Budget Fun

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Motorboat Cruiser

Why do you suppose that the Bush administration didn't choose to sell the war that way from the get go?

You see, I think he did. I think the media chose to ignore certain aspects. Yes, he claimed there were WMD. Why did he make such claims? Two reasons - our intelligence and the intelligence of our allies (and even some non-allies) said they did, and the aspects of the cease fire that would have allowed us the full and unfettered access to sites to confirm or debunk this were repeatedly violated.

In the pre invasion (or immediately post invasion) speech, he stressed this. He stressed the 17 or so UN resolutions. He did stress those aspects. The media, in their coverage, did not.

This IS how he justified the invasion.

[wendybeth]

I do remember him trying to use the non-compliance argument, but when the UN refused to go along with him, he began to rely more heavily on the WMD angle. Btw, Saddam was in default on the cease-fire terms, but that was up to the UN to take care of, not us. I was disgusted with their lack of enforcement, but it was not an excuse for our government to invade another country. Bush knew that the WMD argument was too weak- everyone could (and did) point out many other countries that met or exceeded the threat of Saddam Hussein.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

Btw, Saddam was in default on the cease-fire terms, but that was up to the UN to take care of, not us.

That's like saying it was the job of the UN to get Iraq out of Kuwait. The UN is an organization of lip service, pretty much impotent without the US to do the work. Even the EU didn't want to get their hands dirty in Bosnia, so it was up to the US to do it.