STING2 said:
By the way, Resolution 1483 went into effect on May 22, 2003 only 8 weeks after the start of the war and that is not the only resolution to approve of the occupation.
Ummm...My emphasis was on PRE WAR.....VERSES post. Thank you for understanding my point....the Authority came after the war started....the Council had to save face.
Shall I begin quoting George HW Advisors who concur that the resolutions did not give the authority to remove Saddam?
[Q]Powell: They were in the campaign plan we wrote and they were the objectives that the President used publicly to get public support.
One--the ejection of the Iraqi army from Kuwait.
notice the word I use, the 'ejection of the Iraqi army from Kuwait.'ond--there is restoration of the legitimate government in Kuwait. Third--providing for the release of all third country nationals who are in danger or who are hostage and fourth--achieving a level of strategic stability in the region. An objective that we had within our campaign plans was destroy the Republican Guard.
And so on the morning of the 27th the strategic political objectives were all on the verge of accomplishment. We had no objective that said go to Baghdad. We had no objective that said, split apart Iraq.
It has to be remembered our Arab friends were not going to go into Iraq, their soldiers would not step foot in Iraq. They were going into Kuwait to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
It was the resolution passed by the United Nations and that's what the Congressional resolution provided for.
[Q]Q: What warnings were sent to the Iraqis about using chemical weapons?
Baker: The President's letter to Saddam Hussein which Tariq Aziz read in Geneva, made it very clear that if Iraq used weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, against United States forces that the American people would demand vengeance and that we had the means to achieve it. I also reinforced that message in my presentation with Tariq Aziz at Geneva and we made it clear that in addition to ejecting Iraq from Kuwait, if they used those types of weapons against our forces we would in addition to throwing them out of Kuwait, we would adopt as a goal the elimination of the regime in Baghdad.
we never did that, we never expanded our war aims or our political aims to include that -- we never went beyond the scope of the United Nations Security Council resolutions we made it very clear to them that if they used weapons of mass destruction on our forces that would be one thing we would consider doing and further that we had the means to obtain vengeance.
Q: What were the key factors that led you all to think 'Hey, it's time to finish this.'
Baker:
The key factors were that we had ejected Iraq from Kuwait which is what was required by the uh UN Security Council resolution. That if we kept going a whole lot longer we would be acting beyond the resolution. The war aims had been achieved. The political aims had been achieved. A lot of people trying to flee were being killed literally thousands and the military advised the President that it was time to wrap it up in terms of our war aims and I think the President's decision was absolutely the right one. All the second guessing about going to Baghdad and all of that, people that make those kinds of suggestions are not taking into consideration a whole host of factors. How many more American lives would have been lost? How far beyond our authority from the UN would we have been acting if we had prolonged the war further, if we had occupied Southern Iraq, if we had gone to Baghdad? How long would we have to fight a guerrilla war in Iraq if we'd occupied any of the territory? A whole host of factors. People also forget that it was never a war aim or a political aim of the United States to eliminate the Saddam Hussein regime.
Was it something we would like to see happen? Was it something that most of us felt probably would happen in the aftermath of such a significant defeat? Yes.
It it was never something that was authorized that we'd do by the United Nations Security Council. We would have lost our coalition. The Arab elements I think would have left for sure. There would be no peace process in the Middle East today. So people don't focus on those things.[/Q]
These IDIOTS, clearly they do not understand the scope of the resolution.