Clarification/Follow-up by HANK1 on 09/02/04 2:52 pm:

Elliot: I think the info came from:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4685.shtml

I was in a hurry when I answered the question!

Clarification/Follow-up by SanchoPanza on 09/02/04 3:53 pm:
As the hollow reasons for invading Iraq fall apart under scrutiny. The base reason for this attack becomes exposed. Weapons, Repression, links to terrorism do not stand out against the actions of other regimes as anything exceptional or even sustainable and when backed into a corner on every hollow argument, the establishment of a base in the centre of the region is the only sound purpose the for this action and sees to be the primary reason for the attack.

Nothing to do with immanent threats, nothing to do with saving people from oppression, nothing to do with terrorism, just plain simple old empire building.

Let's pre-empt any nonsense about Saddam being linked to terrorists in the past... Bush's demands after 9/11 were that all state should sever any links they had with terror groups or face the consequences. Only those regimes with links to 9/11 were to face the immediate wrath of the auto-cue reading chimp.

Clarification/Follow-up by Chouxxx on 09/02/04 5:29 pm:
Sancho:::"auto-cue reading chimp"? Cut the flattery.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 09/03/04 6:25 am:
"The tense post-Gulf War settlement was unstable and creating huge and growing liabilities for America. First, Iraqi suffering and starvation under a cruel and corrupt sanctions regime was widely blamed on the U.S. Second, the standoff with Iraq made necessary a large American garrison in Saudi Arabia, land of the Islamic holiest places—in the eyes of many Muslims, another U.S. provocation. Indeed, these two offenses were cited by Osama bin Laden as the chief justification for his 1998 declaration of jihad against America. Most important, the sanctions "containing" Saddam were collapsing.

That would have produced the ultimate nightmare: a re-energized and relegitimized regime headed by Saddam—and ultimately, even worse, his sons—increasingly Islamicizing its Baathist ideology, rearming and renewing WMD programs, and extending its connections with terrorist groups. The threat was not imminent. But it was ominous and absolutely inevitable. Bush, correctly, thought it necessary to remove it. It was obvious to all that this second war would jeopardize his presidency. He risked his entire political future for it nonetheless.

He could have played it safe, Kerry-like: nuancing the issue to death, kicking the problem into the future. He did not. That is leadership. That is political courage. That is what wartime demands."[Charles Krauthammer]

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 09/03/04 7:07 am:
Chou,

>>>??????? When did we begin to be able to PREDICT THE FUTURE from one single decision made during a war????

We could easily have 70,000 casualties and people marching on the White House here in 2004!!!!<<<

Those of us who have a real understanding of geopolitics and Middle Eastern Affairs predicted this the day that Bush Sr. decided not to press forward in 1991. It wasn't a "prediction" so much as a risk analysis... we understood that there was a good chance that Saddam would not stick to the cease fire agreement he signed, would not allow his country to be inspected by the UN, would not obey the no-fly zones, etc. We knew that there was a high risk that Saddam would become a problem again in the future. We also knew that no matter what sanctions were placed on Iraq, Saddam would not be brought in line with the UN's policies.

As it turns out, we were right. We may not have known then the specifics of how he would violated the cease fire, or how he would defy the UN, but we knew it would happen. And in hindsight it is easy to see that we were right, and name the details.

The bottom line is that we predicted this 12 years ago, and we were right.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by Chouxxx on 09/03/04 8:02 pm:
I still say that if Bush "I" had ordered the troops to march on Baghdad to depose Saddam and end the Gulf War, that you, or anyone else, could have predicted a rosy scenario as the outcome!!! Too many variables!

Iran could have "piled on"! They always have an excess of young men and a hatred of America. Especially in their own back yard. All kinds of things could have gone wrong. Hammas could have and probably would have ordered unremitting homicide bombers on Israel and god knows where else. Public assassinations of American politicos.

Anyway, no one can predict the future! No one can second guess with any certainty. What happens happens. Other choices could have been better or worse! No one knows.

Regards