Some skeptics are saying that there weren't ever such materials. But it wasn't a candy factory that the Israelis took out in 1981. And there are thousands of Kurdish survivors who saw happen the gas warfare of 1988. The strategic question has to do with whether the capabilitites of the same man who set out to build a nuclear plant, and proceeded with genocidal measures against the Kurds, is safely permitted to stay in power.
The cry against our venture in Iraq calls out against American imperialism. It is here and there asserted that what we really intend to do is install ourselves critically in the Mideast and in pressure points elsewhere in the style of orthodox imperialists.
Granted, if, in order to replace Saddam Hussein, a military invasion is required, one can't reasonably expect that there would be no U.S. soldiers in Baghdad five years from now. Everyone wishes, retrospectively, that there had been military there beginning in 1991. But the accusation has to do with American designs. Do we feel the same compulsion the Romans felt, and the Mongols, and the British, French and Germans, to install ourselves abroad?
Some critics have pointed out that, after all, we still have troops in Japan and in Germany, a half-century and more since winning World War II. But what is notable in our armored divisions in Germany and the Far East is that precisely zero effort has been made to Americanize the host countries, beyond the invincible reaches of Coca-Cola and McDonald's. We insisted, in Japan and Berlin, only that the conquered countries adopt liberal reforms, which they did.
What is it that would cause George W. Bush to wish to deploy troops abroad other than to guard against accretions of weapons of mass destruction? One need not doubt the president's motives, while still advising him that it is time to talk to the American people directly on the point: What do we want, beyond immobilizing Saddam Hussein?