# Why are we in Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2006, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079 "2006-04-17T23:05:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/21 "2006-04-18T21:18:41Z")
I didn’t say anything about the US getting out of the Middle East – just out of Saudi Arabia. I’m sure the administration envisioned a continuing presence in Kuwait and Iraq. Gotta keep that oil flowing. What Iraq _wasn’t_ was an intentional distraction from Afghanistan and the failure to capture bin Laden. The Bush administration had its bead drawn on Iraq long before bin Laden slipped the noose. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/22 "2006-04-19T01:02:30Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, now, **Red** , let’s be generous here! Saddam adamantly refused to give up what he didn’t have. In the face of such stubborn intransigence, what else could The Leader do? As usual, right you are comrade. Thanks for setting me straight before **Isk** came back and dropped the hammer on moi. BTW, where did the sickle go? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/23 "2006-04-19T01:12:08Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > > [@elucidator](#): > > > > ``` > > Well, now, Red, let's be generous here! Saddam adamantly refused to give up what he didn't have. > > > > ``` > > As usual, right you are comrade. Not really. Saddam was required not to just destroy his WMDs, but to verify that they had actually been destroyed, which he failed to do. Now, we can argue about whether that’s worth going to war over, but there is no question that he did not comply with the terms of the cease fire from Gulf War I. So it wasn’t a matter of him showing us weapons that he didn’t have, but of his inability to account for all the weapons that were supposed to have been destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/24 "2006-04-19T01:34:04Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Not really. Saddam was required not to just destroy his WMDs, but to verify that they had actually been destroyed, which he failed to do. Now, we can argue about whether that’s worth going to war over, but there is no question that he did not comply with the terms of the cease fire from Gulf War I. So it wasn’t a matter of him showing us weapons that he didn’t have, but of his inability to account for all the weapons that were supposed to have been destroyed. A sound point, but to bring this back on track, as per the OP that was not a reason the administration stated for starting a war. There is probably find a sub-clause of a subsidary paragraph that mentions poor accounting though. Rather, the administration inflated the ‘failure to account’ into full-blown evidence for the claim of continuing possession and manufacture. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/25 "2006-04-19T01:52:28Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > A sound point, but to bring this back on track, as per the OP that was not a reason the administration stated for starting a war. There is probably find a sub-clause of a subsidary paragraph that mentions poor accounting though. Rather, the administration inflated the ‘failure to account’ into full-blown evidence for the claim of continuing possession and manufacture. True, but you don’t have to look for a “sub-clause of a subsidary paragraph”. Just look at paragrpah #4 of the joint resolution in my post #7 of this thread. I never supported the war, and wouldn’t have supported it even if Saddam really did have WMDs. I just never understood the need to misrepresent Bush’s position or motives in order to argue that case. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/26 "2006-04-19T01:58:52Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > True, but you don’t have to look for a “sub-clause of a subsidary paragraph”. Just look at paragrpah #4 of the joint resolution in my post #7 of this thread. … Which reads: > [@](#): > > Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998; **?** ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/27 "2006-04-19T02:13:07Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > True, but you don’t have to look for a “sub-clause of a subsidary paragraph”. Just look at paragrpah #4 of the joint resolution in my post #7 of this thread. Ok > [@Mace](#): > > Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998 Hmm…reads like more Bushit to me, in fact, one that we’ve already heard over and over…and debunked over and over: [**Iraq and weapons of mass destruction**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Justification_of_Iraq_war) > [@](#): > > UNSCOM encountered various difficulties and a lack of cooperation by the Iraqi government. \*\*In 1998, UNSCOM was withdrawn at the request of the United States \*\*before Operation Desert Fox. **Despite this, UNSCOM’s own estimate was that 90-95% of Iraqi WMD’s had been successfully destroyed before its 1998 withdrawal.** ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/28 "2006-04-19T02:18:25Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > Which reads: > > **?** [UN Security Council Resolution 1441](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441) (emphasis added) > [@](#): > > Iraq continued to fail to account for substantial chemical and biological stockpiles which UNMOVIC inspectors had confirmed as existing as late as 1998. Iraq claimed that it had disposed of its anthrax stockpiles at a specific site, but UNMOVIC found this impossible to confirm since **Iraq had not allowed the destruction to be witnessed** by inspectors as required by the pertinent Resolutions. Chemical testing done at the site was unable to show that any anthrax had been destroyed there. > > Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei presented several reports to the UN detailing Iraq’s level of compliance with Resolution 1441.[1] [2]. On January 30, 2003 Blix said that Iraq had not fully accepted its obligation to disarm, and by mid-February the issues of anthrax, the nerve agent VX and long-range missiles remained unresolved. Blix’s March 7 report stated “Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programmes. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections.” Iraq was not supposed to just destroy its WMDs all by itself, but to do so in a verifiable way. They didn’t. Like I said, I don’t consider that to be worth going to war over, but there is simply no question that Saddam did not comply with the terms of the cease fire form Gulf War I. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/29 "2006-04-19T02:20:17Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Hmm…reads like more Bushit to me, in fact, one that we’ve already heard over and over…and debunked over and over: > > [**Iraq and weapons of mass destruction**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Justification_of_Iraq_war) Uhm… that gote was from the joint resolution, not me. The OP asked for the reasons given for why we went to war. That was one. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/30 "2006-04-19T02:21:20Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > that gote Quote. double typo, with a freudian slip thrown in for good measure. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/31 "2006-04-19T02:25:02Z")
Oh, and BTW, John, as opposed to BushCo, they weren’t lying when they submited a lenghty report that stated: [IRAQ DECLARES ITSELF FREE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/iraq_12-09-02.html) > [@](#): > > **United Nations analysts have begun poring over the 12,000-page dossier that Iraq claims proves it is free of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq submitted the U.N.-ordered document over the weekend.** ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/32 "2006-04-19T02:32:35Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Uhm… that gote was from the joint resolution, not me. The OP asked for the reasons given for why we went to war. That was one. > [@John Mace](#): > > Uhm… that gote was from the joint resolution, not me. The OP asked for the reasons given for why we went to war. That was one. Fair enough, **John**. Still _bullshit_\* \*Note the subtle change of adjective 😉 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/33 "2006-04-19T02:36:22Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Oh, and BTW, John, as opposed to BushCo, they weren’t lying when they submited a lenghty report that stated: > > [IRAQ DECLARES ITSELF FREE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/iraq_12-09-02.html) Which has what exactly to do with my point that they were required to destroy them in a such a way that the UN Inspectors could verify the destruction? You’re throwing stuff out that I’m not going to argue with, and which are irrelavent to this thread. The OP asked a very speficic question, which I’ve tried to answer. I’ve even stated clearly that I don’t consider the answer to be sufficient to justify the war. I simply see no need to pretend that Saddam was actually in compliance with the terms of the cease fire when he demostrably was not. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/34 "2006-04-19T02:38:05Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Fair enough, **John**. Still _bullshit_\* > > \*Note the subtle change of adjective 😉 I never thought that was anything but an honest mistake, but the change is noted. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/35 "2006-04-19T02:41:02Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > [UN Security Council Resolution 1441](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441) (emphasis added) > Iraq was not supposed to just destroy its WMDs all by itself, but to do so in a verifiable way. They didn’t. > > Like I said, I don’t consider that to be worth going to war over, but there is simply no question that Saddam did not comply with the terms of the cease fire form Gulf War I. You could have just said the reference you gave was a typo and quoted the correct one. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/36 "2006-04-19T04:49:29Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > You could have just said the reference you gave was a typo and quoted the correct one. It wasn’t a typo. Both are correct, but the second one gives more detail. ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/37 "2006-04-19T05:25:48Z")
Then it was a bad argument. Paragraph #4 didn’t substantiate the claim that Iraq’s ‘failure to account’ was a reason given for the war. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/38 "2006-04-19T21:04:38Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Yet another perfect example of the Weapons of Mass Deception used to manipulate the American populace into accepting this bloody madness. > > To wit: > > I mean, really, just how much more Bushit could one cram into a speech? Another Red Fury explosion has occured. Shall I pick up the pieces? Very well, let’s try to get serious and think without interraptions for a span of few minutes, please. It was always a policy of US gov’t to remove Saddam. I call for my first witnesses: [Messrs. Ritter and Hersh](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter/2), > [@](#): > > MR. RITTER: We always knew about regime change. I mean, when I first came in, we knew about regime change… > > MR. HERSH: The question is, if Clinton wasn’t so good, where are we now? > > MR. RITTER: Well, I mean, I’ll start off, and I want to highlight that point that Clinton wasn’t so good. You know, there’s a lot of talk today in the Democratically controlled judiciary committee about going after the Bush Administration for crimes, for lying to Congress, and etc. And I’m all in favor of that, bring on the indictments, but don’t stop at the Bush Administration. If you want to have a truly bipartisan indictment, you indict Madeleine Albright, you indict Sandy Berger, you indict every person on the Clinton Administration that committed the exact same crime that the Bush Administration has committed today. Lying during the course of your official duty: That’s a felony, that’s a high crime and misdemeanor. That’s language in the Constitution that triggers certain events like impeachment. So let’s not just simply turn this into a Bush-bashing event. This is about a failure of not only the Bush Administration but of the United States of America, and we have to look in the mirror and recognize that, well, all the Bush Administration did is take advantage of a systemic failure on the part of the United States as a whole, a failure that not only involves the executive, but it involves the legislative branch, Congress. > > Congress has abrogated its responsibilities under the Constitution, and they’ve abrogated it for years. Then there’s the media, and, yes, we can turn this into a media-bashing event. But you know what? The media only feeds the American people the poison they’re willing to swallow. And we the people of the United States of America seem to want our news in no more than three-minute chunks with sound bites of thirty seconds or less, and it can’t be too complicated. So what we did is allowed ourselves during the decade of the 1990s to be pre-programmed into accepting at face value without question anything that was negative about Saddam Hussein’s regime, and this made selling the war on Iraq on the basis of a lie the easiest task ever faced by the Bush Administration. Once we established the intent, let’s consider the means in disposal. There were only three solutions: 1) sanctions (Clinton’s way), 2) invasion (Bush’s way) and 3) making a deal with Saddam (Ritter’s way). Sanctions were tried and failed. I bring my next group of witnesseses, [members of UN humanitarian mission in Iraq](http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,232986,00.html), > [@](#): > > Denis Halliday resigned as co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in 1998, after 34 years with the UN; he was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the elite of senior officials. He had made his career in development, “attempting to help people, not harm them”. His was the first public expression of an unprecedented rebellion within the UN bureaucracy. “I am resigning,” he wrote, “because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that . . . Five thousand children are dying every month . . . I don’t want to administer a programme that results in figures like these.” > … > > “I had been instructed,” he said, “to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the regime, Saddam Hussein, is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who are losing their children or their parents for lack of untreated water. What is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible.” By 2001, the sanctions policy turned into unmitigated humanitarian didaster, failed to influence Saddam regime and became the [potent propaganda tool for Al-Qaida](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden%27s_Declaration_of_War). > [@](#): > > The youths hold you responsible for all of the killings and evictions of the Muslims and the violation of the sanctuaries, carried out by your Zionist brothers in Lebanon; you openly supplied them with arms and finance. More than 600,000 Iraqi children have died due to lack of food and medicine and as a result of the unjustifiable aggression (sanctions) imposed on Iraq and its people. > > The children of Iraq are our children. You, the U.S.A., together with the Saudi regime, are responsible for the shedding of the blood of these innocent children. All the major partners in 1991 coalition abandoned US and began establishing relations with Saddam’s regime. US was left standing alone, vilified, holding a big sack of shit in its hands. That leaves us with the simple choice between ‘removing Saddam by force’ or ‘making a deal with Saddam’. That’s where Bush purported ‘scaremongering’ comes in. Because Bush argument is pure and simple that Saddam was too dangerous to be cut loose. Scott Ritter thinks otherwise. He thinks US had to swallow its pride and idealism and make a deal with Saddam. However, as an honest man, that’s what he had to say in his book “Endgame” (closing paragraphs in Chapter 9), > [@](#): > > Saddam Hussein has a vision of Iraq in the next decade. The goal of ridding itself of the economic sanctions without disarmament seems nearer today than ever. Expansion of Iraq’s severely diminished weapons of mass destruction capabilities will begin the moment Saddam decides that the pendulum has swung his way. In the wake of Operation Desert Fox, with no UNSCOM inspectors in his way, the road is open. Feeding off its massive oil wealth, a resurgent Iraq, strengthened by its retained weapons capability and a perceived victory over the United States, the Gulf War coalition, and the United Nations, is bound to reemerge in a few years as a force be reckoned with. > > For Saddam Hussein the stakes are very personal. Victory means power and glory, defeat means ignominy and death. How then do the United States and the world deal with the vexing and dangerous problem of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? Considering all this, Mr. Ritter still would prefer to make a deal with Saddam. Would You? ---
**Author:** ![D.E.S.K.Top668](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@D.E.S.K.Top668](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D.E.S.K.Top668)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/39 "2006-04-19T21:59:51Z")
Sorry I haven’t responded to my own thread, PC problems :rolleyes: First off, thanks to all those who gave factual responses. My Google-Fu is weak and rather then go through all the half truths and “we said that they said,” I figured I’d get the straight dope here, and it seems to me that I have. As I started this thread for factual answers, I probably won’t be involved (beyond reading) from here on in, should it continue. Thanks, DESK ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079/40 "2006-04-20T19:23:54Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > …Considering all this, Mr. Ritter still would prefer to make a deal with Saddam. Would You? Well, gosh, since you put it that way…yeah. I would. I would prefer just about any course of action other than the shitswamp we are currently slogging through, with (you may have noticed) no end in sight. Your argument depends on an unstated and unsupported premise: that Saddam was a threat of an intolerable dimension, he must be dealt with instanter, and if several thousand of our best and brightest and an untold number of innocent civilians needs be sacrificed to the urgent necessity, well, shucks, too bad for them, nasty break. That farmers wart on your toe might, in some uncertain time, develop into a fatal cancer. Shall we chop off your leg, then? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-we-in-iraq/353079.md?page=3)