Some Words Sen. Clinton Should Have Scrutinized More Closely

by Joel Wendland

In the last 24 hours, Sen. Clinton has become very concerned with words. Here is a very small compilation of words, I think she should have been as or even more careful to scrutinize, dissect and question so thoroughly.

In order to convince members of Congress to vote for a resolution for war against Iraq, members of the Bush administration said the following things. A recent study showed that they said things like this hundreds of times in the lead-up to the war. Sen. Clinton voted for the war.

"The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions, its history of aggression and its drive toward an arsenal of terror." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"Eleven years ago, as a condition for ending the Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi regime was required to destroy its weapons of mass destruction, to cease all development of such weapons and to stop all support for terrorist groups. The Iraqi regime has violated all of those obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical and biological weapons across broad areas. We are concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using UAVs for missions targeting the United States." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al Qaeda leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly-enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. 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." George W. Bush, October 8, 2002.

"Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home." George W. Bush, January 2008.

"And what we've seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest ... is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium -- specifically, aluminum tubes." Dick Cheney, September 2002.

"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, September 2002.

A couple years later, US Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) chastised President Bush for failing to be honest and noted that there was plenty of evidence available to indicate that what he and his administration was saying was deliberately wrong:

"The President’s decision to ignore intelligence community assessments prior to the Iraq war and to make repeated public statements that gave the misleading impression that Saddam Hussein’s regime was connected to the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 cost him any credibility he may have had on this issue." (September 8, 2006)

Other words Sen. Clinton could reexamine:

"Look around the globe: Those nations which have lowered trade barriers are prospering more than those that have not." First Lady Hillary Clinton to Corporate Council on Africa, 1997.

"The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has assisted the militias and others in killing our Americans and maiming them." Hillary Clinton, November 16, 2007.

"If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table." Hillary Clinton, October 15, 2007.

In response to a question by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann last October about whether or not Democrats would stand up to the president on the expansion of domestic powers through a FISA expansion along with immunity for telecoms that illegally assisted in domestic spying, Sen. Clinton said, "I sure hope so." But on 2/12/08, on a vote on FISA (S 2248: S.2248 as Amended; FISA Amendments Act of 2007), Sen. Clinton failed to vote.