The proof is staring boldly at all of us

[whosinpower]

Call it my "zen" moment.

I was reading more info on the Downing Street Minutes.
During the press conference that Blair and Bush held after Blair was in the US - and "the question" was raised - Tony Blair inadvertantly gave us the proof we needed.

"We went to the UN first." Blair convinced Bush that they had to go the the UN to "legitimacize" regime change.

And insofar as Mr. Bush claiming that he did not want to go to war..........what TANGIBLE EFFORTS DID HE MAKE TO AVERT WAR??????? Where are HIS MEMO'S alleging how tirelessly he worked to avert war. He said he didn't want war and that it was forced upon him. PROVE IT.

Going to the UN was NOT TO AVERT WAR....it was to find a legal framework.

[Sparkle]

1. You've got something there my friend.

[MeDeMax]

4. indeed

I need to reflect a little more on what you are suggesting, but I think I get it.

thnx,

[whosinpower]

47. And all the diplomacy Bush was talking about

All the diplomacy he was exhausting....was to get other nations on side to his war. It was not to avert the war. It was to find allies in the fight. It was not to find any alternative solutions. It was to find allies to fight the war with the US.

That was the only diplomacy he was using....targeted at the UN to legalize his invasion.

[Shoeempress]

2. Please stop being so logical or they will have to come and cart you off

to gitmo.

[dkofos]

3. They are both LIARS

and I hope to see them in the Hague!!

[ROH]

5. Very good point!

[rwork]

6. bush* kept saying

Saddam knows what to do to stop the war.I guess, turn over the imaginary WMDs.

[Old and In the Way]

10. That really is the relevant question.

What could Saddam have done to satisfy Bush to avert the war? It's incumbant on Bush to justify his actions in face of the evidence before the invasion/occupation where the UN was corroborating Saddam's position...he didn't have weapons.

And since the "he killed 500,000 of his own people" is BS, what was the reason? If Bush was looking to stop genocide, he might have considered deploying troops to Darfur where real atrocities are underway.

[Pockets]

38. Absolutely

Saddam could not have complied with an impossible demand.

Similarly, the American people cannot comply with impossible demands made by our masters either... working more and more for less and less.

However it does not matter that the American people know about all this, apparently, because a lot of what this administration is doing is just to demoralize us by proving to us how powerless we are.

[justice4all_1]

7. I have to agree

But it's discouraging when good writers like Michael Kinsley take a pro-GWB view of the memo.


Check out MK's Sunday editorial in the LA TIMES.

[seabeyond]

8. thinking back to the time before iraq war

we knew about the stuff in the minutes. what is significant to me is the world knew this. at the u.n. meeting, powell and bush gave evidence of wmd from manipulated reports. the public would not go with all this stuff in the minutes that bush wanted to go to war for. what he gets in trouble for is knowing this, and creating cia document to back it. was a matter of saying, you really are suggesting all this with nuclear, tubes, drones and chemical; but, if you are lying, your ass is in toruble. he was lying. his ass is in trouble

we all suspected and suggested bush was doing this during the summer and fall prior to war. we would say we think he is doing this, but we had no proof. or enough to convince media or the people. bush convinced a lot of americans, and yes, our senators and representitives to back him in this war. we knew he was going in. an ungodly number. seems the low 80's allowed themselves to be talked into bush lies.

psychologically as a nation i think many of us had to say, k, we are going to support. we dont trust. none of it feels right. i dont think so........but fuck. who knows. and if bush is lying

cause i could remember having the feel cia was opposed and didnt see a threat. and of course powell. and when i saw those to turn over......

i really sat saying to the tv, surely they are not arrogant enough to lie on this shit. this is people dying, our people. powell wouldnt do that to his men

[jbnow]

19. I was talking to the TV then too.

Kept saying "to" powell "You'd better not be lying, you'd better not be lying" He was the closet to sane in that administration and did have some respect in the world.

He was lying, he knew he was misleading.

Not that it made me support the war or believe it was for our safety or that they ever intended not to go to war.

Still I am surprised they didn't find WMD. I wasn't sure if there were any before the war, but I was sure they would find some even if it was because they planted them there to find.

[tavalon]

24. Yeah,

that surprised me too. I would have thought they would have had the foresight to plant some good and nasty weapons. I never understood why they didn't, though I was grateful for the oversight.

[seabeyond]

29. there was the time,

the iraqnians started putting out articles that in the middle of the night they saw the u.s. unloading stuff.......it was pretty good and could have stopped it in its tracks. it got pretty well spread around the world. the u.s. could hardly plant after the stories had come out after that.

i expected wmd's also. i didnt expect them to be important cause they would have been old, but doesnt matter. lets remember the american people didnt feel threatened by wmd's. they couldnt make it to u.s. shores, hence the creation of drones that could get here. wmd's alone wasnt reason to go to war, and bushies knew that wouldnt get them, so even if they had found them, wasnt good enough

[tavalon]

52. I saw an article about that

but since it was only the Iranians who said it (I couldn't find corroboration) I didn't spread it around. I like to have confirming sources, especially when the people saying things are already hostile to us.

I'd be mightly shocked if that article was enough to stop the Bush Junta.

[myrna minx]

32. Let us not forget that Blair's dossier was full of plagiarism

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=374

Speaking to the United Nations on Wednesday, in an address that was broadly portrayed as a case for war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that, "Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide its illicit activities." To support that claim, Powell said, "I would call my colleagues attention to the fine paper that United Kingdom distributed yesterday, which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities."

It turns out, however, that much of that "fine paper" – a dossier distributed by the office of British Prime Minister Tony Blair under the title, "Iraq - Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation" – was not a fresh accounting of information based on new "intelligence" about Iraqi attempts to thwart UN weapons inspections. Rather, the document has been exposed by Britain's ITN television network as a cut-and-paste collection of previously published academic articles, some of which were based on dated material.

Substantial portions of the report that Powell used to support his critique of Iraq were lifted from an article written by a postgraduate student who works not in Baghdad but in Monterey, California, and who based much of his research on materials left in Kuwait more than a dozen years ago by Iraqi security services.
snip
The portions of the government document taken from al-Marashi's article appear to have been grabbed in what Britain's Guardian newspaper describes in Friday morning's editions as "a sham" and "an electronic cut-and-paste operation by Whitehall (Blair government) officials." So sweeping was the plagiarism that, according to British journalists who reviewed the materials, typographical errors – including a misplaced comma -- that appeared in al-Marashi's article were reproduced in the official dossier that was posted on Blair's 10 Downing Street website.

more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2736575.stm
Friday, 7 February, 2003, 13:18 GMT
The plagiarism plague

Hardly a peep in the corporate media about this story...hmmmm...this was 1 month BEFORE the war.

[seabeyond]

50. this should go right with the minutes. i remember this too

these f*in assholes, there is so much, i cannot remember it all. we need to go back in time to all the stuff that will create exactly what the minutes are saying. the stuff is there

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

9. remember he had to report to congress on attempts at

diplomacy. he reported that he had failed. it was hardly noticed in the media.

[JDPriestly]

11. Besides, the UN rejected the war

Sure, Bush and Blair went to the UN, but the UN resoundingly rejected their attempts to get a resolution passed that would authorize the war. The best they could get was Resolution 1441 in November 2002, which authorized and required the return of the inspectors and warned Saddam that there would be repercussions if he did not fully cooperate with the inspectors.

http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N02/682/26/PDF/N0268226.pdf?OpenElement

The Blix report to the Security Council on February 14, 2002 pretty much undermined any argument that Saddam was not cooperating with inspectors.

http://www.themoderntribune.com/hans_blix_report_to_un_february_14_2003_full_text_-_war_on_iraq_-_inspections.htm

[Frederik]

12. Yes, that's the most important point to make

I think. They were saying and are saying they wanted to avert war, but these memos and minutes show that they desperately wanted war, to the point of fixing the intelligence around the policy. They also show that they were searching for a pretext.

[autorank]

13. Right on the "legal framework." Thanks for the clarity!

Well, guess what? Bush will live in infamy and hopefully become persona non grata and forced to leave the USA. bLiar is in much worse trouble. An obvious "dot" in this overall story is the statement by the British general that if there are World Court charges against him as the British commander, he's not going down alone (meaning bLiar and Jack Straw). Tony, get ready for those cold prisons in the Netherlands. You'll get a solo cell no doubt so things could be worse.

[tavalon]

25. If he leaves the US

I hope it's to go straight to the Hague.

[UdoKier]

14. Of course. Bush constantly claimed to have "exhausted all diplomatic...

...avenues". What he didn't say was that the ONLY "diplomacy" that took place at all was Bush trying to strongarm the UN into going along with his war plans, and then strongarm the individual nations into joining the "coalition of the killing"

There was ZERO, ZIP, NADA diplomacy going on with Iraq. Saddam submitted 40,000 pages of documents about his weapons compliance as Bush requested, and Bush called it a bunch of BS within less than 24 hours after the presentation. Are we supposed to believe that the Bush people read that shit, or that they were going to even consider turning around the 100,000 troops that were already en route, or that Bush was even remotely sincere when he said that he "didn't want to go to war" or that "we didn't ask for this war" or whatever total BULLSHIT he said?

Please.

It was the most transparent fraud I've ever seen, but it didn't matter because they know they don't have to hide their corruption anymore, because democracy is OVER.

[CantGetFooledAgain]

18. Thank you for mentioning the documents

that Saddam produced. I think that not enough is said about these. I remember at the time that the administration was demanding proof of the disposal of the WMD, and Saddam delivered some huge quantity of paperwork, and yes, it was dismissed out of hand by Powell as I remember.

But what was in those documents? Were they ever publicly released? Did they possibly contain the requested proof of WMD destruction? Because if so, then Saddam WAS in compliance with the SCR and the invasion WAS demonstrably illegal.

Anyone know anything more about the content of the documents that Saddam produced?

[Gabi Hayes]

15. did you read this, by Mark Danner? he deals directly with UN as basis

for invasion:

The British realized they needed "help with the legal justification for the use of force" because, as the attorney general pointed out, rather dryly, "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action." Which is to say, the simple desire to overthrow the leadership of a given sovereign country does not make it legal to invade that country; on the contrary. And, said the attorney general, of the "three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or authorization," the first two "could not be the base in this case." In other words, Iraq was not attacking the United States or the United Kingdom, so the leaders could not claim to be acting in self-defense; nor was Iraq's leadership in the process of committing genocide, so the United States and the United Kingdom could not claim to be invading for humanitarian reasons.<1> This left Security Council authorization as the only conceivable legal justification for war. But how to get it?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At this point in the meeting Prime Minister Tony Blair weighed in. He had heard his foreign minister's suggestion about drafting an ultimatum demanding that Saddam let back in the United Nations inspectors. Such an ultimatum could be politically critical, said Blair—but only if the Iraqi leader turned it down:

FROM THE MINUTES:
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD.... If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
Here the inspectors were introduced, but as a means to create the missing casus belli. If the UN could be made to agree on an ultimatum that Saddam accept inspectors, and if Saddam then refused to accept them, the Americans and the British would be well on their way to having a legal justification to go to war (the attorney general's third alternative of UN Security Council authorization).

Here the inspectors were introduced, but as a means to create the missing casus belli. If the UN could be made to agree on an ultimatum that Saddam accept inspectors, and if Saddam then refused to accept them, the Americans and the British would be well on their way to having a legal justification to go to war (the attorney general's third alternative of UN Security Council authorization).

Thus, the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible.

War had been decided on; the problem under discussion here was how to make, in the prime minister's words, "the political context ...right." The "political strategy"—at the center of which, as with the Americans, was weapons of mass destruction, for "it was the regime that was producing the WMD"—must be strong enough to give "the military plan the space to work." Which is to say, once the allies were victorious the war would justify itself. The demand that Iraq accept UN inspectors, especially if refused, could form the political bridge by which the allies could reach their goal: "regime change" through "military action."


well worth a read; the best analysis in one spot of the entire situation that I've seen so far

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18034

[enough]

28. Agreed, this is an excellent analysis.

Thanks for the link.

[firefox]

16. better dumb yourself down before the next Patriot Act0- nt

[KittyWampus]

17. You Made A Great Observation. Nominated In Hope This Doesn't Get Lost

in the MJ crap.

I'll try to remember to kick this, too.

[Octafish]

20. Yaaaaah paperwork.

A note from the Conqueror of Baghdad Bob and His US-Armed Mob, your little turd from Crawford:

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 19, 2003

Presidential Letter
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate


March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #

SOURCE:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-1.html

This guy started a war for personal power and profit.

There should be a law against that.



"Don't resist me. And don't hurt the oil wells."

[bejammin075]

21. Trust, but verify.

Great thinking.

OK, Bush...if what you say is true...release the documents that prove it.

[snot]

22. To me, the clincher was that the inspectors were begging for

just a few more weeks, and Bush could NOT allow that, because the inspectors might have PROVED there were no WMD in Iraq.

So the admin. engaged in this awful juggling act in which they did all they could to befog and fudge the one critical issue, which was whether the threat posed by Saddam H. was SO IMMINENT that we could not afford to wait even a few more weeks in order for the inspectors to complete their work.

I listened very carefully to what various admin. folks said, because I really wanted to know whether they had anything. They referred to the aluminum tubes, for which there were clearly competing uses, or claimed that Saddam might conceivably be able to deliver something somewhere within 45 minutes; but that was as specific as they got, and it seemed pretty clear that even they were actually uncomfortable making any categorical, factual assertions. On the rare occasion when anyone pushed them, they tried to hint that they had additional intelligence to support the fear they were mongering; as we all know now, there was no such additional intelligence.

Most of the time they avoided the issue altogether, offering a variety of half-baked rationales, no one of which stood up to scrutiny but all of which taken together sufficed to quell questioning by the media or Congress (to their shame).

But 6 inadequate rationales never added up to one good one for me.

[ROH]

30. Important comments (n/t)

[WillyT]

23. Hey !!! - Put THIS In Front Of Your Nose !!!

Link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1852674

:kick:

[Just Me]

26. Great thread!!!

Yeah. Last Tuesday, I remember Tony sayin' that the memo was about stuff that took place before they went to the UN. Did he even read the damn thing? *LOL* He basically validated the contents of the minutes.

Bush, well, Bush just out-n-out lied, as usual, asserting that he only used war as a last resort. BULL!!!

Several posters point out the obvious: Saddam complied with almost every faux diplomatic demand of the Bush regime. What has the Bush regime done? No surprise here,...they LIED about Saddam's compliance with those requests.

I did hear some RW talking head asserting that Saddam was given the opportunity to simply leave. ????? Was he?

Anyway, a lot of good stuff in this thread and many, many others here at DU which review the facts leading up to and following this gawd-awful neoCON debacle.

[notadmblnd]

48. There was something about Saddam leaving the country

If I recall correctly the admin gave him an ultimatum to leave the country in 48 hours and when Saddam relented, the admin said too late.

[Mnemosyne]

27. Thanks

:kick:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

31. And don't forget...

that after that first trip to the UN, Bush promisied he would be going back for final UN approval to take action in Iraq. He swore up and down to the country and to Congress that there would be that second meeting with the UN.

And he never did go back.

Because he knew the UN was onto him and that they would never give final approval. So that first UN meeting was only the "window dressing" they needed to make the claim they went to the UN.

Just like what was talked about in the memo.

It's all there, folks. Plain as day.

[ROH]

33. Do you have a link to quotes of his promises, please? (n/t)

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. I will try to dig them up...

Could take me a bit.

[whosinpower]

35. I remember his words because he was so

EMPHATIC.

"YES WE WILL GO BACK TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL FOR A VOTE ( and this is the important part) REGARDLESS OF THE WHIP COUNT. We want to know where every one stands. "

Shortly after that, Blair, Aznar and Bush met on some remote island(can't remember where) after it became apparent that they would not even garner a majority vote regardless of the veto threats that France was suggesting) They went ahead without going back to the UN to formally authorize use of force.

Whenever someone suggest that Bush never lies, I point that one out to them because he was just so arrogently emphatic....REGARDLESS OF THE WHIP COUNT. Those were his exact words.

[ROH]

36. But, but, but ...

he has taken the Presidential Oath of Office

[lectrobyte]

39. Probably a stoopid question, but what is a "whip count"? Thanks nt

[myrna minx]

40. The Azores...

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/16/sprj.irq.int.main/
Bush sets deadline for diplomacy
Monday, March 17, 2003 Posted: 0228 GMT (10:28 AM HKT)
Blair, Bush and Aznar say time is rapidly running out.

PRAIA DA VITORIA, Azores -- U.S. President George W. Bush says the Iraqi crisis will reach its "moment of truth" over the next 24 hours.

Bush told reporters that should no decision be made on a second U.N. resolution for Iraq in that time then the diplomatic window would be closed.
snip
Three permanent members, Russia, China and France which all have the power to veto any resolution, all want weapons inspectors to be given more time to disarm Iraq.

Bush said: "(Monday) is the moment of truth for the world... The dictator of Iraq and his weapons of mass destruction are a threat to the security of free nations."
snip
It is now possible that the U.S., UK and Spain may abandon plans to put the resolution before the security council, arguing that resolution 1441 gives legitimacy to war.

more...

[Hell Hath No Fury]

37. Here you go...

From his March 6, 2003 national press conference:


March 6, 2003


THE PRESIDENT: Let's see here. Elizabeth.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. As you said, the Security Council faces a vote next week on a resolution implicitly authorizing an attack on Iraq. Will you call for a vote on that resolution, even if you aren't sure you have the vote?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I don't think -- it basically says that he's in defiance of 1441. That's what the resolution says. And it's hard to believe anybody is saying he isn't in defiance of 1441, because 1441 said he must disarm. And, yes, we'll call for a vote.

Q No matter what?

THE PRESIDENT: No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html


And this was not the only time he said we would be returning to the SC for a final vote.

[ROH]

41. Thanks, that certainly seems to be very clear

I wonder if this will be mentioned at the Conyers' Hearing?

[whosinpower]

44. I found it!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030306-8.html

snip - Q Thank you, Mr. President. As you said, the Security Council faces a vote next week on a resolution implicitly authorizing an attack on Iraq. Will you call for a vote on that resolution, even if you aren't sure you have the vote?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, I don't think -- it basically says that he's in defiance of 1441. That's what the resolution says. And it's hard to believe anybody is saying he isn't in defiance of 1441, because 1441 said he must disarm. And, yes, we'll call for a vote.

Q No matter what?

THE PRESIDENT: No matter what the whip count is, we're calling for the vote. We want to see people stand up and say what their opinion is about Saddam Hussein and the utility of the United Nations Security Council. And so, you bet. It's time for people to show their cards, to let the world know where they stand when it comes to Saddam.


Read the whole thing to requaint yourself with Bush words prior to the war. ESPECIALLY NOW THAT DOWNING STREET MINUTES HAVE BEEN RELEASED.

[whosinpower]

45. oops - dup - sorry!

[Hell Hath No Fury]

42. I had the same response, WIIP...

My Mom and I were watching the press conference together and that answer of Blair's just jumped out at me.

I was kind of astonished he'd used that as an example to vindicate them when in fact it corroborated what the memo claimed.

[Pockets]

43. Ya think?

We know that * wanted war an nothing else, but I supposed the DSMs are an attempt to collect documented proof. It will never happen of course.

As Jon Stewart recently joked, politicians now know not to leave a paper trail, so the truth no longer has credibility.

So what kind of world are we living in now? I just don't know.

[ComerPerro]

46. Good point. And that seems to be how Blair justified it

Apparently, something like "Well, we went to the UN to see if they would allow justification. They didn't. So we went in anyway."

Its not a matter of "We didn't want war." or "We were forced into this war".

Seems more like "The UN wouldn't back our scheme, so we were forced to do it ourselves"

[ginnyinWI]

49. kick n/t

[K8-EEE]

51. UhHUH!! Let's See Those Tireless Efforts!!

crickets, crickets....