Why did the Senator from South Carolina vote for the Iraqi Invasion?: "why did we go in and why did the Senator from South Carolina vote for the resolution last October? Why? I can tell my colleagues why. On August 7, Vice President Cheney, speaking in California, said of Saddam Hussein: What we know now from various sources is that he continues to pursue a nuclear weapon.
Then on September 8: We do know with absolute certainty that he is attempting to acquire the equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.
Then the President of the United States himself said, in his weekly address on September 14, before we voted in October: Saddam Hussein has the scientists and infrastructure for a nuclear weapons program and has illicitly sought to purchase the equipment needed to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.
Then on September 24, Prime Minister Blair said that the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt that Saddam continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
On September 8 of last year, Condoleezza Rice said that we do not want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
On October 7, President Bush said: Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Now, any reasonable, sober, mature, experienced individual listening to that litany knows to vote against that resolution would have been pure folly. One has to back the President.
...If I went to a funeral this afternoon of a fallen soldier in Iraq, what would I say? Did they fall there for democracy? They are not going to have a democracy. It is going to be the Shiite democracy, like they have in Iran -- at best. That is exactly what Secretary Rumsfeld said we were not going to have.
Was it for nuclear? No.
Was it for terrorists? No, they didn't have terrorists there.
Your son gave his life for what? As their Senator, I am embarrassed. It wasn't for any of those things. Why we went in, the administration has yet to tell us. They keep changing the rules and the goalposts every time. But somehow, somewhere they have to really put the force in there, quit trying to do it on the cheap, put the force in there and clean out that city, so they will quit killing them, or otherwise get out as fast as we can. "
- posted by geoff @ #