[RalphyS]

Quote: (Originally Posted by Chase)

Exactly. Just reiterate what you said... it wasn't just President Bush and the CIA who came to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Russia, Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain, Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria, South Korea, Japan, the NETHERLANDS... as well as some others. Therefore, to sit there and call Bush a liar for acting on what a conglomerate of nations concluded is rather biased and spiteful. A lot of nations contributed to the removal of Saddam Hussein, the United States just led the way. Perhaps the intelligence was flawed, but if the global community believed that Saddam Hussein was a greater threat than he actually was... .

Well I know for sure that The Netherlands did not have any independent research to the possibility of the existence or non-existence of WMD's in Iraq, and I bet that this was the case with most in the coalition of the 'willing'.

And let's not forget that there were those who doubted the conclusions beforehand, those who were regarded as cowards, France, Germany, Russia and maybe every other nation that did not participate in the coalition, which ofcourse numerically outnumber those who did participate heavily.

I do blame my government for taking part in these actions, based on false pretenses and without thoroughly researching the evidence against objectively.

Quote: (Originally Posted by Chase)

I don't blame President Bush for using the resources that he had as Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation in the world. Like or not, the United States, as the lone superpower, should have an obligation to assist those in need throughout the world and to participate in establishing stability in problematic regions like the Middle East.

Indeed with power does come responsibility (got this from Spider-man, I think), the responsibility to help those in need, but also the responsibility to use the power wisely. And the latter did not happen imho, just as I do not think that this war has increased the stability in the Middle East, it may have just done the opposite.