Rice, Powell - "Saddam Could Stay In Power" Wash Times 10/21/2002

[Liberal_Andy]

http://www.intelmessages.org/Messages/National_Security/wwwboard/messages/2159.html

"So (Saddam) can save himself, in effect, and remain in power?" host Tim Russert asked Mr. Powell.

"All we're interested in is getting rid of those weapons of mass destruction. we think the Iraqi people would be a lot better off with a different leader, a different regime. But the principle offense here are weapons of mass destruction," Mr. Powell said.

This was three months after the Downing Street Memo? Am I the only one who remembers this shit?

[LightningFlash]

1. Correction done by Jerry Falwell.

"All we're really interested in is IRAQ's oil, and Soddom can stay in power if he makes a deal with us. We also demand our twisted version of christianity is accepted and mandated, as well as the billions of dollars from EXXON Mobil and Halliburton.

If the intelligence showed any threat to the U.S.A, that would never be the problem. I don't think there was any intelligence, said the presidents made that up, on purpose."

[knowbody0]

2. all he had to do was accept

george as his personal savior

[Straight Shooter]

3. We're interested in getting rid of something that doesn't exist?

And Saddam can be as evil as he wants and we won't care?

:wtf:

Good catch, Liberal_Andy.

[Liberal_Andy]

4. wtf is right!

I'll never let this die.

[LynnTheDem]

5. WHEN will ANYONE in the UK mention what TONY bLIAR SAID:

If military action proves necessary, it will be to uphold the authority of the UN and to ensure Saddam is disarmed of his weapons of mass destruction, not to overthrow him. It is why, detestable as I find his regime, he could stay in power if he disarms peacefully.

http://www.sundayherald.com/print31827

[Liberal_Andy]

6. they think we remember nothing!

like our puppy press.

[Roland99]

7. They would have preferred Saddam stay in power?

Despite the rape rooms, killing Kurds, killing Shiites, etc?

Hmm...and isn't the left criticized, wrongly, for the same sentiment?

[Liberal_Andy]

8. They were lying point blank

actions speak louder

[kenny blankenship]

9. It's funny how RWers now say

that WMDs were not the main purpose for invading Iraq, but rather getting rid of wicked old Saddam and bringing demockracy to the Iraqi people. You gotta admire the infinite flexibility of the truth-free mind. It is a wonder of the world and with it Fascist, truth-free, true believers can accomplish enormous things. If George W. Bush said 2+2=5 and that he could fly through the air aided by nothing more than psychic levitation, they would believe it and pretend that they always had believed it.

[Toots]

10. Did Bush* himself ever say publicly that Saddam could stay

I understand that his Secretary speaks for him but I am just curious if Bush* himself ever made such a public statement.

[kenny blankenship]

11. Google these quotations

“We’re through negotiations, there’s no more time. The man must disarm,” said Bush.

“If Saddam Hussein does not comply to the detail of the resolution, we will lead a coalition to disarm him,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Bush as saying.

Of course Bush implied that Hussein could stay in power if he disarmed his military of WMDs per the UN resolutions. He could not have implied otherwise! That is to say, Bush couldn't have publicly stated, "I'm taking Saddam out, no matter what anyone may say or do about it." He couldn't have said that after Hussein disarms Iraq will be forced through regime change anyway to get rid of Hussein. Bush had not a scintilla of legal authority to do that, nor any of what he was actually planning to do, except in the supposed service of the UN resolutions calling on Iraq to disarm itself of WMDs and WMD delivery systems. And the resolutions did not and could not have regime change as their object unless Iraq was waging war against a UN member state.

As it turns out, not only did Bush abrogate the whole concept of a legal process to enforce disarmament, Iraq had already disarmed. I'm sure Bush knew this was at least largely the actual situation in Iraq or he would have not been so quick to invade. However, this whole business is almost beside the real point: it's not for Bush or any other head of state to decide whether Iraq was in compliance with UN resolutions but for the UN and UN Security Council.

This is what seems to get lost in many discussions in America about the Iraq invasion. Even assuming everything subsequently turned out to support Bush's point of view on Iraq, (Iraq had some WMDs let's say) what he did had NO legal justification. In the legal analysis the Iraq invasion by Bush looks just the same as Hitler's invasion of Poland. Maybe even worse, since Hitler could claim real provocations by Poland as the Polish government was no longer respecting the neutrality and autonomy of the free city of Gdansk (Danzig) not that Hitler hadn't been fomenting unrest and provoking Poland all the while himself. In Bush's case there is really nothing at all as an excuse. Iraq was doing nothing whatsoever to warrant unilateral aggression or multinational police-action against it. Bush just decided out of the clear blue sky that Iraq was weak and ripe for aggression and said I will invade Iraq unless they prove they don't have a death-ray! You can't PROVE you don't have a death-ray. I can prove that I own a Viewsonic monitor and an Epson printer but I cannot prove conclusively that I do not own a death-ray even if such things aren't known to exist. It's always possible that I have one hidden where you can't find it. Ontop of requiring Iraq to prove a negative, Bush put HIMSELF forward as the one and only possible judge in the living world of whether Hussein had met UN conditions and requirements. Why create a UN at all if that's the way things will work? Clearly, Bush had no legal justification to act in this way and it is Bush and the United States that are now the outlaw nation that must be dealt with.

[LightningFlash]

12. Still needs attention!