Algore would have invaded Iraq

Ah - the comic relief has arrived early from Daily Kos...

Interestingly, I've never been on DailyKos or any other site like that.
Wingnuts like you assume that others must inhabit wingnut sites.

Frankly, I just have little patience for stupidity like you posted.

Happy Holidays.
 
Interestingly, I've never been on DailyKos or any other site like that.
Wingnuts like you assume that others must inhabit wingnut sites.

Frankly, I just have little patience for stupidity like you posted.

Happy Holidays.
You should go - they sound just like you...
 
could Al have done worse?

hey, at least those Iraqi's would have twisty light bulbs by now.....
 
Is there no literature available at the time of invasion of whether or not he approved of it?
Don't know. But he had made statements that he believed that Saddam had WMDs and would use them. The Democrat leadership had access to the same intel as the administration and they also believed Saddam had WMDs and was willing to use them. The head of the CIA was a Clinton-Gore appointment and he assured Bush the intel was a "slam dunk" that Saddam had WMDs.

So does it make sense that Algore would listen to his own CIA head whom he had a hand in appointing? Yeah it makes sense...
 
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Don't know. But he had made statements that he believed that Saddam had WMDs and would use them.
Yes I have seen the quotes from 2002 but that still doesn't mean he supported the invasion.
The Democrat leadership had access to the same intel as the administration
Wrong. I thought this argument died a long time ago. Here are just five of several arguments that dispute this claim.
FACT — Dissent From White House Claims on Iraq Nuclear Program Consistently Withheld from Congress:

everal Congressional and intelligence officials with access to the 15 assessments [of intel suggesting aluminum tubes showed Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program] said not one of them informed senior policy makers of the Energy Department’s dissent. They described a series of reports, some with ominous titles, that failed to convey either the existence or the substance of the intensifying debate.” [NYT, 10/3/04]

FACT — Sen. Kerrey: Bush “Has Much More Access” to Intel Than Congress:

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), ex-Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman: “The president has much more access to intelligence than members of Congress does. Ask any member of Congress. Ask a Republican member of Congress, do you get the same access to intelligence that the president does? Look at these aluminum tube stories that came out the president delivered to the Congress — ‘We believe these would be used for centrifuges.’ — didn’t deliver to Congress the full range of objections from the Department of Energy experts, nuclear weapons experts, that said it’s unlikely they were for centrifuges, more likely that they were for rockets, which was a pre-existing use. The president has much more access to intelligence than any member of Congress.” [10/7/04]

FACT — Rockefeller: PDBs, CIA Intel Withheld From Senate:

Ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee Jay Rockefeller (D-WV): “[P]eople say, ‘Well, you know, you all had the same intelligence that the White House had.’ And I’m here to tell you that is nowhere near the truth. We not only don’t have, nor probably should we have, the Presidential Daily Brief. We don’t have the constant people who are working on intelligence who are very close to him. They don’t release their — an administration which tends not to release — not just the White House, but the CIA, DOD [Department of Defense], others — they control information. There’s a lot of intelligence that we don’t get that they have.” [11/04/05]

FACT — War Supporter Ken Pollack: White House Engaged in “Creative Omission” of Iraq Intel:

In the eyes of Kenneth Pollack, “a Clinton-era National Security Council member and strong supporter of regime change in Iraq,” “the Administration consistently engaged in ‘creative omission,’ overstating the imminence of the Iraqi threat, even though it had evidence to the contrary. ‘The President is responsible for serving the entire nation,’ Pollack writes. ‘Only the Administration has access to all the information available to various agencies of the US government – and withholding or downplaying some of that information for its own purposes is a betrayal of that responsibility.’” [Christian Science Monitor, 1/14/04]

FACT — White House Had Exclusive Access to “Unique” Intel Sources:

“The claim that the White House and Congress saw the ’same intelligence’ on Iraq is further undermined by the Bush administration’s use of outside intelligence channels. For more than year prior to the war, the administration received intelligence assessments and analysis on Iraq directly from the Department of Defense’s Office of Special Plans (OSP), run by then-undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas J. Feith, and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a group of Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi.” [MediaMatters, 11/8/05]


and they also believed Saddam had WMDs and was willing to use them.
Not all of them did. There were a few who didn't. Congress failed. Only six members read any of the intelligence. The rest relied on Bush's word.
The head of the CIA was a Clinton-Gore appointment and he assured Bush the intel was a "slam dunk" that Saddam had WMDs.
Yet all the UNMOVIC inspectors had already announced that Saddam gave up his WMD programs. Political analyst Ralph Whitehead said it best about Tenet: "Tenet's statement is so clear, direct, assertive and just completely wrong".
So does it make sense that Al gore would listen to his own CIA head whom he had a hand in appointing? Yeah it makes sense...
It makes sense but it's still only speculation.

This is why I'd rather go to the horse's mouth

Al Gore said in September of 2002:
I want to talk about the relationship between America's war against terrorism and America's proposed war against Iraq. Like most Americans I've been wrestling with the question of what our country needs to do to defend itself from the kind of focused, intense and evil attack that we suffered a year ago, September 11. We ought to assume that the forces responsible for that attack are even now attempting to plan another attack against us.

I'm speaking today in an effort to recommend a specific course of action for our country, which I sincerely believe would be better for our country than the policy that is now being pursued by President Bush. Specifically, I am deeply concerned that the course of action that we are presently embarking upon with respect to Iraq has the potential to seriously damage our ability to win the war against terrorism and to weaken our ability to lead the world in this new century.

He did not support the war in Iraq.


Couldn't post links because of:
You are only allowed to post URLs to other sites after you have made 15 posts or more.
 
Bush is an idiot.

And before you start whining, of course this thread is about Bush. Incompetent Excuse for Bush #472: Someone else would have done what he did.
 
Actually the invasion of Iraq was inevitable, regardless of who became president.


If not invasion of Iraq - then what?!?

If you thought the invasion of Iraq was the incorrect decision, what would you have recommended president Bush do?


Here's the situation in March, 2003 that you and the president were faced with:


1. Saddam had refused to live up to the conditions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, the final in a long list of UN resolutions Saddam had ignored since 1991 (*1).


2. The UN Oil for Food Program was rife with corruption, with Saddam buying off international players to get around UN sanctions against Iraq (*2).


3. Intelligence pointed to a conclusion that Saddam was hiding quantities of WMDs and desired to develop more (*3).


4. Intelligence pointed to a conclusion that Saddam had harbored, trained and funded international terrorists in the past and desired to do so again (*4).


5. Evidence and intelligence pointed to a conclusion that Saddam had in the past, and was continuing to mass murder the Iraqi population (*5).


7. Evidence and intelligence pointed to a conclusion that Saddam was not cooperating with agreed upon UN sanctions on Iraq, and the Oil for Food Program, resulting in additional hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths as a result of malnutrition and a lack of medicine and healthcare (*6).


8. 71% of congress had passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (*7). Among the many reasons given to justify the attack on Iraq the Resolution included:


- the continuing repression and murdering of Iraq's civilian population


- the continuing support of international terrorist organizations and harboring of terrorists


- the refusal of Saddam Hussein to fully cooperate in the discovery and removal of weapons of mass destruction programs as proscribed by UN Resolution 1441 and previous UN resolutions


9. Many prominent Democrats (including those in the know from the previous administration) had pronounced that Saddam was hiding WMDs and desired to develop more (*8).


Here is what the invasion of Iraq produced:


Iraq is no longer a rogue nation, threatening its neighbors, and harboring, training and funding terrorism. It is no longer a WMD threat. Though many Iraqis have died since the beginning of the conflict (*9), undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been saved from certain death through starvation, lack of medicine and Saddam's mass murdering. Major terrorism against the West has been reduced, with no further attacks on American soil (*10). Unfortunately there has been a cost of some thousands of coalition troops, hundreds of billions of dollars, and damage to America's international reputation.


Here are your alternatives of going to war:


1. Continue with the status quo. Ignore that UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, thus proving both the UN and the U.S.A. impotent. Ignore that the UN Oil for Food Program had been completely corrupted, and keep the sanctions in place thus allowing the additional deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through malnutrition and lack of medicine as a result of Saddam diverting the Oil for Food Program money to building his palaces and his military, and buying off international players to get around the sanctions. With no international presence Saddam would be free to do as he pleased within Iraq, including further rebuilding his military capabilities, developing new WMDs, training new terrorism recruits, financing international terrorism, advising terrorist organizations on the development and use of WMDs, and continue to mass murder and starve the Iraqi people. Other rogue nations and terrorist groups would certainly see this as a sign of weakness in the West and a signal to accelerate their aggression.


2. Lift the UN sanctions against Iraq and allow Saddam to freely participate in worldwide trade and commerce. This might eventually save hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from certain death brought on by starvation and lack of medicine, depending on whether Saddam diverted money to these problems. But it would not necessarily halt Saddam's mass murdering. It would also allow Saddam to develop his oil fields, bringing in huge profits to be spent as he pleased. Of course this would include building his military, developing his WMD programs, including reconstituting his nuclear weapons program, and resuming his harboring, training and funding of international terrorism. This would most certainly have been seen by other rogue countries and terrorist groups as a complete capitulation by the West, and that America and the West could be defeated.


So now what is your choice? The cost of the war has undoubtedly been high for America in terms of casualties, money and reputation. But what of the costs of the alternatives? Would either alternative have saved casualties, money or America's reputation? 9/11 alone cost America over 3,000 of her citizens and almost two trillion dollars in the financial markets (*11). Would have being branded as paper tigers reduced the likelihood of further terrorist attacks on American soil and throughout the world? Or would it have encouraged even more terrorism, especially with an emboldened Saddam Hussein harboring, training and financing further terrorism, and potentially supplying terrorist groups with WMDs? And what of Iraq's innocent citizens? After the fiasco of the hundreds of thousands mass murdered in Rwanda (*12), and the hundreds of thousands of already needless deaths in Iraq, would you have been willing to turn your back on hundreds of thousands more in Iraq? These were your choices: Invasion with thousands of casualties, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and a suffering of America's reputation. Or a retreating America seen as ripe for defeat by emboldened rogue nations and terror groups, likely resulting in increased worldwide terrorism, maybe eventually with Saddam supplied WMDs. No doubt that WMD terror attacks would have spawned new wars and destroyed the worldwide economy if the response to 9/11 is any indication. And would Libya and North Korea have voluntarily given up their nuclear weapons programs? Not likely. Can anyone reasonably argue that the world would be safer and more stable if Saddam had been allowed to continue as ruler of Iraq? (*13)


(*1) resolution 1441 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Resolution_1441

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 - Wikisource


(*2) oil for food Oil-for-Food Programme - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USATODAY.com - U.S. weapons report details corruption of oil-for-food program


(*3) intelligence WMDs Fred Hiatt - 'Bush Lied'? If Only It Were That Simple. - washingtonpost.com

American Thinker: Play President, Real Threats


(*4) intelligence terrorists Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism

The Big Picture

Saddam's Terror Training Camps


(*5) intelligence mass murder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_graves_in_Iraq

Saddam Hussein killer file

USAID: Assistance for Iraq - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves


(*6) intelligence starvation Iraq blames UN sanctions for 1.5 million deaths

Archived Weblog Entry - 05/23/2003: "Doctors say Hussein, not UN sanctions, caused children's deaths"

A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions | | AlterNet


(*7) congressional authorization Iraq Resolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American Thinker: Who Lied About Iraq?


(*8) Democrat quotes Freedom Agenda - Quotes and Facts on Iraq

If The Bush Administration Lied About WMD, So Did These People -- Version 3.0 - Right Wing News (Conservative News and Views)


(*9) Iraqi deaths Iraq Body Count

A Study In Lies | NewsBusters.org


(*10) attacks down U.S. says terrorism down, excluding Iraq - Security- msnbc.com

Terrorism Down Worldwide | Right Voices

News You Won't Hear: Terrorism Is Down Almost Everywhere | NewsBusters.org


(*11) 9/11 cost - When the Market Moves, Will You Be Ready? - Peter Navarro - Ph.D. economics, Harvard


(*12) Rwanda deaths Rwandan Genocide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


(*13) Confessions of an Anti-Iraq War Democrat: Memories of a Purple Finger « FOX Forum « FOXNews.com
 
Who cares? Al Gore is irrelevant why elevate his importance by bringing him up?
 
I love the way Al Gore's name was merged into one (Algore)...Sounds like Eegore. I'm not a huge Limbaugh fan, but I do think it was he, who started that.
 
I don't agree, but if that's the point why bring Gore into it at all?
Maybe you missed my long post at the bottom of the first page.

Why Gore? Because he could have potentially been the one making the decision.
 

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