To: DrLiberty
"Saddam is not a religious whacko but a shrewd opportunist and I doubt he would ever use a WMD except in self-defense, since he knows he would be glass in 15 mins courtesy of the Israeli Air Force..
What factual basis do you have to doubt that Saddam would ever use WMD? Based on his historical behavior and thirst for revenge, I think there's a good chance he would use nukes against America and Britain. A nuclear attack on one of our cities would be catastrophic. It would be 100 times worse than the 9/11/01 attack. That scenario is unacceptable to the Bush administration, therefore the option of leaving Saddam in power is also unacceptable. That's why we're going to attack, not for oil or empire. Nuclear weapons are not that difficult to build and they're easy to smuggle into a port city. Wake up and smell the coffee before it's too late.
To: defenderSD
"What factual basis do you have to doubt that Saddam would ever use WMD? Based on his historical behavior and thirst for revenge, I think there's a good chance he would use nukes against America and Britain."
Its called MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction). This strategy we depended on entirely for 50 years of Cold War (and still do BTW) and it has worked. In this case, it would be his destruction for hitting us somewhere, but he could hardly finish us. He might get one city, but we would pulverize Baghdad into glass along with him and his heirs. He is a tyrant, and they are usually cowards by nature. He enjoys being a tyrant. He is not religious and not a martyr. There is nothing to suggest he would give his life in this cause.
He wants to remain the rich ruler of his regime. He wants to sell oil. He also wants to be head of some Pan-Arab kingdom in his imagination. If he were to do what you say, he would be dead in the matter of hours and America will live on, injured for sure but hardly vanquished.
Saddam does not appear insane as for example Kim Jung-Il of North Korea has shown himself to be. Yet we are not invading North Korea, which I think is a much bigger threat to us. Instead we are giving them more nuke technology and missiles so they will be able to hit us in the future. Makes sense huh? And that's Bush admin not just Clinton.
To: defenderSD
What factual basis do you have to doubt that Saddam would ever use WMD? Based on his historical behavior and thirst for revenge, I think there's a good chance he would use nukes against America and Britain. Saddam is no threat to the U.S. Even Netanyahu says he won't have a missile capable of hitting the U.S. for another "ten to fifteen years." The country that he's really a threat to is Israel, which blew up his first nuclear power plant in 1981. But Bush can't come out and say we're attacking Iraq to defend Israel. The arabs would go nuts. Same thing if Israel attacked Hussein on her own. The Mideast would go up in flames. Israel would become a pariah nation. So we have to attack Hussein on the grounds he's a threat to world stablility and a personal threat to us. No wonder the Europeans aren't buying it. We aren't telling the truth.
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