MrsSpringsteen

I saw that on CNN last night, they said (and showed) that he shook hands with all of them when he met with them privately before the photo op

Vincent Vega

Yeah, he greeted all of them when they arrived. I guess he just didn't want to do it again (or maybe it's normal).
It's like saying hello to someone. You do it once a day, but when you meet the same person again you don't repeat it.
Okay, Americans found a way around it by saying "What's up?", "What's going on?" or something like that.

But he also looked down most of the time, which looked a bit strange. I would love to hear what all those politicians would have to say about him if they could just be honest.

Irvine511

wow, breaking news, the Iraq war really was all about WMDs and had nothing to do with removing Saddam from power because he was the greatest existential threat ever to the world's oil supply:

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MrsSpringsteen

Huffington Post Dec 2


In what was a remarkable admission that contradicted - to a large extent - the past statements from his onetime boss, former Bush strategist Karl Rove said on Tuesday evening that had the President known Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction, the United States would not have gone to war.

"In the aftermath of 9/11 the concern was about a tyrant accused of enormous human rights abuses," but who also possessed weapons of mass destruction, said Rove. "Absent that, I suspect that the administration's course of action would have been to work to find more creative ways to constrain him like in the 90s."

The remarks, delivered at a debate in New York on Bush's legacy, came amidst a vigorous defense by Rove on behalf of the war's purpose and outcome. At no point was it mentioned that the administration -- specifically Vice President Dick Cheney -- reportedly advanced faulty or poorly sourced information to fit the conclusion that Iraq possessed WMD, or that intelligence reports from the run-up to the war suggested that such a case was flimsy. Later in the event, Rove argued that Saddam Hussein was supporting terrorism, poised a grave threat to the region, and had systematically duped the international community into assuming he was armed.

"He told his interrogators it made him look big in the neighborhood," said Rove, before noting all of the Democratic officials who believed as much.

As such, Rove argued, the Bush administration was justified in the course it chose and the world better off for its actions.

And yet, his remarks stand in contrast to those offered by the president himself, both recently and in the past. In an interview that aired last night with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Bush declared that the greatest regret of his presidency was "the intelligence failure in Iraq." But he claimed it was "hard... to speculate" as to whether or not he would make the same decision to invade with the correct information.

Back in December 2005, however, Bush did just that, declaring the WMD issue effectively irrelevant when he said that, "knowing what I know today, I would have still made that decision."

"So, if you had had this -- if the weapons had been out of the equation because the intelligence did not conclude that he had them, it was still the right call?" Fox News' Brit Hume asked.

"Absolutely," replied Bush.

On Tuesday night, Rove wasn't the only Iraq war protagonist indulging in a bit of retrospection. Bill Kristol, of the Weekly Standard and Project for a New American Century fame, said he agreed with the sentiment that "the President would not in fact have gone to war if he had known what seems to be the case, that Saddam did not have functioning weapons programs at the time."

At the same time, Kristol too, argued that the decision to invade was ultimately correct, asserting that with Hussein still in power, radical groups would be more empowered, and radicalism would be resurgent far more than it is today.

BVS

I can feel the steam coming out of Sting's ears...

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^Apparently he did.

MyBloodySleeve

Diemen

Well obviously Rove is misinformed.

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Strongbow

Bush already stated that he still would have removed Saddam even if he had known that certain WMD weapons would not have been found after the invasion. In fact, during the national security deliberations on the issue before the war, it was listed as a possible although unlikely outcome. Despite that, it did not deter anyones view in the need to remove Saddam from power because the key tenents of the containment strategy of the 1990s, Sanctions, the Weapons embargo, had recently crumbled and the means to rebuild them were limited at best do to the political and economic situation in the region.

Bush by the way has already been widely qouted on the issue giving definitive responses below unlike the ABC interview:


Let me remind you that just because Saddam might not of had certain WMD weapons in March of 2003 did not in any way prove that he would not have such weapons in 2006, 2008, or 2010, or beyond, just as the fact that Saddam did not have WMD in the summer of 1979 did not prevent him from both acquiring and using such weapons by the summer of 1982.

While specific WMD weapons were not found in 2003, programs related to the production of WMD and that were in violation of the UN resolutions were found. Their existence and Saddam's concealement of them alone show his true intent.

Sanctions and the weapons embargo were at best a band aid, and by 2002 were essentially gone. The means to rebuild them were very limited because of the political and economic situation in the region. The means to overthrow Saddam from within were virtually zero do to the police state Saddam had built up over decades. Relying simply on deterence would not work with a regime that had shown in the past that it had a very different way of caculating risk and benefits derived from certain actions. This is why the only way to insure that the Saddam regime would never cause a crises in the region again or use or develop certain WMD weapons was by removing the regime from power.

BVS

Let me remind you that just because the U.S. is not ran by aliens from Mars in 2008 does not in any way prove that aliens won't be running the country in 2010, 2020, or 2025.

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^Apparently he did.

MyBloodySleeve

Strongbow

Sorry, but the fact that Saddam did not have WMD in 1979 but had acquired and used such WMD by the summer of 1982 is a matter of historical fact.

As to the issue of what he had at the time and what he might be able to get in the future and what the US response should be consider the following:

Absent the removal of Saddam's regime, what was the only way the United States had of preventing Saddam from acquiring new WMD?

Sanctions and the Weapons Embargo


What condition were sanctions and the weapons embargo in, in 2002?

very depleted to non-existent

What was the capacity of the United States to rebuild the sanctions regime and weapons embargo that existed shortly after the 1991 Gulf War?

very limited given the political and economic situation in the region


What was the capability of US intelligence to tell what Saddam did or did not have before the 1991 Gulf War and before Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003?

Very limited in both cases in terms of what was found after each conflict, far more WMD capability than had been thought before the 1991 Gulf War given what was found, and far less after the invasion in 2003 given what was found

If Saddam were left in power like many liberals would have like to have done, would US intelligence be any better and determining when or what level of WMD capacity Saddam would have in 2006, 2008, than they were in 1991 and 2003?

highly unlikely given the difficulty in detecting such materials and programs plus the growing capabilities in concealing such efforts


Given the disentigration of the key part of the containment program in the 1990s, the sanctions and weapons embargo regime, the limited ability of US intelligence to tell what Saddam did or did not have at any specific time, the regimes refusal to fully cooperate on the verifiable disarmament of all WMD and its violation of 17 UN Security Council Resolutions, the only way that the United States and the international community could fix the situation and remove the threat for good and also finally enforce the UN resolutions was through the removal of the Saddam regime.

Equally important, the number of casualties Coalition forces would suffer, the number of Iraqi civilian casualties, possibly the number of civilian casualties in other countries in the region, would all increase the longer an invasion to remove him was put off as Saddam acquired more capabilities over time given the disentigration of the sanctions. Waiting for Saddam to develop certain WMD capabilties as well as other conventional military capabilities before removing him would only increase the cost and casualties of every country involved.

BVS

Sting, do you feel the slight bit lonely now that even the administration isn't defending this rhetoric?

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^Apparently he did.

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Irvine511

it seems that some people think that the indefinite "conditions based" occupation -- as defined by the generals, of course, not the president who has abdicated any responsibility for Iraq -- in a fast-devolving, ethnically toxic, religiously crazy region is somehow in American interests. given the enormous challenges of, say, Pakistan, the huge debt we are piling up, the exhaustion of the military, i do not believe that an endless "conditions based" military, economic and political commitment to Iraq makes sense. it only makes sense if we are determined to occupy the Middle East indefinitely to secure oil supplies. which is why this war was always about in the first place.

where do we stand at present? we still have 150,000 troops occupying Iraq nearly 6 years later. yes, because we've bought off the Sunni tribes, divided and walled Baghdad, and changed some techniques, we've managed to bring Iraq back from the brink so instead of a civil war, we merely have a society that's become normalized to a scattering of car bombs across the country on any given Tuesday. but we're still there. there is no stable state that will grow to fill the void that will be left when we do leave unless Maliki somehow becomes Saddam part 2.

nothing has really been "won" here by the Surge, and the Surge has worked insofar as it has been a band aid that has helped stanch a bleeding head wound. but to think that the Surge has somehow healed Iraq, that the society has somehow been mended, that we actually will be better off in the long run because of The Surge, is foolish. yes, The Surge was a success in that it succeeded in what it set out to do -- cut down on the apocalyptic violence of 2006/7. but for how much longer? have we not just delayed the coming inevitability of more mass death in Iraq? for what? at what cost? and does the delaying of this inevitable mass death mean more occupation? for how long? to what end? do we have to wait for an entire generation to die out? what happened in Vietnam after 1975? are we to endlessly prop up Baghdad? to contain ... not the Soviet Union, but what?

there is no way out of Iraq, and nothing was improved by the removal of Hussein that has not been negated by something just as dangerous. you've replaced one set of problems with another, and managed to kill tens of thousands along the way. is it reasonable to ask the American people to spend their treasure and spill their blood on something that amounts to very little in the end? do we really think we can forcibly integrate the Arab/Muslim world to be like a secular European democracy? has Iraq ever been truly pacified? simply because the Americans seem to have done it better than anyone doesn't mean at all that it's being done well -- to say, as some do, that we're "the most successful occupation in the history of Afghanistan" is rather damning with faint praise.

if you want to "succeed" in Iraq, and to follow The Surge through to it's logical end, which is not just the stanching of violence for a few months, then it will require a significant military presence in Baghdad for the rest of our lives.

is that what we really want? does this address the actual challenges that lie before us?

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U2DMfan

One is an opinion given with elections and political ramifications still at stake.

The other is an opinion with absolutely nothing attached to it but the opinion itself.

Which do you think is the more honest answer?

Zoomerang96

it reminds me a bit of those japanese soldiers who hid in the jungles decades after the second world war had ended, because they refused to come to terms with the surrender.

everyone's laughing at sting2 and strongbow nowadays, guys.

diamond

but the ladies still love him.

Se7en

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