Originally posted by SLY
The reasons for the war against Iraq now are :

1) Hidden WMDs which are already dealt with inspections , and I can't believe that Saddam can be hiding "a lot more" as some people claim since he hasn't blown Kuwait or Israel off the map back in '91 .
Also , IN CASE he hides a lot more , wouldn't such a war be the best occasion for Saddam to play with these toys ??! :confused:
In other words , by war you're giving him a chance to use his WMDS (If there realy exist WMDs in Iraq) instead of letting the UN inspectors do their job which has been succesfull so far (Destruction of Al Somod 2 , inspections everywhere in Iraq including presedential sites , almost confirmed that Iraq is nuke free,U2 flights , etc.).

2) Removing Saddam from Power , which is a good goal although it's illegal .
So why doesn't the U.S. come up with a new resolution and pass it to the UN for voting about establishing democracy in Iraq , like UN supervised elections (starting with the parliament) and so ... Instead of this meaningless ARROGANT insistance on war no matter what the UN or the rest of the world wants.

3) Iraq isn't complying with the UN resolutions ... Bullsh*t , see the end of pt 1 .
Also , the US is the one who seems to neglect or ignore the UN resolution ... If 3 out of 5 permanent members in the security council are AGAINST the war (refusing a resolution only needs one permanent member against it) , and most other members are aginst war too , so why do you go on violating the international law ,destroy the UNs authority and credibility ??
The UN was meant to be for international democracy and that means it serves the interests of the majority of the world , not the US ONLY , this can't be justice or democracy ! :mad:

4) Sanctions are killing Iraqi citizens ... Also bullsh*t , what makes you so sure that multiples of this numbers aren't going to suffer to death in case of war.
What I know (you may not know this btw) ,Saddam is preparing 7 million civilian Iraqies millitarily not only in Bagdad , but across the whole country ...You can't assume that all or most of those are against Saddam .
I can tell you that 90% of them are poor, ignorant and don't know sh*t about politics or what's going on the rest of the world unless from their poor media , I've seen their satalite TV channel couple of times and it's very funny and full of sh*t and mythologies about the mighty Saddam ... They even call him there "Saddam the hero" :rolleyes: ,so I won't be surprised if some people there worship him.
Regarding other soldiers in the army , civilian casualties (which can be much more than we can count in case the US used WMDs or nukes as Bush said) .
So the number of innocent people deaths (in case of war) can never be determined or controled.

Fist off, the "ignorant" nation of Iraq sports a 70% litteracy rate. Second, expatriated Iraqis (even those who don't agree with war) and people who've been in Iraq recently and have been able to talk to Iraqis out of sight of government officials consistantly report that there is virtually no loyalty to Saddam outside of the Ba'ath party and the Republican Guard. That means mass defections of soldiers and quite possibly an uprising of the people just as soon as they know help is coming. I might be wrong, but I think the average Iraqi takes Saddam's propoganda about as seriously as I take the "Pot = Terrorism" advertisements on the TV here in the US.

It's pretty naive to beleive that weapons and weapons production can't be hidden and hidden easily inside a nation the size of Iraq isn't possible. The best experts available, Saddam's own escaped weapons scientists consistantly say just that and that they doubt his plans for WMD development have changed at all. Saddam's strategy is simple - give up a little bit here and there, hide the rest, wait for the world to give up. Yeah, Al Somod 2s are being destroyed, but at a very slow pace, and we have know way of knowing how many were actually produced, so there could be considerbly more quietly hidden in a secluded location. Next, Iraq still has produced no evidence at all that they've destroyed tons and tons and TONS of Anthrax and other biological/chemical agents that we know they had as late as 1998.

Also, after 12 years of inspections you define the limited steps in the right direction taken so far and taken with A LOT of kicking and screaming from Saddam "success," you have a much looser definition of the word than I do. Well, unless you're talking from Saddam's perspective. I'm sure he's tickled with the results so far.

Though dated, I think this commentary by one of Saddam's former advisors and a weapons scientist responds to your other points most effectively:

Hiding Arms Is Easy
by Khidhir Hamza
New York Times
December 17, 2001

President Bush's recent demand that Saddam Hussein allow weapons inspectors to return to Iraq, as required by the United Nations, looked like a continuation of Bill Clinton's Iraq policy. But Mr. Bush's angry statement that Mr. Hussein "will find out" the price he will have to pay if he does not agree to inspections may indicate a hardening line. Unfortunately, even resumed inspections would have little effect other than to increase the international legitimacy of Mr. Hussein's dictatorship.

The two top American inspectors in the last Iraq inspection effort the United Nations Special Commission, known as Unscom were Charles Duelfer, deputy chairman and chief American representative, and Richard Spertzel, director of Unscom's biological weapons unit. Both have expressed skepticism about any inspection system in Iraq under present conditions. For inspection to be meaningful, Iraq needs a strong incentive to comply. The only incentive that might move Mr. Hussein is the prospect that the United States would agree to a lifting of United Nations economic sanctions. But that will not happen, and even Mr. Hussein gave up hope on it long ago. The United States will never agree to a full lifting of sanctions because it knows that this move would lead Mr. Hussein to accelerate his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.

If President Bush were to put some teeth in his threat and a serious military strike against the Iraqi regime became imminent, Mr. Hussein might relent and allow inspectors, as he did in November 1997. But even then, it is almost certain that he would do whatever he could to keep up the weapons programs in secret.

Inspections would probably be less fruitful now than in the past. Research and development no longer take place only at fixed factory sites. Even before I left Iraq, the government was spreading its weapons-development sites across the country" in mobile units, in military barracks and well- camouflaged buildings both to evade inspections and to reduce exposure to air attacks. Suppose inspectors were to find one of these locations. According to the inspectors I talked to in the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission formed to replace Unscom and still awaiting an invitation to Baghdad the new protocols do not allow inspectors to demand immediate access after finding a site. They would report their findings to their New York headquarters, which would pass them on to the Security Council. Then, a few days later, permission could be granted by Baghdad to inspect the site by which time the site would have been sanitized.

The inspectors would then, of course, report that they found nothing, and Mr. Hussein's allies Russia, France and most Arab countries would have their opportunity to demand, as Russia has before, that sanctions be lifted. This pattern was repeated daily in Security Council meetings just before Mr. Hussein stopped inspections altogether in 1998.

The environment in which Unscom was effective no longer exists. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait won very strong backing for inspections from the United Nations and Iraq's neighbors. But over time, Iraq's recovery from the war [u]and the desire of France and Russia to reopen military trade with Baghdad[/u] combined to undermine Unscom. Now the new, far weaker inspection commission has to negotiate its way into a set of inspection conditions agreeable to Iraq. Whatever Mr. Bush decides to do about Saddam Hussein, weapons inspections will, in the end, have little effect.

Almost prophetic, ain't it?