Re: a dumb query? pls humor me

[judd@wadsworth.org]

On  7 Mar, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 02:41:39AM -0800, Steve Lamb wrote:
>> 
>>     Also, in the defense of the US and British intelligence agencies
>> it isn't like Saddam didn't give them a reason to think he was
>> currently in possession of WMD.  He was playing a delicate balancing
>> act.  On the one hand he was telling the West that he didn't have
>> them while playing like he did to keep the other regimes that were
>> eying Iraq at bay.  It turns out we in the West believed him at his
>> games.  The simple fact is the price of acting on those suspicions
>> and being wrong (there were no WMD) was far less costly than ignoring
>> them and finding out they were true (there were WMD).
>> 

     First, those were not the choices, since the suspicions weren/t
true, regardless of what the US did.  The choice made was to invade and
find out that they weren't true, which was very costly, in many ways.

     Also, there were more choices, such as:

     Allowing the inspectors to continue, as most of the world wanted to
do.  Possibly augmenting them with CIA or FBI agents (IRAQ said that
they would allow this).

     Accepting Chile's "Five Week Plan", which would have probably
garnered more international support, and possibly convinced Iraq that
we would in fact invade.

     Accepting Hussein's offer to leave the country with his two sons
(delivered through back channels to Richard Perle in late 2002).
     
     And let's not forget that the Bush administration was cherry
picking data, distorting, and outright lying to portray Iraq as a threat
to the US.


> This is why there is all this revisionism going on in the media and on
> the left.  They hate feeling like they got played.  Saddam played the
> whole world.  He got what he deserved.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -Roberto
> 

     And to be fair, let's not forget that the right does plenty of
revision, also.

-Chris

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|   Christopher Judd, Ph. D.                      judd@wadsworth.org   |
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