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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (36076)	8/11/2002 3:52:32 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

You are quite right that attacking Iraq is dangerous. However, waiting until Saddam has nuclear weapons is dangerous too. Being perceived as a paper tiger is very dangerous, and has already cost us the WTC. We do not have the option of comparing danger to safety; only of comparing one danger to another. Actually, it is much more dangerous to wait for Saddam to have nuclear weapons than it will be for the US to go in after him. While the conflict will be no cakewalk, I think the dangers are being under-estimated substantially. The article linked below needs to be read by those who think that the military risks are excessive: foreignaffairs.org As was the case with the Gulf War and the Afghanistan conflict, the military risks are probably being exaggerated. While it is prudent to be cautious, the fact remains that Saddam's arsenal is not anything like it was in 1991, while the lethality of our armaments has increased by orders of magnitude. We will be asking the usual question to ourselves again at the conclusion of the conflict: What were we so worried about? Given the minimal military risks involved, in my opinion the only issues worth discussing are political and economic, i.e., will it be worth the expense to get rid of Saddam and should we do it in the first place. The latter question is easily answered as, in my view, the US should never allow madmen to own WMDs in a region vital to Western economies. The question of expense is not one I have a grip on. Perhaps revenues from Iraqi oil can be used to pay for the costs.