posted on May 25, 2007 06:58:50 PM new
President Bush yesterday insisted he is a credible messenger on the war, because he reads the intelligence. That answer was rendered obscenely ironic today, as the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports from the National Intelligence Council, both given to the White House in January, 2003... both predicting virtually everything that did go wrong... would go wrong.
Bush has no one to blame except himself for the mess in Iraq. He was warned this disaster was going to happen and decided to go ahead anyway.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 25, 2007 07:14:13 PM new
I disagree AGAIN. lol
All those dems are ALSO responsible for our going into Iraq. And as we see today.... they're STILL supporting funding this war.
Come back to reality. Admit they are failing to do things YOUR way. Your 'polls' are worthless....the dems/liberals won't do a thing except TALK and then CONCEDE.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 25, 2007 07:45:10 PM new
NOPE it's America's war.
And MOST American's would like to see us meet our goal in Iraq. So unlike you, sybil.
Your hatred of this President has blinded you and your ilk to the threat America faces....and will face for generations to come.
And we see now there isn't enough support from your ilk in congress to stop the war.
Oh...they'll continue SAYING they want it stopped....lol...lol.....but they're NOT going to find the courage NOR ENOUGH VOTES to force America to admit defeat to AQ.
Nope....that's just an un-American dream.
And today...the liberals proved it. All that talk and most of them wouldn't vote to NOT fund this war.
Better wake up and smell the roses.....the liberals lack backbone....and that's why they've back peddled TODAY.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 25, 2007 08:00:19 PM new
I agree, Mingo, trying to shift the responsibility of ending the war to the Democrats but insisting that Bush has the final say about the war because he has the power to make all the decisions doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
The antiwar Democrats are crying betrayal -- and justifiably so.
For a Democratic Congress is now voting to fully fund the war in Iraq, as demanded by President Bush, and without any timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal. Bush got his $100 billion, then magnanimously agreed to let Democrats keep the $20 billion in pork they stuffed into the bill -- to soothe the pain of their sellout of the party base.
Remarkable. If the Republican rout of 2006 said anything, it was that America had lost faith in the Bush-Rumsfeld conduct of the war and wanted Democrats to lead the country out.
Yet,today, there are more U.S. troops in Iraq than when the Democrats won. More are on the way. And with the surge and retention of troops in Iraq beyond normal tours, there should be a record number of U.S. troops in country by year's end.
Why did the Democrats capitulate?
Because they lack the courage of their convictions. Because they fear the consequences if they put their antiwar beliefs into practice. Because they are afraid if they defund the war and force President Bush to withdraw U.S. troops, the calamity he predicts will come to pass and they will be held accountable for losing Iraq and the strategic disaster that might well ensue.
Democrats are an intimidated party. The reasons are historical. They were shredded by Nixon and Joe McCarthy for FDR's surrenders to Stalin at Tehran and Yalta, for losing China to Mao's hordes, for the "no-win war" in Korea, for being "soft on communism."
The best and the brightest -- JFK's New Frontiersmen -- were held responsible for plunging us into Vietnam and proving incapable of winning the war. A Democratic Congress cut off aid to Saigon in 1975, ceding Southeast Asia to Hanoi and bringing on the genocide of Pol Pot.
Democrats know they are distrusted on national security. They fear that if they defund this war and bring on a Saigon ending in the Green Zone, it will be a generation before they are trusted with national power. And power is what the party is all about.
========================
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 25, 2007 08:18 PM ]
posted on May 25, 2007 08:19:16 PM new
"" know. It's VERY difficult for you to GRASP how your party could have FAILED you so terribly. ""
No failure, they're not done yet.
It IS bushit's war. Why! YOU have said constantly that HE has the final say...that makes it HIS war....why can't you "grasp" that???
Do you actually get up and dance when you hear about the slaughter in Iraq or just sit and LOL.
Do you LOL more when Muslim children in Iraq get blown to bits or more when a FEMALE soldier gets killed????
posted on May 25, 2007 08:28:38 PM new
I'm doing a VERY happy dance today.....since once again the liberal dems showed they couldn't provide what they promised.
WHY? Because they're GUTLESS to vote against funding this war. That's why.
And that's NOT my fault nor our Presidents fault. They hold the ONLY responsibility for voting to CONTINUE funding the war.
That's a fact.....that's reality. Neither of which I expect YOU to EVER grasp, sybil.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 25, 2007 09:11:15 PM new
And while you are doing your happy dance, rooting for your leader and calling for more bloodshed, block out all the ones being sent to fight the dirty fight, the ones in their graves, the ones who will never dance again.
posted on May 26, 2007 05:29:09 AM new
Linda is no different than Bush. When presented with the facts she chooses to ignore them and come up with her reality.
In 2003 Bush had all the intelligence reports of what was likely to happen if they went in and removed Saddam. Bush insisted he knew more than the all the intelligence reports. Well now he has to pay for his ignorance.
Your 'polls' are worthless This coming from the one that doesnt believe in polls. Or is that she doesn't believe in polls unless they support her claims. What a joke.
Come back to reality
I am not the one living in a fantasy land Linda. It is you. You refuse to believe what is happening in Iraq. You and Bush want to paint this rosy picture of everything that is taking place. You and Bush refuse to believe intelligence reports.
Just like Bush you are in denial.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on May 26, 2007 05:37:42 AM new
BAGHDAD - Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released Friday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.
More than four years after the March 2003 invasion, with Iraq still mired in violence and 150,000 U.S. troops there under continued attack from al-Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents, the intelligence warnings seem prophetic. Other predictions, however, were less than accurate. Intelligence analysts assessed that any postwar increase in terrorism would slowly subside in three to five years, and that Iraq's vast oil reserves would quickly facilitate economic reconstruction.
‘Chilling and prescient warning’
The report is the latest release in the Senate committee's ongoing study of prewar intelligence. A July 2004 report identified intelligence-gathering and analysis failures related to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Still pending is a study of how the administration used intelligence on Iraq in the run-up to the war.
The report was released the same day President Bush signed a $120 billion war funding bill from Congress that includes benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
Full politics coverage
In a statement attached to yesterday's 229-page report, the Senate intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), and three other Democratic panel members said: "The most chilling and prescient warning from the intelligence community prior to the war was that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that would be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda terrorists."
In addition to portraying a terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qaeda that did not exist, the Democrats said, the Bush administration "also kept from the American people . . . the sobering intelligence assessments it received at the time" -- that an Iraq war could allow al-Qaeda "to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at Americans it did not have prior to the invasion."
Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), vice chairman of the panel, and three other Republican members said the assessments were "not a crystal ball" and that the warnings emphasized in the committee report "lacked detail or specificity that would have guided military planners." Overall, the Republicans said the report "exaggerates the significance of the prewar assessments" and that the inquiry itself "has become too embroiled in politics and partisanship."
Withdrawals were planned for summer 2003
Most of the information in the report was drawn from two lengthy assessments issued by the National Intelligence Council in January 2003, titled "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq" and "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq," both of which the Senate report reprints with only minor redactions. The assessments were requested by Richard N. Haass, then director of policy planning at the State Department, and were written by Paul R. Pillar, the national intelligence officer for the Near East, as a synthesis of views across the 16-agency intelligence community.
The report includes lists indicating that the analyses, which were reported by The Washington Post last week, were distributed at senior levels of the White House and the State and Defense departments and to the congressional armed services and appropriations committees. At the time, the White House and the Pentagon were saying that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators, democracy would be quickly established and Iraq would become a model for the Middle East. Initial post-invasion plans called for U.S. troop withdrawals to begin in summer 2003.
The classified reports, however, predicted that establishing a stable democratic government would be a long challenge because Iraq's political culture did "not foster liberalism or democracy" and there was "no concept of loyal opposition and no history of alternation of power."
Eying a sectarian rift
They also said that competing Sunni, Shiite and Kurd factions would "encourage terrorist groups to take advantage of a volatile security environment to launch attacks within Iraq." Because of the divided Iraqi society, there was "a significant chance that domestic groups would engage in violent conflict with each other unless an occupying force prevented them from doing so."
While predicting that terrorist threats heightened by the invasion would probably decline within five years, the assessments said that lines between al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world "could become blurred." U.S. occupation of Iraq "probably would boost proponents of political Islam" throughout the Muslim world and "funds for terrorist groups probably would increase as a result of Muslim outrage over U.S. actions."
In the economic arena, the analysts predicted that oil revenue would greatly ease the rebuilding of Iraq's economy, provided that oil fields and infrastructure were not severely damaged. But, they said, "cuts in electricity or looting of distribution networks would have a cascading disastrous impact" and that large amounts of outside assistance would still be needed to provide services such as water and sanitation.
The assessments, like the Bush administration's public statements, inaccurately predicted that Iraq's oil production could be quickly increased, forecasting that production could rise to 3.1 million barrels a day "within several months of the end of hostilities." The analysts did not foresee that sabotage, theft and continued fighting would leave Iraq with oil production at less than 2.4 million barrels per day.
The Senate panel said it focused on the two NIC assessments because they were the only prewar analyses representing the consensus views of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and other agencies. The committee also published excerpts from other prewar reports and assessments from individual agencies.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
Exactly right. This is not an appropriate occasion for a "happy dance" no matter who you choose to support. To be so titillated by the prospect of more war, death and destruction while terrorists proliferate is INSANE!
September will mark the beginning of the end of this colossal Bush blunder...an end to a war that leaves us more threatened and vulnerable to terrorist attack here.
posted on May 26, 2007 08:14:21 AM new
While all you radicals here try and speak for me.....again you're WRONG about what my happy dance is all about.
It's the fact that the DEMS proved they are gutless, once again.....AND more importantly our troops have the funding they need.
The dem party put the funding off long enough to start making it felt by our troops. And now....the commanders on the ground will have what they need.
THOSE two things are what MY happy dance is all about....not the lunatic ravings from the twisted minds of you liberals.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 26, 2007 08:53:37 AM new
You're TRYING to be so clever again, helen, and you're FAILING.
I'm not dancing on anyones graves.
I'm THRILLED the radical liberals were once again shown to be GUTLESS wonders....NOT leaders.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 26, 2007 08:56:36 AM new
AND I'll REMIND you that this is the SECOND time they've proven this to the voters.
When they were doing nothing but calling for Bush to end this war.....he finally had the republicans present a bill to 'withdraw' immediately.
And AGAIN the gutless wonders vote to STAY.
THEIR support for the war....even though that WASN'T what they'd been quoted as saying to the CAMERAS. LOL LOL
This is the SECOND time they've proven they're ALL TALK.....but NO conviction.
No guts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on May 26, 2007 08:58 AM ]
posted on May 26, 2007 09:01:49 AM new
Linda_K, don't blame me if my opinions draw such attention from you that you can't ignore them. Sometimes when I read such stupidity from you I get the urge to say something just like everyone else here does, that's all.
posted on May 26, 2007 09:16:00 AM new
Funny you call them gutless if they vote to fund the troops and you would have called them gutless if they had refused. As I said, your thinking is illogical...rather like bumper sticker rhetoric.
You simply toss truth and logic out the window and rely primarily on pitifully weak efforts to disparage character and twist a tale.
posted on May 26, 2007 09:26:16 AM new
You have made your positions very clear here as you are talking the same talk daily, over and over again, Linda_K. By now I realize you worship one man as leader and consider him ruler in chief who runs all of America and everyone else should shut up and go with his program no matter the outcome.
Everyone's opinion is a 'lie' in your eyes if it isn't in agreement with your beliefs. Free speech is very difficult for you to tolerate unless it comes from you - almost always laced with lies.
posted on May 26, 2007 09:38:51 AM new
That's not a true statement either, kiara.
Repeating it over and over doesn't make it true, either. LOL
It only appears that way to you because it's you and your ilk that are always focusing your posts, LIVES on me. LOL
There are many other liberals here I have never called a liar. Don't include them with you three clowns. I dont.
------------------------
ld, you're confused again. When the CIC gets info...he and he alone makes the final decision. After 9-11 there was no reason to take the risk of saddam - no reason at all, especially since the clinton admin had said the SAME THING about Iraq/saddam. A FACT you liberals refuse to acknowledge.
It was ALREADY our national policy to remove saddam, put into LAW under clinton.
THIS President wasn't willing to take the chance....following 9-11. 20/20 hindsight is wonderful...but he nor our intelligence agencies had any way of knowing.
THAT, imo, is what you refuse to 'get'. And all those of your ilk who claimed Bush knew about the 9-11 attack before it happened would have been spewing the same garbage had saddam sold the womd we KNEW he had and American's had died because of him selling it to AQ.
President's have opinions put in front of them....the most valid info our intelligence agencies have in front of them...but it's THEIR CALL on how to deal with that info.
That's WHY the American voters re-elected President Bush. Even after we'd been in Iraq for a while.
You're living in the past.
We're there now. And we're NOT going to be leaving and YOUR party is SUPPORTING our mission there by FUNDING it....again and again and now again. LOL LOL
You're just going to have to life with it - AT least until your party finds their GUTS/backbones.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on May 26, 2007 10:04:00 AM new
Gee, such a long explanation from you because you are unable to tell the difference between an opinion and a lie.
There are many other liberals here I have never called a liar. Don't include them with you three clowns. I dont.
posted on May 26, 2007 10:22:43 AM newI'm THRILLED the radical liberals were once again shown to be GUTLESS wonders...
The only gutless wonder around here is Bush. He failed to listen to the advice of the intelligene reports pre-9/11. He failed to listen to military officials regarding the planning of this war, he failed to listen to the intelligence reports about would happen if he went ahead with his plan and now he refuses to listen to the American people. Bush is gutless, blind and stubborn to what is going on.
The only thing Bush is good for is his cheerleading and slogans. WMD, axis of evil, stay the course, the surge, fight them there, not here. This is all Bush is good for because he can't think of real things to say and it is all you and your fellow drones can comprehend.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
they're STILL supporting funding this war.
