Clinton Was Right To Authorize the Iraq War - Why Won't She Say So

The way Bernie Sanders (and Barack Obama in 2008) describe it, Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War. In fact, she did nothing of the kind.

After 9/11, Americans were demanding that their government keep them safe. Step one was obvious - rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda and their Taliban sponsors. But step two was no less obvious. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons, was an avowed enemy of the United States and, in December 1998, had expelled the weapons inspectors from his country. The U.S. could not be safe with Saddam having a free hand to produce and warehouse WMDs.

There was only one way to force Iraq to allow the inspectors back in. Saddam had to be convinced that the U.S., was willing to go to war with him to ensure that he did not have WMDs. To make this threat credible, the U.S. Congress needed to pass a bill authorizing the President to, AT HIS DISCRETION, attack Iraq.

This was the reality that Hillary Clinton faced in October 2002. Passage of the authorization bill would put enormous pressure on Iraq to allow the weapons inspectors back in. Defeat of the bill would send the clearest possible signal to the enemies of the United States that they were free to plan attacks against us and we would do nothing to stop them.

Clinton, along with John Kerry and Joe Biden, made the right decision. The bill passed and Saddam allowed the inspectors in. A key threat to the U.S. had been neutralized. The fact that 5 months later, President Bush betrayed the trust Congress had placed in him by launching an unnecessary war is solely on him and his advisors.

Hillary Clinton was right. Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders were wrong. What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t just say so when the facts are actually on her side.

Marvan Buren said:

The way Bernie Sanders (and Barack Obama in 2008) describe it, Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War. In fact, she did nothing of the kind.

After 9/11, Americans were demanding that their government keep them safe. Step one was obvious - rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda and their Taliban sponsors. But step two was no less obvious. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons, was an avowed enemy of the United States and, in December 1998, had expelled the weapons inspectors from his country. The U.S. could not be safe with Saddam having a free hand to produce and warehouse WMDs.

There was only one way to force Iraq to allow the inspectors back in. Saddam had to be convinced that the U.S., was willing to go to war with him to ensure that he did not have WMDs. To make this threat credible, the U.S. Congress needed to pass a bill authorizing the President to, AT HIS DISCRETION, attack Iraq.

This was the reality that Hillary Clinton faced in October 2002. Passage of the authorization bill would put enormous pressure on Iraq to allow the weapons inspectors back in. Defeat of the bill would send the clearest possible signal to the enemies of the United States that they were free to plan attacks against us and we would do nothing to stop them.

Clinton, along with John Kerry and Joe Biden, made the right decision. The bill passed and Saddam allowed the inspectors in. A key threat to the U.S. had been neutralized. The fact that 5 months later, President Bush betrayed the trust Congress had placed in him by launching an unnecessary war is solely on him and his advisors.

Hillary Clinton was right. Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders were wrong. What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t just say so when the facts are actually on her side.

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That is one hell of a intellectual contortion to make in support of Clinton, particularly in light of her stated, on the record motives: CNN.com - Hillary Clinton: No regret on Iraq vote - Apr 21, 2004 . While it's true she did express regret in the past about Bush 'short-circuiting' the inspections process, there was most definitely a narrative of conviction that he had to be removed and dealt with in her rationale.

Here is a more comprehensive rebuttal:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/188...uses-for-hillary-clintons-vote-to-invade-iraq

Surrealistik said:

That is one hell of a intellectual contortion to make in support of Clinton, particularly in light of her stated, on the record motives: CNN.com - Hillary Clinton: No regret*on Iraq vote - Apr 21, 2004 . While it's true she did express regret in the past about Bush 'short-circuiting' the inspections process, there was most definitely a narrative of conviction that he had to be removed and dealt with in her rationale.

Here is a more comprehensive rebuttal:

The 5 Worst Excuses for Hillary Clinton?s Vote To Invade Iraq - In These Times

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Thanks for the response and the link to Stephen Zunes' article. However, I’m standing by my view. Zunes accurately shoots down Clinton’s main narrative that “she made a mistake” but fails to prove that Clinton had any other good option at the time of the October 2002 vote.

The fact that Saddam had agreed one month earlier to allow inspections is irrelevant. Saddam had agreed to inspections several times before and always reneged. The only way to prevent him from reneging again was with a credible threat of force.

The “Levin amendment” was unacceptable because it entrusted the U.N. with making the decision as to whether or not the use of force was justified. Yes, Congress could later overrule the U.N. but until it did, Saddam knew that he could manipulate the U.N. just as he always had.

Finally, reading much into Hillary’s vote for the March 2003 resolution commending the President and the troops is a stretch. How does anyone with political ambitions vote against a bill which costs nothing and expresses appreciation to the troops and their families?

The fact that Bush manipulated the situation to his own advantage is true but again, irrelevant when judging the wisdom of Clinton’s decision. If he authorization bill had failed, U.S. security would have been severely compromised and yes, Democrats would have taken the full blame for the next terrorist attack.

Marvan Buren said:

Thanks for the response and the link to Stephen Zunes' article. However, I’m standing by my view. Zunes accurately shoots down Clinton’s main narrative that “she made a mistake” but fails to prove that Clinton had any other good option at the time of the October 2002 vote...

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You are defending the indefensible.

It was a stupid move; again, Bernie summarized the reasons perfectly:

#1: The supposed threat of WMDs was never truly validated, and was highly suspect per most experts, relevant institutions, and scholars on the matter, nevermind the delivery systems for such weapons.

#2: There was no indication that Saddam would not cooperate despite his past, particularly in light of his extensive cooperation and unfettered ongoing inspections.

#3: She should have never granted what was essentially arbitrary authority to Bush to engage in war unless she was prepared to enter into a war, regardless of his assurances and particularly in light of his egregious overstatement of the Iraq threat; terrible judgement.

#4: Unilateral military action in defiance of the UN, beyond the lack of necessity would set a toxic precedent. Again, there was no credible threat, so claiming that tying US military action to Iraq defiance of the UN would have somehow jeopardized the United States is completely disingenuous.

#5: The outcome of such action as presciently summarized by Bernie would likely be fraught with extremely costly if not disastrous complications and instability; again, something many experts on the matter had also predicted.


Clinton's vote for authorization was a straight up blunder, and a scathing indictment of her judgement or lackthereof (as was the e-mail scandal). There was no credible security threat per the consensus of professional opinion at the time which also was in agreement about the devastating consequences of warfare with Iraq.

There is no argument that knowing what we know today about how much of a disaster invading Iraq was that it was a good idea voting for that invasion. It's very much a stretch to defend anyone who made that error.

But, it isn't even 20/20 hindsight. What we know today was realized by many of us in 2003. Richard Clarke went on 60 Minutes and said that, in contrast to the way Bush is selling the invasion, the reality was that the Administration ignored terrorism and was hyper-focused on Iraq, the Bush Administration started a character assassination - claiming he was a disgruntled employee, was politically motivated and wanted to sell his book.

Dick Cheney, ... said, that Mr. Clarke was "out of the loop." (What loop? Before 9/11, Mr. Clarke was the administration's top official on counterterrorism.)

Other people came forward that supports Clarke's view. “One ally, Mr. Clarke's former deputy, Roger Cressey, backed the thrust of one of the most incendiary accusations in the book, about a conversation that Mr. Clarke said he had with Mr. Bush in the White House Situation Room on the night of Sept. 12, 2001. Mr. Clarke said Mr. Bush pressed him three times to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The accusation is explosive because no such link has ever been proved.
“Kenneth Pollack told "Frontline," "there was a group of people, both inside and outside the administration, who believed that the war on terrorism . . . should target Iraq first.” Mr. Clarke simply adds more detail.

"I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything," Mr. Clarke writes that Mr. Bush told him. "See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way."

Mr. Cressey cast Mr. Bush's instructions to Mr. Clarke less as an order to come up with a link between Mr. Hussein and Sept. 11, and more as a request to "take a look at all options, including Iraq."

Another ally of Mr. Clarke, Thomas R. Maertens, confirmed the outlines of Mr. Clarke's critique of the White House. Mr. Maertens, who served as National Security Council director for nuclear nonproliferation on both the Clinton and Bush White House staffs, said that Mr. Clarke had repeatedly tried to warn senior officials in the Bush administration about the growing threat of Al Qaeda.

"They really believed their campaign rhetoric about the Clinton administration," Mr. Maertens said. "So anything they did was bad, and the Bushies were not going to repeat it. And it's disgusting to see the administration now putting a full-court smear on Clarke — for being right."

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Did the Bush administration ignore terrorism warnings before 9/11? Justice Department documents obtained by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, show that it did. Not only did John Ashcroft completely drop terrorism as a priority — it wasn't even mentioned in his list of seven "strategic goals" — just one day before 9/11 he proposed a reduction in counterterrorism funds.

Did the administration neglect counterterrorism even after 9/11? After 9/11 the F.B.I. requested $1.5 billion for counterterrorism operations, but the White House slashed this by two-thirds.

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There is ample evidence that invading Iraq was a bad idea and is not defensible today.

MTAtech said:

There is no argument that knowing what we know today about how much of a disaster invading Iraq was that it was a good idea voting for that invasion. It's very much a stretch to defend anyone who made that error.

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Please, do not get me wrong. The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act by a dishonest administration and is the direct reason for the explosion of terrorism around the world. Millions of people have died and millions more displaced because of the criminal decision to invade Iraq and the incompetent way in which the aftermath of the invasion was handled. We violently agree on this.

BUT, that is not the question for this thread. Granted, in the final analysis, later events proved that Clinton did misjudge the character and competence of Bush. But again, on the day in October when she cast her vote, the facts were as follows;

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.

Sanders (and Obama before him) conflate the reasonable decision to authorize force if necessary with the indefensible decision to invade. They are two different things.

Marvan Buren said:

The way Bernie Sanders (and Barack Obama in 2008) describe it, Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War. In fact, she did nothing of the kind.

After 9/11, Americans were demanding that their government keep them safe. Step one was obvious - rid Afghanistan of Al Qaeda and their Taliban sponsors. But step two was no less obvious. Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons, was an avowed enemy of the United States and, in December 1998, had expelled the weapons inspectors from his country. The U.S. could not be safe with Saddam having a free hand to produce and warehouse WMDs.

There was only one way to force Iraq to allow the inspectors back in. Saddam had to be convinced that the U.S., was willing to go to war with him to ensure that he did not have WMDs. To make this threat credible, the U.S. Congress needed to pass a bill authorizing the President to, AT HIS DISCRETION, attack Iraq.

This was the reality that Hillary Clinton faced in October 2002. Passage of the authorization bill would put enormous pressure on Iraq to allow the weapons inspectors back in. Defeat of the bill would send the clearest possible signal to the enemies of the United States that they were free to plan attacks against us and we would do nothing to stop them.

Clinton, along with John Kerry and Joe Biden, made the right decision. The bill passed and Saddam allowed the inspectors in. A key threat to the U.S. had been neutralized. The fact that 5 months later, President Bush betrayed the trust Congress had placed in him by launching an unnecessary war is solely on him and his advisors.

Hillary Clinton was right. Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders were wrong. What I don’t understand is why she doesn’t just say so when the facts are actually on her side.

Click to expand...

"The bill passed and Saddam allowed the inspectors in. A key threat to the U.S. had been neutralized. The fact that 5 months later, President Bush betrayed the trust Congress had placed in him by launching an unnecessary war is solely on him and his advisors."

That's not really correct.
Here is link with a timeline. Both UNIMOVIC and the IAEA had statement multiple times that Iraq had improved a bit but never did comply with the UN Resolution 1441 and its disarmament regulations.
Disarming Saddam-A Chronology of Iraq and UN Weapons Inspections From 2002-2003 | Arms Control Association

Also the UK, Poland and Australia also launched that war.

Marvan Buren said:

Please, do not get me wrong. The invasion of Iraq was a criminal act by a dishonest administration and is the direct reason for the explosion of terrorism around the world. Millions of people have died and millions more displaced because of the criminal decision to invade Iraq and the incompetent way in which the aftermath of the invasion was handled. We violently agree on this.

BUT, that is not the question for this thread. Granted, in the final analysis, later events proved that Clinton did misjudge the character and competence of Bush. But again, on the day in October when she cast her vote, the facts were as follows;

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.

Sanders (and Obama before him) conflate the reasonable decision to authorize force if necessary with the indefensible decision to invade. They are two different things.

Click to expand...

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
Yes, that justified invading Afghanistan. Iraq was not a terrorist threat. As Richard Clarke wrote in his book, "invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 would be like invading Mexico in response to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor."
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
Saudi Arabia is a state sponsor of terror and they are and were considered a U.S. ally. Those WMD mentioned a) were provided by the U.S., and b) occurred in 1982. You can't be reasonably suggesting that invading Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. fought them in 1991, is justified by something that happened in 1982.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
That's not true at all. U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground until Bush told them to leave. (see timeline.)
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
Was there any contention?
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.
Nobody in other countries was pushing the U.S. to invade. The U.S. was taking the lead and had to drag other countries in. There were also numerous protests internationally against the war.

I lived through this period. Anyone who had the any critical thinking skills knew the Bush Administration was using every angle to justify invading Iraq. I reviewed the publicly available information and determined that the case was weak, at best. See: Senate Intel Comm: Bush Admin Deliberately Misrepresented Iraq Intel

MTAtech said:

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
Yes, that justified invading Afghanistan. Iraq was not a terrorist threat. As Richard Clarke wrote in his book, "invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 would be like invading Mexico in response to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor."
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
Saudi Arabia is a state sponsor of terror and they are and were considered a U.S. ally. Those WMD mentioned a) were provided by the U.S., and b) occurred in 1982. You can't be reasonably suggesting that invading Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. fought them in 1991, is justified by something that happened in 1982.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
That's not true at all. U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground until Bush told them to leave. (see timeline.)
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
Was there any contention?
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.
Nobody in other countries was pushing the U.S. to invade. The U.S. was taking the lead and had to drag other countries in. There were also numerous protests internationally against the war.

I lived through this period. Anyone who had the any critical thinking skills knew the Bush Administration was using every angle to justify invading Iraq. I reviewed the publicly available information and determined that the case was weak, at best. See: Senate Intel Comm: Bush Admin Deliberately Misrepresented Iraq Intel

Click to expand...

Sorry but there are too many errors in your summary to let this pass. In particular, you still seem to be talking about March 2003 when this thread is about actions taken in October 2002.

First, Iraq used chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988, not 1982. There is dispute as to exactly what the U.S. sold to Iraq but no one is saying that we sold them the actual weapons. If anything, what we sold them was technology and materials so that the Iraqis could build these weapons themselves. Not sure how that helps your argument.

Most important, inspectors were not in Iraq when the authorization vote took place. Saddam had expelled the weapons inspectors in December 1998, a little over a year after inspectors had uncovered suspicious activities. Inspections did not begin again until November 2002. Yes. Bush told them to leave prior to launching his war but that was in 2003, as was the bogus presentation of intel that you accurately reference.

But, again, this thread is about October 2002.

SocialD said:

"The bill passed and Saddam allowed the inspectors in. A key threat to the U.S. had been neutralized. The fact that 5 months later, President Bush betrayed the trust Congress had placed in him by launching an unnecessary war is solely on him and his advisors."

That's not really correct.
Here is link with a timeline. Both UNIMOVIC and the IAEA had statement multiple times that Iraq had improved a bit but never did comply with the UN Resolution 1441 and its disarmament regulations.
Disarming Saddam-A Chronology of Iraq and UN Weapons Inspections From 2002-2003 | Arms Control Association

Also the UK, Poland and Australia also launched that war.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the correction and the link. Yes, Iraq never fully complied but the central question is whether that lack of compliance was sufficient to say that America was at risk of being attacked with WMDs. I think the answer is clearly no since, as the link points out, the inspectors concluded that Iraq did not have WMDs. By setting the bar for compliance higher than it needed to be, the Bush administration did, indeed, craftily maneuver the situation in an attempt to justify the invasion.

Yes, we did have a small "coalition of the willing" but obviously they would not have launched the war without us.

Marvan Buren said:

Thanks for the correction and the link. Yes, Iraq never fully complied but the central question is whether that lack of compliance was sufficient to say that America was at risk of being attacked with WMDs. I think the answer is clearly no since, as the link points out, the inspectors concluded that Iraq did not have WMDs. By setting the bar for compliance higher than it needed to be, the Bush administration did, indeed, craftily maneuver the situation in an attempt to justify the invasion.

Yes, we did have a small "coalition of the willing" but obviously they would not have launched the war without us.

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Yes, I made a typo and said 1982 instead of 1988 but the argument holds, you can't be reasonably suggesting that invading Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. fought them in 1991, is justified by something that happened in 1988.

Moreover, I didn't mean to re-litigate the invasion of Iraq nor the unwise granting of a blank check invasion power to President Bush to engage in preemptive war. Those have long been determined to be mistakes. But my point is that this isn't 20/20 hindsight. Many of us saw that the run up to the invasion was media and public manipulation and based upon fiction. We knew this at the time.

A most eloquent speech, at the time, was made by Senator Robert Byrd:

SPEECH ON IRAQ BY SENATOR ROBERT BYRD

Marvan Buren said:

Thanks for the correction and the link. Yes, Iraq never fully complied but the central question is whether that lack of compliance was sufficient to say that America was at risk of being attacked with WMDs. I think the answer is clearly no since, as the link points out, the inspectors concluded that Iraq did not have WMDs. By setting the bar for compliance higher than it needed to be, the Bush administration did, indeed, craftily maneuver the situation in an attempt to justify the invasion.

Yes, we did have a small "coalition of the willing" but obviously they would not have launched the war without us.

Click to expand...

True they would not have done so without us.
Regarding the compliance , the bar was set by the UN , not by the Bush administration.

MTAtech said:

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
Yes, that justified invading Afghanistan. Iraq was not a terrorist threat. As Richard Clarke wrote in his book, "invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 would be like invading Mexico in response to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor."
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
Saudi Arabia is a state sponsor of terror and they are and were considered a U.S. ally. Those WMD mentioned a) were provided by the U.S., and b) occurred in 1982. You can't be reasonably suggesting that invading Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. fought them in 1991, is justified by something that happened in 1982.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
That's not true at all. U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground until Bush told them to leave. (see timeline.)
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
Was there any contention?
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.
Nobody in other countries was pushing the U.S. to invade. The U.S. was taking the lead and had to drag other countries in. There were also numerous protests internationally against the war.

I lived through this period. Anyone who had the any critical thinking skills knew the Bush Administration was using every angle to justify invading Iraq. I reviewed the publicly available information and determined that the case was weak, at best. See: Senate Intel Comm: Bush Admin Deliberately Misrepresented Iraq Intel

Click to expand...

I, too, lived through the period and find fault with those who had critical thinking skills but left them, apparently, underutilized when asserting that the Iraq war was not justified. At the time, especially, and, without there having been a liberal congress in place and a subsequent ultra liberal Senator that was elected President, it would still be justified as it was already in the victory column and working up until we just up and left. Left without a Status of Forces agreement, without any troops in place to maintain stability that only America, seemingly, can authoritatively achieve.

1. Iraq harbored terrorists and Saddam paid terrorists who homicide-bombed innocents in Israel, our ally. Hussein supplied financial support, training/ shelter for an assortment of proven terrorist organizations right up until the onset of the Iraq war. Including, but not limited to, such notorious groups as Hamas, Ansar al-Islam, the Palestinian Liberation Front, the Abu Nidal Organization, etc... Abu Nidal, Abdul Rahman Yasin, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and Ramzi Yousef... all of whom were individual each intimately associated with, or themselves having actually killed Americans.

2. So, did you desire us to go to war with Saudi Arabia then? You would probably have had FDR go to war with the Soviet Union instead of allying with them to defeat the fascists in WW2 as well? It would be, critically thinking this through from your viewpoint, smart for us to take on all, and perhaps all at the same time, enemies and potential enemies as if they are equal on the threat level spectrum? Some seem to think that we do not have to deal with the world as we find it, that situations are fluid and positions change, that former allies can become mortal enemies, former mortal enemies can become some of our best allies... And see No. 1. above for a partial list of terrorists sponsored by Iraq

3. Anybody following what was happening with inspectors in Iraq at the time knew that Saddam was playing a hide and seek, cat and mouse game, even if only to fool his local adversaries [i.e., Iran] into thinking he had WMDs so as to deter them from making wanton incursions into Iraq.

MTAtech said:

1) The American people were demanding that their government protect them against terrorism.
Yes, that justified invading Afghanistan. Iraq was not a terrorist threat. As Richard Clarke wrote in his book, "invading Iraq as a response to 9/11 would be like invading Mexico in response to the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor."
2) Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism, an enemy of America, and was proven to have used WMDs.
Saudi Arabia is a state sponsor of terror and they are and were considered a U.S. ally. Those WMD mentioned a) were provided by the U.S., and b) occurred in 1982. You can't be reasonably suggesting that invading Iraq in 2003, after the U.S. fought them in 1991, is justified by something that happened in 1982.
3) Weapons inspectors were still barred from entering Iraq and Saddam had lied countless times before when he promised to let them in.
That's not true at all. U.N. weapons inspectors were on the ground until Bush told them to leave. (see timeline.)
4) The war in Afghanistan was being handled competently by the Bush administration
Was there any contention?
5) Denying the President's authorization request would have severely weakened the U.S. standing in the world.
Nobody in other countries was pushing the U.S. to invade. The U.S. was taking the lead and had to drag other countries in. There were also numerous protests internationally against the war.

I lived through this period. Anyone who had the any critical thinking skills knew the Bush Administration was using every angle to justify invading Iraq. I reviewed the publicly available information and determined that the case was weak, at best. See: Senate Intel Comm: Bush Admin Deliberately Misrepresented Iraq Intel

Click to expand...

And...

4. No contention, unlike Obama, GW put Afghanistan on the backburner, slow simmer so we could stay there and keep A-Q from using it again as a base for training and operations and at the same time not in a position so as to lose too many of our valuable men and women fighting there.

5. The US is a world leader, not meant to follow. We took care of the threat before it fully materialized, a gun turning in our direction, but unloaded... we just didn't know that at the time... had no real way of knowing as our on the ground intelligence in an authoritarian police state, such as the one at the time run by Saddam, was not very good. I remember Saddam's A bomb maker defected and wrote a book prior to invasion indicating that Hussein was within a year of having the bomb and was waiting for us to look in the other direction so he could reconstitute his program in that direction.

Gaugingcatenate said:

5. The US is a world leader, not meant to follow.

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Act all big and strong like you think you are the winner! You don't win, your tax dollars are used to support foreign wars for the benefit of the plutocratic elites which rule over your nation. You are just being used and yet you think you are a winner. No wonder the image of the United States has changed from one of being a land of hope, freedom and prosperity to one of decadence, hate and corruption.

Surrealistik said:

You are defending the indefensible.

It was a stupid move; again, Bernie summarized the reasons perfectly:

#1: The supposed threat of WMDs was never truly validated, and was highly suspect per most experts, relevant institutions, and scholars on the matter, nevermind the delivery systems for such weapons.

#2: There was no indication that Saddam would not cooperate despite his past, particularly in light of his extensive cooperation and unfettered ongoing inspections.

#3: She should have never granted what was essentially arbitrary authority to Bush to engage in war unless she was prepared to enter into a war, regardless of his assurances and particularly in light of his egregious overstatement of the Iraq threat; terrible judgement.

#4: Unilateral military action in defiance of the UN, beyond the lack of necessity would set a toxic precedent. Again, there was no credible threat, so claiming that tying US military action to Iraq defiance of the UN would have somehow jeopardized the United States is completely disingenuous.

#5: The outcome of such action as presciently summarized by Bernie would likely be fraught with extremely costly if not disastrous complications and instability; again, something many experts on the matter had also predicted.


Clinton's vote for authorization was a straight up blunder, and a scathing indictment of her judgement or lackthereof (as was the e-mail scandal). There was no credible security threat per the consensus of professional opinion at the time which also was in agreement about the devastating consequences of warfare with Iraq.

Click to expand...

Wow, how wrong Bernie can be, but at least he is sincere about his socialist leanings. His summary, as you state it, though, is clearly deficient.

1. There was no way, since Hussein was playing a game with us to keep the inspectors from actually accomplishing their jobs, to determine exactly what Iraq did and did not have, WMDs wise. At the time most intelligence agencies worldwide believed he did, indeed, have the potential and with cease fire agreements from the first Gulf War and so many the UN resolutions on the matter beached, who could really tell? Nobody for sure. Sometimes doctors think there is cancer and have to make an exploratory surgery to find out, doesn't mean their intentions were evil, right? And the reason you keep nukes out of the hands of crazies has been dramatically borne out by the current North Korea that was basically handed the keys to nuke weapondom by the Clinton Administration. NK now seems capable, seem to be getting delivery systems capable of potentially hitting US cities... and they somehow did it without sitting on vast amounts of oil rserves like Iraq was, yanno?

2. Unfettered? You gots to be kidding. You are aware of the definition of unfettered, correct?

3. We disagree, and so did Hillary at the time, as to how valid the threat was. The Dems were in control of the senate, they had access to the intelligence reports and the majority of Democrat senators voted as she did, We elect a commander in chief to make such weighty decisions, the senate and the house as bodies gave GW the authorization [as it should be], tantamount to a declaration of war these days, so she knew what she was doing. The threat was valid enough, we should not wait until some lune gets delivery systems or hands off dirty bombs off to terrorists before we do something to a known bad actor.

4. The invasion was hardly unilateral, we had, for one, a security council partner that was involved, Britain. Only one veto vote is needed for the UN not to do anything about the continuous breaches in its resolutions, so 16 odd breaches by Iraq without consequence. The feeble French, despite Saddam's constant thumbing of his nose at the rssolutions, were not strong enough to pull the trigger. Besides, the UN was put together so as to stymie the US, seeing as our chief architect on that project was the perjurer communist spy, Alger Hiss. There certainly was a credible threat and even using Just War theory there was plenty of justification as well as benefit that came from the war.

5. Had we not had a fickle and flaccid congress, had we stayed in place like we did in Germany, Japan and Korea after defeating or stalemating evil enemies, there would be stability still and, rather than snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, we would not be in such a pitiful place right now as regards the entire middle east under the Obama reign.

Just like the so called global warming consensus, which is a joke, there was no such consensus as regards Saddam not having, or attempting to reconstitute, his nuke program.

PakPuk said:

Act all big and strong like you think you are the winner! You don't win, your tax dollars are used to support foreign wars for the benefit of the plutocratic elites which rule over your nation. You are just being used and yet you think you are a winner. No wonder the image of the United States has changed from one of being a land of hope, freedom and prosperity to one of decadence, hate and corruption.

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Nice.

Ummm, got any substance that you want to trot out so we can have an intelligent conversation? If not, well, you are certainly legally entitled to your own opinions which, at least in the US [ don't know where you are from], and generally in areas under the umbrella of protection provided by American tax dollars in the "plutocratic elites" driven US, you are free to express them.

Gaugingcatenate said:

Nice.

Ummm, got any substance that you want to trot out so we can have an intelligent conversation? If not, well, you are certainly legally entitled to your own opinions which, at least in the US [ don't know where you are from], and generally in areas under the umbrella of protection provided by American tax dollars in the "plutocratic elites" driven US, you are free to express them.

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How about talk about the fact that wars are started for profit not for ensuring security, just to continue the manufactured war on terror. You are still free to express dissenting opinions for the time being but incrementally they are being restricted under the pretext of protecting the 'homeland' from a threat which they created. It must be nice living in your world, everything is so simple.

PakPuk said:

How about talk about the fact that wars are started for profit not for ensuring security, just to continue the manufactured war on terror. You are still free to express dissenting opinions for the time being but incrementally they are being restricted under the pretext of protecting the 'homeland' from a threat which they created. It must be nice living in your world, everything is so simple.

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And I think it is much easier living in YOUR world where you don't source anything, some of which I may even halfway agree with, but without which your arguments are simply a banal, vapid waste of typed energy as well as wasting both of our time... again, not a shred of substance.

So I will ask pointed questions to see if you have verifiable answers.

1. Give me facts on the wars, recent, that are provably started for profit and not ensuring security.

2. Give me facts as to the manufactured war on terror.

3. When will this incremental process of diminishing our rights be finished and my right to dissent be curtailed or restricted?

Gaugingcatenate said:

1. There was no way, since Hussein was playing a game with us to keep the inspectors from actually accomplishing their jobs, to determine exactly what Iraq did and did not have, WMDs wise. ...and they somehow did it without sitting on vast amounts of oil rserves like Iraq was, yanno?

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UK and US intelligence agencies, i.e. the very ones pushing the theory at the probable behest of their respective administrations do not constitute 'most'. The intelligence was so egregiously flawed furthermore, that David Kay who headed the post-war search for weaponry said that its systemic deficiency merited investigation. Much of it stemmed from a notoriously unreliable sources like Ahmad Chalabi and involved excessive extrapolation as determined by the Butler Review, among other retrospects: https://news.vice.com/article/the-c...t-that-supposedly-justified-the-iraq-invasion

Furthermore, there was evidence entirely inconsistent with this theory at the time. Saddam's past Ministry of Industry (including military industrialization) Hussein Kamel al-Majid stated during his defection that WMD programs had been dismantled. This was determined to be the case by UN weapon inspectors in 2003; per Scott Ritter:

"There's no doubt Iraq hasn't fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capacity has been verifiably eliminated ... We have to remember that this missing 5-10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat ... It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in its totality doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited ... We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously, we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capacity worthy of war."

Ritter also stated that the WMDs Saddam had in his possession all those years ago, if retained, would have long since turned to harmless substances, none of which were nuclear. He stated that Iraqi Sarin and tabun have a shelf life of approximately five years, VX lasts a bit longer (but not much longer), and that botulinum toxin and liquid anthrax last about three years: Extract from Scott Ritters new book | World news | The Guardian

Altogether, there was nothing that merited an extensive and extremely costly ground war and full scale invasion.


#2:

They had full access to previously restricted sites per Hans Blix: Update 27 January 2003 Lack of cooperation only extended to interrogations/questioning.


#3:

She clearly did not per the outcomes and expert consultations she had summarily disregarded, and perhaps even more importantly, her own admission. The threat was bogus, she had received excellent consultations detailing the fact it was bogus and decided to grant arbitrary war authorization to the people thirsting, pushing and propagandizing for war regardless. Again, terrible judgment.


#4:

You have not provided any kind of adequate proof that the UN as an institution was explicitly designed to 'stymie' the US (particularly in light of its massive and disproportionate veto power), nor that there was an existential threat if the US had not acted unilaterally. Further, the Iraq War was effectively unilateral (war per an American driven coalition consisting of Britain, Australia and Poland, again in defiance of the UN and international law is not an action of consensus) and was most certainly in defiance of the UN and still set a terrible precedent regardless of vetos. There was no credible threat, and one was never proven. Further, the consequences of the war yielded a massive net loss in lives, instability and money the US is still recovering from and forced to confront.

#5:

Prove it. Iraq is not comparable to WW2 occupations and nation building, nor is Korea even a suitable parallel given the factitious and tribal nature of the people within Iraq borders, and their disdain of and hostility towards American occupation.


Denying climate change alone shows that you are not worth further debate on the matter as partisan politics evidently supersedes your objectivity. Though there was not technically a 'consensus', egregiously flawed intel at best, or straight up fabricated propaganda at worst, forms the entire basis of exception to what was otherwise a consensus that there was no Iraq nuclear program.

Surrealistik said:

UK and US intelligence agencies, i.e. the very ones pushing the theory at the probable behest of their respective administrations do not constitute 'most'. The intelligence was so egregiously flawed furthermore, that David Kay who headed the post-war search for weaponry said that its systemic deficiency merited investigation. Much of it stemmed from a notoriously unreliable sources like Ahmad Chalabi and involved excessive extrapolation as determined by the Butler Review, among other retrospects: https://news.vice.com/article/the-c...t-that-supposedly-justified-the-iraq-invasion



#5:


Prove it. Iraq is not comparable to WW2 occupations and nation building, nor is Korea even a suitable parallel given the factitious and tribal nature of the people within Iraq borders, and their disdain of and hostility towards American occupation.

Denying climate change alone shows that you are not worth further debate on the matter as partisan politics evidently supersedes your objectivity. Though there was not technically a 'consensus', egregiously flawed intel at best, or straight up fabricated propaganda at worst, forms the entire basis of exception to what was otherwise a consensus that there was no Iraq nuclear program.

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Listen Surreal, having read down to the bottom of your minor dissertation on our entry into the war in Iraq, I was anxious to engage on this silliness which is at least semi-thorough that is presented here.

But then you had to go and say something in reference to global warming that was so farcically droll, something so close minded as for me to just throw up my hands and say, this will just be a colossal waste of my time and energy.

Sorry dude, would have loved to engage with all that good material to dig into, but that snark remark along with a wrap up which included your basic weasel clause wherein you admit there was no real consensus one way or the other, that it well could have been egregiously flawed intelligence [ which right there refutes the we knew for sure before we went in that there were no wmds ]. Especially delicious would have been on the easy target of your reliance on Scott Ritter, he was all over the place on Iraq, and if they had/were getting a nuke program and wmds, had poor references from his boss on his abilities. Of course there was that underaged internet solicitation stuff that, while it doesn't make him wrong, sure makes him a bit suspect as to character. The UN discussion would have been entertaining as I would have had you dancing around regarding our "massive and disproportionate veto power", as it only takes one veto vote in the security council[France threatened to do exactly that and its why we proceeded no further in trying to enlist UN support ]. In reality our veto power is no greater/no lesser than France or GB, China or Russia. This aspect alone most certainly helped the Soviet Union as this veto and veto threat ostensibly kept the UN from helping those being dominated by the Communists during the Cold War. Well, except when the Soviets made a major oops right as the Korean War broke out. And number 5 would have been lively.

Perhaps I ll come back when I have more time and you cut the overblown snarky stuff.