Kerry's Vote for the WAR
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| Mon, 09-06-2004 - 3:41am |
This from the book Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward regarding Kerry's (and Kennedy's) stance on the vote to give Bush authority to go to war:
That afternoon, after two days of debate, the House passed a resolution authorizing the president to use the U.S. armed forces in Iraq "as he deems to be necessary and appropriate." The vote was a comfortable 296-133 - 46 more than the president's father had in 1991.
In the Senate, Edward M. Kennedy the Massachusetts Democrat made an impassioned plea to reject the resolution.
"The administration has not made a convincing case that we face such an imminent threat to our national security that a unilatera, preeimptive American strike and an immediate war are necessary. Nor has the adminitration laid out the cost in blood and treasure for this operaton," Kennedy said. He later added that Bush's preemptive doctrine announded to "a call for 21st Centry American imperialism that no other nation can or should accept."
Senator John F. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who would soon be running for president, said in a speech on the Senate floor he would vote for the resolution to use force in disarming Saddam because "a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat to our security." In announcing his support, Kerry stated that he expected the President "to fullfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution.....and to act with allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force."
But no Democrat or other critic had been able to gain much traction in the face of the president's repeated declarations about the threat posed by Saddam and the CIA's estimates that Saddam posessed WMD and might be on the verge of becoming a nuclear power.
In light of what we know now it is understandable why Kerry voted to give the authority with the caveats he did. Bush had no intention of working with the UNSC to adopt a resolution. Bush was not against it so much as Cheney was. He said it would take too long and wanted to do it right away and do it without UN approval.

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I dó very much care for backed up fácts (anyone's opinion is interesting but not necessarily fact). Would you kindly point
That sounds like a pretty good definition of religious faith to me.
Republicans are different. We can be persuaded with facts.
Edited 9/6/2004 5:18 pm ET ET by iminnie833
Talking about sweeping statements.....Seriously I can't controll how anyone choses to read what I say. In this case I could just as well have said "wear blue jeans all you want"..but....etc.
<<"You claim to be a centrist and non-partisan.">>.....never claimed anything like that. I am in the Netherlands and observing & commenting in ever increasing utter astonishment.
<<"Again IMO, you can offer proof of this by being more specific when handling such a loaded statement as the 'war on terror(ism)' in the future.">>.... Honestly I don't know how much more "specific" I can be in offering backed up factual proof than I already have been.
Nów can I get to my much needed ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz's ? Happy Labour Day to all !
Renee ~~~
Edited 9/6/2004 7:00 pm ET ET by cl-wrhen
Renee ~~~
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Iraq%20Intelligence%20Commission%20(UK)
< True. That also explains why many of them look to government to take care of them cradle to grave; it's their savior. >
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/hc/hc898/898.pdf
You can find this in there. (If you don't trust me, use the search feature)
"We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the government's dossier, and by extension the prime minister in the House of Commons, were well founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush's state of the union address of 2003 that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well founded."
And the piece I sited was a commentary on the *facts*. You can't refute the facts.
<<"How many times were they going to allow Saddam to throw out the inspectors? If they had their way, Saddam would still be in power and the inspectors would never be able to do their jobs.">>.....very true!
It was very clear from Hansl Blix's report that SH wasn't about to fully cooperate, so as long as SH was running Iraq the inspections weren't expected to go anywhere.
Again: all SH needed to do to avoid war, was opening his drawer, take out the reports and maps, hand them over. It would have taken 5 minutes, he got 48 hours. Yet he didn't do it. He was counting on his ally France to help him out. Since SH didn't provide any paperwork it IMO is because he couldn't
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