Denial & Deception: the case for attacking Iraq

[Bucky]

Quick refresher, in case you know someone who claims the president didn't mislead us into war. This is inspired by TPM's "imminent threat" contest.

January 28, 2003 from the president’s State of the Union Address:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html


August 26, 2002 from Dick Cheney at the 103rd VFW Convention:
As President Bush has said, time is not on our side. Deliverable weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a terror network, or a murderous dictator, or the two working together, constitutes as grave a threat as can be imagined. The risks of inaction are far greater than the risk of action.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020826.html


September 18, 2002 from Donald Rumsfeld in testimony before the US House Armed Services Committee:
There are a number of terrorist states pursuing weapons of mass destruction -- Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria to name but a few. But no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2002/s20020918-secdef2.html


from the National Security Strategy document:
We must adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/print/nssall.html


September 2002 from Condoleezza Rice on Nightline:
Well, the President talked about a direct threat. And a threat that might materialize at a certain time. And after the experience of September 11th, the question of what is imminent is a different question because, at any time a threat that has been brewing, a threat that has been developing, can suddenly strike you from the blue.


February 12, 2003 from Richard Perle:
And the only point I want to make is that as long as Saddam is there, with everything we know about Saddam, as long as he possesses the weapons that we know he possesses, there is a threat, and I believe it's imminent because he could choose at any time to take an action we all very much hope he won't take.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june03/why_war_2-12.html


January 26, 2003 CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer with Dan Bartlett:
BLITZER: But the question is, he's a threat based on what the information you're suggesting, to his own people, to his neighbors. But is he an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?
BARTLETT: Well, of course he is. He has made it very clear his hatred for the United States of America. He's made it very clear through the past years and since he's been in power his desire to dominate the region.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0301/26/le.00.html


March 19, 2003 the president on the eve of battle:
The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/iraq/20030319-17.html


May 7, 2003 White House press congerence with Ari Fleischer:
QUESTION: Well, we went to war, didn't we, to find these -- because we said that these weapons were a direct and imminent threat to the United States? Isn't that true?
MR. FLEISCHER: Absolutely. One of the reasons that we went to war was because of their possession of weapons of mass destruction. And nothing has changed on that front at all. We said what we said because we meant it. We had the intelligence to report it.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030507-12.html


October 7, 2002 from the president's Cincinnati speech:
Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

and...

Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html


All of which gives a final irony to the Admin's glitzy graphic tag on the situation in Iraq:

[gristy]

1. nice summary - and links too!

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Q]

3. Sure...but they weren't CIC when and if they implied such things...

...are you trying to let 'president' in charge Bush* off the hook?