I guess this is my perspective. Iraq has been successfully contained for 12 years. During that time, Saddam has; made 1 amateur attempt at a US President's life destroyed many chemical weapons under UN scrutiny not invaded anyone, except to put down uprisings/rebellions within Iraq has had a track record on human rights fairly typical of many worldwide dictators outside the western world. done a pathetic attempt to keep some chemical/bioweapons, but either has very little to speak of, or is the best illusionist since David whassisname not been proven to be at all involved in US anthrax attacks. likely supplied less anthrax to terrorists than the advertisers in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine Rented the Saladin bedroom in Baghdad to Osama Bin laden exactly zero times Had just approximately zero Iraqi terrorists arrested in the USA And let me re-iterate - been successfully contained for 12 years, and knows that if he steps out of line, he loses the one thing that matters most to him - his position of power. He may be a bad, bad man, but I ain't convinced he has anything to gain by attacking the USA. I am concerned we're focusing our attention in the wrong direction, and opening ourselves up to another terrorist attack while we're preoccupied with someone whohas not shown themselves to be a threat. Does thinking this somedays make me a Saddam apologist? Anti-American? Communist? More evil than the girl who won't pray to the US flag? A card-carrying pinko liberal? Aside from the attempt on Bush's life, is Iraq any different than Iran? (In fact, all the bad, bad things Saddam has done are mostly from a long time ago - back when the current US President was a drunk cocaine abuser. But Bush has been allowed to rebuild his image)
This, for me, has been just like Colin Farrell: some things just show up and we are expected to accept them as "authentic." In fact, the OIG within the DOJ acknowledges that the two primary explosives experts reached different conclusions on the evidence, that in fact one of the two (Whitehurst) claimed long ago - and continues to claim - that the other expert (Ronay) "purposely misinterpreted these results in order to link the explosive material to Iraqi agents. Whitehurst further asserts that very possibly his results were changed to support the retaliatory missile strike by the United States." The report goes on to submit: "Whitehurst stated that he later read a newspaper article and an FBI memorandum about the Bush matter, which he believed suggested that his comparison results had been used to link the Bush device to Iraq and to support the missile strike. Whitehurst told us that as a result, he reviewed his data again and discovered that he had overlooked Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) data from the Bush explosives that resembled FTIR data from the Southeast Asia explosives. This discovery somewhat lessened Whitehurst's concern about the reported relationship between the Bush and Southeast Asia explosives. Still, Whitehurst remained concerned that after he had advised Ronay that there was no link between the Bush explosive and other explosives, Ronay had purposely misreported this conclusion." Read it for yourself here My concern is that this is so reported as a matter of fact, yet one of the few rigorous documents about the matter is filled with serious questions. Of course, the last thing we need when we are trying to work ourselves up to get behind a war is rigourous questioning, so I understand. But still... I hear your larger point though...
Apparantly not. "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie adressing Saddam Hussein, July 25, 1990 (8 days before Iraq invaded Kuwait)
the truth is that if Saddam actually was retarded enough to launch a nuke at someone, or any major WMD it would be his end, and he knows it. If he invades another country it would be his end, and he knows it. It woud be terrible if it happened, but Iraq would be done for and wouldn't get too far before we came down on he and his forces. Unless Bush can really provide some solid evidence that Saddam has personally , covertly aided terrorists then a war should be delayed as long as possible. blah!
So, you all see my point that Iraq doesn't necessarily have to be a "national security threat" for the United States (or, in this case, a coalition) to take action. For what it's worth, I think what constitutes a "national security threat" is open to a fair amount of interpretation.
Well, if he doesn't disarm, it will be his end, but it appears that he is in no rush to comply with that demand. So I think this argument is specious.
if you say so. I agree that the U.N. has been backed into a corner and inaction now would severly undermine the authority of the organization, yes. This didn't have to be the case though.
I'm actually surprised that the conservatives on this board have not come up with a better refutation of my original assertation that containment has worked and would probably keep working. I know Bush couldn't, but after reading these boards for awhile, I expected you guys could top him. Maybe Alex can help
Mike and I have both been alluding to this famous exchange, which much of the world still sees as proof of a U.S. trick played on Hussein to get him to attack Kuwait--thus giving us reason to send in the troops. Anyway, in the spirit of fair play, I'll add that I just came across an article from the Christian Science Monitor that at least spreads some doubt on the truth of this claim. "In November 1992, Iraq's former deputy prime minister, Tarik Aziz, gave Glaspie some vindication. He said she had not given Iraq a green light. "She just listened and made general comments," he told USA Today. "We knew the United States would have a strong reaction." I tend to think Aziz is being duplicitous here, but it should also be noted that the transcript including Glaspie's comment that was so widely disseminated also came from the Iraqis themselves. Was it an audio tape, so we could check if she had been misquoted? I get the feeling it was just a text document in Arabic. She claims, btw, that she was misquoted. Basically, I'm just throwing out a caveat. However, it seems clear that Glaspie either made a huge blunder or intentionally misled the Iraqis that day. When looked at in conjunction with similar comments in the media by other Admin. officials around that time, I lean towards the "intended" interpretation.
If not invading anyone was the sole purpose of the cease-fire, you'd have a point. But it wasn't, so you don't. If I needed you to validate my position on Iraq, I'd be in big trouble. But I don't. I won't hold my breath waiting for you to approve a 'refutation' of your skewed argument.
Aziz doesn't exactly support those who say that the US was unaware: Our analysis was that it was foolish of Kuwait to threaten Iraq, if it was not pushed and backed by the United States. How could a tiny emirate like Kuwait challenge Iraq in that way, if it did not agree on that with a super power? The United States at that period was becoming the sole super power, the Soviet Union was at its weakest point and we knew very well that that was an American plan, because Kuwait could do the economic war.... We were expecting an Israeli aggression or an American aggression or both, during that period, regardless of whether we go to Kuwait or not. That was our analysis, that was our conviction, that the United States, after the weakening of the Soviet Union, when George Bush started to feel that he's the most powerful leader in the world. He decided to take over this region. He decided to put his hand on the oil reserves. He couldn't do that successfully fully without destroying Iraq and destroying the military power of Iraq and removing this nationalist, patriotic leadership.... Yes, we had no illusions about that. We thought that attacking them in Kuwait would change the balance in our favor because Kuwait was still being used against us. Why not attack that which was being used against us? That could change the balance of power, at least slightly for our favor. The Americans started their preparations against Iraq since early 1990. In October 1989, I met with James Baker in Washington and I told him on behalf of my President that we would like to have good relations with the new Administration as we had with the previous one and I told him that we would like to cooperate with the United States in all fields. There was a difficulty concerning selling agricultural material to Iraq. He understood my position and decided to solve half of the problem, but in March 1990 they stopped their deal. They were upset by the statement made by my President in the summit in Amman, but my President was very analytic in that statement and he said that America is becoming the sole super power. Is America going to use that status in a civilised responsible manner for maintaining peace, security, justice in the world, or America is going to use it to act aggressively and arogantly against nations. When Bob Dole visited Iraq with a senatorial group in April 1990, the President was very clear then that we would like to have the best kind of relations with the United States. April Glaspie was present in that audience, I was present and they were very satisfied and made very, very positive reactions to his analysis and to his statements. But George Bush wanted to take over the region and be something special in the history of the United States. He wanted to be the strongest leader in the world, to take over the oil revenues, manipulate the international oil market and dominate the whole world.... We were pushed into a fatal struggle in the sense of a struggle in which your fate will be decided. You will either be hit inside your house and destroyed, economically and militarily. Or you go outside and attack the enemy in one of his bases. We had to do that, we had no choice, we had no other choice. Iraq was designated by George Bush for destruction, with or without Kuwait. Inside Kuwait or outside Kuwait. Before the 2nd of August or after the 2nd of August.... We were watching the scene in the United States of course, we were interested in the mood in Congress and public opinion. But we knew as statesmen that in the end, the leaders will decide, and they had the capability of creating a pretext that will confuse the public opinion and the Congress and bring it to to to the position of the leaders. We did not bet on the United States to be accurate.... America didn't want the the peaceful initiatives to succeed because George Bush decided to go to war. If you are seeking the truth about that period, you should have seen that the decision for war was finally taken in the meeting between George Bush and Margaret Thatcher when she was there in the States. And that was the decision of President Bush also.... From the very beginning we thought that that was a public relations move and when I went to meet with James Baker, I hadn't the slightest idea that meeting would succeed. I knew that that was public relations. That he wanted to tell the Congress, "Look, to the end I tried to find a diplomatic settlement", so that he could get a few more votes. We didn't have any illusions about the military intentions of the United States. The United States was doing everything in the direction of a war.... And so forth.
Containment worked for only 7 years. Containment worked for only 7 years. It failed after December 1998 when the UN Inspectors were forced to leave. After that Iraq was free to mass produce its chemical and biological agents, and resume trying to extract enough Uranium-238 for the nuclear weapon they have a valid working design for. Furthermore, the only suspect from the 1993 World Trade Center attack that is still free, Abdul Rahman Yasin, is currently in Iraq. Seem to remeber something about "we will make no distinction between terrorist, and those that harbor them" somewhere. Abdul Rahman Yasin In Iraq The Federation of American Scientist still have this article on their site, speculating about who might have been behind the first WTC attack.Ramzi Yousef entered the US on an Iraqi passport. Where did they get the cyanide? Even the economic santions were starting to fall apart. Russia, and France are Iraq's largest trading partner. And France was just chomping at the bit for the santions to be lifted to futher develop Iraq's oil fields. Back in 1999 France and Russia wanted to ease the sanctions WITHOUT tying it to specific results. (See the 2nd to last paragraph) Russia and France have taken a more flexible approach, requiring Iraqi progress in implementing arms demands but easing sanctions at an earlier stage and without tying this to specific results. China's position is understood to be close to Russia's, though it has not been publicly expressed. It was quite clear that containment was not going to last forever. With Iraq's WMD programs the threat of those weapons getting into the hands of terrorist was only a matter of time. Terrorist tried to use cyanide on a mass scale in 1993 and failed. It is only a matter of time before they try WMD again. Remeber that Mohammad Atta was looking at crop duster airplanes before 9/11, and lived near the first casualty of the Anthrax attacks which began just a week later. Zacarias Moussaoui had loads of information about crop dusting aircraft and wind patterns on his laptop computer also. So it should be very obvious that these terrorist were thinking about chemical and biological attacks. A WMD weapon in the hands of terrorists would be a force multiplier that would turn a car bomb that might kill a perhaps a hundred people into an attack that would kill tens of thousands. Just image what a crop duster might due, if terrorist were able to get hold of some of Iraq's 3.9 tons of VX never gas. It seems quite obvious that we need to take that option away from potenial terrorists, and Iraq is an obvious place to start.