I disagree both with those who says this is about oil and those who say that we would’ve used force earlier if it was abut oil.
If it was about oil, we would’ve never asked for sanctions against Iraq which kept it from selling oil to us and never would’ve boycotted Iraqiu oil in accordance with those sanctions. Saddam Hussein had no qualms about selling oil to the US at any time. Even if he did have a problem with it for any reason, he would have much rather sell the US cheap oil than have his wealth and power taken from him.
There has been no attack on Venezuela, which provides roughly twenty times as uch oil to the US as does Iraq, and whose labor strikes caused a signifigant rise in crude and gasoline prices here in the States.
This is about the fact that Saddam Hussein is an aggressive, cruel man who does not restrain himself or his methods when he wishes to acheive a goal and the fact that men like that should not have the means to kill millions of people and cripple the free world.
Yes, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, China, India, Israel, and Pakistan have WMD. Which of them have used them on their people or in a recent war? Which of them kills extended families wholesale for the beliefs of one person in the family? Not even China or Pakistan do this, and their human rights records are far from stellar. Which of these countries openly finance suicide bombers? The answer to all of these questions in NONE of them. This is why Iraq is different– because Iraq really is different.