there are many reasons being passed around the world as to why iraq was attacked. most people believe that they posed no clear and present danget to the US or Britain and this is why Blair is now in trouble. A lot of the theories are rubbish but some can hold water, oil - Cheneys old company has millions of dollars in contracts. What i cannot understand is that we have been told for years that there are satelites and planes who can read the paper over my shoulder but they cannot keep a track of and find WMD. My personal feelings on this is that there is a mixture of things here and that no one answer fits the bill exactly. If by saying now that they could pose a threat in the future and we have to take certain counties out now, those countries are left open to pre-emptive attacks themselves without recourse. One thing that we can do is through both internal and foreigh policy try to make the world safer for all and not blindly follow one nation or another and to hell with the consequences.
Cheers
~M




Trying to keep things cool...

The government (U.S.) says it needs more time yet to search for WMD and we all can give them that time before jumping to conclusions.

That said, what does this say about the "justification" to the U.S. and British and Polish people (who had folks on the line directly) and to the rest of the world if WMD are not (ever) found???

I'd say that such a situation would only serve to widen an already existing credibility gap between the U.S. and the rest of the world.
One "justification" cannot simply be replaced by another if the first doesn't pan out! That would be like a jury coming back with a guilty verdict on a serial killer case and saying to the judge 'We are convinced, your Honour, that the defendant did not commit the murders but we do find him to be unsavoury of character so we have found him guilty anyway'.

If WMD are not ever found then it also begs questioning about the CENTCOM reports - on at least 2 separate occasions days apart - that field intercepts heard that Saddam had authorized the use of WMD if... Surely, IF such commands did go to Iraqi troops, they would have had the wherewithall close at hand to carry out the orders! Yet no WMD munitions have been found! Tons and tons and tons of regular weapons have been confiscated, but no WMD. We should all be "curious" about that.

Many felt that the U.S. did do it "because we could" and had ulterior motives for starting the war.
If no WMD are found then I'd expect Prime Minister Blair to feel much like the poodle he was depicted to be by much of the British press. There aren't many leaders in the world who want to feel that THEMSELVES.

It was most fortuitous that the war was so brief. And it may be that the cabal has lost some influence despite that fact by the simple fact that WMDs have yet to be found. I imagine that Secretary Powell has tired of having Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Perle setting foreign policy for the U.S.