The operative word used in your comments is believed that Saddam had WMD, and that Bush believed they were going to be used to harm America. No one is questioning that Saddam had WMD at one point, that he had used them. Scott Ritter and Hans Blix both agreed that Saddam had WMD in the past. However, they did not believe that Saddam currently had WMD, or that he was going to use them to threaten America with them. It boils down to whether or not Bush exercised good judgment in attacking a Sovereign nation pre-emptively, removing the leader of that nation, etc., and doing so against the wishes of the majority of our allies. It is a matter of believing that Bush did not manufacture the threat of danger to America from Saddam to satisfy a pre-existing agenda that had nothing to do with 911 or terrorism. I seriously question the means by which Bush arrived at his end.
To suggest that the President of the United States should leave the security of the country to Scott Ritter and/or Hans Blix and his team of U.N. fools is ludicrous. As the very article you cite points out, the prevailing sentiment prior to the invasion was that Saddam ABSOLUTELY had and was developing WMDs. You can argue that Bush should have waited to see if Saddam could be contained, as Scowcroft does, but to suggest that Bush was in some extreme minority that really believed he was developing them is comical. As far as a "majority of allies" being opposed to the invasion, I would love to see your list of "fors" and "againsts". As I recall, only 2 "allies" actively opposed the U.S. action, and both with very dubious motivations. I wonder were you so concerned with the preemptive U.S. attack on the Sovereign nation of Yugoslavia. For some reason, I suspect not.
Sorry I am not on duty 24/7 to respond to your queries. The Clinton administration repeatedly cited Saddam for violating various UN resolutions and the Gulf War cease fire agreement. The British intelligence services thought Saddam was developing WMD, as did others, including the CIA. He was close to developing nukes at the time of the Gulf War, so it did not require a huge leap of faith to assume he would be back at it. In fact, there was pretty much bipartisan agreement that Saddam was a threat to world peace. He became an innocent victim of Bush's perfidy only when Howard Dean began to move in the polls. The only "proof" the Niger document was forged was the sayso of that blowhard Joe Wilson, a Democrat activist and paid employee of a Saudi-funded organization. In fact. there was an Iraqi mission to Niger, and only an idiot would believe they were there to buy bananas.
Germany, France, Canada, and Mexico would not join the coalition. You want more? Remember Turkey wouldn't let us use their airfields? You want more? The majority of the world wanted to allow inspections to continue, not a pre-emptive strike. Had the world believed as you say, Bush and Powell would not have had to go to the U.N. and ask for their blessing and support. Yugosolovia has nothing to do with this, that is just a red herring. Stick to this administration and this topic as it relates to Bush's war.
No problem Beltway. Just kind of interesting that you spent quite a bit of time posting and responding to other people here in Chit Chat but just couldn't quite get around to my question of a couple of days ago. I guess you felt that British Intelligence "dossier" that Colin Powell so lavishly held up to the rest of the world at the UN on February 5th, 2003 wasn't a plagiarized paper by a grad student on Iraq, circa 1991 . . . Go figure. And the DFI, Defense Intelligence Agency. Even under the pressure of Donald Rumsefeld the analysts at the DFI put out a memo in September of 2002 saying that there "is no reliable evidence to suggest that the Iraqis have biological or chemical weapons, or that they are producing them." But you wouldn't want to give the DFI any credit, now would you. You keep preaching the same old rhetoric time after time. How sad.
waggie, I admit to not being as familiar as you seem to be with all the pre-war intell. I think you would agree that there was a general consensus that Saddam was a threat, with less consensus on the actual dimension of the threat. I think we can also agree that if Saddam truly had done away with all his WMD, his pre-war bluff was a very odd strategy. Having said that, I would also concede that he has made irrational moves beofre. For example, he could have put us in a real bind when he invaded Kuwait if he had kept coming and taken over the oil fields in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. They were basically undefended. Some analysts thought he was convinced we would let him keep Kuwait. I have said this here many times. I was not completely convinced the Iraq war was a good idea, but I don't think it was totally crazy either. I complained about the occupation from the beginning, and I feel my complaints have been vindicated. Basically, I thought we should put on a harsh lockdown and make the number one priority minimizing casualties to our troops. We didn't, and Bush is paying the political price now.
waggie, Would you agree with me that the logic of the Bush middle east strategy would seem to suggest a strong chance of a Syrian invasion after the election? There are certainly enough provocations, as Syria is hosting terrorists and allowing free border access to jihadists. If the Israelis hit them in Lebanon and we hit them from Iraq, we could put them out of business in no time.
Yeah, I do want more. You claimed that a majority of allies wouldn't join the coalition, then you list these 4. Hell, let's call it 5, (even though Turkey did join the coalition, but refused airstrip access). Here are the allies that did join the coalition...Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Uzbekistan. So where is you majority. Essentially there are 2 countries that can be considered "allies" with any sort of economic power that opposed the coalition, and they both had financial interests (debt owed by Iraq) as motivating factors. The irony of Bush/Powell "going to the U.N." is that the left constantly SCREAMS for U.N. involvement. So, in an attempt to appease, Bush asks the U.N. to FINALLY enforce their own resolutions. Now, you claim this proves no consensus? Well, never let logic or consistency get in the way, I guess. I'm sure you do view Yugoslavia as a red herring, as it reveals the left's utter hypocrisy and real motivation behind their attack of "Bush's War", namely, their hatred of Bush. Had Clinton, Gore, et.al. been President during the same circumstances, he would be hailed as the greatest leader of our time for ridding the world of one of the worst dictators in history.
You sound like Dean in his "I have a scream speech" Anyway, 90% of troops are american troops, 90% of the cost of war is paid by american taxpayers. 90% population of those countries do not support their government regarding the war in Iraq. If this is a true coalition I am queen of England.
Does anyone have an opinion on what would happen to Bush's popularity if a terrorist atrocity took place just before the election, like in Spain? Would he get support, as Americans rallied behind him and gave the finger to the terrorists, or would people think he had failed in making the country secure, and therefore vote him out?