Ah, Diplomacy! Rice Lies, Cheney Threatens

During her Senate confirmation hearings for Secretary of State, BoyGeorge's favorite confidante, Condi Rice, famous for her months of television appearances in which she linked September 11th to Saddam like a bad hypnotist, was caught in an outright contradiction of her own statements as to why the U.S. went to war with Iraq, again:

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When Senator Boxer said: ..."I'm interested in the facts. So when I ask you these questions, I'm going to show you your words, not my words.

...You sent them (our soldiers) in there because of weapons of mass destruction. Later, the mission changed when there were none. I have your quotes on it. I have the president's quotes on it. And everybody admits it but you that that was the reason for the war."...

Ms. Rice came back with a "total picture" answer: ..."Saddam Hussein was a threat, yes, because he was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And, yes, we thought 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."

Unimpressed, Boxer reminded Rice: "Well, you should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, but most of my colleagues did. It was WMD, period."

Staying on point, Boxer added: ..."But, again, I just feel you quote President Bush when it suits you but you contradicted him when he said, 'Yes, Saddam could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year.' You go on television nine months later and said, 'Nobody ever said it was'" --

Obviously ruffled, Rice jumped in with: ..."Senator, that was just a question of pointing out to people that there was an uncertainty. No one was saying that he would have to have a weapon within a year for it to be worth it to go to war."

To which Boxer replied: "Well, if you can't admit to this mistake, I hope that you'll" --

Again, Rice interrupted Boxer with this: "Senator, we can have this discussion in any way that you would like. But I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity."

Boxer came right to the point: "I'm not. I'm just quoting what you said. You contradicted the president and you contradicted yourself."

(full transcript here)

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So Saddam could have had a nuclear weapon (hey, where are the missiles?) in a year, but even though BoyGeorge made the claim himself, nobody ever said Saddam could have a nuclear weapon within a year. I guess that makes BoyGeorge a nobody, and Condi Rice a wounded soldier who dared to stand up for her hero. And THIS is the person we're bound to have as our next Secretary of State? Diplomacy Shiplomacy!

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And on a dare, Don Imus invited both The Dick and Mrs. Cheney on his program during Inauguration Day. Guess what? They accepted! Emerging from the ever expanding bunker his neighbors have been complaining about for more than a year, The Dick chose the Imus forum to send a message to Iran:

"At some point, if the Iranians don't live up to their commitments, the next step will be to take it to the U.N. Security Council, and seek the imposition of
international sanctions to force them to live up to the commitments and
obligations they've signed up to under the non-proliferation treaty, and
it's-but it is a-you know, you look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list."

Cheney also posed this rosy scenario:

''Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,''

With more than 100,000 American troops near their border, and rumors of secret incursions to assess their weapons status, I'm sure the Iranians felt all warm and fuzzy when word of Cheney's "friendly" suggestion reached their already paranoid ears. Perhaps it's time for us to impose democracy on yet another country full of NonBelievers.

Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Israel, North Korea, Indonesia, The Philippines, Venezuela, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and others. These are the countries most likely to "benefit" from Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney's forms of diplomacy. Do ya feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?

(links to more pre-war info available here)
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Excerpt from the Boxer/Rice transcript is assumed to be the copyrighted material of Federal News Service, from a Web page that is copyright 2005, San Francisco Chronicle, and used here for contextual purposes only. Excerpt from the Imus in The Morning Show is the copyrighted property of its rightful owner, and is used here purely for contextual purposes.