Teribus,

you are wrong about the meaning of a CIA "asset," but neither of us will convince the other.

The US Ambassador in Iraq, was simply that, her country's representative in that country. For her to speak on behalf of her country, on such a matter, she would have had to have been granted plenipotentionary powers, those she certainly did not have, as her mistake was corrected almost immediately by her superiors.

Like I said, she claimed to have had specific instructions from the Secretary of State about what to say. Do you think she was lying? In this circumtance, it doesn't matter if she had plenipotentiary powers or not because she was simply relaying a message from the Secretary. I did not say that her word consituted the official position of the US government, merely that Saddam was allowed to think they did.

Sorry Nerd I was wondering why the Iraqi's might want to have their air force upgraded immediately after the UN inspection teams had been withdrawn. The upgrade if carried out then elevates whatever capability the Iraqi's have from tactical to strategic.

Why wouldn't they want their air force upgraded? For someone eager to see WMD strategies everywhere, every aluminum tube and trailer house is evidence. But this one wouldn't even count as a "weapons of mass destruction related program activity." Plenty of countries have an air force without using WMD.

As to your question of why the US didn't use more Atomic bombs when temptation and opportunity presented themselves...Uh, when do you mean exactly? There are MANY reasons for not using nuclear weapons, primarily that they render the area that is bombed more or less uninhabitable for a good long time. (This became an even bigger problem after "better" bombs were developed) It's not really a very useful weapon except in a situation where you are fighting a long-distance war against an enemy whose country you have no intention of occupying. So there are few situations in which anyone would use it. Would we have used it in Viet Nam? Probably not; we were trying to establish one type of government in place of another type. Would the Soviets have used it in Afghanistan? Probably not. What would they do with a bombed Afghanistan, and how would they deal with the fallout that drifted into the USSR? The US and USSR were both acting as a new form of colonial power, trying to get different countries into our respective economic and political camps. Little good would have come of bombing any of them.

That said, you had said that while some countries do possess these weapons, their individual track record strongly indicates that they would not employ or misuse use them.

I was simply pointing out that only ONE country had ANY track record of employing nuclear weapons, the United States.