Re: WMD Debate

James,
I disagree.
Saddam would never have been left "unfettered"; thus, to my mind, it is a falacious argument to insist he was ever going to be a huge threat to the security of the world. We could have constrained him without ever setting a GI's foot on Iraqi soil. Of course, it is good for the economy if we were to build up his weapon systems FOR him again, before some other European power does and makes a killing. We could have handed him our better equipment for killing people, and then in a violent mood swing, taken them back again..this could go on for decades(sarc). Just think of the big fat military contracts we could add to push the future Bush rosey economic boom..

The Soviet Union was constrained by American military power?..I cannot seriously think Iraq would ever have been a threat of anywhere near that magnitude. Iraq as a great threatening power?..this is a joke. I think the war pretty much proves this. It was obvious prior to the invasion that Iraqi's conventional military wouldn't be able to constrain the Amer. military. No jungle, no place to hide, no air cover; being part of their air defense system would've been like sitting in an electric chair waiting for the switch to be thrown.

It is coming out that the U.S. policy makers had no hard fact intelligence indicating Sadamn had WMD's, just made up possiblities from "cherry picked" intelligence streams.

However, I don't have any qualms about Sadamn&sons getting kicked off this planet earth. What a trio(!), proof positive that total power corrupts totally.

James,
Whats your argument here? My point is that the Iraqi military was no match for the combined forces against it. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were killed. It was a slaughter. No air cover, no air defense to speak of, no armor that could match the coalitions...pinpoint munitions on the part of the coalition forces. Much better trained and armed foot soldiers.

We would have no problem dealing with an Iraq armed with nukes..if we can deal with N.Korea, China, Russia, ex-soviet block dictatorships, Iran, Pakistan, India, France, Britain..no, I'm not putting them all in the same political basket, but Saddam would know how hopeless his position would be against an arsenal of minuteman missles just like everyone else does; And it's a big if, to get one together..you know as well as I do that it's easy to build a nuke but not that easy to build a nuke..what I mean is, there is plenty of literature and online tech. material to show one how to build a nuke..but getting it altogether isn't that easy, and hiding the fact your building one without at least arousing suspicions isn't that easy.

I think this administration and you (not inclusive)have vastly overrated Iraq's threat. I'll take China to give us a good row instead, and were treating them with kidd gloves.

We have written before about the blessing of arms that the west sold to Saddam.

What is done is done. This administration was not open and forthright about it's reasons, and still hasn't admitted to the committment we are tied to, regarding the future of Iraq.

By the time this is over the American people will have stepped up to the bat with more than a few lives lost, multiple hundred wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, and we will be rewarded by what? the undying gratitude of Muslims? The end of a third rate military threat? Our troops repositioned out of Saudia Arabia?

What a bargain! I'll take 2 more? (Iran/Syria) or 3? + Saudia Arabia..or heck, let's just blow the heck out of everybody that disagrees with us and we can have the whole world to ourselves.

I think it's time we stopped being the worlds police department and concentrated our wealth on providing for a better quality of life for all the working and legit disabled americans. Let the arabian people liberate arabian people, let muslims liberate muslims.