raise any hackles at all. Nope, not a single hackle.
- Jim
Larry C. Lyons wrote:
>http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/08/05/clinton_iraq040805
>
>Bush rushed into Iraq invasion: Clinton
>Last Updated Fri, 06 Aug 2004 10:11:24
>
>TORONTO - Former U.S. president Bill Clinton said Thursday he would
>have taken the word of United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix over
>U.S. intelligence reports about evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass
>destruction.
>
>"It's not a question of believing [Blix] over the intelligence
>agencies, but the intelligence was ambiguous on the point," Clinton
>said in an interview with CBC's The National.
>
>Blix led the UN weapons inspections in the months leading up to the
>U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
>
>His teams found little to support the pre-war assertions by the United
>States that Saddam Hussein's regime was actively developing and
>stockpiling chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
>
>"I certainly would have believed it enough to put [the war] off and
>try to build more support," said Clinton, referring to building a
>consensus among the international community before invading Iraq.
>
>"I mean, what was the hurry?" asked Clinton, who was in Toronto to
>sign copies of his best-selling memoir My Life.
>
>Recently, a U.S. Senate committee report criticized pre-war
>intelligence reports claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass
>destruction for being wrong and overstated.
>
>Clinton criticized the Bush administration for rushing into war with
>Iraq, saying the country posed a lesser threat to the U.S. compared
>with four other international hotspots.
>
>He accused the Bush administration of putting too much focus on Iraq,
>saying it diverted resources from the top threat to the U.S.: al-Qaeda
>and its leader Osama bin Laden.
>
>As an example, he spoke about the recent terror alert indicating a
>possible threat, based in part on four-year-old intelligence, to five
>financial institutions in the U.S.
>
>"Who's the threat from? Iraq? Saddam Hussein? No, from bin Laden and
>al-Qaeda," he said, adding that the U.S. only learned of the threat
>from Pakistani intelligence.
>
>"Why did we put our number 1 security threat in the hands of the
>Pakistanis with us playing a supporting role, and put all of our
>military resources in Iraq, which I think at best was our number 5
>security threat?
>
>"How did we get to the point where we got 130,000 troops in Iraq and
>15,000 in Afghanistan?"
>
>Clinton said the absence of a peace process in the Middle East, the
>conflict between India and Pakistan and their ties to the Taliban, and
>North Korea and its nuclear program all posed greater threats than
>Iraq.
>
>Written by CBC News Online staff
>
>
>Copyright � 2004 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved
>
>
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