Setanta wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:In retrospect, the invasion was unnecessary, because it is now known that Saddam Hussein no longer had WMD programs. It is known precisely because we went in and looked. At the time, based on what was known then, it was absolutely the right decision, since even a moderate possibility of a WMD capable Saddam Hussein would pose an unacceptable danger.
You peddle this bullshit all the time. Before the invasion, the United Nations inspection teams were telling us there were no womd and no womd programs for which they had yet found any evidence, and that the Iraqis
were cooperating. The International Atomic Energy Agency told us the same thing--so, in fact, your claim that the invasion was justified based on what we knew at the time is false. This has been repeatedly been pointed out to you--and it has been repeatedly pointed out to you that other dictators as bad or worse, such as Kim Jong Il, had womd programs, but no oil, and invading them was not even on the table. Your response is to ignore the first circumstance and to continue to peddle your "based on what we knew at the time" canard, which constitutes a lie. You respond to the criticism about other dictators by saying that North Korea already had nuclear weapons, which was only speculation when the Shrub took office in 2001--if you justify the invasion of Iraq on speculation, the same logic can be applied to North Korea. In both cases, you ignore the issue of a delivery system for the womd.
You have the worst case of head buried in the ground that i've ever seen. Your unwillingness to admit that you even might be mistaken approaches the level of hysteria.
Let's take these one by one:
1.
Quote:In both cases, you ignore the issue of a delivery system for the womd.
Ignored? I have addressed this very issue over, and over, and over again on A2K. I have repeatedly stated that a delivery system for nukes could be to smuggle the components into the target country and re-assemble them once inside. For bioweapons, smuggling them in is even easier. I'm not sure how I can so consistently state something, and then have you tell me I'm ignoring it.
2. Why Iraq, but not North Korea?
My impression is that there were only two stages with North Korea. The stage when they appeared to be respecting the treaty not to develop nukes, followed by the stage when they announced that they already had nukes. So when were we supposed to invade? Indeed, had North Korea been known to have WMD development programs, had years of negotiation produced no verifiable cessation of such programs, had they been caught concealing and lying about such programs numerous times, I would certainly have advocated invasion, and I believe that those who agree with me about Iraq would have advocated invasion. The only additional factor in the case of NK would be whether invaison would have resulted in an armed conflict with China, something we might not be willing to risk.
3. It was known at the time of the invasion that there were no WMD.
It was not known. Saddam Hussein had a responsibility to actually provide us with proof (e.g. videos, dismantled remnants, etc.) that his WMD and WMD programs had been destroyed, which he certainly did not do. He had a long history of concealing such programs and obstructing inspectors. Yes, in the latest round of inspections, he had not actually prevented in spectors from entering a building, while taking boxes out the back door, but neither had he provided convincing proof that these things had been destroyed, something that would have been very easy to do. Indeed, numerous people on both sides of the political spectrum believed that he might well be lying, so your assertion that everyone knew that this lying mass murderer had destroyed his super-weapons and programs is simply false.
4.
Quote:This has been repeatedly been pointed out to you...
So what? It's reverse has been repeatedly pointed out to you by the people who take my position.
