> I also maintian that for all the WMD's you think you know didn't exist in Iraq, you must easily be quite wrong given the time it took us to move in, the clear effort to hide things which Saddam had been engaging in for so long, and, I think, the resulting well recognized batch of WMD's which are still unaccounted for. <
Well you can maintain that but you are flat out wrong. I didn't just offer my own opinion (which is what you are doing) - I have the IAEA's (nuke inspectors) opinion, the US Department of Energy - the US's own nuclear weapons experts - opinion, and the CIA's opinion.
In every category - nuclear, chemical and biological - the CIA confirmed, with out a doubt that a) Saddam Husayn / Iraq had ordered destroyed and dismantled these programs because they fear discovery by UN inspections, and b) Iraq's ability to produce these weapons had been significantly diminished and sanctions and containment were continuing to suppress Iraq's ability.
Yes, I'm supremely confident that in the following years as materials are declassified we will find out just how inept Bush and his entire administration was in this action; we'll learn that Wolfowitz and other powerful neoconservatives (I am very much a conservative - the "neos" are not. They are borderline fascists and neo-extremists / neo-colonialists) pushed the agenda and supported their view by cherry picking only data that supported their goals, through their hand-picked group of "intel" (some of these people were *not* intel specialists) neocon hardliners in the Office of Special Plans.
Powell was right to smell a rat; its too bad he didn't do the principled thing and quit, like one of Blair's cabinet did. That *might* have derailed the foolish, unjustified and illegal invasion of Iraq. At least he could hold his head up high, and sell a book.
> The bulk of the evidence I was treated to has not been debunked at all. It is reaffirmed with each beheading, for instance. <
A typical response - the same sort of argument that Bush now uses. All the other arguments refuted, fall back to Saddam baaad. Its a baaad place. And its haaaard!
Well, for starters, there were not any beheadings before we jumped in there and we started shooting the place up.
We also started the ongoing civil war (haven't figured that out yet?) and the insurrection. In fact before we started bombing Iraq to the stone age, again, the garbage used to be picked up, the electricity worked better (even though we kept bombing them before the war), kids could walk safely to school, and they even had mostly functioning universal health care system. Aid workers could work in Iraq without being kidnapped and tortured.
Until we showed up.
Saddam wasn't a threat to any neighboring region. He was contained. Incidentally it was quite cheap to contain him - very cost effective. We could have done an even better job - and better leadership in the White House (pick anyone - I am not a supporter of Kerry or Bush or Nader) could have made strides to ensure that Saddam was contained, that oil for food was reformed. All much cheaper, with fewer lives lost, than invading Iraq. Who knows - maybe over time Saddam would have done the Kadahfi thing and flipped a new leaf. Without firing a shot.
Inspectors at the time demanded more time. The process *was* working. Bush kicked them out, and started the illegal war and had the gall to even botch that up.
Yes, Saddam was a brutal dictator that suppressed dissent. No doubt about it, his removal, one day, would have been a positive step for the country and rejoiced by most.
But foreign policy and action utterly failed in Iraq. It has not failed to make us any safer, quite the contrary. We've proven how inept this administration has been - but what's worse, the failure builds on almost a decade of *collosal* blunders all over the region.
As our long failed history with foreign interventions has shown, its best we stay out of other people's back yards. When we interfere, we end up with dictators like Husayn (Reagan supported him, Rumsfeld was his chum) and the Shaw of Iran (the US installed him in the first place and Carter used to have tea with this man who's secret police loved to torture people).
Welcome to Iran II. Or is it Iran III now? So hard to keep track of foreign policy fiascos these days...
Courtesy of your bud in the White House. |
