The_barBEARian said:whiterock said:FLBear5630 said:whiterock said:>Not a single mention in the Epstein files
— Kaguya’s Top Gal (@hayasaka_aryan) February 20, 2026
>No blackmail
He just bombed the middle east for the love of the game pic.twitter.com/bhEs2dyXei
Yeah, he did. I always thought he was pissed his Dad didn't get to do it in 91. Cheney's interest for Haliburton didn't dissuade him either.
Never figured how Rumsfeld fit in, you have a better fix on the whole situation I am sure (seriously). I know Rummy would love the Roundup EO... (shouldn't go there, on me.)
he had no choice.
I saw the intel on his desk. He had a WMD-capable dictator in active liaison with AQ while we were still digging bodies out of the rubble in New York City.
Put all the worst-case scenarios of invasion on the table. None of them, individually or collectively, outweighed the risk of a WMD attack on an American city from a terror group who had just engaged in a spectacularly successful operation on our soil. The choice was to run the risk of an attack with 1000x or more casualties of 9/11, or run the risk of what ended up happening in Iraq.
I'm no Bushie. W had no choice.
Who provided that false intel that Sadaam had or was working toward nuclear weapons?
There was a lot of intelligence, from a variety of sources, to include satellite imagery, that he had an active program. And when I say "there was a lot" I mean...I actually read most of them. And it had to be read in context of an active WMD program which had not just produced WMDs, but actively used them against Kurds in northern Iraq.
In intel analysis, macro trends are hugely important. Where is the mainstream of the flow of reporting? How many and how broad are the outliers? ALL of the intel on Iraqi WMD, from US sources and all liaison sources, were very consistent that Saddam already had chemical and biological weapons (as evidenced by use) and was working on nuclear weapons. The only thing in question was how close he was to nuclear capability. The number of sources saying Saddam did NOT have an active nuclear program was basically one - an Iraqi defector. And that source was a massive outlier. So how do youjust toss out a whole building full of intel that said he had something going on just one report? (you can't. no matter what your gut tells you. You have to point out that both exist and let the policy maker decide. And in this case, the policy maker looked at a mountain of reports that said yes and weighed it all against a single manila folder of reports which said the opposite.) Thanks to our invasion of Iraq and subsequent deposition of Saddam, we no longer have to worry about whether or not we were at risk of a State Sponsor of Terror dangling nuclear weapons in front of a terror group that had just killed over 3k Americans on American soil..
Bush's problem was one of expectations. He allowed public perception to expect to see large warehouses of boxes with big "nuclear weapons inside" labels on them. That was never the case. Nor did it need to be to justify invading Iraq. How could we allow a state which had used domestically produced chemical and biological weapons on its own people to engage in liaison with a terrorist group which had just conducted a mass terror event on US soil? Answer: it was an unacceptable risk.
Bush made the right call to remove Saddam.
The eff-up happened in the nation-building thereafter.
