Skinow, the reason to not believe it is that he was defeated in war against the UN forces and there was a decade of inspections. It was pretty obvious that there wasn't much in the way of a WMD threat. To me anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some WMDs [teeny ones] and perhaps some were moved to Syria as claimed. But it certainly wasn't much of significance if there were any. Which there doesn't seem to have been.
I was right and the "military intelligence experts" who believed the exiled Iraqis in waiting that Saddam had them ready to go in 40 minutes, were wrong. Would you really buy a used car from the Iraqi National Security Advisor? Chalabi? Any of them?
Of course Saddam would like to have had a nuclear bomb production line and every other weapon he could lay his hands on.
Of course Saddam was building his nuclear reactor for bombs. Like Iran, Iraq has stupendous quantities of oil and does NOT need any other primary energy source. Iran for God'- sake is thinking of building a pipeline all the way to India to sell gas, which they could use right there in Iran if they need energy, saving the huge cost of the pipeline, not to mention the geopolitical risk of sending it across Pakistan.
The only reason Iran is building nuclear reactors is to get nukes. They will do what they say they will do. They should be taken at their word on their destructive murderous plans. The lie that their enrichment and other activities are for electricity is absurd. It's understandable that China would build swarms of nuclear reactors. Same with Japan. Same with North Korea. Come to think of it, New Zealand should be using nuclear reactors [though we have laws against it and nuclear weapons].
During the 1990 war, I did wonder whether Saddam had managed somehow to get hold of a nuke or three. I was holding my breath. I suspected that he had made a threat against the UN forces that if they invaded Iraq, he'd send his nuclear bomb into Tel Aviv. All he had was dumb Scuds. Yay!!!
Of course he wanted them, but achieving them is another matter.
Anyway, apart from WMDs, I thought it fair enough to invade Iraq and it has turned out to be very worthwhile. Libya got panicky and gave up the nukes. Syria and Iran are acting tough, but I would like to check their sweating levels. North Korea will not be feeling all that tough, despite claiming to have nukes [which don't work].
Even things like Haditha have their good points - everyone knows that American soldiers are crazy madmen who shoot anything that moves, or doesn't. So, when Iran swaggers that they'll get nukes and destroy Israel, they are staring down a very dangerous barrel.
China too will be somewhat circumspect about invading Taiwan and killing swarms of people.
Mqurice |
