Bush: Bad president? Or WORST president EVER? [Archive] - Green Grass Forums

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dragonrider

03-10-2008, 07:40 PM

I may have possibly revealed my own bias in the title of this thread, but YOU get to decide, and to be fair, there are options other than Bad and Worst. You can even select Best if you are crazy (don't let me influence your vote -- select Best if you really want to, you crazy nutjob). Whatever you vote for, please post a reason. If you think he is bad, why? If you think he is good, what are his accomplishments and who do you think has done a worse job?

For example:

I think George W. Bush is among the worst of presidents. He is not the uniter he claimed to be and has been the most divisive president ever. He did not have an easy time considering the 9/11 terrorist attack, but that was one event nearly 7 years ago, and we should be beyond that by now. I feel he used that event to get us into an unnecessary war that has cost us dearly. I think he lied about the reasons for invading Iraq. And when the war started going poorly, he did not do what was necessary to get it back on track. Now it may be too late to salvage that situation. I think he has created more terrorists than he has eliminated. He wasn't willing to pay for the things he wanted --- his tax cuts and this war have driven us into dangerous levels of debt, and now our economy is under threat from the debt load. He worked to weaken important environmental acts such as Clean Air, Clean Water and the Endangered Species act. He worked to PREVENT individual states such as California from tryng to deal with some of these environmental problems. He has failed to act on some of our most important problems such as climate change and other environmental problems, Social Security, Medicare, healthcare costs, national debt, and fair trade issues. He appointed incompetent boobs to very important posts. He worked to weaken our civil rights. He ruined our national image abroad. Energy prices are now through the roof.

After this list of failures, I cannot think of one accomplishment. I must be overlooking something. Can anyone think of one accomplishment?

Please vote in the poll and state what you think are Bush's failures and accomplishments, why you rank him as you do, and who you think has done a better or worse job as president.

stinkyattic

03-10-2008, 07:55 PM

I agree Dragonrider, and feel that your points of WHY he is a failure as a president are valid:
-Manipulation of a national tragedy for the gain of his cartel
-Divisive
-Making misleading statements about the causes of high petroleum prices to make us ignore the record profits shown lately by the bog oil companies
-Horrible horrible failure to react appropriately to natural disaster [Katrina stands out]
-Out of touch with the needs of the People, when in a democracy it is the needs of the People that should be his main focus
-Putting the country at large at odds with the rest of the world
-Poor environmental record
-Wasting tax dollars on projects [war and associated] that are not wholly supported by the People
-Unnecessarily endangering the lives of members of our Armed Forces
-Creating and then denying the existence of a national economic crisis
-Allowing the DEA to interfere with the rights of States to define their own medical drug policy

I think it's telling that my neighbor, a pretty hardcore Republican/conservative, said recently, "I'm still a Republican. But my party has failed me and I'm voting independent until they get back in line with what I believe"

He (well, the people with their hand up the puppet's ass anyway) has been a genius at making us as a nation focus on what his handlers would like us to focus on, while ignoring evidence pointing to the true reason we're in a big economic and international-relations disaster right now.

Time to stop charging the red cape, and make a few runs at the Matador.

dragonrider

03-10-2008, 08:04 PM

THClord

03-10-2008, 08:05 PM

I hope he will be on trial for all of the following sometime in his life:
- war crimes
- treason
- manslaughter

Innominate

03-10-2008, 08:11 PM

President or criminal?

Gandalf_The_Grey

03-10-2008, 08:14 PM

FlyGuyOU

03-10-2008, 08:45 PM

I voted for bush the first time, I voted for him the second time. If you judge him on his first term I think he was a great prez, looking at his second term, I would say he lost his swagger and let other people dictate his term too much. he lost his decisive attitude, and then decided to eliminate the notion of NOT SPENDING. bush is suppose to be a republican, yet he created the largest budget in history....sheesh

However, its much too soon to judge bush on his overall effictiveness. 10 years from now I think people will look more favorably on bush. right now there is too much venom in the water for people to think objectively.

Psycho4Bud

03-10-2008, 08:53 PM

How will history remember him? Remember Reagan? Considered at the time of being the worst ever but now is considered one of the greatest by both parties.

Bush has had to contend with another attack on our country but unlike Clinton he reacted like a Commander-in-Chief is suppose to:

Then in February 1993, the first major terrorist attack on American soil took place at the World Trade Centre in New York.

Six people were killed and more than 1,000 - mainly civilians - injured in the blast. The US implicated Egyptian terrorists in the plot to attack targets in the country.

After the New York bomb, terrorist activity against the US returned to Middle East targets.

Seven people were injured - including five Americans - in an explosion in 1995 near a US-run military training centre in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

A year later, a huge explosion killed 19, and injured many others at a military complex housing US troops at Khobar in the east of the country.

The US responded by moving their remaining troops in the region in fear of reprisals.
BBC News | Americas | History of attacks on US personnel (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/147237.stm)

And then acknowledging that Iraq had to be dealt with
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that his intelligence service had warned the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government was planning attacks against U.S. targets both inside and outside the country.
Russia Warned U.S. About Iraq, Putin Says (washingtonpost.com) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53096-2004Jun18.html)

instead of just a random bombing like Clinton done:
Bombs, Ahoy...Iraq: From Clinton to Bush
Bombs, Ahoy...Iraq: From Clinton to Bush (http://www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/iraq/092604_bombs_ahoyiraq.htm)

Then lets not forget about Katrina.......not to many recent Presidents that have had a major city wiped out.

If we're rating Bush....why not congress? Overall performance.......I'll give him a "Good". :D

Have a good one!:s4:

DaBudhaStank

03-10-2008, 09:52 PM

Aw man, I was hoping for an option more like "Everyone in a political position of power needs to be dropped to their knees and executed in a timely and effiecient manner." but no such luck. I agree with Gandalf too, I've only known three presidents in my short life, one of which I didn't actually know, another....well, I actually didn't know ANYTHING about Bush Sr. or Clinton, but that's neither here nor there. From what I've seen, whether or not Bush has actually done ANYTHING right (and so far I'm at a loss to think of something) he has not made America a better place to live. That in and of itself marks one as a failure as a president. Which basically means 90% of presidents are terrible.

Mr. Clandestine

03-10-2008, 10:13 PM

I'll be the first to admit that I've flat-out disagreed with a lot of the policies created and enforced by the Bush Admin. And I wasn't too thrilled with the "reconstruction" phase of Iraq, although I've always thought that Saddam was someone who needed to be removed from power. Still, I can't say that I'm one of the nit-pickers who tears every aspect of his life apart just to exploit his flaws. (Unless we're talking about Bushisms. :D I do get a kick out of lots of those.)

But I totally agree with the other posters that if anyone was to rate his presidency, they should also do the same for our former presidents. They've all had pros and cons, good policies and bad policies, etc. Some just had more of one side, and less of the other. And right now, Bush is doing a good job staying off my shit-list and on my good side... I just got finished figuring out my taxes. My wife and I will be in pretty good shape this year, and I might actually get to use that tax relief check to use in the growroom. I can't complain at all about that!

He gets an 'OK' from me. :thumbsup:

THClord

03-10-2008, 10:44 PM

I'm young I know, this will be the first presidential election I can vote in, but isn't Bush directly attacking Democracy?

- Florida, Supreme Court case etc.... didn't Kerry win?
- 9/11 Government job. A lot of Americans dead
- Patriot Act..... Habeus Corpus R.I.P. --- I want my Habeus Corpus that's for sure
- War on Iraq: I am glad that Saddam was removed, but it should not have went like this. I'd say it wasn't worth it. It was clearly an illegal war.

And our economy???? I have stocks, follow the news etc.... and the stiuation is VERY BAD. I'd say we have a 90% chance of it getting even worse.

Bush did two things that could be good for the US in the long run. Remove Saddam and turn the US into the bully of the world. I do not agree with how Saddam was removed and I also don't agree in that the US should be the bully of the world.

Mr. Clandestine

03-10-2008, 11:13 PM

Florida, Supreme Court case etc.... didn't Kerry win?

I've heard the whole Diebold argument, and I highly doubt that anything was tampered with. It was a conceptual electronic voting machine, and there may have been a malfunction. Or, it may have been a legitimate election. You can't rule out that possibility.

- 9/11 Government job. A lot of Americans dead

I won't touch this one, I'm trying to be on my best behavior for a little while... but I must say, I disagree.

- Patriot Act..... Habeus Corpus R.I.P. --- I want my Habeus Corpus that's for sure

Most of the provisions under this act don't apply to us, and probably aren't as threatening to our civil liberties as many far-left loons will tell you. Unless you're a terrorist or in cahoots with a terrorist, that is... then you might have something to worry about. And you've got your habeas corpus... when was the last time a black helicopter swooped down in the middle of the night, and dragged you away to Guantanamo?

War on Iraq: I am glad that Saddam was removed, but it should not have went like this. I'd say it wasn't worth it. It was clearly an illegal war.

Care to elaborate? Last I checked, prerequisites were met both nationally and internationally that allowed for the invasion. It was a completely legal invasion, at least in my opinion, just not a popular one.

I also own stock in a few companies and am sitting on several other investments. I've seen a few of them stagnate and even fall, but they're just a small percentage. I have others that are doing well. Making smart, low-risk investments ensure that if the market (or even the economy) takes a tumble... you won't be hung out to dry.

amoskiller

03-10-2008, 11:57 PM

I'd like to think that Dubya is the worst president ever, but not having lived during the terms of Andrew Johnson or Warren G. Harding to name but a couple of awful presidents (according to the history books), I think it's presumptuous for any one of us to state categorically that G.W. Bush is the worst.

I believe, however, that Dubya is the worst president in my lifetime. And I lived during Tricky Dick Nixon's 1.5 terms.

I'd take Tricky Dick back in a nanosecond if that was the devil's bargain that needed to be made to undo all the damage the current occupant of the White House has caused (along with co-president, Darth Cheney).

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 12:00 AM

I voted for "Bad". It's not logical to vote him the "Worst President of All Time" unless you actually study all the presidents and their doings. All too easy to make a judgement on the president of your lifetime.

True, it's hard unless you've studied history to compare him to other presidents. But I don't remember any who truly stand out in a negative way the way I think Bush will. There was Nixon, who was really pretty bad, but even he had some good points: signed the OSHA laws, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endagered Species Act, the EPA (all things that Bush has worked to weaken). He reached out to China. So he is remembered as a bad president for his corruption, but he had some accomplishments. Bush really doesn't have accomplishments that I can recall. Maybe my mind is too clouded by his glaring failures to see the accomplishments.

How will history remember him? Remember Reagan? Considered at the time of being the worst ever but now is considered one of the greatest by both parties.

I don't think Reagan was considered the worst ever even at the time. There were many people who disagreed strongly with him but there were others who revered him when he was in office. With Bush, there are those who defend him, but no one who reveres him. I think the most he can hope for from history is some softening of the anger, but he'll still need to accomplish something in order to be seen favorably. And if these messes he has created linger long after he is gone, he will bear blame for them.

Bush has had to contend with another attack on our country but unlike Clinton he reacted like a Commander-in-Chief is suppose to:

Then in February 1993, the first major terrorist attack on American soil took place at the World Trade Centre in New York.

Six people were killed and more than 1,000 - mainly civilians - injured in the blast. The US implicated Egyptian terrorists in the plot to attack targets in the country.

After the New York bomb, terrorist activity against the US returned to Middle East targets.

Seven people were injured - including five Americans - in an explosion in 1995 near a US-run military training centre in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

A year later, a huge explosion killed 19, and injured many others at a military complex housing US troops at Khobar in the east of the country.

The US responded by moving their remaining troops in the region in fear of reprisals.
BBC News | Americas | History of attacks on US personnel (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/147237.stm)

And then acknowledging that Iraq had to be dealt with
Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that his intelligence service had warned the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion of Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government was planning attacks against U.S. targets both inside and outside the country.
Russia Warned U.S. About Iraq, Putin Says (washingtonpost.com) (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53096-2004Jun18.html)

instead of just a random bombing like Clinton done:
Bombs, Ahoy...Iraq: From Clinton to Bush
Bombs, Ahoy...Iraq: From Clinton to Bush (http://www.ccmep.org/2004_articles/iraq/092604_bombs_ahoyiraq.htm)

The poll is really about Bush, not Clinton, but it is fair to compare. I take it what you are saying is that Bush has responded better to the threat of terrorism than Clinton did.

I'm not so sure Bush's record on terrorism is as good as he might want us to believe. The biggest terrorist attack in our history occurred during his presidency. I'll concede that he does not bear full responsibility for those 3000 civilian dead. But it did happen when he was president, not someone else. And the administration says that those people killing our soldiers in Iraq are terrorists, so it seems like we have actually lost another 3000 to terrorists in the last 5 years of war. With 6000 dead, by the numbers it doesn't look like a very great record on terrorism.

And as for taking the fight to them, we definitely had to do that in Afghanistan. But I do not think we had to in Iraq. The terrorists were not there --- now they are. Bush used to ask, "Do you think the world would be a better place with Saddam Hussein still in power?" And the answer is, no, of course not. But now you could ask, "Do you think the world is a better place with Al Qaeda in Iraq?" And the answer is, no, of course not. The real question is , "Do you think the world is a better place with Al Qaida in Iraq than it was with Saddam Hussein in power?" Then I'm not so sure. If that's the choice and it's going to cost 3000 dead and a trillion dollars to get Al Qaeda instead of Saddam, I think I'll just stick with Saddam.

Then lets not forget about Katrina.......not to many recent Presidents that have had a major city wiped out.

If we're rating Bush....why not congress? Overall performance.......I'll give him a "Good". :D

Have a good one!:s4:

I'm not sure you want to bring up Katrina as a point in Bush's favor. That situation was, and still is, a disgrace, and the federal government failed misearably. It was actually Heck-of-a-job-Brownie I had in mind when I mentioned the incompetent boobs Bush assigned to important jobs. Brownie is only one of an army of incompetent boobs Bush appointed. Some Republicans seem to have so much disdain for government that they really think it doesn't matter who gets appointed --- turns out it does. And if they think goernment is so useless, why do they always want to be in charge of it?

But I totally agree with the other posters that if anyone was to rate his presidency, they should also do the same for our former presidents. They've all had pros and cons, good policies and bad policies, etc. Some just had more of one side, and less of the other. And right now, Bush is doing a good job staying off my shit-list and on my good side... I just got finished figuring out my taxes. My wife and I will be in pretty good shape this year, and I might actually get to use that tax relief check to use in the growroom. I can't complain at all about that!

He gets an 'OK' from me. :thumbsup:

My feeling about the rebate check is that it is just another example of Bush's fiscal irresponsibility. It would have been more honest of him to say, "We want you to spend more to prop up the economy --- each one of you get out your credit cards and spend 600 dollars you don't have." Since everyone would have thought that was stupid or crazy, he did it for you. Bush is going to borrow 600 dollars for you to spend, and it will come back to you in the form of future taxes. At some time in the future you or your children will pay back that $600 plus interest in the form of higher taxes, maybe $1200, or $1800, or $2400 depending on how long it takes to pay it off. Bush and the congress are just trying to buy votes with this one by taking a cash advance on your credit card.

Mr. Clandestine

03-11-2008, 12:20 AM

My feeling about the rebate check is that it is just another example of Bush's fiscal irresponsibility. It would have been more honest of him to say, "We want you to spend more to prop up the economy --- each one of you get out your credit cards and spend 600 dollars you don't have." Since everyone would have thought that was stupid or crazy, he did it for you. Bush is going to borrow 600 dollars for you to spend, and it will come back to you in the form of future taxes. At some time in the future you or your children will pay back that $600 plus interest in the form of higher taxes, maybe $1200, or $1800, or $2400 depending on how long it takes to pay it off. Bush and the congress are just trying to buy votes with this one by taking a cash advance on your credit card.

Brother, I'm far less worried about incentive checks like this one collecting interest, and much more worried about the toll that the actual Iraq war is costing us. At least with the checks, there's the chance that it'll do precisely what it's supposed to to... which is stimulate the economy a bit. The billions being spent on the war is an entirely different concern, and I'd hate to see that money wasted just because a liberal administration decides to cut & run. I don't favor the Iraq debacle, but I'm certainly not against the global war on terror. We're living in turbulent times, and there's no definitive end in sight. Plus, Bushs' incentive package may help alleviate other pertinent concerns; like a late mortgage payment, or having the money to put fuel in your vehicle to get you to work, or even the money to blow on a CO2 system, or new lights, or something! :jointsmile:

It's kind of hard to put too much of a negative spin on the topic. Most Americans are grateful.

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 01:11 AM

Brother, I'm far less worried about incentive checks like this one collecting interest, and much more worried about the toll that the actual Iraq war is costing us. At least with the checks, there's the chance that it'll do precisely what it's supposed to to... which is stimulate the economy a bit. The billions being spent on the war is an entirely different concern, and I'd hate to see that money wasted just because a liberal administration decides to cut & run. I don't favor the Iraq debacle, but I'm certainly not against the global war on terror. We're living in turbulent times, and there's no definitive end in sight. Plus, Bushs' incentive package may help alleviate other pertinent concerns; like a late mortgage payment, or having the money to put fuel in your vehicle to get you to work, or even the money to blow on a CO2 system, or new lights, or something! :jointsmile:

It's kind of hard to put too much of a negative spin on the topic. Most Americans are grateful.

Absolutely, the cost of the war is something to be worried about --- some $800 billion so far and projected to run to somewhere between $1.2 trillion and $2.7 triillion depending on the duration and outcome. So if $800 billion were divided among the 130 million people getting a rebate check, your check might be over $6000 per person. Sweet little grow room then. Your share if the war goes to $1.2 trillion will be over $9000. If it goes to $2.7 trillion, your share is over $20,000 --- maybe this is getting costly. Of course the government would never cut you a check like that, but it's an example of how the costs are adding up.

As it is, the rebate checks are a real bargain compared to the war --- it will only cost us $117 billion added to the national debt for each of us to be able to go out and buy some cheap Chinese crap we don't even need. You said most Americans are grateful, but that's not what I hear from people when I talk to them about it. Most people I spoke to about it look forward to getting the money, of course, but think it's stupid. That's how I feel too. I could use it for something, but it's dumb. $600 is not really enough to make much of a difference in your life, but $117 billion seems like a lot for the government to borrow. Bush has already added something like $3 trillion to the debt so far, so I guess this is really just a drop in the bucket for him --- he's used to running up the credit card by now.

Mr. Clandestine

03-11-2008, 01:31 AM

Most people I spoke to about it look forward to getting the money, of course, but think it's stupid. That's how I feel too. I could use it for something, but it's dumb. $600 is not really enough to make much of a difference in your life, but $117 billion seems like a lot for the government to borrow.

You're right, for most of us $600 doesn't amount to much. I'm just happy to have broke even this year with my taxes, and getting a check just for the hell of it may not be necessary... but I'll find something to do with it. But, like I mentioned before, to someone who may actually need the money (I know several people who are struggling just to pay the bills), it'll be a welcome sight for them. Truth be told, it could very well have been spent to engineer new B-2's or F-18's for the war campaign... but it isn't. It's going into the hands of American citizens.

bongerstonerd00d

03-11-2008, 01:37 AM

Lets not forget that NO OTHER PRESIDENT has had the media coverage that President Bush has had. And, that makes a difference!

b0nger

P.S. Oh shit, bruther AL is on my TV as I type.

rebgirl420

03-11-2008, 04:11 AM

Eh' I would say not particularly good and not particularly bad. I feel that if it wasn't for 9/11 he would have been a pretty decent president. Compared to the other recent presidents.

But theres a lot of things I disagree with him with. A lot.

But compared to our other choices I say it could have been MUCH worse.

psteve

03-11-2008, 04:16 AM

Bush jr is a puppet.
Bush Sr. has been in charge since his cia buddies rigged the 1980 election.
Including the reagan and clinton years.

rebgirl420

03-11-2008, 04:23 AM

Could have been worse.

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 05:20 AM

stinkyattic

03-11-2008, 04:08 PM

You ARE aware, aren't you, that if the actual events of 9-11 had not unfolded quite as they did, the Bush-Cheney Cartel would still have managed to find a way to drag us into another war for oil... it's their gift. A veritable superhero skill. And all I got was the ability to procrastinate effectively... :(

FlyGuyOU

03-11-2008, 04:55 PM

stink this is one place where i disagree with you. sure i don't doubt that we would have gone to war in the short future, 9/11 or not. however, thats not any different that what we have constantly seen throughout history. In WWI the US was illegally supporting the allies w/ weapons and military supplies. we were shipping them on commercial ocean liners, the germans knew it, blew up the lusitania, its our excuse for war.
WWII, some people will argue the us knew about japans 'secret' attack on pearl harbor for days (and there is some good supportive evidence). either way the first american soil bombed on dec 7 was midway island a good several hours before pearl harbor started. yet somehow it was still a complete suprise. end result, secret attack, we go to war.

i guess this all comes to the fact that sometimes people have to fight wars. do you wait for a climatic event like 9/11 or pearl harbor so that your people will rally behind the leaders? or do you take initiative and not wait for a spark.

near as i can tell, people are most upset with 'the way we went to war', false pretenses and whatnot. would they feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane? lets face it nobody can think saddam was a good person. shit the guy would cut out peoples tongues, throw people into woodchippers, and carve X's on peoples foreheads. im glad he's gone.

i do wish things could have gone better, particularly in 2006 and 07. but we are there, and it tooks some big ass balls for the prez to make that decision. i respect him for that.

stinkyattic

03-11-2008, 05:21 PM

near as i can tell, people are most upset with 'the way we went to war', false pretenses and whatnot. would they feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane? .

I think you are correct in this statement. It is, indeed, the way we got involved in the war to begin with that upsets me, personally, the most.

The chain of events starting with the September 11 attacks on US soil, then going on what, ultimately, has been largely a wild-goose chase in Afghanistan, to our current presence in Iraq, to what appears to be a new push to bring this war into Iran... to me, there is a failure of logic connecting all these things.

I'm still not convinced fully that the 9-11 attacks were simply the Taliban getting into world affairs on an unprecedented scale. Thus, I look with some skepticism on the stated reasons for being in Afghanistan... the cynic in me reminds me that the Taliban was notorious for refusing to allow construction of an oil pipeline that would connect the rich oil fields of what was once Northwestern Russia to a seaport. With them removed, these pipelines are suddenly a possibility, and who better to construct them than the subsidiaries of companies wholly owned by the country that controls an occupying army?

As for Saddam Hussein and his so-called weapons of mass destruction... of COURSE they could find some unnamed 'intelligence' sources who claimed to have seen them! Think 'stool pigeon' (some of you may be too young to be familiar with that term). I don't argue for one minute that Hussein's regime was one of terror and massive human rights violations, but again, where ARE those pesky WMDs, and why are we suddenly involved now, now that Afghanistan is wrested from the control of a faction opposed to a US/Western presence in their very strategically located country, when here at home we have violence and poverty enough, as highlighted by the tragedy of Katrina?

I view with profound skepticism the timing of all this.

And on another note, I find it difficult to make a comparison between the World Wars, fought for 'Libenstraum' and other manifestations of plain empire-building and control of land masses, while modern US involvement in war seems to have shifted from that, through wars of idealism [Commie prevention], to farily obscene shows of ECONOMIC imperialism.

Just my two cents on the matter.

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 05:46 PM

i guess this all comes to the fact that sometimes people have to fight wars. do you wait for a climatic event like 9/11 or pearl harbor so that your people will rally behind the leaders? or do you take initiative and not wait for a spark.

near as i can tell, people are most upset with 'the way we went to war', false pretenses and whatnot. would they feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane? lets face it nobody can think saddam was a good person. shit the guy would cut out peoples tongues, throw people into woodchippers, and carve X's on peoples foreheads. im glad he's gone.

i do wish things could have gone better, particularly in 2006 and 07. but we are there, and it tooks some big ass balls for the prez to make that decision. i respect him for that.

This is wrong on a lot of different levels.

When you say, "i guess this all comes to the fact that sometimes people have to fight wars," do you mean that people are just warlike and HAVE to fight wars? Or do you mean that there are sometimes good reasons to fight wars? I think there are sometimes good reasons to fight wars. The war in Afghanistan was fought for a good reason. But if there is a good reason, then the good reason should be enough --- the government should not have to lie about the reasons, or bait the other side into attacking us as you suggest they sometimes do. If you have to lie about the reasons, then obviously the real reason is not good enough.

Clearly, no one would, "feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane." It's not about "feeling better" about it. It's about whether there are good reasons or not. If we had been attacked by Iraq, then there would have been good reasons. But they didn't attack us, so that reason is out. If they had been building the nukes, and nerve gas, and germs, then possibly that would have been a reason, but that turns out to be a lie. The fact that Saddam was a ruthless sadistic tyrant was not enough. If Bush had come to us and said, Saddam is a ruthless sadistic tyrant, and we have to get rid of him --- it''ll take a trillion dollars and cost 3000 American lives, and after 5 years we still won't really be sure how it will turn out, and it's going to turn Iraq into a terrorist haven for Al Qaeda, and it's going to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and create a couple million refugees, and alienate our allies, but believe me, it's gonna be worth it --- if he had done that in 2002, we could have had him locked up for insanity back then and avoided this whole mess.

I don't believe George Bush went after Saddam because he was a tyrant. And I don't think Bush just made an innocent mistake about the WMD either. The WMD were an excuse, and the tyrant thing is just a justification after the fact. He, or his "mentors' had reasons of their own that they have never admitted, and I'm pretty sure it had to do with money and/or oil, not the nation's best interests.

And about this, "it tooks some big ass balls for the prez to make that decision. i respect him for that," yes it took some big-ass balls to lie to the whole country and the world and get us into the biggest foreign-relations and humanitarian disaster we have ever caused, but I do not respect him for that. I despise him for that.

stinkyattic

03-11-2008, 05:53 PM

yes it took some big-ass balls to lie to the whole country and the world and get us into the biggest foreign-relations and humanitarian disaster we have ever caused, but I do not respect him for that. I despise him for that.

There is courage, and there is arrogance.

If Bush the Second had had any of the former, his own military service record would have been far more appropriate to the commanding officer of the most powerful Armed Forces on the planet...

Sadly, missing muster for unspecified reasons (I've always assumed hangovers were involved) is far from glorious, and would have gotten a less-connected man tossed into the brig to cool his heels.

So we see the early manifestations of the arrogance that our ruling class is taught at a young age- a big FUCK YOU to those of us who actually have to answer for our youthful mistakes.

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 06:21 PM

There is courage, and there is arrogance.

If Bush the Second had had any of the former, his own military service record would have been far more appropriate to the commanding officer of the most powerful Armed Forces on the planet...

Sadly, missing muster for unspecified reasons (I've always assumed hangovers were involved) is far from glorious, and would have gotten a less-connected man tossed into the brig to cool his heels.

So we see the early manifestations of the arrogance that our ruling class is taught at a young age- a big FUCK YOU to those of us who actually have to answer for our youthful mistakes.

My sense of Dubya as a person is that he is a sort of simple guy who has a strong sense of privilege and likes to be in with an exclusive club. But beyond that, he's not as sinister or as devious as he is sometimes given credit for. He's not smart enough for it. I have this sense of a puppet that doesn't know he is a puppet. Or maybe he does know it, but doesn't know what to do about it. Sometimes he even seems to have an instinct for the right thing, but not the brains or strength to make it happen. He doesn't have the power to go against his "advisers" who are a lot smarter and more determined than he is. He's been carried and coddled all his life, so he has never had to face a consequence, and he might not even know what a consequence is. He's been in way over his head ever since he entered politics.

I'm sure he can't wait to get out of the oval office and back to puttin' around the ranch on his tractor, makin' a whole mess o' barbeque, maybe sneakin' away from Laura and headin' off to the back forty for a couple o' beers with some of the frat buddies from Skull 'n' Bones, watchin 'em put together some coup down Venezuela way. Those guys sure are cool, and it's great to hang out with 'em, givin' 'em all nicknames! "Hey, pass me another rib there, Slim! So what you boys got cookin'? Can I get in on this deal? I got about 10 million I'd like to double in the next year or so, maybe help Jeb go up against Hillary in a few years."

psteve

03-11-2008, 06:23 PM

Indeed. There's a big difference between courage and bravado.
In real life, "balls", have only one purpose.

stinkyattic

03-11-2008, 06:24 PM

My sense of Dubya as a person is that he is a sort of simple guy who has a strong sense of privilege and likes to be in with an exclusive club...
I have this sense of a puppet that doesn't know he is a puppet...
He doesn't have the power to go against his "advisers" who are a lot smarter and more determined than he is.
He's been carried and coddled all his life, so he has never had to face a consequence, and he might not even know what a consequence is. ...
Dragonrider, do you have a fan club? ;)
That's exactly the smell that I get comin' off him too.

carinia

03-11-2008, 07:14 PM

Psycho4Bud

03-11-2008, 07:46 PM

Clearly, no one would, "feel better if some republican guards blew up a commuter plane." It's not about "feeling better" about it. It's about whether there are good reasons or not. If we had been attacked by Iraq, then there would have been good reasons. But they didn't attack us, so that reason is out.

As stated before, there were reports from Russia that Saddam did have plans to attack us in a 9-11 fashion. Besides that, an attempt to assassinate an ex-President shouldn't be taken lightly.

Ya know; when I was but a wee, wee Psycho sitting on my daddys' knee he used to say, "Son, there's nothing wrong with Bush".:D

Have a good one!:s4:

quaz808

03-11-2008, 07:50 PM

Would you think a alcoholic, C student, draft jumper turned jesus freak would make a good pres? Of course not. Who voted for this guy anyway?

I wish he was honest about his reasons for going to Iraq.
I guess,"they started using the Euro instead of the dollar for oil trade" sounds like a pretty dam ridiculous reason though.
This is why the dollar has so much power in the world.
No matter who you are, you need US dollars to buy oil from an OPEC nation.
This is a big factor in our economy and why other nations want out money(and why we keep printing more of it with nothing to back it up).
Iran is considering to make the switch to the Euro also, hrmmm, I wonder why all this talk about Iran and nukes all of a sudden. Couldn't just be some more shotty propaganda.

Keep buying those retardedly huge trucks and SUVs and feeding the problem America, after gas hits $5 a gallon you won't be able to give them away,maybe for scrap.

dragonrider

03-11-2008, 08:47 PM

As stated before, there were reports from Russia that Saddam did have plans to attack us in a 9-11 fashion. Besides that, an attempt to assassinate an ex-President shouldn't be taken lightly.

I read the Post article, and it did not say whether our attack on Iraq was in response to information about Iraq preparing these aleged terrorist attacks, or if Iraq planning to attack us was in response to us planning to attack them. The timing is important. It became clear we were moving toward war in 2002, so I'm sure Iraq began to plan for all of their options by then.

In addition, plans to not mean intent. We have plans for nuking Russia and China, but it deosn't mean we intend to do it.

And this claim may not even be true. Certainly Bush never said before the war we need to take out Saddam becasue he is planning attacks against us, which would have been a lot more compelling argument than the ones given. At the time the reasoning was that Saddam was making WMD, which he COULD provide to a terrorist group, which MIGHT then use them against us. So it makes it seem like this claim is just more spin after the fact. Maybe Putin gets something out of making this claim. After enough verifiable lies and mistakes about how we went to war, it's hard to believe anything about it at this point.

rebgirl420

03-11-2008, 09:31 PM

I just wanted to say that this thread is jst like every other political argement Ive ran across with bush. The same things always get brought up, his greediness, stupidity, 9/11, and the oh so popular 'there were worse choices'

Still, WHAT in the HELL has that guy done that is actually *good*? Oh, other than sending Clanedestine 600 bucks. Which I coulda made in one weekend waitressing. I seriously do consider him at least one of the worst presidents of all time, because even tho all this 'bad shit' happend 'to' Bush, well he sure hasnt done anything good with it.

And thats all i gotta say abot that. :jointsmile:

He'ne some good stuff. He may not be a great president but he has done some good. Like the fact that he's given MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars to Aids research and to Africa. If you ask me thats good. And jujst so you know he's given more to Africa and Aids than ANY other president out there. More than Billy Clinton.

And the fact that he's actually helping us save the second admendment that seems to be trampled on daily.

And the Bush tax cuts helped out countless mid class citezens.

And here's some more from his first 4 years :)

February 2001
President Bush proclaims National Consumer Protection Week
President Bush releases agenda for tax relief
President Bush and President Vicente Fox of Mexico hold joint press conference
President Bush speaks at dedication of Oklahoma City National Memorial
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair hold joint press conference
President Bush address' Joint Session of Congress

March 2001
President Bush speaks at christening ceremony for the USS Ronald Reagan
President Bush speaks at Chicago Mercantile Exchange
President Bush and meets with President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea
President Bush meets with National Energy Policy Development Group
President and Mrs. Bush Speak to women business leaders
President Bush welcomes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel
President Bush speaks at La Sociedad Cubana
President Bush welcomes Catholic Leaders to White House
President Bush proclaims Education and Sharing Day, USA
President Bush speaks to Greek Community Leaders
President Bush speaks to high tech leaders
President Bush speaks to African American leaders
President Bush proclaims National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
President Bush speaks to members of the Baseball Hall of Fame
President Bush signs resolution repealing ergonomics regulation that repeals burdensome and broad regulation dealing with ergonomics.

April 2001
A Chinese fighter jet downs a US spy plan causing an international incident. China held the crew for 11 days, until the Bush Administration negotiated their release without admitting responsibility.
President Bush proclaims National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day.
President Bush congratulates Winners of Horatio Alger Award
President Bush proclaims Jewish Heritage Week
President Bush proclaims National Crime Victims' Rights Week.
U.S. forces participate in apprehension of indicted war criminal
The Mississippi River experienced severe flooding of historic significance - the river rose to its highest level since 1965 affecting residents in 4 states and causing billions in damages.
President Bush declares several Mississippi counties disaster areas
President Bush speaks at Holocaust Museum
President's speaks at the Summit of the Americas - Quebec City, Canada
President Bush recognizes national teachers of the year
President Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer

May 2001
President Bush proclaims Law Day
President Bush announces formation of Social Security Commission
President Bush speaks at National Day of Prayer reception
President Bush proclaims Small Business Week
President Bush welcomes Amir of Bahrain to the White House
President Bush declares disaster exists in Illinois
President Bush speaks with math champs
President Bush speaks at 20th annual Peace Officers Memorial Service
President Bush declares disaster exists in Minnesota, Maine and Nebraska
President Bush signs Medal of Valor Bill
President Bush speaks to national leadership of the Hispanic faith-based organizations
President Bush meets with the Dalai Lama
President Bush speaks at U.S. Naval Academy Commencement
President Bush proclaims Prayer for Peace
President Bush delivers Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery
President Bush announces National Parks Legacy Project.
President Bush Signs World War II Memorial Bill.
President Bush sign Executive Order: Actions Concerning Regulations that Significantly Affect Energy Supply, Distribution, or Use.

June 2001
President declares disaster exists in West Virginia
President Bush proclaims National Child's Day
President Bush Signs wildfire bill into law
June 4, 2001 President Bush speaks at Royal Palm Visitors Center in Everglades National Park
President Bush speaks to Habitat for Humanity Supporters
President Bush speaks at Dedication of National D-Day Memorial
President Bush signs tax cut bill reducing Federal Income Tax Rates and sends a refund to millions of Americans
President Bush speaks at the Fourth National Summit on Fatherhood
President Bush speaks at tax reduction celebration event in Iowa
President Bush holds press conference with President Jose Maria Aznar
President Bush speaks at the opening of NATO meeting in Brussels
President Bush holds press conference with President of the Republic of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski - Warsaw, Poland
U.S. and Poland sign Open Skies Agreement
President Bush holds press conference with Russian Federation President Putin
President Bush speaks at Summit on the 21st Century Work Force
President Bush declares disaster exists in Mississippi
President Bush declares disaster exists in Pennsylvania
U.S. and Poland sign comprehensive trade package
President discusses faith-based initiative at Conference of Mayors
President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon meet in Oval Office
President Bush meets with President of South Africa
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan - Camp David, Maryland

July 2001
President Bush visits Jefferson Memorial
President orders federal aid for Montana storm recovery
President Bush speaks to participants of America's Promise
President speaks to specialty doctors and patients on Patients' Bill of Rights
President Bush announces Medicare initiative
President participates in roundtable interview with foreign press
President Bush and President Chirac of France speak to the press - Genoa, Italy
President Bush and President Putin hold press conference - Genoa, Italy
President Bush meets with the Pope John Paul II - Rome, Italy
President Bush and Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi hold press conference - Rome, Italy
President Bush speaks to troops in Kosovo
President Bush recognizes 11th anniversary of Americans with Disabilities Act

August 2001
President Bush discusses first six months in office
President Bush signs Agriculture Supplemental Bill
President Bush speaks about character development at YMCA Picnic
Statement by the President about faith-based and community initiatives
President Bush signs Export Controls Executive Order
President to Bush visits workers at Harley Davidson factory
President Bush speaks with students at Crawford Elementary
President Bush announces Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff
President Bush gives tour of Crawford Ranch
President Bush speaks at Little League World Series
President Bush discusses defense priorities at American Legion
President and Mrs. Bush unveil new White House Web Site

September 2001
President Discusses economy at Teamsters barbecue in Detroit, Michigan
President Bush meets with President Fox of Mexico
President Bush proclaims National Birmingham Pledge Week
President Bus proclaims National POW/MIA Recognition Day.
Terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 over 3000 innocent Americans are killed.
Anthrax laced letters cause several deaths, closing post offices and delaying the delivery of mail across the US.
President proclaims National Day of Prayer and Remembrance
President Bush salutes heroes in New York at the site of the World Trade Center disaster
President Bush launches online American relief and response effort
President Bush signs Authorization for Use of Military Force Bill
President Bush authorizes additional disaster funding for New York
President Bush addresses a Joint Session of Congress and the American People after the attack on September 11, 2001- The Bush Doctrine on Terror
President Bush released $5.1 billion dollars to assist in the humanitarian, recovery, and security related to 9/11
President Bush signs Airline Transportation Bill to assure the safety and stability of the nation's commercial airlines
President Bush signs executive order freezing the assets of terrorist organizations
President Bush proclaims Family Day
President orders federal disaster aid for Florida
President Bush meets with the King of Jordan

October 2001
President Bush opens Reagan National Airport
President Bush proclaims National Breast Cancer Awareness Month
President Bush unveils back to work plan
President Bush initiates military action in Afghanistan dismantling the Taliban regime and liberating 25 million people
President speaks at 20th annual National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Tribute
President Bush signs Executive Order establishing Office of Homeland Security
Gov. Ridge sworn-in to lead Homeland Security
President Bush meets with Chancellor Schroeder of Germany
President Bush announces new Counter-Terrorism and CyberSpace Security Positions
President Bush unveils "Most Wanted" Terrorists
President Bush Proclaims Child Health Day.
President Bush Proclaims National Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
President Bush announces, "America's Fund for Afghan Children".
President Bush meets with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi
President Bush rallies troops at Travis Air Force Base
President Bush meets with President Jiang Zemin - Shanghai, People's Republic of China
President Bush holds press conference with Russian President Vladimir - People's Republic of China
President Bush says terrorists won't change American way of life
President Bush announces education partnership with Muslim nations
President Bush signs the Patriot Act.
President Launches Bush "Lessons of Liberty"

November 2001
Airline crashes in Queens New York killing 255 people on board.
President Bush proclaims National Adoption Month.
President Bush proclaims World Freedom Day.
President Bush signs Presidential Records Act Executive Order.
President Bush signs Military Construction Appropriations Bill to improve quality of housing for military personnel.
President Bush signs National Emergency Construction Authority Executive Order
President Bush Acts to make holiday travel safer.
President Bush authorizes transfers from Emergency Response Fund.
President Bush signs Interior Appropriations Bill.
President Bush signs Internet Access Taxation Moratorium so the growth of the Internet is not slowed by taxation.
President Bush issues military order -Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism

December 2001
Dec. 2, 2001: Enron, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He is attacked by Democrats wanting to know his involvement and then attacked by Democrats for not getting involved.
President Bush lights National Christmas Tree
President Bush proclaims Human Rights Day & Bill of Rights Week.
President Bush signs Afghan Women and Children Relief Act.
One of the worst winter snowstorms in 100 years leave ice and snow from Texas to New York.
President Bush empowers communities in the fight against illegal drug abuse
President Bush highlights administration's first-year accomplishments
President Bush signs Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act
President Bush establishes the first-ever International Wildlife Refuge
President Bush signs National Museum of African American History Act
President Bush grants permanent trade status to China
President Bush signs Defense Authorization Act - authorizing the funding necessary to defend the United States.
President Bush signs Intelligence Authorization Act authorizing appropriations to fund US intelligence, including activities essential to success in the war against global terrorism.

January 2002
President Bush holds town hall forum on economy in California
President Bush meets with economic advisors and Fed Chairman Greenspan
President Bush signs Landmark Education Bill
President Bush takes action to help restore Everglades
President Bush signs Brownfields Bill.
President Bush proclaims Religious Freedom Day
President Bush meets with labor leaders to discuss energy policy
President Bush honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
President Bush signs Terrorism Relief Act providing tax relief to families of those killed in the attacks on September the 11th, the anthrax attacks and the Oklahoma City bombing.
President Bush increases the budget for border security.
President Bush announces substantial increases in Homeland Security budget.
President Bush meets with Afghan Interim Authority Chairman Hamid Karzai - White House
President Bush delivers State of the Union Address
President Bush signs Executive Order establishing the USA Freedom Corps
President Bus signs Investor & Capital Markets Fee Relief Act.

February 2002
President Bush names Faith-Based & Community Initiatives Director
President Bush proclaims National African American History Month
President Bush, Prime Minister Sharon discuss Middle East
President Bush announces plan to strengthen Peace Corps
President Bush Opens 2002 Olympic Games.
President Bush announces clear skies & global climate change initiatives
President Bush increases funding for Bioterrorism by 319 Percent.
President Bush, Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan hold press conference
President Bush Vvsits Demilitarized Zone
President Bush & President Kim Dae-Jung meet in Seoul
President Bush meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin
President Bush speaks at Tsinghua University

March 2002
President Bush launches quality teacher initiative
President Bush welcomes President Mubarak to White House
President speaks at Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Gov. Ridge, Deputy P.M. of Canada discuss smart border plan
President Bush signs Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002
President Bush proclaims West Point Bicentennial Day
President Bush meets with President Toledo in Peru
President Bush meets with President Flores in El Salvador
President Bush proclaims Greek Independence Day
President Bush signs Campaign Finance Reform Act.
President Bush outlines U.S. plan to help world's poor- proposes $5 billion plan to help developing nations.

April 2002
President Bush proclaims National Child Abuse Prevention Month
President Bush announces early childhood education initiative.
President Bush proclaims National Former Prisoner of War Recognition Day
President Bush promotes Citizen Corps for safer communities
President Bush calls on Senate to back human cloning ban
President Bush calls for Crime Victimsâ?? Rights Amendment
President Bush proclaims National Crime Victims' Rights Week
President Bush proclaims National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week
President Bush meets with Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia
President Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer

May 2002
President Bush presents Congressional Medals of Honor
President Bush proclaims Law Day, U.S.A
President Bush proclaims National Charter Schools Week
President Bush proclaims Loyalty Day
President Bush signs Farm Bill
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Sharon
President Bush signs Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act.
President Bush proclaims Armed Forces Day
President Bush addresses National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast
President Bush proclaims National Missing Children's Day
President Bush and Russian President Putin Sign Nuclear Arms Treaty
President Bush meets with French President Chirac
President Bush commemorates Memorial Day at Normandy

June 2002
President Bush delivers graduation speech at West Point
President Bush proclaims National Homeownership Month
President Bush proclaims National Child's Day
President Bush commemorates one-year anniversary of tax relief
President Bush meets with Egyptian President Mubarak
President Bush Meets with Prime Minister Sharon
President Bush signs Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Bill
President Bush signs Export-Import Bank Act
President Bush promotes new mother and child HIV prevention initiative
President Bush visits displaced families in Arizona

July 2002
President Bush commemorates Lewis and Clark bicentennial
President Bush orders federal aid for Guam for disaster relief
President awards posthumous Medal of Honor to Vietnam War hero
President Bush, President Kwasniewski of Poland hold joint press conference
President Bush, Mrs. Bush & Bruce Willis announce adoption initiative
President Bush proclaims Parents' Day
President Bush proclaims National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day
President Bush signs Corporate Corruption Bill

August 2002
President Bush, King Abdullah discuss Middle East Peace
President Bush signs Trade Act of 2002.
President Bush tours area damaged by Squires fire
President Bush discusses education with Hispanic leaders
President Bush proclaims Women's Equality Day
West Coast Port workers strike lasts two months and costs the US economy one billion dollars a day.
President Bush signs Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.
President Bush signs executive order prescribing regulations relating to the safeguarding of vessels, harbors, ports, and waterfront facilities of the United States.

September 2002
President Bush proclaims Patriot Day
President Bush proclaims National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month
President Bush, Prime Minister Blair discuss keeping the peace
President Bush holds roundtable with Arab- and Muslim-American leaders
President Bush addresses the United Nations General Assembly
President Bush proclaims National Hispanic Heritage Month
President Bush meets with Prime Minister of Italy at Camp David
President Bush introduces history & civic education initiatives
President Bush proclaims National POW/MIA Recognition Day
President Bush proclaims Family Day
President Bush, Colombia President Uribe discuss terrorism
President Bush sends Iraq Resolution to Congress.

October 2002
President Bush proclaims National Domestic Violence Awareness Month
President Bush proclaims Child Health Day
President Bush proclaims German-American Day
President Bush proclaims National School Lunch Week
President Bush condemns attack in Bali
President Bush welcomes Prime Minister Sharon to White House
The Beltway Sniper paralyzes Maryland, Virginia and Washington.
President Bush proclaims National Character Counts Week
President Bush acts to protect pensions and retirement security for all Americans.
President Bush, Chinese President Jiang Zemin discuss Iraq, N. Korea
President Bush signs historic election reform legislation into law- Help America Vote Act.
President Bush proclaims National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month
President Bush signs two bills improve health care. The first to increase the number of community health care centers and the second to provide faster access to safe and effective medical devices.

November 2002
President Bush proclaims National Adoption Month
President Bush proclaims National Hospice Month
National Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Week
President Bush signs Pledge of Allegiance Bill reaffirming one Nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and "In God we trust" as the National Motto
President Bush proclaims America Recycles Day
President Bush, President Havel of Czech Republic discuss Iraq, NATO
President Bush, P.M. Blair meet in Prague
President Bush proclaims National Family Week
President Bush welcomes Romania to NATO
President Bush signs Homeland Security Act
President Bush signs Terrorism Insurance Act
President Bush signs 911 Commission Bill

December 2002
President Bush signs Executive Order: Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-based and Community Organizations.
President signs National Defense Authorization Act.
President Bush lights National Christmas Tree
President Bush proclaims National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day
President Bush signs E-Government Act.
President Bush signs Wetlands Conservation Act
President Bush proclaims Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day; Human Rights Week
President Bush implements key elements of his faith-based initiative
President Bush visits D.C. Food Bank
President Bush speaks to the people of Iran

January 2003
President Bush proclaims National Mentoring Month
President Bush rallies troops at Fort Hood
President Bush celebrates first anniversary of No Child Left Behind
President Bush signs National Flood Insurance Act.
President Bush proclaims National Sanctity of Human Life Day
President Bush proclaims Religious Freedom Day
President Bush meets with wounded soldiers at medical center
President Bush honors Martin Luther King, Junior in church service
Tom Ridge sworn in as Secretary of Homeland Security
President Bush delivers "State of the Union"
President Bush meets with Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi
President commemorates 1st Anniversary of Freedom Corps
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Blair

February 2003
The Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up over the United States upon reentry into the atmosphere killing all aboard.
President Bush addresses the nation on Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy
President Bush attends memorial service for Columbia astronauts
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Howard of Australia
President Bush signs executive order transferring certain functions to Homeland Security.
Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the U.N. Security Council
President Bush meets with Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar
President Bush meets with National Economic Council
President Bush wlcomes employees to Department of Homeland Security

March 2003
President Bush signs executive order establishing the Global War on Terrorism Medals
President Bush welcomes Irish leaders to White House
President Bush signs executive order: Blocking property of persons undermining Democratic processes in Zimbabwe
President Bush rallies troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa
President Bush proclaims National Child Abuse Prevention Month
President Bush says Saddam Hussein must leave Iraq within 48 Hours
Operation Iraqi Freedom. President Bush initiates military with Iraq dismantling the Saddam Hussein regime and liberating 22 million people.

April 2003
President Bush proclaims National Donate Life Month
President to welcome Singapore Prime Minister to White House
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Blair in Northern Ireland
President Bush proclaims National D.A.R.E. Day
President Bush proclaims Loyalty Day
President Bush proclaims National Volunteer Week
President Bush speaks to the people of Iraq
President Bush signs Protect Act- Amber Alert Bill expanding nationwide a rapid-response network to help find kidnapped children.
President Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer

May 2003
President Bush lands on USS Lincoln. It was the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane
President Bush announces combat operations in Iraq have ended
President Bush signs U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
President Bush proclaims Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week
President Bush welcomes President Arroyo in state arrival ceremony
President Bush meets with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi
President Bush signs Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.
President Bush signs The United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003.
President Bush signs executive order establishing the Bob Hope American Patriot Award.
President Bush signs executive order protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and other property in which Iraq has an interest
President Bush proclaims National Child's Day

June 2003
President Bush and Russian President Putin sign Treaty of Moscow
President Bush meets with President Mubarak of Egypt
President Bush meets with leaders of Jordan, Israel and Palestinian Authority
President Bush proclaims Flag Day and National Flag Week
President Bush proclaims June 2003 as National Homeownership Month
President Bush welcomes Brazilian President Lula to White House
President Bush signs "Keeping Children Safe Act"
President Bush signs Welfare Reform Extension Act of 2003, which extends the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program and certain related programs.

July 2003
President Bush names Randall Tobias to be Global AIDS Coordinator
President Bush speaks at Goree Island in Senegal.
President Bush meets with South African President Mbeki
President discusses AIDS Initiative, Iraq in Botswana
President Bush meets with President Obasanjo of Nigeria
President Bush, Prime Minister Blair hold Press Conference on war on terrorism
President Bush highlights health and fitness initiative
President Bush proclaims Captive Nations Week
President Bush, PM Berlusconi discuss Iraq and war on terrorism
Uday and Qusay Hussein are killed during raid in Iraq.
President Bush discusses new initiative to stop illegal logging
President Bush welcomes Prime Minister Abbas to White House
President Bush honors 2003 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
President Bush names Randall Tobias to be Global AIDS Coordinator

August 2003
President Bush thanks military remarks by the President to military personnel and families - Miramar, California
President Bush signs executive order blocking removal of Iraqi property from that country by the former Iraqi regime, its senior officials and their family members
President Bush proclaims Women's Equality Day
President Bush proclaims September 22, 2003, as Family Day
President Bush Promotes Healthy Forests in Arizona
President Bush delivers remarks to 85th American Legion Convention

September 2003
President Bush signs Chile, Singapore Free Trade Agreement Bills
President Bush signs Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003
President Bush proclaims Patriot Day
President Bush commends military in speech at Fort Stewart, Georgia
President Bush unveils Nation's Founding Documents at the National Archives
President Bush proclaims Citizenship Day and Constitution Week
President Bush, King Abdullah of Jordan meet at Camp David
President Bush proclaims National Hispanic Heritage Month
President Bush welcomes Iraqi Ministers to Oval Office
President Bush addresses United Nations General Assembly
President Bush, Chancellor Schroeder meet at United Nations
President Bush meets with Russian President Putin at Camp David
President Bush signs Do Not Call Registry

October 2003
President Bush proclaims Marriage Protection Week.
President Bush proclaims Child Health Day
President Bush proclaims General Pulaski Memorial Day, 2003
President Bush addresses the Philippine Congress
President Bush meets with President Hu Jintao ofChina
President Bush meets with South Korean President Roh
President Bush signs Homeland Security Appropriations Bill
President Bush proclaims October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month
President Bush addresses the Australian Parliament
President Bush proclaims National Character Counts Week

November 2003
President Bush Signs Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003
President Bush proclaims World Freedom Day
President Bush proclaims November 2003 as National Adoption Month
President Bush Meets with Iraqi women leaders
President Bush Signs the Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003
President Bush proclaims National Family Week
President Bush signs Military Construction Appropriations Act
President Bush signs the National Defense Authorization Act
President Bush meets with troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving

December 2003
President Bush proclaims World AIDS Day
President Bush signs the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003
President Bush signs Nanotechnology Research and Development Act
President Bush signs Healthy Forest Restoration Act
President Bush signs Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act
President Bush signs Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003
Saddam Hussein is captured in Iraq
President Bush signs American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003
Libya pledges to dismantle WMD programs

January 2004
President Bush celebrates 2nd anniversary of No Child Left Behind Act
President Bush proclaims National Mentoring Month
President Bush, President Fox meet with reporters in Mexico
President Bush speaks at Summit of the Americas ceremony
President Bush and President Aznar of Spain Meet- Oval Office
President Bush speaks with faith-based and community leaders
President Bush proclaims National Sanctity of Human Life Day
President Bush proclaims Religious Freedom Day
President Bush delivers the State of the Union Address
President Bush celebrates two-year anniversary of USA Freedom Corps
President Bush meets with the nations top economists

February 2004
President Bush proclaims National Consumer Protection Week
President Bush meets with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
President Bush proclaims National African American History Month
President Bush Announces Formation of Independent Commission to look at American intelligence capabilities
President announces new measures to counter the threat of WMD
President Bush meets with President of Tunisia
President and Mrs. Bush's dog spot passes on
President Bush speaks to the National Governors Association
President Bush signs Executive Order encouraging innovation in manufacturing
President Bush calls for Constitutional Amendment protecting marriage
President Bush welcomes Georgian President Saakashvili to White House
President Bush welcomes German Chancellor Schroeder to White House

March 2004
President Bush marks Homeland Security's accomplishments at year one
President Bush speaks at faith-based and community initiatives conference
President Bush signs Social Security Protection Act of 2004
President Bush proclaims Women's History Month
President Bush and Mexican President Fox meet in Crawford, Texas
President Bush commends recipients of Malcolm Baldridge Awards
President Bush and PM of the Netherlands meet at the White House
President Bush welcomes Prime Minister Ahern of Ireland for St. Patrick's Day
President Bush welcomes seven nations to the NATO Alliance
President Bush announces Dr. Rice to provide public testimony to commission
President Bush welcomes baseball Hall of Famers to White House

April 2004
President Bush signs Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004
President Bush proclaims National Child Abuse Prevention Month
308,000 Americans find work in March
President Bush proclaims National Donate Life Month
President Bush and Egyptian President Mubarak meet with reporters
President Bush meets with Israeli Prime Minister Sharon
President Bush proclaims National Crime Victims' Rights Week
President Bush announces wetlands initiative on Earth Day
President Bush presents Environmental Youth Awards
U.S. eases economic embargo against Libya
President Bush unveils Tech initiatives for energy, health care, Internet
President Bush meets with Swedish Prime Minister Persson
President Bush welcomes Canadian Prime Minister Martin to White House
President Bush proclaims Older Americans Month
President Bush proclaims National Charter Schools Week
President Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer

May 2004
President Bush meets with the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba
President Bush proclaims Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
Interview of the President Bush by Al-Ahram International
President Bush meets with King of Jordan
President Bush condemns brutal execution of Nicholas Berg
President Bush speaks at the American Conservative Union 40th Anniversary Gala
President Bush delivers commencement address at Concordia University
President Bush honors the nation's fallen law enforcement officers
President speaks at Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site
President Bush meets with Greek Prime Minister Karamanlis
President Bush delivers commencement address at Louisiana State
President Bush speaks at National World War II Memorial dedication
President Bush observes Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery

June 2004
President Bush speaks at Air Force Academy Graduation
President Bush meets with Australian Prime Minister John Howard - White House
President Bush presents Medal of Freedom to Pope - The Vatican, Italy
President Bush remarks on the passing of President Ronald Reagan
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Berlusconi - Rome, Italy
President Bush, President Chirac mark 60th anniversary of D-Day - Normandy, France
President Bush proclaims Great Outdoors Month
President Bush proclaims D-Day National Remembrance Day
President Bush proclaims National Child's Day
President Bush attends the G8 Summit - Sea Island, Georgia
President Bush delivers eulogy at funeral service for President Reagan
President Bush proclaims Flag Day and National Flag Week
President Bush welcomes President Clinton and Senator Clinton for portrait unveiling
President Bush meets with President Karzai of Afghanistan - White House
President Bush salutes the military at Macdill Air Force Base in Tampa
President Bush salutes soldiers in Fort Lewis, Washington
President Bush welcomes Prime Minister of Hungary
President commemorates Black Music Month at White House
President Bush meets with Religious Leaders - Istanbul, Turkey
President Bush discusses democracy, freedom from Turkey - Istanbul, Turkey

July 2004
President Commemorates 40th Anniversary of Civil Rights Act
President Bush announces over 1.5 million jobs created and 10 straight months of job gains
President Bush speaks at 4th of July Celebration West Virginia State Capitol Grounds
President Bush welcomes Iceland Prime Minister to White House
President Bush signs African Growth and Opportunity Act
President Bush signs Identity Theft Penalty Enhancement Act
President Bush announces initiatives to combat human trafficking
President Bush welcomes President Lagos of Chile to White House
President Bush welcomes Malaysian Prime Minister to White House
President Bush signs Project Bioshield Act of 2004
President emphasizes minority entrepreneurship at Urban League
President's speaks to the Athletes of the International Children's Games and Cultural Festival - Cleveland, Ohio

August 2004
President Bush signs Department of Defense Appropriations Act
President Bush Signs U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement
President Bush meets with Prime Minister Belka of Poland
President Bush nominates Congressman Porter Goss as Director of CIA
President Bush tours hurricane damage in Florida
President Bush speaks at VFW convention
President Bush declares National Airborne Day, 2004
President Bush signs executive order establishing National Counterterrorism Center
President Bush signs executive order for strengthened management of the intelligence community
President Bush signs executive order strengthening the sharing of terrorism information to protect Americans
President Bush signs executive order establishing the president's board on safeguarding Americans' civil liberties

September 2004
President Bush speaks to the 2004 Republican National Convention
President Bush proposes new "opportunity zones"
President Bush proclaims Minority Enterprise Development Week, 2004
President Bush proclaims Patriot Day
President Bush proclaims National Days of Prayer and Remembrance, 2004
President Bush proclaims National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, 2004
President Bush proclaims National POW/MIA Recognition Day, 2004
President Bush celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month
President Bush proclaims Citizenship Day and Constitution Week, 2004
President Bush meets with first responders in Alabama
President Bush meets with Iraq Prime Minister Allawi
President Bush visits flood area of Pennsylvania
President Bush proclaims National Hunting and Fishing Day, 2004
President Bush proclaims Gold Star Mother's Day, 2004
President Bush tours hurricane damage in Florida

October 2004
President Bush and Senator Kerry hold first 2004 presidential debate
President Bush proclaims National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, 2004
President Signs Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004
President Bush proclaims United States-Israel Agreement on Trade in Agricultural Products, 2004
President Bush proclaims Child Health Day, 2004
President Bush and Senator Kerry hold second 2004 presidential debate
President Bush proclaims General Pulaski Memorial Day, 2004
President and General Tommy Franks's hold rally in Morrison, Colorado
President Bush and Senator Kerry hold third 2004 presidential debate
President Bush proclaims National Mammography Day, 2004
President Bush congratulates 2004 Olympic and Paralympic teams
President Bush proclaims National Character Counts Week, 2004
President Bush proclaims National Disability Employment Awareness Month, 2004
Service-Disabled Veterans Executive Order By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the President Bush signs executive order to strengthen opportunities in Federal contracting for service-disabled veteran businesses
President Bush signs Ronald Reagan National Defense Authorization Act, 2005

November 2004
President and Mrs. Bush's Remarks at a RNC pre-election victory 2004 rally at Moody Coliseum at Southern Methodist University
President Bush thanks Americans in acceptance speech after election victory
President Bush proclaims National American Indian Heritage Month, 2004
President Bush proclaims National Family Caregivers Month, 2004
President Bush proclaims National Hospice Month, 2004
Mrs. Bush Officially Reopens Pennsylvania Avenue
President Bush proclaims World Freedom Day, 2004
President Bush nominates judge Al Gonzales as next Attorney General
Millennium Challenge account eligible countries for FY 2005
President Bush honors veterans at Arlington National Cemetery
President and Prime Minister Blair meet to discuss Iraq, Middle East
President Bush nominates Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State
President Bush nominates Margaret Spellings as Secretary of Education
President Bush speaks at the Clinton Presidential Center
President's speaks at CEO Summit closing session in Chile
President Bush's Thanksgiving Day 2004 Proclamation
President Bush proclaims National Family Week, 2004
President Bush nominates Carlos Gutierrez as Secretary of Commerce
President Bush and Canadaian Prime Minister Martin meet to discuss common goals in Ottowa, Canada

December 2004
President Bush nominates Governor Mike Johanns as Secretary of Agriculture
President Bush proclaims National Drunk and Drugged Driving Prevention Month, 2004
President Bush makes statement in support of Aung San Suu Kyi
President Bush and President Musharraf discuss international relations and commerce at White House
President Bush and Iraqi interim President Al-Yawer discuss Iraq future at White House
President Bush thanks military personnel and families for serving our country at Camp Pendleton, California
President Bush nominates Jim Nicholson as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs
President Bush proclaims Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week, 2004
President Bush nominates Sam Bodman as Secretary of Energy
President Bush signs the Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004
President Bush nominates Mike Leavitt as Secretary of HHS
President Bush and Italian Prime Minister discuss Middle East and economy at the White House
President Bush presents Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, General Tommy Franks and Jerry Bremer
President Bush signs Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
President and Mrs. Bush visit with soldiers and their families at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
President Bush signs the Specialty Crops Competitiveness Act, 2004
President Bush proclaims To Take Certain Actions under the African Growth and Opportunity Act
President Bush's Christmas Message, 2004
President Bush signs the Comprehensive Peace in Sudan Act of 2004
President Bush makes statement on Bay of Bengal earthquake and Tsunami
President Bush to send delegation to assess tsunami relief aid
President Bush commits $350 million for tsunami relief efforts

January 2005
President Bush asks former Presidents Bush and Clinton to help raise funds for tsunami relief
President Bush signs Accelerating Income Tax Benefits for Charitable Contributions for Tsunami Victims
President Bush nominates Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security
President Bush proclaims National Mentoring Month, 2005
President Bush proclaims National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2005
President Bush proclaims Religious Freedom Day, 2005
President Bush honors Secretary, Mrs. Powell at 'Let Freedom Ring' event
President Bush thanks Armed Forces at 'Saluting Those Who Serve' event
President Bush thanks military, guests at 'Celebration of Freedom' concert

George Bush Accomplishments - The first four years from Boycottliberalism.com (http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Bush.htm)

prairieplantsystems

03-11-2008, 10:03 PM

I can't help but noticing that all the "good" stuff he apparently did quoted by rebgirl420 is in my opinion pretty much all random junk any pres would have done, I can't see anything outstanding. I think the current state of the U.S. speaks greatly about the talent Bush has at governing and don't try saying he was president during a shit storm because he's the one who took a shit on the U.S. with this bogus ass war that I cannot believe I am even paying one cent towards.

He has to be the worst president in my lifetime and hopefully the worst I will ever see but he has not been the worst and there will most likely be worst than that in the future. Because of his horrible ideas, I have to say my opinion about the U.S. has dropped to a record low because I cannot imagine a stupider and more close-minded, regressive bunch of fcuktards than the American republicans (American democrats are perhaps barely better) (I know I generalize, but that's honestly my opinion about the U.S. right now).

norkali

03-11-2008, 10:15 PM

He'ne some good stuff. He may not be a great president but he has done some good. Like the fact that he's given MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars to Aids research and to Africa. If you ask me thats good. And jujst so you know he's given more to Africa and Aids than ANY other president out there. More than Billy Clinton.

Giving MILLIONS and MILLIONS away....

The Outstanding U.S. National Public Debt as of 11 Mar 2008 at 10:07:47 PM GMT is:
$9,398,439,625,546.57 :thumbsup:

...the fact that he's actually helping us save the second admendment that seems to be trampled on daily.

:what:

Bad Brief - The Bush DOJ shoots at the Second Amendment.
(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1953693/posts)

And the Bush tax cuts helped out countless mid class citezens.
:what:

Bush tax-cuts benefited the rich, not "countless mid class citezens"

Year-by-Year Analysis of the Bush Tax Cuts Shows Growing Tilt to the Very Rich (http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm)

STUDIES SHED NEW LIGHT ON EFFECTS OF ADMINISTRATIONâ??S TAX CUTS (http://www.cbpp.org/8-25-04tax.htm)

Tax Cuts Offer Most for Very Rich, Study Says (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

Do you have any sources for those claims? (Other than giving millions away to Africa...that I believe. lol.)

norkali

03-11-2008, 10:26 PM

Lmao; look at what that list contains as Bush's "accomplishments":
May 2003: President Bush lands on USS Lincoln. It was the first time a sitting president has arrived on the deck of an aircraft carrier by plane!
December 2001: President Bush lights National Christmas Tree!
May 2001: President Bush speaks with math champs!
August 2001: President Bush visits workers at Harley Davidson factory!

I won't go on...

:S2:

Mr. Clandestine

03-12-2008, 01:57 AM

Bush tax-cuts benefited the rich, not "countless mid class citezens"

Bush has even said before that his "base" is the elite, the rich. But do you have any idea what kind of taxes his "base" have to pay because of the amount of money they make per year? Take a look at how much in taxes the top 1% of Americans pay every year, even with the 3% tax cut that was given to them. Over-taxing the rich just because they're rich isn't going to do much in the way of making any economy flourish, because the rich have ways of tying up their investments and assets in ways where they legally can't be taxed for much of it. The "Bush Tax Cut" argument isn't even an argument, it's mostly liberal crybabies who are just looking to talk trash about the administration every chance they get. Very few actually look at how the numbers have positively affected our economy:

NCPA | Taxes and Growth (http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/do-the-rich-and-businesses-pay-their-fair-share)

And sadly, this seems to be the end-all answer for many of todays Democrats. Raise taxes on the rich, to lift the burden off the middle class. But the middle class will still end up struggling to pay their taxes, while the ultra wealthy can still afford to buy a new yacht in the summer. Nothing will change, and even the Hillary/Obama duo are backing off their threats of raising taxes on the rich, because now look who's throwing tons of money in their general election, err... I mean direction. There are many ways to stimulate a struggling economy, unfortunate that our most prominent Democrats have no clue what they are.

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 02:30 AM

Hey I never said they were deep people. I'm just trying to prove that indeed he has done SOME things that were positive.

I never claimed he's the best president ever. I'm just saying that you can't go and say he's the worst president or even so incredibly horrible.

The man has had to make some hard decisions. War time presidents are hardly ever popular at the time. Cut him some freaking slack. I bet in 20 years he'll be seen as a decent president.

I mean hell. At least he's no Jimmy Carter! Or Andrew Johnson! Nixon! James Polk, William McKinley, or Lyndon Baines Johnson!

And look at the other options at the time! John Kerry and Al Gore! So I'm assuming you George Bush haters think that they could have done oh so much better.

I severely doubt they would have.

So my conclusion ends at the point that George Bush is no where close to the "best" president. But I assure you he's not the worst. And he has done some decent things.

(and Mr.Clandestine is correct. "Taking from the rich and giving to the poor" sounds fantastic, most liberal ideas do, at least on paper. But that's doing nothing but redistributing wealth. And that is not fair in the least. We should not be punishi9ng the rish. Thank your lucky ass that America is indeed a capitalist nation. If it wasn't you wouldn't have half the shit you do now. And he's also right that indeed the economy is messed up but raising taxes isn't going to help!)

Mr. Clandestine

03-12-2008, 02:53 AM

Rebgirl, will you marry me?!? :computerlove1:

(Oh wait, you're engaged and I'm married... dammit. Ce la vie. Regardless, it's nice to see that not everyone is so easily influenced by liberal media bias in this country. Thanks for having my back. Stay informed, and maybe I'll find ya in the next life. :jointsmile:)

carinia

03-12-2008, 02:59 AM

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 03:00 AM

Haha thanks. :)

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not a huge fan of Republicans either (at least lately, I'm not religious in ANY way and I hate it when they push their religious agenda on me, aka gay marriage bans and anti-abortion legislation). I'm much more of a Libertarian than anything (personal freedoms are very important). It's just that the left really, really pisses me off sometimes. At least 25-45% more than Republicans usually do.

carinia

03-12-2008, 03:02 AM

(personal freedoms are very important). It's just that the left really, really pisses me off sometimes. At least 25-45% more than Republicans usually do.

Lol Reb, I seriously agree with you there, even if I dont sound like it. :)

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 03:14 AM

Hahaha.. taxes. Taxes should stop being looked at as a way to redistribute wealth and instead be looked at for what they are - to run government services.

I appreciate the millions for africa.. but where were the millions for the Boxing day Tsunami (350 million pledged, barely 190 actually sent)? The turkey earthquake(Sorry, dont have my national geographic for those numbers)? Hell, even Katrina. There have been *several* disasters worldwide in the last 8 years, and we have been in the bottom of the donation pool. Hell, even China sends more money than we do, wtf.

And honestly, i dont care about the voting alternatives. I honestly wish Gore had won, at least wed have a respectable focus on world issues and climate change. That beats any rhetoric Bush can spit out anyday. Whenever someone asks me if things would be any better with Kerry or Gore, I gotta ask if things could be any WORSE.

Katrina and those other natural disasters are not george Bush's fault though. Thank FEMA and all of those other "oh so needed extra government expense" organizations. We gave LA and the other states effected by katrina money. And what did they do? Spent it on porn, jewelry, and other non important things. These people want nothing but handouts. The government is not supposed to support your ass. You live in hurricane territory and you don't have insurance?! YOU DON'T DESERVE A DAMN DIME OF MY TAXES!

And Al Gore and his mystical climate change crap. He spews out this information and gets a nobel peace prize (which lost my respect after they gave it to Yasser Arafat! But this is all theory! THEORY! The changes might not even be made by humans! Mount St. Helens exploded and blew as much crap into the atmosphere than you could even begin to imagine! Theres scientific proof that Al Gore and his chummy U.N. panel don't know a damn thing. Global warming may just be real, but blaming it on human beings is jumping the proverbial gun. I missed the Clinton's attemps on trying to "fix" global warming.

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 03:15 AM

Lol Reb, I seriously agree with you there, even if I dont sound like it. :)

Haha it's okay. All is fair in love, war and politics!

Mr. Clandestine

03-12-2008, 03:22 AM

It's just that the left really, really pisses me off sometimes. At least 25-45% more than Republicans usually do.

:S2:

Libertarians are alright in my book, and I'm kinda tired of the "one party supremacy" idea anyway. I always stand by my convictions, but feel that power would be misused far less if these hot topics were left in the hands of individual states. I cringe after thinking of what might be possible if either of the Dem candidates reigns in our nations highest office. Maybe one day it'll be the Libertarians who level the political playing field in these respects.

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 03:27 AM

:S2:

Libertarians are alright in my book, and I'm kinda tired of the "one party supremacy" idea anyway. I always stand by my convictions, but feel that power would be misused far less if these hot topics were left in the hands of individual states. I cringe after thinking of what might be possible if either of the Dem candidates reigns in our nations highest office. Maybe one day it'll be the Libertarians who level the political playing field in these respects.

Yeah, George Washington warned of a two party system. And this is why. The founding fathers wanted the individual states to rule on issues such as abortion, gay marriage, drugs, prostituation, and other "hot topic" issues. The main federal government was only there so if you needed to band together during a time of war or other national crisis you would have a main centralized system (and to print money).

And we can only hope the two party system fades. But currently everyone is so concerned with parties and gaining and losing power I don't see it happening soon.

dragonrider

03-12-2008, 07:14 AM

On the taxes issue: If you are going to spend it, then you need to collect it from somewhere.

I don't know how the Democrats get labeled as tax-and-spend and somehow the Republicans get to CLAIM to be fiscally responsible. It doesn't hold up. If you look at the history of the national debt, it goes up most dramatically during Republican administrations. Reagan and Bush senior spiked the debt through the roof with the Reagan tax cuts and increased defense spending. Clinton got it under control again and set us on a course to a balanced budget and an actual SURPLUS for the first time in something like 40 years. Then Bush came along and gave the surplus away to his rich friends and added another $3 trillion to the debt, on top of the surplus he gave away.

When Bush was pushing his tax cuts through Congress, I actually remember him saying that the tax cuts were to be paid for with the surplus. Someone asked how they would be paid for, and he said something like, "Surplus means more than you need, so we are giving it back to the American people with these tax cuts." Apparently he gave the surplus back along with $3 trillion extra borrowed from the Chinese. It's not really a tax cut if you have to pay double for it later because of the interest, is it? It's a current tax cut paid for with a future tax increase. Haven't any of these people in our government ever had a credit card or a mortgage? It costs more when you get a loan to buy it!

Republicans are great at giving away tax cuts they can't afford and then spending like they still have the money --- that's not fiscally responsible. It's actually the opposite of responsible. Maybe Democrats are tax-and-spend liberals and Republicans are borrow-and-spend conservatives --- but really, what is conservative about that? It's not conservative at all. It's actually the opposite of conservative.

Both parties seem good at spending, but Democrats are better at actually paying for the things they buy. Maybe the Republicans figure they can put it on the tab and the Democrats will pay for it later. Then the Republicans can slam the Democrats for raising taxes to pay off the loans the Republicans took out. I think people are begining to see though it, and the Republicans have lost their credibility as fiscally responsible.

Also, I don't personally care that much about how taxes are distributed. It makes sense to me that people who make more should pay more, but I'm pretty much on board with the idea that no one should have to pay much more than a third of what they make. I just think the government should pay for what it spends money on, instead of driving us further and further into the hole. You either have to raise the taxes or lower the spending in order to balance the budget, and if you can't stop the spending, that means higher taxes now, or EVEN HIGHER TAXES LATER.

dragonrider

03-12-2008, 07:54 AM

This is a benchmark to see how things change over time. Right now there are 25 answers to the poll.

Worst: 10
Bad: 7
OK: 2
Good: 5
Best: 1

So, 68% of people responded with an unfavorable rating of Bad or Worst. And 24% responded with a favorable rating of Good or Best. And 8% responded with a nuetral rating of OK.

I'm not exactly sure how polling agencies come up with their "approval ratings," but this 24% rate of favorable repsonses is pretty close to what they report these days, isn't it? I think Bush's approval rating has been around 30% lately, and this is not far off considering the small number of people responding.

Time for another benchmark:

Right now there are 47 answers to the poll.

Worst: 19
Bad: 16
OK: 6
Good: 5
Best: 1

So, 74% of people responded with an unfavorable rating of Bad or Worst. And 13% responded with a favorable rating of Good or Best. And 13% responded with a nuetral rating of OK.

Uh, oh! Looks like Bush is slipping in the polls! This could be real trouble for him if the canncom members are abandoning him.

rebgirl420

03-12-2008, 08:11 AM

This poll is kind of biased if you ask me haha.

It's like going to the Republican National Comittee and asking what they think of Hillary.

Most people in this site, and who smoke pot are not Republican. Libertarians maybe, and even liberals and Democrats. But rarely Republicans.

Even = Not so much

dragonrider

03-12-2008, 04:00 PM

Thanks to everyone who has participated in the poll so far and to everyone who has posted comments. It's been great to see what everyone thinks.

smok3y

03-12-2008, 05:33 PM

Bush = Ass Hole..

stinkyattic

03-12-2008, 05:38 PM

I think that looking down the list of his so-called 'accomplishments', it makes me dislike him even MORE, as a lot of that stuff makes me say, "Oh! So THAT'S how our President has been avoiding REAL issues!!!" Charter School Week? WTF!! Gimme a break! This is even more ridiculous than Congress pouncing on the red herring that pro baseball threw them in the form of the steroids scandal. Way to avoid dealing with REAL issues, guys! Glad I'm paying for your salaries and your fucking plane tickets! :thumbsup:

Breukelen advocaat

03-12-2008, 05:47 PM

Bush deserves some credit for the fact that there's been no further terrror attacks on the United States since 9/11.

As far as the worst president in history, IMO that title goes to Jimmy Carter.

Psycho4Bud

03-12-2008, 05:47 PM

"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone"......

Can't say nothing bad myself...you all know how non-judgemental I am with politicians.:D

Have a good one!:s4:

stinkyattic

03-12-2008, 05:50 PM

"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone"......
Sorry... I guess I should shut up then... I'm still barely functional after 3 cups of strong coffee so far this morning... ;)

swice1

03-12-2008, 07:34 PM

fuck every president and all our government its all bullshit and pre-determined, fuck voting.

Mr. Clandestine

03-12-2008, 07:38 PM

fuck every president and all our government its all bullshit and pre-determined, fuck voting.

:wtf:

Well that was straight outta left field...

psteve

03-12-2008, 08:04 PM

"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone"......

I can't even lift a boulder that big, let alone cast it.

stinkyattic

03-12-2008, 08:13 PM

fuck every president and all our government its all bullshit and pre-determined, fuck voting.Elect me Empress-For-Life and only THEN can you stop voting... mwahahahahahaha!!!!:jointsmile:

carinia

03-12-2008, 08:56 PM

Lol you get my vote stinky!!

Now what were we saying about taxes? Cuz i just spent my refund buying a new bong, grinder, exhaust fans, hood, nutes, oh and some PPP seeds. :)

God i love a government who outlaws the shit I spend my money on ;) And thats the reason I hate bush. (I know that makes no sense, but oh well. :) )

silkyblue

03-12-2008, 10:45 PM

Whats kills me is the two faced town of DC and their partys every week
phat rats on roof tops, and sky scrapers 23 floor, drinkin tokin, screwing like bunnies

we know what they do up there

its oil peeps its about the oil

look what they [American Government] did to the black hill Indians

[Apache]
to get the gold in the black hills

it wasnt pretty at wounded knee

its not pretty in Iraq
Bush is a nut! hes gotta make
mommy and daddy proud

its over oil George texas gunslinger wants the oil dont blame the poor defenseless folk Indians werent savages untill the American drew first blood

the America governmet will cut yo dam throat in a minute
if anybody steps outta line

Geronnimo

Psycho4Bud

03-12-2008, 10:52 PM

Show me some links; who currently holds the oil contracts in Iraq? I can name a few off the top of my head and NONE of them include U.S. firms.

Have a good one!:s4:

Rusty Trichome

03-13-2008, 02:00 PM

The chain of events starting with the September 11 attacks on US soil, then going on what, ultimately, has been largely a wild-goose chase in Afghanistan, to our current presence in Iraq, to what appears to be a new push to bring this war into Iran... to me, there is a failure of logic connecting all these things.
I'm guessing our military is involved in a bit more than a wild goodse chase. Establishing intel sources, teaching the locals and their elders that there is a way to survive which doesn't include the Taliban torturing your family or murdering your leaders. To me, this is likely a staging area for future activities, if necessary. (at least that is exactly what I'd want Syria and Iran to think)

Connection...? Saddam wanted the world to think he was capable of nukes. He touted his nuke/chemical/biological successes to his neighbors often enough that even they were cautious in their dealings with him. Considdering he gassed the Kurds in his own country, and gassed the Iranians in the Iraq-Iran war, I think taking a despot at their word, till proven wrong is justifiable.
-Then-
We have the Iranians. These fuckers tout the successes of their nuke program, they aid/arm/finance the insurgents against our forces and allies, they continue to develop long-range missles capable of delivering nukes thousands of miles, not just the few hundred miles that the UN 'allows' them. (for antional defense)
They continue to thrash western values, they threaten jews, christians, our allies and our own nation daily, with no pretext of civility. They kill infidels. Period.

Not having a staging area to at least make terrorist-supportive nations worry, would be irresponsible. Perhaps the show of force will do nothing, but having the capability to quickly and decisively utilize that force is clearly an advantage.

I'm still not convinced fully that the 9-11 attacks were simply the Taliban getting into world affairs on an unprecedented scale.

Was Al-Qaeda that was responsible for 9-11. The Taliban were simply giving Obama Bin Laden a place to train, and protection from the west. (and an escape ruote)

As for Saddam Hussein and his so-called weapons of mass destruction... of COURSE they could find some unnamed 'intelligence' sources who claimed to have seen them!
The mustard gas he used isn't a WMD? Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html)
The bio weapons he was working to develop wern't real? BLACK BIOLOGY: AL HAKAM (http://www.naplesnews.com/blogs/observation_post/2007/oct/29/bioiraq3entry/)
Seems there's a bunch of similarities, to me.

psteve

03-13-2008, 02:47 PM

Show me some links; who currently holds the oil contracts in Iraq? I can name a few off the top of my head and NONE of them include U.S. firms.

Have a good one!:s4:
It's not about American companies owning Iraqi oil.
It's about driving up the price of the oil they do own.

Mr. Clandestine

03-13-2008, 08:07 PM

The mustard gas he used isn't a WMD? Iraqi Chemical Stash Uncovered (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081300530.html)
The bio weapons he was working to develop wern't real? BLACK BIOLOGY: AL HAKAM (http://www.naplesnews.com/blogs/observation_post/2007/oct/29/bioiraq3entry/)
Seems there's a bunch of similarities, to me.

Saddam was a despicable human being, and it's widely known that he was fully capable and willing to murder scores of his own countrymen with mustard gas and Sarin. Piles of Kurdish bodies are still being found today who met their ends at the hands of a cruel dictator and his biological and chemical WMDs. Saddam was using these weapons LONG before Bush took office, and it's kinda silly to think he had absolutely none right before the invasion. I think some people are getting confused into thinking that the term "weapons of mass destruction" only applies to nuclear missiles and similar exploding weapons. They account for a lot more than that...

For those of you screaming Iraq was just an innocent bystander: Barring mountains, do you really think it would be difficult to transport anything out of a country in that region? Better yet - if you were a cowardly dictator that was responsible for mass murdering countless innocent civilians with chemical/biological weapons, AND you knew that the Americans were pissed off and heading your way, wouldn't you send your WMDs out of the country, too?

Psycho4Bud

03-14-2008, 10:25 AM

It's not about American companies owning Iraqi oil.
It's about driving up the price of the oil they do own.

The ONLY oil they "own" is in the U.S. or off our coast. Besides that, "most" oil contracts with foriegn nations gives them a 15% profit off each barrel.

DON'T blame Iran for making anti-Israel comments or threats by Hezbullah....DON'T blame Hugo in Venezualla for creating higher prices by his actions either. It's all a big conspiracy by the evil U.S. empire. Oil prices are based on speculation.

Have a good one!:s4:

thcbongman

03-18-2008, 10:29 PM

Saddam was a despicable human being, and it's widely known that he was fully capable and willing to murder scores of his own countrymen with mustard gas and Sarin. Piles of Kurdish bodies are still being found today who met their ends at the hands of a cruel dictator and his biological and chemical WMDs. Saddam was using these weapons LONG before Bush took office, and it's kinda silly to think he had absolutely none right before the invasion. I think some people are getting confused into thinking that the term "weapons of mass destruction" only applies to nuclear missiles and similar exploding weapons. They account for a lot more than that...

For those of you screaming Iraq was just an innocent bystander: Barring mountains, do you really think it would be difficult to transport anything out of a country in that region? Better yet - if you were a cowardly dictator that was responsible for mass murdering countless innocent civilians with chemical/biological weapons, AND you knew that the Americans were pissed off and heading your way, wouldn't you send your WMDs out of the country, too?

The US was threatening to attack them. However you seemed to forgotten UN weapons inspections was going on at the time. America never intended to let them finish. It was obvious.

Rather than doing the smart thing and try to account for all the weapons possible, we move in and destroy any traces of evidence linking Iraq to WMD. If this was the US's true intention, more vigilance and restraint would be used before attacking.

Unfortunately the fact is this entire conflict was about money, an economic stimulus and securing access to resources for the future. Bush made the right move for economic reasons.

Mr. Clandestine

03-18-2008, 11:11 PM

The US was threatening to attack them. However you seemed to forgotten UN weapons inspections was going on at the time. America never intended to let them finish. It was obvious.

Rather than doing the smart thing and try to account for all the weapons possible, we move in and destroy any traces of evidence linking Iraq to WMD. If this was the US's true intention, more vigilance and restraint would be used before attacking.

Unfortunately the fact is this entire conflict was about money, an economic stimulus and securing access to resources for the future. Bush made the right move for economic reasons.

I'll freely admit that reconstruction efforts have gone awry in Iraq, but again, I really feel that Saddam got what was coming to him, and the US was justified to invade and take him out by force. As for the continued occupation, I have mixed feelings about that. I'd love to see stability come to that region without our influence, but with the radical factions swarming to Iraq in droves, I don't think it can be done without outside intervention... at least, for the time being. And about us securing resources, that may eventually play out in the future, but it's a moot point right now. We'll be paying for this war at the gas pumps for a long time to come.

Rusty Trichome

03-18-2008, 11:41 PM

However you seemed to forgotten UN weapons inspections was going on at the time.
Rather than doing the smart thing and try to account for all the weapons possible, we move in and destroy any traces of evidence linking Iraq to WMD.

Re-writing history, are we? Any supporting links for these 'facts'?
I've got a link:
Security Council Resolutions Concerning Iraq (http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/01fs/14906.htm)

There were other resolutions prior to UNSCR 687, but this is where the UN Security Council gave a hint there was a problem with supporting terrorists and nukes. (remember Saddam giving $10,000.00 to every family of every homicide bomber in the Israel?) A full 10 years before we were forced to confront the issue. If someone is threatening to shove a nuke up our ass, I would expect my president to effectively deal with the situation. The time for more mandates was long-gone.

The IAEA was mandated, on 4-3-1991, to "verify elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program"
This wasn't the day before the invasion...it was 10 friggin' years before.

UNSCR 687 - April 3, 1991:
Iraq must "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless "under international supervision" of all "chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities."

Iraq must "unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material" or any research, 0development or manufacturing facilities.

Iraq must "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless "under international supervision" of all "ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 KM and related major parts and repair and production facilities."

Iraq must not "use, develop, construct or acquire" any weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq must reaffirm its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Creates the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to verify the elimination of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs and mandated that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verify elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

Iraq must declare fully its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Iraq must not commit or support terrorism, or allow terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq.

Iraq must cooperate in accounting for the missing and dead Kuwaitis and others.

Iraq must return Kuwaiti property seized during the Gulf War.

fiddyonefiddy

03-19-2008, 08:38 PM

bush is a war criminal #1
we hung people(japanese) for war crimes for waterboarding our troops in ww2.
we do this today,we meaning the usa.okayed by bush of course.

operation
iraqi
liberation

once we caught on to this little name they changed it,no u.s. firms are pumping oil,we are in charge of who gets to pump oil,were not the prostitutes were the pimps.

from reagan down the republicans have gone sour with iran contra.
it dirtied their reputations as they all broke the constitution of the usa. why didnt anyone hollar then? now see what you got.

also just so you know
bush is not from texas. he's from maine.we have never claimed the ignorant basterd.

there was no reason to go to war with iraq,none period.except bush had to show daddy how its done. hes a fool.
hes ruined everything he has ever run. baseball team,oil company,usa. he sux hes a goof off with connections,hes the dude you flushed his head in the toilet,back in high school.
and hes a sorry excuse for a president.
presidents are supposed to be above it all,he ain't he's in the middle of it.
i love the name darth chaney thats good
aristotle once said there is no true democracy where there is greed, look at our country and you will see that he is right.
heres an even better quote from hitler, it is good for the government that the people do not think.
ahh so true so true
speedy

Mr. Clandestine

03-19-2008, 08:57 PM

there was no reason to go to war with iraq,none period.

You think Saddam was doing a good job governing Iraq? And if we're in charge of this huge surplus of oil we supposedly have in Iraq, why then is the average price per gallon of gasoline $3.50 and climbing? You're essentially saying that our soldiers are fighting and dying for nothing, but what about the countless number of Iraqis who are no longer being ruled with an iron fist by a ruthless and corrupt dictator? Are they nothing? Are Iraqis who can now vote also nothing? What about the huge number of terrorists that we'll never have to worry about attacking our homeland, or our interests abroad, because we prematurely sent them packing to visit their 437 virgins earlier than they were expecting? All for nothing?

In the world we live in, there's no such thing as getting something for nothing. We're having to make sacrifices, but regardless how you may feel about the war... we're still winning.

fiddyonefiddy

03-19-2008, 09:04 PM

hey rusty
they told em he didnt have it, the chief u.n. inspector.
the guy said it on 60 minutes he knew they didnt have them,
go look that up. we(u.s. government) knew and didnt want to hear that part of it.we needed a reason to invade,scare tatics work the best. hes gonna blow us up,oh shit invade!
perfect scenario, remeber the terror alerts during the last vote,
ahh were at yellow we cant tell you what the threat is just that there is a threat, i mean come on. how much more bogus does it get? you dont think bush can afford a psychologist to figure out the best way to be elected,scare em and let em know youll protect em just like you said rusty i expect my president to
do something about it, but there was never a threat,so well make one up.you can write the question to get the answer you want and thats what bush did,he asked the questions to get the answer he wanted.the information was there, he didnt want to see it. so when you quote the u.n. reports please quote all of them. just like all republicans only tell the story they want to hear.
speedy

people of the world dont hate us the people, they hate our foriegn policy,and until we clean up our act,it will always be that way.

fiddyonefiddy

03-19-2008, 09:23 PM

mr clandestine,
the reason gas is 350 is the unrest in the middle east,caused by invasion into a country that is against the constitution of our country, by our country.
sadam had no insurgents, because he killed them all.
its all about culture,the same goes on in saudi arabia but we didnt invade them,the same goes on in china, we invading them next?

their culture is tribal,they have one ruler for 30-40 years and then the same family takes over. has been that way for 4000 years over there. remember the pharo's.

was saddam a good guy probably not. if you listen to SO DAM INSANES side he had every right to go into kuwait. thats how they do shit over there.you've heard the saying when in rome?
also the kuwaitis after we left lined up the collaborators in the middle of kuwait city and chopped off there heads in a public execution.thats the way they do things over there.they catch you stealing they chop off your hand.now everyone knows to watch out for you cause your a thief.your missing a hand.
heres the perfect scenario,china says to us destroy all your weapons of mass destruction, or we are gonna invade, they dont have the world behind them or the u.n.sanctions, we tell em to fuck off, they invade our country, would you start defending yourself and blowing them up or killing them when you could to fight for your country? most people would as they are doing in iraq. and thats whats happening in iraq,and the only reason we are there still is to make sure that the government will be favorable to us.thats the only reason. period.
so we can control oil production bush said it himself.
speedy

what exactly are we getting for our sacrifices? mr clandestine?
could you tell me cause i dont see it.

Mr. Clandestine

03-19-2008, 09:36 PM

Fiddy-

There are differing opinions all across the board about the war, what led to the invasion, what's been accomplished/what hasn't, and so on. Best you and I can do is agree not to agree with each other.

As for China invading, that's a completely different scenario. The world knows the U.S. has massive nuclear weapons capabilities, but unlike many countries in the Middle East, we don't run around flaunting our capabilities and threatening genocide on other countries, races, religions, etc. Even China, being the superpower that they are, would still be stupid to ever threaten us with any kind of force... especially with the atrocities that are happening in their country every day that we conveniently ignore. We're the #1 superpower for a reason, we have the ability to obliterate any country within a matter of seconds... luckily, we have no desire to convert the world into 'one big America'. We're not going to run our mouths like a lot of countries in the ME would, because we don't need to. The world knows what we're capable of, and most of the world is grateful that we're not governed by a cruel dictator who desires to see certain countries wiped from the face of the earth.

Rusty Trichome

03-19-2008, 09:51 PM

Yeah, I'm a real fan of that failure of a man, Hans Blix.

Saddam had been working on getting the materials and technologies for nuclear weapons, and nuke delivery systems since the 1960's. Israel didn't think that was such a hot idea, and broke Iraq's new toy.

Osiraq - Iraq Special Weapons Facilities (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/osiraq.htm)
"Iraq established its nuclear program in the late 1960s when it acquired its first nuclear facilites. Later, in the 1970s, Iraq was unsuccessful in negotiations with France to purchase a plutonium production reactor similar to the one used in France's nuclear weapons program. In addition to the reactor, Iraq also wanted to purchase the reporcessing plant needed to recover the plutonium produced in the reactor. Even through these requests were denied, France agreed to build a research reactor along with associated laboratories. Iraq built the Osiraq 40 megawatt light-water nuclear reactor at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad with French assistance. Approximately 27.5 pounds of 93% U-235 was supplied to Iraq by France for use in the Osiraq research reactor."

Just because we didn't find the nukes does not mean he didn't want 'em.
PBS - frontline: gunning for saddam: saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/gunning/etc/arsenal.html)
Quote from above article in regards to Iraq's nuke ambitions and capabilities:

"Between 1991 and 1998 the IAEA conducted more than 1500 inspections. IAEA released a report in 1997, with updates in 1998 and 1999, which it believes offers a technically coherent picture of Iraq's nuclear program.

In summary, the IAEA report says that following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq launched a "crash program" to develop a nuclear weapon quickly by extracting weapons grade material from safe-guarded research reactor fuel. This project, if it had continued uninterrupted by the war, might have succeeded in producing a deliverable weapon by the end of 1992.

The IAEA inspections revealed seven nuclear-related sites in Iraq. The IAEA reports that all sensitive nuclear materials were removed, and that facilities and equipment were dismantled or destroyed. Activities uncovered and destroyed included:

an industrial scale complex for Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS), a process for producing enriched uranium. The complex was designed for the installation of 90 separators; before the Gulf War, eight were functional. If all separators had been installed, the plant could have produced 15 kg of highly enriched uranium per year, possibly enough for one nuclear weapon.

a large scale manufacturing and testing facility--the Al Furat Project--designed for the production of centrifuges, used in another method of uranium enrichment.

facilities and equipment for the production of weapons components.

computer simulations of nuclear weapons detonations

storage of large quantities of HMX high explosive used in nuclear weapons.

According to former U.N. inspector David Kay, Iraq spent over $10 billion during the 1980s in an attempt to enrich uranium and build a nuclear weapon. However, the Agency concludes that as of December, 1998, "There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," or "that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." However, the IAEA did find that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of [highly enriched uranium] ... and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon." Despite the fact that the facilities and nuclear material had been destroyed or removed, as early as 1996 the IAEA concluded that "the know-how and expertise acquired by Iraqi scientists and engineers could provide an adequate base for reconstituting a nuclear-weapons-oriented program."

Nuclear physicist and Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza agrees. He told FRONTLINE that Iraq did not relinquish certain critical components of the nuclear program to the inspectors, and that it retains the expertise necessary to build a nuclear weapon. He believes that Iraq may have one completed within the next couple of years.

Note: IAEA was allowed back into Iraq in January 2000 and again in January 2001. But its inspectors were blocked from full access inspections."

Mr. C: No offense, but I'm a little put-off having to share the credit for a quote I wrote, but I do appreciate that someone reads my stuff, lol.

Mr. Clandestine

03-19-2008, 11:03 PM

Rusty - My apologies, I was a little toasted when I added that to my siggy and didn't quite put two and two together. :jointsmile:

Awkwardness averted, it's all you now! :D

fiddyonefiddy

03-20-2008, 12:11 AM

mr clandestine dont take my words the wrong way,please
everyone has their opinion ,thats what makes the usa great is we can discuss things not favorable to our government openly and not be persicuted for it.
now back to china why is that a different scenario?
we actually do have weapons of mass destruction? and so do they?

we don't run around flaunting our capabilities and threatening genocide on other countries, races, religions, etc.yes we do
we do it with foriegn policy.we dont have to take you out militarily
we can do it by sanctions, we do this all the time.if that doesnt work we take you out militarily,ask noreaga.

Even China, being the superpower that they are, would still be stupid to ever threaten us with any kind of force... especially with the atrocities that are happening in their country every day that we conveniently ignore.they have already done it through another country north vietnam, who has nukes told us to fuck off,you think sodaminsane is whacky check out the dude in north vietnam.that dude is out there. notice we aint messin with his ass.

luckily, we have no desire to convert the world into 'one big America'.yes we do, japan, germany,east berlin.they are now democracy because of us no other reason. we do this all the time ,how about hawaii? we wont go into what they did to the native americans.soviet union now has a president,guess we didnt have anything to do with that either.
we do run our mouths look at bush's speeches ,ole darth chaney
what he says its everywhere.and thats just here, ever heard the broadcast of voice of america? not in america, because it isnt broadcast here, only in other countries this i would say would be running our mouths.

like i say the dude wasnt cool but there are alot of other much worse that we dont want to get into it with cause we would lose. plain and simple the guys in iraq i send em my heart they are trying to get money for college and paying the ultimate price for what? tell me what they are dieng for cause all i see is oil.id like to see bush and all his cronies go do one tour with them boys and we'd be out of there so fast it would make your head spin.

According to former U.N. inspector David Kay, Iraq spent over $10 billion during the 1980s in an attempt to enrich uranium and build a nuclear weapon. However, the Agency concludes that as of December, 1998, "There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," or "that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." However, the IAEA did find that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of [highly enriched uranium] ... and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon." Despite the fact that the facilities and nuclear material had been destroyed or removed, as early as 1996 the IAEA concluded that "the know-how and expertise acquired by Iraqi scientists and engineers could provide an adequate base for reconstituting a nuclear-weapons-oriented program."
and to rusty david kay got on 60 minutes and told them no way he had capabilities or any wmd's.capabilities and having them are two different things,alot of people have capabilities. the only person that told them was sodaminsane himself,after sodaminsane was in jail he told them he didnt think we would attack,that they got them all in 91.
like i said he wasnt a good dude but there are way others worse like mr clandestine said we convienently look the other way,of course we do. thats why we have these problems in iraq,our foriegn policy makes us out to be hypocrites. and really we are,
sorry to say.
ill tell you something else we do... we leave you to hang out and dry, curds in pakistan, sodaminsane was our buddy when he was fighting afghanistan and iraq.thats where he got any kind of weapons or weapons technology was from us during that war.
they came to america to study even the defector studied here in america.
the guys are using cell phones and stuff left over from all the wars over there,nothing else,they have been doing that shit for over 4000 years,we arent going to stop it.
im just saying my piece not trying to preturb you guys so dont take what i say the wrong way.
the simple fact is to this day we have not found anywmd's and the government has admitted to not necessarily lying to congress just giving them the information they wanted them to have they being bush and his cronies.

thcbongman

03-20-2008, 12:55 AM

Rewriting? Did you ignore what was occuring at the time? Seems you forgotten how Colin Powell stated his facts to the UN council. But to this day we seems to have failed to prove the facts. Here are the excerpts from the transcript. There isn't any doubt that Iraq has violated UN resolutions countless times, failed to declare WMD in the past and failed to fully record their destruction. Of all the time it should've been enforced, it occurred at a time when Iraq started to comply with inspectors to research biological and chemical sites. Inspectors being kicked out in 1998 is different than leaving in March 2003 when Iraq went to War. Remember the war drum was starting to beat at the time.

The way Colin Powell presented the case, it was either poorly research or there is another agenda. I pick the latter. There is clearly a profitable agenda.

Biological Weapons - where the hell are the mobile-WMD factories?

Part 5: Biological weapons program

First, biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I need to make.

First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and frustrating years to pry -- to pry -- an admission out of Iraq that it had biological weapons.

Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount -- this is just about the amount of a teaspoon -- less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shutdown the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope.

Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material.

And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as there are 400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well-documented.

Dr. Blix told this council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no shock then, that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.

One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.

Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from eye witness accounts. We have firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails.

The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War.

Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, U.N. inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000.

<b>The source was an eye witness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died from exposure to biological agents.

He reported that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent production always began on Thursdays at midnight because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on the Muslim Holy Day, Thursday night through Friday. He added that this was important because the units could not be broken down in the middle of a production run, which had to be completed by Friday evening before the inspectors might arrive again.

This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eye-witness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.

A second source, an Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the program, confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers.

A third source, also in a position to know, reported in summer 2002 that Iraq had manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road trailer units and on rail cars.

Finally, a fourth source, an Iraqi major, who defected, confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research laboratories, in addition to the production facilities I mentioned earlier.

We have diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you see both truck and rail car-mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of the technical features required by such facilities are highly detailed and extremely accurate. As these drawings based on their description show, we know what the fermenters look like, we know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know how they fit together. We know how they work. And we know a great deal about the platforms on which they are mounted.

As shown in this diagram, these factories can be concealed easily, either by moving ordinary-looking trucks and rail cars along Iraq's thousands of miles of highway or track, or by parking them in a garage or warehouse or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers.

<b>We know that Iraq has at lest seven of these mobile biological agent factories. The truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each. That means that the mobile production facilities are very few, perhaps 18 trucks that we know of -- there may be more -- but perhaps 18 that we know of. Just imagine trying to find 18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of Iraq every single day.

It took the inspectors four years to find out that Iraq was making biological agents. How long do you think it will take the inspectors to find even one of these 18 trucks without Iraq coming forward, as they are supposed to, with the information about these kinds of capabilities?

Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulism toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings. </b>

By 1998, U.N. experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their biological weapons programs. Now, Iraq has incorporated this drying expertise into these mobile production facilities.

We know from Iraq's past admissions that it has successfully weaponized not only anthrax, but also other biological agents, including botulism toxin, aflatoxin and ricin.

But Iraq's research efforts did not stop there. Saddam Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox and hemorrhagic fever, and he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox.

The Iraqi regime has also developed ways to disburse lethal biological agents, widely and discriminately into the water supply, into the air. For example, Iraq had a program to modify aerial fuel tanks for Mirage jets. This video of an Iraqi test flight obtained by UNSCOM some years ago shows an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet aircraft. Note the spray coming from beneath the Mirage; that is 2,000 liters of simulated anthrax that a jet is spraying.

In 1995, an Iraqi military officer, Mujahid Sali Abdul Latif (ph), told inspectors that Iraq intended the spray tanks to be mounted onto a MiG-21 that had been converted into an unmanned aerial vehicle, or a UAV. UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons.

Iraq admitted to producing four spray tanks. But to this day, it has provided no credible evidence that they were destroyed, evidence that was required by the international community.

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling.

UNMOVIC already laid out much of this, and it is documented for all of us to read in UNSCOM's 1999 report on the subject.

Let me set the stage with three key points that all of us need to keep in mind: First, Saddam Hussein has used these horrific weapons on another country and on his own people. In fact, in the history of chemical warfare, no country has had more battlefield experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein's Iraq

Have we found any evidence of these trucks? Based upon 4 eye witnesses, estimates and past weapon declarations? No matter what, sole paranoia isn't justification of war. If you are basing going to war based on paranoia and outdated information then we should go to war with many countries.

Let's continue.

Chemical Weapons - Satellite Imagery, hard evidence? Where is it?

Part 6: Chemical weapons

Second, as with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents. If we consider just one category of missing weaponry -- 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war -- UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons. These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for.

Dr. Blix has quipped that, quote, "Mustard gas is not (inaudible) You are supposed to know what you did with it."

We believe Saddam Hussein knows what he did with it, and he has not come clean with the international community. We have evidence these weapons existed. What we don't have is evidence from Iraq that they have been destroyed or where they are. That is what we are still waiting for.

Third point, Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons.

The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law. UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery. Yet, to this day, Iraq denies it had ever weaponized VX.

And on January 27, UNMOVIC told this council that it has information that conflicts with the Iraqi account of its VX program.

We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit and legitimate production can go on simultaneously; or, on a dime, this dual-use infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again.

These inspections would be unlikely, any inspections of such facilities would be unlikely to turn up anything prohibited, especially if there is any warning that the inspections are coming. Call it ingenuous or evil genius, but the Iraqis deliberately designed their chemical weapons programs to be inspected. It is infrastructure with a built-in ally.

Under the guise of dual-use infrastructure, Iraq has undertaken an effort to reconstitute facilities that were closely associated with its past program to develop and produce chemical weapons.

For example, Iraq has rebuilt key portions of the Tariq state establishment. Tariq includes facilities designed specifically for Iraq's chemical weapons program and employs key figures from past programs.

That's the production end of Saddam's chemical weapons business.

What about the delivery end?

I'm going to show you a small part of a chemical complex called al-Moussaid (ph), a site that Iraq has used for at least three years to transship chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field.

In May 2002, our satellites photographed the unusual activity in this picture. Here we see cargo vehicles are again at this transshipment point, and we can see that they are accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or chemical weapons activity.

What makes this picture significant is that we have a human source who has corroborated that movement of chemical weapons occurred at this site at that time. So it's not just the photo, and it's not an individual seeing the photo. It's the photo and then the knowledge of an individual being brought together to make the case.

This photograph of the site taken two months later in July shows not only the previous site, which is the figure in the middle at the top with the bulldozer sign near it, it shows that this previous site, as well as all of the other sites around the site, have been fully bulldozed and graded. The topsoil has been removed. The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity.

To support its deadly biological and chemical weapons programs, Iraq procures needed items from around the world using an extensive clandestine network. What we know comes largely from intercepted communications and human sources who are in a position to know the facts.

Iraq's procurement efforts include equipment that can filter and separate micro-organisms and toxins involved in biological weapons, equipment that can be used to concentrate the agent, growth media that can be used to continue producing anthrax and botulism toxin, sterilization equipment for laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and recursors, large amounts of vinyl chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents, and other chemicals such as sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor.

Now, of course, Iraq will argue that these items can also be used for legitimate purposes. But if that is true, why do we have to learn about them by intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents? With Iraq's well documented history on biological and chemical weapons, why should any of us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't, and I don't think you will either after you hear this next intercept.

Just a few weeks ago, we intercepted communications between two commanders in Iraq's Second Republican Guard Corps. One commander is going to be giving an instruction to the other. You will hear as this unfolds that what he wants to communicate to the other guy, he wants to make sure the other guy hears clearly, to the point of repeating it so that it gets written down and completely understood. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO TAPE)

(Speaking in Foreign Language.)

(END AUDIO TAPE)

Let's review a few selected items of this conversation.

Two officers talking to each other on the radio want to make sure that nothing is misunderstood:

"Remove. Remove."

The expression, the expression, "I got it."

"Nerve agents. Nerve agents. Wherever it comes up."

"Got it."

"Wherever it comes up."

"In the wireless instructions, in the instructions."

"Correction. No. In the wireless instructions."

"Wireless. I got it."

Why does he repeat it that way? Why is he so forceful in making sure this is understood? And why did he focus on wireless instructions? Because the senior officer is concerned that somebody might be listening.

Well, somebody was.

"Nerve agents. Stop talking about it. They are listening to us. Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible agents."

Well, we know that they do. And this kind of conversation confirms it.

Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.

Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area nearly five times the size of Manhattan.

Let me remind you that, of the 122 millimeter chemical warheads, that the U.N. inspectors found recently, this discovery could very well be, as has been noted, the tip of the submerged iceberg. The question before us, all my friends, is when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg?

Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again, against his neighbors and against his own people.

And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them. He wouldn't be passing out the orders if he didn't have the weapons or the intent to use them.

We also have sources who tell us that, since the 1980s, Saddam's regime has been experimenting on human beings to perfect its biological or chemical weapons.

A source said that 1,600 death row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit for such experiments. An eye witness saw prisoners tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victim's mouths and autopsies performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners. Saddam Hussein's humanity -- inhumanity has no limits.

Here is the rest of the transcript for your free viewing:

CNN.com - Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation - Feb. 6, 2003 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/index.html)

Funny how this evidence is totally contradicted in a status report made to the UN security council by Hans Blix a few days before:

THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003:

AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION

Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix

The governing Security Council resolutions

The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Iraq in November last year asks UNMOVIC and the IAEA to â??updateâ? the Council 60 days after the resumption of inspections. This is today. The updating, it seems, forms part of an assessment by the Council and its Members of the results, so far, of the inspections and of their role as a means to achieve verifiable disarmament in Iraq.

As this is an open meeting of the Council, it may be appropriate briefly to provide some background for a better understanding of where we stand today.

With your permission, I shall do so.

I begin by recalling that inspections as a part of a disarmament process in Iraq started in 1991, immediately after the Gulf War. They went on for eight years until December 1998, when inspectors were withdrawn. Thereafter, for nearly four years there were no inspections. They were resumed only at the end of November last year.

While the fundamental aim of inspections in Iraq has always been to verify disarmament, the successive resolutions adopted by the Council over the years have varied somewhat in emphasis and approach.

In 1991, resolution 687 (1991), adopted unanimously as a part of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, had five major elements. The three first related to disarmament. They called for :

declarations by Iraq of its programmes of weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles;

verification of the declarations through UNSCOM and the IAEA;

supervision by these organizations of the destruction or the elimination of proscribed programmes and items.

After the completion of the disarmament :

Â· the Council would have authority to proceed to a lifting of the sanctions (economic restrictions); and

the inspecting organizations would move to long-term ongoing monitoring and verification.

Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance â?? not even today â?? of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

As we know, the twin operation â??declare and verifyâ??, which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of â??hide and seekâ??. Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations. As a result, the disarmament phase was not completed in the short time expected. Sanctions remained and took a severe toll until Iraq accepted the Oil for Food Programme and the gradual development of that programme mitigated the effects of the sanctions.

The implementation of resolution 687 (1991) nevertheless brought about considerable disarmament results. It has been recognized that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under this resolution than were destroyed during the Gulf War: large quantities of chemical weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision before 1994. While Iraq claims â?? with little evidence â?? that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996. The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA.

One of three important questions before us today is how much might remain undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.

In December 1999 â?? after one year without inspections in Iraq â?? resolution 1284 (1999) was adopted by the Council with 4 abstentions. Supplementing the basic resolutions of 1991 and following years, it provided Iraq with a somewhat less ambitious approach: in return for â??cooperation in all respectsâ? for a specified period of time, including progress in the resolution of â??key remaining disarmament tasksâ?, it opened the possibility, not for the lifting, but the suspension of sanctions.

For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the Secretary-General and Arab States and pressure by the United States and other Member States, that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.

Resolution 1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active. The resolution contained many provisions, which we welcome as enhancing and strengthening the inspection regime. The unanimity by which it was adopted sent a powerful signal that the Council was of one mind in creating a last opportunity for peaceful disarmament in Iraq through inspection.

UNMOVIC shares the sense of urgency felt by the Council to use inspection as a path to attain, within a reasonable time, verifiable disarmament of Iraq. Under the resolutions I have cited, it would be followed by monitoring for such time as the Council feels would be required. The resolutions also point to a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as the ultimate goal.

As a subsidiary body of the Council, UNMOVIC is fully aware of and appreciates the close attention, which the Council devotes to the inspections in Iraq. While todayâ??s â??updatingâ? is foreseen in resolution 1441 (2002), the Council can and does call for additional briefings whenever it wishes. One was held on 19 January and a further such briefing is tentatively set for 14 February.

I turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraqâ??s response to it. Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion through the peaceful process of inspection and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course. An initial minor step would be to adopt the long-overdue legislation required by the resolutions.

I shall deal first with cooperation on process.

Cooperation on process

It has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While inspection is not built on the premise of confidence but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection.

Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.

Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New Years day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct.

In this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating to two kinds of air operations.

While we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed Iraq that we planned to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety, unless a number of conditions are fulfilled. As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in resolution 1441 (2002) and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq is not so far complying with our request. I hope this attitude will change.

Another air operation problem â?? which was solved during our recent talks in Baghdad â?? concerned the use of helicopters flying into the no-fly zones. Iraq had insisted on sending helicopters of their own to accompany ours. This would have raised a safety problem. The matter was solved by an offer on our part to take the accompanying Iraq minders in our helicopters to the sites, an arrangement that had been practiced by UNSCOM in the past.

I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.

On a number of occasions, demonstrations have taken place in front of our offices and at inspection sites.

The other day, a sightseeing excursion by five inspectors to a mosque was followed by an unwarranted public outburst. The inspectors went without any UN insignia and were welcomed in the kind manner that is characteristic of the normal Iraqi attitude to foreigners. They took off their shoes and were taken around. They asked perfectly innocent questions and parted with the invitation to come again.

Shortly thereafter, we receive protests from the Iraqi authorities about an unannounced inspection and about questions not relevant to weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, they were not. Demonstrations and outbursts of this kind are unlikely to occur in Iraq without initiative or encouragement from the authorities. We must ask ourselves what the motives may be for these events. They do not facilitate an already difficult job, in which we try to be effective, professional and, at the same time, correct. Where our Iraqi counterparts have some complaint they can take it up in a calmer and less unpleasant manner.

Cooperation on substance

The substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to declare all programmes of weapons of mass destruction and either to present items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.

Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be â??activeâ?. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of â??catch as catch canâ?. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

The declaration of 7 December

On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.

One might have expected that in preparing the Declaration, Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues, which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM document S/1999/94 of January1999 and the so-called Amorim Report of March 1999 (S/1999/356). These are questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often cited.

While UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current â??unresolved disarmament issuesâ? and â??key remaining disarmament tasksâ? in response to requirements in resolution 1284 (1999), we find the issues listed in the two reports as unresolved, professionally justified. These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raise question marks, which must be straightened out, if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise.

They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM. Regrettably, the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or reduce their number. Even Iraqâ??s letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

I would now like to turn to the so-called â??Air Force documentâ? that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further 4 chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.

Whilst I am addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter, which I reported on 19 December 2002, concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at Al Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision, and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.

Biological weapons

I have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I come back to it as it is an important one.

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraqâ??s submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraqâ??s Foreign Minister stated that â??all imported quantities of growth media were declaredâ?. This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.

Missiles

I turn now to the missile sector. There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained SCUD-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of SCUD missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defence system during the 1980s. Yet no technical information has been produced about that programme or data on the consumption of the missiles.

There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through inspections and on-site discussions.

Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fuelled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a solid propellant missile, called the Al Fatah. Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted range of 150 km, with the Al Samoud 2 being tested to a maximum of 183 km and the Al Fatah to 161 km. Some of both types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even though it is stated that they are still undergoing development.

The Al Samoudâ??s diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.

During my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on these two programmes. We were told that the final range for both systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150 km.

These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems. The test ranges in excess of 150 km are significant, but some further technical considerations need to be made, before we reach a conclusion on this issue. In the mean time, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of both missiles.

In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers, which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM supervision. They had been used in the production of solid-fuel missiles. Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150 km.

Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which may be used for the Al Samoud 2.

Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

Mr. President,

I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions? I have pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic. Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it â?? or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 â?? presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.

Find the items and activities

Information provided by Member States tells us about the movement and concealment of missiles and chemical weapons and mobile units for biological weapons production. We shall certainly follow up any credible leads given to us and report what we might find as well as any denial of access.

So far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision?

Find documents

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have been presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons programme were destroyed together with the weapons.

However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports on how they have been used. It should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production and losses of material.

In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 193 pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological weapons programme. Potentially, it might help to clear some open issues.

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their work places. On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.

Find persons to give credible information: a list of personnel

When Iraq claims that tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available, it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to testify about their experience. Large weapons programmes are moved and managed by people. Interviews with individuals who may have worked in

programmes in the past may fill blank spots in our knowledge and understanding. It could also be useful to learn that they are now employed in peaceful sectors. These were the reasons why UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in accordance with resolution 1441.

Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons programmes as well as their missile programmes were provided by the Iraqi side. This can be compared to over 3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programmes that UNSCOM either interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources. At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names have been provided.

Allow information through credible interviews

In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of resolution 1441â??s provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews â??in the mode or locationâ? of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.

To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraqâ??s monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews â??in privateâ?, that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad.

UNMOVICâ??s capability

Mr President, I must not conclude this â??updateâ? without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC.

In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff, medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field office. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else. Furthermore, our roster of inspectors will continue to grow as our training programme continues â?? even at this moment we have a training course in session in Vienna. At the end of that course, we shall have a roster of about 350 qualified experts from which to draw inspectors.

A team supplied by the Swiss Government is refurbishing our offices in Baghdad, which had been empty for four years. The Government of New Zealand has contributed both a medical team and a communications team. The German Government will contribute unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and a group of specialists to operate them for us within Iraq. The Government of Cyprus has kindly allowed us to set up a Field Office in Larnaca. All these contributions have been of assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our capabilities. So has help from the UN in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.

In the past two months during which we have built-up our presence in Iraq, we have conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had not been inspected before. By the end of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters both for the transport of inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in helping to â??freezeâ? large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and around the area.

Setting up a field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern Iraq. We plan to establish soon a second field office in the Basra area, where we have already inspected a number of sites.

Mr. President,

We have now an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspection teams every day all over Iraq, by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability which has been built-up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council.

Update 27 January 2003 (http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm)

Here is the rest of the transcript for your free viewing:

CNN.com - Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation - Feb. 6, 2003 (http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/index.html)

Although I must quote this part of the presentation, Nuclear Weapons:

Part 7: Nuclear weapons

Let me turn now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program.

On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.

To fully appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that, in 1991, the inspectors searched Iraq's primary nuclear weapons facilities for the first time. And they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program.

But based on defector information in May of 1991, Saddam Hussein's lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandestine nuclear weapons program that covered several different techniques to enrich uranium, including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge, and gas diffusion. We estimate that this illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.

Nonetheless, Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons program. If Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1993, years earlier than most worse-case assessments that had been made before the war.

In 1995, as a result of another defector, we find out that, after his invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein had initiated a crash program to build a crude nuclear weapon in violation of Iraq's U.N. obligations.

Saddam Hussein already possesses two out of the three key components needed to build a nuclear bomb. He has a cadre of nuclear scientists with the expertise, and he has a bomb design.

Since 1998, his efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring the third and last component, sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to enrich uranium.

Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.

He is so determined that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed.

These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just about everyone has heard of these tubes, and we all know that there are differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for.

Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple rocket launcher.

Let me tell you what is not controversial about these tubes.

First, all the experts who have analyzed the tubes in our possession agree that they can be adapted for centrifuge use. Second, Iraq had no business buying them for any purpose. They are banned for Iraq.

I am no expert on centrifuge tubes, but just as an old Army trooper, I can tell you a couple of things: First, it strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets.

Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.

Second, we actually have examined tubes from several different batches that were seized clandestinely before they reached Baghdad. What we notice in these different batches is a progression to higher and higher levels of specification, including, in the latest batch, an anodized coating on extremely smooth inner and outer surfaces. Why would they continue refining the specifications, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket, would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off?

The high tolerance aluminum tubes are only part of the story. We also have intelligence from multiple sources that Iraq is attempting to acquire magnets and high-speed balancing machines; both items can be used in a gas centrifuge program to enrich uranium.

In 1999 and 2000, Iraqi officials negotiated with firms in Romania, India, Russia and Slovenia for the purchase of a magnet production plant. Iraq wanted the plant to produce magnets weighing 20 to 30 grams. That's the same weight as the magnets used in Iraq's gas centrifuge program before the Gulf War. This incident linked with the tubes is another indicator of Iraq's attempt to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

Intercepted communications from mid-2000 through last summer show that Iraq front companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge rotors. One of these companies also had been involved in a failed effort in 2001 to smuggle aluminum tubes into Iraq.

People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind, these illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material.

He also has been busy trying to maintain the other key parts of his nuclear program, particularly his cadre of key nuclear scientists.

It is noteworthy that, over the last 18 months, Saddam Hussein has paid increasing personal attention to Iraqi's top nuclear scientists, a group that the governmental-controlled press calls openly, his nuclear mujahedeen. He regularly exhorts them and praises their progress. Progress toward what end?

Long ago, the Security Council, this council, required Iraq to halt all nuclear activities of any kind.

Contradicts this statement made by Mohamed ElBaradei to the UN security council a few days earlier:

THE STATUS OF NUCLEAR INSPECTIONS IN IRAQ
For the past 60 days, the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have been engaged in the process of verifying the existence or absence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Today, pursuant to paragraph 5 of resolution 1441, I have submitted to the President of the Security Council an update report on our progress since we resumed our nuclear verification activities in Iraq â?? in terms of the approach we have adopted, the tools we have used, the specific results achieved, the degree of co-operation we have received, and finally our view on how we should proceed. Let me in this statement outline the key aspects of this report.

BACKGROUND: UNDERSTANDING THE STARTING POINT
To understand the approach of the IAEAâ??s inspection over the past two months, it is important first to recall what was accomplished during our inspections from 1991 to 1998, in fulfilment of our Security Council mandate to eliminate Iraqâ??s nuclear weapons programme. In September 1991, the IAEA seized documents in Iraq that demonstrated the extent of its nuclear weapons programme. By the end of 1992, we had largely destroyed, removed or rendered harmless all Iraqi facilities and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons production. We confiscated Iraqâ??s nuclear-weapons-usable material â?? high enriched uranium and plutonium â?? and by early 1994 we had removed it from the country. By December 1998 â?? when the inspections were brought to a halt with a military strike imminent â?? we were confident that we had not missed any significant component of Iraqâ??s nuclear programme.

While we did not claim absolute certainty, our conclusion at that time was that we had neutralized Iraqâ??s nuclear weapons programme and that there were no indications that Iraq retained any physical capability to produce weapon usable nuclear material.

During the intervening four years of our absence from Iraq, we continued our analytical work to the best of our ability, using satellite imagery and other information. But no remote analysis can replace on-site inspection â?? and we were therefore not able to reach any conclusions about Iraqâ??s compliance with its Security Council obligations in the nuclear field after December 1998.

Conclusion.

CONCLUSION
To conclude: we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s. However, our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course. With our verification system now in place, barring exceptional circumstances, and provided there is sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme. These few months would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war. We trust that we will continue to have your support as we make every effort to verify Iraqâ??s nuclear disarmament through peaceful means, and to demonstrate that the inspection process can and does work, as a central feature of the international nuclear arms control regime.

Mohamed ElBaradei statement to the Security Council 27 January 2003 (http://www.un.org/News/dh/iraq/elbaradei27jan03.htm)

thcbongman

03-20-2008, 12:56 AM

Now, am I rewriting history? Calling Hans Blix a failure while the invasion has failed to produce a single drop of evidence? hahaha. As you can see, yes I have plenty of "factual evidence."

If you look at the stock market downturn of 2002, everyone was going down. When did the stock market go up? You guess it. The day we went into Iraq, effective stimulating the economy temporarily. The main companies driving this economic turnaround were oil companies. If you bought any oil stock before 2002, you made profit literally overnight.

Also with fears of oil peaking, US has to secure priority to resources to counter the demand from India and China which are growing rapidly. The Iraq war is simply a product of a greater war going on: the economic war with the powers of the east.

Bush made a good move with the goal to open up US investment in the middle east. After all, you have to watch for a country's best interests. In order to make a case without causing a selling hysteria in the stock market, they had to use puffery to make their case to go to war.

Mr. Clandestine

03-20-2008, 12:56 AM

mr clandestine dont take my words the wrong way,please
everyone has their opinion ,thats what makes the usa great is we can discuss things not favorable to our government openly and not be persicuted for it.

Well said, and there's no hard feelings here. You don't seem like the kind of person who rabidly attacks others with your views, I generally only take their words the wrong way. I enjoy having these civil discussions with you and the other posters around here who just want to discuss, not attack.

now back to china why is that a different scenario?
we actually do have weapons of mass destruction? and so do they?

Yes, we do, as do they... but the point I was trying to make is that our economy (sadly) is fairly dependent on China and their own economy. Economic relations aside, an invasion on Chinese soil would be an entirely different scenario... if nothing else than due to the sheer size of the country. We can all see that China has plenty of problems of their own, but at least they're not a country full of fanatical Islamo-fascists. Which is a huge plus for us, and for them.

we do it with foriegn policy.we dont have to take you out militarily
we can do it by sanctions, we do this all the time.if that doesnt work we take you out militarily,ask noreaga.

Foreign policy is just part and parcel of being the superpower that we are. It's unavoidable, and (in my opinion) necessary to maintain a semblance of balance and peace in many foreign countries. We can have diplomatic foreign relations with other countries, too. So it's not all just sanctions, threats, and wars. Noriega was a close ally of ours, but he used this status to suit his own agenda... and in my opinion, got what was coming to him, too. At least he wasn't hanged.

they have already done it through another country north vietnam, who has nukes told us to fuck off,you think sodaminsane is whacky check out the dude in north vietnam.that dude is out there. notice we aint messin with his ass.

I think even the idea of another war in Vietnam is enough to make most Americans cringe, but it's probably a war that we'd undertake if the prerequisites were there. Luckily, at least for the moment, our relations with the Vietnamese government isn't in turmoil... and hasn't been for quite some time.

we do run our mouths look at bush's speeches

Bush can be pretty bold with his statements at home and to the rest of the world, but he's not the voice of America... just the politician who oversees our affairs and government. We (as a collective whole, not you personally) voted him into office, and so those of us who disagree with him are partially responsible for putting him where he is. If you did take the time to vote for another candidate, then you just had a bad stroke of luck. That's democracy for ya, but never forget that democracy allows we the people to make necessary changes that will benefit our country, and ourselves.

like i say the dude wasnt cool but there are alot of other much worse that we dont want to get into it with cause we would lose. plain and simple the guys in iraq i send em my heart they are trying to get money for college and paying the ultimate price for what? tell me what they are dieng for cause all i see is oil.id like to see bush and all his cronies go do one tour with them boys and we'd be out of there so fast it would make your head spin.

Where you only see our soldiers fighting and dying for oil, I see them fighting and dying to defend our country from people who REALLY want to do us harm. Even if they signed up for military service so they could pay for college, they still took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from tyranny and people who desperately want to do harm to our country, and her citizens. That, in my opinion, is what they're dying for... even if it may not appear that way to others.

fiddyonefiddy

03-20-2008, 05:52 AM

Where you only see our soldiers fighting and dying for oil, I see them fighting and dying to defend our country from people who REALLY want to do us harm. Even if they signed up for military service so they could pay for college, they still took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from tyranny and people who desperately want to do harm to our country, and her citizens. That, in my opinion, is what they're dying for... even if it may not appear that way to others.

i wish it was for defending our country,our right to sit here and chat,and disagree.i believe some of the wars we were in were for that. i believe thats what my grandfather went to war for.
even the going into afghanistan,i was for that. but iraq is a totally different thing.
my dad used to tell me keep your yard clean first then worry about your neihbors.this used to be our foreign policy.

i hear my neihbor next door arguing with his wife i dont go and smash in his door and kick his ass. you cant do that, but ole gw is special he can make his own rules to please himself fuck the people of the usa.he knows whats best for us.palease. he is now not letting the soldiers who have completed their contract with the military go home. you cant get out now till they are done in iraq.because no one wants to re enlist and go there and die for oil.the soilders believed what you believe clandestine till they get there and see what is really going on.

as i said b4 send ole gw and darth over there for a tour and no more war.simple as that.

dragonrider

03-20-2008, 06:42 AM

You guys have a very good discussion about the war going on here, but this thread is about whether Bush is a good or bad president. Here's a new thread for you about the war: http://boards.cannabis.com/politics/152338-iraq-war-worth.html

Enjoy!

veggii

03-20-2008, 01:47 PM

you know everyone just wants to goto the gaspump and fill up there vehicle's and have no worries bush got the job done and no one has thanked him for that yet!as american's you all need to thank him
for the terrific job he has done securing the US from any futher attacks! i myself thank him !so he's got some downfalls does'nt everyone? His main job is to protect us and provide for us.
Thank You George Bush ty for making my country safe!!:thumbsup:

HerbalConfusion

03-20-2008, 03:16 PM

Whoever privatized the national treasury was the worst president ever. He created the corruption known as america along with 3 other rich bankers. He even said he ruined the country on his deathbed i forget his name and dont have time to look it up im sure someone on here knows.

Onto the real question. No bush is not the worst president ever. He is just a bad president. He has done very many dishonest and deceitful things. He had an agenda that did not have the countries best intentions at heart.

Rusty Trichome

03-20-2008, 04:28 PM

Rewriting? Did you ignore what was occuring at the time? Seems you forgotten how Colin Powell stated his facts to the UN council. But to this day we seems to have failed to prove the facts.
You say "we" as if "we" were the sole member of the security council with a vote.
Are you forgetting the ten+ years of UN sanctions, the nuke, chem and biological thecnologies disposal, or the inspections leading up to the finale? How about the bogus weapons declaration report they tried to pass-off as legit, or the use of WMD against his own people and against the Iranians...? And yes, the mobile biological weapons laboratories:
AFTEREFFECTS: THE HUNT FOR EVIDENCE; Trailer is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons, a Team Says - New York Times (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F06E6DA123FF932A25756C0A9659C8B 63)

With regards to Blix, you could lay out a stack of evidence in front of him, and he'd just turn it, and the supplier of that evidence, over to the enemy.
Family fears for Iraqi who sought help from UN - Times Online (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article868072.ece)
If an auditor (tax inspector) was on a corporate tax fraud case, and some crazy accountant jumps into his cruiser with a stack of papers and tells him "save me, save me, I may have your proof", do you really think a good detective would just push him out of the car, and let the corporations security detail 'remove' the intruder without investigating the situation a little closer?
If the UN hires you to inspect, but you only go thru the motions, what does that say about how your credibility? You think his views on the mission had no bearing on the outcome?
Regardless if Adnan had sensitive info or not, Blix and friends made sure to immediatelly have this intruder arrested by the Iraqi guards. No inspectors interviews with the man, (an Iraqi scientist)
Dean's World - A ludicrous sideshow (http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1114029661.shtml) (half way down page) no going thru the mans belongings and papers...no inspection.:wtf:

Then there was the omission of facts in Blix's report:
Bush aides say Blix left out data (http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030311-blix-data01.htm)
Delivery drones, anthrax, cluster bombs, mobile chemical weapons vehicles...
"WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration accused the chief United Nations weapons inspector yesterday of omitting from his public report to the Security Council last week several key examples of Iraq's development of prohibited weapons.

Administration spokesmen said that chief inspector Hans Blix did not give details of a drone that could carry chemical weapons, nor did he mention a possibly large supply of anthrax and the possible existence of a cluster bomb that could deliver deadly poisons. Those matters were covered in Blix's written report to the council but not mentioned or covered in detail in his verbal presentation on Friday. Asked about the drone, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the information `should be of concern to everyone. . . . We're concerned about that, and I think other information will be coming forward that suggests Iraq has really not changed.''

Other administration officials suggested that taken together, Blix's omissions in his televised address to the council had resulted in the failure to disclose a full picture of how Iraq was withholding information on prohibited weapons.

However, Ewen Buchanan, a spokesman for the UN's Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, denied that Blix had concealed or failed to highlight key information in his address Friday to the Security Council. Buchanan said that inspectors were still not clear whether the Iraqi drone was a banned item, and that Blix has repeatedly talked about possible anthrax stockpiles.
...

On Friday, Blix said, ''Inspectors are also engaged in examining Iraq's programs for remotely piloted vehicles. A number of sites have been inspected, with data being collected to assess the range and other capabilities of the various models found, and inspections are continuing in this area.''

Along with the drone, US officials noted two other disclosures in the written report. First, Iraq had developed a version of South African cluster bombs -- first reported in yesterday's New York Times -- that the Americans said could be retrofitted to spray deadly chemicals instead of ordnance.

Also, the written report said that inspectors now have ''credible information'' that Iraq produced 1,820 more gallons of biological warfare agents in ''bombs, warheads, and in bulk'' than was declared, and the agent was most likely anthrax.

In their 173-page written report, the UN weapons inspectors did not say whether Iraqi drone aircraft could carry chemical or biological weapons. Instead, the report said in general that unmanned vehicles are of concern, because of ''their potential to deliver a weapon to a remote target.''

The report said the undeclared Iraqi drone had a wingspan of 24.6 feet -- possibly longer than Iraq is legally allowed. ''Officials at the inspection site state that the drone had been test flown,'' the UN report said. ''Further investigation is required to establish the actual specifications and capability of these . . . [and others and whether they] exceed'' the 93-mile limit. Iraq is banned from having missiles that exceed that range.

Some UN diplomats, who had spent the weekend pouring through the document, said some of the new information was troubling. ''Just look at the sections on drones and anthrax,'' said a council diplomat, who requested anonymity.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the information on the drone and cluster bombs ''was late-breaking news, very late last week'' to the administration. In the past, he said former weapon inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, discovered that Iraq had modified the fuel tanks on its drones, allowing them to fly beyond the 93-mile limit.

''There's no question the munitions are capable of dispensing chemical and biological weapons,'' Fleischer said. ''And based on past reporting that UNSCOM did, there is also a concern about the UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] being modified for this exact same purpose, which is the spraying of chemical and biological weapons. We're talking about weapons of mass destruction.''

...

Fleischer said that the United States would press UN weapons inspectors on the drone and cluster bombs during closed-door Security Council hearings this week.

US officials, including Powell, cited sections of the report yesterday in their efforts to persuade the six undecided Security Council members to support giving Iraq a deadline of next Monday to disarm.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think tank on security issues, said yesterday if Iraq possessed drones capable of flying into Kuwait, or if it had cluster bombs that could spray chemical weapons, ''you should be quite worried about that. If I was sitting there trying to figure out if the Patriot or Arrow missile-defense systems would thwart a chemical or biological attack, I would be pretty worried about those drones.''

FOXNews.com - Raw Data: Hans Blix's Report to the U.N. - U.S. & World (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,76710,00.html)
"In 1991, Resolution 687 (1991), adopted unanimously as a part of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, had five major elements. The three first related to disarmament. They called for:

â?¢ Declarations by Iraq of its programs of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles;

â?¢ Verification of the declarations through UNSCOM and the IAEA;

â?¢ Supervision by these organizations of the destruction or the elimination of proscribed programs and items.

After the completion of the disarmament:

â?¢ The Council would have authority to proceed to a lifting of the sanctions (economic restrictions); and

â?¢ The inspecting organizations would move to long-term ongoing monitoring and verification.

Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance â?? not even today â?? of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.

As we know, the twin operation "declare and verify," which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of "hide and seek." Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programs and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations.

As a result, the disarmament phase was not completed in the short time expected. Sanctions remained and took a severe toll until Iraq accepted the Oil for Food Program and the gradual development of that program mitigated the effects of the sanctions.

The implementation of resolution 687 (1991) nevertheless brought about considerable disarmament results. It has been recognized that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under this resolution than were destroyed during the Gulf War: large quantities of chemical weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision before 1994.

While Iraq claims â?? with little evidence â?? that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996. The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA.

One of three important questions before us today is how much might remain undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.

...

For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the Secretary-General and Arab states and pressure by the United States and other Member States, that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.

Resolution 1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active.

UNMOVIC shares the sense of urgency felt by the Council to use inspection as a path to attain, within a reasonable time, verifiable disarmament of Iraq. Under the resolutions I have cited, it would be followed by monitoring for such time as the Council feels would be required. The resolutions also point to a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as the ultimate goal.

...

I turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraq's response to it. Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access.

I shall deal first with cooperation on process.

Cooperation on Process

It has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While inspection is not built on the premise of confidence but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection.

...

Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct.

In this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating to two kinds of air operations.

While we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed Iraq that we planned to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety, unless a number of conditions are fulfilled. As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in Resolution 1441 (2002) and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq is not so far complying with our request. I hope this attitude will change.

Another air operation problem â?? which was solved during our recent talks in Baghdad â?? concerned the use of helicopters flying into the no-fly zones. Iraq had insisted on sending helicopters of their own to accompany ours. This would have raised a safety problem. The matter was solved by an offer on our part to take the accompanying Iraq minders in our helicopters to the sites, an arrangement that had been practiced by UNSCOM in the past.

I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.

...

Cooperation on Substance

The substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to declare all programs of weapons of mass destruction and either to present items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be "active". It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of "catch as catch can". Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.

The Declaration of 7 December

On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to Paragraph 3 of Resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.

One might have expected that in preparing the Declaration, Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues, which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM document (S/1999/94) of January 1999 and the so-called Amorim Report of March 1999 (S/1999/356). These are questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often cited.

While UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current "unresolved disarmament issues" and "key remaining disarmament tasks" in response to requirements in resolution 1284 (1999), we find the issues listed in the two reports as unresolved, professionally justified. These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raise question marks, which must be straightened out, if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise.

They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM. Regrettably, the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or reduce their number. Even Iraq's letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.

I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.

Chemical Weapons

The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few [metric] tons and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponized. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponizied. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

I would now like to turn to the so-called "Air Force document" that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 [metric] tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further four chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.

I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.

Whilst I am addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter, which I reported on 19 December 2002, concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at Al Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision, and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.

Biological Weapons

I have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I come back to it as it is an important one.

Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.

There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.

As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraq's submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.

In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq's Foreign Minister stated that "all imported quantities of growth media were declared". This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 liters of concentrated anthrax.

Missiles

I turn now to the missile sector. There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained SCUD-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of SCUD missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense system during the 1980s. Yet no technical information has been produced about that program or data on the consumption of the missiles.

There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through inspections and on-site discussions.

Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fueled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a solid propellant missile, called the Al Fatah. Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted range of 150 km, with the Al Samoud 2 being tested to a maximum of 183 km and the Al Fatah to 161 km. Some of both types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even though it is stated that they are still undergoing development.

The Al Samoud's diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.
...

In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers, which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM supervision. They had been used in the production of solid-fuel missiles. Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150 km.

Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which may be used for the Al Samoud 2.

Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.

Mr. President, I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions? I have pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic.

Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it â?? or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 â?? presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.

Find the Items and Activities

Information provided by Member States tells us about the movement and concealment of missiles and chemical weapons and mobile units for biological weapons production. We shall certainly follow up any credible leads given to us and report what we might find as well as any denial of access.

So far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision?

Find Documents

When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have been presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons program were destroyed together with the weapons.

However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports on how they have been used. It should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production and losses of material.

...

The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals.

This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their work places. On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.

Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.

Find Persons to Give Credible Information: A List of Personnel

When Iraq claims that tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available, it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to testify about their experience. Large weapons programs are moved and managed by people. Interviews with individuals who may have worked in programs in the past may fill blank spots in our knowledge and understanding. It could also be useful to learn that they are now employed in peaceful sectors. These were the reasons why UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in accordance with resolution 1441.

Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons programs as well as their missile programs were provided by the Iraqi side. This can be compared to over 3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programs that UNSCOM either interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources. At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names have been provided.

Allow Information Through Credible Interviews

In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of Resolution 1441's provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews "in the mode or location" of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.

To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraq's monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say.

At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews "in private", that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad.

UNMOVIC's Capability

Mr President, I must not conclude this "update" without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC.

In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff, medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field office. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else.

Not the United States, the United Nations.

veggii: Were President Bush to have had a congress seated that actually held national security as a higher priority than banal senate investigations, times would be different.
But blaming Bush for gas prices is like blaming your tailor, because your donuts taste like shit. There is not much the president can do to change prices of the commodities, when supply and demand are the controlling factors. Want more oil at cheaper prices, try Anwr. (Alaska National Wildlife Refuge)

HerbalConfusion: As you are not the only one with that opinion, you are definatelly not alone in that none of y'all provide evidence of your liberal 'facts'. If bashing ANY US president is more important to liberals than understanding the reasoning behind our governments decisions on matters of foreign policy, national security and global economics, then all liberals will ever know is gossip.

veggii

03-20-2008, 05:09 PM

[QUOTE=

Onto the real question. No bush is not the worst president ever. He is just a bad president. He has done very many dishonest and deceitful things. He had an agenda that did not have the countries best intentions at heart.[/QUOTE]

and this agenda you speak of is??
How to stop the Planes , Building's and Innocent Civilian's
in the US from being blown up!

swice1

03-20-2008, 06:04 PM

SECURE THE OIL, WAIT I MEAN IRAQ

HerbalConfusion

03-20-2008, 10:09 PM

and this agenda you speak of is??
How to stop the Planes , Building's and Innocent Civilian's
in the US from being blown up!

Narrow-minded... well he did a great job stopping them maybe you didnt know they got blown up. Good call he really protected our borders. Anyway i dont even beileve that he was trying to stop the planes as i think he was aware of the 9/11 attacks im not going to say he was behind it cause i dont beileve he was but i know he was aware. Hes to stupid to plan it out himself.

thcbongman

03-21-2008, 01:26 AM

..

If you actually read anything I said I mentioned already that Iraq has violated several resolutions countless times, failed to declare WMD, failed to record their disposal. Could you imagine without the dossiers where those WMDs are?

The basis to go to war is that Iraq is an imminent threat. Iraq had nothing in it's arsenal that was capable of hitting US soil. The Iraq war was argued the basis that Iraq is an imminent threat based on 5 year old evidence and cherry-picked intelligence. Not to say there was no threat but not directly to the United States. While Iraq did produce WMD, none had the capability of reaching US soil without the use of a intermediary. There are far more countries threating to the security of the United States than attacking a country we were already containing.

Even in the article you posted it came from a discredited source. As you can see in this article 2 years later. To this day, they still have not proven those labs indeed produced biological weapons.

Iraqi Exile Denies Misleading U.S., Chalabi Tells Lesley Stahl He Wants To Testify Before Congress - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/05/60minutes/main604285.shtml)

With regards to the irrevelent article on UN inspectors dragging a man out clutching a notebook that might've contained weapon information, how is that Hans Blix's fault? He was not personally responsible for the incompetence of one UN inspector. Nor does it mention great detail because the whole story isn't disclosed, the credibility of the witness, how he approached the UN inspector etc.. Right now you are engaging in the infamous puffery of the Bush Administration. Exagurating a claim based on little information. It could've been a refugee finding a way out of Iraq. The article does not provide any details to make that determination. If we were to base the entire credibility of an organization based on a employee making a wrongful determination, alot of organizations would not be credible, including many governmental agencies.

The 2nd link you provided from Dean's world is like giving me a link to a 9/11 conspiracy site. Damn that purely bias, simply parapharasing from the Amnesty International webpage.

As for that article from The Boston Globe, Hans Blix did not state anything that differed from what he determined at the time. That's why it's called a status report. Why exactly are you going to include evidence that hasn't been fully substanciated and determined it delivered biological/chemical weapons? That's called Puffery. Oh yeah, it's also been proven it didn't.

Iraqi Drones Not For WMD, Evidence Matches Pre-War Dissenting View Of Air Force Analysts - CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/28/iraq/main570588.shtml)

But imagine that a news organization engaging in outright puffery before evidence was verified accurate. It turned out to be very effective propaganda.

FOXNews.com - Iraqi Drones May Target U.S. Cities - U.S. & World (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79450,00.html)

As well as posting it myself in it's entirety, in the style you posted you are omitting an important parts of Hans Blix presentation to the UN, however I'll highlight one specific part you omitted from the report:

In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff, medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field office. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else.

_________This is where you decided to omit this piece of information_________

Furthermore, our roster of inspectors will continue to grow as our training programme continues â?? even at this moment we have a training course in session in Vienna. At the end of that course, we shall have a roster of about 350 qualified experts from which to draw inspectors.

A team supplied by the Swiss Government is refurbishing our offices in Baghdad, which had been empty for four years. The Government of New Zealand has contributed both a medical team and a communications team. The German Government will contribute unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and a group of specialists to operate them for us within Iraq. The Government of Cyprus has kindly allowed us to set up a Field Office in Larnaca. All these contributions have been of assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our capabilities. So has help from the UN in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.

In the past two months during which we have built-up our presence in Iraq, we have conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had not been inspected before. By the end of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters both for the transport of inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in helping to â??freezeâ? large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and around the area.

Setting up a field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern Iraq. We plan to establish soon a second field office in the Basra area, where we have already inspected a number of sites.

Mr. President,

We have now an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspection teams every day all over Iraq, by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability which has been built-up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council.

Did the conclusion of this report determine that Iraq is an imminent threat? No. The evidence that the US used to go to war was very weak. The only way it could was to engage in puffery. Notice how I mention this word over and over again. I'm not accusing them of lying. Puffery means to make claims that are subjective and not objective. That's exactly what Colin Powell and the rest of the Bush Administration were engaging in, using evidence and witnesses that have been discredited.

As for the quotes from other cannabis.com members, what is the point? Not once did I mention anything about gas prices as it has absolutely nothing to do with this argument. If anything, it simply proves how bias you are. Sure I don't like Bush, but I do agree with his decision on the Iraq war from an economic perspective. It shows you have no clue what I am even stating to begin with. The war was engaged because of global economics. That's the concept you are failing to grasp and you are the one failing to understand the real reason the US went to war with Iraq and why government official have to engage in puffery. It's not about Saddam, WMDs, terrorism. It's about the long-term economic health of the United States.

The Iraq war revived the economy by all the investment made to the military complex and oil companies which is money being pumped into the economy at the cost of devaluing the dollar. Those two industries are stable and profittable thanks to the Iraq war. As soon as Iraq security situation progresses, more investment is opened up. With US companies opening businesses in Iraq, that only means more money for our economy. Iraq becomes prosperous, US even more. Win-win situation if the US sticks it out on the occupation. If you are going to argue the positives about the Iraq war, turn to economical events and data, not some repeated puffery written by people trained in PR.

HerbalConfusion

03-21-2008, 01:48 AM

The problem is there is an excuse for everything and there always will be. There will always be someone to take the fall and someone to push them.

Mr. Clandestine

03-21-2008, 01:59 AM

fiddyonefiddy

03-21-2008, 03:42 AM

dragonrider

03-21-2008, 05:59 AM

Sorry about that, you're right. Things are getting pretty off topic over here...

By this point it's not surprising that it's starting to veer off topic. But I was trying to keep up, and some of these war posts are so long that I'm afraid the war will actually be over before I finish reading. I'd hate to miss the end!

veggii

03-21-2008, 09:52 PM

By this point it's not surprising that it's starting to veer off topic. But I was trying to keep up, and some of these war posts are so long that I'm afraid the war will actually be over before I finish reading. I'd hate to miss the end!

Just do it like i do if the post is bigger than a paragraph
skip it ,works really good. All you bush bashers you
outta be ashamed of your self's always looking to blame
someone else for your lifestyle!! stop driving your gas guzzler
get out there and ride your bike or walk!! :hippy::hippy:

thcbongman

03-21-2008, 10:15 PM

yeah i hear ya 2, i can get back to why hes the worst president,i have a pleathera of reason's why i think so
bush is still one of if not the crappiest president since i been around and i remeber johnson.

he is a criminal,constitutionally and war crimes.the word i herd was invertible liar. not puffy,when you seek to not tell all the truth and pick out what favors you're point of view,to skew public opinion that is to me a lie.

this is what makes him a bad president. he has never lived by the rules so he does'nt think he has to now and has said so.
go read the patriot act.

im gw heheh i own your ass.

It's puffery and that's exactly how you define these "lies." It's not lies because the case that was made to the UN was subjective. When Anti-Bush people go around saying Bush lied, it's not technically correct. It's not like he made shit up out of the blue. He took data/argument/case and projected it to sound more severe than it really was.

Example would be if I said my marijuana is the bestr than yours. You'd call that a lie but there would be no way you could prove it unless you compared all the marijuana with mine and you smoked every single bit.

That's exactly what the Bush Administration did. They claimed A + B = D without proof and saying we must go invade because Iraq is an imminent threat. It's was subjective at the time whether Iraq was an imminent threat or not. There was no objectivity involved and now it's been proven they weren't.

Shovelhandle

03-22-2008, 12:31 PM

I think GW is a fat head. To me the only "quality" he seems to have is ambition. And his ambition is all about himself, period.

That said, I think that although I said that I think he is the worst president ever, I don't think he is a aweful person, just a spoiled, ambitious man child. His cool public appearance/style is just part of the polititians bag of tricks. I wouldn't want to toke up with him.

$.02

Shovelhandle

dragonrider

03-23-2008, 07:40 AM

It's puffery and that's exactly how you define these "lies." It's not lies because the case that was made to the UN was subjective. When Anti-Bush people go around saying Bush lied, it's not technically correct. It's not like he made shit up out of the blue. He took data/argument/case and projected it to sound more severe than it really was.

Example would be if I said my marijuana is the bestr than yours. You'd call that a lie but there would be no way you could prove it unless you compared all the marijuana with mine and you smoked every single bit.

That's exactly what the Bush Administration did. They claimed A + B = D without proof and saying we must go invade because Iraq is an imminent threat. It's was subjective at the time whether Iraq was an imminent threat or not. There was no objectivity involved and now it's been proven they weren't.

No. It wasn't a "subjective" interpretation of some facts that could be seen either way. Colin Powell went to the UN and offered what they claimed was solid objective proof. It turned out to not be true. SOME of it can be attributed to bad intelligence, but a good portion of it was things that the CIA already knew to be false. That amounts to a lie.

thcbongman

03-23-2008, 01:52 PM

No. It wasn't a "subjective" interpretation of some facts that could be seen either way. Colin Powell went to the UN and offered what they claimed was solid objective proof. It turned out to not be true. SOME of it can be attributed to bad intelligence, but a good portion of it was things that the CIA already knew to be false. That amounts to a lie.

At the time much of the intelligence used, verification of the authencity was not complete. There is no doubt in my mind they manipulated intelligence to make their case to go to war. However it's the method they used to sell their case, there's no way anyone can prove they lied, that's the magic of puffery. No one can prove intent. No one can prove they fabricated evidence. No one can prove they intentionally used faulty intelligence to go to war.

If that were the case, wouldn't the democrats have jumped at the chance to impeach Bush? They know that they don't have a case, nor can they prove it.

The day the lies are affirmed is the day it'll be in history books. Until then you'll have people like Rusty who could still make a case that the Iraq invasion was legitimate.

PamStoner

03-24-2008, 02:37 AM

As far as I am concerned, we didn't vote him in the 1st time. I believe the second time he was just shoved up our collective butts.
And I'm convinced that this man is the Anti-christ. I see no soul when I look at his eyes.

I'm downright scared at who they will pick for the next Pres... I have to say that if it's "Insane McCain" then I'm outa here. For good.

dragonrider

03-24-2008, 05:14 AM

At the time much of the intelligence used, verification of the authencity was not complete. There is no doubt in my mind they manipulated intelligence to make their case to go to war. However it's the method they used to sell their case, there's no way anyone can prove they lied, that's the magic of puffery. No one can prove intent. No one can prove they fabricated evidence. No one can prove they intentionally used faulty intelligence to go to war.

If that were the case, wouldn't the democrats have jumped at the chance to impeach Bush? They know that they don't have a case, nor can they prove it.

The day the lies are affirmed is the day it'll be in history books. Until then you'll have people like Rusty who could still make a case that the Iraq invasion was legitimate.

I guess a person doesn't need to prove that they've been lied to in order to KNOW that they've been lied to. It might not stand up in court, but I know I was lied to, and so does most of the country.

thcbongman

03-24-2008, 11:32 PM

dragonrider

03-24-2008, 11:59 PM

Until the day that these lies are confirmed, anyone can have an opinion on whether Bush lied. 99% of people can believe Bush lied and nothing will be done. That's only shows how powerless dissent is in this country. Until there is hard evidence of such, Bush lying won't be considered to be legitimate by the mainstream. The first step before any changes need to be done is to make puffery illegal, otherwise the government are able to lie to people. As of now, it's completely legal to engage in puffery.

Wait a minute .... did they legalize "puffery?" WHERE THE HELL WAS I WHEN THIS HAPPENIED?????? I'm grabbing a handfull of joints and heading out in the street to engage in legal puffery!!!!! Woooo hoooooo! Puff! Puff!

thcbongman

03-25-2008, 12:27 AM

hahaha.

The irony of it all! The good puffery is not legal :(

dragonrider

03-25-2008, 01:28 AM

hahaha.

The irony of it all! The good puffery is not legal :(

NOW you tell me.

I'm thnking you said it's legal, so I go out in the middle of the street smoking the fattest joint ever. A cop rolls up and asks me what the hell I am doing, and I blow the smoke right in his face and say, "Ha ha, dumbass! The BongMan just told me it's legal! Even Bush is engaging in puffery now! So you can kiss my hairy a--"

BAM!

Next thing, I'm face down on the concrete with his knee in my back! I get tased for about five minutes, soaked down with mace, and then frog-marched into the cruiser and sent downtown for booking! I'm shaved bald and stripped naked in a holding cell with crackheads, killers and rapists!

So thanks a lot, bro!

(Disclaimer: The above is all "puffery," and should not be taken seriously.)

thcbongman

03-25-2008, 10:15 PM

My bad :jointsmile:

FreshNugz

04-14-2008, 02:54 PM

It's not like he made shit up out of the blue. He took data/argument/case and projected it to sound more severe than it really was.

you are very correct. What you're talking about is coined by Chaim Kaufmann as 'threat inflation'. He goes on to talk about the marketplace of ideas(you know, news, people's opinion) as having failed during the run up to Iraq. In a democracy such as America, the marketplace of ideas is meant to be a sort of check/balance to the government power. It's referring to your voice..supposed to be able to stand up and say WTF..he's throwing us for a loop, right?
Well, the threat inflation carefully executed by the Bush Administration is why the marketplace failed.

If you want more, look for Chaim Kauffman's
Threat Inflation and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: The Selling of the Iraq War
International Security - Volume 29, Number 1, Summer 2004, pp. 5-48

psychocat

04-14-2008, 04:15 PM

I would've chosen worst ever but I have insufficient info on anyone before 1900 so I opted for bad instead.
Warmonger.
Cheat (I still don't believe he got in to power legally)
Imbecile (He reminds me of a Spitting Image puppet) Spitting Image - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image)