"IMO most important reason... Saddam was thumbing his nose at the world and refusing to comply with the conditions for cease-fire from 1991."
So, we're fighting a war to enforce UN resolutions?
That's too bad, I'd like to see us totally out of the UN, but doing their work and enforcing their policies won't get us there.
---So, we're fighting a war to enforce UN resolutions?
That's too bad, I'd like to see us totally out of the UN, but doing their work and enforcing their policies won't get us there. ---
Not exactly...
GHW Bush launched a war with Iraq in 1990 to free Kuwait. When we had thumped Saddam into submission, GHWB made the mistake of allowing the UN to define the terms of surrender. He did that to make it more multi-lateral and not a US vs Iraq scenario which he believed would cause friction in the Middle East.
Once that was done, the UN had authority to monitor the cease fire. However, the US did hold a right to resume the war if it felt any conditions were breached. That right never went away, however, Clinton ignored it for the most part with small exceptions for high-level bombing.
GWB, upon taking the white house, had the authority to resume the war at any time because Saddam had breached numerous provisions of the cease fire. He went to the UN and asked them to give Saddam an ultimatum which they did, and which Saddam told them to stuff. The rest is history.
For Boxer to ignore all of that history and pretend it was "only about WMD" is ludicrous, but the Dems seem bound to embarrass themselves with it.