Like Warbler, I ain't got this quote thing sussed as yet, so your responses are italicised:
Wrong on quite a few points there i believe
1. If not at the very least controlled, Iraq was definately a threat to neighbouring countries. As we had seen. And it was fair to say, why not just get rid of him rather than tediously monitor his every move...
You are kidding, right?
"As we had seen". Are we now getting into the shelf-life debate? What I had seen was that Saddam was totally neutered in terms of his military capability following the first Iraq War.
So let's start a war, rather than carry on with the "tedious" task of having weapons inspectors out there?? Unreal.
2. WMD. Well was anyone certain either way? he had used them, that was for sure.
More shelf-life nonsense. Regardless, Hans Blix (Chief UN Weapons Inspector - perhaps best placed to make the call??) seemed just about as certain as was possible. Either way, Saddam was totally contained, and certainly not capable of launching a WMD strike in 45 minutes as was claimed as part of the rationale for going to war.
Like a lot of wars, it was probably a combination of factors.
Was the development of a liberal foward looking democracy a (naive ) aim? I believe so. Certainly the USA would be happy enough to see a another Turkey in the area rather than a Syria.
My point, clivex, is that development of a 'liberal democracy' wasn't an 'aim' of the war at all. At least, not until the three or four other reasons offered-up first were found to be a swiss-cheese.
The idea that the war was solely to boost the share price of a small sector of the US economy insults my inteliigence...now that you are on that subject. Its ridiculous...
Not a small sector of the US economy, clivex.....a HUGE sector of the US economy.
One objective that has been overlooked is Saudi arabia
the world had been overdependent on Saudi oil ( a horrible state with a far too many followers of a disgusting strand of islam) and a counterbalance to that would be Iraq producing to potential...which it clearly wasnt. Not only good for world economy but also alleviates the medium term risk of saudi oil falling into the hands of fundamentalist anti west regime
Not at all relevant, imo.
