Donald Rumsfield Shakes Hands with Sadam

limerickman

SH was of the view that the UN weapons inspectors were a front for a spying
operation for the West.
Several inspectors have stated that this "attitude" had been conveyed to them during their inspection visits to Iraq.
In other words, the UN by imposing these inspections, had another agenda : to spy on SH and his regime.

You've got to remember that like Stalin (his hero), Hussein comes from baseline of where he must appear to be stronger than he actually is, at any cost.
Thus, he would never admit that he didn't have WMD.

Even in the face of capitulation - Hussein's ego prevented him from admitting that he was trying to fool people all along.
It's all about being the strongman and being the tough guy.
Except in this case, as the everyone including Bush knew, he didn't have any WMD.

Bikerman2004

If this is the case the we must remember to assign Saddam a big portion of the blame in this war. I think the spy accusations were just an excuse. I buy the tough guy stuff though.

limerickman

How can SH be blamed for the war ?
How can he give up something (WMD) which he did not have ?
Your point, is quite frankly, ludicrous.
Why should he let people wander around his country in the knowledge (his knowledge) that Iraq had no WMD ?

The blame for this war lies squarely with Bush and his lies.
SH should have allowed the inspectors to do their job but Bush, according to Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, had discussed at Cabinet the objective of
invading Iraq anyway.

You and the rest of the Bushites are always seeking a way to make excuses for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Bush & Co doctored evidence.
Bush & Co made false allegations against SH.
The weapons inspectors and Hans Blix told Bush & Co that no physical evidence could be found of WMD nor could any paperwork be uncovered showing the procurement of items (such as Uranium) to build WMD.
If elements such as Uranium (235) were ever in Iraq traces of radioactivity
lasting years, would have been uncovered.
Even if the buried the stuff miles under ground - it would have given off radioactive signals.
Nothing - zilch - zero - has ever been uncovered in Iraq.

The blame for this war lies squarely with Bush and his lies.
SH should have allowed the inspectors to do their job but Bush, according to Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, had discussed at Cabinet the objective of
invading Iraq anyway

The war was premised on a total and utter lie promulgated by Bush.
Your country has had unhindered access to Iraq for nearly 18 months and nothing has turned up.

Bikerman2004

I'm not saying Bush doesn't have any blame. I think he wanted to remove Saddam regardless of the reason. Saddam should have submitted to the inspections. Especially when it became apparent the US was pushing for war. If he had submitted to the inspections, then he would have been blameless. But instead he chose to play games.

skwanch

Hussein had WMD (ie. chemical weapons) at at least one point in time - he used them in the Iran/Iraq war.

Also, don't forget the Israeli raid on the Iraqi reactor back in '81 (I think it was '81 . . .). Hussein was after nukes at least that far back.

I'm not trying to be a Bush apologist here, but the WMD claim is not as unrealistic as you portray. I don't think any reasonable person thought he had nukes, but bioweapons or chemweapons - I think it's a fairly credible claim that he had active programs running. How much of a threat those programs actually were, and whether they actually constituted a valid cause for war - that's a different story entirely.

limerickman

I take your point - SH DID have WMD and DID use WMD.
In 1988, he used WMD on the Kurds of Halabja, which incidentally, neither
Britain or the USA thought was worthy of his overthrow.
(5,000 Kurds died in this atrocity).

Afert Gulf War 1 in 1991, his stock pile of WMD had been destroyed.
This has been documented.
Allied attacks on Iraqi strategic positions in that war ensured that whatever
stockpiles were there, was destroyed.

The timeline between 1991 and 2003 - as evidenced by the UN Inspectors - show that no WMD were in place in Iraq.
No radioactivity.
No paperwork.
No physical WMD.
Nothing.

Whether he was after nukes is a different issue to what the Bush goverment
told us between Sept 2002-March 2003.
The Bush goverment stated unequivocally that SH possessed WMD.
The Bush goverment stated that SH had biological weapons.
The Bush goverment stated unequivocally that SH had been involved in the
Sept 11th attacks
The Bush goverment doctored evidence and presented doctored evidence at the UN to support the WMD theory.
ALL OF THESE STATEMENTS HAVE BEEN FOUND TO HAVE BEEN LIES.

Bikerman2004

I'm not arguing whether Bush lied or not. I'm simply stating Saddam is not blameless.

skwanch

The evidence doesn't show that no WMD were in Iraq. The fact is that there simply wasn't enough evidence. The inspectors were continually harassed and prevented from doing their job as they needed to. So it's a stretch to claim that their lack of finding anything automatically means there was nothing to be found. It's a big country, remember.

Again, all that aside - I agree that Bush was lying when he made his case for war. But the fact that he lied (ie. claimed he had evidence he didn't) doesn't necessarily mean that Hussein was innocent - I personally find it very hard to believe Hussein didn't have some kind of chemical or bioweapons program running . . . his continual defiance of the UN inspectors and resolutions just doesn't make sense in any other context. The whole 'need to be a strong man' argument is extremely weak. Occam's Razor - the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. In this case, the simplest explanation for his behavior is that he was hiding something.

And the evidence would be pretty easy to hide - set a few white phosphorous grenades and everything gets immolated in a few thousand degree heat. All that's left is ash, and the paperwork and the weapons (bioweapons, anyway) wouldn't leave a trace.

limerickman

Probably.
You message is full of probably or something or doesn't necessarily mean or some other equivocation.

You live by standards, don't you ?
To launch a war against another country - don't you think that "probably"
and "something" and "doesn't necessarily mean" is not good enough ?
Do you not think that Bush & Co should have been 100% certain of their case before going to war ?
Do you think that doctoring evidence shows just how the standards that we're supposed to live by were disregarded and thrown out to suit an agenda ?

Saddam Hussein was an animal.
saddam Hussein was a dictator.
Bush did go to war because Hussein was an animal/dictator.

Bush went to war because SH allegedly had WMD.
No WMD was found.
Bush went to war because SH had some part in 9/11.
No evidence of such has ever been found.

Evidence.
It is insufficient to say that you suspect or you guess or you feel or you imagine - that SH had WMD.
The bar for going to war - for risking your fellow citizens lives - requires you to be sure that the reason you go to war is 1000% correct.

skwanch

Generally, people who live in the real world understand that black and white rarely exists in reality. Therefore such words are part of a thinking person's vocabulary. Someone who never equivocates isn't thinking.



I already said that I did, and have repeatedly said that the war in Iraq was ill-advised, so I'm not quite sure where this diatribe is directed.




Hey, news flash - I'm free to express whatever opinion I want. If you can wipe the foam off your mouth for a second and go back and re-read my posts, you'll see that I quite specifically do *not* connect my opinion that Hussein had an active WMD program with a legitimate cause for war. I *agree* that more proof was necessary before we went to war. But it doesn't follow that if I believe the evidence was insufficient for war, I must believe that no WMD existed. Again, it's not a black and white world.

davidmc

Yeah, Lieberman, the same guy who would'nt withdraw from his senate race to run for vice pres. That act showed how committed or rather not committed; to the cause he was, at the time. And Quoting one of Murdoch's publications, come on !!! If i quoted "mother jones", weiss luft or bikerman or zap would beat me over the head w/ it !!! I agree, Hussein was a tyrant(?) but be honest w/ the american people & don't tie it to 9-11, as this administration has done, quite sucessfully i might add w/ over 50% of the public believing this falsehood. They went on for month's using the ploy of saying iraq whenever 9-11 was mentioned. Just say you're invading iraq because they violated the u.n. sec. council agreement. I have no problem w/ that. This underplanned war might prove dubya's undoing, in Nov., if the body bags keep piling up, at the present rate. There's an old saying, goes something like this-" don't pee down my leg & tell me it's raining !!!" I don't see why they lied when there was a perfectly good enough reason- sec. council violations. Probably had someting to do w/ "black gold".

__________________
I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - )

Jakebrake

Hmmm... you mean like John Kerry not resigning from the Senate so he could pursue the presidency? I guess that shows how committed he is. Nothing like hedging ones bets, eh? Not that it matters, he might as well be resigned as little as he shows up to represent his state and vote. At least Bob Dole stepped down when he ran in 96.

One other minor point on Lieberman's behalf, one does not run for vice president, one is selected be the presidential candidate.

davidmc

U are correct. Jeez that's embarrassing. Anyway, I voted 4 an 3rd party candidate in the last three elections because i'm disgusted w/ the two party system & thier stranglehold on "the process" where joe/ jane citizen does'nt really have a say in anything. I' m going to vote for Kerry as bush, cheney & the majority of the cabinet represent the wealthy & the idealogues, plain & simple.

__________________
I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.
George Carlin
US comedian and actor (1937 - )

Jakebrake

Interesting article on who's campaign the "wealthy" are contributing to....

FEWER THAN ONE TAXPAYER IN NINE CHECKS THE BOX on Form 1040 to allocate $3 of his or her taxes as “clean” money for the “Presidential Election Campaign Fund.” Only 11 percent of us check this box because we all know that more of this money would go to candidates we oppose than to those we support.

Taxpayers also recognize that this “clean” money has done nothing to stop dirty politics. Democratic candidate John F. Kerry, e.g., got $75 million in Federal funds in exchange for agreeing to stop his use of special interest money, but extremist-left 527 organizations such as MoveOn.org closely linked to Kerry’s campaign continue to fund tens of millions of dollars of anti-Republican TV hate ads in a shameful circumvention of campaign finance laws.

But if you have been required to join a labor union, and like up to 40 percent of union members you vote Republican or independent, a sizeable chunk of your forced union dues is being spent to elect Democrats. And this is done without the union bosses needing to get your prior consent or check-off before they make partisan use of your money. The astronomical amount of political money thus coerced from workers is the lifeblood of a Democratic Party that has been losing power and popular support for more than half a century. If this illegitimate power to “tax” millions of unconsenting workers for the benefit of leftwing politicians were removed, the Democratic Party would shrink to Third Party status or disappear entirely almost overnight.


How much money are we talking about? According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, between 1990 and 2002 the 100 biggest special interest groups donated to federal candidates and political parties $1,008,942,542.00.



Of the top ten of these 100 groups, six were labor unions. The biggest single contributor was the government employee union AFSCME (the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), which alone donated $30,671,426 – more than 98 percent of this money to Democrats. By definition, this union favors higher taxes and bigger government, and its government workers never worry about their jobs being exported to Indonesia. The second biggest contributor was the National Education Association (NEA), the giant 2.7 million member union of public school teachers, which donated $21,116,383 – 95 percent of this money going to Democrats (and most of the rest going to the most liberal Republicans running in primaries, not general elections, to tilt the political playing field even farther left). Other unions among these top ten political contributors are the Teamsters ($18.8 million, 93% to Democrats), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($18.3 million, 98% to Democrats), Communications Workers of America (telephone company workers, nearly $17.6 million, 100% to Democrats) and SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, most of whose members get paid directly or indirectly with government money ($17.6 million, 97% of it to Democrats). These six unions by themselves donated $124 million out of coerced member dues, almost all of it to Democrats.



Of the top 20 special interest group political contributors identified by this Center for Responsive Politics study, 12 were labor unions, the bottom six of which donated between $15.5 and $17.6 million apiece, in most cases with 99 percent of this money going to Democrats. These included the Carpenters & Joiners Union, the United Auto Workers, the Laborers Union, Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union, the United Food & Commercial Workers Union and the AFL-CIO’s NEA rival the American Federation of Teachers. These 12 unions together funded politicians and parties – in nearly every case Democrats – to the tune of nearly $224 million.



Even these staggering numbers reflect only a fraction of union political donations, which also come in the form of shock troops to man phone banks, distribute campaign literature, carry signs and get out the vote on election day. At one recent Democratic National Convention unionized communications workers donated their labor to wire the hall, but at that same year’s Republican Convention the same union’s workers charged top dollar for their work. The National Education Association (NEA) alone has 1,800 UniServe workers who act as political operatives more full-time paid political operatives who work all year, every year for this single labor union than work full time for the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined. In a presidential election year this army of union “volunteers” is tantamount to a political donation of more than $100 million to Democrats.



Campaign Finance Reform, we were told, was going to free our politics from the undue influence of wealthy special interest groups and greedy rich individuals. The new law, about which co-author Senator John McCain (R.-Arizona) now says little, turns out to stifle ordinary citizens, who may broadcast no political ads to give voice to their opinions for 60 days prior to November general elections. But the law was designed to include loopholes through which leftwing billionaires like George Soros – who says outright he is prepared to spend $75 million or more of his own money to defeat President George W. Bush because Bush makes America too powerful and independent in the world – and specially-chartered 527 interest groups can continue to spend tax-exempt ”soft money” on political advertising without limit.



Of the top 20 of these 527s with the most money to spend during the 2004 election cycle, five are owned and bankrolled by organized labor. According to required Internal Revenue Service filings as of August 9, 2004, the 527 of the Service Employees International Union (which all by itself has pledged $65 million to elect John Kerry) is armed with more than $20 million. The 527 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has $17.3 million. The AFL-CIO’s 527 is flush with more than $6.7 million. The Laborers Union 527 has nearly $2.7 million, and that of the Communications Workers of America has $1.95 million.



Second only to SEIU among these cash-stuffed 527s is the Democrat-supporting Joint Victory Committee 2004, a joint fund-raising committee run by two far-left groups, America Coming Together (ACT) and the Media Fund. JVC’s total receipts as of August 9, 2004 were $41.68 million and total expenditures were $35.78 million.



And where did JVC’s Democrat-boosting cash come from? The usual extreme-left suspects: three of JVC’s top four contributors are George Soros/Soros Fund Management ($4.55 million), the mob-connected Stephen Bing and his Shangri-La Entertainment ($6.96 million) and Peter B. Lewis and his Progressive Corp. ($7.75 million). [But all three gentlemen in addition also have their own separate 527s – Lewis’ worth $14 million, Soros’ worth $12.77 million, and Bing’s worth $8 million….combined assets of nearly $35 million. Soros’ and Lewis’ spending, according to former Clinton political strategist Dick Morris, is being coordinated by former Clinton White House political puppet-master Harold Ickes.]



We were supposed to stop the influence of wealthy individuals in our politics, but these three wealthy leftists have bankrolled these anti-Bush 527s to the tune of more than $53 million! How much political influence do you suppose this unholy trinity will have if John Kerry becomes President?



Other top JVC contributors include Loral Space & Communications, the Clinton-supported company accused of transferring military missile technology to the People’s Republic of China, and Time Warner, the Viacom-owned MTV networks, Wenner Media headed by Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, the Museum of Modern Art, Costco Corp., the Federal and state taxpayer-funded University of California Berkeley and a bevy of Hollywood leftist folks.



This election should put to rest a long-defunct piece of political mythology – the idea that Republicans are the party of the rich supported by the wealthy. In 2002 fully 92 percent of political contributions by those who gave $1 million or more went to Democrats, the real political party of the rich. Of the top 100 individual political contibutors during the 2002 election cycle, 21 of the biggest 25 gave entirely or almost exclusively to Democrats. Of the other four who gave predominantly to Republicans, two gave a significant portion (10% and 35%) of their total donations to Democrats. The top nine of these contributors – who included the aforementioned filmmaker Stephen Bing and Bernard Schwartz of Loral Spacecom – each gave 98 percent to 100 percent of their contributions to Democrats….total donations from just for these nine adding up to more than $37 million.



And this only begins to scratch the surface of the tidal wave of leftist money buoying John Kerry, a tidal wave of hundreds of millions of dollars triggered by leftist fear verging on panic that the entire political power base of organized labor and the socialist left’s welfare state will be lost if President Bush is re-elected in 2004. These groups are spending as much money for this one election as they have during the entire past 14 years combined….and perhaps even more.



The Kerry-Edwards campaign has already put in place 6,000 lawyers – most of them from another of his biggest backers, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) to tap every legal gimmick and Democrat-appointed judge in America to challenge and attempt to overturn the November election if President Bush wins.



All this is being done in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of our election laws and democratic traditions. We are witnessing an attempted coup d’etat, an overthrow and theft of our government.



The first wave of this coup was the passage of campaign finance reform, which stifled the voice of ordinary people. Because of its bizarre new rules, which overthrow the Bill of Rights guarantee of the right to free speech, only the politicians, the wealthy like Soros, and those who own networks and publications will have the right to broadcast their views within 60 days of this November’s elections. As Evan Thomas of Newsweek observed weeks ago, the leftist advantage in the establishment media was already worth 15 percent of the vote to Kerry.



Republicans used to overcome this leftward media tilt with paid advertising – but George Soros, the unions and other forces of the left have now provided more money from 527s than President Bush will have to offset and shout down the Republican message. This is the second wave of the coup.



If President Bush wins, the third wave of this attempted coup d’etat will be a plague of lawyers, lawsuits and Democrat judges declaring the election null and void by invoking every memory-addled voter, every malfunctioning voting machine and every other technicality they can muster or concoct. As happened in 2000, this leftist legal and propaganda barrage will be intended to overturn the election – or, failing that, to declare the second Bush term illegitimate and be used to justify all political efforts to obstruct it. Above all, these leftists are determined to roadblock politically President Bush’s ability to appoint judges, especially Supreme Court justices who would hand down rulings that might restore the U.S. Constitution. To leftists, that would be a nightmare and the end of their dreams of imposing socialism on the world.



Just how far we have departed from our Constitution is also evidenced by the latitude labor unions have been given since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to require workers to join, coerce workers into paying union dues and get away with using violence against those who do not bend their knee to union bosses.



Technically a union worker can ask for the return of the political portion of dues money. In the same way, genuine democracy existed in the former Soviet Union, where voters on election day could drop their ballot supporting the Communist Party in the regular box – or could request a special ballot that had to be put in a separate ballot box next to the KGB agent who wrote down the names of all who did not vote for the ruling Communist party. Union workers can likewise go to their union boss, thereby identifying themselves as a target for reprisal, mistreatment or even violence by asking for return of the political portion of their dues.



Where, we wonder, are those sensitive civil libertarians who argue that it is intolerably intimidating for a student to avoid participation in a moment of silence or the Pledge of Allegiance – these same libertarians who keep silent on this issue of union intimidation of and theft from workers? As Linda Chavez, co-author of Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics, noted on my radio show, the few union workers brave enough thus to make themselves targets have been rebated only 18 cents or less per year by unions whose bookkeeping is deliberately kept vague or secret.



Will America survive this rolling coup d’etat by Soros, the unions and the radical left? That is the test of courage and determination that each of us faces at this live-or-die moment in our nation’s history.