Thank you, T-Bird, fir interpreting my slip of 9/11 not linked to AlQuida... It was just that... Of course I meant Iraq...

Now, back to the "mushroom cloud" comment made by Condi Rice. During that week of hyper selling of the coming invasion of Iraq the "mushroom cloud" lines dribbled from the mouths of many in the Bush administration. The intent was to make the masses think they were in danger, imminent or otherwise... The words were darefully cobbled together to give that very distinct impression. The CIA told them there was no credible evidence. Scott Ritter was trying to tell anyone who would listen. Tehn came the "aluminum tubes" story which was supposed to support the first story. Then the story about how Saddam was trying to secure high grade uranium from Africa... All the while the CIA was saying, "No, no, no..." But the stories kept coming and the PR bandwagen for war was rolling so fasr and hard that these stories weren't seriously challenged. Now we know that all these stories were just that: stories.

Is this not yet concedable or do we need to hash this bit of recent history over and over... And lets not go down that "define is" road on this one. All the twisting in the world doesn't change that what I have presented here is fairly accurate.

Now, T-Bird, you are correct in that the *full* 9/11 Comission has not made its final report but there have been statements by members of both parties that Iraq was not involved in 9/11. Again, you can argue semantics if that what you want to do but the statements havre been made. And I would guess that since this may be the most damaging aspe3ct of its final report that the Repubs would just as soon have that out now rather than later since it does not bode well for Bush and Cheney's credibility and allows time for the American people to get beyond that prior to the convention and final report by the Comission.

So, I think it fair to take those two reasons for the invasion off the table unless folks want to keep them alive for some sentimental reasons or for academic wrangling exercises...

So that leaves the WMD out of the Big Three.

Well, with every passing day it looks as if that story might have been hatched up by the same PR folks as the "mushroom cloud" and the "Iraq involvement in 9/11" stories.

So we're really down to the Big Three prewar stories and one big post war ("Saddam was a bad man") story.

Well, yeah, Saddam was a bad man. Given that the Big Three were just PR spins to sell Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle's 1992 plan to attack and occupy Iraq, I guess the "Saddam is a bad man" is all we are left with in the way of excusing killing upwards of 20,000 Iraq'a, injuring countless more, killing almost 800 Americans and seriously injuring upwards of 20,000, many who will be disabled fir life. Yup, down to "Saddam was a bad man"... That's a miserable excuse for foriegn policy. If taht's what this was all about, why not just kill Saddam? Oh, the US doesn't do that? Is that your final answer?

And, yo, PeterK... Whereas you find lots of pleasue in making statements that I don't pay attention to facts, I challenge you to respond specificlly to anything in this post that you *feel* are not factual.

You and yer bud, the T-Bird, think you can just out academic folks over word twisting but I'd bet that most of the folks here would agree that what I have presented is pretty much the way things went down. After all, we were all here arguing over it while it was happening. It isn't like we're trying to pinpoint the exaxct date that the last dinosaur died. I mean, we were all witnesses to these events, dang it... Maybe you weren't watching and listening but most of us here in the Catbox sure as heck were...

Bobert