THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

I'm convinced that they wanted to be convinced.

Every piece of evidence shows that the current admin wanted justification for a war in Iraq.

When you look for evidence hard enough, you generally find it....

Icann, despite your attempt to switch the argument around ...

even you must realize that the Republicans are much, much better at it! Which doesn't make it right; it just makes it much more effective.

Republicans are better at switching the argument around? Kerry does that with the ease of a guy playing both sides of a chess game against himself.

Ican
If that was supposed to be an analogy of Bush's actions relative to Iraq. You left out the part where the cop shoots the guy anyhow.

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Republicans are better at switching the argument around? Kerry does that with the ease of a guy playing both sides of a chess game against himself.

That has been played into the ground and is not working anymore if the polls are any indication with Kerry and bush being at a dead heat.

... The only way that we wouldn't have needed a UN approval before going to with Iraq was if we were personally threatened or there was some other urgent threat that required such a drastic action to curtail the UN as a whole.

OCCUM Bill, what you seem to be missing from all this is that Bush agreed to go the UN to go through the process of a new resolution and to renew inspections.

Try to separate what you wish was true from what is true. President Bush never agreed to abide by the UNs decision unless it coincided with his own.

Bush told the UN to take care of Saddam Hussein or we would. He gave the UN every opportunity to act. The UN chose not to act. The US/UK and others chose to act.

"Urgency" of the war and "Imminent threat" must be the Democrat talking points this week because they're cropping up on message boards all over the place amd also are prevalent in the TV spots from talking heads. We've been at war for awhile now. Doesn't it seem strange that it is just now that almost ALL the anti-Bush, pro-Kerry people are using that phrase? I guess they hope to keep finding something that will stick while ignoring that if Bush and company expressed or implied "imminant threat', so did Clinton and company and so did Kerry and company. I doubt anybody really bothered to read Kerry's speech I posted yesterday--he was pretty long winded--but the 'urgency' is there. And that was long before Bush was even being proposed as a possible contender for the presidency.

In approaching the question of this resolution, I wish the timing were different. I wish for the sake of the country we were not here now at this moment. There are legitimate questions about that timing. But none of the underlying realities of the threat, none of the underlying realities of the choices we face are altered because they are, in fact, the same as they were in 1991 when we discovered those weapons when the teams went in, and in 1998 when the teams were kicked out.

In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent"--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs.

In voting to grant the President the authority, I am not giving him carte blanche to run roughshod over every country that poses or may pose some kind of potential threat to the United States. Every nation has the right to act preemptively, if it faces an imminent and grave threat, for its self-defense under the standards of law. The threat we face today with Iraq does not meet that test yet. I emphasize "yet." Yes, it is grave because of the deadliness of Saddam Hussein's arsenal and the very high probability that he might use these weapons one day if not disarmed. But it is not imminent, and no one in the CIA, no intelligence briefing we have had suggests it is imminent. None of our intelligence reports suggest that he is about to launch an attack.

The United States, without question, has the military power to enter this conflict unilaterally. But we do need friends. We need logistical support such as bases, command and control centers, overflight rights from allies in the region. And most importantly, we need to be able to successfully wage the war on terror simultaneously. That war on terror depends more than anything else on the sharing of intelligence. That sharing of intelligence depends more than anything else on the cooperation of countries in the region. If we disrupt that, we could disrupt the possibilities of the capacity of that war to be most effectively waged.

The challenge is great: An administration which made nation building a dirty word needs to develop a comprehensive, Marshall-type plan, if it will meet the challenge. The President needs to give the American people a fairer and fuller, clearer understanding of the magnitude and long-term financial cost of that effort.

The international community's support will be critical because we will not be able to rebuild Iraq singlehandedly. We will lack the credibility and the expertise and the capacity.

Bush told the UN to take care of Saddam Hussein or we would. He gave the UN every opportunity to act. The UN chose not to act. The US/UK and others chose to act.

One of the parts that bothers me about this is, since when is the US/ UK the executive arm of the UN?

Saddam was in contravention of UN resolutions, yes. Then the US, prompted (and delayed) by Britain tried to get a UN mandate to invade. They could not get it.

Then, they invaded anyway. When they did that, how could they cite UN resolutions as a justification? There is a good deal of sophistry at work here.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Try to separate what you wish was true from what is true. President Bush never agreed to abide by the UNs decision unless it coincided with his own.

When did bush say that if the UN did not agree with him he would break out on his own and quit the UN resolution that he started and do his own thing?

Before going to the UN did he give a time limit?