Again at the risk of being called a wanker, a device used to deflect from the value of a discussion I enter again.

Personally my take on it, had Saddam not been removed from power -

"- UN sanctions would have been lifted or just plain ignored in 2003"

I don't think so. This is entirely speculative. No proof for this.


"- Saddam would have resurrected his WMD programmes and continued all R&D work associated with them

He wouldn't have gotten to first base. He was all talk as was shown.

"- Saddam would have rearmed and re-equipped his Armed forces this would have taken two years"

But not with WMD's. This is not provable.

"- 2005 he would have attacked Iran and started the second Iran/Iraq War."

No, I think that he would have united with Iran against US occupation. Again, this is pure conjecture. Nobody knows for sure.

"There is no way on earth that Saddam Hussein in Iraq would ever permit Iran to develop and build any nuclear capability - Hells teeth this was the man who started a war and invaded Iran in 1980, because the Iranians had stated that they wanted meetings to resolve their differences over the Shat-Al-Arab waterway."

But this is a different issue then building nuclear facilities. Water disputes would not
have sparked a nuclear confrontation. Iraq did not have the means to employ WMD's and
probably wouldn't because as crazy as Saddam was, he knew that he couldn't win that conflagration. He wasn't a Hitler in that his designs over Kuwait were not to take over the world. It was to defend his turf.

Saddam's designs were overrated and overreaction over them ensued through the Bush Administration. Junior just wanted to avenge his daddy and used that as a Captain Ahab
approach to going after the white whale.