Yeah, but for how many more decades. It has already been declared by the inspectors themselves that the Iraqi regime knew in advance of all daily objectives of the teams and the whole process was a massive shell game. Wait and be patient, the place is huge, there will be help from the captured officials. There is now a possibility that some of these WMD's were destroyed just prior to the invasion. Please, what part of "denied" don't you understand. We already have military control in the region; before this conflict, during and will have after, without any bases. Why not? The do nothing for the Palestinian cause of statehood.
the proper term is "the coalition of the willing" -- to better distinguish it from the nations that have involuntarily joined to wage preemptive war.
LOL I remember the first day of the war, they put a show with this US general (they always look so bright these military people), UK colonel or whatever and then 2 or 3 other blokes from Denmark , Netherlands and another country. What a joke it was. Who did they think they were fooling, some Americans maybe ...
what reason could there have been for a maniacal serial murderer to destroy his own weapons on the eve of an invasion to remove him from power (an invasion caused by his refusal to surrender those same weapons)?
Madison, that's a good question. I don't have an answer really. Possibly he destroyed some, but not all. Or he destroyed equipment, base chemicals, facilities, etc. which can be quickly and cheaply reaquired. But then again we are approaching this as sane people Saddam isn't (imo). This is the same military genius that believes he won the 1991 Persian Gulf war. He is surrounded by sycophants who dare not criticise or point out flaws in his thinking or planning. He lives in a VERY insular environment due to security constrains. Maybe he destroyed them. Maybe he moved them. Maybe they are exactly where they should be. Maybe they don't exist. Anything is possible. There been less than 40 days since the start of the war. So lets not fall into the all-American game of impatience and let it play out. Even if the WMD are not found soon, there are a myriad reasons why the US has improved the world. The Iraqi people themselves, their neighbours, the Israelis and the Palestinians, the rest of the world living with one less dictator who sat on top of wealth and was willing to use it for evil means.
maybe that was Jose Maria Aznar dressed up in a military outfit, in hiding and afraid to go back to Spain after the Azores meeting. Actually a good move on Rumsfeld's part - if the war went badly he could have blamed it on Aznar, and then 80% of Americans would have supported a war on Mexico...
As Babak says, it's hard to look into the mind of Saddam Hussein, but one main motivation for destroying the weapons or making them very hard to find would be that, if we stumbled upon them, even without the Iraqis having used them, international political support for him and opposition to the invasion might have largely evaporated. It now seems obvious to us that he never had a chance, but don't forget that there were many supposedly intelligent observers around the world who thought the US was in for another Vietnam. It was believed that Saddam planned, among other things, to delay the progress of the coalition attack, inflict substantial casualties, and use those difficulties as well as Iraqi casualties to help build international support. In short, he did have a strategy, a largely political one - he just didn't turn out to have been able to implement very much of it (and it may never have been likely to succeed). If he had believed that he and his government absolutely did not have a chance, then why wouldn't he, for instance, have tried "full and immediate compliance" as a last-ditch survival strategy? His main goal was to survive and retain his potential to re-assert his power. If he could have survived, retaining scientists, dual-use equipment, some precursor materials, and so on, would have been more than sufficient to his longer-range plans.
How is this for a model democracy? You tell me! The US is holding juveniles in Guantanamo without due process, that is outrageous! You hardly hear about it. I would be ashamed to be American. This is condoned by most US citizens and the media on the reasoning that the risk to American lifes justifies throwing the most basic human rights and civil liberties out of the window . The only crime of many of these 600 or so prisoners was fighting with the Taliban. They should be prisoners of war and now released if not charged or at least incarcerated in their country Afghanistan before trial not in some sort of concentration camp on an island.
Jordan: Mideast Conflict Blocks Democracy Sunday April 27, 2003 3:19 PM AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - The Israeli-Palestinian conflict stands in the way of Arab states embracing democracy, even if they one day have a democratic Iraq as an example, Jordan's King Abdullah II said Sunday. ``With the cloud of the Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Arab issue hanging over our heads, we'll never have the secure, stable atmosphere, not only in Jordan, but throughout the region, to be able to develop in the way that we want,'' he said. Abdullah was interviewed by CNN in London, where the king last week met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The king is concerned that if Palestinian-Israeli violence escalates, it could spill over to Jordan. More than half of Jordan's 5 million people come from Palestinian families and their descendants who left their homes in two wars with Israel since 1948. On Iraq, Abdullah - whose small country is wedged in a precarious corner in the region between Israel, the Palestinians and Iraq - repeated his call on the United States to move quickly to allow Iraqis to govern their country now that it has toppled Saddam Hussein. ``I would have thought they should have moved faster,'' he said. Abdullah said the violent rivalries between Shiite factions in southern Iraq reinforced earlier fears of Iraq's ``fragmentation.'' The king said Iran may be tempted to meddle in Iraq, but he expected it to behave cautiously and was reassured by signs of Iranian rapprochement with the United States and Europe. Despite his concerns, he said he was hopeful about Iraq's future as ``a capable, talented, strong nation moving in the right direction (that) I think will be a comfort to a lot of us in the area.'' He said Ahmad Chalabi of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, who is widely believed to be a candidate for a leading position in a future Iraqi government, may not be Iraq's best choice because of embezzlement charges against him in Jordan and because of his long absence from Iraq. ``What contacts does he have with the people on the street?'' Abdullah asked.