CORRECT QUESTION ON IRAQ WAR: not "IF" but "EVEN IF" Saddam had WMD [View all]

[yurbud]

It's disturbing to hear even some Democrats trot out old lies to justify their support for the Iraq War, particularly the "bad intel" one, when whether Saddam Hussein had nukes is irrelevant to whether we should invade.

The real question that should have been asked over and over again was "EVEN IF every piece of cooked intel was true and Saddam had or sought nukes, why would he commit suicide and take his whole country with him by using it on us or Israel?"

You could certainly make the case that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, even evil, but he did not get and keep power by being an idiot.

CIA director at the time, George Tenet was forced to say as much:

But in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, CIA director George Tenet also said the likelihood of Iraq launching an unprovoked attack on the United States was "low".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2312369.stm

That is true because the United States has THOUSANDS of nukes to retaliate with, and we are the only country in the world to have ever used them. Even when the Soviet Union had as many or more nukes than us, they dared not use them because whatever damage they did, we would still have more than enough to strike back. Saddam Hussein would know all that.

Likewise, Israel has HUNDREDS of nukes, and while they haven't used any, it's not hard to imagine them doing so in retaliation given their history of attacking their neighbors (including Iraq) when they thought it was in their interest. Saddam would certainly consider that since Israel attacked an Iraqi nuclear plant while he was in power.

For those same reasons, neither Saddam not any other state leader would be willing to give or sell nukes to terrorists. Once the weapon is out of their hands, they would have zero control over how it was used, and if it was used, since terrorist don't typical have a return address, we would strike whoever gave it to them. And if we didn't know, our government would hit whoever we SUSPECT gave it to them (or whoever is next on our shit list).

Saddam Hussein would know all that too, especially since we were doing that shit list trick to him with 9/11 before we invaded.

Everyone in Congress old enough to remember the Cold War did not need to be privy to any secret intelligence or told directly that Saddam didn't have those weapons or even that if he did, he would not be a threat to us.

They just had to remember why we didn't have a nuclear war in their lifetime.

Anyone in Congress who says otherwise is either lying or they are so corrupt, they don't care what the truth is anymore.