Cherry Pickin’ 3
An interesting exchange between Congressman Wexler (D-Fl) and Condoleeza Rice.
I certainly give Ms. Rice points for coolness under pressure.
Looking at her story, though, I find some interesting twists:
She says that “Saddam Hussein was a threat to the United States. We went to war with him in 1991. . . .”
The United States did not go to war against Iraq in 1990 and 1991 because Iraq was a threat to the United States. It went to war against Iraq, under the sanction of the United Nations, because Iraq had invaded Kuwait.
She sort of leaves that out, giving the impression that Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to the United States a decade and a half ago.
He wasn’t. Indeed, Iraq was for a long time supported by the U. S. as a counterweight to Iran. Indeed, it was St. Ronald Reagan who took Iraq off the list of terrorist states.
In talking about the Iraqis shooting at U. S. planes, she also leaves out that the U. S. planes were flying over Iraq is to enforce sanctions imposed by the United Nations.
Now, I’m certainly not arguing that the planes deserved to be shot at; they were on a lawful mission under international law at the time. Once again, though, in her telling of the story, Ms. Rice implies that the Iraqis just got up one morning and said, “Oh, gee, let’s go shoot at some planes,” implying that it was pure aggression, rather than what might better be characterized as stubborn (and lunatic) resistance.
Furthermore, as we look back to the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq, recall that, the closer that arms inspectors came to proving that there were no weapons of mass destruction and no capability of creating them in Iraq, the more the Current Federal Administrator moved the deadline. Moved it up, that is, not back.
It doesn’t take a conspiracy theorist to wonder whether the wonderful advancing deadlines had something to do with the weakness of the Bushies’ cherry-picked “evidence” against Saddam Hussein.
It is entirely fitting that cherry-picked “intelligence” be followed by cherry-picked testimony.
February 13, 2008 at 7:55 pm
that vidio was painful to watch. The thing that saddens me most is this lady is too intelligent to really even belive what she is saying. You can tell her whole testimony was scripted and practiced over and over again.
February 13, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I’ve never seen anyone who states that Saddam was once allied with the US finish their point. They just state the fact and stop. I’m always left wondering, “OK… and…?”
International politics have always involved shifting alliances and betrayals. On one day the US is accused of “coddling dictators” when they ally with them, the next day they’re accused of “imperialism” when they exert influence to pressure a dictator they’re not allied with. It’s all hogwash.
February 13, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I agree opie that seems to small point that does nothing but cloud the issue, we were chinese and russian allies in ww II. I still hate this moawp,.