This is a my response to an argument brought up by Johann against the war. You can see his points at the bottom of the page after reading my response.

ME:

I'll start off by saying that it isn't too much to ask to focus on one subject at a time. I'll agree to discuss each as well as I can one at a time. I figured that WMD was going to be the first on the list to disscuss. It is the hardest to defend and the easiest to bring up as a counter against the war.

On point one: I agree that Saddam Hussein is in no position to use WMD on the U.S. from Iraq itself, but selling them to terrorists would be just as bad as them launching at the U.S. I honestly am not afraid of a missle from Iraq, but let's say that he sold one Sarin to Al Queda and they use a small plane to blow up over a major city. Thousands of people would die, correct. I think that the threat of him possibly selling the weapons is bad enough to go.

Point Two: Sure there may be no current proof of the actual weapons themselves. However, there was enough evidence (Colin Powell did a fine job presenting the evidence spotted by U.S. intelligence) to pass resolution 1441 which stated that Iraq had the weapons and they needed to show the documentation that they either had them and give them up or show they were destroyed. They could not account for all weapons. Where are they? Also there is no evidence to say that they aren't there. Keep in mind that Saddam has lied in the past and I wouldn't trust him if he said that the WMD were gone. Even the weapons inspectors think that their is a good chance that Iraq has them. I also cannot ignore that the President gets better intelligence reports than me; he knows more than us.

Point Three: The reason that those countries aren't approached (so they say) is that Saddam's regime condone's terroism. It is easier to approach a friend and ask someone for something than for you to go to your enemy and ask the same thing. The governments of Russia and Pakistan are friendly to the U.S.

I hope that this works for you on WMD....I tried the best that I could without doing all the research on this one, just stuff out of my memory from past debates and news.

So far so good,
Craig

JOHANN:

Is it too much to ask to focus on one, most important, reason? We can always move on to the others later on. As I mentioned, the "debate" tends to break down, and this one of the reasons.

Let's go with possession of WMD as a reason to invade Iraq:
(1) Iraq itself is in no position to use these WMDs on the US and I think that the perceived threat is that of having them supplied to terrorists.
(2) There is no proof of the existence of these WMD. If there was proof, it should have been presented before going to war.
(3) Possession of WMDs is not uncommon, and some states definitely have better developed ones than those Iraq may or may not have. If I was a terrorist, I'd be trying (say) Russia or Pakistan before Iraq. Why aren't those countries first on the list?

I look forward to your views.

-JJQ

Home>Iraq Opinion> Weapons of Mass Destruction