Tuesday, November 29, 2005
The Lies about Iraq's WMD and The Democrats Who Swallowed Them
Washington Post*BBC
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In his column today "More than a Mistake In Iraq", Richard Cohen , The Washington Post, comments about Democratic presidential aspirants who are now trying to do somersaults to explain their support for the war. A pox on all of them, the gutless opportunistic, unprincipled politicians. Hundreds of thousands of of people all over the world were protesting and marching against the obviously orchestrated efforts to sell the war while they were being briefed by the neo-cons and solemnly falling in line. Why ? The proponents of war were not believable; they had an agenda; they had records. The Democratic leaders' attempts to put a spin on their support for the war is pathetic. They didn't even display a sense of skepticism ! What do they see when they look at themselves in the mirror ? Following from Richard Cohen's column:
Not for the first time, Col. Wilkerson targeted the vice president--his role in abuse of prisoners. In an interview by the BBC, Col. Wilkerson stated:
"I look at the relationship between Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld as being one that produced these two failures in particular, and I see that the president is not holding either of them accountable... so I have to lay some blame at his feet too," he went on.
In the BBC interview, Col Wilkerson also developed his views on whether or not pre-war intelligence was deliberately misused by the White House.
He said that he had previously thought only honest mistakes were made.
But recent revelations about doubts in the intelligence community that appear to have been suppressed in the run-up to the war have made him question this view."
*****
In his column today "More than a Mistake In Iraq", Richard Cohen , The Washington Post, comments about Democratic presidential aspirants who are now trying to do somersaults to explain their support for the war. A pox on all of them, the gutless opportunistic, unprincipled politicians. Hundreds of thousands of of people all over the world were protesting and marching against the obviously orchestrated efforts to sell the war while they were being briefed by the neo-cons and solemnly falling in line. Why ? The proponents of war were not believable; they had an agenda; they had records. The Democratic leaders' attempts to put a spin on their support for the war is pathetic. They didn't even display a sense of skepticism ! What do they see when they look at themselves in the mirror ? Following from Richard Cohen's column:
- "As it turned out, neither did Vice President Cheney or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Cheney said, "Increasingly, we believe that the United States will become the target" of an Iraqi nuclear weapon, and Rumsfeld raised a truly horrible specter: "Imagine a Sept. 11th with weapons of mass destruction" that would kill "tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children." Imagine a defense secretary who thought he was propaganda minister.
- I quote this trio of braying exaggerators -- all of them still in the administration -- because they emphasized the purported nuclear weapons threat. Yet by the time the war began, March 20, 2003, it was quite clear that Iraq had no nuclear weapons program. All the evidence for one -- the aluminum tubes, the uranium from Africa -- had been challenged. What's more, U.N. inspectors in Iraq had found nothing. "We have to date found no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities in Iraq," said Mohamed ElBaradei of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. That was on Feb. 14. The next month, the United States went to war anyway."
Not for the first time, Col. Wilkerson targeted the vice president--his role in abuse of prisoners. In an interview by the BBC, Col. Wilkerson stated:
"I look at the relationship between Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld as being one that produced these two failures in particular, and I see that the president is not holding either of them accountable... so I have to lay some blame at his feet too," he went on.
In the BBC interview, Col Wilkerson also developed his views on whether or not pre-war intelligence was deliberately misused by the White House.
He said that he had previously thought only honest mistakes were made.
But recent revelations about doubts in the intelligence community that appear to have been suppressed in the run-up to the war have made him question this view."
The more I read about Col. Wilkerson's accusations about the Bush administration, the more I think about his former boss. General Powell's failure to speak out or resign from his position has been explained by some as the acts of a 'good soldier' who could not go against the commander in chief. Sorry, but that does not wash.
