On 9/11, a Telling Seven-Minute Silence

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in624848.shtml

And what about Saddam Hussein?

“When you were President, you said the same thing as President Bush, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction,” Rather tells Mr. Clinton. “George Bush eventually invaded Iraq. You didn't. Did you make the right decision? And why didn't you make it?”

“The first President Bush, after the first Gulf War, made a decision that rather than overthrowing Saddam Hussein, the important thing was to contain his aggressive impulses. So, sanctions were imposed on Iraq and the inspections process was started,” replies Mr. Clinton.

“Now when I became president in '93, I inherited that system. I actually thought it made pretty good sense. We had done a lot of good with those inspections. We uncovered more chemical and biological agents and other prohibited materials in the inspections process and destroyed them than were destroyed in the Gulf War.”

President Clinton points out that when Hussein kicked U.N. weapons inspectors out of Iraq in 1998, he ordered a four-day bombing raid, but was unable to find out how many if any chemical and biological weapons were destroyed in those attacks. He says that the current President Bush should have pushed harder for new inspections.
“In terms of the launching of the war, I believe we made an error in not allowing the United Nations to complete the inspections process. Now, having said that, we are where we are,” says Mr. Clinton. “And I think the most important thing now is for all of us to support a stable, peaceful, and pluralistic Iraq. And it looks to me like the administration is moving in that direction.”

Does he agree with President Bush that the world is safer in terms of terrorism because U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq?

“Let me say this. I think the Iraqis are better off with Saddam gone, if they can have a stable government,” says Mr. Clinton.

“There have been more terrorists move into Iraq in the aftermath of the conflict. I still believe, as I always have, that the biggest terrorist threat by far is al Qaeda and the al Qaeda network. And that the biggest long term destructive threat is the significant volume of chemical and biological agents all over the world that are not yet secure.”

True, but he does not say he would not have gone to war. He says bhe disagreed with the timing of it. He says this in the cnn article I quoted earlier. AND - you all think W made the whole WMD issue up anyway, Clinton does not. He and Kerry repeatedly have said SH had to go because he and his WMD were a menance to the world. Then, Clinton says W did the right thing in pressing the Iraq issue because after 9/11 the US could not afford the possibility that SH had these WMD and could pass them on. Clinton specifically notes he is going againt the left by making these statements. Moreover UN Resolution 1441 finds SH in material breach. Yet, you all refuse to acknowledge this and instead still insist the whole WMD issue was a red herring W created to go to war with Iraq.

AND - I have said it before and will say it again, the 1998 airstrikes brought the US to the brink of all out war. It was widely recognized at the time that if SH responded by firing missles at Isreal and Isreal responded in kind, a huge war would break out. So, Clinton almost took us to all out war. I am thankful it did not happen that way - but the risk was there.