The Washington Times reports on evidence of trucks full of contraband escaping from Iraq to Syria before the outbreak of war. It seems quite likely that many of Saddam’s weapons and other materials were sent to Syria when it was clear that war was coming. Hussein knew that if he were caught with banned weapons it would justify his removal – which explains why he would make such efforts to remove them.
The idea that Saddam Hussein never had WMDs has always struck me as prima facie ridiculous. Hussein had WMDs before the Gulf War and clearly as recently as 1998 was actively trying to prevent UNSCOM and Richard Butler from finding them. That Hussein would have disarmed himself and not presented concrete evidence of this and avoided his own downfall doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense.
Sooner or later the truth will come out on Saddam Hussein’s banned weapons, and I have a feeling that those who continue to perpetuate the myth that Saddam Hussein had no such weapons will be proven wrong – especially considering that US forces have already found several pre-Gulf War weapons lying about. If a dozen artillery shells filled with binary Sarin nerve agent can be found, what else is waiting out there for someone to discover?
The idea that Saddam Hussein never had WMDs has always struck me as prima facie ridiculous.
“Sorry Mrs. Abdul, your husband and sons had to die because Jay Reding can read minds and knew that your leader had some WMD’s tucked away, even though we can’t seem to find them now.”
I think if lives are on the line, you damned well better have more than what amounts to a feeling about what is true and what is not.
To which Mrs. Abdul would respond (and rightly so), “I don’t give a damn about Jay Reding or WMD. Saddam Hussein murdered my uncle, raped my sister, and would have killed millions more of my own people. Good riddance to him.”
I know it’s hard to imagine for some, but the Iraqis aren’t a bunch of po-mo college students. They know what real totalitarianism is first hand. Why don’t you ask one what life was like under Saddam and see what they have to say about having him gone?
Why don’t you ask one what life was like under Saddam and see what they have to say about having him gone?
Book a flight to Najaf. You can ask them yourself.
Or you could just read what they’re saying.
I dunno, I put alot more stock into the idea that Hussein had programs going towards getting weapons, once had weapons, and pretended (quite amazingly) that he had them now. Especially considering how little intelligence we really had on Iraq after 1998, its not that hard to imagine hussein was able to pull a snow job pretending to have WMDs, while not having them. And concerning the Sarin shell’s, I’m willing to bet he still had some from the 1980’s, but after Desert Storm and Desert fox his infastructure was so wrecked he had only the basics toward rebuilding his stock.
Me, too, Jay.
It dumbfounds me that there are people know what people experienced under Saddam Hussein and who still conclude that somehow that it is impossible for any Iraqis to be glad we came in & got rid of the bastard.
Or they might concede that *some* people would feel that way, but that surely a majority is instead much angrier at the US than it ever was at the Baathists.
These are people entirely without any understanding of basic human nature.
Help! I’m drowning in an abyss of situational ethicists. If the guy you sent to the electric chair turns out not to have murdered your sister after all, justify his execution based on the robbery he committed when he was 18. If Saddam Hussein turns out not to pose a threat to the U.S. with his non-existent arsenal of WMD, justify the war based on the fact that Hussein was a bad guy.
We are not fighting a war in Nigeria or Equatorial Guinea because their dictators are brutal killers who terrorize their people regularly. Why? Because doing so is not in the interest of American self-defense. Hard to make an argument that we were right for waging war against Iraq even though our national defense was not threatened by their brutal dictator…..unless of course we had alterior motives to invading Iraq….
Yes, and by the logic of the anti-war crowd, if someone is guilty of multiple murders and grand theft, but gets off on a count of possessing illegal weapons, they should go free.
You’re damn right we had ulterior motives in invading Iraq. Nigerians or Guineans aren’t flying planes into buildings. Radical Islamists are, which is why it is important to fight those terrorists on their home soil and begin to counter the terror-sponsoring states that aid them.
Jay, this should go without saying, but Saddam Hussein had as much to do with “Radical Islamists” flying planes into buildings as the leaders of Equatorial Guinea and Liberia did. Unless you have the elusive proof that Saddam Hussein was a 9-11 conspirator, your argument is categorically invalid.
Well, Tunisia never invaded Poland either, but they were a crucial theater in World War II.
Hussein’s Iraq had a long history of aiding terrorits, including al-Qaeda – and as the President said just after September 11, we will not distinguish between terrorists and the states that sponsor them. In this regard, Bush has been completely consistant.
He’s been consistently inconsistent, looking the other way with the terrorist-sponsoring Saudis while pretending Iraq played a prominent role in 9-11.
Only on Planet Liberal. Here on Earth the Saudis have started actually fighting terror rather than funding it for the first time in their history, while Bush has specifically denied any link between Iraq and 9/11 (although Iraq was linked to the first World Trade Center bombing as well as having several contacts with al-Qaeda).