And W slammed Clinton and Gore for not keeping gas prices down.

These things happen.

Russia was not convinced by either the September 24, 2002 British dossier or the October 4, 2002 CIA report. Lacking sufficient evidence, Russia dismissed the claims as a part of a “propaganda furor.”2 Specifically targeting the CIA report, Putin said, “Fears are one thing, hard facts are another.” He goes on to say, “Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners yet. This fact has also been supported by the information sent by the CIA to the US Congress.”3 However, Putin was apprehensive about the possibility that Iraq may have WMDs and he therefore supported inspections. The Russian ambassador to London thought that the dossier was a document of concern. “It is impressive, but not always…convincing.”4

French intelligence services did not come up with the same alarming assessment of Iraq and WMD as did the Britain and the United States. “According to secret agents at the DGSE, Saddam’s Iraq does not represent any kind of nuclear threat at this time…It [the French assessment] contradicts the CIA’s analysis…”5 French spies said that the Iraqi nuclear threat claimed by the United States was a “phony threat.”6

After Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech on February 5, 2003 to the United Nations Security Council, the focus of discussion among U.S. allies changed. France, Russia, and Germany did not find Powell’s “evidence” strong enough to support the U.S.’s stance on the Iraqi threat. However, having already questioned the veracity of the dossier and CIA report, they instead concentrated on persuading the international community to continue UN inspections.

So how dumb to do you have to be to be a conservative? Pretty fucking dumb.

Why is it that no other major nation aside from the US and the UK was pushing for immediate invasion? Because only the US and UK were deliberately overhyping one side of the case for war while ignoring the doubts and questions that every other country also had and was considering in their thinking.
Remember how we never actually got the UN to actually sanctioin our invasion? Here’s why:

President Bush’s claim that in the months leading up to the invasion, “The international community thought he had weapons” is patently false. The International Atomic Energy Agency had determined back in 1998, after years of inspections, that Iraq no longer had a nuclear program. The IAEA’s four months of more rigorous inspections just prior to the invasion had not given any hint that that had changed. Similarly, UNMOVIC – while frustrated at Iraq’s failure to fully account for all the proscribed materials – similarly determined that there was no evidence that Iraq had any chemical or biological weapons. Rolf Ekeus, former head of UNMOVIC’s predecessor agency, the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), declared that Iraq was “fundamentally disarmed” as early as 1996. At the United Nations and other forums, representatives of many of the world’s governments went on record raising questions as to the validity of U.S. and British accusations that Iraq still had WMDs and active WMD programs.

How many other countries were pushing the idea that Hussein could have a nuclear weapon in six months? Try none.

There was plenty of intelligence questioning the existence of Iraq’s programs. We had inspectors in place to determine which intelligence was correct and if Bush had given the inspectors the time to do their job, and not allowed Rumsfeld and Cheney to undermine their work, we could have found out what we know now without creating a massive clusterfuck from which their is now no good exit.

So take it back to the playground pedro. Your an idiot.

Yes Clinton gets credit for a good economy. Clinton was a much better President than Ford or Carter IMO. Ford was crummy pres, but his terrible MI doesn’t excuse Jimmuh’s worse MI and it was Jimmuh who pontifcated on an MI that high (Fords) disqualifying a person to be Pres.

Your prejudices don’t always fit.

Let me make this a bit simpler or at least plumb the depths of your misunderstanding by asking a few questions:

Did the Cheney “cabal” control the intelligence agencies of other countries?

If yes, we can stop here, and I will direct you to some other fantasy web sites…

If no…why is it that every other major nation on this planet believed that Saddam had WMD’s? including the UN? Surely Germany, Britain, Australia, etc, etc could have set us straight right?

And how did we find out all the findings of the Specials Plans office were wrong? We invaded the f’ing country so we could look under every damn rock, cause there was no way of knowing otherwise.

You people truly live in a dreamland….

Pedro. much of the intelligence that turned out to be so woefully wrong was stovepiped through the system by Rumsfeld, Feith and Cheney’s Office of Special Plans. It was created in 2002 within the Pentagon specifically to come up with intelligence on Iraqi WMD. Most of its findings were touted through anonymous sources by Judith Miller in the pages of the New York Times. Almost all of its findings were dead wrong.

When you say that you don’t trust the intelligence community as much, you really mean that you don’t trust Rumsfeld and Cheney, the architects of the wrong intelligence.

Still confused.

We were the ones telling you that the intelligence was being misused by an unelected cabal of radical ideologues choosing only the facts that supported their pre-determined outcomes.

The intelligence, for instance, that those high-strength aluminum tubes were NOT purchased as parts for centrifuges was probably quite accurate. However, the President (not the intelligence analysts) told us something contrary.

Feel free to reply to this with an oblique misrepresentation and irrelevant sneering reference to my nationality.

So weren’t the leftists the ones telling us (in hindsight of course) that the intel was all wrong? So why now do I have to believe this current report? We KNOW they were wrong in the past eh?

sorry Nimrod, I didn’t realize that smarmy, officious brits were defining the discussion of american foreign policies.

Once again, Ped, you miss the point. You have consistently of the opinion that WMDs do exist. Now you say they don’t?

A couple points of note:

The highest Misery Index during Carter’s admin was (as Duuugger loves to point out) 21.98. The highest during Ford? 19.90. That means that under Carter, the Misery Index peaked at a whopping TEN PERCENT higher than the peak under Ford.

Monster. Utter monster.

Under Clinton, the Index dipped to a low of 5.74. Under GW Bush, the lowest was 6.74. So, by Dugger’s Supreme Debater Of All Time logic, Clinton was a way better President than Dugger’s Lord and Master, GW Bush.

In fact, Clinton was better than Reagan or Bush I, too. When you look at the Index, Clinton takes a back seat only to Truman and Eisenhower. Wow, third best President ever. That’s some high praise there, Dugger. I didn’t know you felt that way about him.

-ND-

Oh, silly me….they aren’t! We actually won that war a couple of hundred years ago…

Oh geez, grandpa’s going on again …

You seem to be confused, Peed’.

The “intelligence analysts” aren’t the ones who told us that. If you read the 2002 (I think) NIE–you know, the one that Mr. Bush relied on so much for his SOTU speech–you’ll see that “intelligence analysts” took a fairly cautious approach to the question of WMD’s and WMD-related-program-activities.

It was a different crowd who went yammering about “oodles of WMDs” and mushroom clouds and all.