If you did not support war, and did not support containment of iraq

[Zuni]

what would you do? An unrestricted, uncontained Saddam without weapons inspections would be more of a danger than i would be willing to risk. The very thought of Saddam, the most virulent jew hater in the ME having WMD might cause israel to start a preventive war, which would turn into a regional war.
And for those who blame the US/UK for the damage done by sanctions how can you explain several things.--- One, a member of voices in the Wilderness--*Kathy Kelly's group---did reasearch in iraq and determined that not only were the death tolls not nearly as bad as he was led to believe and that Saddam's government itself had to be blamed for much of the damage (which served valuable propaganda purposes) because of corruption and graft.
Another is the Kurds---they had oil for food too but it was run by the UN under the northern no fly Zone. There the death rate and quality of life was far higher than anywhere else in Iraq. namely because the iraqi government did not have any control over food, and medicine distribution.

Finally, how would you have handled Saddam and iraq since 1980 if you had been in charge of foreign policy since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war until now?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Easy not give WMDs to sadamn in 1984

that is a start

[Misterpilot]

29. So where is your time machine Einstein?

Just how will you get back to 1984?

[welshTerrier2]

30. welcome to DU, MisterPilot ...

please note the question posed at the end of the base post:

Finally, how would you have handled Saddam and iraq since 1980 if you had been in charge of foreign policy since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war until now?

the poster you responded to gave a very specific answer to that question ... i see no reason to sarcastically refer to the poster as "Einstein" ...

what are your views on Iraq ?? did you think it was a good idea to provide a dictator like Saddam with sophisticated weapons systems back in the 80's?

[many a good man]

2. Who didn't support containment?

Sanctions and inspections were pretty effective in thwarting his international ambitions and WMD programs.

Some say sanctions made the populace more dependent than ever on SH and may have hampered any resistance movement.

In the '80s I wouldn't have aided his arms programs, including WMD.

[NewJeffCT]

17. Don't forget Powell & Rice in 2001

Prior to 9/11/2001, Condi Rice & Colin Powell both were literally bragging that sanctions and international isolation had not only neutered Saddam to the point that he was not only not a threat to the US, but he was not even a conventional threat to his neighbors.

[mike_c]

3. I would not have "handled" Hussein at all....

What incredible arrogance. What gives us the right to impose our will on foreign nations, cultures, or governments? The evidence has shown that the UN inspections program was apparently quire successful, and that Hussein told the truth when he claimed not to be harboring banned weapons. We were lied to in order to justify the neo-con initial stab at empire building. The very questions you're posing suggest the extent to which you bought those lies-- Hussein was not a threat to the U.S., and his regional influence since the early nineties was apparently based more on bluff than upon reality. There wsn't any need to "handle" Saddam Hussein. And there certainly wasn't any need to launch an illegal invasion based on bald-faced lies.

[DuctapeFatwa]

15. Are you forgetting that all other countries are US property?

Especially non-European countries, populated by simple childlike folk who may complain but know as well as America does that they need a firm hand and strict discipline to keep them in line and root out the terrorists who would put the interests of the natives above those of vital US business interests.

[mike_c]

26. jeez for a minute there I forgot...

...that Iraqis are poor brown people like all the other wogs. Thanks for the reality check. Gotta go shop some now-- that'll help me get in touch with my inner patriot....

[Darranar]

44. You think the world should have stood by and watched...

as Saddam brutalized his own people?

My problem has always been with the means of regime change, not the end itself, and also the fact that the motive for doing so generally has more to do with securing the interests of the American elite than bringing democracy to those nations.

Not to mention the fact that those who call for it are often simply hypocrites.

[Isome]

69. stood by and watched...

We should NOT have stood by and watched him brutalize his own people. We should NOT have sold/given them WMD. We should not have encouraged the uprising of the Kurds and then abandoned them to be brutalized by those WMD we sold/gave to Saddam.

We should have been worried about the bruatlization of OUR own people, on our own soil. Amnesty International has the U.S. on its list of human rights violators, too.

We should not have instigated/assisted in the overthrow of Dr. Mossadegh in Iran and installed the shah... oops, that's waaay off the back end of the timeline. But, nonetheless, had we not overthrown Dr. Mossadegh, we would not have had the shah, who inspired the Iranians to embrace religious fundamentalism, in the form of the Ayatollah, which in turn made the U.S. fear its spread and led us to support Saddam.

Questions:

• Why did we allow Nicolae Ceausescu to terrorize Romanians for so long?
• Why didn't we interfere for the good of the Romanians in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983...?
• Where was the outrage because we "stood by and watched" him subjugate the people of that country and didn't militarily step in to affect regime change?
• Are there any European countries that we've unilaterally waged war against?

It's our insatiable need to control what other countries are doing that put us in this mess, and will put us in messes far more dire than this, if we don't finally learn from our own mistakes. We're doing the same things over & over, and expecting different results.

We cannot continue to act as a nation of
might without morality, strength without sight...
...It is Western arrogance that believes
we always have something to teach other countries,
but never anything to learn from them.

—paraphrased excerpts from MLK speech

[jackcgt]

76. This argument makes no sense...

Basically, unless we can fix everything that's wrong with the world, we might as well not do anything, right? Yeah, the human rights violations in the US are just as bad AND on the same scale as those in Iraq, right? Right. Sorry, for a country like Iraq, with SYSTEMATIC repression, rape, torture, etc., what in the hell could possibly be wrong with trying to fix it? And even if we DID give Hussein WMD (it wasn't just us, btw) then isn't it OUR responsibility to take him down when he gets out of control?

[Isome]

83. unless we can fix everything that's wrong with the world

No, that's a wild-eyed intrepretation not based on logic. The point is not to "fix" all that is wrong with the world, nor is it the virtue of isolationism. Our problem is that we create many problems by attempting to "fix" other countries, yet our "fixes" aren't about the country we're "fixing", it's about the U.S. More accurately, it's about U.S. economic interests.

We do have a responsibility to clean up after ourselves. We have a responsibility to act as law-abiding INTERNATIONAL citizens, because that is what we are. When we defied the U.N., we became a rogue nation.

While we diddle in Iraq, American terrorists continue to operate within our borders...

[Zuni]

91. good points, my man

I will never understand the argument that you can interfere with countries because of gross human rights violations until you deal with China.

[Darranar]

82. I agree...

I have a ton of problems with American foreign and domestic policy, but the proper alternative is not isolation. That was my only point.

[Isome]

84. proper alternative is not isolation

Isolationism hasn't been suggested; that would make the point moot.

[Zuni]

47. I was asking a question

based on how you would have handled foreign policy re: Iraq from 1980-2003. But remember if we did not insist on intrusive inspections and sanctions in 1991, Saddam would have a nuke right now.
How would you have handled it since 1980?

[sushi]

87. Excellent post

:thumbsup:

[BJ]

4. But obviously, he did not!

He never used any weapons of mass destruction except the ones he used on the Iranians during the 1980-'88 Iran-Iraq War, with Reagan's tacit blessing, on Israel did he? Nor did Israel ever start a "preventative" war against Iraq?

The best things to do would have been either to ignore him or normalize relationships. Nothing corrupts a socialist nation like American dollars and American tourists flooding the land.

[Zuni]

45. He had nothing but chemical weapons for one

and Israel did destroy his fledgling nuke program in 1981, when they led air strikes against his Osirak reactor.

[scottcsmith]

5. Saddam was no threat

I don't agree with the premise that Saddam was a threat. He may have been up to 1991, but beyond that, he was no worse than any other government in that region. Human rights reports by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch show that countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria having just as many human rights violations as Iraq. So there are lots of brutal dictators in the Middle East.

Most reports show that Saddam moved or destroyed his WMDs between 1997 and 2000.

I would have been more concerned with Iran and Saudi Arabia than Iraq. Particularly Saudi Arabia. While on one hand they claim to be a good friend to the United States, on the other hand they have a horrible record on human rights. The Saudi government has made donations to charities that funneled the funds to terrorist groups, and we cannot ignore the fact that the majority of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. As Bush has said, Saddam Hussein was not connected in any way to the 9/11 attacks.

We really should have been focusing our efforts on the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They continue to be a real threat to our security, and the shifting of our resources and troops to the phony war in Iraq has really left us vulnerable from attack by our real enemy.

[Goldmund]

6. "Handling" a dictator

is a job of the world community, or in other words, the UN -- not a superpower with Messiah complex (although the complex is not in the minds of the leaders, only an excuse they use to justify their greed and neo-colonialism to their subjects).

Before you tell me that UN is ineffective, think about who is to blame for that. Does this superpower do anything to make it more effective? No. We've withdrawn from arms control treaties, environmental treaties, we make behind-the-curtain deals on immunity from international authority, and we abide by UN resolutions only when it serves our immediate interests.

[Zuni]

46. So you would have worked through the UN

that was all I asked.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. Meanwhile Pakistan, one of al Qaeda's underwriters and an unstable

military dictatorship, actually does have nuclear weapons.

But somehow Iraq's fictional weapons are more worrisome, even now.

[DuctapeFatwa]

40. Pakistan's CIA installed military dictatorship is stable, says bush

He should know. There are rumors he is on very close terms with a former CIA chief.

[Zuni]

48. there is no doubt Pakistan is far more dangerous strategically

between their nukes, their extensive ties to Al-Q and their unstable dictatorship, they are one mof the most worrisome spots on the world scene.

[sushi]

92. Yes, and there have been two

assassination attempts on Musharraf already! I bet Washington is preparing to be friendly with the group that will take over in Islamabad after a succesful third attempt.

[Terwilliger]

8. against containment? he was contained!

He couldn't do a damn thing...how much more do you need to satisfy "containment"?

I would have encouraged Saddam to demilitarize, and sought new ways of treating Arabs and muslims with true respect.

We'd live in a paradise at this point if our government wasn't filled with such imperialistic tendencies.

[Cannikin]

9. simply put....

I wouldnt have allowed us to CREATE Saddam in the first place! Then you dont have to worry about your creations coming back to bite you.

[madfloridian]

10. We did contain him.

We had been bombing the hell out of them for 12 years.

[mike_c]

11. would the author of this post care to reply to any of these...

...responses?

[Terwilliger]

13. I wonder after the values he expresses

:shrug:

[Karenina]

20. Who cut the cheese?

.

[0007]

12. I would first start with the Iran/contra and the folks involved that led

Saddam Hussein to power in Iraq. We knew Saddam was a murderer, a criminal and yet the U.S. seated this man and allowed this man to murder his own. We're 30 years too late in telling the truth about Saddam Hussein.

The trouble is the ignorance of the American population and an administration that keeps the folks informed with lies.

[Zuni]

49. That is not true at all

I do not know where you get your information, but I have never read that the US put Saddam in power, wether in 1968 or in 1979. Shortly after the Baath party coup in 68, they defended Iraqi sanctions against the US for support of Israel and then soon signed a treaty of mutual support with the USSR. Only between 1983-1990 did we have any kind of working relationship with Saddam Hussein.
Even then we were less complicit than the Soviet Union, China, France, Germany, and various Warsaw Pact and Arab League countries that supported Saddam during the 1980s.

[demodewd]

57. CIA

It is my understanding that the CIA gave Saddam intelligence on the Communist and Nationalist groups in '65 which resulted in a mass murdering of some 5000 leftists and was a great asset in his ascendency to power.

[Zuni]

65. That was 1963

and the extent of the CIA role is not confirmed.

[Columbia]

14. No one is answering the question here

Saying not giving him WMDs back in the 80's is a cop-out answer.
The dual-use agents (can be used to make weapons or vaccines for weapons) was given to Iraq in the 80's because they were not on the list of states sponsoring terrorism. It was still probably a bad idea to give it to them, but it's easy for us to say this 20 years later.

Regardless, the fact remains that with the sanctions in place, this allowed Saddam to withhold food and medicine from millions of people and thousands of people died directly from it. The Shia in the southern regions of the country were especially hit hard as facilities detiorated and resources were consistently diverted to the Baghdad region where most of the Sunni Muslims resided. This is not to mention the thousands who were tortured and/or killed by Saddam's Ba'athist party and Fedayeen for dissenting.

So, would you support continued containment through sanctions knowing that millions of Iraqis would suffer, lift sanctions and allow Saddam to once again build up his weapons and military, or something else if not go to war?

[Terwilliger]

19. ask Bush's father, who didn't extricate Saddam in 91

ask Democrats who only feigned outrage when Saddam gassed the Kurds

and your insistence on saying that lifting sanctions would have meant starting up his WMD programs and military sounds as if you know that's what he would have done...how do you know that, because that's what the US wanted him to do all along

We created the problem and then said "well, how would we solve it"? It's a false premise, and the US is to blame for all the problems Iraq faces today.

[Columbia]

25. Would you have supported regime change in '91?

I'm sure most of the American public would not have.

So what do you think Saddam would have done if sanctions were lifted? Spread prosperity throughout the land and give up his dictatorship out of the goodness of his heart?

I don't like the idea of going to war, but I am hard pressed to see an alternative here if you care about the Iraqi people. It is true that our inaction contributed to the sad state that Iraq is in, but that does not excuse the actions of Saddam. If you don't think it is worth it to sacrifice billions of dollars and hundreds of American lives to liberate the Iraqi people and allow them to continue to suffer, I think that is an arguable position however.

[Terwilliger]

31. what's different now than in 91???

Why would regime change back then not be a good idea? Shit, YOU'RE the one pointing out what a horrible guy Saddam was, but now you're saying that he shouldn't have been removed.

You're complaining of moral relativism? Sounds like you're smack-dab in the middle of it.

The best solution was to have never created the problem in the first place.

[Columbia]

34. The difference

Well, the stated objective for one. Our mission in '91 was to kick him out of Kuwait and that was done. The mission for the next 12 years was to ensure he did not continue his WMD programs and this was done through containment and sanctions.

Another difference was that the casualties of a continued war to Baghdad in '91 would have been so high that the American people would not be able to justify it. 12 years of containment and planning allowed a relatively quick victory with low casualties during OIF.

It's easy to say, "The best solution was to have never created the problem in the first place," but the fact is that international relations is a difficult arena and when these decisions were made in the past 20 years, there simply were no (or not enough) objections to it at the time with given information.

[Terwilliger]

36. Oh I see...so if more Americans die, a war is not justified?

Well, we certainly must see World wars I and II were wrong, and, of course, Vietnam was wrong

We told Saddam Hussein that he could invade Kuwait without serious repercussions from the US. When the world community got pissed off, only THEN George HW Bush was forced to do something about it.

I'm sorry, it's a crock to say that we didn't understand what was happening in international relations. We knew EXACTLY what the outcome of installing and supporting dictators would be...either they would toe our line and be our lackeys, or we'd have some punching-bag dictator to scare the people about and create wars (a la Noriega)

[Columbia]

38. I dispute that assertion

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Taheri20031206.shtml

"We are told that Saddam misunderstood what he was told by April Glaspie, then US ambassador in Baghdad. Glaspie had told Saddam that Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait was an internal matter and had better be sorted out through bilateral talks. Saddam had interpreted this as a sign that Washington would not mind if his armies annexed Kuwait."

Doesn't seem like we told him to invade Kuwait at all.

The fact is, Americans cannot handle large casualties these days. The war in Vietnam helped soliday this exact sentimenet.

[Terwilliger]

72. I dispute your dispution

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html

Saddam-Glaspie meeting

Transcript of Meeting Between Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. - July 25, 1990 (Eight days before the August 2, 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait)

July 25, 1990 - Presidential Palace - Baghdad

<SNIP>

Saddam Hussein - If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab - our strategic goal in our war with Iran - we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But, if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (i.e., in Saddam s view, including Kuwait ) then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States' opinion on this?

U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)

On August 2, 1990, Saddam's massed troops invade and occupy Kuwait. _____

OnEdit: The cables Glaspie sent to Bush in 1990 are classified...wanna bet they still are?

[Columbia]

81. Sorry

US doesn't want to be involved does not equal "Go invade Kuwait" to me. Additionally, I find that transcript highly suspect as I see it gives no source from whence it came.

[Terwilliger]

32. not only am I not excusing Saddam...I won't excuse those who enabled him

the US government

[Zuni]

50. What about

The Kuwaitis, The Soviets then the Russians, The French, the Germans, the Saudis, The Chinese, The Czechs, The Roumanians, The British, South Africa, Brazil just to name a few?

[demodewd]

58. power elite

But the power elite doesn't care about the Iraqi people so your point is moot. Our objective in the region has always been to actively discourage Arab Nationalistic tendencies and then we(they) foist the perpetual "human rights" brainwash on the American public.

[mike_c]

22. I would have lifted the sanctions....

The sanctions were meant to be lifted when Saddam Hussein complied with the U.N. order to disarm his WMD programs. It's rather abundantly clear that he did that, probably by the late 90's but certainly by 2000. The sanctions should have been lifted years ago-- the U.S. actively interfered with the inspections process and U.N. certification that Iraq was complying (even if not entirely willingly). note that Clinton was just as guilty in this respect as Bush*. Bush is just a worse liar.

Anyway, the sanctions should have been lifted. IF Hussein then tried to rebuild his WMD armory, and any speculation that he would have done so is just that-- speculation-- he could have been dealt with internationally by the U.N. acting in concensus, rather than the U.S. violating international law unilaterally.

[Columbia]

27. Finally an honest answer

[Terwilliger]

33. I think the only dishonest answers are yours

You say the sanctions are justified even though you know (as well as anyone else) that the sanctions only hurt the Iraqi people...THEN you say if we had allowed the sanctions to be lifted, Saddam would reconstitute his war machine

which is it going to be?

Frankly, we had UN weapons inspectors in-country for 7 years...all during sanctions...are you telling me that they would have re-built their weapons under the noses of the inspectors?

[Columbia]

35. Mine are mostly questions

I am only pointing out that it was a very complex and bad situation, with no good answers at all. Every alternative has pros and cons.

As for your last question-

"People can quarrel with whether we should have more troops in Afghanistan or internationalize Iraq or whatever, but it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons."

- Bill Clinton

[Zuni]

51. OK

That is fine. Sanctions were a failed policy that did not bother Saddam. But if the Sanctions were dropped, and Iraq was declared clean, what would you do? Would you continue military sanctions, would you want international monitors?
Face it, The whole world is everyone's responsibility. I would be worried about WMDs in Saddam's hands wether he was threatening to us or not. Weapons proliferation is extremely serious, possibly the most serious political issue around.

[demodewd]

59. re:sanctions

By lifting the sanctions Saddam would have been legally in his right to carry on with the French,Russians et al in regards to oil investments,contractual agreements etc. Bushoil and friends weren't going to have any of that.

[sushi]

93. I agree with you again

:wow:

[MJP]

78. No ones answering because it's a loaded question!

Come on. You know it's a loaded question. You're using a cheap trick from Debate 101. Ask a loaded question, then say you're not answering the question.

The problem with this war was it was sold the American public based on lies. We all know Saddam was bad. There tens of other dictators out there who are just as bad. There are people out there dying in other countries, at the hands of dictators, right now. Why aren't we talking about them?! Here's a hint, it made Jed Clampett rich.

This administration made the public believe if we didn't take Saddam out as soon as possible then he would start firing nuclear weapons at us tomorrow. The neocons knew that if they just came out and said look, Saddams a bad guy, we have no evidence that he still has a WMD program, but he's really, really bad. Now, can we send your sons and daughters to death so we can take him out? The public would never go for it. Come on everyone knows there are bigger threats to the U.S. than Saddam Hussein was.

Quit asking loaded questions, and get right to the core of why most people are against this war. Challenge that.

[Darranar]

16. I would have undermined him...

by flodding Iraq with what we denied them with the sanctions: foods, medicines, etc.

I would have strengthened opposition groups.

Had I been in charge of foreign policy from 1980 onward, I would have have done essentially the same thing. Also, I would have discoruaged war between Iran and Iraq, and if my efforts had failed, I would have tried to bring in the intenrational community to stop it peacefully.

[Columbia]

18. We didn't deny them food or medicine

It was plentiful, but it was withheld from the Iraqi people, especially to those in the south.

I'd like to know how and which opposition groups you would strengthen. The ones that tried to spring up in Iraq were quickly silenced.

[DuctapeFatwa]

21. You could start with the ones the US played Bay of Baghdad with

Yo, dudes, go for it, we got your back.

Then they sat back and watched their boy Saddam kill them all.

A really good option would have been to keep the CIA out of the ME for the last several decades.

Read up on the "Baathist coup."

[Zuni]

52. But the 1968 coup

was not aided by the now very unpopular CIA. In 1967 the Baath decided that America was too close to Israel and did not deal with the US until 1983. They were very close to the Soviets and had numerous treaties/oil deals/ arms deals with them.

[DuctapeFatwa]

61. The CIA declines to comment. Roger Morris disagrees with you

Roger Morris, a former State Department foreign service officer who was on the NSC staff during the Johnson and Nixon administrations, says the CIA had a hand in two coups in Iraq during the darkest days of the Cold War, including a 1968 putsch that set Saddam Hussein firmly on the path to power.

Morris says that in 1963, two years after the ill-fated U.S. attempt at overthrow in Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs, the CIA helped organize a bloody coup in Iraq that deposed the Soviet-leaning government of Gen. Abdel-Karim Kassem.

"This takes you down a longer, darker road in terms of American culpability ....

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/4-24-03/discussion.cgi.22.html

[Zuni]

66. That was the 1963 coup

and the CIA had some involvement, but the extent has never been confirmed, and was certainly not of the level in Chile in 1973 for example.

[Darranar]

43. Sanctions are simply slaughter by other means...

Did Saddam exploit the sanctions and the misery they caused? Probably. Did he exxagerate it? Probably.

However, that is part of my point. The sanctions served to stregthen saddam by allowing him to portray the outside world as vile people trying to destroy them, and he as their only guard. The best propaganda is one that has much basis in fact.

Without the sanctions, who knows what might have happened?

What is known is that in 1991 the people showed their willingness to revolt and take back their country from Saddam. Bush I ignored them. The reasoning behind this was simple: if the people seize control of Iraq, we will not have it - they will. This was of course intolerable, as intolerable as it was for various Latin American countries to have leftist democracies.

This proves that there was some sort of resistance and opposition. With two huge no-fly zones (which I think are fine, I am only against sanctions) the US had tremendous ability to aid opposition movements in the areas in which they were strongest - the north and south.

You are also forgetting that the US supported Saddam throughout the eighties and stood by and watched as he hassed the Kurds and committed his greatest atrocities. Without US aid, Saddam might never have needed to be contained in the first place.

[Zuni]

53. Excellent Post

This I agree with. This is well thought out and a very strong answer
I would say that the US was only one of several major players who aided Saddam in the 1980s, however. The USSR, China, France and Germany all were even more complicit and generous with the Hussein Regime.

[Darranar]

60. The US isn't the only guilty one in this matter, that is true.

[Zuni]

67. Actually, all 5 permanent members of the UN security council

were aiding Saddam extensivly in the 1980s.
What the weirdest part is, when we were trying to bankrupt the Soviet Union, Reagan was lending money to Iraq to purchase weapons from the USSR. That is clearly a failed little bit of foreign policy there.

[bowens43]

23. A danger to who?

Deterrence works. He would not have been a risk to the US in any case and after the ass kicking Iraq received during the first gulf war you could be pretty sure he wouldn't be attacking his neighbors again either.

It's not possible to lump then and now into the same category. The US supported both Iraq and Iran in the Iraq/Iran war. Big mistake. Everyone knows saddam was a bad guy,but that is irrelevant. The only important question is 'Does the US or any other nation have the right to launch an attack on nation that presented no threat?'.

No , the war was not justified. Period.

[welshTerrier2]

24. We are LESS SAFE now ...

where to begin ??

how about with this statement you made:

An unrestricted, uncontained Saddam without weapons inspections would be more of a danger than i would be willing to risk.

i believe the U.S., the Middle East and the rest of the world is LESS SAFE, not more safe, now that Saddam has been ousted. I believe this for several key reasons:

1. with all acknowledgements that Saddam was evil, he did provide a stable Iraq ... we don't, and won't, be seeing a stable Iraq anytime soon ... the U.S. invasion has created a breeding ground for global terrorism ... it may not be prominent today, but it will be once the U.S. tucks its tail between its legs so that bush can claim "victory" in Iraq ...

2. the U.S., by ignoring the standard of "imminent threat" and acting unilaterally, or perhaps bilaterally if you must, has driven a deep wedge between itself and the rest of the global community ... no longer can we preach to the world that "we're the good guys" ... all must now fear the beating of our war drums and our economic clout ... without strong alliances and the moral suasion to "guide" the community of nations, our values now will carry little influence around the world ...

3. and finally, what have we done to the sanctity of the U.N. ... some may argue that it is a weak organization ... but it's all we have ... the U.N. provides a forum on which we can build ... or at least it did before bush stuck an American dagger in its back ...

So, we are not safer with Saddam gone ... sadly, the opposite is true ... i have much greater concerns about global instability and the dangers of small scale terrorist attacks than I ever did about Saddam dropping the big one on Washington ... remember, he did not attack us; we attacked him ...

[Zuni]

54. Actually I agree we are less safe

Bush witrh his incompetent handling of the whole issue has destroyed many important aspects of recognized arms control and collective security that were used many times during the Cold war.
He has underminded a system of international cooperation that worked.

[FloridaPat]

28. Let's go on full-fantasy. Let's go back to when we gave him

the weapons, gave him the money to buy the weapons, gave him the intellegence to use the chemicals. Let's say when he asked permission to invade Kuwait, we said no. If the US would promote peace and prosperity instead of Me-first attitude, the world would be a lot wiser and a lot of dictators wouldn't be in power. We did this. The greed of US and Great Britian have made a mess of the Middle East. We want our gasoline and will not look at alternative energies. What would have happened had we put in defense budge into alternative energy sources instead of Star Wars? A trillion dollars - I bet we wouldn't need the middle East. Why are we there? Why are we messing everything up?

Yeh, let's go back all the way.

[Zuni]

56. Well Florida Pat

The amount of weapons we gave him was nil. The USSR, China, France and Germany were his biggest suppliers.
We did give him 6 Billion during the 80s, but that was dwarfed by the huge amount of petrodollars flooding in from the Arab oil producers like kuwait and SA.
I do not believe that the Bush I admin ever conspired to give Saddam the green light. The whole story, with April Glaspie saying we did not want to involve ourself in an oil dispute does not constitute a 'green light' from the Bush administration.

[Rex]

37. My opinion is that we should not be in the business of Nation

Building or Nation Recontruction. As far as Saddam and Iraq goes - I never even heard of the guy until Poppy Bush gave him the nod to invade Kuwait. I simply do not believe that Saddam was a threat to the United States. He loved us (and we him) up until we had reason to want bases in that region.

[sushi]

97. And a huge embassy

Who needs an embassy of 3000 people? One guess what many of these people will be doing!

[Rex]

106. 2999 CIA agents and 1 janitor

I bet we build permanent bases in Iraq. It will become our ToC for all Middle East activity for decades to come.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. It's interesting that the other Arab countries

his neighbors, were completely uninterested in taking him out.

Israel was, but had already showed its ability to defend itself.

There is no way this war cannot look like the West against Arabs and Islam, especially if the Busheviks encourage fundamentalist missionaries to go into Iraq. Anti-Americanism is growing in the Middle East. Attacks on American troops (unlike what happened in post WWII Germany and Japan) are continuing.

Thanks a lot , George.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

41. What "threat"?

Almost every nation in the world poses some sort of threat to it's neighbors and the USA in one form or another. Iraq was a dictatorship staggering towards collapse. It's military was a wreck and it was becoming more poverty stricken daily.

That it was ruled by an egomaniacal, brutal, and incredibly inept dictator is not in question. That Iraq, and the world, is not better off with him out of power is also not in question.

What is in question, is why we invaded Iraq? Did he pose an immediate threat to the USA at the time of the invasion? There is NO evidence that he was. Was he a threat to the nations of the ME at the time of the invasion? Again, there is NO evidence that he was.

So why did we invade? I believe that it was basically in response to 9/11. Not that Saddam had anything to do with it. It was a purely "wag the dog" operation that made an inept and corrupt president look "decisive" in response to the American people's fear and anger. A cynical use of power and waste of lives that was for no other purpose than to make Bush a viable candidate in '04.

The invasion and subjugation of Iraq has accomplished nothing, zero, nada, in the much ballyhooed "war on terror". In fact, it has made the world less safe, and America even more of a target of even more enemies than existed before the invasion.

It's a suckers game that's worked on a goodly portion of the American public.

[durutti]

42. Oh, my...

Here we go:

what would you do? An unrestricted, uncontained Saddam without weapons inspections would be more of a danger than i would be willing to risk.

You make the assertion that an "uncontained" Hussein would be a "danger" (presumably to the people of the United States), then fail to provide any evidence to back it up.

Biological and chemical weapons are not so much of a concern -- from the standpoint of military strategy, they're not very effective. The same goes for long-range missiles. Practically any country that Hussein might have considered attacking with said missiles could respond in kind.

History shows that Hussein is essentially a rational actor. He's evil, not stupid. He would not attack another country without a reasonable assurance of victory.

Thus, even if Saddam Hussein had somehow acquired nuclear weapons, it's not likely that he'd ever have used them. If he hd, he'd have to worry about India, Israel, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. And if he'd threated Saudi Arabia, he'd probably have to worry about China, Russia, and France, too.

The very thought of Saddam, the most virulent jew hater in the ME having WMD might cause israel to start a preventive war, which would turn into a regional war.

Actually, Iraqi Jews were entitled to more protections in Iraq than they were in, say, Saudi Arabia.

And it's absurd to suggest that Iraq having WMD would "cause" Israel to start a "preventive war".

Israel has biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. It has the fourth most powerful military in the world, as well as the backing of the world's lone superpower. The Arab states are no match for Israel.

To paraphrase Eisenhower, there's no such thing as a preventive war. Israel has used the cover of prevention and preemption to start wars of aggression in 1967 and again in 1982.

The fact is that Israel's WMD is the main reason Israel's neighbors retain their own WMD. The Arab states have repeatedly proposed ridding the entire Middle East of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. The Arab states will maintain their arsenals so long as Israel does. And frankly, I don't blame them.

And for those who blame the US/UK for the damage done by sanctions how can you explain several things.--- One, a member of voices in the Wilderness--*Kathy Kelly's group---did reasearch in iraq and determined that not only were the death tolls not nearly as bad as he was led to believe and that Saddam's government itself had to be blamed for much of the damage (which served valuable propaganda purposes) because of corruption and graft.

Source? I've not heard of such a thing. In any case, it doesn't much matter -- leftists turn right and rightists left all the time, due to any number of motivations. From everything I've read, I'd imagine this "research" wouldn't withstand much scrutiny, but I'd like to see it anyway.

In any case, no opponent of sanctions blamed the U.S./U.K. entirely. Both Hussein's corruption and U.S./U.K. policy contributed to the devastation of sanctions -- however, I believe the latter has a bit more to do with it than the former. But even if that wasn't the case, sanctions were still wrong. Undertaking an action against a government with the knowledge that that action will result in great suffering is morally equivalent to taking that action yourself. Hostage negotiators are responsible for the well-being of hostages.

Another is the Kurds---they had oil for food too but it was run by the UN under the northern no fly Zone. There the death rate and quality of life was far higher than anywhere else in Iraq. namely because the iraqi government did not have any control over food, and medicine distribution.

Another frequently recycled myth. As UNICEF representative Anupama Singh explained in 1999, "the UN's direct role in the north did not account for the widely different results in infant mortality, especially since the oil-for-food deal went into effect only in 1997." Rather, in the North, there was a heavy presence of humanitarian agencies. Also, sanctions were more difficult to enforce in the North, and received much more per capita from the oil-for-food program. Furthermore, nutritional improvements in the North began in 1994 -- three years before the oil-for-food program.

Finally, how would you have handled Saddam and iraq since 1980 if you had been in charge of foreign policy since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war until now?

I would've maintained neutrality throughout the Iran-Iraq war. I would've supported resistance movements within Iraq. I would have made aid to Israel contingent upon Israel's compliance with international law. I would've pursued the establishment of a WMD-fre zone throughout the Middle East.

[MrPrax]

55. How to handle Allende in 71?

You're asking the same question?

Should nations' interfere in the affairs of other nations?

Since it really is the US doing it...one wonders about the whole reason for asking this quandry?

Should the US have simply ignored Burson-Marsteler and the 'baby incubators' and annointed the NEW rulers of Kuwait's banks?

Should the US have 'backed' Saddam and made a virtual 'stalinist' super state and expanded the new MODERN Iraq onto the ME?

HOw come oil costs so much?

[dudeness]

62. saddam was never a threat to the US

to suggest otherwise is laughable..or for that matter Israel...the difference in military hardware between Iraq and the two countries previously mentioned is staggeringly lopsided..12 years of sanctions and GW 1 saw to that ..this was purely about energy resources and a continum of imperialist expansionary policies..

[Aidoneus]

63. Let me reverse the question to you..

As your question as it stands exists within a much greater context than it is presented in.

What do you think should be done about the frequent American aggressions--the murderous invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the propaganda campaign that went along with it, being only the most recent--and the international economic-political regime at the head? It has presided over the killings of millions across decades, regularly launching aggressions that kill thousands in every decade, exploiting the millions left alive, and supporting the worst leaders of the world in similar activities... What do you think should be done about this relentless menace?

[G_j]

64. oh come now

It's disrespectful to point out that the Emperor has no clothes.
We are too morally superior to have to be subject to the same moral standards we claim to
expect from (some) others.
<sarcasm off>

[Zuni]

68. and a reverse for you

How would the world look if the US did not support struggles against totalitarian communism across the globe? Whatever the faults of the current situations, Communism has never produced a free, democratic society or done anything than marginally improve living standards in short term (like Castro), while hindering long term progress (Cuba is the 2nd poorest country and only true dictatorship in the western hemisphere or Russia, which has awful standards of living for such a powerful, potentially rich country). In most cases Communism has produced terrible living standards and worse living conditions than non communist neighbors. Look at North and South Korea for example. Look at the differences between Malaysia and Vietnam. Look at East and west Germany. Look at the former Soviet Union and the immense devestation brought to many areas, particularly central asia (the death rate their from environmental catastrophe, toxic waste dumping and other things is stomach churning)

[Isome]

70. The spread of communism was a hyped threat from day one.

We weren't in danger from communist countries. The world may have looked much more peaceful were Americans not so susceptible to fear mongering.

[jackcgt]

77. Oh you are so right.

Russia was never a threat to us. The fact that Cuba allowed basing of missiles in its territory was never a threat to us. The fact that North Korea currently has long range missiles capable of hitting California AND nuclear capabilities is of no concern to us. China, for those same reasons, was never a threat to us.

Were we ever in danger of Communist mind control? No, but it's a fact that Russian spies had infiltrated all sorts of US domestic institutions and certainly constituted a military threat to us.

[Zuni]

86. MAD

decreased the threat. It is unclear wether the nukes were a direct danger because of MAD and the fact that any pyscho knows the potential consequences of nuclear war.
But the spread of communism across the globe would have isolated us and surrounded us with a cordon of hostile states, making it easier for us to be isolated, threatened and hardeer for us to defend ourselves. On top of that, with each new communist country, non-communist nations were being strangled diplomatically, economically and ideologically. The bigger the imbalance got the greater the risk of war.
And on top of that, as a son of refugees from the USSR, I believe it was morally unacceptable to not stop the spread of totalitarianism. Communism, in many places, was one of the most destructive forces to liberties and cultures and humanity ever seen. Look at Mao's China, for one.

[Zuni]

85. I strongly disagree

I think you are susceptible to monday morning quaterbacking by left wing know it alls.

[Isome]

110. I know that you're wrong.

Added:

It's possible that the concept of democracy is foreign first generation Americans who harken back to the fears of communism their parents had. It's reasonable to conclude that one's fear of totalitarianism skews the concept of democracy into one where meddling (via militarism) in another nation's affairs is acceptable, preferrable to international partnerships even, because of that fear.

[Isome]

71. War is a racket... and it was waged in the name of fighting communism.

The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention —

Using privileged access to the US president and his advisors, executives at United Fruit easily convinced Eisenhower of the imminent communist threat in Guatemala. A fervent anti-communist, John Foster Dulles launched a shortsighted and exaggerated campaign to rid Guatemala of the communist scourge. Extending McCarthyism to foreign policy, American sentiment towards socialism and communism maligned any social democratic or nationalist attempts for Third World reform and the Eisenhower administration reflected the popular opinion by opposing regimes and movements in Guatemala, Iran, Indochina, and others.

[G_j]

73. your assertion is highly questionable

the "war" against communism resulted in a world awash with deadly weapons, cost millions of lives, propped up countless brutal dictators and created Osama Bin Laden (for example).

The motives on all sides were most often cloaked behind lies.
To think the US held the high ground does not jive with history.

[MadHound]

75. The trouble is that the US only supported struggles against communism

When there was some material benefit to the US to be gained. And often when we usurped communist governments, we installed totalitarian dictatorships in their place:shrug: For being such proponents of democracy we have embraced totalitarianism with great abandon.

But let us look where we've inserted ourselves vis a vis communism. Vietnam(Oil possiblities in the Gulf of Tonkin, lots of opium), South and Central America(lots of American produce interests, cocaine), Middle East(Oil), And the list goes on. Meanwhile let us look where we have not inserted ourselves, mainly Africa. No resources to speak of except in fairly stable South Africa. An entire continent of dark skinned people. Can't be helping them out now can we. Meanwhile in action over the weekend a million people are killed in Rwanda, yet the US just yawns.

The US government's track record on where it chooses to intefere is obvious, we intefere when there is some resource we wish, when there is money to be made. Then we will go all out, overthrowing democratically elected leaders so as to install dictators who are US friendly. But if there is no money to be made, you won't see us. Especially in a country full of dark skinned people, that seems to be an anathema to the US(unless there is something we want).

And I grant you that communist countries for the most part don't treat their people well. But what about the human rights violations committed by the US backed dictatorships? Perhaps you should talk with some people in Chile, or Cambodia to get their take on that.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

79. Note that after the Korean War

the USSR and China never invaded any place that wasn't already Communist. In other words, they invaded countries only to reestablish control, not to spread control.

Hungary in 1956? Part of their bloc already. By the way, Radio Free Europe and other Western media urged Eastern Europeans to revolt, but when the Hungarians did, the Western powers suddenly had better things to do than help them.

Czechoslovakia in 1968? Also part of their bloc.

Afghanistan in 1979? Already under a government of local Communists who asked the Soviets for help in defeating Islamic militants.

Now let's look at the U.S. record since the Korean War:

Iran: overthrow the Mossadegh government and reinstalled the Shah, because Mossadegh wouldn't roll over for the oil companies.

Guatemala: overthrew the Arbenz government because it wouldn't roll over for the United Fruit Company

Vietnam: nixed free elections in 1956 because Ho Chi Minh would have won

You already know about the Vietnam War.

Chile: overthrew the legally elected president of the country in 1973

Nicaragua: financed forces trying to overthrow the internationally recognized (and legally elected after 1982) Sandinista government and interfered in their electoral processo-

Israel: kept financing the Begin government after it instituted the stupid, stupid, stupid policy of settling Israelis among hostile Palestinians in one of the most crowded pieces of real estate on earth. (I'm basically pro-Israel, which is why I predicted that the policy would be disastrous, and I've been right.)

El Salvador and Guatemala: trained and supported incredibly brutal rightwing governments that were just as bad domestically as Saddam Hussein, although not as high tech.

Supported Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran

Invaded Panama to oust a former CIA asset named Noriega. Killed 2000 innocent people in the process.

After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, actively supported the Taliban. Yes, the Taliban, because they were the best organized rebel group. Although human rights organizations complained, both the Clinton (yes!) and Bush Jr. administrations did nothing until the fall of 2001 when getting rid of the Taliban suddenly became an urgent task.

The Bush administration is currently trying desperately to overthrow the legally elected president of Venezuela.

So you see, I don't see the Cold War as a fight between angels and devils. We have our share of sins to atone for.

[Zuni]

88. First of all

everywhere in the world there are economic benefits. You can use that as an excuse for everything, ignoring diplomatic, military, personal convictions, security concerns, treaty issues and every other reason for intervening in a given consideration. Africa has enormous resources, but that is Euro-imperialists territory. In Rwanda the French were supplying arms to the Hutu power regime throughout the genocide, btw (check out 'we wish to inform you that we will be killed along with our families...etc'. by Phillip Gourevitch, an excellent book on Rwanda's genocide).
As for democratically elected leaders, there have been a few, like Salvador Allende. The CIA did conspire with opponents of Allende's regime (and notice I say regime---his regime was founded on the tiniest majority and was out of control. You will not read about Allende's abuses of power in Chomsky, but they are very real) But Pinochet was no better, in fact worse in many ways (in terms of detentions without trials for one), although under his watch Chile became the richest Latin American country. This is marked contrast to Castro, a communist supported leader, who has worse human rights abuses than Pinochet and has turned Cuba from one of the richest Latin American countries into the 2nd poorest.
And Cambodia---William Shawcross has stated in his book Sideshow that the proof that the US was involved in Prince Sihanouk's overthrow in 1970 is lacking severely. There is no doubt that Nixon was quick to embrace Lon Nol and in fact, invade Cambodia, but the proof for Sihanouk's overthrow being a CIA project does not really exist. As Sideshow points out, it was these actions that caused the North Vietnamese to spread the war into Cambodia and begin training and supporting the small radical Cambodian Communist faction known as the Khymer Rouge, an action which led to Cambodia's darkest hours in 1975-1979.

[dudeness]

95. my head is spinning..

your view of history is somewhat...different...

[Isome]

108. Economic benefits -- You can use that as an excuse for everything.

We have, and we continue to do so. Normally, we use the euphemism: protecting U.S. interests. With Iraq, we've become more emotional: liberating Iraqis.

Allende was democratically elected. We conspired to overthrow him. We installed, accepted, and propped up Pinochet. You claim Allende was no angel, but Pinochet was worse. Had we not meddled in another country's right to self-rule, we wouldn't be discussing this.

It's further proof that we've long been practicing might without morality. We need to stop apologizing for our failure to know what our government is doing, and for the atrocities they participate in, or that happen as a direct result of our interference.

[stickdog]

74. Saddam had NOTHING and we knew it all along.

What was there to do?

Protect Israel? Israel has the fourth largest military in the world. They can more that protect themselves against the likes of Saddam.

Furthermore, the Mossad knows a lot more about Iraq than the US intel. If Saddam ever actually developed a deliverable means for actual WMDs, Israel would have bombed the production site so fast your head would spin.

[Zuni]

90. I am not so sure he had nothing in 2002

but I am convinced he disposed of them when bush started making it very clear that he intended to invade Iraq if he was given the opportunity.

[dudeness]

98. funny.. I didnt see the name zuni

on the UN weapons inpections teams..but Hans Blix..Hans Von Sponeak (sp) and scott ritter..believed that saddam was disarmed well before 2002..and his military capability was almost zero..after the turkey shoot that was GW 1...zuni..it was an imperialist land grab (oh and oil)..you know it..the whole fucken world knows it ..so lets stop the pretence..

[Zuni]

103. Have you ever read 'Endgame'

by Scott Ritter? In it he claims the inspections were not finished when the inspection process was destroyed. He said there was a very real danger of saddam importing weapons technology without inspectors in. Read Endgame and Scott Ritter's interviews circa 1998-1999. He sounds entirely different than he did in 2002.

[Isome]

109. Scott Ritter said:

He purposely overstated the threat as a part of a psyops operation with British Intelligence. Check democracynow.org.

[dudeness]

116. scott ritter..the independent UK...04/01/04..

quote..

The misrepresentation and distortion of fact carried out by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair is no joke, but rather represent an assault on the very fabric of the concept of a free and democratic society which they espouse to serve. The people of the United States are still waiting for a heavily divided Congress to break free of partisan politics and launch a genuine investigation. This should certainly look at the massive intelligence failure surrounding the gross distortion of the Iraqi WMD threat put forward by the US intelligence community. But perhaps more importantly, the investigation should focus on the actions of the White House in shaping the intelligence estimates so that they dovetailed nicely with the political goals and objectives of the Bush administration's Iraq policy-makers.

end quote..http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=477860

[stickdog]

114. Use your head on this.

If Saddam ever actually developed a deliverable means for actual WMDs, Israel would have bombed the production site so fast your head would spin.

[RainDog]

80. in fact

the idea of Saddam as a big bad threat right now was bogus, as the inspectors were right and he had realized he had to disarm.

so inspections worked, didn't they?

as far as allowing this cruel dictator to continue...well, right now we have made a new pact with a new devil...the leader of Uzbekistan.

that man has boiled in his political opponents to death, yet his country now provides a base for our troops, so it's okay.

This was the same rational that had us arming Saddam.

Bush lied when he said that in the PAST foreign policy had made deals with dictators, but no more...

as he was saying those lies, we were in Uzbekistan.

No one has a time machine, but it appears from what has been learned since the fall of the Soviet Union that the CIA had overestimated their military and economic ability.

Bush Sr. used Team B (same as Jr's Team B) to argue that there was EVEN MORE of a threat...just like the lies that took us into Iraq.

So maybe you could say that we as a nation should have spent our time and money building an infrastructure here, investing in our nation and our people.

We could have used our foreign policy strength to help negotiate a real peace between Israel and Palestine, and show that we are willing to recognize the validity of Islamic nations as well as Jewish ones.

But American foreign policy vis a vis Israel has been distorted by fundamentalist Christians and their apocalyptic vision for the state of Israel.

..personally, if I were Jewish, I would say with friends like those...

I think peace is possible in the middle east. Peace has been possible across the world in various places deemed intractable.

A world demand, as with apartheid, to end the fighting and begin a healing is possible.

As far as the middle east goes, as with Tito in Yugoslavia, seems Saddam held Iraq together, for good or bad. it is worth noting, however, that Saddam had a secular leadership and high rates of literacy for females...and females were able to work and contribute to society.

Now in Iraq, females are pressured to wear a head covering for their own safety. The mullahs are fighting among themselves, the Kurds are fighting for power, the Sunnis are faced with a possibility of a three state system in which they will have NO oil in their region to provide money...

we say we want democracy, yet we promote Chalabi, who had no internal support, who is seen as a western puppet, ala the Shah, and who is a yes man for Perle, etc.

What makes you think the Iraqi people will want a Bush dictator rather than Saddam?

[screembloodymurder]

89. I would have done absolutely nothing.

The UN was doing fine. We would be 87 billion (and counting) richer. We would not have lost a life and we'd still be respected throughout the world.

[FDRrocks]

94. And, by virtue of not killing more innocent civilians...

I, personally, feel we would've been safer from terrorism, overall.

[veracity]

96. I can't believe this...

So, Bush went in to counter the hatred of Jews? Oh yes... now the world loves Jews. Geez! The attempts to justify and rationalize an illegal attack on a non threatening nation amaze me. If Saddam was the worst horror since Godzilla, we could have takeen him out with a SO action....or just kept the inspectors there forever. Consider the math:
The cost of the inspections were about 1 billion dollars a year....(that's what Kay asked for). Okay...take the 87 billion we allotted to the reconstruction of the bombing we did...and you have 87 years of INSPECTIONS...and no civilians killed...and no soldiers dead, and no terrorists coming in, and no insurgency, and no civil war. C'mon. Stop. Stop. Just stop.

[Zuni]

105. I just wanted input

on what you would have done. I was giving possible scenarios that a real foreign policy expert must think about.
I am not writing this to change opinions, just to make you think about what you would have done had you been Pres.
It is easy to monday morning quarterback from your computer, but a real critic has to put himself in the President's shoes.

[Powerlock]

99. Saddam??????

"Saddam, the most virulent jew hater in the ME"

I can think of a dozen prominent people in middle east right now that would MUCH more deserve that title.

If Israel thinks Saddam is the worst, they should take a look at some well known figures in Iran, both government and otherwise.

[SanchoPanza]

100. Several answers, dealing with administration propaganda over the past year

On Saddam As A Threat, Conventionally
A cursory examination of current ME politics up to April 2003 would find that no nation in the region, aside from Israel, were concerned about a belligerent Iraqi military. Much of Iraq's conventional arms were obliterated during the first Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions starved their military to the point where even Kuwait was spending more on their own military than was Iraq. Regardless of the impact the sanctions had on Iraqi civil society, their deleterious effect on their military has been well established. While it is true that virtually every ME nation hated Hussein, and for various reasons, none honestly considered him a threat.

Israel, however, did openly say he was a threat, though that had more to do with justifying the continued existence of the West Bank settlements as a buffer against attacks from the East. This argument falls flat on its face, however, as any attack from Iraq would have to pass through Jordan, which wasn't exactly on friendly terms with the Hussein regime particularly after its invasion of Kuwait. This falls into the same category of Cuba/U.S. relations pre-CMC. Most of South America found the notion of Cuba as a threat to the U.S. absurd (keep in mind that this line of thinking was being pushed by Eisenhower Administration and Kennedy Administrations before the Missile Crisis and even before Castro went communist - actually it goes all the way back to the Spanish-American War). The quote from the Mexican ambassador to Kennedy in, I believe, early 1961, was "If I tell Mexico that Cuba is a threat to the United States, 40 million Mexicans will die laughing." In other words, its a bogus excuse to maintain or reimplement the current/previous system of domination.

On Saddam As A Threat, WMD
Much of the chemical weapons, including the mustard gas used on the Iraqi Kurds, were supplied by the Reagan administration in order to fend off a conventional attack from Iran. The Iranian army far outnumbered the Iraqi army, and the use of unconventional weapons was Hussein's only recourse in the event of an eastern invasion. This was the only known and provable case of Hussein possessing his own WMD. And the Reagan/Bush Administrations weren't exactly up in arms about about the Kurd massacres.

Iraq's biological weapons program was known to be in shambles after the first Gulf War and subsequent bombings/sanctions, and there was no concrete evidence that they had produced an operational weapon before or since. And the notion that Iraq had a functioning nuclear weapons program, especially one that could produce a working weapon in the timeframe promulgated by Vice President Cheney and Prime Minister Blair, was and remains downright laughable. Iraq barely had the resources to sustain their conventional forces, so the premise that it could field its own extremely expensive unconventional weapons' programs is absurd. And I assume we are all familiar with the Niger lie by now.

On Saddam As a Brutal Tyrant That Had To Be Taken Down
That members of the Bush II Administration who knew about Hussein's tactics of suppression are able to pass themself off in any reasonably intelligent circle is perhaps the greatest feat of modern propaganda, and the most dispicable use of the argument of convenience, of which I am aware. Rumsfeld carried Hussien's water all throughout the Reagan Administration, and Cheney had extensive ties to Hussein through his public "service" and his private business practices. Both made their careers with pro-Hussein agendas.

The only one who could credibly claim to have hated Hussein since day one is Wolfowitz, but the image of Paul Wolfowitz as a zealous acolyte of human rights, democracy, and freedom is utter nonsense and the height of hubris. As Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs under Reagan, Wolfowitz offered glowing support for such lovers of human rights and freedom as General Suharto of Indonesia, who massacred millions of his own countrymen as well as those in East Timor in his 30+ year reign.

Wolfowitz and his then-superior Richard Holbrooke tried with great success to keep the situation that had developed in East Timor out of the 2000 election, as the massacres that occured in 1998, which resulted in East Timor independence in 2000, was an extremely big blemishe on the Neo-Conservative agenda. And his harsh words for the Turkish government, who took the unspeakable and utterly democratic stance of siding with 95% of their population on the issue of Iraq War Redux, certainly sheds light on Wolfowitz's own "democratic credentials". Last time I checked, "democratic credentials" didn't include veiled support for a potential military coup.

As for my own dealing of Saddam on the basis of his human rights records, it is worth noting that the majority of dictators that had fallen in the last century were not overthrown by external forces. Suharto, Rios Montt, Pinochet, Ceausescu, Baptista, Duvalier, Marcos, and others were all removed from power by popular movements formed among the citizens they brutalized. In many cases this occured in direct contravention to U.S. Government goals and covert or outright support of the above-mentioned dictators. So even if external influence was required to overthrow Saddam, and in examining the precendents in such cases we can see it isn't, a more worthwhile option would be to lend support to native anti-Hussein groups within Iraq. Such support was promised by Bush I but was never deleivered upon, resulting in the mass slaughter of anti-Baathist insurgents that popped up after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait.

To sum up, going back 24 years isn't enough, essentially. Much of the current quagmire in the Middle East, in Iraq and beyond, began as far back as World War I, at least in terms of modern geo-politics. The creation of British-style monarchies after the first World War led to the dominance of totalitarian states in the Middle East, not cultural tribalism or Islam. In fact, the Islamic Reformation that had become widespread in the 19th century had very democratic leanings. It might have been interesting to see if the U.S. could have influenced the Arab Republicanism of the 50s and 60s away from the vehement anti-Israel portion of its agenda, but that probably would have been a lost cause even if the U.S. didn't support the ME monarchists that were AR's principal adversary.

[LeahMira]

101. A good question...

Finally, how would you have handled Saddam and iraq since 1980 if you had been in charge of foreign policy since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war until now?

Frankly, I was never much concerned about Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction insofar as they might pose some threat to the U.S. My concern was focused on the human rights abuses that were being reported.

As the largest manufacturer and owner of weapons of mass destruction in the world, the U.S. is in no position to urge any other nation to disarm.

But my eyes were opened by a report from Amnesty International charging that in 2002, the Bush Administration approved the sale of $20,000,000. worth of equipment "implicated in torture (steel shackles and electro-shock weapons) to Yemen, Jordan, Morocco and Thailand, despite the countries' documented use of such weapons to punish, mistreat and inflict torture on prisoners."

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/usa/document.do?id=F7CE0B13E65E100085256DF00050B882

In light of this report, the U.S. is in no position to insist that any dictator refrain from human rights abuses.

Of course, if I were in charge of foreign policy, that wouldn't happen in the first place. But since it has happened, the U.S. must permit the United Nations to act on these reported abuses as it sees fit. Our nation has relinquished any right it had to take a principled stand on Saddam's treatment of his own people.

What a shame.

[davhill]

102. The same way we handled Sadat in Egypt

Flood him with dollars and call him a democrat.

[Zuni]

104. LOL

That was a good one.

[blm]

107. Great question and there is really huge factor that never gets aired...

The US has known since 96 that Bin Laden also had plans to assassinate and overthrow Saddam. That would have put Al Qaeda and the Taliban in charge of Iraq, when many people believed there was still many bio and chemical weapons unaccounted for.

That would have given Bin Laden a REAL base of power and access to billions of dollars in oil revenue.

[hellhathnofury]

111. I'm going to start in the immediate aftermath of ground operations in Iraq

I think we would have had justification to topple Saddam under UN auspices when he commenced suppression in the Shia south and the Kurd north. There were blatant human rights violations. At this time we would have had all the ground forces we needed in place to overthrow Saddam and establish a parliamentary system in Iraq. We would have had a UN war tribunal. As much as I would have liked to see Bush I in jail for giving Saddam weapons I wouldn't have demanded it because it would not have been in the best interests of the US and the Iraqi people.

If we're going to go to war against a despot we better finish the job the first time around. What I have trouble understanding is how we would have justified leaving in a place a leader who'd launched 2 major war's of agressions against his neighbors.

Now since this didn't happen, obviously. I'll fastforward until after the 1998 bombing campaign.

I think containment was the appropriate concept. The problem with the sanctions were that they were poorly run and did not put any pressure on Saddam while punishing the average Iraqi(the extent is debateable). Saddam was doing 1-2 billion dollars in illegal oil smuggling. There were hardly any reprecussions for buying Iraqi oil. I've heard that there was also summgling into Turkey and Jordan. This needed to be stopped. If we had cut his funding off we could have probably forced some major changes in Iraq such as intrusive inspections, demilitarization, the possible turnover of major war criminals and quite possibly governmental reforms.

I'm thoroughly opposed to this venture on the grounds that it was poorly executed, risky, foolish and unnecessery.

I do believe that when the US has a compelling interest in the affairs of other nations we are justified in acting (appropriately).

[Isome]

112. Just how many regimes will we install and topple in Iraq?

"The United States already sponsored two previous regime changes in Iraq. Under their League of Nations mandate, the British installed King Faisal as the ruler of Iraq. But even after its independence, Iraq was still controlled by Britain. Faisal’s dynasty lasted until his grandson Faisal II was executed in a 1958 coup. The Hitler in Iraq in the early 1960s was Abd al-Karim Qasim. After deposing the Western-allied Iraqi monarchy in 1958, Qasim was seen by the U.S. as a counter to Gamal Abdel Nassar of Egypt. But after he was perceived as too much of a threat to Western oil interests, Qasim was killed in February 1963 in a CIA-sponsored coup by the anti-Communist Baath party. American firms soon began doing business with Baghdad. All was not well, however, in the Baath party, for in 1968 an internal coup brought to power General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, who was succeeded by Saddam Hussein in 1979. These regime changes in Iraq were both accompanied by bloody reprisals."

When will we realize that we cannot continue to install leaders in other countries and expect them to remain subservient to us, then stage a military incursion or support a coup to topple them when they don't? Even children learn, through repetition, to STOP doing something that hurts them. We're adults (the voters and public officials), what's taking us so long to get the message?

[hellhathnofury]

115. None, I happen to have faith in democracy.

Let the Iraqi's vote and I'll live with the outcome whatever it may be.

[Terwilliger]

118. uhhh...we already did

you can dismiss history, but we're in this situation because of US foreign policy

[Hippo_Tron]

113. I supported taking action against Saadam...

But that doesn't mean full scale war (which I supported at the time and since have discovered how wrong it really was). Any dictator like Saadam is dangerous WMDs or no WMDs. One thing's for sure, there were no nukes within minutes of being launched on the US and so far there have been no WMDs discovered. Had I been President I would've kept the weapons inspectors in Iraq. However, I wouldn't have followed made up intelligence that Saadam had nuclear weapons programs or that he had. Also, as far as the war on terror goes I would've focused on diplomacy with other nations in the area such as Iran in hopes that they would allow US troops in for the sole purpose of fighting Al-Quaeda terrorists.

[Somynona]

117. O’Keefe to Burn US Passport in Baghdad

http://www.humanshields.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=98

Ex-U.S. Marine, Gulf War Veteran & Truth Justice Peace (TJP) Human Shield Iraq Founder to Burn U.S. Passport in Baghdad.

When – 10am, January 7, 2003
Where – Baghdad’s infamous Saddam statue toppling site
Contact – [e-mail] (checked throughout the day)

Ken O’Keefe to read the following statement;
“First of all I want smile and express my deepest love for my entire human family and our infinitely beautiful and irreplaceable home; planet Earth. What I do I do for truth not lies; for justice not tyranny, for peace not war, for love not hate.

“And now I shall let my personal venom flow and commit the following act of defiance in condemnation of the illegal invasion and ongoing occupation and mass murder of the Iraqi people by my birth nation of the United States. The burning of my passport is an exercise in the inherent human right of self determination in accordance with international law after having my U.S. passport returned to me twice by the U.S. Department of State. My personal act affirms once and for all the lawful and undeniable completion of my renunciation of U.S. citizenship that began on March 1, 2001. I AM NOT A UNITED STATES CITIZEN! I am a lawfully registered World citizen in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) with ultimate allegiance to my entire human family and to planet Earth.

“My act of defiance additionally affirms my solidarity with all colonised and oppressed peoples and specifically the Iraqi people; Iraqi people who collectively reject America’s occupation and the blatantly unrepresentative puppet government America intends to force on them. Iraqi people who, like America’s Founding Fathers, exercise their inherent and lawful right to resist occupation and tyranny; only in this case it is a united America and Britain that are the Imperial tyrants. Iraqi people who also peacefully demand their lawful right to true self determination which requires the end of U.S. presence and influence in Iraq’s internal affairs.

“Let the entire world and especially American citizens acknowledge the following two hard facts;
1. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq aside from those brought by the United States; which shamefully includes cluster bombs that litter this country now; this is a patent crime against humanity in itself
2. There is no threat now in Saddam Hussein for the American people

“Therefore America must pull out of Iraq without delay. To not do so proves America to be the single greatest threat to the safety and security of our world and indeed the world’s number one terrorist.

“I state loud and clear, I am not anti-American, I am a true American and I call on all genuine American patriots to reject the orders of the Vietnam War deserter and Constitutional traitor George W. Bush and to remove this traitor from his undemocratic de facto post; impeach him at the least for his criminal negligence on September 11, 2001. As a former United States Marine and Gulf War veteran I call on my American brothers and sisters to put down their weapons and refuse service in Iraq. And lastly I state my love of the American people whether friend or foe and I call on them to support their troops for real; BRING AMERICA’S SONS AND DAUGHTERS HOME NOW!

“Power to the People!”

Ken Nichols O’Keefe – World citizen #321831 (www.worldservice.org)
(end of statement followed by passport burning and media questions)

Background - In what is a monumental irony Ken Nichols O’Keefe, the initiator or the Human Shield Action to Iraq that attracted the attention of world leaders and more importantly people around the globe, was forced under duress, to request a U.S. passport at the American Consulate in Rome on February 12, 2003. This request became necessary after the Turkish Government unlawfully deported of Mr. O’Keefe and thus prevented his peaceful transport through Turkey, on his way to Iraq to act as a Human Shield. Had Mr. O’Keefe not made his reluctant request he could have been denied the inherent right to travel to Iraq (UDHR – Article 13 sec. 2) stand with the Iraqi people in defiance of America’s subsequent invasion.

Mr. O’Keefe respectfully invites all Iraqi people to join him in his non-violent act of defiance and solidarity.