[ConservativeMind]

Those are all nice and dandy, but not nearly as legitimate as the terms of the ceasefire from the first Iraq war. Iraq was to have refrained from any hostilities against our planes over the no-fly zone.

Every week, Iraq locked on or fired missiles at such planes, effectively ending the ceasefire and allowing us to blow him completely to Hell.

That was the true reason it was not pre-emptive.

[mnehring]

Bingo, if one wanted to fight this on legal grounds, the very first time Sadamn fired on one of our planes in the no fly zone, we had the right to attack... There are so many reasons, it would probably make our tax code look small. The reason why ‘now’ versus ‘later’ was specifically to pre-empt future aggression and support for terrorist states. That is the reason for timing, not the only reason for ‘why’...