"hk" wrote in message
. ..




There is no need to speculate over how many might be dead if Saddam were
still in power. What's the point of that? The point is, Bush's actions
resulted in the deaths of up to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and for
what? For Bush's personal political reasons.


For many reasons beside any personal political reasons.

Many in Congress were calling to "disarm" Saddam during the Clinton
administration and many of the most vocal were Dems. (We've already covered
that and the "Intel" issue, yet the left continues to brush that fact
aside.) The primary issue was Saddam's increasing refusal to comply with
the UN resolutions agreed to and signed by Iraq after it was chased out of
Kuwait, with Saddam being allowed to stay in power.

Clinton's only action, other than parroting the above in speeches, was to
lob a bunch of cruise missiles that accomplished nothing. (Many believe it
was a "wag the dog" effort to distract media attention from his personal
problems with "that woman".) Who knows for sure?

The same Intel existed when Bush entered office. 9/11 put the US on a war
footing against terrorism. He immediately went after bin Laden, having to
first demolish the Taliban who were providing protection, and, receiving the
same Intel about Iraq, including the threats of nuclear and biological WMDs
that Clinton had, he made a case of it and demanded that Saddam comply with
the UN resolutions. This demand was made despite the UN's weakness in doing
anything to enforce their own resolutions. Saddam was given plenty of
opportunity to comply, but became more resistant, buying time (to do what?).
Even the chief UN weapons inspector, Kay, believed WMDs existed at this time
and was venting his frustration at Saddam's stalling activities. (Kay later
joined the anti-Bush conspiracy gang when events cast a shadow on his own
believability.)

Everything since then has been pure speculation by the conspiracy lovers.

That's what I think.

Eisboch