Saturday, April 5, 2008

You defy me?

Honestly... I can't find even one document where MI6 stated that they EVER believed the report! Not one, and I have been looking now for nearly 3 hours.

They were obligated to forward the Italian-"found" (now known to be "forged") documents showing arrangements between Niger and Iraq for the procurement of "yellowcake" to Iraq... but NEVER stated that it was corroborated or substantiated, and within 2 days of the President's SotU address in 2003, had agreed (along with the Germans, the IAEA, the French AND the CIA (???) that the documents were "crude forgeries" (source HERE).

Look, if you still don't want to discuss this rationally, that's fine... we'll drop it. I just can't understand why it is so impossible to explain the questions and issues to me. I was accused, very recently, of adhering to "revisionist" history, but I would venture to say that ANYONE that doesn't question the actions and policies of an administration that uses information as questionable as this "yellowcake" crap as the basis of proof that Saddam's WMD programs were in full operation and thus constituted such a clear and present danger to the US is the REAL revisionist.

Our reasoning behind invading Iraq was NOT based on Saddam's non-compliance with any of the 19 resolutions... or even ALL of them. It was NOT on his human rights abuses. It was not on his known or supposed association with terror or terror-sponsoring states. It was not on his past actions as someone likely to make war on his neighbors or his own people.

It was based on the threat he posed to US interests in the region through his ability to attack US troops or American allies with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons or material.

I do not deny, now or in the past, that many people believed he had this capacity, including Tony Blair, the majority of the US Congress, the entire Cabinet, and the greater portion of the NATO leadership... we all shared the same intelligence material.

However, I STILL maintain that as long as there was one grain of doubt that he actually had this capability... we were obligated to find the PROOF we needed, or we were acting without justification and simply imposing our foreign policy on another sovereign nation. Even that would have been acceptable... but it wasn't the course the Administration wanted to take. They insisted that they had the proof, that they knew he had the weapons and the means to use them, that they knew he was "nuke" ready in less than 10 years, and that we could not allow this to happen. Only the very last turned out to be true.

Now, we have a nuclear North Korea. Now, we have an active and defiant nuclear program in Iran. Now, we have a military stretched too thin trying to fight a war that has been mishandled and mismanaged since March of 2003. Is that revisionist? THAT is the basis of my argument, and always has been.

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