Would Gore have invaded Iraq?

[Frank Johnson]

West versus the rest. Open your markets or die! ^_^

Even the chinese have come around.

The USA is just delievering the final blow for western civilization. Some help would be appricated guys.

[Chemical Ollie]

Possibly in his second term

[Ned]

Originally posted by Osweld
Why do some people seem to be connecting the invasion of Iraq as some sort of response to 9/11?

Because of Saddam's link to terrorism and his WMD.

[Kuciwalker]

no banana option?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sava
Probably... but not as early as Bush as Gore would have actually exhausted all diplomatic options instead of pretending to.

But I think that's irrelevant because I don't believe 9-11 would have happened if Gore were president, just because he would have made Clinton's anti-terror policy suggestions into reality instead of instituting Operation Ignore.

That's a BIG assumption to make.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ned


Because of Saddam's link to terrorism and his WMD.

Ned, why do you have to serve as a constant embarrassment to me - every time I point out to Sava that we aren't ALL fox-watching, Coulter-loving ideological parrots, you come along.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ned


Because of Saddam's link to terrorism

Do you mean the mortar attack on 10th Downing Street, happening about the same time as England WAS in war with Iraq, making any attack by Iraq on English soil legitimate?

(not in my heart, but by legal standards)

[Berzerker]

instead the Clinton administration was focused on domestic terrorists like the Branch Dividians, and a mother and her child at ruby ridge.

Ruby Ridge occured under Bush 1 and the Waco disaster occured very soon after Clinton took office, i.e., the apparatus responsible for Waco was created by Reagan/Bush and the militarization of law enforcement in the name of fighting the drug war.

[Ned]

Saddam long had links to terrorism. He had a terrorist training base in Iraq. He was linked to al Qaida.

Saddam had WMD (at least at one time) and had demostrated his willingness to use them.

Saddam was still at war with the US and Britain due to the no fly zones and his lack of cooperation on the weapons inspections.

9/11 demostrated that terrorists could strike in the US with devastaing effect. At the time of 9/11, a mild anthrax attack nearly shut down our government.

Saddam reputedly had tons of anthrax. He reputedly had tons of other bio and chemical weapons.

We feared that Saddam would give those weapons to terrorists who would use them with devastating effect in the US.

Finally, Saddam refused to cooperate fully with the UN despite a final ultimatum.

Get it now?

[Ned]

Skywalker, just because Ann Coulter is a bit bizzare is no reason not to laugh with her rather than at her. We all do not have to be overly intellectual aboul liberalism, or is that, libertinism.

[Kuciwalker]

The WMD issue is still up for debate. However, IIRC we decided quite a while ago that Saddam was not linked to 9-11 or terrorism.

[Ned]

skywalker, I think you are studiously missing the point.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ned
Blah blah blah...

I could go through and replace every "saddam" with "USA" but it's been done a million times.


And there is no evidence that Iraq was connected to Al-Qaeda, at all. Isn't Iraq a secular state, anyways? I don't see why the Jihad would be any fan of Saddam.

9/11 demostrated that terrorists could strike in the US with devastaing effect. At the time of 9/11, a mild anthrax attack nearly shut down our government.

Did they ever find out who made the anthrax attacks? I'm pretty sure it was domestic terrorism, there was nothing at the time which indicated it was Al-Qaeda's doing. Killing a couple journalists with anthrax would be a pretty pathetic follow up after the synchronized plane crashes.

Saddam reputedly had tons of anthrax. He reputedly had tons of other bio and chemical weapons.

And there is reputedly a man in the moon.

[Ned]

Osweld, how can you say there was no evidence of a link between al Qaida and Saddam. Even if one does not have a formal alliance written in stone, one can infer a link by circumstantial evidence. We laid that evidene out before the war. Since the war, we have indeed uncovered documents showing the cooperation back to 1993.

On the anthrax attack, the point is not that it came from terrorists, but that it was effective and was terrorizing. We believed before the war that Saddam had tons of anthrax.

Now, if you truly believed before the war that Saddam did not have tons of anthrax, on what basis did you base your belief?

[OzzyKP]

Since this thread is mysteriously located in the Civ2-MP forum now, the real question to ask is, if Gore invaded Iraq, what settings would he use?