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[WyrreJ]

"we had Sadaam bottled up for 15 years.....he could not do anything in his own country without our knowledge."

Then why didn't we know where every mass grave and every weapon cache was located?

One day, I got really annoyed at people flinging around the "mass graves" comment and did some research on the topic. Here are some things I found out:

The term "mass graves" as used in Iraq applies to any grave with more than 6 people in it.

So far, only about 5,000 bodies total have actually been found in mass graves in Iraq.

The four largest mass graves -- purported, but not proven, to contain a lot more than 5,000 bodies -- were all created early in the 1990s as Saddam massacred people who fought against him in the hope of getting support from the americans.

No significant mass graves, or mass killings of any sort in Iraq had been committed in Iraq for close to a decade before the 2003 invasion and there was absolutely no reason to expect any more to be committed without external provocation.

Americans created mass graves in Iraq too.

To the best of my knowlege there was only the one reason ... WMD. Why would you assume that we were duped? We were mistaken, there's no doubt about it. Saddam took perverse pride in admitting that he intentionally misled the coalition forces about the existence of WMDs. I was fully convinced they were there too. I was wrong and I honestly believe that our Government was too.

I think you will be hard pressed to find actual evidence of Saddam admitting he intentionally misled the coalition forces. But even if he did, that's no excuse -- why should a tin-pot dictator be able to mislead the most powerful nation on earth? In fact, saddam did not mislead us, but the whitehouse did 935 times.

Ever stop to think that it's infinitely more effective to keep [bin Laden] contained than it is to create a martyr (sp?).

Possibly, but that point is moot because he is clearly not contained. He seems to be able to release videos at will and has directed thousands of al-quaeda to Iraq for training.

"There is no direct link to Osama and Iraq..."

I never said there was. I said that Iraq was a terrorist hotbed & you agreed ("They strap bombs to women and kids in the name of religion."). Thanks for supporting my point.

I'll dispute that Iraq WAS a terrorist hotbed. It clearly is NOW, but there is no evidence to suggest that it WAS prior to the 2003 invasion. Saddam and Al-quaeda were completely at odds with each other as his rule was primarily secular and tribal. I'm sure that Saddam had a few 'terrorist training programs' as part of his military, but so do we and so does most every other country, we just call them "special forces" when they are on our side.

"It's just Afghanastan dose not have the worlds richest oil reserve under it's heroin poppys."

That's paid out for us quite well now hasn't it.

It sure has for the oil companies, have you looked at their share prices recently?
Royal Dutch Shell is up over 50% since the invasion, Exxon is up about 150%, Chevron is up about 150%, BP is up over 50%, etc, etc.