Sua: “Every day is a day more rockets/UAV’s are built…”
Actually, the Iraqis were destroying rockets–20 of them IIRC–on the day Bush decided it was time to kiss off diplomacy. Just a day or so before the Bush administration had said no thanks to Chile’s proposal for a timetable with a three-week deadline, and on that morning they nixed France’s proposal for a timetable authorizing the use of force after 30 or 60 days.
The weather is the obvious reason for the rush; that and the Bush administration’s determination to go to war.
serenity: "We could not on one hand expect the process to work without a show of force, but on the other put troops in indefinitely.
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So in other words, the idea of peaceful disarmament backed up by the credible threat of force was always a pretense. Thanks for being more honest about that than many pro-war posters.
The troops and the weather have already been discussed. Did you have something to add?
I see you also don’t have any new ideas to contribute on the ‘why now’ question. But thank you for the humorous comment quoted here. I’m going out back, now, to scale my pellet gun up to the size where it will take a bowling ball.
You are welcome, but I think your interpretation of what I said is a bit of an overstatement. I think that the idea of peaceful disarmament backed up by a credible threat of force could have succeeded if, and only if, two things happened. First, I think the UN would have had to be unanimously resolute in its willingness to use force such that Saddam would have realized that playing further games was not an option. Second, Saddam would have had to have agreed to cooperate.
The first should have been a given. Unfortunately, although UNSCR 1441 used the right words, the UN quickly showed that it did not mean them.
The second was always a longshot, and I believe that is why Bush was ready to bypass the UN in the first place. Peaceful disarmament was never a pretense, IMHO, but I think that everyone knew that it was unlikely, at best. Ironically, I think the case could be made that it was the peace protests and the failure of the UN to support war that made war the only possible outcome. IMHO, when the UN negotiated the U2 flights over Iraq, this matter was over. The UN went from demanding to begging, and Saddam is not a person to capitulate to beggars.
I hadn’t “suggested” lifting the sanctions, I simply pointed out to Sua that their existence was not a casus belli as he stated. I was using the term, admittedly too quickly, to refer to the restrictions on importation of nonmilitary equipment into Iraq, not to controls over the Iraqi military.
There is, however, a very good argument, one that has been constantly although futilely made from their inception, that:
The sanctions only hurt the Iraqi people, not their leadership,
The leadership couldn’t care less anyway, and
The Iraqi people are powerless to do anything to get rid of their leadership on their own, therefore
The sanctions are both useless and inhumane.
I think we agree on that, and that we haven’t done enough as citizens to address the problem
Yet there has been no serious debate by the governments responsible for the sanctions, including ours, about their effectiveness or improvability, or any superior strategy for eliminating Saddam’s rule without simply eliminating Saddam directly. One does have to give Bush some credit for forcing the issue to the forefront, despite his lack of intention of doing so and counterproductive bungling of it once it happened anyway.
You asked about the Kurds’ safety? It would seem they have more to fear soon from the Turkish troops amassing on their borders (not as part of the US invasion plan, of course) than they have had to fear from Saddam in recent years. With the UN declared irrelevant, there’s nothing left to stop that little conquest. The flouting of the UN effectively replaces the sanctions, including the effective and useful parts, with US whim. For some, that is a good thing.
Unless Saddam sees a benefit to himself, there isn’t any reason to think that Saddam would accept half of the sanctions being lifted since it wouldn’t be the half that’s important to him. As an example, Saddam didn’t accept the original ‘food and medicine for oil’ UN resolution for almost a year. Why? Because some of the oil proceeds would go to feed and provide medical for the Kurds. Later he didn’t accept the resolution simply because his economic fortunes had changed and he saw no economic or military advantage accrue to himself. After Saddam finally accepted the food/medicine for oil program he was found to be selling both on the black market. He did this to raise money to cover his expenses incurred in pursuit of his real interest, maintaining is internal security and improving his military. In short, he turned this around 180 degrees. There is also a risk in allowing “dual purpose” items to fall into Saddam’s hands. So to lift the sanctions half way and leaving Saddam with the military sanctions in place leaves us where we are presently with Saddam. Just more and more of Saddam’s deception, hiding, and taking any advantage he sees.
Where the Kurds are concerned – I don’t understand how you conclude that Turkey is more of a threat to the Kurds in Iraq than Saddam. That’s simply not the case. When it comes to who is the real threat to the Kurds – the ‘Iraqi Kurds’ have already experienced the justice dealt by that person. Cut Saddam loose, give him the freedom he wants from the UN sanctions in the north, and it will become crystal clear to others watching who poses the greatest threat to the Kurds in Iraq.
Lastly, it seems that some here advocate the “lets wait until it’s too late to act” line of argument. If we wait until Saddam obtains nuclear weapons we cannot act to remove Saddam. Saddam not only has a long long history of torture and terror against Iraqis, he has the same lengthy history of making reckless decisions with regarding his neighbors, Iran and Kuwait. His gassing of the Kurds and his attempt to kill former President Bush gives a clue shows his bizarre way of thinking. There is no reason to believe that his unusual decision-making will be limited to internal matters or even to his immediate neighbors in the future. Nor is it reasonable to suspect that Saddam’s choice of weapons of mass destruction will always be limited to chemical and biological. The psychology to murder on the biggest scale his weapons will allow is already present in Saddam. Combine this with his unreasoned, reckless aggression and it doesn’t take a leap of faith to conclude that Saddam will use nuclear weapons if he thinks there will be a benefit. In short - Saddam’s decisions to use chemical and biological weapons in the past, combined with his bizarre decision-making – make him someone who cannot be allowed nuclear weapons.
Perhaps I missed it, but I haven’t even heard supporters of war claim Saddam had done much to develop weapons after 1991, much less opponents. Few would doubt he tried to work on such weapons, but I know of no evidence he has made any progress since 1991 that is particularly threatening. Do you have any evidence that this is undebatably true?
Tigers2B1:
You certainly recognize that there is nobody advocating “Lets wait until it is too late”. To the best of my knowledge, Saddam is not particularly close to developing nukes or anything else that is particularly impressive, and at such time as he is, there will be plenty of time to attack him with my (and most of the world’s) approval.
If Saddam is so reckless, it’s odd that he actually got help from the U.S. in his attack on Iran and only attacked Kuwait after getting the green light from the U.S. ambassador. Actually, Saddam seems quite practical in calculating how to maximize his own power and wealth. He is not a suicidal religious fanatic like those in Al Qaeda. He is unlikely to make any rash attack that would ensure his demise (unless, of course, he has nothing to lose, which is the position we are putting him in).
serenity: “Peaceful disarmament was never a pretense, IMHO, but I think that everyone knew that it was unlikely, at best.”
I think you’ve just explained the disconnect between the US and its allies on and off of the Security Council. I believe that that those allies would have been willing to compromise through a timetable of some kind (certainly offers were on the table, from Canada, Chile, and France). Working with such a timetable would have not have suited the immediacy with which the Bush administration sought to go to war: in part due to weather, in part due to its political goals. That was a choice that the administration made: I choice, I might add, that disregarded the American’s people’s clear preference for UN support. In short, the US never made its case for the imminence of the threat. Hence, I believe that the content of your last post–i.e., war was inevitable from the Bush point of view once the troops were deployed–and the concomitant superficiality of the US government’s interest in seeking peaceful alternatives and/or diplomatic compromises are clear to all the world.