• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Saddam: 'I Lied About WMD In Fear Of Iran'

Again: Suggestive interpretation.

Nothing that I read heard or saw from anyone in the administration led me to anythig close to the conclusion that Iraq was involved in 9-11.

Given the statements that were made, I cannot imagine how anyone with any mastery of the English language could reach such a conclusion.

Transcript from Meet the Press, 2003
RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

CHENEY: No. I think it's not surprising that people make that connection.

RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

CHENEY: We don't know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn't have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we've learned a couple of things.

So, are you saying no connection was made because the Vice President didn't specifically say it, and that everyone should have realized his innuendo was false?
 
There I go, what?
I dont see a quote from anyone here, especially not Bush/Cheney.

This is what everyone is talking about:

MR. RUSSERT: The Washington Post asked the American people about Saddam Hussein, and this is what they said: 69 percent said he was involved in the September 11 attacks. Are you surprised by that?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I think it’s not surprising that people make that connection.

MR. RUSSERT: But is there a connection?

VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don’t know. You and I talked about this two years ago. I can remember you asking me this question just a few days after the original attack. At the time I said no, we didn’t have any evidence of that. Subsequent to that, we’ve learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization.

We know, for example, in connection with the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93 that one of the bombers was Iraqi, returned to Iraq after the attack of ’93. And we’ve learned subsequent to that, since we went into Baghdad and got into the intelligence files, that this individual probably also received financing from the Iraqi government as well as safe haven.

Now, is there a connection between the Iraqi government and the original World Trade Center bombing in ’93? We know, as I say, that one of the perpetrators of that act did, in fact, receive support from the Iraqi government after the fact. With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack, but we’ve never been able to develop anymore of that yet either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it. We just don’t know.


On more than one occassion, in support of the Iraq invasion, Cheney said that:

Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack

And on many occassions gave this info as fact.
 
So, are you saying no connection was made because the Vice President didn't specifically say it, and that everyone should have realized his innuendo was false?
What did Cheney say?
1: We dont know.
2: When first asked, I said 'no'
3: There was likely some relationship between Iraq and AQ
4: We just don't know

Now, read very slowly:

Stating that Iraq had some undefined and unspecific relationship with AQ is NOT a statement that Iraq had a role in 9-11


If you take that as the 'smoking gun' regarding the Adminstration claiming that Iraq was involved in 9-11, you're either FAR too stupid and/or partisan to be taken seriously.
 
I did not say I fell for it...
Do you know anyone that did?
I don't -- and yet, I hear about how 70% of the people of the US thought there was some connection.

All of the statements I have seen speak to a pre-9-11 relationship between Iraq and AQ. Presuming you have reason to believe that said relatioship exists, and someone asks you if Iraq was involved with 9-11, and absent any concrete information to the contrary, what can you say other than "I don't know' or 'I have not seen any evidence to directly support that'?
 
Do you know anyone that did?
I don't -- and yet, I hear about how 70% of the people of the US thought there was some connection.

All of the statements I have seen speak to a pre-9-11 relationship between Iraq and AQ. Presuming you have reason to believe that said relatioship exists, and someone asks you if Iraq was involved with 9-11, and absent any concrete information to the contrary, what can you say other than "I don't know' or 'I have not seen any evidence to directly support that'?

I know many people who thought that there was a connection because Cheney kept throwing the Prauge-Mohamed Atta tidbit around. He even used it in the 2004 debates.
 
Last thing I will post on this topic. Getting back to the thought that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction:

USATODAY.com - U.N.: Iraq had no WMD after 1994

The study, a quarterly report on Iraq from U.N. inspectors, notes that the U.S. teams' inability to find any weapons after the war mirrors the experience of U.N. inspectors who searched there from November 2002 until March 2003.
 
Do you know anyone that did?
I don't -- and yet, I hear about how 70% of the people of the US thought there was some connection.

All of the statements I have seen speak to a pre-9-11 relationship between Iraq and AQ. Presuming you have reason to believe that said relatioship exists, and someone asks you if Iraq was involved with 9-11, and absent any concrete information to the contrary, what can you say other than "I don't know' or 'I have not seen any evidence to directly support that'?

So you are saying it's ok for the vice president to purposely mislead the American people?
 
Point being, they were a threat

Point being...not a threat to us. We were palling around with him, urging him to attack Iran, and assisting him in this war.

who was involved in the worlds biggest embezzelment scheme in cahoots with the UN, france, russia et all, while blaming us for starving iraqis.

Silly goose. We don't invade countries for embezzling.

nonesense Bush one told us to stand down because he was a UN coward. We stood ready to go in and were equipped to take bagdhad when he pulled us out because of the namby UN. Had he gone in, we wouldn't be there now.

No reason for us to be there now, anyway.
 
Point being...not a threat to us. We were palling around with him, urging him to attack Iran, and assisting him in this war.

Saddam was a perceived threat to Israel.

After we were "palling" around with Saddam there was the falling out called the Gulf War.

Saddam violated the terms of the Gulf War Cease Fire and incurred the wrath of the Coalition.
 
I can't believe how people are still complaining about this. Who gives a damn if he had WMD? We spent an entire 45 year Cold War defacing our values and supporting or maintaining dictators to satisfy the easy fix against a bigger issue. We have been criticized and criticized for this by our "friends" across the ocean and by our own self-righteous people. Yet in the Post Cold War, we acted as the UN muscle just to maintain Saddam Hussein's throne to satisfy that Cold War legacy of "stability" while we simply pretended that his people weren't starving to death. In 2001, a mad man would shock the world and use the "starving children of Iraq" as one of his false justifications for the 9/11 attack. And in 2003, the same idiots and morons of America that dared to blame our own government's behaviors in the Middle East, as if accepting any and all blame was noble, dared to criticize the government as it set out to fix one of our mistakes in the Middle East.

WMD is an excuse. And excuse used by the Rumsfeld coven and President Bush and it was (and is) an excuse for the critics who secretly didn't give a damn about what we were supposed to be doing for this ****ed up and twisted world that we maintained throughout the Cold War for "stability." Think I'm wrong? First of all, I'm rarely wrong. And second.......the end of the Cold War started off with the great American power of freedom and democracy condemning over 20 million people in Iraq because the thought of actually taking out the dictator didn't please the UN's outdated idea of world structure and "peace." And for twelve years, the prescriptions of the Cold War lingered on.

I always find it disheartening when people (Americans especially) find enough strength to preach about value and good morality, yet are more than willing to turn a blind eye behind their public bitching.
 
So the REAL bottom line is, Hussein lied and people died.
 
I can't believe how people are still complaining about this. Who gives a damn if he had WMD? We spent an entire 45 year Cold War defacing our values and supporting or maintaining dictators to satisfy the easy fix against a bigger issue. We have been criticized and criticized for this by our "friends" across the ocean and by our own self-righteous people. Yet in the Post Cold War, we acted as the UN muscle just to maintain Saddam Hussein's throne to satisfy that Cold War legacy of "stability" while we simply pretended that his people weren't starving to death. In 2001, a mad man would shock the world and use the "starving children of Iraq" as one of his false justifications for the 9/11 attack. And in 2003, the same idiots and morons of America that dared to blame our own government's behaviors in the Middle East, as if accepting any and all blame was noble, dared to criticize the government as it set out to fix one of our mistakes in the Middle East.

WMD is an excuse. And excuse used by the Rumsfeld coven and President Bush and it was (and is) an excuse for the critics who secretly didn't give a damn about what we were supposed to be doing for this ****ed up and twisted world that we maintained throughout the Cold War for "stability." Think I'm wrong? First of all, I'm rarely wrong. And second.......the end of the Cold War started off with the great American power of freedom and democracy condemning over 20 million people in Iraq because the thought of actually taking out the dictator didn't please the UN's outdated idea of world structure and "peace." And for twelve years, the prescriptions of the Cold War lingered on.

I always find it disheartening when people (Americans especially) find enough strength to preach about value and good morality, yet are more than willing to turn a blind eye behind their public bitching.

If you are "rarely wrong" why is there no mention of the fact that we invaded Iraq to get the oil, not to right wrongs and free people?
 
Prove we invaded Iraq to get the oil. Prevarication as usual.


I think this is why the right is so gullible and accepting of lies...as long as you don't hear the words, it doesn't exist. I think everyone but you knows we invaded Iraq for the oil.
 
I think this is why the right is so gullible and accepting of lies...as long as you don't hear the words, it doesn't exist. I think everyone but you knows we invaded Iraq for the oil.



Oh so "appeal to popularity" is the logical fallacy you choose today?
 
So you are saying it's ok for the vice president to purposely mislead the American people?
This is your inference, not Cheney's implication.
You interpret Cheney's words to be "misleading" because you -want- to.
Partisan bigotry at its finest.
 
If you are "rarely wrong" why is there no mention of the fact that we invaded Iraq to get the oil...
Because this doesn't cost me anything other than time, I don't mind wasting the effort to ask you to prove this 'fact'...

I say that I am wasting the effort because I know you have absolutely no capacity to do so.
 
If you are "rarely wrong" why is there no mention of the fact that we invaded Iraq to get the oil, not to right wrongs and free people?

IMO there were several reasons for invading and to PROTECT the oil flows was just one of the reasons.
 
If you are "rarely wrong" why is there no mention of the fact that we invaded Iraq to get the oil, not to right wrongs and free people?

So let me get this straight.....

We maintained the dictator while his people starved in the name of "stability" and helped the UN devise a twisted oil-for-food exchange program for 12 years. Yet, the critics complaint is that we invaded and toppled this persistent thorn in the desert and set the country up for democracy...."in the name of oil?"

This is exactly the mind set I referred to. Somehow, it was acceptable that we turn away as we exchanged scraps of food for barrels of oil. Somehow, it was not a "soveriegn" issue when we placed boots on the ground in the north of Iraq for years to deal with the humanitarian crisis he started immediately after the Gulf War. Somehow, it was not a "soveriegn" issue that we flew over his airspace and dictated hussein's comings and goings.

But...."soveriegnty" and "oil" become the immediate complaint for those who were quite comfortable with America's actions for twelve years when it came over due to dispose of the jerk and actually deal with the festering problem we helped create. America has many faces. The critics seem to prefer the America of the Cold War.

But....as to your question....there were many factors in regards to taking "our" dictator out. My point was bout how people are full of crap when it comes their false preaching about what America is supposed to be.
 
Last edited:
I think this is why the right is so gullible and accepting of lies...as long as you don't hear the words, it doesn't exist. I think everyone but you knows we invaded Iraq for the oil.
Show me where the oil is or went.
 
Back
Top Bottom