Chimpolini: I was VERY CAREFUL never to say Saddam ordered attacks...

[Bluebear]

Hmm. Do tell, Mr. President. So, in the run-up to war, what ELSE were you "very careful" to say or not to say to the American people? Also. How many times can you say "the previous administration" in one breath?

======



"And so the state sponsor of terror was a declaration by a previous administration. But I don't want to be argumentative, but I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attacks on America. Like you, I asked that very same question, where did we go wrong on intelligence. The truth of the matter is the whole world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't just my administration, it was the previous administration. It wasn't just the previous administration..."


http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060320/dcm067.html?.v=22

[Wilms]

1. He's a great misleader. n/t

[Mythsaje]

2. We thought he had WMDs because WE SOLD THEM TO HIM...

(of course, we kinda knew he'd used them all up and we hadn't sold him any more for a while, but that's beside the point).

[Old and In the Way]

3. Whenever he says "the truth of the matter", you can be certain he's lying-

"The truth of the matter is the whole world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

No, most of the world and most thinking Americans at that time did not believe that Saddam had them or, if he did, we'd find them with the UN inspections. There was no reason to start an elective war...unless you wanted to occupy to control the oil.

[Arkansas Granny]

18. Bush could not afford to have the UN inspectors discover that

Saddam no longer had those weapons. Without WMDs he would have never been able to invade Iraq. IMO, Bush hadn't counted on Saddam to even let the inspectors back into Iraq and when he did, Bush had to step up his invasion plans. He simply could not afford to have his case for war found out to be false.

[Old and In the Way]

26. You are absolutely correct.

Fact is, if there was substantial evidence that Saddam had WMD...would we have invaded? Even these cowards would have given pause to that reality. See North Korea. It is no wonder that nuclear proliferation is alive and well. We've provided a compelling reason in Iraq as to why every country ought to be armed for their own survival/autonomy.

[ljm2002]

4. The true face of GWBush...

...is revealed in that snarly, mean, stubborn, dumb-as-a-brick expression on his face.

There he is in his true essence.

Put that on a billboard. Put it on billboards all over the country. Or alternatively, take out full page ads in newspapers all over the country. You don't need any words with it.

Just let people look at it and ponder it.

The man is a psychotic, mean, self absorbed sociopath. And it all shows, right there.

Well if it's that obvious to me, it would have to be that obvious to everyone. Wouldn't it???

[Theres-a]

21. My sentiments exactly

That would make my post a dupe.

[Stephanie]

5. I heard that too. I was "very careful not to say" -> WHY were you careful?

WHY on God's earth would you have to be CAREFUL about what you say IF you were SPEAKING THE TRUTH????
WHAT were you being careful about? Either you were TELLING THE TRUTH, OR YOU WERE LYING. If you were parsing your words, it's because you were trying to LIE WITHOUT GETTING CAUGHT.

OMG what a stupid chimp you are.

[Lasher]

10. Not careful enough

Bush: No Iraq link to 9/11 found
President says Saddam had ties to al-Qaida, but apparently not to attacks
Thursday, September 18, 2003

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, having repeatedly linked Saddam Hussein to the terrorist organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said yesterday there is no evidence that the deposed Iraqi leader had a hand in those attacks, in contrast to the belief of most Americans.

<snip>

Publicly, at least, Bush has not explicitly blamed the attacks on Saddam. In speech after speech, however, the president has strongly linked Saddam and al-Qaida, the terrorist organization of bin Laden, the renegade Saudi whose followers hijacked jetliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and rural Pennsylvania.

In his May 1 declaration of military victory in Iraq from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, Bush said, "We have removed an ally of al-Qaida and cut off a source of terrorist funding." He also said, "The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror."

Two months earlier, in a speech aimed at mustering public support for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, Bush said, "The attacks of September 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/140133_bushiraq18.html

Edit: The assertion that Saddam had ties to al Qaida was just another lie in a seemingly endless string.

[annabanana]

13. Gonzalez told him to be very careful NOT to use exactly

those words... Plausible deniability is maintained as long as he never exactly said that.. It's ha-a-a-ard work, using the "right" words all the time..

[electropop]

19. Also very careful to use Saddam and 9/11 in the same breath

thousands of times, versus 2 or 3 times that he was cornered and forced to admit his subtle manipulation of the gullible.

[Stephanie]

6. Chimpolini is very good, BTW

Instant classic.

[Bluebear]

7. I LOVE your "it looks grim wherever he goes" thread

How true.

[Lasher]

8. Au contraire

Experts Believed No Iraqi WMDs in 2001

A conference of top-level military analysts was told Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- a message that later fell on deaf ears in the American capital, analysts say.

Former Canadian military officer-turned-analyst, Sunil Ram remembers the January 2001 conference Understanding the Lessons of Nuclear Inspections and Monitoring in Iraq: A Ten-Year Review.

What he heard at the meeting he has repeated for months, he says, getting little attention from the mainstream media: that U.S. President George W. Bush had no grounds to base the invasion of Iraq on the disarmament issue.

"The people doing the presentation were weapons inspectors and former weapons inspectors and senior members of (U.S. government) agencies," Ram said in an interview.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/justify/2003/0718experts.htm

2001: Powell & Rice Declare Iraq Has No WMD and Is Not a Threat

In February 2003, Powell said: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."

But two years earlier, Powell said just the opposite. The occasion was a press conference on 24 February 2001 during Powell's visit to Cairo, Egypt. Answering a question about the US-led sanctions against Iraq, the Secretary of State said:

"We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq..."

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm

[Skittles]

9. lying little bastard

he truly makes me feel ill

[K8-EEE]

11. Recommended! GOOD POINT.

Why was he being careful never to say that? He did say exactly that though in the SOTU addresses although probably qualifying like "British sources say..." without mentioning other sources disagreed.

[FloridaPat]

12. That's why 95% of the rest of the people in the world were against

the invasions. That's why France, Germany, Russia, and other countries you can find on a map (besides England and Australia) didn't sign on to help. Sure

[jmowreader]

16. You forgot Poland!

Yup, that one company of Polish Special Purpose Forces that Alexander Kwasniewski sent to Iraq really came in helpful, y'know?

'Course, that one company of Polish SPF might be the reason Alexander Kwasniewski is no longer president of Poland.

[zippy890]

14. 'chimpolini' - ROFL

:rofl:

[annabanana]

15. Lord, What a mug! Would you trust your child to this man?..n/t

[SalmonChantedEvening]

17. "where did we go wrong on intelligence"

Goshers Mr. Pretzeldent, other than the fact that yours was fabricated? I can't begin to know...

chimpolini. bahahahahaha :rofl:

[Theres-a]

20. That picture captures his very essence.

Neener-neener-neener!

[mzmolly]

22. You said Saddam was "connected" to Al Qaida asshole! You said

Saddam was RECONSTITUTING A NUCLEAR PROGRAM - asshole! You said we couldn't wait for a MUSHROOM CLOUD YOU SOB!

Note the bait and switch, it was all about WMD's huh? MY ASS!

[Proud Liberal Dem]

23. "True Lie"

This was being discussed just yesterday on the Trek BBS and I posted a long thread there about it. From what I remember Bush et. al discussed Saddam, Osama, and 9/11 together in just about every speech over and over again in the run up to the invasion to the point that the majority of the public came to believe that Iraq had SOMETHING to do with 9/11. And HOW exactly did this happen? The public did NOT just pull this idea out of thin air. Factually, it may be true that Bush et. al never came right out and DIRECTLY accused Iraq of having something to do with 9/11 but the public apparently "read between the lines" and understood what Bush was covertly trying to communicate in order to help win support for the invasion.

[mzmolly]

24. I started a thread about what Bush DID say. He said

"You can't distinguish between Saddam and Al Qaida."- for starters.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2526958&mesg_id=2526958

[donkeyotay]

25. I was very careful to keep my lawyerese while deliberately misleading you

and there's this gem, too:

"The truth of the matter is the whole world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

So, what did he call the millions who marched, "a focus group?"

This evil,lying SOB really needs to be impeached or there is no hope for our country.

[Nikki Stone 1]

27. Saved by a technicality. Never mind the implications....

The American people have to get wise.

[SOS]

28. Questions for the Shrub:

If you were "very careful", how come 33% of Americans still believe this nonsense?
Where are they getting this false impression?
Librul media?