Iraq was part of the Axis of Evil. I think a lot of the general public and the assumption that if they were one of the 3 most evil countries on this planet they must have been and will be a terrorist threat to us.
It wasn't an accident that the public thought that Saddam was involved with 9/11. The administration painted him as in bed with, and equivalent to, al qaida. barfo
You make the right distinction. Tied to Al Qaeda made him an ongoing threat. I bet you can easily find a link to a Bush quote where he explicitly says no link to 9/11.
My point is after we are out of Iraq and Afghanistan will our military spending go back down to pre 9/11 levels? Is anyone even talking about reducing our military spending back down to pre 9/11 levels? And please don't consider me anti military. I fully support our military but I've always believed our military was pretty damn bad ass in 2001 and that level of spending will continue to keep us the biggest bad asses on the planet.
For barfo Mr. RUSSERT: Do we have any evidence linking Saddam Hussein or Iraqis to this operation? VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. Meet the Press, September 16, 2001 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32862-2003Sep5?language=printer Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds By Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, September 6, 2003; Page A01 Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this.
I thought that might be true, so you notice I worded it to say that before 9/11/01, economists were unanimous that anticipation (i.e. beginning the next year) of surpluses had vanished. The surplus was sustainable when Bush took office, but before 9/11 he had killed the gravy train.
As for Cheney going back and forth on whether Saddam was linked to 9/11, he was inconsistent just a couple of months ago on 60 Minutes. Leslie Whatshername asked him, he said there was no link, then a minute later he insinuated there was, and she noted his inconsistency to his face. He just made his famous smirking Elvis upper lip sneer.
That's fine... and probably accurate. It doesn't mean that the administration was pinning 9/11 on Iraq any more than it was on Iran or North Korea. Ed O.
I just answered that. I know I saw him recently interviewed for his book "In My Time" by a female and that's what happened. I guess it wasn't Leslie Stahl. He denied the Saddam-9/11 connection, but then he soon (accidentally) made some wording that connected them again, and was called out for it by the interviewer. Cheney had no answer and just smiled.
Not very useful to rely on your recent memories. If I can't see what he actually said, I don't trust your assertion is true.
The problem with Iraq is we didn't follow the Powell doctrine. We used overwhelming force successfully, check. We had a mission to disarm Saddam, check. We had an exit strategy, nope. When the plan became nation building, there is no exit. This is why I keep posting that we should have left right away, maybe after searching for WMDs. It's also the same issue with Afghanistan. No exit.
Can't find that one, so all these will have to do. http://sportstwo.com/threads/195446-The-Years-of-Shame?p=2659296&viewfull=1#post2659296 I got these from Page 1 of a search engine. I didn't go to Page 2 of the many pages which came up. http://open.salon.com/blog/je_rober...ts_to_lying_about_iraq-911_connection_sort_of http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/0...-seeking-confession-of-saddam-911-connection/ If you know how I can move my files from my backup drive of my dead Windows XP hard drive to my current Windows 7 hard drive, I can get you many more relevant sites that I saved during the last 10 years. I have 100 gb of good stuff that apparently I'm going to have to move data file by individual data file.
If your motherboard has aSATA interface and your old drive is SATA also, you can probably just plug the old drive in, boot up, and mass copy the files. The 2nd drive would show up as D: or E: ...
As far as Cheney goes... It wouldn't surprise me if the Intel changed a lot over time. Some guy a Gitmo tells them there was a meeting between Saddam's guys and Al Qaeda. Two months later they find out the story isn't so strong. I never felt lied to or they were trying to cover up stuff. There were many reports of WMDs found that the administration quickly said were bogus. If they were devious and sinister, they'd have sent in some Ollie North type to plant WMDs to be found. Even a single test tube of a bio weapon would suffice.
