nodubmanshouts wrote:Too many points, too many points!
I'll start with math; Iraq produces around 2,000,000 barrels of oil a day. Assuming the Coalition gobbled up all those barrels, at $100 per barrel, thats $200,000,000 per day. When you consider that troops in Iraq are costing the US *alone* over $300,000,000 per day to run, it becomes obvious that either
a) the war was not financial gain, or
b) the UK and the US are really bad at math.
I'm really not sure why Mr. Syberbeg believes that Iraq would not attack Isreal with WMD? Iraq has attacked Isreal in the past, and used biological weapons on its own citizens. Why then, wouldn't it have used biological weapons on Isreal? Its not such a leap of faith.
The belief that Iraq had WMD was extremely high, even among the detractors of the war. Once they had acquired WMD it would have been nigh on impossible to rectify the situation.
Ultimately, I do not believe this was mainly a war of money, but a war to prevent a larger war. I agree that access to the oil supply (not just Iraq, but the whole region) was a factor in the war, but not THE factor.
As for comments about the UN, I should really be saying Coalition. And anecdotes are, according to Wikipedia, always based in fact -- I wasn't indicating that those statements are untrue, just that they have no relevance and are circumstancial.
Can I ask you; do you feel that you and your family live in a safer world, following the Iraq war? For me, and everyone i know, the answer is "yes".
In all honesty, I'm not sure where you're getting your info from, but it's wrong.
Iraq used up most of it's bio-chem weapons in the war with Iran, some of what was left was dropped on the Kurds and, if memory serves, the Shi'a Marsh Arabs as well. BTW, the Kurds are not and have never been "Saddam's own people". Saddam is a Sunni Desert Arab. And yes, these distinction are
very important. Oh, hang on, you said "citizens", sorry
for misquoting/misunderstanding you there.
Saddam had the opportunity to use bio-chem loaded SCUDs on Israel in the first Gulf War. He didn't. The obvious answer to that is to look at a map, take into consideration the prevailing winds and figure out who would be hit if one dropped short. Using bio-chemical weapons against fellow Muslims like the Iranians and the Kurds is one thing, but accidentally hitting the Palestinians is another matter entirely Then have a wild guess at the reaction from Damascus, let alone the Iraqi members of the Ba'ath Party. SCUDs have really crap targeting capabilities, in that they're only slightly better at finding their target than the German V-2. Which is fine if you've loaded it with a 100kiloton nuclear warhead, but not much good if it's just 2000lbs of HE. Don't forget, he also targeted Saudi Arabia, launching 46. Six more than launched at Israel.
Also, by the end of the war, Iraq didn't have a suitable delivery system to hit Israel.
The rest of his stockplies were destroyed by the RAF, USAF (and I think the Saudi Royal Air Force) with bunker busting munitions that are specifically designed to do that particular job. They cause enough heat in the resulting explosion to incinerate any bio-chem weapons present.
Iraq's bio-chem weapons were supplied to Saddam by...the US and UK, but mainly the US. So the US and UK knew pretty well exactly what he had and where it was.
As for "bad maths", the sale of Iraqi oil was supposed to pay for the war, unfortunately, the Bush Administration completely effed-up the post-war planning and hadn't realised just how badly in need of rebuilding the Iraqi oil industry was. They completely screwed up.
Answer me the following:
Why do you
think the first duty of the Royal Marines was to secure the oil terminals in southern Iraq?
Why do you
think the first Iraqi government building secured by US troops in Baghdad was the Oil Ministry?
Why do you
think the Bush Administration is attempting to force the Iraqi (puppet) government to sign an oil law that will privatize the Iraqi oil industry, rather than letting them keep it nationalised?
As for the belief about Saddam's WMD. Amongst the intelligence community it was extremely low as the majority of it was old and the rest came from one source, via the German intelligence agency, namely "Curveball". When Blair presented the intelligence to (first) his Cabinet and then Parliament, he omitted the caveats that MI5 and MI6 had placed there.
Google "Iraq Dossier" for more info.
"War to prevent a larger war." Garbage. Completely bought the propaganda haven't you? It's destablised the Persian Gulf region, tensions are higher there than they have been since the Iran/Iraq war, there's an active and ongoing insurgency in Iraq as well as a Shi'ite power struggle in the south and the Kurds, well the PPK, are stirring up trouble with Turkey in the full knowledge that the US won't allow Turkey to fully invade Iraqi Kurdistan (as it's the main route out of Iraq for oil if you want to bypass Syria). It's brought the major players in geopolitics one step closer to confrontation, the final step would be an attack on Iran.
As for my points about oil I made in my previous post, they most certainly are not circumstantial, but highly relevant. Well, that's if you take your head out of the sand for long enough to look at the wider, geopolitical and global energy picture.
As for feeling safer? Well, I presume you mean from terrorist attack. Quite frankly, in that respect, I feel a lot safer than I did when conducting counter terrorist ops in South Armagh, Northern Ireland. But that's because the current crop of Islamic nutjobs are a bunch of complete amateurs (and that's being polite). As for feeling safer from a possible nuclear exchange, nope, it's slightly below where it was when I was living 10 miles north of a primary Soviet nuclear target during the Cold War, because I don't trust the American Administration given their foreign policy record (regardless of party).
I appologise for any bluntness in the above, but I don't really have the space to be anything other than direct.
I don't necessarily agree with everything I think.