[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by Preechr

Actually, Kev, what Iraq had was uranium oxide, which is not suitable for weapons.

Hmm.....it would seem that everything I've otherwise read would conflict with that statement. Uranium Oxide most certainly has its uses, and while I swore it could be used for weaponry, I know that it can be used as energy for nuclear reactors (Just ask Rossing Uranium Limited. They LOVE the shit).

Now, the whole problem with Iraq even seeking WMD materiel was that it had agreed not to do that as a condition of not being stomped into the sand post-Gulf War I. While the argument could be made that the sanctions themselves were unreasonable and imprudent, given that similar sanctions against Germany after WWI could be blamed in part for WWII, the sanctions against Iraq were still a reality and if it was seeking yellowcake in Niger, it was seeking to build nukes. That's a problem.

Not necessarily. If they violated UN sanctions, then yes, they certainly committed a boo-boo. But do you personally want to go to war with a country, and send thousands and thousands of your fellow citizens into battle b/c Iraq (like many other nations, including Israel) weren't in compliance with the UN?

Furthermore, the E! True Hollywood Story of Joe Wilson, otherwise known as the Senate Intelligence Committee's conclusions on intelligence gathering, actually found OTHER interesting things (aside, of course, from the semantics used by Joe Wilson). They accurately noted what many had been noting about the sanctions for years-- that they didn't hurt Saddam, they only hurt the Iraqi people, and they denied people access to needed materials (hence the manipulation of the Oil-for-food program). In the committee's words:

"Analysts believed that the fact that Iraq often attempted to obtain dual-use materials surreptitiously, through front companies and other illicit means in violation of UN sanctions, indicated that Iraq intended to use those materials for WMD. Analysts argued that Iraq would have no reason to hide itself as the end user of these materials if they were intended for legitimate purposes. However, analysts ignored the fact that Iraq typically used front companies and evaded UN sanctions for imports of purely legitimate goods. Analysts who monitored Iraq's compliance with the Oil for Food Program noted several reasons that Iraq wanted to avoid legitimate channels for imports including 1) the UN often denied materials needed for legitimate purposes because the materials had WMD applications, 2) using the UN's bureaucratic process was more cumbersome and tune consuming than using illicit channels, and 3) transactions using front companies were less transparent, making corruption and profit taking easier for Iraqi managers and officials."

Combine that uranium, which is available from sources other than Niger, with those Nodongs being sought from N Korea, and you have a fully nuclear Iraq with the ability to coerce and destroy any nation within 600-1000 miles.

Nodongs being sought? I'll tell ya, there is a LOT of SOUGHTING going on here, and not enough PURCHASING! You know what they say paves the road to hell!!!

You'll have to enlighten me on this other tidbit that only the Right seems privy to these days.

And Niger has uranium to sell. That's where Libya got it's yellowcake for it's nuclear program. Uranium is still that country's prime export. There's a big difference between "abandoned" and "empty." They were abandoned because nobody is supposed to be buying the stuff anymore because it's used for WsMD, which are not supposed to be being built anymore.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. Uranium certainly does have legitimate purposes, and again, your point about buying from Niger makes little sense. The French control the most prolific and producctive mines in Niger. So once again, would it seem like a completely CrAzY idea that Iraq may have "approached" Niger about the uranium in her "abandoned" mines in an attempt to get around the UN sanctions.....? And once again, from what I've read, uranium oxide is merely a production of the ore itself, meaning that Iraq had access already to the material. If they wanted these stockpiles, they could've already been well on their way without the help of questionable "abandoned" mines in Niger.

If they overstated that then what else did they exaggerate, right? That's not to say some overstatement didn't occur, now. It obviously did. We knew it was happening when the case was being made.

Oh, now COME ON! I made this point in one of the other threads, but here it is. The Senate Intelligence Committee made it clear that there was MUCH left to be desired in the attempt to find WMD in Iraq. Mobile labs, nuclear tubing from Pakistan, the mustard gassing that wasn't mustard gas, just to name a few. As I have already stated, Joe Wilson wasn't some rebel critic who changed the course of perception on the war. This administration did a hell of a lot to earn that scrutiny.

What Colin Powell didn't say, which was the primary reason for deposing Saddam, was that Iraq was a key tactical target in the larger War on Terror. We had valid reasons to do what we proposed to do, and actually deposing Saddam and reforming/freeing Iraq was just one benefit of doing it.

That's swell, but the reasons they never said that are obvious. A presumably free Iraq, a strategic point in the Middle East, an excuse to pull troops from Saudi Arabia, and a swinging tourist attraction known as Baghdad, are all well and good, but they don't justify invading a country on a false premise. The American people were led to believe that mushroom clouds and chemical baths were in their future if we didn't stop this mad man, who clearly, according to public opinion polls, had a coordinating role in 9/11. This administration played off the fears and sensitivities of a post-9/11 America in order to attain a "key tactical target". And as I've already noted, this design came prior to 9/11. The neo-cons were waiting for this, and 9/11 gave them an excuse to take it.

Iran is the most intransigent of the terrorist sponsoring states, and one that we cannot so easily "invade." From Iraq and Afghanistan, we now can apply pressure and aquire "on the ground" intelligence from the immediate East and West of Iran. We can also more effectively interact with Syria. Pulling our troops out of Saudi will hopefully allow it to begin it's own much needed reforms.

That's what this whole thing is all about: Democratizing the Middle East. That's the ultimate goal of the War on Terror. I support that goal. I believe it's OUR duty to help them to that end simply because our own mucking around in their political systems for the last 50 years has been responsible, to a point, for holding them back from more free government systems, at least in my opinion. Middle Eastern totalitarianism is, to a degree, collateral damage from the Cold War. All people deserve to be free, and if we are in any way responsible for any sort of institutionalized slavery, it is our duty to help fix that.

Agreed, and I am someone who opposed the war but supports the occupation. I think to pull out of Iraq now would create a vacuum effect, similar to that which hapened in Afghanistan after Soviet withdrawl. That's why I had previously been outraged by this war, b/c while operations were falling apart in Afghanistan, and the fucking FRENCH and Canadians were training a national guard in Afghanistan, we were trying to justify a war with an old thorn. I'm glad to see that public pressure forced the president to invest more heavily in Afghanistan, and the topic interests me so much that I have been looking into getting a job with an elections monitoring agency over there. One snag they are hitting in Afghanistan, which will certainly be problematic in Iraq, is a failur to understand the concepts of democracy. Afghanis think their voter reg. cards are currency and are trading them to party bosses for bread. The Taliban has restructured itself there, and our "allies" in Pakistan seem incapable of doing anything about it. To me, this was where the war was at, and rather than winning the hearts and minds in Afghanistan, rather than restructuring their nation, we were already on to the next conquest. Nation building isn't a popular position to take, which is why Bush moved away from Afghanistan in the first place. We Americans, we seem to loves our wars, but hate the clean-up required after it. But if we're going to truly win this war, which is a war on thought, not on terror, the most important stuff MUST begin after the bombs drop.

That's just my opinion. Sorry for the rant.

To take it a step further, if the War on Terror simply shows the violent idiots of the world that terror can be fought effectively, terrorism may become a less attractive option for getting one's way. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Nations can no longer start a shooting war for fear of getting their asses utterly kicked by the US military, and now the same force is proving that terrorism doesn't work either... hopefully. Maybe the would-be despots of the world will just have to give peaceful means a chance.

You're right, but what's next? As I said, you'll never truly stop the tactic that is terrorism until you figh the intellectual fight. We are fighting an extremist branch of Islam, and to make it worse, it's like a hypothetical prisoner's dilemma. Everything we do that can be perceived as imperialistic or as anti-islamic will push people into their ranks. That's where the war in Iraq irks me a bit, as well. :/

I think I could live nicely in a world where trae sanctions and diplomatic insults are the greatest threat a nation can wield against another. How bout you?

Right, but the stakes are higher. They've been higher for the enemy for a good twenty years or so. Sanctions and jabs mean little to Bin Ladens, wouldn't you agree?