Buried Treasure

"Nah, if there were WMD anywhere we'd have found them by now."

Now, now, let's give the weapons inspectors more time before we jump to conclusions. :) Seriously, though, I think invading Iraq was probably warranted, all things considered. I just wish the administration had seen fit to give us a real reason (like, "Saddam is evil") rather than lying to us.

Lies. Please. They may have been mistaken, but if they were then so was everyone else in the world. Besides, WMD were only one component of the case for war; "Saddam is evil" was mentioned as well, I believe, as were numerous other justifications.

Everyone else in the world? Including the people who were saying all along that there were no WMDs there? They obviously weren't mistaken (assuming there really are no WMDs).

The administration may have mentioned that Saddam is evil, but only in passing. The majority of their reasoning involved the idea that Iraq was a threat to our national security, specifically because they had WMDs. Yeah, they threw in some other stuff for good measure, but the WMD argument was the primary and principal argument that the administration gave before the war.

Whether it was lying or not is debatable, although there certainly was some level of deception. Maybe along the lines of, "We've got some very, very tenuous stuff, but nothing even remotely solid. But Saddam's got to go down, so it'll be okay if we exaggerate a bunch, right?" Nonetheless, it's clear now that they certainly didn't have any solid evidence, so they certainly shouldn't have been claiming they did.

No one except nut-jobs thought that Saddam didn't have WMD. The UN knew he did. France knew it, Germany knew it. Everyone knew it. There was no real question before the attack of whether or not he had any, because the evidence was so incontrovertible.

He had them before he kicked out the inspectors in 1998. The only way they could be gone now is if he destroyed them after he kicked them out. Why would he do that? It's nonsense. There are WMD in Iraq, somewhere, but who knows if they'll ever be found.

If they're never found, then either they don't exist, or they're so well-hidden as to defy reason. But regardless of whether they exist or not, WE HAD NO SOLID EVIDENCE that they did before we invaded! Saying "everyone knew it" is irrational. They knew it? How?

If the logic is, "We knew (from solid evidence) that they had WMD in 1998. Then they kicked the inspectors out. We can't conceive of any reason why Saddam would have destroyed the WMD, but we have no other evidence. Therefore, the WMD must still exist," then it's faulty. Simply because you can't conceive of a reason doesn't mean there isn't one. Here's a few ideas: Saddam destroyed them because he wanted us to not invade him. Saddam used them all up and didn't make more. The WMD decayed and became useless over time and they didn't make more. Rebelling Iraqis destroyed them to prevent Saddam using the weapons on them.

The fact remains that we did not have solid evidence that Iraq recently had WMDs, let alone that they intended to use them against us, before we invaded. Fabricating evidence, invading, and then trying to find real evidence to prove we were right seems to go against any modern conception of justice. Yes, I still believe that there were good reasons to invade Iraq *in general*, but the WMD claims were not among them.

Well, WMD don't just vaporize.

1. We knew he had them in 1998.
2. He kicked the inspectors out, and told everyone that he wouldn't destroy anything.
3. He then said he didn't have anything, but refused to show any evidence to that effect.
4. He continued to refuse to let anyone check, despite the provisions of his surrender in 1991.

It's absurd to believe that he destroyed them and didn't tell anyone.

It doesn't seem inconcievable at all to me that he could have buried them somewhere, and that we'll never find them. Iraq is as big as Californa, and more sparsely populated. WMD are smaller than planes, and it took us three months to find several dozen planes that were buried NEAR an airfield.

He could have dumped them in the river or the ocean, or buried them in a 100 feet of sand. Who knows. But it's completely irrational to think that they just vanished after 1998.

Stop ignoring history Michael.

Fact: Saddam possessed and used WMD during his war with IRAN. Fact: He had WMD but knew better than to use them during the war with Kuwait.

Fact: Following his defeat in Kuwait, multiple tons of banned munitions and manufacturing equipment were destroyed under U.N. supervision. Fact: Saddam did not kick the inspectors out in 1998. He obstructed their access to suspect sites and personnel. The U.N. pulled their team out of the country only after Clinton ordered air attacks.

Fact: The inspectors resumed their work in 2002 with unprecedented Iraqi cooperation. Iraq turned over a few dusty bombs and warheads overlooked by the orginal inspections and gave up their medium range missiles (even though they would have been legal when weighted with a warhead). They granted full access to the presidential palaces and allowed full U-2 surveliance. The big stockpiles of WMD didn't "vanish" after 1998, they had been destroyed PRIOR to 1998... either during Desert Storm, or by the U.N.

Iraq was invaded in 2003 because the Inspections were WORKING!! Bush told us it was a choice between invasion or "doing nothing". In fact, it was a choice between invasion or continuing the U.N. Inspection and Verification. So we got the tall tales about uranium from Niger, aluminum tubes and lethal unmanned drones.

It was the NeoCon's last chance to con the American people into paying for an invasion to grab control of Iraq's oil.

I would have taken the longer, harder road with the U.N. Inspections. Saddam might still be in power today, but he'd still be as toothless as those buried MIG's.

Let the oil companies hire their own mercenaries.
Americans should fight for justice, not oil.

J Johnson:
Wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy his oil, if that's all we were after? Considering the billions of dollars we've spent fighting, and the fact that we're still going to have to pay for the oil at standard market prices?

Plus, even if what you're saying is true (which it isn't), would Saddam have been toothless? Not likely. He would still be supporting terrorism in Israel, and would still be contributing to the morass of anti-Americanism that plagues the region, inciting war and terror.

But, despite what you say, it's absurd to think that Saddam didn't have WMD. Yes, the UN pulled out its inspectors, technically, but that pull-out was a response to Saddam's obstructionism. Coalition airstrikes were a result of that obstruction, as well, and not the cause of the inspectors' pull-out.

WMD were just a part of the problem, but it looks like the ex-USSR had well-developed plans and procedures for hiding weapons. They helped Saddam obtain his, so it's not far-fetched to think they might have helped him hide them.

"The big stockpiles of WMD didn't "vanish" after 1998, they had been destroyed PRIOR to 1998... either during Desert Storm, or by the U.N."

This is not true at all. 1,000 tons of mustard gas, and thousands of liters of biological agents remain unaccounted for. This means that while Iraq did verify that some of it's stockpiles were destroyed, it has NOT proven that ALL of them were destroyed. Therefore, it's impossible to conclude that his stockpiles have been eliminated....

As I would say, "The last thing we knew of these weapons they EXISTED in IRAQ, and until someone can prove otherwise, they STILL exist in Iraq."