On 11/28/05, Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Gary Denton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >The people pushing this war don't care much about the American economy > >as a whole - their biggest friends are in the defense-and oil related > >industries. This is a profiteers war. > > So, if I understand your point correctly, Bush went to war so that a few > key industries could make about 10 billion per year in profit for a couple > of years? He was not only wrong, but happily sacrificed thousands of > lives, hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of the military readyness of > the US, just so a few key friends could make, compared to the 11+ US > ecconomy, chump change? > > In particular, if you compare the profits from this war to the chance of > getting further tax cuts through, dosen't it seem like an inefficient way > to get money to the wealthy?
This was in response to your comment you cut off. Bush didn't care about the economy as a whole, the people he most associated with like the war business just fine. Second, do you deny the history our country has had with war profiteers and the military-industrial complex? Third - There had alreay been a plan in place for years by those who felt they were unjustly out of power to remake the Middle East starting with Iraq and seize control of the oil. The Bush team in military and foreign policy was stacked with this wahawk gang who had their own reasons to going to Iraq and would also profit from a war. > Further, I did a bit of research on Clinton's views. A speach he gave in > early '98 is given at: > > http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/ At the time Clinton was being accused by the GOP of diverting attention from his problems by wagging the dog. In a speech to the nation, President Clinton defended his attack on Iraq, saying a "strong, sustained series of airstrikes" against Iraq was necessary to punish Saddam Hussein for his refusal to comply with U.N. weapons inspectors. Only minutes into "Operation Desert Fox," Republicans were crying "Wag the Dog." Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., joined other leading Republicans in claiming he could not support the attack because he couldn't be sure it wasn't politically motivated, although Lott had been briefed three weeks ago about the possibility of an attack if Saddam defied the United Nations. There were debates on the moderate-left about the bombings: http://www.salon.com/news/1998/12/cov_17newsb.html You will note it was the Democratic hawks that were urging an attack: http://www.salon.com/news/1998/12/cov_17newsa.html In a point of agreement both conservative and Scott Ritter saw the attack as unnecessary: The Washington Times (12/18/98, p. 1) reports "The White House orchestrated a plan to provoke Saddam Hussein into defying United Nations weapons inspectors so President Clinton could justify air strikes, former and current government officials charge. "Scott Ritter, a former U.N. inspector who resigned this summer, said yesterday the U.N. Special Commission (Unscom) team led by Richard Butler deliberately chose sites it knew would provoke Iraqi defiance at the White House's urging. "Mr. Ritter also said Mr. Butler, executive chairman of the Unscom, conferred with the Clinton administration's national security staff on how to write his report of noncompliance before submitting it to the U.N. Security Council Tuesday night. "The former inspector said the White House wanted to ensure the report contained sufficiently tough language on which to justify its decision to bomb Iraq. "'I'm telling you this was a preordained conclusion. This inspection was a total setup by the United States,' Mr. Ritter said. 'The U.S. was pressing [the U.N.] to carry out this test. The test was very provocative. They were designed to elicit Iraqi defiance.'..." TIMING IS EVERYTHING "The White House knew by Dec. 9, when U.N. inspectors were in Baghdad, that the House had planned to debate impeachment as early as Wednesday, Dec. 16. Air strikes began that day." EVIDENCE CONFIRMS THAT CLINTON'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL ATTACK ON IRAQ WAS A LONG-PLANNED POLITICAL PLOY Robert Novak points out that (The Washington Post, 12/21/98, p. A29) "As Clinton took Palestinian applause in Gaza last Monday [December 14], secret plans were underway for an air strike coinciding with the House impeachment vote. The president had time to consult with Congress and the U.N. Security Council but took no step that might stay his hand. "As whenever a president pulls the trigger, Clinton's top national security advisers supported him. But majors and lieutenant colonels at the Pentagon, whose staff work undergirds any military intervention, are, in the words of a senior officer, '200 percent opposed. They disagree fundamentally.' They know the attack on Iraq was planned long before Butler's report and consider it politically motivated." U.N. VIOLATIONS PROP WAS A CLINTON-SCRIPTED PROP According to Rowan Scarborough (The Washington Times, 12/17/98, p. A1), "The White House notified the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday that President Clinton would order air strikes this week, 48 hours before he saw a United Nations report declaring Iraq in noncompliance with weapons inspectors, it was learned from authoritative sources last night.... "Pentagon sources said National Security Council aides told the Joint Chiefs to quickly update a bombing plan that was shelved in mid-November and were told that a strike would be ordered in a matter of days. "Israeli spokesman Aviv Bushinsky said yesterday in Jerusalem that President Clinton discussed preparations for an attack with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just minutes before Mr. Clinton flew home from Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport on Tuesday, ending a three-day peace mission...." U.S. MILITARY OFFICIALS WERE SKEPTICAL "Nevertheless, a senior congressional source, who asked not to be named, said senior Pentagon officers expressed great skepticism to him about the raids. This source said that the White House eagerness to launch air strikes grew with intensity as a parade of centrist Republicans announced they would vote to impeach the president, in a vote originally scheduled for today. "'I have had senior flag and general officers question the timing,' the congressional source said. 'I have had senior military officers laughing. I hate to say that....Why now? He hasn't built a coalition. He hasn't done anything. Why this timing?'..." http://www.conservativeusa.org/wagdog.htm The IAEA had reported in December 1998 that it had dismantled Saddams nuclear weapons program: "When we left in December '98 we had concluded that we had neutralized their nuclear-weapons program. We had confiscated their fissile material. We had destroyed all their key buildings and equipment. The story centers on the Iraq crisis that broke out on December 16, 1998. Richard Butler, head of the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq, had just released a report accusing the Iraqi regime of obstructing U.N. weapons checks. On the basis of that report, President Clinton announced he would launch airstrikes against Iraqi targets. Out of concern for their safety, Butler withdrew his inspectors from Iraq, and the U.S.-British bombing proceeded. The Washington Post reported all these facts correctly at the time: A December 18 article by national security correspondent Barton Gellman reported that "Butler ordered his inspectors to evacuate Baghdad, in anticipation of a military attack, on Tuesday night." But in the 14 months since then, the Washington Post has again and again tried to rewrite history--claiming that Saddam Hussein expelled the U.N. inspectors from Iraq. Despite repeated attempts by its readers to set the record straight in letters to the editor, the Post has persisted in reporting this fiction. That damn So-Called Liberal Media at it again. Not only did Saddam Hussein not order the inspectors' retreat, but Butler's decision to withdraw them was--to say the least--highly controversial. The Washington Post (12/17/98) reported that as Butler was drafting his report on Iraqi cooperation, U.S. officials were secretly consulting with him about how to frame his conclusions. According to the Post, a New York diplomat "generally sympathetic to Washington" argued--along with French, Russian, Chinese, and U.N. officials--that Butler, working in collusion with the U.S., "deliberately wrote a justification for war." "Based on the same facts," the diplomat said, "he [Butler] could have just said, 'There were something like 300 inspections and we encountered difficulties in five.'" The findings of the IAEA as to the status of the Iraqi weapons program after December 16, 1998 are that: 1 There were no indications that Iraq successfully produced nuclear weapons. 2 Iraq was either successful or on the verge of being successful at discovering how to enrich Uranium and make an explosive package for use in a nuclear weapon. 3 Iraq was not able to produce more than a few grams of weapons-grade fissile material through its own enrichment programs, far too little for a nuclear weapon. 4 There was no indication that Iraq had acquired any nuclear-weapons material abroad. 5 There was no evidence that Iraq maintained any capabilities to produce nuclear weapons material of any practical significance. What was this assault designed to achieve? Mr. Clinton said he could wait no longer to attack because the holy month of Ramadan was about to begin. But then what's the point of a bombing mission that has to end in a few days because of Ramadan? A brief bombing had no chance of ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It wasn't going to permanently destroy, or even hamper in a major way, weapons-development or research facilities. Even if the U.S. military planners knew where they were, the facilities were likely well protected underground. Indeed, Rod Barton, a senior UN weapons inspector, wrote that the damage done to Iraq's weapon-makings ability was "probably marginal." He added that "The inspectors working for Unscom had searched for years for such arsenals; if the inspectors had not found them, it is unlikely that the United States, even with its impressive intelligence resources, would know where they were." Scott Ritter, a former member of Unscom, has also criticized the mission as pointless and suspect. Finally, Mr. Clinton acted without authorization of the UN Security Council. In the past the United States has used the UN as a cover for its unilateral goals. This was true with the Gulf War in the first place. But the president knew there was major opposition in the Security Council. The one good thing to come out of the attack, then, is that the unconscionable economic embargo on Iraq might end, since several countries wish to buy its oil. http://www.fff.org/comment/ed1298d.asp The major source for the neo-cons stated beliefs of Iraq's non-existent nuclear program was the Randon Group proclaimed Saddam's Bombmaker - a notorious lier provided by Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to built support for an invasion. http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2002/Khidhir-Hamza- Lies27nov02.htm Imad Khadduri who actually was with the nuclear program and lived in Iraq until 1998 stated this program was completely dismantled just after the war - as did the CIA's most trusted defector. From another conservative source - I read both sides - Gen. Hussein Kamal – Saddam's son-in-law – had defected to Jordan in 1995, carrying with him thousands of documents on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" program. Kamal was extensively interrogated by the CIA, and by Rolf Ekeus of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq and Maurizio Zifferero of the IAEA Action Team. The "intelligence" the CIA derived from the interrogations is still highly classified, but Zifferero's interview notes were made public for the first time early this year. Basically, Kamal claimed all Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" and the makings thereof had been destroyed, either during the Gulf War or under his orders in the years immediately thereafter. "Nothing remained," Kamal said. As we now know, Kamal told the truth. Ziffereo asked Kamal about Hamza, who had "fled" Iraq shortly before Kamal and was representing himself to the IAEA and to the CIA as having been in charge of Iraq's nuke program. Quoth Kamal: "He is a professional liar. He worked with us, but he was useless and was always looking for promotions. He consulted with me but could not deliver anything. Yes, his original name is Khidir, but we called him Hazem. He went to Baghdad University then left Iraq. He is very bad. So, the CIA has known all along that Hamza was a fraud. Nevertheless, they allowed Hamza – and David Kay – to mislead Congress right up until the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35147 And they repeatedly praised Kamal as the most accurate and trusted source they had on Saddam's WMD programs - all of which Kamal insisted and passed lie detector tests on had been dismantled sortly after the war. My evidence before the war that Iraq had no WMDs was headed by Kamal and Khadduri and supported by other organizations. Gee, I was right - the so called liberal media and the usual GOP leaders were wrong - how could that be? Because I didn't have an agenda of finding excuses to go to war? -- Gary Denton http://www.apollocon.org June 23-25, 2006 "The budget should be balanced; the treasury should be refilled; public debt should be reduced; and the arrogance of public officials should be controlled." -Cicero. 106-43 B.C. Easter Lemming Liberal News Digest - http://elemming2.blogspot.com
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