Collegiate Times

A new book shows Saddam did support al Qaeda and the Taliban: 'Both In One Trench: Saddam's Secret Terror Documents' http://www.bothinonetrench.com

To be fair, Gabe, Bush acted (initially at least) on existing global intelligence. Take a look back at some of Clinton's speeches on the topic. Indeed, even the UN was under the impression that Iraq was in possession of (or attempting to gain possession of such weapons). We know now that the intelligence was poor, and that to a great extent Hussein led a fairly successful propaganda campaign to convince the world he had WMDs (there was, I think, a recent 60 minutes interview with one of his former ministers about that very topic). I'm not saying that the PR campaign by the administration was a good one. . . but it was necessary as well to garner support. Again, I'm no apologist, but 9 out of 10 ignoramouses you meet on the street will tell you that they don't even know where Iraq is, and so trying to tell them that we need to depose a violent dictator to stabalize the region wouldn't mean anything to them. I'm not one for bogus PR campaigns and it would have been nice for the administration to come forward after they figured it out and say "Hey, we didn't find anything." Now the whole issue has boiled down to something innately political which directly jeopardizes the lives of the men on the ground there, and that is something that I simply cannot tolerate. All in all, an interesting column.

• On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us." In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney's assertions went well beyond his agency's assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, "Our reaction was, 'Where is he getting this stuff from?' " • In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: "Sure." In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of "compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda." What's more, an earlier DIA assessment said that "the nature of the regime's relationship with Al Qaeda is unclear."

"Iraq was and is a necessary war." If you believe this, why haven't you enlisted? How about your next article argues for conscription to fight this necessary war?

just wait. i expect the red team to get us into iran any minute now, leave conscription to the blue team, then blame them for it later.

i guess if you look for about five seconds you'll find books that say saddam was a leprechaun and bin laden is the reincarnation of adolph hitler, too. yawn.

Ryan, was this the same George Tenet who called the case a "slam dunk," or was there another one?

An article that came out yesterday (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22847771) supports the contention that most in the intel community believed that Saddam had WMD: “Saddam Hussein allowed the world to believe he had weapons of mass destruction … Saddam also said that he wanted to keep up the illusion that he had the program in part because he thought it would deter a likely Iranian invasion.” Further, insofar as Saddam as a future threat, even if he did not have WMD at the time of the invasion, he did plan to reacquire them: “Saddam had the intention of restarting an Iraqi weapons program at the time, and had engineers available for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.” Where did this information come from? Saddam’s own mouth. We can say that President Bush was wrong and be correct, but to continue this fantasy that he KNEW Saddam had no WMD but lied about it is absurd.

Before the Iraq invasion, there were weapons inspectors on TV saying that Iraq had NO WMD's. Why weren't they listened to? They were actually there doing the work. I believe Bush & Co. KNEW there were no WMD's. It's a known fact that Rumsfeld wanted to attack Iraq in the immediate wake of 911.

Is anyone paying atention ! Today the most used WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION, in Africa, Iraq,Iran,and most other countries is the AK-47. Take note of the death toll in Africa, the AK-47 did most of their deaths. So GET REAL!

RealityBites, once again, like a poor marksman you keep missing the target. I am a thirty-year-old veteran of the United States Navy, I did two tours in a combat zone, for both I recieved the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Good Conduct Medal and three letters of commendation in my service jacket. My ship received 4 Battle "E" citations and the Navy Unit Commendation and the UN Meritorious Service Medal. Dave's right, Hans Blix was all over the news calling out the Bush admin. and Richard Clarke was fairly late, but has been very vocal in getting the facts out. Kyle, I agree that maybe some degree of "fudgin'" may have been required, but this was totally outrageous. As for an intel consensus, this so-called agreement did come after people were threatened with firing for not giung along, and also there was a whole parallel apparatus set up to "stovepipe" and "cherrypick" intel to support claims while dissensus was discarded, even when it was in majority opinion.

Actually, Saddam was saying he did have WMD's. The inspectors were there to prove they had been destroyed. They concluded they were unable to prove that Saddam had destroyed them. The "lies" in the compilation aren't actually lies. Some of them are true and many of them are unprovable. It also seems obvious that the group "Public Integrity" doesn't know the difference between "telling a lie" and "being wrong". In 2002, Hillary Clinton said Saddam has WMD's and a nuclear program. Was she wrong or was she lying?

The entire world, to include France and Russia, believed that Saddam had WMD. All of the UNSCRs required that Iraq account for all of the WMDs that they had in stock and had destroyed, which they could not. In addition, the UNSCRs required that Saddam cooperate unconditionally, which he did not. All of it was a ruse on his part to make the world believe that he had WMD. It turns out that we were wrong. Having said that, there isn't any doubt that had the UN given Saddam a clean bill of health he would have gone right back to reconstituting his WMD. In addition, it was the official policy of the United States, enshrined in law passed by the Congress and signed by President Clinton, to change the regime in Iraq. This was based almost entirely because everyone believed Saddam had WMD. Lastly, UNSCR 1441, adopted unanimously 08 NOV 02 (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2002/SC7564.doc.htm), found "Iraq in 'material breach' of disarmament obligations" and threatened "'Serious Consequences' for continued violations." The latter is diplomatic speak for military action. The UNSCR, which at that time included peace-loving Norway and Syria (not the US's closest ally) would not have approved the threat of military action had they not believed Iraq had any WMD. BTW Gabe, you don't need to justify your credentials to anyone.

First, UNSCR 1441 didn't give the final authority forr military action, that's a bit of a stretch, it set the stage for another resolution that could've been enacted, but wasn't because of the Security Council's veto-wielding states couldn't agree. This case was cherry-picked, regardless of what some people thought, there was no unanimity. Secondly, a big reason that some of the WMDs couldn't be accounted for was that they were spread all over the desert by cruise missile strikes, coupled with Saddam's need to keep the world in the dark about his WMD-holding status. Also, hey, I don't mind listing my accomplishments...it's fun to shut these jerks up.