Originally posted by Krusty:
Originally printed in This Study on Oct 21. '04. Finding #3 is fairly interesting in light of finding #1
"A large majority of Bush supporters believe that before the war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for building them."
I believe there was sufficient doubt and I believe we had several other reasons to justify invasion.
Oil
Shown to be a danger to Israel
Had gassed it's own people
Was constantly committing human rights violations
Was a threat to invade it's arab neighbors
Had intentions of developing WMD's
Ignored almost a dozen UN resolutions
Went under the table to escape the full force of UN sanctions
Supported terrorism
Tried to assassinate the former President's whole family
Would have used the first opportunity to offer real support to terrorists after the start of the WOT and...
Did NOT have a nuclear weapon
"A large majority of Bush supporters believes that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and that clear evidence of this support has been found."
I believe Saddam's payments to terrorist families was a signal to the terrorist world of his openness to supporting their further efforts. I believe the terrorist groups operating within Iraq did so with his implicit consent. I believe as the WOT heated up the ties between him and terrorist groups would have solidified. It would only have taken a moment and a phone call.
In the NYT article excerpt
here we see an example of what might have happened not in Iraq, but elsewhere, on another battlefield in the WOT, had he not been deposed.
"Only half the estimated $1 billion the Hussein government put in Syrian banks before the war has been recovered, Pentagon officials said. There is no tally of money flowing through Syria to Iraq from wealthy Saudis or Islamic charities, but a Pentagon official said the figure is "significant."
Unclassified assessments by some private analysts have recently sounded some of the same warnings. This week, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, in releasing its annual global military survey, said perhaps 1,000 Islamic jihadists have entered Iraq to join the fight, and it estimated that it would take five years for the American military to prepare Iraqi forces to take over fully from the forces of the United States and its allies."