Is Bush Solely to Blame for the Death of US Troops in Iraq?

[Care4all]

it's still not quite precise enough of an analogy Del!

first, the broker came to you and begged you to give him permission to buy in to a stock for you....

you in turn said no, ONLY IF THE STOCK hits X amount and under X conditions, will you give him permission to buy in to that stock.

your broker said fine, and signed the agreement with you to ONLY buy the stock with your money under those key conditions...

your broker, proceeded to buy the stock with your money even though, the stock never met the measures of your signed agreement, or never hit X amount or the X conditions.

Who should be held accountable for the purchase of that stock?

i see your point cares, but i think ultimately it is my responsibility for signing the agreement. that doesn't mean that the broker is blameless, but i have to take responsibility for misjudging the broker's integrity, imo.

absolutely!!! so, so true, as well!!!

 

[Yurt]

finally! finally someone made through to iriemon...

good lord

 

[Iriemon]

finally! finally someone made through to iriemon...

good lord

Sorry to burst your bubble, but the point you were arguing is quite different than the point Del made.

To put it into the stock broker analogy, if I give the broker the authority to buy stock if he thinks it is best for me, and he decides buys XYZ stock and it takes a loss, I'm responsible for the loss because I gave the broker the discretion to choose whther to buy stock and what stock to buy. Del pointed out that I'm responsible for the loss because I gave the authority to make that decision to the broker.

The point you are trying to say is that I decided to buy XYZ stock because I gave the broker the discretion. That does not follow. Just because I gave the broker discretion to buy stock does not mean I made the decision to buy stock or to buy XYZ stock. That was the broker's decision.

In the same way, Congress bears responsibility for delegating authority to make the decision to 1) use force and 2) what force to use to the Bush administration (conditioned upon diplomacy failing). However, that is not the same as saying that Congress made the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Congress did not vote to go in. Never happened. That was Bush's decision.

 

[Toro]

Hell no!

Cheney is too...

 

[Yurt]

you're a lost cause...the points were similar enough that any rational person would get it...

 

[Iriemon]

you're a lost cause...the points were similar enough that any rational person would get it...

Well, what can I say. I personally think there is a significant difference between you doing deciding to do something yourself and you authorizing someone else to do decide whether to do it. But this horse has been beat enough

 

[del]

you're a lost cause...the points were similar enough that any rational person would get it...

i must be irrational then, because i see a significant difference.
ah, reasonable people can disagree...

 

[Yurt]

you're a lost cause...the points were similar enough that any rational person would get it...

i must be irrational then, because i see a significant difference.
ah, reasonable people can disagree...

the difference was the discretion was left up to the broker on whether to purchase versus the broker purchasing if the stock hit X dollars. i understand that, however, iriemon's initial question was related to a condition happening and upon that condition happening then bush was authorized to go into iraq.

he then changed his stance to it was left up to bush's sole discretion. while that is true in a sense as bush is CIC, what he first said is:

Do you agree that voting to authorize someone to make the decision to go to war if certain conditions occur, is not the same as voting to go to war?

that is where my analogy fits into HIS reasoning in this issue that i meant was similar, not the same as what he later said and you rightfully called him on, but the overall arguments and analogies were germane to his claims.

his above comment fits mine to a tee...i authorize my broker to purchase stock A if certain conditions occur....how is that not authorizing the broker to use what ever legal means necessary to purchase that stock?

that is what congress authorized bush to do, use whatever means necessary to make sure iraq complies etc....if iraq does not comply.

lastly, why did hillary clinton call for "revoking" the authorization if the senators never gave him authorization to go into iraq?
IMO

 

[Gunny]

Depends on how you look at it. I wouldn't say he's soley to blame, there are lots of causes.

Though Reagan used to have a paperweight on his desk, saying "the buckeroo stops here." It means that ultimate responsibility lies with the guy at the top.



Agree with all that.



Why was it only "festering" while Clinton was president? How about when BushI stopped the troops when they had a far more legitimate basis for deposing Hussein in 1991?

Speculation. Partisanship.



Sadam repeatedly asserted that all the WMD he'd had was destroyed and he didn't have any left. That was not deceitful.



The petty boasting of a two bit dictator who was no threat to us is a pretty lame reason to committ the nation to this war.



The Bush administration made the decision to invade Iraq. Hussein's boasting and bragging was insufficient justification to start a war and invade and occupy.



As stated in another thread, I agree that from a strategic perspective, particularly one based on reducing the threat of terrorism, the invasion of Iraq was a terrific blunder.



I don't blame Bush for insurgents pulling the trigger or setting off bombs against our guys.

I think he and his administration can fairly be blamed for making the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, which was both unnecessary and a strategic blunder. I also blame them for misimplying to the public that Iraq was an "urgent threat" which undermined and damaged our credibility. I blame his administration for the lax policy on torture in Iraq, which further undermined our credibility. These things arguably contributed the the intensity of the insugency against us in Iraq.

No, it doesn't depend on how you look at it. I pretty-much go for the straight-up, head-on approach, calling all the spades spades. Things always seem to come out much better than way.

Fine. Say Bush is responsible then.



So you think SA would have let Clinton use the airbase to invade Iraq?



Of course not. I base it on the fact that both before and after the war, inspectors scoured every inch of Iraq in the biggest easter egg hunt of all time.

What you call boasting and blustering was in fact firing missiles on US warplanes, attacking his own people in no-fly zones, all violations of a ceasefire he agreed to.

That is the best argument for it. Though it was Iraq airspace that was being defended. This did not justify invasion and occupation IMO, and the Bush administration did not base its action principally on this.

Bush did nothing more to sell hsi reasons for invasions than any other President does to sell any of their junk. If you're accusing him of being a politician, it's hardly a newsflash on this end.

Don't get your point.

Fine, no. I'm not going to say Bush is responsible anymore than I am going to blame any other President of the US for deploying forces of war.

Whether or not SA wuold have allowed Clinton to launch an invasion from the airfiled is irrelevant. He didn't try. My point is, he didn't really try to do anything. He maintained the status quo at our expense.

When you lose a war, you are at the victor's mercy. Saddam relinquished his right to defend Iraqi airspace when he signed the ceasefire agreement.

Of course you don't get my point. You wouldn't. It's called partisan blindness. You accuse Bush of misleading us when all he did ACTUALLY was present his agenda in a light most favorable to achieving the reuslts he desired. He's no different than any other politician and pales in comparison to some that YOU agree with. Obama being a perfect example.

 

[Gunny]

In fact, Hussein relented and allowed UN inspectors into the country with free access. They did blind inspections of hundreds of sites in late 02 and early '03, not finding any WMD where our sources said it could be found.

That should have prompted a prudent, objective government to hold off military action and let the inspectors continue to verify whether the belief that Iraq actually had WMD was accurate or not.

If in fact Husein's Iraq had had WMDs, it had had them since the mid-80s, when the Reagan administration cleared the way for Iraq to obtain otherwise restricted "dual-use" chemicals by which it could make chemical WMDs.

Ye despite the fact that by 2003, Iraq would have had WMDs for at least 15 years, there has never been any claim or evidence that Hussein ever gave any WMD to terrorists, or otherwise supported any terrorist attack.

Thus, Iraq was no "urgent threat" in 2003, even if it did have WMDs. The only reason to "rush to war" was if there was a concern that the inspectors would indeed verify Iraq had no WMD, thus invalidating the neocon/Bush Administrations prior goal of taking out Hussein.

Under this situation, embarking on an invasion and occupation in March 2003 was a gross strategic blunder that has greatly harmed the US.

You are incorrect. Had Saddam all free and full access, it could not have been used as a basis to justify invasion.

The UN inspectors in 2003 stated they were being given full access.



And that was all in the 1980s, not 2003. The relevant question is whether he had them in 2003.

Yet you would assume he does not have any on his say-so?

No. Although certainly if he admitted he had them in Mar 2003 that would have been a different story.

I wouldn't assume he had them at all. But I wouldn't assume he *did* have them after inspectors scoured Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003 and found nothing.

Want to buy some West Texas swampland?

Not interested. How about some nice property in the Keys?

I lived in the Keys. Loved it. Probably no longer the place I remember though.

You're making a circular argument where WMD's are concerned. I will repeat .. Saddam possessed WMDs. He used WMDs. He continued to act as if he had WMDs by playing a shell game with inspectors. Saddam did not account for the WMDs he is on record as having.

If that would lead you to *not* assume he had them and would use them, I can only hope you are never placed in a position of leadership in the US military. Yours is a completely illogical conclusion.

 

[Gunny]

I say no. Further, I consider any assertion that he to be extremist, partisan hatred.

Saddam Hussein did not come to power because of Bush. Saddam Hussein came into power because he was a bigger thug than the thug that preceeded him.

Bush is not responsible for Saddam invading Kuwait in attempt to seize Kuwait's oil to pay off Iraq's debt from its war with Iran. Nor was Bush responsible for Saddam invading Iran.

Bush was not responsible for Saddam violating the terms of a ceasefire before the ink was dry on his signature, nor any of the times Saddam routinely violated the terms of the ceasefire from 1991 - 2003.

Bush is certainly not responsible for his predecessor as President allowing the problem in Iraq to fester for 8 years. Had the UN acted to enforce its resolution, the US would not have been left holding the bag. The borders between Kuwait and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Iraq were enforced by US forces at our expense. An unacceptable, endless situation.

Saddam repeatedly provoked those forces with little to no action on the part of the US from 1991 -2003. During that time, Saddam repeatedly was elusive, obtuse and purposefully deceitful to UN Weapons Inspectors in regard to WMD. He is STILL accountable to the UN for several tons of WMDs/percursors.

If he had no WMDs, then he was all the more stupid for pretending he did. He played a high stakes game with nothing in his hand and he got called.

I contend Saddam Hussein is responsible for his own demise. I also contend that the responsibility for the deaths of US service personnel belongs to him, and the religious fanatics that have waged a war of terror against US, UK and Iraqi government forces since Saddam was removed from power.

IMO, Bush's decision to invade Kuwait was strategically the incorrect decision, given the probable results predicted and most of those predictions coming true. Saddam was a secular wildcard and his country divided the Middle East. The resulting factional infighting that has come to pass was predicted. The clash between Sunni and Shia as proxies to Saudi Arabia and Iran was predicted. Only blind, Western political idealism would lead someone to believe Arabs would be grateful to the US as liberators rather than foreign invaders.

However, to blame the deaths of US service personnel on the President is to blame the deaths of ALL US service personnel from George Washington to present date on a US President. It's backwards-assed logic at it finest, used only by blind political partisans in yet another lame attempt to stick shit against the wall on Bush.

Interesting...is it Bush's fault; you say no. "Further, I consider any assertion that he to be extremist, partisan hatred."

BUT it IS Clinton's fault...and that is NOT partisan hatred.

A wonderful thread of useless garbage Gunny... ALL your points are meaningless, UNLESS you can provide the speech Bush made using THOSE reasons for invading Iraq to Congress and the American people...

Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Treasury Secretary

And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”

And that came up at this first meeting, says O’Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001. Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

“It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,” says Suskind. “On oil in Iraq.”

During the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that."

“The thing that's most surprising, I think, is how emphatically, from the very first, the administration had said ‘X’ during the campaign, but from the first day was often doing ‘Y,’” says Suskind. “Not just saying ‘Y,’ but actively moving toward the opposite of what they had said during the election.”
Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq? - CBS News

Learn to read. I didn't say it was Clinton's fault. I addressed the double standard. If you want to start holding Presidents accountable for your partisan extremism, there are two sides to every coin.

I've already come to the conclusion your arguments aren't worth addressing. It's a waste of time and effort. Your blind partisanship makes your arguments. Not anything real.

 

[Gunny]

In one sense true, he could have called for an immediate withdrawal of all forces from Iraq.

But Obama of course plays a far different role in the Iraq war.

he introduced legislation to have ALL our troops home from in iraq by summer 2008....now he is CIC...nope...so hopefully you will be consistent and of course stop the buck with obama and not pass it on to bush as you so often do

Sure, Obama is responsible for his decisions, just as Bush was responsible for the attack on Iraq.

Which is not what the thread title addresses.

 

[Gunny]

You're right, Saddam was thumbing his nose at the UN inspectors and taunting the US, just daring us to do something about it. The entire congress voted to go in and find those WMDs after 9/11.

I disagree. by the time they went in and invaded a sovereign nation for no reason at all, the inspections were being done with little problem. anyone who read hans blix's reports was aware of that.

is Bush the sole person responsible? of course not. he had a lot of help. and he allowed rummy and cheney to make policy and failed to change course until far too late.

congress did not "vote to go in". If you read the authorization, it was clear that miliary involvement was a LAST resort...and that he had to go back to Congress with status reports and engagein diplomacy (lol... ) They gave that authority assuming, properly, that the people we deal with should deal with a united country and believe that the president had, at his disposal. He wasn't EVER supposed to go in with guns blazing...and he wasn't supposed to cherry pick the intel.

We didn't invade a sovereign nation for no reason at all. That's a lie. Can't be anything else since you have been educated otherwise more than a few times and STILL cling to that partisan lie.

Hans Blix is an anti-US liar. If he said the sky was blue I'd look outside first before believing him. Funny how he ignored Saddam cherrypicking where he was allowed to look and even changed his story later and claim they were given full access.

A perfect example of the uselessness of the UN. They don't have the balls to enforce their own resolutions. They aren't worth the paper they're written on.

Congress gave away its authority to Bush, both Republicans AND Democrats. Period. It's rather obvious they gave away that authority with the understanding Bush was going to use force, or else they were too dumb to be in Congress.

 

[Gunny]

jillian....please

Mr. Kerry [along with many other dems], as almost everyone now knows, voted to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq...

About That Iraq Vote - The New York Times

i don't understand how, after all this time, the dems keep harping on the lie that bush did not have approval. it was a major weakness for kerry and hillary clinton...

repeat a lie enough times i guess....

The Joint Resolution, passed in Nov 02, gave the Bush admin authority if diplomatic efforts were unsuccessful

The post to which Jillian responded stated: "The entire congress voted to go in ..."

That was an inaccurate decription of what happened, tho I've seen it asserted a number of times. There was no vote to go in in Mar 2003; that was the Bush Administration's decision.

Jillian's correction was spot on.

You are incorrect. Congress gave away its oversight and authority. Period. There was and is no excuse for that. Trying to play with dates is just a game of semantics and a smokescreen.

 

[Gunny]

The Joint Resolution, passed in Nov 02, gave the Bush admin authority if diplomatic efforts were unsuccessful

The post to which Jillian responded stated: "The entire congress voted to go in ..."

That was an inaccurate decription of what happened, tho I've seen it asserted a number of times. There was no vote to go in in Mar 2003; that was the Bush Administration's decision.

Jillian's correction was spot on.

read her post again, she said bush did not have authorization to go in guns ablazing....such an assertion and the rest of her post indicates she did not believe bush had authority to invade iraq and remove saddam....as i showed you

i never mentioned anything about "all" congress, her so called correction is a wrong. now that you've read her post again, read my again...

I read Jillian's "gun's blazing" phrase as meaning the Bush Administration did not exhaust diplomatic efforts, which under the JA it was required it to do; not that she meant the Bush Administration did not have an authorization to use military force.

"All diplomatic efforts" were exhausted LONG before Bush became President of the US.

 

[Gunny]

I say no. Further, I consider any assertion that he to be extremist, partisan hatred.

Saddam Hussein did not come to power because of Bush. Saddam Hussein came into power because he was a bigger thug than the thug that preceeded him.

Bush is not responsible for Saddam invading Kuwait in attempt to seize Kuwait's oil to pay off Iraq's debt from its war with Iran. Nor was Bush responsible for Saddam invading Iran.

Bush was not responsible for Saddam violating the terms of a ceasefire before the ink was dry on his signature, nor any of the times Saddam routinely violated the terms of the ceasefire from 1991 - 2003.

Bush is certainly not responsible for his predecessor as President allowing the problem in Iraq to fester for 8 years. Had the UN acted to enforce its resolution, the US would not have been left holding the bag. The borders between Kuwait and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Iraq were enforced by US forces at our expense. An unacceptable, endless situation.

Saddam repeatedly provoked those forces with little to no action on the part of the US from 1991 -2003. During that time, Saddam repeatedly was elusive, obtuse and purposefully deceitful to UN Weapons Inspectors in regard to WMD. He is STILL accountable to the UN for several tons of WMDs/percursors.

If he had no WMDs, then he was all the more stupid for pretending he did. He played a high stakes game with nothing in his hand and he got called.

I contend Saddam Hussein is responsible for his own demise. I also contend that the responsibility for the deaths of US service personnel belongs to him, and the religious fanatics that have waged a war of terror against US, UK and Iraqi government forces since Saddam was removed from power.

IMO, Bush's decision to invade Kuwait was strategically the incorrect decision, given the probable results predicted and most of those predictions coming true. Saddam was a secular wildcard and his country divided the Middle East. The resulting factional infighting that has come to pass was predicted. The clash between Sunni and Shia as proxies to Saudi Arabia and Iran was predicted. Only blind, Western political idealism would lead someone to believe Arabs would be grateful to the US as liberators rather than foreign invaders.

However, to blame the deaths of US service personnel on the President is to blame the deaths of ALL US service personnel from George Washington to present date on a US President. It's backwards-assed logic at it finest, used only by blind political partisans in yet another lame attempt to stick shit against the wall on Bush.

A lot of talk about Saddam, Iraq, Iran, Whatever... Why exactly is/were any of that the responsibility of the United States?

Were any of these situations a threat to us? I mean any more than the oil cartels raising the price of oil which they do anyway? And PUUULLLEEEEZZZZZ don't say terrorists.. that whole thing was and is a police/fbi/cia matter. The war on terror is so bullshit. Just tell me how us being involved over there has helped the U S.

Bush promised he would capture Ossama dead or alive. He did not. He lied and went into Iraq.

Was the last Iraq war on Bush?...Yes. Lets hear why I'm wrong.

Like running in circles do you? I explained why in the first post in this thread. Hell-O?

 

[Bfgrn]

I say no. Further, I consider any assertion that he to be extremist, partisan hatred.

Saddam Hussein did not come to power because of Bush. Saddam Hussein came into power because he was a bigger thug than the thug that preceeded him.

Bush is not responsible for Saddam invading Kuwait in attempt to seize Kuwait's oil to pay off Iraq's debt from its war with Iran. Nor was Bush responsible for Saddam invading Iran.

Bush was not responsible for Saddam violating the terms of a ceasefire before the ink was dry on his signature, nor any of the times Saddam routinely violated the terms of the ceasefire from 1991 - 2003.

Bush is certainly not responsible for his predecessor as President allowing the problem in Iraq to fester for 8 years. Had the UN acted to enforce its resolution, the US would not have been left holding the bag. The borders between Kuwait and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Iraq were enforced by US forces at our expense. An unacceptable, endless situation.

Saddam repeatedly provoked those forces with little to no action on the part of the US from 1991 -2003. During that time, Saddam repeatedly was elusive, obtuse and purposefully deceitful to UN Weapons Inspectors in regard to WMD. He is STILL accountable to the UN for several tons of WMDs/percursors.

If he had no WMDs, then he was all the more stupid for pretending he did. He played a high stakes game with nothing in his hand and he got called.

I contend Saddam Hussein is responsible for his own demise. I also contend that the responsibility for the deaths of US service personnel belongs to him, and the religious fanatics that have waged a war of terror against US, UK and Iraqi government forces since Saddam was removed from power.

IMO, Bush's decision to invade Kuwait was strategically the incorrect decision, given the probable results predicted and most of those predictions coming true. Saddam was a secular wildcard and his country divided the Middle East. The resulting factional infighting that has come to pass was predicted. The clash between Sunni and Shia as proxies to Saudi Arabia and Iran was predicted. Only blind, Western political idealism would lead someone to believe Arabs would be grateful to the US as liberators rather than foreign invaders.

However, to blame the deaths of US service personnel on the President is to blame the deaths of ALL US service personnel from George Washington to present date on a US President. It's backwards-assed logic at it finest, used only by blind political partisans in yet another lame attempt to stick shit against the wall on Bush.

Interesting...is it Bush's fault; you say no. "Further, I consider any assertion that he to be extremist, partisan hatred."

BUT it IS Clinton's fault...and that is NOT partisan hatred.

A wonderful thread of useless garbage Gunny... ALL your points are meaningless, UNLESS you can provide the speech Bush made using THOSE reasons for invading Iraq to Congress and the American people...

Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Treasury Secretary

And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations.

“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

“From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” says Suskind. “Day one, these things were laid and sealed.”

As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never asked.

"It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" says O’Neill. “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the U.S. has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap.”

And that came up at this first meeting, says O’Neill, who adds that the discussion of Iraq continued at the next National Security Council meeting two days later.

He got briefing materials under this cover sheet. “There are memos. One of them marked, secret, says, ‘Plan for post-Saddam Iraq,’" adds Suskind, who says that they discussed an occupation of Iraq in January and February of 2001. Based on his interviews with O'Neill and several other officials at the meetings, Suskind writes that the planning envisioned peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals, and even divvying up Iraq's oil wealth.

He obtained one Pentagon document, dated March 5, 2001, and entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield contracts," which includes a map of potential areas for exploration.

“It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,” says Suskind. “On oil in Iraq.”

During the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that."

“The thing that's most surprising, I think, is how emphatically, from the very first, the administration had said ‘X’ during the campaign, but from the first day was often doing ‘Y,’” says Suskind. “Not just saying ‘Y,’ but actively moving toward the opposite of what they had said during the election.”
Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq? - CBS News

Learn to read. I didn't say it was Clinton's fault. I addressed the double standard. If you want to start holding Presidents accountable for your partisan extremism, there are two sides to every coin.

I've already come to the conclusion your arguments aren't worth addressing. It's a waste of time and effort. Your blind partisanship makes your arguments. Not anything real.

Gee Gunny, is Paul O'Neill, Bush's first Treasury Secretary who said invading Iraq was discussed in the first week of the administration, 8 months before 911 also a blind partisan?

The PROBLEM which you are oblivious to Gunny...Bush LIED to START a war...

SO, he OWNS it...

 

[Gunny]

Please don't twist my words around.

I've never claimed he wasn't authorized. Congress, including half the Dems, gave him authorization.

That is different than saying that Congress "voted to go in".

If one looks at the actual language, instead of the partisan blather of the right, it's easy to see that a) all possible diplomatic efforts through the U.N. were supposed to be made. They weren't.

Bush was also required to REPORT TO CONGRESS before any military action. He didn't do that either.

http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/hjres114.pdf

The only partisan blather here is from you and your ilk. Y'all spend more time trying to mindfuck something simple just to win a patently dishonest argument on your part than it takes to read War and Peace.

 

[Gunny]

so he was authorized to invade iraq

but he wasn't authorized "to go in"

what kind of logic is that?

he exhausted all means, just because you don't thinks so doesn't mean he didn't. he had authority to invade and he lawfully followed that authority. that is a fact. your opinion on the matter is irrelevent.

what means did he exhaust?

hans blix said the inspections were going fine.

it's YOUR opinion that is irrelevant because it isn't based on fact.

no suprises.

Lame.

 

[Gunny]

18 resolutions AFTER the language in the authorization?

don't think so.

and if that's what it referred to, then why would continued efforts be a requirment?

answer.... the inspections were being made. iraq was cooperating.

bush didn't abideby the terms of the authorization.

I didn't say the war was illegal. was that the word I used.

How is Obama escalating the war in Iraq? Troops are being shifted to Afghanistan.... WHERE THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Another lie. Iraq was not cooperating and you KNOW it. NOBODY could be THAT dumb.

Your opinion that the troops should have been in Afghanistan in the first place does not answer the question. The troops are supposed to be coming home, not redeployed to a different war just because that war is okay with you. Y'all are such hypocrites.