The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[kandrathe]

As far as I can tell, they were bypassing sanctions and mostly building palaces for Hussein.

Then you are not looking.

Well, again, I can't help being reminded here of the Bush administration's use of the word "revisionist" to attack those who complained that the administration had switched rationales from WMDs to spreading democracy after no WMDs were found. If you narrow down the evidence required to the point where almost anything will justify war, then yes you're right, the war was necessary.

If possession with intent or actual use of WMD were your only criteria for war then we'd have very few wars. Iraq was buying dual use materials which were banned by anti-proliferation treaties. Their actions were highly suspicious, and when by UN mandate they were to submit to weapons inspections they dodged, they lied, they obfuscated, and they harassed them. It was unclear what they were doing, and Saddam wanted the facts of Iraq WMD to be a mystery. They had them and used them in the past, and it was logical to conclude that given the materials purchased that they would make them again.

Please explain why anyone who's strongly opposed to the Iraq war must believe Hussein was a choir boy?

You seem to be against removing one of the most tyrannical brutal dictators of this decade. You narrow the criteria for what justified the war down, and when evidence is presented which is in that criteria you refuse to believe or claim it's unsubstantiated because an Ansar al'Islam Mullah that fled to Norway claims he hated Saddam. Yeah, sure. But, when Hamza, the top Iraqi nuclear scientist who defects from Iraq divulges all the he knows on Saddam's nuclear program, it cannot be believed.

p.s. More of that damn left-wing liberal media, that New York Sun.;)

It wasn't the Sun's commentary that was interesting, it was the report they were reporting on. If I could find a direct link to the government report, I would link to that.

P.S. Here is a link to FAS site, which has the actual document link

I would suggest a thorough reading of Volume 1. It is fascinating.

A selected extract;
A later memorandum from the same collection to the Director
of the IIS reports that the Army of Muhammad is endeavoring to receive assistance
[from Iraq] to implement its objectives, and that the local IIS station has
been told to deal with them in accordance with priorities previously established.
The IIS agent goes on to inform the Director that "this organization is an offshoot
of bin Laden, but that their objectives are similar but with different names that can
be a way of camouflaging the organization."