Actually, my personal opinion, is that Bush is an idiot.

I am just pointing out that Demcrats stated the same thing in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 before dummy Bush was sworn in on January 20, 2001.

Many mistakes have been made in managing the war and any less military would have folded long ago, but not the U.S. Military.

If we win in Iraq it will be due to the men and women serving in the U.S. Military overcoming all the mistakes not due to Bush.

I just don’t like the Democrats trying to change history and put it all on Bush and imply he “lied” us into Iraq.

After 9/11 the threat of al-Qaeda flying a plane filled with chemical weapons is a real threat.

I also belive if Iraq can become a strong Arab-Democracy Liberal and Moderate Arabs will have a chance to defeat Radical Isalmists. Freedom and Democracy gives them a chance…oppression does not.

That’s my belief anyway.

OK, you win, President Bush is the greatest geopolitical and military genius since Napoleon. And invading Iraq is the greatest military adventure since Napoleon invaded Russia.

“And so, this morning, based on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, I ordered our Armed Forces to take action to counter an immediate threat from the bin Laden network.
Earlier today, the United States carried out simultaneous strikes against terrorist facilities and infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Our forces targeted one of the most active terrorist bases in the world. It contained key elements of the bin Laden network’s infrastructure and has served as a training camp for literally thousands of terrorists from around the globe.
We have reason to believe that a gathering of key terrorist leaders was to take place there today, thus underscoring the urgency of our actions.

Our forces also attacked a factory in Sudan associated with the bin Laden network. The factory was involved in the production of materials for chemical weapons.”

Here is the 1998 New York Times link:

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082598attack-rdp.html

New York Times
August 25, 1998

U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan

WASHINGTON —The United States believed that senior Iraqi scientists were helping to produce elements of the nerve agent VX at a factory in Khartoum that American cruise missiles destroyed last week, administration and intelligence officials said on Monday.

The evidence the administration has cited as justification for the attack consisted of a soil sample secretly obtained months ago outside the pharmaceutical factory, the Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries, the officials said. Officially the administration has refused to describe its evidence in any detail, or to say how it was obtained.

The sample contained a rare chemical that would require two more complex steps to be turned into VX, one of the deadliest nerve agents in existence, and the chemical, whose acronym is EMPTA, has no industrial uses. The United Nations and the United States have long agreed that Iraq is extremely skilled at many kinds of VX production, having worked for years to perfect the best process.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said there was evidence that senior Iraqi scientists had aided the efforts to make VX at that factory, and at another plant a couple of miles away.

The connection with Iraq emerged as a key part of the administration’s argument for why it was justified in launching cruise missiles at a plant in another country without any warning.

That is factually inaccurate. Your own link states, “In particular, reporters and some members of Congress were not convinced by the administration’s evidence that the al-Shifa plant was involved in chemical-weapons production.”

Republican leadership unanimously supported the bombing and attacks on al-Qaeda in 1998. The majority throwing the “wag the dog” scenario were reporters.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2006/09/the_truth_about.html

“I think the president did exactly the right thing,” House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said of the bombing attacks. “By doing this we’re sending the signal there are no sanctuaries for terrorists.”

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) called the attacks “appropriate and just,”

and House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) said “the American people stand united in the face of terrorism.”

Gingrich dismissed any possibility that Clinton may have ordered the attacks to divert attention from the scandal. Instead, he said, there was an urgent need for a reprisal following the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

“Anyone who watched the film of the bombings, anyone who saw the coffins come home knows better than to question this timing,” Gingrich said. “It was done as early as possible to send a message to terrorists across the globe that killing Americans has a cost. It has no relationship with any other activity of any kind.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/react082198.htm

“Sen. Orrin Hatch announcing his support of President Clinton’s decision to strike against terrorist facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan. (AP)”

“Speaker Newt Gingrich has made it clear to me” that the attacks were necessary and appropriate, Galen said. “This is a time to put our nation’s interests ahead of our political concerns. I am asking you to help your listeners, your friends, and your associates to look at this situation with the sober eyes it deserves.”

11/03/06 “Milken Institute Review” — – In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But since that time, the cost of the war – in both blood and money – has risen even faster than our projections anticipated. More than 2,500 American troops have died and close to 20,000 have been wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. And the $2 trillion number – the sum of the current and future budgetary costs along with the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the Middle East – now seems low.

One source of difficulty in getting an accurate picture of the direct cost of prosecuting the war is the way the government does its accounting. With “cash accounting,” income and expenses are recorded when payments are actually made – for example, what you pay off on your credit card today – not the amount outstanding. By contrast, with “accrual accounting,” income and expenses are recorded when the commitment is made. But, as Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, notes, “The budget of the United States uses cash accounting, and only the tiniest businesses in America are even allowed to use cash accounting. Why? Because it gives you a very distorted picture.”

Sgt Thomas:

I may have missed it but I don’t recall seeing a link for Al Queda and Saddam cooperating on VX gas production.

Given that we really do not know yet whether or not the newest stategy in Iraq is going to work, do you think the invasion of Iraq was worth the cost that we have paid so far in blood, wounded and treasure?

Apparently, the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that was supposedly producing chemical weapons was not in fact doing so.

On August 20, Clinton ordered cruise-missile strikes on a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. But the strikes were at best ineffectual. There was little convincing evidence that the pharmaceutical factory, which admin istration officials believed was involved in the production of material for chemical weapons, actually was part of a weapons-making operation, and the cruise missiles in Afghanistan missed bin Laden and his deputies.

Instead of striking a strong blow against terrorism, the action set off a howling debate about Clinton’s motives. The president ordered the action three days after appearing before the grand jury investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair, and Clinton’s critics accused him of using military action to change the subject from the sex-and-perjury scandal — the so-called “wag the dog” strategy. Some of Clinton’s allies, suspecting the same thing, remained silent. Even some of those who, after briefings by administration officials, publicly defended the strikes privately questioned Clinton’s decision.

It appears that the Republicans in Congress at the time didn’t care too much about terrorism either since they accused Clinton of using the bombings as a distraction from Monicagate.

When President Clinton attacked Iraq in 1998 he did not ask congress for a vote of approval to bomb Iraq for 4 days due to their “nuclear, chemical, and biological programs”.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9812/16/clinton.iraq.speech/

Compare that to President Bush who asked for approval from Democrats for the Iraq War.

Democrats were given chance to vote against attacking Iraq in 2002. The majority of Democrats and Republicans voted “YEA” for attacking Iraq:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/11/iraq.us/

Care to address the fact that the Clinton Administration specifically stated an alliance and cooperation in “VX gas weapons development” between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in 1998 and 1999?

Do you think that is an important factor to calculate into the decision to attack Iraq after 9/11?

One can surmize that the fact that Colin Powell stated this in February 2001 that President Bush was not sworn in January 20, 2001 with the pre-conceived notion of attacking Iraq to “avenge his Father and steal Iraq’s oil” correct?

I have no clue what Bush was thinking, I’m not a mind reader and don’t pretend to be one.

I do, however, know what some other Bush administration figures were thinking becuase the were part of the Project for a New American Century or PNAC.

In 1998, following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, members of the PNAC, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using US diplomatic, political and military power. The letter argued that Saddam would pose a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies and oil resources in the region if he succeeded in maintaining his stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The letter also stated “we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections” and “American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.” The letter argues that an Iraq war would be justified by Hussein’s defiance of UN “containment” policy and his persistent threat to US interests.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were SoD and Deputy SoD for the Bush administration and I would be surprised if they had no input into the thinking of the Bush administration given their positions of influence in said administration.

I do know that on Sept 27, 2002, CNN reported that Bush said.

He said the Iraqi leader’s “hatred” was largely directed at the United States and added: “After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad.”

If someone tried to kill your father, do you think that might influence how you think about that person?

Bush might be inhuman and not react to such an event and allow it to influence his judgement, but I rather doubt it.

“Blowback” only applies when the policy that causes it was stupid. Supporting the Mujahadein was a no brainer.

It certainly has come back and bitten us on the *ss really hard.

A lot of people seem to be claiming that the Islamic terrorists are a far bigger threat than the Soviet Union ever was. They may well be right, atheistic communists, no matter how fanatical, are far less likely to indulge in suicide missions than fanatical theists who believe they are getting a free ticket to that great wh*rehouse up in the sky. The atheists, after all, have no expectations of an eternal reward, for them this life is it.

We used the Mujahideen for our own purposes, and then when we were done with them, we dropped them as casually as one would discard a used sanitary napkin. People don’t like being treated like that and often react negatively to such treatment.

Hosea 8:7
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/africa/082598attack-rdp.html