107 Responses to The Obama Tax Plan

1. Wordsmith says: 101

   The decision was made to go into Iraq and then the ‘reasons’ were found. It was Bush’s intention before he became president to invade Iraq if he ever got the chance.

   I read a few pages from your link to The Fall of the House of Bush. Interesting stuff. Thanks for the link. I don’t think highly of Craig Unger’s credibility, however.

   As far as the alarmism in O’Neill’s account to the partisan Suskind,

   Here’s another point of view and account:

   Did President Bush and his advisers come into office intent on launching a war in Iraq?

   *
   IN FACT: The question of how to deal with Iraq was a key national security issue inherited from the Clinton administration.

   The collapse of the weapons inspections; the corruption, circumvention, and undermining of the economic and import controls; and the challenge to the no-fly-zone patrols—all tended to undo the Security Council’s containment policy for Iraq, the most important UN peacekeeping initiative of the 1990s. Governments and observers around the world debated how to respond—but few argued that the Iraqi regime’s threat to peace and order was insignificant. Saddam was far from a spent force. And he was acting as if time were on his side. By the time the Bush Administration was preparing to take office, the incoming officials knew they would soon have to shore up the Clinton Administration’s policy of containment, or replace it. (p. 198)

   Members of the National Security Council and other senior officials spent many hours evaluating and debating options for dealing with Iraq. Our understanding was that President Bush wanted his advisers to devise every sensible way to resolve our Iraq problems short of war. At the Deputies level, we had grappled for months with whether regime change in Iraq was a necessary goal of U.S. policy — and, if so, whether it might be achievable without war. (p. 221)

   The goals of regime change and avoiding war were not necessarily inconsistent. They were reconciled in the Administration’s “ultimatum strategy,” which called for a coalition military buildup to persuade Saddam that he had only two options: Face a war with us that would result in his death or imprisonment, or avert war by leaving Iraq with his sons and a small number of his top lieutenants to enjoy amnesty in permanent exile. It never seemed likely that Saddam would bow to the ultimatum, but President Bush took seriously his duty to exhaust all reasonable means short of war. The Defense Department also took this responsibility seriously: As late as March 2003, my office was working on an “action plan” for the ultimatum strategy, including a list of the candidate countries for asylum and a draft UN resolution. (pp. 303-4)

   Chapter 3 in Feith’s book talks about the Camp David war strategy discussions. About how broad to engage in this war. Pg 48:

   As the September 13 National Security Council meeting demonstrated, Iraq was on the minds of many Administration officials- as it had been even before George W. Bush became President. At the time, it was a common assumption among government officials that a global war on terrorism would, at some point, involve some kind of showdown with Iraq- a known sponsor of terrorists who had defied UN sanctions since the mid-1990′s and had been launching attacks on U.S. and British air patrols almost daily for more than a year.

   This may puzzle readers today- in 2008- because much of the current controversy about the Iraq war has focused on narrow questions such as whether Saddam Hussein supported al Qaida. That question was naturally asked after 9/11, but our deliberations over Iraq were far more extensive than that. By definition, any comprehensive counterterrorism strategy would have to deal with the threats posed by Saddam, as it would have to address threats from any regime that both supported terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction. In formulating its third option, Rice’s staff was raising a narrower question still: whether the President should make action against the Saddam Hussein regime part of the initial U.S. response to 9/11.

   ~~~

   Rumsfeld insisted that the United States should “do something that has three, four, five moves behind it.” He wanted our government to plan for a “sustained, broad campaign” that would surprise people and include economic, political, and other moves, not just military action. Reiterating that the threat we faced was from a global terrorist network, not just one organization, he told us: “Don’t over-elevate the importance of al Qaida.”

   I shared Rumsfeld’s view. As we saw it, 9/11 did not mean simply that the United States had an al Qaida problem. We had a terrorism problem. A strategic response to 9/11 would have to take account of the threat from other terrorist groups- Jemaah Islamiya in Southeast Asia, Lebanese Hezbollah, various Africa-based groups- and state sponsors beyond Afghanistan, especially those that pursued weapons of mass destruction. We would need to determine what action- military or otherwise- to take against which targets, and on what timetable.

   ~~~

   Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and I all thought that U.S. military action should aim chiefly to disrupt those who might be plotting the next big attack against us. Of greatest concern was a terrorist attack using biological or nuclear weapons. We neede actions that would affect the terrorist network as extensively as possible.

   Rodman and I proposed in our memo that “the immediate priority targets for initial action” should be al Qaida, the Taliban, and Iraq. Iraq was on this list, we noted, because Saddam Hussein’s regime posed a “threat of WMD terrorism,” and was systematically undermining the ten-year-old efforts of the United States and the United Nations to counter the dangers of his regime. Among terrorist-supporting states with records of pursuing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, only Iraq had been subjected to prolonged, multinational diplomatic pressure, yet Saddam remained defiant and securely in power- and hostile to the United States. The experience of 9/11 sharpened the concern about anti-U.S. terrorism from any quarter, not just al Qaida.

   ~~~

   At the Camp David strategy sessions, Rumsfeld’s remarks generally tracked the ideas in our memo. He left it to Wolfowitz, however, to present the case for action against Saddam Hussein. The President decided to initiate U.S. military action in Afghanistan, but to defer such action against Iraq.

   as 9/11 was mentioned frequently in the same speeches and even sentences with Iraq.

   Besides this being addressed in my post, the link in mentioning 9/11 and Iraq in the same speech isn’t that Iraq attacked us; it’s that the Administration, in the attempt to prevent the next terror attack, was engaging a broader war against international terrorism; not narrowly focusing on a law enforcement approach of “revenge/retaliation” against Osama bin Laden and his merry men.

   The war planners didn’t even see the need to directly link Iraq to the attacks of 9/11:

   Don’t we need a link to 9/11?

   *No: This isn’t about revenge or retaliation, but about self-defense.

   *A link to 9/11 would just emphasize what we already know – that the
   current Iraqi regime is extremely hostile to us and is willing to cooperate
   with international terrorism.

   Scott:

   Iraq and 911 are not the same battle anymore than Iraq and the Khobar Towers attacks were the same battle, but they are the same Jihad; the same war

   FACT: According to documents, “Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle U.S. troops. The document provides another piece of evidence challenging the Bush administration contention of close cooperation between Saddam’s regime and al Qaeda terrorists.” [NY Times, 1/15/04]

   And yet pre and post-war documents indicate that even if Saddam didn’t trust religious fanatics, he was not opposed to working with them to achieve common short term goals.

   Note also how Baathists in post-war occupied Iraq worked hand-in-hand with Islamic holy warriors to foment violence and chaos.

   FACT: “CIA interrogators have already elicited from the top Qaeda officials in custody that, before the American-led invasion, Osama bin Laden had rejected entreaties from some of his lieutenants to work jointly with Saddam.” [NY Times, 1/15/04]

   Counter Fact (one of many…just too lazy to do a thorough job, here- again, go directly to Iraqi Perspectives Project):

   The relationship began shortly before the first Gulf War. According to reporting in the memo, bin Laden sent “emissaries to Jordan in 1990 to meet with Iraqi government officials.” At some unspecified point in 1991, according to a CIA analysis, “Iraq sought Sudan’s assistance to establish links to al Qaeda.” The outreach went in both directions. According to 1993 CIA reporting cited in the memo, “bin Laden wanted to expand his organization’s capabilities through ties with Iraq.”

   The primary go-between throughout these early stages was Sudanese strongman Hassan al-Turabi, a leader of the al Qaeda-affiliated National Islamic Front. Numerous sources have confirmed this. One defector reported that “al-Turabi was instrumental in arranging the Iraqi-al Qaeda relationship. The defector said Iraq sought al Qaeda influence through its connections with Afghanistan, to facilitate the transshipment of proscribed weapons and equipment to Iraq. In return, Iraq provided al Qaeda with training and instructors.”

   One such confirmation came in a postwar interview with one of Saddam Hussein’s henchmen. As the memo details:

   4. According to a May 2003 debriefing of a senior Iraqi intelligence officer, Iraqi intelligence established a highly secretive relationship with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and later with al Qaeda. The first meeting in 1992 between the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) and al Qaeda was brokered by al-Turabi. Former IIS deputy director Faruq Hijazi and senior al Qaeda leader [Ayman al] Zawahiri were at the meeting–the first of several between 1992 and 1995 in Sudan. Additional meetings between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda were held in Pakistan. Members of al Qaeda would sometimes visit Baghdad where they would meet the Iraqi intelligence chief in a safe house. The report claimed that Saddam insisted the relationship with al Qaeda be kept secret. After 9-11, the source said Saddam made a personnel change in the IIS for fear the relationship would come under scrutiny from foreign probes.

   A decisive moment in the budding relationship came in 1993, when bin Laden faced internal resistance to his cooperation with Saddam.

   5. A CIA report from a contact with good access, some of whose reporting has been corroborated, said that certain elements in the “Islamic Army” of bin Laden were against the secular regime of Saddam. Overriding the internal factional strife that was developing, bin Laden came to an “understanding” with Saddam that the Islamic Army would no longer support anti-Saddam activities. According to sensitive reporting released in U.S. court documents during the African Embassy trial, in 1993 bin Laden reached an “understanding” with Saddam under which he (bin Laden) forbade al Qaeda operations to be mounted against the Iraqi leader.

   Another facilitator of the relationship during the mid-1990s was Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim (a.k.a. Abu Hajer al-Iraqi). Abu Hajer, now in a New York prison, was described in court proceedings related to the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as bin Laden’s “best friend.” According to CIA reporting dating back to the Clinton administration, bin Laden trusted him to serve as a liaison with Saddam’s regime and tasked him with procurement of weapons of mass destruction for al Qaeda. FBI reporting in the memo reveals that Abu Hajer “visited Iraq in early 1995″ and “had a good relationship with Iraqi intelligence. Sometime before mid-1995 he went on an al Qaeda mission to discuss unspecified cooperation with the Iraqi government.”

   Some of the reporting about the relationship throughout the mid-1990s comes from a source who had intimate knowledge of bin Laden and his dealings. This source, according to CIA analysis, offered “the most credible information” on cooperation between bin Laden and Iraq.

   This source’s reports read almost like a diary. Specific dates of when bin Laden flew to various cities are included, as well as names of individuals he met. The source did not offer information on the substantive talks during the meetings. . . . There are not a great many reports in general on the relationship between bin Laden and Iraq because of the secrecy surrounding it. But when this source with close access provided a “window” into bin Laden’s activities, bin Laden is seen as heavily involved with Iraq (and Iran).

   Reporting from the early 1990s remains somewhat sketchy, though multiple sources place Hassan al-Turabi and Ayman al Zawahiri, bin Laden’s current No. 2, at the center of the relationship. The reporting gets much more specific in the mid-1990s:

   8. Reporting from a well placed source disclosed that bin Laden was receiving training on bomb making from the IIS’s [Iraqi Intelligence Service] principal technical expert on making sophisticated explosives, Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed. Brigadier Salim was observed at bin Laden’s farm in Khartoum in Sept.-Oct. 1995 and again in July 1996, in the company of the Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti.

   9 . . . Bin Laden visited Doha, Qatar (17-19 Jan. 1996), staying at the residence of a member of the Qatari ruling family. He discussed the successful movement of explosives into Saudi Arabia, and operations targeted against U.S. and U.K. interests in Dammam, Dharan, and Khobar, using clandestine al Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia. Upon his return, bin Laden met with Hijazi and Turabi, among others.

   And later more reporting, from the same “well placed” source:

   10. The Director of Iraqi Intelligence, Mani abd-al-Rashid al-Tikriti, met privately with bin Laden at his farm in Sudan in July 1996. Tikriti used an Iraqi delegation traveling to Khartoum to discuss bilateral cooperation as his “cover” for his own entry into Sudan to meet with bin Laden and Hassan al-Turabi. The Iraqi intelligence chief and two other IIS officers met at bin Laden’s farm and discussed bin Laden’s request for IIS technical assistance in: a) making letter and parcel bombs; b) making bombs which could be placed on aircraft and detonated by changes in barometric pressure; and c) making false passport [sic]. Bin Laden specifically requested that [Brigadier Salim al-Ahmed], Iraqi intelligence’s premier explosives maker–especially skilled in making car bombs–remain with him in Sudan. The Iraqi intelligence chief instructed Salim to remain in Sudan with bin Laden as long as required.

   The analysis of those events follows:

   The time of the visit from the IIS director was a few weeks after the Khobar Towers bombing. The bombing came on the third anniversary of a U.S. [Tomahawk missile] strike on IIS HQ (retaliation for the attempted assassination of former President Bush in Kuwait) for which Iraqi officials explicitly threatened retaliation.

   IN ADDITION TO THE CONTACTS CLUSTERED in the mid-1990s, intelligence reports detail a flurry of activities in early 1998 and again in December 1998. A “former senior Iraqi intelligence officer” reported that “the Iraqi intelligence service station in Pakistan was Baghdad’s point of contact with al Qaeda. He also said bin Laden visited Baghdad in Jan. 1998 and met with Tariq Aziz.”

   11. According to sensitive reporting, Saddam personally sent Faruq Hijazi, IIS deputy director and later Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, to meet with bin Laden at least twice, first in Sudan and later in Afghanistan in 1999. . . .

   14. According to a sensitive reporting [from] a “regular and reliable source,” [Ayman al] Zawahiri, a senior al Qaeda operative, visited Baghdad and met with the Iraqi Vice President on 3 February 1998. The goal of the visit was to arrange for coordination between Iraq and bin Laden and establish camps in an-Nasiriyah and Iraqi Kurdistan under the leadership of Abdul Aziz.

   That visit came as the Iraqis intensified their defiance of the U.N. inspection regime, known as UNSCOM, created by the cease-fire agreement following the Gulf War. UNSCOM demanded access to Saddam’s presidential palaces that he refused to provide. As the tensions mounted, President Bill Clinton went to the Pentagon on February 18, 1998, and prepared the nation for war. He warned of “an unholy axis of terrorists, drug traffickers, and organized international criminals” and said “there is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein.”

   The day after this speech, according to documents unearthed in April 2003 in the Iraqi Intelligence headquarters by journalists Mitch Potter and Inigo Gilmore, Hussein’s intelligence service wrote a memo detailing coming meetings with a bin Laden representative traveling to Baghdad. Each reference to bin Laden had been covered by liquid paper that, when revealed, exposed a plan to increase cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda. According to that memo, the IIS agreed to pay for “all the travel and hotel costs inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden.” The document set as the goal for the meeting a discussion of “the future of our relationship with him, bin Laden, and to achieve a direct meeting with him.” The al Qaeda representative, the document went on to suggest, might provide “a way to maintain contacts with bin Laden.”

   Four days later, on February 23, 1998, bin Laden issued his now-famous fatwa on the plight of Iraq, published in the Arabic-language daily, al Quds al-Arabi: “For over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.” Bin Laden urged his followers to act: “The ruling to kill all Americans and their allies–civilians and military–is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”

   Although war was temporarily averted by a last-minute deal brokered by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, tensions soon rose again. The standoff with Iraq came to a head in December 1998, when President Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a 70-hour bombing campaign that began on December 16 and ended three days later, on December 19, 1998.

   According to press reports at the time, Faruq Hijazi, deputy director of Iraqi Intelligence, met with bin Laden in Afghanistan on December 21, 1998, to offer bin Laden safe haven in Iraq. CIA reporting in the memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee seems to confirm this meeting and relates two others.

   15. A foreign government service reported that an Iraqi delegation, including at least two Iraqi intelligence officers formerly assigned to the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan, met in late 1998 with bin Laden in Afghanistan.

   16. According to CIA reporting, bin Laden and Zawahiri met with two Iraqi intelligence officers in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998.

   17. . . . Iraq sent an intelligence officer to Afghanistan to seek closer ties to bin Laden and the Taliban in late 1998. The source reported that the Iraqi regime was trying to broaden its cooperation with al Qaeda. Iraq was looking to recruit Muslim “elements” to sabotage U.S. and U.K. interests. After a senior Iraqi intelligence officer met with Taliban leader [Mullah] Omar, arrangements were made for a series of meetings between the Iraqi intelligence officer and bin Laden in Pakistan. The source noted Faruq Hijazi was in Afghanistan in late 1998.

   18. . . . Faruq Hijazi went to Afghanistan in 1999 along with several other Iraqi officials to meet with bin Laden. The source claimed that Hijazi would have met bin Laden only at Saddam’s explicit direction.

   An analysis that follows No. 18 provides additional context and an explanation of these reports:

   Reporting entries #4, #11, #15, #16, #17, and #18, from different sources, corroborate each other and provide confirmation of meetings between al Qaeda operatives and Iraqi intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan. None of the reports have information on operational details or the purpose of such meetings. The covert nature of the relationship would indicate strict compartmentation [sic] of operations.

   Information about connections between al Qaeda and Iraq was so widespread by early 1999 that it made its way into the mainstream press. A January 11, 1999, Newsweek story ran under this headline: “Saddam + Bin Laden?” The story cited an “Arab intelligence source” with knowledge of contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda. “According to this source, Saddam expected last month’s American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam’s long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift if formally.”

   INTELLIGENCE REPORTS about the nature of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda from mid-1999 through 2003 are conflicting. One senior Iraqi intelligence officer in U.S. custody, Khalil Ibrahim Abdallah, “said that the last contact between the IIS and al Qaeda was in July 1999. Bin Laden wanted to meet with Saddam, he said. The guidance sent back from Saddam’s office reportedly ordered Iraqi intelligence to refrain from any further contact with bin Laden and al Qaeda. The source opined that Saddam wanted to distance himself from al Qaeda.”

   The bulk of reporting on the relationship contradicts this claim. One report states that “in late 1999″ al Qaeda set up a training camp in northern Iraq that “was operational as of 1999.” Other reports suggest that the Iraqi regime contemplated several offers of safe haven to bin Laden throughout 1999.

   23. . . . Iraqi officials were carefully considering offering safe haven to bin Laden and his closest collaborators in Nov. 1999. The source indicated the idea was put forward by the presumed head of Iraqi intelligence in Islamabad (Khalid Janaby) who in turn was in frequent contact and had good relations with bin Laden.

   Some of the most intriguing intelligence concerns an Iraqi named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir:

   24. According to sensitive reporting, a Malaysia-based Iraqi national (Shakir) facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000). Sensitive reporting indicates Shakir’s travel and contacts link him to a worldwide network of terrorists, including al Qaeda. Shakir worked at the Kuala Lumpur airport–a job he claimed to have obtained through an Iraqi embassy employee.

   One of the men at that al Qaeda operational meeting in the Kuala Lumpur Hotel was Tawfiz al Atash, a top bin Laden lieutenant later identified as the mastermind of the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole.

   25. Investigation into the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 by al Qaeda revealed no specific Iraqi connections but according to the CIA, “fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement.”

   26. During a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that he was tasked to travel to Iraq (1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was “encouraged” after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training.

   Read the rest.

   FACT: “Sec. of State Colin Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no ‘smoking gun’ proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of al-Qaeda.’I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,’ Powell said.” [NY Times, 1/9/04]

   More accurate fact:
   

   It happens again with former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Opponents of the war often point to an impromptu press conference Sec. Powell where he says, “I have not seen a smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection,” but that’s where an opponent will deliberately try and mislead by only providing half of Sec. Powell’s comments. Back on planet Earth, Sec. Powell’s full comments can be examined and rather than being a voice of dissent to the idea of Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda, he explains that the idea of such ties…was not some sort of neocon fiction. He says it was a prudent assessment instead.

   “I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did.” [emphasis added] – Sec. Powell 1/8/04

   FACT: “Three former Bush Administration officials who worked on intelligence and national security issues said the prewar evidence tying Al Qaeda was tenuous, exaggerated and often at odds with the conclusions of key intelligence agencies.” [National Journal, 8/9/03]

   COUNTER FACT: Already cited Silberman-Robb Report and SSCI Report on Iraq Prewar Intelligence; in addition, there were those within the CIA such as Pillar and Drumheller who behaved out of partisan politics over professionalism. What Policy Staffers such as Christina Shelton did, was raise questions regarding evidence ignored and unexamined by an incurious CIA that refused to look outside their own established box when it came to al-Qaeda/Iraq connections. (Re: Pg 264-273, War and Decision, by Douglas Feith)

   FACT: Declassified documents “undercut Bush administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to Al Qaeda.” [LA Times, 7/19/03].

   Would be easier if you could establish a link to the full article.

   Here’s a bone.

   FACT: “The chairman of the monitoring group appointed by the United Nations Security Council to track Al Qaeda told reporters that his team had found no evidence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein.” [NY Times, 6/27/03]

   Here’s what else the article says:

   Michael Chandler, the chairman of the monitoring group, cautioned that the absence of evidence linking Mr. Hussein to Al Qaeda was not definitive.

   ”That doesn’t mean to say it doesn’t exist,” Mr. Chandler said, but simply that his team has found no such evidence.

   During Security Council testimony in February, before the United States-led war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that Al Qaeda training camps existed in northeastern Iraq. Mr. Chandler acknowledged Mr. Powell’s findings today and did not contest them, noting that the camps Mr. Powell referred to may have been destroyed by American military strikes.

   Regarding camps: Read here. And here. Here.

   The Iraqi Perspectives Project is the latest to date as far as I know.

   FACT: “U.S. allies have found no links between Iraq and Al Qaeda.’We have found no evidence of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda,’ said Europe’s top investigator. ‘If there were such links, we would have found them. But we have found no serious connections whatsoever.’” [LA Times, 11/4/02]

   I find this part of the article amusing in a sad way:

   Danielle Pletka, an analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, defended Cheney’s comments, saying he referred only to a “relationship” between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

   “Nobody has ever said Saddam directed Al Qaeda in attacks,” Pletka said. “But it is clear that had he decided to do so at any point it would have been easy.”

   Members of Congress and some in the intelligence community said Thursday that Cheney’s comments could lead the public to believe there was collaboration between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that that was not supported by the evidence.

   In the very same piece, at the top, the author mentions “cast doubt on theories that Iraq and Al Qaeda collaborated.”

   If anything, it’s the media itself that contributes to the distortions.

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   November 15, 2008 at 9:58 pm
2. Wordsmith says: 102

   @Robert:
   

   and I do not wish to get into another unending argument, but does my view make me unpatriotic, as the Bush/Chaney rhetoric has often been implied?

   But all too often we are saying we want to bring democracy and by the way our oil companies will get the contracts. Democracy at gunpoint is not what we should be after.

   Is this just a perception, or reality? Who got the oil contracts? Who’s out there, at cost of American blood and treasure, to protect innocent Iraqis, train their military, build schools, hospitals, mosques, and repair infrastructure long neglected even before we arrived?

   @Michael:
   

   Guys,

   I don’t mean to keep you from ripping each other’s heads off, but I think this flag discussion (as important as it may be) is way off topic from the intent of this forum. Can we please get back on track?

   Michael I simply wondered in here by accident when I fished Robert’s last comment from the spam filter. I just now noticed the date on this post (feb 26th) and the topic. All I can say is “jimminy crickets, why is this thread even still riding on fumes, here?”

   At this point, after almost 100 comments, I think it’s only natural for things to stray off-topic and on tangents; if it happened after the first few comments, I’d be more sympathetic to agreeing with you.

   It can still return back on topic….although at this stage of the election, I don’t see why.

   Reply

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   November 15, 2008 at 10:25 pm
3. Robert says: 103

   Wordsmith –
   You have lived up to your name- maybe you should call yourself WordSmith&WessonSemiAutomatic- I will not have the time to go through your long post – no disrespect intended – I have spent way more time on this forum than I ever intended, and my attempts to move on have led to further conversation – I am working on a large work project, and I have put it off too many times.
   I apologize therefore, if this seems to be preemptively dismissive of the points that you have put time and energy into. But, even were I to stipulate stronger evidence than I was aware of that Saddam was dangerous and capable of endangering not the fabric of our nation, but nonetheless American lives, through terrorist activity, Bush’s underlying reason for going into
   Iraq, from its inception was political and oh yea, we can find some good reasons to take Saddam out.

   As a political maneuver it was poorly, no, horribly, planned, and executed, highly misunderestimated at the very least, though with exception, some aspects of the last year, and the initial military strikes.

   Waste and abuse abounded. Billions of dollars disappeared without a trace, private contractors were paid exorbitant fees and no bid contracts were given out for things that the military handled just fine in past wars.

   As a result of going into Iraq, our eye was off the ball – actually going after Al Quaeda and Bin Laden. Or taking directly what Bush said in 2002-

   “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

   “I am truly not that concerned about him.”- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden’s whereabouts, 3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

   My basic point, on getting into this particular phase of this part of the thread, was about the tragedy that we were fighting the wrong war, and fighting a preemptive war, which I believe was wrong to begin with, and which has proven to diminish our standing and respect in he world, and to be part of the economic difficulties we find ourselves in now, and how wrapping it in the flag is, to me a misuse of patriotism.

   To say that maybe there was something more behind the evidence – as I believe is your point, does not solve my concerns, even taking your post at face value. The lead up to Iraq was not a conversation of the relative benefits, it was not a national conversation, it was a sales job at a post 9-11 time when it was largely considered unpatriotic to question it.

   Some may be more comfortable with trusting that kind of central decision making concerning national defense, which after all, is based on analysis of secret information which we cannot know. I know I was not.

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   November 16, 2008 at 9:09 am
4. wordsmith says: 104

   @Robert:
   

   I will not have the time to go through your long post – no disrespect intended – I have spent way more time on this forum than I ever intended, and my attempts to move on have led to further conversation

   I understand. We all value how we spend our time. However…since you tacked on the following, it’s hard for me to shut up and just move on as well, without comment:

   As a result of going into Iraq, our eye was off the ball – actually going after Al Quaeda and Bin Laden. Or taking directly what Bush said in 2002-

   Our eye was never taken off the ball. There’s a larger game being played (remember: the war was about the broader strategy of fighting the Islamic terror NETWORK- not one man and one organization). We were still hunting bin Laden when we militarily went into Iraq to remove a known sponsor of terrorism. The only military unit “diverted” for the invasion of Iraq was the 5th Special Forces Group, ironically sent to Northern Iraq to fight those al Qaeda fighters who fled the battlefield of Afghanistan to seek shelter amongst those who acted in Saddam’s interest, in the Kurdish terror-tory. bin Laden purportedly fled to Pakistan by Nov/Dec 2001.

   “I don’t know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don’t care. It’s not that important. It’s not our priority.”- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

   “I am truly not that concerned about him.”- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden’s whereabouts, 3/13/02 (The New American, 4/8/02)

   Robert,

   Can you not understand the politics behind Bush having made those statements, when he made them? And do you honestly think he did not feel that capturing/killing bin Laden would be a feather in his cap and not be “a big deal”? This past year, he reaffirmed what it would mean for him to find bin Laden, on his watch, before his presidency ends.

   In the context of Bush’s statements to reporters at that time, Bush attempted to minimize the role of capturing/killing one man, and tried to refocus reporter’s minds on the bigger picture: That this war will not end with bin Laden’s demise. He’s a symbolic victory, but the war on terror would continue until all Islamic terror organizations are brought to their knees in non-prayer.

   The political embarrassment of bin Laden as the primary focus of the U.S. military (one man vs. the best military in the world), knowing that in all likelihood, he is beyond the reach of conventional military forces would only make bin Laden out to be larger than life and lionized by those sympathetic to his cause. Saying he’s not that important and significant, dampens the sting of bin Laden eluding us; but behind the scenes, we’ve never stopped hunting for him.

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   November 17, 2008 at 10:19 am
5. Texas001 says: 105

   obama said that his tax plan would allow seniors making less than $50,000 to pay no income taxes yet when I use the tax calculators on the internet I find that to be totally incorrect. Is he lying or are the calculators wrong?

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   January 9, 2009 at 9:54 pm
6. Craig says: 106

   “Is he lying or are the calculators wrong?” (Texas001)

   He is lying as usual. No point verifying it. Everything that comes out of is mouth is a lie.

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   January 9, 2009 at 10:00 pm
7. Craig says: 107

   You can listen to Plains radio right now. They are talking about the issue right now.
   http://www.plainsradio.com/chat1.html

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   January 9, 2009 at 10:13 pm