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Opening Statement - why I believe we should attack Iraq
By Paul Bergstrom, Feb 2, 2003
First, I acknowledge that the argument for war in Iraq is not simple. Even in the US, many people are opposed to it. I acknowledge that as of now (Feb 2, 2003) no one has proven that Iraq had anything to do with September 11. Never-the-less I believe an attack is justified and necessary. Here is why:
In 1990, Iraq attacked Kuwait. The world responded with a coalition force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. This war was arranged entirely through the UN, at the request of Kuwait - however, the USA provided the majority of the physical force. The effort to get Iraq out of Kuwait was successful. However, the coalition force stopped short of eliminating Saddam Hussein's government - as had been agreed among coalition members through the UN.
As a condition to end the war leaving Hussein in power, the UN forbid Iraq to have certain weapons, and imposed economic sanctions until such time as Iraq proved it had completely abandoned all efforts to keep and acquire these weapons.
So far, so good - this was in my opinion a "textbook example" of how the UN was intended to function. The UN successfully provided collective security for Kuwait. However, after the Gulf War, in my opinion, the UN failed.
During the 1990's, inspection programs had some success in uncovering Iraq weapons. However, Iraq did not cooperate with these - instead most of the important discoveries came as a result of Iraqi defectors telling inspectors where to look. Furthermore, the economic sanctions began to crumble, as it became obvious that Saddam Hussein was quite willing to let his people suffer rather than give up his weapons programs. By 1998 all inspections stopped, and no one - not even our President Clinton - did anything about it. Instead many voices around the world called for an end to Iraq sanctions.
Additionally, during the 1990's and continuing today, the USA and UK have enforced a "no fly zone" over northern and southern Iraq. As I understand it, the UN has never formally approved of this enforcement. Yet I don't know of anyone who says this enforcement should stop - most acknowledge that Hussein would rapidly cause a human disaster for the Kurds if we did stop these patrols. And yet when Iraq fires on our patrol planes, the UN does not acknowledge this as any sort of violation on the part of Iraq.
So I believe the UN utterly failed to disarm Iraq during the late 1990's. Initially, this failure left the USA and UK in the uncomfortable position of "containing" Iraq with little support from the rest of the world. It was clear, even before Sept 11, 2001, that this situation could not go on indefinitely. Either the world would "give up" and let Iraq do as it wanted, or the world - and particularly the USA - would have to confront Saddam Hussein again.
The September 11 attacks awakened average American citizens to dangers in the world. I think before that, we felt invincible. Before Sept 11, many average Americans were content to let Iraq slide - let Hussein build his big weapons and kill people "over there" if he wanted. But after Sept 11,
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