What IWR would have done if Gore was president.

[Ravy]

After the weapons inspectors had finished, the UN would have said "Welcome to the world community, XXXXXX (whoever the leader was after Saddam had found asylum). The sanctions are now lifted. Good luck, and watch your step in the future."

Without the IWR, we could still be lamenting the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that the sanctions were continuing to kill, and still not be sure that Saddam would not give the WMD technology (that we gave him) to others.

And with Bush, that *all* got royally fucked up.

[slick8790]

1. Are you really arguing the IWR was a good thing badly executed? ....Really? n/t

[Ravy]

3. Absolutely.

It wasn't even badly executed until Bush gave the invasion order.

[The Anti-Bush]

16. Are you feeling okay?

We should have NEVER went into Iraq.

[Ravy]

18. The IWR didn't send anyone to Iraq.

It authorized Bush to if Saddam did not comply. Saddam was complying, Bush invaded anyway.

[slick8790]

23. The IWR was a blank check for Bush to invade whenever he felt like.

Good luck arguing it was a good thing, though.

[Ravy]

25. The Congress cannot give a "blank check" for violating International Law.

There were provisions placed there and in the UN Security council resolution 1441 that it brought about that said when he could invade. He lied, and he committed a war crime.

It could have been handled correctly, and I think most other presidents would have.

[slick8790]

27. Most other presidents would have been smart enough to not bring it to the floor in the first place.

[Selatius]

2. Disagree. The UN Security Council kicked the inspections into overdrive.

But people like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter already asserted that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. The IWR was redundant and ultimately just a legal cover in American courts for invading Iraq.

[Ravy]

5. There were no inspectors in Iraq between 1998 and until after the IWR.

[Selatius]

10. Nope, inspections started after Security Council Resolution 1441 passed.

The weapons inspectors listen to the Security Council, not the US gov't.

[Ravy]

11. The IWR was responsible for that resolution.

It called on Bush to go to the Security Council to get that resolution proposed and passed.

[Selatius]

15. That's debatable at best.

The non-compliance with weapons inspections would've been taken up by the Security Council at some point regardless if Bush wanted to go into Iraq or not.

Also, it can be debated that the IWR would not have been passed if Gore was in office. Bush lobbied the Repub Congress to pass the legislation. There is no saying that Gore would've done the exact same thing, unless you have strong evidence indicating otherwise. The IWR was a creation of Bush's lobbying efforts.

The politicians in Congress who did vote for it at the time were making a dangerous gamble. A few conscientious senators and congressmen were wise enough not to trust Bush with that kind of authority, so they voted against it. Those who did vote against it should be commended.

[Ravy]

17. After 4 years of inaction, I doubt the Security Council was going

to bring it up. I think it took the IWR which actually put some teeth into non-compliance to get them to put their inspectors back in.

If Gore had been president, there may not have been an IWR, but I think something needed to be done to put an end to the sanctions and isolation of the Iraq government. The IWR was doing a good job until Bush ended it with the invasion.

[Selatius]

22. If Clinton had listened to Blix, Ritter, et al., he should've gone ahead and removed the sanctions.

The weapons inspectors were kicked out in the first place because the US gov't got caught planting their spies inside the inspections team, and the UN objected to this action for good reason. After the revelation, Saddam called foul on that and thus kicked out the entire team. Prior to the invasion, Ritter said that they'd destroyed 95% of what Saddam had before the revelation and that whatever chemical weapons were left likely decayed because the chemicals have a limited shelf-life.

However, for the gov't to reverse course on the economic sanctions would've been admitting that they fucked up big time and a tacit admittal that they're responsible for the thousands of dead civilians due to lack of nutrition and medicine as well as Clinton admitting that he did have spies planted in the body. That's not something the US gov't would do and likely not something Clinton was prepared to do.

[Ravy]

24. I think probably the "Oil for Food" program was responsible for

the UN not putting an end to sanctions. There were some getting pretty wealthy, it seems.

But, I think the IWR would have worked if Bush had let it finish. I can see giving some blame to the Senators who voted for it, and the Congressmen-- for trusting Bush.. but they didn't really vote to send troops in, and I think we should say so.

And I fault Clinton (Bill) for not ending most sanctions with everyone. Cuba included. I don't think isolation is a good foreign policy.

[Selatius]

26. I don't think the IWR was good policy.

It was simply a legal pretext for invasion by Bush to protect himself against charges of breaking the Geneva Conventions by launching a war of aggression, a crime that in previous decades meant hanging. One wouldn't have needed the IWR to repeal the economic sanctions on Iraq and pump in humanitarian aid, and I trust Blix, Ritter, et al. were correct that Saddam's program was largely destroyed by the time they were kicked out in 1998.

As far as the Oil for Food program, it wasn't working from the start because Saddam was using it to build palaces and partial reconstruct his military. If they wanted to get at Iraq's oil while helping out civilians, they could've simply substituted shipments of food and medicine instead of cash for shipments of oil.

[cali]

4. utterly ridiculous. It is extremely doubtful that there would have

been an AUMF had Gore been President. In fact, it's clear there would not have been. It was a fucking blank check for war and those who voted for it and claim something different are liars. Pat Leahy said it over and over and over again on the Senate floor before the vote, and he made it clear he wouldn't vote for it for a dem president. He wasn't the only one.

[anamandujano]

6. With Gore, there would not have been a IWR, or a 9/11.

[TooBigaTent]

7. There would not have been a 9/11 attack because a Democratic administration

would have paid attention to the intelligence that the assholes purposely ignored.

Plus, the policies toward the ME would have been improved so that there would have been no reason for the attacks.

[Ravy]

9. Please see my misplaced comment below.

I don't know at all that the policies would have improved. They were put into place in the Bush the Greater years, and continued thoughout the Clinton years. I don't recall Gore mentioning that he would change them.

[Ravy]

8. Maybe not 9/11. But *something* needed to be done about Iraq.

Unending and severe sanctions are insane.

Personally, I don't agree with imposing those types of sanctions to begin with. But they were there.

[Captain Hilts]

12. What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly? Had Alex the Great had a Piper Cub plane? nt

[Ravy]

13. I just get tired of people taking the heat off of Bush by insinuating

he was only doing what the Congress told him to do.

[Captain Hilts]

19. And it's ignorant because they don't understand how govt./diplomacy work...

Clinton's statement on making the vote is quite clear. She specifically opposes invading Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, etc.

[Ravy]

21. I know. Look at some of the posters on this thread who thought

that inspectors were already there, etc.

There is an element that refuses to acknoledge that the sanctions against Iraq were bad and maintains that Democrats who voted for the IWR wanted war.

I just like to remind them from time to time.

[tekisui]

14. The Iraq invasion was a manufactured profit-war by the neo-cons.

A Gore Administration would have never conceived of such an Illegal and absurd confrontation with a country that wasn't a threat.

[BuyingThyme]

20. Yeah. War resolutions are good.

Especially when they're totally fake but to the extent they're written to facilitate the murders of hundreds of thousands of people and the theft of their resources.