walter mitty said:
At the time I found the excuse of WMD unbelievable as, even if Iraq had any left that were still within the sell by date, they would not have dared use them (did they even have conventional warheads on the SCUDs they actually launched? – seem to remember they did not but maybe I forget just now).
They were not a big deal years earlier when Israel had supplied both Iraq and Iran with Bio and Chem to use against each other – no concern over that?
The records of who supplied what to Iraq were in a UN report the relevant sections of which were snatched by the Americans before they could be made public – no concern over the American behaviour?
I rather thought the following issues were more to the point:
1 Iraq was to move to the Euro as opposed to the US dollar for future oil sales;
2 Iraq was a potential threat to Israel;
3 Iraq was a mouthpiece for the Palestinian cause – as long as countries like Iraq remained independent it gave hope to the Palestinians and offered some financial compensation to the families who lost breadwinners in the fight against Israeli occupation;
4 Iraq has lots of oil.
A side issue which should be of great concern to the British public is just why the 2 heads of the BBC were replaced by mssrs Grade and Yentob for running what we now all know was a true version of the WMD story that was in the interest of the public – an inquiry into who dictated that move would be good – perhaps we would get an insight into who really runs UK.
If biological and chemical weapons were of such concern, think over these examples which did not result in the UK condemning the respective countries for their conduct:
1 Israel has heaps of WMD and, apart from their apparent willingness to proliferate them (eg Iraq & Iran in the past) and their high likelihood to use them, has a bad record of safe handling such stuff – remember the El Al cargo plane that crashed into a block of flats in Amsterdam? - component constituents of several tons of sarin and 28 lbs of powdered plutonium on board? - flying across crowded Europe where it is a requirement for even nuclear power plant waste to be in crash proof vessels on trains.
2 The anthrax used in the attacks that immediately followed the WTC attacks came from the USA's own facility – if you can't keep it secure, surely you should not keep it at all.
It is interesting that, long after the source of the anthrax was known, Colin Powell's presentation to the UN on Iraq's alleged WMD capability gave the impression that the anthrax used in the attacks in America had come from Iraq.
If you want to have a think about regime change then perhaps you should ponder the regime change that was effected in the UK by the untimely deaths of John Smith and Robin Cook – do you think we would have gone into Iraq if these two decent men were in government?
I can do you a good bulk deal on bacofoil if you're interested.