the direction. My sense was that reasonable men sat in these meetings and didn't see a specific direction to war at that time. I suspect that "war" wasn't discussed openly in those meetings, if one were to believe the premise of the book. It's reference, though, does point to a focus, that together with all the other references you mention suggest that an inner circle of Neo-Cons that you reference might well have had this on their minds from the beginning. None has uncovered the smoking gun that might say.....these guys were all aiming to go to war against Iraq from the beginning. I guess it would mean getting one or more of "these guys" (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfewitz, Perle, Bush) to admit...."we had Iraq targeted in January, 2001". the volume of evidence put together by Leopold in this book that you have cited points to that being the case. I'm just adding a small point of commentary based on my own reading of the O'Neill book. Today, I read excerpts from a "to be published book" by Chuck Hagel, which says that Bush specifically promised Hagel that he would focus on diplomatic efforts in 2002 long before going to war. I got this feeling that people of good will were taken in by a small secret cabal of neo-conservatives that drove this war. Now, 4,000 dead, 30,000 US soldiers injured, a military under stress, hundreds of billions of dollars spent and no end in sight.....we still hear Bush going on about Al-Queda, victory etc. Meanwhile the middle east is every bit the same tinderbox of crisis as before the war in Iraq and probably worse. On the other hand, the full body of evidence from this new book suggests an undeniable focus on Iraq. I wish one of these guys would spill the beans.
Are we just going to pretend that no Iraqis were killed? I'm not saying you are avoiding it Earl, its just that people tend to quantify the American cost, not the human cost. For whatever reason and I imagine they are many and varied... Not that secret. The hawks are on both sides of the aisle... They just carried on the Reagan/Bush/Clinton agenda and policy of genocide against the Iraqi people. Not going to happen. And if it does, that person will be discredited and what they have to say buried so fast.... As you've said before, the masses (of which only what, 3% have ever read a book) don't have any interest in impeachment. They don't hold their government accountable. You're not going to get the truth, because hardly anyone cares anymore. And apparently I can't find anyone to support the notion that the law is the law, regardless of public opinion.
remember how alot of us here on dp were talking about how this war was coherced by these neocons and Gtech and his neocon groupies kept on defending that war? How many more wars must happen before we see them for what they truely are? Im sure when the next war happens gtech and his buddies will be supporting it too. How can you trust this same group of elites of our military industrial complex over and over again while they start the same kind of wars in different countries from iran in the 50's to vietname to iraq? How can we the american people keep being so gullible?? Oh by the way just a few hundred thousand iraqis died in this war, not that its a big deal anyways right?
Clinton talked about the need to remove Saddam during his presidency. Al Gore talked about the need to remove Saddam in the mid 90's. Bush Sr stopped short of removing him in the 80's. Iraq has been a problem for decades. It just wasn't a problem that the public cared about until we were attacked severly. Then we finally decided that maybe we should take this problem of terrorism seriously. ABC reported in 1999 that Al Quaeda was training in Iraq. Al Quaeda wasn't seen as a big threat to the general population until 9/11. So arguing that we've been planning for a long time to attack Iraq should be a "no duh" if you were paying attention to what Clinton and Gore were saying in the 90's. Most people weren't because the average person wasn't affected by terrorism. It was a military problem. Not a civilian problem. It's not particular good military strategy to go after the big targets right away. Instead you go after the smaller targets to establish a base and demonstrate you're serious and then move on to the bigger targets if they havn't given up diplomatically yet. Guess what country is right between Iraq and Afghanistan? Iran. Saddam thought we'd just toss a few bombs his way and move on like Clinton did. That's why he kept bluffing about his military capabilities and ambitions. Whoops. Clinton was willing to just let it go but after 9/11 we couldn't take the risk. Clinton let Osama go a dozen times as well. If Clinton had shown some backbone during his presidency things may have turned out differently.
As of 1998, Clinton had made regime change official policy (H.R. 4655). Iraq was our ally until the very late 80s. The government, leadership and ideology was consistently evil throughout. Source? Just curious. Post 9/11, there were reports that "Al Queda" were training in the US, on US bases. Bush was informed of a possible major "Al Queda" attack on the domestic US early in 2001. IMO, Clinton never intended to attack Iraq. He just wanted to perpetuate genocide by bombing and sanctions. Covered this in another thread. Terrorism is against civilians. What you are referring to is guerrilla warfare. You're kidding right? Clinton murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Btw, have I mentioned that political violence directed at civilians is terrorism? That's exactly what Food for Oil was. Sanctions which starved and dehydrated Iraqis, people who had nothing to do with the political direction or leadership of their country. In many cases, they were children under the age of 5. So before you go on about TERISTS, perhaps you should consider what murdering thousands upon thousands of children is. Because it certainly isn't democracy or freedom.
Is guerilla dishonestly blaming America again, for the actions of the people he supports? It seems as though he gives the credit of anyone and everyone who has done evil (al qaida, bin laden saddam) to others. Why is that, guerilla? I have corrected you on a number of the dishonest claims presented above, so it cannot be because you are simply uninformed. There has to be a greater reason.
Wow. And I thought the Devil was bad. "Clinton made me do it!" That's why welfare children starve all the time. The big bad government forces the parents to buy food and then the parents turn around and sell the food for money and then use the money for everything except feeding their children. It's the government's fault that welfare parents deny their children the food the government provided for them. I think that was a double backflip with a few twists thrown in. Some amazing mental gymnastics we are seeing here today.
I'm making the point that Clinton was just as evil as Bush, so your picking on him is unfounded. He could easily be a reich wing nutjob neocon. How is this relevant to the genocide perpetuated by Food for Oil? Who exactly did Clinton think they were going to starve, Saddam? It's interesting that you would accuse people dead or suffering from genocide as the guilty party. If you did this with jews/nazis you would be called all kinds of names. But then, Iraqis are not human, or on your level as a human, so it's easy to make jokes at the expense of their death and human suffering. Tell me about it. You've outed yourself not only as being uninformed, but as an endorser of ethnic cleansing. Basically surrendering the moral high ground on any of "your issues" all in one short post.
So let's see here, Saddam gets enough food to feed all his people from oil sales but instead of giving the food to the people he uses it for his own gain. And that's the US' fault how? Learn to read. I accused Saddam of being the welfare parent that sells the food meant for his children.
50,000 people die every years on the Streets of the United States because of Automobiles, thats 12 Iraq Wars a year. Every year, where is your outrage about that.
Do you understand how Food for Oil worked? Great advice. A little hypocritical, but really great advice. Wrongly of course. Again, please read up on Food for Oil so you understand why it was brought in, how it worked and then come back and offer an opinion.
Great point. But when I suggest we try privatizing the roads, no one wants to listen... Seriously, we went to war over 9/11, which 1/15th of the number of people who die on the road. We then proceeded to enable the death of thousands of Iraqis and the creation of millions of refugees. Was our response to 9/11 commensurate with the damage against us? Is it fair to trade 100 Iraqi lives for every American life? Particularly when the Iraqis had nothing to do with 9/11? The people on the roads have a choice to be there. The people on 9/11 and it Iraq did not. That's the difference.
Did the world not supply enough food for the oil they bought? Are you seriously trying to say that Saddam didn't make backdoor deals to sell oil for cash and gave every bit of food he got to the people of his country?
No that is not what I am saying and not the point I have been making. Please stay on topic. We are talking about Sanctions and Food for Oil.
Fortunately there are reasonable people who can see through guerilla's dishonesty. If he's not being paid by al qaida, he certainly deserves to be. Or a few virgins for his efforts. I never thought I see anyone one here who hated Amerca more than gworld. guerilla now holds that spot.
So you agree then that Saddam was a welfare parent that squandared his children's food for himself. So what is your point? The sactions had a negative affect on the general population. There's nothing to say that the sanctions directly caused any deaths. The sactions affected Saddam who took it out on his people (like what's happening in Cuba today). Then UN came up with Oil for Food to try to force saddam to take care of his people. Various UN officials (such as Kofi Anan) helped Saddam get cash for oil (he essentially sold food stamps for cash) and then failed to feed his people and instead installed gold toilets. So I'm not sure where the US comes in. Maybe your keyboard keys are off. US,UN, they look the same. The UN started the program in 1991. Clinton simply allowed the US to participate in 1995. All the corruption in the program came from the UN and Saddam. The US was doing what it was supposed to. So again, what is the point you're trying to make?