Diemen said:We get the criteria, honestly we do. However, the difference in opinion stems from whether Saddam not following the regulations of 1441 constituted an immediate threat that should've been dealt with at the time it was dealt with, or if the problem was not great enough to require a full military occupation.
Some of us believe that there still has to be a proven threat to justify the scale of military force we used in Iraq, resolution or no, and some of us feel that there wasn't enough of an actual threat to put our men and women in harm's way.
Obviously we have very differing opinions on this, so can we just agree to disagree?
Let me ask you this, if you were the Presidents deputy National Security Adivsor for the Persian Gulf how would you have advised the President on policy in the questions below. Please answer it from the perspective of one that is responsible for this particular region and recommend policy options based only on that. The President and others will make overall decisions about more forces or less forces needed for region x or y, so stay on Iraq.
#1 Would you have gone to war to remove Saddam's large, well equiped military, from Kuwait in 1991 as Bush Sr. did?
#2 If the answer to #1 is yes, what would you have required of Saddam in order for there to be a ceacefire? Would you have required that Saddam Verifiably Disarm of all WMD?
#3 Would you back up an obligation for Saddam to verifiably disarm of all WMD, with the understanding that military force would be used to achieve verifiable disarmament if Saddam failed to meet that obligation?
#4 With the violations that Saddam was committing as of March 2003, would you have advised the use of military force at that time?
#5 If not at that time in #4, when and why then? Please be specific.
Independent of the questions above, do you feel that the the huge efforts being made by US military personal in Iraq, currently are necessary for the security of the region, the World, and the United States?
I'll let you have the last word on all these questions and promise not to respond.
I can't promise of course that none of these issues will not pop up in another thread sometime in the future.