Does anyone deal with Facts?

I enjoy reading forums like this because I sometimes learn new things. I especially enjoy learning new things that disagree with what I believe.

But those of you who hold these opinions never seem to have any facts to back up your emotional hubris.

Point A: Politics may be an art or a science or a calling or whatever - what it is not is a repository or a forum that has anything to do with facts. It is too highly subjective and idiosyncratic to deal with fixed values.

Point B: If President Bush had been divulging 'correct' information about the state of Iraq's military capacity and intentions, these would have been bourne out by events on the ground. Over a year later, no WMDs, no capacity to arm and launch weapons in less than an hour, no evidence of a capacity to produce nuclear or chemical weapons.

Point C: I'd say (conjecture only) that the level of disruption to the lives of the Palestinian peoples is self-evident. Arguing whether this 'fence' (declared totally illegal by the UN) will 'harm' them even more is to ignore the root causes of the disruption and the reasons it was built.

My opinion is that President Bush sincerely believed, as did most of the world, based on quotes by various foreign leaders, as well as most Democrats, that Saddam had WMD.
And that he was willing to use them.
The information may have been wrong, but everybody believed it.

As for the fence, the facts and figures I get are that it is not "disrupting Palestinian lives" unjustly. Unjustly would mean without fair recompense for however their lives have been altered.

All Things Considered: September 18, 2002

Iraq Intelligence


JOHN YDSTIE, host:

As President Bush weighs the possibility of military action against Iraq, he's getting competing intelligence reports that may be confusing the situation. That's the conclusion of an article in the September 23rd issue of The New Republic, written by UPI State Department correspondent Eli Lake. Mr. Lake joins us in our studios. Thanks for being with us.

Mr. ELI LAKE (UPI State Department Correspondent): Thank you for having me.

YDSTIE: You write that the CIA has actually been edged out of its primary role of synthesizing intelligence on Iraq for the president by another group controlled by the Pentagon and hawks within the administration. Explain what's happened here.

Mr. LAKE: Well, I would say that a circle of neoconservatives who are not just in the Pentagon but also in the vice president's office--some are in the State Department--have essentially done their own analysis of intelligence information and come to very different conclusions than the Central Intelligence Agency

Second, we have arrived at an important moment in confronting the threat posed to our nation and to peace by Saddam Hussein and his weapons of terror. In New York tomorrow, the United Nations Security Council will receive an update from the chief weapons inspector. The world needs him to answer a single question: Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by Resolution 1441, or has it not?

A Knight Ridder Newspapers report says the version of the National Intelligence Estimate that the White House released to the public in October 2002 differs markedly with the top-secret report it received. Portions of that report were declassified and released in July.

According to Knight Ridder, scrubbed from the intelligence report, "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs," were such qualifying phrases as "we judge that," "we assess that" and "we lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programs....

U) Conclusion 1. Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.

(U) The major key judgments in the NIE, particularly that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program," "has chemical and biological weapons," was developing an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) "probably intended to deliver biological warfare agents," and that "all key aspects - research & development (R&D), production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War," either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting provided to the Committee. The assessments regarding Iraq's continued development of prohibited ballistic missiles were reasonable and did accurately describe the underlying intelligence.

(U) The assessment that Iraq "is reconstituting its nuclear program" was not supported by the intelligence provided to the Committee. The intelligence reporting did show that Iraq was procuring dual use equipment that had potential nuclear applications, but all of the equipment had conventional military or industrial applications. In addition, none of the intelligence reporting indicated that the equipment was being procured for suspect nuclear facilities. Intelligence reporting also showed that former Iraqi nuclear scientists continued to work at former nuclear facilities and organizations, but the reporting did not show that this cadre of nuclear personnel had recently been regrouped or enhanced as stated in the NIE, nor did it suggest that they were engaged in work related to a nuclear weapons program.

Moishe3rd wrote:

My opinion is that President Bush sincerely believed, as did most of the world, based on quotes by various foreign leaders, as well as most Democrats, that Saddam had WMD.
And that he was willing to use them.
The information may have been wrong, but everybody believed it.

Good evening Moishe3rd.

You have just stated a blatant factual falsehood in a thread where you make a challenge for factual basis.

You can't support the assertion in the last sentence I quoted. Do you deal with facts Moishe3rd? Apparently not, unless by "facts" you meant demonstratable falsehood.

Love and hugs, :wink:

Craven

PS

Quote:

As for the fence, the facts and figures I get are that it is not "disrupting Palestinian lives" unjustly. Unjustly would mean without fair recompense for however their lives have been altered.

"Just" and "unjust" are subjective terms that you arbitrarily define herein and misconstrue as being a matter of facts.

I posit that you confuse the degree of personal conviction you have with "facts".

How about THIS in response:

But NO...
No one except President Bush thought that Saddam had WMD's or was a threat to the US

Their have definitely been some WMD found, but too "little" thus far to make the case.

Jan. 25, 2004 -- David Kay, who recently resigned as head of the U.S. group searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, now says he doesn't think stockpiles of such weapons existed. He no longer believes that Iraq had a large-scale production program in the 1990s.

"There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities," said the Defence Intelligence Agency report, which was obtained by CNN.

Mr Rumsfeld told Congress on September 19 that Iraq had "amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin and mustard gas."

The report, entitled Iraq: Key Weapons Facilities - An Operational Support Study, also said there was no firm evidence that Saddam had biological weapons.

It concluded: "Iraq is assessed to possess biological agent stockpiles that may be weaponised and ready for use. The size of those stockpiles is uncertain and is subject to debate. The nature and condition of those stockpiles also are unknown".

The report said that Iraq had chemicals and equipment to produce mustard agents, but did not have the capability to create nerve agents.

It is unclear how widely the DIA study was circulated and who in the Bush administration saw it.

The report was made public hours after US President George Bush vowed that US forces would find banned Iraqi weapons.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies overstated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, relied on dubious sources and ignored contrary evidence in the run-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a Senate committee reported on Friday.

Finally why do the reasons for war keep changing?