Dean's flip flopping on Iraq

[Jeff002]

AS Kerry said at the Black Caucus Debates, Dean has been vocal in his criticism, but has said nothing consistant about what HE would do in Iraq, doing a number of flip flops within DAYS just weeks before Bush went in :

On January 31, Dean told Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times that "if Bush presents what he considered to be persuasive evidence that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction, he would support military action, even without U.N. authorization."

And then on Feb. 20, Dean told Salon.com that "if the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice."

But a day later, he told the Associated Press that he would not support sending U.S. troops to Iraq unless the United Nations specifically approves the move and backs it with action of its own. "They have to send troops," he said.

Four days later on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dean said United Nations authorization was a prerequisite for war. "We need to respect the legal rights that are involved here," Dean said. "Unless they are an imminent threat, we do not have a legal right, in my view, to attack them."

http://www.topdog04.com/000071.html

Dean cannot both support UNILATERAL ACTION without the U.N. if the U.N. does not choose to support its own resolutions and then state that he would ONLY do so with U.N. support.


Dean has simply been politically opportunistic, chaging his point of view based on what the polls state about what the public think about what is going on in Iraq.

Kerry's statement on sunday was totally appropriate.

Dean will take whatever stance is mostl likely to get him support.

He has a history as governor of doing so, and it is simply a matter of time before the other candidates bring forth Deans past statements, as they did about his statements regarding Newt Gingrich and Medicare in 1995.


Deans polling numbers took a serious hit in the days after these statemets were released, and this appears to have been an attempt to test the waters to see how Deans support changes based on such revelations.

[Democat]

1. Low post count Dem bashing

The board is overrun with low post count Democrat bashers today.

[IndianaGreen]

6. This is a blog for a John Edwards supporter

http://www.topdog04.com/

so it follows that the poster would try to incite a flame war between Kerry and Dean supporters, all to benefit Mr. Edwards.

[WilliamPitt]

10. Attack the argument, not the post count

[XanaDUer]

17. Thank you , Will.

n/t.

[ShaneGR]

16. QUIT REPLYING TO BASHING FROM USERS WITH 30 POSTS!

[Skwmom]

26. Maybe this poster is just tired of the hypocrisy shown on this board.

He's just highlighting what Dean's said. Oh that's right. It doesn't fit in with the "bogus" straight shooter image he's trying to create so we'll just ignore it.

[slinkerwink]

2. *rolls eyes*

This already has been refuted many times in this forum. You're just beating a dead horse in my opinion. I'm just awaiting for the Dean supporters/Dean detractors to arrive on the scene to resuscitate this debunked subject.

:nopity:

[Democat]

4. This user has started several Dean bashing threads at the same time

This thread will be gone or locked soon.

[TLM]

7. But they've wised up... notice the quotes get shorter

and the links ferwer.

Guess they got tired of having the attack exposed as BS simply by quoting the line before what they quoted.

[slinkerwink]

12. noticed that....

tsk, tsk...

[PBinOregon]

3. This Is BS

I first heard Dean interviewed in July of 2002, and he has been saying the same thing all the way along--that * didn't make the case for war, that IF there was a case for war the UN had to be involved. You can pick apart one statement from the other to make points, if you like, but it's a lame argument . It doesn't hold water.

I don't care if you support him or not--Dean is, believe it or not, a straight shooter. We're lucky to have him.

[RetroLounge]

5. Yawn...

:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:
:boring:

[Cha]

8. Oh good we got a new serial Dean basher.

Dean is crystal clear on Iraq ..
"My view of this is since Iraq is not an imminent danger to the United States, the United States should not unilaterally attack Iraq. Iraq does not have nuclear weapons. They do not have much of a nuclear program, if they have one at all left. And they have not... there is not any particular evidence that is convincing that they have given weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. All those three things would constitute, in my view, a reason to defend our country by unilaterally attacking. But those are not the cases. Sec. Powell and the president have not made those cases well." Howard Dean February 25,2003
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june03/dean_2-25.html

[IndianaGreen]

9. Like I said, this is an Edwards supporter trying to get Kerry and Dean

supporters to go at each other's throats, while benefiting Mr. Edwards, of course.

[ShaneGR]

23. Huh? What does this have to do with Edwards?

How do you come to that conclusion?

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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

[alcuno]

13. Democrats always have to fix the problems Republicans start.

Why is that? Whenever a Democrat brings up the mess in Iraq, the response always seems to be "How would you fix it?" Pick a Democrat. They're the only ones willing to solve problems instead of create them.

[TLM]

14. I've got an idea..... we should respond once to this crap...

and save the response to reuse each time they reuse these attacks...

Here's the response I wrote today in response to this in another thread.

Now onto the second BS quote… from the same piece.

“He (Dean) gets a deluge of phone calls from reporters asking him to clarify his position. Which is -- "as I've said about eight times today," he says, annoyed -- that Saddam must be disarmed, but with a multilateral force under the auspices of the United Nations. If the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice.”

Now first of all notice the quotes… the underlined part is not an exact quote, but a paraphrase. Although the Clark Corps liar love to try and trick people into thinking it is an exact quote, because this is what they try to use to claim Dean waffled on his position on the war in Iraq.

You see Clark said he’d vote for the IWR, then he said he wouldn’t, then he said he would… then he finally admitted he’s said it both ways and just didn’t know for sure but probably would have voted for it. Since they can’t defend Clark, the only thing they can do is try to argue that Dean is just as bad as Clark… that Dean waffled too.

The problem is Dean never waffled… his position has been consistently against the war because there was no imminent threat posed by Iraq, and thus no justification for unilateral pre-emptive war. What Dean did support was continuation of the inspection and disarming process, through the UN. And IF weapons were found and if there was a real imminent threat to the America, AND the UN refused to take action… then and only then, would Dean reluctantly support such action.

Now what the Clark liars do is cut this little bit out of the story and present it as if Dean was saying 30-60 days period… with no prerequisite of an imminent threat. But once again, if you read the few paragraphs before that quote, you see this that the quote has been taken out of context to hide the fact that Dean specifically notes before that statement that there is no imminent threat, and they hadn’t made the case for war.

Hence, today's phone calls. It's Thursday, Feb. 6, the day after Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations of evidence of Iraq's noncompliance with Resolution 1441. Edwards calls it "a powerful case." Kerry says it's "compelling." Lieberman, of course, is already in his fatigues.

Dean isn't sold. It doesn't indicate that Iraq is an imminent threat, he says.

From Washington come the barbs -- The New Republic calls it proof he's "not serious." ABC News' "The Note" wonders if he's backed himself into a corner. Dean has opposed the pending war because he didn't think President Bush had made his case. If he doesn't support military action now, the thinking goes, then he's just contradicting himself. Or, at the very least, he's been put in an untenable and -- for the moment, at least inside war-ready Washington, unpopular -- position.

He gets a deluge of phone calls from reporters asking him to clarify his position. Which is -- "as I've said about eight times today," he says, annoyed -- that Saddam must be disarmed, but with a multilateral force under the auspices of the United Nations. If the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice.

So you see not only did Dean say that Powell didn’t make the case… in the paragraph just prior they reiterate Dean opposition to the war and ho unpopular of a position that was at the time. It s no wonder the Clark Corps cut that out, it shows they are lying their asses of.

[mzmolly]

15. Great idea a mass information dump, who's up for it?

;)

Welcome Jeff. :hi: XO

[Jeff002]

19. Right back at ya Molly!

XO

The truth will set us free - from Dean=Bush that is

[killbotfactory]

18. Dean has been consistent, sorry.

But keep up the bullcrap.

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said if Saddam is shown to have atomic or biological weapons, the United States must act. But he also said Bush must first convince Americans that Iraq has these weapons and then prepare them for the likelihood American troops would be there for a decade.

August 12, 2002

"There's substantial doubt that is as much of a threat as the Bush administration claims." Though Americans might initially rally to military action, 'that support will be very short-lived once American kids start coming home in boxes,' Mr. Dean warned Wednesday as he campaigned in Iowa.

September 06, 2002

"The president has to do two things to get the country's long-term support for the invasion of Iraq," Dean said in a telephone interview. "He has done neither yet." Dean said President Bush needs to make the case that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, such as atomic or biological weapons, and the means to use them. Bush also needs to explain to the American public that a war against Iraq is going to require a long commitment.

September 18, 2002

Dean, in an interview Tuesday, said flatly that he did not believe Bush has made "the case that we need to invade Iraq." Dean said he could support military action, even outside the U.N., if Bush could "establish with reasonable credibility" that Hussein had the capacity to deliver either nuclear or biological weapons against the United States and its allies. But he said that the president, to this point, hadn't passed that test.

"He is asking American families to sacrifice their children, and he's got to have something more than, 'This is an evil man,' " Dean said. "There are a lot of evil people running countries around the world; we don't bomb every one of them. We don't ask our children to die over every one of them."

September 18, 2002

"The president approached it in exactly the wrong way. The first thing I would have done is gone to United Nations Security Council and gone to our allies and say, "Look, the UN resolutions are being violated. If you don't enforce them, then we will have to." The first choice, however, is to enforce them through the UN and with our allies. That's the underlying approach."

October 31st, 2002

"I would like to at least have the president, who I think is an honest person, look us in the eye and say, 'We have evidence, here it is.' We've never heard the president of the United States say that. There is nothing but innuendo, and I want to see some hard facts."

December 22, 2002

"I do not believe the president has made the case to send American kids and grandkids to die in Iraq. And until he does that, I don't think we ought to be going into Iraq. So I think the two situations are fairly different. Iraq does not possess nuclear weapons. The best intelligence that anybody can find, certainly that I can find, is that it will be at least a year before he does so and maybe five years."

January 06, 2003

"I personally believe hasn’t made his case"

January 10, 2003

"These are the young men and women who will be asked to risk their lives for freedom. We certainly deserve more information before sending them off to war."

January 29, 2003

"Terrorism around the globe is a far greater danger to the United States than Iraq. We are pursuing the wrong war,"

February 5, 2003

"We ought not to resort to unilateral action unless there is an imminent threat to the United States. And the secretary of State and the president have not made a case that such an imminent threat exists.''

February 12, 2003

In an interview, Dean said that he opposed the congressional resolution and remained unconvinced that Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States. He said he would not support sending U.S. troops to Iraq unless the United Nations specifically approved the move and backed it with action of its own.

"They have to send troops," he said.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/5236485.htm">Feb. 22, 2003

"Well, I think that the United Nations makes it clear that Saddam has to disarm, and if he doesn't, then they will disarm him militarily. I have no problem with supporting a United Nations attack on Iraq, but I want it to be supported by the United Nations. That's a well-constituted body. The problem with the so-called multilateral attack that the president is talking about is an awful lot of countries, for example, like Turkey-- we gave them $20 billion in loan guarantees and outright grants in order to secure their permission to attack. I don't think that's the right way to put together a coalition. I think this really has to be a world matter. Saddam must be disarmed. He is as evil as everybody says he is. But we need to respect the legal rights that are involved here. Unless they are an imminent threat, we do not have a legal right, in my view, to attack them.

February 27, 2003

What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President’s unilateral intervention in Iraq?

March 15th, 2003

"I went to Parris Island so I could look into the faces of the kids who will be sent to Iraq," Dean told a cheering lunchtime crowd in Concord, N.H. "We should always support our kids, but I do not support this president's policies and I will continue to say so."

March 18, 2003

"Anti-war Presidential candidate Howard Dean said he will not silence his criticism of President Bush's Iraq policy now that the war has begun, but he will stop the 'red meat' partisan attacks.

"No matter how strongly I oppose the President's policy, I will continue to support American troops who are now in harms way," said Dean

March 20, 2003

While Dean said he was staunchly opposed to the war and planned to continue criticizing it, he also said the United States should keep fighting, putting him at odds with other antiwar activists who have been calling for an immediate cease-fire.

''We're in. We don't have any choice now. But this is the wrong choice,'' Dean said. ''There will be some who think we should get out immediately, but I don't think that's an easy position to take.''

March 23, 2003

On day one of a Dean Presidency, I will reverse this attitude. I will tear up the Bush Doctrine. And I will steer us back into the company of the community of nations where we will exercise moral leadership once again.

April 17th, 2003

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

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

[Eloriel]

22. You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you on the butt

And this is the 2nd thread I've opened by you, this one for the express purpose of letting you know, since you're new (if indeed you aren't a reincarnated former DUer), about DU's handy dandy Ignore function.

You're now on it.

Poof!

Buh bye.

Eloriel

[alcuno]

24. I'd vote for him because of his beautiful smile.

Clark's got it too. They are both totally hot.

[Dr Fate]

21. I prefer Dean's Iraq position to Bush's

that is why I will vote for Dean if we wins the nomination...

[Scott Lee]

25. You're fishing - and badly at that

Let's look at Deans statements.

"On January 31, Dean told Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times that "if Bush presents what he considered to be persuasive evidence that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction, he would support military action, even without U.N. authorization."

DID Bush present (what Mr Dean considered) "persuasive evidence that Iraq still had weapons of mass destruction"?

No. Mr. Dean has said as much time and time and time again. Therefore, the first criterion for logical military interference is gone.

Flip flop rating: 0

And then on Feb. 20, Dean told Salon.com that "if the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice."

As we've already established, Dean notes that Bush failed the first criterion (to presuasively show that Iraq had WMD). This nixed the question as to whether UN resolution 1441 was applicable, as the litmus test for that one was failed as well. But Dean was saying, had the proof been shown and UN resolution 1441 clearly in play, that unilateral action was a regrettable but unavoidable choice. He did not say THE choice.

Flip flop rating: 0

But a day later, he told the Associated Press that he would not support sending U.S. troops to Iraq unless the United Nations specifically approves the move and backs it with action of its own. "They have to send troops," he said.

Are you being purposely dense? Dean was saying that Bush failed the tests that would have gotten his support for unilateral action and citing that, that the only way he'd go along with a military solution to the issue was with the support of the UN and that includes UN troops. Logically, we aren't talking about "unilateral action" anymore, are we?

Flip flop rating: 0

Four days later on PBS's News Hour with Jim Lehrer, Dean said United Nations authorization was a prerequisite for war. "We need to respect the legal rights that are involved here," Dean said. "Unless they are an imminent threat, we do not have a legal right, in my view, to attack them."

And he was consistent, and correct. Let's review.

1. Bush failed all criteria to substantiate a unilateral military action on the part of the USA without consent by the UN.

2. The only way, then, that Dean could see still going after the military option is with the consent of the UN (the civilized world pretty much agrees with him here).

3. The UN gave no such consent.

4. Therefore, this war lacking persuasive justification for a unilateral attack without the consent of the UN is illegal.

It's crystal clear to me.

Flip flop rating: 0


That's three zeroes. You need to take the sad news of your failure back to Gephardt's or Kerry's HQ (whoever you're pimping for).