Reply #78: "Full inspection". There was never going to be an acceptable inspection. [View All]

[JTFrog]

And this is why:

Hillary was one of the most vocal democrats pushing for the IWR. In her speech she proved that not only did she know she was voting for war, but she even laid out the path to being able to use force the same way her husband did.

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0303-23.htm

See Hillary Run (from Her Husband's Past on Iraq)
by Scott Ritter

Senator Hillary Clinton wants to become President Hillary Clinton. "I'm in, and I'm in to win," she said, announcing her plans to run for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 Presidential election. Let there be no doubt that Hillary Clinton is about as slippery a species of politician that exists, one who has demonstrated an ability to morph facts into a nebulous blob which blurs the record and distorts the truth. While she has demonstrated this less than flattering ability on a number of issues, nowhere is it so blatant as when dealing with the issue of the ongoing war in Iraq and Hillary Clinton's vote in favor of this war.

This issue won't be resolved even if Hillary Clinton apologizes for her Iraq vote, as other politicians have done, blaming their decision on faulty intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities. This is because, like many other Washington politicians at the time, including those now running for president, she had been witness to lies about Iraq's weapons programs to justify attacks on that country by her husband President Bill Clinton and his administration.

"While there is no perfect approach to this thorny dilemma, and while people of good faith and high intelligence can reach diametrically opposed conclusions, I believe the best course is to go to the UN for a strong resolution that scraps the 1998 restrictions on inspections and calls for complete, unlimited inspections with cooperation expected and demanded from Iraq," Senator Clinton said at the time of her vote, in a carefully crafted speech designed to demonstrate her range of knowledge and ability to consider all options. "I know that the Administration wants more, including an explicit authorization to use force, but we may not be able to secure that now, perhaps even later. But if we get a clear requirement for unfettered inspections, I believe the authority to use force to enforce that mandate is inherent in the original 1991 UN resolution, as President Clinton recognized when he launched Operation Desert Fox in 1998."

Hillary would have done well to leave out that last part, the one where her husband, the former President of the United States, used military force as part of a 72-hour bombing campaign ostensibly deemed as a punitive strike in defense of disarmament, but in actuality proved to be a blatant attempt at regime change which used the hyped-up threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for action. Sound familiar? While many Americans today condemn the Bush administration for misleading them with false claims of unsubstantiated threats which resulted in the ongoing debacle we face today in Iraq (count Hillary among this crowd), few have reflected back on the day when the man from Hope, Arkansas sat in the Oval Office and initiated the policies of economic sanctions-based containment and regime change which President Bush later brought to fruition when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

...much more at link


Scott Ritter served as a former Marine Corps officer from 1984 until 1991, and as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 until 1998. He is the author of several books, including "Iraq Confidential" and "Target Iran". He also co-authored "War on Iraq" with William Pitt.