>SNIP
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>>You say that you would still have the same belief that we should wait until untold number (posibibly millions) die before we "react"? All I remember is the rage I felt about NYC being attacked on 9/11. SH cannot be allowed to stand if he's capable of supporting or supplying terrorists with the means to cause so much havok!
>
>No, I wouldn't ALWAYS wait for untold numbers to die, but I certainly would wait for more than what we KNOW now regarding the Iraq situation before WARRING on them.
>I think it's fair to say that the VAST majority of the world was shocked and horrified by what happened on 9/11! I think that the widespread cooperation on terrorist detection/arrest - even by the French, Germans, Russians, etc - proves this admirably.
>But France or the U.K. or Russia or Israel or Pakistan or India or China or North Korea or a few more have the A-bomb, so they could possibly be similarly disposed as Saddam is assumed to be. And any country has, or can easily have, chemical or biological weapons, and so they could pose a threat too. The world CANNOT be "civilized" if one country can not only accuse another but also WAR on it on the basis of a possible and definitely not visible threat. It essentially means the end of humanity!
>

Humanity has been on a downward slide since Adam. < g >
Realistically, atacking may not be the best choice. But there definitely has to be some noose tightening. Just sitting there doing nothing will not work with SH. There has to be some pressure applied. BIG pressure. No one else appears willing to do it, so the US must.

And while SH's power has been reduced, it isn't eliminated. He certainly can pass or sell anything he has to others that ARE in a position to do the US or the world great harm.


>>Even if he had nothing to do with 9/11, he could be the catalyst to something far worse.
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>OK, so then who's next and who decides??? So far it looks like President Bush decides. What if Angola feared military action from the U.S.?... could they have the U.N. send in inspectors?

Big difference. We aren't hiding our weapons.

>>I truly do believe it would be best to have an Iraqi "insider" take him out, but we've been waiting for that for over 12 years.
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>On that we certainly agree. HE is one nasty piece of work. That his people have to be killed and that those people's country has to be levelled when he is essentially powerless at this time is what is hard to swallow.
>And by the way, there were at least two (and I think more) well-organized efforts to overthrow Saddam not long after Gulf War I and the poor people involved were left to go it alone at the last minute by the U.S. THAT is a primary reason why there is less trust than there could be for the U.S. by your average Iraqi, I'm told.

It would have been much better to have removed him ourselves 12 years ago, but that wasn't what the plan was. The objective was to remove Iraq from Kuwait, and that was what was done.

BTW, my brother-in-law used to work for the US State Dept. He was in charge of weapon distribution to the US Armed Forces. During GWI, weapons were issued to several teams to infiltrate Iraq and wait. Those weapons were never returned. He has since retired, so I don't know if that's still true or not. Of course, there could be many other reasons those weapons weren't returned, but we can certainly hope, can't we? ;)