I need help debating this Republican

I wrote:

Do you now recognize that the arguments about weapons of mass destruction and the liberation of the Iraqi people were just lies of this administration?

The Republican wrote:

So you say that President Bush lied? The Dems say that too.

They say there never were any weapons of mass destruction and that Bush took us to war for his oil buddies...

Yup, thats what the Dems say.

Here is a list of what else they have said...

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"Iraq is a long way from , but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Feb 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by
Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"There is no doubt that ... Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War status. In addition, Saddam continues to
redefine delivery systems and is doubtless using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandated of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat
to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Jay Rockeffer (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated, over the course of the past 11 years, every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity. This he has refused to do" Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid,
comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"ithout question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation .. And now he
is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

Yeah, I guess you are right, It's all lies dreamed up by the current administration.


Then someone else wrote back and said:

Actually, I don't think Bush lied, I think the people providing him intelligence lied or was inaccurate.

What would be your counter argument?

that some of these quotes have been taken out of context.

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat
to our security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

Al Gore, Robert Byrd, and Kennedy didn't support the war against Iraq because they felt that there weren't any WMD's there. I strongly feel that the UN weapons inspectors were doing a good job and that Sadaam was already in a bind.

As for the Sadaam wasn't a imminent danger, that is all simply BS. Bush reiterated the same sentiment of Blair when he said that Iraq could attack Britain in 45 minutes and that Iraq had drones to send over the southern US. If that is not imminent, then I don't know any other terms to describe what the other e-mailer is saying.

The CIA told the WH that there were no WMD, and the WH ignored those reports.

Was SH a dangerous tyrant? Yes, to his own people, but not to anyone else. His regime was weak with respect to his neighbors, and decidedly secular and an enemy of the Mid-East religious nuts that were probably behind the 9/11 attacks. While it would be nice to topple a tyrant and see flowering freedom, no reasonable student of the Middle East could have thought that possible, nor did any. While the WH people publicly engaged in such fantasy, it wasn't backed up by any studies from people with experience, and was opposed by all of those people.

The current final say that the WH has on Iraq is that SH was evil, and it is unquestionably good that he is gone. And the response to that is a flat no. It is not good that he is gone in the absence of considering the consequences of him being gone. Is it better for us? Does it advance our safety from terrorists? Does it advance our safety from other regimes (in the area and around the world)? Does it advance our international position and international agenda? Is it worth the price in blood and treasure?

The answer to each of these questions is a resounding NO, and in fact it damages our interests in each of those areas.

First, it does not advance our safety from terrorists. In fact, terrorist volunteers are coming out of the woodwork to "remove the infidel from Arab soil." This is what the critics of the WH policy predicted would happen. These are new volunteers too boot, Iraqi citizens who would otherwise be under SH's thumb and peaceful to us.

Second, other regimes are now seeing that when the boot soles hit the sand, it is costing us far more than we had imagined. Iran and North Korea have seen that if they had nukes, like the former Soviets, then perhaps they would not be invaded. Saudi Arabia has made arrangements with Pakistan to share nukes. North Korea open threatens to nuke us unless we do their bidding.

Third, as Administration employee Richard Perle recently pointed out, the invasion violated international law. By violating international law as to when war can be waged, we have basically said that it has no effect, we won't be bound by it. Other countries have less reason to respect international law as a neutral tool for all dealings, including trade, which will cost us money, because we are the chief "consumer" of international law to conduct trade and diplomacy. The cost of doing business through unilateral triumphalism in the Bush doctrine is not only thousands of lives, but a hundred times the money. What we used to be able to do with less than $10 billion dollars a year pointing to the "rules" we now must enforce with somewhere around a trillion dollars in military spending, and it still isn't as effective. We wrote the damn rules to favor us. All we had to do was follow them, and we made tons of money. An American President that would throw out the rule book we wrote would have to be an idiot or heavily invested in arms and oil. Look, he hit the f****** trifecta again. What a f****** coincidence.

Fourth, the Iraq war was not worth the price in blood and treasure. The people still don't have their own government. We are fighting every day, dying and killing, and for what? Removing SH? Iraqi freedom? Really? It seems to me that SH is removed (if not dead), and the Iraqi people are no more free than before. I sincerely hope that changes. But let's face it, the first thing the US did in the war was secure the oil fields, and that is still our primary focus. Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to buy the oil? Yes.

Now the administration hawks who urged war on Iraq since the late 90s also urge "regime replacement" in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt because the regimes are undemocratic. They have issued periodic threats against Iran and Syria and continue to do so. General war in the Middle East of the kind that the WH policy makers have pledged against these countries is going to make WWII look like a picnic. And all we will get is oil that we could buy a lot cheaper than waging war for it.

The Bush foreign policy is not liberal, it is not conservative. It is radical in the sense that it is a continual violation of international law, and reckless in the sense that it does not consider the consequences. As much as conservatives dislike liberals in positions in government, I would urge all conservatives to consider that any of the major contenders for the Democratic party nomination would offer a far more traditonally conservative foreign policy than the WH team.

But I can tell you this. CLinton had no problem using words to further US interests...he did that quite well. Evidence is that our economy was rock solid in the 90s and no American soldiers died in producing this.

Clinton had WTC1...did he attach Iraq? No.
Clinton had the millenium bomber....did he attack Iraq? ....No.

I am sure that lots of out-of-context quotes were made by Clinton, many to pacify the rabid right wing in this country. He was obviously handicapped with a treacherous Republican majority who would stoop to any level to hurt his Presidency. So his rhetoric was sharpened to dull their attacks.

But, 1st and foremost, he was a diplomat of the 1st order....proof is how the world admires and respects him today. He kept the stick available, but promoted American interests with diplomacy. Bush has done exactly the opposite. He's used the stick in place of diplomacy and he's weakened us in the process. He's exposed the limitations that even a 21st century military power has in the world (see the Iraq debacle). His folly is, we cannot "win" Iraq without destroying it completely, but will most certainly bankrupt us economically.

Bush, being the arrogantly stupid man that he is, chose to frame the conflict in terms of religion/regional action instead of treating it as a criminal matter best addressed by the entire world. In the process, the supersized ego with a mini-intellect made the UN "irrelevant". If this had happened under Clinton, he'd have focused on making it the criminals who had to pay....and he would have had the entire world working in concert to stomp out these cells. George, with his "Messiah" complex figured he'd do it alone.

History will prove that it was George Bush who was irrelevant, not the world.


Not sure how you prove your case trying to match fragments of speeches with Freepers....either they understand the "big picture" or they don't. Pretty weak defense on their part, though, using words without the context of Clinton's actions. We didn't invade Iraq, because he probably knew they were not a threat....that's the reality.

you may want to point out that they are all out of context of the original speeches they were given in, and as such they change the meaning and are in formal logic, improper uses of authority.

A favorite right wing tactic is to use small snippets of quotes out of context to misquote the meaning of the speaker. Liberals use complex thoughts requiring the building of an argument. When one sentence of that kind of argument is pulled out of a speech containing 50 to several hundred sentences, without considering the point of the speech or even immediate surrounding context, it is meaningless.

That's why the cockroaches voted yes on IWR.

But once the inspectors got into Iraq, Bush ignored everything they were saying. He lied about the intelligence coming out of those inspections, he lied about having additional intelligence in his daily briefings, he misrepresented what intelligence existed. HE lied.

He did get Congress to support him by giving him the authority to back up his position. He should have used this political capital wisely and let the UN continue the task of dealing with the search for WMD. But, being the smalltime thinker he is (and apparently his advisors too), he wanted the "glory" of taking out Saddam. He put his ego and political/economic interests ahead of our national interests.

They were so arrogant in their calculus that they never even considered the dynamics of a post-Hussein Iraq. They assumed, in their cartoon view of the world, that it'd be VE-Day all over again. I'll bet George was carried away with his delusion of granduer......you know he was spending a lot of time daydreaming about the crowds that'd turn out for his Bagdhad victory speech; the millions cheering him as liberator all the way from the airport.

He should have been a United States President. Insted he was/is a maniac.

But if people would understand that regime change was U.S. Policy under Clinton, that every single candidate said Saddam must disarm and must not be allowed to get weapons, that every single leader in the world thought Saddam had weapons and would continue to seek them; then the IWR vote was very reasonable and likely the right thing to do.

In addition, that is what got the inspectors back in and that is what exposed Bush's willingness to ignore the international community and go off on a war at any cost. That vote was NOT political and was NOT a blank check.

to get Iraqi's to continue allowing the UN to conduct their search.

And you know what, worse than this, Bush has now ruined what could have been an excellent precedent to isolate and disarm other dictators who may have had WMD. By screwing up the opportunity, the US, under Bush, will never be trusted to work with the world community in good faith.

"And you know what, worse than this, Bush has now ruined what could have been an excellent precedent to isolate and disarm other dictators who may have had WMD."

A strong UN inspections arm is exactly what needed to come out of this. Exactly, precisely. I know the work that has been done on weapons proliferation and the seriousness with which many in Congress take it. Bush screwing this up is actually MUCH worse than screwing up Iraq.

Here's my take. It also has the virtue of being immune to the standard second-year-man calls for "citations", attacks on your patriotism, and aspersions against your sense of honor.

The arms-control teams that monitored Iraq were dominated by US corporate interests that Poppy Bush had installed after Gulf War One. The paper trail is "buried" in the pages of the Congressional Record and the military appropriations bills. If you need citations to help you understand the process, you can either rent a copy of "Constitution Rock" or you can cash out one or two of your GlaxoSmithKline or General Electric shares and get a NEXUS-LEXUS account.

Gore, Pelosi, Kerry, and the other Democrats you cite -- with all the glee of a game-show contestant -- were working from intelligence material tainted (as in "infected" and "contaminated") by the LIES of each Team Bush and their treasury-looting sponsors. Yet, in spite of the honest, if misinformed, calls by Democratic statesmen for America to stand watch over international terror, you still blame them for the willful irresponsibility shown by Team Bush which led right to 9/11/2001.

The sad truth is that the Americans who made the quotes you selected acted with naïvete, under the impression that well-heeled Republican politicians could be trusted on issues concerning the honor and integrity of the United States of America. History has recently proven (once again) that the patrons and courtiers of George Bush are motivated entirely by their own bottomless lust for power, wealth, and domination.

How low the Republican Party and the conservative ideologues will stoop, simply to get what they want!

Sorry, but count me out of your smug, self-satisfied New World Odor. A misgodded patriotism led us to countenance the lies of your traitorous masters too long, and it's well past time we severed the ties and declared Independance from the treachery of your lucre-idolatrous, Jesus-simple, tyrant-coddling puppeteers.

Sure, it's grandiloquent. Most Conservatives are sops for High Dudgeon. Besides, using spanking metaphors (the other great Right Wing wank analogy) gets tiresome.

And just let him try to turn it back on you. All you then have to do is copy his own text back to him.

Good luck!

--bkl

Dennis said sanctions against Iraq must be lifted and that Saddam must disarm and tight regulations be put in place so that weapons could not enter Iraq. Was he part of the conspiracy too?

What about the heads of the IAEA and UNSCOM? What about every single leader in the world? Were they all part of the conspiracy?

Face it, Saddam Hussein was dangerous and something needed to be done. Not a war at any cost, but something. The IWR vote, if handled diplomatically, could have been the catalyst for a change in Iraq and the Middle East. Bush screwed it up and only Bush.

He's pretty much in agreement, I think, with the majority of posters on this thread. The Iraq FU belongs to George "not nearly as bright as Poppy" Bush. He really should have paid attention to what Daddy did not do in 1990 and the reasons why he didn't.

"The sad truth is that the Americans who made the quotes you selected acted with naïvete, under the impression that well-heeled Republican politicians could be trusted on issues concerning the honor and integrity of the United States of America."

WMD is not a Republican or Democratic issue. Not in 1998, not in 2002. I've read all the intelligence, testimony, and resports from the CIA, DoD, Congress, IAEA, and UNSCOM, going back to the mid-nineties. There IS disconcerting information in it. There WAS reason to be concerned. Nobody was naive.

What Bush did after the inspectors got in is a whole different ball game and the entire mess should be squarely on his shoulders.

Don't mistake that my response to the broadside was a "finely nuanced" piece so beloved of the press these days. The broadside itself was a piece of mush-brained propaganda. I believe that the proper response isn't to debate the finer points of the Iraq situation, but to hit back at the "hidden premise" of the piece -- the "you, too" (tu quoque) reasoning that tries to suck the legitimacy out of any argument against Bush's program by false accusations of complicity.

The Iraq "thing" actually is a very complicated situation. But the broadside wasn't about Iraq -- it was about the moral infallibility of our Wise and Courageous Leader, Maximum Commander Bush. My response to it was to impeach the credibility of the source (the "New Right" ideology), which has already been done at length, more formally, and much better.

Once we've established that Bush and his cronies are low and vulgar criminals, we can proceed to the finer points of the debate, many of which eventually lead back to the improper-influence argument anyway.

"Dennis and the whole world?" No. But it's certain that the anti-Kucinich rhetoric will also include surgically mutilated quotes and dishonestly reflected shame. "IAEA? Every single leader in the world?" There was no conspiracy, but Team Bush and the neo-cons will spin it that way if it allows them to escape the blame they worked so hard to achieve.

I agree -- "Face it, Saddam Hussein was dangerous and something needed to be done." And I have faced it, long ago. "Bush screwed it up and only Bush" -- and his amateur spin gang is working overtime to restore the gleam on his chrome-plated halo.

And I will repeat my argument: Team Bush is a collection of arrogant, manipulative individuals who lack basic diplomatic and military competency and all respect for the old-fashioned idea of Fair Play. They have a large, well-compensated spin gang that will stop at nothing to burnish that halo. And that's just as a start.

--bkl

not so great if you're trying to further truth instead of win an online pissing match. IMO

One-line retorts in which The Truth is invoked sounds like a pissing match to me. Right about now, I'm wondering which piece of my response (to a Republican on-line cut-and-paste leaflet, no less) set you off. Well, if I inadvertantly stepped on the toes of one of your favorite ideologes, I'm sorry; I wasn't even thinking of Dennis Kucinich when I made my reply. I was trying to help Bushknew find some "ammunition" against a fairly common type of right-wing smoke grenade.

His adversary has no more interest in the truth than the man in the moon. Besides which, the response I gave was far from "piss". Institutional disinformation has always been a big part of war, and "making an end-run around the peaceniks" is the name of that game. Getting one's political rivals tied up in knots answering dumb-assed games of Twenty (Conservative) Questions requires a simple, forceful reply -- "cut the bullshit!"

I learned long ago not to trust my enemies to make truthful remarks (let alone even partially representative ones) about my friends. Which is why I don't put on airs about political appearances of Truth, Conscience, and Justice -- because most of the time, such accusations are as phony as those on that GOP broadsheet.

--bkl

that seems to appear in the exchange I just read. And tell him you are coming from a truthful outlook.

The Democrats lie... the Republicans lie... Politicians lie. The truth remains unchanged.

bush KNOWINGLY used false information and distortions to justify the US attack on and occupation of Iraq. bush lied.

I have seen clips of Rice Powell and I'm not sure who else all stating that Saddam is disarmed and not a threat. It was quite early in the misAdmin. That's what I'd look for.

Also, Wolfowitz told ABC News in '98 that going to war with Iraq would be a terrible mistake and that diplomacy is the way to go. Of course once he and his pals were in charge that all changed....

Julie

They do not justify the invasion and conquest of Iraq. For those simple minded enough to believe that the 9/11 attacks justified the invasion of Iraq, one must ask how Dick Cheney could use that as justification when PNAC wrote to Clinton in 1998 demanding just such an invasion.

Fortuntely, the adults were in charge in 1998. Adults do not crave perpetual war and sell perpetual fear. Bush does. Because Bush desperately needs terrorists.

The invasion of Iraq, and other sovereign nations, has been a wet dream of many in the Bush administration for years. After all these years they have finally had an orgasm.

Thank you all for your input, it helped me write this.

However, I think we have a big problem if repugs just are able to
Shrug off WMD as the president didnÕt lie, he just had bad information.

Anyway this is what I wrote backÉ.


CIA brass tells of Cheney pressure, Visits pushed Iraq weapons reports

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al-Qaida, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/iraq/1938571

Government sources said CIA analysts were not the only ones who felt pressure from their superiors to support public statements by President George Bush, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and others. Former and current intelligence officials said they felt a continual drumbeat, not only from Mr Cheney and his chief-of-staff, but also from Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz

"They were the browbeaters," said a former official who attended some of the meetings.

The visits permitted Mr Cheney and his chief-of-staff to talk directly to analysts, rather than asking questions of the daily briefers.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/05/1054700335046.html


President Bush's assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger was based on forged documents.

As part of their case for military action against Iraq, both President Bush and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair accused Saddam Hussein's government of attempting to purchase uranium to fuel its illegal weapons program.

The Washington Post quoted an unidentified senior administration official as saying Tuesday that "knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech."

In other words, they knew it was a lie but included it in the State of the Union speech
anyway to bolster the case for war.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/uranium_07-08-03.html

U.S. knew uranium report was false

Former Ambassador to Gabon Joseph Wilson told NBC's "Meet the Press" he informed the CIA and the State Department that such information was false months before U.S. and British officials used it during the debate that led to war.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/06/sprj.irq.uranium/

You see folks, the Democrats believed in the intelligence from the CIA, what Democrats didnÕt know at the time was that Cheney was browbeating the CIA Brass to give their administration intelligence reports to support the public statements of the President.

Translation, Bush and his administration were forcing the CIA to lie.

say, yes there does seem to have been a problem with intelligence- and a big departure from protocol.

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

We were attacked by Binladin. We were commited to fighting the war on terror in Afghanistan. Bush said they were tied together. They are not. Period. That is what Bush claimed. Forget the wmd argument and the compliance issues. He lied about where the terrorist are! Now for all we know Binladin and Saddam are having drinks in the mountains laughing their asses off. Those two were not in it together before, they are now. Thanks GW!

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm

not this link is not a liberal web site, so you don't have to worry about your GOP buddy using that tactic.

Powell - We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction.

Instead he chose to contain Iraq and to deny Hussein the resources he needed to build a WMD capability. Remind him that Ronnie Raygun and Bush the First helped provision Hussein with some of the materials for WMD. Remind him that WMD have not yet been found and that Bush, Inc. did not have a plan for winning the peace in Iraq and thus placed our soldiers into a tough situation and left their asses hanging out.