Only after the fact did you hear ANYTHING about the Kurds being gassed. Why wasnt the US worried about the Kurds WHEN they were being killed? Day late and a dollar short for how many Kurds? Why is it our business anyway? If democracy was so key to Iraq, why didnt GW's Daddy install a democracy after the first gulf war?
You may want to go back and look when we knew about the Kurds being gassed. It was a big issue and even made into our news media. The action was condemned then as it should have been.
As for WMD that was a mistake but every country with an intelligence service was saying the same thing: Jordan, Egpyt, France, Germany, Israel, England, Greece, Saudi Arabia, U.S. etc. all said he had weapons or was attempting to build them.
Our history is rife with selectively choosing our causes: We all but ignored the holocaust until we came face to face with it, we knew about it but didn't "do" anything about it, the Kmer Rouge in Cambodia ie the Killing Fields, we did nothing, Rawanda etc, etc. So saying we did nothing for the Kurds that is kind of a red herring.
I think in a strategic sense: there was a lot of pressure for our forces to be out of the Kingdom, we continued to need a way to project power into the region, Saddam was in open violation of numerous U.N. resolutions, he continued to worry his neighbors and threaten stategic oil supplies. In addition: in the post 9-11 world the neocons held sway in the decision making process and they clearly wanted Saddam out of power. Were there mistakes and miscalculations made? Of course there were.
The reason George Bush sr. didn't go in and remove Saddam was that he was constrained by the U.N. resolution which in effect said: Eject Iraqi occupiers from Kuwait and then go home. This war had a totally different strategic goal.
I have yet to hear a date or approximate date that our occupation will end.
I don't think anyone knows when our forces can come home. Also to set a hard and fast date would be stupid because it will give the insurgents a sense of just waiting us out. In addition if we are in occupation of Iraq why are we not acting like occupiers?
I wonder if either of you guys have talked to anyone who has been there? I have not heard the military saying we shouldn't be there.
In Iraq we put Saddam Hussein into power, gave him the mustard gas to kill the Kurds, and did a double dealing with Iran ("Iran contra"). Then we decided Saddam was dangerous because he didn't like the US for backing both sides of the Iran/Iraq war.
MattK,
The above is an extreme over simplification of all the dealings we had with Saddam. We actually didn't "put" him in power. We simply didn't resist his rise to power. The CIA felt Saddam would be a stabilizing influence. We provided weapons and supplies to both sides of the Iran/Iraq war because the decision was made that both countries would be less of a threat to the region if they could fight each other to a stalemate. A cheap way to keep Iran a bay. We didn't "decide" Saddam was dangerous he invaded Kuwait and most likely had his eyes on the oilfields of Saudi Arabia, thus he proved he was dangerous. Then he expelled U.N. inspectors, then thumbed his nose at every U.N. sanction, played fools poker with the U.S. administration which already was convinced he had to go, stole vast sums of cash from Oil for Food, bribed nearly every European country there is and still refused to open his country to inspectors who could have verified that there were no WMD's.
Whether the costs are too great or not has not been decided. To say we have no business there is also short sighted.
Nemont
