Holy Ghost

**

can i then assume some concession on your part that it might be unrealistic of the BMA to assert that since 2003, iraqi civilians have suffered a dresden every 8 weeks or a tokyo or hiroshima every six months at the hands of coalition forces? even if you halve the BMA numbers, they're still way beyond the pale of credibility and precedent in the light of 21st century military doctrine.

in answer to your point above, it depends on your politics and only time will tell anyway. we clearly lost the peace through political meddling and incompetence - both in whitehall, washington and at the UN (again) - the only possible result being civil war, which by and large we now have. all the clear and effective lessons of de-nazification forgotten apparently - which is a disgrace beyond description.

the results of that civil war remain to be seen but it will inevitably run its bloody and only course. i suspect that the iraqi people - the majority of whom have had their first tastes of democracy, freedom of speech and freedom from state-sanctioned genocide and mass murder - will not lightly give up the ***** of hope they have. however, that we didn't collectively do all we could to minimise the price of freedom to the iraqi people will forever be questioned. and rightly so.

after the end of WWII, it took five years for berlin to stop being the most dangerous city on earth. add in the religious and ethnic divides of iraq (which is a contrived state created by the british empire anyway) then triple it. we won't know the true fallout until maybe as late as 2020. and that's assuming no more political and diplomatic idiocy in the interim.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Ah, but that's where Bush and Blair went so badly wrong. Rather than play on the hiding WMD rhetoric, they could have simply approached the UN and said

"Look guys, as part of his surrender in Gulf war Mk 1, Saddam accepted that he would have to co-operate with inspections to prevent him from obtaining WMD. Well, for the last 10 years he's not been complying! Enough is enough, we have to decide whether these resolutions are worth the paper they're printed on and either a) keep asking nicely to be ignored/defied b) Use force.

Had they use his breach of resolutions as justification, I don't think anyone other than the usual "anti war for any reason" brigade would have kicked up much of a fuss.

BUT as usuall they tried to win people over with spin and rhetoric designed to scare us all into going along with it. Then, of course, as the claims of WMDs ready to go in half hour were refuted and the weapons inpectors found nothing that impressive everyone started to legitimately question what we were really doing there and why the governments had apparently misled us!

Now the anti war brigade has got all the ammunition it needs and copious support from people who would have been sympathetic had the USA and UK just been up front from the outset: no-one liked Sadam, or the Iraq regieme. Very few people would have missed him, but now thanks to George W and Tony B, the UK and USA are being seen as the bad guys and Sadam (an evil b**tard) and his brutal and oppressive regeime's notoriety are being lost/forgotten in the furore caused by the UK and USA's handling of the situation.

Ns04

Paul3446

But the UN resolution that he was breaking was about weapons inspections, why if he didn't have any was he stopping the inspectors doing their job?

Holy Ghost

**

bang on the money chum. well said.

Paul3446

Quote
Had they use his breach of resolutions as justification, I don't think anyone other than the usual "anti war for any reason" brigade would have kicked up much of a fuss.


But this is what they repeatedly tried to do, but the UN were too spineless and kept saying give him more time. That is precisely why the us and the US had to go it alone.

Geezer

Because that was the game he was playing with his neighbours. If his neighbours in the middle east thought he had them, it strengthened his position.

He may have also thought it gave him some bargaining power with the west, but it proved a costly mistake on his part.

Geezer

Holy Ghost

**

he did actually, 11,000 litres of unaccounted-for mustard gas and phosgene gas for starters (the former supplied by the french; the technology for developing the latter supplied by the germans) - in clear breach of UN resolution. this is a matter of public record. which some UN weapons inspectors (unpopularly) indicated, probably went straight over the border into syria - in the same way that saddam flew his (soviet and french-supplied) airforce to iran before desert storm. along with whatever else hi-value WMD programmes he was working on. remember, saddam had already tried to develop the bomb in the late 70s and early 80s and was physically stopped by israeli airstrikes.

why did he hinder the inspections? a combination of vanity, the need to maintain domestic stability/security, playing for "respect" on arab street and the brinksmanship of a wacko dictator who thought (wrongly) that neither UN nor bi-lateral military action would ever be deployed against him again.

[added] - as per geezer's comments above.

Paul3446

Perfectly summed up Holy Ghost.

DCI Gene Hunt

He was attempting to unite the whole region (Iran, Syria, Saudi) into a holy war against the Jews and their supporters 'the west', even at one point firing scud rockets into Israel....... he knew he couldn't win so he tried to play the Muslim card..... as he did yesterday spouting "God is Great"

Gutmann pug

Should have done it when he went into Kuwait in the first place. Left it too long now......

Holy Ghost

**

with him at the helm as the new saladin, natch. he's as muslim as the chuckle brothers. and about as likely to raise a laugh.

jasey

They Did that.

And the French told them to **** off - As they knew all they would find would be French Nuclear technology.

We should have cut to the chase and nuked France .

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

LOL

The French saying no to conflict???

Surely not!!

Maz

iTrader: (34)

Most of the Bush adminstration has vested interests in oil/petroleum and warfare industries. He is just looking after his mates.

Leslie

I feel sorry about what they did to poor Dr David Kelly because he knew the truth of the matter!

Les