In this thread, we discuss Political Implications of the Capture of Saddam

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by enlightenment06
I love me some sugar and spice

thanks for making my greekchat experience more enjoyable!

Yay! Speaking of which, I have an addition to make to the GC Crush thread . . .

Originally posted by russellwarshay
"It's not lying if you believe it."
- George Costanza

I'm sure I'm not the only one who believes that "I thought it was justified" is not nearly enough justification for a country to make a decision that will kill thousands of people, cost billions of dollars, and alienate our allies.

Not to mention that, as I said, the case was vastly overstated. The Bush admin didn't say "We think they have weapons of mass destruction." It was a little more explicit than that.

Cheney probably couldn't have dreamt up a more receptive and appropriate audience for the speech he was about to deliver at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, where he would declare unequivocally, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...wmd/index.html

Asked if there existed any current evidence behind these claims [that Iraq possessed WMD] or if the claims were based on Iraq's possession of some of these weapons in the past, Rumsfeld said he didn't "think that if it were the latter the president would be saying what he's saying or the director of Central Intelligence would be saying what he's saying." -- http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...wmd/index.html

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld perhaps was the most expansive: "There's no debate in the world as to whether they have those weapons. There's no debate in the world as to whether they're continuing to develop and acquire them. There's no debate in the world as to whether or not he's used them. There's no debate in the world as to whether or not he's consistently threatening his neighbors with them. We all know that. A trained ape knows that." -- http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/061703A.shtml

In the second week of the war, Rumsfeld is asked on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" if he was surprised that no WMD had yet been found, being that coalition forces already controlled so much of the country.

"Not at all," Rumsfeld said. Coalition forces controlled substantial portions of the country, but those "happen not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed." Don't worry, Rumsfeld conveyed. "We know where they are," he said. -- http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...wmd/index.html

(Okay, so I lied. It wasn't Bush himself who said that he knew where they were. Close enough.)

At its most innocent, Bush and his team decided that Saddam had WMD and decided to ignore all reports that suggested anything to the contrary (of which there were a number). At its worst, the government purposefully decieved the American people and, like I said before, took advantage of their insecurities in order to build support for a war which, before 9/11, would not have been supported.