Wolfowitz suggests knowing Iraq had no WMD might have put off invasion

[Barrett808]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz suggested that US forces might not have invaded Iraq if Washington had known then that the regime of Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

"And I'm not sure based on the evidence we know now that we could have been absolutely convinced that there was no danger, absolutely no danger," Wolfowitz said at National Press Club.

"If somebody could have given you a Lloyds of London guarantee that weapons of mass destruction would not possibly be used, one would have contemplated much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did," he said.

Wolfowitz, a former deputy defense secretary and one of the architects of the war, said the fear that Iraq would use weapons of mass destruction was a major preoccupation of General Tommy Franks, who planned and led the invasion.

"It was a sense that the greatest danger in taking this man on would be that he would use them," Wolfowitz said, referring to Saddam Hussein, who is now on trial in Baghdad.

"If you could have given us a guarantee that they wouldn't have been used, there would have been policy options available probably," he said.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051207/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary

[rusty charly]

1. NOW

he tells us!

[pinto]

2. Wolfowitz is not going to make "statesman" rank, no matter how he tries.

[NanceGreggs]

3. And we know how much we can trust the word of ...

... Paul "This War Will Pay For Itself' Wolfowitz.

[Imalittleteapot]

4. Which is why they discontinued the inspections AND

demonized people like Scott Ritter. It's clear that they intended to attack Iraq long before 9/11.

[VegasWolf]

32. Exactly! nt

[Cocoa]

5. they would have "settled on" some other justification

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-05-30-wolfowitz-iraq_x.htm

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz cited bureaucratic reasons for focusing on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and said a "huge" result of the war was to enable Washington to withdraw its troops from Saudi Arabia.

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair.

[applegrove]

6. That still doesn't explain why the WMD investigators were pulled.

[Writer]

7. Grab rotten tomatoes and take aim...

this is disgraceful. He just admitted to negligent homicide.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. "If you could have given us a guarantee that they wouldn't have been used

I guess that means we better blow up Russia and China too Wolfie?

He really is loony tunes.

[Me.]

9. D'uh

Which is why he and the other neos faked the case. And yet, there he is, at the apex of the world bank with nobody, apparently, worried.

[Todd B]

10. Someone needs to ask..

When Iraq has *ever* threatened the United States? Hell, we practically starved them with sanctions for the past ten years, the only thing they were probably concerned with was survival.

We have more people dying now because of Iraq then before the invasion.

I can't stand this "we're safer now because Saddam is gone" line. It's so freaking stupid (not to mention factually incorrect).

Seriously though, after reading over the PNAC documents, is anyone surprised by this?

[madmark]

16. Its the one point that neither the reps or the war voting dems ever

touch; any casual observer of Iraq's current history knew that it was on its knees as a power after the gulf war (which was preceeded by the years of the Iran/Iraq bloodletting), the Shia uprising, the partitioning out of kurdistan, and the 12 years of UN Trade sanctions. Its people were literally starving, and yet it was suppose to have been some kind of threat the US? It wasn't even able to exert its will over Kurdistan. And yet given that background, all these idiot congress people still voted for the war.

[rodeodance]

23. there was war in the blood--herd mentality and they refuse to admit it.

[jazzjunkysue]

27. Remember the red menace? I knew Russia was on it's knees, too

but Raygun was still rattling his saber. Even as a dumb uninformed college kid, I knew Russia couldn't even feed and warm itself, and so the threats were trumped up.

So, if Wolfie sounds like Russia, guess what? He and all the neo-cons WERE the sabre rattlers, and when Russia fell under the weight of it's own stupidity, they suddenly had nothing to do, and no one wanted them around.

Poor Condi, Wolfie, Rummy, Bolton,Cheney, they were marginalized as "the crazies" according to Richard Clark's book "Against All Enemies" and so felt unloved and unwanted.

This entire war was their baby: The unipolarist wet dream, and when B*** felt emasculated by 9/11, he finally gave in to their demands. This put them back on the map and the world wanted them again.

But Wolfie is obviously embarrased at their total failure and is abandoning ship.

Rat one.

Next!

[neuvocat]

11. No it wouldn't.

It never did. Wolfowitz has had a hard on for going there for over ten years. Now if he said that if he knew that he couldn't get to the oil, then I'd believe him.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

12. I thought all this was his brainchild

Wasn't he one of the original neocons who helped brainstorm all this war crap? And just NOW he realizes he's not the towering intellect he thought he was?

Comb-sucking fool.

[punpirate]

13. This is the same Wolfowitz who admitted...

... after the invasion, that WMDs were picked as a reason because it would be the easiest to sell the public:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2945750.stm

Just another fuckin' war criminal.

[cliss]

15. Who could forget?

It's amazing how Wolfowitz is trying to let himself down, easy.

Now that his whole life's work is going up in flames, he's scared of the public's reaction. Small wonder.

I wonder how it feels to know that I was a part of a group which send the world's strongest country down the toilet? Into bankruptcy? At the mercy of its creditors.

An unbelievably strong democracy, twisted and perverted by the likes of Wolfowitz, Perle, RumsFailed, Jeb, William Kristol and many others. They must feel like shit right now.

[madmark]

17. He's the idiot who testified to congress that the war would be self

financed from Iraqi oil revenues. And now that nostradomus is the President of the World Bank. Incompetence apparently gets you everywhere these days.

[sofa king]

34. No, they don't feel like shit. They're in Wolkenkuckucksheim.

Remember what Hitler did when the Soviets were a few blocks away? He mooned over architectural models of a new Munich he was planning to build, and sent out unachievable orders to nonexistent armies.

You watch, that's just what these evil motherfuckers are going to do, too. When the real world closes in, they'll just drift off to cloud-cuckooland while everything around them crumbles. And they'll take all of us with them.

[bemildred]

14. Nah, they invaded because they KNEW he didn't have anything.

If he did have WMD, he's still be sitting there.

[Barrett808]

33. Exactly. And they *did not* secure the nuclear sites at Tuwaitha...

...because they knew there was nothing to find there.

Prima facie evidence for impeachment and prosecution.

[WhiteTara]

18. waht sh*t! They refused to let

the weapons inspectors finish their work so that they COULDN'T verify no wmd's.

[Little Star]

19. Dear Wolfowitz,

No shit Dick Tracy! You guys didn't forge Niger documents and lie your asses off for nothing. Of course you tricked the senate and the american people with false fear of WMD to get permission for that ass you call president to use force. Go *uck yourself!

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. known then that the regime of Saddam Hussein had no weapons

If they didn't know, then they should have found out. First.

[fshrink]

21. This one is paid to lie. That's his job in life.

In a way his existence is pathetic. Look at his face. Pale. Consumed by terrible fantasies and an obsessive and laborious tinkering with the hidden little cogs of separated power. He looks like he comes straight out of one of Dante's circles.

[rodeodance]

22. oh for pete's sake--He is still blaming intel!!--taking no responsibility!

[ismnotwasm]

24. More horseshit

If they had wanted to take Saddam out, they would have taken him out. The people who do that kind of thing knew where he lived.
The administration did that nosepicking dumbshit "we don't know" crap about WMDs. Like we haven't been up to our elbows in the Middle East for years.
Like our intelligence agencies are so innocent, so restricted in activities, they couldn't find their ass with both hands, much less accurate intelligence. Like we hadn't been on Iraq's ass for years with sanctions, Buzz bombings, air control space etc. Like we didn't let the Iraqi people suffer while Saddam sat pretty in his palace, until he became a convenient war excuse asshole, instead of a convenient part- of- playing- politics in the Middle East asshole
They needed this war for all the sick reasons warmongers always do. I hate them.

[robbedvoter]

25. Oopsie!

Did he actually end up saying that the war was not justified?

[NVMojo]

26. feck you, Wolfowitz!!

[Gregorian]

28. But the mushroom cloud was 45 minutes away.

The WMD's were "in and around Tikrit". Are you saying you lied? If not, show us the REAL documents that indicate they actually did have WMD's. You can do that now, because those are no longer of any security significance.

Now your argument would still not be forgivable had you invaded and been bombed by WMD's. But it would have been a lot more forgiveable than forging fake documents. It would have been more forgivable than outting a CIA agent.

So then Scott Ritter and Hans Blix must have been lying. Is that what happened? Is that why you removed Blix?

Sorry Mr. Spitcomb. You are as gross in your lies as you are in your personal hygiene. Gross.

[librechik]

29. LIAR TRAITOR MURDERER

oops? We get "oops" with thousands of lives BLOWN AWAY or ruined???

ARREST THIS ONE, OFFICER--HE'S THE ONE WHO STARTED IT ALL WITH HIS LIES.

[Gyre]

30. So now we have to be sure a country is

"no danger, absolutely no danger," or else we attack???? What a pile of stupid horseshit coming from an ignorant little fuckwit.

Gyre

[lumpy]

31. Scheming SOB

This man should be run out of town on a rail. Who does he think he is snowing. To think that this scum has been a major influence in this scummy administration. Evil man. Trying to shift the blame onto Tommy Franks.

[Erika]

35. W's legacy: A liar whose own liars deserted him in the end

What a legacy.

[daleo]

36. Note the term "might have"

""And I'm not sure based on the evidence we know now that we could have been absolutely convinced that there was no danger, absolutely no danger," Wolfowitz said at National Press Club."

In other words, he is saying there is no amount of evidence that could convince them that they shouldn't go to war, when they are hell-bent on war. This is the talk of unreasonable, irrational, insane people.

[No Exit]

37. "We might have invaded Iran instead, had we known

that Iraq was just an empty shell as far as "weapons of mass destruction" were concerned.

Or maybe Syria.

We're sorry."

[Orsino]

38. It didn't.

They went ahead anyway.