Ole’ Mitt is giving John Kerry a run for his money for the Flip-Flopper crown:
On an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” a few days ago, Mitt Romney was asked whether, given what we know today, the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was the right thing to do. Romney wouldn’t say.
“Oh boy, that’s a big question,” Romney answered. “And going back and trying to say, given what we know now, what would we have done? Would we have invaded or not? At the time, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now.” Romney mentioned intelligence before the war suggesting that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. After the war, U.S. and international inspection teams did not find those weapons, which had been the basis for much of the Bush administration’s case for invading Iraq. Still, Romney told Fox’s Chris Wallace that the invasion was “appropriate at the time” because the U.S. acted “in light of that belief” — that is, in intelligence that turned out to be faulty.
Three days later?
This time, his answer was not only different but definitive: No, the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq had officials known there were no weapons of mass destruction there.
“Well, if we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction — if somehow we had been given that information, why, obviously we would not have gone in,” Romney said.
“You don’t think we would have gone in?” asked MSNBC’s Chuck Todd.
“Well, of course not,” Romney answered. “The president went in based upon intelligence that they had weapons of mass destruction. Had he known that that was not the case, the U.N. would not have put forward resolutions authorizing this type of action. The president would not have been pursuing that course.”
My beef isn’t just his flip-flopping, it’s his focus on WMD’s and whether or not the UN would of authorized force without them. WMD’s were NOT the only reason we went in.
We knew Saddam had ties to terror groups.
we know from Clinton Administration claims, from captured documents, from pre-war and post-war intelligence that Saddam’s intelligence agencies had relationships with various groups in the Al Queda terrorist network of groups. We know from the 1998 Clinton Administration indictment of Osama Bin Laden that the two had reached an agreement to get WMD into the hands of the Al Queda network of terrorist groups.
the indictment states that Al Qaeda reached an agreement
with Iraq not to work against the regime of Saddam Hussein and that they would work cooperatively with Iraq, particularly in weapons development.We also know from 1990-2003 Saddam’s government considered itself at war with the United States and from 1992-today Osama Bin Laden’s Al Queda network of terrorist groups has been at war with the United States.
A few great posts to read would be the debate between Scott, our Author, and a commenter. Both parts here and here.
Not only did he have the ties to terrorist groups but he had the means to get WMD’s into their hands. This would be unthinkable after 9/11, and after the previous 13 years in which he flipped the world off that was a chance no one could take.
Oh, but there were other reasons:
- The Cease Fire Agreement, broken many times by Iraq
- They thwarted inspections of their WMD facilities as mandated by the Cease Fire
- Iraq persisted in violating other resolutions by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its people
- The fact that Iraq had proven they were willing to use WMD from prior history.
- The fact that Iraq demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces
- The fact that after 9/11 the threat posed by any terrorist group acquiring WMD would be grave
And many more.
The man was evil and committed acts which ARE acts of war, ie firing on US fighter jets, attempted assassination of political leaders…you add that onto his history of aggression against its neighbors and his relationships with various terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, and you have a great reason to invade.
Not just WMD.
The fact that at the time everyone and their mother believed he had WMD is an added factor, but not THE factor.
Ok, off my soapbox.
Now onto some more Mitt news. It doesn’t just involve flip-floppery but full on stupidity. Here he is claiming that the individual mandate is “conservative”
Requiring people to have health insurance is “conservative,” GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told MSNBC on Wednesday, but only if states do it.
The argument aims to improve Romney’s appeal to Republican voters concerned about the healthcare reform plan he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts in 2006. The Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate similar to the one in President Obama’s healthcare law, which conservatives despise.
“Personal responsibility,” Romney said, “is more conservative in my view than something being given out for free by government.”
Oh please. Personal responsabilitity is definitely conservative…but forcing someone to pay for everyone’s health insurance is NOT.
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