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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (75337)	4/12/2006 9:56:51 AM
From: Dan B.	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 81568

Re: "This is revisionism" I think you fail to make the case that "revisionism" fits my statement that "Bush made the right decision given an uncooperative Iraq." He waited for peace, to give Saddam a chance to open the books. That the decision to move on Iraq was right is my opinion and has nothing to do with revisionism. My stated reason for my opinion? That would be that Iraq was uncooperative and dealing dirty, which is borne out by the facts, so hardly qualifying as "revisionism." However, you make the case so... Re: "The threat of war had been enough to make Saddam see that he could no longer keep resisting the inspectors." See: cnn.com There we find an IAEA spokesman and Blix clearly wanting to continue inspections which they expected all along to take a year. They also express their opinion that a complete inspection was worth waiting for. We also find the IAEA spokesman stating "We're getting access to the sites that we need." Why, you could almost wish you'd have provided me with this link. Except for a few things. In the link, we also find that "a "great many questions" remain unanswered with regards the information provided by Baghdad about its previous weapons programme," according to Blix. In this case, Iraq provided inadequate information. Furthermore, we find that "U.N. officials have expressed dismay that Iraqi minders have accompanied all scientists interviewed so far, and Blix said last week that Baghdad had not cleared up issues such as chemical bombs, VX nerve gas and the import of missile engines." In this case, Iraq attempted to keep a lid on the speech of its scientists, and had ignored serius issues. Then too, we find that "The inspectors say Iraq must produce credible evidence to back up its stance that it destroyed all material that could be used for weapons of mass destruction while U.N. teams were out of the country from 1998 to late last year." In this case, Iraq failed to back-up its claims, we eventually found that Iraq had outright lied, since we in fact found the massive quantities of your "raw materials that could have been used to produce massive amounts of chemical weapons, but could also have been used to make things like insecticides(or fertilizer I believe, as the case may be - Dan B.). Should you choose to imply that the intended use of these found materials was likely benign, I must point out that not only does the dual use aspect here mean that their existence should have been declared rather than catagorically denied, but when found, they were found elaborately hidden at no small expense such as would not be at all necessary if the intended use were in fact benign. We also know that while deciding to allow inspectors back in, Iraq virtually simultaneously sought to circumvent sanctions and acquire materials for rocket fuel, etc. globalsecurity.org "Throughout the summer and fall of 2002, the Pakistani intermediary continued to try to close the contract for spherical aluminum powder with Iraq. He made a trip to Iraq with samples in July and mailed samples to Dr. Ghazar in October 2002." Isn't that special? "In February 2003, the Russian state arms export company, Rosoboronexport, and other Russian companies planned to sell advanced antiaircraft and antitank missile systems to Iraq, according to a document signed by the head of MIC security recovered at the IIS Headquarters in Baghdad." And they plotted to hide this from all of us...perhaps we would have been better off waiting a year for inspections to finish, inspections which likely never would have uncovered the above planned shipments, before moving on Iraq? I don't think you can say we'd have fared better. Putting such efforts together with the hiding of evidence and with the known efforts to destroy documentary evidence, it becomes more than reasonable for me to conclude that your opinion that the threat of war had made Saddam conclude "that he could no longer keep resisting the inspectors" is completely at odds with the facts per the Dulfer report. Saddam in fact sought to hide stuff from the inspectors, and when he knew we were coming, successfully hid and destroyed one heck of a lot of god knows what more. In short, not only were there well noted and reported signs that Saddam was not truly cooperating, but these signs were proven to point to the truth upon our entry into Iraq. As Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union, "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. Dulfers inspection concluded that Iraq had the materials (which it lied about as noted above), and indeed the ability and the intent to make WMD in short order. Yes, Saddam Backed terrorism the world over, no doubt in my mind. Yes, there is good reason for us to agree that our action in Iraq was a worthy decision. Dan B.