Rush Limbaugh Program - November 17, 2005, Thursday, Hour #2

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Nov. 17, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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November 17, 2005, Thursday, Hour #2

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	Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program here at the EIB network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
	We continue.
	Walter Williams tomorrow, rush back on Monday, but today, Democrats out, this is the the White House, the White House countering these ridiculous and contradictory democratic criticisms of Iraq of the war,
	the countering now, the calling out of the fact that Bill Clinton himself identified weapons of mass destruction as nuclear, biological, and chemical in December of 1998 and ordered air attacks in order to try to destroy those facilities.
	On the fact that the Democrats had, at the time the war resolution was debated in the Bush administration, had all the same the same intelligence that Bush was relying on.
	They came to the same conclusion.
	People like John Kerry, who voted for, you know, before he voted against, before he voted for, before he voted against, but whatever, voted for the war resolution.
	Those same people now saying, oh, Bush lied.
	Bush lied about WMD, Bush lied about this, that, and the other.
	Oh, and by the way, Bill Clinton not only made a complete horse's ass out of himself by uh over in this Arab uh American university in Dubai in this speech, uh feeding the insurgency, just just cheering on the enemies of America by saying it was a big mistake to uh invade and went on and made made matters worse by saying,
	well, and this is a quote now uh when the U.S. kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure.
	Most of the people who were part of that structure were good, decent people who were making the best out of a very bad situation, unquote.
	Oh, wait a minute.
	Saddam's authority structure, the Bathist dictatorship, does he mean by uh the authority structure uh Saddam's two murderous sons, Udai and Khusai?
	Does he mean Ali Hassan al Majid, aka chemical Ali?
	Does he mean Barzan Al Takredi, who ran Iraq's brutal intelligence service that bulldozed corpses into mass graves after they killed him?
	Does he mean Izat Ibrahim Alduri who governed Northern Iraq during the chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds?
	Does he mean Uda Salih Mahdi Amash, whose name nickname was Mrs. Anthrax, a member of Saddam's Bathist National Command?
	Who exactly is Bill Clinton talking about?
	The good indecent people.
	That is just outrageous in light of the facts.
	Outrageous.
	All right.
	Calming down, as all professional talk show hosts should.
	I now want to present to you Stephen Hayes.
	Steve Hayes is the author of a book called The Connection.
	Rush interviewed Steve for the Limbaugh Letter when that book came out on these same topics.
	He has written more extensively about it as senior writer for Weekly Standard.
	That uh issue of Weekly Standard dated November 21st is on newsstands now.
	He joins us here on the EIB network hotline.
	Hi, Steve.
	Hey, Roger, how are you?
	I'm doing well.
	Tell us what you found out about WMD.
	Well, uh I've found out some things, and I'm waiting to find out quite a bit more.
	As all we all.
	Yeah, exactly.
	What I've been doing really for for two years almost is uh looking at uh what we've found, sort of the treatise of the old Iraqi regime, the paperwork, the video tapes, the computer hard drives, the photographs that we found in post-war Iraq.
	And all of this material has been uh is sort of constantly being processed and shipped one to a to a warehouse or series of warehouses in Doha Qatar.
	Some of it makes its way to Washington, D.C., but all of this information as it is translated and processed is then input into a massive computer database called Harmony, uh, which is operated by the Pentagon.
	And most of the stuff in Harmony, most of this data, most of the translations of these documents and things like that, is unclassified.
	So I've basically been harassing the Pentagon for a couple of years and and intensely for I'd say the past nine months, to give me some of that stuff, because these documents have in in many cases very, very provocative titles, and I think it would be one way to help explain to the American people, you know, what exactly we're doing in Iraq.
	Well, what have you found?
	It's amazing to me, what because what you're saying is there in these hundreds of thousands of papers and the hard drive and all the rest of these records of the Bathist regime, uh, there are records of uh you think of uh weapons of mass destruction.
	Well sure I mean look I mean w everybody has his or her own theory about what happened eventually to the weapons and there have been a couple of rather exhaustive studies, David Kay's study first then taken over by Charles Delfer that have given us some indications of what may have have happened to these weapons.
	But there's a lot we don't know and some of these documents just given their titles uh I think would shed additional light on what might have happened to them and and i if if not shed light immediately on what happened certainly raise additional questions.
	I mean you have documents from a year or two before the war talking about chemical gear for the Fed A in Saddam you have uh in another document that I've seen um a talk about an order given for a chemical attack uh and even specifies the the uh Iraqi army battalion that received that order.
	Now you know is it possible some of these documents are inauthentic?
	I suppose it is uh they remain in this in this database um you know certainly has piqued the interest of some people in the U.S. government and I think uh we should really be finding out more and making it available to the public isn't it why isn't the Bush administration interested in a full review of these documents to bolster the intelligence which Clinton believed which all these Democrat senators believed in the nineties and when they debated their resolution for regime change well I think to
	be honest with the the Bush administration made a strategic mish mistake.
	I mean you know during the presidential campaign uh President Bush and Vice President Cheney and others were I think forced to defend the decision to go to war in Iraq in part because they had a constant opponent, somebody who was always there saying hey they misled us, they fictionalized this account.
	And so it required this constant fight.
	And I think once the election was passed the administration decided to turn its attention to the insurgency, to the political process, to things like that.
	And I'm not unsympathetic with that view, but I think what's happened in the interim is you've gradually seen more and more Democrats primarily making these arguments that Bush lied that this was all based on fabricated evidence, things of that nature totally irresponsible claims I think completely without merit but when they're let stand without a challenge, you know, people begin to believe them.
	They they figure if there's an answer to these charges, certainly the administration would be providing it and that they haven't provided it means there's probably not an answer.
	Weekly Standard is on the newsstands now and uh we're with uh Steve Hayes Stephen Hayes has written a a book uh by the way his book The Connection about Al Qaeda's collaboration with Saddam Hussein uh is also an eye opener.
	So shifting for a moment Steve from uh weapons of mass destruction, talk about what you found out with regard to Saddam's ties to Al Qaeda because as we all know this whole tie was labeled a myth by every one of the elite media outlets uh what Leslie Stahl you quote as saying there was no connection and that that is the the the absolute rock bottom belief of the liberal left that there was never a connection that we created al Qaeda in Iraq that Al Qaeda is a result of our invasion and
	not the the uh reason for it or a reason for it.
	And and you c uncovered some stuff about this too.
	I did.
	And you know one of the things I like about this particular debate, Roger, is that we can move from the realm of speculation and intelligence assessments uh things of that nature the uncertain the realm of the uncertain to facts to documents.
	So in post-war Iraq we've uncovered numerous documents as I mentioned some of them we have an idea of what these documents have said.
	There's one that talks about the liaison between the Iraqi Intelligence Service and Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and talks about the uh effort to continue cooperation through discussion and agreement in the future this was a document from the mid-1990s.
	Um you know one of the things that document says was it it talks about continuing the relationship quote unquote in light of bin Laden having had to move uh from Sudan back to Afghanistan.
	And you know, that's one of those things.
	When when Carl Levin and other senators, Senator J. Rockefeller, vice chairman of the intelligence community, running around now saying there was no relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
	Carl Levin calls it the non existent relationship.
	J. Levin says they had nothing to do with one another.
	Well that's simply not the case.
	And we have the documentation to prove it.
	This is documentation that's been authenticated by the U.S. intelligence community.
	It says Carl Levin might think that Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but the Iraqi intelligence services certainly don't seem to have thought so because they were talking about the relationship in their own internal documents.
	Talk about that relationship.
	There's some key people that you've uncovered in these documents as well.
	There is.
	I mean there you know one of the one of the the the main go betweens I think over time and we're learning more as I say every day was someone you mentioned earlier, probably Uday Hussein in this document that I was just speaking of, Uday Hussein is identified as having had a meeting in nineteen ninety four with a senior Sudanese government official in which the Sudanese government approached Iraq on behalf of bin Laden and talked about Bin Laden's willingness to to meet and
	sort of develop this existing relationship.
	There was another very important person named Farouk Hijazi who was for a time the director, deputy director of Iraqi intelligence services, later went on to be ambassador to Turkey Hijazi was long seen as the main go between uh for Iraq and Al Qaeda and participated in what we now know as a series of meetings between the the former Iraqi regime and Al Qaeda.
	I would love to get my hands on Hijazi's debriefings and his interrogations.
	One assumes that that he probably said, well I didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda, you know I we we met a couple times but we were talking about trade or something because you know I assume that he would not be likely to to admit to fostering this relationship between America's two most dangerous and determined enemies.
	On the other hand maybe he gave something up.
	Maybe there's a lot more we can can know there.
	Uh it would certainly be helpful to round out that picture.
	Steve Hayes so here's information both on WMD and on uh on the issue of the link between Al Qaeda and uh Saddam before the war in which the Bush administration or elements of it certainly have information and documents I take it or not classified some of them that uh simply haven't been used to make the case and it's a mystery to many of us, Steve, why this has not happened.
	I I agree with you.
	I think what needs to happen now is for the Bush administration to call for a massive declassification of virtually everything related to Iraq war intelligence.
	I would love to see I think I think the American public deserves to see the pre-war intelligence claims as much of it as can be declassified without jeopardizing sources and methods as possible because then we can let people see what both Republicans and Democrats were looking at before the war.
	But I think as important and perhaps more important is the the rapid declassification of these kinds of documents that I'm talking about and that I'm writing about people actually see what the Iraqi regime was up to.
	And they can see a lot of this in the connection in the weekly sta and the weekly standard now Steve want to stand by on the issue of uh Niger and uh and the ambassador's trip and all of that when we come back I'm Roger Hedgecock, InfoRucky You're listening to Rush Limbaugh on the excellence in podcasting network.
	Roger Hedgecock InfoRush Limbaugh and we're talking to uh Steve Hayes Stephen Hayes from the um weekly Standard uh their November 21 issue with a number of these things uh Steve I'm looking through these titles of the reports again that the Pentagon has so far declined to make public and they really are bombshell papers.
	Uh I I just wonder what a what a paper entitled Formulas and information about Iraq's chemical weapons agents.
	You know what what would be the content of the of that of that document or denial and deception of WMD and killing of POWs.
	You know are we going to find out about our pilot from the ninety one war.
	This is incredible Rice and research and improvement chemical agent purchase orders I tell you what I'm amazed by this stuff that it hasn't gotten and the Bush administration has not done more with it.
	But tell us of what you know about uh Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger and the famous yellow cake uranium, and were the were Saddam's agents down there trying to pick up a uranium they couldn't get anywhere else to help with nuclear weapons development.
	Well, I mean there's so much that hasn't been reported or I think has been misreported by the mainstream press uh on on this particular trip and and it's and and specifically its origins.
	Remember this this all started with intelligence reporting that Whoop the US government got in October of 2001 from a foreign intelligence service that had some sketchy details about Iraqis seeking uranium in Niger.
	Um it was followed up in February of 2002 with additional reporting, providing additional details.
	That was then briefed to the Vice President.
	The Vice President asked uh a general question, basically said, Hey, I'd like to know more about this.
	That was taken back to the CIA, the CIA, uh, where Joe Wilson's wife was working.
	Uh she was involved in the recommendation of her husband to make this trip.
	He was asked to come in to a meeting at the CIA.
	She introduced him at the meeting.
	She played, I think, an integral role in Wilson's uh going on this trip.
	Um and basically, you know, people know where it went from there.
	Wilson went to to Niger.
	He uh in his own words, he says he sipped green tea for eight days and and had some meetings with Nigerian officials and and basically asked them Hey, were you were the Iraqis here selling uranium?
	Um or excuse me, attempting to buy uranium.
	Now the interesting thing, and I think one of the most interesting things about this entire episode is the fact that uh the CIA apparently had uh so few assets of its own that it felt the need to send a retired diplomat rather than call its contacts on the ground in Niger uh to to determine whether these early reports were true or not.
	Um that to me is the real uh the real scandal in all of this is the CIA tradecraft on this from really from beginning to end.
	Uh then Wilson went to Niger, actually, and then surprisingly, I think, talked to Nigerian officials who said, Well, actually there was this one meeting with Iraqi officials back in nineteen ninety-nine, and they asked us about expanding trade relations, and since we have few products other than uranium, we assumed they were talking about uranium.
	So Wilson, in fact, corroborated these earlier intelligence reports, despite what he's been saying for for three years since then.
	Uh and this is you know, this is a narrative that you just really don't read in the Washington Post of the New York Times.
	They simply omit these massive chunks of this this narrative.
	Stephen Hayes, you keep up uh uh providing it to us.
	We'll keep talking about it, and I appreciate uh your service to the country, my friend.
	Thank you.
	Stephen Hayes, senior writer for the Weekly Standard.
	Now, again, his last point.
	Ask yourself, did you see on uh CBS, NBS, or ABS, did you see on any of the networks uh this information?
	Did you in connection with uh Harry uh Reed and all the rest of them standing up and saying uh Bush lied, there never was any WMD, there never was any blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Do you ever see any of the facts presented?
	Have you you know, of this kind?
	I never have.
	Now, when you go back and look at the mainstream media, quite a different picture emerges in the nineteen nineties.
	During the Clinton administration, Newsweek magazine, uh January 11, 99, says, quote, Saddam Hussein, with a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas.
	Assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network.
	U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of mastermining the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer.
	That's what Newsweek was saying in 1999.
	ABC was saying in January 15, 1999, quote, intelligence sources say bin Laden's long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan's fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
	And it goes on to detail it.
	ABC reporting, a link between Osama uh and Iraq And Sudan and weapons of mass destruction and naming names.
	That's in the nineties.
	That's when Clinton's in office.
	That's when Clinton is attacking and bombing what he called weapons of mass destruction facilities.
	What he called Saddam's Weapons Program.
	Stands up to an Arab student audience this week and says it was a mistake.
	It didn't happen.
	Bush lied.
	So we should have saved Saddam's uh uh because they were good people, his deputies.
	Uh we it was all the wrong thing.
	That is just insufferable arrogance.
	We have a memory.
	We know.
	Roger Hedgecock in for Rush Limbaugh.
	Now let's take our focus from the uh war, and we'll take some calls later on on this get back to it, but I want to put into the mix uh a little California news, because this always gives you some perspective in other parts of the country.
	Uh we have uh on death row here in uh California, one Stanley Williams.
	Tukey, uh, as he's known in the gang world, uh, is now fifty-one.
	He was a co-founder of the Crips gang in Los Angeles.
	He was sentenced to death for murdering a convenience store clerk in Whittier, California and two motel owners and their daughter in LA during robberies in 1979.
	He was convicted in 1981.
	He has had appeals incessantly ever since.
	On October 24th, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge set December 13th, finally, as the date for his execution for murders committed twenty-six years ago.
	Um this has resulted, not since Mumia Abu Jamal, is there been such an uproar in the left.
	This has resulted in a uh mass rallying of the left.
	In fact, there will be a teach-in week called Save the Peacemaker rally for Tukey.
	It says, Don't kill Tukey on the fly- I'm I have the flyer in front of me.
	Um it's sponsored by Snoop Dogg and Snoop Dogg and a number of other uh luminaries from the left will be uh in this rally, uh, including Jamie Fox, the actor whose portrayal of um of um Ray Charles was just unbelievable, one of the great movies of all time.
	But here's Jamie Fox, uh, who also played uh Tuki in a television movie.
	Actor activist Mike Farrell, and you know where he's coming from about his lunatic left as it comes, and Snoop.
	So uh the California, in other words, the California elite is turning out to um such as it is, turning out to support uh Tukey.
	Now Tukey, just a side note, a sidebar story.
	Uh Tukey uh has written a memoir, Blue Rage Black Redemption, indicating that his gangster life ended in 1992, that he has written uh books since then, the Tukey Protocol for Peace.
	He has written books for children.
	He has made appearances in with regard to uh uh video appearances in the schools with regard to uh telling kids not to get involved in gangs.
	This happened right after the last of his appeals were turned down.
	Uh he suddenly became Tukey the peacemaker, and he is now telling people widely that well, he's black, so he couldn't get a fair trial.
	That's number one, of course, that's you know, boilerplate.
	Number two, he's redeemed, uh he's renounced uh the uh the gang life.
	He's telling kids to stay off gangs and take it out of gangs and off drugs, and he is um uh writing books about it.
	He is a reform he is a poster boy for what happens when you turn your life around.
	On closer examination, the actual facts, disturbing as they may be to Jamie Fox and others, are number one, Williams has refused to formally renounce his gang membership.
	He regularly exercises in the same yard with Crips only and has a huge, you know, one of these huge bodybuilding bodies.
	I often wondered why did they give prisoners uh weights?
	I just a sidebar.
	Uh he has an unusually large prison bank account that he cannot account for.
	And his son is a Cripps member who's imprisoned for murder.
	And uh has actually there's another charge uh for on another one of his sons on the charge of rape and finding that he also is a gang member.
	So it's kind of a family calling in the in the Tukey family.
	And now he's appealing to Arnold Schwarzenegger for uh clemency.
	As a result of his good work, however, with youth, with the youths of our nation.
	He has been nominated five separate times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
	Now it was tight between he and Jimmy Carter for that.
	Uh it was awful close.
	And uh I think he was in the running that year too when they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to the Palestinian terrorist, uh Mr. Arafat.
	So it's uh it's interesting that uh Tuki, in a long line of peacemakers, huh?
	In a long line of peacemakers, uh Tukey now wants uh to uh gain clemency.
	Uh ladies and gentlemen, the lunatic left in these kinds of crusades to thwart justice to stop a a the co-founder of the Crips gang who felt it was okay to slaughter people wholesale in 1979.
	And you know what?
	I'm glad he's come around.
	I'm glad that he's uh such a peacemaker.
	I'm glad he's written books, I'm glad he's telling kids not.
	That's fine.
	But how does that have anything to do with his guilt and the need for him to pay for the crime he committed back in 1979?
	Fry him.
	Now Arnold, don't uh don't be uh don't even think ten seconds about this one.
	That's my opinion.
	What's yours?
	1800-282-2882.
	Let's get to Hal on a cell phone who's been waiting a long time.
	Hi, Hal.
	Yeah, how are you doing, Roger?
	Okay.
	Hey, Roger.
	Um, you know, my problem with WMD is uh what capability did Saddam Hussein have to deliver any serious blow to the United States directly.
	Uh you know, we've been involved in the Middle East since the end of World War II, uh George Bush at one time, in fact, uh when running for office.
	Well, wait, wait, wait, what do you mean by the capability?
	Because uh Hal, forgive me for interrupting, but the Soviet Union had massive capability to strike us certainly was a threat.
	Well beyond anything Saddam Saddam was.
	Hold on.
	Have you forgotten nine eleven?
	What was the capability then?
	Oh, I understand that, but that was you know, no, you don't.
	That was a relatively small event compared to what the Soviet Union does in a matter of minutes.
	Event.
	More people died on 9-11 than died in the attack on Pearl Harbor.
	Yeah, but five megaton bomb from a MERV missile could kill many times that in a matter of minutes.
	My point is that Saddam Hussein had very had no capability really of attacking the mainland United States in any serious manner.
	But why could we not use the same strategy we did against the Union and wrong?
	You're wrong.
	They did they did attack the United States.
	You can minimize it and say, well, it wasn't as many people who died if we had a MIRVD missile hit LA or or New York.
	Well, that's true, Hal, but we didn't have a MIRV missile.
	We had these guys in airplanes kill more people than died in Pearl Harbor, and you're just glossing right over it.
	I'm not, but what could they have done beyond that?
	What possibility did they have to harm us any further if we said to them, okay, next step is we bomb your cities with nuclear weapons.
	We challenged the Soviet Union for a half a century, and they had a capability to destroy this globe seven times.
	We never attacked the Soviet Union.
	You want to justify a war that was not necessary.
	Let me tell you something.
	We meddled in the Middle East from the w after World War II, deposing the s the leader of Iran in the uh early late 40s, putting in the Shah, what did that get us?
	We gave them a nuclear reactor.
	What did that get get us?
	We backed Saddam Hussein.
	We backed Bin Laden.
	What did that get us?
	It got us where we are today in the middle of a war we didn't need.
	Okay, and and Hal, I appreciate your reciting on the Rush Show all of the lunatic left nonsense that does n that passes for history on your side of the spectrum, which mercifully is uh is not the majority of this country.
	Hal, uh, we did not back Hussein.
	He got some of our satellite intel during his war with Iran because we did not want Iran to win that war.
	That's the sole substance of the quote support, unquote, given uh, by the way, uh, you know, with the uh with the approval of the Democrats in Congress uh to Saddam Hussein.
	Uh when you're talking about meddling in the Middle East, we have been meddling trying to promote a 20th and now 21st century view in the Arab world.
	This is tough going.
	I realize it's been a tough slog, but if you would rather just allow them to wallow in their seventh century fanaticism, then that is your policy choice.
	I don't believe that's what most Americans want to do, Hal.
	I really don't.
	Here's uh Andy on a cell phone in Austin, Texas.
	Andy, welcome.
	Roger.
	Yeah.
	George Bush's campaign against terror is going to go down in history as the most brilliant and successful campaign against that mechanism of hate ever.
	Not only has this administration shown great restraint and compassion for those who live in the area who are innocent bystanders of consequence, who just happened to have been born Iraqi, they have shown a real determination to turn the money spigot off that funds these terrorist hate groups around the world,
	and for anyone not to understand the endless bank account that existed under the ground in Iraq that could be funneled for any purpose and distributed to anyone, particularly these hate groups, to deliver other mechanisms of mass destruction or or airplanes or any other uh cockyed idea to destroy our way of life, our cultural uh preferences here, and uh to continue to foment the hate of Western civilization.
	They have a just a convoluted understanding of economics and how things happen on this planet.
	This is a global market we are at.
	I appreciate the call.
	There's one side and the other.
	What do you think when we come back?
	Roger Hedgecock in for Rush Limbaugh on the EIB network, and uh lots more news to cover.
	Let's get a call in here.
	Scott on a cell phone on the I-5 in Southern California.
	Hi there.
	Hey, good morning, Roger.
	Hi.
	So uh, you know, Tukey definitely let's fry him, but I think he should be, you know, well at the back of the line behind Manson, the Manson Klan, and uh Sirhan, just to name some of our more state notables that are, you know, up there for execution.
	Well, and you know, they're not up for execution.
	You'll recall those folks were uh tried and found guilty at a time when the death penalty was not legal in the state of California.
	They were given life sentences, and it was part of the reason why we had such a big commotion to get the death penalty back in.
	The public voted for it in California so that subsequent atrocities like this one would be handled with swift justice.
	Twenty-six years after the fact, we're waiting for Tukey and we're waiting for justice, and that's a far too long await.
	Then let's light 'em up.
	Light them up.
	I agree.
	Let's dim those lights in San Francisco as justice is done.
	Uh thanks, uh, Scott.
	And and I and I don't mean that in a mean-spirited way, because there's not many of these guys I feel this strongly about.
	But when you find a guy like this with this phony I've uh peace a Nobel Peace Prize thing, he figured if Arafat can get it, he can get it.
	You know, I mean, I haven't killed as many people as Airfat.
	Give me a break.
	Uh that's his logic for getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
	So you it's time for justice to be done, for common sense to be re uh affirmed in some way, shape, or form for those victims of Tukey Williams and the Cripps gang to know that somewhere, somehow, there's going to be justice.
	And by the way, while we're at it, is Mumia still alive?
	Good grief.
	What's that all about?
	All right, here's Rick in Blaine, Washington.
	Hi, Rick.
	Hey, Roger.
	Uh dittoes on Tukey.
	Um, I uh have enjoyed you hosting the show.
	I think you're very cogent and uh well read and well spoken and very organized in your arguments.
	But uh I wholeheartedly agree, and I have personal experience.
	I don't know if you recognize my voice, but former San Diegan, and with when it comes to the mainstream media, there is nothing responsible about what they do.
	They can report whatever they want, and there is no penalty If they are wrong or if they spin it their way or anything else.
	So you completely have my support when you when you say that we're not getting the straight scoop from the media.
	But I think that the entire argument for this has to go back even further.
	There are cruel, inhumane despots all over the world, and they are committing atrocities as we speak right now.
	But we went into Iraq because there's oil involved.
	And that's one of the issues that I take umbrage with Rush on, and that is, you know, we're Americans, and if we want to drive an SUV, we should be able to drive an SUV.
	And and I disagree with that.
	I think that if we're responsible about our use of oil and our resources, it's going to make us more independent and uh further diminish our need to get involved with situations like this.
	Because before the war, uh there was uh sale of Iraq oil to the world market, not just to the U.S., but to the world market.
	The biggest increase in demand for oil, of course, is in China.
	And uh and they were getting that oil.
	Uh after the war, the oil has been sold in the world market.
	We don't get any special break on price.
	We didn't get anything out of the war in terms of oil.
	I wish we had, to tell you the truth.
	I think it would have been only just and right to get about three years of free oil from that country in return for liberating it, but you know, that's just me.
	Uh what actually happened is uh we've set up and protected the oil uh and and the new government of Iraq is going to take that oil as the government of Alaska does and share the wealth with its people, something Saddam never did, by the way.
	So a huge improvement is going to go on, not only in the oil supply to the world market, but in the justice of where the money goes from that oil.
	I mean, ask the Saudis if they're going to follow that line.
	So I think um uh again, I have to tell you, Rick, I think that not only A, was it not a war for oil, uh, because we were getting oil before, we're getting oil now.
	Uh we're buying it on the open market for the outrageous price that's being uh sold for.
	Your second point is about conservation, and I think people ought to have the choice, frankly, to drive whatever they want to drive and pay whatever they're they're gonna pay as the market bears, and I don't think you or I have any right to tell people what they should drive.
	I I'm I'm not saying that we should.
	I'm saying that people need to voluntarily uh uh be conservative if we want to uh diminish our dependency on foreign oil.
	And and I don't I don't disagree with maybe some of the results from this war will will help our oil situation or whatever.
	I'm just saying that we tend to stick our nose in, and this is a very simplistic view, I realize it, but I I I see us sticking our nose in when we have economic um uh interest, let's say.
	What was the economic interest in Iraq?
	What was the economic interest that we got out of Iraq as a result of this invasion?
	I think it's I think we've stuck our nose into the Middle East um, no, no, let's talk about the war in Iraq.
	Don't don't don't no, don't generalize it, don't get off point.
	Rick, what was the economic benefit to the United States of America by invading Iraq?
	I thought that uh I think that we um actually thought that we were going to be able to um to constabilize and control the world oil market better if we had control of Iraq.
	Has that worked?
	No.
	What was your evidence for it being the intent in the first place?
	I I I just I I see atrocities going on all over the world, and we haven't stuck our nose in like we did in Iran.
	You can't you can't answer the question, but I appreciate the attempt, Rick.
	I'm gonna take a break.
	I'm Roger Hedgecock in for rush back after this.
	Roger Hedgecock In for Rush, having a lot of fun and uh and getting some facts out here, and I appreciate uh the calls as well at 1800-282-2882.
	Uh look, uh, if we want to get back and talk about the pre-Iraq war intelligence and all of that, why is the 9-11 Commission?
	Let's turn the tables on the Demst for just a moment here.
	Why is the 9-11 Commission still not seriously looking at able danger at the group in the Pentagon that had Mohammed Atta's picture that had an analysis of I don't know how many of the 19 hijackers already identified and had an appointment with the FBI to brief them on it when it was canceled because of Ms. Gorlicks uh memo from the Justice Department,
	who which at the time said, oh no, there's a strict uh barrier there, uh like church and state.
	We've got to keep a strict barrier between FBI and CIA so that we don't know what one hand is doing and the other hand is doing, and uh when they attack us, no one will know, and we'll just be pointing fingers at each other, which is exactly what happened.
	Jamie Gorlock, of course, winds up on the 9-11 Commission.
	Of course they don't want to look at able danger.
	Of course they don't want to look at their own culpability in the Clinton administration to the fact that George Bush was handicapped from even knowing what was going on because the Pentagon was forbidden from talking for the F to the FBI.

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