| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"NotBush2004" |
| Date: |
08 Jan 2004 06:28:01 PM |
| Object: |
Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threat to U.S. |
January 4, 2004
Making U.S. Voters Happier, Not Safer
by Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of
"Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World."
"The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer," declared
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, and denunciations have rained
down upon him. But Dean obviously was correct: "The capture of Saddam does
not end" the coalition's difficulties in Iraq.
Hussein's capture is good news for the Iraqis. But his seizure has not made
the world safer.
"Saddam Hussein is a homicidal maniac, brutal dictator, supporter of
terrorism and enemy of the United States, and there should be no doubt that
America and the world are safer with him captured," said Sen. Joseph
Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat.
And Hussein was all of those things. But Hussein was ousted as Iraq's
president months ago. The pitiful thug hiding in a small, underground
chamber had no ability to threaten anyone. Moreover, Hussein's arrest
highlights the fact that he doesn't appear to have ever threatened America's
security. He apparently never possessed the kind of weapons that would have
endangered the U.S.
Embarrassed by the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction, or WMD,
the Bush administration has simply attempted to change topics. Officials
emphasize that Hussein is a bad guy - true, along with North Korea's Kim
Jong Il, Iran's passel of mullahs and quite a few other dictators around the
world.
But before the war, U.S. President George W. Bush said "the threat from Iraq
stands alone," since that nation's "weapons of mass destruction are
controlled by a murderous tyrant."
Secretary of State Colin Powell was quite specific in his U.N. Security
Council presentation: "Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters" of
anthrax and had accounted for none of it. "Saddam Hussein has never
accounted for vast amounts of chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with
mustard [gas], 30,000 empty munitions and enough precursors to increase his
stockpile to as much as 500 tons of chemical agents."
Added Powell, Iraq had stockpiled "enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield
rockets." He calmly asserted, "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons" and
asked "when will we see the rest of the submerged iceberg?" Probably never,
since we haven't yet seen the visible part of the iceberg. Not one
thimbleful of these materials has turned up.
Same goes for the "large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and
biological weapons -- including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas;
anthrax, botulism, and possibly smallpox" -- of which Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld has spoken.
Reported David Kay, who headed America's Iraq Survey Group, which has been
searching for WMD: "Information found to date suggests that Iraq's
large-scale capability to develop, produce and fill new CW munitions was
reduced -- if not entirely destroyed -- during Operations Desert Storm and
Desert Fox, 13 years of U.N. sanctions and inspections."
Bush claimed that "we found biological laboratories." Really? "We have not
yet been able to corroborate the existence of a mobile biological weapons
production effort," admitted Kay.
Finally, Powell pointed to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, that
"are well suited for dispensing chemical and biological weapons." In fact,
Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, says that the administration used a
classified briefing to claim that Iraq had the capability of hitting
American cities with UAVs. No ocean-spanning UAVs have been discovered.
Of course, maybe someone will eventually find something. And Hussein seemed
to preserve program elements in the hopes of a future revival. But that
isn't the same thing.
Said Kay: "It clearly does not look like a massive, resurgent program, based
on what we discovered." Charles Duelfer, former deputy director of the U.N.
inspections program, said: "It will probably turn out, in my judgment, that
there are no existing weapons in Iraq, and that mildly surprises me."
Bush has taken a different tack. When pressed by ABC TV's Diane Sawyer on
the issue, Bush responded that there was a "possibility" Hussein could
acquire them. "So what's the difference?" asked Bush? Well, any number of
governments could do any number of bad things. That doesn't mean that you
have to bomb them today.
Even if Iraq had WMD, Hussein could have been deterred, as were Russia's
Joseph Stalin and China's Mao Zedong, the two greatest mass murderers in
human history (based on simple numbers). In fact, Gen. Waffic al Sammarai,
head of Iraqi military intelligence during the Persian Gulf War, reported
that implicit U.S. nuclear threats deterred Hussein from using WMD then:
"The warning was quite severe and quite effective. The allied troops were
certain to use nuclear arms and the price will be too dear and too high."
Everyone is better off with Hussein out of power. But he apparently had no
WMD, and thus was no threat to the U.S. or other allied states. Alas,
America may ultimately find that it has made a more dangerous world by
loosing the "dogs of war" in the Mideast.
This article was published in The Japan Times, Dec. 28, 2003.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-04-04.html
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and
will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial
and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals,
so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
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| User: "Werner Hetzner" |
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| Title: Re: Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threatto U.S. |
08 Jan 2004 10:47:21 PM |
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NotBush2004 wrote:
January 4, 2004
Making U.S. Voters Happier, Not Safer
by Doug Bandow
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of
"Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World."
...
Everyone is better off with Hussein out of power. But he apparently had no
WMD, and thus was no threat to the U.S. or other allied states. Alas,
America may ultimately find that it has made a more dangerous world by
loosing the "dogs of war" in the Mideast.
This article was published in The Japan Times, Dec. 28, 2003.
http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-04-04.html
Neither were the Serbs. But we still bombed them into submission.
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| User: "The Frog." |
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| Title: Re: Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threat to U.S. |
09 Jan 2004 09:17:57 AM |
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On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:28:01 GMT, "NotBush2004"
<notbush@whitehouse.gov> wrote:
Everyone is better off with Hussein out of power. But he apparently had no
WMD, and thus was no threat to the U.S. or other allied states.
Gee....sombady should have told the United Nations. The entire
Security Council really fucked up!!
http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm
Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions
and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range
missiles poses to international peace and security...
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full,
final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991),
of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass
destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one
hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons,
their components and production facilities and locations, as well as
all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for
purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate,
unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and
unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required
by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,
Liberalism is Communism one drink at a time. - P.J. O'Rourke
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| User: "InsuranceBroker" |
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| Title: Re: Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threat to U.S. |
09 Jan 2004 09:38:11 AM |
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Subject: Re: Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threat
to U.S.
From: The Frog.
Date: 1/9/2004 10:17 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <6bhtvvgnn70lj9d81cnda1ta1hdakldu4m@4ax.com>
On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:28:01 GMT, "NotBush2004"
<notbush@whitehouse.gov> wrote:
Everyone is better off with Hussein out of power. But he apparently had no
WMD, and thus was no threat to the U.S. or other allied states.
Gee....sombady should have told the United Nations. The entire
Security Council really fucked up!!
http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm
Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions
and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range
missiles poses to international peace and security...
There was no threat that required immediate action in March of 2003. Saddam
was contained and we had total air control. The only reason for the war was to
free the Iraq and Israel border.
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full,
final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991),
of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass
destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one
hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons,
their components and production facilities and locations, as well as
all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for
purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
There was no reason that the War had to start March 2003. Even Colin Powell
stated the same before they got to him.
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate,
unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and
unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required
by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,
You still fail to produce anything that would make the case that the war had to
be started. It is clear that the Bush administration rushed to war.
Liberalism is Communism one drink at a time. - P.J. O'Rourke
Doing Insurance business in the Garden State
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| User: "Server 13" |
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| Title: Re: Cato Institute agrees with Howard Dean, Saddam wasn't a threatto U.S. |
09 Jan 2004 09:46:56 AM |
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The Frog. wrote:
On Fri, 09 Jan 2004 00:28:01 GMT, "NotBush2004"
<notbush@whitehouse.gov> wrote:
Everyone is better off with Hussein out of power. But he apparently had no
WMD, and thus was no threat to the U.S. or other allied states.
Gee....sombady should have told the United Nations. The entire
Security Council really fucked up!!
http://www.un.int/usa/sres-iraq.htm
Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions
and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range
missiles poses to international peace and security...
Deploring the fact that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full,
final, and complete disclosure, as required by resolution 687 (1991),
of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass
destruction and ballistic missiles with a range greater than one
hundred and fifty kilometres, and of all holdings of such weapons,
their components and production facilities and locations, as well as
all other nuclear programmes, including any which it claims are for
purposes not related to nuclear-weapons-usable material,
Deploring further that Iraq repeatedly obstructed immediate,
unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the
United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and
unconditionally with UNSCOM and IAEA weapons inspectors, as required
by resolution 687 (1991), and ultimately ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM and the IAEA in 1998,
They authorized what, exactly?
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