Dookiestix wrote:Brandon9000 opines:
Quote:If they said this, then it was incorrect. In the age of ready access to WMD, no one can be contained.
With no proven ready access to WMDs (as we've found out already), and the fact that Saddam WAS contained (as most experts agree now in hindsight), it would seem that Powell and Rice were rather correct afterall.
Any national leader today does have some real chance of obtaining a WMD or two if he is determined.
And Hussein even had a head start - he had already made WMD, he had the scientists on hand, and even if his programs had been shut down, he would only have to re-start them, not invent everything from scratch.
No, with the realistic chance a determined head of state has of obtaining a few WMD, and then smuggling them into the cities of the nation trying to contain him, containment is no longer reliable.
Dookiestix wrote:What validity are you talking about? He was AWOL from the Oval Office almost 50% of the time, and he has taken more vacations than any President in memory.
I kind of prefer to discuss one issue at a time, and we were not discussing Bush's vacations.
Dookiestix wrote:Quote:The fact that some nuclear power is poorly monitored is certainly not sufficient.
Why?
Because it is not the same as WMD in the hands of someone malicious, and may be fixable by appealing to the nation to take safety measures more seriously.
Dookiestix wrote:Quote:As for China, we could not insist that they eliminate their WMD during the Tienamen crisis, because they were already a nuclear power, and probably also had ungodly amounts of other WMD. Had we tried, the result might well have been a mammoth nuclear/WMD war. China seems to pursue a reasonably risk averse policy with regard to its possession of WMD, and does not seem to be the kind of unstable possessor of WMD that Hussein was. Had Hussein been really allowed to arm to the teeth with WMD, and develop nukes, I believe that the world might have paid an awful price.
But you forget, Brandon9000, that Hussein never threatened the U.S., nor did he attack us. Al Qaeda and operatives from Saudi Arabia did. And pretty much after that, Bush focused squarely on Iraq. It's too bad he took too long to bomb Afghanistan and allow Bin Laden to get away.
And you BETTER worry more about nuclear warheads that could fall in the hands of terrorist networks. Unlike Saddam, who has now been relegated to the allegation that he was developing "WMD like programs," the Balkans have them fully assembled and ready to ship.
So, one must logically ask WHY we invaded Iraq. It would seem that every reason the Bush administration has given us has been shown to be false.
We invaded Iraq because we cannot permit WMD in the hands of a demonstrably amoral dictator who has ties to terrorists, and a track record of trying to annex his neighbors. It would be very dangerous to allow someone like that to stockpile WMD and maintain programs to develop more lethal ones. It would realistically raise the spectre of WMD use. No one questions that Hussein had the weapons and the programs, the only open question is when. In my opinion, Bush is actively pursuing Al Qaeda. Sometimes, in the real world, you have to confront two dangers at once. I certainly agree that there are and will continue to be other people in Hussein's category who must be disuaded one way or another from acquiring WMD.
