With Dems like this ...

Subject:
[NDRCALNEWS] With Dems like this ...

Clinton Defends Successor's Push for War

Says Bush 'couldn't responsibly ignore' chance Iraq had WMDs

www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/index.html

(CNN, June 20) -- Former President Clinton has revealed that he
continues to support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq but
chastised the administration over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.

"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on
Iraq,
even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections
were over," Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit
newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book "My Life."

Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe
that
Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of
a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction
remained unaccounted for.

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks
of
September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al
Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and
biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."

"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff

unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that
U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

"So I thought the president had an absolute responsibility to go
to
the U.N. and say, 'Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that
Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process.' You couldn't
responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks,"
Clinton said.

Pressed on whether the Iraq war was worth the cost to the United

States, Clinton said he would not have undertaken the war until after
U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix "finished his job."

Weapons inspectors led by Blix scoured Iraq for three and a half

months before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 but left after
President Bush issued an ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to
leave the country. "I want it to have been worth it, even though I
didn't agree with the timing of the attack," Clinton said.

Clinton blamed the Abu Ghraib prison abuses on poorly trained
National
Guard personnel and higher-ups in the Bush administration. The former
president said he was not surprised by the abuses committed by U.S.
forces at Abu Ghraib but that he was surprised by their extent. "There
is no excuse for that," Clinton said.

Clinton blamed the abuses on the higher echelons of the Bush
administration. "The more we learn about it, the more it seems that
some people fairly high up, at least, thought that this was the way it
ought to be done," he said.

Implying that the United States should lead by example, Clinton
said
of the abuses, "No. 1, we can't pull stunts like that, and No. 2, when
we do, whoever is responsible has to pay."
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST