> wrote:
> > Everyone, including most of the leadership inside Iraq, believed
> Saddam had WMD. Everyone.
>
> Then, by that logic, since there wasn't any WMD the war was a huge
> mistake.
Not at all. it's easy to say woulda coulda shoulda now, but put yourself in Bush's shoes in late 2002. We've lost 3,000 dead on American soil to an asymmetric attack by terrorists. Worldwide, intelligence agencies say Saddam has WMD. Saddam is becoming chummy with terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, offering cash payouts to the families of suicide bombers. The sanctions regime is breaking down. Given all that, the President made the only choice he could make with the facts at his disposal. Knowing what he knew, what was the alternative?
You can argue if you like that without WMD the war was a huge mistake. I disagree, but I was in favor of wiping Saddam out back in 1991.
The "what if" game has no place in the debate, because you can "what if" everything. What if we had known there were no WMD? OK. How about this? France, China and Russia- the real coalition of the bribed (see UN Oil for Food)- succeed in ending the sanctions regime against Saddam. Saddam says thanks and starts re-building his WMD programs, including nuclear weapons. Three to five years later he has re-processed uranium and is building bombs, and now we're dealing with three potential rogue nuclear states instead of two (Iran and North Korea). Then he passes some weapons off to Al Qaeda, and they detonate a major bomb in New York, Los Angeles, or some other major U.S. city. Bush goes down in history as the guy who let Saddam have the bomb and left America open to attack from Al Qaeda.
That is the nightmare scenario that Bush was looking at when he made the decision to invade.
[Todays Threads] [This Message] [Subscription] [Fast Unsubscribe] [User Settings] [Donations and Support]
