Huckabee: Iraq Probably Had WMD, But ‘I Don’t Have Any Evidence’
Huckabee: Iraq Probably Had WMD, But ‘I Don’t Have Any Evidence’
During the Republican presidential debate last Thursday night, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, hid them like Easter eggs, and then secretly moved them to Jordan.
Today on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace pressed Huckabee to offer evidence to support this claim. “Governor, the Iraq Survey Group looked around Iraq for months after the invasion,” Wallace noted, and “could find no evidence that Saddam Hussein had an active program…Do you have any evidence of that contention?” Huckabee answered:
I don’t have any evidence. [Saddam] was the one who announced openly he had weapons of mass destruction. He’s the one who had used similar weapons in the past. Let’s remember that both Democrats and Republicans and our intelligence agencies believed that he had them.
My point was that, no, we didn’t find them. Did they get into Syria? Did they get into some remote area of Jordan? Did they go some other place? We don’t know. They may not have existed. But simply saying — we didn’t find them so therefore they didn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.
Watch it:
Huckabee appears to view the lack of any evidence of Iraqi WMD as proof that they existed. CBS’s 60 Minutes reports tonight that Saddam led others to believe he had WMD because he “didn’t think the U.S. would invade Iraq to destroy weapons of mass destruction, so he kept the fact that he had none a secret to prevent an Iranian invasion he believed could happen.”
Huckabee defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, arguing that the President is like “the quarterback of the NFL team [that] didn’t get the winning play.” It’s easy to offer Monday morning criticism of him, but Bush “deserves credit for taking action” because it’s different when “you’ve been on the NFL field and you’ve taken a couple of hits from 300-pound linemen,” Huckabee explained.
UPDATE: On CNN’s Late Edition, Huckabee further defended his claims:
BLITZER: Well, do you believe that the president of the United States and the top national security advisers, the military commanders were all wrong when they now acknowledge there were no WMD under Saddam Hussein when the U.S. went into Iraq?
HUCKABEE: They all say they weren’t there when we went into Iraq. My point was, Saddam Hussein bragged that he had them. We know that he in the past had used them. So there have been weapons of mass destruction.
And I’m simply saying that because when we went in we didn’t find them, everybody wants to criticize the president and say, oh, the president lied to us. The president didn’t lie to us. The president acted on information that he had, that he believed, and intelligence services believed that they were weapons of mass destruction.
And Democrats in Congress believed it too, and that is why they voted with the president to go into Iraq. Did those weapons end up in Syria or some remote location in Jordan? I don’t know, may not. But for us to categorically say they never existed, that was my point. They didn’t exist when we got into Iraq, but that didn’t mean they never were there.
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105 Responses to “Huckabee: Iraq Probably Had WMD, But ‘I Don’t Have Any Evidence’”
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Faith based assessments are the way to go, right, Dr. Frist?
January 27th, 2008 at 10:16 amAnother Republican “leader” with a bad-addled brain. Evidence? I don’t need no stinkin’ evidence. Hold on - let me ask god….
January 27th, 2008 at 10:18 amIf his “faith” is so out of whack on WMD - It makes his case for “God” being on his side seem even less convincing.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:18 amOn the other hand, he’d probably be very qualified for the position of ‘tackling dummy’ !
January 27th, 2008 at 10:20 amHuckabee believes in faith based WMDs. LMAO
January 27th, 2008 at 10:22 amThe Huckster is toast. Stick a fork in him. The republican party is careening down the road toward Romney or McCain so The Huckster and Giuliani will soon be consigned to the trash heap of campaign history.
With the “also-rans” out of the way, things will be getting real interesting for Mitt and Johnny-boy. They will be trying to out-bigot, out-tax-cut and out-muscle each other for the coming months as their convention heads to St. Paul. They will clearly be exposing the ugly under-belly of the republican party on talk radio and FoxSnooze. It’s going to be fun!
January 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am“Faith based assessments are the way to go, right, Dr. Frist?”
huckleberry would be good for a few chuckles and grins if he wasn’t actually a candidate for president of the united states… what in god’s name has happened to my country that a lunatic like this can command one iota of media time and public attention…?
And, yes, I DO take it personally
January 27th, 2008 at 10:22 amHuckabee:”, Chris, we are not talking about a nest egg here …we are talking about Easter hidden WMD egg”.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:22 amGod hid the WMD.
What fools these conservotards be.
bigfoot would have backed Hitler, no question. Frank m, of course, is hitler, and proud of it.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:23 amwhat in god’s name has happened to my country that a lunatic like this can command one iota of media time and public attention…?
What happened?
GDumbya Bu$h happened.
And those lunatics who voted for him are hanging on by a shred trying to get another moron into the White House.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:24 amThe faith-based version of “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
January 27th, 2008 at 10:25 amGood point tom. It’s like they’ve seen some formula for success, be a white, uber-religious, warmongering, male and anything can happen…
January 27th, 2008 at 10:25 amUh, WHAT? What does that even mean? Are the 300-pound linemen “reality”? Sure does suck when reality smacks you around.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:26 amYeah that’s the new and improved “Guilty until proven innocent” that was SO PERSUASIVE that it applies to Americans now.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:26 amdamn mike! you sealed my vote for ya!
lol…. god called, said, quit pimping my boy out!
January 27th, 2008 at 10:35 amIt would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sick. The corporatists use Huckabee to dangle in front of the millions of similar dysfunctionally reasoning voters. He is the poster child for the “if the preacher says it, it must be true” group that the Christian Reconstructionists and the white supremacists have tapped into, which the corporatists utilize to advance the corporatist agenda.
If they can bust down the door of another country without evidence, then by the same logic they can bust down my door. Or yours.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:38 amWhat do you expect from a guy who, despite the hundreds of thousands of examples of species evolving, does not believe in evolution? And who thinks that Jesus had a pet dinosaur?
January 27th, 2008 at 10:38 amWhy would Hussein hide the weapons in Jordan or Syria. If Hussein’s supposed intent (and threat) was to use them against the U.S., what better time to do so than when being invaded by the U.S.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:39 am†because it’s different when “you’ve been on the NFL field and you’ve taken a couple of hits from 300-pound linemen,â€
says Huckabee, who has clearly taken a couple of hits from 300 lb linemen.
I hope Huck gets the nomination.
January 27th, 2008 at 10:39 amWith the “also-rans†out of the way, things will be getting real interesting for Mitt and Johnny-boy.
Comment by tom — January 27, 2008 @ 10:22 am
This is exactly why I think Ron Paul will go on with the campaign a bit longer. He is as much a thorn in the side of the Republicans, Zionists, and AIPACers as Kucinich was for the Democrat versions of the same. Now, Huckleberry is insane, as are most Fundamentalists. I actually feel sorry for decent people who get hood-winked in by people like him. There is an old saying, “If you keep questioning insanity long enough, you become insane”. Nothing is left but to goof on these people. They are the last vestige standing in the way of our society being what it was destined to be……One based on Art, Music, Science, Technology and most importantly compassion. But you say….50 Cent and Britney Spears are Bush Supporters!!!!!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 10:42 amyou mean he didn’t consult with gg?
January 27th, 2008 at 10:54 amIf the cops break into the wrong house that is an understandable mistake. If they deny stay for 5 years it is not.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:01 amChuck Norris: endorsement BACKFIRE. The Gov. of Fla. has no right to try and speak for the whole state by endorsing mc cain, and notice the timing just a Democrats are getting all the attention….discusting.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:03 amLet’s remember that both Democrats and Republicans and our intelligence agencies believed that he had them.
I am getting really sick and tired of that line. The Democrats believed that Saddam had WMD’s because Bush lied to them just like he lied to the world. And many in the intelligence community did not believe that he had WMD’s. Those voices were shut out of the conversation since Bush was cherry-picking the information to suit his agenda. Also, much of the “proof” came from Chalibi, a drunk and a stooge paid by the US to tell them what they wanted to hear.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:09 amHuckabee should familiarize himself with this document:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html
January 27th, 2008 at 11:10 amFirst his analogies are about easter eggs and now NFL quarterbacks. Could this guy get any lamer? He really expects us to take him seriously as a Presidential candidate? Huckabee is done, stick a fork in him.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:11 amAt least Huck isn’t bashful about his status among the 24%ers who believe this crap.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:14 amNot really unusual for Huckabee to say something like this, after all Bush had no evidence Iraq had WMD’s, bu that didn’t stop him.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:14 amThe WMD’s are hidden in Jeff Gannon’s ass!
January 27th, 2008 at 11:15 amplunger, the people without mouses who cannot click urls thank you for dumping the rest of the internet here for them to read.
Comment by Kilo — January 27, 2008 @ 11:04 am
Uh, how old is your computer? Still using one of those gasoline powered models you have to crank by hand to git ‘er started, Kilo?
Chug chug chug chug chug chug????
January 27th, 2008 at 11:15 amInteresting all this comes up again with HockeyPuck-Huck. Then good people have to divert their attention and re-introduce facts. I almost wonder if re-hashing all this WMD sh!t is meant to divert attention.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:17 am“Armitage: Yeah. And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody.”
So the guy who actually outed her is passing the buck. Why did you even bother to post it, Kilo?
January 27th, 2008 at 11:17 amHuckabee acts like an idiot, sounds like an idiot, and is, in fact, an idiot.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:18 amUh, how old is your computer? Still using one of those gasoline powered models you have to crank by hand to git ‘er started, Kilo?
Chug chug chug chug chug chug????
Comment by The Republic of Stupidity
I believe he was being sarcastic. Perhaps he is as tired as I am of plunger polluting threads with pages and pages of cut and paste. Do you really read the stuff he dumps here? I don’t. If I see a post that goes more than one screen, I skip it. I would much rather read the thought-out intelligent opinions of the posters here than the pages of plunger’s cut and paste.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:19 amArmitage: Yeah. And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody.
Comment by Kilo — January 27, 2008 @ 11:14 am
Excuse me, but you really aren’t suggesting that since a known liar said this, all other accounts of the Plame Story are thereby proven wrong, are you?
January 27th, 2008 at 11:19 amDoes the selling of nuclear secrets matter to you?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ tol/ news/ world/ us_and_americas/ article3257725.ece
Comment by plunger
Probably not. He’s a neoCON through and through and neoCONS can only believe what they are told to believe. They need that authority figure in their life to define their world for them.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:20 amComment by The Republic of Stupidity — January 27, 2008 @ 11:15 am
I think Kilo is being sarcastic, and for once I agree with him.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:20 am(I understand that, bilbo.)
I just don’t like Kilo.
(And I was being sarcastic too… )
January 27th, 2008 at 11:21 amUm, Kilo… I don’t know how to break this to you, but Woodward’s book came out significantly earlier than Armitage’s revelation that he was the one who outed Plame to reporters - so he’s blaming Wilson in the book, even though we now know it was he himself who did the deed.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am“Huckabee defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, arguing that the President is like “the quarterback of the NFL team [that] didn’t get the winning play.†It’s easy to offer Monday morning criticism of him, but Bush “deserves credit for taking action†because it’s different when “you’ve been on the NFL field and you’ve taken a couple of hits from 300-pound linemen,†Huckabee explained.”
In the NFL, people don’t die as a result of a reckless decision.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:24 amKilo missed that one. barfly. His computer was in the garage, getting a new drive shaft installed.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:25 amIn the hillsides and draws around the Bay Area here, what Parson Huck did here was talk out of his ass Does he use the same microphone, for that or does he have a second for fecal speech.
Didn’t anyone tell this guy, you are not supposed to bring up this subject in 2008, let it go guy
January 27th, 2008 at 11:25 amIn the NFL, people don’t die as a result of a reckless decision.
Comment by Nat — January 27, 2008 @ 11:24 am
At least not by the tens of thousands…
January 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am“His computer was in the garage, getting a new drive shaft installed.”
Comment by The Republic of Stupidity
And they don’t make punch-cards anymore, so it could be a while.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:29 amHey, that’s what happens when you don’t use a #3 pencil, as instructed…
January 27th, 2008 at 11:30 amHuckabee: [” [Saddam] was the one who announced openly he had weapons of mass destruction”. ]
On the conterary..all year before the war in 2002 , Saddam said “Iraq doesn not have WMDS..they were destroyed..”
UN Inspectors found nothing. Just before inspectors final report to the Security Council in March of 2003,the war started”, Bush made a speech and said the UN is ‘irrelevant’ to his decision to start the war.
US Chief inspector David Kay was sent to Iraq later in that year of 2003 and came back empty handed and made a report to Congress where he testified that there were no WMDS in Iraq for the last 10 years .
David Kay later testified in January of 2004 before the Senate Armed Service Committee and said there are no WMDS in Iraq…and Iraq has been clean for a while.
Why would Saddam send WMDS (which he did not have) to Syria,when president Hafez Al Asad of Syria,was his biggest enemy,and waiting to see him toppled?!
Syria,which never had good relationship with the USA for sometime, sent units of their army in 1991 war against Saddam and they were one of the first Arab armies to enter Kuwait fighting Saddam’s occupying forces, under US command.
The claim by Huckabee of adding the country of Jordan to the list of countries where WMDS are hidden is a silly one.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:36 amJordan is one of the closest allies to America in the area…
Huckabee seems to be simply just making arbitrarily and unfounded statements without any backing or knowledge of the history,Georaphy and the political make up of the Middle East…
The comment about Jordan stunned me too, tarazan.
Jordan? WTF???
Where that that piece of malarky come from?
January 27th, 2008 at 11:39 amI hope Huckaschmuck has already asked Chuck for a ride back to Palookaville, ’cause after Super Tuesday, he’s an also-ran.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:39 amI mean, really… some of these fools, like Huck, come across as just too stupid for their own good.
Easter egg hunts and 300 lb linemen? And this twit wants to be the most powerful man in the world? I shudder to think…
January 27th, 2008 at 11:43 amBlind Faith is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?
It does not have to account for facts or the inconvenient truth or any such thing. You BELIEVE and that’s it. The fact that you believe makes it all true - irrespective of how big and obvious the lie.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am#58 Abby…
January 27th, 2008 at 11:56 amBlind faith leads to blind vote.
And that’s what these unqualified candidates are after.
Sorry for the long cut-and-paste earlier, but I get sick and tired of the claims “Let’s remember that both Democrats and Republicans and our intelligence agencies believed that he had them.”
The facts and intelligence were fixed around the policy of going to war.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:57 amBlind Faith is a band:
http://www.google.com/ musica?aid=4BLOIKX53BE&sa=X&oi=music&ct=result
January 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am#58 - Any time someone says “I believe” the question “based on what?” should be asked.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pmWhat an amazing moron. How ’bout those Repugs. Evidence is SO yesterday.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pmHappy Valley News offers a possible explanation for missing WMD:
Dick Cheney Sends Terminator Back in Time to Eliminate Joe Wilson’s Mother
Happy Valley News has learned that Vice President Dick Cheney has sent a Terminator back in time to kill the mother of administration critic Joe Wilson before he is ever born. Joe Wilson wrote a July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times that questioned key components of the Bush Administration’s rationale for the Iraq war. In attempting to debunk the editorial, administration sources revealed that Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was an undercover CIA agent, a crime that eventually led to Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter†Libby, being convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
The Vice President agreed to discuss the Terminator mission on the assumption that, when it succeeds, the conversation will never have happened, since the subject under discussion will never have existed. Vice President Cheney revealed that he had chosen a classic T-101 model (from the first movie) for the mission rather than the more advanced T-1000 model (from Terminator 2: Judgement Day) or the T-X model (from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) out of nostalgia and the assumption that Joe Wilson’s mother would not put up much of a fight. “Also,†the Vice President said, “Arnold is a good Republican.â€
Vice President Cheney further revealed that once the Terminator was successful in eliminating Joe Wilson’s mother, additional names would be added to his list, including Patrick Fitzgerald’s mother, the mothers of the all CIA analysts who contributed to the most recent NIE on Iran, and Keith Olberman’s entire family tree.
When asked why he didn’t send the Terminator back in time to kill the mothers of, say, Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussein, the Vice President asked the reporter for the correct spelling of his mother’s maiden name.
A terminator could drive the WMD to some remote, well-hidden spot, and bury the WMD (and itself) in a pit.
Perhaps Hucklebucket is correct.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pmFootball is a very weak metaphor for war. The President is not even on the field. Soldiers and civilians die as a result of “plays” And, in a country like Iraq the goals are not physical locations, but political in nature.
Huckabee is talking out of both sides of his mouth. On the one hand he would have us believe that Bush made his decision based on the best available evidence at the time which everyone believed. On the other hand he would have us disregard all evidence which doesn’t support the President’s decision from both before and after the war.
In fact, there was ample evidence before the war that Iraq didn’t have any WMDs. This was the conclusion of Hans Blix of the UN Weapons Inspectors and El Baradei of the IAEA. We must not forget that their inspections were concluded *before* the war. The Iraq Study Group merely confirms that Blix and El Baradei were correct.
Remember, at the time Bush was telling us there was *secret* evidence only he had about the weapons. The Iraq Study Group further confirms what many of us suspected, that this secret evidence was made up. The Iraq Study Group was sent after phantom after phantom turning over every stone at the sites where Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, etc. thought their might be weapons.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:10 pmComment by Gin
And if terminators had just killed Bill Clinton’s mom…
January 27th, 2008 at 12:14 pm“Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.”
The part he was too polite to include, was that the weapons Saddam used were sold to him by republicans…
January 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pmDoesn’t any one realize that WMDs are not something you put in your back pocket and carry into Jordan. If there were WMDs and they were moved, they would have had to have been moved by a convoy of very large trucks, which could have been detected on any satellite photos at the time. Why doesn’t someone point this out and dispell this conspiracy theory of WMDs being taken out of Iraq? It just doesn’t take a mental giant to figure this out.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:22 pmHuckabee defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, arguing that the President is like “the quarterback of the NFL team [that] didn’t get the winning play.†It’s easy to offer Monday morning criticism of him, but Bush “deserves credit for taking action†because it’s different when “you’ve been on the NFL field and you’ve taken a couple of hits from 300-pound linemen,†Huckabee explained.
No, Governor. Bush is more like the linebacker who jumped offside, went straight to the quarterback (Saddam) unabated, speared him in the chest with his helmet, then grabbed the quarterback’s face mask and twisted his head off.
Result of the play: Fifteen-yard penalty and an automatic first down for Iraq. Oh, and Bush should be ejected from the game.
Bring the troops home now!
January 27th, 2008 at 12:26 pm.
Up-Chuck-abee, The Christian candidate who brags about how many people he killed, also sees lies and genocide as virtuous.
.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:31 pmComment by Bonnie — January 27, 2008 @ 12:22 pm
Bonnie, I have pointed out over and over again this very fact. Please don’t forget about Sentry and other Reccee aircraft flying in Northern Iraq. There is no way short of secret underground tunnels, that large amounts of material or weapons could have been moved to Syria or Jordan.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:33 pm“Huckabee defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, arguing that the President is like ‘the quarterback of the NFL team [that] didn’t get the winning play.’ It’s easy to offer Monday morning criticism of him, but Bush “deserves credit for taking action”
Actually, in a comparison to the NFL, 3rd Army commander David D. McKiernan was the quarterback, CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks was the offensive coordinator, Rumsfeld was the head coach, and Cheney was the team owner.
Bush’s job was to go back to his old position at Andover: Cheerleader.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm“Gin” does the same thing the Bush administration does - cherry-pick intelligence to misprove a point.
From “Gin’s” article:
Working with opposition groups comports with international law. Invading a country for regime change does not.
Clinton went about it the right way.
Bush committed multiple International War Crimes. As a result, we, the citizens of the United States of America, belong to a Terrorist State. We have the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent children, innocent women, and innocent men on our hands. And we stick yellow ribbons on our SUVs to show our “support” for our young women and men dying in an illegal and immoral war.
January 27th, 2008 at 12:43 pmAnd this man may actually become President of America… I guess we’re living up to the southerns ways of “guilty before proven innocent.”
January 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pmJanuary 27th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Of course, Gin will ignore some claims that Clinton’s attack destroyed most of what was left of Saddam’s WMD sites and programs.
Do you remember what the Repub’s said when he bombed Iraq and launched a missile attack on Bin Laden and his training camps? They said he was “wagging the dog” to distract form the Lewinsky affair.
From CNN 1996:
President wants Senate to hurry with new anti-terrorism laws
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Clinton urged Congress Tuesday to act swiftly in developing anti-terrorism legislation before its August recess.
“We need to keep this country together right now. We need to focus on this terrorism issue,” Clinton said during a White House news conference.
But while the president pushed for quick legislation, Republican lawmakers hardened their stance against some of the proposed anti-terrorism measures.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, doubted that the Senate would rush to action before they recess this weekend. The Senate needs to study all the options, he said, and trying to get it done in the next three days would be tough.
One key GOP senator was more critical, calling a proposed study of chemical markers in explosives “a phony issue.”
How soon the repub’s “forget” how much they impeded Clinton’s war on terror. They still bring up how Clinton mistakenly bombed an “aspirin” factory, which to them is much worse then mistakenly bombing a whole country.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:40 pmSince Huckabee assumes he has God’s blessing to make up accusations that he should be believed because of no proof or evidence whatsoever. Only that of a Bush Adm gut feeling from God can give you.
How about if someone accused Huck of murdering multitudes of atheists and burying them somewhere in Arkansas, Hmmm?
Well I don’t have proof. But part of my story is true because Huck is a Me and my God’s way or the highway. His kid kills dog for pleasure.
He wants to emulate Sharia law in our Constitution. Need I go on?
Huck could have move the graves into another state. He was Govenor. And their are Republican govenors in adjoining states of Arkansas that may or may not have partisan sympaties to help Huck hide and move these graves.
Huck will be deserving some unaccountable accused judgements of
him in the near future.
I vote for Huckabee to have a psychological sanity test.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:45 pmThere is no way short of secret underground tunnels, that large amounts of material or weapons could have been moved to Syria or Jordan.
Comment by Krazny
As if they do not have satellites to detect large underground truck/troop movements. C’mon, they see all
As to Gin,
The difference between
“And just how does bombing a country comport with “Working with opposition groups “?”
Supporting opposition groups, you know, like we did with Osama against the USSR, works wonders as we have seen (snark) and has NOOO Blowback.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:49 pmClinton was wrong also, as he was lead by the nost by AIPAC also, and the only lesson to take from this whole mess, is:
bring home the troops now
And Diplomacy is the ONLY answer
Operation Desert Fox, a strong, sustained series of attacks, will be carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said.
And just how does bombing a country comport with “Working with opposition groups “? What part of your “international law†does that fall under?
But thanks for trying, you seem to be proving my point.
Comment by Gin
As usual, the right wing tool Gin is cherry picking words to prove her point. But, once you read all of them, her theories go up in smoke.
At that time Saddam WAS NOT cooperating with the UN weapons inspectors and Clinton was concerned that he was hiding WMD’s. Also, you will note that Clinton bombed military and security targets. He DID NOT invade the country. There’s a really big difference here, but it’s way to subtle for Gin to wrap her puny mind around.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:50 pmHuckabee always gets a free ride on this shit.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:51 pmBut once again it does prove the point, most people were convinced that he did have them.
Comment by Gin
Gin thinks that “most people” believed that Saddam had weapons because her Dictator Guy told them so. Unfortunately her Dictator Guy lied to us by cherry-picking information. Kind of like what Gin is doing here on this thread. It’s also like what the Right Wing Christians do with the bible to support their hateful rhetoric.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:53 pm(shrug) It’s the nature of religious people to not care about things like evidence.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:01 pmBut once again it does prove the point, most people were convinced that he did have them.
Comment by Gin
only most Americans……..other than the statement above is just a lie.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pmAh but we have something as good as evidence. Saddam Hussein was in our custody at a time when we were doing “enhanced interrogation”. So there’s no way the truth could be withheld from us.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pmmost people were convinced that he did have them.
Comment by Gin — January 27, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
most people drink coca-cola. most people are easily lied to, especially American consumers.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:39 pmOf course Saddam had WMDs. I am amazed that people so quickly forget that during the Reagan presidency, in a now famous picture of Rummy the Oral Dummy shaking hands with Saddam, is the administration that supplied Iraq with the WMDs they used on iran and their own people.
But aside from those weapons, which he could never replicate, he had nothing.
So intelligence stating he had them is not totally incorrect, and we would be wise to remember where Hussein got his weapons and not be afraid to say so.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:58 pm“Well, Your Honor. We’ve plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence.”
-Lionel Hutz
January 27th, 2008 at 3:12 pmRepublicans weren’t willing to “take Saddam’s word” BEFORE the invasion, but they sure seem to be willing to believe him NOW.
What’s wrong with this picture?
January 27th, 2008 at 3:23 pmHuckabee is probably a serial child molester, a rapist and a murderer, I just don’t have any evidence to prove it.
My point is that, no, we haven’t found it. Did it get under Huckabee’s bed? Did it go in some remote area of his backyard? Did it go some other place? We don’t know.
But simply saying — we couldn’t find such evidence so therefore it doesn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:29 pmI just hope conservatives realize that they cannot credibly attack any subsequent decisions to invade other countries by a future president, given the way in which they responded to a supposed threat from a country which had nothing to do with 9/11.
They have blown whatever credibility they once claimed to speak on national security issues, with their hyperbolic hysterics over non-existent weapons of mass destruction.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:39 pm“Well, Your Honor. We’ve plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence.â€
-Lionel Hutz
Comment by Trojan John — January 27, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
And this verdict is written on a bar napkin and it still says guilty and quilty is spelled wrong
January 27th, 2008 at 3:41 pmThey also didn’t find his most holiness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ergo He might exist.
Wow! Who knew Huck was a Believer?
January 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pmComment by barfly — January 27, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
No, they don’t.
That’s why they keep up their rhetoric against Iran, Syria, and why they keep babbling about Iraq’s non-existent WMD as if there was any doubt whether or not Hussein had them by the time of the invasion (Huckabee’s blather is just as good an example as any other).
They also keep trying to rewrite history (”everyone thought he had them”), like our mental dwarf trolls Gin et al, to justify their support for an invasion -that is clear for all now- was completely unnecessary.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:57 pm91. Gregor Samsa - but isn’t your argument also the basis of push polling - which the Repubs also regularly do ?
In other words, I accept your argument as intentionally fallacious, but a repub won’t notice any problems with it.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:58 pmComment by MapleStreet — January 27, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
It is intentionally fallacious. I was only having a little fun with Huckabee’s line of thinking and logic -or lack thereof ;-)
January 27th, 2008 at 4:05 pmYou make em dumb . . . we make em Republican dumb.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:15 pmConservative logic — an oxymoron if there ever was one — strikes again…
Huckabee has gone on the record that he doesn’t believe in evolution — something for which there actually is some documented evidence — but does believe that Hussein was recently in possession of WMD, something for which there is no direct evidence.
Well, here’s what I believe as a result of Huckabee’s latest comments — I believe that if Americans truly want to see a change in the leadership with the upcoming Presidential election (and the polls overwhelmingly suggest that they do), then Mike Huckabee is the very last person whom they should consider sending to the White House If appearances are anything to go on, this man is simply George W. Bush redux and then some — someone who doesn’t let a bothersome little thing like the facts or reason or even the Constitution stand in his way.
January 27th, 2008 at 4:38 pmIm surprised Huckabee didnt say Allah took the WMDs away and gave them to Osama bin Laden.
January 27th, 2008 at 5:52 pmYou can’t expect the thoughts of a man that believes in an imaginary big man in the sky to all be coherent or logical. Faith that he had the WMDs supercedes evidence. Just as fait in the imaginary man supercedes evidence garnered by science that evolution is a viable theory and imaginary man isnt.
Huckabee probably has a god, but there is no evidence.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:17 pmWow this kind of “logic” is astounding. Easter eggs? What? Now WMD=easter eggs? So the search for WMD was an easter egg hunt. That’s quaint.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:18 pmSifting through the chaff, I found this nugget:
“The publication date of the book isn’t relevant. The publication of Joe’s newspaper article is. Why are reporters discussing Joe Wilson, WMDs and his CIA wife a month before his article is published if her ID was supposedly leaked in retaliation for it ?”
1. You posted Woodward’s quote of Armitage, as proof that Joe Wilson outed his own wife.
2. Woodward’s book preceded Armitage’s public revelations about his role in outing Plame - by years.
3. Your “proof” is shown to be false by Armitage’s later revelation that he himself outed Plame to reporters.
What he was previously claiming as fact to Woodward was a fantasy, to cover his own ass.
So, to review: Kilo posted a quote from Woodward’s book that depicts Armitage claiming Wilson was the person who first outed his own wife as a covert CIA agent. We know that Armitage was himself the first to out her, by his own, significantly-later revelations. What Kilo’s post really shows is Armitage, lying to cover his own actions, since we know he was first.
January 27th, 2008 at 9:31 pm“Wow this kind of “logic†is astounding. Easter eggs? What? Now WMD=easter eggs? So the search for WMD was an easter egg hunt. That’s quaint.”
Comment by jdogg333
And the easter egg hunt is usually scheduled for before the cakewalk…
January 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pmWoodward: “Everyone knows?”
Armitage: “Yeah. And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody.”
And we now know this was false at the time it was uttered. So, other than Armitage’s (false and self-serving) statements, can Kilo provide any corroboration?
January 27th, 2008 at 9:40 pmBut simply saying — we didn’t find them so therefore they didn’t exist — is a bit of an overreach.
ha!! - huck has lost the lot completely!! - maybe they went to syria…or jordan…or maybe,huck,they’re in lappland or new zealand or maybe the eskimos have them - leave no stone unturned and no turns unstoned huck!!!
January 27th, 2008 at 10:45 pmWASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush said Tuesday he welcomes a
Justice Department investigation into who revealed the classified identity of a CIA operative.
http://www.cnn.com/ 2003/ ALLPOLITICS/ 09/ 30/ wilson.cia/
“If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. “If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.
Apparently, someone didn’t inform George that whole investigation was uncalled for.
January 27th, 2008 at 11:36 pmSo you agree with the actions taken by Patrick Fitzgerald?
Exactly what are your reservations about the Plame case, that it was aimed at the wrong people, or that no crime was committed?
January 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm“Read up on Armitage. The story broke, the FBI showed up the next day and that same day he told them he was the source. Fitzgerald knew this immediately on starting his investigation. Hmmm…. how many years will that take to figure out.”
Fitzgerald determined that Armitage did not know Valerie Plame’s status at CIA. Should they have shut down the case after that? I don’t know, I wasn’t privy to what information the USA’s office was getting. I would think that they found more evidence to justify continuation of the leak. But that could be me.
“I do however have reservations about Valerie Plame continuing to complain that reporters got her name in relation to her role in the Niger uranium story….
Well, if someone helped end my career at CIA, I would be a bit miffed at them, too.
“…..which was published by her husband after both of them were meeting with reporters trying to get it published.”
Which what was published? Her role in the Niger trip? So this little piece of evidence was publicly known before Novak’s story in July of 2003?
“I also have reservations about everyone here treating Joe Wilson as though he was a whistleblower. The man was publishing pro-war you-will-find-WMDs articles after his trip, after the SOTU, all the way up to the invasion of Iraq.”
I’m having a difficult time locating those pre-invasion pro-war articles. Which publication did he write these said articles for?
“He said nothing about the Jan/Feb SOTU address until after all of you knew that no WMDs had been found, weeks after the invasion. Yet somehow you treat him as though he was different than every other pro-war pundit out there.”
Why didn’t he, indeed. He does state this in his 2003 article:
“President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.
“The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn’t know that in December, a month before the president’s address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.”
Granted, this is his word, but it seems that the reason he did not question the SOTU is because he felt Bush wasn’t referring to Niger.
But like I said, his view. Take it with a grain of salt.
“And as we’ve seen here, you are even willing to manufacture defenses of him and re-write history to absolve him of his own role in outing his wife, something which nobody with a familiarity with a calendar can dispute.”
When exactly did he “out” his wife? When did he publish information that stated “Valerie Wilson, my wife, works for the Central Intelligence Agency under the name Valerie Plame”?
January 28th, 2008 at 1:06 amWhat publication can one find this evidence, that Valerie Plame’s status at CIA was made public knowledge before Bob Novak’s July 2003 article?
His problem is that he listened to the previous administration, I guess we now know that was a mistake!
“Saddam (Hussein) must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons,†Clinton said.
Operation Desert Fox, a strong, sustained series of attacks, will be carried out over several days by U.S. and British forces, Clinton said.
“Earlier today I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces,†Clinton said.
“Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors,†said Clinton.
Clinton also stated that, while other countries also had weapons of mass destruction, Hussein is in a different category because he has used such weapons against his own people and against his neighbors.
http://www.cnn.com/ US/ 9812/ 16/ clinton.iraq.speech/
BTW, Bill looks really good in that photo, I wonder if Hillary was standing just off camera?
Comment by Gin — January 27, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
And how many American soldiers were killed because of this action?
January 28th, 2008 at 2:42 amHuckster is just pissed because this is a rerun of his school days: No one wants him on the football team; always the last to be chosen.
January 28th, 2008 at 2:50 amStupid is as stupid does.
Any wonder most of that 24% also believe some guy who has been dead for 2008 years is going to come back and save there pitiful a$$e$.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:44 amWhich what was published? Her role in the Niger trip? So this little piece of evidence was publicly known before Novak’s story in July of 2003?
“No. Just known to reporters and WH officials complaining about how many reporters were being told about her being CIA.
“We discussed this somewhere earlier. Oh right… it was on this page”
So which reporters? Which WH officials? If the USA has Woodward saying under oath that Armitage said this, wouldn’t they try to find out who Joe Wilson talked to? There was this little tidbit I just read at this website ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/ index.php?title=Swiftboating_Joseph_Wilson ):
“U.S. Army (Ret.) Major General Paul E. Vallely shared “Revelations that former ambassador Joe Wilson was cavalier about referencing his wife’s position prior to the Iraq war” on the November 3, 2005, John Batchelor’s ABC Radio show.”
But down further, I read this:
“In a WorldNetDaily article November 8, 2005, Vallely corrected his statement: “After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion – the first of several conversations – that the ambassador revealed his wife’s employment with the CIA and that it likely occurred some time in the late summer or early fall of 2002. … He is certain, he says, the conversation took place in 2002.”
So did the investigators pay this retired general a visit to ask him about his story? Did Joe Wilson, who kept his wife’s status at CIA secret from even his friends and neighbors, really just blabber to this retired general that he had recently met “oh yeah, and my wife works for CIA, but keep it on the down low, okay?”
“Wilson: Saddam will use his WMDs or give them to terrorists…”
IF the US invaded Iraq, the article states. I found Joe Wilson’s comments, while supporting military action in conjunction with diplomatic pressure, opposing the invasion of Iraq with US forces:
“We should do everything possible to avoid the understandable temptation to send American troops to fight a war of ‘liberation’ that can be waged only by the Iraqis themselves. The projection of power need not equate with the projection of force”
“Wilson: Yes Bush was correct in his SOTU address, yes Saddam and his weapons are a threat to the US and yes he must be confronted militarily….”
But not through invasion, as he states in that article.
“Wilson: The Niger forgeries are an embarrassment and the US should just dismiss them because there’s more than enough other evidence of Saddam’s WMD threat….”
You’ll have to help point out where this quote can found in the CNN transcripts you posted. I can’t find it.
“No, it doesn’t seem that way. You could say it seems he is lying, but not that.
The guy who actually got sent to Africa to investigate claims of uranium sales heard the President refer to these claims and didn’t connect the dots for 5 months ? Who’s buying that ? Nobody.”
I didn’t say he was lying, I said it was his view point. As to who’s “buying that”, it seems only those who are against Joe Wilson.
“Why, is that some necessary qualification, to put it on paper ?
Don’t be so transparently evasive.
Novak’s interview with Armitage had no notes taken. Like Armitage’s interview with Woodward it was verbal. Just like Wilson’s conversations with various reporters.
Karl Rove didn’t publish any articles either. Nor Scooter Libby. You really wanna go with that as the necessary measure to get you across the line as having leaked her ID ?”
None of these “various reporters” publicly stated, as Robert Novak did, that Valerie Plame-Wilson worked at CIA. If Joe Wilson did talk to any reporters before the Novak article, those reporters were pretty tight lipped about it.
“The question was why was Armitage complaining that Joe Wilson was shopping his wife’s CIA ID to everyone a month before his article came out, and while others were being published by other reporters.”
So who did Joe Wilson talk to? If Armitage says “he was IDing his wife to everyone”, then who were these people?
January 28th, 2008 at 9:03 amWho needs stinkin’ EVIDENCE when you’ve got “The Greater Santa” whispering in your ear?
January 28th, 2008 at 11:16 amSaddam split up his cache of WMDs into thirds giving some to Santa Clause, some to the Tooth Fairy and all the uranium to the Easter Bunny.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:33 pm