If, as President Bush has stated repeatedly, the intelligence on Iraq was bad, why after recognizing this did he present the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award, to CIA Director George Tenet? I have nothing against Tenet, but the award seems flaky if he goofed as badly as is now being trafficked about.
While the president is doing his damnedest to find his accessories before the fact and accomplices in his Iraq War, why wasn’t he looking for those same co-conspirators when he was taking his bows aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln when the mission was accomplished?
Even if we give him the point that the Congress had the same intelligence that he had when it authorized the war – which I definitely do not – and that President Bill Clinton declared Saddam a WMD owning menace, why should these officials be charged as accomplices? After all, Mr. Clinton used this intelligence to support his policy of containment and the Congress authorized Mr. Bush to use force, if he found it essential. They didn’t make a finding that we should attack.
The president keeps saying that the world’s intelligence agencies believed Saddam had chemical and biological agents. Why then did not France, Germany and so many other nations balk at attacking Iraq? Could it be that they thought containment was working? Facts on the ground support this position.
Instead of attacking Iraq, why did we not attack Iran or North Korea, two nations clearly more dangerous than Iraq? These countries had WMDs and were in search of nuclear capability – which North Korea has succeeded in developing. Could it be that Secretary Rumsfeld’s observation – reported by Bob Woodward in his book on the run up to the conflict – that Iraq had good targets have been the reason?
Is everyone aware that we’re approaching the number of American deaths in Iraq equal to those killed on 9/11?
There were twenty-some terrorists involved in 9/11. Are there more terrorists in the world today than on that date? I don’t know, but I suspect so.
These questions are not intended to be exhaustive but simply representative. I’m too busy to write extensively; just think up your own.
Blog on!
Wild Bill
