Reply #22: this also undermines the last shred of justification for the IWR....

[mike_c]

If Hussein was disarmed long before Oct. 2002, no "additional threat of force" was necessary to insure his compliance with the U.N. mandate, since he had already long since complied. UNSCOM would have arrived at the same conclusion as this latest report without nearly as much prevarication as the U.S. teams, who REALLY REALLY wanted to find WMDs, and individuals such as Scott Ritter had already reported that Iraq had no stockpiles of banned weapons and no active development programs since the mid-1990s.

The invasion of Iraq was an international war crime, founded upon lies fed to the American people by the President, a significant proportion of the congressional leadership, and by news media eager for a wartime ratings boost. The U.S. economy has been given a body-blow, nearly 1100 U.S. service persons killed in combat and 16,000 maimed, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians killed, and the middle east destablized for the foreseeable future. All for lies, greed, and the corrupt exercise of power.

on edit: anyone from the Kerry campaign listening? Kerry has stated repeatedly that "the President needed congressional authority to invade Iraq" in order to apply pressure to Saddam Hussein. Pressure for what? He'd already disrmed and he'd already readmitted the U.N. inspectors unconditionally. No, I think the President needed that resolution for precisely the opposite reason-- to prevent the world from learning the truth about Iraq in time to forestall the planned invasion.