WMDs and Bush - Lie or mistake?

[BCPVP]

George Bush is a politician, agreed?
Politicians like to be re-elected, agreed?
The lack of WMDs would be found out if we invaded, agreed?
So why would Bush take the chance to not get relected by openly lying? What did he gain from that "lie"?
Wouldn't you agree that had Bush just stomped all over Afghanistan and done absolutely nothing about Iraq, he probably could have won big over any challenger? So why take the risk?

[vulturesrow]

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haha, people really think we had faulty intelligence?!?!?!

Are you retarded? Seriously America knows exactly whats going on all over the world all the time, the only way we would be tricked is by some highly funded, high tech operation. There is no way we could not see every square inch of iraq before we invaded.

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You obviously have no real concept of how intelligence is gathered other than what youve seen in the movies.

[hurlyburly]

Actually, it's very different. It would be similar if we had provided Stalin with technology and resources, he fought Hitler, and we just hoped that he won. Supporting Hussein was always wrong.

[elwoodblues]

I would say a little from column A and a litle from column B. In my opinion, the lie was not their belief that there were WMDs, but rather the lie was their characterization of the case. It's one thing to say, we have evidence, some of it is stronger than other parts of it, but that evidence leads me to the conclusion that Saddam has WMDs. It's another thing to suggest that the evidence is rock-solid when it isn't.

[Roybert]

[ QUOTE ]
George Bush is a politician, agreed?
Politicians like to be re-elected, agreed?
The lack of WMDs would be found out if we invaded, agreed?
So why would Bush take the chance to not get relected by openly lying? What did he gain from that "lie"?
Wouldn't you agree that had Bush just stomped all over Afghanistan and done absolutely nothing about Iraq, he probably could have won big over any challenger? So why take the risk?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because he thought we would win in a walk and be seen as liberators. If the war went well, he knew that Americans wouldn't care about the justifications for going to war. We (as a country) would only care that: a) we won big, and b) few of our troops died.

[Roybert]

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2nd question for those that voted for Lied:

What's your reason for believing that they lied?

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The Downing Street Minutes.

[BCPVP]

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If the war went well, he knew that Americans wouldn't care about the justifications for going to war.

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I don't agree. Just because a war is going well, doesn't mean that it is garaunteed support or exempt from justification.

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We (as a country) would only care that: a) we won big, and b) few of our troops died.

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Relatively speaking, bot of these have happened. Yet we're still debating Iraq. Apparently there's more to war then just winning big with few losses...

[Roybert]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
We (as a country) would only care that: a) we won big, and b) few of our troops died.

[/ QUOTE ]
Relatively speaking, bot of these have happened. Yet we're still debating Iraq. Apparently there's more to war then just winning big with few losses...

[/ QUOTE ]

We're winning big? We don't have any idea what winning is and we have even less of an idea when we'll get out of there. This is due to an acute lack of leadership - Bush has never defined for the American people what needs to happen in order for us to 'win', and he has never told us when we can expect that to happen.

Bush's approval ratings were sky high on "Mission Accomplished" day and all of the doubts about the justifications for going to war were known then. Over time, these doubts have been more or less proven, and it is my contention that people are increasingly pessimistic because it is not going well. We are not winning big, and this coupled with a consistant casualty count is causing the public outcry.

[Wes ManTooth]

I did not vote for this poll either way, I can't clearly say one side is right or wrong.

Saying it was a clear cut lie is difficult to believe

Though publicly no actual finished WMDs were found, just based on the size of materials found its difficult to suggests that Saddam was not up to anything suspicious.

[kurto]

I'm happy enough to know that prior to 9/11, both Rice and Powell had said that Saddam was disarmed and not a threat.

Furthermore, I remember throughout the buildup for the war, reading numerous stories about our own intelligence agencies telling the White house that the evidence was bad. That was around the time when the Bush White House created their own 'second' intelligence organization who parrotted what they wanted said.

Third; the quality of the evidence they offered was so shoddy. The forgeries passed to the UN which our own intelligence agencies had declared faulty many months before... were so bad, that the UN declared them fakes within an hour. The mistakes were so bad; for instance, documents signed by people and dated, well after the supposed signer was already dead. That sort of thing.

Its no news that people within his own administration have reportedly said that Bush had been asking for a reason to go to Iraq since day 1 and that on 9/12... the decision was made.

The Downing street memos are just the icing on the cake.