The Iraq War was necessary

Wow, I'm sorry you believe the things that you do. We should have waited for them to smuggle the weapons in? Saddam Hussein wasn't a reason to go to war? In all honesty, what's wrong with you? Referring back to your comment that the President has to go through Congress before going to war...it's called the War Powers Act of 1967. The President has 60 days to go to war on his own and when 60 days is up, Congress has the power to either remove the troops or declare war. Guess what, Bush got approval from Congress. The United Nations weapons inspectors were given 12 years to find weapons of mass destruction. During that time, Saddam Hussein violated 16 UN Security Council Resolutions. Saddam failed to prove he had disarmed during that 12 year inspection period. Only the threatened use of force by the United States and the "coalition of the willing" made Saddam destroy a handful of illegal missiles he denied ever having. Inspectors also discovered Saddam had drone airplanes which could have been used for distributing poison gas or biological agents. President Bush made it clear to the world after the United States was attacked on 9/11 that our country's next response would be a counterattack against any nation which sponsored or harbored terrorists. Intelligence from our agencies and other countries indicated Saddam Hussein--who had already used WMD on his own people, as well as other nations and was in the process of developing his own WMD programs--posed a potential imminent threat to the United States. When Hussein himself failed to comply with UN resolutions numbers 1441 and 1442 and numerous attempts were made to disarm him through the UN, it was necessary for Bush and the U.S. to act preemptively with--as John Kerry called it--the "Coalition of the Coerced and Bribed" to disarm Saddam and liberate Iraq from his rule. Saddam's son in law, Lietuenant General Hussein Kamel, who was in charge of Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, then provided information to UNSCOM, IAEA and foreign intelligence agencies about Iraq's WMD programs. Saddam had both Kamel and his brother executed a year later. Iraqi officials later admitted they had hidden more than 100,000 gallons of botulinum toxin, more than 22,000 gallons of anthrax, more than 500 gallons of aflatoxin, four metric tons of VX nerve gas and 2.7 gallons of ricin. Even prominent Democrats, along with American, British and Russian intelligence agencies and the UN shared the Bush administration's view that Iraq posed a grave and imminent threat to America's security. All knew sanctions and resolutions weren't working. Force was necessary to disarm and remove Saddam from power. Here is some of the acts of terror performed by Saddam Hussein: -Provided headquarters, operating bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups. In 1991, Saddam commissioned several failed terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities -Iraq was harboring a terrorist cell led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected al Qaeda affiliate and chemical and biological weapons specialist -A camp in Ansar al-Islam, an Islamist militia based in a lawless part of northeast Iraq, trained terrorists in the use of chemical weapons -Senior Iraqi and al Qaeda leaders had met 8 times since the early 1990's -He aided the Iranian dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, a separatist group fighting the Turkish government -He supported Islamist Hamas movement and reportedly channeled money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers -Saddam supported secular terrorist groups -In the 1980's Iran-Iraq war, Iraqi troops used poison gas, including mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin, against Iranian soldiers. Iranian officials have also accused Iraq of dropping mustard-gas against the Kurds. Saddam's forces reportedly killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds in the town of Halabja with chemical weapons in March, 1988. Iraq's WMD Development: -A clandestine network of laboratories and safe houses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing chemical and biological weapons research -A prison lab complex possibly used in human testing biological weapons agents, which Iraqi officials working to prepare for UN inspections were explicitly ordered not to declare to the UN -Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce biological weapons -New research on biological weapons-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever, and continuing work on ricin aflatoxin were not declared to the UN -Documents and equipment, hidden in scientists' homes, that would have been useful in resuming uranium enrichment by centrifuge and electromagnetic isotope separation -a line of unmanned aerial vehicles not fully declared at an undeclared production facility and an admission that they had tested one of their declared UAV's out toa range of 500 km -continuing covert capability to manufacture fuel propellant useful only for prohibited SCUD variant missiles, a capability that was maintained at least until the end of 2001, and which cooperating Iraqi scientists have said they were told not to conceal from the UN -Plans and advanced design work for new long-range missiles with ranges up to at least 1000 km -clandestine attempts between late 1999 and 2002 to obtain from North Korea technology related to 1,300 km range ballistic missiles, 300 km range anti-ship cruise missiles, and other prohibited military equipment Saddam's regime was clearly in pursuit of a WMD program and posed as a significant threat to neighboring countries, the United States, and the rest of the world. Nobody enjoys having to resort to using military force. However, history has clearly demonstrated that the only way to preserve peace on earth is through the use of military force, to combat those who have no regard for human life. When all other means of peaceful negotiation fail, it's sometimes necessary to use force as a way to defeat militant forces bent on destruction and annihilation of their enemies. Reagan's philosophy of "peace through strength" has been the most effective way to protect American citizens. Belligerent organizations such as al Qaeda can only be defeated with force. Any show of pacifism only creates the perception of weakness. There is no negotiating with murderous homicidal maniacs who seek to destroy the United States and Western Civilization in general. They can only be defeated by aggressively destroying their networks and bringing them to justice. While we may never rid the world completely of all terrorists, destroying as many terrorist cells around the world and planting the seeds of democracy in terrorist hotbes is the best way to combat Islamic terrorism worldwide and export Western values of free markets, rule of law and democracy.