Since I am obviously anti-UN, I never thought the inspections were honest. I was never really worried about Saddam launching missiles against the U.S., but I was very worried that he (or his sons after him) would develop nukes and give them to those who intended to detonate them in the U.S. (or Israel).
I honestly don't know if there was anything to that yellow cake story, but it would make perfect sense if true. Saddam openly said he had a nuke program, and it fits the personality profile of any dictator to want to be in "the club".
Besides, North Korea didn't even hide that it was making or that it actually had at least one missile capable of reaching the US and we did nothing. How selective can you get?
Of course they attempted to hide it. Clinton cheerfully signed an agreement with DPRK in 1994, in which they "promised" to give up their nuclear weapons program. I am sure that the libs were all SHOCKED when it turned out they had been lying to us all along. (Of course they were finally forced to admit it when they planned and executed nuclear testing.) Who could ever imagine that a dictator would lie? :)
This is what drives me nuts about liberals. They have a genetic inability to see evil in the world for the threat it is. Even now we have a major candidate calling the War on Terror a bumper sticker.
So, claiming "imminent danger" and 48-hour nuclear strike capability was a deliberate disinformation with one goal in mind: to create a panic situation and get a green light for a war.
I'm not certain, but I don't remember Britain ever claiming that Saddam actually had nukes at the time. I thought it was about for whenever they got nukes. Nukes have to be tested and everyone obviously knew that no testing had taken place. That would operate against imminent threat. Plus, I KNOW that Bush never claimed imminent threat, and never pumped it as a reason to go to war.
We were attacked by Osama who was in Afghanistan. Our miserable failure to catch him there was no excuse to go after Iraq with no connection whatsoever. Except the neocons saw this as a perfect opportunity to settle some old scores.
Who ever said that was an excuse to go into Iraq? Not Bush. Both were part of the WOT, but Bush never said that Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. Bush presented the WOT as a global effort, wherever terrorism flourished. Iraq WAS one of the biggest state sponsors of terror at the time.
Attacking Iraq did not reduce the possibility of terrorist infiltration on our shores, or using domestic "sleeper cells" for that purpose.
Not true. The threat was never ICBMs from Iraq, and nobody I can think of in the Bush administration ever said it was. The threat was smuggling in weapons to be used by foreign terrorists, and possibly domestic sleeper cells. Given how porous our border security is, that remains a very real threat today.
Kuwait was part of Iraq until the British created it (together with the fake "royal" family) for their oil interest. A little history helps understand how conflicts simmer, and why they boil over when no one expects it.
My understanding is that Kuwait has been completely sovereign since the early 60's. If one believed that Saddam had a legitimate right to invade Kuwait, then I suppose such a person would also have sympathy for La Raza, which believes that the southwest United States really belongs to Mexico. :)
Your knowledge of Middle East history is zero, imo. Everything you spout is replaying recorded Fox News propaganda. Otherwise you couldn't be saying what you are saying. There was no terrorism or instability in the Middle East. The only terrorism that existed after 1945 was Israeli terror tactics against the British there. (emphasis added)
Please take this in the good humor in which it is intended, but that statement makes Holocaust deniers look reasonable. :)
First, the issue of oils supply to Israel, which has no oil of its own, is a concern. All the oil in the region comes from Israel's enemies. The pipes leading to the Mediterranean go over territories that are hostile to Israel. The only connection to oil is through Turkey ...
I don't understand why this would be a reason to go to war. Why can't Israel buy its oil on the world market, like everyone else does. We buy Iranian oil and they hate us just as much as Israel. There's no way to shut off Israel's oil supply, except for a physical blockade of some sort, and that can't happen.
Controlling the region, or having America-friendly regimes installed there would assure us not only of the world's largest oil reserves, but direct control over them.
I really doubt Bush had such grand designs. I think part of our foothold would indeed go to protecting the oil supply. But right now no one country, such as Iran, (or even a small group) can keep its oil from the U.S. Once on the world market, oil goes to whoever buys it. If Iran wanted to deprive us, they would have to shut down all production, and they aren't going to do that. This shoots down the whole "war for oil" argument right here.
And, by the way, by now more Iraqis have died since the invasion then under his horrible regime.
How can you know that? To my knowledge, the DOD is not releasing those estimates (Rosie O'Donnell's numbers notwithstanding :), and we certainly can't be sure of how many people Saddam has murdered. We have only found some of the mass graves. It is inconceivable that more have died since the war began than he killed. And, you cannot count those who are shooting at Americans, they are the enemy.
Geopolitically, [Saddam] was a minor threat to us, but he was a stability factor for the region.
A leading state sponsor of terror was a stabilizing factor??? Interesting. He invaded sovereign nations, gassed his own people, paid bounty to suicide bombers, grossly violated UN agreements, and bragged that he was developing nuclear weapons. Yep, sounds stabilizing to me alright. :)
What does that say about our principles? It says we don't have any. It says we have selective outrage when it suits us. Saudi Arabia treats its women just as badly, and we see nothing about in on public TV. Ever wonder why.
I agree with your general points in your last few paragraphs. But all any leader can do at any one time is go with what he thinks is best at the time and for the future. Sometimes that means making a "lesser of two evils" choice. Once upon a time, Saddam was the lesser of two evils so we backed him. Times change though, and I don't think that necessarily makes the original decision wrong, FOR THE TIME it was made.
I can understand that, but that threat has not been removed by his removal. In fact, it may have be increased as a result of further radicalization of Islam (whish perceives our military interventions as "Crusades" for "Zionist' interests). There are 1 billion Muslims in this world (and one of the fastest growing religions). If one out of ten Muslims is an Islamic radical, that's a potential army of 100 million (no fuzzy math this time!). I believe mine is a conservative figure.
So, the question is have we made our world safer, and the answer is no. Just the opposite.
Saddam openly said he had a nuke program
That program was blown to pieces by the Israelis. Active production of weapons-grade plutonium and activities associated with such a project are easily detectable, as is the case with N. Korea and Iran. What's the point of lying? More importantly, you can't hide it. But what was suggested is that somehow the program has "advanced" to the "imminent threat" level.
In a speech to the UN in 2002, a few months before the start of the war, Pres. Bush said "Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger." In 1997, Clinton actually said Saddam was a "clear and present danger" (but he was referring to the local region). Yet the UN inspections, and intelligence reports were not as certain as politicians.
In September 2002, the International Institute for Strategical Studies (IISS), which calls itself the "world's leading authority on political military conflicts," said
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein could build a nuclear weapon "in a matter of months" if he managed to buy or steal raw materials, a defence analyst has warned.
has found that Iraq has chemical nerve agents, a stockpile of anthrax and is some way down the road towards nuclear weapons - without yet having the raw material
The IISS report comes after a weekend which saw Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush argue that doing nothing about Saddam's weapons programmes was not an option for the international community.Mr Blair stressed that once the public had seen the evidence "people will see this is not something that has been invented or dreamt up in the last few weeks. This is a real and serious issue.
The report said that Iraq's chemical weapons capability did not appear to pose a decisive threat against opposing military forces, who would be protected against such attack, although in small numbers chemical munitions could disrupt logistical operations and threaten civilian populations.
The inquiry has already established beyond doubt that, despite government briefing that Dr Kelly was a medium-level official of little significance, he was in fact one of the world's leading experts on WMD in Iraq. It is also clear that Dr Kelly chose to brief three BBC journalists - and presumably others - to the effect that the 45-minute warning of the possible use of WMD was an exaggeration. He said to the Newsnight reporter Susan Watts, as well as to Gilligan that Campbell and the Downing Street press operation were responsible for exerting pressure to hype up the danger. [Guardian, Aug 23, 2003]
We know through emails revealed by Hutton that Tony Blair's chief of staff made clear that the dossier was likely to convince those who were prepared to be convinced, but that the document "does nothing to demonstrate he [Saddam Hussein] has the motive to attack his neighbours, let alone the west. We will need to be clear in launching the document that we do not claim that we have evidence that he is an imminent threat.