Iraq does provide a threat to stability of the gulf and that we need to put together an international coalition to stop his WMD programs
The actions we take should be justified, and can be justified by the existing UN resolutions so long as Iraq is in breach
Regime change in Iraq is one of America’s goals
Unilateral action in Iraq is a mistake because it would hurt neccesary multilateral cooperation in the war on terror.
Gore was in favor of the 1991 invasion and was upset we pulled troops out and let Sadaam massacre Kurds and Shiites. But the situation here is different
A The invasion of Kuwait was a clear causus belli. There is no clear one in this case.
B. In 1991, we had a UN mandate. We don’t now.
C. In 1991, we established a multinational coalition. We don’t have one now.
D. In 1991, the costs of the war were fundeded largely by other nations. Now, we’d have to pay ourselves
E. In 1991, Bush Sr. waited until after the midterm elections to request Congressional approval. Now, Bush is demanding it before the elections. That puts undue pressure on the congress and the Bush administration is politicizing this
The doctrine of “preemption” is dangerous, because it can always justify military action.
The Administration is allowing partisan concerns to interfere with homeland security by, for example, holding up Lieberman’s Homeland Security Act to keep anti-union people happy.
The Administration needs to respect civil rights and stop holding people without trial
We need to be part of a “commonwealth of equals” and not the dominant nation.
If we invade Iraq and then abandon it, the national chaos will be more dangerous than the status quo, because Iraqs WMDs will end up in the hands of terrorists. so we need to commit ourself to rebuilding it in the event we do invade
On a serious note, the problem with answering this question is that the well has been so completely poisoned at this point that its hard to find ‘acceptable’ cites. There are a lot of CIA documents showing conventional weapons purchases (many with funds from Oil for Food), and a British report on the same thing. Weapons were bought from a lot of independent arms dealers as well as (purportedly) from the French, Russians, Chinese, etc.
Logically this makes sense…one has but to look at the number of conventional weapons (and ammo, explosives, etc) in the country (and the fact that Iraq, afaik, had a very small or even non-existant arms manufacturing capability for such things as assault rifles, artillery, combat vehicles, radar, communications, etc) to realize that they had to come from SOMEWHERE. The problem is that this gets tied back into the whole Oil for Food thingy, as well as the WMD thing…and sources and data are questioned. Doing a google search I had a hard time finding cites outside of ‘conservative’ ones…and of course putting ‘weapons’ ‘Iraq’ ‘buy’ and ‘Saddam’ in a search brings up literally millions of anti-war or other such sites (that have little or nothing to do with CONVENTIONAL weapons are are focused mainly on the whole WMD thing).
Before troubling to go further (if I do…not sure its worth the fight ), are you disputing that Saddam bought conventional arms between GWI and GWII? Are you simply asking what kind of weapon systems he WAS buying (thats an easy one…nearly every kind of conventional weapon that was in his pre-asskicked GWI inventory, plus some newer goodies like updated radar and such.)? What kind of source would you be satisfied with?
Who said anything about “Buying palaces = act of war”? :rolleyes:
The palaces have nothing to do with why we invaned and that wasn’t at all what I was discussing with mstay. He made a point about the sanctions (which were UN Sanctions, not USA sanctions) being so eviiil, and I pointed out that if SH really cared about his people he could have spent the billions of $$ he spent on palaces on caring for/feeding his own people, instead of killing them with nerve gas. :rolleyes:
I agree, your analogy was rolls eye worthy. It is true Saddam Hussein could have cooperated further with the U.N inspectors but we inspected and disarmed him anyway. Originally, the sanctions were put in place as an incentive for Hussein to disarm. Later, that was taken off the table. That’s why in 1998 when we knew he was effectively naked we didn’t pull the sanctions.
Quite right. So we put a policy into effect that kills a million people because Saddam Hussein isn’t a good guy even though we supported him to the hilt during his worst atrocities that we later turned around and condemned him for. Gee, I wonder why they might not like us too much.
The U.S.'s policy towards Iraq throughout the 90s was regime change – only then would the sanctions be lifted. We knew by 1998 he was effectively disarmed. Again, the sanctions continued until George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003.
“We” didn’t put the sanctions in- the United Nations did. The sanctions did not kill anyone- as SH choose to spend his billions on weapons and palaces instead of his people. His choice, not ours. He could have spent his nations $$ on food, clean water and other such stuff, instead he spent it on palaces and guns. Why are *Saddams *choices about the United Nations Sanctions somehow the USA’s fault? Unless it’s just that everything is our fault. :rolleyes:
“We knew”? :dubious: Hardly, in fact just about everyone- even Blix assumed SH had WMD. And “effectively disarmed”? :rolleyes: He still had one of the largest armies in the world, even with a gramme of WMD.
The U.S. fully supported and encouraged the sanctions in its capacity as a super power. As a permanent member of the security council we have veto power. If you’re comfortable shrugging off half a million dead kids by blaming the U.N., that’s your perogative.
Like I said up thread, granted. If that sits well with you, great. If you want to punish a country of 26 million for being born under a dictatorship that’s your right.
Do you agree with Madeleine Albright when she said the following?
That was in 1996, BTW. And you can bet your ass that the Arab press had a field day with that one.
When people speak about disarming Iraq, they’re talking about WMD. The idea that Iraq could effectively project power beyond its borders in 1998 or any time after is just silly and merits no further consideration.
Also, when I say “we” in this context I apologize. I meant people who matter. That is to say, area experts and those involved in intelligence gathering. No one else really enters into the equation. For example, I thought Iraq had all sorts of WMD in 2002 but I was a naive 18 year old who didn’t know anything.
Now, for the WMD and the supporting infrastructure that actually existed, yes, the U.N. inspectors did an excellent job on them and there is a lot of material out there for your education. I recommend anything by Scott Ritter. In fact, I love this quote from his Wiki page, written in his 2002 book as he attempted to persuade people that invading Iraq was a ludicrous idea:
Thanks. I think that pretty much clears things up-- No war in Iraq for Gore (unless we had a strong, international coalition). I don’t usually care for Gore’s rhetoric, but I thought that was a fine speech, prescient in many ways, too.
Couple things to note, though, since these seem to come up repeatedly when discussing the war:
He says we don’t need further UN resolutions to take out Saddam.
Making that case is rather simple. I’m not saying that justified going to war (I don’t think it did), but SH was in breach of the UN resolutions-- they were structured in a way that made them almost impossible to comply with.
He also offers clear evidence that we didn’t “know” that SH had no WMDs (at least of the chemical and biological type):
Then Gore is either mistaken or a liar because we didn’t know any such thing. Now, in early 2002 it would’ve been possible to be agnostic about Saddam Hussein’s bio/chem* programs. You couldn’t say we knew he had them but you couldn’t say he didn’t, either, simply because four years is enough time for him to do a lot, especially since he could get some stuff from the Europeans, Russians, or the Chinese.
Of course, we know how that story ended, right? The second round of inspections, the asking around…it didn’t matter in the end.
Obviously, the idea of him having or trying to get nukes was batshit insane. A country like Iraq can’t acquire the technology to do so without making waves in the intelligence communities.
I still don’t get how SH choosing to spend his funds on palaces and weapons made it somehow the USA fault. Are you claiming that if we had allowed SH unlimited oil sales he would have spent the “extra” (after the palaces and weapons) on his people? Are we talking about the same Saddam Hussain? The man who used nerve gas on his own people? Let me repeat that- the man who killed citizens of his own nation by nerve gas. And somehow you think that giving this evil madman MORE money would have somehow resulted in him feeding the kids? Would that be the same kids he was spraying with nerve gas? :dubious:
All the money coming into Iraq was under his power to spend as he saw fit. I don’t see how increasing that would have suddenly made him decide to spend more on his people. Oh sure, SH startted (as many dictators do) as a pretty benign dictator, and did a lot for his people. But as time went on, he clearly (as many dictators do) went more and more batshit crazy- torturing, raping, genocide, Weapons of Mass destruction, invading soveriegn nations and whatnot. The SH pre-Desert Storm was not the same SH we drug out of a bunker.
Invading Iraq was a ludicrous idea. But somehow, this really bad bad bad idea of GWB has not made all the earlier actions in that area also wrong.
To explain:
Operation Desert Storm: Good
Taking out the Taliban: Good
UN Sanctions: Good Threatening Force if SH *didn’t *let Blix and co back in: Good
Going in anyway after Blix had been let back in, SH had backed down and was no longer a threat: BAD.
It does not really matter if SH had WMD or not when SH finally backed off and let Blix back in. Bad intel or good intel- makes no dif. If we invaded and found tonnes of them- it still would have been** BAD**, as Blix was looking for them, had more or less free reign, thus Blix would have found and destroyed them. The Invasion would only have been GOOD if SH had been “a clear and present danger to the security of the USA”. As long as Blix is riding around Iraq in baby-blue SUV’s *and *we have no-fly zones up, SH was *not * “a clear and present danger to the security of the USA”. Or even the Kurds.
Now, I admit that if SH had not let Blix back in, then it would have been a maybe. I honestly don’t know. But he did, so any invasion was bad badbad, wrong wrongwrong. Which I have said dozens of times right here in GD.
(It’s true that I personally supported a smart bomb right up SH’s ass, Blix or no Blix, WMD or no WMD. But that was killing one man- one very evil, war criminal man.)
Don’t you guys remember NATO activating the mutual defense clause?
The real question is if Al Gore could have gotten Bin Laden without any war at all? I don’t know if that would have been it, but it sure as hell woudl be a different, world, no? Imagine, Bin Laden tried and executed probably a year later. Then what? Nothing to do in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’d be very pre-911 actually
That is beyond naive. ObL is not the be all and end all of Islamic Terrorism. Frankly, I think we’re better off with him on the run (and weak) than either captured or killed. Either of the latter options = a whole new generation of “martyrs” to avenge the death/capture of ObL.
), are you disputing that Saddam bought conventional arms between GWI and GWII? Are you simply asking what kind of weapon systems he WAS buying (thats an easy one…nearly every kind of conventional weapon that was in his pre-asskicked GWI inventory, plus some newer goodies like updated radar and such.)? What kind of source would you be satisfied with?
:rolleyes:
