iraq report is in, let the spinn beginFollow

The problem is is that there were no OTHER valid reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 either.

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 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" (Public Law 105-235);

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 resolutions 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 American 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 authorizes the use of all necessary means to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 660 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, repression of its civilian population in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 688, and threatening its neighbors or United Nations operations in Iraq in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 949;

Whereas Congress in the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution (Public Law 102-1) 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 Resolutions 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 (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 of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region;

And *again* the point is missed. What on earth does that matter? The US did not have UN permission to send arms and supplies to aid Britain prior to our official entry into WW2 either.

Soooooooooo I only got that far and I wanted to ask you to google exactly when the United Nations was formed, then reassess your post.

Did you just skip history? Cause it really seems like you are trying to patch it all together based on John Wayne movies and random information gathered from popular culture that referenced it.

It's just amazing to me how often this happens. Someone will make some broad claim using what I perceive to be a bogus argument. I point out that their argument is bogus and use some sort of comparison to show how it's bogus. Then everyone jumps out of the woodwork making assumptions about my argument, pulling in additional an irrelevant facts and generally going waaaay off the original point.

You're doing something that is great at compelling people to your "side", but pretty horrible at actual analysis of the issue at hand. You dismiss the positives out of hand and proceed to list only the negatives.

If you do nothing but list negatives you will rapidly conclude that *nothing* is worth doing. By your logic, the US should not have gotten involved in Europe during WW2. After all, we lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, spent the equivalent of trillions of dollars, killed hundreds of thousands of people who didn't do anything to us at all, and totally thrashed the place requiring a couple decades of yet more spending to fix.

Hehe, I was scrolling down the posts hoping no one had picked the pre-WW2 UN reference!

After reviewing the thread I agree with your intentions, but the use of WWII as an analaogy is problematic, first for its mocking potential. It's also a poor analogy to most other situations even if the sought analogy is a simple one.

Sigh... [gbaji provides a list of reasons that the USA invade Iraq this time around]

Please point out where we say that Iraq is actively attempting to invade the US? Pretty please?

Can we stop with the made up, easy to debunk, strawman arguments?

List of justifications:

[quote]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;

Ok, the above is the starting position. So far I don't think there are any reasons to invade. I don't believe in the WMD, and if there are any, I don't think that's a good enough reason to go to war again, even if there is a breach in the treaty. Do you realise that Japan has slowly edged into breaching it's WW2 treaty by actually possessing an armed force at all? But times and especially contexts change, and no one in the West is concerned about enforcing that treaty with Japan.

I don't believe in the WMD, so I shall delete the paragrahs relating to these.

War declaration speaks about Iraq harboring terrorists: Iraq wasnt' in a position to deny international police entering their country in great numbers in persuit of terrorists, for subsequent extradition to the USA for trial. If Iraq did try and keep such police out, then we might have had a sort of case for war, although I've never thought war would win over the hearts and minds of people and suck out the inclination for murder, nor would it address the basic necessities of safe housing, food, medical care, education and political and religious freedom, which would suck out the inclination for suicide.


Whereas Iraq persists in violating resolutions of the United Nations Security Council by continuing to engage in brutal repression of its civilian population As I've said, Iraq is hardly the worst of the brutal tyranneous regimes around the world. We aren't invading the worst of the African nations in order to liberate their people, so it's a complete farce to claim we're invading Iraq to liberate their people.

Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations
That was before the last war, and things are very different now.


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 the USA has reguarly tried assassination plots against foreign leaders it hasn't liked. That's espionage, not war, and it should stay at the espionage level, not at the war level. After all, if Iraq attempted assassination against Bush snr and that was a good enough reason to go to war, then the US should have gone to war as soon as they were aware of the plot.

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; Nations in the Middle East are constantly lobbing missiles at each other without actually going to war with each other. Connsider the cultural context here!


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; Very emotive argument. I've already said I dont' think war will diffuse terrorism.

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; A PRE-EMPTIVE strike? This is the most morally corrupt reason for going to war ever. If you suspect another nation of harboring attempts against you, why aren't you building up your ******* and waiting for them to invade first, so that THEY are the bad guys?

War declaration talks about UN security resolutions, and that the US is going to enforce them: Well if the UN wanted them enforced by war, the UN would have gone to war itself. It had just demonstrated its willingness to do so in Eastern Europe, hadn't it? And If the US was actually serious about backing ANY UN resolution the US would bloody well pay all the money it owes the UN.

War declaration goes on a lot about the "war on terrorism" First of all, you cannot commit war on terrorism. Secondly I've already given a short answer above about the first sorts of approaches I think would be effective against it, combined with very vigorous and well-funded policing in general.

War declaration talks about catching and holding responsible those responsible for 9/11. Well, you should have brought the police in from the first! This was a police matter, since no nation took responsibilty for it.

Whereas it is in the national security of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region; Like a president who didn't know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite on the day that the second gulf war started had any chance of creating peace and security in the Persian Gulf ... by going to war!

So you agree Germany attacked the US during WW2 then. Good. I win.

The problem is is that there were no OTHER valid reasons for invading Iraq in 2003 either.

You pull out the official list of reasons for going to war as if that invalidates what I said. I don't think it invalidates it at all, because I disagree with every reason given on the official list. I thought that should be pretty clear. I didn't think that the US had put forward no reasons to invade Iraq, I think that all the reasons given were invalid.