Hi Todd,

I'm getting a bit more long-winded than I wanted to, but thought that you should deserve a response from me. I'll post this and let you have the last word since I don't want to take up too much space on this thread:

Quote Originally Posted by Todd Patten
First, the citizens of this country NEVER would have supported this war based on defiance of resolutions alone. They were luke warm (just over 50%) believing that there was a freakin' mushroom cloud looming. If the justification for war was purely the U.N. resolutions, it would never have occured.
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I didn't say the administration based the war solely on the defiance of resolutions. I said that the primary justification for war is the defiance of the resolutions. The intelligence for Iraq's WMD's, which*preceded the Bush administration by the way,*was the secondary reason, and because this adminstration had no way of knowing just where Saddam was at on these (thanks to Hussein himself), it chose to invade. Better safe than sorry, bud. Or, perhaps you'd prefer there be a mushroom cloud first, and then have us act?
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As for firing at our planes, do some research, the no-fly zone WAS NOT U.N. sanctioned. It was a NATO impossition alone. I'm sorry, but given your U.N. argument, he had every right fire at our planes. It was not in the original agreement.
Actually, the very reason why no-fly zones were established is because Iraq did not comply with resolution 688, which didn�t ask but demanded of Iraq to cease the oppression of its own people. Saddam didn�t comply, and so the no-fly zones were established and permitted, to some extent, the coalition to �contain� Saddam from wreaking more havoc upon his own people. In regard to this I present a quote from Geoff Hoon, Minister of State for Defence, Foreign Commonwealth Office, House of Commons, England, February 26th, 2001, that offers justification for the no-fly zone:

A further aim of our policy has been to limit Saddam's ability to kill and terrorise his own people. That is why we have conducted patrols of the no-fly zones since the early 1990s in support of United Nations Security Council resolution 688, which demanded an end to his brutal repression. The zones have served a vital humanitarian purpose over the past decade in constraining Saddam's ability to carry out such repression, particularly in relation to the Shias and the Kurds.

The patrols are justified in international law as a legitimate response to prevent a grave humanitarian crisis. Without them, Saddam would be free, as he was prior to their establishment, to use aircraft and helicopter gunships against innocent civilians. The humanitarian consequences would be as unconscionable as they were in 1991. Many tens of thousands would be displaced from their homes, thousands would lose their lives, perhaps - as happened in 1988 at Halabja - following the use of chemical weapons.

Since January 1999, Saddam's air defence units have made sustained and concerted efforts to shoot down United Kingdom and United States aircraft. During that period, there have been more than 1,200 attempts to target them, using surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery. Coalition aircraft are legally authorised to respond to those attacks in self-defence. They do so entirely in accordance with international law, attacking only those military facilities that contribute, as part of the Iraqi integrated air defence system, to the threat to coalition aircraft.

Now, what good is a resolution, Todd, if you can�t enforce it? And just out of curiosity, what would you have done? Would you have just sat back and let Saddam continue what he was doing? More sanctions? The ones in place obviously weren�t doing the job, and the food for oil scandal did nothing but to encourage Saddam. Just what would you have done?

WMD's is far from secondary. WMD's was the case for war. Spin it any other direction you want, but speech after speech leading up to the invasion of a country that never threatened us was about WMD's. Everything else was secondary.
Not if you follow the UN resolutions. Many of the resolution were practically either a reiteration or a affirmation of a previous resolution to get Saddam to comply, especially in regards to weapons inspections. It was Saddam�s consistent habit of ignoring the resolutions that got him into trouble, because the weapons inspectors could not get their job done properly. So as I stated before, because we couldn�t adequately determine what Saddam did or did not have, due to his flagrant defiance of UN resolutions and despite being given one last chance, we had to go in. Again I ask, how many more resolutions needed to have been defied by Saddam before something had to be done?
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The search is over. 250,000 troops combing the countryside of Iraq? It's over. There are no WMD's. Keep holding on to the propaganda. At what point do you accept the fact that there are no weapons? Ever? Or do you prefer speculation over the expert opinion of multiple sources?
First of all, we alll know Saddam both developed and used chemical/biological weapons. How much he developed is uncertain, since he wouldn�t cooperate with the inspections. So that left a big question mark, which eventually resulted in the final resolution being drafted. Second, it is altogether possible that some WMDs were smuggled out of the country, or buried in some secret location. Have some patience and give them more time, and I�m sure more answers will come about. By the way, Saddam did have a 500 ton stockpile of uranium that could have potentially been turned into weapons grade bomb-making material, and we know now that this was something he was attempting or at least planning to further develop. Here's your future mushroom cloud.
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This is the United States. We don't attack other nations. We don't invade unless it is a matter of self defense.
It is a matter of self-defense, and international security. Or would you prefer to wait for another 911 to occur?
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Honestly, I could give a crap about Israel. Seriously. I care about the United States of America. Most importantly, how does one prove a negative?
Well I, for one, do care about Israel. And I care for any other country, including our own, that is having to deal with maniacs who think that terrorism is some form of promotion to seventy virgins in heaven. Hussein clearly had contacts with terrorists, though the administration never directly linked him to what happened on 911.

"You have weapons" "No I don't" "Yes you do, I can't see them, so you must have them"
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Please, define how he was fooling the inspectors. They had access. They looked around and found nothing. Shoot, this means the U.N. inspectors failed?!? We've had exponetial the number of people available to search Iraq, to no avail, and the U.N. inspectors are failures?!?
The inspectors did not have unfettered access then, remember? That was the main problem previous to the final resolution being drafted. But now we do have that unfettered access, and yes, as to date they have not found what they are looking for. There could be reasons for this as I mentioned above. But let�s just say absolutely that there are no WMDs in Iraq. Would our discovery of that fact really translate into blame on America? Is this war really our fault? Or shouldn�t we really put blame where blame belongs? On Saddam Hussein? He�s the fella in violation of all those UN resolutions, remember? He could have prevented this, but he didn�t. His bad, not ours.

Ray