Apart from the WMD which Saddam Hussein had had earlier (and may have sent out of the country during the interval when Colin Powell was trying to talk the French and the Russians into supporting the war), there was a real danger of Saddam developing a nuclear weapon. It's bad enough having to worry about two irrational regimes, North Korea and Iran, having nukes...the dangers to us and to everyone else would be even greater with a third nutjob having that in his arsenal.
If the 'Rats do get a majority and start impeachment hearings, I hope Bush will finally end his 6 years of not deigning to defend himself against scurrilous attacks.
I don't think Hillary would want the Congress obsessed over impeachment in 2007 and 2008--it would remind people too much of the last years of the first Clinton regime.
Amen on that. If he would have started out defending himself, this condition wouldn't exist now.
We went to Iraq because of Saddam's failure to abide by the cease-fire agreement, which in my opinion meant that the 1st Gulf War never actually ended. Not only was he shooting at our planes but the UN instpectors (when they were allowed free access) continued to find UN banned weapons. The inspectors found them, they were not being handed over by Saddam's regime. I believe once Saddam saw that his UN banned weapons were not safe from the UN inspectors, it was then that he began to be less cooperative and began adding all the conditions and increased trickery to the UN inspectors up to the beginning of the war. After the invasion our troops continued to find UN banned weapons. Furthermore, in the post 911 world, Saddam's involvement with terrorists (ie $25,000 checks to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers) actually trumps everything written before this sentence.
I honestly do not remember Bush telling the American people that Saddam has WMD (he never had to, Saddam had used them on his own people). I do remember several speeches where Bush had said that we can not allow Saddam to posess Weapons Of Mass Destruction as he would be able to hold peace in the Middle East hostage and peace in the world. I've heard speeches where Bush had announced that if we allow Saddam time to develop and posess WMD it would change the politcal situation in the Middle East where Saddam would have an upper hand and be able to have more room to manipulate policy in the Middle East.
Yes, we all know what the democrats have said about WMD from 1998 on up to the beginning of the most recent war in Iraq. We have their quotes. We've posted them. We exposed them. Honestly, I remember the democrats claiming Saddam had WMD more than I can Bush ever doing so.
I have been trying to find these Bush speeches where he talked about how we cannot allow Saddam to posess WMD. Has anybody seen them in text anywhere on the net>
I think it's time to contrast to the American people just what the dems had said about WMD with what I have heard Bush say about the dangers of giving Saddam time to develop them.
We did not go to Iraq because we thought he had WMD. If Bush had said that, I would have hesitated to support him sending in ground troops. The WMD issue was only a factor in the decision that we should go SOONER rather than wait until he already had them.
Now that we got the dems quotes out there...it's time we start searching for these pre-war Bush quotes.