I fell for no rationalizations (is your current position yours or have you ‘fallen’ for somebody’s rationalizations?). Spinsanity is defunct, but for a while they were a decent mostly non-partisan source for debunking spin by both sides – the kind of source one points to and says “see a non-biased source agrees with me”. BTW, Spinsanity didn’t completely absolve the Rs on this issue, but by and large says the major charge is false.

Iran – like Iraq, no (if we are talking about ability to inflict major damage on US homeland – Israel may be diffrent). North Korea – probably.

You’re confused a little. Bush said that Iraq was not an imminent threat. So yes, a few other countries probably have more strike capability against us than Saddamite Iraq. But the Admin argument was that Saddam was so murderous and vicious, that we couldn’t afford to wait for him to get (if he didn’t already have) various types of WMDs or weapons that could strike us. This, however, was just one of many reasons Repubs and Democrats voted to go to war. I suppose the intelligence assessment of Kim Jung Il in NK is that he is less inclined to act precipitously outside Korea than Saddam outside of Iraq. In addition, a war with NK would be much more costly (lives) to us.

Dugger

From Spinsanity (taking on the whole issue):

This evidence is paltry, however, when compared to the times when Bush specifically argued that Iraq was an enemy for which the concept of “imminent threat” was insufficient.

From Bush State of the Union:

“Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late.”

If you want to argue Fleisher was uncareful or too brief in a response or that Rummy hinted at things, fine, but rather than a deep dark secret the open, nationally public words of the preseidnt suggests otherwise.

Dugger

Since the same lawyer who represented Mark Rich is with Libby, all you conservatives who were screaming about the injustice will notably be silent as Libby is allowed to keep his passport. A flight risk? You be the judge.

Dugger

Some have argued that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent – that Saddam is at least 5-7 years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain. And we should be just as concerned about the immediate threat from biological weapons. Iraq has these weapons.”
” Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/18/02

“This is about imminent threat.”
” White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 2/10/03

“Absolutely.”
” White House spokesman Ari Fleischer answering whether Iraq was an “imminent threat,” 5/7/03

“There are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place. Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists.”
” President Bush, 10/7/02

FORT BLISS, Texas – A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in
Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.

Escaped, never to be seen again. (Since July 10th)

The allegations that Saddam “might” have had WMD were dismissed long before the war. Also, Iraq was complying with the inspections; it was the CIA under Clinton and Bush that was violating the terms of the UN mandate by attempting to use the inspections as cover for espionage. The inspections were working, so save that bullsh-t for LGF.

Also, the reason Hitler’s Germany ran roughshod over Europe is because the militaries of France and Britain were equipped and deployed to ‘defend’ their colonial holdings against the less technologically advanced indigenous brown people. France and Britain ‘appeased’ Hitler because they didn’t want to risk their ill-gotten overseas booty in order to face down a local tyrant. Toss in Stalin’s utter stupidity, and you’ve got WWII. Not to mention that Germany’s war machine could never have been built without massive investment from abroad, including from the U.S. Hitler had a lot of wealthy friends in the Land of the Free (Henry Ford and Prescott Bush, to name two).

Conversely, Saddam Hussein was surrounded, hounded, and contained. His military was a joke, and his fearsome arsenal of WMD a memory. The only reason he stayed alive is because he was able to do a lot of business (much of it illegal) with Big Oil and its representatives and friends (like Dick Cheney). The reason the Bushies went after Saddam is not because he was a danger. They went after him because he was weak and defenseless. That’s why Rummy ‘went to war with the Army he had.’ The Bushies, chickenhawk geniuses that they are, thought they could conquer Iraq with an underequipped skeleton crew.

We all know how that’s turned out. A couple of bogus elections, thousands of dead Iraqis, civil war, and 2,000 dead U.S. troops.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, BITCHES!

I look for Bushco to have a new reason by the end of the year for why we went to Iraq, of course he could just invade another country and do that whole ADD shell game motif. Nothing lifts the American peoples spirits like more dead Non-Americans and in Con talk American sacrificies “for the cause of freedom”

Now the prevailing “line” coming from Washington is how U.S. troops are fighting to establish “democracy” in Iraq. So let’s assume (hold on to your hats, this is going to be a big assumption) that everything in Iraq is going grand. Milk and honey, candy and flowers, freedom and prosperity are flowing freely in a democratic Iraq. Electricity, water, jobs, and health care are just around the corner. So here’s the question — who on earth gave George Bush (or the U.S. Congress, if you think they had any say in the matter) the right to say that bringing those rewards to Iraq was worth tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and hundreds of thousands of casualties? Besides for Ahmad Chalabi, what Iraqi asked them, or gave them permission, to make that exchange? By what moral code does one group of people have the right to condemn tens of thousands of another group of people to death, even in the supposed service of improving the lives of that second group?

Not by any moral code I subscribe to, that’s for sure.

The primary reason we went to war with Iraq was WMDs, and not out of an altruistic desire to  free the Iraqi people.

WMD were the rationale offered to convince the American people that a preemptive strike was justified. The real reasons remain a mystery.

It is never enough to believe their opponents have committed honest mistakes or have legitimate purposes; they insist on believing in malicious conspiracies.

Is it prudent to believe in honest mistakes when your opponents repeatedly promise a close examination of the facts and keep making excuses for not delivering?

Did Clinton offer up Israel to Saddam, the way Europe allowed Germany to have Poland? No. Not in the slightest.

And how did Saddam not comply with inspections, in the months before the invasion? How could he have, anyhow, when the response to Blix and company from Washington was “You’re wrong. From Baghdad, you can’t possibly see what we see from the White House. He’s hiding them very, very well from you. After we invade, we’ll find this huge stockpile. In a talking cave, shaped like the head of a tiger.”