Showing posts with label GWB Presidency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GWB Presidency. Show all posts

Saturday, June 6, 2015

US News: Peter Roff: Bob Woodward: George W. Bush Didn’t Lie to Start Iraq War

Do I think President George W. Bush lied to get America to go to war with Iraq? No, but I’m not a mind-reader either. And besides, unlike the Far-Left, I don’t see George W. as a liar, or war criminal. But a good decent man who was way over his head. To go from being Governor of Texas, which is a weak job to begin with, where the State Legislature only meets every other year, to President of the United States, with no other public service position on your résumé and a fairly thin private sector record, is a gigantic leap. Sure, I rather have George W. as President, than Sarah Palin, but that is not really saying anything.

What I believe President Bush and his National Security Council did, was by the summer of 2002, they decided that they were going to go to war with Iraq. And take Saddam Hussein out of power if not kill him. And then try to make the case to the country and especially a divided Congress, with a Republican House and Democratic Senate, during an election year, that Saddam is still dangerous. And that he has weapons and they either need to be eliminated, or he needs to be eliminated. With all the so-called evidence of Saddam’s weapons programs and his ambition to have nuclear weapons. And as it turns out the Bush Administration had paper-thin evidence to go with.

What the Bush Administration did, was they decided to go to war. And then make the case for going to war afterwords. The original reason for going to war was to eliminate Iraq’s WMD and nuclear program. Well as it turns out, Saddam’s WMD were gone and he didn’t have a nuclear program. Probably because the United Nations weapons inspectors took out those weapons and programs in the late 1990s. So after we learned that there was no longer WMD in Iraq, the Bush Administration kept changing the justification for going to war in Iraq. Saddam was a bad guy, a potential link and supplier to other terrorists. Well, they were only right about one thing. Saddam, was an evil man and brutal dictator.

There people who are liars and people who are bad and even evil. And then there people who are simply just wrong about whatever policies they are pushing and trying to accomplish. George W. was simply wrong and didn’t have the information and knowledge needed to make the decisions that he did to make those decisions. Someone with better judgement, experience and knowledge and even a better national security team around him, doesn’t take America to war in Iraq. Especially without any real reason to do it other than Saddam is a an evil guy and brutal dictator. Which can be said about a lot of other countries in the world. Where America hasn’t threatened to even attack.


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Washington Examiner: Gene Healy: The War in Iraq Was a Bipartisan Disaster

I actually agree with Gene Healy on this even though I put most of the responsibility for the War in Iraq on President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and their supporters. But the fact is the War in Iraq never happens without Democratic support in Congress. Because President Bush wanted a bipartisan vote for the Congressional resolution that gave the authorization for the War in Iraq  that passed both the House and Senate with an overwhelming bipartisan vote. And Democrats under Leader Tom Daschle controlled the Senate for President Bush’s first two years. And then of course all of those appropriations bills and the mountain of debt that was created to fund the War in Iraq and the occupation following the 2003 invasion.
Democrats in the Senate could’ve said one word that would’ve prevented the War in Iraq from ever happening. The word is no and said no “we are not going to support this because we do not believe the case has been made for the War in Iraq and do not support this rush to war. Especially in an election year 2002 with both the House and Senate in play”. Now of course Democratic loyalists are going to say that “President Bush had a very high popularity rating and going up against him in an election year would’ve been bad politics”. Fine that is the political argument for supporting the war a political argument that has played a big part in millions of Iraqi’s being dead and thousands of Americans being dead.
Of course war has consequences, but so does politics especially when political decisions are made that affects human lives. Like whether or not to send American soldiers to a country we certainly weren’t very familiar with pre-2003, but I’m not sure we’ve are very familiar with now. Especially since a country that looked fairly stable just a few months ago now looks like they are in the early stage of a civil war. With the argument being that “we must do this to prevent Iraq from arming terrorists who would kill Americans”. And argument that still have never materialized with any credible evidence. Especially since the Hussein Regime in Iraq at the time didn’t even have weapons of mass destruction.
American Neoconservatives deserve most of the blame for the War in  Iraq and I’m not trying to take any of that deserved blame away from them. But the fact is we are not there today had Congressional Democrats not of backed that war. And they had the opportunity to prevent this war from happening in the first place. And instead decided to back a popular Republican President. And we’ve paid a heavy price for the decision ever since. 

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat

John F. Kennedy Liberal Democrat
Source: U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy in 1960