, saddam hussein more important than osama bin laden? i don't think so. >> ninety-second response, mr. president. >> my opponent looked at the same intelligence i looked at and declared in 2002 that saddam hussein was a grave threat. he also said in december of 2003 that anyone who doubts that the world is safer without saddam hussein does not have the judgment to be president. i agree with him. the world is better off without saddam hussein. i was hoping diplomacy would work. i understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into harm's way. it's the hardest decision a president makes. so i went to the united nations. i didn't need anybody to tell me to go to the united nations. i decided to go there myself. and i went there hoping that, once and for all, the free world would act in concert to get saddam hussein to listen to our demands. they passed the resolution that said, "disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences." i believe, when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. saddam hussein had no intent

even in the face of all this evidence and these repeated warnings that al qaeda and saddam and osama bin laden were up to something that something was coming the bush administration kept throwing this back into the frame of this is dissin from ation coming to us from saddam hussein he's really the bad guy we need to keep our eye on him and that there was no basis for that. does this tie back to one thousand nine hundred eighty eight i mean there were there were a number of members of the administration that signed that document they hauled on president clinton to invade iraq and take out saddam hussein. they were there were so many people in the bush administration who went in with the absolute goal of we're going to take out saddam hussein. and. the problem with that is you wind up with bad application of intelligence if you've decided upfront here's our threat this is what we're going to do with the intelligence comes in it doesn't say that ok we'll forget it we're going to look at it from that perspective we were going to have a proposal to invade iraq with whether there was a nin

hussein saddam hussein's suppose a biological weapons program. and i mean. yeah i mean you know so the best case scenario is that they used it use it to ratchet up the fear to really get everyone on board with the iraq invasion and using that threat and they never really did come out and say that the anthrax was not the muslim terrorism they said it just kind of went under the radar robin but now that we know that members of the bush administration were on separate and also the targeted members that voted they were opposite to the patriot act i mean what do you think the worst case scenario is now that we know these kind of damning facts. what was the worst case scenario is that i mean the motive. the motives there are questionable i mean why would someone who's a terrorist who wanted to you know muslim terrorists why would they want to send anthrax letters to people who are opposing the patriot act. i mean you have to wonder you know i can only speculate with the worst case scenario is that someone who sent those letters and wanted to shut down

al-zarqawi and saddam hussein? >> i want to thank you and i want to thank the folks here at case western reserve for hosting this tonight. this is a very important event and they've done a superb job of putting it together. it's important to look at all of our developments in iraq within the broader context of the global war on terror. and after 9/11 it became clear we had several things to have a successful strategy to win the global war on terror, specifically that we had to go after the terrorists wherever we might find them, that we also had to go after state sponsors of terror, those who might provide sanctuary and safe harbor. and we also had to finally stand up to democracies afterwards because that was the only way to guarantee these states would not again become safe harbors for terror or development of deadly weapons. the concern about iraq specifically focused on the fact that saddam hussein had been for years listed on the state sponsor of terror, they had established relationships with a terrorist out

maybe that's not the smartest approach but blair believed that the weapons were there and saddam would use them and so when you start from that it's well what's your next step blair was very troubled by the bush administration he thought that they were planning for the war was terrible he thought that their international approach was terrible that they didn't you know reach out to the international community and nuff to create the kind of. global response that would actually be more fruitful than simply a war that they weren't planning for after the war and it really came down to a question he asked his advisors which is if we stay in this you know i will have influence on the direction of american policy if we break. it will be a fundamental break of a long standing relationship between the united states and britain and i will lose all influence over policy was there it should i do it well at the end of that and the time a story came out there was a subtext of that that was in the press let me reality check it with you and that was if we break i lose any influence over this crazy guy

and one the conclusion is inescapable they wanted to have a war against iraq they wanted to have saddam taken out after nine eleven. you know one of the one of the things i found amusing is in britain clarke who was the. white house terrorism czar for many years wrote a book in two thousand and four came out and said the day after nine eleven bush came up to me and said you know can you check one more time can you link this attack to iraq and the bush white house you know attacked him called him a liar this that the other well in fact the first time they brought up iraq and nine eleven was on nine eleven you know. dick clarke was absolutely correct and if there is if we look at the historical record there's no denying that's what they would have wanted to do. was it i mean i've seen two kind of conflicting strands of history around that one is the. notion that. iraq is the center of the arab world the arab world an unstable place we've got to protect our ally israel cetera et cetera and if we can just put a giant footprint in the middle of iraq we've got it and you know arguably that wa

that, in fact, saddam hussein has no connection with 9/11. that, in fact, saddam hussein has little or no connection with al qaeda. >> senator edwards, new question to you and you have two minutes to respond. part of what you have said and senator kerry have said you're going to do in order to get us out of the problems in iraq is to internationalize the effort. yet french and german officials have both said they have no intention, even if john kerry is elected of sending any troops into iraq for any peacekeeping effort. does that make your effort, or your plan to internationalize this effort seem kind of naive? >> let's start with what we know. what we know is that the president and the vice president have not done the work to build the coalition that we need. dramatically different than the first gulf war. we know they have the done it and they can't do it. they didn't, by the way, just reject the also lice leading up into the war. they also rejected them in the effort to do the reconstruction in iraq. and that has consequences. what we bel

iraq was like a vast prison yard under saddam hussein. it was so suffocating that i can compare it to no place in the arab world but i could compare it to romania which i knew intimately. to go from saddam hussein's iraq to syria was like coming up for liberal humanists bare. we tend to say all dictators are bad and all democrats are good. we eliminate -- we e. race distinctions and it is distinctions that give us the complexity we need to understand the world and assad ran a brutal dictatorship but nothing like saddam hussein. i had my passport taken by the iraqi authorities when i was in iraq -- i was very nervous obviously. i only got back to the airport before i left. i was a journalist who got too close to my story and i was intent on eliminating saddam hussein. i believed like the lot of people, different western countries in the world and on both sides of the aisle that there were wm ds and i believe a regime this suffocatingly brutal you couldn't trust. you had to assume that it existed and the work turned out so miserably. had we

do i think that we made a mistake there think we were wrong in our assessment they were wrong or saddam hussein deceived everybody this i'm going to say it turns out did not want people to know that he didn't have weapons of mass destruction including many people in his own administration wow so saddam wanted bush to think that he had weapons of mass destruction it was him who deceived this administration give me a break all right so what's next. torture during the bush administration there was a policy set at the top for torture and abuse a systematic policy of the legal methods of interrogation that violated the geneva conventions. that if you were to conduct a poll in this country right now and ask people whose waterboarding torture i think the best majority of people would tell you it is and i would argue that it's important for us not to get caught up in the notion that you can only have popular methods of interrogation if you want to for counterterrorism program don't like popular opinion get in the way of torture cheney want taught them obey more than eight hundred people were he

, saddam hussein more important than osama bin laden?'t think so. >> ninety-second response, mr. president. >> my opponent looked at the same intelligence i looked at and declared in 2002 that saddam hussein was a grave threat. he also said in december of 2003 that anyone who doubts that the world is safer without saddam hussein does not have the judgment to be president. i agree with him. the world is better off without saddam hussein. i was hoping diplomacy would work. i understand the serious consequences of committing our troops into harm's way. it's the hardest decision a president makes. so i went to the united nations. i didn't need anybody to tell me to go to the united nations. i decided to go there myself. and i went there hoping that, once and for all, the free world would act in concert to get saddam hussein to listen to our demands. they passed the resolution that said, "disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences." i believe, when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says. saddam hussein had no intention of

did it trouble you joanne that since saddam didn't get mentioned in any of the debates despite all the talk of jobs being outsourced to china and yet it did a little bit i went early hoping i'm the last. that it would have and i thought it was well you have you in the other workers there have appealed directly to mitt romney asking him to to do something with the company that he created in that he still owns a lot of stock in and that he will profit from you know sending these these these good jobs offshore what is the romney response been to. the romney camp remark on it in that. mitt romney hasn't had anything to do with being capital ten thousand nine hundred ninety nine and that we should. attention i'm back obama the president of united because he currently has. eight and seven but he had one he was good and i think somebody thought it was like eleven dollars stock and you know my understanding actually i could be wrong on this but my understanding is that it was a retirement fund or a pension fund that he had when he was a teaching when he was a law professor and everything and t

it also gave the green light to saddam hussein. to start this very destructive war against iran and poison gas, tremendous effect postmarked the green light because they thought america would support this. >> guest: well, he had seen iran is isolated. when saddam hussein invaded, he had no premise. the air countries in the region, with the exception of syria, the united states, other western countries, basically actively supported the iraq was some?? silence. in a shameful incident. i say this with all candor.??? even when saddam hussein used?? poison gas against the iranians. there was very little protest he?r? reaction. this was all a climate sent by people. we were willing before the embassy was taken, we were willing to continue some kind of a military relationship. with the iranians. maybe not as fast as it was under the shah, but vast quantities of military equipment, training, spare parts, all of these things. and we would have liked continue it. the embassy seizure obviously stopped on all of that. and iran was in a

tell the story of since saddam exposed mitt romney over since saddam but the president didn't in fact he didn't mention since sata in three debates he had a trump card on romney and he could have played in all three debates and he chose not to and that's because he knows and romney knows that telling the story of since other means exposing what's really happening in america it means exposing the corporate elites agenda which is to pillage the last remaining wealth in the american middle class and then invest that wealth in new developing nations and new future empires that may take the corporate form to exist long after america's decline patriotism in the good of the community and its workers mean nothing to this corporate elite nothing to mitt romney mitt romney is a member of this predatory class and brock obama has bought into this neo liberal free trade philosophy that will perpetuate the scheme until collapse plain and simple barack obama didn't mention insider for the same reason that mitt romney didn't mention the transpacific partnership which will also lead to the further des

we cozied up to saddam hussein? during? all this. this was all a climate set by this, why these events. we were willing before the embassy was taken, the united states was willing to continue some kind of a military to military relationship. maybe not as it was under the shah but we sold or had in the pipeline vast quantities of military equipment training, spare parts, all of these things. and we would have liked to continue it. the embassy seizure obviously stop all of that and iran consequential lee was a much weaker position in the invaders. >> iraq invaded september, 1980. you were not released until january, 1981. >> that's right. >> what did you know what that war? did you know anything and what did you remember about the release in coming back? >> here is the chronology as best as we can strike. this was after the shah died. late july. >> 1980. >> in august the ayatollah khomeini calls and his advisers and says we need to settle for hostage and a sign of people to do it i believe it was early september when did he secretary o

the year replaced by chinese workers that's the decision being made by bain capital which own since saddam workers at the factory have been begging mitt romney to intervene to save their jobs. but he won't he and the other corporate outsourcers are committed to getting all the short term profits they can even though it means the long term death of the american economy welcome to third world america courtesy of reagan's clinton's and bush's embrace of so-called free trade something being continued tragically now by the obama administration here more than two employees of companies now under the control of being capital libya wilson who works at bain owned dunkin donuts and richard who didn't who works at bain own burlington coat factory welcome to you both and i great to have you with us livia could you tell us what are you doing to new york and what is the bain worker bus tour while i'm in new york and being bus tours basically shedding awareness on what their romney economy looks like for me and my family. it's great being on a bus tour because i have a lot of a similar stories with peopl

they want to elicit's saddam tried to do in that 1991 gulf war with rockets in israel trying to turna persian gulf war into an arab-israeli one shifting the loyalty. that is the danger and that is something that the israeli u.s. policymakers and others are concerned about. the only problem with that is that when you unleash this blood lit you cannot carefully calibrated. especially the so-called paramilitary groups that are fanatically supporting the assad regime most of them alawite, most of them protecting their communities and it also gives the regime deniability that in large measure would carry out the worst -- and you can't control them. you know, so i think something could happen. when you unleash this type of situation that's getting more violent. the syrians are starting to do things they hadn't done and they are starting to use the helicopters and that just and bomb indiscriminately to the point where you know, it doesn't become -- in the western media. unfortunately it has in many ways and the news cycle cover something else or go the elections, the convention what happene

what saddam tried to do during the gulf war in 1991, trying to turn a persian gulf war into an israeliwar, that is a dangerous shift. that is something that the israeli and u.s. policymakers are concerned about. the only problem with that -- when you unleash unleashes type of thing, you can carefully calibrated. you can't control it that well. especially with the g5 and the military groups that are dramatically supporting their regime. most of them doing this is to make a living and protect their communities. and also give the regime plausible deniability. i think it carries out the worst atrocities and you can't control that. you know, so, you know, i think that something could happen. when you unleash this type of situation -- and it's getting more violent, the syrians are starting to do things that they have not done in the beginning. they are starting to use the helicopters and bombs indiscriminately. to the point where it doesn't become galvanize in the western media as it has in the past. in the election coming convention, what happened in libya and so forth, something happens on

part to syria and once again washington is playing that game of using al-qaeda against the sharia saddam regime thinking that once they overthrown them they can impose some pro western ex-pats in power and what we saw in libya is that's not the case the al qaeda people are not going to allow themselves to be used and discarded washington thinks they're using al-qaeda al qaeda deliberately take saddam send money from washington and from the european nato forces and then turns their guns the other way it's a mutual manipulation that's going on here. the family of a journalist who was assisting russian the news outlets in syria has told our t.v. that she has been kidnapped near the city of holmes the area is the scene of intense fighting between government forces and the opposition our correspondent in the region you know following the story. the husband. question about how to contact the r t and saying that she was abducted on hard courts knew i was working in syria she has been there for almost a year and now she has been to all the major hotspots in this country torn by the civil war as

but after the bombing, saddam hussein's turn to developing a nuclear weapons program.f iran is bombed, is almost certain to proceed, just as saddam hussein did after the post-iraq bombing. >> mit professor and author, noam chomsky, continues in a moment. if you like a copy of today's show, go to democracynow.org. professor tom ski will next look at the nuclear-weapons raise as this marks the 50th anniversary of the cuban missile crisis, often referred to as the most dangerous moment in u.s. history -- in human history. back in a moment. ♪ [music break] >> this is "democracy now!," democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are on our 100-city tour, today, in portland oregon. as we continue our hour today with world-renowned political dissident, linguist, author, professor americas at the massachusetts institute of technology, known chomsky. his recent talk entitled, "who owns the world?" >> in a few weeks, we will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous moment in human history. those are the words of historian kennedy adviser ar

for the united states if we continue to do this we're looking at the same trajectory we had with saddam where ordinary people were punished civil society completely closed up you had massive humanitarian suffering and in the end a dictatorship was actually entrenched not removed and eventually united states ended up in this disastrous military fiasco and that's the direction we're heading unless we can figure out how to change course certainly very interesting and i think you're right it's very interesting at a time when this country is so divided that one of the few things they can sort of rally together on is hurting the people of iran very interesting thanks as always for being on the show jamal is the policy director of the national iranian american council we want to update you now on a story that we've been following pretty closely here at r.t. there's massive protests held by employees of wal-mart they started small and have now happened all across the country we're talking about places like dallas texas seattle san francisco miami los angeles chicago orlando and more also today

we provided mustard gas to saddam hussein. the reason we did not find weapons of mass destruction there is because they had a stamp made in usa on them. we destroy them. that is a fact. >> you might want rapine any other comments you would like to make as a wrap up as we will go to each of you. maybe we can start with dov. >> well, everybody is entitled to their opinion. you may have been in the middle of our shipping of mustard gas to saddam hussein, you may have been in the middle of our killing 25 million people, but that is not the country i know. it is as simple as that. it is not the country i have served. i would say this, it is true, we supplied the afghan rebels. no doubt about it. but they were doing the fighting. if we helped saddam hussein against the iranians, he was doing the fighting. so i stand by what i said. we sent troops into grenada. it was not exactly a ten-year old battle. we actually pull ourselves out of lebanon. i stand by what i said about mr. reagan. i do not believe that we are the evil empire. may

to compare it to saddam, saddam hussein when faced with international sanctions of this magnitude, acceptedthe u.n. oil for food program allowed him to get back to pre-sanctions level of oil exports of about two and a half million euros of oil a day. although of course he did not control the revenue from those. khamenei is now down to 900,000 barrels per day in exports, and so one could even argue that khamenei is less flexible than saddam hussein was when faced with a similar situation. and i see no evidence whatsoever that the great supreme leader cares one whit about the economic situation of his people, not one whit more than saddam hussein did. its economic managers seem to be doing their best, and they're trying hard to shield the poorest and least capable iranians from the effects of sanctions. but their strategies are likely to only go so far as the sanctions begin to shut iran's economic engine down. ultimately, a way out of this situation is for khamenei to care about is population and take the way out that he's been offered and has not accepted today. that said, having observed a

if it hadn't been for us, saddam huss if it hadn't been for us, saddam hussein would be sitting on top of three-fifths of the oil supply of the world and he'd have nuclear weapons. and the -- only the united states could do that. excuse me, carole. >> thank you. mr. perot? >> well, it's cost effective to help russia succeed in its revolution. pennies on the dollar compared to going back to cold war. russia's still very unstable; they could go back to square one and worse. still, all the nuclear weapons are not dismantled. i'm particularly concerned about the intercontinental weapons; the ones that can hit us. we've got agreements but they're still there. with all this instability and breaking in the republics, and all the middle eastern countries going over there shopping for weapons, we've got our work cut out for us so we need to stay right on top of that and constructively help them move toward democracy and capitalism. we have to have money to do that. we have to have our people at work. see, for 45 years we were preoccupied with the red army. i suggest now that our no. 1 preoccupa

hussein but the blowback that you could say is happening right now in iraq is that saddam hussein was actually the number one opponent or one of the number one opponents of iran and they actually did a really good job keeping a ron in check in the middle east is this possibly one of the consequences of us going into war in their eyes somebody out of power maybe we lost a little bit of balance in the region. well there are a bunch around was virtually the only country that gained from the horror of iraq i found some ironic it was. that the debate took place ten years to the day that the democratic controlled senate joining the of the republicans in the house in pushing through the of the resolution authorizing the use of force and biden played a central role as head of the senate foreign relations committee in making of bush's war a possible arms. concourses the house also supported the war resolution so i want to go. to bars posing for souness taking these extreme positions on. the record my voice i'm sorry for that matter the us constitution and i know that there's a lot going on rig

historic examples there pointing for example to iraq they say the sanctions didn't take food off saddam hussein's table they didn't make his family live any less large than they did they point to countries like burma zimbabwe you know top leaders there were not directly impacted by sanctions only the people are but you know why then is there so much support for this we talked about this legislation passing i think back in august in the house that vote was four hundred twenty one to six for further sanctions so why. i is there's so much support for this method you know it seems like the only thing that washington in congress is able to do is pass the sections and the reason is that you know you have very powerful groups lobbying for these for these sanctions you have groups like a pac in the united against nuclear iran and foundation for defense of democracies and because there is not a very strong opposition who is saying hold on a second we've done the same since we've reached this inflection point there needs to be a real investment in diplomacy if we don't want this to go to war with

. >> the middle east is a safer place with sd saddam hussein off the table. do you think that's true? >> i think, people ask me all the time, it was worth it? the way i -- the way i, in my own head, have tried to resolve that question is it depends what iraq backs over tecomes the nexd that depends to a considerable extent, on what american influence can be brought to bear on the situation and there's been a decline in influence. and one point, by the way, on afghanistan, i don't think we should give every governor romney or vice president biden kind of a free pass on the claim that we are out of there in 2014 because that, in fact is not the plan that they are developing in nato now. the plan is to maintain a kind of enduring force, which is going to involve an american counterterrorism force, which will go after the al qaeda. it's going to involve nato advisers, some of whom will have to operate on the tactical level with the afghan troops. if you actually look at the planning, the last american to die in afghanistan will not have died in 2014. they are sti

over a million kurds out of the mountains of southern turkey as a result of a stampede caused by saddam hussein's threat to attack with chemical and biological weapons. at the very minimum, i think we should be very concerned about the people who are being killed and wounded, i think we should be outraged by that, and we should be helping regional allies like the turks and others to try to figure out ways to solve that problem. this is not insoluble, and the united states doesn't have a habit of standing on the sidelines watching, you know, for long periods of time innocent people getting killed. i think if we are not, we should be working very closely with our moderate arab friends who are very concerned about this. and -- >> rose: you mean the saudis and -- >> yes. uae, exactly. and that reinforces the leadership faction of the leadership coefficient of what the united states traditionally does. it doesn't mean you have to invade the country, but i quite agree with david that there are a lot of things that you could put together and not just do it union launilaterally but do it a coll

facts are dead in iraq now a lot of them were from the time when saddam hussein was in power so i mean just kind of taking a look at that talk about what we can draw into you know historical context and the fact that some of these weapons are quite old. you know i mean it seems that basically the new government has taken hold of you know the storage of weapons that saddam had and maybe sending you know to increase regional influence basically in syria because the main issue here and what i mean what the whole thing about you know weapons from close friends up to me is that this is fast becoming a proxy war even a sectarian war some degree not entirely and i think it would be over simplify things to sort of simply call it out but i believe that's sort of happening. and we can see that you know it's quite clear that. you know just just just from reports for example new york times in june in the u.s. of essing weapons that are coming in from turkey and it's it's clearly a sign that they know they're. coming from from foreign powers in particular saudi arabia that's another thing we saw we

was starting to get you to say we've been invited on so many tours that i have to start refusing saddam and i get tired very quickly but i'm young at heart right you come back to your place to when you're at my children have already retired rather than my oldest daughter's been retired for two years now my son used to be a police officer he's retired now to get my youngest daughter is retiring this year i really am getting old. when i. oh i've got plenty to do so i'm never bored and i have to take care of the vegetable garden feed the geese and the calf of milking a cow there's plenty of work. over on this man's you can find mean there's adjective. or until all where we were there when i look at the big garden where potatoes grown from a bear all the way up to that. let's move on ok majors and good this year. my mother said i cried a lot as a little baby and began singing at school starting from the grave to sing in the school choir and then to call it require brother to kindergarten. many times. still doesn't look good. for i don't have any one living close to me there's a lady who hel

to apply develops technology to protect the environment and spectrum of health and bearing it have saddam on whether it's seen in a shallow national grave at the national you know why stop it when it's in an old mine doesn't fit those of us proposed. i guess we can speak more strongly on mary linger in the concerns we have from our linger than the dump but it is very closely connected because it is something that man is taking on all sides of the campaign against the why stop as well which of course is a is a big concern for animals because of the connection our normal everyday people have with the land and its waters a story where this actual sots going to be. is along the story line. or top three. of us or money or just luck. the holder is a one that is it would sit down. on. the tell if this will be in credit or it's going to come. with us or a story. or the correct one as well my all one is like a sense that this is a spin it's a. hundred thousand he's. going to write you we're going to live in areas. where people can. well think it's whatever it is but this area is that we're not boy

about 70% of the country thought that saddam hussein was personally responsible for 9-11. if i thought that, i would want to invade iraq, too but he wasn't! he wasn't! so the american people were deceived and who helped to deceive them? the american media by calling everything neutral. while the republicans say this and the democrats say that. and now we have one side that lies all the time. systematically and what does the media do? they say this and other guys say that. no. it's not true. the republicans lie professionally. they do it all the time. they do it on purpose! as will you sit there and you wonder my god, how could this race be 50/50 when you look at the national popular vote? it is because the american people never got the memo because the media didn't give it to them. an example of what's hannan -- happening in virginia. tim kane and then karl rove's group is running this ad against tim kaine. >> tim kaine left virginia for washington. was a cheerleader for massive spending. but it actually wasted money studying ants in africa. >> the stimulus is critically i

it wasn't saddam hussein. it was the pan arab list before saddam. saddam fought to the death. and in new york, there seemed just a little more than usual people with black eye patches. and of course, the jubilation, triumphalism, the israeli song and they are not very good on song, reverberated throughout the city. it was as if the historian i recalled the jubilation imprisoned them after the defeat of the ottoman in 1751 where church bells throughout europe reached scotland in celebration. for islam, this was the first time since the crusade that the muslim holy places themselves were under non-muslim military occupation. and they say wait, what about the british mandate? actually the brits, because their empire had so many muslims and since the british empire was the muslim empire, they were extremely scrupulous with regard to the holy places. jerusalem itself, they were scrupulous and maintaining the religious status quo. for example, as he remember there was the 37 to 239 rebellion of palestine against the british rule, against the massive jewish immigration and against th