“If war is forced upon us…”
If the new criteria is we need to invade countries who may or may not have chemical and/or biological weapons that they may or may not give to terrorists they may or may not be associated with, since they can’t get them to us directly, we’re going to have to do a lot of invading.
“It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons…”
I’m sorry, but that’s funny. It’s the 2003 equivalent of “Senator, when did you stop beating your wife?”
I don’t want to see us go to war with Iraq. However, I do not think it’s unfair for the international community to put the onus on Saddam to explain where this stuff is. It’s in the entire world’s interest, IMHO, for these biological and chemical weapons to be accounted for, as specified in numerous UN resolutions, and in the conditions he accepted requiring him to disarm after the first war in Iraq.
It’s not like we made him out to be a bad guy, and in reality he never had any of these weapons. I’d love it if we could take him at his word that this stuff has just plain disappeared, and we could say move along, nothing to see here. But, I don’t think it’s that easy, and I find it difficult to think anyone could argue that he’s genuine when he says they’re gone, and he’s gonna start anew, a kinder, gentler dictator.
I would think, that despite the apprehension countries in the region have about using military force to disarm Iraq, they have to be a hell of a lot more frieghtened than we are about the status of all of these undisclosed materials. Because we’re a half a world away, they are not. I don’t think that this is all cause for war against Iraq. But I think in the LEAST, Iraq would be well served to be a little more cooperative in assuring it’s neighbors that it’s not harboring germs like anthrax a few miles from their borders.
I doubt that if North Korea said that it no longer was working to develop nuclear weapons, and that it had destroyed all it’s materials, according to the rules in the non-proliferation treaty, that a satisfied South Korea would take all their troops off the border without a little proof backing up that statement.
In an ideal world, we should not have to have them lay down and show all their cards to assure the region that the weapons have been destroyed, and any threats posed by them eliminated. But that’s not the world we live in. And we shouldn’t have to wait for a tragic event to happen somewhere in the world before we say, “OK, this time we mean it. Where are those damn weapons.”
I understand it may not be realistic to just expect him to come clean. But, if there is a realistic possiblity that these weapons still exist, and have not been accounted for, and Iraq does not cooperate with the UN, what is the solution to that situation. Lets impose more sanctions, starving his people to an even greater degree, while he uses every cent he gets from the oil they sell to aquire more weapons. -Mind you, while they’re playing nice to inspectors, they’re moving weapons around the country under the noses of the UN. What is the solution.
Sure, maybe we can contain Saddam and his thirst for weapons. What happens on the day when the world wakes up to realize that he was not contained by these rigid, wide-reaching inspections. In the same way we realized we were not able to gather the information and intelligence to do the same to Al-Queda.
Maybe this all really ISN’T very important. I don’t know. I’d hate to see us go to war, and see even one person die in the mess. But, if there’s nothing to this situation with Iraq that warrants all this attention, to make it an urgent priority, the UN should have said to us, “Chill out you paranoid bastards. Let him go about his business as we’ve done the past 10 years.”
Or, we can hold each country accountable by the same standards. Inspect the US, including the top secret government labs and dubya’s underwear drawer and the twins’ hashpipes. Seeif they cooperate. Iraq sucks, but it is not a threat to the US. It’s a regional bully, just like dozens of other countries. The only difference is that dubya and his cronies have decided they want its rather large oil fields to go into “trust” by their friends’ oil companies.
There will be more terror attacks. There will be military actions by foreign powers. Being an international bully won’t prevent that and in fact will probably provoke disaster.
If the US really wanted revolution in Iraq, it would have administered the economic sanctions without pettiness. Rather than denying import of products needed to get its people back on their feet the US vetoed needed equipment and directly contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths. At least Saddam is honest and obvious with his murders.
Tragic events have already happened. Iraq used chemical weapons on its Kurdish citizens. Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran. We just didn’t care, just then. Now we do. Whad’ya know?