Thursday, October 07, 2004
Up is down, right is left, war is peace. As Cheney would say, "It's hard to know where to begin," in refuting the crazed Vice President's statements justifying Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Although the report says Saddam's weapons program had deteriorated since the 1991 Gulf War and did not pose a threat to the world in 2003, it also says Saddam's main goal was the removal of international sanctions.
Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, who found no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991, justifies rather than undermines President Bush's decision to go to war.
.........``As soon as the sanctions were lifted he had every intention of going back'' to his weapons program, Cheney said.
Cheney said the report also concluded that the United Nations' ``Fuel for Food'' program ``was totally corrupted by Saddam Hussein. There were suggestions employees of the United Nations were part of the scheme as well.''
``The suggestion is clearly there by Mr. Duelfer that Saddam had used the program in such a way that he had bought off foreign governments and was building support among them to take the sanctions down,'' Cheney said.
That being the case, there was no reason to wait to invade Iraq to give inspectors more time to do their work, Cheney said.
``The sanctions regime was coming apart at the seams,'' Cheney told a later forum in Fort Myers. ``Saddam perverted that whole thing and generated billions of dollars. ... He used the funds to corrupt others.''
So if I understand Cheney's argument it goes something like this:
Though we asserted that we knew with certainty that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and that this in itself justified invading Iraq, disarming him and removing him from power, what we really meant was that he had no WMD of any kind. Having UN inspectors prove that Saddam actually had no WMD and in fact did not even have plans for developing WMD posed a grave threat to the world since this proof may encourage the UN Security Council to lift sanctions on Iraq, therefore enabling Saddam to begin to reconstitute his WMD programs. So the real threat at the time of invasion was from our allies, not from Iraq. The great and gathering threat was that the UN would lift sanctions. We needed to invade when we did to protect us from UN actions, not an immediate Iraqi attack.
OK. That makes since. Why didn't the President just say, "At the moment Saddam is very weak and vulnerable. Due to the No-Fly zone covering 2/3rds of his country, his complete lack of WMD and air power of any kind, a weakened military unable, due to over a decade of sanctions to properly defend the country, our forces will not be met with strong organized resistance at this time. There will never be a better time to invade his country and capture or kill him. America and our allies are in no danger at this time from Saddam, but if the UN displays weakness and loosens or fully lifts sanctions off of Iraq, Saddam could use newly available resources to strengthen his defenses and therefore one day become more difficult to remove from office. So, although there is no imminent threat, now would be the optimum time for an invasion, especially given the American public's anger and confusion over our failure to protect the country on 9/11. And besides, he tried to kill my daddy."
That sounds a little different from what the President actual did say which was: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." This little gem was delivered to a terrified audience in Cincinnati by our Commander in Chief on 10/7/02. Three days later on 10/10/02 the House and Senate passed identical resolutions authorizing the use of force by the President in Iraq.
It is very instructive to go back and read that entire Cincinnati speech, available in full on the White House's website. It's almost like the Nixon tapes, the "smoking gun" from another era. The president's own words condemning him as a liar. Here is a relevant passage, though I strongly recommend reading the entire lie, I mean thing:
"Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat. The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions -- its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror. Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons, and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
Notice the complete lack of qualifiers? The president did not say that we have evidence that may indicate the possession of proscribed WMD, he does not say that there was a significant amount of intelligence that refuted these claims, he says THEY HAVE IT! A man of certainty. Just what we need in a leader, right?
This a good place to address some of the rhetoric we have heard recently from both the President and VP on the above mentioned resolution authorizing the use of force.
At the time of the vote on the resolution and all the way up to the actual invasion of Iraq, Bush said again and again that this was not a vote for war. He assured us that war was not inevitable. He pledged to do everything in his power to avoid the use of force and that he only wanted UN resolutions to be enforced. Yet in the first two debates both Bush and Cheney characterized Kerry and Edwards' votes for this resolution as, "he voted for the war." Remember also that a key portion of the resolution was that it stated congressional support for efforts by the President to work through the United Nations Security Council to enforce resolutions related to Iraq. Cheney in fact has now admitted that in point of fact the Bush administration had no intention whatsoever of working through the UN and in fact were rushing to war to avoid perceived future UN actions. If Kerry and Edwards deserve any criticism it is that they were foolish enough to believe administration deceptions and outright lies.
This new report on WMD proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that in fact the President lied to the nation in the above speech. This doesn't stop the Deacon of Deception, Dick Cheney from declaring, and I am paraphrasing; "See, we were right."
Doesn't Clinton's feeble, "I guess that would depend on what your definition of is, is" defense pale in comparison to this latest linguistic acrobatics?
I need an aspirin.
