The war never ended. What don't you understand?

-Rudey

The US violated the UN charted no more than when an ad hoc coalition stopped the genocide in Bosnia.

The Baathists are gone, Iraq has hope, and the rift in the UN will heal.

And France's behavior was the greater mistake. They were using 1441 to attempt a shift in international hegemonic structure, and there actions backfired.

Iraq has hope?
They are now in civil war and will collapse into another Somalia/pre-10-01 Afghanistan when occupying forces leave.
The US removing the authoritarian regime that stabilized the region was a grave mistake.

Right so they should have died under Saddam. Anything else? You really care about the Iraqis don't you? First it's them defending their homes against us by beheading us. Then it's we illegally started a war in Iraq. And now Saddam was a good man.

This know-nothing is amazing.

-Rudey

I never said "Saddam was a good man" so please do not put words in my mouth.
I recognized the legit fact that his authoritarian regime maintained stability in the region.
Much like the authoritarian regime of Tito maintained stability in the Balkans.
Were either dictator good? No.

Iraq stabilized that region? Only with regard to preventing moderates, and democrats from gaining power. Iraq was not just authoritarian. They were totalitarian, and one of the only genocidal regimes on Earth.

The grave mistake would have been to allow Iraq to remain in power. Prior to 9-11, Iraq was 4th or 5th in the world in the financing of radical Palestinian groups. After 9-11, they became #1. They attempted to destabilize the region, so that the US would be preoccupied with other conflicts, particularly in Israel.

Iraq was trying to get a war started. Nice people.

The real reason why we invaded Iraq has nothing to do with oil or WMD. The real reason was geopolitical. By removing the one nation that was proactively trying to derail the War on Terror (Jihadists,) and by installing a democratic government, the region will change.

It is bold, but there is precedence. Comparisons to Somalia are invalid. Iraq has great national wealth, and an educated population.

They do have hope, after a three decade long nightmare under the Baathists has finally ended.

Stability??? Yes when he was building up the Osirak nuclear reactors he was building up stability to the point that Israel had to attack. When he was gassing a couple hundred thousand kurds and shiites and increasing ethnic violence, he was increasing stability. When he was busy hanging mutilated bodies from the lamp posts in kuwait, he was increasing stability. When he shot missiles into Israel, he was increasing stability. When he massacred 1 million Iranians and the bodies are being found every day, he was increasing stability.

When you were talking, you were decreasing intelligence.

-Rudey

Iraq was definitely not a stable country by any stretch of the imagination. Disregarding any threat it posed to its neighbors, Iraq from within was in total chaos. Before Saddam came to power Iraq was one of the wealthier and better educated nations in the region. Infrastructure was more advanced than any other nation in the region. Very rich cultural history as well. Once Saddam came to power things declined. Sadly, the U.S. knew of Saddam's atrocities and neglected to address them. Even worse, the sanctions imposed after the first Gulf War did nothing but harm the very people we should have been helping. Obviously Saddam wasn't harmed by them at all.

Were the reasons for the war justified? Some say no. We've so far failed to find any WMD. Thus far we've failed to find a solid link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. But, we've managed to take down a genocidal maniac, which is definitely a good first step.

It is quite unlikely that there was a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam to begin with. They stood for totally different ideologies (secular vs. religious state) and most say they despised each other.

Russ, do you have a link to any articles discussing Iraq's increase of funding for Palestinian terror groups?

No solid link between Iraq and Al Qaeda?? What are you talking about? Do you ever read? Why don't you ever do the research? This isn't an opinion piece...just read. Why do people get facts and opinion mixed up on GC???

-Rudey

The Zelikow Report
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: June 21, 2004


ASHINGTON — "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq Tie" went the Times headline. "Al Qaeda-Hussein Link Is Dismissed" front-paged The Washington Post. The A.P. led with the thrilling words "Bluntly contradicting the Bush Administration, the commission. . . ." This understandably caused my editorial-page colleagues to draw the conclusion that "there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. . . ."

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All wrong. The basis for the hoo-ha was not a judgment of the panel of commissioners appointed to investigate the 9/11 attacks. As reporters noted below the headlines, it was an interim report of the commission's runaway staff, headed by the ex-N.S.C. aide Philip Zelikow. After Vice President Dick Cheney's outraged objection, the staff's sweeping conclusion was soon disavowed by both commission chairman Tom Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton.

"Were there contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq?" Kean asked himself. "Yes . . . no question." Hamilton joined in: "The vice president is saying, I think, that there were connections . . . we don't disagree with that" — just "no credible evidence" of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attack.

The Zelikow report was seized upon by John Kerry because it fuzzed up the distinction between evidence of decade-long dealings between agents of Saddam and bin Laden (which panel members know to be true) and evidence of Iraqi cooperation in the 9/11 attacks (which, as Hamilton said yesterday, modifying his earlier "no credible evidence" judgment, was "not proven one way or the other.")

But the staff had twisted the two strands together to cast doubt on both the Qaeda-Iraq ties and the specific attacks of 9/11: "There have been reports that contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda also occurred after bin Laden had returned to Afghanistan, but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship." Zelikow & Co. dismissed the reports, citing the denials of Qaeda agents and what they decided was "no credible evidence" of cooperation on 9/11.

That paragraph — extending doubt on 9/11 to all previous contacts — put the story on front pages. Here was a release on the official commission's letterhead not merely failing to find Saddam's hand in 9/11, which Bush does not claim. The news was in the apparent contradiction of what the president repeatedly asserted as a powerful reason for war: that Iraq had long been dangerously in cahoots with terrorists.

Cheney's ire was misdirected. Don't blame the media for jumping on the politically charged Zelikow report. Blame the commission's leaders for ducking responsibility for its interim findings. Kean and Hamilton have allowed themselves to be jerked around by a manipulative staff.

Yesterday, Governor Kean passed along this stunner about "no collaborative relationship" to ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "Members do not get involved in staff reports."

Not involved? Another commission member tells me he did not see the Zelikow bombshell until the night before its release. Moreover, the White House, vetting the report for secrets, failed to raise an objection to a Democratic bonanza in the tricky paragraph leading to the misleading "no Qaeda-Iraq tie."

The rest is on NYTimes.com

WASHINGTON, June 24 — Contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Osama bin Laden when he was in Sudan in the mid-1990's were part of a broad effort by Baghdad to work with organizations opposing the Saudi ruling family, according to a newly disclosed document obtained by the Americans in Iraq.

NYTimes.com

Nobody said Iraq and Al Quaeda a strong developed relationship but to just go around and keep saying there was nothing and not even read is ridiculous.

-Rudey

So evidently this guy had seen something traumatic and deserted his base. He made friends with Muslim Iraqis on the base who said they would help him get to his native Lebanon, except they turned his Muslim ass over to Muslim terrorists who won't care whether he's Muslim or running away from the army.

-Rudey

What exactly is your point? You said that the war was illegal. You still have not backed that up with anything factual.

Alright then I will :)

I read through resolution 1441 and I didn't see anything that stated that a breach of the resolution would mean the use of armed force... in order for that to happen there had to be a vote in favour of this course of action. The US didn't bring an amendment or new resolution calling for the use of armed force against Iraq, therefore the action was not legally sanctioned by the UN.

The war with Iraq never ended.

-Rudey