Did Clinton attack Saddam because he was being attacked by Repubs?

[kentuck]

I hear Repubs use as an excuse that Bill Clinton said Saddam had WMDs and he attacked Saddam in 1998. Well, what was going on in 1998? Was this the time of the Lewinsky matter? Would Clinton attack Saddam as an attempt to get the Repubs off his back? Just curious for other thoughts...

[monchie]

1. You know, Saddam knew what was going on in the US...

...and IMHO he most likely thought that Impeach-O-Rama gave him the perfect opening to start screwing with the UN inspectors.

From his POV, Saddam figured that a) in the midst of get-Clinton mania, the Western media would ignore or bury his messing with the inspectors, and b) President Clinton would be both preoccupied with defending himself and hesitant to respond to what was going on in Iraq, for fear of being accused of playing politics with foreign policy.

[Peachhead22]

2. 1998?

Did Clinton attack Iraq in '98 at the height of the Lewinsky matter? I thought that was when he cruise missile'd Afghanistan and Sudan?

Either way, he attacked many of the same places they're attacking now, and Bush is saying he's relying on the same intel that Clinton had. So is it the 'Pubs stance that it's OK to go after Saddam & Osama and bomb civilians unless you've just gotten a blowjob?

[Ponderer]

17. He bombed Iraq a day before impeachment

And why shouldn't he. Even the Republicans now admit Saddam was no angel. But apparently he was then.

[JHB]

3. Retaliation for East Africa Embassy bombings.

Two American embassies in East Africa (Nairobi and Mombassa?) had been truck-bombed, and they'd definitively tied it to Al Queda. At a time when he had enough intel to have a decent shot at catchig bin Laden at a training camp, Clinton ordered cruise missiles fired at the camp and factory in Sudan that intel said was owned by bin Laden and was involved in chemical weapons manufacturing. (the timing also took the Lewinsky matter off the front pages at a stage that the Republicans were hoping to capitalize on (either a vote or someone's testimony, I don't have it at the top of my head).

The missiles to afghanistan missed bin Laden by a few hours, and a controversy sprang up around the Sudan plant: supposedly it was no longer owned by bin Laden and was a pharmeceutical plant, despite Administration claims to the contrary.

Despite claims from both right and left, even though it was technically no longer owned by bin Laden, the new owner still had plenty of ties to him and may have been just a figurehead, and even though admin officials were wrong in denying it was a pharmeceutical factory (which it demonstrably was), intel at the time indicated (and since corroborated by the trial testimony of the EA Embassy bombers that Al Queda members were at least told and believed) that part of the factory was used to produce chemical agents.

[noonwitch]

9. I've often wondered how difficult is it to make a chemical weapons factory

look like a pharmaceutical factory? I know little about chemistry, except that I assume that both would use some of the same equipment.

[Noordam]

14. In Clinton Wars

the point is brought out that the manager of the factory was living in bin Laden's home in Sudan.

[mistertrickster]

4. We shouldn't back Clinton "right or wrong" anymore than the FReeps should

back GW for the same reason.

He was a great president policy-wise and put off this PNAC agenda for eight glorious years, but he did fool around with a bimbo who couldn't be trusted to be discrete while the Repukes were investigating him for everything he ever did. Extremely reckless.

The WH was already fighting the state trooper rumors of Clinton's dalliances and then he takes up with blabber-mouth Lewinsky? Not smart.

For the sake of his own immediate gratification, the Democratic party lost the last two national elections and had to endure endless ridicule. I would have liked to have seen him step down and pass the mantle to Gore. It would have been best for the party and given Gore a better chance to win the election in 2000. (Although Gore DID win anyway, but that's a different story.)

[robbedvoter]

5. BS! I haven't seen so much RW propaganda cooked

to appear appetizing to "lefties" (the "fairness weakness) since Somerby was hit with the stupid bat! You want to sell me that Clinton conducted his foreign policy the way bushco is terrorizing the nation with colorful aleerts to change headlines? Well, I want to sell you something too: there's two towers downtown NYC, only slightly damaged - good price just for you, cuz you wrap your BS so very nicely!

[Old and In the Way]

6. We should never, ever allow a comparrison between these

2 actions to stand.

Clinton was perfectly right to return a message after having 2 of our embasseys bombed.

Bush's actions, on the other hand, were born out of multiple of reasons, none having to do with US national security.

Anyone who tries to support the actions of Bush by saying that it was no different than Clinton is lying and doing an injustice to American values by comparing the actions of an excellent President to the actions of corrupt criminal who was selected pResident.

[TLM]

7. Wasn't 1998 also the year that...

UN wepons inspectors said that like 99% of Saddam's weapons and weapon making programs were destoryed?

Clinton bombed weapons sites... mostly SAM sites in the no fly zone. He never invaded the country and took over their oil fields.


If Bush had just bombed Iraqi weapons sites, I doubt many people would be nearly as pissed at him right now.

However I like to respond to this lastest BS fromt he right with..."So basicaly you're saying that Bush is just as dishonest as Clinton, but instead of lying about a BJ that resulted in a stained dress, W is lying about intel that resulted in dead US soldiers?"

So basicaly W is a worse liat than Clinton, and he's trashed the economy, ruined our international reputation, went on vacation while terrorists attacked our nation, looted our surplus, and ran up a record high deficit... now how does that restore honor and dignity to the whitehouse?

[CafeToad]

8. 1998 wasn' the only year the Clinton bombed Iraq

He also bombed Baghdad in 1993:

(all quotes from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content/?020930fr_archive02)

"On Saturday, June 26, 1993, twenty-three Tomahawk guided missiles, each loaded with a thousand pounds of high explosives, were fired from American Navy warships in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea at the headquarters complex of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service, in downtown Baghdad. The attack was in response to an American determination that Iraqi intelligence, under the command of President Saddam Hussein, had plotted to assassinate former President George Bush during Bush's ceremonial visit to Kuwait in mid-April. It was President Bill Clinton's first act of war.

Three of the million-dollar missiles missed their target and landed on nearby homes, killing eight civilians, including Layla al-Attar, one of Iraq's most gifted artists. The death toll was considered acceptable by the White House;"



The problem here is that THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE LINKING SADDAM TO THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON GEORGE H W BUSH !!!

Another snippet (read the whole article for the entire story):

"The Administration, with its well-meaning but floundering leadership, spent two months investigating and debating the alleged assassination attempt, and then ordered the bombing just one day after receiving a written intelligence report on it. That report, delivered on June 24th by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provided what the President and his advisers concluded was compelling evidence of Iraqi complicity at the top.

A senior White House official recently told me that one of the seemingly most persuasive elements of the report had been overstated and was essentially incorrect. And none of the Clinton Administration officials I interviewed over a ten-week period this summer claimed that there was any empirical evidence—a "smoking gun"—directly linking Saddam or any of his senior advisers to the alleged assassination attempt. The case against Iraq was, and remains, circumstantial. Nonetheless, on June 24th the F.B.I.'s intelligence report was accepted at face value by the President and his senior aides, and some of those aides told me that the mere existence of the report and the expectation that it would be leaked to the press were what drove the President to act. "We had to move quickly," one diplomat said, with rancor. "Bill Safire obviously would have the report for a weekend column." Safire, the Times columnist and a frequent critic of Clinton policy, had bedevilled the White House that spring with his ability to obtain restricted information from the Justice Department."


Here I cut out many paragraphs that shred the so-called evidence for Saddam's involvement, concluding with:

"Thus, on a Saturday in June, the President and his advisers could not resist proving their toughness in the international arena. If they had truly had full confidence in what they were telling the press and the public about Saddam Hussein's involvement in a plot to kill George Bush, they would almost certainly have ordered a far fiercer response than they did. As it was, confronted with evidence too weak to be conclusive but, in their view, perhaps not weak enough to be dismissed, they chose to fire missiles at night at an intelligence center in the middle of a large and populous city."


NOTE THAT THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY SEYMOUR HERSH, NOT SOME RIGHT-WING-BLAME-CLINTON-FOR-EVERYTHING IDEALOGUE!!

[JohnKleeb]

11. very interesting

Of course I aint gonna flame ya. There are many things Clinton did that I dont like. Mostly foriegnly but theres some domestics too. Clinton did some good but he's far from a saint in my eyes.

[CafeToad]

12. I forgot to ask for input in my previous post

What was Clinton's primary motivation for his Iraq policy -

Was it to look tough, as implied by the Seymour Hersh article?

Was it Al Gore's fault (Al Gore was a self-described 'hawk' on Iraq)?

Was he legitimately duped by the FBI and CIA? (if so, then it's plausible that Bush II really was duped as well, because if the highly-intelligent Clinton was fooled, what hope did the moron have of detecting the bullshit?)

on edit: I'm referring to the 1993 (and on-going) events, when the Lewinsky 'wag-the-dog' scenario was not in play.

[Old and In the Way]

15. Do I think he was duped?

I've pondered this. I think their were a lot of loyalists to GHWB in the CIA throughout the Clinton Presidency. Given what we know now with the PNACers and the Republican Inquisition of CLinton in the 90's, I have little doubt that there were incidences where bad or bogus intel was fed to Clinton with the purpose of embarassing him.

Do I think Bush, Jr. suffered the same? No. I just think his administration was predisposed to using the info in ways that would benefit their political/economic interest first and our national security interests secondly.

[blm]

18. I agree.

Clinton was fed some bad info on Iraq by Poppy loyalists. His motivations were always to bring greater stability to the region. NOTHING like Bush's imperialism and power grab.

[Old and In the Way]

13. You are correct about the article and it probably wasn't Clinton's

finest hour.

But I think if you look at the Republican rhetoric weighing in on this issue, I think many were demanding we declare war on Iraq for this intransigence.

If you read the article carefully, the problem was that the evidence available was such that it may or may not have been the work of Iraqi agents. But the wait for clarity was making Clinton look like a wuss and I think his advisors saw this as a test of his willingness to respond with military action. He pondered the upside and downside to a military response and elected to send Saddam a message.

But, do you really think you are comparing apples and oranges here?

I don't.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

10. If this is so...

If Clinton attacked Iraq because he was being attacked by the Repugs then Bush attacked Iraq to get our attention away from the economy and the corporate scandals!

[Ponderer]

16. Bullshit

Maybe Clinton was ahead of the ball, you know.

He was going after Afghanistan and Iraq 4 years before it became popular to do so.

[sandnsea]

19. Clinton may well have destroyed any WMD

For whatever reason he bombed, it is quite possible that his bombing campaign destroyed any existing Iraqi weapons and made it impossible for Saddam to seriously reconstruct facilities. If so, Clinton may well have been the one to save our soldiers from chemical or biological attacks.

Just a thought.