posted on July 23, 2003 10:32:38 AM new
Clinton: Bush Iraq Mistake Understandable
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's erroneous reference to an Iraqi-Africa uranium link was understandable, former President Clinton said Tuesday, in part because Saddam Hussein's regime had not accounted for some weapons by the time Clinton ended his term in 2001.
Clinton's comments reinforce one of the pillars of Bush's defense of the war in Iraq - that his Democratic predecessor was never satisfied that Saddam had rid himself of weapons of mass destruction.
"When I left office, there was a substantial amount of biological and chemical material unaccounted for," Clinton said on CNN's "Larry King Live."
Clinton said he never found out whether a U.S.-British bombing campaign he ordered in 1998 ended Saddam's capability of producing chemical and biological weapons. "We might have gotten it all, we might have gotten half of it, we might have gotten none of it," he said.
In his State of the Union speech in February justifying the planned war in Iraq, Bush referred to British intelligence reports that Saddam had tried to purchase uranium for nuclear weapons production. His administration says it now believes those reports were based in part on forged documents.
Clinton confined his remarks to biological and chemical weapons, and did not say whether he would consider credible any report that Saddam had wanted to build a nuclear weapons program.
Nonetheless, he suggested that Bush's mistake was par for the course - and that it was time to move on now that Bush had acknowledged the error.
"You know, everybody makes mistakes when they are president," he said. "I mean, you can't make as many calls as you have to without messing up once in a while. The thing we ought to be focused on is what is the right thing to do now."
Clinton said ending tensions in Iraq should be the priority now - another echo of the current White House's talking points. "We should be pulling for America on this. We should be pulling for the people of Iraq."
Clinton made his remarks as a call-in guest on a program observing the 80th birthday of Bob Dole, his rival for the White House in 1996.
posted on July 23, 2003 12:09:29 PM new
Clinton is a class act! If you read between the lines, he thinks Bush is a poopyhead too. If Bush and Clinton were debating for an election, I bet Clinton wouldn't mind not being so diplomatic, but being an ex-President that everyone loved, he knows what and what NOT to say.
posted on July 23, 2003 02:06:43 PM new
Well I guess in Clintons time in the white house, we KNOW where the #UCK stopped.
"All the TV shows are full of Democrats all furious, criticizing President Bush for the State of the Union Address. They said he exaggerated some of the facts. See, that's something Bill Clinton never did. Clinton never stretched the truth; Clinton never even came close to the truth."
posted on July 23, 2003 02:11:41 PM new
Hadley tries to cover One lie...
Hadley, who also received a phone call from CIA Director George J. Tenet before the
president's Oct. 7 speech asking that the Africa allegation be removed, took the blame
for allowing the charge to be revived in the State of the Union address.
"I should have recalled . . . that there was controversy associated with the uranium
issue," he said. He said Bush and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice were
counting on his dependability, and "it is now clear to me that I failed." Hadley said Rice
was not made aware of the doubts but "feels personal responsibility as well."
"The high standards that the president set with his speeches were not met," Hadley said,
acknowledging that the problem was not solely that the CIA failed to strike the reference
from the January speech. "We had opportunities here to avoid this problem. We didn't
take them."
posted on July 23, 2003 04:44:25 PM new
There is a long standing tradition that a former president does not criticize a sitting president under any circumstance. President Clinton honors that tradition, the purpose for his call to Larry King last evening was to publicly wish Senator Dole a happy birthday on his 80th. I'm waiting for Bush to finally tell the truth, his dog ate the actual speech what he delivered was an unedited prototype.
