so they blatantly lie and you dont care

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2942978.stm

Saddam 'may have destroyed weapons'


Rumsfeld said the search for banned weapons will continue

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq may have destroyed its weapons of mass destruction before the US went to war against Saddam Hussein in March.
Mr Rumsfeld said the search for hidden weapons was continuing and it will "take time" to investigate hundreds of suspected sites.

The BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb says Mr Rumsfeld's remarks are the closest the Bush administration has yet come to an admission that it may never find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The allegation that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons was the main reason why the US attacked Iraq.

The former Iraqi regime consistently insisted it had destroyed all such weapons in compliance with United Nations resolutions.

In other developments:


Two US soldiers are killed and nine are injured in an attack by Saddam Hussein loyalists in Fallujah, west of Baghdad

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer calls Iran's actions against Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network "insufficient"

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair heads to Kuwait amid speculation he might visit Iraq

The new UN special representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, says he will arrive in Baghdad by 2 June

US military officials say two more senior members of the former regime have been captured - Sayf al-Din al-Mashhadani, a Baath Party chairman and militia commander in Muthanna, and Sad Abd al-Majid al-Faysal, the Baath Party regional chairman for Salah al-Din
Might never know
In a speech in New York, Mr Rumsfeld said he did not know why Iraqi troops had not used chemical weapons against coalition forces.

He suggested the Iraqis might have been caught off guard by the speed of the US-led advance on Baghdad.

"It is also possible that they [the Iraqis] decided that they would destroy them [weapons of mass destruction] prior to a conflict," he said.

Mr Rumsfeld said: "We don't know what happened [to Iraq's banned weapons]. We may actually find out what happened."

He said, however, that the US military believed it had found two mobile biological weapons laboratories in northern Iraq.

Iran warned

The defence secretary also issued a new warning to Iran not to interfere in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Mr Rumsfeld said Iran was "being unhelpful today with respect to Iraq".

"Iran should be on notice; efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran's image will be aggressively put down," he said.

Mr Rumsfeld's comments about Iraq came amid further accusations from Washington that Tehran has been harbouring fugitive members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran has denied all such allegations.
 
i don't understand why we have to keep donald rumsfeld.


it's him, not bush, that is ruining our country. he's inciting all of this westmoreland-like bullshit in our "war" on evil saddam. yes, saddam - not a great guy, but i can't believe rumsfled took 1967 tactics to fight a war in 2003.

his influence comes from people like general westmoreland and joe mccarthy...it's completely obvious. pair that with kissinger's brilliance and you've got the end of the roman empire. westmoreland led the war of attrition in vietnam, the tactic that all we had to do was kill more of them than they killed of us. which was brilliant since we underestimated their numbers by about 300% but still kept trying to kill them, rather than try (get this) talking to them. the link to mccarthyism is clearly tied to the munich analogy, which basically said that all communism was tied to the soviet union (which is why we went into china, korea, and later vietnam) and YOU CANNOT TALK TO "HOSTILE" LEADERS, THEY MUST ONLY BE DEALT WITH BY FORCE (please wait to wretch until the end of this paragraph, it only gets worse). so that idea is SHEER brilliance...skip the talks, go straight for the bombs (this led to a democrat-lead congress to give the president the right to declare war without conferring with congress first...woohoo! another strike of brilliance {but that all goes back to truman being "soft" on communism and all his democrat follow ups had to prove they hated communists just like any red-blooded american was expected to :rolleyes:}). this tactic got us into korea and vietnam and smaller fiascos like...latin america or the bay of pigs.


america needs to change so that we can vote in more people in the cabinet, especially people like the secretary of defense. i can't have rumsfeld in there any longer, history is repeating itself and we have the chance to stop it. he's trying to get us into iran and the american people are waking up and trying to say no, but just not talking loud enough for deaf donald to hear us. i don't want to be at war for another 30 years...it's insane and would be just another blemish in american history due to conducive public and overpowerful leaders.
 
ILuvLarryMullen said:

My sentiments exactly.

""It is also possible that they [the Iraqis] decided that they would destroy them [weapons of mass destruction] prior to a conflict," he said.

Mr Rumsfeld said: "We don't know what happened [to Iraq's banned weapons]. We may actually find out what happened." "

*smacks forehead* THEN WHY DID WE INVADE?! TO SPREAD DEMOCRACY?! I DON'T THINK SO! ARGH!

</rant>

The lies go on and on and on and fucking on. Communism and drugs aren't good excuses for us anymore to invade and show off our manly army skills, so now it's terrorism.

Wanna place bets on who gets invaded next? My ten bucks says Syria.
 
MiniFly said:
*smacks forehead* THEN WHY DID WE INVADE?! TO SPREAD DEMOCRACY?! I DON'T THINK SO! ARGH!


we didn't invade to spread democracy. we invaded to incite a regime change. saddam really was a horrible leader...genocidal and all.

that being said, it's clear that wasn't our only reason for invasion, it had fringe benefits aplenty.


but the fact is we didn't have to fight a war to overthrow saddam...we didn't even TRY peaceful talks. :sigh:
 
Riiiiight.....


Iraqi Weapons Only One Reason for War-Wolfowitz
Wed May 28, 5:20 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to stress the threat posed by Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction above all others was taken for "bureaucratic" reasons to justify the war, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in remarks released on Wednesday.

Wolfowitz, seen as one of the most hawkish figures in the Bush administration's policy on Iraq, said President Saddam Hussein's alleged cache of chemical, biological and possibly nuclear weapons was merely one of several reasons behind the decision to go to war.

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in Vanity Fair magazine's July issue.

No chemical or biological weapons have been found in Iraq despite repeated assertions by President Bush (news - web sites) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) before the March 20 invasion that the threat posed by Saddam's vast stocks of banned weapons warranted a war to eliminate them.

The United Nations (news - web sites) and America's allies were not convinced by the argument that it was justification for a war, which was launched amid protests in many world capitals. Washington's ties were major allies France and Germany are still strained.

Wolfowitz said another reason for the invasion had been "almost unnoticed but huge" -- namely that the ousting of Saddam would allow the United States to remove its troops from Saudi Arabia, where their presence had long been a major al Qaeda grievance.

"Just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door" to a more peaceful Middle East, Wolfowitz was quoted as saying.

The magazine said he made the remarks days before suicide bombings, attributed to al Qaeda, against Western targets in Riyadh and Casablanca two weeks ago that killed 75 people.

The United States announced last month that it was ending military operations in Saudi Arabia, where they have long generated Arab resentment because of their proximity to Islam's holiest sites.

Wolfowitz's remarks were released a day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, seeking to explain why no weapons of mass destruction had been found, said Iraq may have destroyed them before the U.S.-led invasion.
 
Lilly said:


but the fact is we didn't have to fight a war to overthrow saddam...we didn't even TRY peaceful talks. :sigh:

12 years is not enough time?
 
i know the 12 years argument, but in those 12 years, how many peace talks (not threats) did we stage directly with saddam?
 
Rumsfeld is sleaze.

He must think that we're all idiots.
 
Remember that Saddam's regime agreed to account and destroy all WMD after the 1991 Gulf War. As of 1998 when inspectors were forced to leave the country, Saddam had failed to destroy all his WMD. This is a fact that not even Iraq disputes. Between 1998 and 2002, Iraq claimed the remaining WMD was destroyed but never showed any evidence of this destruction. Iraq's obligations in regard to this are very clear. They had to give up or destroy all the WMD in a way that could be verified by the UN.

It is Iraq's failure to account for the material that it still had in 1998 which made the use of military force necessary. It was incumbent upon Iraq to prove that they no longer had WMD and they had all the means to satisfy that obligation. Iraq was given 12 years to comply with 17 different UN resolutions passed under Chapter VII rules of the United Nations that allow for the use of military force to bring about compliance.

Iraq's obligations were never open to debate. Iraq agreed to that with signing of the 1991 Ceacefire Agreement for the first Gulf War. Iraq's obligations in the disarmament area were very specific. If Saddam had cooperated, disarmament could have been completed in less than a year, as it was in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and South Africa. 12 years is way to long to have given Saddam time to comply with the resolutions.

The main objective of Operation Iraqi Freedom was to insure that Saddam's regime was effectively disarmed of WMD. That has been accomplished because Saddam's regime no longer exists. If Saddam prior to the war destroyed WMD and widely dispersed the remains, it may be impossible to ever know what happened to the WMD. Saddam could also have buried the WMD months prior to the war in the hopes that war would not happen and he could at a later time retrieve the WMD when everyone thought he was clean. If the WMD is buried in some unmarked area of land in a country the size of Iraq, it may be decades before it is found.

US and other member states of the UN were never required to prove that Iraq had WMD. Their only obligation per the Ceacefire agreement and UN resolutions was to insure that the regime no longer had WMD.
 
Lilly,

Westmoreland's hands were tied by the administration he was serving. Under the large number constraints he was put under he did the best he could. US forces were never given the option in Vietnam to invade the North. The troop levels were also determined by the Administration, not Westmoreland. Airstrikes against the North were severely restricted and there for often ineffective.

In any event, there were plenty of talks with North Vietnam after 1968 as there have been through the UN with Saddam's regime. With Saddam's regime though, there was nothing to talk about. Saddam signed and agreed to the obligations and conditions that he failed to meet after 12 years. In signing the 1991 ceacefire agreement for the first gulf war, Saddam agreed that he understood that failure to comply with the conditions and obligations could result in the resumption of offensive military action against Iraq to insure the resolutions were complied with.

There is really nothing to talk about in that regard. Just as the terms for the surrender of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II were unconditional, so were the obligations Saddam had to meet from the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire. The potential consequences of not cooperating were obvious.

Members of the Cabinet still have to be approved by Congress who of course are elected by the people. Look to see if your Senator or Congressman approved the Rumsfeld and based on that you can decide whether you want to vote for them in the next election.
 
thanks sting2, i didnt bother to waste a minute of my time reading what you said because youve said 900 times already. did you even read what the story said? no seriously, did you?
 
i almost fell off my chair

Red Ships of Scalla-Festa said:
thanks sting2, i didnt bother to waste a minute of my time reading what you said because youve said 900 times already. did you even read what the story said? no seriously, did you?

one has to wonder
 
Red Ships of Scalla-Festa said:
thanks sting2, i didnt bother to waste a minute of my time reading what you said because youve said 900 times already. did you even read what the story said? no seriously, did you?

I would not even respond to you if I were him.

You may not like to hear this, and I for one believe we did not folllow the will of the security council in entering into this war, but he is correct.

It was up to Iraq to comply with the conditions of its cease fire. Weapons or no weapons found at this point, 12 years to demonstrate compliance is a long time.


One other thing, that Rumsfeld has not said, and it is something that bothers me....There were stories of the WMD being loaded onto boats before the war as well as shipped into Syria. I seriously wonder if a terrorist group has the materials in question. It is not a pleasant prospect, but I wonder if the stuff was safer with Saddam.
 
Lilly said:
i know the 12 years argument, but in those 12 years, how many peace talks (not threats) did we stage directly with saddam?

I do not know, considering Bill Clinton was Preasident for 8 of those years, how many peace talks did he have with Saddam before the military actions he launched against Iraq?

Or better yet, how about the bill he signed into law saying that the US would work to overthrow his regime?
 
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Red Ships of Scalla-Festa,

I read the the article and everything that has been posted by other people in the thread. Why you feel the need to tell me that you did not read what I had to say is a bit puzzling in addition to making comments about how many times I may have made this or that comment. If your not going to respond to anything I had to say, why bring this up since it has nothing to do with anything I said or the article.

If you and Sula want to make personal remarks about me or what I have read or not read, start another thread. You could call it: STING2 :sexywink:
 
kids, let's try and be nice, thanks.

STING2 said:
Lilly,

Westmoreland's hands were tied by the administration he was serving. Under the large number constraints he was put under he did the best he could. US forces were never given the option in Vietnam to invade the North. The troop levels were also determined by the Administration, not Westmoreland. Airstrikes against the North were severely restricted and there for often ineffective.

In any event, there were plenty of talks with North Vietnam after 1968 as there have been through the UN with Saddam's regime. With Saddam's regime though, there was nothing to talk about. Saddam signed and agreed to the obligations and conditions that he failed to meet after 12 years. In signing the 1991 ceacefire agreement for the first gulf war, Saddam agreed that he understood that failure to comply with the conditions and obligations could result in the resumption of offensive military action against Iraq to insure the resolutions were complied with.

There is really nothing to talk about in that regard. Just as the terms for the surrender of Germany and Japan at the end of World War II were unconditional, so were the obligations Saddam had to meet from the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire. The potential consequences of not cooperating were obvious.

Members of the Cabinet still have to be approved by Congress who of course are elected by the people. Look to see if your Senator or Congressman approved the Rumsfeld and based on that you can decide whether you want to vote for them in the next election.



i think i cried at your first line...his hands were tied? :eek: he continually misrepresented numbers to the president(s) he served to make it seem like his war of attrition was doing something. but in actuality, most of the numbers he presented were that of civilians and non-combatants who were killed by things like....agent orange, or the vietcong attacking villages. i don't know how you or anyone could ever defend a war of attrition, it's inhumane and completely worthless.

furthermore, the geneva accords in the late 1950s could have gotten france and vietnam the exact same thing that we fought for: a division at the 38th parallel. we fought a pointless war for close to 20 years for nothing...we weren't interested in it, and we knew by 1964 that it wasn't going to be as easy as was previously projected. but america doesn't lose wars, right? well, maybe we didn't "lose" it, but we sure as hell lost a lot as a result from it. why can't we learn from the assenine mistakes we took then? maybe we can consult kissinger or rumsfeld on that.
 
Lilly,

"i think i cried at your first line...his hands were tied? he continually misrepresented numbers to the president(s) he served to make it seem like his war of attrition was doing something. but in actuality, most of the numbers he presented were that of civilians and non-combatants who were killed by things like....agent orange, or the vietcong attacking villages. i don't know how you or anyone could ever defend a war of attrition, it's inhumane and completely worthless."

As I said before, Westmoreland was not allowed to engage in several strategies that could have brought the war to a close sooner. He was not allowed to send large scale ground forces into North Vietnam to take over and wipe out bases where the North Vietnames military would recruit arm and send its forces into battle. Westmoreland had to take the limited number of soldiers he had and defend South Vietnam from being attacked. He was never allowed to invade North Vietnam and neutralize the problem.

This meant that the US military could fight off the North Vietnamese in multiple battles every year, only to face a reinforced North Vietnamese military the following year. The only option available to any military commander that has been refused the option of a ground offensive to sieze and hold enemy territory is simply to destroy as much of the enemy when they came South to attack. It would not make any sense to do anything less considering the constraints on military options and strategy. It was hoped that they could inflict losses on the North Vietnamese military fast enough that they would decide to give up the fight. But while the North Vietnamese lost a heavy number of soldiers, they were always able to replace the forces they lost from their base in the North which Westmoreland was never allowed to invade and neutralize.

Ho Chi Minh had no desire for a division at the 38th parallel. He wanted control of all of Vietnam. Certainly he might of been willing to sign a temporary agreement in order to fool others. But longterm, his goal was to reunite Vietnam under Communist dictatorship.

US policy makers were unwilling to commit the resources in South East Asia in order to decisively win the war. There were several reason for this. #1 there was the concerned that such a massive effort would pull resources away from the defense of Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact. The USA and its allies could become vulnerable if to many resources were committed to South East Asia. #2 there was a concern about the repeat of the Korea situation in which as victory become close in an invasion of North Vietnam, the Chinese would enter into the war vastly complicating the situation. #3 it was hoped that a limited military strategy could accomplish the same results of the Korean War without the entry of China into the war.

One possible strategy that was abandon in the middle of the war and then restarted was building the South Vietnamese Military strong enough so they could defend themselves from the North without any large US forces being stationed there. It was felt the situation was out of control in 1965 which is why the first combat troops were committed then. The US took over a lot of the fighting while more an more South Vietnames forces sat on the sidelines. As the US drawdown starting in 1969 increased, this entire situation reversed itself. By 1972, the South Vietnames were doing nearly all the fighting with the aid of US advisors and a small number of US troops. This was enough to repell the 1972 Easter offensive by the North Vietnames which was as large as the TET offensive of 1968.

A year later a peace deal was signed and all US troops left South Vietnam. Congress then passed a resolution preventing the US from becoming involved in the conflict again if it started up. The conflict obvious started up again once the North Vietnames new it was unlikely for the USA to become involved again. South Vietnam held on for two more years without US involvement, but in 1975, a string of military failures led to the collapse of the military and the fall of Saigon in April 1975.

The North Vietnamese final attack on the South in 1975 was similar to the Easter Offensive of 1972 that was repelled by the South Vietnames with the help of US Advisors and US airpower. It strongly believed that if the USA had maintained a limited number of advisors and a large number of aircraft offshore or in neighboring countries that these forces combined with the the South Vietnamese military could of repelled the 1975 offensive by the North, or any future offensive, just as they had repelled the 1972 one.

Of course, this strategy would not lead to an immediate victory, but it was a way of defending the South for the long term without large numbers of US ground troops. The war could potentially of continued for another 10 years with the North finally giving up as the Soviet Union started to distingrate and its problems with China increased. Of course no one can really say for sure if this would have worked but it was indeed a possibility. It would have been more likely if the war had not been so costly for the USA and the backlash to it at home not so large. By 1973, the USA was worn out and there was no political support for any more involvement of any kind.

To sum up, absent being able to put resources in to win an immediate decisive victory over the North, a strategy involving a much more limited military presense that would be easier to maintain over the longterm and not involve nearly as many losses for the USA should of been pursued. This was in fact the original strategy in the early 1960s. It was abandon though because it was felt the South was about to fall apart and North Vietnamese victory was near in 1965. If that was indeed the case then the USA probably had no choice but to commit large numbers of ground troops in 1965, or simply declare South Vietnam a lost cause and use the resources to strengthen other countries in the region to prevent Communist efforts to take them over.

Its unfortunate that the USA and its allies were not able to prevent the Communist take over of South Vietnam. When one looks at South Korea, one of the top 30 wealthiest countries in the world today, one has to wonder where South Vietnam would rank if the Communist had failed to take it over.
 
We did care, we do care but...as of today we are unable to prevent more lies, more wars, more brainwashing...
We are unable to hold them accountable and they just get away with it. Because they are POWERS THAT BE...
 
I do care that they might not have been straight with us about the WMD's and other such stuff. I know some of you disagree with this but I don't care for Donald Rumsfeld, either. He has too much of an old-school cold warrior mentality for my comfort. I'm not voting for him in a popularity contest if he's in one.
 
One of the problems, verte 76, of our democratic system (that apparently is the worlds best which is why it has to be pushed through everywhere), is that politicians like Donald Rumsfeld do not need regular popularity contests to stay in power. They just stay in power, even if a majority of citizens despises them.
 
Donald Rumsfeld is not a politician, he is an appointed official. In any event, he has the support of the majority of the American People.
 
STING2 said:
Donald Rumsfeld is not a politician, he is an appointed official. In any event, he has the support of the majority of the American People.

He is a politician too, isn?t he?

And as far as I can remember, he wasn?t directly elected, but put into his position by President Bush.

Also, percentages of support figures may be subject to quick change. I doubt the majority of the American people would directly elect Donald Rumsfeld, if the position of Sec. of Defense was directly elected.

Anyway, I may be wrong. Maybe I underestimate the power of American media manipulation.
 
Since we do not elect Secretaries of Defense or other Cabinet officials, it's impossible to tell if the majority of the people do indeed support Rumsfeld. They do all the polls on the president, and he does have a healthy job approval rating now. The war has a healthy approval rating as well. I might be in the minority as per my opinion of Rumsfeld, but hey, it's an opinion and this is a democracy. I don't give a damn if I'm in a minority.
 
whenhiphopdrovethebigcars said:


He is a politician too, isn?t he?

And as far as I can remember, he wasn?t directly elected, but put into his position by President Bush.
The presidents appointees have to be confirmed by the Senate however. Technically the Senators, in a Democratic republic, are voting on behalf of their constituents.

Also, one other note, is that Rumsfeld is a politician, and he 3o or so years ago was one of the Senior Bushes chief rivals. They both wanted to be President. The George HW Bush thought Rumsfeld was trying to sabotage his chances by pushing to make him director of the CIA. This was in BUSH AT WAR by Woodward.
 
HIPHOP,

I did not consider Rumsfeld a politician because he is serving in an appointed position. I only consider those currently in elected office or running for elected office to be politicians.

"Also, percentages of support figures may be subject to quick change. I doubt the majority of the American people would directly elect Donald Rumsfeld, if the position of Sec. of Defense was directly elected."

"Anyway, I may be wrong. Maybe I underestimate the power of American media manipulation."

Can you name one person that the American people would rather have as Secretary of Defense than Donald Rumsfeld? Who do you think the majority of Americans would prefer to have as Secretary of Defense?

Are you suggesting by that last sentence that Americans including myself who support Donald Rumsfeld do so because we have been manipulated? It couldn't be that myself and others have come to our conclusions based on intelligent research and observation? Would it be fair to conclude that your opposition to Rumsfeld is simply the result of European Media Manipulation?
 
Rumsfeld has critics, and I'm not talking about anti-war demonstrators or other liberals. One big one is Norman Schwarzkopf. Before the war he was quoted as saying "don't get me started on Don Rumsfeld" and compared him unfavorably to Dick Cheney as a Secretary of Defense. Others are Brent Scowcroft and other members of Bush Sr.'s administration.
 
STING2 said:
Can you name one person that the American people would rather have as Secretary of Defense than Donald Rumsfeld? Who do you think the majority of Americans would prefer to have as Secretary of Defense?

Are you suggesting by that last sentence that Americans including myself who support Donald Rumsfeld do so because we have been manipulated?

I can?t speak for the American people, but I would prefer Ralph Nader as Secretary of Defense. In my opinion, he has a better plan on foreign policy than Rumsfeld.

No, I am not suggesting that Americans including you have been manipulated. I said, if the Sec. of Defense was directly elected, I doubt it would be Rumsfeld; but I don?t know, because media manipulation (in that case American, because Rumsfeld is American) usually paints candidates (not necessarily Rumsfeld) in the brightest colors, when in reality their past is marked by cruel (f.e. foreign policy) decisions.
 
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Verte76,

"Rumsfeld has critics, and I'm not talking about anti-war demonstrators or other liberals. One big one is Norman Schwarzkopf. Before the war he was quoted as saying "don't get me started on Don Rumsfeld" and compared him unfavorably to Dick Cheney as a Secretary of Defense. Others are Brent Scowcroft and other members of Bush Sr.'s administration."

Thats true, but the reasons for the criticism are very different from the criticisms listed here or from liberals.
 
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