What a brilliant collection of quotes:
In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get ‘bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. I heard him say: ‘The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’
In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein ‘has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.’
That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.’
In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.’
On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to ‘hit’ Iraq. I heard that he said: ‘Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.’
I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: ‘How do you capitalise on these opportunities?’
…
I heard Tony Blair say: ‘Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.’
I heard General Myers say: ‘Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.’
I heard the president say: ‘Prisoners are being taken, and intelligence is being gathered. Our decisive actions will continue until these enemies of democracy are dealt with.’
I heard a soldier describe what they called ‘bitch in a box’: ‘That was the normal procedure for them when they wanted to soften up a prisoner: stuff them in the trunk for a while and drive them around. The hoods I can understand, and to have them cuffed with the plastic things – that I could see. But the trunk episode – I thought it was kind of unusual. It was like a sweatbox, let’s face it. In Iraq, in August, it’s hitting 120 degrees, and you can imagine what it was like in the trunk of a black Mercedes.’
…
I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’
I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’
I heard the president say: ‘For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace.’
I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child.
I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs. I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree.
Read the whole thing.
Unfortunately the link is broken.
Even so, the quotes themselves make for fascinating reading.
Nicely posted. Grazie.
I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs. I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree.
Oh how nice. Saddam’s not such a bad guy, after all. He likes treeeeees. Excuse me while I pass this link of unbiased, specially-selected quotes around to everyone I know. It’s got to be accurate! Why bother remembering the past in totality, or even providing quotes in context, when you can have the smallest bits of information pre-packaged to suit your political whim?
Oh, and speaking of things that are totally accurate:
I heard Diane the egomaniac, “I have no idea [what I did]. But congratulations to me!”
I heard Diane the fiscal conservative, “Just get a new one! Move on, move up! Consume! It’s not that much money!”
I heard Diane the observant parent, They’re already in bed. Possibly asleep.
I heard Diane the consumer advocate, “Hey, Wal-Mart, from now on, you go investigate yourself.”
I heard Diane the journalism advocate, “Hookers should have White House press passes under fake names.”
You can’t deny you wrote any of those things. Therefore, you must be an egomanical, whoremongering Wal-Mart shopaholic who doesn’t know what her kids are doing. The proof is right there in the quotes!
Go back to the original list of quotes — that would be the collection of words within quotation marks, like “A quotation”; that indicates an exact phrase or sentence that someone said — and find ONE, just ONE, that is a)misquoted or b)taken out of context.
Since that is what you did with me, I have to assume that is what was done with the QUOTES above. Please show me where this is true. If you can’t do it once, I willl expect an immediate apology and a vow to show better reasoning skills.
I’m still waiting for you to give me a list of “Islamic terrorists, Kim Jong Il, and the remnant of the Taliban” within the Democratic party. I have the feeling I’ll be waiting for a while.
I moved last week and we’re not getting a phone again for a while; this is a public computer, and I don’t have the time to look up everything.
The entire LIST is taken out of context. You have quotes from career politicians trying to minimize danger in one era of American life, and quotes in another where we had woken up. Let’s look at one thing:
I heard the president, in the State of the Union address, say that Iraq was hiding materials sufficient to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas.
This was, and still is, plausible. Iraq told the UN it had such stockpiles back in 1991/2. Since then, it has refused to give up the materials or prove it destroyed them. Why this hasn’t been extensively reported in the media is beyond me. Must be that “corporate” bias.
The idea that we went into Iraq for anything other than national security reasons is just insane. “Blood for oil” and “Bush lied” are easily rebuttable when taken together, because they make ZERO sense, unless you live in a fairy tale where Republicans are stupid and/or evil.
But hey, if you want to do something constructive, how about you answer these questions on your blog, explain what would have been a better thing to do. I’d love to hear it. Especially that last one.
(P.S. Tell me where the Taliban quote is and I’ll respond. I can’t remember.)
So, you can’t find ONE quote that is taken out of context and actually says the complete opposite of what it appears to say (as you did with mine).
Just admit it. You can’t do it.
As for why we did it, you’d better get on the phone to Washington, because Bush can’t even keep his fricking stories straight about why we invaded Iraq:
Sept. 12, 2002 – Speech before the U.N. General Assembly
“Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest
otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime’s good faith
is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless
gamble. And this is a risk we must not take.”
Sept. 19, 2002 – Response to a reporter’s question
“If you want to keep the peace, you’ve got to have the authorization to
use force. … This is a chance for Congress to indicate support. It’s a
chance for Congress to say, we support the administration’s ability to keep
the peace. That’s what this is all about.”
Oct. 7, 2002 – Speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cincinnati
“Saddam Hussein is harboring terrorists and the instruments of terror,
the instruments of mass death and destruction. … Knowing these realities,
American must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear
evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun —
that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”
March 6, 2003 – News conference
“Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament. And in
order to disarm, it would mean regime change.”
March 17, 2003 – Address to nation (two days before invasion)
“Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that
the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal
weapons ever devised. The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or, one
day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could
fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of
innocent people in our country or any other.”
May 1, 2003 – Aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the
United States and our allies have prevailed. … The battle of Iraq is one
victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still
goes on.”
Nov. 11, 2003 – Veterans Day address
“Our mission in Iraq and Afghanistan is clear to our service members —
and clear to our enemies. Our men and women are fighting to secure the freedom
of more than 50 million people who recently lived under two of the cruelest
dictatorships on earth. Our men and women are fighting to help democracy and
peace and justice rise in a troubled and violent region. Our men and women are
fighting terrorist enemies thousands of miles away in the heart and center of
their power, so that we do not face those enemies in the heart of America.”
Aug. 16, 2004 – Speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cincinnati
“Even though we did not find the stockpiles that we thought we would find,
Saddam Hussein had the capability to make weapons of mass destruction, and he
could have passed that capability on to our enemy, to the terrorists. It is
not a risk after September the 11th that we could afford to take. Knowing what
I know today, I would have taken the same action.”