On the topic of WMD :

[Kaz The Original]

What was the purpose behind sending in weapons inspectors to Iraq? If the answer is 'to find out if Iraq had weapons of mass destruction' then to what end? If they do attack, if not don't?

What was the purpose behind sending the inspectors end, what possible results could have came from that move?

Was there any way Iraq could have avoided war, if so how? Is there any way Suddam Hussein could have stayed in charge of Iraq?

[Dead]

I believe that Bush knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and that is why he ordered the inspectors out.

There is no way that Iraq could have avoided war with us, unfortunately. Saddam told us that he had no weapons of mass destruction and we didn't believe him.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
What was the purpose behind sending in weapons inspectors to Iraq?

[/ QUOTE ]
To give Saddam the last chance that he did not deserve.

[ QUOTE ]
Was there any way Iraq could have avoided war, if so how? Is there any way Suddam Hussein could have stayed in charge of Iraq?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. If Saddam and his sons left Iraq within 48 hours of the attack, we wouldn't have. That was the ultimatum.

[Kaz The Original]

Why did you send weapons inspectors? Why not saddam inspectors?

What was the purpose behind sending weapons inspectors, if not having weapons of mass destruction was not going to change anything?

[BadBoyBenny]

My guess they sent the weapons inspectors to get Resolution 1441 passed and give some legitimacy to their future military action.

The weapons inspectors were not just there to look for weapons, they were there to confirm the destruction of Saddam entire arsenal as we knew it had existed in '91. Saddam obviously didn't do his destruction in a verifiable way, as this was never confirmed by the inspectors. Maybe they knew Saddam couldn't verify the weapons destruction, maybe they did. Maybe he could have but wasn't given enough time. My impression was that he was trying to drag his feet while he was thinking of some way to get Bush off his back. Maybe he thought he could wait him out until the next US election.

Maybe resolution 1441 and the weapons inspection thing was a ploy by Bush to make the UN look ineffective and weak at home, so his unilateralism would be politically acceptable.

There are a lot of possible rationalizations for why they went about it the way they did.

[PokerDork]

I think its important to note the difference between the fact that the weapons inspectors were from the UN, and the UN never supported the US invasion of Iraq. I think the UN had a genuine concern in finding WMD, and perhaps more importantly that they also hoped that if they could show they weren't there a war could be averted, since the primary grounds for the US threat did not exist. I do think war could have been averted has Saddam left, but I do not think there is anyway Saddam could have remained in power due to the "ultimatum". The ultimatum thing really made me laugh... Could you imagine Bush leaving office because bin Laden gave him 48 hrs. to do so or else... I mean seriously would any leader of any sovereign country would take the order of someone who has no power over him (I'm talking political/legal not military). The ultimatum was a thinly veiled attempt to provide a secondrary arbitrary justification for war (i.e. the "don't say we didn't warn you", or "I told you so" approach). This kind of rhetorical trick of sorts hardly serves as a hard case to take aggressive action and anyway I'm sure they planned the attack way before the 48 hrs. were up.

[cardcounter0]

Iraq had more targets than Afganistan, it didn't matter what it did, it was going to get hit. Invading Iraq had been in the neocon game plan for over a decade.

9/11 -----

After the president returned to the White House on Sept. 11, he and his top advisers, including Clarke, began holding meetings about how to respond and retaliate. As Clarke writes in his book, he expected the administration to focus its military response on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He says he was surprised that the talk quickly turned to Iraq.

"Rumsfeld was saying that we needed to bomb Iraq," Clarke said to Stahl. "And we all said ... no, no. Al-Qaeda is in Afghanistan. We need to bomb Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq. I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.

"Initially, I thought when he said, 'There aren't enough targets in-- in Afghanistan,' I thought he was joking.

"I think they wanted to believe that there was a connection, but the CIA was sitting there, the FBI was sitting there, I was sitting there saying we've looked at this issue for years. For years we've looked and there's just no connection."

Clarke says he and CIA Director George Tenet told that to Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Clarke then tells Stahl of being pressured by Mr. Bush.

"The president dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.

"I said, 'Mr. President. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'

"He came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."

Clarke continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor or Deputy. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.'

"I have no idea, to this day, if the president saw it, because after we did it again, it came to the same conclusion. And frankly, I don't think the people around the president show him memos like that. I don't think he sees memos that he doesn't-- wouldn't like the answer."

[jaxmike]

[ QUOTE ]

I believe that Bush knew that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and that is why he ordered the inspectors out.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are simply living in a different world than sane people.

[ QUOTE ]
There is no way that Iraq could have avoided war with us, unfortunately. Saddam told us that he had no weapons of mass destruction and we didn't believe him.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true at all. He could have lived up to his responsibilities under the cease-fire agreement.

[zaxx19]

There is no way that Iraq could have avoided war with us, unfortunately. Saddam told us that he had no weapons of mass destruction and we didn't believe him

Ya...Ok and Hitler said he had no plans to add terrirtory to Germany after the Sudetenland...Whats your point.

[jaxmike]

He's not smart enough, or well read enough to make a real point. All he can do is spout back liberal nonsense, except when it goes against the liberal line, like the NYT story. Then it doesn't mean what it says, just something else.