List of Justifications for the Iraq War

I write this, not with an axe to grind, but truly bewildered at how short a memory most Americans seem to have. Myself being an American, I was acutely aware of the case for the war as we rolled towards actual combat. I wanted to state here the reasons I heard from the president as justifications for the Iraq war. It seems that America has forgotten that there were quite a number of different justifications given for the war pre-invasion, but the only two that seem to have survived post-war criticism are:

1) Iraq had and was pursuing WMD.
2) There was a link between Iraq and Al-Quaida and/or Terrorist organizations.

Do you all feel that this is an accurate presentation of today's discourse?

The problem is that this short list, is only a subset of the extent of justifications that was given for the Iraq war by the President (Bush) and his administration. The full list certainly includes the two stated above. I heard those from the President's own lips and do not deny that they were given. But to that list I would add these that were definitely given pre-invasion by the Administration and the President:

3) Saddam is a destabilizing force in the region. By invading/attacking Turkey, the Kurdish within Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (during the 1st gulf war, and quickly repelled by US forces, remember the turrets turned around backwards until the last minute?), and Israel, Saddam has forced the surrounding countries to take a defensive posture towards their neighbors. The proliferation of more sophisticated and powerful weapons so long as you had a neighbor like Saddam.

4) To restore confidence in the UN Security Council's authority and will to act after issuing 19 Security Council Resolutions, each of which supposedly carried with it the threat of military-backed enforcement. Smaller and less-powerful states were starting to flout the threats of the UN. They believed that the UN would never act since states like Iraq were concrete proof that you can defy them with impunity. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, founding member and chief financier of the UN generally, it fell to the US to act when others were unwilling. This action could only bolster the Security Council's ability to enforce order without war in the future. All enforcement must carry the real threat of conflict or the people that need to listen most closely will be least likely to do so.

5) Saddam was a tyrant to his own people. The reputed existence of torture-chambers, atrocities committed by Saddam and his two sons were well established. Even video was available showing summary executions during "loyalty" sessions with top government and military officials.

6) The enforcement of the Northern and Southern No-Fly Zones by US and British fighter jets. In fact, our Air Forces were being painted and fired upon by Iraqi anti-aircraft batteries on an average once per week for ten years after the invasion. In combat zones, painting (locking on) enemy planes has long been recognized as an act of aggression, let alone actually firing. Innocent people were dying an an attempt to enforce these no-fly zones. Allies determined that they could not stay forever, but that Saddam's actions showed defiance and aggression in line with his past actions. It was deemed accurate that Saddam would certainly re-invade the Kurds in the North and Shiites in the South if the no-fly zones were abolished. We were in a permanent catch 22. The only way to resolve this was a change of power in Iraq.

7) The expulsion of UN Weapons Inspectors, which violated the terms of the cease-fire agreement between allied and Iraqi forces after the first Gulf War, and served to strengthen the resolve and suspicion of the five top intelligence agencies in the world that Saddam was indeed hiding a clandestine weapons program.

I believe that points 3 through 7 were all valid points. The only ones contested are the first two. I believe that the contested nature of the first two points is why they are the only ones ever stated for the invasion. Keeping in mind that over 90 percent of Congress and Americans as a whole supported the war pre-invasion, in large because of the additional reasons stated above, let me present a few things that I know to be true in support of the first two points:

1) Iraq had and was pursuing WMD.
--At least two mobile weapons labs were discovered and captured during the invasion.
--Over 5,000 chemical weapons were discovered in various sized caches all around the country. Nearly all of them were buried and marked at the location or on captured maps. While critics minimize this point saying that none of these were post '91 manufacture, this was never an exclusion criteria stated by anyone before the invasion. Saddam claimed to have destroyed ALL of these weapons in the years after the first Gulf War. Each one of these artillery shells was capable of killing everyone in a small village (hundreds).
--550 Tons of yellow cake Uranium was moved from Iraq to Canada in 2008. This was stated as the "last remnants of Saddam's nuclear program." While Bush was allowing himself to be filleted for a non-existent nuclear program, and denounced by the likes of Valerie Plame and her husband for supposedly making up the story about Saddam's agents working out secret Uranium deals with Nigerian cooperatives, it now seems apparent that not only was Bush right, but that he valued the secrecy of the security operation more than his personal political ratings.
--Extensive documentation has been uncovered in Iraq that military officials were lying to Saddam about how many and what types of biological and chemical weapons they had stockpiled. In uncovered documents, it is clear that Saddam was under the false impression that their illicit arms stockpiles far exceeded their actual quantities and capabilities.
--At least one Iraqi General and personal confidant of Saddam, George Sadas, of the Iraqi Air Force, has gone on record stating that he observed a secret program to move weapons to Syria using gutted-out civilian airliners to avoid suspicion and snooping by foreign intelligence.
--Multiple defectors over several years, including Saddam's son-in-law claimed that Saddam was actively pursuing WMD.
--Every credible foreign intelligence organization in the world agreed that Saddam was running a clandestine WMD program. These conclusions were NOT based upon US planted evidence as some critics have suggested. They were their own conclusions based upon their own sources of information. Even the UN's intelligence service reached this conclusion.

2) There was a link between Iraq and Al-Quaeda and/or Terrorist organizations.
--It was widely reported by mainstream media that Saddam was paying the family of suicide bombers in Palestine as compensation for their sons who bombed Israel. The sum was stated to be $25,000 per bomber, which is a huge amount to a Palestinian.
--Documents and testimony have confirmed that there was a "gentleman's agreement" between Al Quaida and Saddam that they won't mess with each other so long as the other party also not commit acts of aggression against them. This is the very definition of "state-sponsored terrorism".
--Eleven US Government Officials confirmed to the Weekly Standard that in the years immediately proceeding the Iraq invasion, that papers have been uncovered in Iraq proving that Saddam trained literally thousands of terrorists in camps all across Northern Iraq.

I realize that alot of this evidence has fallen from circulation in the largely liberal media, but some of us have not forgotten it. Just because it's no longer discussed, doesn't mean it's not true. Given the evidence and reasons stated above, which should look familiar to those who have followed the media as have over a long period of time, can America continue to blame President George Bush for deliberately misleading the nation and getting America into an "illegal" war?