GUEST,Cynical - Date: 09 Mar 15 - 09:07 AM posted the following:

"If Gore had won the election in 2000, the invasion of Iraq would have happened just the same, except that Democrats would have defended it as a humanitarian intervention and Republicans would attacked it as a waste of tax dollars on a war that didn't serve our strategic interests or defend our freedom."

To which Akenaton, on 09 Mar 15 - 09:28 AM, posted the comment:

"Cynical, but true all the same.

Causing Steve Shaw to respond as follows on 09 Mar 15 - 10:09 AM:

"It may be your opinion that this had been possible, but it is completely ludicrous to say that it is "true." It's hindsight, it didn't happen and there is no way of knowing now whether it would or wouldn't have."

Actually what GUEST,Cynical stated was perfectly true. US commitment to military action in Afghanistan was prompted by a direct attack on mainland USA by an international terrorist organisation based in Afghanistan, protected and shielded by the de facto (but unrecognised) Government of Afghanistan at the time.

The success of the September 11th attack and the ease with which it had been carried out caused a complete reappraisal of "The Threat" to the USA. This evaluation was ordered by the President of the Day and would have been ordered by the President of the Day irrespective of who that was - Bush or Gore - and that evaluation would have been made by the same people (Most of whom had worked for and advised Bill Clinton).

All 19 of the USA's intelligence and security agencies in parallel with the Joint House Security Committee made their independent evaluations and both came up with the same threat scenario:

An asymmetric attack undertaken by an international terrorist organisation similar to the attacks of 9/11 on US mainland centres of population involving weapons of mass destruction supplied by a rogue state hostile to the USA.

It would not have mattered one jot whether Al Gore or George W. Bush had been President that evaluation in light of the events of 9/11 would have remained the same.

Having identified the threat both parties then proceeded to identify possible candidates for the role of "rogue state" - top of both lists was Iraq - that too is another fact that would have remained the same irrespective of who had been President. The other thing that would not have changed would have been the advice given to the President - i.e. address the issue with some urgency and do something about it - In the circumstances no President would ignore that advice.

Now here we may have a slight divergence in what might have happened next:

1: GWB went to the UN and asked them to enforce UNSCR 687 and get it verified that Iraq no longer possessed any WMD or WMD materials, had no WMD R&D programmes running and had no weapons delivery systems with ranges greater than 150km. The UN was told do this, or the USA will act unilaterally to get that verification even if that involved invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein from power. GWB then went to get authorisation for action against Iraq if that proved to be necessary from Congress.

2: Had Al Gore been President he might have followed his predecessor's lead and responded as President Clinton had in 1996 and again in 1998 - without going Congress or the UN he would have just started firing missiles into Iraq.

But rest assured Mr. Shaw irrespective of who had won the 2000 US Presidential election, after the attacks of 9/11 had highlighted how vulnerable the USA was to such an attack, Iraq, considering its failure to comply in full with the terms and conditions it agreed to at Safwan in March 1991 was going to be attacked.