That's correct. Prior to 9/11/01. After that, his refusal to capitulate to UN sanctions and his uncontroverted possession of WMD's made him a threat to the safety of Americans.
No, the article said: Bin Laden asked that Iraq broadcast the lectures of Suleiman al Ouda, a radical Saudi preacher, and suggested "carrying out joint operations against foreign forces" in Saudi Arabia. Who are the foreign forces in Saudi Arabia Red.......? The Americans! I thought there were no Iraq-Al Qaida connection at all? I didn't say Iraq caused 9/11. People have said Iraq had no links to Al Qaida and terrorism before we invaded them which is a damned lie and everyone knows it. They have been conspiring with terrorist organizations since the early 90's.
We have never said we want to install an American-style democracy in Iraq. The other 5 objectives are valid.
Uncontroverted? The UN inspectors destroyed all of the WMD's during 10 years of sanctions and they told us that, including our own chief inspector, Scott Ritter who warned us that we would not find anything. And he was correct.
And I didn't say there were no connections, I said "no Iraqi citizens attacked the US on 9/11" which is true.
Red you seem to pull out the UN when it suits you but dont seem to care about it when it doesnt. Didnt the UN have sanctions that were totally ignored by Saddam Hussein and whether you like it or not if the sanctions are ignored and dont mean anything then why have them. If Clinton had any balls when they kicked out the inspecters he should have attacked right then. To hell with should we or shouldnt we have gone to war. The war should have been led by Clinton but we all know he was more interested in Blow jobs rather than defending our country and living up to promised committments. I will give you that both Bush Presidents have squandered the proper time to complete control of Iraq. Both from reluctance to totally commit our might and power at the proper time. I still believe sending an overwhelming amount of troops to control Iraq will help speed up the process and get our troops home sooner.
Clinton bombed Iraq on multiple occasions and was planning invasion when Sadamm caved and allowed the inspectors back in. You ignore that fact all together. All of Sadamm's WMD's were destroyed and everyone who had been on the ground in Iraq prior to Bush's invasion said so. Bush I squandered nothing. He knew an inviasion of Iraq would require a long occupation and that thousands of lives would be lost without anything to gain. He said so in his memoirs. He also advised his son of this. Turns out he was right. And you are still very wrong. Why tie up more of ou military in a needless, endless, and pointless occupation. We are fighting a war of attrition. Such wars are impossible to win history prooves that.
As do you, my friend. SabanFan brought the UN up, not me. UN sanctions are for the UN to enforce. There are UN sanctions against Israel's occuation of the West Bank, too. Do we invade Israel next? Bush went to war over the ejection of UN inspectors--even though the UN did not make a resolution for war. It is just incorrect to use the UN as an excuse for unilateral action. We will not be distracted from Bush's failures by changing the subject to Clinton. Clinton, like the Bush before him knew that a political solution was called for to fix a political problem, not starting a war. The inspector problem was being dealt with politically. I remind you that America did not go to war because Saddam ejected a few inspectors, but because Bush told us that Saddam definitely still had WMD's. - - - - "A lie?", asked Lieutenant Valeris. Spock raised a eyebrow. "An error."
We will never know what would of happenned if Senior would have taken care of Saddam when we had the troops there to handle the country the first time. Lets learn this lesson for the future. In this type action if you have to go you finish the job while you have the resources there to do it. I think we can all agree that its a mess now.
