It was with this backdrop that the "Iraq has WMDs" campaign managed to get traction. If you learn history and pay attention to the events, you'll quickly understand that Saddam's antagonism and mockery of the whole UN institution, specially when they self-isolated, was an easy sell even with weak evidence.

Making this out to be a simple matter exclusively and bounded to the existence of WMDs is naive and outright ignorant.

- Saddam factually didn’t have WMD to use,

- If he had, they were not powerful anyway,

- Not a reason for groundbreaking safekeeping invasion,

- We all know it was a matter of petrol, not humanitarian causes.

I’m literally all ok with invasions caused by power struggles; I’m not ok with lying. Colin Powell lied and the UN Security Council validated,

…proving the UNSC is a shitbag, and irremediable, hopeless, handicapped pile of corrupt officials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...

> U.S.-led inspections later found that Iraq had ceased active WMD production and stockpiling.

The article says an awful lot more, such as pointing out the fact that Saddam's regime not only ran WMD development programmes for decades but also had a long and verified track record of using them in military engagements and even against civilians.

The article also points out the fact that once Saddam's regime was defeated in it's botched attempt at invading and annexing Kuwait, it rejected and outright antagonized the UN's programme that foresaw terminating Saddam's WMD programmes.

Trying to spin the issue as a simplistic "they had no WMDs" is ignorant to the point of being nearly disingenuous. You need to ignore everything and the whole history to make such a simplistic and superficial observation.

It's not s problem at all. It's actually the whole point.

Following Saddam's botched invasion of Kuwait, the regime was ordered to destroy it's WMD stockpile. The UN was mandated to foresee Saddam's WMD programmes were destroyed. Saddam spent the following years outright preventing the UN to do any form of verification, and went to the extent of outright antagonizing them.

So you reach a point where a totalitarian regime with a long and proven track record of developing and using WMDs refuses to show it got rid of it's WMDs. How can you tell if they still have it if they actively prevent the UN from checking?

You instead receive intel that suggests Saddam is indeed not only stockpiling WMDs but also actively developing them.

Do you think it's unreasonable to enforce the decision?

It's tempting to look back and take the simplistic and ignorant path of saying "there were no WMDs". This however denies all facts and state of affairs. In fact, the whole WMD talk is a red herring.

It was ginned up BS that led to the worst foreign policy blunder in 100 years, directly creating ISIS, deaths of 500k Iraqis and kicking off the migrant crisis.

> It was ginned up BS

This is just not true. You can view the documents on wikileaks and other organizations.

> that led to the worst foreign policy blunder in 100 years, directly creating ISIS, deaths of 500k Iraqis and kicking off the migrant crisis.

Perhaps, but completely irrelevant to whether or not they had WMD.

I don't get why people who are on the right side of this refuse to admit this.

What are these documents you are referring to?

Some of the chemicals qualified as WMD. Almost none of them were properly stored and weren't usable, but a little bit were usable.

Also, I'm not making the claim they were trying to make new ones, just that they had some.

It was about ongoing programs, including a whole bunch of horse droppings about yellowcake uranium enrichment.

Pedantically saying but there were some old shells of gas misses the entire point.

The US ginned up a war on false pretenses, leading to millions dying.

Your um actually on some trivia ain't helpful or interesting

I don't get why people who are so opposed to the war are the ones who can't admit they actually did have WMD. Making these false claims just makes it look like we, who were opposed to the war, are the liars.

It would be like the FBI saying they raided the world's biggest drug lord, and the only thing they found was a little bit of shake in a backpack in his garage.

You pedantically "but they did find drugs!"

You forget that it is also US state media. Republicans would be banning their own version of RT.

You can believe Fox News is the worst entity in human history, but Fox News is not RT.

[0] https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2019/04/five-...

Maybe, but worth saying the ICC have issued a warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes. The reason he hasn't been arrested is:

- The ICC is just a court, not a police department. Only countries have those, and while Netanyahu is in Israel, his own police probably won't arrest him.

- Authoritarian governments like Trump, Orban, Putin are actively undermining the ICC, which makes enforcement even less likely.

It's not just a Trump thing.

In 2002 on the heels of 9/11 George W Bush signed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_... into law, also known as Hague Invasion Act, specifically acknowledging the ICC in the clearest of ways.

How is that relevant? Is an elected judiciary demonstrably more objective at interpreting law?

Seriously, though. There are thousands of tin-pot dictators who would love to remake the world in their image. None of them have the ability to do so, including Iran. What makes this one special? Other than it being a very convenient target in a news cycle with some very inconvenient stories?

then again if your username is accurate, there's no point

What justifies this?

With these strikes, it seems more like Israel has ample intelligence on the US government than it has on the Middle East, since even DNI concurred that there was no proof of WMDs.