Mickey

He said there was "no doubt" that there were WMD's in Iraq. We have searched the country from top to bottom and they aren't there. If I tell you there absolutely is a purple cat in my pocket and you look and there is no cat, I lied about the cat. I suppose if I was a republican you would excuse my comment by concluding that maybe the cat entered a time warp in the instant before you looked in my pocket and will someday show up in Syria. When Cheney produces a cat, then we'll talk.

The idea that he was simply fooled and a lot of smart people were is an after the fact excuse. If you look through most of the public comments, the administration was very careful about what they were saying about the WMD's. A lot of the remarks were right up there with the old "depends on what your definition of what is is". They made sure to say alot about WMD's and there was certainly an impression created that they thought WMD's were stockpiled and ready to go. When you go back and look though, given their precise words, they almost always stopped short of claiming there were WMD's in Iraq, no question about it. The only one to really go out there and make claims beyond what the intel supported was Cheney. His remarks were not endorsed or repeated by anyone. He made those comments long before Tenet made the slam dunk comment so you can't cover his substantial keester with that. If he has said, "We think" there are WMD's or "Evidence indicates" or "It is likely that" or something along those lines which is what they all did, he would have some defense here but he didn't. He said there was "no doubt", not "in my opinion there is no doubt" or "in the opinion of experts there is no doubt". I made it clear I don't know what was in his heart. I do know what he said and when he said it. If you want to give him the benefit of every doubt and hold him to the lowest standard and let him pass the buck to some one else for comments he made, fine. I think that if you are the Vice President of the United States and you are talking about reasons for invading another country and the resulting loss of life, guilty and innocent life, you ought to be held to the highest standard. As for the presence of the weapons in Iraq in 1991, it shows how desparate the argument is getting for the right, that they have to go back to conditions 13 years before the 2003 war for WMD evidence. It is not logical to assume because you don't know how something went away it must still be there. The reality is that they simply are not there and we have looked everywhere with experts who have had unlimited access to the whole country with the best equipment and all the motivation in the world to find them. The logical conclusion is the one even the administration has reached. Give it up.

The analogy would be applicable if you searched the entire ocean with teams of expert divers trained in finding even the slightest hint that a fish was or at least had been there and had the best equipment in the world to use in their search. If they scoured the entire ocean and found no fish, I would suspect that the fish were not there. The argument that you are using about us knowing they had such and such at one point and Iraq not having proved what happened to them has been used for a long time. It might be compelling if we were still on the outside looking in but we aren't anymore. We are inside and have the run of the house. They aren't there. It is kind of like Amelia Earhart. I know she existed at one point and I can't prove what happened to her but there is no doubt that she is long gone. I haven't declared this whole thing a failure yet. I believe the pre-war diplomacy was a failure and that the post war phase was botched from the beginning. Even if all turns out well in the end, these are failures that are now in the books. It is like the depression, it was a bad deal, a major failure of the securities system. As it turns out however, although the depression was a failure, America is a success none the less. It is not an all bad, all good world.

I don't know how deeply our search teams have looked into that issue so I don't really know. As far as I know, there is no proof that they are there now or were taken there. It is not a matter of being "enlightened" it is simply a matter of proof. At this point, I suppose if we looted every inch of Syria and still didn't find them, you would just suggest that maybe they were taken to Iran and so on and so on. This isn't a right-left issue. The administration has called off the search, essentially throwing in the towel on this one. We are now going to have to deal with this for a long time to come. The next time we try and rally support for something we better have the goods. Our credibility has taken a hit on this issue and I think the administration bears the responsibility for that, especially Cheney.

Actually, I really, really, really wish we found WMD's so that our credibility would be restored on this issue. It would make our future diplomatic efforts that much more likely to succeed. The idea that Bush and company will do a better job winning in Iraq than Kerry is to me, pretty comical so I guess we both have a sense of humor. The problems in Iraq were not going to go away no matter who won. Bush had, in my opinion, a clear record of diplomatic failure prior to the war and mishandled the post war struggle from the beginning. A number of prominent Republicans share that opinion so I am no sitting alone on a democrats-only island on that issue.

Maybe he turned them into magic beans. There are a hundred different scenarios one can imagine that would explain the vanishing WMD's. Without proof however, you are into Area 51 territory. They have been looking for proof of just what you suggest and, I beleive, come up entirely empty. Besides, these people aren't known for their restraint. If they had them, God help us, they would use them.

Maybe you could point out a post of mine contrary to my assertion that I supported the war on different grounds? How about a post that would support your imaginings as to what my postion must have been? Here is what it was and still is: There are people who want to kill us, lots of us, in ways as horrible as possible. They have openly declared this to be their goal for many years and we ignored them (or at least were unwilling to resort to open warfare) because they were unable to make good on their "death to America" threats. That changed on 9-11. Now we have to take them seriously and when necessary, go after them even if it means war. Saddam is one of those threats. If he could engineer another 9/11, he would. If he could get ahold of WMD's, he would and he would use them. If he doesn't have them now, he will spend his life trying to get them and we can't possibly watch him that closely for decades. If it helps him, he would have no problem supporting Al Queda in any way he could. Couple all this with the justification so often argued by Thomas Friedman, the humanitarian arguments and the idea of creating a peaceful, prosperous muslim democracy and I was sold. Where, when and how were all options open for discussion but at the base, I think war was justified. Where I fault these guys is in the execution and the timing of war, not the decision to go to war. Accordingly, I didn't think much of Powell's performance at the UN, I believe that in terms of actual results, our prewar diplomacy was an abject failure. Even if it was, all things considered, the right thing to go to war, that doesn't mean that lying about the justifications for war can be justified. Not by a long shot. Cheney stuck his keester out there and I don't think he should be given a pass. It doesn't really matter if the war was a spectacular success or a dismal failure. Fact is he said there was "no doubt" on the WMD's and did so when the rest of the administration was unwilling to go that far because the intel didn't support it. Would we have gone to war anyway? I don't know and neither do you. I think that Cheney's lie, or to be charitable, "gaffe", is one of the all time biggest in our history, even worse than Clinton's " I did not sleep with that woman..." or Nixon's "I am not a crook" or even GHW's "Read my lips..." All those politicians took their lumps on those and I think Cheney deserves his.

Well Richio, we could have responded to your several thousand posts attacking democrats with that type of nonsensical, meaningless response, to wit: "When did ___________ go on trial???" Fill in any democrat's name you want here, Kerry, Hillary, Pelosi etc., etc. We didn't because, well because that would be kind of stupid. These folks are elected political leaders and this is a political discussion board so it is no surprise that we spend time discussing the things they do and say. Let me remind you of the title of the board: "Politics, Polls and Pundits-talk about political and societal matters", am I ringing any bells here?

Actually, I supported the war based on reasons having nothing to do with whether there were WMD's there at that time or not. So no, I didn't abandon the administration but I thought of it as sticking by my country and my beliefs, not this group of boneheads. I voted for Kerry because I thought we had a better chance of winning the war with him than with the crew that has botched so much of it so far. The WMD thing is just one of those "botches". You need to find out what my actual views are before launching one of these rants. You have imagined positions you assume every democrat holds and then have assigned them to me. I agree, the truth would have been a harder sell but does that mean that if the President decides that reason A warrants, demands even, that we go to war, he or his administration is justified in lying to the American people to get them to support the war because the real reason, if they knew, would not be sufficient? If that is your excuse, Wolfowitz's admission that the WMD thing was a red herring they used to get support they otherwise could not have obtained, then you must have very little respect for democracy. I think that the administration, any administration, that is going to take this nation to war is obligated to be honest with the American people as to why and if that means the people choose not to go to war, that is their perogative, isn't it? I am not sure that "Gee, we couldn't tell them the truth because then they wouldn't support the war and we really, really wanted to go to war" is a very sound defense of the administration. Really, that is what you are saying is that if they had been straight with us, we wouldn't have supported the war. You see, they don't have a god given right to our support for their policies. We are not a monarchy. We have a right to disagree. The way it works, ideally, in a democracy is you present your argument in free and open debate and let the people decide. The fact that people might not agree with you if they knew the truth doesn't justify playing a shell game with the truth. Now back to the issue. Cheney said in umistakable words that there was no doubt that there were WMD's being amassed against us. He did that long before Tenet's "slam dunk" remark so he doesn't have that cover. That is all fact. Attacking me or anyone else won't change that will it? The question is how should Cheney now be remembered, as the VP who told one of the biggest lies or, to be charitable, made one of the biggest gaffes, ever? How will this effect our diplomatic efforts now and in the future?

Shangri-La has also not been found thus, by your logic, it still might exist. I am willing, despite that, to go out on a limb and say that the non-esistence of Shangri-La is historical fact. The inability to find them despite there being no limits on our ability to search over a long period of time with the best experts and technology we can muster I think very much is proof that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Absence of a thing is proof that it doesn't exist. How definitive that proof may be is another question. We are at the point now where we aren't even going to bother looking anymore because we have looked everywhere, within reason, and they aren't freaking there. That is the reality.

Pessimist Granted, the news out of Iraq, the news we get anyway, leaves little room for optimism. Still, I am not prepared to throw in the towel on there being enough Iraqi's, as they taste more and more freedom, to create some sort of democracy. It am being naive, I know, but there it is.

Read my signature line for Cheney's declaration in August of 2002 that there was "No doubt..." that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. We are now so sure he didn't that we have called off the search, ie wild goose chase, to find them. When the issue has come up over the last two years, the more reasonable among us advocated waiting until the search teams were done before reaching any conclusions. That hasn't stopped many among us from seizing on the first sign of possible WMD proof as the virtual Holy Grail of this issue setting off a post-a-thon that would peter out in a day or two when the claims of proof unraveled. Well the jury is back, it is now historical fact that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction and he wasn't "amassing" them to use against us as Cheney claimed. Before you go excusing him by blaming Tenet's "slam dunk' comment, consider that he made his statement in August of 2002 and Tenet's "slam dunk" remark wasn't made until December 21, 2002. Before you excuse him by pointing out that prominent democrats also thought he had them consider that none of them thought enough of the proof to go to war based on it and that none of them had the benefit of the inspections that had been reinstated (remember Blix?) and which found nothing. Many of the comments conservatives dig up in this regard are from the time period after inspections ceased so everyone was operating in the dark. I am quite sure that if Cheney were a democrat, his name would never be mentioned by any of you without also calling him a liar. Only he knows in his heart if he is a liar or was so bent on invading Iraq that he saw in the paucity of intelligence precisely what he wanted to see. I can't read his mind and can only go by his words. Those words leave pretty much no option but to conclude that he lied though again, I don't know what was in his heart. Remember at the time, plenty of Republicans, the President included, had the chance to endorse his comments and yet did not. Why? Because the intelligence didn't justify that conclusion and they knew it. That is why they had that meeting back in December of 2002 and why the President looked at the evidence that was presented and was incredulous, asking "... is that it?" Unlike everyone else in the administration, Cheney was willing to go out on a limb and say, with no hedging, that there was "no doubt". I remember hearing the argument here from many at the time that Cheney had access to intel that couldn't be made public and that this secret intel was the basis for his claim. In fact, I seem to recall this theory being expressed in terms of "listen you idiot, I know about intel and you don't because I: a) was in the military once upon a time or b) have read more Tom Clancy novels than you or c) am a conservative so am genetically more able to understand military matters, and therefore I trust that Cheney has secret intel proving WMD's that he can't, for national security reasons, divulge." Whether the war was justifiable quite apart from the whole WMD issue is another question entirely. Lord knows we don't need to rehash that. The only issue here is Dick Cheney. If you want to respond by pointing out your complaints about Bill Clinton, John Kerry, Al Gore, FDR or whatever, please start another thread. Lets talk about Cheney and the long term effect this is going to have on our diplomatic efforts. The head of the CIA saying "slam dunk" is bad enough but for the Vice President to make that kind of gaffe is epic.

This is apparently no longer an issue. The fact that it was the administration's primary reason for going to war when it did and that they were so wrong it is embarassing is not important. Not even here on the board where some, Richio in particular, submitted tons and tons of posts to the effect of "Aha! We have found the WMD's at last, take that you liberal scum". Were I Richio and Richio Mickey, there would be an entire thread devoted to those now hysterically erroneous claims. The real problem for the US and its future diplomatic efforts is that we are now the boy who cried wolf. Who will believe us next time? Statements like Cheney's (see my signature), now that reality has finally made an appearance, make us a laughing stock in many quarters of the world. I can forgive this administration a good many faults but giving the French an opportunity to laugh at us is unforgivable. Tres ridiculous

Wasn't the invasion a "full scale offensive"?? What about the Fallujah operation, were our hands being tied or something?

There are blitzes and there are blitzes. There was one in the Steelers game where they only brought 1 extra guy and he and the defensive end on the same side both came in unblocked. Five lousy guys rushing and two were unblocked. When I say they were unblocked, I mean they were not even touched and they didn't even have to go wide to do so. They were on Drew in less than 2 seconds. What is he supposed to do in that situation? Should he try and bring the ball up from his waist so that he can throw it away, risking a fumble if they get to him before he can unload it or should he tuck it in and take the sack? Either way his detractors are going to have a seizure about how he failed to throw it away or took a sack or fumbled. On top of that it was a third down so eating the ball means the drive is over. You can do that when you have a lead but when you are behind, don't you have to force the issue? You aren't going to score points and get back in it by throwing the ball out of bounds on third and ten. At some point, you have to try and make a play even if the odds are pretty long. Drew may not be as mobile as Michael Vick but seriously, how many quarterbacks in the entire league could make two guys unblocked coming in on a straight line miss? Vick and McNabb maybe and that is about it. That is not a very revealing comment about Drew. We sort of knew he wasn't as elusive as those guys when we signed him. The thing is, you can get a SB ring with an immobile QB with a strong arm, you don't have to have one of the two or three guys in the league who can beat two unblocked blitzers to make a play. Changing QB's is the knee jerk, quick fix solution that ignores a much bigger problem. We are not able to run the ball consistently well against defenses geared to stop the run yet we continue to try and do so anyway resulting in down and distance problems. Given our line, we aren't going to pick up many third and tens.

Now you are misquoting yourself, what you said was "make nice with the man trying to kill you". You did not say "making nice to wage and win war". That is restating your words to more closely match his rather than use the exact words you originally used which were an unfair translation of his remarks. I used his exact words and your exact words. You continuously rearrange the words to make the point you want, a point not necessarily supported by the actual words used. You may disagree with my judgment that your rearrangement of his words were "unfair beyond description". However, that is a judment, an opinion I rendered only after presenting the actual words used by both. Since I used the actual words, readers would be free to reach their own conclusions as to whether my opinion was warranted.

"making nice with the man trying to kill you", your words, not his. Among the civilian population there are three kinds of people, your friends, your enemies and those in between. Winning the "hearts and minds" of those in between seems like a good idea to me and translating that to "making nice with the man trying to kill you" is unfair beyond description. Given the loss of his son, I thought you might actually at least respect his actual words rather than debate him with made up straw men. Was his actual argument too strong to be argued with leading you to make one up that was easier to poke fun at?

If, in order to look good, we need to compare ourselves to terrorists, we are in a lot of trouble. Such a comparison doesn't provide perspective, it removes all perspective. You could justify or at least fob off almost any wrong by comparing it to something far worse. No matter how bad something is, you can always find something even worse. Knowing that pederasts are attracted to occupations which give them access to children, I am not at all interested in schoolwide strip searches of 12 year olds over some kid misplacing a sawbuck.

Am I not reading this right or did you just say that Losman-McGahee-Evans, who lost his son in Iraq, doesn't understand sacrifice? He also didn't say anthing about "making nice with" people trying to kill you. He did say he was against death squads and killing innocent people. He also said that winning the support of as many Iraqi's as possible was important. These are not radical positions and though you may disagree, they are not so off the wall crazy so as to deserve being mocked. Translating those arguably reasonable positions into something else which he never said, "making nice" with the enemy, is just wrong.

I am amazed that even though you have lost your son, a tragedy for which you have all my sympathy and prayers, you are against the idea of death squads. Some would be so angry over their incredible loss that they would be willing to support any measures taken against the enemy, no matter how violent or likely to kill innocent people. That you have been through such a tragedy and still kept your ability to reason and to honor the tenets of your faith is inspirational.

I'm sorry, I didn't get that, did you say "meaningful intelligence" or "erroneous intelligence"?

Weak analogy. You see, the goal posts in the pro's are the same height and width as those in college and the field is the same length. The hashmarks are closer which actually makes things easier for kickers in the NFL as opposed to college. For QB's, the situation is entirely different. The playbooks are three times the size, the game plans more complicated, the D-lineman are bigger, faster and meaner. Everybody is faster and stronger, more dedicated and motivated. For the kickers, with the exception of the use of tees, things really aren't all that different in the NFL. On top of that, Ohio State is pretty much a professional team so it would be a seamless transition into the pro's for Nugent. Another difference: You can go several games without your kicker doing much of anything besides kicking off and hitting a few extra points. The QB is handling the ball every single offensive snap. Starting a rookie QB or virtual rookie is not within a thousand miles of being the same thing as starting a rookie place kicker.

If wearing a track suit and toting a clip board on the sidelines is what you mean by limited playing experience, yeah, he has that.

I came to that conclusion because the guys who coach him, whose jobs depend on winning games, who have watched him every second of every practice and who make a living evaluating players haven't put him on the field. If he was ready and the best QB on our roster, MM would be starting him, no? As for next year, no one knows because none of us can see the future. We will go through campa and pre-season and the coaches will decide whatever they decide.