Treaties are “law of the land” in regards to the citizens. The government is bound by no agreements, according to SCOTUS rulings. They essentially recognize that all nations must have an inherent right to self determine, but would not hold it against others if they self determined that breaking a treaty is wrong and must go to war or something.
Thanks for clearing that, Spite.
I agree that the international angle would be out but couldn’t Congress begin impeachment hearings if this information proves true?
For the record, I am a Republican and supported the war effort as sold. I found the evidence to be compelling enough to side in favor but felt a fair amount of reservations about the grounds. I feel that if what the critics are proposing now is true, then the President (Republican or Democrat) must be held accountable.
I completely, 110% disagree that General Franks or any other military leader should be held accountable.
MeanJoe
They couldn’t impeach. Remember that Clinton also thought Iraq had WMD. Bush can plausibly say he was only believing what just about everyone else believed. I don’t think even the French and Germans tried to build a case against war by saying Iraq had no WMD.
No one I know ever said that Iraq was not in flagrant violation of the peace agreement of 1991 which mandated unrestricted access to the entire country by UN inspectors in their hunt for hidden illegal weapons, mass destruction or not. Only folks who can’t read can make a case for pointing a finger at Bush.
But to those of you who still want to tilt a windmills, be patient. The evidence will be found hidden under Baghdad in one of the deep muli-level muli-mile tunnels that Saddam spent several billion dollars on while the people of Iraq were starving in 1996.
And that’s where the dopehead tyrant is today.
im with Milum, we only ever had a Cease Fire agreement not a surrender agreement with Iraq. They broke that cease fire when they expelled the UN inspectors. We had every right to invade and change regime.
I see no basis for any criminal charge under any law.
Except (a) they did not expel the inspectors. Rather the inspectors left, and, (b) The UN who is the interpreter of what its resolutions mean does not agree with you. So, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
Dob, you might want to check this out vis-a-vis the “expelled” inspectors:
http://www.fair.org/extra/0210/inspectors.html
FWIW, I remembered that they had been pulled out the first time, but didn’t Saddam throw them out later, when he found that the inspection team was being used illegally to infiltrate CIA agents into Iraq?
However, the inspectors left due to lack of cooperation from the Iraqi government – they were unable to do their jobs properly, so they figured, why bother?
Let me see if I’ve got the OP straight. You’re basing your assertion that Bush is a war criminal on the fact that no WMD have been found yet. And to get from “no WMD yet” to “Bush = war criminal” you need to make only the following leaps of logic:
- There are no WMD in Iraq;
- There never were WMD in Iraq during any relevant times;
- The war could not have been based on the threat of Iraq gaining WMD and using them against the US;
- There were no other, adequate justifications given for the war;
- Bush knew all this and went ahead with the war anyway.
And even if we allow these leaps of faith, doesn’t that mean that we need to arrest the Senate, too? They voted overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force in Iraq. So aren’t they just as guilty?
In fact, Republicans and Democrats agreed before the war that Iraq had WMD. The only disagreement was the proper means for dealing with the threat – war or continued inspections. And most of that disagreement was coming from across the pond. So if there was a conspiracy, Congressional Republicans and Democrats must have been in on it, too.
And since Congressional Reps and Dems can’t even agree on school lunches, I think the chances are slim that they got together on defrauding the world to start a war with no real purpose.
I think the Congress weakened the Legislative branch relative to the Executive branch when they allowed Bush to proceed to war without a thorough analysis of the threat level and without an estimate of the war cost.
Point 1,
Yes, it is too early to say there are absolutely no WMDs in iraq. But the argument Bush made was that the weapons could be used within 45 minutes. The immediacy of the threat pushged us into a war.
Even if weapons are found, this proves that the threat was not nearly as immediate as they claimed.
Point 2,
I personally never cared if Iraq had weapons. I only cared that they might use the weapons–on us. No weapons preceding the war–no danger to us.
Point 3,
I am a little confused as to your point. Are you saying that we went to war because Iraq may acquire weapons or because they had acquired weapons?
Point 4,
Yes, Bush gave other reasons for regime change. But, the only two of his reasons that compelled the public to support the war were: 1) Saddam is/was linked to al Qaeda and may possibly have been involved in the 9/11 attacks, and 2) Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that he could easily use against us.
If we put our troops in harms way because Saddam was a brutal dictator, then I demand that we proceed to Equatorial Guinea. No double standards, right? If its human rights abuses, on to Beijing.
Point 5,
Millions of people around the world protested the inevitable and said a war between the two nations was like a prize fighter beating up on a kid. Dear Leader and Team rebuffed by saying that Saddam’s WMDs posed an “assymetric” threat to the U.S.
Many critics demanded proof of the WMDs prior to the war. I don’t believe the world was ever thorougly convinced that Saddam had a usable WMD arsenal.
Bush presented forged documents. The sites Powell claimed before the UN produced chemical/biological have proven to be fruitless (not all of them yet). Bush and Blair staked their reputations on this issue and they can’t avoid the outcome.
I missed that leap of logic there. Care to explain?
Yes.
[qupte]1) Saddam is/was linked to al Qaeda and may possibly have been involved in the 9/11 attacks,
[/quote]
Cite?
Where they ever conviced that he didn’t?
Thank you spite
I meant that Dear Leader told us that the weapons were pointing at us a la the Cuban Missile Crisis. If not literally then metaphorically. As each day passes in this hunt, the likelihood of finding such usable weapons dwindles. What we are more likely to find now are some cruder weapons but nothing sophisticated enough to wage an “assymetric” war against us. I may be wrong on this but we’ll see.
Are you asking me for a cite that Saddam and al Qaeda are linked or that Bush has claimed a linkage? For the record, I don’t believe they were ever linked. Bush simply used the fear of another September 11 to convince the majority of Americans that we need to attack Iraq by convincing them that Saddam had something to do with the attacks. Why else did most American’s believe at least one of the hijackers was Iraqi when none of them was?
Actually, if said weapons where already deployed to reach the US, I find it highly unlikely you would fing the weapons in a pit in some remote town in Iraq. I am saying that the logical conclusion on the inability to quickly find WMD only leads to the fact that Iraq was not apparently inundated with them. Not what you infer at all.
And yes, I would like I cite that Bush stated that Saddam had something to do with 9/11.