So we should instead iimplement whatever vision you're espousing, which is essentially idiotic realism with a brand new set of high horses thrown in? No thanks. The successful containment of Iraq's WMD ambitions via sanctions cannot be denied.
That containment was inevitably going to end cannot be denied either - so there was always going to be a choice to make.
Sure, but the problem then is what happens when you lift sanctions - is it reasonable to assume that Saddam would NOT restart his programs at that point? I'm not sure why that would be the case. It's the reason I always felt that Iraq was an inevitable threat rather than an imminent one.
But I don't think they would have been lifted without safeguards to make sure there were no new programs, or Saddam was gone. Condititions would still have to be met in order have them lifted.
I think this is an area that really depends on what lense you used to view the situation. Pretty much everyone would agree that Saddam was a very bad man who had a bad history the question though was at what cost is he removed. This is where the costs vs benefits analysis needed to take place and the problem that I had with the invasion was that it was portrayed as almost all benefit with almost no costs. I can agree with you and Hayes that there were problems with containment and its true it couldn't be maintained forever. While having flaws has invasion and occupation been any better? We still have global terrorism, no WMD have been found, Iraq is in chaos, 2,500 US troops are dead and who knows how many Iraqis. Lets consider that if going with the number you supplied that 200K Iraqis died under sanctions for 12 years. According to some estimates possibly 100K Iraqis have died since the invasion. So you have about half the number of Iraqi casualties in one quarter of the time along with 2,500 US casualties that didn't happen over the 12 year period of containment. The costs then are much much higher for occupation and invasion. My point was that there are no good solutions was that that needed to be considered before invasion was undertaken. Even though I opposed the invasion there is a situation that I could see where I would've supported invasion, clear evidence Saddam had cooperated with Al Qaeda, and even if then I would still say we needed to consider carefully what we were getting into and planning for it. I agree though there aren't really any solutions that I see are much better. I posted a solution a while ago that I thought would work but even then the fact that we've invaded has already created huge problems that will take a long time to repair, if possibly ever.
If I remember my proverbs correctly what follows is "withdraw." I don't think that's a good option for a variety of reasons but as I said earlier, there are no good options.
Regime change was not part of the containment program - so it is doubtful that Saddam would have been gone. As for safeguards - either you have restrictive sanction to prevent material from coming into Iraq or you don't. There was substantial rumblings from countries with large business deals with Iraq - like Russia, China, Germany, and France to lift the sanctions at some point in the near future.
If we invaded without proof that Iraq was responsible for 9-11 I was duped. I am easy to dupe though. Well thought out solutions are far more difficult to find when not so well thought out decisions are made. (although I believe these decisions were well thought out, well planned in advance and executed according to strategy) I think getting out of Iraq (some process of intelligent withdrawal) is a viable solution if the right process could be found- that is unless our presence there has anything to do with oil and the factor oil plays in our national security. Then I wouldn't budge until I understood this factor clearly.
Its a little skewed to use the high estimate on one side and the low on the other. Use the 1.4 million killed by sanctions, plus the several hundred thousand (200k before 1991, 300k in the 1991 uprisings) and compare that to the 100,000 iraqis (plus the 3000 coalition troops) from the intervention - You get a huge net gain with the intervention over containment of about 1.8 million people. If you just go year to year you get the 10k or so Saddam was killing every year (the larger cases were in the 80s and early 90s) plus the 100k a year from sanctions minus the 35,000 a year from the intervention and still you get a huge net benefit with the intervention. If you use the bottomline base numbers you still get a huge net benefit with the intervention.
Even if you assume that containment at some point is going to fail and that Hussein is going to restart his nuclear program, does it follow that the threat from Iraq was our greatest national security issue, such that it warranted spending hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of U.S. soldier's lives, alienating our allies, further enflaming anti-US sentiment in the middle east, etc. Of course, I would argue- NO. There were and are much greater security threats post 9-11. The biggest is stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons and material that already exist, mostly in the former Soviet Union, though now I would say that we really have to worry about Pakistan as well. The most serious plausible threat is that a terrorist group will get their hands on some of this sh_t, and detonate it in New York or D.C. Full nuclear device or dirty bomb, the global repercussions of this scenario would be dire. In a sane world this would be a top priority and Iraq would be third or forth level concern.
I guess it depends on whether you consider Iraq a singular isolated action or part of a greater program to address security issues. If its part of the War on Terrorism - meaning that addressing a greater change in the Middle East - democratizing the ME if you will - then yes, a case could be made for it being a high priority. Can I say the administration justified the intervention properly pre-intervention - not at all.
A condition for lifting sanctions could have been the continuation of a weapons inspection program to assure that Saddam was not building weapons. He would have agreed to virtually anything to keep from being invaded, we had him over a barrel and he knew it. We could have made it so that if he denied access to any site at all, sanctions would be reinstated and a countdown to invasion could begin. I would have agreed with getting tough on Iraq, but it is evident that the invasion was not justified, poorly planned, and dismally executed. Invasion or containment, it could have been done better.
Problem is, once again, either he's lying through his teeth, or he's an idiot that doesn't know a perch from a bass. The world's record for the largest freshwater perch caught is 4 pounds 3 ounces. --------------- According to the Hunting and Fishing Library's Freshwater Gamefish of North America, the world record for the yellow perch (Perca flavescens)is 4 pounds, 3 ounces, out of the Delaware River, New Jersey. http://www.dnr.state.md.us/dnrnews/pressrelease2006/031606a.html
I have to disagree. We would have had them under our thumb, just as we have the existing Iraqi troops... such as they are. Keep D&D Civil.
