White House brushes off Kay WMD comments

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040127/pl_afp/us_bush_iraq_weapons&cid=1521&ncid=1480

LITTLE ROCK, United States (AFP) - The White House has insisted that the US-led war in Iraq (news - web sites) was "the right decision," despite growing doubts about US charges that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) possessed weapons of mass destruction.


"Saddam Hussein was a dangerous and gathering threat and the president made the right decision to remove him from power," Scott McClellan, spokesman for US President George W. Bush (news - web sites), told reporters Monday.


McClellan strove to limit the fallout from remarks by David Kay, who just resigned as chief of the US-led effort to find the weapons at the center of Bush's case for launching the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.


Kay said Sunday that he did not think that Saddam possessed such arms at the time the war began. US Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said a day earlier that it was an "open question" whether that was the case but insisted that the ousted Iraqi leader planned to develop them.

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[dennis4868]

1. Every damn country plans....

develop bad weapons to protect themselves so lets bomb away at the entire world today....

[xchrom]

2. powell reminds me again

what a world class liar he is -- planned to develop them? that's why you kill thousands of innocent people -- a mind reading exercise? puh-leez -- no wonder people around the world laugh at us.

[HawkerHurricane]

3. Oh no!

I have surfed the web, and come across plans for chemical weapons... any second now, the White House will accuse me of trying to develop WMD...
Maybe I better start actually developing them, so I can threaten them to make them back off...

[oneighty]

6. Very good drawings

of nuclear warheads too. Gee whiz you could make one in your basement!

180

[HawkerHurricane]

8. Step one...

First, dig a basement.
Step two; make weapons of mass destruction
Step three; take over the world.
Step four; break for milk and cookies.

[indepat]

4. Could not every aggressive war launched in the 20th century be justified

using the same logic? Where's the difference?

[HawkerHurricane]

5. I wouldn't say it could be justified...

But people have attempted to justify every war since WW1 by claiming they were 'defending themselves'...

Nazi Germany claimed Poland attacked them...
Japan claimed that cutting off oil imports was the equivelant to a armed attack...
NKorea claimed SKorea was going to attack...
NVietnam claimed SVietnam was...
Italy claimed Somalia was out to get them...

Yes, I'm leaving many out; but my memory isn't perfect and I don't know everything.

[truthspeaker]

14. not since WWI - since the beginning of civilization

I took a Roman History class in college, and one of the course segments was titled "How to expand your empire in the name of self-defense".

[HawkerHurricane]

16. Since my personal specialty is WW2...

and the events that lead up to it...

I seem to remember that they didn't bother to justify wars in the middle ages beyond 'he's a heretic, burn him', while justified wars were all the rage after WW1...

[fob]

7. Is it jsut me or is this "No wmd scenario" playing out a little funny?

Bear with me for a second.

In issue after issue there have been spikes in information that many of us here thought (wished) were going to be the end of bushco* only to have them all pretty well wrap up nicely for said dictator. I have a new way of looking at this one. If YOU, as a member of the bushco* that is, had to write the ending to the No WMD's story how would it go?

I think they would write into the story as much doubt and take it as far as possible BEFORE bringing it back around. With Powell and Kay coming out and saying there are no wmd's, and even bush* himself PUBLICALLY making the same claim via the SOTU with his "wmd-related program activities", it's almost too good to be true. And THAT'S the problem. If they can take this theme into the fall, they can pop up with the wmd's in say, October for maximum effect and bushco* family friend bin laden can stay holed up in cheney's secret location.

This ending deflates the No WMD crowd and judging by the manufactured SH "capture" about a 3-6 week bump in approval, with the greater the sandbagging the higher the bump and longer the effect. But that's not the greatest effect. The real damage comes in giving bush*, I hate to even write it, legitimacy. He will be given endless media exposure to this illustrate this point. I already see it with the questions to the Dem candidates including something along the lines of "isn't it true leadership to make the choice to go after SH even if there AREN'T WMD's?" That's the thesis statement behind the whole set up.

I smell a whiff of politics around this one.

[JoblessRecovery]

19. Could people possibly be dumb enough to fall for that?

God have mercy if they do. That's just insane reasoning to go to war. In effect it's admitting they were lying all along and justifying it.

[OilemFirchen]

9. Oooops. Another lie.

McClellan sez:

"Saddam Hussein was a dangerous and gathering threat..."

Huh?

[truthspeaker]

15. he had some buddies over for a "gathering"

You know, falafel, lamb, watch soccer on the BBC.

[tom_paine]

10. As any Totalirtarian Stooges could tell you..."since when does truth

have anything to do with Pravda?"

The Bushists are Totalitarian Scum of the next-to-worst order (the worst ones are those who will come after, and are characterized by their violence).

[underpants]

11. What is the Rummyspeak about "The absence of evidence....

doesn't mean the evidence of absence" something like that.

[yellowcanine]

17. It is all part of the unknown knowns

or maybe it is the known unknowns

no wait - I think it is the unknown unknowns

shit - my head just exploded - eeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.........!

[underpants]

18. You can't make that stuff up

and you can't follow it either. No accident there.

[kskiska]

12. I find it strange that they didn't muzzle Kay

to prevent any of this getting out. I have to wonder whether he was pissed because his resources were being shredded and he wanted out, or was he forced out, or is he just naive enough to tell the truth?

[proud patriot]

13. bushyboy is getting good with a brush isn't he ?

He keeps having to brush things off that people
who have worked with him say ...

Awwwwwwe the poor little Emperor