[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by oleg:
My critisism was always to the war itself that was illegal, unjustified and directly against US and Europe interests.

1) How many UN resolutions was Hussein in violation of? 17? 19? So what's the threshold for legitimacy? 21?

2) He attempted the assassination of an ex-president back in '95. Is that not a sufficient justification?

3) How is it in the interests of the US (or even Europe if they thought straight) to have an expansionistic madman next door to the world's largest oil reserves? The fact that those reserves are in the hands of fanatical Muslims is bad enough as is.

4) Hussein was directed to give over all materials and records of his WMD programs. He refused. Just who is dumb enough to think that he should have been given the benefit of the doubt?

5) RE: WMD's - I'm still waiting to see if any stockpiles show up in Syria or elsewhere. And just some food for thought... what if any number of WMD depot locations were known before the war - given Hussein's record, might they not be legitimate bombing targets? Hard to gather evidence from a smoldering crater, and "Better safe than sorry..."

Originally posted by oleg:
Saddam had no WMD whatsoever and in fact was a bastion against islamic fanatics.

Both he and those fanatics were/are US enemies, and I'm not yet convinced that they were not in some sort of collusion.

Originally posted by oleg:
I have no idea what will heapen in Iraq and really hope it will emerge as a secular and democratic country. However, it seems more likely to become a violent antiamerican theocracy.

Simple - occuply it until the threat of theocracy passes. We had troops in Germany and Japan for many years for similar reasons. Here I will criticize Bush - we should NOT leave by June. Stay until the job is done.