Iraq How It All Started

[whiskeryron]

When George W Bush & Tony Blair decided to invade Iraq by putting out false rumors of WMD. I was told by someone that it was a deliberate revenge attack formulated by G W B because of a previous assassination attempt on the life of his father President George H Bush.
See George H. W. Bush

April 13, 1993: After Bush left the White House, fourteen men believed to be working for Saddam Hussein smuggled bombs into Kuwait to assassinate former president Bush by a car bomb during his visit to Kuwait University several months after he had left office.[30] The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Two of the suspects, Wali Abdelhadi Ghazali and Raad Abdel-Amir al-Assadi, retracted their confessions at the trial, claiming that they were coerced.[31] Bush had left office in January 1993. The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was proved to be behind the plot.[32]

On June 27, 1993 President Bill Clinton ordered retaliation against Iraq as part of Operation Southern Watch; 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired against the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters. Clinton had decided to act based on three pieces of evidence: first, suspects in the plot confessed to FBI agents in Kuwait. Second, FBI bomb experts linked the captured car bombs to the same explosives made in Iraq, including a 175-pound car bomb found in Kuwait City on April 14. Third, intelligence reports confirmed that Saddam had been plotting to assassinate the former President for some time. Leaders from both parties supported Clinton's attack.[33].

Can anyone on A/B confirm this report ?.

WR.

[Booldawg]

sorry WR cant confirm the report but how it all started was by Iraq invading Kuwait.

[Clanad]

... and nearly every pertinent intelligence agency confirmed the report of WMD, no? Bush must have been quite a politician and smarter than given credit for to have pulled that one off. What... 16 seperate (can't recall exactly) U.N. rulings to Saddam... including the infamous (now) 1441.

This, from one of Bush's leading opponents here in the U.S. prior to the invasion:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members...

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well, effects American security.

This is a very difficult vote, this is probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make. Any vote that might lead to war should be hard, but I cast it with conviction."

Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York)
Addressing the US Senate
October 10, 2002

Saddam had already used WMD on the Kurds in northern Iraq...

Further, recent news reports suspects the chemical weapons used by the government of Syria on its own citizens recently may have originated in Iraq. Military intelligence (often, but not always an oxymoron) have suspected for some time the WMD was shipped surreptitiously by truck convoy from Iraq to Syria...one of those things we'll never know probably...

[jake-the-peg]

WMD? that's a laugh

The US have charged the Boston Bombers with using a weapon of mass destruction.

Yet apparently the much more powerful bombs they rained down on Baghdad are not weapons of mass destruction.

I'm sure thae 100,000 Iraqi and Afghan corpses from these two wars appreciate the distinction - I find it somewhat hard to myself