Tuesday, June 07, 2005

"Steve" asks Bush & Blair the big DSM question. Blair bullshits. Bush uh ah . . . "the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power".

This excerpt from this afternoon's joint press conference is cut and pasted, without additions, deletions, added emphasis, or snarky asides (it wasn't easy), directly from the first official transcript at whitehouse.gov:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Steve.

Q Thank you, sir. On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law.

He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action.

But all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. As it happened, we weren't able to do that because -- as I think was very clear -- there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I -- you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I'm not sure who "they dropped it out" is, but -- I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there. (Laughter.) And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth.

My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations -- or I went to the United Nations. And so it's -- look, both us of didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option. The consequences of committing the military are -- are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the President is to try to comfort families who've lost a loved one in combat. It's the last option that the President must have -- and it's the last option I know my friend had, as well.

And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a -- put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.


I like that the whitehouse.gov transcriptionist put the "(Laughter)" tag in after Bush's first incoherent stumbles. But didn't George know this question was coming? Didn't they program an answer into the electronic box on his back? Isn't it embarassing that our President can't be as slimy and slick as their Prime Minister? And how long is it going to be before George calls on "Steve" again?

Just asking,
True Blue Liberal

3 comments:

True Blue Liberal said...

Dear Alan S,
Well, if you and Bush and Blair say it's BS, I guess it must be BS (but I'm confused; what do your mention of John Kerry's IQ, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and liberals have to do with the validity of this document and its relevance to the causes of the current, illegal, invasion and war?).

Anonymous said...

"Isn't the world better off without Saddam?"

Geee... they are getting so pathetically desperate for any fuckin' excuse. Bullshit after bullshit non stop, new reasons invoked all the time, and all they can come up with now is this ridiculous piece of shit.

The mind boggles. Those guys are an embarrassment to the human species.

DBK said...

Alan S, I am actually going to respond even though you are really just a ditto-head posting absolutely moronic sound-bites as if you have a point to make.

O'Neill, former Bush Sec'y of the Treasury, said the same things were part of the admin's approach in the book that Suskind wrote about him, and confirmed Suskind's reports. Richard Clarke said the same things as in the memo, as TBL reports. In fact, this memo was confirmed and affirmed by the statements of many former members of the Bush administration before the memo was made public. Also, you misrepresent. What everyone is calling for is a real investigation into the valditity of the memo, not a blanket affirmation of it. If it is true, it is serious business. Considering that there is so much smoke, and considering that there are so many credible people who affirm the statements in the memo, wouldn't a true American and a patriot want to know if it were true or not? Wouldn't someone interested in making informed choices want to know if it were true or not?

And finally, and snottily, I know that Alan S wouldn't want to know if it were true or not because he is neither a patriot nor interested in informed choices.