The Second Gulf War (Iraq war) can be defended

I would like to thanks my opponent for this entertaining debate. It seems to me that we both agree on many things. We agree that the Iraqi people suffered greatly under Saddam's regime from 1979-2003. We also agree that we should want to end that suffering. We agree that the West has made many mistakes when it has intervened in the past. We agree that war is unpleasant and should be avoided. We agree that the possession, production and use of WMDs whether nuclear, chemical or biological is immoral and illegal. We agree that the possession, production and use of WMDs should be punished. We agree that perpetrators of war-crimes ought to be brought to justice. So where do we disagree? We disagree over whether military intervention is justified. We disagree over whether your previous foreign policy failures should prevent you from ever intervening again. We disagree over whether Saddam Hussein possessed, produced or used WMDs whether nuclear, chemical or biological. I gave you three arguments: 1) That the regime was so brutal that intervening to overthrow it was justified 2) That the regime was so destabilising and aggressive that intervening to overthrow it was justified. 3) That the regime possessed, produced and used WMDs and thus intervening to overthrow it was justified. My second argument seems to have been conceding. My opponent rightly hasn't denied that the Iraqi regime destabilised the Middle-east and, with its vast oil wealth, posed a real threat to the security of the West. Thus I have a strong argument already for intervening. I need to prove my 1st and 3rd argument to win this debate. This can be done by analysing our disagreements which I have already identified. So, the first main point of clash in this debate has been whether you can justify waging war to end suffering. I take it that my opponent and surely the audience too all agree that our main job as a compassionate society is to end suffering. Therefore, at first glimpse, waging war seems illogical. Because what our intuition tells us is that war causes suffering. I do not deny this. However, can war not end suffering. Did the victory of WW2 not end the murder of European Jews by the Nazis? Did the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia not end the murder of the Cambodian people by the Khmer Rouge? These were both costly wars and many people died. However, they both ended the suffering of millions of people. The same goes for Iraq. I told you that Saddam was guilty of genocide, mass murder, torture and chemical weapons attacks on his own people. I told you that 2 million people died under his regime (not counting the millions of dead due to his foreign wars). How many Iraqis died during the 2nd Gulf war? Most estimates put the death toll at between 100 000 - 200 000 over the course of the 8 year intervention. Based upon this the most moral course of action would be to intervene in order to end the greater evil - the murder of civilians. Bare in mind that many of the casualties of the Iraq war were Iraqi soldiers. Whereas the vast majority of deaths due to the regime from 1979-2003 were innocent civilians. Obviously, we cannot intervene everywhere. We cannot intervene in some circumstances in which intervention would be made impossible because it would draw in a bigger power like Russia or China and thus risk a world war. However, when there is a case in which the level of suffering is so great and the crimes are so egregious and we do not face opposition from other major powers like Russia or China, then we absolutely should intervene. This was the case in Iraq. Therefore, the intervention was morally justified on humanitarian grounds. My first argument stands. Now the second point of clash is whether previous foreign policy failures like the handling of Iran, the Vietnam war etc. mean that you can never ever intervene again. Every intervention is different. The countries are different. The time is different. The military capabilities are different. The political situation is different. The leaders are different. The justification is different. Vietnam is not Iraq. Neither is Iran (both decades earlier). There were no cold-war superpowers blocking western intervention in 2003 unlike in Vietnam. In Vietnam, the communists weren't committing genocide and gassing civilians to death - the Baathists were in Iraq. Also, just because you made some mistakes in the past why does that mean that you will always make mistakes in the future? Did the Abyssinian crisis in 1935 mean that declaring war on Nazi Germany was a failure? Arguably, previous foreign policy in Iraq such as stopping the spread of the Islamic Revolution and removing Iraqi troops from Kuwait was successful and thus the 2nd Gulf war could have been speculated to be a success by Bush and Blair in 2003. We cannot say that previous failures should prevent us from ever intervening militarily in the future. If you do that then you condemn millions of people to silent suffering and you tell dictators "you WILL get away with it". I don't believe Saddam should have gotten away with it. We accepted our errors and said that the case for intervening is so obvious let's accept that some suffering will be endured but that overall we will have ended murder and genocide and brought the Middle-east one step closer to freedom and democracy. Iraq now is better than Iraq before 2003. There are no longer any Gulags filled with political opponents. There are no longer any Kurds being gassed. There are no longer any Marsh Arabs starving to death or being bombed to smithereens. Your previous failures do not and should not prevent you from ever intervening again even if those failures were linked. Most Iraqis actually wanted the invasion unsurprisingly: https://archive.is... Finally, the last point of clash is whether Saddam used, possessed or produced any WMDs. To disagree with this fact is denial - it's as simple as that. I want to ask a simple question: did Iraqi forces use chemical weapons (which are recognised by the UN and Weapons of Mass Destruction) on civilians on the town of Halabja in 1988? If you say no, then I'm afraid I can never convince you of the fact that Iraq used WMDs and you can never be reasoned with. If you say yes, then you are admitting that Iraq breeched international law and is guilty of a war crime which officially is reason for military intervention based on UN conventions. The report I gave you is not discredited at all. The report admitted it did not find any nuclear weapons. I never claimed Iraq had nuclear weapons. I claim it tried to get nuclear weapons (which is illegal and which it did). I claim that, like North Korea and Iran, we would regret not intervening had Iraq got nuclear weapons by now. This claim is supported by the report I gave you and the testimony of the inspectors (who were ILLEGALLY deported by the Iraqi government). Chucking out inspectors violated the terms of the 1st gulf war agreements. Also, Saddam flouted the no-fly zones. You are denying the fact that Saddam used, possessed and produced chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and that he pursued a decades long programme to gain nuclear weapons (although he never achieved that goal because he was stopped by Bush and Blair from doing so). Based on this, I have shown that all my arguments are true and reasonable. Saddam was so murderous and brutal that military action was justified. Iraq was so destabilising and war-mongering that intervention was justified. And that Saddam violated international law and committed war crimes by possessing, using and producing Chemical and Biological WMDs as well as trying to get nuclear weapons (which is also illegal). In conclusion, war is horrible. But what is worse is condemning even more innocent people to decades more of suffering when you already no that taking action ends up killing fewer people than leaving that regime to continue on its blood-thirsty rampage. Why do we shoot armed lunatics? We don't like taking violent action and killing people. But if not acting means more people suffer then we act. And so we should. In 2005, the Iraqi people voted in their first ever free, democratic election. I'm proud that the USA and the UK gave them that chance - that chance to pursue a free and democratic country. Sometimes it takes guts and even tragedy to build a brighter future and a stabler, freer and genocide-free world.