Re: Eliot Spitzer, antismoking leader, self-destructs

On 19 Mar, 18:22, "Judson McClendon" <ju...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>  George Bush's primary responsibility is to protect American
> lives and property, and that applies to *probable* threats as well as
> formally proven and do***ented threats. Intelligence is a complex and
> difficult business; you almost *never* know anything with certainty.
>

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had developed and possessed
weapons of mass destruction (WMD being chemical, biological and
nuclear weapons systems and in Saddams case both chemical and
biological weapons had been developed) and the means to deliver them
(rockets and artillery shells).

It was said that these weapons could be made ready at 45 minutes
notice and that they were a threat to the west (a nebulous statement
which permits any threat to Israel or our military forces stationed in
the Gulf to be interpreted as a direct threat to the UK).

I am not aware of any statement that he had nuclear weaponry nor that
he was able to deliver any weapon to targets outside of the middle
east.

However, some people (the media as I recall) took the view that the
threat to the UK was by nuclear weapons delivered by (in development
but not proven) ballistic missiles. Such interpretations were
unfounded in fact.

Further, any such interpretation was not denied by the government of
the UK despite their knowing that it was not true and that the
intelligence upon which it had been based was from one unreliable
source, was unsubstantiated, was contradicted by known reliable
intelligence and was probably falsehoods provided by a former refugee
from Saddam's justice.

The approach to justifying the war was botched by the UK government
and by the US government. In reality they did not need the WMD
argument to sup****t them and, as we now know for certainty, beyond
some aging examples of chemical and biological weapons the programs
for WMDs did not exist.

What was wrong with using the humanitarian argument to remove Saddam?
Sanctions were not working and all it would have taken was just one
infraction of the peace treaty from the first Gulf war to start the
second.