Thomas the Rhymer - 24 Mar 04 - 10:09 AM

What on earth are you rambling on about? In 1998 Clinton identified regime change in Iraq as being required for the good of the region and in the interests of world peace.

"Clinton was concerned about the terrorist threat... with constant briefings from 'responsibly informed' individuals..."

Yes Thomas, exactly the same "responsibly informed" individuals were briefing GWB (George Tenet and good old Richard 'Pre-emptive Strike' Clarke) - Your Point?

"But he was not obsessed with Saddam. Concerned, yes... weren't you?"

Concerned enough to maintain the "no-fly" zones? Concerned enough to pre-emptively an unilaterally launch the bombing offensive otherwise know as "Desert Fox"? Concerned enough to openly declare that the United States would give 100% backing to anyone who would remove Saddam Hussein from power? Naw, that's not being obsessed with Saddam is it? As to Saddam being a cause of concern to me, yes he was, but obviously not to most, yourself included, who post to this forum. On your apparent preferred course of action Saddam would still be in power, the recent UNMOVIC and IAEA inspections would never have happened and the UN would still be doing absolutely nothing about Iraq.

"Clinton knew that Al-Quida must be stopped. His priorities were correct." AL-QAEDA had to be stopped, was Clinton's view and Clinton's priority was it? Not according to Samuel Berger, or Pre-emptive Clarke. The Clinton administration's policy was to contain Al-Qaeda, it was the Bush administration whose policy was to stop Al-Qaeda. In reality, at best all that was managed under the Clinton administration was that the US could only react to anything Al-Qaeda attempted. Clinton & Co never once made any attempt at wresting the initiative from the terrorists.

"Bush dropped the ball when he was elected..." Your opinion, probably borrowed from Pre-emptive, who is currently trying to sell his book - It's certainly not mine.

Irrespective of the 2000 election result, 9/11 would have happened with whoever was sitting in the White House.

Immediate reaction by the Bush Administration was to identify who was responsible, focus the world's attention on the problem of international terrorism problem and attack Al-Qaeda in the only safe haven Al-Qaeda thought they had. Hear any complaints from the "responsibly informed" at this stage in the proceedings? - No, not a whisper.

This process was then taken further to evaluate potential future threats to the United States of America, her allies and her interests. The risk evaluation threw up the possibilty of a rogue state supporting, supplying and assisting an international terrorist organisation on an attack on the US using WMD. By this time, others in the Bush Administration responsible with security, are way ahead of Richard Clarke (Old Pre-emptive is still riding his own old hobby-horse). Potential rogue states were identified, most prominent was Iraq, did the Bush administration just go in guns blazing - did they hell - they went to the United Nations. And if anyone was guilty of dropping the ball it was the UN - mind you the UN are rather good at doing that.

Full plate ttr? Hell you can't even muster enough in terms of point, fact or arguement to make the hors d'oeuvres. By all means keep servin' up your tripe.