Clinton lied in order to justify his attack on Iraq

[rmclain]

"Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons," Clinton said.

http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/

One of my family members was on patrol in Iraq shortly before Bush decided to take on Sadam Hussain this time. The guys in his humvee decided to get out of the humvee to investigate something (I forget what), but suddenly everyone hit the deck with seizures. Keep in mind in the 22 years my cousin has been alive he has never had seizures. Another patrol came by and found my cousin and the other guys. My cousin woke up in a hospital not knowing what happened. Then the govt. medically discharged all of them for having seizures. Smells like a nerve-agent to me.

R. McLain

 

[michaeledward]

I'm sorry, Michael, but as much I am angry at this Administration, I cannot buy this Democratic ALIBI. The only pre-war intelligence I had before the invasion came via a dial-up internet connection - and the Open Source stuff I got was enough to convince me that an invasion would ultimately be contrary to the interests of the United States and that the threat posed by Saddam was grossly exaggerated, both by careful selection and some outright fabrications.

No, in my view, the Democrats supported it NOT because intelligence was witheld, rather their positions were largely based upon COLD POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY.

You don't need to apologize. I don't think either explanation (yours or mine) is mutually exclusive. Here on MartialTalk, there is a copy of a letter I wrote to one of my Senators prior to the invasion. From it's text, you can see that I, too, was convinced, the invasion was a bad idea, and the threat not as great as some claimed.

However, I do not know all of the intelligence the Congress was seeing - although we learn more about it every day.

And certainly, it was not by chance the vote for authorization of use of force occurred in the weeks before the mid-term election; The first nationwide election after 9/11. Any congressperson who voted against that authorization, was surely attacked for being soft on terror.

Who is who controls the Congressional schedule? The schedule of that vote was, no doubt, deliberate, and was designed as political cover for those who knew intelligence was weak. It built in a 'they said it too' defense.

So, yeah, I think there is quite a bit of Political Expediency.