Read "Past the Point of Justifying," by John McCain, with a heavily jaundiced eye! I'm disappointed in his discussion, largely because he tries to frame the WMD problem as a by-point, not as the highly contentious argument it was before the war. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country, and millions of people around the world, did not believe Hussein regime was a threat outside of its borders. The question is not so much in my mind that at some point Iraq had chemical and biological weapons--as a much better spokesperson than me pointed out, we still have the receipts!

"An eight-year-old Senate report confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the Gulf War. The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the current official U.S. position) initiated war with Iran.

...

... May 25, 1994, Senate Banking Committee report. In 1985 (five years after the Iraq-Iran war started) and succeeding years, said the report, "pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic (meaning "poisonous") and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq, pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." It added: "These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction."

The report then details 70 shipments (including anthrax bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding, "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20020926.shtml

My anger is over the "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" crap the administration fed the American public, all the while calling people who did not support the war unpatriotic, even treasonous. While we were invading Iraq the civil liberties of American citizens were simultaneoulsy being threatened with being flushed down the toilet, to the point where people who spoke out felt intimidated and afraid that they might find themselves under the mighty unforgiving thumb of the Cheney/Rumsfield/Ashcroft opposition suppress-o-matic.

McCain's claim that the mass graves somehow justify what we did--a preemptive war against a country we cooked intelligence on--is also loathsome. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died as a result of economic sanctions that the US promulgated (clean water facilities were destroyed by bombs, and American doctors were arrested for trying to deliver medicines to relieve the suffering of Iraqi children). So, we are supposed to be overjoyed that we put bad old Saddam out of business because he waged his political wars on children. How are we supposed to feel about the fact that as citizens of the United States *we also waged war against chidlren*??

http://maic.iraqimusic.com/ "4,500 Iraqi children die every months [sic] as a result of the sanctions ... Most of these deaths occur in the forms of malnutrition, due to the lack of food; deaths due to the lack of medicine, where otherwise these deaths could have been avoided; and, deaths due to the accelerating rates of cancer between Iraqi children. These deaths are happening in one of the richest countries on earth, in terms of natural resources! " And don't miss the money quote: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it." -- Madeline Albright, May 12, 1996 statement on "60 Minutes"

What you say? The ever-venerable defender of justice around the world waged war on children? Clearly, our government's desire to protect the children of Iraq is a relatively new development--one the government will play up since they have preemptively attacked what has turned out to be a non-threat nation (justified by cooked intelligence regarding Iraq's nuclear weapons program). Have people forgotten that more than half the population of Iraq is under 15 years old? So, how many of the collateral damage and oops-we-shot-civilians deaths in Iraq have been children? What about the poisoning of the Iraqi environment with depleted uranium? We have created conditions in Iraq that will kill Iraqi men, women and particularly children (whose small body size increases the impact of environmental poisons) for years to come, with no discussion of intent by the US to remediate the contamination, which should be at the cost of the US since we are the ones who put it there.

The question was never whether Saddam Hussein was a good ruler--sadly, decent rulers in Iraq were thrown out due to US greed for Iraq's resources (look up Cheney and the boys' efforts to obtain oil leases and pipelines that lead to the US covert operations in Iraq that put Saddam into power, this link is later, but a little digging would probably take you to the facts, possibly http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20020926.shtml, and http://prorev.com/bushwaroil.htm might shed some light).

The argument by the intelligensia and anti-war effort in this country was that our standards of support and/or aggression against horrific political regimes is arbitrary and peace abolishing. Our history in South America is a prime example. Another clear example was our GOP's flip flop on waging war on humanitarian reasons, i.e. the Balkans.

While the industrial military complex is undoubtedly thrilled with the Bush administration's behaviour over the past several years, since his policies will likely lead us to tottering on the brink of war with any number of the world's other governments for years to come, I am aghast and angry.