Dick Cheney's fantasy world - "GROSS MISREPRESENTATION OF THE FACTS" - By Scott Ritter

[kpete]

Dick Cheney's fantasy world
Despite the facts, the vice-president still insists that Saddam Hussein could have produced weapons of mass destruction
.........

The vice-president should re-check both his history and his facts. Just prior to President Bush's decision to invade Iraq, the UN had teams of weapons inspectors operating inside Iraq, blanketing the totality of Iraq's industrial infrastructure. They found no evidence of either retained WMD, or efforts undertaken by Iraq to reconstitute a WMD manufacturing capability. Whatever dual-use industrial capability that did exist (so-called because the industrial processes involved to produce legitimate civilian or military items could, if modified, be used to produce materials associated with WMD) had been so degraded as a result of economic sanctions and war that any meaningful WMD production was almost moot. To say that Saddam had the capability or the technology to produce WMD at the time of the US invasion is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

...........................

Cheney defended the invasion and subsequent removal of Saddam from power by noting that "this was a bad actor and the country's better off, the world's better off with Saddam gone". This is the argument of the intellectually feeble. It would be very difficult for anyone to articulate that life today is better in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra or any non-Kurdish city than it was under Saddam. Ask the average Iraqi adult female if she is better off today than she was under Saddam, and outside of a few select areas in Kurdistan, the answer will be a resounding "no".

The occupation of Iraq by the United States is far more brutal, bloody and destructive than anything Saddam ever did during his reign. When one examines the record of the US military in Iraq in terms of private homes brutally invaded, families torn apart and civilians falsely imprisoned (the prison population in Iraq during the US occupation dwarfs that of Saddam's regime), what is clear is that the only difference between the reign of terror inflicted on the Iraqi people today and under Saddam is that the US has been far less selective in applying terror than Saddam ever was.

...............

Invading Iraq and removing Saddam, the glue that held that nation together as a secular entity, was the worst action the US could have undertaken for the people of Iraq, the Middle East as a whole and indeed the entire world. For Cheney to articulate otherwise, regardless of his fundamentally flawed argument on WMD, only demonstrates the level to which fantasy has intruded into the mind of the vice-president.

more at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/16/dick-cheney-iraq-war-wmd

[lunatica]

1. Scott Ritter is a patriot and a hero

Every single thing he's said has turned out to be the facts. Thanks Kpete

[JackRiddler]

2. Here's a fifth rec.

[unblock]

3. he does not live in that fantasy world

he can't possibly believe the lies he's spinning. he's too involved in their creation not to know they're lies.

the fantasy world is a web of lies of his design, but it's not for him to live in -- it's the fantasy world that he hopes the american public will live in. and he's been successful enough at keeping enough of the public there for long enough to keep him in power for 8 long, painful years.

as long as the american public has accepted that fantasy world, cheney's been free to do what he really wanted to do in iraq:

1 - get revenge on saddam (actually shrub's goal more than cheney's)
2 - disrupt a major, competing oil supplier, thereby jacking up prices and profits for domestic and other competing oil suppliers
3 - provide a convenient excuse to steer many billions to political donors such as halliburton.
4 - get rocks off on vicarious rape and pillage.

[Botany]

4. #3 is right

under H.W. he outsourced pentagon work to the private sector
under Clinton he was head of one of the companies that got the
outsourced work
under W he lied to start a war and made big bucks

[90-percent]

5. Scott

Scott is an unrelenting modern American hero in an age when all our leaders and institutions are proving to be utterly dishonorable.

Obama should make Scott Secretary of State or something.

-90% jimmy

[Martin Eden]

6. It is NAUSEATING to see Cheney and Bush on TV trying to rewrite history

That we haven't seen them behind bars instead is also nauseating.

On the other hand, most Americans probably have no clue as to who Scott Ritter is.

[90-percent]

7. Speaking of Scott

Does anybody know of his speaking schedule?

Every time I hear about him speaking close by, it's always a day too late!

-90% jimmy