I'll give you a hint: none.
(name deleted) wrote:
Bush ignored the inspectors, didn't wait for the UN to give a report, rushed in and bombed. Of course terrorists must be dealt with. But how satisfied are the people of Iraq now? Not very. And where is Hussein and Bin Laden? Revenge is a terrible weapon and both these men will be seeking it. God help us all when this happens.
And I replied:
Well, I'm afraid not one of your statements is accurate except that "terrorists must be dealt with". Saddam, not the inspectors, was given a deadine by the United Nations -- 7 December 2002. At that time, he was to have produced a FFCD (final, full, complete disclosure) to UNSCOM. He did not. President Bush generously gave Saddam three MORE months in which to comply with UNSC#1441. Blix's 173-page 6 March 2003 report, which can be found here: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/6mar.pdf still clearly showed Saddam in non-compliance. Since the 1991 cease-fire agreement Iraq signed with the US was already declared in violation (as of 1998, by Clinton), President Bush had every right by US and international law to remove Saddam from power (as per the Iraq Liberation Act, the text of which can be found here: http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/iraq/libact103198.pdf In fact, I would argue (with some justification) that our biggest mistake was giving Saddam a year's full notice, which he obviously used to his advantage. Where is bin Laden? In northeast Pakistan, waiting to be smoked out as we go cave by cave to find him. (It took five years to find Eric Rudolph, and he was hiding right in the friendly USA, and even THEN we only got him by accident.) Where is Hussein? Perhaps if we hadn't given him 12 years before forcing him out of power, he wouldn't have been able to set up billions of dollars in hidden bank accounts with which to hide today. I'll tell you where he is NOT, however -- murdering another million and a half innocent Iraqi men, women and children. Care to argue that he SHOULD be? As for how satisfied the people of Iraq are now, current poll numbers show that 66% feel they are better off today with Saddam out of power. Their free press showers thanks on their friends in the USA; their greatest fear is that we will leave before they're ready to run their own country. But we will not. Doing so would condemn the entire world to be haunted by terrorists for decades, and that will NOT be allowed to happen.
