Sometimes the word ‘error’ carries with it an implication of innocence. I’m sure that’s not what you mean here:
Ministers were told of need for Gulf war ‘excuse’
Once the US decided upon war, in early 2002, there was nothing Saddam could have done to avoid it.
Could you perhaps show the part of any statement I have ever made which supports this image of Saddam Hussein? The question in the OP calls for an assessment of behavior at a point in time, that immediately before the shots were fired. At that point(less than ten days before the first rounds were fired) Hans Blix provided an assessmet which showed a lot of active, even proactive, Iraqi work towards resolving the few remaining questions about WMD(recall that we knew for a fact that > 90% of the known WMDs had been destroyed since '91). Somehow my quoting this says that I think Saddam was a “blameless heroic figure”? Nonsense. He was a evil sociopath who was staring down the barrell of an ass-kicking. At this point in time I have no evidece that he was lying, and therefore have refrained from commenting on that aspect of Iraqi policy/actions.
Also it should be noted that “attaching conditions to inspections” is not nearly as unreasonable as it sounds(depending on the conditions). Especially since it has been proven that the US had used inspection teams as cover for espionage in the past. Once bitten, twice shy is a reasonable standard even for evil men to adhere to.
Enjoy,
Steven
You have not done so to my knowledge. Other have done so- in the past, but I am not pointing my little finger at any one person here.
Sometimes, when there are many paragraphs in a post, the later ones are not directly addressed to the “above poster”. Sorry about any confusion. :smack:
I don’t know but according to this
he’s up to $24.95 
Would you go so far as to say that you are point your little finger at no person here?
If that’s the case, where is your little finger pointing, Ursa Major?
What was he up to before the war?
Seems to me this question is still part of the same old con-job. Before the war we were told we had to have a war because he had WMD. Now we have been told OK so he didnt have WMD after all but he acted like he did (with the implication that he brought the war on himself so we are still morally clean).
Why not take the most natural explanation? He claimed he didnt have WMD. And it was the truth. The truth wasnt good enough for us, and never could have been. He had no more prospect of proving he “didnt” have WMD then I do. I dont have WMD but hey I might be lying. My house might be searched and find nothing but hey I might have moved them.
As the downing street memo makes abundantly clear, even amongst our policy-makers the WMD was recognised as a pretty thin pretext. The US is in Iraq because the US wanted to be in Iraq. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors.
In the words of PNAC:
I’m fascinated to discover that people really think the war had anything to do with the US believeing that Saddam had WMDs and wasn’t to do with oil.
Personally, I thought that the war was a rescue mission to free Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny from Saddam’s clutches, thereby restoring the morale of western children.
People keep wining about this or that reason - Let me clear it up for you.
But What I have not heard any one say yet is:
To validate the “go to war response”, there were certainly multiple factors involved beyond a simple, singular, one deciding factor -
Be it WMD, oil, terrorism, retribution, axis of evil, a problem causing murderous dictator among others, perhaps they were singularly not good enough reasons to validate a war but together more than 3 reasons are slam dunk!
A single finger is weak but 5 fingers make a fist and you can hit people with it. -don’t try that with 1 finger…
Again, there are many other reasons the government does not tell its people intricate details of such things because it is believed “the whole” would not understand the weight of positives vs. negatives, and beyond that the complex reasons for actions the government takes. To add as well; simple sayings and simple one liners are the most effective method for informing the public. So if something takes a paragraph to explain, they know that’s not going to work for the least common denominators out there - considering the whole of the public comes out to be very stupid. -
Point taken.
So come up with three then.
WMD: didn’t exist.
Oil: what precisely are you saying? That it is acceptable to invade a country if it has a resource you want? Violent robbery is OK if they are foreigners?
Terrorism: Saddam had no connection to terrorism
Retribution: for what? Say “9/11”. Go on. I dare you.
Axis of Evil: huh? If you call someone something that becomes its own justification now?
Problem causing murderous dictator: I’ll give you this one. Although if you’re going to rely on just this one, the US has got a whole lotta invading to do, worldwide.
So where’s your three?
Actually, you are the one who needs to read more carefully. Because what Blix is saying is, in summary, Saddam did not move as fast as we wanted, but his present actions give us nothing to complain about. So as several of us have said, by the end, he was doing all that was demanded and he got invaded anyway.
So . . . our Big White Father lies to us because we’re too stupid to understand the nuances of the truth?
Or perhaps because if we were told the truth we might think for ourselves and then BWF would run the risk of having us decide the “wrong” way?
I hope you are not accusing me of being part of a con job.
I thought (and think) it is a legitimate question. He refused inspectors access to parts of his country. Why? He delayed them when they tried to make no-notice inspections. Why? He finally kicked them out. Why? Could he have played into George W’s hands any more?
Excuse me, I have to wash out my memory banks from that whole ‘Holding his butt cheeks’’ thing. Yuck!
Not true at all, and since you’re a member you can find dozens of cites right here on this board showing SH supported terrorism. However- what he supported was mainly local and anti-Israeli terrorism. He apparently had only tenuous connections to AlQaeda and ObL.
See- this is one of the problems we encounter. We have found no evidence that SH had anything to do with the planning and execution of 9-11, and in fact it is very doubful that ObL would have let SH into his confidences. Sure- there is some evidence that SH celebrated the attacks after the fact. SH apparently had no connection to 9-11.
Thus, in the minds of some- this is translated into “Saddam had no connection to terrorism”, as if 9-11 is the only act of terrorism in the last few decades.
Most dudes would call SH poison gas attacks on the Kurds “Terrorism”, but SH has had connections with other terrorist groups, and operated his own Terrorist training camp.
Here’s a (some might consider biased) cite:
http://www.nationalreview.com/murdock/murdock200402110521.asp
"The Hudson Institute’s magazine, American Outlook, has published my response to the Left’s deep denial on Saddam Hussein and terrorism. “Saddam Hussein’s Philanthropy of Terror,” featured in American Outlook’s recently released Fall 2003 issue, amplifies an October 21, 2003 piece on this topic that I wrote for NRO.
This piece goes further, providing pictures of terrorists who enjoyed Hussein’s money, hospitality, and logistical support. A satellite photograph proves the existence of the Salman Pak terrorist training camp just outside Baghdad. A chart lists the numbers of people killed and wounded by terrorists who the Baathist regime nurtured, including Americans murdered and maimed by these butchers. In case anyone believes these are fabrications, 29 footnotes document these crimes."
Same http://www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins091903.asp
While it is still debatable to what degree Saddam Hussein supported the global terrorist network, it is becoming increasingly clear that Iraq provided terror groups with some forms of logistical, intelligence, transportation, training, weapons, and other support. The emerging evidence points to the conclusion that al Qaeda had a cooperative relationship — that is, a strategic alliance — with Iraq"
Seacrh here or Google it yourself. There is plenty of evidence that SH supported terrorism- just none that he had anything to do with 9-11 besides cracking a bottle of champagne and ordering up some more tortures when he heard the 'good news". :rolleyes:
When? Hans Blix, March 7th 2003
A possible motive for the earlier obstructionist behavior was in the WaPo story: “at least one former senior inspector has recounted sharing information with U.S. intelligence agencies”
USA Today on the eve of war “[T]he United States has advised U.N. weapons inspectors to begin pulling out of Baghdad, the U.N. nuclear agency chief said Monday[03/17/2003].”
A little further down in the same article “In December 1998, they pulled out on the eve of U.S.-British airstrikes amid allegations that Baghdad was not cooperating with the teams.”
When you see a high pop fly in baseball and the outfielder just strolls lazily over to where it will land and catches it effortlessly, does that mean the batter intended to be caught out? Increasing evidence is coming to light which indicates a predisposition of the US to perform regime change regardless of the state of the inspections or WMD questions. Leaked Downing Street memo
Actual meeting minutes(official record) of a high-level meeting in Britian
I held a position similar to DrDeth’s pre-war. Enough evidence and justification for continued inspections/sanctions, but not enough to start killing people over. This view was strengthened every time the reports from the inspectors following up on intelligence leads came back negative. It appears every negative report seems to have strenghtened the resolve of the administration to use military force for regime change versus undermining it. I don’t understand that, but when the smoke clears about the only thing which is clear is that this war was unnecessary and the policymakers either knew that or should have known that based on the reports and memos which are now becoming declassified or leaked.
Enjoy,
Steven
Yet it is undisputed that the US gave practical support to Saddam and Osam Bin Laden. Shouldn’t Dubya have just launched some missiles straight up into the air as a punishment for supporting terrorism?
You are confusing your decades. Saddam did not kick out the inspectors in the current conflict. BUSH kicked them out. He told them the U.S. was invading and that they needed to leave. It was in all the papers.
He could leave Iraq.
Because it was necessary to remove Saddam.
Sorry Paul, I did not mean to ply that the con-job is yours. Unless your George Bush your just one of the conned like the rest of us.
As has been discussed by other posters the issue of he kicked inspectors out isnt so simple either. The only inspectors kicked out were American ones once it emerged that the US was using inspection as a cover story to spy on Iraq. The US denied the spying allegation but it was later revealed to be true. Inspectors of other nationalities remained until 1998 when they were removed at Richard Butler’s direction (who was concerned for their safety) just upon the resumption of bombing. The “saddam kicked the inspectors out” meme is just a myth.
By the time the inspectors were withdrawn there was nothing left to find. They had been there seven years by that point. In the early period after the war they found and destroyed the Iraqi WMD program, after that they were just wasting their time. We now know that what they didnt find had been destroyed in 1991.