End to search for WMD seals doubts about pre-emption (USA)TODAY

[coda]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld scoffed that even "a trained ape" knew it was true.



Op/Ed - USATODAY.com


End to search for WMD seals doubts about pre-emption

Fri Jan 14, 6:26 AM ET Op/Ed - USATODAY.com


For months before and after the Iraq war, top Bush administration officials insisted that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.


"There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us," Vice President Cheney said in August 2002. Six months later, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case, including satellite photos, to the United Nations. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld scoffed that even "a trained ape" knew it was true.


This week, The Washington Post reported that the U.S. has quietly ended its search for the weapons. Inspectors scoured Iraq and interviewed Iraqi scientists for months. They spent millions of dollars - the amount remains classified. The result was unchanged from the searchers' previous reports: They found nothing. No nuclear program. No stockpiles of biological or chemical weapons.


The end to the search puts a coda on one of the biggest intelligence failures in the nation's history, and it appears to extinguish the lingering possibility that something would turn up somewhereinside Iraq. Polls show that the administration's pre-war campaign was so effective that about 40% of Americans still believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded.


<snip>


In the 1980s, Saddam used chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds in his own country. The U.N. said it could not be sure that Saddam had destroyed stockpiles of deadly weapons as he claimed after the first Gulf War Saddam himself was making the inspectors' job difficult by leaving the impression that he was hiding something, apparently in an effort to deter Iran from thinking he was weak.


Still, cautionary voices, including within the CIA, were dismissed in the rush to war.





http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&e=20&u=/usatoday/endtosearchforwmdsealsdoubtsaboutpreemption

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. 1700 people, millions of dollars,

and guess what? They found out what millions of war protestors around the world knew before they invaded-Saddam was a toothless tiger.

The key line in this article is

Polls show that the administration's pre-war campaign was so effective that about 40% of Americans still believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded.


This same propaganda machine was used to get Bush many votes in the last election, and is now being geared up to steal Social Security.

[Zenlitened]

7. And I've not forgotten that, for our troubles protesting this thing...

... we were derided as "Saddam-lovers."

What shall we call them now? "Saddam-suckers"?

Or how about, simply, "traitors."

They knew it was a lie. They should be clapped in irons now and tried for treason.




(edit spelling)

[ixion]

9. exactly...

you couldn't even breach the subject w/o people calling you a traitor, and telling you to sit down, shut up, and let the 'adults' handle it.

Turns out these so-called 'adults' were full of BS.

[thecrow]

2. "trained ape"?

Is he alluding to.... Chimpy?

[vixengrl]

5. The "trained ape" believed it

because that's what he was "trained" to believe, methinks.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Still, cautionary voices, including within the CIA

trained apes... but they will do.... rather they would have done, quite nicely..... if the propaganda machine hadn't gone into full swing....

www.truthuncovered.com

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. That's true. Pre-emptive Strike, as a policy, is a failure.

Of course, the Dems told the moron-in-chief, but he wasn't listening.

In addition to that, I actually had Republican acquaintances that said they didn't want to know why we went to war. That they had voted him in to make those decisions for them.

[NVMojo]

6. I have a hard time believing 51% of the adults in this country voted for a

LIAR!!!!!!
:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :puke:

[klyon]

10. me too

8,000,000 more than in 2000
doesn't seem possible to me

KL

[ixion]

8. administration's pre-war campaign

is a nice way of saying: the lies and deceit of the administration is drumming up support for their illegal invasion.

But hey, I'm no trained ape, so what do I know. :grr: