quote:
Originally posted by Barry the Sprout:
Sorry to inject a level of reality into this otherwise quite nice discussion but good ole Hussein hasn't actually got any weapons. Pretty much every weapons inspector has said so since day one. He definately does not have the capacity to produce or fire any weapons of mass desctruction and 95% of all other weapons are accounted for. This doesn't even mean that he has the other 5% hidden, just that we haven't found them yet. It is a big country in pretty much complete chaos after 10 years of bombing. I am surprised we have found even that many normal weapons.
What should be done? We should stop the sanctions, stop the bombing and let the Iraqis decide what they want to do. If we keep playing god like this then of course we are going to get ourselves hated and attacked. Continuing action against him when we simply don't need to is frankly madness. That is my opinion and it is not born out of gainsay anti-americanism as Britain has been involved in this since day one as well.
Um Barry....weapons inspectors haven't been in Iraq for years, because Saddam refused them access to facilities. His violation of that part of the cease-fire was enough then, and is enough now to resume military action, on whatever scale necessary, in order to resume the inspections.
After the Gulf War inspectors
did find enough militarized
Botulism to kill every man, woman, and child on the Earth 3 times. Of course, the Iraqies aren't the only ones who believe in being able to kill everyone on Earth more than once.
Inspectors did not find nuclear weapons materials (maybe because they weren't allow access?), but
did find huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Some of these were attached to scud missles, though they were not found on the launchers, if I remember correctly. And let us not forget, he did use chemical weapons against the Kurds. I'm sure his Kurdish countrymen would be willing to tell you he knows how to make chemical/biological weapons, has access to the materials, and isn't afraid to use them.