John Edwards' lame Iraq war mea culpa

[Bloodblister Bob]

Beware other pols who now suddenly see the light:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe60.html

[Mass]

1. So, you would have preferred he did not see the light?

Talk about circular firesquad.

[RoBear]

6. Amen to that.

I'm beginning to think Jeebus himself wouldn't please some people...

[RoyGBiv]

2. Beware libertarians ...

Period.

[SunDrop23]

4. Bingo.

[Noisy Democrat]

3. Interesting but possible mistake

I've seen other people making the same mistake recently. Here's the letter I just sent to that writer:

John Edwards wrote that he regretted his October 11, 2002 vote on the Iraq War Resolution, which he also co-sponsored (though he didn't mention that in the editorial).

You write "And he might also have asked himself why teams of UN weapons inspectors were unable to find any of the weapons that the neocons insisted were in Iraq. Furthermore, if Bush and the neocons knew where the weapons were…why didn’t they tell the inspectors? Apparently, this question was too abstract to enter the senator’s consciousness."

The weapons inspectors had been kicked out of Iraq since 1998. It was only in December, 2 months after the Iraq War Resolution passed, that they were re-admitted to Iraq. In March, they reported that they had not found any WMDs. At that point Bush apparently realized that the inspectors threatened to undermine his excuse for the war, so he ordered them out and launched the invasion.

Certainly, people could have asked why the inspectors weren't finding weapons, why Bush's people didn't tell them where they were, etc., beginning in December 2002. But myy question is, how could Senator Edwards or any other senator, in October 2002, have asked himself *anything* about what the inspectors had or hadn't found, when they hadn't been let back in yet? When, in fact, getting the inspectors back in was the reason given by many Democrats for their vote in favor of the IWR? I'm wondering whether you have the sequence of historical events out of order or whether there's another explanation for your statement.

[cyr330]

11. Yellow Cake Uranium

The story of the Yellow Cake was out and was ubiquitous at the time; there's no way he wouldn't have known about it-- I even knew it from reading different public sources.

On edit: What I mean to say is that it was known that the documents had been forged and were false.

[Double T]

5. The WH fabricated or had the evidence fabricated for going to war......

with Iraq. Congress only received the fabricated evidence, they were not the fabricators of the evidence. For the WH to now say that everyone was looking at the same evidence is just plain BS. IF Congress had known the WH FABRICATED evidence for going to war with Iraq, I'm not certain there would ever have been an IRAQ WAR.

[stray cat]

7. Lets join the republicans in beating up the dems.

NOT!

[yurbud]

8. It's a step in the right direction, but they should be honest about

why they voted for it.

No one with half a brain believed that Saddam was a threat to the US even if he had a dozen nukes. Few people sitting on trillions of dollars worth of oil are suicidal.

While the average American might not realize this, you couldn't be a US senator and be that fucking stupid (Rick Santorum a possible exception).

People like Edwards were either convinced that seizing Saddam's oil would somehow be good for our economy, they were afraid of the oil companies and banks that stood to gain from the war, or they were on their payroll.

Until Democrats address the real motives for the war, their current conversion on the issue could just be shining us on to get us through the '06 midterm election.

It's time for the Dems to stop talking about the bullshit case for the war, and only address the real motives, which will embarrass and shut up the GOP (as well as being the morally and democratically correct thing to do).

I want to hear a Democrat say that invading countries to steal their oil in not a legitimate energy or foreign policy--then I'll know they are serious.

[keta11]

9. John Edwards thinks he is slick!!

I would not buy a used car from unprincipled mealy mouth politicians like him.

Keep on trucking!!!

[occuserpens]

10. "Inaccurate intelligence"

http://tinyurl.com/e25zz