Tubes didn't seem to turn the trick, so we'll see yet another argument soon.
Didn't do the trick with you and Scott Ritter, apparently. Clearly you didn't listen to any Iraqi defectors, including the ex-head of the whole program! Saddam has been working frantically for nukes his whole reign. Anybody who doesn't believe he'll get them soon (we don't know enought to tell exactly when) doesn't want to look at the evidence. I'm done arguing this point with you.
No, I'm now about convinced that the reason the Bush folk have advanced so many different arguments for an invasion is because the only pressing reason lies elsewhere, in their desire for a demonstration effect, that the US will use military power as the backdrop to get its way in the world.
So why aren't we attacking, say, Libya? Because Libya has been quiet, while Saddam has been struggling to break out of the box and get revenge. We don't want a random "demonstration". We want to send a message that being the open enemy of the US is a losing proposition. This is a message we have decidedly failed to send for the last ten years. We doubly want to send this message in the aftermath of 9/11, because our failure to send it OBL was one of causes of 9/11.
And, of course, I've posted my growing suspicion that the timing of it this fall is heavily political
This fall is as soon as possible after the Afghanistan campaign. We needed to move men and material, we needed to manufacture new JDAMs, and we don't want to fight an Iraqi war in the summer, when we would lose more men to heatstroke than to battle. Why as soon as possible? I have a news flash for you, the adminstration really, truly considers the matter urgent.
Someone will be master of the Gulf in ten years. Whom do you prefer, the US or Saddam? Choose. Power abhors a vacuum. |
