How can this be?

[Nbadan]

This is what would have kept Iraqi WMD out of hte hands of Al Qaeda (among ohter things).

This is too much logic for this forum. [sarcasm]Saddam was a Muslim, a secularist Muslim, but still a Muslim. The Al-Queda boys, they are Muslims too. They had to be in cahoots![/sarcasm]

[The Ressurrected One]

It wasn't "whiners", it was a decision by George Sr. not to go in because he didn't really believe he had the justification to do so. He has since changed his mind about that decision, but "whiners" had nothing to do with it.

Actually, I was being facetious and you're wrong.

The U.S. Military stopped at the border because of an agreement reached with the Saudis that we would not invade and conquer Iraq (because of the destablizing consequences) and they would allow us to operate from kingdom soil.

Further, all the UNSC Resolution called for was the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait (along with other ancillary demands that, at the time, did not warrant chasing his ass all the way to Baghdad.)

So, the '91 war achieved (in record time -- until the '03 invasion that is) its immediate objective and hostilities were ceased when Saddam Hussein sat down at the table (well, one of his generals anyway) and signed an unconditional surrender and ceasefire agreement that, among over a dozen proceeding UNSC resolutions, he immediately set about breaking or defying starting with the genocide Shi'ites in the South.

[The Ressurrected One]

A bit right, a bit wrong.

Yes, as I stated in my previous posts, he would have continued his WMD programs.

Agreed.

No, he would not have given them to terrorists.

You have absolutely no basis on which to make that claim. He was bunking Abu Nidal at a government-owned Chateau' in Baghdad -- until, that is, Nidal killed himself with 5 bullets to the head. He was supporting "Palestinian" terrorists to the tune of 25,000 for each martyr. Elements in his government had ongoing communications with al Qaeda.

Yes, he probably was flummoxed. Not sure how relevant this is. We are talking stategy, not tactics.

It's relevant because had he actually believed the U.S. would invade he may have actually staged some WMD's and regular army divisions and it would have taken more than 21 days and we would have lost a lot more troops than we did. As it stands, I happen to believe he spent the run up to the war in preparation for some "compromise" agreement where sanctions would be lifted in exchange for more UN inspections and that this could explain why the "stockpiles" were not found even though the means and tons of precursors were.

I know it's forgotten, but who remembers the caches of French and Russian chemical warfare equipment (manufactured after 1998) found in that basement hospital South of Baghdad?

There was more evidence this mad man was preparing to use WMD's than there is that Bush "lied" about them and, yet, the French, Russians, Germans, and Kofi Annan -- along with a significant number of Americans -- are willing to give HIM the benefit of the doubt and call our President an unprincipled liar.

Now, given the revelations about the UN OFF scandal and how it probably reached the governments of France and Russia, as well as the UN Secretary General's office, (I don't doubt Germany was in on it too), that explains their behavior and motivations.

It doesn't, however, explain your's and those of the people who persist in "Bush lied" canard.

[The Ressurrected One]

We prop up a lot of murderous dictators, and put up with a lot more, what would have been any different about letting Saddam stay.

Two words, Nukular (freaking) Weapons. These bas s can have all the WMD's they want and at the end of the day we can still leave their countries a sea of black, radioactive glass and not break a sweat. MAD kept us from WW3 and it keeps idiots from thinking they go the nut to take us on now. Brutal dictators aren't stupid. They got to power by being the evilist SOBs in their neighborhood, but know that they could be easily snuffed out if the US ever felt the justifaction to do so.

This is what would have kept Iraqi WMD out of hte hands of Al Qaeda (among ohter things).

Actually, it makes the argument for why it would result in WMD's getting into the hands of al Qaeda.

After all, if you were an enemy of the U.S. and you could convince some stateless terrorist group to take a nuke or biological or chemical weapons to the Empire State Building and detonate it, against whom would we retaliate? Particularly if the nation who "sneaked" the weapons to the group were successful in covering their tracks?

Please base your assumptions on a pre-9-11 posture when our enemies actually thought the U.S. was too meek to invade.

[The Ressurrected One]

having kofi's son getting rich instead of over 1000 of our troops losing their lives is a trade-off i would gladly make

How 'bout at the expense of tens of thousands of Iraq children dying of starvation as a result of this corrpution?

How 'bout at the expense of destablizing a region of the globe that, like it or not, is essential to our own national and economic security (unlike Darfur and Sudan -- which aren't the only differences).

How 'bout at the expense of an apparent collusion between our alleged allies (France, Germany, and Russia) to also gain at the expense of innocent Iraqis and without regard to our security as an ally?

It's much more than Kofi's son (and, really, you don't think Kofi wasn't getting some?)...

[Clandestino]

Simply put the invasion wasn't justifiable.

Would Iraq have been better off with Saddam? The jury is still out on that one. If Iraq slides into a civil war, then yes.

the jury voted a little while ago. remember the purple fingers?

[ChumpDumper]

I remember a large portion of the population didn't get to vote, and they'll have no say in the new government. I still have yet to see a rational explanation why they couldn't have waited until the entire country was pacified, especially when they keep claiming that will happen very quickly.

[The Ressurrected One]

I remember a large portion of the population didn't get to vote, and they'll have no say in the new government. I still have yet to see a rational explanation why they couldn't have waited until the entire country was pacified, especially when they keep claiming that will happen very quickly.

All they had to do was put down their weapons and vote. The Sunnis and Ba'athist remnants made the choice not to participate in the elections. Why reward their obstinence by waiting for them to "come around?"

[ChumpDumper]

The Sunnis and Ba'athist remnants made the choice not to participate in the elections.

All of them? Give me a break. You can't tell me every Iraqi in these areas is an insurgent. You know many of them would've voted if they had the chance. Their disenfranchisement just gives them another reason to oppose a new government and support an insurgency. Still waiting for the explanation.

[The Ressurrected One]

All of them? Give me a break. You can't tell me every Iraqi in these areas is an insurgent. You know many of them would've voted if they had the chance. Their disenfranchisement just gives them another reason to oppose a new government and support an insurgency. Still waiting for the explanation.

I was speaking as a bloc. Indeed, many Sunnis and former Ba'athists did vote in the January election. In fact, there is a Sunni Defense Minister, if I'm not mistaken, along with at least 3 or 4 other Sunnis in the federal government.

Any disenfranchisement was self-imposed.

Oh, and by the way, the percentage of people voting in Iraq in January was higher than in our last election and the percentage of Sunnis and Ba'athists that did not vote in January's election is lower than the percentage of Southern State residents that voted in many of the U.S. elections subsequent to losing the Civil War and being readmitted to the Union.

[ChumpDumper]

Any disenfranchisement was self-imposed.

Bull . You simply can't say that an Iraqi who wanted to vote but couldn't because he happened to live in an insurgent-heavy area took away his own vote -- nice attempt to blame the victim though.

Oh, and by the way, the percentage of people voting in Iraq in January was higher than in our last election and the percentage of Sunnis and Ba'athists that did not vote in January's election is lower than the percentage of Southern State residents that voted in many of the U.S. elections subsequent to losing the Civil War and being readmitted to the Union.

And? That isn't relevant at all. Still waiting for the explanation.

[The Ressurrected One]

Still waiting for the explanation.

You won't be satisfied with any explanation...so, why bother?

[Bandit2981]

You won't be satisfied with any explanation...so, why bother?

LMAO, we've finally come full circle!

[The Ressurrected One]

That isn't relevant at all.

You're right, it doesn't address your specific concern. However, I do think it's relevant to those who chose not to participate in the elections.

On the matter of the areas where balloting was forestalled by hostilities. Go back and ask the legitimate residents of Fallujah -- or any other area that was too "hot" to set up a ballot box -- if they're happy with the outcome of January's elections, even though they were unable to participate.

Go ahead. I think you'll be surprised at the answer.

[RandomGuy]

Actually, I was being facetious and you're wrong.

The U.S. Military stopped at the border because of an agreement reached with the Saudis that we would not invade and conquer Iraq (because of the destablizing consequences) and they would allow us to operate from kingdom soil.

Not sure how I was wrong there. The only thing I said is that is wasn't Stormin' Norman's call to make, that kind of call is generally something for the commander in chief.

Further, all the UNSC Resolution called for was the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait (along with other ancillary demands that, at the time, did not warrant chasing his ass all the way to Baghdad.)

Again correct, but this does not make my assertion wrong. As is readily obvious, leaders can comply or not with UNSC resolutions at their descretion.

So, the '91 war achieved (in record time -- until the '03 invasion that is) its immediate objective and hostilities were ceased when Saddam Hussein sat down at the table (well, one of his generals anyway) and signed an unconditional surrender and ceasefire agreement that, among over a dozen proceeding UNSC resolutions, he immediately set about breaking or defying starting with the genocide Shi'ites in the South.

Correct again, but nothing in your post speaks to me being "wrong" about what I said. Please try to be a bit more specific in the future. No offense, but it is hard to address things in the abscence of lucidity.

[RandomGuy]

You have absolutely no basis on which to make [the claim that Saddam would not have given WMD to terrorists. He was bunking Abu Nidal at a government-owned Chateau' in Baghdad -- until, that is, Nidal killed himself with 5 bullets to the head. He was supporting "Palestinian" terrorists to the tune of 25,000 for each martyr. Elements in his government had ongoing communications with al Qaeda.

I have every basis to make that claim. There are two driving factors for any paranoid totalitarian dictator.
#1-->stay in power.
#2-->stay alive.
Let's wade through something unpleasant here and put ourselves in the mind of a paranoid psychopath. Saddam knew perfectly well that if he had ever given some form of WMD to a terrorist group and that had ever gotten back to him, he would have been killed by a very vengeful U.S. He misunderestimated our resolve in Quwait, but he would not make the same mistake a second time in this case.
The other thing you seem to miss is that Saddam was not a religious zealot. Being a paranoid secularist, he regularly killed religious leaders that got to powerful. Al Qaeda types hated him, because he was not religious enough.
There were NEVER any substantive contacts between Saddam and any terrorist groups. There was never ANY indication that he intended to give weapons to anybody, even were he to have them. Paranoid psychopaths do not give WMD's to people who hate them.
Lastly the "supporting Palestinian terrorists" claim is very thin. Giving death benefits to the families of suicide bombers is FAR from giving weapons/cash/intel to active terrorist cells. Shame on you.

It's relevant because had he actually believed the U.S. would invade he may have actually staged some WMD's and regular army divisions and it would have taken more than 21 days and we would have lost a lot more troops than we did. As it stands, I happen to believe he spent the run up to the war in preparation for some "compromise" agreement where sanctions would be lifted in exchange for more UN inspections and that this could explain why the "stockpiles" were not found even though the means and tons of precursors were.

I know it's forgotten, but who remembers the caches of French and Russian chemical warfare equipment (manufactured after 1998) found in that basement hospital South of Baghdad?

Provide a link to a news source, so we can know what we are talking about.

Along the same lines read the Deufler report. Here is the first chapter in html format. http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap1.html

I read the whole thing and the best they could come up with is that they had some equipment and the intent to start up programs AFTER the sactions were lifted, but NOT BEFORE. This is a bit of a strawman that is quite beside the point.

There was more evidence this mad man was preparing to use WMD's than there is that Bush "lied" about them and, yet, the French, Russians, Germans, and Kofi Annan -- along with a significant number of Americans -- are willing to give HIM the benefit of the doubt and call our President an unprincipled liar.

What evidence? Provid a link to support this assertion. I think you are talking out your ass on this one. Find one report that said Saddam was preparing to use WMD's. He had every intention of recons uting his programs, but none of using them against the US or giving them to terrorists.
Our president is not an unpricipled liar. A cynical manipulator, yes. He played up the WMD angle for all it was worth to justify this. I think he genuinely thought that Saddam had WMD's, so I don't think he was a liar. But there was NEVER any evidence to support the thesis that he would have used or given them away. This means that he played on our fears to do something he wanted to do anyways.

An idiot who didn't have a plan for after the war, yes. It was obvious that he expected us to be welcomed there with open arms much like France welcomed us after ww2. ANYBODY with a clue was telling him otherwise.

Oops, gotta go for now. I will finish in my next post.

[RandomGuy]

the jury voted a little while ago. remember the purple fingers?

I do indeed, and it does give me some cause for hope. I really wish the best for the Iraqi peope. But I will not let blind optimism temper a rational analysis.

The recent escalations of violence there give just about as much cause to doubt that stability is just around the corner.

Answer me this one question, if you have the intellectual honesty to do so (most Bushies don't, so I'm not holding my breath).

IF WE WITHDREW OUR TROOPS COMPLETELY NEXT WEEK, WOULD IRAQ COLLAPSE INTO CIVIL WAR?

My answer to this question is: It is quite within the realm of possibility. No one can say for certain one way or another, anybody who claims they do know is full of . Iraq is far from a stable democracy.
This, by the way, is the reason I think we should stay. We owe a debt to the Iraqi people, and we need to see this through to the best of our ability.

[RandomGuy]

I remember a large portion of the population didn't get to vote, and they'll have no say in the new government. I still have yet to see a rational explanation why they couldn't have waited until the entire country was pacified, especially when they keep claiming that will happen very quickly.

There was a Sunni boycott of the elections, yes. But much to the Shia leadership's credit, they seem to understand that they need to leave a place at the table open for Sunnis if there is any chance of forming a stable government.
The quick election is one thing that I think Bush did right here. Getting as much legitimacy to the Iraqi government as fast as possible is the best way to pacify the country in the first place. Waiting until the country is completely pacified would play in the insurgents hands by allowing them to claim that we are simply an imperial christian power intent on killing muslims for their oil.

How is THAT for a rational explanation?

[RandomGuy]

Bull . You simply can't say that an Iraqi who wanted to vote but couldn't because he happened to live in an insurgent-heavy area took away his own vote -- nice attempt to blame the victim though.And? That isn't relevant at all. Still waiting for the explanation.

Ok, let's get some perspective. There was a general sunni boycott of the elections, so a lot of them chose not to vote.
There was indeed probably a good number who did want to vote but were afraid to. Since then they have become increasingly involved in the process. We (they) are already on the second step of the process. If we had waited we would still not have taken step one.

[RandomGuy]

Lastly, let's get one thing on the table here.

I was in intel analyst in the US Army during the first gulf war. I know quite a bit about the middle east and am brushing up on my (admittedly poor) arabic this summer. Since 9-11, I have gone out of my way to talk to middle easterners when I meet them and ask them what they think and why. These conversations have taught me more than any cheerleading that passes for "news" on the Fox network. I read a lot from a variety of sources, and have a lot of free time this summer, as I am not taking any course work towards my masters degree in accounting. I have spent the better part of my adult life analysing information of one form or another, and always try to base my opinions on my analysis of what I read using good solid critical thinking skills.

You talk out your ass about that I know about, and I will call you on it. You make a claim, show me some data to prove it. I will do the same if asked reasonably. That said, please continue.

[The Ressurrected One]

Okay, I'll stipulate that President George H. W. Bush could have ignored the UN and could have violated the trust of our hosts in Saudi Arabia and had Stormin' Norman march on to Baghdad.

And, you're right about paranoid totalitarian dictators...to a point.

Consider the megalomaniacal paranoid totalitarian dictator who has been under the thumb of sanctions and an ever-present U.S. military (in the no-fly zones) for over a decade.

With nothing else to do but strike up illicit conspiracies with the UN Secretary General, France, Russia, and Germany in order to get cash and cir vent the sanctions -- might it be possible he also felt that 1) he was untouchable because felt he'd drawn 3 American allies and a world body to the "dark side" with him and 2) he was smarter than everyone else and could, without detection, secret WMD's to a terrorist group as retribution?

Desperation and visions of self-grandeur will make even the most paranoid totalitarian dictator do he normally wouldn't. I can actually envision a few scenarios where Kim Jung Il would nuke South Korea...and, he too, is a paranoid totalitarian dictator...a crazy one!

And, as far as evidence that he was preparing to use WMDs. You said it yourself. Combine a history of using them with -- at the very least -- a plan to re-cons ute his programs post-sanction and I think you have enough make that statement.

And, as far as whether or not he actually possessed WMD's, given that Hitler was able to hide a good chunk of the Nazi military hardware under the East Berlin airport for about 50 years, before it was detected, could you at least admit that it wouldn't be too hard to hide a few tons of Chemical, Biological, or Nuclear weapons somewhere in Iraq?

And, while you're correct in saying Duelfer and Kay both state they didn't find any weapons...both also say it's possible they were there and were destroyed, hidden, or moved. They do not have enough information to draw a conclusion on the status of any weapons known to exist when inspectors left in 1998 and that are now simply gone...

[The Ressurrected One]

Thanks for the link to the Duelfer Report. I think you need to read the section led, "Sorting Out Whether Iraq Had WMD Before Operation Iraqi Freedom."

I believe any reasonable person would read that information and believe it was entirely possible that, even though "no evidence" (as is the characterization of Duelfer) of WMD's was found it is entirely possible that Iraq possessed them.

[mookie2001]

i'm kind of tired of hearing about the WMDs, i guess they were taken in rapture

dam can you imagine if the US had FOUND these weapons, dam TRO's chode would exploded so bad he'd have to rapaint his walls

[The Ressurrected One]

Also, I believe the last section is the most telling...

If WMD existed, Saddam may have opted not to use it for larger strategic or political reasons, because he did not think Coalition military action would unseat him. If he used WMD, Saddam would have shown that he had been lying all along to the international community and would lose whatever residual political support he might have retained in the UNSC. From the standpoint of Regime survival, once he used WMD against Coalition forces, he would foreclose the chance to outlast an occupation. Based on his experience with past coalition attacks, Saddam actually had more options by not using WMD, and if those failed, WMD always remained as the final alternative. Although the Iraqi Government might be threatened by a Coalition attack, Saddam—the ultimate survivor—believed if he could hold out long enough, he could create political and strategic opportunities for international sympathy and regional support to blunt an invasion.


Asked by a US interviewer in 2004, why he had not used WMD against the Coalition during Desert Storm, Saddam replied, “Do you think we are mad? What would the world have thought of us? We would have completely discredited those who had supported us.”

Iraqi use of WMD would deeply embarrass France and Russia, whom has cultivated Iraq.

Use of WMD during Operation Iraqi Freedom would serve to justify US and UK prewar claims about Iraq’s illegal weapons capabilities. Such a justification would also serve to add resolve to those managing the occupation

In light of what we no know about Iraq's relationship with France, Germany, Russia, and Kofi -- do you doubt Duelfer's report would have given a little more treatment to this possibility?

Oh, and how can you fault the U.S. Administration's belief he had WMD's when as late as December 2002, all of his Senior staff thought they, indeed, did have WMD's? Even as late as March 2003 -- right before the invasion -- he was telling some that "if they could resist for a week, he'd take over." Many believed this to mean he was going to use WMD's.