Why would anyone continue to claim the iraqi war was a failure?

[JakeStarkey]

Because, Too Tall, we should not have sold the precursors, much of what was done under Reagan's people,.

But, but, but Jake, you said Iraq was not on the list of nations that supported terrorists. Is there a double standard for the US as compared to all of our allies?

But, but, but, Too Tall, we think the we have a double standard, don't we?

Invading Iraq was the stupidest foreign policy this country has made since we tried to invade Canada in 1812, and they kicked our ass three times, and took an entire enemy captive.

 

[Billo_Really]

The Iraq war was a complete and total failure for the following reasons:

1. Spent over a trillion US taxpayer dollars with no direct benefit in return for average American's.
2. Completely trashed our reputation around the world.
3. Violated our Constitution, American heritage and the principles this country was founded upon.

 

[JRK]

The Iraq war was a complete and total failure for the following reasons:

1. Spent over a trillion US taxpayer dollars with no direct benefit in return for average American's.
2. Completely trashed our reputation around the world.
3. Violated our Constitution, American heritage and the principles this country was founded upon.

No return?
we closed a base in Saudi as well as numerous ones in Kuwait. We also cut funding to the UN that over a 10 year period I am sure was substantial as was closing the bases as fore mentioned
In No-one knows what else would have come from Saddam as well as Al Qaeda being allowed to continue there path as they were prior to the invasion

It amazes mt this reputation argument when we had 33 countries helped us enforce the terms of surrender Saddam ignored until 2003

Constitution?
Exactly what part of the Constitution was ignored? In fact the constitution was followed to the tee
To defend this country is the most important thing our constitution
Congress voted for the very thing we did, enforce UN regulations and to remove Al Qaeda from Iraq (which Al Qaeda where there it was confirmed in 2010)

You Liberals where lied to by your leadership. I will never forgive them for it.
Neither should you

 

[JRK]

Former CIA director George Tenet reveals in his own autobiography, At the Center of the Storm, some of the intelligence that backed up Powell’s presentation. More than one dozen other al Qaeda terrorists had joined Zarqawi in Baghdad. One of them was an Egyptian known as Abu Ayyub al Masri, who had served Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, since the 1980s. After Zarqawi was killed in 2006, al Masri took his place as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Masri himself was killed earlier this year, and his widow confirmed that they had moved to central Baghdad in 2002.

Zarqawi and al Masri led a campaign of spectacular terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people, security personnel, and coalition forces. It was their savagery that, to a large extent, brought Iraq to the brink of total chaos—and ultimately provoked the Anbar Awakening. It is crucially important, then, that Zarqawi and al Masri were operating inside Iraq before American or British forces ever set foot there. They were clearly preparing for war.

In Baghdad, Tenet says, Zarqawi’s cell found “a comfortable and secure environment” to funnel supplies and fighters to “up to two hundred” al Qaeda fighters who had relocated to camps in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq beginning in late 2001. The camps were run by an al Qaeda affiliate named Ansar al Islam (AI), which would later play a significant role in the Iraqi insurgency. The CIA found that AI was experimenting with poisons on animals and, “in at least one case, on one of their own associates.”

Prior to the war, the CIA got much about Iraq wrong. But here is an instance where the agency got something right.

Less than one week after Secretary of State Colin Powell made the case for war with Saddam’s Iraq based on the CIA’s intelligence, Osama bin Laden decided to make his own case for war. Bin Laden, however, was on Saddam’s side.

In an audiotape released on February 11, 2003, bin Laden explained why. “It is true that Saddam is a thief and an apostate, but the solution is not to be found in moving the government of Iraq from a local thief to a foreign one,” bin Laden argued. “There is no harm in such circumstances if the Muslims’ interests coincide with those of the socialists in fighting the Crusaders, despite our firm conviction that they are infidels.  .  .  .  There is nothing wrong with a convergence of interests here.”

Bin Laden’s message was clear. Saddam may be a socialist “infidel,” but he is preferable to the United States and Britain. The terror master called on Muslims to fight alongside Saddam’s forces. And Saddam himself clearly saw a “convergence of interests” as well.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse in 2004, Hudayfa Azzam said that Saddam had welcomed al Qaeda “with open arms” and “strictly and directly” controlled their activities inside Iraq. Azzam was in a position to know. He is the son of one of al Qaeda’s earliest and most influential leaders, Abdullah Azzam, and maintained extensive contacts with al Qaeda leaders inside Iraq.

Muhammad al Masari, a Saudi who operates a known al Qaeda front in London and has helped recruit suicide bombers to fight in Iraq, has offered a similar account. In his book The Secret History of al Qaeda, Abdel Bari Atwan recounts a conversation he had with al Masari. Saddam “saw that Islam would be key to the formation of a cohesive resistance in the event of invasion,” according to al Masari. Thus, Saddam funded the relocation of al Qaeda operatives to Iraqi soil. Al Masari says that Saddam also ordered officers in the Iraqi military to purchase “small plots of land from  .  .  .   farmers in Sunni areas” and then bury “arms and money caches for later use by the resistance.”

There is much more evidence in this vein, including, for instance, Iraqi intelligence documents recovered after the fall of Saddam. Some of the documents demonstrate that Saddam called on hundreds of terrorists from around the Middle East to come to Iraq in the months leading up to the war. Many of them had been trained by Saddam’s regime beginning in the late 1990s. In early 2003, Saddam opened his border with Syria to allow this stream of terrorists in. In one recovered document, Saddam ordered his military to “utilize” Arab suicide bombers against the invading forces. This was almost certainly a reference to al Qaeda.

All of this may sound like a belated attempt to relitigate the case for war. It is not. Reasonable people can differ on how to handle Saddam’s prewar sponsorship of terrorists, including al Qaeda. Tony Blair does not present Saddam’s terrorist ties as a major justification for war. By the same token, it is simply false to claim, as Obama and the Democrats have, that Al Qaeda in Iraq “didn’t exist before our invasion.”

Al Qaeda in Iraq | Foundation for Defense of Democracies

These facts remain UN reported by most because of the time line
Most of this was not confirmed until 2010

Please edit your post or I will. You know the copyright rules. Thanks

It was to old I guess to edit
I will not allow it to happen again
I actually thought it was okay, there was no intent for harm
If you can edit it go ahead
Sorry

 

[JRK]

Because, Too Tall, we should not have sold the precursors, much of what was done under Reagan's people,.

But, but, but Jake, you said Iraq was not on the list of nations that supported terrorists. Is there a double standard for the US as compared to all of our allies?

I have Jake in Ignore, for some reason he has a hate for me and the truth it became to much to put up with. I actually feel sorry for him
He will do the same to you in time

RR had absolutely nothing to do with Kuwait and ignoring the terms of surrender Saddam Agreed to
RR had absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda setting up base in 2002
RR had nothing to do with Saddam killing millions
torturing millions
RR was not part of any of these events. Saddam brought this on to his people and his self, right by his self

 

[JakeStarkey]

poor JRK. he thinks folks hate him, when instead they are laughing at him.

RR's admin supported Saddam and JRK was fine with it at the time

 

[Mac1958]

.

Look, folks, the fact is that the neocons have absolutely no choice: They HAVE to spin this disaster into something positive. They HAVE to avoid admitting the horrific costs of the wars. They HAVE to avoid the fact that the American people were sold on the "knowledge" that Saddam had WMD's and that their use on us was imminent.

These people have no choice, they are strict ideologues, and they must do everything they can to protect their ideology from its own failures. As I've said to another partisan ideologue here, I can pretend that lemons are purple all day long. That's the problem with protecting an ideology from the facts: It's dishonest. Ideologues have to lie.

They HAVE to support the horror and damage their policies caused. It's what ideologues do.

.

 

[zeke]

No return?
we closed a base in Saudi as well as numerous ones in Kuwait. We also cut funding to the UN that over a 10 year period I am sure was substantial as was closing the bases as fore mentioned

And everyone knows you can't close a military base unless you start a war. Right?

To defend this country is the most important thing our constitution

daymum and here I thought we were supposed to be attacked by another country before we started defending ourselves. Where in the COTUS does it call for pre emptive war?

 

[zeke]

Look, folks, the fact is that the neocons have absolutely no choice: They HAVE to spin this disaster into something positive. They HAVE to avoid admitting the horrific costs of the wars. They HAVE to avoid the fact that the American people were sold on the "knowledge" that Saddam had WMD's and that their use on us was imminent.

These people have no choice, they are strict ideologues, and they must do everything they can to protect their ideology from its own failures. As I've said to another partisan ideologue here, I can pretend that lemons are purple all day long. That's the problem with protecting an ideology from the facts: It's dishonest. Ideologues have to lie.

They HAVE to support the horror and damage their policies caused. It's what ideologues do.

Very well said. And unfortunately true.

 

[BlindBoo]

Actually, Saddam used a lot more chemical weapons on the Iranians during the war with them than he did on the Kurds.

We didn't invade him because he had not yet invaded Kuwait, and was not a threat to the rest of the middle east oil supply until then.

Here is a list of suppliers to Saddam:

All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin.
Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French.
About 100 tons of mustard gas also came from Brazil.
The United Kingdom paid for a chlorine factory that was intended to be used for manufacturing mustard gas
An Austrian company gave Iraq calutrons for enriching uranium. The nation also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales.
Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq.
The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq.
Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions.
India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses.
Luxemburg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors.
Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraq’s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales.
China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare.

Most of which would not have been sold to Iraq if it was on the list of nations who supported terrorist.

Wonder how much of the 4 billion in loans the US (taxpayers) gave Saddam was use to purchase the above items.

If that is true, why were you blaming the US for selling precursors to Saddam? All of our allies were and in a lot larger quantities.

That would be the mythical $4 billion that Saddam never did get.

You believe all of the other Bush haters made up crap don't you?

The Western allies were allowed to sell to Iraq after President Reagan took Iraq off the list.

Not a big student of History are you?

By the end of 1983, US$402 million in agriculture department loan guarantees for Iraq were approved. In 1984, this increased to $503 million and reached $1.1 billion in 1988. Between 1983 and 1990, CCC loan guarantees freed up more than $5 billion. Some $2 billion in bad loans, plus interest, ended up having to be covered by US taxpayers.

A similar taxpayer-funded, though smaller scale, scam operated under the auspices of the federal Export-Import Bank. In 1984, vice-president George Bush senior personally intervened to ensure that the bank guaranteed loans to Iraq of $500 million to build an oil pipeline. Export-Import Bank loan guarantees grew from $35 million in 1985 to $267 million by 1990.

According to William Blum, writing in the August 1998 issue of the Progressive, Sam Gejdenson, chairperson of a Congressional subcommittee investigating US exports to Iraq, disclosed that from 1985 until 1990 "the US government approved 771 licenses [only 39 were rejected] for the export to Iraq of $1.5 billion worth of biological agents and high-tech equipment with military application …

"The US spent virtually an entire decade making sure that Saddam Hussein had almost whatever he wanted… US export control policy was directed by US foreign policy as formulated by the State Department, and it was US foreign policy to assist the regime of Saddam Hussein."

A 1994 US Senate report revealed that US companies were licenced by the commerce department to export a "witch’s brew" of biological and chemical materials, including bacillus anthracis (which causes anthrax) and clostridium botulinum (the source of botulism). The American Type Culture Collection made 70 shipments of the anthrax bug and other pathogenic agents.

How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[BlindBoo]

The Iraq war was a complete and total failure for the following reasons:

1. Spent over a trillion US taxpayer dollars with no direct benefit in return for average American's.
2. Completely trashed our reputation around the world.
3. Violated our Constitution, American heritage and the principles this country was founded upon.

No return?
we closed a base in Saudi as well as numerous ones in Kuwait. We also cut funding to the UN that over a 10 year period I am sure was substantial as was closing the bases as fore mentioned
In No-one knows what else would have come from Saddam as well as Al Qaeda being allowed to continue there path as they were prior to the invasion

It amazes mt this reputation argument when we had 33 countries helped us enforce the terms of surrender Saddam ignored until 2003

Constitution?
Exactly what part of the Constitution was ignored? In fact the constitution was followed to the tee
To defend this country is the most important thing our constitution
Congress voted for the very thing we did, enforce UN regulations and to remove Al Qaeda from Iraq (which Al Qaeda where there it was confirmed in 2010)

You Liberals where lied to by your leadership. I will never forgive them for it.
Neither should you

Again you spouting half truths. Al Queda's only presence in Iraq was in the northern Free-Kurdish area. There was no operational co-operation between Saddam and al Queda. Saddam may have been an evil person but he was not stupid. He did not allow al Queda into his country and he didn't give them santuary like Pakistan did.

By ignoring the ongoing UN process via SCR 1441 President Bush not only disregarded our obligation as a signer of that resolution but also did not satisfy the justification section of the Joint Resolution passed by Congress.

After 20 yeasr of war and nearly 10 years of crippling sanctions, Iraq did not pose a significant threat to the worlds remaining super power.

Still I don't forgive the Democrats for voting to give up their constitutional responsiblity. They should have all resigned (well those who voted for it). They are a disgrace.

 

[BlindBoo]

Because, Too Tall, we should not have sold the precursors, much of what was done under Reagan's people,.

But, but, but Jake, you said Iraq was not on the list of nations that supported terrorists. Is there a double standard for the US as compared to all of our allies?

I have Jake in Ignore, for some reason he has a hate for me and the truth it became to much to put up with. I actually feel sorry for him
He will do the same to you in time

RR had absolutely nothing to do with Kuwait and ignoring the terms of surrender Saddam Agreed to
RR had absolutely nothing to do with Al Qaeda setting up base in 2002
RR had nothing to do with Saddam killing millions
torturing millions
RR was not part of any of these events. Saddam brought this on to his people and his self, right by his self

If it wasn't for the support of RR, Saddam would have met his end likely at the hands of his own people. Millions of young Arab conscripts were killed needlessly because RR thought it was in our best interest to prolong the war. RR sold weapons to both sides in that war. You can't ignore the past. Let me rephrase that. You shouldn't ignore the past......

 

[JakeStarkey]

RR, Rumsfeld, and that group of ignornuts were responsible for SH remaining in power, leaving the problem to fester until it became much worse. And thus it came to pass in the Third Year of the Reign of George the Younger the downfall of the economy and the military and the culture of America began.

 

[jack113]

The tea tarty anti Americans do not deal in facts and have no conception of what their hate messaging does to innocent people. Over one and a half million innocent people were murdered by Bush st steal a "sea of oil."

Husein could have put bush in Gitmo for the rest of his treasonous life with the information he had on Bush selling him classified information on how to create biological weapons. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and many more PNAC writers deserve the death of a traitor and some day will get what they deserve. Bush and murder go together like peanut butter and jelly.

The brain dead GOP will support Bush until they die just because they have no agenda except hate and misery for their own people.

Bush= National Guard deserter

Bush= mass murder

Bush/Rove/Cheney= outing CIA agents

Bush= never voted into office, placed into office by daddies supreme court

Bush= failed drug test by National Guard

Bush= still supports his Nazi family ties to Hitler

 

[Billo_Really]

No return?

No direct benefit to average American's. How did you benefit from these wars? I know my life is not better because of it.

we closed a base in Saudi as well as numerous ones in Kuwait.

So what! We still have over 800 bases around the world. How the hell does our military protect us, when they're not physically in the country they're defending?

We also cut funding to the UN that over a 10 year period I am sure was substantial as was closing the bases as fore mentioned

Why is cutting funding to the UN a good thing?

In No-one knows what else would have come from Saddam as well as Al Qaeda being allowed to continue there path as they were prior to the invasion

What path? Hussein wasn't doing shit and al Qaeda was in some other country. This comparison between Iraq and al Qaeda has been thoroghly debunked. Hussein and Bin Laden were enemies. If what you said was true, it would be the first time in history, that a religous fundamentalist, had joined forces with a secular dictator.

It amazes mt this reputation argument when we had 33 countries helped us enforce the terms of surrender Saddam ignored until 2003

They were already enforcing the terms of 1441. No UN report had said Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions. There was absolutely no reason to rush into a war.

Constitution?
Exactly what part of the Constitution was ignored? In fact the constitution was followed to the tee

Article 51 of the UN Charter. It states there is only 2 ways a country can legally attack another country and we satisfied neither.

To defend this country is the most important thing our constitution

No it isn't! Enforcing the rule of law is most important. Once that is stopped, everything is stopped. We are no longer American's. Just look at what has happened since 9/11. One of our founding principals was that a person is "presumed innocent, until proven guilty". Now you can be indefinately detained with no charges.

Where do you see "indefinate detention" in the Constitution?

Congress voted for the very thing we did, enforce UN regulations and to remove Al Qaeda from Iraq (which Al Qaeda where there it was confirmed in 2010)

Al Qaeda didn't come into Iraq until after the invasion.

You Liberals where lied to by your leadership. I will never forgive them for it.
Neither should you

What was the lie?

I'll tell you what a lie is...

...it's Bush telling reporters that one of the justifications for attacking Iraq was Hussein barring UN inspectors from the country. The problem with that was, at the time he said it, UN inspectors were driving around Iraq in white vans.

 

[Billo_Really]

Again you spouting half truths. Al Queda's only presence in Iraq was in the northern Free-Kurdish area. There was no operational co-operation between Saddam and al Queda. Saddam may have been an evil person but he was not stupid. He did not allow al Queda into his country and he didn't give them santuary like Pakistan did.

By ignoring the ongoing UN process via SCR 1441 President Bush not only disregarded our obligation as a signer of that resolution but also did not satisfy the justification section of the Joint Resolution passed by Congress.

After 20 yeasr of war and nearly 10 years of crippling sanctions, Iraq did not pose a significant threat to the worlds remaining super power.

Still I don't forgive the Democrats for voting to give up their constitutional responsiblity. They should have all resigned (well those who voted for it). They are a disgrace.

I've always felt this "Saddam was a bad guy, so we had to take him out" argument, doesn't wash. Because we knew he was a bad guy 20 years before, when we were selling him arms to fight the Iranian's. If that was a valid argument, we would've taken him out then.

Instead, we got this...

 

[georgephillip]

Thank you for admitting there were no WMDs.

OK, the USA won the war then lost the peace. And broke Iraq good. And nearly broke our economy. And ruined our Reserve and National Guard units with repeated tours over and over and over there,.

The UN? Show me where the UN authorized the USA to act on behalf of the UN.

Ass whopping? Sure was: our economy, our troop morale, our standing in the world, and so forth.

You neo-cons broke it all, you own it all.

yeah broke our economy, funny thing is our economy was better during the war. Thanks but you're not dealing with a high school student. What do you think the 17th resolution was for. It was the resolution that allowed Hussein to comply or ...................be dealt with. He didnt comply (as usual) and therefore action was taken. So you would have just let it go on and on and on. Sorry but what broke the economy was affirmative action housing.....giving people loans who couldnt afford the houses so we have a more "Equal" share of diversity in home ownership. Then with all these loans and people defaulting, ooops.....CRASH and with OBama failing to do ANYTHING about energy (gotta use fossil fuels now, alternative energy isnt practical right now) it's difficult for the economy to recover.

I'm sure you're ok with the UN allowing Iran to have nukes, yeah that's a great idea, except I thought liberals were big on nuclear non proliferation? So you are until a country decides to go for it and then you're like...oh whatever we were just kidding.

Sorry.
What broke the economy was an epidemic of mortgage fraud the FBI began warning about in 2004 with 80% of the crime originating with lenders. Wall Street did it, Stupid. You're a real credit to the conservative "trickle down" morality that kills other people's children for money and steals other peoples' houses for market share. Maybe you should get off your knees and stop worshiping rich parasites who don't exist without eternal war and endless debt?

 

[JRK]

The tea tarty anti Americans do not deal in facts and have no conception of what their hate messaging does to innocent people. Over one and a half million innocent people were murdered by Bush st steal a "sea of oil."

Husein could have put bush in Gitmo for the rest of his treasonous life with the information he had on Bush selling him classified information on how to create biological weapons. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and many more PNAC writers deserve the death of a traitor and some day will get what they deserve. Bush and murder go together like peanut butter and jelly.

The brain dead GOP will support Bush until they die just because they have no agenda except hate and misery for their own people.

Bush= National Guard deserter

Bush= mass murder

Bush/Rove/Cheney= outing CIA agents

Bush= never voted into office, placed into office by daddies supreme court

Bush= failed drug test by National Guard

Bush= still supports his Nazi family ties to Hitler

Jack GWB never deserted anything
Never murdered any-one
He was voted into Office as legal as the day is long in 2000 and 2004
Drug test? Hitler

Those are not even items that I will comment on. Dude get real, get a life
What the hell all this other stuff is, is childish

 

[JRK]

Again you spouting half truths. Al Queda's only presence in Iraq was in the northern Free-Kurdish area. There was no operational co-operation between Saddam and al Queda. Saddam may have been an evil person but he was not stupid. He did not allow al Queda into his country and he didn't give them santuary like Pakistan did.

By ignoring the ongoing UN process via SCR 1441 President Bush not only disregarded our obligation as a signer of that resolution but also did not satisfy the justification section of the Joint Resolution passed by Congress.

After 20 yeasr of war and nearly 10 years of crippling sanctions, Iraq did not pose a significant threat to the worlds remaining super power.

Still I don't forgive the Democrats for voting to give up their constitutional responsiblity. They should have all resigned (well those who voted for it). They are a disgrace.

I've always felt this "Saddam was a bad guy, so we had to take him out" argument, doesn't wash. Because we knew he was a bad guy 20 years before, when we were selling him arms to fight the Iranian's. If that was a valid argument, we would've taken him out then.

Instead, we got this...

What does any of that have to do with invading Kuwait?
Killing millions of Iraqis?
Ignoring the terms of surrender?

You liberals blow me away with this spin that has nothing to do with Al Qaeda being in Iraq in 2002
It has nothing to do with the UN accurately reporting 1-27-2003 that Saddam still had 6500 munitions with banned material in there war heads (we ended up finding over 500 of them after we invaded)

Saddam was more than evil
The region was becoming another hide out for Al Qaeda
No-one wanted violence. No-one profited from these events
It was as we say a necessary evil we had no choice in doing

 

[JRK]

No return?

No direct benefit to average American's. How did you benefit from these wars? I know my life is not better because of it.

we closed a base in Saudi as well as numerous ones in Kuwait.

So what! We still have over 800 bases around the world. How the hell does our military protect us, when they're not physically in the country they're defending?

Why is cutting funding to the UN a good thing?

What path? Hussein wasn't doing shit and al Qaeda was in some other country. This comparison between Iraq and al Qaeda has been thoroghly debunked. Hussein and Bin Laden were enemies. If what you said was true, it would be the first time in history, that a religous fundamentalist, had joined forces with a secular dictator.

They were already enforcing the terms of 1441. No UN report had said Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions. There was absolutely no reason to rush into a war.

Article 51 of the UN Charter. It states there is only 2 ways a country can legally attack another country and we satisfied neither.

No it isn't! Enforcing the rule of law is most important. Once that is stopped, everything is stopped. We are no longer American's. Just look at what has happened since 9/11. One of our founding principals was that a person is "presumed innocent, until proven guilty". Now you can be indefinately detained with no charges.

Where do you see "indefinate detention" in the Constitution?

Congress voted for the very thing we did, enforce UN regulations and to remove Al Qaeda from Iraq (which Al Qaeda where there it was confirmed in 2010)

Al Qaeda didn't come into Iraq until after the invasion.

You Liberals where lied to by your leadership. I will never forgive them for it.
Neither should you

What was the lie?

I'll tell you what a lie is...

...it's Bush telling reporters that one of the justifications for attacking Iraq was Hussein barring UN inspectors from the country. The problem with that was, at the time he said it, UN inspectors were driving around Iraq in white vans.

You have a link of those 850 bases?
That sounds like allot to me. The UN cost is money
Indefinite detention? There POW's. what would you have us do with them?
Al Qaeda was in Iraq before we invaded, I can find no better reason than to invade and as we did now
Blair’s testimony directly contradicts the Democrats. Still, in the British manner, he continues to understate the case.

Intelligence compiled by American officials, as well as the testimony of known al Qaeda associates, confirms that al Qaeda established a significant presence in Iraq prior to March 2003. The evidence that al Qaeda was in Iraq before the war is simply overwhelming. And it helps to explain why the insurgency became so lethal.

Even though Blair says it “later emerged” that Zarqawi had set up shop in Iraq in 2002, this connection was actually a formal part of the American case for war. Secretary of State Colin Powell included a section on Zarqawi’s network in Iraq in his February 5, 2003, presentation before the United Nations.

Former CIA director George Tenet reveals in his own autobiography, At the Center of the Storm, some of the intelligence that backed up Powell’s presentation. More than one dozen other al Qaeda terrorists had joined Zarqawi in Baghdad. One of them was an Egyptian known as Abu Ayyub al Masri, who had served Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, since the 1980s. After Zarqawi was killed in 2006, al Masri took his place as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Al Masri himself was killed earlier this year, and his widow confirmed that they had moved to central Baghdad in 2002.
Al Qaeda in Iraq | The Weekly Standard

UN inspectors had left, there was confusion as to the reason but the was no confusion as to why there where let back in

Look Hans Blix made a speech on 1-27-2003 that was followed days later bt Colin Powell stating about the same except that Al Qaeda was there and setting there defenses up

Blix made the case to go to war better than any-one
read the transcript for your self

Update 27 January 2003
www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htmTHE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003: AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION. Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix. The governing