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January 21, 2005
This is a transcript of Sen. Barbara Boxer's remarks and Condoleezza Rice's response at Rice's confirmation hearing. Reading it indicates that the Democrats' bulldog role was assigned to Senator Barbara Boxer.
Remember it was Rice herself who evoked the spectre of the mushroom over the US even though the evidence was weak. Though she now acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, Rice's justification for the invasion of Iraq are weak. Try this one:
Saddam Hussein was a threat, yes, because he was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And, yes, we thought that he was -- that he had stockpiles, which he did not have. We had problems with the intelligence. We are all, as a collective polity of the United States, trying to deal with ways to get better intelligence.
Trying to acquire? How does 'trying' constitute a significant threat to the national interest of the US as a superpower? It's a joke as trying to acquire relies on Saddam Hussein being evil to carry all the weight.This is comic-style thinking.
Rice continues on her merry smoke and mirrors way:
But it wasn't just weapons of mass destruction. He was also a place -- his territory was a place where terrorists were welcomed, where he paid suicide bombers to bomb Israel, where he had used Scuds against Israel in the past, and so we knew what his intentions were in the region, where he had attacked his neighbors before and, in fact, tried to annex Kuwait, where we'd gone to war against him twice in the past.
We invaded Iraq to protect Israel!
Gee, I cannot recall that one being mentioned before. How then does a civil war in Iraq, which gives rise to Sunni and Shi'te fundamentalism, protect Israel? That is the US strategic aim is it not--to protect Israel as the dominate regional power?
Nor would Rice acknowledge that Iraq is a mess partly because of the policies of the Bush Administration. Who is she trying to con? Iraq is a basket case.
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and this one is good too
".. we'd gone to war against him twice in the past."
We invaded to protect our consistency. They hate our consistencies.