"Why is Saddam alive now? He should have died at least 16 years ago."
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jbennett...
Your inference (16 years ago) is that we should have killed him at some point during the Iraq/Iran war (1980-1988) - I am not sure why you pick that time since getting rid of him then would have put the Ayatollah Khomeini in charge of both Iraq and Iran, a foolish move indeed.
Saddam is now alive due to a mistake in judgement by the previous Bush administration and the coalition in the last war. Technically, the mistake was not that they did not go into Baghdad and take over Iraq when they had the chance, thus eliminating Saddam - they legally did not have that option under the UN mandates. The mistake was in not allowing for that option in the writing of the resolutions.
I suppose that in the real world we could have ignored the mandates and went on in after Saddam, but the rest of the coalition most certainly would not have supported such an action. If you remember, the world press was filling the airwaves and print media with the pictures of the slaughter on the highway leading from Kuwait at the time, and all the world's liberals (who were against the war to begin with) were screaming that "the war must be ended now", and throwing out charges that we were more evil and bloodthirsty than Saddam. In that atmosphere, it would have been difficult at best to go further.
In hindsight, Bush should have gone ahead anyway and finished the job despite the lack of UN and coalition support and despite the clamoring of the liberals here at home - just as clinton should have done more than he did when he blew up an empty building and stuck a $3 million dollar missile up a camel's butt.
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