Why did go into Iraq again?

Oh yea..

Published on January 20, 2005 By Draginol In Politics

One thing that is both amusing and frustrating about the left in the United States is the claim that we went into Iraq mainly because of WMD. That this was the only real justification for going into Iraq. Left-wing comedians like to make a lot of noise on this. John Stewart on the Daily Show, like many left wingers uses the "I'll make a snarky one liner to make the other side look stupid even though it's a strawman argument".

Here is the resolution that congress voted on:

Joint Resolution

To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.
Whereas in 1990 in response to Iraq's war of aggression against and illegal occupation of Kuwait, the United States forged a coalition of nations to liberate Kuwait and its people in order to defend the national security of the United States and enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions relating to Iraq;
Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;
Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated; Whereas Iraq, in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;
Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';
Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolution of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population thereby threatening international peace and security in the region, by refusing to release, repatriate, or account for non-Iraqi citizens wrongfully detained by Iraq, including an American serviceman, and by failing to return property wrongfully seized by Iraq from Kuwait;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its continuing hostility toward, and willingness to attack, the United States, including by attempting in 1993 to assassinate former President Bush and by firing on many thousands of occasions on United States and Coalition Armed Forces engaged in enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq's demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;
Whereas United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 (1990) and subsequent relevant resolutions and to compel Iraq to cease certain activities that threaten international peace and security, including the development of weapons of mass destruction and refusal or obstruction of United Nations weapons inspections in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 (1991), and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949 (1994);
Whereas in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1), Congress has authorized the President `to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolution 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677';
Whereas in December 1991, Congress expressed its sense that it `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 as being consistent with the Authorization of Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1),' that Iraq's repression of its civilian population violates United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 and `constitutes a continuing threat to the peace, security, and stability of the Persian Gulf region,' and that Congress, `supports the use of all necessary means to achieve the goals of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688';
Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime;
Whereas on September 12, 2002, President Bush committed the United States to `work with the United Nations Security Council to meet our common challenge' posed by Iraq and to `work for the necessary resolutions,' while also making clear that `the Security Council resolutions will be enforced, and the just demands of peace and security will be met, or action will be unavoidable';
Whereas the United States is determined to prosecute the war on terrorism and Iraq's ongoing support for international terrorist groups combined with its development of weapons of mass destruction in direct violation of its obligations under the 1991 cease-fire and other United Nations Security Council resolutions make clear that it is in the national security interests of the United States and in furtherance of the war on terrorism that all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions be enforced, including through the use of force if necessary;
Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism through the provision of authorities and funding requested by the President to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President and Congress are determined to continue to take all appropriate actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;
Whereas the President has authority under the Constitution to take action in order to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States, as Congress recognized in the joint resolution on Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107-40); and
Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled

If more left-wingers got their information from..you know..the origninal sources instead of ideological websites or left-wing media analysis, there would be less confusion on this.

Comments (Page 4)

d3adz0mbie

on Jan 20, 2005

Holy crap some people are just amazing in their reasoning.
The administration gave a multitude of reasons to invade Iraq, including WMD's.
Every legitimate intelligence agency in the world, including the French and Germans, thought IRaq had WMD's.
It has not been proven that Iraq DID NOT have WMD's, just that they aren't there now.
Conclusion? Perhaps the weapons wern't there. Perhaps they were. We may never know. But regardless, the world was unified in it's intelligence, either right or wrong. And in todays day and age, you've got to act on that kind of intelligence, because the only concrete information you might actually receive is a several kiloton bomb going off in Washington DC>

And yeah, we are looking at Iran and North Korea. Peering very hard their direction...

jeblackstar

on Jan 20, 2005

Anyone ever notice that Whereas is quite possibly the most incorrectly overused word in government language?

On subject, yes, the bill did give other reasons for going to war, but as the courts use outside material to understand what the heck a law actually means, so to do the people use the actual quotes given by other people, such as those listed above, to determine what the heck we were doing in Iraq.

Having said that, both sides need to do less looking at whacko conspiracy websites which declare Kerry a Commie sympathizer and Bush an AWOL coke addict. Read the law, watch the news and don't trust anyone.

Cheers

Dr Guy

on Jan 20, 2005

Oh, you mean these quotes?

Reply By: Action Donkey(Anonymous User)Posted: Thursday, January 20, 2005

Action Donkey

on Jan 20, 2005

DeadZombie - 'Every legitimate intelligence agency in the world, including the French and Germans, thought IRaq had WMD's.' Even American intelligence had serious doubts about the existence of WMD and clearly communicated this to the Bush Admin well before they started selling the war.

The assertion that Bush was parroting bad intel is false and I can prove it. Take your pick of the many "reasons" for going to war - WMD, Al-Quaeda, nukes, imminent threat of terrorism, and in each case the claims of the Administration conflicted with existing intelligence that had been communicated to cabinet.

Proof that the repeated claims of proof of WMD, nukes, terrorism, and Al-Quaeda ties by the Bush Aminstration contradicted existing American intelligence:

On WMD: “There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons or where Iraq has — or will — establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.” - Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Sept. 2002 Report, months before contradictory claims were made.

And: "“We lack specific information on many key aspects of Iraq’s WMD programs.” October 2002 NIE

On nukes: Cheney himself months later admitted he "mispoke" when he said “we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” It's OK for me or you to say we 'believe' that Iraq has nukes, but when the VP offers this 'opinion' just before the vote on Iraq - despite intelligence to the contrary - it is misleading and a gross abuse of public trust.

And: "[t]he regime has the scientists and facilities to build nuclear weapons and is
seeking the materials required to do so" Bush, 2002. He states this as FACT with no qualifier, but subsequent events and inspections prove that this is not true. While there was much speculation, at no time did any intel agency give Bush information that Iraq had a viable nuclear program and the inspections in Iraq at the time of the statement found no evidence of a nuke program.

On UAVs: "(the U.S. Air Force) does not agree that Iraq is developing UAVs primarily intended to be delivery platforms for chemical and biological (CBW) agents...[t]he small size of Iraq’s new UAV strongly suggests a primary role of reconnaissance.”

On Al-Quaeda: "(We have)low confidence...whether in desperation Saddam would share chemical or biological weapons with Al Qa’ida.” NIE, before Iraq war started

And: “Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qa’ida is evolving and is
based on sources of varying reliability." CIA director George Tenet, October 2002. At this time, many analysts believed that Mr.Bin Laden saw Mr. Hussein as one of the corrupt secular Arab leaders who should be toppled.

On Iraq as an imminent threat: “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger cause for making war.” NIE, 2002

All further posts using any of the above 'reasons' as jus ad bellum, or saying that Bush & Co. were parroting bad info are hereby declared null and void.

jeblackstar

on Jan 20, 2005

Since Dr. Guy's comment made about as much sense as wool socks in Texas in August, I will say nothing more about it than this, you are clearly ignorant of my position on the war, so I will spell it out as follows.

I believe the war in Iraq was justified, WMDs or not, I am an avowed liberal. Some may believe that these two things are untenable, but it's the truth. My arguement with the Bush administration is on their performance during the war. Rumsfeld's comment about going to war with the army you have is correct, I don't think that the Bush administration has done enough however to give us the Army we would want. The Army continues to be undersupplied as far as armored vehicles and other things go, something I feel should have been corrected long ago. Or, if it were impossible to correct completely, a larger effort should have been made to get these things done.

Some might say, "Democrats blocked bills designed to do that", but I am just as capable of looking at the math as anyone else, and I know that the majority needed to get those bills through the house existed in the hands of republicans. That of course means that if the bills were blocked, and by some miracle, all the democrats voted against them, then some republicans must have too.

Anyway, I also oppose the Bush administration on various important social issues, and I for one resent that so many on both parties claim that my (as a democrat) only reason for not liking Bush is because of the war.

drmiler

on Jan 20, 2005

Reply #49 By: Action Donkey (Anonymous) - 1/20/2005 5:48:41 PM
DeadZombie - 'Every legitimate intelligence agency in the world, including the French and Germans, thought IRaq had WMD's.' Even American intelligence had serious doubts about the existence of WMD and clearly communicated this to the Bush Admin well before they started selling the war.

The assertion that Bush was parroting bad intel is false and I can prove it. Take your pick of the many "reasons" for going to war - WMD, Al-Quaeda, nukes, imminent threat of terrorism, and in each case the claims of the Administration conflicted with existing intelligence that had been communicated to cabinet.

No you can't! Not unless you can refute his claims of the other intel agencies saying that WMDs were there. IE: Germany, British, UN, French, Israeli just to name a few.

Dr Guy

on Jan 20, 2005

Seems you just dont know how to read. Or write. Or both. My response was lucid and succint (I did not care to copy the whole long post). You on the other hand, just want to name call.

But that is your right in a free society. But it does not make you right, just wrong, since you cant string together a coherant arguement, just cuts and slices.

Are you the Ronco man?

Nitro Cruiser

on Jan 20, 2005

I suppose Saddam was just passing gas when he used it on the Kurds and during the Iran/Iraq War? Then all of a sudden just forgot how to make it. Since I was there during the opening phases of the war, I can assure everybody we constantly carried gas masks (and personal Atropine/Pam2 chloride injectors). Everyone got there Anthrax shots too. Sounds like a lot to go through if deep down we didn’t think we would run into these agents (must be part of the conspiracy).

Also, nothing disgusts me more than an anti-war protester hiding behind “support the troops” banners. To me it’s akin to cheering your favorite football team not to play, because there might be an injury. People, the troops know what they signed up for (shame on them if they don’t), give them some credit. It’s sad that any one must die, but that is the nature of war, like it or not. Imagine for one minute if during the Revolutionary War, the French (where are they now) said we are not risking our boys for those colonials there English subjects.

On a last note, there are no more terrorists now then before the war. If they have it in their hearts to kill Americans, that feeling was probably always there. There is no (from what the media shows) anger in Iraq (against the insurgents) when a suicide bomber kills innocent Iraqis. If they really wanted us gone, they’d be as peaceful as lambs, selling there wares to the soldiers. We would be gone for the most part by now. I say let the terrorists and any others who wish us harm come to Iraq. I’d rather we fought (and killed) them there than here on US soil. This will probably upset the anti-war protesters that would give them the humane treatment; they would never give their own people or any person from the US that same humane treatment. We are there for the innocent because they will be brutalized if we left now, for what ever reason you think we should or should not be there. Concentrate on the now, because the way-back machine isn’t working Sherman.

WWF

on Jan 20, 2005

You're an idiot

So list all the resolutions that all the countries in the world are in violation of then prioritize them. Then we can talk bozo

Draginol

on Jan 20, 2005

Some of these responses remind me of people who claim that a given deal was about one thing without ever reading the actual contract.

If you want to know why we actually went into Iraq -- the official, no-spin reason, the resolution that our elected representatives voted on is why.

Everything else just strikes me as people who couldn't be bothered to read what's going on but get fed their information from television.

whoman69

on Jan 20, 2005

they concluded that Iraq had no direct ties to the act of terrorism on 9/11.

they also concluded that they had no real ties to Al Quaida.

whoman69

on Jan 20, 2005

Also, nothing disgusts me more than an anti-war protester hiding behind “support the troops” banners.

It means that you don't want our soldiers to pay dearly for a misguided policy. Nothing disgusts me more than those who say we have to 100% back the President or we don't support the troops. Was he supporting the troops when he sent them there in insufficient numbers to act as a police force in the naive notion that the Iraqi people would come out and throw flowers at us and love us forever. Any relief those poor people had went up when they had to come out from under a country that had been running on cruise control when Saddam went into hiding. Looting and kidnapping were rampant and the only thing we could do was guard the oil ministries. We left hospitals without supplies, streets without policemen, people without power for weeks and no food coming in. We had no plan beyond military victories.

Solitair

on Jan 21, 2005

Everything else just strikes me as people who couldn't be bothered to read what's going on but get fed their information from television

Brad, this is a very condenscending view. You're basically slagging off the majority of people onthe planet who listened to the soundbites. The constant repitition of WMD, terrorism. Yes, they should have paid more attention and read up more, but that does not make them wrong. They believed what they were told and WMD were number 1 on the list of what they were told. This is the administrations doing, because WMD were the #1 item that they talked about. If you recall I argued on JU before the invasion that Bush (and Blair) were hiding behind WMD and should have the decency and integrity to argue the point for removing Saddam for non WMD or terrorism reasons. They never did so.

Spin is important in p[olitics and the government spun the WMD and terrorism issues for all they were worth. To deny that or blame people for failing to see through that is wrong.

Paul.

kingbee

on Jan 21, 2005

if you copy the text of the resolution and remove all the punctuation, arabic numbers and words such as whereas, articles such as 'the', 'a'; pronouns such as 'its'; conjunctions 'but' 'and' 'or' and similar frequently used words, then run a phrase count, the frequency of phrases is like this:

No of times     Phrase
14                   united nations security council
10                   security council resolution
10                   council resolution
9                   nations security council resolution
7                   weapons of mass destruction
7                   of united nations security
3                   violation of united nations
3                   use of military force
3                   use of all necessary
3                   on september
3                   of weapons of mass
3                   of all necessary means
3                   occurred on september
3                   nations security council resolutions
3                   attacks occurred on september
3                   public law
2                   willingness use weapons of
2                   who planned authorized committed
2                   use weapons of mass
2                   united states armed forces
2                   unacceptable breach of international
2                   those nations organizations persons
2                   terrorists terrorist organizations including
2                   terrorist organizations including those
2                   terrorist attacks occurred on
2                   such persons organizations
2                   security persian gulf region
2                   security of united states
2                   security interests of united
2                   resolution public law
2                   repression of civilian population
2                   planned authorized committed aided
2                   persons who planned authorized
2                   peace security persian gulf
2                   organizations persons who planned
2                   organizations including those nations
2                   of military force against
2                   necessary means achieve goals
2                   nations organizations persons who
2                   national security of united
2                   national security interests of
2                   military force against iraq
2                   means achieve goals of
2                   is national security interests
2                   iraqi regime has demonstrated
2                   iraq resolution public
2                   international terrorists terrorist organizations
2                   international peace security persian
2                   interests of united states
2                   including those nations organizations
2                   goals of united nations
2                   force against iraq resolution
2                   for use of military
2                   enforce united nations security
2                   development of weapons of
2                   demonstrated capability willingness use
2                   committed aided terrorist attacks
2                   capability willingness use weapons
2                   authorized committed aided terrorist
2                   all necessary means achieve
2                   aided terrorist attacks occurred
2                   against iraq resolution
2                   against international terrorists terrorist
2                   actions against international terrorists
2                   achieve goals of united
2                   `supports use of all

don't ask me what it means tho, cuz if i were to judge solely according to the order and frequency. i'd conclude this resolution was much more about support the united nations and something to do with weapons of mass destruction than about terrorists (admittedly it didnt like the phrase al-quaida)

JE0192

on Jan 21, 2005

Link <– Best collection of WMD related events for Iraq

The best one is obviously: “For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue -- weapons of mass destruction -- because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.” by Paul Wolfowitz.

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