Truer words have rarely, if ever, been spoken.....

[Ixiah]

No, congress passed a resolution that gave the president an authorization to use force (he didn't need it anyway). There were no strings attached beyond the normal strings of the war power act.

(a) Authorization. -- The President is authorized, subject to subsection (b), to use United States Armed Forces pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678 (1990) in order to achieve implementation of Security Council Resolutions 660, 661, 662, 664, 665, 666, 667, 669, 670, 674, and 677.

http://www.leyden.com/gulfwar/cong.html

He is authorized by Congress to use force to achieve those U.N. objectives. Now I know I'm full of Becker law jargon but essentially "power" and "authority" are slightly different. As you point out he did not need consent of Congress because he had the power to act on his own. However he acted based on the authorization which merely stated to enforce various council resolutions.

No where did I call it an invasion. It was a partial occupation (called a humanitarium mission) of Iraq.

You have me on this one. Invasion is not a synonym for occupation like I thought. :oops: My point is that the action was extremely small.

And here is the point that you don't seem to understand - as long as there was the no-fly zone and the partial occupation of Iraq then Saddam was going to try to get back at the U.S.

That is why he tried to assassinate President Bush,

http://www.newsweek.com/id/128620

There is very little evidence he tried.

that why he was putting out rewards for anybody who shot down an american plane and establishing sam traps. An one of Bush nightmares is he would give WMD technology to somebody that meant the U.S. harm.

Yet he had WMD's but none were found. It seems more he disarmed or they were destroyed. Certainly acquiring new ones has ever been proven.

You tell me, What is our moral responsibility?

Not an easy question. As a leader in the world we should be helpful to other nations in time of disasters (earthquakes, floods, etc) and offer all reasonable assistance. So using military ships bring aid is cetainly fine.

I also think we should assist in issues such as naval piracy and assisting vessels in distress.

However, I think that using the US military to directly involve itself in the affairs wihtin another nations borders is going to far unless we are at war. If you go down that road you become the world policeman.

Now I have no issue with indirect assistance such as selling arms and the like. In fact FDR did this sort of thing before WW2 by selling ships to Britain, reporting German subs when spotted, organizing volunteers to fight, etc.

I find it interesting that you say that we shouldn't worry about a dictator that has killed millions with WMD, committed genocide and torture and who had the ability to do more. But you get mad that Bush didn't evade Pakistan to go after Bin Laden because he was part of a plot that killed several thousand americans in a attack that had no strategic significance beyond pride.

That is because there is a major difference between the two. If a body count is what we base the need for military action on then, as I pointed out, we would be fighting all over the place. The United States military's purpose is to protect our country and our people. He killed our people and declared war on our country - that is why he must be deallt with.

[SubGod22]

General Sada talks about Iraqs WMDs

Sada with World Net Daily talking about WMDs

Hundreds of WMDs Found

World Net Daily talks about WMDs found and the facilities used to make/test them

Yes, what we found wasn't on the scale of what was expected. But when you also consider what General Sada has been saying for years now you have to at the very least consider the fact that they very well could be there.

I remember reports before we went in that some believed Sadam was moving his weapons to Syria in trucks and plane. Sada confirming this says quite a bit in my view.

[Ixiah]

Fyi - here is exactly what was found per the military:

"The ISG has not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but [there is] the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq, although not of a militarily significant capability."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction