It is a little inaccurate to say we were leaving Iraq/Hussein alone, we tightly controlled the entire country, especially the two-thirds of which were a "no-fly" zone; we flew regular patrols and were regularly bombing military installations, our planes had orders to bomb any site that attempted to lock on our planes with radar; we had a carrier group in the Persian Gulf, a military base in Saudi Arabia (where, as we all know the 9/11 terrorists are from) we had support and money for our efforts coming from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to keep Iraq/Hussein contained, we had detailed satellite photos of Iraq's military installations and the ability and approval of the U.N. to blow the crap out of just about anything we felt necessary; there were inspectors in the country, moving around relatively freely. If Powell had specific photos of WMD sites (the photos he showed the U.N.) Tell me, why didn't we give Hussein an ultimatum along these lines, open up the facility to inspectors unconditionally, or we blow it to bits without further warning, I was and would have been completely supportive of such a policy. I'm sure Hussein was still killing people, as are all the other monsters in this world, who we as a nation tend to ignore, when there is nothing in it for us [see Sudan, Liberia, Rwanda, and on, and on, and on] INMO, Hussein was fading fast, he was severely hobbled, we could have racheted up the pressure immensely at a fraction of the current cost in both lives lost and money with Kuwait and the Saudis bankrolling most of the money and Hussein would probably have been gone by now. I think Bush went into Iraq in a stubborn, shortsighted manner, with ulterior motives that had nothing to do with the supposed danger from Iraq or liberation. I don't understand your thinking as far as the danger ever coming from Iraq. Iraq never was a threat to America, there are thousands of people around the world, including many Americans, bankrolling terrorist activities of all sorts, we could have spent billions on intelligence and resources to ferret these criminals out everywhere {white supremacists, Basque separatists, IRA, Al Qaeda, etc., etc,} and it would have been much more effective then occupying Iraq to get rid of one monster, among many . . .
having said all that, and making the unequivocal point that I believe our government made a huge mistake invading Iraq, I think now we need to do everything in our power to fight the insurgents, stabilize Iraq, continue to help install a true representative government, and quell civil war, none of which is going to happen in a short period of time . . .
sorry to ramble, but I've been wanting to respond, just been busy . . .
