Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:There was no trick. 12 years after the end of Gilf War 1, it was not possible to determine whether Saddam Hussein still had WMD and WMD development programs. We could not allow doomsday weapons to fall into the hands of a madman. Had he acquired a stockpile of WMD, the world might have paid a terrible price later. This reasoning is not a "trick."
Let's see
Quote:There was no trick.
You mean to say, 'I
believe there was no trick. You cannot conclusively prove that the Bush admin didn't have contrary information that they kept to themselves. Therefore, you are making an assertion here without fact to back it up.
No, I'm not. I cannot see what was in Bush's mind, but I can say that the argument I have given for invading, the same argument that he gave for invading, is logically correct. If someone tells me I should take a certain medicine, and gives me absolutely correct reasons based on my medical condition, then I can say that it is not a trick, even without knowing his motivations. If he had some base reason for wanting to invade, then it only means that he did the right thing for the wrong reason.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:12 years after the end of Gilf War 1, it was not possible to determine whether Saddam Hussein still had WMD and WMD development programs.
This is false. Noone had concluded that it 'wasn't possible' to find out the truth. The UN weapons inspectors certainly didn't believe this to be the case; it was only a matter of time and effort.
The US could have spent
billions bolstering the effort to search for the WMD with far greater result than what we have done today. But we didn't, and now we are stuck with the knowledge that we were wrong. We rushed to war on bad intel.
Your attempt to portray a situation in which options did not exist is completely false and fails under examination. The US and UN did have other options; it is abundantly clear that Iraq wasn't a threat to anyone.
We had been playing this game with Hussein for a dozen years, and he had never furnished clear evidence that he had destroyed these weapons and these programs. Indeed, he had several times denied inspectors access to sites they wished to inspect. While, in principle, one could go on and on forever with someone who is not furnishing proof of compliance, and is obstructing the effort, but it is not reasonable. Indeed, had he merely been hiding his weapons and programs more adeptly, there might have been a finite time window before his programs reached the point where he could just stop pretending, and tell the whole world to go to hell, as the North Koreans have now done. There was a reasonable chance that Hussein was simply hiding has weapons more adeptly, and, therefore, a reasonable chance that he was a huge threat to the world. If I say that there is a 50 per cent chance that a coin will come up heads, and it subsequently comes up tails, it doesn't mean that I was wrong.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:We could not allow doomsday weapons to fall into the hands of a madman.
Was there any proof that Saddam had 'doomsday weapons?' There was never any proof he had nukes, and while Biological and Chem weapons are deadly, they are hardly 'doomsday.' And there was
zero evidence that Saddam was threatening us with said 'weapons' or had any ability to do so.
Once again, you attempt to paint a situation in which there are no options. There are, of course, options.
There was, however, proof that he had nuclear weapons development programs, and although I agree that chemical weapons are not doomsday weapons, biological weapons certainly may be. I repeat that we could not allow doomsday weapons to fall into the hands of an evil madman.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:Had he acquired a stockpile of WMD, the world might have paid a terrible price later.
Operative word:
might. This is base and unsupportable conjecture on your part.....Cycloptichorn
To take agressive action to protect oneself against a non negligible probability of a terrible disaster is certainly supportable and justified.
