[Tiggwin]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Please tell me that you do not believe this obsolete propaganda.

Iraq had no WMD's. Iran and N.Korea did in 2003. So if we were going to invade to dismantle WMD's, we invaded the wrong place.

As for "brutal dictators," by 2003 Saddam had been thoroughly neutered by UN sanctions and did not really control 2/3 of the country. So in 2003 he was still "brutal," but hardly a powerful dictator. But there were other brutal dictators who were more powerful. If we just wanted to dismantle the rule of a brutal dictator, we picked the wrong place.

Apparently you are not aware that the Iraqi oil industry was rebuilt by Halliburton, Cheney's company. So while we did not colonize Iraq or steal their oil, Cheney made a mint off of the invasion.

Further, both Bush and Cheney are heavily invested in several military industries. Every bullet and every shell that we fired in Iraq lined Bush and Cheney's pockets. Remember when the Halliburton subsidiary KBR was caught red-handed charging outrageous fees for meals, laundry, etc., for soldiers?

Ok Lotus now go back and re read what I wrote... the statement Ruhskins made was that we invaded to steal their oil... I simply corrected Ruhskins by saying that we didnt invade to steal oil... if we had why dont we have it?? We went in "under the threat" of WMD's... I didnt say that we found any first off... and secondly if you think the UN neutered Saddam in any way you are grossly mistaken... As a matter of fact Russia, France as well as Germany all 3 still had oil contracts with Saddam that directly violated the UN Sanction of Oil for Food. Also during the whole Monica Lewinski scandal in 1998 Saddam kick the weapons inspectors out of Iraq so for more than 5 yrs we had not monitored their weapons programs so when the NIE came across Bush's desk in February of 2003 stating that Iraq HAD purchased or ATTEMPTED to purchase Urainium yellowcake from Niger we couldnt verify whether he did or didnt. Now to Bush's credit he spent 13 months trying to get Saddam to allow weapons inspector back in so we could verify what programs he did or didnt have... he balked at us and refused. Bush finally made a stand and told Saddam that if we didnt have weapons inspectors on the ground in Iraq by March of 2003 that we would attack.. Saddam continued to "Stand defiantly in the face of the US!!" Im sure you remember all of those headlines in the USA Today etc... all the papers ran it as a cover page headline... I was in the first Persian Gulf War and I knew when we left that we would have to go back... it was just a matter of how long would it take. In the future read what I have written before you just automatically assume Im on one side or the other.