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"So what if Iraq didnt have weapons?"

Weapons of mass destruction not found in Iraq and in my opinion they didn’t need to be found.

Does this mean the war was pointless and that it cost money and lives without any reason?

To most of the people yes, for the government said that they had to go into Iraq to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction. Most people agreed, some disagreed, but all most all the people who agreed said it had to be done because of the threat of chemical and biological weapons. So as you know the war happened costing lots of money and many soldiers lives, with out no apparent threat of the so-called weapons. So many people, mainly everyone, were angry with the government because they said there was an increasing threat to the world. Still no weapons have been found. But I think even if there were no weapons of mass destruction we should have gone to war. Not because I love war because nobody does. But because it was releasing oppressed people from a cruel man who was torturing them. He was one evil man. So that’s why I don’t think you need the weapons to go in to Iraq because we should all be free which the Iraq people were not.

One example of Saddam’s evil:

Unfortunately the following facts are true. In one of his meetings with his Generals: they were all discussing the countries problems and what to do about it. Saddam had made a comment. Everyone but one person agreed with him almost immediately. The person who disagreed was to be punished, Saddam asked everyone to step out side with him. He loaded a gun in front of the general’s sweaty face. He fired. The bullet had caught the General’s shoulder, but it wasn’t over. The other Generals were ordered to finish the poor man who was now on the floor, they did it. So just for disagreeing with him he was killed, is that right? What's the point when you can’t express yourself at a meeting.

I think everyone is missing the point of the war, it wasn’t just for those damn weapons of mass destruction, it was to release oppressed people from an evil man’s clutch. And this, I think was the main point of the war, but people wont except it, they have to have the weapons of mass destruction found before they say the war was needed. Do these people not care about other’s freedom?

As long as those Iraqis are free the war is a success in my eyes.

Blair led us into into war purely and repeatedly on the basis of weapons of mass destruction and their immediate danger and threat to us.
Nothing about liberating citizens, nothing about regime change.

The *only* reason we were offered, even to the extent of a televised address to the nation (unless you've forgotten already), was Hussein's posession and threat to use weapons of mass destruction.
This rhetoric and scaremongering was designed to whip us into a state of fear and hatred at a nation that has never once, at all, ever been any kind of threat to use whatsoever in any capacity.

As for the gassing in 1988?
http://www.indymedia.org.uk /en/2003/02/52961.html

There are a million other links that discuss this.
And whether you choose to believe (Belldandy, feel free to sneer and belittle without actually reading), the fact remains that the UK were so shocked and appalled at Hussein's supposed gassing in Halabja that we increased their credit limit for the purchase of arms (which, incidentally we picked up the bill for thanks to the Export Credit Guarantee Scheme - go look it up, this isn't fiction).

And here's a bit more...well...a lot more actually about the US & UK's long-term support and blind-eye to the various atrocities committed by Iraq against it's own people:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org /globalissue/usforeignpolicy/ iraq1980scontent.html

I appreciate you believe it's a good thing etc, that's your perogative.
But I'm asking you to do a bit of research before you form conclusions.

I guess because of the nature of things it's hard to calculate a realistic figure, but the range of the estimates makes it pretty hard for someone like me to whine about stuff :^D

I looked on a website it may not have been reliable enough though, I thought it was a bit to low too.

Where's that from? Got a lonk?
Seems a lot lower than some numbers I've read about in the past

Around 7,800 deaths and casualties of civilians in Iraq.

BTW, has anyone seen any *recent* (reliable) estimates on the number or civilian deaths since the start of the war?

Silënt Thunder wrote:
> I think everyone is missing the point of the war, it wasn’t just for
> those damn weapons of mass destruction, it was to release oppressed
> people from an evil man’s clutch. And this, I think was the main
> point of the war, but people wont except it, they have to have the
> weapons of mass destruction found before they say the war was needed.
> Do these people not care about other’s freedom?


Yes, the people have been freed, and so long as the right kind of government controls iraq in the future then they'll be better off in the long run (though in the last year we've caused more suffering and death to civilians than saddam would have. But in the long run...).

However, that's not *why* we went to war.
The british government *at the time* claimed we went in because there was a threat of saddam's wmds getting into terrorist hands.
Bush claimed it was regime change, because saddam *was* a direct threat to the west, and he had links to al-quaeda (later shown to be a lie).

At no time did anyone even mention going in for the benefit of the iraqi people.


> As long as those Iraqis are free the war is a success in my eyes.


It's a difficult one. Before the war I had the position that I would have supported the war if it were done to free the iraqis, and more were done to minimise civilian casualties and rebuild iraq after the war.

This hasn't been done, the coalition's airstrike tactics were designed to minimise risk to coalition forces, at the expense of civilians (it's hard to really condemn people for that form of self-interest, but it does show priorities...), and civilians continue to die and suffer in the continued instability.
Sure, that's not directly caused by the coalition, but by rebel fighters. However, since we didn't go in for the iraqi people, and any benefit to them was largely incidental to our objectives, I don't think we can claim any moral high ground here.
We go to war, the iraqi people happen to benefit too.
We go to war, the iraqi people happen to suffer.
If you're willing to claim responsibility for one, you have to take it for both.


> Not because I love war because nobody does.

I don't know about that. I'm sure he'll pop into the thread any time now....
;^D

But that's the whole point - we went to war on a lie.

The only good thing about going to war with Iraq was getting rid of Saddam Husain.

And with the population of Iraq being around 26 million, that's an average cost of over three thousand dollars per person for their liberation.

When people are living on $1 a day in developing countries, how can you possibly justify this?