Kerry makes false statement about Dean

From this story: Dean, Kerry Exchange Insults Over Iraq

"Governor Dean has no policy on Iraq evidently, except 'no.' 'No' is not a policy," he said. "I voted to hold Iraq accountable and hold Saddam Hussein accountable. That was the right vote for the defense of the United States of America."

Dean has made his policy clear throughout the campaign.

Here's his 7 point plan released April 9th this year

* A NATO-led coalition should maintain order and guarantee disarmament.
* Civilian authority in Iraq should be transferred to an international body approved by the U.N. Security Council.
* The U.N.'s Oil for Food program should be transformed into an Oil for Recovery program, to pay part of the costs of reconstruction and transition.
* The U.S. should convene an international donor's conference to help finance the financial burden of paying for Iraq's recovery.
* Women should participate in every aspect of the decision-making process.
* A means should be established to prosecute crimes committed against the Iraqi people by individuals associated with Saddam Hussein's regime.
* A democratic transition will take between 18 to 24 months, although troops should expect to be in Iraq for a longer period.
* "We must hold the Administration to its promises before the war, and create a world after the war that is safer, more democratic, and more united in winning the larger struggle against terrorism and the forces that breed it," Governor Dean said. "That is, after all, now much more than a national security objective," he added. "It is a declaration of national purpose, written in the blood of our troops, and of the innocent on all sides who have perished."

And here are most of the relevent quotes I could find where Dean made comments about Iraq. It's a tad bit more than "no".

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said if Saddam is shown to have atomic or biological weapons, the United States must act. But he also said Bush must first convince Americans that Iraq has these weapons and then prepare them for the likelihood American troops would be there for a decade.

August 12, 2002

"There's substantial doubt that is as much of a threat as the Bush administration claims." Though Americans might initially rally to military action, 'that support will be very short-lived once American kids start coming home in boxes,' Mr. Dean warned Wednesday as he campaigned in Iowa.

September 06, 2002

"The president has to do two things to get the country's long-term support for the invasion of Iraq," Dean said in a telephone interview. "He has done neither yet." Dean said President Bush needs to make the case that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, such as atomic or biological weapons, and the means to use them. Bush also needs to explain to the American public that a war against Iraq is going to require a long commitment.

September 18, 2002

Dean, in an interview Tuesday, said flatly that he did not believe Bush has made "the case that we need to invade Iraq." Dean said he could support military action, even outside the U.N., if Bush could "establish with reasonable credibility" that Hussein had the capacity to deliver either nuclear or biological weapons against the United States and its allies. But he said that the president, to this point, hadn't passed that test.

"He is asking American families to sacrifice their children, and he's got to have something more than, 'This is an evil man,' " Dean said. "There are a lot of evil people running countries around the world; we don't bomb every one of them. We don't ask our children to die over every one of them."

September 18, 2002

"The president approached it in exactly the wrong way. The first thing I would have done is gone to United Nations Security Council and gone to our allies and say, "Look, the UN resolutions are being violated. If you don't enforce them, then we will have to." The first choice, however, is to enforce them through the UN and with our allies. That's the underlying approach."

October 31st, 2002

"I would like to at least have the president, who I think is an honest person, look us in the eye and say, 'We have evidence, here it is.' We've never heard the president of the United States say that. There is nothing but innuendo, and I want to see some hard facts."

December 22, 2002

"I do not believe the president has made the case to send American kids and grandkids to die in Iraq. And until he does that, I don't think we ought to be going into Iraq. So I think the two situations are fairly different. Iraq does not possess nuclear weapons. The best intelligence that anybody can find, certainly that I can find, is that it will be at least a year before he does so and maybe five years."

January 06, 2003

"I personally believe hasn’t made his case"

January 10, 2003

"These are the young men and women who will be asked to risk their lives for freedom. We certainly deserve more information before sending them off to war."

January 29, 2003

"Terrorism around the globe is a far greater danger to the United States than Iraq. We are pursuing the wrong war,"

February 5, 2003

"We ought not to resort to unilateral action unless there is an imminent threat to the United States. And the secretary of State and the president have not made a case that such an imminent threat exists.''

February 12, 2003

In an interview, Dean said that he opposed the congressional resolution and remained unconvinced that Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States. He said he would not support sending U.S. troops to Iraq unless the United Nations specifically approved the move and backed it with action of its own.

"They have to send troops," he said.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/5236485.htm">Feb. 22, 2003

"Well, I think that the United Nations makes it clear that Saddam has to disarm, and if he doesn't, then they will disarm him militarily. I have no problem with supporting a United Nations attack on Iraq, but I want it to be supported by the United Nations. That's a well-constituted body. The problem with the so-called multilateral attack that the president is talking about is an awful lot of countries, for example, like Turkey-- we gave them $20 billion in loan guarantees and outright grants in order to secure their permission to attack. I don't think that's the right way to put together a coalition. I think this really has to be a world matter. Saddam must be disarmed. He is as evil as everybody says he is. But we need to respect the legal rights that are involved here. Unless they are an imminent threat, we do not have a legal right, in my view, to attack them.

February 27, 2003

Kerry is an idiot if he thinks the IRW was the only way to deal with Saddam. Otherwise he's just a liar. I don't think Kerry is an idiot.

Thanks for posting this, killbotfactory!

:dem:

He is going no where. He went from my 2nd choice to my last choice in a few short weeks.

He lied about health insurance in Vermont.
He lied about Dean's positions on Medicare and Social Security.
He lied about Dean's commitment to the elderly and disabled in Vermont.

:)

Stealing his lines, stealing his campaign ideas.

Poor John. If it weren't for Dean he'd have no campaign at all.

Eloriel

Facts, sweet facts!

Kerry = Jan Brady.

And no, Senator Kerry, in fact, you voted to give Bush a blank check. Funds to be drawn from the average American's bank account.

I still giggle out loud when I think of Kerry's Jan Brady imitation!

and chuckle everytime I see it.

going to save this for my next round with Dr. Funkenstein.

...if you don't have something nice to say, say nothing at all...

eom

Until he does, he keeps digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself.

It doesn't say much for his political skills that he can't even see which way the wind is blowing.

"George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." - John Kerry - May 4, 2003

I was frankly thrilled to learn that some of Graham's staff joined the Kerry campaign. They did so well for Graham, don't you know.

One of the things that's been true of Kerry in the past, and I'm wondering if it's still true, is that he's had far more staff than he needs. Top heavy. Ineffective. Too many cooks and all that.

Eloriel

Uh, great move.

Maybe next Kerry will attack Lieberman on being soft on the entertainment industry?

The sad thing about kerry is that lieberman and Edwards
(senators, identical situation) voted
for the IWR and neither one of them says they were "mislead".
He should explain how he was so stupid that he's the only
one that was.

I know can he have it both ways?

At least Lieberman and Edwards aren't flip-flopping on their votes.

You are a great asset to the Dean campaign.

:kick:

From ABC News' Kerry campaign reporter Ed O'Keefe:

"In New Hampshire, one word haunts Senator John F. Kerry and it is D-E-A-N. At the midpoint of his 5-day, 15-city swing through the Granite State, the neighboring Senator from Massachusetts has visited the southern strongholds surrounding Manchester and its remote northern region; in both areas of the politically unpredictable state, Kerry received warm receptions of support followed by a cool reminder that the Dean train has already been and may come back through the station."

"On Saturday night in Londonderry Katie Wolff, a self-described independent voter against the war, came to hear John Kerry. After an hour and half mix of stump and quizzing, she left leaning but fully in the Kerry camp, explaining, 'I think that if more Democrats had stood up and said this (war in Iraq) was wrong, we might have stopped it. And I think if Kerry had (voted against it) he might have more support. A lot of Democrats stood by quietly and let it happen.'"

"On the stump, Kerry explained to a curious voter, 'I don't know anything about it. I don't know anything about any attack team. I can tell you this: I don't want my campaign joining in any kind of attacks on anybody … it's not unusual, it's not the first time in campaigns people have had friends or shared information but I don't know nothing about it and I guarantee you I'm not joining in any attack campaign on anyone.'"

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/TheNote/TheNote.html

Another day, another lie, from the mouth of John Kerry...LOL.

Am I missing something? :shrug:

got! And then...he continues with the bullshit...

"George, I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity, but I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him." - John Kerry - May 4, 2003

What "disarm him", kerry? What Weapons?

I don't want to go into the -- I think the case you made yesterday speaks for itself. For those who look for a smoking gun, there is really a kind of smoking gun -- I mean, it doesn't have to be the gun itself that is smoking. It can be evidence which makes clear the effort to move the gun around before it's actually smoking, and I think you made a very powerful case with respect to that, and that is important here. And people need to look at it dispassionately, nonpartisanly and with the security interests of our country in mind.-- John Kerry, in his opening remarks prior to his questioning of Colin Powell, Feb. 6, 2003 http://usembassy.state.gov/mumbai/wwwhwashnews130.html



It just gives me goosebumps!

(Videotape, October 9, 2002):
SEN. KERRY: Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating agents and is capable of quickly producing weaponizing of a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery on a range of vehicles, such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers and covert operatives which would bring them to the United States itself.
In addition, we know they are developing unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents.
According to the CIA’s report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that they are seeking nuclear weapons. There is little question that Saddam Hussein wants to develop them.
In the wake of September 11, who among us can say with any certainty to anybody that the weapons might not be used against our troops or against allies in the region? Who can say that this master of miscalculation will not develop a weapon of mass destruction even greater, a nuclear weapon?
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: Unmanned aerial vehicles...
SEN. KERRY: Sure.
MR. RUSSERT: ...a nuclear threat. Those are exactly the things that you suggested in New Hampshire President Bush had lied to you about.
SEN. KERRY: That’s precisely the point. That is exactly the point I’m making. We were given this information by our intelligence community. Now, either it was stretched politically in the many visits of Dick Cheney to the CIA and the way in which they created a client relationship, but the information we were given, built on top of the seven and a half years of what we knew he was doing, completely justified the notion that you had to respond to give the president the right to put inspectors in. The president said
when he put them in “War is not inevitable.” Colin Powell said to us, “The only rationale for going to war was weapons of mass destruction,” and it was legitimate to hold Saddam Hussein accountable to get the inspectors in. I’m saying to you that I don’t believe this president did the job of exhausting the remedies available to make us as strong as we should have been in doing that and certainly didn’t do the planning to be able to win the peace in the way that we need to. And I still think we can do it, Tim, but we’ve got to
get about the business of doing it.
MR. RUSSERT: But you had access to the intelligence. You had access to the national intelligence estimate...
SEN. KERRY: Absolutely.
MR. RUSSERT: ...which said the CIA had a low confidence in Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction or transferring the terrorists. And the State Department, which is included in the national intelligence estimate, said there was not a compelling case, that he reconstituted his nuclear program.
SEN. KERRY: I didn’t base it on the nuclear, but the most important and compelling rationale were the lack of inspections and the non-compliance of Saddam Hussein. Even Hans Blix at the United Nations said he is not in compliance.
MR. RUSSERT: Were you misled by the intelligence agencies? Were you duped?
SEN. KERRY: No, we weren’t

Ouch! Guess again Senator.

I got a right winger who begs to differ.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=34930

Julie

:kick:

No war?

"Dean, in an interview Tuesday, said flatly that he did not believe Bush has made "the case that we need to invade Iraq."

Or war?

"The first thing I would have done is gone to United Nations Security Council and gone to our allies and say, "Look, the UN resolutions are being violated. If you don't enforce them, then we will have to." The first choice, however, is to enforce them through the UN and with our allies. That's the underlying approach."

Go through the UN. Get inspections done. If there is proof that Saddam is a threat to the region or is in violation of the UN resolutions (there wasn't) then work through the UN to disarm him. If that meant military action, so be it, so long as the UN approves it. If there is proof that Saddam is an imminent threat to the US (there wasn't), work through the UN to disarm him. If the UN refuses for some reason, then unilateral action would be okay.

Pretty reasonable to me.

Dean supporters think his shit don't stink.

From killbotfactory's links:

"I would like to at least have the president, who I think is an honest person, look us in the eye and say, 'We have evidence, here it is.' We've never heard the president of the United States say that. There is nothing but innuendo, and I want to see some hard facts."

Oh, yeah. There's not much policy there, is there?

You don't give the president authority to invade a country whenever he wants unless that country is a threat.

That's called common sense.

Dean was exactly right, there was nothing but innuendo about the Iraqi threat.