NationStates Jolt Archive

I dont really understand alot about why people disagree so much with the Iraq war. Alot of people say its because we didnt find biological weapons or WMD's and therefore President Bush lied to us. But every single inteligence agency in the world thought that Iraq had these including the French and Germans and Sadam never denied having them. It is also known fact that Sadam Hussein use biological weapons against his own people(the Kurd's in the north) and against the Iranian's. And we also all know that sadam hated the United States and Israel and would possibly use these weapons against us if he ha dthe chance. Isnt that reason enough for us to engage in preemptive war against Iraq? We might not have found these weapons but I am sure Sadam didnt destroy them and i believe we will eventually find them. I think the American people have been brain washed by the media into thinking that this war is killing many many American troops and the Iraqi people hate us. We are in a war and deaths will occur and this war has been one of the most successful in history as far as the number of deaths that have happened, and the majority of Iraqi people like us for what we have done there. We are also in a war that was voted for by extremely prominant democrats that are now critisizing us for going in. No one critisized Clinton for bombing Iraq in the 1990's and I think this show sthe bias that are country has towards republicans. Now what is so wrong about the Iraq war?



I also just made a new region very shortly ago and i am looking for anyone and everyone to join it please. The name of it is "conservative states of america" and the password is "conservative". please come and join.

I dont really understand alot about why people disagree so much with the Iraq war. Alot of people say its because we didnt find biological weapons or WMD's and therefore President Bush lied to us. But every single inteligence agency in the world thought that Iraq had these including the French and Germans and Sadam never denied having them. It is also known fact that Sadam Hussein use biological weapons against his own people(the Kurd's in the north) and against the Iranian's. And we also all know that sadam hated the United States and Israel and would possibly use these weapons against us if he ha dthe chance. Isnt that reason enough for us to engage in preemptive war against Iraq? We might not have found these weapons but I am sure Sadam didnt destroy them and i believe we will eventually find them. I think the American people have been brain washed by the media into thinking that this war is killing many many American troops and the Iraqi people hate us. We are in a war and deaths will occur and this war has been one of the most successful in history as far as the number of deaths that have happened, and the majority of Iraqi people like us for what we have done there. We are also in a war that was voted for by extremely prominant democrats that are now critisizing us for going in. No one critisized Clinton for bombing Iraq in the 1990's and I think this show sthe bias that are country has towards republicans. Now what is so wrong about the Iraq war?

Perhaps I can illuminate you about some of the finer points in the arguments against the Iraq war. Being rather familiar with the subject and the history of the conflict in a larger scope I could assist you in understanding their objections.

Your first question is about the lack of faith the world has over your assertion that President Bush didn't lie to us even though WMD's have not been found in Iraq.

The primary reason why people don't believe is that in the months preceding the war very specific evidence was given to lead us to believe that US intel had indeed found the WMD's and only needed to go there to pick it up and dispose of it. This occured in Colin Powel's speech to the UN; showing sattelite photos of various compounds within Iraq. His assurances and those of various other US officials that Iraq "Definately" had WMDs and that it was not a question has since turned into a long and so far, fruitless search. People are angry about that.

Faith is a finite thing, and given the level of self-confidence that US officials spoke with during the months preceeding the war most nations assumed it would take less than a few days to announce discoveries. Then weeks, months and now a year has passed; many search teams have left, most others have been called to other duties. The whole project is now on the back burner. The world sees this as an outrageous overexaggeration of the case against Iraq, and they ask quite pointedly why was the US so insistent on going to war so very quickly when their evidence was incorrect? That those photos and transcripts had no relevant data was in direct violation of the trust that people placed in the evidence presented and the people who presented it as proof.

So mistakes were made, and rather than admit that problems occurred, the administration stonewalled, evaded, and denied such allegations, blaming the problem on everyone but themselves. Again; this seemed to speak poorly of the administration.

I should point out that you are incorrect on some of your assertions; Saddam did in fact say in the weeks leading up to the war that he did not have any WMD's in Iraq at that time. This is hardly important; since he had lied and stonewalled so many times previously; but he DID protest his innocence on WMDs. So technically you were wrong, but his history of deciet had made it impossible to trust his word.

Yes, he had used them in the past, but no, that alone was no proof whatsoever that he intended to use them against the US or our allies if he did have them. After all, if as you suggest he did and we simply have not yet found them, why did he not use them at such a time when he was fighting for his very existence? When he had one last chance to use his WMDs against Israel? Also, he had no vector for WMD to reach the US that was at all practical; the only methods were farfetched ones that were far too impractical and improbable for the US to consider.

Also yes, people did complain when Clinton bombed Iraq; he was accused of trying to divert attention from domestic politics, and many of the same anti-war movement groups that are complaining about the current war as well. Many insisted that such measures were insufficient, others that they were crossing the line. The point is, perhaps such critism was lost to you in the mists of history, but it certainly occured.

I think that you find a fair number of the injustices you believe have been placed upon the Republican party by the American public and the media are misinterpretaitons or misremembrences on your own part. I am sorry to say that a good number of your greviences are simply non-existent, and that whatever persecution you believe you are under is imaginary.

I don't question the Iraq war. Sooner or later, Saddam Hussein had to be dealt with. That much is certain. He was never going to capitulate willingly to the demands of the international community.

What I question was the timing. Based on intelligence from 1998, there was no need to think there was any more imminent a threat from Iraq on the subject of WMDs than there had been at any other time over the last ten years. There was no reason to think that another six months or another year to convince the U.N. and other nations to back an assault on Iraq was more time than we could afford to take. There was no imminent threat to suggest that a pre-emptive strike was necessary. None. There never was.

Now, we find out, there was no threat at all. But that's irrelevant. We're already there.

When we went in, it was under the pretext that we were striking pre-emptively an imminent threat to the United States. We did it without the U.N's approval. We did it without even the approval of some of our allies. Why? What about intel from 1998 made us think that Iraq was so dangerous all of a sudden that we would damage our international ties rather than wait and exhaust all diplomatic options with them?

The bottom line is that we could have taken another six months. We could have taken another year. We could have taken as long as necessary to convince the U.N. and NATO that Saddam Hussein and Iraq would never comply with U.N. resolutions. That they would do whatever they could do to produce biological, chemical and/or nuclear weapons whenever the opportunity presented itself and that the only people the economic sanctions against Iraq was hurting was the people he was hurting himself. We chose to rush in. Now we have a debacle on our hands.