You will recall Saddam got mixed signal from the US on Kuwait. The US choosing to declare war on Iraq because of Kuwait, is not Saddam attacking the US. It is the US attacking Saddam because we did not approve of what he was doing. If planes were flying over our airspace and continually bombing our country, we might be tempted to fire back on them too. Do you know how many planes were hit in flying those missions? Do you know how many tons of explosives we dumped on Iraq? You might want to check out those numbers. Sponsoring terrorism in Israel is NOT going against America. The eliding of American and Israeli issues is TOO stupid. What if Saddam sponsored terror in Iran (which he did, and we approved of it) and killed some Americans- would that make that act of terrorism against Iran really an act against America? No, of course it wouldn't. Saddam didn't "hold" terrorists in his country. The Saudis and Iranians and Paskistanis have had far greater contacts with terrorists than Saddam and his government. It is unclear whether he really had any real agreements with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, after all, considered him an infidel. Saddam developed WMDs (like many other countries, including the US) and used them in the war he fought with Iran (which, if you will recall, our country approved of). Using WMDs did not prevent Rummy from kissing the man (smooch).
On WMDs:
In late 1983 and early 1984, Donald Rumsfeld flew twice to Baghdad, meeting with Saddam Hussein and his foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, in order to seek closer ties. This was the period when Iraq was using poison gas in its war against Iran, provoking international protests. In March 1984, Washington publicly condemned the use of chemical weapons, while maintaining its strategic support for the Saddam Hussein regime and blaming Iran for the conflict. |
