Impeachment

[oldbetang]

I think it is. Saddam was the lesser of two evils. He was a horrendous man who committed many atrocities against his own people, and who had previously menaced the region with his military and his WMD programs. But order kept at the expense of a few thousand lives is better than complete and utter disorder at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives, which is where Iraq is currently headed.

More than a million Iraqis died as a result of the UN-imposed sanctions. Hundreds of thousands more died at the hands of Saddam's thugs. Today, high UN estimates put the number of "invasion and occupation related" deaths at about 150,000. Are you sure that you don't want to reconsider your above classification?

 

[oldbetang]

The CIA provided Bush with perfectly ample intelligence which indicated that the case for invading Iraq was insufficient. When the White House didn't like what it saw in this intelligence, it had Douglas Feith filter it until they had gleaned something that remotely resembled the evidence they wanted.

That is factually incorrect. Feith had very little say, if any, in what went into the 2002 NIE. The contents of that NIE were the justification for taking out the Iraqi regime.

 

[KomissarSteve]

More than a million Iraqis died as a result of the UN-imposed sanctions. Hundreds of thousands more died at the hands of Saddam's thugs. Today, high UN estimates put the number of "invasion and occupation related" deaths at about 150,000. Are you sure that you don't want to reconsider your above classification?

Positive. First of all, I don't believe that more than a million Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions. Secondly, I don't believe that the current rate of deaths is going to slow down anytime soon, much less stop at around 150,000. Thirdly, I think that risking a regional conflict between Iraq, Iran, and possibly the Sunni states of the Middle East is a far greater evil than anything Saddam carried out. Lastly, I feel that the political capital that the U.S. squandered in invading Iraq - thus greatly limiting the positive influence that it could have had on the international community - is an evil in and of itself that must be added to the decision to invade.

 

[KomissarSteve]

That is factually incorrect. Feith had very little say, if any, in what went into the 2002 NIE. The contents of that NIE were the justification for taking out the Iraqi regime.

Evidence that Feith had such little say?

Because there's a LOT of evidence that suggests that he DID have a lot of say in what intelligence reached the President, as head of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans. So says the Pentagon Inspector-General, at least.

 

[oldbetang]

Evidence that Feith had such little say?

The Office of Special Plans, which Feith headed, was only created a couple of weeks before the release of the 2002 NIE. The charge has been that he used that agency to manipulate intelligence. Anyone with knowledge of how the NIE's are produced would know that the OSP would not have had time to impact the one released on Oct 1, 2002.

Because there's a LOT of evidence that suggests that he DID have a lot of say in what intelligence reached the President, as head of the Pentagon Office of Special Plans. So says the Pentagon Inspector-General, at least.

That summary refers to an "exaggerated connection between Iraq and al Qaida". No such connection made it into the 2002 NIE.

 

[KomissarSteve]

The Office of Special Plans, which Feith headed, was only created a couple of weeks before the release of the 2002 NIE. The charge has been that he used that agency to manipulate intelligence. Anyone with knowledge of how the NIE's are produced would know that the OSP would not have had time to impact the one released on Oct 1, 2002.

Nor did I claim that it did - just that it rigged intelligence that led to the phony pretext for invading Iraq. The NIE may have been the main piece of propaganda that the Bush Administration used to sell the war, but as well we all know, that was far from the last piece of propaganda that was flung at the American public.

That summary refers to an "exaggerated connection between Iraq and al Qaida". No such connection made it into the 2002 NIE.

We're not talking specifically about the NIE, though - we're talking about the intelligence that was used to sell the war in general.

 

[invisible trousers]

Right now I think a ridiculously strong and easy case can be made to impeach Alberto Gonzales.