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For the sake of our country, the legitimacy of our cause and our ultimate success in Iraq, the administration must seek advice and approval from Congress, laying out the evidence and making the case. Then, in concert with our allies, it must seek full enforcement of the existing cease-fire agreement from the United Nations Security Council. We should at the same time offer a clear ultimatum to Iraq before the world: Accept rigorous inspections without negotiation or compromise. Some in the administration actually seem to fear that such an ultimatum might frighten Saddam Hussein into cooperating. If Saddam Hussein is unwilling to bend to the international community's already existing order, then he will have invited enforcement, even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act. But until we have properly laid the groundwork and proved to our fellow citizens and our allies that we really have no other choice, we are not yet at the moment of unilateral decision-making in going to war against Iraq.

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Nor can Kerry claim he was fooled by sexed-up intelligence from the Bush administration about WMD. He is on the record talking about Iraq's WMD threat in 1998, when he said, simply, "Saddam Hussein is pursuing a program to build weapons of mass destruction." As early as 1990, he stated in the Senate that "Iraq has developed a chemical weapons capability, and is pursuing a nuclear weapons development program."

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In other words, Kerry wouldn't have done a dang thing different.
 

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Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
 
Did you miss the sentence after the one you bolded?

And in 1990 Saddam had developed a chemical weapons capability and was pursuing a nuclear weapons development program. Then there was a little war partly because of that.

I'd like to see the context of the 1998 quote, though.
 

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Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
 
Just because he also believed there was a threat doesn't mean he would have put it on his personal agenda to take out Iraq.
 

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Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
 
Of course I didn't miss the next sentance. I'm the one who chose to include it in what I cut-and-pasted.

This op-ed was written in September. George Bush spent the next six months doing exactly what Kerry said in this article. Congress, including Kerry, voted for the war based on information the Bush Administration provided.

This included evidence that there were WMDs. It also included evidence that Saddam was violating 1441. If Saddam was violating 1441 when he didn't have any WMDs, there can only be one reason for that--he wanted the world to think he had them. He wanted his people and neighboring countries to fear him, and so he was posturing. He was, at the very least, a kid walking around the school with his finger in his pocket, pretending it was a gun.

Besides--and this is really my point--if a 10,000 ton stash of all the WMD's were found today sitting under a hotel in Tikrit, do you really think Kerry's criticisms would change? Does anybody really think Kerry's criticisms are anything BUT politically motivated?
 

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Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
 
Hmmm why do Kerry's advice and Bush's actions dovetail nicely?

Because there's so little real difference between the two. One patrician, two patrician, three patrician four...
 

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Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
 
And I get really tired of the Kerry camp's misuse and overuse of the word unilateral. We didn't go in unilaterally. We had the support of Britain, and the support of Spain (as just protested in their recent elections- remember?) and other countries who felt we did the right thing.
Sure there, were also countries who did NOT support us, but there were some who agreed -- and agreed that Saddam had not complied with the United Nations resolutions, and that the UN was not going to do a thing about that disobedience.

Farmgirl
 

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Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
 
You're assuming there's some connection between what Kerry says and what he does? I'm pretty sure that was just his opinion on September 6, 2002. Who knows what he thought in March 2003?

[ March 17, 2004, 10:35 AM: Message edited by: Dagonee ]
 

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Posted by Xaposert (Member # 1612) on :
 
Hmm... well, if Kerry wouldn't have done anything different, then I guess there's very little to Republican claims that Kerry is soft on terrorism.

In fact, why don't Republicans go ahead and vote for Kerry if there is so little difference between them?

[ March 17, 2004, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Xaposert ]
 

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Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
 
Because Bush has support of people we like, and Kerry has support of people we don't like. As has been said by both sides (Republican and Democrat), they are the ones that influence politics.
 

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