Don't confuse me with everyone. My position is pretty refined. I am not merely anti-war, and I was not pro Gore in 2000. I am not against the military and have a very strong interest in good intelligence.
When you want to criticize my position, make sure you get it right and don't slide into generic arguments.
that is not the only reason we came to Iraq. It was just one reason.
I agree that in reality there were more reasons. The problem is that WMDs were the major rationale for war, and pretty much the only one which would allow us to invade according to international law. Remember that until the WMD search went sour we referred to this as a preemptive invasion. There was a threat and it was imminent, or potentially imminent. Without that it was not pre-emptive, it was simply an invasion. That is against international law.
Are the WMD here in Iraq like we thought? No. Score one for you.
The real question is were the assertions that we actually knew, that we had definite evidence of WMDs and where they were, real? The answer is no.
That is not only a point for me (and all of the other war critics, including some top US intel officers) which pointed out that our intel was not as strong as was being made out, but an actual indictment for those that said we were wrong and the US had hard data to back up claims. It simply didn't. That means they lied.
Are/were there some WMD and the means to deliver them? Yes. One for me.
This is actually a point for me as well. War critics stated that there was a definite possibility that old stock did exist, and it could be a large amount. That is why inspections were needed. We did not know how much and in what condition they were in.
The claim from the administration is that we knew exactly how much and where, as well as a potential for more, and that in addition to a general "means to deliver them" had the capability of using those means in a rapid basis.
As it turns out there are scraps of the old stock WMDs, which is NOT against what many war critics advanced as a possibility. The problem for "your side" is that they were not in the quantities and qualities and deliverable by means as had been suggested.
Remember your argument was that Hussein was a madman with all of this stuff at his disposal and was readily willing to use it. Yet he did not use it when his very regime and life were coming to an end? Does that make any common sense to you?
The only way it makes sense is that he simply did not have the vast amounts of WMDs being discussed, nor had the ability to deliver them, at least not in any rapid and useful (for him) degree.
The fact that he had rockets here, or artillery there, and then way over some other places he had some remnant stocks which were degraded material, some just forgotten shells with chemicals so weak they were no longer lethal, is a far cry from a nation with WMDs and the capability to deliver them.
I will point out once again, even the insurgents have been misusing them in the cases when they use shells with degraded chemicals.
None of this has been outside the parameters of the threat discussed by the UN, France, Russia, etc etc... and that includes me. What it seriously falls beneath is the parameters of the threat discussed by Bush an co.
Have the inspectors left and found nothing? Yes. Chalk one for you.
Nothing is not exactly correct. Nothing along the lines of any claims that Bush and Co advanced to the world and the nation in a way that justified a "pre-emptive" invasion, is more accurate.
Is that the final say in the WMD drama? No. More info will come out on where they went. But I know you guys are jumping all over the headline that the inspectors have now left and found doodle. Keep that in mind for the future, because I'm going to come back and post a big "see I told you so" when they find somemore, use some on us, or finally decide to declassify intel reports (which won't happen with the insurgency going on).
There may be more remnant stocks found and used. That does not fall outside the parameters of the critics. Even if another shell, or lets say a barrel, of chemical toxins gets used against US troops that will not vindicate anything, and I am confused why you think it would.
No one is arguing that there could have been chemicals at all, or that chemicals could be used at all. The whole point is if there were enough and with delivery systems capable of Iraq posing an imminent, or potentially imminent threat to the US or its neighbors such that the ONLY method of dealing with the situation was an invasion which would invariably kill thousands of innocent people.
The small scale attacks which may occur will be by insurgents and not the Iraqi army, which proves beyond a doubt that the Iraqi army did not pose a WMD threat, even within their own nation as the regime was falling and the lives of the leaders were at stake.
That said, if what gets declassified is that there were humongous stocks of WMDs which everyone knew about and deliberately lied about in order to protect insurgents from getting at them, or insurgents using the stocks they found of WMDs just waiting to be used manage to take out half the nation, or a surrounding nation, then we can start talking points for your side.
Someone setting off a shell, or a barrel with chemical or radioactive material, or pouring such a thing into a local water supply simply does nothing but score more points for my side which said that such a thing was more likely to occur after an invasion than if we just use new and more robust inspections.
Remember the claim was WMDs gave him global strategic possibilities, not insurgents local tactical possibilities.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
"Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)
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