I tried to call Chuck a minute ago; funny click on the line, and then, No answer. Hope he's ok...

I took the trouble to go back over CNN and Meet the Press media transcripts from 2002 and 2003 - specifically the role that Joe Biden and Chuck Hegal played on the foreign relations committee.

In July of 2002 - Joe Biden and Chuck Hegel began a Congressional Investigation of Bush's build up of 200,000 troops in the Middle East. In July of 2002, all Congress had were questions without the intelligence to support a war without doing an investigation. http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/details.cfm?id=188293&&

In the Fall of 2002, Powell went before the UN with the "case for war" and the UN agreed to send in inspectors.

In October Congress passed the Bush Resolution to have war contingent upon the UN inspector's report as to whether Saddam had WMDs.

In January Bush in the State of the Union Address made the case for war not based upon the UN inspector's findings (which hadn't happened yet) but upon the CIA and British intelligence findings (bogus now - Plamegate)

In the beginning of March - two weeks before the war was to begin, it was common knowledge on the Hill that no WMDs existed although the UN inspections had not been done. Biden appeared on Chris Matthews who questioned him about this. Senator Kennedy and Kucinich made speeches saying there were no WMDs. Bush made public statements Iraq needed a regime change, and the reason for war was to get rid of Saddam. Biden made a public statement in the Washington Post and on Chris Matthews that if the reason for war was changing (the goal post was being moved) that Bush needed to go back the UN and negotiate a new UN resolution. Bush stated a new reason for going to war was to get rid of Saddam and to establish democracy in Iraq. France, the EU, Turkey, Egypt, dropped support of US. Bush declares we would go it alone. Two weeks later Bush bombs Iraq. Any hope of having a debate within Congress or the UN to stop the war was gone.

http://biden.senate.gov/newsroom/details.cfm?id=191196&&

I'd love to see Chuck Hagel on the ticket as VP. He'd put the memory of Cheney to shame. We could use a resounding, pricipled man like Hagel in that office.

Yeah, but who really cares how competent you
are when you have Ultimate Power? Laws? Pshaw!
IG BushCo is Most Powerful, and can take or
buy ANYTHING or ANYONE it wants. Most Powerful!
Next week, Rove will demonstrate that by
mastering the art of levitation...

http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/31/se.01.html

Please, please check out this website which are CNN's transcripts of interviews with key players leading up to the War in Iraq.

Biden with the support of Hegel in July of 2002 (Powell went before the UN in September of 2002, the War resolution was voted on by Congress in October of 2002, and Bush gave his now famous speech about the intelligence in January of 2003, began to bomb Iraq in March of 2003). So, before all this happend, Biden and Hegel started Senate Congressional Hearings to investigate why Bush/Cheney were taking America to war, to find out what reasons Bush had to do so, what evidence Bush had of WMD, how bush planned to occupy Iraq, what funds to finance a war Bush was planning to use, etc. Biden tried to get Bush to be held accountable and to be public with what he was doing vs secretive and evasive.

After Powell's speech to the UN in September of 2002 about secret intelligence and tube from Nigeria - the world and Congress were lead to believe there was hard core evidence of WMDs.

Biden and Hegel got written into the War Resolution conditions before the President could act - those conditions were that the President must allow UN inspectors before going to war to determine the truth if Saddam had WMDs. It was on condition that Congress voted for the war. George Bush didn't keep his end of the bargain and went to war without allowing the UN ispectors to complete their job. The fault of the war rests squarely on Bush's head, no one else.

Yes Biden regrets his vote and feels deceived by the President.

Rove is trying to rewrite history because the Bush adminstration resented the Senate Comitteee to investigate Bush's plans for War lead by Biden and Hegel.

You can fault the fact that Biden and Hegel were not successful in stopping Bush, but they both tried more than any other person in Congress other than Daschle - who Rove got rid of.

Biden is a corporatist and was instrumental in pushing through the new unfair bankruptcy laws.

Talk is cheap.
Impeach.

I'd vote for his ticket in a heartbeat.

Lieberman wouldn't let Hagel run with war monger Hillary.

Chuck Hagel is a true statesman - the kind of Senator this country needs who is for America and what is best for Americans. Putting America first should be their No.1 job priority.

Gee, I took good ol' Chuck only seven years to figure this out...

Chuck is probably eyeing a VP spot under Billery. If he gets it Edwards will have to step aside under pressure. Either way the Billery ticket like any ticket with O-bomb-a on it will lose by a large margin.

Thank you Senator Hagel . . .now please help with impeachment . . . we need to get the big dick and the chimp out . . .

Hagel isn't smart enough to be president or VP if he believes this shit, and if he doesn't he is covering their asses.

There's nothing incompetent about them - they did exactly what they set out to do: They looted the treasury on their own behalf and for the benefit of their corporate sponsors, they destabilized the middle east at the cost of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives in order to pilfer petroleum, they gutted the regular military and the national guard while using public funds to militarize the police and create a huge, well-armed, privately controlled military force, they polarized populations and created enmities and hatreds that will last for generations, they destroyed whatever corporate regulation there was and what they couldn't destroy they crippled, they made it next to impossible for the next administration to clean up their mess (which can then be blamed on the Democrats), they corrupted the legal process and debased the rule of law, they corrupted the normal means of information dissemination by encouraging consolidation of media ownership, and . . . they made room for some awesome condo and timeshare construction opportunities on the Louisiana Gulf Coast - - hell, there is virtually no end to the list of their successes.

I don't know how anyone can call them incompetent.

I don't want to hear that now. He stood with Bush through thick and thin. Check his votes he voted for everything Bill Frisk did. Yeah it incompetent Administration now the bank is empty. He want the Democrats to fill it up so they can empty it agian. No way Mr. Hagel you and your gay buddies made your bed don't run now.