Bush: "we offered Saddam Hussein a final chance to peacefully resolve the issue."

[sabra]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/12/20081209-3.html

<snip>

We also took a hard look at the danger posed by Iraq -- a country that combined support for terror, the development and the use of weapons of mass destruction, violence against its own people, aggression against its neighbors, hostility to the United States, and systematic violation of United Nations resolutions. After seeing the destruction of September the 11th, we concluded that America could not afford to allow a regime with such a threatening and violent record to remain in the heart of the Middle East. So we offered Saddam Hussein a final chance to peacefully resolve the issue. And when he refused, we acted with a coalition of nations to protect our people -- and liberated 25 million Iraqis.

The battle in Iraq has been longer and more difficult than expected. Foreign terrorists, former regime elements, and Iraqi insurgents -- often with outside support -- combined to drive up violence, and bring the country to the verge of chaos. So we adopted a new strategy, and rather than retreating, sent more troops into Baghdad in Iraq. And when the surge met its objective, we began to bring our troops home under a policy of return on success. Last week, Iraq approved two agreements that formalize diplomatic and economic and security ties with America -- and set a framework for the drawdown of American forces as the fight in Iraq nears a successful end.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article387374.ece

The secret Downing Street memo

SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY



DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002
S 195 02


<snip>

C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. "That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it!"

[Tempest]

2. He'll go to his deathbed believing the lies he told

While history issues a damning indictment of his crimes, deceit and failures.

[Orsino]

10. It's a mistake, I think, to imagine that he believes anything he says...

...or that he believes in anything other than money.

[JDPriestly]

15. Bush does not "believe" anything. He just figures out what is

going to be the most advantageous thing for him to say he believes. He has no beliefs whatsoever. He does not think in terms of belief structures. He just mouths words that get him what he wants. It's all about Bush. There is nothing there beyond that. He doesn't value logical structures. He does not even try to be consistent in his beliefs.

Face it, those of us who try to be consistent in our beliefs usually ask more questions than we answer, and we have to face with humility that our minds are just not big enough to grasp the truth in many situations. Our beliefs are opinions. We try to construct a consistent set of beliefs and opinions, but we never succeed.

We can tell that Bush does not try to be consistent in his beliefs by the fact that he tries to make us believe that he thinks he is always right, that he has made not mistakes, that he is the victim of the mistakes of others. He grabs what he calls beliefs and holds on to them like a life raft as he heads out with no idea as to where he is going. He is what you call a lost soul.

[Occam Bandage]

His "peaceful solution" was to surrender the WMDs that he was insisting he did not possess.

Some solution.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. He attacked before the deadline. That is all history has to remember.

[Bluebear]

4. "Then we attacked before the deadline."

[Cleita]

5. I distinctly remembered Saddam offering to go into exile with his family

so that the USA wouldn't invade. The offer quickly disappeared from the news after it was first reported. Bush ignored him because he didn't meet some arbitrary date he had drawn in the sand, so we invaded anyway. If it had really been about removing Saddam and saving the Iraqi people, a deal could have been reached, maybe turning him over to the Hague for trial and I think Saddam would have preferred that to what we actually did to him.

[eleny]

9. That's how I remember it

There was even a country mentioned as the possible exile location but I can't recall which one.

[Cleita]

11. I think it was Jordan where his wife and daughters were taken in.

Of course we know Uday and Kusay, his sons were killed.

[eleny]

13. I recall that his sons were trying to escape with a huge sum of cash

If anyone had asked me before this thread if I knew what went on I would have thought I remembered all this clear as a bell. We all lived through it paying attention each day. But now, some details are fuzzy. Time to Google around.

[Cleita]

14. There might be some archives or cached files still around. n/t

[democrank]

6. Liar.

Go home, Junior.

[rateyes]

7. I hate that mofo.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. I find it amazing that * has not been struck by lightning yet for all the

boldfaced lies he has told. Virtually everyone knows he is a lying sack of s**t.
I expect to see a pile of ashes where he was standing one of these days. Just one more lie could do it.

[peace frog]

18. It does seem amazing to mere mortals such as we

but it's just everyday sh*t to the almighty, imperial, invincible Bushes. The only hope I cling to is that the law of karma is real and that it will get that murderous, lying bastard in the end.

[BrklynLiberal]

22. I also have a lot of emotion invested in the laws of karma

[JDPriestly]

12. Does anyone else remember the Dan Rather interview with Hussein?

I remember turning to my husband after hearing Hussein's denial that he had WMDs and saying, he really looks like he is telling the truth. At that time, I still believed Bush and our government. Hussein's interview with Rather was the first time I questioned just a little. Later, my questions were confirmed when we sent so few troops in. Historically, when troops have had to face WMDs, they have needed to go in in waves. So, then I knew Bush and his administration knew there were no WMDs.

Bush is lying, lying, lying. He knew.

Much, much later, I learned that the head of the UN Inspection Team had reported to the UN that Hussein was fully cooperating with their inspection -- before Bush sent our troops into Iraq.

Bush is lying, lying, lying, and history will never forget that he is lying.

The rest of the world knows that he lied. The historical record cannot be eraced.

This man, Bush, is a fool, if he thinks he is going to save his legacy with these lies.

[Cleita]

16. Not only that he filled a room with files and computer tapes, that pretty

much spelled out what he did have, and no one in the US camp even looked at them.

[Zywiec]

17. "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

No kidding!!

[Arkansas Granny]

19. I was quite certain more than 6 months before the invasion of Iraq

Edited to add chart

that there was nothing that Saddam could do to prevent it. PNAC wanted war with Iraq and they were able to get Bush to go along with their plans, which they hadn't been able to do with Clinton. The War on Terror had given Bush higher ratings than any American President had ever enjoyed, but they were started to slide. He figured that another war against a long time foe would be just the boost he needed to get his approval back up there in the 80-90% range. We went to war with Iraq because of Bush's ego, pure and simple.

Look at this timeline and recall what events caused the spikes.

[Cleita]

20. I can't believe that sociopathic moron ever had an approval as high as

90%. I was certainly among the 10% who didn't approve of him, especially his march to an unnecessary war. What does this say about 90% of Americans?

[peace frog]

25. I never approved of him,

never accepted him as a legitimate president, and it was beyond strange that so many of my fellow Americans held him in such high regard. I always suspected the poll numbers were tampered with, and were actually lower than reported.

[Cleita]

29. Me too, and I almost got evidence

that the polls were being conducted in States and Counties who were favorable to RW politics. It's just that I'm not a journalist and I don't have access to the sources that newspapers have to verify these things.

[Virginia Dare]

27. After 9/11 people wanted to support him...

they wanted to believe that he would be able to bring the bad guys to justice and make America safe again. He accomplished quite the opposite. It fact, it's a strong possibility he was in cahoots with the bad guys.

[Cleita]

28. I wasn't one of them who wanted to support him.

The whole attack at first showed that his administration was incompetent. Bill Clinton's administration managed to stave off a couple of those attacks because they paid attention to the intelligence and the warnings. This was obvious from the very first reports that started to unfold that no one had been minding the store especially Condi Rice who was head of security. 9-11 made him look like the unelected fraud that he was. Michael Moore shows it so well in his movie "Fahrenheit 911" where he's in the classroom with the kids and doesn't know what to do. I mean he froze. Yet, Michael got heckled at the Academy Awards for it and the news had a heyday damning him for telling the truth.

I'm not going to go LIHOP or MIHOP on this, but I'm almost certain that the attacks originated in Saudi Arabia with his good friends the Saudi princes and not in Afghanistan with the Taliban and definitely not in Iraq. Bush has admitted twice now that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

[Disturbed]

21. W & his Junta are now engaged in revision of History.

All of them will lie about the actual factual events.

[Cleita]

30. This is why somebody is going to have to investigate them, subpoena them,

drag them into court and question them under oath to wring the truth out of them. History and our future as a nation depends on it. Congress should have done it but apparently they are as corrupt as the neo-cons and are afraid for the truth to come out.

[malaise]

23. Tell George that Iraq was a sovereign country

The invasion was and the occupation is illegal.

Gr.

[merh]

24. All he had to do to peacefully resolve the matter was

let the weapons inspectors inspect and not invade, shock & awe

remove the "no fly zone" troops, which were the source of agression and the first violation and a continued violation of the cease fire and UN resolutions

Let Saddam go into exile with his family as Saddam had offered.


The lying sack of shit, he can't rewrite history no matter how many folks he hires on his legacy advisory committee

[Virginia Dare]

26. "Once upon a time in a far away land called Iraq"....

blah blah blah, and they lived happily ever after"....good night Georgie, sleep tight....:eyes: