Last week's Hot Topic question: How should the United States handle Iraq?
Here are some of the responses we received:
Destroy Saddam's weapons now
At the time of the Gulf War, Iraq possessed and had used weapons of mass destruction. To gain an armistice, Iraq agreed to allow United Nations inspections until the inspectors could certify compliance.
The terms of the armistice were violated by Iraq when the U.N. inspectors were forced by Iraq to halt their work prematurely. Therefore, the armistice is void and we are free to destroy any suspected sites of manufacture, storage, and support of weapons of mass destruction.
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There is no need for us to topple Saddam nor invade Iraq now. If there is a clear and present danger to us, Congress should be asked to declare a limited war on Iraq. Its objective should be the destruction of Iraq's capability of producing and using weapons of mass destruction and certification thereof by U.N. inspectors. Then, to limit collateral damage, we should saturate the Iraqi countryside with leaflets explaining what is going to happen and why, and requesting that people move a safe distance from any potential target until it is destroyed.
I hope that the Bush administration doesn't put politics ahead of our safety by delaying any decisive action until after the November elections.
Hopefully, an official proposal of this course of action will be sufficient to get U.N. inspectors re-admitted into Iraq, making any Congressional declaration moot.
Arthur; Hamburgen
Rochester
; Bush must be reasonable
I really believe President Bush has an approach that doesn't seem to me to be as reasonable as I would like see.
Saddam Hussein is an inflaming person who is unbalanced, obviously. As far as my training in life has gone, I have never been taught that was the way to handle someone. I think that we have a lot of power and we could use reason.
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Our country could respond to him in a more reasonable way. I would really like to see a peaceful settlement of this crisis. I certainly don't want to see our boys and a lot of innocent people being involved in a war.
Helen; Schroeder
Rochester;
