I don’t know what’s so great about Helen Thomas except her Arab heritage, her biased anti-Israel provocations and the number of years she is sitting in the White House Press Room. Bush knew why he preferred to ignore her and I hope that Obama will do it as well.

Muslim extremists want Israel and its allies removed from the face of the earth.

“Can someone remind me when it was that the Bush administration said we were going to war with Iraq because they ignored sanctions?”

Sept. 12, 2002 ……Further, Iraq possesses numbers of Scud missiles capable of hitting many cities in the region and beyond.

The president said Saddam Hussein has ignored or subverted every agreement he signed following the Persian Gulf War. “To assume this regime’s good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble,” he said. “This is a risk we must not take.”

Bush listed the number of times the United Nations has demanded Iraq live by its agreement. He said the international organization has been more than patient.

“We’ve tried sanctions. We’ve tried the carrot of oil-for- food and the stick of coalition military strikes,” he said. “But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one.

“We owe it to all our citizens to do everything in our power to prevent that day from coming,” he said.

Bush said that if Iraq wants peace and an end to U.N. sanctions, it must take a number of steps:

Immediately and unconditionally foreswear, disclose, and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long- range missiles and all related material.

Immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it.

Cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds and others.

Release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. U.S. Navy pilot Cmdr. Jeffrey Speicher is one of those still missing.

Immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for- food program. Accept U.N. administration of funds from that program to ensure the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Bush said that if Iraq takes these steps, it will “signal a new openness and accountability in Iraq.” But if Saddam Hussein thumbs his nose at the United Nations, he said, “the world must move deliberately, decisively, to hold Iraq to account.”

The president said the United States will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions, but the purposes of the United States should not be doubted.

“The Security Council resolutions will be enforced, the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable, and a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power,” Bush said.

26 February 2002 “The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away. The danger must be confronted. We hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm, fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed.”

25 October 2002 “I made it clear to the President of China that I am interested in seeing to it that the United Nations is effective — effective in disarming Saddam Hussein. That’s what the United Nations has said for 11 years, that Saddam ought to disarm. And, therefore, any resolution that evolves must be one which does the job of holding Saddam Hussein to account. That includes a rigorous, new and vibrant inspections regime, the purpose of which is disarmament, not inspections for the sake of inspections.”

Thank You Sara! I didn’t want to have to dig all that up, great posts. Progressives have very short memories, as is painfully evident here at the new version of MSNBC on line.

Why then, when Iraq was allowing inspectors in and trying to follow UN provisions, did Bush invade Iraq? It seems that the Conservatives are using revisionist history. Helen Thomas’ point was that maybe we are being attacked now because we are attacking other countries indiscriminately. And the Iraq war is a prime example of us not attacking terrorists and actually creating terrorists in countries where there were none before.

SVPHarper says,

Because they were blocking access to places the inspector needed to go. They were NOT letting them
do their jobs.

Conservatives always try to rewrite history. What Helen Thomas said is true. And our media is so lazy they are beginning to swap out the word “terrorist” with anyone in Afghanistan.

They already call everyone at Gitmo terrorists, when official charges have only been brought against a few. The right is fond of calling them all terrorists, while it is clear that not all of the people rounded up were in fact terrorists. Already 250 + have been let go because they were just at the wrong place, wrong time and happened to be arab-looking. Just because a 19-year-old soldier from Kentucky thinks you look suspicious and you were near where sniper fire was, off you go on a plane to Cuba. 6 years later, “oops, sorry about that.”

Amazingly, Obama had to deay closing Gitmo because there were no comprehensive files concerning many of the detainees under Bush. Assembling the available evidence about them could take weeks or months, but Obama will thankfully close this affront of a recruting tool for the real terrorists overseas.

Cons don’t get me wrong–I am sure there are a bunch of actual bad guys at Gitmo, but the fact is they are not ALL terrorists. And that fact was bore out by the over 250 Bush released and interviews with released British detainees.