How can you say France, Russia and China were protecting Saddam for the money (our ally Australia made the most money off the oil for food program, btw)…and not talk about the tens of billions of dollars Bush’s cronies have made off the Iraq War?

In short, please tell us how that “source” contradicts Neo’s thesis? We already know that just about the entire damn world thought Sadaam had WMD’s, even though there was evidence that he didn’t. Had we not invaded, we would still be suspecting, Sadaam would be even more emboldened, we would be forever hoping he didn’t have WMD’s and wondering if an aggressive thug who had the motive to terrorize us had the ability to.

By your standards of proof, we would never know one way or the other until it was too late.

However, even if Bush were correct and Sadaam had WMD’s, I find it hard to believe that the left would support our mission as it is now. The situation in Iraq would be largely the same, and “now that we we’ve done our job and gotten the WMD’s, it’s time to get out of Iraq and back to the real war.”

Whatever we should have done before the war has very little bearing on what we should do now. Democrats emphasize WMD’s simply because it makes Bush look bad so that they can pretend it has something to do with what we should do today.

How is the “we should finish the job” vs. “phased withdrawal” debate changed in the slightest by pre-war intelligence?

Underneath its lucidity lies the truth that Americans do not recognize the primary threat we face from without, which is

1) the melding of:
fundamentalist Islam
tribal cultures
honor/shame societies;

combined with

2) emerging weapons technologies.

Why do Americans not recognize the primary threat from without?

Answer: Because we cannot openly discuss and analyze the primary threat we face without being labeled as bigots.

This truth constitutes the primary threat from within.

There are ancillary reasons we do not recognize the primary threat from without:

1) it is a difficult threat to explain - especially as its tenets cannot be filtered through a Westernized set of standards and principles.
2) we are blessed with a President for whom explaining constitutes an adventure.
3) national understanding of the threat will lead to a loss of power by the media and the Dems, and therefore media and Dems actively work to prevent national understanding of the threat.
4) for strategic reasons, it is believed an American President cannot stride to a microphone and pronounce that the melding of fundamentalist Islam, tribal cultures, and honor/shame societies constitute a threat to America. Even so, I would like to see it happen. Reagan called the U.S.S.R. an “evil empire.” I would like to see another American President speak the truth. GWB has the guts to do so, if only he had the wisdom.

Even if Bush made money corruptly because of the invasion, Oil-for-Food was far more corrupt in every sense of the word, but I doubt that bothers you in the slightest. That leads me to suspect that you are concerned with injustice only if perpetuated by Bush.

In other words, I question their impartiality.

If anyone would bother to just *click* on it and read it, they will find that out. It might have evidence to support both sides of the thesis, but either way in my opinion it carries much more weight than articles in the Weekly Standard.

See especially the parts about Nukes, WMD, and the Iraq-Al-Qaeda link.

And even if it’s Daffy Duck claiming that Sadaam flaunted the agreements of the cease fire, it would still be true.

A preemptive war is one waged when a threat is imminent - that is, you are certain that an enemy not only has the intent and capability to attack you, but has made specific plans to attack and has positioned forces to do so. Just war theorists include preemptive war within the limits of just war because it is, in essence, a defensive move - just war theorists do not expect nations to be masochists and martyrs, and accept that they will act against a threat that will do them harm but has not done so yet.

A preventive war is one waged before a threat even exists - that is, there exists some actor hostile to you and your interests, which lacks the capability to attack but may be developing it, and has no specific plans or pre-positioned forces to do so. Just war theorists do not include preventive war within the limits of just war because it is essentially indistinguishable from aggressive war. That is, Country X might covet Country Y’s land, declare that Country Y might, some day in the future, pose a threat to Country X, therefore warranting a preventive war that no one else should challenge or question.

Bush, in the quote provided above, was arguing for a preventive war. He was arguing that we could not even wait for the threat to exist; it was enough that the threat might exist in the future to justify war.

Those who argued against preventive war were not arguing that we shouldn’t go to war unless an American city was nuked, or even that we shouldn’t go to war unless the missiles were on the launchpads, waiting for a press of a button. They were arguing, instead, that we shouldn’t go to war - a highly costly endeavor in terms of lives, money, and prestige - if no threat even yet existed. Since war is so very, very costly, since it is such a serious undertaking, we had better be sure we choose this option only when we’re certain we need to do so.

Few people would argue against defending their children from an imminent threat; many would argue against waging a costly war against a possible maybe someday not yet threat. To characterize the war’s opponents otherwise reflects either a deep insincerity, or a profound lack of understanding of other human beings. If the former, shame. If the latter, how exactly did you get credentialed as a therapist? The number of people who are so highly principled as to advocate against defensive action until an American city is nuked probably enough to fill a Quaker splinter faction’s village meeting hall.

We set the burden of proof high in our courts to protect the potentially innocent. We set the burden of proof in matters of war to protect ourselves from hasty, impulsive decisions that could cost us greatly, not to protect people like Saddam from unfair mischaracterizations.

The threat existed; Saddam was firing on US and British jets almost daily; he had used WMD on his own people; he had broken UN resolutions, he was interfering with UN inspections. This is hardly the innocent behavior (”some actor hostile to you and your interests, which lacks the capability to attack but may be developing it, and has no specific plans or pre-positioned forces to do so”) your post would imply. Your argument is specious.

This indicates a dispute of definitions of terms. Anti-war folks believed that “no threat existed,” pro-war folks argued that there was enough evidence of a threat to act on ithowever, believing that acting too soon presented less risk than acting too late.

Considering the nature of today’s enemies and the weapons they could have at their disposal, I am inclined to believe that we will be probably be “certain we need to” counter a threat only after that threat has materialized, at which point we could have already lost millions of lives.

How could we have been certain that Sadaam wasn’t developing WMD’s without the cooperation on his part that he repeatedly failed to offer? He gave every indication that he was hiding something. The Clinton administration also believed that Sadaam presented a threat (Operation Desert Fox)–Bush only decided to act on that threat more decisively.

I’m not accusing (most) anti-war folks of not wishing to counter imminent threats–I’m accusing them of defining “imminent” too narrowly and deemphasizing the dangers of gathering threats in a nuclear age. We have to sift our way through contradictory evidence, and I see far less danger “in terms of lives, money, and prestige” in assuming tha thugs like Sadaam are up to no good than in waiting to be “certain.”

That’s the fundamental difference between us, and it’s not a mischaracterization.

The problem is that world terrorism has focused on Iraq and Afghanistan recently.

The democrats want the US to share in the terrorism and have a plan for exactly that. Declare defeat overseas and pull the troops home. Elect a democratic party run government and continue the work Clinton began in dismantling the military.

Declare the US an equal opportunity terrorist domain and welcome all jihadists who had been dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, to come to the US to live and work as jihadists.

A devastating plan as I’m sure you’ll agree.

A little math:

U.S. Defense budget before 9/11 - $300 billion a year.
U.S. Defense budget since 9/11 - around $600 billion a year.

$300 billion x 5 years = an extra $1.5 tirllion on spent on defense.

Cost of oil before we invaded Iraq - $18 a barrel.
Cost of after we invaded Iraq - around $65 a barrel.

America burns about 20 million barrels of oil a day,

So an extra $940 million a day going to the oil companies.

So we get an extra $1.5 trillion going to defense companies and an extra $1.5 trillion going to the oil companies…

$3 trillion in all.

I’m not saying the money is the only reason we invaded Iraq, but it sure is a powerful motive, don’t you agree?

This, likewise, is either a misuse or a misunderstanding (or both!) of the term “deterrence.” To deter is either to develop an ability to retaliate overwhelmingly to an attack, discouraging a would-be attacker from attacking by virtue of the high costs he would in turn incur, OR to develop a defense so strong as to make an attack a pointless or costly exercise for an attacker.

Threatening massive retaliation against Saddam if he developed and gave nuclear weapons to al Qaeda would have been deterrence. Building up a credible defense to a nuclear attack by al Qaeda armed by Saddam would have been deterrence. Invading and overthrowing Saddam - this was not deterrence.

Saddam firing on US and British jets daily is certainly a bad thing, but hardly a threat so dire and immediate that it warranted an invasion and occupation. The case made by the Bush administration was that the threat of Saddam someday developing WMD and giving them to a terrorist group which might then use them against us was so high - maybe in the future possibly - as to warrant a preventive war. Nothing you listed, so far as I can tell, is as dire as the use of WMD on the US by terrorists.

That’s strange, because the President himself was arguing that, though no threat yet existed, the danger of the possibility of a threat was enough to justify war.

Again, wrong. The President said that no “imminent” threat existed; not that no threat existed. Comprehension problem?

No, I don’t agree. World War II cost a lot of money too. I don’t think money had anything to do with why we fought World War II. And I don’t think it had anything to do with why we fought this war.

As for the oil companies, who owns them? They are publicly traded companies, whose stock is held in virtually every pension fund, 401k account, and mutual fund in America. Are tens of millions of Americans “cronies” of the president?

Anyway, the rise in the price of oil has had less to do with the war and more to do with the strength of the global economy over the last few years, particularly the vastly increased demand from China.

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent.”

If some are saying that we must not act until the threat is imminent, then there is no imminent threat. We agree on that much.

“If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.”

“To emerge” can either mean to come out of hiding or obscurity into the open, or to come into existence. Since, all else being equal, a hidden threat is worse than a threat in the open - as it is harder to defend against a threat about which you don’t even know - I do not believe the president was warning the country about a threat become less dangerous by emerging. Instead, I interpret his use of the word “emerge” to mean “come into existence” - that is, the president was warning about a potential future threat.

Now, there was an argument to be made that the possibility of Saddam developing WMD and giving them to al-Qa’ida was so threatening as to warrant action. That’s the argument the president made. He couched it, either conveniently or cleverly, in rhetoric that blurred the line between a threat and the threat of a threat (hence the discussion here).

But that’s not the argument you’re making. You’re making the argument that a threat existed and that the president said “there is a threat.” But what threat could there have been that was not imminent and had not yet even emerged?

And if you want to drag up WWII, defense company execs back then took $1 a year in pay and the liberals instituted price controls and rationing.

Why doesn’t the pro war crowd ever bring that up when they mention WWII, I wonder?

Who knows what actually led to our win in WWII?

Maybe naked greed is why we’re losing our current war?

By the time the invasion jumped off it was clear that there was likely no WMD in Iraq.

Therefore, Iraq could not have posed a threat even in the medium term to the US.

If it was thought that there was, somehow, WMD that had not yet been found, then the inspections could have been allowed to continue. Bush lied repeatedly, stating that “Saddam would not let the inspectors in”. David Kay, cheif inspector, disagrees. Why lie?

At any rate, given a functioning WMD inspection program, there was no need to invade. The standard for preemptive war cannot be that some nation somewhere may some day decide to do something to cause the US harm so we can invade any nation any time they look at us cross eyed.

Come on now, what sort of precedent does that set? It seems to set the stage for worldwide lawlessness and perpetual war based on innuendo and flimsy belief - perhaps naked aggression masquerading as belief.

The US is better than that, braver and freer and more just.

The factthat Saddams troops shot at US jets in the no-fly zone is not an excuse for war; only an excuse to neutralize anti-aircraft batteries (lame as they may be - any US aircraft shot down?).

The factthat 10 years ealier Saddam had gassed Kurds (who were fommenting civil war BTW) is not an excuse for an ill planned unlikley to succeed US invasion.

There is little to no way for an Iraqi gas attack to be directed against the US. Tons of the material must be fired via artillery or airiel bombardment for there to be an effect worse than, say, a fuel fertilizer bomb. Does anyone seriously think that Saddam was going to establish a fire support base on Long Island from which he would fire barrages into NYC???????????

Finally, unaswered is the cost/benefit analysis including costs like handing Iraq over to Iran friendly shiites in Saddams absence post invasion (which appears to be happening and should have an obvious result from before the beginning - hint it’s why we supported Saddam when he was gassing Kurds, etc).

No. There is no excuse for this war. Though I fully supported the Afghanistan campaign and wish it had been executed properly.

OK, since you apparently consider yourself capable of explaining why the price of oil moves the way it does, explain why it went from $11.25 at the end of November, 1998, to $33 at the end of October, 2000. A tripling of price, with Clinton as president, pre-9/11. Was Clinton enriching his cronies?

What matters in the oil market is the balance between the global supply and the global demand. If global suppply is running at 80 million barrels per day, and global demand goes from 79 million barrels to 81 million barrels (not a big percentage increase), the price will rise dramatically.

I think that blip was blamed on instability in Russia, the world’s second largest oil exporter.

I’m sure some of Clinton’s cronies profited from it somehow. He bailed his pals at LTCM out when they lost their shirts in Russia.

“[Re McCarthy] (whose NRO biography, incidentally, notes that he is “a former chief assistant U.S. attorney who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and eleven others” — some hack)”

“Hack” does not refer to his past activities or profession - bu rather to the fact that he is currently on NRO cranking out partisan opinion columns. And in one of them he tried to pass off as fact (the Iraq / Niger / Uranium connection) something that was clearly contradicted by the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report I linked to (but which is apparently too long for some to be bothered to read).

But it strikes me that if you think going to war was a horrible mistake, then you must implicitly believe that things would in fact be better today had we not gone to war.”

That’s not outside the realm of possibility, is it?
Worldwide Terror Attacks Up By 25 Percent in 2006

What if we recall that WMD were only one of the reasons for going to war?

What if we ask ourselves what the anti war people would say if the WMD had been discovered, or, perhaps, are discovered in Syria, as some intel has them? My guess is that the WMD are useful to the antiwar people solely because they haven’t been found. If they had been found, some other reason would have been ginned up.

There is no way to put together hard and fast descriptions of the evidence necessary to justify going to war. One of the reasons is that the courtroom metaphor fails. It fails because we can’t see, except perhaps in Mafia trials, one side killing those trying to find out about the crime and the accused. We have no required discovery. CSI-style certainty will never be available.
Each case is sui generis.

One issue is that, presuming the situation is getting worse, the earlier we intervene, the lower the cost of fixing the thing. The liberal Christian churches, in light of the Balkan issues, put together the concept of humanitarian intervention. With some effort, you can get them to admit that, under certain circumstances, conditions for peace may have to be “imposed”, which is to say….um… ahhh, er, fight. They agree that early intervention is better. The problem with that is the threat–to the locals in case of humanitarian issues–is in no way imminent. The point is to get in ahead of imminence. Saves lives, cheaper all around. There goes sovereignty.
So, using the criteria from humanitarian intervention, the earlier the better, which is to say, go with less evidence rather than waiting until things are so bad that we have all the evidence anybody could want.
Now, these being liberal Christians, don’t expect them to back up these words. But they felt they had to say them.
The concept of taking care of things early, which has a lot to recommend it except for the Peace of Westphalia, international law, the nationalism of the folks intervened upon, the reluctance of the intervening nation to start on something where the trouble is not obvious and several other things, could just as well apply to war. By this standard, we were very late. Dangerously, murderously, negligently late.

“The subsequent reports of WMD hunting emphasized that the infrastructure for WMD remained, the will remained, the human capital remained, the money was starting to flow and the inspections regime was due to end.”

*sigh*

Can no one find the time to read that report?

- “The ISG found that at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Iraq had not regained its pre-1991 technical or production capability.”

That’s because the UN is a tool of entropy, not a weapon to help humanity progress, Neo.

War is a serious thing, and should not be undertaken lightly. But not stopping a looming threat by a sworn enemy is another serious thing. Because we ultimately made the decision to go to war in Iraq, we know the consequences (so far) of that action. We can only guess at what the consequences would have been have been had we not gone to war there.

David Weber again. Why? Because he gives you a basic rundown on human motivations, for both sides of the potential conflict. So, it’s not about Iraq, he doesn’t write about whether Iraq is this or that. No, he creates scenarios from which you read and then have to figure out for yourself what is going on. Therefore it helps you, me that is, think about what is going on, can be going on, and how that affects the greater war effort.

These thought projects are important. Because how is a person going to decide whether war or not to war is the right decision, when they don’t even know how to make such a decision even if assuming they had access to the data?

What we tend to hear, instead, are legalistic arguments about how it couldn’t be proven beyond a reasonable doubt whether Saddam (take your pick) had WMDs, could have built them after sanctions were removed, wanted to build them, might have used them if built, was allied with al Qaeda, was sympathetic to al Qaeda, was looking for uranium in Niger, and so on and so forth.

The only thing that matters to me is, we went, we saw, and we killed him. Nothing else is all that important, except the fact that there are new enemies coming in and we need to kill those and their helpers (Iran/Syria).

George Tenet’s new book and recent interviews are replete with language about whether or not something or other was proven or absolutely known. But I’ve not read a quote that deals with what standard of proof of dangerousness should be necessary to make real-world decisions about whether a government constituting a threat (especially a nuclear one) should be taken out.

it used to be, Neo, that what determined a country’s ability to wage war or not was how good their military was, their funding, and their tax base (i.e parliamentary strings and population).

Now a days it is about who has more lawyers. Nice.

Here comes Iraq again (reading comments now). Fine, I have my own munitions to use here and now. I tend to think it is more powerful than Unk’s stuff, but I might be biased.

WMDs, conspiracy, and logic

Left out a comma.

If Bush or anyone significant in his administration were getting rich from the war, that would most likely very quickly be public information. Nearly every reporter in the world would be drooling for a scoop like that - that’s eternal fame. It would be headlines across the world.

Since that hasn’t happened, it’s up to you to prove your claim. Shifts in the price of oil won’t do. We need solid proof, like bank transaction records showing Bush is X million bucks richer today due to taking kickbacks from Y company, which got a major war contract. Have it?

If all you’ve got is the price of oil, then that’s far less than Bush had about WMDs in Iraq in March, 2003, and not nearly enough to even indict.

On the French, Chinese, and Russians being bought and paid for by Saddam, that wasn’t Oil-for-Palaces money (though they got their share of that as well). That was current trade levels and oil companies in the respective states getting multi-billion dollar oil contracts to develop fields in Iraq, all contingent upon sanctions being dropped and Saddam remaining in power.

Heritage foundation summary (w/ source notes) of who would have benefitted from Saddam remaining in power (Hint: France, Germany, Russia, China)

If you link a rather large report, it would be very helpful if you cite the page you want folks to check.

That URL stuck in there is indeed some sort of glitch in the commenting software.

If ‘to emerge’ here means ‘to come into existence’, why would ‘all actions, all words, and all recriminations’ come too late? No, the meaning here of ’suddenly emerge’ is probably ‘to manifest itself in an attack,’ or possibly to, for example, suddenly test a nuclear weapon, thereby deterring any attack.

Yes, but it’s 151 pages, which is a bit much for a quick evening of debate.

Also, as a post-war analysis, it’s not actually entirely relevant to what we knew in March, 2003. When looking at the decision to go to war, it’s essential to take into account what information was available to make decisions with, and to exclude what became known after the decisions were made and so could not have influenced the decision makers.

Oil companies own rather large reserves of oil. How do you think Exxon managed to earn $39.5 billion in profits last year?

If you look on page 25 of this rather large .pdf version of Exxon’s annual financial statement for last year:

http://exxonmobil.com/Corporate/Files/Corporate/fo_2006.pdf

you’ll see Exxon made a profit of $16.96 per barrel of oil.

Kinda hard to do when oil is selling for $18 a barrel.

Not hard at all when oil is selling for $65 a barrel.

911 is not even comparable to the threat Israel faces from a nuclear Iran. You would have to level most of the U.S. to make a fair comparison.

Wouldn’t neocons have already attacked, based on what they believe about threat?

“MM: A couple years ago there was a great deal of talk of the democratization of the stock market. Is that reflected in these figures, or was it an illusion?
Wolff: I would say it was more of an illusion. What did happen is that the percentage of households with some ownership of stocks, including mutual funds and pension accounts like 401(k)s, did go up very dramatically over the last 20 years. In 1983, only 32 percent of households had some ownership of stock.

By 2001, the share was 51 percent. So there has been much more widespread stock ownership, in terms of number of families.

But a lot of these families have very small stakes in the stock market. In 2001, only 32 percent of households owned more than $10,000 of stock, and only 25 percent of households owned more than $25,000 worth of stock.

So a lot of these new stock owners have had relatively small holdings of stock. There hasn’t been much dilution in the share of stock owned by the richest 1 or 10 percent. Stock ownership is still heavily concentrated among rich families. The richest 10 percent own 85 percent of all stock. ”

Source: Multinational Monitor, May 2003,
http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html

CNN,
October 28, 2005:

“On Friday Chevron (Research) became the latest big oil company to report a jump in profits for the third quarter, a day after Exxon Mobil (Research), the nation’s biggest oil company, reported $9.9 billion in net earnings — the biggest corporate profit on record.

“All told, the 19 oil and gas companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index that have reported so far have earned more than $20 billion excluding one-time charges and other items, up more than 50 percent from a year earlier, according to earnings tracker First Call. ”

Source: CNNMoney.com,
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/28/news/economy/windfall_tax/

Alphie, the price of oil is determined by supply and demand, not merely supply and demand of unrefined crude, but supply and demand of the refined stuff that people actually buy.

Prices are also driven by market psychology and the development of oil futures: when players in the market anticipate that oil will become more expensive, it contributes to the current price of oil.

Now, the current upswing phase is based on three events: first and foremost the lack of refining capacity, second Hurricane Katrina and the closing down of a significant portion of US refining capacity and third increasing international demand.

No one wants to have a refinery built near where they live, and no refinery has been built in the US for decades. Literally. Europe is not much better, and the only real expansion of refining capacity is in Asia, where the demand increase is strongest. Productivity in crackers has improved over time, making the need to build new crackers less pressing, but the fact remains that the refinery business is running at full capacity with little reserve capacity. The reason that no new capacity is being built is that environmental codes make it difficult at best to build (and lawsuits from eco-NGOs and NIMBY folks can add years to the planning process, even when they are ultimately frivolous and serve only to enrich the lawyers involved).

Adding to this structural problem for the supply side of the oil business, the hurricane Katrina forced most of the refineries in and around Louisiana - a significant portion of US capacity - to pre-emptively close down in order to avoid severe storm damage while in operation, which would have led to massive problems. The plants involved were damaged, but since they were closed down the damage had no major side effects (like having a massive oil leak in the middle of a hurricane, spreading heavy oil slicks far inland, covering the ground: that’d have been massively worse than the damage from Katrina) and while repairs were fairly rapid, output was basically nil for several months.

So we went through a massive reduction in the supply side for the good that people actually consume. Prices increased as a result. Has nothing to do with the decision to invade Iraq and depose SH.

The reason prices continue to be so high is also that demand from Asian consumers has expanded very strongly, and that OPEC and the other suppliers are very, very good at manipulating volume in order to maximize their profits.

Companies that drill, pump, transport, refine and transport once more to the end consumers make a percentage off the top that the consumer pays (duh). This is obviously more lucrative when you’ve bought the oil for $20 and can sell it when the price is $60.

Oh, and China has gone from a net exporter to a very large net importer during the last several years. Makes all the difference.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4962032/ - That was back in 2004. Perhaps the risk premium has disappeared in the intervening years?

And those links were all officially “debunked” in that report that I cited above that everyone complains is too long to read.

Next time I get accused of touting “bumper stickers” I am going to bring this up!

I would remind you that of the Democrat senators serving on the “source” of which you seem to be so enamored, only one (Wyden) held views against the war prior to our invasion. As for the others, here’s what they had to say before we went to war (isn’t 20-20 hindsight wonderful?):

Russ Feingold:

“I agree post-9/11, we face, as the President has said, a long and difficult fight against terrorism and we must be very patient and very vigilant and we must be ready to act and make some very serious sacrifices. And with regard to Iraq, I agree that Iraq presents a genuine threat, especially in the form of weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological and potentially nuclear weapons. I agree that Saddam Hussein is exceptionally dangerous and brutal, if not uniquely so, as the President argues. And I agree, I support the concept of regime change. Saddam Hussein is one of several despots from the international community — whom the international community should condemn and isolate with the hope of new leadership in those nations. And, yes, I agree, if we do this Iraq invasion, I hope Saddam Hussein will actually be removed from power this time.
And I agree, therefore, Mr. President, we cannot do nothing with regard to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. We must act. We must act with serious purpose and stop the weapons of mass destruction and stop Saddam Hussein. And I agree a return to the inspections regime of the past alone is not a serious, credible policy.”

“Saddam Hussein possesses chemical, biological weapons, and if events are allowed to run their course, will someday possess nuclear weapons.”
Sen. Evan Bayh (D.-Ind.), Intelligence member Statement, Oct. 3, 2002
“I believe that Saddam Hussein rules by terror and has squirreled away stores of biological and chemical weapon.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.), Intelligence member Floor speech, Oct. 10, 2002
“The people of the United States and the rest of the world are at risk as long as Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Last night, the President . . . made the most effective case to date that the risk of inaction is too great to bear.”
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D.-W.Va.)
Vice Chairman of Intelligence Committee Statement, March 18,2003
“For the last 12 years he’s [Saddam’s] ignored U.N. resolutions and embargoes while rebuilding his illegal chemical and biological weapons. … He is dangerous. I believe he needs to be disarmed.”
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D.-Md.), Intelligence member Floor speech, March 18, 2003

“I believe if Saddam Hussein continues to refuse to meet his obligation to destroy his weapons of mass destruction and his prohibited missile delivery systems, that the United Nations should authorize member states to use military force to destroy those weapons and systems.”
Sen. Carl Levin (D.-Mich.), then-chairman of Armed Services and member of Intelligence Floor speech, Oct. 9, 2002

I was referring Neo to that source to correct this statement:

“Tenet’s book states, for example, that there was plenty of “worrisome” evidence of connection and cooperation between Saddam and al Qaeda. But in his interview with “60 Minutes,” Tenet says the CIA couldn’t “verify” the connection. Similarly for evidence of Saddam’s Niger yellowcake efforts; as McCarthy says, it’s never been proven false and [is] most likely to be true, a situation he likens to “probable cause” for indictment.

Both assertions, the Al Qaeda links and the Yellowcake, were decisively shown to be unsupported by postwar evidence (see the “Conclusions” beginning on pages 105 and 53 of the document, respectively.)

And your point being what, exactly? The thesis of this thread is that we didn’t know then what we know now, and that the belief of nearly everyone (supported by my quote citations above) was that the invasion of Iraq was warranted—or that at least Saddam posed a threat that should have been taken seriously or dealt with in some decisive manner.

It’s very easy to criticize, find fault, and harp on “what should have been done” based on knowledge gained after the fact. Yes, we should have known about Pearl Harbor, for instance (in fact, we did, and bungled that knowledge). But that knowledge, and the knowledge that we have about Iraq now wasn’t available beforehand.

Shall we agree that we need to deal with the present? People can, and do, disagree on what should be the course going forward. But all this hooey about who knew what when is just so much distraction from the actual situation on the ground. For my part, withdrawal from Iraq is not the answer.