Hey Prop Joe, if you are correct, then here's what Bush-Cheney SHOULD have said:

"Honestly, we don't know if Iraq has any WMD in 2003. We know Saddam used chemical weapons in 1988 against Iran and again in 1991 against the Kurds; and while we believe his arsenal was destroyed more than a decade ago after the [1st] Gulf War, we just don't want to take any chances. In fact, we believe this so strongly that we think it best to break off the hunt for Osama bin-Laden and drop the war against al-Qaeda at this time in order to remove Saddam Hussein, even though the aftermath is certain to be bloody and costly and U.S. forces will need to be committed to Iraq for the next ten years or more."

Had they told the truth, an honest debate could have taken place in the U.S. Congress and at the U.N. Instead,, they lied (perhaps you prefer "made false statements of fact") about reconstituted nuclear weapons and mushroom clouds, mobile weapons labs and 45-minute delivery systems, aluminum tubes and yellowcake from Africa, and terrorist training camps "in a part of Iraq not under Saddam's control," whatever that means. Not a word of it was true, but anyone who dared question their lies (excuse me, "knowing or reckless false statements of fact") was promptly labeled a dupe, a traitor, or a terrorist appeaser with the enthusiastic aid of the jingo cheerleaders in the corporate media.

There might be a lack of understanding regarding the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact. If I say my car is nice, or Saddam Hussein is evil, that's an opinion. If I tell you my car is (only) 2000 miles old, or there is "no doubt" Saddam Hussein currently possesses WMD, that's a statement of fact. If my car really has 202,000 miles on it, or there are no WMD, it's a lie. And if you buy my car or start a war based on my lie, that's fraud.

Bush-Cheney made numerous false statements of fact concerning non-existent WMD and connections to 9/11. It's not a defense that others were made to believe and repeat their lies -- especially when the president and vice-president are at the top of the intelligence pyramid and have unrivalled access to the latest and best information. Bush & Cheney -- not Bill Clinton, not Hillary Clinton, not the CIA or CNN, not the U.N., and not the French, Germans, or Russians -- ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq. History will not be impressed with the ham-handed effort to give Junior plausible deniability by only showing him a handful of cherry-picked fabrications (a/k/a "the same intelligence Congress saw").

Two questions:

1) Are you saying that, but for the Army, throngs of cheering newly-liberated Iraqis would have led U.S. forces to Osama bin-Laden and to stockpiles of non-existent WMD?

2) Does the 'Small Wars Manual' say anything about invasions of Muslim countries based on lies about WMD and 9/11 being fundamentally doomed to failure? (Should it?)

Do you think the unwillingness and/or inability of pro-war military and ex-military folks like you to face the most fundamental issue underlying the ongoing U.S. presence in Iraq just might have something to do with the American failure and disaster there?

Kevin, you raise the point that Sgt. Rock should've. I thought of it, prior to my earlier post, in terms of Jose Ferrer's speech at the end of "The Caine Mutiny", that the United States was defended by people like Capt. Queeg at a time when the rest of us had better things to do, because "we all KNEW you can't make any money in the service," etc.

I dismissed that argument, however, on the grounds that a career in today's officer corps is much more lucrative and opens many more doors than in the 1930's, and because, in the end, it's still no excuse for the partisanship of the U.S. military and the end of its 200-year tradition of avoiding the political fray, which does spell the end of the Republic.

From the hassling of non-believers by evangelicals at the Air Force Academy, to the (until now) strong support of a Crusade in the Middle East despite the fact that all of the reasons given for the war have long-since been proven to be lies, the U.S. military has lost its way, and has become an appendage of the so-called republican party.

Don't start wars based on lies.

Dig this: I'm a right-wing conservative. Bush ("Mission Accomplished") Junior and Dick "Cakewalk" Cheney lied to start a war that has killed a half-million people (so far) over WMD and connections to 9/11 that didn't exist. But it's INTERESTING when I (unlike you) tell the truth about the neo-fascism of the GOP . . . because I'm a right-wing conservative!

Hey, d'ja hear New Orleans was left to drown, and the world's #1 superpower couldn't manage to get even a helicopter to the Superdome? I can ADMIT Bush-Cheney failed America and still be taken seriously, as long as I call myself a right-wing conservative.

A Republican vote in Wyoming carries four times the electoral weight of a Democratic vote in California -- not that OUR votes matter any more. But turn that frown upside down, this is NOT just another left-wing rant, because guess what? I'm now a right-wing conservative!