What the hell is George Bush talking about?

?
Dubya the Dense can barely string sentences together. Most of the time unless someone writes what he is to say no one knows wtf he's saying.

He's doing the best he can.

Before you judge him so harshly, keep two things in mind:

1) Adult is a second language for him.

2) He is a moron.

When all else fails he likes to confuse people and it looks like it's working ;-) I have no idea what he meant either and assure you that is exactly his point.

I see you couldn't sleep either, Montana!

I'm a night owl by nature Frank no matter how hard I've try to change that. I was surprised to see you on here at this hour though.

Doesn't surprise me anymore.

Bush I'm referring to, not Montana's sleeping habits.

LOL Wilso. You probably know my sleeping habits better than anyone ;-)

Biting hand in order to keep foot out of mouth!

LOL! Smooch.

Sorry Kickycan, didn't mean to hi-jack your thread.

What they were trying to imply was that the discussions referenced were in regard to the no-fly zone implementation.

Which is more than likely false.

I'm trying to find actual allegations of fact in this thread, as opposed to mere name calling. The only specific allegation I see is that the administration's assertion that pre-9/11 Iraq plans were in regard to no-fly zones is false. Any evidence of this? Also, I'm not sure of the facts, but weren't there oft stated governent desires to oust Hussein prior to the Bush administartion?

A big deal was made over O'Neill's revelation that the Bush Administration was making plans for an invasion of Iraq almost as soon as they moved into the White House. Oops. Then we learn that the Clinton Administration had been making the very same plans, and that in fact those plans were required after a law was passed in 1998 making regime change in Iraq an integral part of American foreign policy.

The US has had long standing policy that we wished for regime change.

The difference has been in what we decided to do, not what we wanted.

O'Neill's contentions were not denied and instead an ad hominem was issued against him.

In short, nobody has denied O'Neill's assertion that the administration entered office with plans to invade Iraq.

In terms of an ad hominem being issued against O'Neill, I am aware that other cabinet members have said that their experience of meeting with the president is more positive, and that an investigation is underway concerning the possible illegal use of secret documents. I would be interested in hearing the ad hominem. I am not saying that there wasn't one, just that I didn't hear it.

If regime change in Iraq has been considered desirable for a long time, and, indeed, has been the formal and legal policy of the United States, I'm not sure why planning from the start to implement that policy would be wrong or unusual. Is it more desirable to have policies that are explicit, but that one is afraid to implement?

The official reaction by White House press secretary Scott McClellan was: 'It appears that the world according to Mr. O'Neill is more about trying to justify his own opinion than looking at the reality of the results we are achieving on behalf of the American people.'

No denial, just an ad hominem.

Getting rid of Saddam was U.S. policy long before Bush[/u]
By:Kathleen Parker
January 14, 2004

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had barely cleared his throat for his "60 Minutes" interview Sunday night before the "gotcha" e-mail started filling my mailbox.

Anti-war constituents apparently felt vindicated by O'Neill's assertion that President Bush was mapping out strategies for ousting Saddam Hussein soon after taking office and months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," said O'Neill.

I gathered from the electronic deluge that I was supposed to be shocked by this revelation and writhe like a salted slug in self-contempt and shame for supporting the war in Iraq. To think: Bush knew all along that Saddam was a bad person and wanted to get rid of him.

Also interviewed on the show was Ron Suskind, whose new book "The Price of Loyality: George W. Bush, The White House, and The Education of Paul O'Neill," relies heavily on O'Neill's testimony as well as documentation O'Neill spirited from the White House when he was fired in December 2002.

Suskind said that Saddam was topic "A" for the Bush administration. "From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime."

And his point would be?

The question isn't how could Bush have been so focused on Saddam, but how could he not be? Getting rid of Saddam had been U.S. policy for years and was ratified not by Sept. 11, but by the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998," which President Clinton signed into law on Oct. 31, 1998.

The Act was predicated upon Saddam's ignoble career highlights, which, briefly summarized, include the:

- 1980 invasion of Iran.

- 1988 relocation and murder of between 50,000 and 180,000 Kurdish civilians.

- 1988 use of chemical weapons against another 5,000 Kurds.

- 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

- 1993 attempted assassination of former President George Bush.

- 1994 posting of 80,000 troops near Kuwait, posing a threat of renewed invasion or attack.

- 1996 beginning of trend to deny weapons inspectors access to facilities and documents as required by the United Nations.

Call me zany, but I'm inclined at this point to stipulate that Saddam Hussein was, indeed, "a bad person." The U.S. policy that evolved from that understanding - that he needed to go - was articulated in the act as follows :

"It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

Clinton's focus was on helping Iraqis overturn Saddam rather than on invading Iraq, but that's where Sept. 11 becomes a factor. Simply put, Sept. 11 underscored our vulnerability and the reality that the United States could no longer afford a wait-and-see attitude in an environment of global terrorism. Strategically, the Bush Doctrine is working.

One day Saddam is crawling out of a spider hole, and shortly thereafter Libya's Col. Gadhafi is inviting inspectors over for tea. For a complete list of ripple effects, read William Safire's Jan. 12 column in The New York Times.

And though Bush gets credit for toppling the Iraqi dictator, using force against Iraq as a pre-emptive measure wasn't a new policy. The purpose of Clinton's 1998 Operation Desert Fox was to force Saddam to comply with weapons inspections and to thwart his continuing to develop WMD.

"Mark my words," Clinton said on the eve of the 1998 bombing. "(Saddam) will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them and he will use them."

Clinton subsequently came under fire from congressional leaders for allowing U.S. policy toward Iraq to "drift." In a letter dated Aug. 11, 1999, several congressmen, including Democratic presidential contender Sen. Joseph Lieberman, wrote:

"There is considerable evidence that Iraq continues to seek to develop and acquire weapons of mass destruction. The whole point of Operation Desert Fox was that we could not afford to wait until Saddam reconstituted his WMD capabilities."

In other words, concern about Saddam's unconventional weapons program was consistent and serious long before Bush reached office. As it turns out, we may have been wrong about those programs based on flawed intelligence, but belief in those programs preceded Bush's inauguration.

For Bush not to have looked for ways to oust Saddam or a plan for a post-Saddam Iraq in our new connect-the-dots world would have seemed negligent to irresponsible.

I just skimmed that, but if the point was that Paul's "revelation" was old news I agree.

Just about enyone who has closely followed this administration already knew that.

Actually Craven, you need to read the whole article to get the point of it, not just the parts that might agree with your world view.

ps: On a side note, I love that you change avatars as often as I change my socks, but that yellow smiley face one needs to go. Every time I see it grin at me it freaks me out!

I probably don't need to read it to guess at the point, I suspect the point is that not only is it old news but that it was any other position would not be justified.

If that's the point please forgive me for not wanting to get into the justification for the war debate today, I've been there and done that many times over the last year.