“A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq. . . . The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life. And there are hopeful signs of a desire for freedom in the Middle East. . . . A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.” %u2013 President Bush, Feb. 26, 2003.

As this concept was clearly articulated previous to the March 19, 2003 invasion, then any lucid individual recognizes any form of the %u201Cpostwar rationalization%u201D argument to be without foundation.

Certainly, all the players involved were not in agreement on the issue of regime change. As you pointed out in your previous post, Tony Blair was one of those. However, also in the same previous post you provide a quote cited to Wolfowitz which asserted the WMD issue was settled on to surmount bureaucratic stasis. What you intentionally omit from the citation is the precursor statement, %u201CIt was,” he says, “ONE OF MANY REASONS. %u201C (Emphasis mine) Of course this would not have played so well in your argument.

Epiphany: As the Wolfowitz WMD citation was post invasion, by your logic, WMD must of necessity be only a %u201Cpostwar rationalization.%u201D

Now let%u2019s move on to the %u201Cover riding reason%u201D we invaded Iraq in 2003. At the conclusion of the %u201CPersian Gulf War%u201D of 1990-91 in which Saddam Hussein suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of a 34 nation coalition force authorized by the United Nations and lead by the United States, the despotic leader of Iraq agreed to specific conditions in order to secure a cease fire. Over the next 10 years Hussein incrementally and systematically rejected said conditions, failing to ever fully cooperate with efforts of the UN to confirm if previously known or suspected weapons had been destroyed and weapons programs had been ended. He also used this period to launch brutal suppressions against Shiite and Kurd revolts, which lead to increasing enforcement of %u201Cno fly zones.%u201D Arrogantly he persisted in attacking our aircraft deployed to enforce said zones. Additionally Hussein continued to engage in other belligerently provocative conduct such as massing troops near the border of Kuwait in 1994. (You might want to check your Almanac to see who the President was during this ridiculously extended period of %u201Cpatience.%u201D)

Conclusion: The overriding reason we invaded in 2003 was Husain%u2019s failure to comply. Period!

By the way, one small question. How come I have not once left a statement in any of my comments which stated that we needed to go into Iraq to begin with, yet you think I am in favor of the Iraq war? I simply responded to you when you were wrong. In this thread, feel free to have a look around and count the number of times you were wrong.

Assuming that I was in favor of OIF incorrectly was one, now go find number two and so on. Have a nice day

You copped out. I expect more from you, dude!!

Regardless, it is always a pleasure to converse. Keep up the good work at college!!

Pray tell, then, what was the overriding reason for the invasion of Iraq?

So, in fact, I can’t say that WMD was the overriding reason for OIF. Since that would be paradoxical, because according to Mr. Blair, WMD was one of the reasons for regime change, which you and I have agreed wasn’t the overriding reason.

So if we wade through our respective comments, is it fair to say that we can agree that while bringing democracy to Iraq was a justification for the invasion, it was not the overriding justification? And, further, can we agree that that the overriding justification was, in fact, supposed stockpiles of WMD?

I showed where to read, and if you didn’t see anything about regime change in Iraq, then you didn’t read it. I will reiterate what I had said earlier, read the Joint Authorization Resolution. Plus, nobody said it was the “overriding reason”.

I said it was one(not the only/overriding, however way you want to spin what I had said earlier) of the reasons, and it was.

Also, the links to AQ are not bogus. According to the Institute of Defense Analysis report, Saddam’s Ba’ath government had ties to; EIJ, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and Army of Mohammed. Who are all terror groups within the Al Qaeda terror network.

Back to whether democracy in Iraq was one of the reasons we went into Iraq or not. Rewriting history? Yeah, not even close to what I was doing.

Just to show you why I brought up the Joint Authorization, here’s a slice of what was said in it; “Whereas the Iraq Liberation Act (Public Law 105-338) expressed the sense of Congress that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime”.

- Here’s the link;
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

Removing all the fancy words that clutter this slice of the authorization, it quiet frankly says; “regime change”.

Also, the United States government did stress consistently in the months prior to the war that they intended to change Iraq’s regime and put a democracy in it’s place. President Bush made it clear that regime change was one of the reasons for our invasion in his 2003 SOTU address. He also stressed it in his 2002 SOTU as well.

In 2003 he said in the SOTU that the Iraqi people day of liberation was near, and in the 2002 one he talked about making Saddam comply with the U.N. and if he didn’t(which he didn’t) then the U.S. and it’s allies will remove him from power. Just to add veracity to this, here is a link to an article that says something similar.

http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL31339.pdf

It’s also pretty apparent that you forgot about Senator Graham’s letter to Bush, which recommended adding the removal of Saddam from power and replacing his government with a democracy as one of the GWOT’s goals. This letter was about 19 going on 20 months before we invaded Iraq.

As you can see, I have a pretty solid reason to believe that regime change was one of the reasons why we went into Iraq. I never said it was the only or “overriding reason” to go into Iraq, but one of the reasons, and to reiterate once again, it was.

CF, if you didn’t hear anything on the subject of removing Saddam’s government in the 18 months prior to the invasion, and you only heard WMD talk, then you have selective hearing. You only paid attention to certain parts of the discussions that took place, and you didn’t pay attention to everything.

Of course, I won’t hold it against you, none of us can pay attention to every single detail with perfect clarity. However, whether you did it on purpose or not lies solely on you.