[xzins]

This was a preemptively defensive war, started under the mistaken assumption that Saddam had WMD's and he would use them against us

That is not accurate.

First, there was no real fear that Saddam would use them against us. The issue was that he was not complying with UN resolutions to reveal the status of unreported WMDs. I don't think anyone claimed that Saddam would launch a war against the US. The fear was that his possession of any quantity would enable him to use terrorists to deliver small quantities of WMD for big effects in the western world.

Second, it has been demonstrated again and again that Saddam did still possess WMDs and that he had the recipe for making more of them extremely quickly. Again, this gave him the capacity to use clandestine terrorist delivery systems.

[P-Marlowe]

What seems to be glossed over entirely is that the 1992 Gulf War ended not with a peace treaty but with a conditional cease fire. Saddam Hussein never lived up to the conditions. We had a duty to go in an finish him off. What good is a conditional cease fire if no one is going to abide by the conditions or enforce them?

In such a case all it did was to give time to Hussein to regroup and rearm. That is what he did. Then he thumbed his nose at the cease fire agreement and pursued a campaign to obtain WMD's. We had a duty to go in. We could have bombed Iraq into the sand, but we chose to be merciful. Perhaps that was our mistake.

Regardless, the heart of the king is in the hand of God. If we chose to be merciful then it was God's will that we be merciful.

BTW I was against the Gulf War until we had troops on the sand. I was all for the latest Iraqi venture. Our survival may be at stake here. We must succeed.

[jude24]

First, there was no real fear that Saddam would use them against us.

Condoleeza Rice - "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." This war was sold as having been defensive against WMD.