Once again, Batman, you base your entire analysis on HINDSIGHT. The focus should be on the information we had at the point of the decision. Apparently, you expect Bush to have a crystal ball to predict the future. How silly. At the time of the decision, it would have been *reckless* to ignore Saddam's rebellious behavior and the thousands of tons of WMD which he couldn't/wouldn't locate. All he had to do was account for them. He didn't. Period. Saddam had KNOWN terrorist ties with Palestine. It would have been NEGLIGENT to ignore this collection of information. Bush actually had the guts to take action. Clinton never did. Heck, Sudan offered Obama bin Laden up on a silver platter and Clinton turned it down. Once the decision to go into Iraq was made, the country should have rallied around the troops to support them. Half the country did that. The other half continued to cast stones and criticize. This is not support, no matter what you call it. I am friends with several members of the armed forces who echo what I'm saying here. Sure, there will always be frustrated, angry elitists who mock the Administration using hindsight. Let them. While they are doing that, the Administration is doing their best to protect our country. You don't have the benefit of hindsight when you make critical security decisions. That is what you are unable to grasp. "Trust a Tyrant" doesn't cut it. Once we yield to the pacifist liberals, we're going to make it really easy for terrorists to attack.
Not going to war is not the same as ignoring. Nobody ever suggested we ignore it. Some people did suggest we don't go to war and that there were other options left open to us. This of course was true at the time, and it wasn't hindsight that made us aware of that. It was shortsightedness that led the administration to ignore those other options. Nobody trusted Saddam, that is how bad he was. Now in this particular instance the U.S. president comes out looking less reliable than a brutal dictator. Is that something to be proud of? It brings shame to me.
I only have one thing to feed to the troll (since he won't even engage in a real debate). Your entire premise is flawed since *at the time the decision had to be made* there were weapons inspectors on the ground with full access to everything in Iraq. GWB pulled those inspectors out to invade. Saddam was not obstructing, delaying, or obfuscating *at the time the decision had to be made*. You are absolutely, 100% dead wrong and everyone knows it. Later, rookie.
What I find astounding is the blind faith of those who supported the war. Most of this comes down to if the President says we needed to do it then it was right to do it. While there certainly was evidence pointing towards WMD there was also a lot of evidence pointing towards there not being WMD or at least that the WMD threat was nowhere near imminent or even likely. The President and the Admin chose to believe the worse and not only did they blind themselves to any information that might've countered their belief and even went so far as questioning the patriotism of those who questioned their views. This was a speculative war poorly planned with few considerations of the costs and oversold on the benefits. Its rare that such an undertaking would be awarded in most fields. A CEO who pushed through a rash and expensive project based on questionable information would usually get sacked by shareholders. A coach who thought the opponent would be easy and failed to adequately prepare his team for a critical game would get fired. A doctor who who undertook radical surgery without considering other alternatives would lose his license. While action is sometimes desired in our leaders wisdom always should be.
I supported the war then, and still do now. I also stated that I would support the war even if there were no WMDs found, which turned out to be the case. I firmly believe that the people of Iraq are going to be better of for us having gone to war with Saddam. Hell, they would be better of alreay if the damn insurgents weren't fighting us. I mean, if none of the Iraqi's were fighting us over there, what do they think we would be doing? I can't understand the reason behind the insurgency, outside of those that were growing fat suckling on the Baath teet. Sometimes you just need to help people for their own good, whether they ask for it or not.
Umm.... What Iraq were you watching? Once again, you are totally wrong. The very fact that we had to look for WMD validates the invasion. Had Saddam been forthright with us and compliant, then he would have accounted for the previously-accounted for WMD. He wasn't. Had he been, there would have been no need to *look*. It would have been reckless to adopt the liberals "Trust a Tyrant" strategy, especially considering Saddam's known ties to terrorists. Bush had a job to do -- to protect our country. He did it. The liberals' armchair, Monday-morning quarterbacking is simply one more in their string of never ending complaints. Seriously, what else is new. The liberals are advocating trusting a madman at his word, when that madman had rebuffed inspectors for 12 years. What a joke.
Apparently you don't understand the concept of nationalism. The PRC says basically the same thing about Tibet.
You hit that one on the head. We saw the same thing in Somalia, where the people fought for a warlord that was starving them. I will be the first to admit I thought the response from Iraqis was going to be better than it has been. Especially considering they rose up against Saddam and failed on their own.
Ummm... The one where the weapons inspectors were in the year or so before the invasion. You know, the same inspectors who specifically asked Washington for more time to verify what has turned out to be the truth: Iraq had already disarmed. Perhaps in your twisted world. GWB PULLED THE WEAPONS INSPECTORS SO WE COULD INVADE! That does not lead me to the conclusion that Saddam was obstructing the inspections *when the decision had to be made*, it inexorably leads me to the conclusion that GWB wanted the war with Iraq so badly that he couldn't let the inspectors complete their work. They would have cleared Iraq (and rightly so), which is something Bush just couldn't let happen. No, we had to look because it was part of the cease fire from GWI. The inspectors were there to verify what Iraq had already claimed: they had no WMDs. So, what we need to do was "account" for the weapons that WE claimed he had (based on evidence provided by an agent of a hostile government, no less). The worst that Saddam was guilty of in the past five years was errors in paperwork. Nobody ever said anything about "trust[ing] a tyrant," there was no "trust" involved at all. You are continuing to make yourself look like an idiot every time you use that phrase to label the people that were 100% dead on balls accurate about the "intelligence" that GWB and his cabal used to start this unnecessary war. Yep, that was his job and he has made America LESS safe through his misguided actions. Yep, he trusted an agent of a foreign government and recklessly started an unnecessary preemptive war that has increased the worldwide animosity toward the US, making it MORE likely that we will be attacked in the future. That is what he did. Again, I am not a liberal and my comments are not "Monday-morning quarterbacking," I was saying the same things BEFORE we invaded. You know, during the time when you and your dittohead brethren were saying things like "we know exactly where the WMDs are." You are the joke here. Nobody said anything about "trusting a madman at his word." People like me were saying that we needed to keep up the inspections to VERIFY that Saddam was telling the truth, which BTW, he was. Again, it is no wonder you will not engage me in a structured debate for any type of real stakes. Your "analysis" is as flawed as the WMD "intelligence" before the war.
That certainly is a reason to be wary of Saddam, but not a reason to go to war with him. The very problem you mentioned was being resolved by the inspectors who were there and had access even to his own palaces, at the time we decided to invade. Why are ignoring what we are all saying. Please stop saying this lie. Neither liberals nor the conservatives who are also anti-war have ever said we should trust Saddam. That isn't true, and it never was. BJ, Andy and I have all said the same thing, but you continue to ignore it. Actually the president's oath is to protect and uphold our constitution not necessarily our country. Though that would fall under the commander in chief duties, the oath he swears is to the Constitution. Are you serious? You believe if Saddam was still in charge that you would be in danger of being invaded or bombs falling from the sky on your home town? Would families have been unsafe shopping, or going to a movie, because the Iraqis were going to invade?. This part of your torn to shreds diatribe has two of the fallacies you accuse of making. It isn't called Monday Morning quarterbacking when we were saying these things all day Saturday. Again we have all repeated that. If you don't want to read what we say then don't respond to our arguments. But you could at least read the testimony from generals, the CIA, and diplomats that all said even if SAddam had WMD he wasn't a threat to use them UNLESS we attacked. Once again, nobody ever said to trust Saddam. We would have been fools to trust him. Now because of Bush's antics, other nations would fools to trust our own President, who lied(He did flat out lie about the reports he claimed existed that never existed), exaggerated, and mislead, all for an elective war. Now it is our leader who isn't trustworthy.
Two things that are relevant to this discussion that seem to be left out are: 1. Iraq was in fact found in violation of the disarmament agreements. So to claim the inspectors would have 'cleared' Iraq, are false. They had already declared Iraq in violation of the agreements. and 2. Bush gave Saddam a chance to leave Iraq 48 hours before the intervention, disproving the charge that he was going to war no matter what and that the motive for intervention was oil/bases.
I agree Saddam had been in violations. But the purpose of the violations was being remedied by the inspections. The inspections would have told us what Saddam had in the way of WMD. That wouldn't have made Saddam not a violator. But Saddam did say that he didn't have any WMD. Saddam did say that the aluminum tubing was for standard rockets and not nukes. Saddam did say that he had weapons that exceeded the agreed upon range and was in the process of destroying them. Now those things could have all been verified by inspectors without the need of an invasion. If the invasion then was purely punitive for past violations, then wow. We really got him. Too bad all those people had to die to punish him for what could have been cleared up without an invasion, but hey... the guy had to be punished and the only suitable punishment was full scale invasion. I've never claimed the war was for oil. You are a fool to trust George W Bush and the offers he made. He's proven himself untrustworthy. You might also remember that Bush attacked ahead of the deadline, because he believed he had what he called an attack of opportunity. So his deadline was meaningless. I also don't see how that disproves the theory about oil though. All that meant was that Saddam would have been gone. It doesn't mean we wouldn't have chosen his replacement which would have had the same desired effect.
My point is not to extrapolate whether or not further inspections could have worked. I'm simply pointing out that the claim that Iraq would have been cleared, or that they were NOT in violation of the disarmament agreements is false. OK, but you recognize many people do - right? Uh, ok. Bush said there would be no attack if Saddam went into exile. If Saddam had left you are saying Bush would have attacked anyway? I think that's silly. Well, no Saddam = no intervention (for oil or anything else). That's pretty basic.
Iraq wouldn't have been less guilty. Sure but that is speculative. He did attack, he attacked before the deadline was up because of an attack of opportunity. Even if he hadn't he may have tried to assert pressure to get his puppet in place. Or it means an easy intervention, but not necessarily through invasion
Oops we goofed. No wmd. What is the big deal? Just an honest mistake. Everyone makes them. We just happen to have this final report a month or two after the election. Just coincidence. You'd think that people were complaining about Bush mispronouncing a word or something relatively trivial. This is the most serious mistake that the US has probably made in a hundred years. It is an error of historical dimensions. Nobody outside of the faithful in primarily the Red states can understand it. The whole world thinks that we have gone crazy and are out to steal Arab oil; that we have all just reapproved the invasion of a country that wasn't threatening us for made up reasons. At best they see us as stupidly lashing out at the wrong people for 9/11. We have killed approximately 100,000 people unnecessarily, most of them innocents. We have destroyed a country and the death toll goes up daily. We have wasted hundreds of billions of tax payer money. It has increased terrorism and made us hated even by previous allies. It will take generations for us to undo the damage to our reputation unless we do something extreme like impeach Bush and try him for war crimes, which isn't going to happen. It might even be as serious a sin as using a condom. It might be worth having an angry discussion about that might even ruin one's day. It might be worth temporarily trying to see the Iraq issue in terms apart from whether one favors the GOP or Bush. It might even be worth pondering whether we are no longer the best, the purest and the most generous of countries and have to make some important changes. ******** PS. Were Rimrocker, RM95, MacBeth, Major etc. really banned? If so they should be asked back if they are still interested.
And....what? This doesn't have anything to do with whether or not we would have attacked if Saddam had gone into exile. There is no reason to believe we would have intervened had Saddam left. And...what does this have to do with anything?
If you say you are going to give someone 48 hrs. and the attack after 42 hours I would say that does mean you are going to attack whether they leave or not. If we were intervening for oil or for military bases doing it has everything to do with that. If Bush could have put a puppet in place because Saddam left voluntarily then it wouldn't prove that those that say it was about oil or bases were wrong. I'm not saying that is why we did it, just that giving Saddam 48 hours to get out doesn't prove anything one way or the other.
Saddam had issued a response to the window saying he was not leaving. There would be no point to invading once Saddam was gone. Yeah, pretty much it does. If Saddam went in exile there is no way we COULD have 'put a puppet in place.' Please explain how that works? We can barely keep the current guy in place while occupying the country, lol.
