Dear FRONTLINE,Saddam may be a threat, as well as the governments of Iran and Saudi Arabia. The real threat is our lack of intelligence in the region and our history of supplying our enemies with weapons and funds....As late as May 21, 2001 we gave the Taliban 45 million dollars because they were destroying poppy fields. Now, we are supposed to believe that they are getting their funding from drug dealing? This is riiculous. Granted, drug money has historically funded revolutionaries, however with the amount of oil money in this region of the world that claim is ludicrous. The administration should tell the people the truth. Name the various countries that are funding terrorist organizations and include them in blockades or initiate trouble in their region. Why is the administration focusing on Iraq when Iran has been actively supporting worldwide terrorism for decades? This is not the time to put oil over principles or we will be doomed to fighting this war for many many years.
orland park, ill
Dear FRONTLINE, First of all, I am one of the victims of Saddam. I survived 7 direct gas attacks when I was fighting him during the 80s.I know this man.I know how he thinks. I have no doubt he had a hand in Spt. 11 attack.That is part of the risk US made by keeping him in power. Saddam belives in his ego.He had been working for the unity of all Arabic countries by force, since the Arabs can not get united peacefuly. To do that he had to get all kinds of weapons of mass distruction.By using force so far Saddam had only scattered the Arabs and Muslims in the name of unity.In the past 11 years he had been under enormous amount of pressure from the US.I have been warning in several interviews that since he can not attack US by GAS he might use his biological arsenal,since it is easy to carry.
Asad Gozeh
coloradosprings, colorado
Dear FRONTLINE, We should leave Iraq alone. The capacity to use weapons of mass destruction is insufficient reason to attack a state, even if that state has used those weapons in the past.
Both the US and Iraq have these weapons, but while we have used them in the WWII to destroy two civilian cities in Japan, Iraq only used them against Iranian conbatants and a rebel-held Kurdish city that had allied itself with Iran during wartime and was activley attcking the Iraqi regime, causing tens of thousands of casualties.
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are a last-resort type armament, not "city killers" like the atomic weapons we dropped on Japan. We have no moral ground here.
mark gery
santa ana, ca
Dear FRONTLINE,
This is all a drama to safeguard oil supply from the region and sell them American weapons. The Americans need Saddam as the bogy man so it can justify its presence there. Why have you not mentioned Israelís weapons of mass destruction.
Ali Raza
chicago, il
Dear FRONTLINE, It is time to face reality. The idea of an anti-terror coalition including Iran, Syria, Sudan,the PLO and Libya is absurd in the extreme. Lebanon, Egypt, the UAE and Yemen have feigned friendship with the US while providing funding and manpower for Bin Laden. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Other than secular Turkey, no Moslem state is even remotely a friend of the US. They are all against freedom of religion, democracy, and women's rights. In some sense, Bin Laden is right. The entire Moslem world is opposed to western values. We are in fact in a multi-generational worldwide cold war against fundamentalist Islam. In the end there will be only one world. Either a dark age of theocracy, or a secular free world. As Tony Blair has stated, there can only be one outcome; "Our victory, not theirs." We should eliminate the immediate threat of Saddam regardless of the outrage from the Arab world. After all, under the cover of Bin Laden, the Saudis are at war with us already. These hostile and undemocratic nations are never going to love us, and only respect strength. They already consider us to be "Satan." It is time to be "Great" as well.
Joy Shaffer
cupertino, california
Dear FRONTLINE, I have just completed reading the messages thet have been sent in to you. I as an American will neve doubt that we have a very smart and intellegent president running this campaign. I have gotten back great faith in our leaders after the last 8 years weve just had. The last adminstration should have done much more than it did to get this country back on the correct rosd. We now have a president that has the guts to confront these nuts that are at war with us. They can say what they waht about this administration, but I thank god that Mr. Bush is our president. He will do what he said and we will defeat this enemy.
Ronald Costello
kingston, new york
Dear FRONTLINE, Recent polls are said to show that Americans have more faith in their government since the 9/11 tragedy.
Well, this one doesn't. We have had a bunch of bunglers in the White House, particularly with regard to foreign policy. It didn't start with George Bush, Sr's, funk away from total victory. Remember Jimmy Carter embracing the Shah of Iran and calling him his best friend? Remember Eisenhower's toppling of Mossedegh in the mid-50s? That led to the Shah. How about John Foster Dulleses presenting Nasser with a couple of six-shooters? We haven't had any but dictators in Egypt since. The list of blunders is endless, and Bill Clinton added pages to it. Our government gets a vote of no confidence from me.
st petersburg, fl
Dear FRONTLINE, What ever happened to the United Nations directive that Iraq submit to weapons inspections. After he kicked out the inspectors everybody just seemd to forget about it. What an unexpected windfall for the terriorists.
John Monteith
phoenix, arizona
Dear FRONTLINE, It is ironic that the Powell, Cheney, Bush team are on duty. If we had rolled up the Republican Guard and taken Saddam out of power, I do not believe we would have suffered the attacks we have seen. Powell, in particular, has a unique opportunity. He has a second chance. We continue to pour money and lives into our military capabilities and then we fail to use our power. I sincerely hope we can get it right this time.
Clifford Sayre
kennett square, pa
Dear FRONTLINE, I donít understand what gives the US the right to overthrow Saddam or any other leader, be he a dictator or democratic leader. The US has no right, under any international agreement, to interfere in the affairs of other states. If Americans think WMD are a threat to them, then perhaps they should also accept that we in Europe think US WMD are a threat to us. Are Americans, anxious to rid Iraq of its WMDís, prepared to rid Israel of the same weapons? Are they prepared to rid the US of its own WMDís? After all, the only state known to have used WMD is the US: in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, Iraq and Yugoslavia. Nuclear weapons, chemical agents, DU and cluster bombs, etcÖ
George Isacsson
copenhagen, denmark
Dear FRONTLINE, Thanks once again for another excellent Frontline presentation. An important question needs to be answered ... "What is the worst-possible scenario of ignoring Saddam's threats against the U.S.?" The answer to that question should motivate us to make plans to deal with the threat, regardless of having any proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. We also need to accept the risks in defending ourselves, with or without a coalition that includes "Arab friends".
Robert Cochran
phoenix, az
Dear FRONTLINE, The only thing rivaling the nausea of knowing of Saddam Hussein's intent to kill Americans and destroy America is the sinking feeling that too many of the same people who made the decision to leave Saddam in power after the Gulf War are making those same types of decisions now. There seems to be no sense of urgency within the state department to do do anything but build "coalitions." What's with our state department? Am I the only one who has the feeling that Time is running out...for some, if not all of us?
grand prairie, texas
Dear FRONTLINE, This was a very clear program, confirming my idea at that time that we should have finished the job in '91.
I know that the scare of the Bush administration was that finishing Sadam would create a power vacuum. But look at the alternative...
Shimon Cohen
houston, texas
Dear FRONTLINE, thank you frontline for once again giving us the best that documentary television can offer. how many more chances are going to be given to us to get this thing right? history tells that that we must take this opportunity to overthrow saddam...to ignore this opportunity, which may be our last, would be completely irresponsible.
beloit, wi
Dear FRONTLINE, After watching Brent Scocroft and his gutless ilk pratter on about needing conclusive proof of Sadam's involvement and current threat, one can only hope he is safe at a country club when we inevitably wage a second war against Iraq. We will be waging this war to save ourselves from terrifying, not too far in the future, attacks. As for our mighty international coalition partners, the few that stand with us today will earn the thanks of the many who were too timid to fight for their own survival.
Gahan Haskins
new york, ny
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