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There seems to many reports of abuses committed by american soldiers to be doubted.Is the american press not covering these stories?
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To death.
But don't mistake individuals inflicting their own sadistic pleasures on prisoners and a policy of doing this to almost all prisoners. Enough of the moral equivalency. Did Saddam have trials for those that were found guilty of inflicting the torture they did?
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The only clear object in iraq is the worlds second largest oil reserve. I don't believe you can not tell me with any honesty that this is not why america went to war. I believe that the US administration DID NOT go to war with the aim of helping iraqi people very high on its list.
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1)We still haven't gotten over the "what is a fact vs opinion", I see. If we wanted their oil, we could have just lifted the sanctions. We wouldn't have to spend the billions and billions to invade and topple Saddam. So that theory doesn't make any sense at all. But keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.
2)So now that we've established that the only for oil theory is bogus, you'd have to ask yourself, why we'd need to topple Saddam.
Well, one could say for the same reason we toppled Milosevic. Certainly what Saddam has done (and continued to do) is equal or greater the horror of what Milosevic was doing. If you go this route, then you'd have to acknowledge that the UN has totally screwed up the Milosevic thing. The man is STILL on trial for Pete's sake! So if we were going to topple Saddam for humanitarian reasons, we'd have to do it ourselves to ensure that the man isn't on trial forever and justice is actually done. (I strongly suggest you read "Hell is Over". It's testamonials from Kurdish victims of Saddam's regime)
Since we're already in there, we'd have to rebuild the place so that such a dictator won't arise again. It also makes sense to rebuild because a functioning country is a country other countries can do business with. That's about as close to a "for oil" argument as it gets. But a country that has functioning schools and universities will produce more productive people who can contribute more entreprenurial ability to the world. Everyone wins.
But even that wasn't our only reason (although I argue, using the Yugoslavia incident as an example, that it could be justified that way). Since 9-11, we've committed to the Bush Doctrine of aggressively persuing terrorists and the states that harbor/support them. Iraq was most certainly a country that harbored and supported terrorists. Instead of boring you guys with all the details, I recommend you read either The Connection, by Stephen Hayes, or this website:
http://husseinandterror.com . The website includes pictures and sources for the picky.
Now I would argue that even though we had toppled the Taliban, I don't think terrorists quite grasped how serious we were. I think one might be able to argue that Saddam was made an example of, to show that we were dead serious. EVERYONE acknowledges that Saddam was a bad guy and the world is better off without him. Around the world there are horrible dictators who abuse their citizens. Now we can't go around willy-nilly and change every one of them. But we can make an example of one or two to show that we aren't kidding around.
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As for your points on the terribleness of sadam's iraq I will concede some amount as it is not yet certain wether iraq will become a better place. What i would ask you to concede is any benifical humanitarian results are the exuse for the invasion not the reason. I don't believe that Bush was worried about WMDs as even if people believed he had them (this is suspect) he showed no desire to use them.
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I say reason, you say excuse. I would ask you whether it would have been a good idea to go to war with Germany, knowing about the Holocaust, even if we weren't attacked.
Or was going to war with Yugoslavia a good idea? That seems to be solely based on humanitarian reasons.
Showed no desire to use WMDs??? Once again, I ask that you read "Hell is Over". Saddam most certainly DID use WMDs on the Iranians as well as hundreds if not thousands of Kurdish villages.
"Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks—but he intended to focus on ballistic missile and tactical chemical warfare (CW) capabilities."
http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_...ap1.html#sect1
The driving motivation wasn't oil and I've shown why not.