Gore Lied, People Died!

[Napoleon]

I've heard it discussed so many times, I've just about read it. And anyway -- what makes this ISG report gospel?

Because they thoroughly investigated the issue and supported their conclusions with documents seized after Saddam's fall from power, interviews with members of Saddam's regime, visiting and analyzing sites, etc etc.

You can't have it both ways. Either he had destroyed all the WMDs or they were too degraded to be harmful.

It's not a two-way issue. It's the same thing. Abandoning munitions in the desert is tantamont to destruction. If a munition is no longer capable of inflicting mass destruction then it is no longer a weapon of mass destruction.

No. It was the IDF's tactical strikes in what I consider to be the most impressive air mission post-WW2.

You can consider them to be that but it doesn't change the fact that they didn't end Saddam's nuclear program.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

The ISG was bipartisan - and under a Republican dominated Congress and president and yet they still found no WMD's worthy of note.

Hardly bipartisan. They threw in a couple of token Republicans for diversity, not to substantiate that side of the policy debate.

Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy... http://www.meforum.org/article/1034

On their three day visit, only one member even left the GZ.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Because they thoroughly investigated the issue and supported their conclusions with documents seized after Saddam's fall from power, interviews with members of Saddam's regime, visiting and analyzing sites, etc etc.

The ISG really didn't do anything significant. They went on a short visit to Iraq in order to gather some "evidence" for their predetermined conclusion.

It's not a two-way issue. It's the same thing. Abandoning munitions in the desert is tantamont to destruction. If a munition is no longer capable of inflicting mass destruction then it is no longer a weapon of mass destruction.

And that's the gray area. What constitutes "mass destruction". These weapons, according to Col. Hunt were still capable of doing serious damage to our troops.

You can consider them to be that but it doesn't change the fact that they didn't end Saddam's nuclear program.

For all intents and purposes, yes, the 1981 raid on the reactor killed Saddam's nuclear program.

 

[Coyote]

Hardly bipartisan. They threw in a couple of token Republicans for diversity, not to substantiate that side of the policy debate.

Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy... http://www.meforum.org/article/1034

On their three day visit, only one member even left the GZ.

That's according to a source that describes itself as:

The Middle East Forum, a think tank, seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East. It defines U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam, whether terroristic or lawful; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; improving the management of U.S. democracy efforts; reducing energy dependence on the Middle East; more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia; and countering the Iranian threat. The Forum also works to improve Middle East studies in North America.​

I would say that source has a very right-leaning agenda which makes me take whatever they say with a grain of salt.

Is there any unbiased source out there that analyzed the study group?

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Is there such thing as an unbiased source? I vaguely recall reading an article on RealClearPolitics a while back on it. I'll try to find it.

 

[Napoleon]

The ISG really didn't do anything significant. They went on a short visit to Iraq in order to gather some "evidence" for their predetermined conclusion.

Why would a group hand picked by the Bush Administration have a predetermined conclusion in contradiction with the claims of the Bush Administration?

And that's the gray area. What constitutes "mass destruction". These weapons, according to Col. Hunt were still capable of doing serious damage to our troops.

Mr. Hunt can spout all of the alarmist bs he wants but those who actually analyzed and tested the munitions came to a completely different conclusion.

For all intents and purposes, yes, the 1981 raid on the reactor killed Saddam's nuclear program.

Yet it remained functional until 1991.

 

[TVoffBrainOn]

What does this prove? "We have no evidence that Saddam was involved with the 9/11 attacks." So what? That says nothing about his links to al Qaeda which was involved with the 9/11 attacks.

What's a link? I drive a KIA. Do I have links to Kim Jong Il?

This doesn't make any sense. How can you have evidence that Saddam was not involved with terrorists at the same time you have evidence that he was?

I never said there was evidence. There's difference between intelligence and evidence.

You can't just declare "that's the truth" without any kind of evidence. What was this "agenda" or "policy" exactly?

I provided evidence. Read the NIE. It's pretty cut and dry.

Here's the Agenda/Policy : http://www.scribd.com/doc/9651/Rebuilding-Americas-Defenses-PNAC

It's a document called Rebuilding America's Defense. Im sure you've read it.

Sure it was. EVERYONE thought that Saddam was developing nukes

EVERYONE IS DEVELOPING nukes. ****ing Paraguay is probably "developing" Nukes.

 

[Coyote]

Hardly bipartisan. They threw in a couple of token Republicans for diversity, not to substantiate that side of the policy debate.

Many appointees appeared to be selected less for expertise than for their hostility to President Bush's war on terrorism and emphasis on democracy... http://www.meforum.org/article/1034

On their three day visit, only one member even left the GZ.

The ISG consisted of two co-chairs - 1 Repub, 1 Dem (it was proposed by a Republican) and it's members were 4 Republicans and 4 Democrats. Sounds bipartisan.

Both ideological extremes were less then enthusiastic about the final report's recommendations.

From Wikipedia:

At a news conference with the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Washington on December 6, 2006 President George W. Bush commented on the Iraq Study Group's report and admitted for the first time that a "new approach" is needed in Iraq, that the situation in Iraq is "bad" and that the task ahead was "daunting". [13] President Bush said he would not accept every recommendation by the ISG panel but promised that he would take the report seriously. President Bush is expected to wait for three other studies from the Pentagon, the US State Department and the National Security Council before charting the new course on Iraq. [14] On US foreign policy, President Bush warned that he would only talk to Iran if it suspended uranium enrichment and bring Syria on board if it stops funding the opposition in Lebanon, extends support to the Lebanese government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and provides economic help to Iraq. [15]

Antonia Juhasz noted the study's focus on Iraqi oil in the opening chapter and in Recommendation 63 and concluded that the Iraq Study Group would extended the Iraq War until American oil companies have guaranteed legal access to all of Iraq's oil fields.[16]

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called the group's conclusions "very dangerous" to Iraq's sovereignty and constitution, according to CNN. "As a whole, I reject this report," Talabani said.[17]​

All in all, it sounds quite bipartisan.

 

[ArmChair General]

First of all -- I still don't agree that there was no link. Secondly, there is a difference between being wrong and lying. All the intelligence said that there was a link and that Saddam had nukes, so he acted on it. If it had been proved wrong, then he was wrong. That doesn't mean he lied.

Your an idiot then.


It was lying, they just used the cowardly kind of lying, that you use through other people.