And
Saddam had money - enough to buy the Chirac government, the UN officials administering oil for food, and sweeten the Russians and Chinese. But more importantly - he had the money to *buy* a nuke - from N Korea most likely, rogues in Pakistan or Russia possibly. If there was even a whiff of that Israel would melt Baghdad into a sheet of glass. Anyone who can't figure that out doesn't understand they dynamics of the region.
The justification for the war had to be reduced to bumper sticker size so it would fit into the 20 seconds of attention the average american gives to foreign policy, but for the neo-cons who pushed for it, Kenneth Pollack laid it out as a very compelling case, and the strategic arguements were compelling.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
