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Originally posted by: FullBurst41
I find that all rather hard to digest. Threat to other countries in the region? He's always been a threat to other countries in the region, and that includes the 1980s. Links to Al Qaeda? Possible, not certain. And what beats it all: it wasn't important if he HAD WMD's, rather the evidence that you collected that he had? Well, of course, since otherwise you wouldn't know he had them, only he didn't have them so something went brutally wrong with the evidence, or somebody has been attending creativity lessons, I don't know.
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1st of all there is no positive proof that Saddam did not have WMD's at the time of the US invasion or shortly before. Failure to find them does not prove that they didn't exist. In fact we know of at least one chemical weapon that remained hidden. If one could remain hidden why not 2? If 2 why not 3? Why not 100?
But it doesn't really matter whether he had them or not because it was clear his intentions was to acquire them and he was working on creating the environment where he could do so without the international community being able to verify for certain that he had them by anything short of a full scale invasion and possibly not even then.
We do know that he won't be developing them now.
As to the threats to other countries, Saddam was consistently failing to adhere to the cease fire agreement of his last invasion of a neighbor, Kuwaite, and was failing to follow the UN resolutions that were passed as a result of that. These resoultions promised severe consequences if he didn't comply. I think that giving him 12 years to comply was more than amply.
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Originally posted by: FullBurst41
What I really do not understand is your constant emphasis on me defending Saddam or calling him innocent. You seem to be suffering from a rather large "lback & white" complex, that when I'm not openly accusing him of having WMD's, I'm suddenly defending him. Can I get a break, just now?
Therefore, I do not quite understand the final part of your post. Since I did not call lSaddam innocent, and do not think that he is, it makes ze'ro sense to me, maybe you would mind explaining it again?
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It's not becasue you won't say that he had WMD's, I really could care less what you think on that. It's because you say that liberating a country from a monster such as Saddam was wrong. Huge difference there.
Quote:
Originally posted by: FullBurst41
That said, I also do not understand why what I have pointed out is in anyway a misdirection of the discussion. Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan both play big parts in the war on terror, Iraq obviously did as well. The United States government went out of its way and almost tripped all over itself getting rid of Saddam, while they consistently turn a blind eye to their allies in the Middle East (and this includes the Israelis, mind you, but that's another discussion). Where's the misdirection?
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The misdirection is that they are entirely different situations than Iraq. If nothing else neither government is as openly hostile as Iraq. Neither government is in violation of a UN resolution promising severe consquences for noncompliance. Neither country invaded their neighbor and had to be forcibly removed by the US within recent history and are consequently in violation of the cease fire agreement. Neither country has used WMD's to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
To compare the two the way you have is a crass attempt at misdirection and an example of extreme ignorance. Had Saddam simply adhered to the UN resolutions, it's highly unlikely that we would have invaded as we did. However, he adamantly refused for 12 years to fully comply. Why would he do that if he didn't have WMD's and had no intention of developing more?