Originally Posted By DouglasDubh If not now, when? You can't have it both ways - either we invaded, or Saddam should have stayed in power. "What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act? Or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh President Clinton, February 1998. Saddam failed to comply; it was critical that we did not fail to act.
Originally Posted By ElKay "President Clinton, February 1998. Saddam failed to comply; it was critical that we did not fail to act." As usual you are reading only what you want into what the "evil Bubba" said. It's soooo very funny that neocons who spearheaded the campaign to drive Clinton from office or at least neutralize any sort of action (foreign, domestic or appointing judges) during his presidency would today use those words to justify a half-baked idea to invade Iraq based on at best ambigious intelligence. Dispite what you think you are seeing in Clinton's quote, he never contemplated an INVASION. Even if he was thinking along those lines, the GOP Clinton-haters would never allow him to move one frigate or company of infantry more into the region without a firestorm of criticism or snide comments that Clinton was trying to turn the nation's attentions from the pressing issues of that day--namely Monica-gate or Whitewater. Look at the criticism he took from the GOP when he fired cruise missiles at bin Laden's Afganistan training camps or that WMD factory in the Sudan. No GOP leader supported Clinton's action, they all thought he was OVERREACTING to an insignificant threat. Even his volley of missiles against Iraqi targets after intell. reports indicated Iraq may have been involved in an attempt to kill GHW Bush, didn't get Clinton any slack from the GOP. Back on the issue of Bush's flimsy rational for war. The argument by Dems in Congress was never that we shouldn't get rid of Saddam because he was a nice guy, it was basically premature based on the availble evidence then and also it was not pressing because of the fact he was being bottled-up by the no fly zones. What most of the Dems and much of NATO wanted was a reasonable time for the UN inspectors to finish their renewed survey of Saddam's WMD capabilities. Maybe six months. Saddam did finally see the light and allowed the inspectors to move about the country inspecting nearly anywhere they wanted (except his palaces). Recall that the UN was actually being directed to go to specific sites from the CIA's list of suspected sites, but every single site came up clean. Don't forget that David Kay was the leader of the UN inspectors and later became the leader of the Pentagon/CIA weapon's survey team after the fall of Baghdad, so he wasn't soft peddling the inspections and was essentially fired from his position when he concluded that there just wasn't any WMD's to find. Ultimately, the fallacy of Bush's justification for war was the fact that even with complete control of the country, the US still cannot find those WMDs or even solid evidence that the programs were actively producing them the day the war started. The lack of WMDs in Iraq bolsters the cautious attitude that France and the Germans had toward Bush's call for invasion. It likewise reduces the US's moral leadership in calling for military action in this so-called war on terrorism. It is in fact Bush and the neocons who are rewriting history by justifying their fallicious arguments (I say lies) by involking Clinton or even the Dems. who expected Bush go back to the the UN for the equivalent of a world declaration of war as in the case of the Korean War, instead of going to war while the UN inspectors were still searching and short of an overt action by Saddam.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Then why in heaven's name did they all vote for the war?<< They didn't vote for the war. They voted to give the president authorization to use force if diplomacy broke down. Their mistake was believing the president when he told them he'd try to resolve things diplomatically before invading.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <They voted to give the president authorization to use force if diplomacy broke down.> Which it did. Despite the clear warning he was given, Saddam failed to fully comply with UN resolutions. <Their mistake was believing the president when he told them he'd try to resolve things diplomatically before invading.> The President did what he said he'd do.
