Oh come on, you seem like a bright person. Do you know any deliberative body that behaves that way?
At least one of us seems that way...
The UN is not just any deliberative body.. Had this been the Congress voting on this matter, France, Germany, and Russia would have been required to abstain due to their inherent conflict of interest.
After all, WE ALL KNEW that they had penned multi-billion dollar oil deals with Saddam's regime, which depended upon him remaining in power.
UNSC 1441 displayed that NO UNSC member could ignore the overwhelming evidence that Saddam's regime had NOT complied with the mandates of the UNSC with regard to disarmament.
There was so much evidence that he was NOT in compliance, that even Syria, with its own Baathist regime, could not credibly oppose that resolution.
And there had been no inspections for 5 years... It would have been indefensible for the UNSC to permit itself to return to the previous situation where UNSCOM and Iraq played a game of "cat and mouse" with one another..
Should I be required to remind that the UNSC mandated INSPECTIONS, not some kind of forensic investigation.. It was IRAQ'S OBLIGATION to convince the UNSCOM inspectors that they were in compliance. It was not UNSCOM's responsibility to prove that Iraq had disarmed.
And after discovering that 6 page document that disclosed Iraq HAD LIED about the status of over 6,000 chemical warheads which they had declared expended against Iran, it certainly wasn't our responsibility to cut him any more slack..
One further item on this.. Bush Sr. did not obtain an anthorization to use force until 4 days prior to the commencement of Desert Storm. In DISTINCT CONTRAST Bush Jr. sought and obtained a similiar authorization PRIOR to going to the UNSC. There should have been NO DOUBT that Bush was serious about enforcing those resolutions and dealing with Saddam's intransigence once and for all..
Certainly France and Russia should have recognized that Bush was not playing games with the UNSC anymore, nor with Iraq, and certainly with them. So for France and Russia to find it in their interest to protect Saddam's regime over standing by their obligation to enforce "severe consequences" against Iraq was just inexcusable and it resulted in creating the very situation they sought to avoid.
Bottom line, had Saddam been faced with a solid front of support for ending this WMD matter once and for all, he would have caved in and permitted full inspections, as well as providing ALL documentation and open access to Iraq's scientists (to be interviewed outside of Iraq).
But France, Germany, and Russia foolishly led Saddam to believe that they had the power to block Bush.
And the issue before the Security Council was not whether Iraq was in material breech. The issue was whether Iraq posed an imminent threat.
It was?? Please provide documentation to back your assertion. So far as I know, the deliberations were SOLELY involved in determining whether Iraq was in material breach (not "breech").
edoc.mpil.de
And just in case, which seems evident to me, that you have not bothered to even read UNSC 1441, I would dare you to find any language within it that displays that it was focused solely on some "imminent threat".
iraqcrisis.co.uk
It was obvious that Saddam HAD BEEN, and continued to remain, a threat. He had invaded Kuwait, threaten to do so again in 1994.
ww2.pstripes.osd.mil
And the fact remains that ever since the end of Desert Storm, the US and other coalition forces have been engaged in an almost constant limited war against Saddam's regime..
ALL BASED UPON enforcing the cease-fire, maintaining security and stability in the region, and countering the threat from Saddam..
And besides, Bush NEVER stated (and you should know this) that Iraq was an imminent threat. He stated that Iraq was a GROWING THREAT.
And that statement, given the evidence we have of Islamist influence growing in Iraq, as well as the discovery that Saddam was STILL engaged in surreptitious R&D related to WMDs, is quite accurate.
It certainly wasn't getting better in Iraq.
Hawk |
