Clinton's policy of containing Saddam worked to complete perfection. Not in hindsight, mind you, but in President Clinton's very competent foresight. He successfully denied Saddam of WMD though a combination of enforcing no-fly zones, imposing sanctions on Iraq, sending in weapons inspectors, launching surgical strikes when necessary, and seeking cooperation among the nations of the world.
When bush invaded Iraq looking for WMD, he found that President Clinton had already gotten rid of them all.
We all know President Clinton suspected Saddam of possessing WMD. There are many quotes from him and other Democratic leaders attesting to it. That's why he pursued a policy of containment. He believed it would neutralize Saddam as a threat. If you think his policy didn't work, then answer me this: why were no WMDs found in Iraq?
Before some clever little con responds by pasting quotes from Democrats saying Saddam had WMDs, the question I ask is: why were no WMDs found in Iraq?
2007-10-14 08:16:45 · 18 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Their policy was the same
Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act on 11/1/98
2007-10-14 08:21:24 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 3⤋
Good point. If Saddam ever had WMD's, I'm sure he would have had them neatly stacked and labeled in a warehouse with a big sign on it saying, "Iraqi WMD Storage Facility".
No offense, but I feel like I'm talking to naive kids sometimes. Actually, I hope you are a kid.
The build up to this war was at least 9 months, and I think Saddam got the idea that we were coming no matter what. If he had WMD's, he had time to hide them, move them out of the country, or destroy them. The guy wasn't in power for 30+ years because he was stupid. He was probably hoping to embarass the US.
This war was never solely about WMD's anyway. That was just the stated reason to get support for the war. Apparently, our intelligence (as well as other intelligence agencies) believed they had them. On top of that, we had legitimate legal reasons to go into Iraq because Saddam violated many of the terms of the end of theGulf War (1991). Legally speaking, this war was a continuation of that war.
Practically speaking, this war is about terrorism.
But Saddam never attacked us on 9-11. He had nothing to do with it........(I heard you thinking that)
Well, kids, sometimes to solve a big problem, you must do more than attack the symptoms of the problem. In order to solve the problem, you must attack the root of the problem. The root of the problem is a culture in the middle east that teaches islamic extremism and suppresses other veiws. Islamic extremism teaches hatred of the west, killing of non Muslims, etc. In order to change that, we have to change the governments from oppressive ones, to those that allow freedom of ideas. A side benefit is that the people in those countries will be better off. The idea is to plant a free society in the Middle East. Eventually it will spread to other Islamic nations.
Now there are a lot of legitimate criticisms about the Iraq war and whether or not it was the right move at the right time, but your point is pretty lame.
Clinton may have handled the situation well at that time, but that doesn't mean Bush did the wrong thing. Post 9-11 is a lot different than pre 9-11.
2007-10-14 09:03:11 · answer #2 · answered by Chapin 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Here is an article written in 1998.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/18/iraq.political.analysis/
Read it and rethink your question. The fact that no WMDs were found does not mean that Clinton's supposed policy of containment worked. It does not even mean that Saddam did not have the weapons before we invaded Iraq. It could mean that the weapons were moved. Hell, they could still be there and simply be buried in the vast deserts of Iraq.
Simply put, Clinton did not get rid of any weapons Saddam may or may not of had. To say so is ridiculous at best. To honestly believe that Saddam gave up the program after Clinton's many, many, many bombing campaigns in Iraq is absolutely naive.
2007-10-14 08:49:07 · answer #3 · answered by anarchisthippy 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It has all to do with party. The Republicans put party above everything, even country.
Look at the way they handled having a Democrat in the White House. From even before he took office they accused him of every crime they could think of--little things like closing down LA airport while he had a haircut on the runway, and big things like rape, murder, drug-dealing and treason. When they got control of Congress they suspended all actual legislative activity to spend all their time investigating these spurious charges. And when individual charge were discredited it didn't matter to them, they'd keep making up new charges, repeating the new and old together in a growing litany of charges.
Of course Clinton's -real- crime was only that he was a Democrat! Clinton tried hard to get the parties to work together, and he pursued many of the Republicans' goals (like NAFTA). But the Republicans knew it wasn't in their best interests to cooperate with him, even on shared goals. They had to violently disagree with anything he did. Because he was a -Democrat-.
Bush came into office wanting to invade Iraq. He didn't care about containing Saddam, or about terrorism. His people didn't listen to Clinton's people warning them about Al Quaeda. When 9/11 happened, Bush found it the perfect justification to do what he wanted to do anyway! The WMD were just another pretext, as was Saddam's nuclear program.
2007-10-14 08:38:03 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
Worked for who?You?Or for the Iraqis living in poverty because of the sanctions?Saddam didn't care about US.Americans are the one that messed with him.All Saddam wanted is to make Iraq what it use to be many decades before,the centre of Arabic countries.I love it when people start bashing him without any info.How come nobody talks that Iraq under Saddam and before the sanctions was the only Arabic country with justice system not based on Muslim law or that he educated women for free and gave them more rights than any other Muslim country?His only mistake was that he wanted to bring up the oil prices and that's when he became problem for you,not the WMD.Read your history and you will get it that the weapons were for Iran!
2007-10-14 08:24:51 · answer #5 · answered by RX 5 · 3⤊ 1⤋
UNICEF estimates a million Iraqis died as a result of the "containment" policy/sanctions regime following the First Gulf War. Denying Saddam WMD included banning Iraqis from using any "dual-purpose" chemicals like fertilizers and santizers. "Surgical strikes" included bombing medical facilities due to the potential of biological weapons development. Agriculture failed & starvation was widespread, medical services disintegrated, educational infrastructure evaporated, and infant & elderly mortality skyrocketed.
Why can't pro-war DemCons admit that Clinton was wrong AND Bush was wrong?
2007-10-14 08:34:29 · answer #6 · answered by freedom first 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I blame Bush for accomplishing an pointless conflict. at the same time as I do sense for the Iraqi ineffective, i'm greater disturbed by potential of the american physique count quantity - a number of whom I knew. Making it much greater appalling to me is that the real base line to this occasion is the revenue of firms - Exxon, Halliburton and so on. they're the worst of the human race.
2016-10-09 05:29:18 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Clinton wasn't right about anything. Osama bin Laden lived to commit 9/11 because of Clinton. The Chinese have ICBMs today because of Clinton. Clinton was a disaster, Democrats are a disaster.
2007-10-14 14:24:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
Clinton's policy of continuing sanctions after Iraq destroyed its WMD caused the death of over one million Iraqis.
Hardly deserves praise, does it?
2007-10-14 08:30:45 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
President Clinton was, is and will remain to be, the worst mistake America ever made. He was incompetent, foolish and wasted the one resource he had that can never be replaced: time!
He botched all attempts to squash Bin Laden, when in fact, if he HAD, 9/11 would never have happened. He was too busy worrying about his swollen ego, vs the welfare and well being of our country.
You can idolize the fool all you want, it wont change the fact that he was a steaming idiot that botched history and caused the worst attack on US soil ever since the France and England attacked the colonies.
2007-10-14 08:30:10 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 5⤋