My point was that at best Bush could have determined that the war MIGHT be worth doing, but that he'd know a lot more after a decent interval for inspections.
Inspections had failed before, and were expected to fail again. It's easy to hide stuff from inspectors. May I remind you for the thousandth time, that the UN inspection process was supposed to be an "inspection" process, where a cooperative regime showed its results, accounted for its weapons stocks, etc, not a "detective" process, where the inspectors find the weapons. It became a detective process as soon it started. Even in 2003, the Iraqis were saying, we destroyed all our weapons but we kept no dates or records, which is at the least, not in compliance with the UN resolutions. At a more general level, it's absurd to anyone who knows the record-keeping habits of the Saddam regime.
Inspections were a play for time and loss of momentum, and were understood as such by both sides.
As for the "14 months," that's the time it took to get our troops in place with all the logistics to support the invasion of Iraq
This claim is patently absurd. In 1991, 500,000 men moved into place between November 1990 and January 1991. We had fewer men and a more mobile army this time around. If Cheney had had his way, the war would have started in the fall of 2002. |
