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Originally Posted by David Kelly
How could or would that have even been possible when Saddam and his cronie thugs kicked out the weapons inspectors on numerous occasions? [/color]
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After coalition forces rid Kuwait of Iraqi forces, and in the process displayed their military superiority, the US and UN had quite a bit of leverage. Had Iraq not immediately complied to unconditional unannounced inspections, an all out invasion could have been more legitimately called for in that time period than the past 2 years. Instead, the US and UN assumed that Iraq would just continue to capitulate to whatever request / threat they decided to extend to Iraq in the future. The problem with this is that Iraq held weapons inspectors, rightly, to the conditions agreed upon immediately following the Gulf War and didn’t bend over to US demands of unannounced inspections. Apparently it wasn’t that big of a deal to the US, since they didn’t attempt to push such a resolution through the UN for over 10 years.
As for the “cronie thugs,” if the US had cared about inspections a resolution could have been passed granting UN peacekeeping troops the right to escort inspectors. It’s not like our country had no knowledge of Saddam’s Gestapo, after all our two countries had been very closely allied against Iran during the Iran/Iraq War (while we sold arms to Iran under the table). In fact, the chemical weapons that Saddam used against the Kurds were very possibly purchased from the US. I do admit, like everyone must, that it is much easier to observe the past than to predict the future.