OK then
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And if it was just about Saddam's atrocities, why didn't we get involved until AFTER 9-11? Hmmm?
The truth is that the United States did in fact enforce "no fly zones" ,that together covered more than 62% of Iraqi territory, to prevent Saddam from using air power ;as he had done previously ,to mass murder Kurds and Shia populations.In that decade our planes enforcing the safe "no fly"zones were repeatedly fired on by Iraqi air defenses .Us and British planes repeatedly had to challenge Iraqi military jets flying in the restricted zones.
Also under Bill Clinton Iraq was extensively bombed .(I guess it's not a war unless troops are on the ground ) In an operation called "Desert Fox" Clinton waged an intensive 4 day bombing campaign against multiple targets in Iraq. Why did he ? Well because Saddam was violating UN Sanctions . Why did we invade in 2003 ;because Saddam was violating UN Sanctions.
As Steve correctly points out a joint resolution of Congress in the 1990s declared the official policy of the US government was Iraq regime change.
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Oh, and SPEAKING of 9-11, do you really think that 72% of the public would have wanted us to attack Iraq (again, NOT the country that attacked us on our own soil) if it had not been for JOURNALISTS covering the 9-11 attacks? I doubt it, personally.
Not quite sure what this means. There was nobody who made a case for the Iraq war because we were directly attacked by Iraq on 9-11.
I take you back to President Bush's 2002 SOTU Address
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Our nation will continue to be steadfast and patient and persistent in the pursuit of two great objectives. First, we will shut down terrorist camps, disrupt terrorist plans, and bring terrorists to justice. And, second, we must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world.
Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
He said I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.
President Bush made it clear that the US would no longer accept Saddam's deceptions .President Bush would later make the same case to the UN .The UN responded by giving Saddam a final chance to come clean (Resolution 1441).
Late Jan 2003 ;UN weapons inspector Hans Blix reported to the UN that
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Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed the inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.
It was only then ,a year after the SOTU address that Bush decided to pull the trigger.But even before the events of 2002 -3 Saddam had 12 years and 15 resolutions since the conclusion of the Gulf War to comply to the demands of the international community .
We now know that he was emboldened to continued defiance by the very nations in the UN who were the biggest opponents to the Iraq war .He was running a multi-billion bribery scam that went to the top of the UN leadership itself. Perhaps if the UN had stood steadfast in support of the sanctions then Saddam would've been compelled to come clean without the need to go to war against him.
But because of the Oil for Food regime ,support for the sanctions were crumbling and the US and England were left to themselves to enforce them . The US had an army and a fleet dedicated to enforce UN rules for a decade . No one complained about the expense of that .
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Yeah, that sounds like something a world leader should do--go against the very organization set up to help keep peace in the world because it wanted revenge and oil.
As stated above it is apparent that it was the nations opposed to the war that had a vested economic benefit in keeping the status quo .They were the ones who were guilty of blood for oil .Iraqi children were being denied food and medicine that Iraqi oil sales were supposed to fund.Instead it went into the pockets of European leaders and UN kleptocrats .As Cats correctly points out it was the US that lead a broad international coalition to defeat Saddam.
Now I'll ask it again. If it would've been the right thing to preemptively attack Germany to prevent the Holocaust then why wasn't it equally the right thing to prevent Saddam's genocides ?
