Once more unto the Bush-bashin' Breach, eh, Dear Col?

I can see that your logic is undisputably flawless because of the tens of thousands of terror-related deaths we've suffered in the continental States since the war began almost THREE YEARS AGO.
Terrible. Just terrible.
If this keeps up, Bush just may have to leave office in another couple of years or so.

We moved the problem from one country to another. How has that made us safer?

--Col Green

Read my text---- IT'S NOT HAPPENING HERE, IS IT?

No, it isn't. It's over yonder, and well that it is. If they want to continue to grind themselves to dust against the millstone of our armed forces, let them. After all, our military is better-equipped to handle them than any average person I know here at home.

This has NOTHING to do with our military. We attacked a country that was NO DANGER to this country and have helped those that hate us recruit even more people that are willing to try another 9/11. EVERY official that has been asked has said it is not IF but WHEN there is another attack in this country. The threat of terrorism HAS NOT been reduced by the Iraq war! We must pray that we can prevent a nuclear or Bio attacks. They would be the most devastating. Not protecting our borders is a great way for terrorists to bring WMD into our country. WHY IS Bush not protecting our borders? He does not even request the added border guards HE SAID ARE REQUIRED. Must be some of the budget cuts needed to give his wealthy supporters their tax cuts!

Today Bush said we should relax the enforcement of our immigration laws. He compared illegal immigration to probation. The President has lost his mind!

It is the Terrorists that LOVE the Bush policies.

Wrong col. Sept. 11 was planned up to five years before Bush took office. They bombed the WTC the first time back in the 90's. That's when we were passive against terrorism. If you look at some of bin laden's speeches from back then, he made point of the fact that the U.S. isn't fighting him and that we are weak.

We attacked a country that was NO DANGER to this country and have helped those that hate us recruit even more people that are willing to try another 9/11.

Once again, BS col. Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton told me Iraq was a threat. Were they lying col?

Please explain to us how invading Iraq caused Sept. 11.

IslandDog

They love our invasion of Iraq. They use it as proof we are the Great Satin as they claim. They have hated us for a long time but our actions in Iraq and the prisoner issues play right into their hands. Iraq was no threat. Bush had Intel that indicated his claims of Nuclear and Chem. threat was not true. He ignored ANY Intel that did not support what he wanted to do. We attacked a paper tiger that has turned into a terrorist operation because of our invasion and the fact we did not have the manpower to control these radical elements from the day Saddam fell.

I'll agree with the Col on one point - I have been disappointed with the lack of seriousness about securing our borders. I believe the President could have pushed much harder than he has and that he's allowed his supporters in the corporate/business community to cloud his judgment on this issue. Other than that, the Col is as full of it as ever.

And it is manifestly not true that we are less safe now, even on our borders - we are at worst just as safe as we were on 9/10/01. Furthermore, although the media have generally ignored them, a substantial number of plots have been spoiled since 9/11. There have been some missteps, too, such as the Muslim convert in Washington state(?) who was wrongly accused, but I can live with a few false alarms - it tells me someone is awake at the wheel.

Cheers,
Daiwa

I did not say we were not doing far more to prevent another attack. What I said is that the Iraq War has not reduced the threat from the radicals. We have added to the numbers that are willing to attack us.

we did not have the manpower to control these radical elements from the day Saddam fell

No amount of manpower would have, Gene. That's the whole point. If we had not toppled Saddam, we'd have a flourishing terror industry and Saddam thumbing his nose at the US while the French, Germans and Russians continued to suck his tit. Whether you are willing to admit it or not, Saddam was sympathetic to Al Qaeda's efforts and lent it support, clandestine & overt, as we now know, and as long as he was in power, the opportunity for him to get seriously behind terrorist groups was going to be there. Further, we know what he is capable of - using chemical weapons on his own population to kill thousands just for starters. There is this cold fact, Gene - the opportunity for the government of Afghanistan or the government of Iraq to engage in state sponsorship of terrorism is gone. What is left for the terrorists is the equivalent of a loose coalition of street gangs capable only of blowing up themselves and as many of their own as they can in the process. American soldiers are a miniscule proportion of their victims.

Cheers,
Daiwa

What I said is that the Iraq War has not reduced the threat from the radicals. We have added to the numbers that are willing to attack us.

Col, the only way to reduce the "threat" is to eliminate islam. If you don't attack them, they recruit because of our weakness. If you do attack them they get "offended". I'd rather fight.

But as usual col. You whining is pointless. Hillary Clinton told me Iraq was a threat and I believed her. No matter what you do nothing will change. Bush was elected and re-elected, and if you liberals continue you will lose again.

What I said is that the Iraq War has not reduced the threat from the radicals. We have added to the numbers that are willing to attack us.

Col, the only way to reduce the "threat" is to eliminate islam. If you don't attack them, they recruit because of our weakness. If you do attack them they get "offended". I'd rather fight.

But as usual col. You whining is pointless. Hillary Clinton told me Iraq was a threat and I believed her. No matter what you do nothing will change. Bush was elected and re-elected, and if you liberals continue you will lose again.

I have been disappointed with the lack of seriousness about securing our borders. I believe the President could have pushed much harder than he has and that he's allowed his supporters in the corporate/business community to cloud his judgment on this issue.

--Daiwa

I agree here, too. Amazing. Anyway, I think it also has something to do with the fact that he's been involved in the politics of a border state, too. That fact is also clouding his judgement, perhaps. Illegals could potentially be a nice voting bloc if their favor could be curried.

Iraq will most likely go through a civil war before the nature of the country or countries emerge. There is little chance of anything like a unified country that will be anything but another problem. Although Saddam was an evil dictator, he did not pose a danger to us.

Iraq will most likely go through a civil war before the nature of the country or countries emerge

Col, the only people hoping for a civil war are liberals and terrorists. Not much difference there.

There is little chance of anything like a unified country that will be anything but another problem.

You are so full of it that's it's not even funny anymore.

Although Saddam was an evil dictator, he did not pose a danger to us.

But democrats told me he was a threat. Why would they lie?

How many times are you going to repeat the same rhetoric?

If EVERYONE had the Intelligence in late 2002 and early 2003 that Bush and Cheney had which indicated Saddam DID NOT have WMD, I wonder what the vote in the Congress would have been for the Iraq War. WHY did Bush ignore the intelligence in late 2002 from the CIA, DIA and Dept of Energy that discredited his assertion that Saddam had WMD? This was especially true as to a nuclear threat that Cheney said risked Mushroom clouds OVER OUR CITIES! They knew there was creditable intelligence from not less then three Federal agencies that contradicted their assertions that Saddam had WMD. Bush and Cheney presented it as FACT and Powell was not told of this intelligence and presented the U N incorrect information on Feb 5, 2003. Gen. Powell has said he is very sorry he presented that false information to the U N. In fact he said it was the LOW point in his career!

I'll agree with the Col on one point - I have been disappointed with the lack of seriousness about securing our borders.

I will concede COL Gene that point, as well... I also feel that Bush isn't doing enough to secure our borders. I have spent enough time living in Arizona to know that border security just ain't there.

But the original thrust of this article is that "The Iraq War is making America LESS Secure!" and to that I say, plah.

What I said is that the Iraq War has not reduced the threat from the radicals. We have added to the numbers that are willing to attack us.

Since COL Gene wants to speak in hypotheticals, I will too.

These newly-recruited terrorists all fired up about killing them an imperialist Zionist infidel are going to Iraq to mix it up with the 3rd Infantry Div., not to the United States. It's conservation of money and effort: why go thousands of miles when hundreds of miles will do?

Besides, it's much easier to sneak over the Iraqi border than even to sneak across the porous border at the Rio Grande.

The Iraq border is just one issue that our failure to send a sufficient number of troops in 2003 has created. Last week Former Amb. Paul Beemer reviled he asked Bush for 500,000 troops to be sent into Iraq. The original op plan 1003 called for 500,000 troops and under pressure from Bush, was reduced to 300,000. Bush sent 130,000.

Last week I read an article that claimed the CIA recruited the sister of an Iraqi PhD that worked on the Saddam Nuclear program. She went to Iraq and talked with her brother. When she returned she told the CIA her brother told her the nuclear program had all but ended in the early 1990's. That information was ignored. The CIA Intelligence that the Yellow Cake was BS, the intelligence that the mobile Chemical Vans was BS. The statements by the dept of energy that the Al Tubes were NOT for a nuclear program as Bush claimed were buried. ALL that Intelligence was available BEFORE we invaded Iraq.. EVERYTHING that did NOT support what Bush wanted to do was buried until after we invaded Iraq in early 2003.

Last week Former Amb. Paul Beemer

Who is trying to sell a book.......

Could you at least spell his name right?

Last week I read an article that claimed

From the NYT that doesn't worry about facts or proof. Just like your blogs.

Breaking news says that Iran is being referred to the UN security council.

We'll see our American allies in Tehran!

The CIA Intelligence that the Yellow Cake was BS

The debate pendulum in Washington at times swings by the winds of politics, not, as it should, by evidence. Consider the quandary over President Bush's assertion in his 2003 State of the Union Address that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy enriched uranium, "yellow cake," illicitly from Niger. Yellow cake is required in a nuclear development program. When it was discovered last summer that some of the documents the administration had used as evidence were forgeries, the pendulum quickly swung to the opposite extreme. Never mind that British intelligence insisted, and still does, that Iraq was doing precisely what Mr. Bush had said it was. As far as Washington was concerned, the case was closed: Iraq never tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. As reported Monday in the Financial Times, however, senior European intelligence officials now say, "Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the U.S.-led invasion" in 2003. This isn't exactly news. A 2002 British dossier on Iraq's weapons programs asserted the same thing, while providing evidence that an inquiring Iraqi official had visited Niger in 1999. In a follow-up story, the Financial Times reports, "three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq." The other countries were North Korea, Iran, Libya and China. The newspaper reports the forged documents erroneously used by the Bush administration might in fact have been a "scam" to cover the real evidence that negotiations had taken place. If this is true, we must concede that it worked. Not long after the administration backed down from the State of the Union claim, Democrats were in full cry for an investigation, all but convinced that the administration had deliberately lied about uranium sales to Iraq. Sen. Ted Kennedy took a lead role in the condemnation, saying, "It's bad enough that such a glaring blunder became part of the president's case for war. It's far worse if the case for war was made by deliberate deception." John Kerry chimed in: "The Bush administration doesn't get honesty points for belatedly admitting what has been apparent to the world for some time -- that emphatic statements made on Iraq were inaccurate." Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe huffed, too: "This may be the first time in recent memory that a president knowingly misled the American people during the State of the Union Address." Critics of the Bush administration have been so eager to discredit every argument used to justify war in Iraq that when evidence does come along proving the administration's case, it has to be ignored. It's not clear how such kindergarten logic enhances national security. Mr. Kerry was right about one thing: Mr. Bush didn't win any points for being forthright about his mistake. We would add as well that he won't win any points for being right all along.

ush and Cheney presented it as FACT and Powell was not told of this intelligence and presented the U N incorrect information on Feb 5, 2003. Gen. Powell has said he is very sorry he presented that false information to the U N. In fact he said it was the LOW point in his career!

THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night. Mr Powell, who argued the case for military action against Saddam Hussein in the UN in 2003, told BBC News 24 television he was "deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us." "What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us," he said.

Link

the intelligence that the mobile Chemical Vans was BS.

I guess burying vans in the desert is normal policy.

An American general in Iraq said last night that his troops had uncovered 11 vans buried underground that could be mobile chemical and biological weapons laboratories. No weapons of mass destruction were found in or around the 20ft square metal units, said Brigadier General Ben Freakley, of the 101st Armoured Division, whose soldiers made the discovery near a weapons facility outside Kerbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad. It was visited by UN inspectors at the end of February. "Initial reports indicate that this is clearly a case of denial and deception on the part of the Iraqi government," Brig Freakley said. "These chemical labs are present, and now we just have to determine what in fact they were really used for." There have been several false alarms regarding weapons of mass destruction during the conflict so far. But last night's reported find more closely accords with accusations the US has long levelled at Iraq than any of the earlier incidents. Mobile labs, the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, told the UN security council in February, "are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf war". Brig Freakley told a CNN reporter embedded with the division that "about 1,000lb" of documentation had been discovered inside the vans, which also contained equipment he estimated as being worth $1m (£635,000). The site of the buried labs was "clearly marked so they could be found again", he said. The UN said inspectors did not find anything suspicious when they visited the Kerbala ammunition filling plant on February 23. "They were close to an artillery ammunition plant, so this is consistent with the Iraqi denial, the former Iraqi leadership denial... of any wrongdoing," Brig Freakley said. Further investigations would be made, he added. The chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the security council in February that although "food-testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops have been seen... no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found".

Why are you chaps still talking about Iraq? The new topic is Iran, I suggest a full scale assault, removing troops from Iraq and moving across the border into Iran. Of course there will be air strikes also. Once the regime is toppled, a quick withdrawal is called for to avoid a war of attrition as occurred in Iraq.

We cannot have the Iranians threatening to "wipe Israel off the map". Any threat against an ally is unacceptable.

Sir Peter


Bush has committed most of our available ground forces to Iraq (those in country, those recovering from deployment and those preparing for deployment). Yes Iran was a far greater threat in 2003 then Iraq but our President had his mind set on invading Iraq regardless of the facts. He ignored the Intelligence and sent in a force that was TOO small to establish and maintain control after Saddam fell and the Iraqi Army was disbanded. That allowed the insurrection to develop and we have the mess we have today.

If another problem area develops, we DO NOT have the available forces to confront that new area.

Colonel Gene,

"If another problem area develops, we DO NOT have the available forces to confront that new area."

Of course the attack on Iran must be phased. Firstly, it looks like Tony & George are going through the UN this time so any shortfall in specialist troops in UK & US ranks can be made up with worthless Europeans. Secondly, by the end of this year we should be able to have most of our troops out of Iraq. There is no point in having these troops sitting around, wasting valuable resources, there is every moral and political reason to invade Iran.

Civil society is quite advanced in Iran so a new friendly administration can be set up quickly and our troops will be home by Christmas 2007. And we will all live happily ever after, with cheap oil and a new sense of cooperation in the Middle East. With the glory of the British Empire and the blessing of Saint George, nothing can go wrong.