Iraq. They never did anything to us. Were Sadam and his two whacko boyz horrible? Yes. But did they do anything to us? No. Before you say it! Bush had invasion plans drawn before 9/11. Aaaaaand, the Bush administration told over 900 lies in the year leading up to the invasion about the non-existent WMD's leading up to the unprecedented, offensive invasion of Iraq. The WMD's didn't exist, and I never thought they did.
Originally Posted by OliviaHoward
I beg to differ. Too many would rather just claim: “Bush lied.” Yet, that is the real intellectual dishonesty.
At the time, the absence of substantial intelligence indicated one of two possibilities: 1) nothing was going on, or 2) the enemy was really good at hiding what was going on. Hence, the WMD Commission and the Butler report both indicated that the intelligence community was correct in suggesting that Saddam was probably seeking to re-arm his military forces with WMD. That conclusion was, in part, based on these known facts: 1) Saddam had had WMD in the past. 2) Saddam had strong incentives to reconstitute his arsenal. 3) He had the money to refinance such a reconstitution. 4) He had trained, competent technicians who could reconstitute his stockpile of WMDs. 5) He had the necessary materiel on hand to proceed with such a reconstitution. 6) He repeatedly stalled and deceived the inspectors—which begged the question—“What is he hiding?”
Too many Americans cannot believe and accept that such gross mistakes in intelligence gathering and analysis can be made. One need only look to Pearl Harbor, Operation Market Garden, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and in 1979 Iran to see similar gross mistakes in intelligence—and those presidents were all Dimocrats. In Iraq, even if there had been no errors in gathering and analyzing the evidence, as per the WMD Commission and the Butler report, the analysts could only conclude that Saddam seemed to be actively pursuing all kinds of WMD and probably had some on hand. While it might be comforting to some to continue to believe that the evidence supported a conclusion different than that reached by the intelligence community—and that accepted by the Bush administration—that is simply not the case.
And, the U.S. has war plans to confront Canada and Mexico. That's just the way a well prepared military operates.