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The Disgrace of Kerry on Iraq, 1991-Present

From: http://www.kerryquotes.com/

A remarkable compedium of Kerry's famous flip-flops on Iraq--his maneuverings on the crisis are shocking ; one read should suffice to dismiss his aptitude for Presidency.

"Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition ... to the early use of military force by the US against Iraq. I share your concerns. On January 11, I voted in favor of a resolution that would have insisted that economic sanctions be given more time to work and against a resolution giving the president the immediate authority to go to war." letter from Senator John Kerry to Wallace Carter of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, dated January 22 [1991]

And at the same time, he wrote this:

"Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf." Senator Kerry to Wallace Carter, January 31 [1991]

Nov 12, 1997: In response to a question about unanimity over a U.N. resolution, kerry responded: where's the backbone of Russia, where's the backbone of France, where are they in expressing their condemnation of such clearly illegal activity, but in a sense, they're now climbing into a box and they will have enormous difficulty not following up on this if there is not compliance by Iraq....It was disappointing a month ago not to have the French and the Russians understanding that they shouldn't give any signals of weakening on the sanctions and I think those signals would have helped bring about this crisis because they permitted Saddam Hussein to interpret that maybe the moment was right for him to make this challenge. (Crossfire)

Feb 23, 1998: "Saddam Hussein has already used these weapons and has made it clear that he has the intent to continue to try, by virtue of his duplicity and secrecy, to continue to do so. That is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. It is a threat with respect to the potential of terrorist activities on a global basis. It is a threat even to regions near but not exactly in the Middle East." The Disgrace of John Kerry by Kevin Willmann Saturday, April 05, 2003

Oct 9, 1998: "We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others.

Oct 10, 1998: "We know from our largely unsuccessful attempts to enlist the cooperation of other nations, especially industrialized trading nations, in efforts to impose and enforce somewhat more ambitious standards on nations such as Iran, China, Burma and Syria, that the willingness of most other nations — including a number who are joined in the sanctions to isolate Iraq — is neither wide nor deep to join in imposing sanctions on a sovereign nation to spur it to `clean up its act' and comport its actions with accepted international norms." Senate Floor Speech Try to figure out what he just said there!

Sep 6, 2002: "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." Op-Ed, "We Still Have A Choice On Iraq," The New York Times

Oct 9, 2002: "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." Senate Speech

Oct 9, 2002: "The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation."

Oct 9, 2002: The Iraqi regime's record over the decade leaves little doubt that Saddam Hussein wants to retain his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and to expand it to include nuclear weapons. We cannot allow him to prevail in that quest. johnkerry.com speeches (Thanks Scot!)

Jan 23, 2003: "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."

Sep 14, 2003: “I don’t think anyone in the Congress is going to not give our troops ammunition, not give our troops the ability to be able to defend themselves. We’re not going to cut and run and not do the job.” (CBS’ “Face The Nation,”) (watch)

Sep 14, 2003: “I don’t think any United States senator is going to abandon our troops and recklessly leave Iraq to – to whatever follows as a result of simply cutting and running. That’s irresponsible. What is responsible is for the administration to do this properly now.” (CBS’ “Face The Nation,”) (watch)

Go read the rest: http://www.kerryquotes.com/

American casualties in Iraq: Misleading

US combat deaths in Iraq have reached the 800-mark.

The media, however, rarely breaks down the casualty figures into hostile (585) and non-hostile action categories (215).

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/148/nation/A_daily_look_at_U_S_military_d:.shtml

Why does this matter?

Non-hostile deaths can greatly influence perceptions of the course of the war and should always be noted separately.

For example, a C-17 transport plane crash due to non-hostile causes and claiming 200 Americans will serve as ammunition for propagandists only interested in diverting the course of the mission in Iraq.

As we have seen over the last year, antiwar organizations such as MoveOn.org (John Kerry's propaganda organ) and Democratic Presidential candidates Kerry, Dean, and Nader have routinely exploited and massaged the American death count to further their own agendas.

Germany to extradite Islamists without trial

Critics of the Patriot Act take note:

The compromise would notably make it easier to deport so-called "spiritual extremists," clerics who preach hate, as well as foreigners who are deemed to be a threat even if they have not been convicted.

Earlier France had banned Muslim headscarves in public places.

This is Kerry's Iraq Strategy?

Stung by criticism that he had contributed nothing worthwhile to the Iraq debate, John Kerry unveiled his strategy late last month, and less than two weeks later, it came apart at the seams.

For Kerry fans following that big speech (which built on his editorial in the Washington Post, the highlight of which was this lie) at the Westminster College titled “This moment in Iraq is a moment of truth”, the last few days must have come as a big disappointment.

But his critics can now confidently declare that Kerry is a mere poseur when it comes to foreign policy issues.

Let’s look at what he said.

“First, we must create a stable and secure environment in Iraq. That will require a level of forces equal to the demands of the mission. To do this right, we have to truly internationalize both politically and militarily… To accomplish this, we must do the hard work to get the world’s major political powers to join in this mission. To do so, the President must lead. He must build a political coalition of key countries, including the UK, France, Russia and China, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council, to share the political and military responsibilities and burdens of Iraq with the United States,” said Kerry.

Only days later, Bush disproved this flowery interpretation of reality. The President invited ministers from the G-8 to the White House and urged cooperation over Iraq only to be told by French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier that France would never contribute troops to Iraq.

Comparing Iraq to a “black hole” Barnier said that it was “out the question” for France to send troops to the aforementioned blackhole. “There will be no French soldiers in Iraq, not now and not later.” (Translation: Not under President Bush, not under President Kerry.)

Then, forgetting perhaps that France didn’t have any troops in Iraq, Barnier added: “We must get out of this black hole that is sucking up the Middle East and, beyond that, the world.”

Squashing doubts about whether this was the official word from Paris, a senior aide to Chirac said afterward that Barnier's declaration accurately reflected the position of the French government.

The official added that Chirac did not want the United States to think there was any possibility of the deployment of French troops to Iraq, even if there was a Security Council resolution transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people."

Kerry could have saved himself some chagrin had he simply been honest with the American public and said: “First we must shed more of our own blood and spend billions more of our own money and create a stable and secure environment in Iraq—only then, perhaps, if we grovel hard enough, we just might be able to convince the French and Germans to work with us to internationalize the transformation.”

To prove he is right, Kerry must get the French to execute a spectacular flip-flop--but don’t expect Paris to send troops until after the Americans single-handedly steady Iraq.

Continuing his internationalization theme, Kerry had this to offer: “In parallel, the President must also go to NATO members and others to contribute the additional military forces and to NATO to take on an organizing role. NATO is now a global security organization and Iraq must be one of its global missions…. To bring NATO members and others in, the President must immediately and personally reach out and convince them that Iraqi security and stability is a global interest that all must contribute to.”

And “in parallel”, Bush dialed up NATO last week. The German response: “Keineswegs!”

"We have heard calls for NATO to play an important role. I have my doubts as to whether NATO is really the right instrument," German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said Wednesday, a neat (if you were paying attention) flip-flop from his assertion prior to the U.S. led operation to depose Saddam.

In a television interview in December 2002, Schroeder assured the world that German soldiers would indeed take part in NATO operations in the event of a war against Iraq. "Germany will fulfill its obligations towards the alliance...and that naturally also means protecting alliance territory," he emphasized, that itself an intriguing flip-flop on an earlier campaign promise that he would not commit German troops to any operation against Saddam.

One minute, Iraq is “alliance territory” the next, it is a "black hole".

For months now, Kerry has been charging Bush with failure to cooperate with our so-called 'allies' but the reality is that Bush did go the UN and offered to put US troops under UN mandate--just as his father did in 1991--to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Kerry's favorite quartet--Russia, China, France, and Germany balked.

The Germans and the French, are in a preservation mode—the Axis of Weasel simply shrug and say they do not have the financial and military resources to help out in Iraq—and they are right: Western Europe’s military capabilities are quite pathetic in the extreme in comparison to the United States. But they are also cheap--Clinton couldn't even get them to pay for the Bosnian or Kosovo operations--fires in their own backyard.

So let’s not kid ourselves: as badly as France and Germany want to be on the right side of history, they will not venture into Iraq until they determine that it is absolutely safe for them to do so. And when they finally do show up in Baghdad, it will be to close on reconstruction deals and partake in treaty signing ceremonies delivered by American sacrifice.

Kerry must not have heard about the German official, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who, following the killing of a German aid worker in Iraq in March, triumphantly declared, “This horrible crime shows our position was right: the German Development Aid Ministry is deliberately not sending employees of state agencies to Iraq.”

A point to take from all this is that the Frenco-German resistance is partly premised on the racist viewpoint that European blood should not be shed for a people not yet ready for democracy. Most Europeans still believe that the better alternative was abandoning millions of Iraqis to suffer under the dual evil regimes of Saddam Hussein and UN sanctions. Sadly, this is what many in America, too, say and this is where Kerry finds his support.

Kerry has so far failed to explain how internationalization of Iraq would lessen the violence—after all, terrorists have sought out and blown up Poles, Spaniards, Russians, Chinese, Japanese, Danes, and Filipinos. They have also slaughtered hundreds of Iraqis; Arabs and Muslims; Shia and Kurd; women, elderly, and children; soldiers, school teachers, policemen, and aid workers. The killers don’t care whether their targets cooperate with the Americans—they want to seize power in Iraq and they need to get the Americans out so they will kill anyone, anytime, anywhere. The murderers know about the West's trepidations about combat casualties—they also realize that between them and Iraq and its oil wealth stands not a nuclear super-power, but one man—George W. Bush.

And then there is Kerry’s bizarre fetish with the UN—that morbid pantheon of anti-Americanism, which was as ineffective 30 years ago in Vietnam as it was 30 days ago in Sudan when Arab militias went on a rampage, killing 10,000, in the oil-rich Darfur region.

Bring in the UN and all will be okay, Kerry was plaintively arguing until very recently—until someone probably disclosed to him that the UN doesn’t have any troops of its own.

Further, UN member nations such as Poland and Australia have already committed troops—most democratic members of the UN support the Iraq mission—but just because the Axis of Weasel has opted to avenge losing Saddam as a trading partner by boycotting the operation doesn’t make the liberation of Iraq illegitimate. Far from it--continuing to punish innocent Iraqis through sanctions for Saddam was immoral and a violation of the spirit of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits collective punishment, but Kerry doesn’t say that.

Instead, he continues to insist that bringing the UN to Iraq will somehow suffuse the mission with instant legitimacy and deliberately ignores the fact that the Bush administration has never stopped the UN from sending troops or money or, at the very least, showering its “legitimacy” upon the mission.

Following the ouster of Saddam, the U.S. and Britain petitioned the UN for a lifting of all sanctions; the embargo was eventually lifted per a U.S.-British sponsored resolution and the UN went on to recognize (UNSCR 1500, 1511) the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council as the official interim government of Iraq. It had even sent in aid workers, but balked at sending troops.

One terrorist attack was all it took to send the UN scurrying from Iraq. Now it is back again—UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, per UNSCR 1511, is in Baghdad, busily selecting the next interim Iraqi government.

And once again the U.S. and Britain have tendered themselves to the senseless charade of obtaining UN “legitimacy” only to be told by people who haven’t lifted a finger in liberating Iraq that they have reservations about the latest U.S.-British draft resolution.

The moment of truth for Kerry, France and Germany had come and gone—they were on the wrong side of history for opposing Saddam’s removal and they haven't distinguished themselves by whining from the sidelines.

Saddam's WMD: Why Intent Matters

Would the discovery of ready-to-deploy WMD-—hundreds of glistening shells and missiles loaded with nasty chemicals just waiting to be discovered by U.S. troops—have convinced the Iraq war critics about Saddam's danger?

Not likely--the argument would have shifted--possession of WMD does not imply intent to use them, some would have charged.

Intent—this is the key word--because it doesn’t really matter what WMD Saddam had in his possession at the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). What does matter, however, is intent--did Saddam have the intent to pursue the development of WMD?

Both the CIA and David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group--the organization tasked with developing the full picture of Saddam's WMD programs--have concluded that Saddam and his sons had not only not abandoned their pursuit for WMD--they were impatiently awaiting a lifting of the sanctions so they could reconstitute their WMD program.

In other words, Saddam remained addicted to WMD, as Bush noted in Cincinnati in October 2002.

Catastrophe avoided? Given Saddam's track record, what other conclusion should we arrive at?

Whose side are the Democrats on?

Chris Dodd on with CNN's Judy Woodruff this afternoon made the same claim that John Kerry did yesterday about Bush's Iraq speech--"nothing new"; "no details".

The speech was as detailed as it could get without divulging critical information that could jeopardize the upcoming transfer of sovereignty--for example, revealing names of future interim Iraqi government members could make them targets for assassination.

But Dodd expressed a curious, if not unfamiliar, obsession on CNN: he insisted on knowing whether Iraqis will have veto on actions of US troops--apparently he prefers Iraqis to wield this veto over US troops--as do the Chinese, the Russians and the French.

Beebin' Bush

The BBC takes its frustrations with Bush to a whole new level--unflattering photos from tonight's speech on Iraq.

David Kay: "Absolutely prudent" to go to war

David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group, in his own words.

"It was absolutely prudent to go to war. The system was collapsing, Iraq was a country with desire to develop WMDs, and it was attracting terrorists like flies to honey."

Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2004

Senator McCain: “Saddam Hussein developed and used weapons of mass destruction; true?”
David Kay: “Absolutely.”

Senator McCain: “He used them against the Iranians and the Kurds; just yes or no.”
David Kay: “Oh, yes.”

Senator McCain: “OK. And U.N. inspectors found enormous quantities of banned chemical and biological weapons in Iraq in the '90s.”
David Kay: “Yes, sir.”

Senator McCain: “We know that Saddam Hussein had once a very active nuclear program.”
David Kay: “Yes.”

Senator McCain: “And he had ambitions to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.”
David Kay: “Clearly.”

Senator McCain: “So… if he were in power today, there is no doubt that he would harbor ambitions for the development and use of WMD. Is there any doubt in your mind?”
David Kay: “There's absolutely no doubt. And I think I've said that, Senator.”

"I actually think this may be one of those cases where it [Iraq] was even more dangerous than we thought. I think when we have the complete record, you're going to discover that after 1998 it became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection. And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood...of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated....": Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2004

In an interview in January 2004 with NBC's Tom Brokaw, Kay criticized skeptics who were diverting attention from the findings of the Iraq Survey Group:

Brokaw: The president described Iraq as a gathering threat — a gathering danger. Was that an accurate description?

Kay: I think that’s a very accurate description.

Brokaw: But an imminent threat to the United States?

Kay: Tom, an imminent threat is a political judgment. It’s not a technical judgment. I think Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened."

Euro/Oil War

Did the US get rid of Saddam because he switched to the Euro?

Nah--read it, learn it, and show off to your friends.

Bonus:
*China upgraded Saddam's missile defense systems with fiber-optics enhancing his ability to target US-British planes targeting the No Fly Zones--Bush bombed the facilities in February 2001.

* Saddam bribed Russia with 5-year, $40-billion deal.

Is John Howard a neocon?

Another Aussie editorial in support of staying the course in Iraq and urging Australians to send more troops to support the American-led Coalition. This follows Prime Minister John Howard's spectacular speech in which he argued that Iraq is a "complex and crucial contest of values and ideals".

It is a contest between the majority of Iraqis who want to establish a viable democracy and a violent and determined minority who want to install a new dictator or a Taliban–style regime in Iraq.

It is a contest of will – as the terrorists and insurgents try to use fear and intimidation to drive the forces that support the democratisation of Iraq – the coalition forces - out of Iraq.

Ultimately, it is a contest of conviction – whether the free world is prepared to protect and encourage democratic values. Those values Australians cherish – tolerance, opportunity, security and respect for one’s neighbours.

A wide range of contending forces in Iraq have demonstrated they are prepared to use violence, against both coalition forces and the Iraqi people,

to achieve their political objectives. Their motivations and their ambitions are complex, sometimes rooted in the old divisions between Sunni and Shia or ethnic and tribal tensions.

The jihadist terrorists – taking their inspiration from organisations like Al-Qaeda - are driven by a bigoted and distorted ideology that is the complete antithesis of our own and, we should remember, the vast majority of Muslims.

But we also need to understand that this contest in Iraq represents a critical confrontation in the war against terror. We recognise this and so do our enemies.

Why we should stay? Argues Howard:

I find it astonishing when people claim that Iraq is a diversion from the real war against terrorism. The reality is that international terrorism has invested an enormous amount in breaking the will of the coalition in Iraq.

Not only are organisations associated with al-Qaeda operating in Iraq but each and every turn of the Iraq struggle is interpreted by spokesmen for international terrorism as part of the ongoing campaign against the United States and her allies.