Also, I discovered just recently that even though Clinton had ordered the ispectors out fo Iraq in 1998, the nternational Atomic Energy Agency inspectors had been allowed back into Iraq (in 2000, 2001, and 2002) to inspect all the remaining nuclear-related sites in Iraq – including Kuwaitha, where our "intelligence" had suggested the Iraqis might be doing something untoward – and found nothing untoward.

George Tenet's 2002 National Intelligence estimate didn't even mention those IAEA inspections, much less the subsequent "null" reports the IAEA regularly made to the UN Security Council.

Why not?

Well, obviously the Cheney Cabal didn't want Congress to know – at least officially – that by 1994 all Saddam's nuclear programs had been verifiably destroyed and that he had made no attempt whatsoever to reconstitute them.

So what does this tell us?

It tells us that not only is this further evidence that the Bush Administration lied us into war, but just as importantly, that the talking point of Iraqi war supporters that "every other country thought Iraq had WMD" is complete garbage.

Some things never chnage, and your gift for commedy is one of them.

Greta post Ian.

What a vision, Downer dies and goes to the bowels of hell and there he is greeted by Osama Bin Laden with an enormous erection. A smile appears on Lexy's face until a voice says, "Don't get too excited Mr Downer, this is Mr Laden's punishment, not yours…."

Donald Rumsfeld claims critics of the Bush administration are appeasing fascism

So, let me get this right, fascism is bad, and those who appease it are bad people.

Okay, so what is fascism? Well according to the bloke who invented the word, Giovanni Gentile, its:

Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

And according to the bloke who claimed he invented the word, Benito Mussolini, its:

If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.

Government that is by and for big corporation. Which is why when Mussolini dissolved the Italian parliament in 1938 he replaced it with the Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni or Chamber of the Fascist Corporations.

A leading American dictionary used to define fascism as:

A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.

So Rumsfeld is saying a right-wing government of questionable legitimacy run for and by big companies like, oh, Halliburton, Chevron, Lockheed Martin and ExxonMobil is bad and we shouldn't appease it.

I applaud Rumsfeld for taking such a strong stand against this evil and urge everyone not to appeasing the Bush administration under any circumstances!!

LOL!

America's biggiest problem is its got the wrong Donald running the Pentagon, they should have gone with Mr D. Duck.

Yes, how typical of Rummy to blame the media, they lost it for us back in 'Nam, right? Despite the fact that the media were solidly behind that whole enterprise until quite late in the war.

As for my friend, she has a soft, warm blanket of denial that is constantly being pulled up and tucked in by her ideological fellow travellers. Reality need not intrude here! It's a pretty depressing shopping list you've got, if one could quantify the relative explosive force applied by both sides it would be even more unequal. Dare I say, disproportionate. Probably something like 2 and half Hiroshimas Vs the US civil war. Kofi Annan has been complaining about the fact that 90% of the cluster bombs were dropped in the last 3 days before the cease fire took hold. Not that he'll get any brownie points from anybody for that. Cluster bombs are a lot less laborious than going to all the trouble of burying landmines anyway. But with all the benefits, ie you shred curious children and farmers when they touch the things. In a decent world there would be a good number of the IDF facing war crimes charges by now…

You might want to poiint out to your friend this shopping list of what Israel dropped on Lebanon during the war – especialyl if he decides to mentino Katusha Rockets.

The Israeli Armed Forces (IDF) launched 5,000 missiles, 5-ton bunker-buster bombs and cluster bombs as well as anti-personnel phosphorus bombs each day into Lebanon for 27 days – totaling over 135,000 missiles, bombs and artillery shells. During the last 7 days of the war Israel launched 6,000 bombs and shells per day – over 42,000, for a grand total of 177,000 over a heavily populated territory the size of the smallest state in the US. In contrast, the Lebanese national resistance launched 4,000 rockets during the entire 34-day period, an average of 118 per day. The ratio was 44 to 1 – without mentioning the size differentials, the long-term killing effects of the thousands of un-exploded cluster bombs (nearly 50 killed or maimed since the end of hostilities) and Israel’s scorched earth military incursion.

He's been telling that world that it's the media's fault the US is losing in Iraq.

“What bothers me the most,” he opined, “is the way they are actively manipulating the media in this country. They can lie with impunity…That’s the thing that keeps me up at night.”

Some of us were hoping that Iraq was keeping Rummy “up at night”…or maybe that niggling issue of torture and abuse that keeps popping up in the newspapers. But, noooo; it’s the looming specter of Zarqawi at his keyboard e mailing his hypnotic prose to unwitting Americans who are seduced by his vile propaganda.

Perhaps Downer should explain what a 100,000 bopmblets from cluster bombs are doing in suburban alreas of Southern Lebanon, contrary to international law and agreements.

But Downer has alwasy been a complete crash dummy. Someone once described him and someone who walks around with a permanent exporession that suggests someone told him a joke that he still hasn't got.