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


To: pompsander who wrote (168134)8/3/2005 2:53:41 PM
From: Sun Tzu  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
The real reason for the rush to invade was to prevent any calm discussion and discovery of the horse manor they were feeding the public.

In fact if you were paying close attention to what Rummy was saying, it was obvious that invasion was a foregone conclusion as he had formulated it along the lines of:

(a) If Saddam does not produce the WMD we are going to invade.

but

(b) If Saddam produces the WMD then we know he breached the UN demands and we can't trust him and we will invade.

A classical heads we win, tails you lose.

ST



To: pompsander who wrote (168134)8/3/2005 3:01:05 PM
From: steve dietrich  Respond to of 281500
 
The rush was to build on the patriotic momentum capital of what appeared to be a slam dunk, mission almost accomplished except we didn't get al quida. If they waited too long wouldn't be enough interest into going into Iran as the shaky ground the war case was built on was quickly exposed.



To: pompsander who wrote (168134)8/3/2005 3:01:14 PM
From: geode00  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
The Neocons, Wolfowitz in particular, had wanted to topple Saddam for over a decade. The pump was primed for the first possible opportunity before the effects of 911 had worn off.

There was always the danger that the inspectors would actually be back doing their job, find absolutely that there were no WMDs and the major rationale for toppling Saddam would go poof.

There was also the possibility that Old Europe could make better arguments and mess up the topple-Saddam programme even more.

They couldn't exactly yell and scream about imminent mushroom clouds over the eastern seaboard AND say that we could wait a year or two.

They did finally push for spring because they were yammering about how hot and miserable the Iraqi summers were. 120 degrees and no potable water or reliable AC. Yep, the Iraqi summers are miserable for waging war.

The admin also had 200,000 troops just sitting on the borders supposedly to intimidate Saddam into giving up WMDs. That's an expensive proposition so they had to move quickly.

All in all, the admin understood (as delusional as it was) that the rationale and support for toppling Saddam were thin. Even within the administration and within the military there was grumbling. In order to ensure that the invasion would actually take place, they had to push it with everything they had and keep the opposition off balance and...GO!



To: pompsander who wrote (168134)8/3/2005 3:27:35 PM
From: bentway  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
We didn't want "the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud!" (Condi)