i fully agree... and also i supprt an American led war on Saddam and his deadly regime - i see no other way of coming to an end to this threat that he poses!

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Theres no question(at least in my mind) that Sadam hasn't disarmed. With that said, I'm not sure how high a priority disarming him is, and at what cost the world should take to do so.

I disagree. Saddamn IS disarming.

He has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever. the most damning evidence that has been found are 16 EMPTY warheads that could carry chemical or biological weapons. Not a single nuclear weapon found, and not a drop of biological or chemical agents have been found in iraq. the head UN inspector declared iraq 90-95% free of any weapons of mass destruction in 1992, and for the past decade UN sanctions, and continual surveillance by the US and UK have crippled saddamns ability to build a bomb. He has also had the north and south areas of his country continously bombed for this time.

despite these barriers, it's true that saddamn has the "precursors" to biological agents such as ricin and mustard gas. But so does canada, mustard gas is made from the rapeseed plant, something which grows all around where i live. and ricin is made from the seeds of the castor bean plant, which also has significant medical and nutrional value.

Saddamn has also been accused of having tonnes of VX nerve gas, as well as anthrax. The logic is that we know he had these in 1992, and he said they were destroyed afterwards. but, now 10 years later, we ask to be shown the proof, and of course he can't produce it. Inspectors are going to excavate the ground where he claims to have gotten rid of it, but this may not be very reliable.

The problem with this is, the onus of proof should be on the inpsectors to prove that he has these, not on him to prove he doesn't. it's true that saddamn must provide full disclosure, and that inspectors are not supposed to be detectives, BUT, saddamn has done all he can to prove he does not have these weapons, short of a video tape of him personally pouring this stuff onto the ground. a good analogy is having the police come to my house and tell me that i will be arrested if i can't prove that i don't have any drugs in my house.

does he still have some left? possibly. but if so, it is most likely in limited quantities, and nearing expiry dates. and any stocks he DOES have cannot be used, as it will be instantly noticed, and he will be bombed immediately by the US. so they will most likely rot on the shelve if he even has them.

as for nuclear weapons, saddamn does not have them, the most damning evidence that powell came up with was some shiny metal tubes.

so in regards to saddamn having WMD, i suppose there is a chance he might. But, I simply don't think that the case is strong enough to launch a war that will kill thousands of innocent civillians, undermine the UN, cause turmoil in the middle east, and alienate longtime allies.

The only practical thing that these inspections have done is to have the al-samoud2 missiles that travel a few kilometers over the 100km limit destroyed. this is significant, real disarmanent, and proves the UN process is working, and should be continued.

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^^^ werd.

the only thing i have to add is what the hell kind of threat does Iraq pose to America whatsoever?

To put it in perspective: if Iraq's NEIGHBOURS don't think Iraq's a threat, why should the U.S., which is half a world away?

So this "threat from Saddam" deal is totally bogus, and a ruse.

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Originally posted by Alccode ^^^ werd. the only thing i have to add is what the hell kind of threat does Iraq pose to America whatsoever? To put it in perspective: if Iraq's NEIGHBOURS don't think Iraq's a threat, why should the U.S., which is half a world away? So this "threat from Saddam" deal is totally bogus, and a ruse.

If saddam had no WMD or anyhthing to hide why isn't he cooperating with the UN to their full extent. You would think he would be glad to show the world that he upheld his treaty obligations. So instead of believing his word that he destroyed his stores of anthrax and vx as johnsmith claims it is far more believable to assume that he has hid them somewhere. Otherwise WHY NOT demand more inspectors to show that there is nothing??? Why not accept FULL compliance??? Logic DICTATES that he is hiding something! Either hiding something or he is stupid!!! He has the opportunity right now to embarrass bush and the world!!! Why not take it????

Accolade ... you seem new to these forum parts and it's always welcome to have someone else to discuss with! Anyway with regards to Iraq's actual threats to the US, I posted several arguments dictating that the terms of the truce agreement were that saddam had to comply fully with disarmament, not pose an acutal threat to the US. If you do a search I'm sure you can find them. If you disagree with what I said in those posts please reply!

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Originally posted by Eugene ... Saddam has not made the fundamental decision to disarm, and that without pressure from the Americans, to this day we wouldn't have known what's going on in Iraq, since the inspectors wouldn't have been sent in? I know some of you are against war in Iraq, others are for it. I know that we differ in our approaches on how to best disarm Iraq. But do you all agree that, if America hadn't drawn the world's attention to Iraq, there would have been no inspectors now, and Iraq would've continued to defy the international community with the hiding of its programs? Also, do you all agree that Saddam is dragging the situation out, that he is doing "piecemeal" fake disarmament (not fundamental disarmament), and that he only responds to pressure? I think that, regardless of your opinion about the US and Bush, you've got to admit that at least some of America's arguments are right. And for the record, I personally am opposed to war.

Yes

And keep in mind that you can support war without supporting the Bush administration's bullshit.

i laughed when i heard saddam wanted the UN Sanctions lifted because he had complied with UN wishes to disarm.

as if a dozen or so random warheads being destroyed dictates total disarmament. well maybe for saddam it does, and for john smith too!

but not for the rest of us. he still has a long way to go.

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Originally posted by occrider Otherwise WHY NOT demand more inspectors to show that there is nothing??? Why not accept FULL compliance??? Logic DICTATES that he is hiding something! Either hiding something or he is stupid!!! He has the opportunity right now to embarrass bush and the world!!! Why not take it????

Actually, France and Germany came up with a plan back in February that suggested tripling the number of inspectors in the country, as well as providing UN Ground Troops to escort them to sites of interest. The US and UK dismissed the idea out of hand. Looks like they were afraid he might do just that.

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quote:

Originally posted by occrider Accolade ... you seem new to these forum parts and it's always welcome to have someone else to discuss with! Anyway with regards to Iraq's actual threats to the US, I posted several arguments dictating that the terms of the truce agreement were that saddam had to comply fully with disarmament, not pose an acutal threat to the US. If you do a search I'm sure you can find them. If you disagree with what I said in those posts please reply!

Thanks, I respect your kindness! BTW, it has nothing to do with "accolade"

Anyway, I see what you are saying - but didn't Bush announce a few days ago, in a prime time, nation-wide broadcast, that (verbatim) "When our own security is concerned, we really don't need anyone's permission."

Implying that the focus is on defending US security?

But I haven't seen the address, nor have I read any transcripts, so I might very well be wrong.

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But do you all agree that, if America hadn't drawn the world's attention to Iraq, there would have been no inspectors now, and Iraq would've continued to defy the international community with the hiding of its programs?

That is true. Although, many countries were defying the international community, some even more than Iraq and US said nothing about it.

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Also, do you all agree that Saddam is dragging the situation out, that he is doing "piecemeal" fake disarmament (not fundamental disarmament), and that he only responds to pressure?

Here I don't agree so much. It has nowhere been said that Saddam should disarm completely. He is allowed to have an army, but of limited size. So far no evidence has been found of him having any illegal weapons except for a few missiles whose range is several kilometers longer than allowed. He has immediately agreed to distroy them. You people overexaggerate Iraqi military might. Just because US has thousands of ICBMs doesn't mean Iraq has them too. A mere 20 long range missiles are a lot for a country like Iraq. A technologicaly not very advanced country with a population of about 20 million can hardly have thousands of long range antrax-filled missiles. Besides, what better evidence of missiles being destroyed than the lack of them? It is true that Saddam might be hiding them, but as long as they haven't been found, there's no legal justification for the attack. As I have said many times before, US has tens of spy sattelites in orbit as well as hundreds of spy planes. Why not just use those and show to the inspectors where Saddam is hiding the weapons? You might say that the weapons are in mobile trucks. But US has claimed it has found those trucks. Were they so hard to track?

A war whose justification is relying upon evidence that doesn't exist is not justified. If this preemptive war was to be considered just, then with the same legitimacy the US can tomorrow claim it knows say, France has a new weapon with which it plans to destroy the world, and, to prevent the destruction of the world, attack France.

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Actually, France and Germany came up with a plan back in February that suggested tripling the number of inspectors in the country, as well as providing UN Ground Troops to escort them to sites of interest. The US and UK dismissed the idea out of hand. Looks like they were afraid he might do just that.

Yes, exactly what I was going to say. Why didn't the US support them? The US has a stance which is saying: We know there are weapons, and you can either trust us, or be against us, but we won't let you see for yourself.

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as if a dozen or so random warheads being destroyed dictates total disarmament. well maybe for saddam it does, and for john smith too!

As I said, it doesn't dictate total disarmament, because Saddam isn't obligated to a total disarmament. He is obligated to many limitations, though, and so far he is complying with them. A dozen warheads can be considered much for many countries. There are very few countries in the world which have many long range missiles. Aside from US, Russia, France, Britain, China, Izrael, India, Pakistan and North Korea, I don't know if there are any countries with missiles whose range exceedes 500km.

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