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Since we still seem to be hung up on the whole WMD thing, to the point where a closed-session hearing was invoked just to look into it, I'd like to remind everyone what our views were regarding WMD's in Iraq before the war:

Senators Levin, Lieberman, Lautenberg, Dodd, Kerrey, Feinstein, Mikulski, Daschle, Breaux, Johnson, Inouye, Landrieu, Ford and Kerry wrote:We urge you, after consulting with Congress and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions, including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Senator John Kerry wrote:Without question we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator leading an impressive regime. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. And now he's miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. His consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction.

Bill Clinton wrote:If Saddam rejects peace, and we have to use force, our purpose is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

Madeleine Albright wrote:We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and the security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction.

Sandy Berger wrote:He''ll use those weapons of mass destruction again as he has 10 times since 1983.

Senator Carl Levin wrote:We begin with a common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations, is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.

Nancy Pelosi wrote:Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

Al Gore wrote:We know that he has stored nuclear supplies, secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.

Senator Hillary Clinton wrote:In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock. His missile delivery capability, his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists including Al-Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.

John Kerry wrote:I will be voting to give the president of the US the authority to use force if necessary to disarm Saddam because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security.

Ted Kennedy wrote:We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.

Madeleine Albright wrote:Hussein has chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies.

Jay Rockefeller wrote:There was unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years. We also should remember that we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction.

Robert Byrd wrote:The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of '98. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons.

Senator Bob Graham wrote:We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has and has had for a number of years a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction.

Al Gore wrote:Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter, and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.

Discuss...

as usual them bums will say that their comments were taken out of context.

I just hope the 'evidence' for all those wmd's that duped those people into thinking they existed doesn't turn out to have been fabricated by the people who wanted to go to war in the first place.

They all wanted to go to war. The repubs were just a little more forthright about it.

That's why we need to start introducing more parties to our political spectrum.

Yes, be more like Canada, where you get 4 parties to bend you over a barrel and... instead of just two. That makes more sense. Sigh, all it means now is that we have a minority gov't so everyone is pussyfooting around. And nothing worthwhile is getting done.

The Alberat conservatives have literally stooped to buying votes. Everyone in the province who pays taxes is getting a $400 tax rebate as a result of the oil money we're "raking in."

FIX HEALTHCARE/EDUCATION/INFRASTRUCTURE, don't throw money at the idiots who don't know how to spend it!

I second what cb360 said in his post, and wish to expand upon it a bit.

I wonder what percent of those folks quoted in the first post said those things only after being given faulty information -- some would say lies --during the build-up to the war.

My guess is that it's close to 100% of them.

This is important information to have if one is to decide if these folks are being hypocritical or not.

Notice that this information is conveniently omitted in the post.

If I say one thing based on false information, and then later say something else -- even the opposite of what I first said -- someone could easily come along and say "Aha! You're being hypocritical!"

But what if I changed my mind after learning about the lies that caused me to make my first statement? Am I still being a hypocrite? Have I flip-flopped?

Or did I demonstrate an ability to be open-minded ... and to change my opinion based on an entirely new situation?

Do right-wingers even care that they fight dirty?

Spiff wrote:I wonder what percent of those folks quoted in the first post said those things only after being given faulty information -- some would say lies --during the build-up to the war.

My guess is that it's close to 100% of them.

Of 43 quotes, 12 of them were during the Clinton Administration. They range from 1998 to 2003. If the belief that Saddam had WMD's was based on lies, EVERYBODY fell for it, including the Democrats. But it's kinda hard to ignore the ten instances when Saddam actually used his WMD's beginning in 1983.

Spiff wrote: This is important information to have if one is to decide if these folks are being hypocritical or not.

Well...how do you feel now?

Spiff wrote: Notice that this information is conveniently omitted in the post.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/stacks ... guest.html

Have at it. It was omitted for no other reason than I am lazy. It took quite a while to cut-and-paste what I did.

Spiff wrote: If I say one thing based on false information, and then later say something else -- even the opposite of what I first said -- someone could easily come along and say "Aha! You're being hypocritical!"

Likewise, if I decide to take my country to war, based on intelligence data that EVERYONE has seen and believes wholeheartedly, and then that data is shown to be inaccurate (which it isn't, but for argument's sake) someone could easily come along and say, "Aha! You're a lying war-monger!"

Spiff wrote:Do right-wingers even care that they fight dirty?

Us??? A closed-session hearing to discover the "truth" about pre-war intelligence DESPITE having held four fruitless investigations already?! If you insist on being spoon-fed news from the likes of CNN and the New York Times you'll forever be convinced that George Bush is some evil war-monger willing to lie to America to fight a war over oil. The hurricanes have subsided and gas prices here are <$2.00/gallon again, so there goes the latter theory.

ZooTech wrote:
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/stacks ... guest.html

Have at it. It was omitted for no other reason than I am lazy. It took quite a while to cut-and-paste what I did.

Enough said if that's the source. Limbaugh is an entertainer, a D.J. - he has no more qualifications to make political observations than you or me or the dude spinning the Led Zeppelin during the afternoon drive show on the local FM station. That he's taken seriously is more of an indictment of his audience than anything else. Try reading reading something that wasn't put together by a hypocritical pill-junkie trying to get an extra ratings point. Rush is about making money - if you don't think he'd jump off your ship if the wind started blowing a different direction, well, then I just don't know what to say. He was a rich kid who dodged the draft, flunked out of college, and if his dad hadn't owned a radio station he'd be the P.M shift manager at the local Dairy Queen (not that there's anything wrong with that). If the FCC hadn't repealed the Fairness doctrine in '87 we still might have dodged his tripe. That he holds sway over so many people is pathetic and it speaks volumes about the analytical skills of our general population. He's just a bigoted rabble rouser who tells as many who will listen exactly what they want to hear. His NFL commentary was fantastic though - not.

The time period is critical. I don't think anyone has any doubts that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction in the 1980s and early 1990s before the first gulf war. The early Unscom inspectors under Burton and Ritter were able to determine pretty clearly what he had produced. After the 1991`attack Saddam's capacity to produce these things plummeted. Iraq in this period was, after all, under the most intense surveillance of any country at any period in history.

The lies began later, once a decision had been taken to invade Iraq (well before 9-11). For example, in his speech to the UN, Colin Powell asserted that Saddam retained supplies of anthrax that he had manufactured before 1991. He even held up a small vial of solid anthrax to the general assemly to dramatically illustrate his point.

At the time, I belonged to a small anti-war research group based in Cambridge University. What we discovered from technical journals, and what the media consistently failed to publish, was that this anthrax, manufactured by Saddam Hussein prior to 1991, and used by Powell to whip up fear of a WMD attack was of the liquid and not the solid variety. And that the liquid variety has a shelf life of about two years. So by the time Powell stood up in the UN , this fearsome WMD had long since been harmless goo.

I think there are only two conclusions to draw from this.

1. Powell was lying through his back teeth
2. He genuinely did not know what a small Cambridge reseach group had no difficulty in finding out and therefore, for a man in his position, was acting from gross incompetence.

But the lies on both sides of the Atlantic told by Bush and Blair just went on and on. And they were demonstrably lies. We did not need to wait for Blix to report, or for the post-war search to draw a blank. Unscom and Unmovic had long since reported the truth of the matter that Saddam had been substantially disarmed.

Once Cheney and his allies in the PNAC group had stated very clearly in black and white that they wanted to go for Saddam (before Bush was elected) the the fate of that country and its most unfortunate people was sealed.

cb360 wrote: Enough said if that's the source. Limbaugh is an entertainer, a D.J. - he has no more qualifications to make political observations than you or me or the dude spinning the Led Zeppelin during the afternoon drive show on the local FM station. That he's taken seriously is more of an indictment of his audience than anything else. Try reading reading something that wasn't put together by a hypocritical pill-junkie trying to get an extra ratings point. Rush is about making money - if you don't think he'd jump off your ship if the wind started blowing a different direction, well, then I just don't know what to say. He was a rich kid who dodged the draft, flunked out of college, and if his dad hadn't owned a radio station he'd be the P.M shift manager at the local Dairy Queen (not that there's anything wrong with that). If the FCC hadn't repealed the Fairness doctrine in '87 we still might have dodged his tripe. That he holds sway over so many people is pathetic and it speaks volumes about the analytical skills of our general population. He's just a bigoted rabble rouser who tells as many who will listen exactly what they want to hear. His NFL commentary was fantastic though - not.

Say what you want to about Rush, but what does that have to do with the quotes? Are you saying these people didn't say these things?