Joe Scarborough at Politico makes some good points about the origins of the Iraq war (h/t Voskamp):
A cursory review of quotes over the past decade and a half illustrates just how aligned the most powerful Democrats in Washington were with George W. Bush when it came to the threat they thought Saddam Hussein posed to America. The Democratic quotes also show how short our collective memory is as a nation.
Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, called the ability of states like Iraq to use their weapons “the greatest security threat we face.”
Clinton’s national security adviser agreed.
Sandy Berger stated with certainty that “Saddam will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has 1- times since 1983.”
Other Democratic leaders, such as Edwards, Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller also encouraged military action against Saddam Hussein if it was necessary to eliminate his weapons programs.
One of Bush’s harshest critics during the war, Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spent the first years of the George W. Bush administration warning the new president of Iraq’s grave threat. In 2001, Levin told Bush that “Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.”
In 2002, Hillary Clinton also warned that Saddam was working to rebuild his nuclear program and had “given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.”
Rockefeller, the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said in 2002 that “there is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons in the next five years.”
Bush’s 2000 opponent, Al Gore, was quoted in that same year saying that “Saddam has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country” and that finding them would be “impossible for as long as Saddam is in power.”
Bush’s 2004 presidential opponent, John Kerry, also vouched for Iraq’s WMD programs when he told the Senate, “I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction are in Saddam Hussein’s hands and is a real and grave threat to our security.”
Even the president’s harshest war critic, Sen. Ted Kennedy, told fellow senators that “we have known Saddam Hussein has been seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction for some time.”
The New York Times joined the Democratic chorus by grimly warning of the threat posed by Iraq in the final years of the Clinton administration. The Times expressed grave concerns over the dictator’s attempt to develop weapons and warned U.S. leaders that negotiations could be ineffective, since “it is hard to negotiate with a tyrant who has no intention of honoring his commitments and who sees nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as his country’s salvation.”
On the eve of President George W. Bush’s first Inauguration, The Washington Post was even more apocalyptic, calling Iraq’s weapons program the greatest threat facing the new president.
The Democratic Senate passed its war resolution 77-23. The Republican House followed suit, supporting action against Saddam 296-133.
Two years before Bush was even elected to the White House, his predecessor told Americans that their purpose should be to “seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD program.” President Clinton saw Iraq as a major threat.
You think these people actually believed what they said?
I mean, I agree with the general premise – that Iraq was “bi-partisan” but you really think the ruling class was worried about “American Security?” hmm…..
Well worth remembering – thanks Phil. All of those reps quoted above and all of those who voted in support of the war should be made to wear a placard around their necks that reads: no WMD, no Al Qaeda, 4484 dead american soldiers, 200,000 Iraqis killed, 5,000,000 Iraqi refugees, one trillion dollars -ASK ME WHY.
june 30, 1922, the us house and senate passed joint resolution hr 360 mimicking the wording of the balfour declaration. at that moment both the democratic and republican parties were effectively hijacked into the zionist camp. iraq was simply a war the zionists wanted. they will get more
“President Clinton saw Iraq as a major threat.”……
Clinton was told Iraq was a major threat by the usual suspects:……..in January of 1998…so he attacked Iraq 10 months later in December ’98.
And isn ‘t it strange that no one remembers that IAE inspectors WERE IN IRAQ doing their job (and not finding anything) and Bubba told them to get out so he could bomb Iraq? Isn’t that odd? But bombing Iraq sure took attention away from his impeachment hearings didn’t it?
January 26, 1998
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.
Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.
Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration’s attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam’s regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Sincerely,
Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick
It was the same neocon shit then is is now. The ‘wur on terriers is the same crap…..a joke. I love it when these peices of trash say they are “standing by to help” in the war effort. Round them up and kick them out of a plane over Iraq or Afghan.
This so stupid it might be true. Or just more monkey cage rattling. Here we have zios stumbling around like bulls in a china shop– who couldn’t even fight Hizbollah and their ‘elite corp’s is going to be some “far ranging” strike force? ..all the way to Horn of Africa?
They are going to carry out clandestine and multi-arm operations ? Israle has never tried a ‘clandestine” affair they didn’t get nailed for and they can’t even reach Iran succesfully and yet they are going to do multi-arm operations in hostile countries.
These clowns are on some drug…..what was the drug that made people think they could fly and they jumped out windows…LSD?
“The Depth Corps is the equivalent of the U.S. Special Operations Command”..sure they are..go on boys bomb Iran and then send your ‘ special forces’ in…. it’ll be the last anyone ever sees of you. LOL
Special Reports
Israel forms corps for strategic strikes
Published: Dec. 19, 2011 at 4:07 PM
TEL AVIV, Israel, Dec. 19 (UPI) — Amid deepening tension between Iran and its principal adversaries — the United States and Israel — the Jewish state has formed a Special Forces command to carry out strategic strikes deep inside hostile territory.
The formation of the new command indicates that Israel’s military envisages long-range, largely clandestine and multi-arm operations will have a much higher priority than the conventional operations that have been the main focus of military activity for decades.
Israeli defense officials say the elite new corps’ area of operations includes the “third circle,” a term that usually encompasses the Persian Gulf and the Horn of Africa.
Indeed, the new formation, officially known in Hebrew as the Depth Corps, has been popularly dubbed the “Iran Command” so ingrained has the Islamic Republic become in the national psyche as the main existential threat to the Jewish state because of its alleged quest for nuclear weapons.
The Depth Corps is the equivalent of the U.S. Special Operations Command that oversaw the clandestine operation that led to the assassination of Osama bin Laden in May and will have the authority to initiate special operations.
It’s the brainchild of the recently appointed chief of the general staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and Maj. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, until recently head of the Northern Command along the border with Lebanon.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier and a legendary Special Forces leader, green-lighted the project.
The corps will integrate the Israeli military’s various special units such as the elite Sayeret Matkal of Military Intelligence, the air force’s Shaldaq and the navy’s Flotilla 13, coordinating their operations and their unique specialties to an unprecedented degree.
Sayeret Matkal was commanded by Barak in the 1970s. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, then an army captain, was one of his officers.
They both participated in the May 9, 1972, storming of a hijacked Boeing 707 of Sabena Belgian Airlines at Lod Airport outside Tel Aviv — now Ben Gurion International — held by Black September Palestinian militants to free the 100 hostages aboard the jet.
The new corps will be commanded by Maj. Gen. Shai Avitai, a former Sayeret Matkal chief and a close associate of Barak.
Israel’s military objectives are primarily focused on Iran at this time, with threats to unleash pre-emptive strikes, primarily using fighter-bombers and ballistic missiles, against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear infrastructure.
But it’s also concerned with clandestine arms shipments, mainly from Iran, funneled through the Red Sea into Egypt via Sudan. At least two long-range strikes were reportedly carried out in January 2010 against arms convoys moving north through the Sudanese desert.
But the formation of the new command follows major gains by Islamist radicals in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya amid the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings that began in January.
The seismic shifts in the Arab world’s geopolitical landscape, with a savage confrontation under way in Syria between the minority Alawite regime of President Bashar Assad and its opponents that could produce another Islamist-dominated power, have radically altered Israel’s security perspective.
One consequence could be the collapse of Israel’s landmark 1979 peace treaty with Israel, lynchpin of its political, economic and defense policies for 30 years.
“The establishment of the new corps has been under consideration for the past decade … but was repeatedly pushed back due to more pressing issues,” The Jerusalem Post observed.
“What has changed is the nature of the threat that Israel faces, which requires elite units to operate far from Israel and deep within enemy territory.”
…….http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/19/Israel-forms-corps-for-strategic-strikes/UPI-28051324328870/