By MARC MCDONALD
As he continued to accuse war critics of "revisionism," Dick Cheney insisted that the "burden of proof" was on Saddam Hussein to show that Iraq had no WMDs.
Actually, it is Cheney who is engaging in revisionism. The fact is, Iraq went to great pains in 2002 to document that it had no WMDs.
For example, on Dec. 7, 2002, Iraqi officials presented the U.N. with a 12,000-page dossier disclosing Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction (as demanded by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441). Also, on that day, Iraqi officials agreed to open the country to another round of U.N. weapons inspections.
No one could accuse Iraq of skimping on details in the dossier. The declaration included 11,807 pages of information, with 1,334 pages devoted to biological weapons and 1,823 pages devoted to chemical weapons and 12 CD-ROMs containing 529 megabytes of information, according to a CNN report.
At the time, Iraqi General Hasam Amin said the dossier shows "that Iraq is empty of weapons of mass destruction. I reiterate Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction."
Of course, the Bush White House denounced the dossier--but offered no evidence to show that the document was in any way inaccurate.
On Dec. 5, 2002, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer ridiculed the idea that Iraq might not have WMDs after all:
"President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction ... Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe."
In hindsight, I suppose it's quite predictable that the Bush White House would casually dismiss Iraq's accounting of its WMDs in its reckless rush to war.
But one point that has been overlooked in this whole episode is that when Iraq presented its dossier to the U.N. in December 2002, its information was actually not much different than that which had been presented by the Bush White House the previous year.
Colin Powell made this clear when he praised the U.N. sanctions as effective during a Feb. 24, 2001 press conference.
"(Saddam) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
As it turns out, Iraq was telling the truth after all in 2002 when it declared that it had no WMDs. It was the Bush White House that was lying to the American people and the world.
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4 comments:
I'd like to note that France said that it would join the U.S. invasion of Iraq if and when Saddam used WMDs. It seemed a reasonable condition, considering that was supposed to be the whole point of the war. All these Con retards seem to not be able to grasp this as they mindlessly bash France.
I stumbled upon this crappy blog quite by accident. It makes me feel great because as long as the democrats are beholden to the kook fringe looney left like you people, Republicans will continue to dominate. It is the same old playbook. Always bash your own country first. All of you are pathetic. It is amazing how gullible and uninformed you are. Like Rush Limbaugh says "you are really talking about yourselves" when you hurl these outlandish accusations at Republicans. As for your boy Murtha, he is just the flavor of the week as Cindy Sheehan was. He certainly was not brave enough to vote for withdrawal of the troops when he had the chance last week. Talk about no balls at all.
In response to the previous message, the poster said that blogs like this one, that oppose Bush are part of the "kook fringe looney left." Last time I checked, Bush's approval rating was in the 30s, so I guess America consists of a lot of "looney left" folks these days, LOL!
An earlier poster says that "Republicans will continue to dominate." Last time I checked, the Democrats have won the popular vote in 3 of the past 4 presidential elections. And you say we're "bashing" our own country. No, sir, we are bashing the corrupt Bush White House BECAUSE we love and support our country.
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