[scooobiedooobie]

Originally posted by JackSpratts
it's a very fair quote from a major advocate/architect of the invasion.

fyi...here are some other fair quotes from paul wolfowitz...

If I can quote the President, the President said we had a choice, which was to "either take the word of a mad man," and I would add a mad man and a proven liar, "or take action to defend the American people. And faced with that choice," the President said, "I will defend America every time." That's what we had to do.

This word imminent keeps coming up. The President never said that there was an imminent threat. We can argue about what was imminent. The attack of September 11th I would argue was imminent long before September 10th, and that's one of the problems we face in this era.

I mean stop and think about that hole in which we found Saddam Hussein hiding. He hid in a hole like that for nine months. That's a big enough hole to contain enormous lethal quantities of anthrax or other biological weapons. There could be such stashes still in Iraq. There could be Iraqi weapons moved to Syria or to other countries. Almost certainly, and I think this is even implied by David Kay, there were definitely a capability to go into surge production once Saddam Hussein got rid of the inspectors. That's the basic point here.

This is a man, Saddam, who for 12 years hid his programs from inspectors. Even as the war was going on his people went in and deliberate destroyed records, deliberately destroyed laboratories that we have every reason to believe were doing research and development on biological weapons, and even after the liberation of Baghdad the people that we were trying to get to cooperate with us were being threatened and in at least one case murdered.

So it's a regime that had a lot to hide, I think still is hiding things, and that in those circumstances you don't get the whole truth I don't think should be a surprise. What is impressive to me is how many things our intelligence community has discovered that are right about Iraq and about other countries including, as George Tenet spoke the other day, Libya, Iran, North Korea.

Originally posted by JackSpratts
i've read the entire lengthy transcript (which even you haven't bothered to post) and there's nothing in it that contradicts his statement.

sure you read it! you posted your quotes without any link at all. i had to go find the transcript to post it...which i did, in my last post. how could you read it, if you didn't even see it?


more from paul wolfowitz.....

Wolfowitz Defends Administration's Pre-War Reading of Intelligence

February 9, 2004

Says that Hussein's regime had a lot to hide

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz defends the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq based on the intelligence that was available at the time, rather than on the word of Saddam Hussein, whom he characterizes as "a madman and a proven liar."

During a February 6 interview with San Diego's KOGO news radio, the deputy secretary stated, "You don't have the luxury before the fact of basing your decisions on what you may learn later." He added, "You've got to base it on what you know at the time."

The deputy secretary also pointed out that investigations into Iraq's weapons programs are continuing and could still reveal stashes of chemical and biological weapon materials.

"There could be such stashes still in Iraq. There could be Iraqi weapons moved to Syria or to other countries," he said. "Almost certainly, and I think this is even implied by David Kay, there [was] definitely a capability to go into surge production once Saddam Hussein got rid of the inspectors."

Wolfowitz called attention to the Baath regime's efforts to destroy files during and after the war and stated, "It's a regime that had a lot to hide, I think still is hiding things, and that in those circumstances you don't get the whole truth I don't think should be a surprise."

The deputy secretary highlighted instances in which the intelligence community has produced accurate information, and added, "in most of those cases when the violators have been caught they have made some kind of agreement, more or less grudging, to open up -- Libya is the best case so far, of opening up and apparently being willing to dismantle those programs."

He continued, "In the case of Iraq we had exactly the opposite kind of behavior where Saddam repeatedly lied and frustrated and blocked inspections and I think people have to say what was it that he was hiding?"

http://www.iwar.org.uk/news-archive/2004/02-09-2.htm