Even in hindsight it is obvious that he had not given up his desire for WMDs. That is what he was hiding.

The WMDs themselves were not the only reason we insisted on inspections.

And if we could make policy in hindsight, I would agree with you. You have the benefit of hindsight NOW. But at the time all you had was a best guess.

You are welcome. I am here to help.

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My Political Blog (Updated Oct 3rd) - Which Flame Warrior are you?

Dipomacy at this point has gone beyond 3 word catch phrases and Bush can't handle it.

As well it should be. After all, the last two Presidents didnt have a lot of luck with diplomacy either. Diplomacy was attempted and failed.

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My Political Blog (Updated Oct 3rd) - Which Flame Warrior are you?

If this has already been posted, here it is again:
Cost of the war

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Es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine tätige Unwissenheit.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Thanks...now if only this site was more widely advertised (but maybe it is). But what does the Bush admin and neocons think about it I wonder? Surely it doesn't serve their agenda. Is it a case of 'Just the facts, ma'm.' ?

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I'm a hypocrite, I'm intolerant of intolerance. Hey, what's your Terrorist Score?

This excerpt extracted from a recent Rolling Stones article:

"When America invaded Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would turn a profit, paying for itself with increased oil revenues. So far, though, Congress has spent more than $350 billion on the conflict, including the $50 billion appropriated for 2007.

But according to one of the world's leading economists, that is just a fraction of what Iraq will actually wind up costing American taxpayers. "
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The 36 pg report I just came across gives a more realistic set of figures on the estimate of what this Iraq fiasco has cost. I read thru the whole 34 pages of text. I suggest reading the first 6 pages and pages 29-34 for the summary to see the numbers (the authors don't want things quoted without their permission.) And who am I to argue against the words of one of the co-authors, Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics. Indeed the Bush admin has been negligent in even estimating a truer cost of their actions...either they are hiding the more realistic nos. or they are incompetent...this report puts a different light on the war's costs:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/..._linda_bilmes/

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I'm a hypocrite, I'm intolerant of intolerance. Hey, what's your Terrorist Score?

The whole WMD issue in Iraq was a red herring. It is obvious now that Dubya and most of his close advisors wanted to invade Iraq for reasons other than WMDs. The three real reasons I can come up with were: removing Saddam, getting control of Iraqi oil and putting the fear of god (pun intended) into the rest of the region.

The whole logic of the threat of WMDs in the hands of Saddam was laughable. Yes, he had used chemical weapons in the past, but only on the borders of his territory against attackers (Iran-Iraq War) or against rebellious citizens of his own country (Kurds and southern Shias). Saddam had certainly never shown any interest in providing terrorist groups with WMDs; indeed, he was a much weaker supporter than Syria, Iraq or even Saudi Arabia (not the government, but a fair number of wealthy citizens).

If we wanted to go after the nation that launched the attack on 9/11, we would have invaded Saudi Arabia. If we had wanted to tackle Islamic terrorist support, we would have invaded Syria or Iraq. Saddam was not, contrary to Dubya's rhetoric, a madman and he would never have risked angering the United States by arranging a WMD attack as it would not have benefitted him personally in the least. Saddam's true cause was always Saddam.

The only Weapon of Mass Destruction in Iraq is named BUSH.

When he said "we should know" he was referring to the US nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the cost to rebuild them. but i guess that was too subtle for you.

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I am a stone, I do not move. I take my time, I let him come closer. I have only one bullet. I aim at his eye. I do not tremble, I have no fear.

I guess my inclusion of the word "modern" in my response was too subtle for you.

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My Political Blog (Updated Oct 3rd) - Which Flame Warrior are you?