Big Deal, War Was Wrong

Two days before the 5th anniversary of September 11 and the international community has been rocked by a 2005 CIA Report released by the US Senate.
In case you have forgotten why we went to war against Iraq here are some quotes by the president and Vice president of the United States.




GEORGE BUSH


"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."


"The regime . . . has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda. The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

"He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations."

"One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraq intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in acquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner."


DICK CHENEY

"In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century, he had long established ties with Al Qaeda," Mr Cheney said.

"In terms of the question what is there now, we know for example that prior to our going in that he had spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs, and we're quite confident he did, in fact, have such a program. We've found a couple of semi trailers at this point which we believe were, in fact, part of that program."

"Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. His regime cultivated ties to terror, including the al Qaeda network, and had built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction."

After the mighty coalition conquered Iraq it was interesting that no weapons of mass distraction were found, but hey that is OK because even if there were no weapons, Iraq trained funded and had a long interactive relationship with Al-Qaeda who were responsible for the terror in the US.

So now the US Senate has not only cleared Hussain from harboring Al-Qaeda but have stated that Hussain thought Al-Qaeda were a threat to his regime and attempted to capture their leader.

After hearing this news I feel a little guilty considering I am a member of a the Coalition of the Willing (one of three countries that went against the wishes of the current 192 countries that form the United Nations).

Now I may upset some people, but I don't understand why the Bush Administration is not up for war crimes. The latest count of deaths from the war in Iraq is 46307 innocent civilian deaths, and that doesn't include deaths of soldiers.

So to conclude not only have we gone to war on misleading information, our conduct during war was exposed with photos of illegal torture on enemy soldiers (which the US initially denied) and to top it off an American company which has Dick Cheney on its board of directors was awarded the major contract for rebuilding Iraq.

Pretty embarrassing, even more embarrassing is the White House Response.

"It's, again, kind of re-litigating things that happened three years ago,"

"The president's stated concern this week, as you've seen, is to think, 'okay, we'll let people quibble over three years ago.

"The important thing to do is to figure out what you're doing tomorrow and the day after and the month after and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won.'"