http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1781019,00.html

The first to withdraw would be British forces. Blair, on the other hand, plans to stick around for another four years.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/23/wirq23.xml

We’re not leaving when asked, Jimmie.

My view is that the president is simply not up to the job. Like President Reagan, he brings personal popularity to the White House. But he is also a lazy, unthoughtful, uncurious man, unburdened by intellect. That gives too much influence to people who are motivated by baser desires, like VP Cheney.

But hatred, no. President Bush is now in a really awful situation, largely of his own making. America will one day come back from this pit, but President Bush’s legacy will always be that he took a surplus and ran up the largest debt ever; he ignored climate change and favored gas companies; he took peace and re-formed it into war; and he worsened the lives of all Americans except for the very richest.

—

As for the UN, please re-read my last post. I did in fact mention the piece you say I omitted. I wrote: Resolution 1441 requires Iraq to provide “an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure … of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles”.

Iraq did in fact do that. I well remember the 5 CDs of data being passed to the USA, and I remember the curious and lengthy delays in copying them so that other UN members could also review the data.

There isn’t a “convoluted conspiracy” here and President Bush isn’t “the greatest evil ever to walk the earth”. He is simply a man who has failed (once again) at a very important task, and is having great difficulty admitting it.

1) “Collaborative” does not mean “no connection”. That’s a hoary old fallacy tht’s been refuted to death, yet the left still uses it as if we’re not capable of using a dictionary.

2) Then the UN should have made a definitive report to that effect. They did not. IN fact, in report after report the inspectors told of not being granted unrestricted access to the site they needed and of being bullied and intimitated at several others.

3) Resolution 1441 also mandated one other thing that you left out: that Saddam Hussein by a date certain provide a full accounting of all his weapons and weapons activities. The UNSC even moved that date back several months to allow Hussein more time to provide it. He never provided such an accounting.

Biull, if your policy is to change you mind when you learn new facts, I must say that it look as if you have an extensive fact-screening process. See, I’ve heard all the things you’ve said, pretty much when they were first said. I also weigh them against who says them and for what purpose. In the end, though, in cases where we do not have certain information (like, say, intelligence estimates), I lean toward the conclusion that seems simplest, instead of the one where I have to create a convoluted conspiracy in order to believe. That’s what I believe that you and other Bush-haters have done over the past five years – overlooked the simplest solutions for the ones that have Bush at the Greatest Evil Ever to Walk the Earth.

I know a twenty-two year old Vermont Gaurdsman, who has been stationed in al-Ramadi for almost a year. When he was home on leave last early winter, he told of how their patrols will never stop while going through a village or neighborhood. Anything that gets in their way is run-over. This includes children. If the patrol or convoy were to stop, they would be hit with small arms, rpg’s, or God-forbid an IED.

I can’t see how this story has a happy ending.

ps. Yes, I did get to your site via Daou.
peace

1. Saddam Hussein was actively helping (al-Qaeda member) Zarqawi.

No, that’s completely false. The Sept. 11 commission reported that it found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda.
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

But you don’t have to believe the 9/11 commission. President Bush confirmed that too. When asked in Jan 2003, if he believed that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th, the President replied: “I can’t make that claim.”
See the transcript at the White House site (near the middle):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030131-23.html

It’s possible you are confusing the presence of an Al Qaeda member with *support* for him. If you are running those two different things together, then the US is the biggest supporter of Al Qaeda today, because of the presence of many, many, many more Al Qaeda members in US controlled territory in Iraq, than there ever were when Saddam ruled there.

2. UN Inspectors weren’t effective.

No, that’s completely false too. The point at which I (and I am sure many others) stopped believing the claims from the Bush adminstration was when administration officials like Donald Rumsfeld said things like “we know exactly where the WMD are”. The obvious question was “why don’t you immediately give that information to the UN inspectors?” That question never was answered satisfactorily, to this day.

In any event, I am sure you recognize the logical fallacy of claiming the inspectors were ineffective because they did not find the WMD. There were not any there to find, remember?

3. Hussein violated the unanimous Resolution 1441

No, you are again completely wrong. This answer doesn’t admit of a soundbite reply though. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 was passed unanimously on November 8, 2002, offering Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” that had been set out in several previous resolutions (Resolution 660, Resolution 661, Resolution 678, Resolution 686, Resolution 687, Resolution 688, Resolution 707, Resolution 715, Resolution 986, and Resolution 1284), notably to provide “an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles”. Resolution 1441 threatens “serious consequences” if these are not met. It reasserted demands that UN weapons inspectors should have “immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access” to sites of their choosing, in order to ascertain compliance.

Iraq accepted the resolution in mid-November, before the deadline, and UN inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei presented several reports to the UN detailing Iraq’s level of compliance with Resolution 1441. The reports became increasingly more favorable for Iraq.

By mid-March, Resolution 1441 had become crucial in the Iraq disarmament crisis. Under furious debate was whether a further Security Council resolution (the so-called “second resolution”) was necessary to authorize war, or whether 1441 and preceding resolutions sufficed to legitimize military enforcement of the UN’s disarmament aims. UK prime minister Tony Blair had for several weeks been under significant domestic pressure to obtain the “second resolution”, and he led efforts for a unanimous resolution authorizing force.

Of the permanent, veto-holding members of the Security Council, France, Russia, and the People’s Republic of China wished the inspection period to be extended, and for no military action to go ahead without a further UN resolution. On the other hand, the USA and Britain, while admitting that such a resolution was diplomatically desirable, insisted that Iraq had now been given enough time to disarm or provide evidence thereof, and that war was legitimized by 1441 and previous UN resolutions.

On March 10, French president Jacques Chirac declared that France would veto any resolution which would automatically lead to war. This caused open displays of dismay by the US and British governments. The drive by Britain for unanimity and a “second resolution” was effectively abandoned at that point.

President Bush informed the UN Secretary General that he planned to attack Iraq very shortly. The Secretary General immediately withdrew the weapons inspectors. The inspectors protested vigorously and asked that they be given more time to complete their mission. President Bush launched his disasterous attack on Iraq immediately.

Jimmie — I have to say – my policy is to change my mind when I learn new facts. I actively try to understand what is going on in foreign policy, particularly where something as important as a war is concerned. I certainly don’t look only for evidence that supports my pre-existing opinion. I would urge you to look at the great weight of evidence here: President Bush *wanted* war with Iraq, and he carefully set the scene until he got it. Now he is in way over his head; the middle east is more dangerous; America is not safer; there are no good ways out; it’s costing us all a fortune, and our brave servicemen are dying by the thousand.

What will it take for you to change your mind about Iraq? I also recommend this excellent foreign policy analysis (it’s a serious academic paper).
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html

Well, if you completely discount the presense of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was running the al-Qaeda linked group Anrs al-Islam. You might recall that Jordan had been trying to get hold of him for years, but Hussein refused to relenquish him. We have learned since then that Hussein was actively helping Zarqawi’s efforts and that he received medical treatment and refuge from Hussein after being wounded in Afghanistan. He is also the man who was beind the murder of Laurence Foley in Jordan, a murder he pulled off with al-Qaeda help.

However, to believe that international terrorist organizations have no links to each other is simply naive. It is the nature of such organizations to share personnel, material, money, and other support. They have been doing it for decades and there’s not a single reason to believe that they would stop simply to prove your point correct.

And your point about the UN weapons inspectors is laughable. If they hadn’t been able to inspect the critical areas in Iraq for the decade prior to 2003, because Hussein constantly interfered with those inspections, what in the world makes you think they would have done so at any point later. Fact is, the inspection process was critically flawed thanks to the direct and not so covert efforts of Hussein to disrupt them.

Nevertheless, it is true without a shadow of a doubt that Hussein violated the unanimous Resolution 1441 in every single was and that he violated the 1991 cease-fire in every detail as well. Either was was more than ample justification for resuming hostilities and freeing Iraq from tyranny. Everything else, including the stipulation in Res 1441 that Husein possessed WMDs (Bush lied? Well, so did Britain and China and Russia and Syria and every other member of that group), was merely additional, but unnecessary, confrmation.

I do too. Why are we in Iraq again? That country posed NO threat to us; had NO links to Al Qaeda; WASN’T involved with 9/11; and had NO weapons of mass destruction – a fact which the UN weapons inspectors would have been able to confirm if the UN had not withdrawn them at George Bush’s request prior to his March 2003 attack.

At most there are only a few thousand radical terrorists. Attacking Iraq has taken our focus and resources away from the job of hunting down those guys. President Bush even let Bin Laden go when we had him holed up at Tora Bora.

Even worse, the bipartisan 9/11 comission gave the Bush administration failing grades in domestic security. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html

The situation in Iraq is getting worse with time, not better. The sooner we get out of there, let them partition the country into three and have their civil war and possibly Turko-Kurdish war, the better.

You can’t have it both ways – to have a hissy fit when people calmly and coolly challenge you, and at the same time insist that you can censor whatever you like whenever you like.

I give you credit for engaging in a dialog (unlike most ultra right sites) but your most recent post is uncharacteristic and shrill.