From TIme Magazine: Cheney knew 9 months before.............

[jokerswild]

CIA sources insist the Bush administration was made aware some time before the State of the Union address that the Niger allegation was false. If those prove true, it kicks the jams out from under the administration's claim that the presence of a falsehood in the President's case against Iraq was simply the product of ignorance. And it may be expected that the CIA will more and more sharply signal that it passed its findings up the food chain, because on the basis of Ambassador Wilson's revelations, they'd be left to take the blame if they didn't. Then again, the media may turn its attention to the role of the Vice President's office: After all, Ambassador Wilson claims his inquiry was initiated by a request from Dick Cheney's office to check out the allegation. So presumably, Wilson's findings will have been reported back there. If so, the former ambassador is not the only one who will want to know what they, and other top officials, made of, and more importantly did with his information.

And right now, the game in Washington is to pin the blame for the fact that a fib, conscious or unconscious, made it into the State of the Union address. And in a summer news trough, that's bad news for the White House.

[Chris Alger]

I think the better questions are: "where was Time Magazine and where were the Democrat critics of the White House when the UN inspectors revealed the Nigerian doucuments to be forgeries weeks before the invasion?" The media and the Democrats basically regurgitated the official line with minor qualifications. None of the mainstream organs, and few opposition leaders (notably Sen. Robt. Byrd and Rep. Dennis Kucinich) were willing to state the obvious: the administration has no evidence that Iraq is a threat, and much evidence (the inability of Saddam to even conquor all of Iraq) proves otherwise. Nor is the country that sacrifices the least (among the richest) when it comes to developmental aid plausibly motivated by the cause of "liberation." The war is therefore one of aggression in violation of international laws and norms. Time and the Democrats should have been out trying to point out the Emporer's nakedness and revoke the war resolution and drawing Hitler analogies instead of broadcasting White House propaganda without qualification.

Our system of public information and discussion chillingly failed to raise the degree of skepticism merited by official requests to support mass killing. Partisan "gotchas" and pretenses to having been deceived by third-rate propaganda are poor substitutes.

[Jimbo]

Chris I do believe you are missing the point. Even if we assume 75% of the reasons provided for invading Iraq (although I am not stating that to be the case) were inaccurate we still should have completed the task for many other reasons. How do you miss that little factoid?

[Boris]

Sorry Jimbo. That's BS. If by inaccuracy you mean those things that Bush thought were true but later turned out to be not true, then that's OK. But for Bush to justify the invasion with "facts" that he knew were highly likely to be untrue, well, that's a lie. And if the case against Iraq was so compelling then Bush certainly should not have to lie to make his case. Foreign policy based on lies is bad. You can not defend the President on this issue of lying.

[Chris Alger]

No, that's ridiculous. When confronted with the lie by a person in a trust relationship, the urgent question is why they lied and what they were trying to cover up, not whether "many other reasons" might exist for what happened apart from the lie. For example, the syllogism "Bush lied about the reasons for the war, therefore the issue is whether the war can be justified for other reasons," is analogous to "my spouse lied about her whereabouts last night, therefore the issue is whether she might have been somewhere that wouldn't bother me."

Of course, people like yourself likely imagine that being cuckolded by the Prez is some sort of patriotic duty, as in responding with "how far" when Bush orders you to "bend over."

[Jimbo]

"If by inaccuracy you mean those things that Bush thought were true but later turned out to be not true, then that's OK."

Yes Boris that is what I meant by inaccurate. I certainly would not suggest any President knowingly lie in order to drum up support for a war. However a lie of omission in this case might be acceptable. An example would be if it was projected that we would lose 10,000 soldiers to overthrow Saddam, leaving that information private is OK by me so long as overthrowing Saddam was the best course of action based on our National interest whether that be currently or in the future.

After all public opinion is not always based on the greater good but often is based on an immediate emotion or in the case of some democrats, long term resentment from the 2000 election results. Unfortunately in today's political climate popular public opinion and the accompanying support provided whether factual or emotional is required to be a successful leader.

[Jimbo]

"No, that's ridiculous. When confronted with the lie by a person in a trust relationship, the urgent question is why they lied and what they were trying to cover up, not whether "many other reasons" might exist for what happened apart from the lie. For example, the syllogism "Bush lied about the reasons for the war, therefore the issue is whether the war can be justified for other reasons," is analogous to "my spouse lied about her whereabouts last night, therefore the issue is whether she might have been somewhere that wouldn't bother me." "

You are incorrect, since you will never understand why it is not worth further discussion with you on this subject. Actually your analogy is perfect except it absolutely should matter where she was and why she was there if that fact would not bother you. If I was your spouse I'm sure I would find myself lying my ass off to you daily just to survive in the household.

[ACPlayer]

Now, now. Hundred plus american lives, thousands of Iraqi lives and if the british occu-liberation of the Iraqi's by the brits from the Ottomans in the early 20th century is a guide, decades of US involvement in Iraq leading to a sham democracy. All we have done from the US perspective is get rid of a toothless despot.

I for one am still waiting for the real reason to become obvious as the litany of excuses is peeled away. Hint: consider Wolfowitz's statements/plans/ambitions since early 90s.

[MMMMMM]

That "toothless despot" ground the bones of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in his torture chambers, rape rooms, prisons and mass graves. A few hundred American lives and a few thousand Iraqi lives are a serious price to pay for his removal--but a small price compared to the vast carnage he wreaked on his own people. The human costs of this "war" are almost surely less than the number of Iraqis he would have had tortured and killed in the very next year alone if left to his own conscienceless, sadistic, ruthless devices. That goes as well for his animal offspring Uday and Qusay: rapists, torturers, sadists both. They learned the art of torture directly from their father, who himself had been chief torturer in the state security service before he murdered his way up to greater and better things.

Removal of such an ogre should be cause for celebration--and apparently for most Iraqis it was, notwithstanding the holier-than-thou hands-off approach encouraged by the world's liberals and elitists who though they knew better than anyone else what was best for the Iraqis: if they had had their way, the Ogre of Baghdad and his two half-human sons would be this very moment torturing, murdering, and terrorizing common Iraqi civilians as freely as they would list.

Perspective, perspective please, world. May the world someday learn to weigh relative evils in the balance, and to accurately differentiate betwen modest evils and deep, vast evils.

[jokerswild]

I don't believe amy of your propaganda.

The USA has announced a Shiite majority election victory never will take place. Iran, Russia, and China all stand to gain heavily from a protracted US military involvement.

The ends do not justify the means. It was King George I that made Saddam in the first place. Rumsfield kissed Saddam's ass in the '80's.

King George II is a liar, a cheat, and an idiot. He will go down in history as Cheney's puppet.