English 1A: Sample “however” paragraph

The United States should attack Iraq because Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. In fact, if the US does not stop Saddam Hussein from using WMD, the Western world’s very existence may be at risk. There are many reports of people leaving Iraq who worked within the Iraqi government who say that Iraq has WMD. One of the most reliable is Mussaf Al-Mosul, who was the chief of Iraq’s weapons development program. Mr. Al-Mosul has told US intelligence agents that Iraq is actively developing chemical and biological weapons. The US has satellite pictures that confirm that Iraq possesses WMD, as Mr. Al-Mosul has said. Furthermore, spies within Iraq tell us that Iraq possesses WMD. We know that Iraq possesses these WMD as well because Saddam Hussein used WMD against the Kurds in 1991. Many people believe that this evidence indicates that Iraq possesses WMD and is disposed to use them. Since the Western European community is unwilling to disarm Iraq by force, the US must protect its own citizens by doing so.

A number of European countries, on the other hand, say that Iraq does not possess WMD; therefore, they say that the US should not attack Iraq. Germany leads this charge, perhaps because lead weapons inspector Hans Blix is from Germany. Blix says that the United Nations inspection teams are making good progress in checking for illegal weapons, and that, to date, they have found none. “We have 80 inspectors,” said Blix, “working in full cooperation with the Iraqi government. None of those inspectors has found any evidence of WMD.” (“Time Magazine”, “The UN Inspects Iraq”, p. 84). This evidence indicates only that the inspectors have not found WMD, and does not refute first hand evidence that the US has from people leaving Iraq.

English 1A: Creating “however” paragraphs.

We believe that the airline crashed due completely to a pilot’s error. People on the plane who survived the crash said that there were no signs of trouble until immediately before the crash, and that neither the stewardesses nor the pilots communicated any problems. This indicates that the trouble developed very quickly; such a rapid onset of a problem usually indicates a pilot error. We also have evidence from the navigational records that the plane was badly off course. Because the plane’s computers were working correctly, this means that the pilot was flying the plane, rather than the autopilot. All this evidence supports our hypothesis that the plane crashed due to pilot error.

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