Rice Says Iraq War Still Worth It

Rice, Pataki, Schumer: U.S. Safer Today

(CBS/AP) 
Also last week, President Bush announced that the terror suspects in secret prisons would be transferred to military control and said there is no one currently in what he called this "CIA program." Rice said those prisons were important tools to obtaining information from enemies of the United States.

"But now, many years later, we believe we've exploited that intelligence value to the degree that it's now time to bring them to justice," she told Schieffer. "After September 11, it was very clear that the big missing link in our abilities to fight the kind of attack that took place on September 11 was information."

Thanks in part to these operations, Rice said the U.S. is safer now than it was before the Sept. 11 attacks, but must not relent in fighting terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere.

"I think it's clear that we are safe — safer — but not really yet safe," Rice said.

"We've done a lot. In terms of homeland, we're more secure. Our ports are more secure. Our airports are more secure. We have a much stronger intelligence sharing operation," said Rice, who was President Bush's national security adviser when al Qaeda masterminded the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Also appearing on Face the Nation Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. said the Dept. of Homeland Security, founded after 9/11 with the intention of protecting the United States from another terrorist attack, is an unfocussed, underfunded "huge bureaucracy."

"It was sort of put together very quickly after the 9/11 Commission began, almost as a defensive reaction," he said speaking to Schieffer from Ground Zero." It hasn't worked, and we ought to look at something new."

New York governor George Pataki, a Republican, said that the country is safer than before 9/11 but there are gaps in security.

"I think, the borders. When you're in a state of war, how can you be in a position where you have thousands of people crossing into the country illegally?" he said on Face the Nation.

He said that mass transportation like planes and trains are going to be vulnerable for sometime and that Americans are going see National Guard troops stationed at Penn Station and Grand Central Station and other high traffic spots.

"I don't think there's anyone who can look you in the eye and say that a terrorist or an organized attack couldn't happen again," he said.

[imjustsaying]

In 2002 and 2003, this administration made explicit claims that Saddam was linked to al-Qaeda, and hence to 9-11. But now they're back to the Saddam was evil excuse -- we've seen it all before Ms. Rice. You know perfectly well, that most Americans would probably have never gone along with your "Saddam is evil" excuse for invading Iraq.

The American people are tired of these continued misrepresentations of your pre-war position. I hope they will let you know just how tired in November.

[ronniehm]

I guess I would go along with the "Saddam is evil" excuse. After we kicked him out of Kuwait, he signed an agreement that stopped us from taking him down. He violated the agreement. The end.

If Bush had just said that, I think most people would view the invasion of Iraq as a continuation of the war that started when Saddam invaded Kuwait. I don't think it was necessary to sell this as a new war or to call it part of the war on terror.

[fedora1958]

When logic is tortured this much, it reaches the point of organ failure.

Although the reasons given for the war were not true, the war itself was correct. No one lied, and yet, no one made a mistake, either. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Two plus two equals five.

The War in Iraq may have indeed been a noble cause, or at least there may one hidden somewhere among the corporate giveaways. Going against brutal dictators is not a bad thing per se.

But they misrepresented the reasons for war. At the very least, that's bad leadership. If it's worth doing, it was worth the truth. In their arrogance, they assusmed that it wouldn't matter, because it was all going to be over in time to kick off the 2004 campaign with a nice photo op on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

But it didn't work out that way, and now the American People are balking, and that's one reason why the mission in Iraq is probably going to fail. Bush is telling the truth about this much; if we fail in Iraq, it will empower the terrorists. Likewise if we continue to occupy Iraq. We are in a hell of a mess, thank you very much.

[sharncedar]

I'm going to be a real throwback to civilization (remember that?) and say that determining when someone is deserving of capital punishment is a serious thing in which you want to have a consistent and fair process in which as a minimum the person can answer their accusers and have access to the same evidence. Remember those ideals? Yeah, people fought for some 500 years to establish those priciples against stupid kings and so forth.

So condemning Saddam whoever to death (recall the first act of the current Iraq bombing spree, I won't dignify it as a war, was an attempt to kill Saddam hussein in cold blood with bunker bombs) should have followed some more fair process. I don't think that some people with bombs deciding in a group of three or four with only one dissenting voice that someone is "evil" is a good precedent for applying death to folks. Suppose we get a super-liberal president like Hugo Chavez in there. Who might he condemn to death as "evil"? Perhaps the whole Fortune 500 CEO list, who knows. Or maybe you, what's to stop him, he is just "destroying evil" like Bush/Cheny/Rumsfeld. Whatever a president does becomes precedent for the next one, the way Clinton's snub of congress in Yugoslavia led to Bush's free hand in Iraq which leads to what next, God help us.

[bonnie442]

Is the war in Iraq worth it? You be the judge:
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