You know, the IWR Dems should bring a friggin' copy to the debate

[jpgray]

So that the ignorant moderators and members of the press might learn something, along with the public. Here's this excerpt from that resolution, regarding requirements for the authorization to be in effect:

the President shall--

(1) certify to Congress that--

(A) Iraq is continuing to attempt to obtain conventional, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and carry out ballistic missile programs, and provide appropriate documentation thereof;

(B) Iraq poses an imminent threat to the United States or United States interests in the region, and provide appropriate documentation thereof;

(C) the United States has used all appropriate diplomatic and other peaceful means to obtain compliance by Iraq with the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, 677, and 678;

Bush certified all three of these things, and he lied about EVERY SINGLE ONE. Kerry, Edwards or Clark brings this fact up, the press dismisses it as waffling. It's in the bloody resolution, and the prez lied to everyone about it.

[9119495]

1. There you

go with friggin logic.

[mopinko]

2. and anyone who believed bush is an idiot

did anyone HERE believe he was gonna do all these things? and did they believe his assertions about saddam? robert byrd sure didn't. i will never forget his speech. i have to question the intelligence and integrity of anyone who heard that speech and didn't heed his warnings.

[Terwilliger]

4. Byrd did NOT govern the Dem party policy

maybe he should have

[jpgray]

5. Isn't Byrd just a Democrat who "has no principles" according to you? (nt)

[quaker bill]

6. On this we agree

Either he or Bob Graham would have served us well at that moment, at least they tried.

[Nicholas_J]

3. Exactly not

Bush did not certify any of these things, nor did the United States use all appropriate diplomatic and peaceful means to obtain compliance by Iraq with thethose mentioned resolutions.

Bush did not certify them, as a matter of fact he walked out on the regime of the inspectors . By the rules the U.N. set up estabishing UNMOVIC as the result of the terms ending the Gulf War, the procedure and steps taken when activating the use of UNMOVIC under resolution 1441 required that UNMOVIC make the final decision as to whether Saddam and Iraq were in violation of the terms set at the end of the Gulf War regarding destruction of WMD's which required and initial process that takes six months under the rules governing UNMOVIC. WHen Hans Blix gave his final report in June of 2003, this was the end of the six month procudure which was established under Resolution 1441. Which means that by accepting and agreeing voting on Resolution 1441, Bush agreed to allowing UNMOVIC to take six months to finish its initial report, which would have resulted in either them stateing that Saddam wither had complied with the eleimiation of WMD's/ had not complied, or he had not made it possible for UNMOVIC and IAEA to determine if he had or had not complied.

While Kerry and other Democrats had been 'fooled" by the information that Bush provided to them regarding WMD's, Bush was fooled by Kerry and Gephardt by agreeing to allow the legislation that Congress was working on to require hinm to go to the U.N.

Even Kucinich, whi did not sign the legislation used this portion of the legislation to try to sue the president in federal court to get an injunction to prevent Bush from going to war in Iraq before these diplomatic and peacful methods had been exhausted. The court ruled the case non-justiceable because Bush was still involved with the United Nations and the inspectors still in Iraq at the time the case was heard, so Bush was found not to be in breach of the act.

Bush did not certify any of the aforementioned conditions, as by going to the U.N. and signing onto resolution 1441, he agreed to allow UNMOVIC and IAEA to be the agencies which would certify this information.

And as soon as he decided to attack Iraq, virtually every Democratic Member of Congfress stated that he had not made that case or certified that this was the case.

Now Biden-Lugar was less demanding of the president regarding what was required in order to go to war in Iraq, merely stating that the president had to present his concerns and suspicions that Iraq was engaged in the production of banned weapons, and did not require him to provide any substantial evidence that Iraq presented an imminent threat, but actually allowed for the president to act if there was evidence of future threat. Dean himself supported that act, and also Dean was the first of the Democratic candidates to set conditions for unilateral attack on Iraq. Dena set these conditions on January 29th, one week before the resolution was signed, on CBS Face the Nation:

FTN - 09/29/02
WASHINGTON


GOV. HOWARD DEAN, D-VT: Not quite yet. There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the United States and to our allies. The question is, is he an immediate threat? The president has not yet made the case for that.

I think it may very well be, particularly with the news that we've had over the weekend; that we are going to end up in Iraq. But I think it's got to be gone about in a very different way. It really is important to involve our allies, to bring other people into the coalition, to get a decent resolution out of the U.N. Security Council...

DEAN: Sure, I think the Democrats have pushed him into that position and the Congress, and I think that's a good thing. And I think he is trying to do that. We still get these bellicose statements.

Look, it's very simple. Here's what we ought to have done. We should have gone to the U.N. Security Council. We should have asked for a resolution to allow the inspectors back in with no pre-conditions. And then we should have given them a deadline saying "If you don't do this, say, within 60 days, we will reserve our right as Americans to defend ourselves and we will go into Iraq."


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/30/ftn/printable523726.shtml

In this same interview, Dean states that he beleives the presdent has correctly reported that Saddam posseses and is trying to make more advanced WMD's. Dean pretty much states the same things Kerry and the others who signed the resolution state, that the president must prove that there is some imminent threat, as is noted in the sections of the resolution that you noted above, There is nothing in the document in and of itself that gives the president the authority to act in Iraq before providing the evidence in his certification.

But Dean also repeats the same conditions and time constraints for going to war in a Salon.com interview almost five months later, and a month before the president attacked Iraq:


Salon: On the campaign trail with the un-Bush

"As I've said about eight times today," he says, annoyed -- that Saddam must be disarmed, but with a multilateral force under the auspices of the United Nations. If the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice."

http://www.howardsmusings.com/2003/02/20/salon_on_the_campaign_trail_with_the_unbush.html


can't have it both ways..

To set conmditions whicjh pretty much matched what Bush did, go to the U.N. and if they do not chooise to enforce their own resolutions or if Saddam does not disarm, go to war within 30 - 60 days of engaging the U.N.

This show an profound lack of awareness, on of the U.N. procedures surrounding its inspection regime, which in and of itself requires a minimum of six months under the rules governing that process.

However, Congressional Democrats were quite aware of the process that Bush was agreeing to. Certainly Kerry was, who met with the members of the Security Council several weeks before the resolution was finalized, and asked the other members of this body what they wanted to see in a resolution that would require the U.S. to go to the U.N. with issues regarding Iraq and Saddams regime.