There has been some debate over how “imminent” a threat Iraq poses. I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat, but I also believe that after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. It is in the nature of these weapons, and the way they are targeted against civilian populations, that documented capability and demonstrated intent may be the only warning we get. To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? We cannot!
That was Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on October 10, 2002.
This was Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on September 9, 2006:
Rockefeller went a step further. He says the world would be better off today if the United States had never invaded Iraq — even if it means Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq.
He said he sees that as a better scenario, and a safer scenario, “because it is called the ‘war on terror.'”
Does Rockefeller stands by his view, even if it means that Saddam Hussein could still be in power if the United States didn’t invade?
“Yes. [Saddam] wasn’t going to attack us. He would’ve been isolated there,” Rockefeller said. “He would have been in control of that country but we wouldn’t have depleted our resources preventing us from prosecuting a war on terror which is what this is all about.”
I don’t know about you, but since the 9/11 Commission called not disrupting the plot a “failure of imagination”, I would rather my President and Congress err on the side of too much imagination in order to stop future attacks from terror groups or nations that helped support terror groups.
I guess Sen. Rockefeller has changed his mind on that entire fundamental question.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
I think that the original David Rockefeller was replaced by his evil twin Teddy.
#0 – Particularly note Rockefeller saying, “I do believe that Iraq poses an imminent threat”!
How interesting that it was a Democrat, yes folks a DEMOCRAT, who said that.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld never tried to say that (or immediately corrected themselves, if they did by accident). Bush said, roughly (my paraphrase here), “Iraq’s not imminent but we see the threat down the line and in a post-911 we can’t wait for it to become imminent – we have to start dealing with these things pre-emptively.”
Yet Democrats – ones who saw the exact same intelligence as Bush, by the way – were explicitly calling Saddam’s threat “imminent”.
I’m going on about this because it explains one of life’s great mysteries: why this blog’s crazed Left puppets insist, against all evidence, that Bush somehow called the Iraq threat “imminent”.
He didn’t – but the *Democratic* leadership did. The claim reached the ears of Democrats and lodged in their memories, because it had been said by *their* leaders. Mystery explained.
Well, Cal, it just demonstrates Peter’s Principle of Politics #41 – if a demoncRAT says one thing during a RAT presidency and another under a GOP president, it means that the first one doesn’t count.
Scribes, Pharisees and Hypocrites all.
Regards,
Peter Hughes
“Damn you Algore for inventing the internet!”
OT- Hippos Devour Somalia!
http://allafrica.com/stories/200609130085.html