I believe that *some* of our intelligence assets should be compromised (after they have been safely removed) if that is what it takes to ensure sufficient hard evidence can be provided to the American people to justify a war. We have a duty to be as sure as possible of that we are doing the right thing: as sure as possible doesn't mean impossibly sure only, to me, reasonably sure based on some hard evidence.
The idea of revealing *all* that we know is ludicrious and unnecessary. There *should* be something that can be compelling evidence. If we can't even dig up something that we can show the American people, how can we trust our actions? How much do you trust our government to be truthful about things it has an interest in? Remember the baby's in incubators and the bad Iraqi soldiers who were said to have turned them all off? Remember how Social Security was never meant to be used for identification purposes? Remember how federal income tax wasn't supposed to be forever or to include everyone?
I want hard evidence because the US government has proven *repeatedly* that they cannot be trusted to tell the People the truth. I will continue to doubt the sincerity of their actions until they provide it, if they ever do. I'm sure there are many more who feel just like me, though I agree that the majority (and the voting majority at that) probably side with you in how much factual data is needed and how much you're willing to trust the word of your elected officials.
I understand your point about Hiroshima and Nagasaki now. You're talking about today's environment while I was talking about the effect of Pearl Harbor on the contemporary environment. I agree that even an event similar to Pearl Harbor might not have the same galvanizing effect today that it once had -- would probably not, in fact. It might even have the opposite effect of fracturizing us further. This speaks loudly of the state of American culture today, IMO. A house divided cannot stand forever, and this American House has got some serious cracks in it today.
Finally, it doesn't matter if Saddam knows a lot about our capabilities. He is like, as I said once before, a man standing on the beach staring at a tidal wave that is fast approaching. He may know it is a tidal wave, and that it is made of water, and that it is caused by an underwater earthquake. He may even know how big the quake that produced it was and how high the crest of the wave. The knowledge wont save him from the wave. If we have credible evidence that he has attacked the US or our direct interested, he's dead regardless of what he knows, and *he* knows that.
Tuor
The fact that Congress... who must have more information than we can have... has voted to support him does not mean anything to you?
You can't just assume that in dealing with someone who is motivated by a passion for revenge rather than rationally reacting to current threats only. When President Clinton took office he said to Saddam in a New York Times interview (Jan 13 1993) "If you want a different relationship with me, you can begin by observing the UN requirements and change your behavior. I am not obsessed...I am a Baptist. I believe in deathbed conversions." On Feb 26 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed.
The mastermind of the plot was Ramzi Yousef who arrived in this country with an Iraqi passport but left on a Pakistani passport which he obtained fraudulently. In order to get the Pakistani consulate in New York to issue him a passport in the name of Abdul Basit, he claimed that he had lost his passport and submitted photocopies of the 1984 and 1988 passports of Abdul Basit. The real Abdul Basit was a Kuwaiti who studied in Britain and then returned to Kuwait in June of 1989. He disappeared along with his parents and was most likely killed during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Ramzi Yousef altered or falsified key personal information on the 1988 passport and witheld other information. The gain in height for Abdul Basit and Ramzi yousef to be the same person is biologically impossible. The passport ends with a departure stamp from Britain marked June 22 1989. What is missing is an entry sta mp into Kuwait for June 22 '89 as well as a kuwaiti residency visa. Also missing is entry stamp to match Basit's departure from England on 3/16/89 and a departure stamp to match his entry into England on 4/7/89. In addition the Iraqis tampered with Abdul Basit's files in Kuwait. Copies of the front page of Basit's passport which would include his photo are missing. Ramzi Yousef's fingerprints were also inserted into Basit's file in Kuwait. It is reasonable to conclude that Ramzi Yousef was an Iraqi agent travelling under a stolen identity.
The man who mixed the chemicals to make the bomb was Abdul Rahman Yasin. After the bombing the FBI made the mistake of thinking that Yasin was cooperating with the investigation and did not arrest him. On March 5 he fled the country and has been living in Baghdad under Saddam's protection ever since. He was interviewed on 60 minutes on June 2 2002. So we can say that Iraq is harboring a terrorist. The bomb contained Sodium Cyanide which can react to form Hydrogen Cyanide gas. The idea is that anyone who was not killed by the collapse of one tower into the other would be asphyxiated by the gas. Hydrogen Cyanide is also the active ingredient in Zyklon B which the Nazis used in concentration camps. Iraq used sodium cyanide in it's chemical weapons program and imported one million dollars worth of Sodium cyanide from a British company illegaly after international export controls on the chemical had been imposed.
In addition the Iraqis had a scheme to manufacture sodium cyanide in Boca Raton Florida. Artificial cherry flavoring is made from a bitter almond oil which comes from peach and apricot pits. A byproduct of the manufacture of this oil is ferric ferrocyanide which is used as a metal cleaner and is found in Drano. Louis Champon, an American invented this process and wanted to build a factory. An Iraqi buisnessman by the name of Ihsan Barbouti offered to invest 5.3 million dollars into the Champon's buisness. Ihsan hired a plant manager who was an expert in the manufacture of hydrogen cyanide for a Swiss company Ceiba Geigy in Louisiana. The plant manager then made a change in the production process which resulted in sodium cyanide being produced instead of the ferric ferrocyanide which would have been less dangerous. Shortly after production began, 1500 pounds worth of sodium cyanide were shipped abroad. The chemicals were labeled as the personal effects of an Iraqi diplomat in Washington and were therefore exempt from customs inspection. It travelled from Florida to Houston to Baltimore to Europe to the Jordanian port of Aqaba and then was trucked into Iraq. No one knows what happened to the rest of the sodium cyanide produced at that plant.
Ihsan Barbouti was also considered to be the linchpin of the Libyan chemical weapons at Rabat and told an Israeli by the name of Moshe Tal that he was trying to build a factory in Libya to make heavy water for a nuclear bomb which could be used against the United States. The plan which fortunately did not get very far was to put the bomb in a shipping container. So we know that an Iraqi who was involved in both the Iraqi and Libyan chemical weapons program was manufacturing the same chemical which was intended to poison people in the '93 wtc bomb at a factory inside the U.S.