Bush vs Iraq

[jwatson]

His days are numbered...

"I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go. That's about all I'm willing
to share with you," Mr. Bush said in an interview with British
journalists in April.

Comments

Re: Sad Damn Hussein

[jwatson]

Well, I think we should have taken him out when we had the chance in 91. I have no doubt that he is developing bio and chemical weapons. If he could get some plutonium I think he would build a nuke. Once he has those weapons, I could see him using them in defense (in his mind anyway). He might also sell them to someone else if they offered enough money.

We (or the UN) should have been much, much tougher on the weapons inspections. We should have been polite but forceful. The inspectors should have been able to go absolutely anywhere at any time. And they would have found the stuff he was hiding.

Combine that with bin Laden. He would positively do as much damage to us as possible. If he had a nuke he would push the button. That article that I sent that had the Bush quote caused me to consider something that I hadn't thought of before (we also saw Sum of All Fears which suggests the same thing). During the Cold War, both us and the Soviets knew that if one side launched a nuke, the other side would retaliate and both sides would lose (hehe, reminds me of the old War Games movie too). However, if bin Laden were to launch a nuke or set one off in New York or something, who would we retaliate against? Assuming that we could prove that he did it we still may not find him. Suicidal people are hard to stop.

So, Iraq has mass destructive weapons and wants to use them against the US but knows that he would be destroyed if he did. bin Laden wants mass destructive weapons and wants to use them against the US and doesn't care if he dies doing it. Iraq only needs deniability in order to give the weapons to bin Laden. We cannot let bin Laden get those weapons, therefore we have to take them away from Iraq (and anyone else likely to supply them to bin Laden). It's not going to be pretty, and it has the potential to spark another world war. Hopefully Saddam will be smart and not resist inspections. Hopefully our diplomats can convince other contries to help us or at least accept our reasons.

The longer term solution for Arab/Muslim vs. US relations is that we need to revise our Israel/Palestine policies. I'm not sure what the answer is there though.

I was just looking up a Saddam factoid and ran across this:
http://www.observer.co.uk/worldview/story/0,11581,669024,00.html
Lots more stories I need to read here:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/World/Iraq/