Tim Blair

I once worked as a plastic shredder operator during my student days. Those industrial shredders would do very bad things to a human who got into one.

They have safety devices, but these could easily be removed with the right tools. Ugh.

Urgh, creepy...

*Even if* the plastic shredder described by Ann Clywd's Iraqi informants was in fact a friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) story of the type immortalized on alt.folklore.urban and snopes.com, the easy-breezy dismissals of Carlton and MacCallum ("lurid horrors dreamed up..." and "needless to say, no such things existed") are sick-making in light of the PROVEN horrors of the Baathist regime.

At the risk of a Godwinism, it's like writing "Needless to say, there was no mass production of human-leather lampshades in Nazi Germany." It's a true statement, AFAIK, but it does not "go without saying," given the undisputed atrocities of the Third Reich.

By the way, can someone give this American a hint on how to pronounce "Clywd"?

No doubt the plastic shredders were dismantled to remove evidence of the cover up of the whole plastic turkey incident.

You mean this kind of thing really happens?!?

Throbert McGee beat me to it. Mungo McCallum’s “needless to say” is one sick-making phase.

I think you have to be from Inner or Outer Qwghlm to pronounce that properly.

"The Post-Humanist Left".

Indeed.

So now the left is denying the level of brutality of Saddam's regime?

Here I thought I couldn't be more disgusted with them. My mistake.

If the brutality of a regime is a reason for going war, Bush surely must be getting ready to invade North Korea, Sudan, China, Burma, Laos and Malaysia. And yes, Saddam's regime was brutal. But I thought the imminent threat of deliverable WMDs was the primary reason for invading Iraq. Torturing and murdering one's own people does not constitute a threat to the national security of the US and its allies. Of course, now there's a massive search for a Washington scapegoat, and the Bush administration would rather adjust the reason for war rather than admit to politicizing intelligence.

Nice try, poser.

What a pity that some people can't make their point without lying about something as basic as their name.

Newt: "My mommy always said there were no monsters---no real ones---but there are."

Ripley: "Yes, there are."

Damnit, man, its fine to ask people to come to your own blog, but for fuck's sake, don't deny folks the right to use the back button.

of course, Tim Blair is my real name Robert.

Nice try, poser.

[The other] Tim Blair:

I'm sorry, but "imminent"? Aren't you tired of repeating this canard by now? At no time did anyone in the Bush Administration claim that Iraq posed an imminent threat of a WMD attack. In fact, Bush himself argued that we couldn't wait until the threat was imminent.

The invasion was based (I thought) on Saddam's ongoing violations of UN Security Council resolutions obliging him to verify the destruction of his WMDs. It's an uncontroversial fact that Saddam did have nuclear, chemical and biological programs after the 1991 Gulf War, and that every major intelligence agency in the western world continued to believe that he had them up until the invasion last year. If Saddam did in fact destroy his WMDs between 1991 and 2003, the onus was on him to verify the fact, not to lead UNSCOM and UNMOVIC inspectors on eternal wild goose chases. In the end, since the Security Council declined to enforce its own resolutions, the US led a multi-national coalition to do so. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Right, nobody said 'imminent' . . but they did say the threat was "immediate" "mortal" and "urgent". So far, those statements appear hyperbolic based on what the world knows about Iraq's military and deployable WMDs.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9869

Reg, I don't know which of Bush's two faces you were listening to, but I heard him (and all of his puppeteers in his administration like Rummy and Cheney) justify the invasion of Iraq by claiming that Saddam not only HAD weapons of mass destruction, but could use them on American troops within 45 minutes. I heard them say that the Iraqis tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. And for this president to clakim ANY sort of fidelity to or respect for the United Nations is hypocrisy of the highest level, given his cowboy mentality and willingness to discard the UN when they wouldn't back his invasion.

The issue is NOT whether Saddam Hussein was a bad man. We all concede that. The issue was whether George Bush manipulated intelligence - or worse yet directly lied - about Saddam Hussein's WMD programs... both their existence and their level of sophistication. Many of us - rational, thinking people every one - believe that Bush *did* lie, deliberately, in order to justify an invasion that he'd been planning since the very first week of his administration. That's what infuriates us.

Why is THAT so difficult to understand?

Many of us - rational, thinking people every one - believe that Bush *did* lie, deliberately, in order to justify an invasion that he'd been planning since the very first week of his administration. That's what infuriates us.

Why is THAT so difficult to understand?

- Because, dingelberry, you also want to deny that this same "ficiticious" WMD program was also believed to exist by the intelligence agencies of most countries of the world.

Because you take a giant leap of faith from "There is no WMD", to "Bush Lied" without considering the more likely step in between of "Bush was mistaken" or "Intelligence agencies fucked up, but there was no sinister conspiracy beneath it".

- Because you want to deny that Clinton bombed the fuck out of Iraq in 1998 with nearly identical intelligence but no one accuses him of lying to serve his cause.

Christopher:

(Sigh) So many mistakes.

The 45-minute claim was Tony Blair's, not that of anyone in the US Administration, and I believe it was claimed (on the basis of actual British intelligence information) that they could be deployed within that time frame.

Bush stated that British intelligence had learned that Saddam had attempted to buy uranium from Niger, if that's what you mean. As far as I know, British intelligence stands by this assessment, though I may have missed a retraction.

As for the UN ... well, if you believe that the institution has any use at all, you should agree that it should uphold its own binding resolutions, which would plausibly have resulted in an invasion of Iraq, according to the unanimously agreed-upon Res. 1441. Since Chirac had stated that he would veto a decision to invade, no matter what the circumstances--showing far greater contempt for the Security Council than Bush has ever done--it became pretty clear that the UN wasn't serious about the issue.

I believe you're a "rational, thinking" person, though I have grave doubts about "every one". And since both the British and American governments have launched inquiries into the pre-war WMD intelligence, I'd perhaps recommend that you wait to assess the evidence on its own merits, rather than pre-judging the issue. Or have you already made up your mind?

[The other] Tim Blair:

Thank you for conceding the point so graciously.

But hey--this was about the plastic/people shredders, no? On a recent visit to Australia, I got into an argument with my father over this (he's still angry with the Yanks over Vietnam). He brought up the supposed absence of the plastic shredders as if it proved something about the justification for the liberation of Iraq. I said, in effect: So what? It's not as if you have to make up gruesome stories about the Ba'ath regime. He then said in all seriousness (and it shames me to even write this):

"Well, Saddam wasn't killing nearly as many people in recent years as he used to."

"Well, Saddam wasn't killing nearly as many people in recent years as he used to."

Maybe he was getting old. Nothing to worry about though, Uday and Qusay would have made sure to bring up the average once they got in.

To a degree, the 'paper shredders' are to this Iraq War 2was 'pulling babies from incubators' was to Iraq War 1. Of course, the latter was used on the floor of the US Senate so many times to justify a war it made your head spin. As the world knows, that too was a baldfaced lie concocted by Hill & Knowlton - - - heck of a lie considering the vote to go to war passed so narrowly, and the woman who offered up the info was a member of the Kuwati royal family (although the world did not know this then)

So, two Bush wars based on lies. What can we expect if Jeb wins the White House in a few years?

http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

apologies for the typos above....it should read:

To a degree, the 'paper shredders' are to Iraq War2 what 'pulling babies from incubators' was to Iraq War1. Of course, the latter was used on the floor of the US Senate so many times to justify a war it made your head spin. As the world knows, that too was a baldfaced lie concocted by Hill & Knowlton - - - heck of a lie considering the vote to go to war passed so narrowly, and the woman who offered up the info was a member of the Kuwati royal family (although the world did not know this then)

So, two Bush wars based on lies. What can we expect if Jeb wins the White House in a few years?

http://www.prwatch.org/books/tsigfy10.html

"Tim Blair" if you're going to be a moron, please have the courage to post under your own name.

Oh, and now we've progressed to "Bush lied about Gulf War I?"

Please, settle it once and for all. Do you really think Saddam was an OK sorta' fella, just a little misunderstood?

Next you'll be pontificating on your love for Castro.

Having had a little think on this, your idea that Gulf War I was also "sexed up" why do you think the Bush/es went to war.

Because (chuckle, chuckle, hah, hah) it was all about OIL!

Yes! That cunning plan to spend 80 billion or so to get 5 billion or so worth of Oil!

Priceless!

G'day Christopher,

OK, you heard these things being said - care to provide any actual references - you know links to transcripts (virtually everything Rummy says is available in transcript form somewhere), articles quoting him directly - any form of primary or secondary documentation will do - the one thing that really won't do is this strange - "that's the way I remember it" stuff that keeps being peddled.

Oh, good grief.

We know Saddam had WMD programs. What else were those scientists that came to us saying, "We worked in Saddam's WMD programs" doing? I suppose they were lying, and we should give poor innocent Saddam the benefit of the doubt.

To a degree, the 'paper shredders' are to this Iraq War 2was 'pulling babies from incubators' was to Iraq War 1.

Did you read the post? Or do you just have preprogrammed responses to things like this? It is utterly despicable that you and your ilk are defending a madman like Hussein. Wake up and join the real world.

Quentin George: what a pity that you lack the intelligence to respond to a dissenting viewpoint without resorting to childish insults. Neither you nor your post are worth further response.

Reg: quite a pleasure to engage in a conversation with a worthy 'adversary' and thoughtful person on the right. Thank you for having both the intelligence and the courtesy to respond as you did.

Regarding Bush's claims of 'imminent' threat, I submit the following:

'Absolutely.' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an
"imminent" threat, 5/7/03

"This is about imminent threat." White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

"Well, of course he is." White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, responding to the question 'is Saddam an imminent threat to U.S. interests, either in that part of the world or to Americans right here at home?' 1/26/03

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent-- that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.' Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

Now, beyond that, to your other thoughts: if we're going to talk about UN resolutions that ut doesn't enforce, I'd submit to you Resolution 242 (withdrawl of Israel from occupied territories as well as Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist), as well as any of the myriad resoultions regarding conflicts in Africa (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia) as examples of UN resolutions that haven't been enforced. Not that I'm suggesting that UN resolutions shouldn't have teeth, but rather that 1441 was hardly unique.

Regarding what the US Administration has said on Iraq's WMD, I submit:

"I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons."
—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, at a hearing of the Senate's appropriations subcommittee on defense, May 14, 2003

"We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." —Vice President Dick Cheney, on Meet the Press, March 16, 2003

(Rhetorical question: does Rumsfeld not know Dick Cheney? Maybe they should meet, don't you think?)

On the famous 16 words about yellowcake... ok, I'll cede you the point that the British were the origin of this report. But Tenet personally called Rice’s deputy Stephen Hadley to discourage the President from using the uranium claim in his speech, and the CIA sent multiple memos to the White House (and Rice) warning about the unreliability of the Niger uranium claim. Yet Bush and his people chose to include it anyway - I believe because it better bolstered their case for war.

The 45 minute claim - you got me. It was British. I stand corrected.

On the upcoming committee - I'll wait and see how it's constituted and what the reporting structure is. If it's run like Cheney's energy committee, for example, and is treated as a big secret that we're not allowed to know about, then I won't trust it. If it reports to the president - as opposed to being an independent commission that operates on its own and cannot be pressured by either side - then I won't trust it.

I understand that many on the right believe very deeply in George Bush. You've every right to. However, you must understand that many of us on the left distrust him as much - and hold him in the same utter disdain - as the right did Clinton. And I'd simply ask you this: if Clinton had appointed his own commission to investigate Whitewater or the Lewinsky case or any other of the things that most bothered you about him... well, would YOUR first reaction be to innately trust that committee's work?

Finally - I'll concede you that not everyone on my side of the Bush issue is a rational, thinking person. However, I hope that you'll concede that not everyone on your side is either - as our friend Quentin George has done me the favor of proving.

Have a good weekend, friend.

Quentin, that actually is Tim Blair, albeit a leftoid blogging version. I believe his name links to his blog.

Tim,

Look, I'm sorry, but I just don't understand your point on this plastic shredder issue. Ann Clwyd told The Times that she'd been told from multiple Iraqi sources about the shredders, and as far as I know, no-one has come forward to debunk the story. It made headlines because it was an especially graphic illustration of the depravity of the Saddam Hussein regime. But it was far from the only one.

As Tim Blair I has linked above, we have footage of men being executed with explosives. We know of people being shot in front of their families. We hear from Western journalists of informants being returned to their homes in garbage bags, or in sealed coffins with insults scrawled across them. We can read in Kanan Makiya's book Republic of Fear about people being steamrollered under fresh ashphalt, or of men whose sole occupation seemed to be Government-Licensed Rapist. We know of the incredibly brutal ethnic cleansing of the Anfal, including the gassing of towns and mass executions.

I'm sure you're yawning at this laundry list, but perhaps you should spend some time with some of your ideological compadres in Human Rights Watch. Or Amnesty International. They appear to have had some minor, passing concerns about the character of the Hussein regime, plastic shredders or no.

Now, given all we know (and knew long before then) of the barbarous nature of the Saddam Hussein regime, can you say that John Howard--in mentioning a newspaper report--mischaracterized its nature in any meaningful way?

Oh, by the way: the Iraqis looted, pillaged and slaughtered their way through Kuwait in 1990-91. They probably didn't rip babies out of incubators, but they certainly did commit atrocities of similar depravity. I agree with you that the incubator story was unconsciable, but I'm not sorry in the least that we acted.

Christopher,

The pleasure is all mine. I don't know, though, why you think I deeply admire George W. Bush. I support his foreign policy, but believe he's a lousy domestic president (all of which is moot, since I'm not in America anyway). Sure, I do seem to be immune to the urge to spout cliches about him (Monkey! Cowboy! Puppet! Boy Emperor! Bush*! Bushitler!). But then I have a deathly aversion to cant. YMMV.

I stand corrected on the Fleischer/McLellan/Bartlett quotes, though I don't pay much attention to spokespeople of any variety. You've mischaracterized the Cheney quote. Here it is in full context:

And I think that would be the fear here, that even if he were tomorrow to give everything up, if he stays in power, we have to assume that as soon as the world is looking the other way and preoccupied with other issues, he will be back again rebuilding his BW and CW capabilities, and once again reconstituting his nuclear program. He has pursued nuclear weapons for over 20 years. Done absolutely everything he could to try to acquire that capability and if he were to cough up whatever he has in that regard now, even if it was complete and total, we have to assume tomorrow he would be right back in business again....

We know he's reconstituted these [biological and chemical weapons] programs since the Gulf War. We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons ....

Well, I think I've just given it, Tim [Russert], in terms of the combination of his development and use of chemical weapons, his development of biological weapons, his pursuit of nuclear weapons....

And over time, given Saddam's posture there, given the fact that he has a significant flow of cash as a result of the oil production of Iraq, it's only a matter of time until he acquires nuclear weapons.

Now, this neatly removes any contradiction between the Cheney and Rumsfeld quotes, no?

On the commission ... well, it's quite clear (especially in the wake of the Hutton inquiry) that you're preparing an excuse for any finding that you dislike. Would I trust an inquiry into Whitewater reporting to President Clinton? Sure, if its findings were transparent. In the Westminster-based countries, we have official inquiries reporting to governments on their own conduct all the time, as with the Arar case in Canada. Mind you, the (leftish) Canadian government just shuts down or ignores inquiries that threaten to embarrass it. I'd like to see Bush or Blair try that.

Edit: The Cheney quotes I used are from the same interview, though the "incriminating" sentence is not among them. The point is that Cheney was clearly arguing that Saddam was trying to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program, and likely misspoke (especially since nuclear weapons themselves are poor candidates for reconstitution ... just add water!).

Quentin, that actually is Tim Blair, albeit a leftoid blogging version. I believe his name links to his blog.

Ah, sorry. Mea culpa. Apologies all around.

Quentin George: what a pity that you lack the intelligence to respond to a dissenting viewpoint without resorting to childish insults. Neither you nor your post are worth further response.

I'm sorry for the insult, but I thought you were just one of the many trolls who seem to patrol the site. In hindsight, I should have checked the link. Consider my insult revoked.

Reg,

Again - well reasoned and well argued response.

As for the results of this commission's work, I'm actually not just preparing a defense in case I don't like the findings. I have very close connections to people in the agency involved (you'll pardon me if I don't elaborate, but you understand my reticence); I also served in the US Naval Reserves in intelligence. So my loyalty to the intel community is strong - but I think I'm harder on it than an outsider might be.

I'm greatly disturbed by the possibility that an administration - ANY administration - might use political pressure to manipulate intelligence findings. I'm equally disturbed by the idea that our intelligence could have gotten things so drastically wrong. So I would like very much to see an independent commission get to the bottom of the story.

However, Bush initially resisted forming this commission, relenting only under intense pressure from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. That's among the reasons I don't trust his having any involvement with the commission.

If the committee is truly independent, and cannot be pressured by either the White House OR its critics, and it finds that the blame for the inaccuracy lies with the intelligence community, then I will accept that - along with demanding that some heads roll as a result.

If the committee is in any way subject to the discretion of the president, whether it be in the form of having to make prgress reports or request permission from the WH to make certain lines of inquiry... or if the White House is allowed any prior input on its conclusions before they are reported to the public, then I will not support it nor will I trust its conclusions. I would be similarly mistrustful if it becomes clear that Bush's opponents are using it as a tool to bludgeon him rather than look to see what really happened.

Do I have my suspicions as to what occured and who is at fault? Sure I do. However, I think any fair minded person waits to see the accumulation of evidence before making final judgement. And if the committee is independent, and reports that the White House committed no wrongdoing, I am prepared to accept that answer.

Regarding the Hutton report - you shouldn't assume my positions any more than I should make the mistake of assuming yours (apologies on that, btw). Actually, while I thought Lord Hutton did take an especially political tone in his comments, I respect his findings, and feel that the BBC did wrong Prime Minister Blair. The resignations that followed were appropriate, and the BBC deserves to be held accountable.

Oh, almost missed this one:

...if we're going to talk about UN resolutions that ut doesn't enforce, I'd submit to you Resolution 242 (withdrawl of Israel from occupied territories as well as Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist), as well as any of the myriad resoultions regarding conflicts in Africa (Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Liberia) as examples of UN resolutions that haven't been enforced. Not that I'm suggesting that UN resolutions shouldn't have teeth, but rather that 1441 was hardly unique.

So because we don't enforce them all, we shouldn't enforce any? Neat. That disposes of the last raison d'etre of the UN. That suits me fine.

Oh, and on the old, old lie about Israel and Resolution 242: Res. 242 is a Chapter VI resolution, which requires negotiation between the parties involved. There is no provision for third-party involvement, though I'd guess the parties can ask other nations to mediate. What does 242 call for, exactly? It calls for an Israeli withdrawal from disputed territories in the framework of a negotiated comprehensive peace settlement.

Now, I think it's defensible to assume that if one party shows by its actions that it's unwilling to negotiate for peace--by sending people dressed as civilians to commit suicide bombings on city buses, to pick a random example out of the air--that the resolution is not yet in force. All resolutions dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are Chapter VI resolutions. So much for that.

Res. 1441, by contrast, is a resolution under Chapter VII ("Action With Respect to Threats to Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression"), which allows third-party enforcement of its terms. All but two of the resolutions dealing with Iraq are under Chapter VII.

Now, you may not like these facts. But then, your quarrel is with the United Nations, not with me.

Christopher, the "This is about imminent threat." is also taken (quite hilariously) out of context. Here's the transcript. McClellan was talking about Turkey, Turkey faced an imminent threat from Iraq due to the impending war. Turkey made a request under Article IV and we were supporting them.

The McClellan quote above refers to the imminent threat Iraq would pose to Turkey if we invaded. And since the Bartlett quote refers to American interests in the region, I'd say "imminent" applies as well.

Too slow.

Hey thanks, aaron and scott h! Those are pretty big boo-boos, Christopher. I retract my stand correcteds on all but the Fleischer quote, which is a pretty darn thin reed to base the "imminent" accusation on.

Quentin:

Regarding "the other Tim Blair:"

I know Tim Blair. Tim Blair is a friend of mine. Tim Blair (Australia) is no Tim Blair.

Apologies for blasting you before, sir. Good weekend to all - it's Friday night here and it's time to go out.

"I know Tim Blair. Tim Blair is a friend of mine. Tim Blair (Australia) is no Tim Blair."

I wonder what Tim Blair thinks about that.

I winced when John Howard used the claim of plastic shredders before the war.

Instead of documenting more mundane, more easily provable and equally evil forms of torture, he has to choose something that sounds like it was from a James Bond movie.

Andjam:

I agree, but it seems in character with the general ineptitude of the case presented by the Bush and Blair governments for the liberation of Iraq. I thought Colin Powell's presentation to the UN was a spectacularly bad move, for example, since it had the effect of placing the onus of proof of Iraqi WMDs onto the Americans, where it's remained ever since. Hans Blix might have been quite happy to characterize his mission as searching for WMDs, but his team was actually meant to verify Saddam Hussein's claim that he'd destroyed them. By making his presentation, Powell ceded this ground. And much the same can be said for Tony Blair's 45-minute claim, and so on. I believe that Blair believed what he was saying, but it guaranteed that he'd be held politically responsible for the veracity of the intelligence, as we're seeing now.

This other Tim Blair, you want i should fix him?

After reading reading his blog, it would seem that the Other Tim Blair is obviously one of the believers in the Delicious Candy method of Saddam-removal.

Good intentions do not always lead to good outcomes, sometimes good outcomes can come from bad intentions. Therefore it is always important to separate process from product.

It may well be a worthwhile exercise to dissect who said what, what they meant by it, who they said it to etc. But if you were the next guy in line for the shredder all that matters is that you were not the guy in front.

I don’t claim to know, or ever be able to know, who may or may not have lied or distorted the facts for their own ends. What I do know is that it’s a relatively small problem, if it exists at all.

"I know Tim Blair. Tim Blair is a friend of mine. Tim Blair (Australia) is no Tim Blair."

I wonder what Tim Blair thinks about that.

I can't wait to meet the bizarro Quentin George. I bet he gets all the women.

"I know Tim Blair. Tim Blair is a friend of mine. Tim Blair (Australia) is no Tim Blair."

Reminds me of the "You're no Jack Kennedy" line. Who said that, by the way?

Can I be Tim Blair too?

Why do the whiners keep getting the same things so wrong? This is a group of people that are in such a rush to judgment that they will twist anything to their own preconceptions. To wit:

Plastic turkey
Imminent threat
All about oil
All about Halliburton
All about the benjamins
The US made Saddam
Jews
Dumb inept slow on his feet Bush
Insidious devious crafty Bush
Dissent crushed
Millions dead
Famine
Cats and dogs, living together

Hell, in comparison, Bushitler and Bliar only got the WMD wrong

Bush never said "imminent" and he never said "Niger." He said Africa - Brit intel is still standing behind its claim (Congo and Somalia, IIRC).

And reg is correct on resolution level.

All about the benjamins

Its all about the P Diddy.

Cats and dogs, living together

"Is this true?"

"Yes, this man has no dick."*

*Best line ever.

Bringing up the incubators from Gulf War I is actually an interesting one.

Why did the US go to war in 1990-1991? Was it over a bunch of babies purportedly pulled out of incubators in Kuwait City? Did a PR firm persuade the US to go to war?

If so, then what happened to the oil and the American imperialism and all the other arguments? You mean the Americans would go to war over torture and inhumanity? That's according us Yanks a fair bit, innit?

No, the US didn't go to war over incubators and babies. But there's no denying that the story made an impression. It was PERSUASIVE, insofar as folks who weren't already persuaded by threat to Middle East, threat to sovereignty, threat to global oil supplies (yes, there really WAS an oil factor in there), wasn't quite enough.

Now, transpose that forward 12 years or so. Was WMD the only reason for going to war? Or, like babies in incubators, was it A factor?

Rialb Mit, good one. Add Afghanistan quagmire, Jenin massacre, stolen election, Bush-bin Laden conspiracy, Michael Moore's diet...

Reminds me of the "You're no Jack Kennedy" line. Who said that, by the way?

Dukakis running mate Lloyd Bentson, to Dan Quayle.

Plastic shredder, plastic Turkey - it all makes sense now!

...Or, like babies in incubators...

You know, this is the first I heard about babies in incubators.

Fnuny, they haven't found George Bush's gas chambers yet either, but everyone is convinced that he = Hitler

I fear that both Tim Blair bloggers have fallen victim to a certain degree of identity theft here.

A great thread, thanks for playing along. From my objective point of view, Christopher buried the conservative arguments here.

Perhaps I am not objective after all :-)

Christopher posts: "And for this president to clakim ANY sort of fidelity to or respect for the United Nations is hypocrisy of the highest level, given his cowboy mentality and willingness to discard the UN when they wouldn't back his invasion."

Since when does anyone in any country NEED to have fidelity or respect for the UN? That brothel from hell, infested with the lickboots of tyrants, variegated thieves, and the French (but I repeat myself)has hardly any moral imprimateur, aside from UNICEF, left on earth.

Oh, and "Cowboy" is a compliment 'round these parts.

[The other] Tim,

Are you serious?

Christopher made flatly erroneous statements on

1) Whether Dick Cheney had ever claimed that Saddam had nuclear weapons;

2) Whether Scott Bartlett and Dan McLellan had claimed that the Iraqi threat was imminent;

3) The source of the "45-minute" claim;

4) The nature of UN resolutions regarding Israel.

Once you remove these points from his argument, there's nothing substantial left! A single Ari Fleischer quote and a lot of debatable supposition about Bush's conduct before the war. When faced with these facts, Christopher (like you) quietly folded his tent and left. Nice guy, polite, friendly, but dead wrong.

By the way, the next time you see anyone tossing this quote around:

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent-- that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.' Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02"

as some kind of argument that the US was claiming an imminent threat, point out that this quote is fabricated.

Here's the real quote:

"Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent—that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons.

I would not be so certain. Before Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the best intelligence estimates were that Iraq was at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. The experts were flat wrong. When the U.S. got on the ground, it found the Iraqi’s were probably six months to a year away from having a nuclear weapon – not 5 to 7 years.

We do not know today precisely how close he is to having a deliverable nuclear weapon. What we do know is that he has a sizable appetite for them, that he has been actively and persistently pursuing them for more than 20 years, and that we allow him to get them at our peril. Moreover, let’s say he is 5-7 years from a deliverable nuclear weapon. That raises the question: 5-7 years from when? From today? From 1998, when he kicked out the inspectors? Or from earlier, when inspectors were still in country? There is no way of knowing except from the ground, unless one believes what Saddam Hussein says.

But those who raise questions about the nuclear threat need to focus on the immediate threat from biological weapons."

from House Armed Services Committee Testimony on 9/18/02.

This is doubtless another warmongering neocon dishonest lying spin attempt, since everyone knows that lefties don't lie (my eyes just rolled so hard that I think I sprained them).

goodness, are the idjits still going on about this 'imminent' threat crapola? for the zillioneth time, here's what the actual gwb actually said during the actual sotu speech that so many actual idjits willfully and actually distort:

"Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option."

Oh, they certainly are. Fueled by a list of out-of-context or fabricated quotes from the Council for American Progress (Christopher posted part of it above), they jump right in on any discussion of the "imminent" meme and post that sucker, expecting it to have some kind of old-testament biblical "god hath spoken" impact. Most of em don't even bother to read the thing; most of the quotes don't have a damn thing to do with any implication of an imminent threat (you can point out that "urgent" and "imminent" are NOT SYNONYMS until you're blue in the face; good luck getting the willfully obtuse to recognize that), and the ones that do are either 1) taken far, far out of context or 2) flat-out fabricated, like the one I posted the correction for above.

re: "You're no Jsck Kennedy" line. Well, a dispassionate examination of the two (JF Kennedy and Dan Quayle) would show a great many similarities in background, intellect (Kennedy's has been overblown by apologists), and other areas. The one sure difference appears to be that Quayle was faithful to his wife.

Bentsen, by the way, immediately made me think, "and you're no Lyndon Johnson" but I wasn't sure whether that was a compliment or a slam.

You know, it's an interesting game that is being played here and elsewhere. Arguments are made and unmade but, the people making them are not really interested in them.

The true believers on both sides made up their minds long ago. The arguments being proffered are almost all aimed at the muddled middle who can't make up their minds.

It's kind of scary when you realize that the fate of humanity rests on the most clueless among us.

Everybody,

You forgot to mention the Tone Poem for Peace over at Doggerel Pundit... one of the Pundit's best efforts.

On the famous 16 words about yellowcake... ok, I'll cede you the point that the British were the origin of this report. But Tenet personally called Rice’s deputy Stephen Hadley to discourage the President from using the uranium claim in his speech, and the CIA sent multiple memos to the White House (and Rice) warning about the unreliability of the Niger uranium claim. Yet Bush and his people chose to include it anyway - I believe because it better bolstered their case for war.

This refers to Tenet's issue with the forged Iraq/Niger uranium documents US intelligence aquired. It is the reason that Bush instead relied on different, British intelligence on Africa that was believe to have been aquired from France.

I think I saw some footage of the Fleicher statement. If it's what I remember, the briefing or press-conference was very broad and fast paced. The question was rapid fire as he was leaving and was about his "feelings". It was also after the war started.