Reply #81: Hypothetically, if we all knew then what we know now

[Tom Rinaldo]

Kerry would have been aware that there weren't WMD for Inspectors to find in Iraq had we sent them, so why (again assuming Kerry knew then what he knows now) threaten war over needing to search for weapons he knew did not exist?

The best argument left is that the World had good reasons to not trust Hussein. Hussein had agreed to U.N. Inspectors as a condition for the end of hostilities that left him in power. They had caught him lying in the past, perhaps Hussein would have restarted his weapons program again after he felt confident that a Bush Administration coming into office would not attack him. We needed inspectors on the scene, under this argument, to ensure that Hussein did not restart his WMD programs. This argument circles back to the "Hussein was a bad man who can not be trusted that we are better off without" argument. Like it or not, that's what we got.

I am not happy with Kerry's stated position, but I don't think Kerry would have started a war with Iraq, and I know that Bush did. My choice is still clear.