Thursday, November 17, 2005

Another Dem With WMD Amnesia

Item -- Former President Bill Clinton, Tuesday November 15, 2005:
Clintons Announce Opposition to Iraq War

In twin moves that amount to a 180 degree reversal of their previous positions, former President Bill Clinton called the Iraq war yesterday "a big mistake," while his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted for a Democratic bill that would announce a timetable for U.S. withdrawal.

"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done," Mr. Clinton told students at the American University of Dubai.

"It was a big mistake," he added, in quotes picked up by the Associated Press. "The American government made several errors, one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country."
Item -- President Bill Clinton, December 16, 1998:
Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors called UNSCOM. They are highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq’s capability to retain, create and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability. The inspectors undertook this mission first 7 1/2 years ago at the end of the Gulf War when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the ceasefire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there is one big difference: He has used them. Not once, but repeatedly. Unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war. Not only against soldiers, but against civilians, firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iran. And not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq.

The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.
Video of entire 1998 speech here.

More:

Item -- Senator John Kerry today: "It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq than Vice-President Cheney."

Item -- Senator John Kerry October 9, 2002:
There are legitimate questions about that timing. But none of the underlying realities of the threat, none of the underlying realities of the choices we face are altered because they are, in fact, the same as they were in 1991 when we discovered those weapons when the teams went in, and in 1998 when the teams were kicked out.

With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?

Does he do all of these things because he wants to live by international standards of behavior? Because he respects international law? Because he is a nice guy underneath it all and the world should trust him?

It would be naive to the point of grave danger not to believe that, left to his own devices, Saddam Hussein will provoke, misjudge, or stumble into a future, more dangerous confrontation with the civilized world. He has as much as promised it. He has already created a stunning track record of miscalculation. He miscalculated an 8-year war with Iran. He miscalculated the invasion of Kuwait. He miscalculated America's responses to it. He miscalculated the result of setting oil rigs on fire. He miscalculated the impact of sending Scuds into Israel. He miscalculated his own military might. He miscalculated the Arab world's response to his plight. He miscalculated in attempting an assassination of a former President of the United States. And he is miscalculating now America's judgments about his miscalculations.

All those miscalculations are compounded by the rest of history. A brutal, oppressive dictator, guilty of personally murdering and condoning murder and torture, grotesque violence against women, execution of political opponents, a war criminal who used chemical weapons against another nation and, of course, as we know, against his own people, the Kurds. He has diverted funds from the Oil-for-Food program, intended by the international community to go to his own people. He has supported and harbored terrorist groups, particularly radical Palestinian groups such as Abu Nidal, and he has given money to families of suicide murderers in Israel.
(via The Political Teen, California Conservative, In the Right Place and the Jerusalem Post)

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good. Now we can call Hillary "Cut and run Hillary". So much for moving to the center.

OBloodyHell said...

> "It is hard to name a government official with less credibility on Iraq than Vice-President Cheney."

Uhhhhh.... Kerry, Kennedy, Reid, Boxer, Pelosi, Biden... Actually, it's rather hard to *stop*.
:-D

Anonymous said...

News Item: Cheney calls 57% of Americans “Dishonest and Reprehensible”

An increasingly desperate Bush Administration today continued to ratchet up its rhetoric against the 57% of Americans who disagree with Administration views on the use (or misuse) of pre-war intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

On Friday, and again on Monday as he fled for Asia, Bush called those who accused him of manipulating pre-war intelligence “deeply irresponsible.” Today Vice President Cheney emerged from his bunker to label those who disagreed with his views as “dishonest and reprehensible” and further accused them of “cynical and pernicious falsehoods.”

Latest polls show Bush’s approval rating among Americans to be 34%. Cheney’s approval rating hovers at an abysmal 19%. More importantly, polls show that 57% of Americans believe that Bush and Cheney deliberately misused pre-war intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion, and that this percentage is continuing to increase.

At this point it is not clear what effect Bush and Cheney calling 57% of Americans “irresponsible, reprehensible and dishonest” will have on their approval ratings.

White House sources have suggested that if lashing out against the clear majority of Americans who disagree with them on Iraq does not move public opinion back in their favor they may be open to bolder initiatives. They are said to be considering reacting to the 89% of Americans polled who consider Cheney the “human embodiment of evil” by having Cheney call them “witless troglodytes.” Karl Rove is rumored to have suggested an even stronger reaction to the 78% of Americans polled who consider Bush to be an “amiable dunce,” having Bush refer to them as “pustulent whores.”

In an increasingly bad sign for the Republicans, 67% of Americans polled responded that they viewed Pat Robertson as the “sole voice of reason” in the Republican Party, though those polling numbers were taken prior to Robertson calling for God to assassinate the President of Venezuela and for the destruction of the town of Dover, PA.

Asked to comment on these recent developments Bush, in South Korea for a photo op with a chicken, would not respond. Later Bush is set to give a policy speech on North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability, speaking under a banner reading “Fission Accomplished.” Bush will return to the US on Saturday.

LiberalismIsAMentalDisorder said...

Great article, always a pleasure to read your blog. Funny how they are backpedaling...not funny haha but funny huh..as in..IT FIGURES! Did you see the political cartoon at cox and forkum? Funny stuff

Van Helsing said...

Imagine any ex-President prior to Carter and Clinton irresponsible enough to travel around telling foreigners that a war in which American soldiers are currently dying is all a big mistake. If there is any justice, the Dems' despicable attempt to cause us to lose the war so they can hang the defeat around Republicans' necks will blow up in their faces.

OBloodyHell said...

> News Item: Cheney calls 57% of Americans “Dishonest and Reprehensible”

News Item: Phil is one of the lying PoS's which Cheney calls "Dishonest and Reprehensible".

Cheney's remarks are not directed at the so-called 57% who disagree with the current admin, but the bloviating, lying sacks of fecal matter which have midled -- INTENTIONALLY AND WITH MALICE -- that 57% into believing that things are far worse in Iraq than any responsible person would believe -- and with the LYING (yes, LYING -- not mistaken, there being a tremendous difference) partisan blowhards who have attempted to claim that they were never in favor of actually doing anything like, oh, freeing two nations containing millions of people... no matter what they said, often prior to the far increased justification which 911 set upon is.

In other words, Phil, he's not saying most Americans are dishonest and reprehensible.

He's saying YOU are.

...and he's totally correct in that assessment.

@nooil4pacifists said...

More like Phil's incapable of acknowledging facts and fashioning logic.

OBloodyHell said...

More than likely, AVI, the anonymous post is Phil. He's posted pretty much the same claptrap on Doc Sanity's blog a couple times, too.

I believe we can clearly and unequivocally state that Phil is a bastion of incompetent liberal mediocrity.