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Originally posted by Superbelt
Honestly, yes.
I've said it here before that what we have done is noble. But the way we wen't about doing it was not.
Bush sold this war to us and Congress on the fear that we could be attacked by Saddam within 45 minutes.
If he had just ratcheted up his argument based on Saddam being a mass murderer and torturer of his own people who will leave that legacy for the Iraqi people long after he is gone, through his children, then yeah I could support it.
It would also have helped us build an actual broad coalition of international support as making the case for invasion based on that actually has a provable base. And a prescedent.
If we had achieved a real international coalition this wouldn't have been an american invasion, which would have severely limited the ongoing guerilla attacks against american troops we are seing now, and the cost to the United States would have been minimalized.
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The war wasn't sold solely on the threat of wmds.
The only way to have built a "coalition" like the one you argue for is to pay of Germany, France, Russia, and every other member of the security council because as soon as they heard about the deals their cohorts were getting the hands would have been out. You then probably would have been arguing that we "bought" their support. The simple fact is that Hussein did a very good job of driving a wedge between the countries who he did business with and the US. Should we have done a better job in preventing that wedge? Absolutely, but that is far from just a failure on the Bush Admins part. These relationships have been building since the UN imposed sanctions.
Back on the topic at hand, the shells. Certainly not a smoking gun. As others have pointed out, preliminary tests have been less than perfect. As far as whether these were from among the shells that were "lost", unless you can show me serial numbers for those lost and these that were found and they match up, that argument is worthless. Them being buried, likely for retrieval at another date, certainly raises suspicion.
In the end, what does this really tell us? Well, it tells us that Saddam more than likely lied about his weapons stockpiles. Not exactly earth shattering news here. No matter who you believe--those who think he had wmds or those who think he didn't--he certainly did all he could to hide the fact that he didn't have any if he didn't and he certainly hid the fact that he did if he did.
As to why the wmds that they allegedly had weren't used by the Iraqis during the invasion there are several very plausible reasons for it:
The first is that most of the soldiers weren't very loyal to Saddam and they may not have been willing to suffer the onslaught of munitions that would have followed their launching of a chemical/biologic attack. Those who were loyal were supposedly reduced to hit and run attacks because Saddam's sons had ordered them to change positions and they got caught way out of position.
The second is that the lines of communication and infrastructure were pretty well destroyed during the invasion making it difficult for such an attack to be authorized or to be followed.
The third is that Saddam may have decided to avoid using these weapons to hopefully influence world opinion and create doubt around Bush's wmd story.
There are plenty of reasons to think they had wmds and quite a few reasons to think they didn't. In the end, it doesn't matter. Hussein gambled by feigning to have them or by not offering up sufficient evidence of their destruction. That gamble failed.