k5083 wrote:No reputable source has stated that Saddam ordered the deaths of 1M people.
On the other hand, UNICEF has estimated the number of deaths of Iraqi infants and children directly attributable to US sanctions and intentional US destruction of Iraqi water treatment facilities during Gulf I at around half a million.
I looked for data but all I could find was 100 pages of diatribes stating your position about Bush causing all ills in Iraq.
I thought those were UN sanctions? Maybe Saddam should have taken the oil for food program more seriously and done the right thing.
I agree that the case for war was not well stated, and perhaps embellished by the administration. You tend to find what you are looking for after all. Not necessarily embellished by Bush himself, he may have been given overly conservative info and made decisions based upon that. He is still responsible for his administration however.
Even so, the case for war was there and the Democrats voted for the war before they voted against it. The Democrats had the raw intelligence as well and made their own conclusions.
It is easy for a group of people on the internet to second guess all this, but we didn't have access to the intelligence data.
I can certainly criticize Bush's execution of the war, but I don't criticize his reason for going to war. It seems that some however disagree on how soon we should have gone to war. I'm sure the Al Gore "white flag commission" would have followed in Clinton's footsteps and delayed taking decisive action indefinitely and made the problem far worse.
I'm not a fan of Bush by the way, I think his domestic policy is awful.