AP and AFP. 21 May 2003.Byrd: Americans Lured Into Illegal War.

WASHINGTON -- US Senator Robert Byrd -- a senior Democrat -- issued a scathing denunciation of White House military and diplomatic policy, particularly of the recently-concluded war in Iraq which he said may have been waged in violation of international law.

"The American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing international law, under false premises," Byrd said, in offering some of the most unvarnished criticism yet by Democrats of the US-led war on Iraq.

"Our costly and destructive bunker-busting attack on Iraq seems to have proven, in the main, precisely the opposite of what was the urgent reason to go in.

"This house of cards built of deceit will fall," said Byrd in comments delivered from the Senate floor.

The George W. Bush administration, Byrd charged, "assiduously worked to alarm the public and to blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, until they virtually become one.

"There is ample evidence that the horrific events of Sept. 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida, who masterminded the Sept. 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not.

"What has become painfully clear in the aftermath of war is that Iraq was no immediate threat to the United States, and many of us here said so before the war," Byrd said.

After the war, the search for banned nuclear, biological and chemical weapons has come up empty, Byrd noted.

"The Bush team's extensive hype of (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq as justification for a preemptive invasion war has become more than embarrassing -- it has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power," Byrd said.

"We did not complete the war in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that al-Qaeda is back with a vengeance ... and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood."

"If the situation in Iraq is the result of liberation, we may have set the cause of freedom back 200 years."

He said the administration's talk of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the war "has become more than embarrassing."

"It has raised serious questions about prevarication and the reckless use of power," he said. "Were our troops needlessly put at risk?

"Were countless Iraqi civilians killed and maimed when war was not really necessary? Was the American public deliberately misled? Was the world?"

He said the United States "appears to be pushing off Iraq's clamor for self-government."

"It is becoming all too clear that the smiling face of the U.S. as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier," he said.

"The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom."

The West Virginia Democrat also criticized as "spineless" his colleagues in Congress for voting to authorize the war.

That Byrd, what a trouble-maker. He's obviously a descendent of the original West Virginians, who broke off from the state of Virginia during the Civil War because they didn't want to cooperate with fighting for the Glorious Cause of the Confederacy. Byrd doesn't realize that to get along you have to go along.

...has brought Shame and Dishonor upon the American Nation.

Now this is the same Byrd that was in the KKK right?

Thought so.

And yes. That was an ad hominem attack against this racist cocksucker.

...coming from a Racist anti-Arab Islamophobe I find that sweet irony.

Pot meet Kettle.

a stitch of confidence is either a fool or a sycophant.

Senator Byrd-brain ranks #2 in the Sanate when it comes to credibility. That would be #2 from the bottom, of course. He is clearly losing his grip.

He has only Hillary to contend with in his quest for the bottom rung on the Senate ladder.

Yea! A politcian who isn't bought by corporate lobbiests. Byrd is a brave american hereo for standing up to these crooks in Washington. And is it just me or doest seem that alot of this Junta is jumping ship. Christine Todd Whitman got tired of getting blamed for Bushes complete destruciton

of all the environmental protection laws. Well she was seen as a moderate face in front of a savage environmental

policy favoring buisness intrests instead of protection. But they are not hiding anything now with her replacement check his record out.

And of course Arie Flishere proabably couldn't live with himself anymore even though he is part of the secret La Cude Party which determines Bushes forgien policy in the middle east. That's got to be the sleeziest job in America to stand up in front of the world everyday and lie lie, lie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...Wavemaster - it should be Ari Fourflusher. After all we do live in the West.

People often change as they grow older; the Byrd of today is not the same as an ignorant backwoods Byrd of many decades ago. Malcolm X and Garry Wills are two other people who dramatically changed their politics and views on life in general as they grew older and wiser. Good old Ronnie Reagan certainly changed his views, although I don't think it was because he became wiser. The well-known leftist author Howard Fast claimed that Reagan twice applied for membership in the Communist Party before World War II - and was rejected because of suspected mental instability.

Would you kindly change my diaper?

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"People often change as they grow older; the Byrd of today is not the same as an ignorant backwoods Byrd of many decades ago."

Had he been supporting the war, he'd still be ignorant, wouldn't he?

Come on, guys...you keep wanting to have it both ways. Sen. Byrd says the war is illegal, and you believe him. But he also says Al Qaeda "masterminded the Sept. 11th attacks", which goes against all the conspiracy theories popular here.

Make up your minds: if he's credible about the war, he has to be credible about Sep. 11. If he's not credible about Sep 11, he's not credible about the war.

Raging hypocricy.

1) Byrd really is an old time racist. Not just racist but KKK is anti catholic, anti immigrant and anti a whole bunch of stuff.

2) His support of states rights and Jim Crow indicates that he is not of the old west virginia blood who didnt' want to support the South.

3) He is not a poor old boy. He is quite rich and comes from a family of politicians including Harry Flood Byrd from Virginia.

4) His ties to King Coal are well documented.

Be that as it may, what he says has to be looked at on its one merits. Just don't make that guy into some type of progressive hero.

Ted Kennedy may be a drunken, womenizing scum but that doesn't really affect the validity or lack thereof of what he says.