But, wait!! The media told me everyone was AGAINST invading Iraq...

<A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/international/06NATI.html">U.N. Spy Photos Show New Building at Iraqi Nuclear Sites</A>

<i>Experts in New York and Vienna have continued to scrutinize aerial photographs and pore over intelligence reports, even after United Nations inspectors pulled out of Iraq in December 1998 in advance of bombing by the United States and Britain.

Officials representing the team of nuclear inspectors in Vienna and a separate team on chemical and biological weapons based in New York said United Nations inspectors are equipped, trained and ready to go to Iraq and could begin their work within weeks if Baghdad gave permission. But they said it would take about a year to complete work to determine whether Iraq was developing prohibited weapons, and then only if Iraq cooperated fully.

A team of about 15 experts at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna noted the new structures and other alterations in photographs shot by a commercial satellite, said Jacques Baute, the French physicist who is the team leader of the nuclear inspectors.

The shots were compared to pictures and information from the sites gathered by inspectors the last time they were in Iraq. He declined to identify exact locations.

"We are very curious to see what is under the roof," Mr. Baute said, referring to the new buildings. "There are some activities that could be part of prohibited activities, but we have nothing now that allows us to draw a conclusion.

"We want to open any door we want to open," he said.

President Bush, facing concern from many nations over the possibility of a military strike by the United States against Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, plans to consult over the next two days with leaders from Security Council nations to see if new action can be taken through the United Nations to confront Iraq on the weapons inspections.

But even if inspectors were allowed to return, United Nations officials acknowledge that their timetable is slower than United States officials say they want. The inspectors said it would take them about 12 months to examine locations, scrutinize documents and analyze samples to get a full picture of Iraq's weapons efforts — if they could work unimpeded.

Iraq has continued to allow annual inspections of one warehouse in a Baghdad suburb, part of the Tawaitha nuclear research center, by a different team of the atomic agency. In their last visit, in January, the inspectors did not detect any illegal weapons activity there.

But Iraq has not been reporting to the United Nations its "dual-use" imports — substances that might be used for weapons production as well as nuclear fuel — as it is required to do, according to a report released today by Hans Blix, the head of the biological and chemical weapons team.

That team, which is based in New York, was reorganized by the Security Council two years ago to make it more professional and finance it with revenues from sales of Iraqi oil, which is monitored by the United Nations. The team, which also will inspect for development of long-range missiles, now includes 63 permanent staff members from 27 countries.

After a meeting last weekend, European Union countries have been discussing the idea of setting a deadline to force Iraq to allow the United Nations inspectors to return. But diplomats in New York said that European governments had not yet decided on that course, and were waiting to hear from President Bush.
<b>Secretary General Kofi Annan, increasingly impatient with Baghdad's delays, has resisted attempts by Iraq since August to draw him into new talks about the purpose of the inspections. Mr. Annan told Iraqi officials that their next exchange with him should be an invitation for the inspectors to return.</b>
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<A HREF="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,62211,00.html">New Intelligence Exposes Iraq's Nuke Push</A>

<i>......Bush administration officials have also told Fox News that they are looking at a proposal that would utilize 50,000 troops to back up U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq as they attempt to assess the magnitude of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Officials concede that it would be unlikely that the Iraqi dictator would go along with such a scheme........</i>

 

My point is that he hasn't made any other threatening moves. We aren't more at danger now. If anything we are less in danger, so if the govt. didn't feel it was necessary to act then, it certainly isn't necessary to act now. And I thought the whole idea of using violence to solve problems was that it should be a last resort, when all other options of have been tried and it's absolutely necessary.

The Israelis managed to find out where is previous nuke development site was and blow it up. It worked then, why not have it work now?

There could be more than 20. I think the idea is that you have some armed escorts inside and a full size force ready to back it up outside if there's a problem.

I agree nuclear conflict is a higher risk if the country has nukes. I'm in favor of trying to stop him from getting nukes. I'm just not in favor of using a unilateral invasion to do it.

I don't know the reason why Bush is doing it for sure. I have some ideas, but they are just theories and impossible to prove. I believe that certain people told Bush that if the U.S. invaded Iraq, the business contracts in rebuilding the country would be very beneficial to companies like Haliburton, and other corporations that Bush is familiar with. They may have told him that we could also put a friendly govt. in Hussein's place and assure ourselves a supply of oil, so that we could start getting tough with some of the Arab regimes in the region. In addition Hussein would be gone. Those arguments probably convinced Bush that the invasion was a good idea. I don't really have any proof to back that up, and I'll admit it's pure supposition on my part. The involvement of the U.N. isn't certain, might slow things up, and would affect the kind of post Hussein regime that gets put in place, thus messing up the plan for the oil supply etc. Therefore the UN isn't preferable.

Kofi Anan's remark was in response to an Iraqi proposal, but not with the new proposal. Kofi is still trying to think of other sollutions.

I think they've tried but not hard enough.

It wouldn't have to be our military doing the covert ops. We could help people within Iraq etc. And a targeted covert op, isn't an actual invasion.

IT would happen if they had armed escorts with them, and an invasion size multi-lateral force on the outside to back it up. Saddam would know that he had no choice. If it didn't work, then the hawks would get their precious invasion after all. But at least it would be another effort to handle things without that, and once it came it would be multi-lateral.

I meant goodwill toward the U.S. in general... Especially in regards to terrorism. It had to do with 9/11 and not Iraq. That goodwill could have been cultivated and possibly lead to them being more in favor of forcing weapons inspections. Either way it was a step in the right direction as far as relations with those countries anyway.

Like I said I'm in favor of saddam going bye-bye, and keeping him from acquiring nukes. It's just how that happens that is the disagreement.

The result of that could mean more govts. that harbor and train terrorists.

First of all I don't think the likelyhood of a nuclear war is high at all. And I think terrorism is a far greater and more realistic risk. We've already been attacked by them.

And like I said above, new govts. may train and harbor terrorists, or almost assuredly not supply us with information helpful in stopping them.

Because the attempt failed doesn't mean we have sufficient forces in place. The AFghan VP has already been killed, there were the car bombs, and general lawlessness prevails. The U.S. promised when they invaded Afghanistan that they were doing to stick around and help rebuild the new govt. The president of the new govt. has said there isn't sufficient force in place now to restore order, but the U.S. isn't helping out more.

Total withdrawl would be a violation of our promise, would make the new govts. vulnerable, and has been shown to be bad policy. It was this policy after WWI that helped lead to WWII.

But they don't always open up a new front in war that's still going on. When Hitler tried that it proved to be a mistake from a strategical standpoint.

According to Bush they are helping us. They provide intelligence data, and have made arrests of various terrorists(Morocco).

I agree with denying him nukes. Bombing him indefinitely would be infinitely more popular than a unilateral invasion. I agree we need on the ground inspectors, and once we find the weapons we should destroy them.

Yes things change. But we don't know that he's going to get terminal cancer, we don't know that if he had that and had nukes that he would use them.


How can monitoring and containment stop him from handing off weapons to terrorists? Or stop terrorists from stealing it once Iraq has it? How could an invasion stop it at that point?

Monitoring who he meets with, what kinds of testing he's doing etc.

He did do that. Since he's done that there was a war. The war is over. We should try and make sure he doesn't do anything like that again, but the fact is that the first war with Iraq is over. We can't invade anew based on evidence from the last war.

It's never good to allow nukes into an unstable environment. I'm not advocating that. I think our number one priority should be to fight the enemy at hand which is Al Qaeda and finding Bin Laden.

But they do have more experience dealing with the countries of that region.

I was saying in the worst case scenario. I don't actually believe that nukes would be used against Saudi Arabia. I don't know for sure, nor does anyone know for sure that they would. Each person has their own opinion on the future.