As of yet there have been no weapons of mass destruction found inside Iraq. But there is still the possibility that they could have been sent away right before we invaded, or they are still hidden. Until we search every inch of Iraq, we cant be sure.

If Saddam was trying to win he would have fired them at our troops, right? To me the weapons of mass destruction issue is secondary. The real issue is Al-Queda, the guys that attacked us. We have found no Al-Queda connections. That's why it wasn't the right decision.

The Al-Queda are not our only enemies. Just because the orginazation was not in Iraq is not reason to beleive that we should not have invaded. though there is no, and probably will be no proof, for all we know saddam could still be alive.

On the issue of the weapons of mass destruction, there may have been reason for saddam to wait to use them. It would be a perfect strategic decision for saddam to hide (with the weapons of course) and wait until our troops are lulled into a false sense of security.for all we know, Saddam is alive, and plotting against us. Of course, we dont know because our military has yet to release any important information.

The problem is, every reason given for going into Iraq by the Bush administration has turned out to be a lie. There are no 'terrorist links', no 'weapons of mass destruction', no nothing. We went in there for two very simple reasons: oil and because Saddam made Bush's daddy look like a fool. That's it. Bush is using the terrorist nonsense to pursue his own personal agenda.



That makes no sense. The US and UK said that Saddam had WMDs ready and available for attack. That was a flat-out lie as we would have found them when we invaded. It's simply ridiculous to think Saddam could have magically made them all disappear in a couple weeks. There never were any WMDs, it was all made up by the Bush and Blair administrations.

And wouldn't you plot against someone who went into your country with the mandate to remove you from power, and instead sought to murder you? I know I would!

you make a good point. i guess youve convinced me.

Yes.

Now, to correct Moif's spin...

If there's anyone lying here, it ain't the Bush (and Blair) administrations Moif.

Abu Abbas and the Palestinian Liberation Front prove otherwise. Let's not forget Abu Nidal either...

Nor should we forget the buckets of ducats shoveled out to Palestinian homicide bombers..

During the uprising against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Iraqi leader has paid handsome cash rewards to the families of bombers, lending his sanction to the most sustained suicide campaign in history.

As the Palestinian intifada dragged on, he increased his payment to the families of suicide bombers from $10,000 to $25,000 (£6,350 to £15,900). He also paid out to those who were maimed or lost their homes in the intifada, and by the time war broke out in Iraq, his largesse had run into the tens of millions of dollars.
The Guardian - Bush Administration's propaganda organ in UK
In February 1998 UNSCOM discovered that shells taken from Iraq in 1996 contained 97% pure mustard gas, indicating it was freshly produced. This was 5 years after Iraq was supposed to have shut down its chemical weapons program.
Iraq: Compliance, Sanctions and US Policy

GET CONSTRUCTIVE.

WE CAN NOT DEBATE YOUR ONE-LINERS. QUALIFY YOUR ANSWERS.

Do I really need to tell any of you this?

i have just one question. when we invaded, why did the Iraqi troops fight back? they obviously had something to hide, or they would not have resisted us and uk attacks.

Are you serious?
Would you not defend your nation if it was attacked?

While I for the most part support the war, I fully expected the Iraqi Army to fight harder than it did, and was surprised when they failed to mount an effective defense.

you are missing my point. if the Iraqis were really innocent, they would have submitted to a full, unrestricted, military search for the WMD's. We had the UN investigaters looking for them, but it was too slow for the US and the UK. The best case scenario was for the Iraqis to submit to a full scale search.

Ours and the british government were just speading up the search because they didnt want to risk the chance that Saddam's regime might use the weapons before they were found. they were just responding to a threat to their countries. It wasnt our fault that the Iraqis made us do it the hard way.

The same reason the German people in 1944-45 fought on their home soil when they knew they were defeated: FEAR OF A BRUTAL DICTATOR AND REGIME.

please explain to me then, why are there still pockets of resistance fighting us when saddam is clearly incapacitated,(......or is he...?) With the threat of the "BRUTAL DICTATOR AND REGIME" gone?

Are you kidding? There were UN weapons inspectors in the country who were finding *NOTHING* until Bush started beating the war drums. Bush didn't care if there were WMDs or not, he just wanted to invade and it was a convenient excuse. In fact, Powell said he *KNEW* where the WMDs were. Couldn't he have just told the UN inspectors and verified it? Nope... gotta go to war instead and still not find anything.

Iraq is a soverign nation that the US has no business telling what to do. We have no right to search the country for anything any more than the Iraquis can demand to search your house for things they don't like. Iraq was searched, as dictated by the UN. The US went in for oil, not WMDs.

I'd have to agree with Cephus. I can't think one single time where UNMOVIC was blocked from searching a site. And every demand UNMOVIC made was met by Iraq, albeit sometimes a little reluctantly.

The hardest point was convincing the scientists to be interviewed without a recording and no witnesses. Some did, but several turned that down.

And if you can find any instance where they were blocked or denied their demands I'd love to hear it.

And just for clarification I'm referring to UNMOVIC, not UNSCOM.

And once again, for those who'll say comments like "But Saddam was a bad man" or whatever. All I have to say about that is "DUH!" But we aren't debating that.

I'm glad he's out of power, but I so wish the UN could move in and help clean up the disaster in Iraq. I watched The Discovery Channel's Special "After Saddam" and it filled in alot of holes our news hasn't bothered to fill. Like even explaining why the attacks have increased and why it will only get worse.

I recomend everyone catch the encore presentations.

Way back before the war even began I started a post here stating that I believed we were going to war based on no new information, but old evidence collected years ago. That and the fear of 9/11. Rumsfeld was kind enough to prove my point a few weeks ago.

Link: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/conte...-name_page.html

Bush simply wanted them out of the way so no one could disagree with his baseless WMD claims. The fact is, sanctions and inspectors were working. Iraq had absolutely nothing that could hurt the US. Bush just took his personal crusade and wrapped it up in the War on Terrorism.



I don't think anyone is arguing that Saddam was a nice guy. He wasn't. That still doesn't give the US the right to invade a soverign nation, kill thousands of innocents and seek to MURDER the legal ruler of said nation. If Saddam is such a bad guy, shouldn't we capture him and put him up for war crimes before an international court? Nope... instead we throw a couple dozen cruise missles at him and go off to murder his family. Anyone think it's odd that we didn't even TRY to capture his sons, we just mowed them down?

And the US is supposed to be civilized?

Ahhh, another 'we murdered his sons' allegation.
It sadly amuses me how many armchair warriors sit back in the comfort of their homes and second guess combat operations.

From start to not yet finished, people have criticized the actions of our troops from two thousand miles away. Of course, as Americans, we have that right. The military is ultimately accountable to the citizenry of this nation.

But do we KNOW that we didn't try and force the Husseins to surrender? Hmmm, Our troops receive a furious volume of fire from a villa, and we return it using the US offensive doctrine of attacking with a 3 to 1 ratio, and some on TV and Rep. Rangel, D-NY claim we've assassinated someone. What a convoluted, wacky world we live in.

The only thing i know is this fortifies my opinion of a america vs. some middle eastern nations even more. None of said reasons for the war have turned out to have any credit to them, we are now trying to bring McDonalds to iraq good or bad i guess will have to wait and see, i would have rather liked to see all this attention turned to afganistan, or the nations that are behind 9-11, the reason i guess behind all of this, not some oil baron in the middle east that makes suv sales drop. I would like the real reasons for the iraq war to come out, not the ones we have been giving, though i still hope that we may find the reasons for the war to come true, like finding a bunch of terrorists and wmds in some secret storage facility, but i dont think that has a very good probability. Another point about the iraq war is the u.n thing, the u.n did not hesitate to aid in operations in afganistan, we know that, i still feel sorry for those canadians we blew up on mistake but the iraq war from our current administration beat the teeth out of the u.n, now it is just some shattered figment, i do know that the money involved in the various nations will keep ties and may bring the u.n back, but i felt that iraq could have been a good issue to solidify the u.n, not destroy it. Overall, i feel the u.s is going to lose more in the long run with the iraq war then it will gain, i just hope that iraq does not get much uglier then it is, one thing i find funny is if the people are allowed to vote, vote in someone like saddam legally, are we going to free them from democracy then

Regardless of who fought back and shot at american troops, when you invade a country and kill thier leaders without them first provocing the fight, you have indeed committed assisination, no matter how bad the guy is, just own up to it.

This war was wrong on many counts.

1) It made finding real terrorism harder. The unilateral action and the anger it caused among our allies certainly has slowed down information sharing among agencies that might provide information vital to stop the next attack. After all, France is the most pro-active actual Al-quaida hunters here, I mean, who in Al-quaida have WE arrested lately? Same with Germany!

2) Bush lied about his reasons for war, had he said "We are going to war because Saddam is an evil man and commiting atrocities every day and that is they why and how of it"- it would be one thing, but he based the entire war on his KNOWLEDGE of WMDs, not SUSPECTED KNOWLEDGE". Several quotes have the Bush administration saying how many tons and where the WMDs are!

3) An old conservative notion- we are not the worlds policeman and have no business interfering in other countries affairs unless they attack us!

I do want to say something in the troops defense however.

I heard they tried multiple times to go up the stairs and capture the Hussein sons, and several soldiers were shot in the process causing them to pull back and hit the building with larger weaponery.

So, in a sense they did try, but the Hussien boys were never going to surrender.

Rickmanx

They were probably testing our weaknesses & our strengths. It's a known thing to do in a war so when it is time to act as gurreilas, you'll know all that stuff.

CruisingRam Posted on Jul 29 2003, 03:43 PM
Does Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri ring a bell? The sleeper agent in Illinois? The truck driver?

Ali Saleh Kahlah Al Marri arrested



Rickmanx Posted on Jul 29 2003, 05:00 PM


That was obvious. The place was surrounded and there were no tunnels to duck into while their buddies stalled us. Going down in flames was one way to become a martyr. Saddam said so in his latest tape today

Saddam:

Sponsored Palestinian suicide bombers.
Had and used WMD.
Violated a decade of UN resolutions, hence authorizing use of force.
Attacked Israel, Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
Tried to have an American President assassinated.
Committed genocide on Kurds and dissidents in general.
Committed decades of atrocities against women.
It goes on, and on, and on.

This is a no-brainer.

He (sadam) invaded kuwait for oil not us, he was supposed to let the un inspectors every where , he threw them out , this should have been done when clinton was in office but it wasn't, so bush pushed for the un inspectors to go back in 1st before going back in, when he threw the un inspectors out years before this we had the right to go in

I Have yet to see that any of the facts used to get the country into the war be confirmed. No weapons, no obvious ties to Al Queda. It feels like we invaded Iraq just because Saddam was "a really bad man".

I mean, if you were Saddam and had an arsenal of WOMD, would you hide them, or fire them out on a total assualt of the united States?

If Bush thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and invaded them, why are we tip-toeing around North Korea?

But, in all fairness, Saddam deserved to be dethroned. I mean, he was pure evil.

First of all, welcome to the board BecomingHuman

Second of all, Would you fire your WMD if you knew it would give the United States proof to the international community that he had them?

If this was such a no-brainer why wasn't the war on Iraq waged as soon as Bush took office? All of these conditions were there before the 2000 election.

This was not a no-brainer and the invasion was a bad choice. Hussein was not a demonstrated terror threat against the United States. It is more revisionist history to go back and say that we were led into this war for reasons other than attacking Iraq because they were deemed a terrorist threat by the Bush administration.

All of the other reasons are static along the lines of, "Well, whatever the truth is about why we went to war, the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in it."

Part of this campaign of misinformation about why we went to war came in the naming of "Operation Iraqi Freedom." We did not go to war to be the altruistic saviors of the Iraqi people.

It was the right thing to do.

The rationale was sound (**Covers his ears**) and legal (Ducks).
The reasons were many, not just one. Anyone who focuses on just one issue has missed a huge part of the case brought against Saddam.
The implementation of the battle plan was exceptional.
The results are a positive, both for us in terms of national security, for the Middle East in terms of the possibility of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, and for the Iraqis.

No internal force was ever going to topple Saddam. No internal force was ever going to free the Iraqi people from this murdering, brutalizing regime.

What makes Saddam different from any other 2 bit dictator on the planet? We defeated him once and now the onus was on US that he remained in power. His arrogant disregard for the international agreements that he signed with the UN gave us the legal basis to resume hostilities with Iraq.

In short, yes, this was the right decision.

Umm...then why have them?

Are you suggesting that Iraq invested heavily into chem and bio weapons technology, hid them from inspectors, allowed their country to be invaded and occupied, but didn't use them as a defensive weapon (which I beleive, is legal as long as it's inside your own borders - the reason why no big stink was made of it when they used them against the Iranians) because it would prove they existed?

Do you realize how absurd that sounds?

Huh?

Isn't one of the jobs of any army to protect their homeland from an invading force? Maybe they had something to hide, but it's just as likely they had something to protect.

Why did the Iraqui soldiers fight back? I'll hazard a wild guess and say, "Because they were supposed to."

Saddam's sons were not captured because they did not want to be captured. They were killed in the fire fight when US troops were trying to capture them. although the official story has not been released, and we never may really know, there is still a possibility that they committed suicide when the US began winning.

Because Saddam isn't a regime by himself, he has cohorts and people that carry out his orders. Those grunts are just as guilty as he is. Another reason is because some people STILL fear that Saddam will return to power and they don't want to do anything to undermine him until the know for certain he will no longer be a threat. Saddam's regime was in place for 30 years and instilled fear into 2 generations of people. That fear isn't easy to overcome.

Because he declared that "there should be no nation-building" or something to that nature

Also, that was before 9/11 too

bah! I read the assault on the villa Saddam's sons were holed up in, took 6 hours. After each assault, troops went upstairs into the room where they were. They took fire. The returned and continued the attack.

They did that 3 times.

After the 3rd time, they took no fire and entered the room.

They had 3 chances to give themselves up.

If our intentions were to murder them, the attack would have taken 10 minutes, not 6 hours



Absurd? I don't think so. I think it's genius. Saddam is an evil dictator, but I don't think he's stupid.

Saddam knew he couldn't defeat the allied troops. If he had used WMD on allied soldiers, America would have had the whole world behind her, and Saddam would have been awful lonely.

As you well know, America didn't have a ton of support for this war. If Saddam kept the weapons hidden, the world might turn against the US. If Saddam couldn't beat us in war, why not pit the other nations of the world against us politically?

************

Now, was this the right thing to do? Absolutely. Maybe not for the reasons Bush has given us, but ultimately...yes.

I believe Iraq will be a better place in 10 years time, than in 10 years if Saddam were still in power.

Evil dictators like SH should be removed from power. All of them. And I only wish that more evil dictators from our past, were removed from power, before the situation got out of hand.

--cheers

Actually, the military is accountable to the President as Commander-in-Chief. They bear no direct accountability to the citizenry as we don't get to vote on what they do.



After firing dozens of missles at a position Saddam *MIGHT* have been at on the first day of the war, I think it's safe to say that surrender isn't high on our list of priorities, wouldn't you? I don't believe for a second that they attempted anything but murder. It isn't like they could have gone anywhere, we could easily have waited them out until they ran out of food and water and brought them to trial, but no... Bush doesn't want to mess with anything like a trial. Dead bodies are so much easier to parade around.

boyscout93 writes:


Unless they opened up on each other with automatic weapons, that's not likely. Looking at the evidence though, Bush's record simply isn't good. He didn't make any attempt to apprehend bin Laden, he just dumped bunker busters on any position where he *MIGHT* have been. He launched dozens of missles at a bunker where Saddam *MIGHT* have been early in the war. Now Saddam's sons are met with overwhelming gunfire and mowed down. Somehow, this doesn't inspire any confidence in me that Bush wants to bring these people, or anyone else, to proper trial for crimes against humanity. So much easier to convict them post mortem, isn't it?

goamerica writes:


Why in the world would you have them then? The only purpose of having a weapon is to use it when necessary. You think Hussein was waiting for a rainy day or something? Once it became obvious that the US wasn't taking prisoners, he had nothing to lose by using any and all WMDs in his arsenal.

And he did. Of course, he *HAD* none and the US and UK lied blatantly about it. If even half of the claims about WMDs were true, they would have been found a dozen times over by now. We all know there will never be any discovered because there never were any to begin with. Bush isn't even looking anymore, just like he stopped looking for bin Laden right after the war. WMDs and bin Laden were never the point of these wars, it was just Bush's agenda.

Isn't it funny how we put up $25 million dollars on a deposed dictator's head, but haven't put up a nickel to find the WMD's we supposedly went to war for?

Of course. I was referring to that in the larger sense that we are a nation ruled by civil law as opposed to a military junta.

The highest ranking commander of any enemy force is ALWAYS fair game. It's called knocking out the command and control capabilities. Saddam, for all his vast military prowess and training has clothed himself in the uniform and declared himself to be the supreme commander of the armed forces of Iraq.
It has been a well known fact that many villas and complexes used by the Iraqi military hierarchy have tunnels underneath the structures.
If this baseless allegation was attempted murder, then you should be indicting every soldier from every nation from the beginning of time. The Hussein boys were valid military targets. But that doesn't fit well with various conspiracy theories.

If it helps having a voice from the left on this one. The Hussein boys were justifiable targets and legitimate kills. They were not assassinated. They chose a gunfight. They lost.

Thanks for the welcome!

At the point where your country is invaded, you have absolutely nothing to lose. Even if the other countries didnt know he had WOMD, he was going to get invaded anyway. Hiding them would only be an attempt for him to not get invaded, which was quite a catch 22 in the end.

After firing dozens of missles at a position Saddam *MIGHT* have been at

I actually have to agree here. If Saddam had no desire to be killed, he would have taken off that silly uniform and would have quit acting the part of military commander. He was a military target, just like any other Iraqi soldier on the battlefield.

You have to admit that the Iraqi people are currently living in terror like they were before except now being affraid of Saddam they are afraid of us. And you also have to admit that we have actually managed to increase their suffering by making their living conditions and poverty levels worse than ever before. Add to that the fact that you didn't ever find any WMD's, links to terrorists, or vehicles with the ability to even deliver weapons that could put America in imminent danger if they did have the weapons. Then consider the loss of American lives and how we won't be able to afford what it's turning out to cost us indefinitely...certainly not for the years they tell us we'll be there. All in all it looks like the decision to invade Iraq is an even bigger disaster than any of us predicted it would be which strains our credibility when we try to claim it is a success in the WOT.

I can't disagree enough with the above statements. While I won't say that the invasion was the best thing since sliced bread, at least now the Iraqi people have a representative voice in the form of neighborhood councils and the Iraqi governing council, which even though the US has oversight, the people are not at the mercy of a dictator who answered to nobody, and had thousands of his own people 'disappear' under his reign.

As for living in poverty and the bad Americans increasing the levels of suffering. Lets see, first we'll blame the UN sanctions, then we'll blame the American invasion, wait we can probably blame Halliburton somehow........

Lets not give ANY consideration to Saddam siphoning money better spent on his people, yet given to the military!
We have started to rebuild the Iraqi infrastructure to be better than it has been before.

I'm pretty much with DTOM up to this point. Even now, the Iraqi people are better off than they were under Saddam Hussein. The problem is, that's a pretty small accomplishment for all of the effort and loss of life that were involved. For that price, they should be far better off than they were, and that's not the case.

But it will be. It takes time to rebuild and remake an entire country and its gov't. Look how long it took to rebuild Germany.

I'm saying it should be far better now. Even accounting for the necessities of war and rebuilding, we've made things worse than they needed to be, and it seems deliberate.

I'm simply looking at results. Intentions aren't really relevant at this point. Blame anyone you want because that's not really relevant either.

Iraqi's lived in fear of Saddam under his regime and thousands of innocent people were killed.

Today Iraqi's live in fear of American troops under the occupational authority of the US and thousands of innocent people have been and continue to be killed. The reasons why are only important to the American's trying to justify their failures. The Iraqi people could care less why they are still suffering. They just know they are.

They hate the American occupation with equal or more intensity than they did Saddam and his Baath party. They are glad Saddams gone but now they want us gone too.

It's not necessarily that American's are bad...simply that we have failed.

The situation is now simply a disaster no matter how good anyone's intentions are or how bad Saddam used to be.

The Iraqi's were promised a democracy and told they would be able to run their own country deciding for themselves who they would choose to represent them.That token council you're bragging about is not seen by them in the same glowing terms you describe but as a symbol of how they were lied to and betrayed by the US and one good reason why they fail to trust or believe anything we say.


Yeah, you're right. Saddam sucked. How does this change things now?


If that's true you will need a lot more of Iraqi trust and cooperation unless you want to see those efforts sabotaged and destroyed.

Again, this decision has resulted in total disaster and failure so far. I hope things start looking up because the Iraqi and American people are both paying a heavy price for this decision and need to hurry up and see some positive results. What is not needed is a bunch of excuses over what went wrong or reminders about the things Saddam did or didn't do. True as they may be they serve no purpose now.

Well said

BecomingHuman:

We would have invaded Iraq if he died & his sons tried to take over. We would have encouraged a power struggle. Invading him now just was retiring him early


Danya Posted on Jul 31 2003, 02:06 PM:



First of all, i don't see why they are living in terror currently. The torture chambers are out of business, the 2 maniacs are dead and Saddam has no chance in hell of coming back into power.

Yes, the basic services and the job problems are a challenge but it wil be quickly cured.



How are thousands still being killed? Maybe by the insurgents when they run wild but not by U.S. soldiers

Any source for this or just assumption?


Way too soon to call anything a failure at this point. I thought it was always the left complaining that our nation is impatient and has a short attention span. We are leaps and bounds to getting Iraq to become a fully functioning democracy, especially considering our past efforts in countries like Japan, Germany and Korea.


It was on the news yesterday about general elections planned for spring of 2004, I'll look for a link.


I wouldn't call my presentation of facts bragging but if you insist. They darn sure are able to take concerns to this governing body without fear of not returning home to their loved ones that night.


Totally agree.



Wow, in my line of work we have a term called tactical patience, you let a situation develop, analyze your chosen course of action, and then deem it successful or not.
How anyone can so arbitrarily sum up an ongoing operation is either a seer or has blinders on.
Let me say this, I don't think the country of Iraq, or it's people were worth the life of even one of my brothers. But for better or worse, we're there, and by god it could be a lot worse.

I guess I'm looking at this glass half full, because for all of our missteps, I think history will prove that what we're doing in Iraq will benefit it's people and those in the surrounding region.

I think history will show that we lacked adequate justification for attacking another sovereign nation and that (once again) it is nearly impossible to instill democracy in a developing economy.

I also think we are making some overconfident assumptions about being able to give legitimacy to any Arab leadership groups from our position as western occupiers. If we are lucky will will disabuse ourselves of some of our loftier assumptions before we lose more men that the British did as colonial mandate occupiers. (2,000 or so I believe)

These statements, each making an argument for their side, simply tear me up.

How the hell would you know?

Did you hear this from defectors? Funny how you never heard a claim from a defector that said, "I would really like to come to the united States and live. Saddam? No...he never bothered me.".

That doesn't get you a free ticket into the land of the free and home of the Atlanta Braves. There is not a defector who would EVER say anything positive, or you can't defect. Which brings me to my point.

Who are we to say what is best for a people with a different culture? How many mass graves would we fill up with drunk drivers, violent crimes, and drug overdoses here on our own soil? We've used nukes. We retain WMD. We are not saints and we're trying to convert other cultures to sainthood.

Trying to compare our culture to another seems ridiculous to me. Had Iraq attacked us, it wouldn't matter. But they didn't. So, not only do we NOT know whether their lives or better or not AS A WHOLE, we don't know what effect we will have trying to impose a foreign culture on them.

Iraq is certainly a better place now for many people. But so is Sierra Leone.

I don't agree with anything in your post, but would point out the most egregious error..... comparing Iraq's mass graves to anything in America.

Ok, all of our "legalized" murder aside (i.e. abortion) and the examples I provided, what was the result when our government put down the resistance from the south during the civil war? There were no mass graves then?