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Originally Posted by detbuch
Your intuition is not wrong here. Nobody has "proved" that Bush lied in order to invade Iraq. There are no "facts" to support a "lie,"--just "evidence" that could mean whatever you wish it to mean. Only Bush knows if he lied. And you're right, there were a number of "reasons" to invade Iraq, not just WMD. And if he knew there weren't WMds, he would indeed have been incredibly stupid to declare there were then order his troops to search for them, KNOWING none would be found. PNAC certainly supported regime change, as did Clinton who signed the Iraq Liberation Act. But PNAC, I don't think, ever stated that there were no WMDs. All the so-called "facts" could imply the possibility of a lie, if one chose to conjure up that possibility, especially for political purposes. The fact that there was a great desire to remove Sadaam, by ALL SIDES, doesn't come close to even hinting that Bush lied. Without actual proof it's just politics--that high quality dirt that Spence likes.
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In the hundreds of pages of debates on this site over the years I've never asserted that Bush lied.
I do think he surrounded himself with people who were heavily biased towards war with Saddam. I also think he surrendered too much diligence to others without showing much curiosity to their processes.
The result was pretty disturbing. While the threat of WMD were used to justify the invasion to the general public, the real motivation was liberalization of the Middle East. The facts were indeed being fit around the policy...There's enough good investigation and first hand accounts to have a very clear picture of what really happened.
Yes, Clinton and a host of other prominent Democrats were bullish on regime change in the 1990's, but stopped short of using the US Military to demand it, nor did Clinton's scope ever go beyond Saddam.
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What is amazing is that all the objectives of the Iraq Liberation Act that Clinton signed have, with that Irag war, been achieved.
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Big difference, the Iraq Liberation Act forbid the direct use of force to achieve regime change. The Act provided a few million dollars in funding to aid resistance groups.
By contrast we've spent nearly a trillion dollars on Operation Iraqi Freedom and lost around 4500 personnel to create this fledgeling democratic institution...not very "amazing" in this context. If Iraq does maintain a peaceful democracy we may well be lucky...they've got a ways to go.
-spence