As for Iraq, I honestly don't know. What could have been done? Start this insane war then, as opposed to now?
Part of the problem with the Bush Administration is how they couched the war from the start, ie about and only about WMD. It's wider than that. Iraq signed a peace treaty, we stop invading and they abide by a number of terms, one of which was unfettered access to their WMD (I hate that term, I prefer NBC as in Nuclear Biological and Chemical) production, research and storage facilities and they hand over ALL data pertaining to their capabilities. Part of that was that we oversee the destruction of the capabilities and verify such.
Over the next 5 years, they provided 3 different versions of their total program, each full final disclosure having more capabilities listed after we'd essentially uncovered those capabilities. A good example is their VX capability. They kept that hidden and it was only discovered after they'd destroyed the weapons secretly in the hopes that we'd not find it. This violated the terms of disclosing the capability, handing the locations over to us for verified destruction and allowing the verification of the destruction of the production sites/materials. This alone was casus belli in my mind. Read through the Chronology at NTI to get a better idea of what I speak of.
Then you add in the repeated shots at our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones which was part of the treaty as well. If that's not an act of war, I don't know what is.
My complaint with the Clinton Administration was 8 years of allowing the same shell game to go on by the Baathists. Bush Senior bears part of the blame because of the status, but bear in mind that we weren't ready to invade with their partial capability that they had at the end of Gulf War I. They did have weaponized G-Agents and VX that would have caused serious issues. Their Biological capability was also quite real. VX and their Anthrax and Botulinin weapons would have caused some serious casualties on our side as well as among many civilians. OF course we'd have nuked a few troop concentrations in response so it would have been a pointless method of getting back at the US.
Its not that we thought they had NBC capability, it's that they didn't disarm the way they agreed to and continued to act as if they did have an NBC capability of some sort, not to mention continuing to fight. There's more to it, but the treatment of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs after Gulf war I is also a prime reason for going back in and finishing the job.
Part II
Part of the problem with the Bush Administration is how they couched the war from the start, ie about and only about WMD. It's wider than that. Iraq signed a peace treaty, we stop invading and they abide by a number of terms, one of which was unfettered access to their WMD (I hate that term, I prefer NBC as in Nuclear Biological and Chemical) production, research and storage facilities and they hand over ALL data pertaining to their capabilities. Part of that was that we oversee the destruction of the capabilities and verify such.
Over the next 5 years, they provided 3 different versions of their total program, each full final disclosure having more capabilities listed after we'd essentially uncovered those capabilities. A good example is their VX capability. They kept that hidden and it was only discovered after they'd destroyed the weapons secretly in the hopes that we'd not find it. This violated the terms of disclosing the capability, handing the locations over to us for verified destruction and allowing the verification of the destruction of the production sites/materials. This alone was casus belli in my mind. Read through the Chronology at NTI to get a better idea of what I speak of.
Then you add in the repeated shots at our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones which was part of the treaty as well. If that's not an act of war, I don't know what is.
My complaint with the Clinton Administration was 8 years of allowing the same shell game to go on by the Baathists. Bush Senior bears part of the blame because of the status, but bear in mind that we weren't ready to invade with their partial capability that they had at the end of Gulf War I. They did have weaponized G-Agents and VX that would have caused serious issues. Their Biological capability was also quite real. VX and their Anthrax and Botulinin weapons would have caused some serious casualties on our side as well as among many civilians. OF course we'd have nuked a few troop concentrations in response so it would have been a pointless method of getting back at the US.
Its not that we thought they had NBC capability, it's that they didn't disarm the way they agreed to and continued to act as if they did have an NBC capability of some sort, not to mention continuing to fight. There's more to it, but the treatment of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs after Gulf war I is also a prime reason for going back in and finishing the job.