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None of those nations signed a "treaty" and then defied it. How many UN Resolutions did Sadam ignore? How many of those nations shot at our airplanes?
where is wmd as Bush and the US Administration was saying to everyone that Iraq has wmd? that was a primary motivator for the US admin to authorise the marines to invade Iraq.
Sep. 12, 2002 George W. Bush, Speech to UN General Assembly
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
Oct. 5, 2002 George W. Bush, Radio Address
"Iraq has stckpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
Sep. 18, 2002 Donald Rumsfeld
His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons—including anthrax and botulism toxin, and possibly smallpox.
His regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons—including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas.
His regime has an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons.
Nov. 1, 2002 John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
"We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material -- whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW [biological weapons] program.
Sep. 28, 2003 Dr. Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor"The premise of the war was ... all of the dots added up to a program and to weapons and a weapons program that was dangerous and getting more so." [
Saddam was coperating with the UN at the time and had no WMD. Bush kicked the UN out of Iraq, nobody else.
The end.
Bush was wrong and so are the hanger-ons still trying to justify this insanity.
Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.
The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.
Here's the relevant segment, which appears well down in the interview:
Mr. Piro: "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there."
Mr. Pelley: "And that was his intention?"
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Mr. Pelley: "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?"
Mr. Piro: "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."
Mr. Pelley: "Chemical, biological, even nuclear."
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Iraq's active WMD program had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors, sometime in the 1990s, but Saddam told Mr. Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay. This isn't exactly news. The key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.
Opponents of the war argue that none of this matters because Saddam and his ambitions were being "contained" by U.N. sanctions. Hardly. As the Los Angeles Times reported in December 2000, "sanctions are crumbling among U.S. allies, who have begun challenging them with dozens of unauthorized flights into [Iraq]."
Bowing to this reality, the Bush Administration came to office the following month promising to ease the sanctions regime, even as it spent billions patrolling the so-called "No-Fly Zones." And as we learned after the invasion, Saddam was well on his way to breaking free of the sanctions by bribing everyone from a British member of parliament to a former French cabinet minister, all through a U.N. convenience known as Oil for Food.
In another telling moment in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Piro relates that when he asked Saddam about his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, the dictator acknowledged that he had given the orders personally and explained himself in a word: "Necessary." The same still goes for getting rid of Saddam.
Saddam Hussein was a monster we embraced when he served our interests and we destroyed when he did not. We did not need a war to do this when a special unit would have been sufficient. However that would not have provided our President with a glorious holy war to feed his ego and an unlimited payment to the defense industry.
We did not need to be there then and we do not now. Same applies to Afghanistan. It is time to fold our tent and get out of Baghdad and Kabul. Our own country needs too much fixing to let us keep wasting money on these wasted efforts.
Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.
The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.
Here's the relevant segment, which appears well down in the interview:
Mr. Piro: "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there."
Mr. Pelley: "And that was his intention?"
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Mr. Pelley: "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?"
Mr. Piro: "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."
Mr. Pelley: "Chemical, biological, even nuclear."
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Iraq's active WMD program had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors, sometime in the 1990s, but Saddam told Mr. Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay. This isn't exactly news. The key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.
Opponents of the war argue that none of this matters because Saddam and his ambitions were being "contained" by U.N. sanctions. Hardly. As the Los Angeles Times reported in December 2000, "sanctions are crumbling among U.S. allies, who have begun challenging them with dozens of unauthorized flights into [Iraq]."
Bowing to this reality, the Bush Administration came to office the following month promising to ease the sanctions regime, even as it spent billions patrolling the so-called "No-Fly Zones." And as we learned after the invasion, Saddam was well on his way to breaking free of the sanctions by bribing everyone from a British member of parliament to a former French cabinet minister, all through a U.N. convenience known as Oil for Food.
In another telling moment in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Piro relates that when he asked Saddam about his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, the dictator acknowledged that he had given the orders personally and explained himself in a word: "Necessary." The same still goes for getting rid of Saddam.
Well, then, it was all worth it! Saddam intended to do all kinds of bad stuff...at some point in the future...if he could maybe get past the sanctions ,which he wasn't. SURE, that was worth killing hundreds of thousands, displacing, millions, etc...
So why did Bush need to invade again? Because a bad man tried to kill his pappy, and intended to one day maybe have the capability of doing something bad to someone.
The bar for waging a "preemptive war" should be MUCH MUCH HIGHER than that. Period.
I can only assume the videos were meant to justify diverting from the war on terror to invade Irag. Problem is we knew he was a monster long before the invasion and the majority of his inhuman acts were committed long before the invasion. So if there was no pressing need to go in at the time he commited some of his works acts of horror then please pray tell explain why on earth we needed to go in while we are already in the middle of another more important conflict. Do not bring up weapons of mass destruction since we now know that those claims were bogus, no matter how hard some would attempt to ignore that FACT. Are the people of Iraq better off today due to the invasion, of-course they are, are the people of the USA better off due to the invasion, the answer is NO. If there came a time when the war on terror were to wind down then sure, get the countries of the world together as Bush Sr did and invade Iraq and remove Saddam, with that I have no problem. It all comes down to timing and tactics and both of those were flawed and in both cases the buck stops with Bush and Cheney. hopefully Obama will get us out of Iraq as soon as is possible and leave the running of country to the people of that country. He is at least re-focusing our attention on the war we should have been focused on all along, funny how the chicken hawks here seem to ignore the major failure on Bush and Cheneys part, i wonder why that is, no actually I don't.
Casper
Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.
The Lebanese-born Mr. Piro, one of only a handful of agents at the bureau who speaks Arabic, was able to wheedle information from Saddam over a matter of months through a combination of flattery and ego-deflation that worked wonders with the former despot. But as Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute first noticed, the most important news in the segment comes when Mr. Piro describes his conversations with Saddam about weapons of mass destruction. The FBI interrogator says that, while Saddam said he no longer had active WMD programs in 2003, the dictator admitted that he intended to resume those programs as soon as he possibly could.
Here's the relevant segment, which appears well down in the interview:
Mr. Piro: "The folks that he needed to reconstitute his program are still there."
Mr. Pelley: "And that was his intention?"
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Mr. Pelley: "What weapons of mass destruction did he intend to pursue again once he had the opportunity?"
Mr. Piro: "He wanted to pursue all of WMD. So he wanted to reconstitute his entire WMD program."
Mr. Pelley: "Chemical, biological, even nuclear."
Mr. Piro: "Yes."
Iraq's active WMD program had been destroyed, mostly by U.N. weapons inspectors, sometime in the 1990s, but Saddam told Mr. Piro that he maintained a pretense of having those weapons mainly to keep Iran at bay. This isn't exactly news. The key point is Saddam's admission that an Iraqi WMD program remained a threat so long as Saddam remained in power.
Opponents of the war argue that none of this matters because Saddam and his ambitions were being "contained" by U.N. sanctions. Hardly. As the Los Angeles Times reported in December 2000, "sanctions are crumbling among U.S. allies, who have begun challenging them with dozens of unauthorized flights into [Iraq]."
Bowing to this reality, the Bush Administration came to office the following month promising to ease the sanctions regime, even as it spent billions patrolling the so-called "No-Fly Zones." And as we learned after the invasion, Saddam was well on his way to breaking free of the sanctions by bribing everyone from a British member of parliament to a former French cabinet minister, all through a U.N. convenience known as Oil for Food.
In another telling moment in the "60 Minutes" interview, Mr. Piro relates that when he asked Saddam about his use of chemical weapons against Kurdish civilians, the dictator acknowledged that he had given the orders personally and explained himself in a word: "Necessary." The same still goes for getting rid of Saddam.
What a joke. So in other words Saddam DID NOT have WMD. Furthermore, as I'm sure you are aware, an American oil tycoon was also involved in the oil for food scandal as well. The gassing of the Kurds was done with our gas, and we sat by and didn't do jack squat when it happened nearly 20 yrs ago. Now the right wing use it as some sort of battle cry. Easy to swallow for those who haven't got a clue of history.
Again, if Bush/Cheney packaged Saddam as a dire threat, something that had to be dealt with immediately. Throwing out words like "Mushroom clouds" and eventually kicking out the UN to invade. In the end, Bush's pals turned out to be no better than Saddam: Slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent men women and children for absolutely no reason at all. We lost over 4,000 of our men, and women for what? Purple fingers and a top gun photo op? There were no WMD, Saddam was not threatening us, and he was not connected to 911. Iraq was tragic on a human scale, yet the right points back to the Kurdish slaughter to validate their kid killing war. Pure insanity.
Lets not even get started on the cost. The fact that the right can somehow adopt this holier than thou fiscal attitude AFTER supporting this war is a total joke. Borrowing money from communist to drop bombs on Iraqi goat farmers and hand out no bid contracts to Halliburton is just fine and dandy. THAT'S OK to pass on to the kids and grandkids. What a short memory the GOP has!
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