Login required to started new threads
Login required to post replies
1) Yes he was violating the resolition by not verifably dismantling his weapons - the burder of proof was on him, not us. Also, you know as well as I do that the inspectors were only allowed in after our explicit threat of military action, and even then were still being given the runaround. I probably would have given the inspectors more time and used that time to at least try and forge more of a coalition under UN approval. I'm not sure that approach would have worked though.
2) I don't know about you, but the thought of Iraq being a black box where there used to be a vibrant WMD program and "now... well we just don't know for sure"... is unacceptable to me. It doesn't mean I don't consider Iran and North Korea to be threats also.
_______________________________________________
Please give the date for that:
What you pasted here looks like the declaration the UN made before Iraq ultimately did what the UN wanted -- let arms inspectors in. (The material talks about arms inspections needing to resume in 45 days, and indeed they did) The arms inspectors, incidentally, kept doing their job until shortly before our invasion. So where is the violation?
JHC:
Two responses to your point:
1) You say: "Yes he was violating the resolition by not verifably dismantling his weapons - the burder of proof was on him, not us."
How can you ask someone to prove that they dismantled weapons that they didn't have. You can't prove a negative.
2) You say: I don't know about you, but the thought of Iraq being a black box where there used to be a vibrant WMD program and "now... well we just don't know for sure"... is unacceptable to me.
By that logic, there is not one country that we shouldn't invade. Every country is a potential black box. And even if you wanted to eliminate countries that were friendly to us, the list of countries we should invade would still be very, very long.
This kind of thinking -- we'll make countries prove they have gotten rid of weapons they never had in the first place, and we'll invade every risky country to make sure nothing is there -- is dangerous. It's what countries do when they have too much power and there's no other power there to check them. Clearly, we can't handle our superpower status, and it will come back to haunt us.
How can you ask someone to prove that they dismantled weapons that they didn't have. You can't prove a negative.
The had WMDs in the first place - we did know that. A lot were destroyed, but not all was accounted for. You can also ask them for full access to suspected storage/producton sites. You can't accept "we don't have any WMDs, but you can't look in here."
By that logic, there is not one country that we shouldn't invade. Every country is a potential black box.
Not every country has 1) had a WMD program, 2) used WMDs, 3) had at least some ties with known terrorists.
_______________________________________________