>>>It is the responsibility of the CinC to decide when and where to fight. It is only your opinion that
>>>he "didn't really want to know". In my opinion, he made the right decision, as I believed that
>>>Saddam was hiding WMD's as well as a potential threat to the US.
>
>Well, your opinion on the WMD's is not based on facts.
>
>I've heard all the arguments that Iraq might have moved the weapons Syria, or burried them in the desert.
>This argument makes no sense and is frought with holes:
>
>1) The Iraq Survey Group - the CIA's "Find the WMD's" team sent to Iraq after the US had taken over
>- found nothing. Know why? Because they're were no WMD's to be found.
>
>2) The US and it's allies flew round the clock overflights of both the northern and southers no-fly
>zones in Iraq for 12 years. No one on any patrol ever saw convoys of Iraqi equiopment being sent to
>Syria, or large scale bury projects in the desert.
>
>3) WMD construction is not something you do a one small, indescrete building. Look at the satellite
>photos from Iran and North Korea. These are sprawling compounds. We have been flying recon flights
>over Iraq for 15 years, or more, and there are NO photos of WMD compounds.
>
>4) Iraq has been in financial disarray since before the 1990 war. Their military equipment is WWII
>era stuff. The Coalition defeated them in 1990 because they did not have the capacity to withstand
>the might of the US military. That was when the had a military. The second time around they
>had little or no military left. We plowed right through them
>
>Bottom line? No evidence of WMD's has ever been found.
>
>The Republicans keep going on about how Iraq had these WMD's, yet they show no proof. These 20 year
>old, rusted artillery shells filled with Sarin gas where there before the 1990 war. This is not the
>reason Bush gave to justify this war.
>
>So, to the GOP leaders I say again - Show the proof or admit your wrong. The American people have a
>right to know on what evidence the President put us at war.
>
>
>
>>>'Finished' is when the Iraqi government can handle their own internal security and defend themselves
>>> from an outside aggressor (like Iran). Yes, it may take a while. We didn't get out of Germany until
>>>the 1990's.
>
>The US and its allies didn't stay in Germany because it was in disarray. We stayed there because we needed
>frontline bases to counter Soviet expansion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, bases in Germany and
>other European countries were not needed.
>
>
>>>We certainly are in it for the long hual now. Problem is, Bush went into this with no end-game plan, and
>>>he still has not end-game.
>>
>>>Again, that's your opinion.
>
>Yes it is. But you say this like I'm wrong. Maybe I am, but again I say - show the plan. The American
>people have a right to know when their sons and daughters will be out of Iraq.
>
>Any way you slice it, there is no end-game plan. Having a plan for exiting a conflict is central to
>itelligent military design. In other words, you don't go to war without clearly defined goals.
>
>Bush's goal was to take out Saddam, but he did not have then, and still does not have a plan
>to deal with the insurgency that his own advisors told him would take over.

Somehow I thought we were in Iraq to end the War on Terror? :)