What Did You Believe About the War in Iraq, Daddy?
Civitas, 3 November 2006
However well or ill things in Iraq might currently be going for the US and UK, the question remains as to whether or not Bush and Blair were justified in going to war against Saddam in 2003.
They claimed Saddam posed a threat to the west and its allies because of his WMD programmes. It had to be neutralised pre-emptively. To wait until Saddam acquired them would be a disaster because of the risks of retaliation. And to allow him to acquire them would be a disaster because of his links with organised terror groups would roisk nuclear blackmail or worse.
The rest we know as history. Troops went in, but little by way of any WMD showed up. Sceptics have since never ceased to claim the invasion to have been a disaster. All it has done is destabilise Iraq, strengthen Iran as a regional power, and radicalise Muslims at home and abroad. All in all, they claim, it was a right mess that GWB had gotten the west into.
Well, it increasingly looks like Bush and Blair were absolutely right to have gone in.
As late as a year before they invaded Iraq, Saddam was embarked on a nuclear weapons programme that would by now have allowed him to acquire them had he not been toppled. Moreover, it looks like he had close links with Al Qaeda too.
Today’s New York Times carries an anti-Bush story accusing his administration of inadvertently risked passing on to Iran nuclear weapons know-how by recklessly having posted on the internet earlier this year documents captured by US forces in Iraq of which some supposedly contain potentially useful technical information about nuclear weapons construction.
Well, what this story itself has inadvertently revealed is just how extensive and far along the path towards completion Saddam’s nuclear weapons programme had become by 2003. Not only that. The Iraqi documents published on the Internet by the Bush administration would almost certainly have already been able to be accessed by the Iranians well before they were posted and it would have long known about them too. For the full scoop on this very important issue, see the amazing posting by Jveritas on the Free Republic web-site.
Are you serious? Do you believe any of that? When the truth is that Saddam had no capacity or intention to develop nuclear weapons? That is according to Scott Ritter, the Iraq weapons inspector, who was replaced in his position by a CIA spy, who was the cause of the expulsion of the weapons inspectors and the start of the secret bombing war of 1998.
There has been no proof, whatsoever, of links to ANY terrorist organisation either. Our friend President-General Musharraf has far greater links to AQ. Our own intelligence organisations have greater links. Come on!
Blair and Bush have presided over the greatest nuclear proliferation in 50 years, by not having the courage to deal with, to put sanctions on India and Pakistan. Indeed, they have been rewarding them! & Pakistan – for one – could easily become an Islamist state ANY DAY,,,
…and as to Iran? Have we forgotten that a failed CIA sting operation delivered to them complete nuclear plans (albeit with wrong instructions).
You have to be a fantasist to believe that Bush and Blair have had successful foreign policies…
*Iraq/ Afghanistan = chaotic nightmares which are destroying us, economically and morally
*Somalia = still chaos
*China = vastly more powerful and wealthy, unjustly leveraging a bogus currency position to destroy our longterm economy
*Africa = Now in the hands of the Chinese
*South America = Now in the hands of radical socialists
*The Middle East = Vastly more radicalised and in the process of general nuclearisation
*Israel/ Palestine = Worse than ever
*Russia = Emerging as a powerful petro-dictatorship
*Kosovo = a terrorist led, ethnically cleansed state supported by massive western funding.
*& on a theoretical note, the complete destruction of the system of International Law created after the Second World War. Being: states may intervene in the domestic affairs of other states given ‘good reason’ (replacing NO INVASIOn). Units of states may suceed or seceed if it chooses the west (replacing THEY MAY NOT). Other states cannot do so (if it chooses the west). States may acquire nuclear weapons (if it pleases the west). Other states may not.
etc. etc. the list goes on LIBERAL INTERNATIONALISM is dead. Long live UNPRINCIPLED NEO-REALISM and our integrity, our morality and our virtue.