Jeanne Shaheen Quotes

Baron Brougham and Vaux

On why the President should not be given the right to go to war without the approval of Congress:

Al Qada and Taliban insurgents fighting in Afghanistan had a sanctuary for training and resupply in the rugged mountains of Pakistan near the Afghan border. Many American military and policy makers believed that we did need Pakistan to close down the sanctuaries and lines of supply if the war was to end. However, the Pakistanis, as Mr. West stated, extracted much from the United States while at the same time, not only refusing to try to control their frontier, but several elements of the Pakistani government were actually assisting the Taliban and Al Qada while taking U. S. Military Aid to suppress them.

This another DeLay quote that deviates from the truth. After 9-11, almost ALL Americans supported the effort to go into Afghanistan and attack the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. However, after President Bush invaded Iraq and tried to justify it as a part of the War on Terror, many liberals and Democrats opposed and protested that part of the war. However so did most of the conservative Libertarians, and many main line Republicans also opposed that part of the war effort. Many in the media opposed the Iraq war efforts, but almost as many supported it—especially most radio talk show hosts. Fox News where he did this interview was a major supporter of the war along with many other media outlets. At the end of President George W. Bush’s second term, a majority of Americans opposed continued fighting in Iraq and most of the media so reported that. Reporting anti war public opinion was interpreted by DeLay as “undermining” the war effort. Later, DeLay was convicted and sentenced to jail for money laundering and illegally spending and raising campaign funds. He was also reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee for unethical methods of fund raising for other earlier actions.

It is noteworthy that a U. S. President had such a harsh evaluation of our major intelligence agency. Even more important in this case is that this President justified his 2003 decision to invade Iraq and start the war on the intelligence he claimed was provided to him by the CIA that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This quotation and the President’s view was not public at the time. I all fairness to the CIA staff, many of them had provided a number of caveats and warnings about the unreliability of the information. However, the CIA Director, George Tenant, advised Bush in a way that the caveats were sublimated. See {633093} for more detail.

Many of the Pakistani leaders publicly opposed and complained about the Drone program, while privately they supported it and in some cases even requested drone strikes. In this case the Prime Minister would lead a protest against the Drone program in the National Assembly and then let the issue drop.

He, in a speech to Parliament, had criticized the Iranian Judiciary on several counts, He was then reprimanded for doing so.

He was explaining his reasons for resigning in 2005 from the number two position in the Justice Department. The George W. Bush administration had implemented a program of secret wiretapping and surveillance of American citizens in America which required the authorization of the Justice Department which had determined that the program as it was being implemented violated the law. The Attorney General was ill in the hospital but had told Comey that he would not sign the authorization. The White House then pressured Comey to sign and he refused, and in a similar replay of the Watergate “Saturday Night Massacre”, the number three man at Justice would have been ordered to sign. His resignation convinced President Bush to alter the program to take account of the Justice Department objections.