At 08:55 PM 5/31/2003 +0000 Robert J. Chassell wrote:
>At 05:58 PM 5/30/2003 EDT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >A) What could possibly be more important than finding the weapons
> >of mass destruction that were the entire justification for the
> >invasion in the first place?
>
>"John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> responded
>
> Off the top of my head:
> -Toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein
> -Restoring Civic Order
> -Preventing Mass Civilian Casulaties
>
>I see: my understanding is that you are saying that for Americans as
>a whole, restoring civic order in Bagdad is more important than
>preventing an anthrax or radiological bomb attack against Washington,
>DC.
Uhhh..... No, don't be silly.
>This is the crux of the question.
I don't see how.
>And it is not clear to me that the trade off was `restoring civic
>order in Bagdad' versus `protecting American'.
No, no, and no. The #1 goal of the war was to topple the regime of Saddam
Hussein. Specifically, this action eliminates Saddam Hussein's capacity
to develop, control, trade, and deliver WMD's. (And it also has a number
of strategic ancillary benefits, like cutting off funding for certain
terrorist organizations, and permitting us to withdraw our troops from
Saudi Arabia.) This goal does not, however, require us to cleanse Iraq of
all stockpiles of WMD's immediately. Indeed, I can't think of anyone who
supported the war who figured that Iraq would be cleansed of WMD's by 14
June 2003. Obviously, all, or at least almost all, of us thought that we
would have cleansed Iraq of a few stockpiles by this time - but that
doesn't change the fact we figured the above three goals would be assigned
a higher priority for completion before cleansing Iraq of WMD's.
Additionally, I want to re-emphasize the importance of the
already-accomplished goal of ending Saddam Hussein's capacity to develop
WMD's. The importance of this accomplishment follows from the following
truisims:
-The US could not let Saddam Hussein acquire a nuclear bomb.
-The US has not yet developed the intelligence to accurately predict when a
country is going to succeed in developing a nuclear bomb, as demonstrated
by our intelligence failures in Iraq in 1991, in India, in Pakistan, in the
DPRK, and in Iran in 2003.
Given that we had low confidence in being able to predict when Saddam
Hussein's entry into the nuclear club would be eminent, and given that 9/11
provided a unique opportunity to support taking care of our Iraq problem, I
count one of our (albeit many) important goals in Iraq as being "Mission
Accomplished."
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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