NYTimes on Bush Interview

[Ned]

rev, of course, you are totally right. We should never have gotten the inspectors back in. Saddam was no threat - ever - to get long range missles (opps, but what about those he was developing that could even reach Istanbul?) and he never would have gotten nukes (despite that being a high priority goal). We should have left him all alone. He was "contained" by the UN whose Food for Peace bureacrats were on Saddam's payroll. He was contained by the French, the Germans and the Russians who were supplying him with the latest technology across the board.

He was no threat and no concern of the the United States. We should have let him peacefully develop those nuclear weapons and long range missles and then later, when he was fully ready to use them, resist his next invasion.

Smart thinking. I agree. I really have lost this argument.

[rev]

The only reason this thread continues is because your only debate tactic (so far) has been to misrepresent my arguments and sarcastically emphasize the worst-case-scenario results that would stem from them.

I've made my point: containment was working and further inspections, enforced under the threat of invasion, would have verified that. This should have been the the course of action when UN inspectors personally examined our various sites of interest in Iraq and reported our intelligence as being 'garbage'.

I'm out.

[Ned]

rev, all I can say is that this placed and enormous and endless burden on the United States. Containment was not possible.