Debate : 25255


Off-Topic / Debate / 25255	25254 \| 25256

Subject:	Re: Preaching to the Choir
Newsgroups:	lugnet.off-topic.debate
Date:	Wed, 11 Aug 2004 04:25:35 GMT
Viewed:	1647 times

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Chris Phillips wrote:

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal wrote:

(snip)

Now I must ask you to provide specific cites for this allegation, because I reject your assertion.

This is hardly new ground, but alright, here are the specific cites:

From George Bush’s State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003:

Lie #1: “The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people.”

In support of this claim, Bush cited a UN Special Commission report that states with low confidence only that Iraq posessed “growth media” that might be used to develop anthrax.

What’s wrong with that? In theory he was correct.

Furthermore, to conclude that the amount of growth media estimated by the UN could produce 25,000 liters was based on a series of dubious assumptions that went well beyond the scope of the UN report. Bush took a report which suggested a possibilty and stated it as fact, couched in terms designed to alarm (dare I say terrorize?) the public.

So did he lie, or did he present a feasible worst-case scenario?

Lie #2: “The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hadn’t accounted for that material.”

The UN never “concluded” that Hussein had this material. Hussein had declared 19,000 liters to the UN, and they estimated that he “could have produced” more than double that amount. Bush took the most extreme interpretation of an outside estimate and stated it as fact.

Again, in theory it could have been the case. We are talking about WMDs here. Would you want your leader to underestimate an enemy whom you believed to possess the potential to cause mass murder?

The fact that Hussein had actually declared the materials to the UN was conveniently forgotten.

What you are conveniently forgetting is that SH blantantly lied to the UN on numerous occasions, and his word was worth goose excrement.

Lie #3: “Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands.”

This claim was based on a CIA report which only stated that “gaps in Iraqi accounting, and estimates of current production capacity strongly suggest that Iraq maintains a stockpile of chemical agents, probably VX, sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard.” Again, Bush took this report to its worst possible extreme, and stated it in the most alarming terms possible.

Presenting worst-case scenarios and lying are not the same thing.

Lie #4: “U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them -- despite Iraq’s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions.”

The UN report cited earlier credited Hussein with at most 15,000 munitions, and had overseen the destruction of 40,000. Unless Bush sold him another 15,000 that nobody else knows about, he wildly exagerated these numbers. Furthermore, the fact that the UN had already succeeded in ordering the destruction of 40,000 implies that the sanctions were working.

So, because Bush believed his intelligence and it was wrong, he is a liar? No.

Lie #5: “From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He’s given no evidence that he has destroyed them.”

The 3 defectors remain unidentified, and the administration refuses to provide even the least bit of information as to why their testimony was deemed credible. Regardless, no mobile weapons labs have been found. Hussein may not have given evidence that they were destroyed, but to date, Bush has offered no evidence that they ever existed.

So what is your claim? That Bush made up the story? That would be a lie. Anything short of that, no.

Lie #6: “The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.”

By Iraq’s own admission,

Again, your willingness to trust anything coming out of Iraq is laughable.

they had a fledgling nuclear program in the early 1990s, but the International Atomic Energy Agency reported in 1998 that “there were no indications of Iraq having achieved its program goals of producing a nuclear weapon; nor were there any indications that there remained in Iraq any physical capability for production of amounts of weapon-useable nuclear material of any practical significance.” Bush chose to ignore the latest intelligence and rely instead on the most alarming report from a decade earlier.

And how is that a lie exactly?

Lie #7: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

Not only did these reports turn out to be false, but it has been shown that members of the Bush administration (including Dick Cheney) knew that this was the case at the time of the SOTU address. The reference had been scrubbed from an earlier speech because the information was deemed unreliable, and Colin Powell refused to use it for the same reasons when he addressed the UN several days after the address.

That whole story stunk. The person who had a hard time with the truth was Joseph Wilson.

Lie #8: “Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

The CIA report on the aluminum tubes was inconclusive at best. Our experts could not state with any certainty that these tubes (which SH hadn’t even succeeded in acquiring) were intended for a nuclear weapons program. However, the IAEA had concluded and had already reported to the UN that the tubes sought by Iraq were not suitable for a nuclear program.

The bottom line on nukes WRT SH is-- he’d already have them were it not for the Israelis and their bold attack in ‘81 on Osiraq. To assume that SH wasn’t trying to redevelop that capability would be naive at best. The “man” had zero credibility.

Was SH flouting the UN resolutions? Of course! But it was the UN’s job to enforce those resolutions and we had no business taking any enforcement action over the objections of the UN Security Council.

Objections? They threatened SH in 1441, and wouldn’t follow through! What good were they? (except to a deceiver like SH)

On the other hand, Bush purposely distorted the facts available to him in such a way as to alarm the American people and silence opposition to an ill-conceived, poorly-planned, and illegal invasion of a sovereign nation. Bush still refuses to provide any proof to back up his wild exagerations, or even acknowledge that he may have made some mistakes in overstating his case for war.

So John, how exactly are these direct lies to Congress, the American People, and the world not grounds for impeachment? I sense another dodge coming on...

Even if what you are alleging were true, why then haven’t the Dems jumped all over impeachment proceedings????

(snip)

They did assume it to be fact; why else did they approve of the invasion in the first place? Everybody assumed it to be fact!

You are wrong here, John. The Senate resolution authorized the invasion of Iraq only if the president filed a finding of fact within 48 hours of the invasion to prove the two facts that I stated above. As with any legal document of this type, the Senate resolution began by stating the underlying assumptions which Bush was required to prove.

So you are claiming that they weren’t damned sure that he’d find the evidence to justify their voting to go to war???? Why??? To trap Bush into some debacle at the cost of American lives? I don’t buy it.

(snip)

So you would have advocated an immediate withdrawal after no WMDs were found? How is Bush in violation?

My point has nothing to do with the fact that no WMD were found. My point has everything to do with the president ignoring the legal obligations of his office on the way into war. The fact that no WMD were found simply underscores the dangers inherent in the kind of blind arrogance our president is afflicted with.

He has refused to provide facts to support the premise of the invasion.

??? All of Congress saw the facts he used.

Again, Congress approved the invasion only on the condition that Bush provide a declaration of proof that his allegations against Saddam Hussein were true. Bush never provided any such proof.

Okay. So suppose he was wrong in his assessment. Is that a crime? And so then what exactly? He immediately withdraws our troops after 48 hours and calls the whole thing off? What course of action would you have suggested?

Clear enough for you? The man is an international outlaw,

Then would you advocate him standing trial before the Hague?

Why not?

Because he is an American beholden only to US laws on US soil.

(snip)

The Patriot Act was enacted under the Bush administration, slammed through the congress right after the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Regardless of whether some of its provisions had been sought by previous presidents, I submit that the gross violation of basic constitutional rights that this vile piece of law represents were championed by Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft.

“Vile piece of law”? Have you even read what is in it? The Patriot Act merely empowers law enforcement officers to deal with the threat of terrorists in the same effective manner that they do organized crime, drug dealers, etc.

US citizens and foreign nationals are taken into custody and held without charges or due process of law for years on end.

For one who hates generalities, you use them a lot. Specifics.

Guantanamo Bay.

Um, listing a body of water is not what I’d call “specific”.

Abu Ghraib.

Okay, are you alleging that what occured there was policy?

Even Afghanistan and America have been the locations of these unconstitutional arrests and human rights violations. I would be more specific with names and dates, except that in the most eggregious cases, the government will not release this information.

Then lets drop it for lack of information one way or the other.

(snip)

So if a brutal dictator were executing his citizens by the 100,000s and you knew it and you could end it, you wouldn’t because of the sovereignty of his nation?

Which sounds nice, but wasn’t the reason Bush told us we needed to go into Iraq.

We went into Iraq to depose a leader whom we deemed as a threat to our national security. Now that the SH regime is gone, Iraq is no longer a threat, and Iraq is again a sovereign nation.

It is merely a convenient afterthought now that Bush’s lies have been exposed. There are plenty of countries ruled by brutal dictators that we haven’t intervened in.

Exactly! And why not? Because they aren’t perceived as a direct threat to the national security of the United States.

JOHN

Message has 1 Reply:

		Re: Preaching to the Choir
(...) Theory is not fact. To extrapolate the worst possible scenario from a report and then state that "the UN has concluded ..." is a lie. (...) Bush is terrorizing the American public to further his personal political agenda. Sounds like (...) (20 years ago, 11-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

Message is in Reply To:

		Re: Preaching to the Choir
(...) This is hardly new ground, but alright, here are the specific cites: From George Bush's State of the Union Address, January 28, 2003: Lie #1: "The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to (...) (20 years ago, 10-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)

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