Of course, but I'm quite sure it doesn't remotely compare to actual costs since the invasion.
In a $15 Trillion dollar economy, a 5% decline in GDP is a huge loss, and far exceeds the initial invasion and to remove Saddam and is comparable to what has been spent since then on rebuilding Iraq. But again, the case for removing Saddam is not based just on his capabilities in 2002.
The sanctions didn't end until after the invasion.
The sanctions did not officially end on paper until after the invasion. But for all practical purposes they were nearly gone. Syria was actively letting anything through the borders by 2002. Much of Saddam's black market sales of oil which reached $5 billion by 2002 was through sales by way of Syria. Iran and Turkey were even letting violations go unchecked by that time. France, Russia, and China, members of the UN Security Council were violating sanctions by that time as well. China's work on Iraq's air defense system after the year 2000 was total open violation of the sanctions regime.
It wasn't broken, it just didn't result in regime change.
If that were the case, Saddam would not be making $5 Billion dollars on the black market in 2002 from the illegal sale of his oil. Again, Syria, France, Russia, China, Iran, and even Turkey all did things or let certain things go that violated the sanctions regime against Iraq.
Well, if you read the next line instead of just cherry picking your way through some one elses post you would know that the key here is means of preventing Saddam from obtaining such capabilities through sanctions and the weapons embargo had eroded. Given that fact, its only a matter of time before Saddam would acquire new wealth and capabililites.
In addition, intelligence is not some perfect science and is often inaccurate. The intelligence one what Saddam had in the WMD area prior to the 1991 Gulf War was proven inaccurate in the inspections right after the war. It showed that Saddam was a lot further a long in his capabilities with regard to WMD than had been previously thought.
The problem is that from the outside, intelligence can be correct or could be wrong, but wrong in either direction. The results of US intelligence from the before the 1991 Gulf War and before the 2003 Gulf War only highlight that one could never rely on intelligence to know when action would or would not need to be taken. Rather, compliance with the resolutions and and a strong sanctions regime would be the only possible other option instead of regime change to insure that Saddam could not threaten the region again. Unfortunately, Saddam failed to cooperate and the sanctions and weapons embargo eventually fell apart making regime change a necessity.
Yet he didn't. Because if he had, he would have been taken out. Just as he would have been at any point after Desert Storm.
As I already tried to explain before, Desert Storm required secure basing area's for the United States to set up its forces in order to re-take Kuwait. The staging area to do that was Saudi Arabia. If Saddam takes Saudi Arabia, the United States has no place to mount such a massive operation. The United States is then looking at an amphibious operation from the Gulf or a much longer and difficult deployment onto other area's of the Arabian pennisula, all the while the nightmare senerio has materialized the Iraq in possession of Saudi oil. All the key roads cities, and basing area's, airfields were in Saudi Arabia's northeastern area near the Gulf. Without that, your looking at far more difficult ways to get into the region as well as a logistical nightmare for the military given the large forces that were required.
Its generally recognized that Saddam's biggest mistake in his 1990 invasion and annexation of Kuwait was not moving into Saudi Arabia immediately and allowing the coalition to slowly build up its forces in Saudi Arabia over the next 6 months.
The savings and loan crisis did that, not Saddam.
Well, so much for trying to explain to you the impact of oil has on the economy.
That's almost as good as the Honda saleswoman who told me the new vehicle delivery charges were so high because the car (manufactured 30 minutes north of my house) was being shipped from Japan.
Wow, I can see your really after a mature discussion of a policy issue with a statement like that.
At least we've established that Saddam didn't pose a military threat in 2003.
Well, where was that established? It certainly was not in any of the brief comments you made in this post.
That's almost as good as the Honda saleswoman who told me the new vehicle delivery charges were so high because the car (manufactured 30 minutes north of my house) was being shipped from Japan.
