The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[Nystul]

I'm not sure what to do about Iraq at this point, but I suspect it won't end well. It is the Middle East after all. I tire of sending our troops into battle with doubts and mixed political objectives. I begin to think it would not be so bad to pull back everything short of subs and carrier groups, and become the sleeping dog that nobody wants to touch instead of the yipping dog leashed to the fence pole.

I'm certainly not sad to see Hussein knocked off his perch, though. I'm sure some good comes of that, even if not so much for the people of Iraq.

[Exalt-]

vouche

[Thecla]

I promise it will be a friendly discussion... for my part of the discussion at least. :) I see your opinions are very strong here.

Well, I genuinely appreciate that. To be clear, none of my venom is directed at you personally. And, yes, I do feel very strongly about this. Something about deceitful, unnecessary, disastrous, and incredibly costly wars that lead to a large and avoidable waste of human life brings out my bad side.

Zero? Really?

Zero. Really.

Obvious? I dare say not.

As I said, it was obvious before the war that: (a) the Bush administration was peddling intelligence without regard for its truth or reliability to sell the Iraq war; (b ) there was a significant chance that a US invasion in the middle east would lead to disaster.

The UN Security council was not certain, and the most of the worlds intelligence services were not certain. The only people who were certain, were those who chose not to believe the evidence.

I didn't say it was obvious that Iraq had no chemical weapons . It is clear that, since Iraq did not in fact possess such weapons (not withstanding your hopes of finding them even now buried somewhere in the desert), the evidence for them was far from conclusive.

But so what if Iraq had chemical weapons? What vital threat would that have posed to the US? Nuclear materials might be another issue, but there was no credible evidence that Iraq had them (despite the administration's irresponsibly loose talk about aluminum tubes, mobile bioweapons labs, niger yellow cake, mushroom clouds, and all the rest of it) nor was there any credible evidence that Iraq was working with al Qaeda. In fact, it was clear that Iraq, basically a secular dictatorship, was a very unlikely co-conspirator. The use of the term "WMD" to lump together chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons is interesting in itself, and allowed the Bush administration to conflate the possession of chemical weapons with the consequences of nuclear weapons in selling the war.

You use the phrase "criminal incompetence", but I'm not exactly sure what you are talking about. There were "crimes" committed by soldiers that have occurred, and have been prosecuted.

I'm not referring to the military aspects: many bad things happen in war, one reason why you should be damn sure what you're doing before starting one.

I was referring to the total lack of planning by the administration for the post-invasion phase, which was criminally incompetent in my view. As far as I can see, the administration's plan was something like this: 1) Collect flowers. 2) Take carefully cropped photo of toppling of statue of Saddam Hussein. Ignore looting. 3) Send cadre of fresh-faced college graduates, selected on the basis of their views regarding gay marriage and abortion, to reconstruct country in mold of western capitalist democracy. 4) Install pro-US government run by former Iraqi exiles. 5) Declare mission accomplished. When that turned out not to work, they had no clue what to do.

But, also, many people including Saddam, had the opportunity to steer events away from the war. War was not inevitable. It was a choice, and not just a Bush choice.

I disagree. Hussein did not decide to invade Iraq, Bush did. That was entirely his choice, not Hussein's.

It was the US Congress who was mostly unanimous in authorizing the use of force against Iraq. It is also false to think of this as a "right-wing" affair.

It's true that congress made a big mistake in failing to prevent the war with it's authorization of the use of force in Iraq, and those democrats who were too cowed to vote their conscience bear some responsibility for that. But the only meaningful opposition came from democrats (Robert Byrd, whom I'm not always a fan of, gave a great speech before the vote, which was unfortunately not listened to), and it is the rebulicans who are most to blame. (According to Wikipedia, the yes/no vote Republican vs. Democrat was 215/6 vs. 81/126 in the House and 48/1 vs. 29/21 in the Senate.)

My vehement opposition to the Iraq war is not based on party politics. Blair in the UK is highly culpable for his role in supporting the war, and had Clinton done what Bush did I'd be just as opposed. But the fact is: Bush started this war.

I'm sorry I don't see the "right-wing media"? The only place that right-wing media has any foot hold is talk radio. All the other media venues (newspapers, TV, magazines) are dominated by "left-wing media".

I wasn't aware that Fox News, for example is a "left-wing" media venue, or has no foothold in TV "news".

The reasons for war with Iraq were more complex, and other than the window dressing presented (publicly) to the UN Security council and the American public. I'll take this as your opinion.

I think you can take it as my opinion, that the Bush administration exploited 9/11 and used deceitful arguments to take the US into a disastrous war for which there was no adequate justification, simple or complex. They then cocked it up beyond belief.

It's easy to lambaste the actions that are taken, but harder to offer the alternative.

It was very easy to offer an alternative: don't invade Iraq. Now, I agree, there are no good alternatives left.

[kandrathe]

Since enemy in Iraq that you would terrify by your savagery is drawn almost entirely from the population you are hoping to uplift, how do you inflict horror without simultaneously doing the enemy's recruiting for them?

Well, I'm not advocating savagery. If it is a fist fight, then one side shouldn't be required to wear boxing gloves. If it's a knife fight, then one side doesn't also get hand grenades. When terrorists convert old munitions into IEDs or drive explosives into crowded markets, you need a strategy of action, and not hand wringing or running away.

If you are saying that the all the Iraqi's, or a majority of Iraqi's support this kind of terrorism, then I think you are wrong. I think nearly all of them want the US and allies to leave, some now and some later. And, I think if the US was adamant and vocal that they will be leaving once things are no longer chaotic and the legitimate government feels the time is right, then I think many of the Iraqi's would be fine with that. The responsible thing now for the US to do would be to insure the central government of Iraq is prepared to deal with its own internal and external security threats.

[Jester]

Well, I'm not advocating savagery. If it is a fist fight, then one side shouldn't be required to wear boxing gloves. If it's a knife fight, then one side doesn't also get hand grenades. When terrorists convert old munitions into IEDs or drive explosives into crowded markets, you need a strategy of action, and not hand wringing or running away.

Do remember that you're talking about the already-stupendous mismatch of the world's most powerful military, with an army, navy, air force, intelligence services and nuclear arsenal, all of unparalleled strength, against a bunch of Iraqi militias improvising explosives out of widely available commodities.

You already came to the knife fight with an atom bomb. How much more advantage do you need before you don't have to resort to Guantanamo Bay?

-Jester

[kandrathe]

As I said, it was obvious before the war that: (a) the Bush administration was peddling intelligence without regard for its truth or reliability to sell the Iraq war;

I agree with that.

(b ) there was a significant chance that a US invasion in the middle east would lead to disaster.

I'm not seeing a disaster. I'm seeing some huge challenges. What are you seeing? I see an insurgency that was able to grab an early foothold, and that has been largely rooted out. I see a ton of money pouring in, with very little of it going toward actual construction because all the projects need additional security. I see the Shia south aligning themselves with Iran, as it always was and always will be. I see the Kurdish north establishing a powerful Kurdish identity and making Turkey, Syria and Iran a little nervous. I see a fearful Sunni minority worried about all the payback they are due from the years of abuse they inflicted on the Shia and the Kurds. These things were issues frozen in time from the time that Iraq was formed. Frozen just as Yugoslavia was frozen, by dictatorship and heavy handed repression.

I didn't say it was obvious that Iraq had no chemical weapons . It is clear that, since Iraq did not in fact possess such weapons (not withstanding your hopes of finding them even now buried somewhere in the desert), the evidence for them was far from conclusive.

Pete is correct. If they exist, we failed to secure them.

But so what if Iraq had chemical weapons? What vital threat would that have posed to the US? Nuclear materials might be another issue, but there was no credible evidence that Iraq had them (despite the administration's irresponsibly loose talk about aluminum tubes, mobile bioweapons labs, niger yellow cake, mushroom clouds,

In terms of going to war I believe the WMD issue was a red herring.

... and all the rest of it) nor was there any credible evidence that Iraq was working with al Qaeda. In fact, it was clear that Iraq, basically a secular dictatorship, was a very unlikely co-conspirator.

From the 9/11 commission report, page 79,

"To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement
that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin
apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to
aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside
of Baghdad’s control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major
defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin’s help they re-formed into
an organization called Ansar al Islam.There are indications that by then the Iraqi
regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common
Kurdish enemy.

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met
with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995.
Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as
assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded
to this request. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to
establish connections. (link)

So what I'm saying is that now knowing this, the threat was there but not realized other than the Iraqi supported "poisons" base that Ansar al-Islam had just south of Kurdish territory. However, if you put yourself in the shoes of an intelligence analyst in the mid to late 90's and you know that high ranking Iraqi's are meeting in Sudan with known high level al Queda, what would you believe?

I'm not referring to the military aspects: many bad things happen in war, one reason why you should be damn sure what you're doing before starting one.

“No one starts a war--or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so--without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” -- Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz

I was referring to the total lack of planning by the administration for the post-invasion phase, which was criminally incompetent in my view.

I think this war was unique in how quickly it was executed. The pencil pushers couldn't keep up with the tanks. There was a definite vacuum between destroying the administration and rebuilding it which was exacerbated by the swiftness in which every city fell almost simultaneously. The problem of re-establishing civilian authority quickly enough to prevent the chaos that ensued was beyond the capability of any nation, including the US. Moving fast was a good tactic for winning the war, but a bad tactic for securing the peace.

I disagree. Hussein did not decide to invade Iraq, Bush did. That was entirely his choice, not Hussein's.

Here is our fundamental disagreement. If you don't believe that Saddam's regime made actions that brought about the need for war, then we will never agree on any of the smaller points either.

It's true that congress made a big mistake in failing to prevent the war with it's authorization of the use of force in Iraq, and those democrats who were too cowed to vote their conscience bear some responsibility for that. But the only meaningful opposition came from democrats (Robert Byrd, whom I'm not always a fan of, gave a great speech before the vote, which was unfortunately not listened to), and it is the republicans who are most to blame. (According to Wikipedia, the yes/no vote Republican vs. Democrat was 215/6 vs. 81/126 in the House and 48/1 vs. 29/21 in the Senate.)

You can blame the Republicans if you like, but they were likely going to align with their President. It was the Democrats who didn't believe in it, that voted for it anyway you should be most upset with. The democrats had 50 votes to Republicans 49 in the Senate, they could have stopped it if they believed it was the wrong thing to do.

My vehement opposition to the Iraq war is not based on party politics. Blair in the UK is highly culpable for his role in supporting the war, and had Clinton done what Bush did I'd be just as opposed. But the fact is: Bush started this war.

You mean the one in 2003, yes. Who started the one in 1991?

I wasn't aware that Fox News, for example is a "left-wing" media venue, or has no foothold in TV "news".

Yes, there is one. However, there are 10 to 20 channels depending on where you live on the other side of the debate.

It was very easy to offer an alternative: don't invade Iraq. Now, I agree, there are no good alternatives left.

Ok, so you leave Saddam in power, and then what happens? We lift sanctions? We allow him to rebuild his military industrial capabilities. Then, what happens?

[kandrathe]

Do remember that you're talking about the already-stupendous mismatch of the world's most powerful military, with an army, navy, air force, intelligence services and nuclear arsenal, all of unparalleled strength, against a bunch of Iraqi militias improvising explosives out of widely available commodities.

You already came to the knife fight with an atom bomb. How much more advantage do you need before you don't have to resort to Guantanamo Bay?

Is the atom bomb a feasible option?

[Jester]

Is the atom bomb a feasible option?

It's a metaphor. It's not a knife fight either, I just mean you're vastly overarmed. And, unlike your opponents, if it ever really, truly, completely hit the fan, you have the nuclear option, horrendous as that might be.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . The pencil pushers couldn't keep up with the tanks.

Indeed. And the failing here is that the 'pencil pushers' should have been finished before the first tank started rolling. Incompetence is not a mitigating factor.

If you don't believe that Saddam's regime made actions that brought about the need for war, then we will never agree on any of the smaller points either.

A nation has the right to wage war only to protect itself or its allies. Anything else is a crime. That is one of the basis of the UN. What you are completely overlooking here is that the USA has no jurisdiction in the international arena except as a member of the UN. What we did was outside the rules of law, and that makes it criminal. If the world at large, as represented by the UN, thought that "Saddam's regime made actions that brought about the need for war", then by all means. We had neither the necessity, nor the justification, nor the right to do so unilaterally.

On a more pragmatic side; given the large number of nations ruled by bastards or committees thereof, do you propose that we invade all such nations? Or only the oil rich ones? Or only those whose military, even if large, is a joke? And should possession of nuclear weapons exempt a nation from our 'fixing' it?

Or is a president trying to outdo daddy a necessary and sufficient condition?

It was the Democrats who didn't believe in it, that voted for it anyway you should be most upset with.

Don't much care for any of them. Do you remember the mood of the time? "If you're not with us, you're against us." Shrub and Gang rode that wave about as far as it could be ridden. The nation, Dem and Rep both, mostly bought it. To be outspoken against anything having to do with bringing pain on "rag-heads" was a politically dangerous thing to do at that time -- the nation wanted blood. It is surprising that *anyone* voted against.

Who started the one in 1991?

Have you moved to the Balkans? Because it is that type of thinking that keeps multi-century conflicts going. The 1991 war was fought, won, and settled under UN auspices. As far as the US should have been concerned, Iraq was a UN problem, to be settled (or ignored) by the UN. Only if Iraq posed a clear and present danger to the USA or its allies would we have had a right to invade. Thus the fairy tale of WMD. And thus the need for the fairy tale of 'liberating' Iraq from Hussein when the first fairy tale was exposed as the lie it was.

Ok, so you leave Saddam in power, and then what happens? We lift sanctions? We allow him to rebuild his military industrial capabilities. Then, what happens?

Yeah, right. So it is your contention that any government that has the potential under some set of circumstances or other sometime in the future to be perceived as a threat is a valid target for invasion. To misquote Roy Scheider, "We're going to need a bigger army."

But you are right. As long as you believe might makes right and the sole surviving super-power can do anything it wants to and I believe that we should all (Texans included, even if they are the CPS or Shrub son of Bush) be under the rule of law, then we have little else to debate.

--Pete

[Thecla]

I'm not seeing a disaster.

No idea what I can say to that...

So what I'm saying is that now knowing this, the threat was there but not realized... if you put yourself in the shoes of an intelligence analyst in the mid to late 90's and you know that high ranking Iraqi's are meeting in Sudan with known high level al Queda, what would you believe?

This is an extraordinarily thin thread on which to hang a weighty conclusion. A less threadbare case for conspiracy could be made for almost any unpleasant country you care to mention. Hindsight was not necessary to realize that an Iraq-al Qaeda conspiracy put was an unlikely one.

I think this war was unique in how quickly it was executed. The pencil pushers couldn't keep up with the tanks. There was a definite vacuum between destroying the administration and rebuilding it which was exacerbated by the swiftness in which every city fell almost simultaneously.

Are you really suggesting they shouldn't have planned for these eventualities before they launched the war?

Who started the one in 1991?

Iraq started that one.

Ok, so you leave Saddam in power, and then what happens? We lift sanctions? We allow him to rebuild his military industrial capabilities. Then, what happens?

Well, after he's used his non-existent connections to al Qaeda to supply them with his non-existent WMDs, Iraq creaks along much as it has before, and who knows what happens after that. Maybe Iraq collapses, maybe Hussein commits further acts of aggression which elicits a coordinated international response, maybe he gets assassinated, maybe he decides after a while to try and reintegrate Iraq in the international economy (like Ghadafy)...

If I understand you correctly (and maybe I don't), you believe the war was necessary in order to prevent the possibility that Iraq might reconstitute it's weapons programs at some indeterminate time in the future. If so, that's an extraordinarily flimsy and unwise rationale for war.

[Hammerskjold]

Retrospectives eh?

I like this guy's writing on the type of warfare I think the US-Iraq war is in at the moment.

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/paramet...er/goulding.htm

Although I find the above link a good read, to me it deals more with specifics of a type of war rather than the general reasoning and justification for unleashing war. For that, I prefer this guy's take on it.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

Even if some of his predictions about large scale chemical warfare did not (thankfully) come to full fruition, most of it is depressingly still valid today. I applaud his '3 steps', but I have serious doubts on the existence of the necessary political will and guts to do it (in any country).

[kandrathe]

It's a metaphor. It's not a knife fight either, I just mean you're vastly overarmed. And, unlike your opponents, if it ever really, truly, completely hit the fan, you have the nuclear option, horrendous as that might be.

Who has ever successfully defeated an insurgency? There are a couple. The US, to my knowledge, has never won at this type of warfare in the past.

[Bun-Bun]

Who has ever successfully defeated an insurgency? There are a couple. The US, to my knowledge, has never won at this type of warfare in the past.

The Philippine Insurrection springs to mind.

[kandrathe]

The Philippine Insurrection springs to mind.

Here is an interesting read.

[TaMeOlta]

I think we should have finished in 1991 , maybe by now we would have finished all the "rebuilding" of Iraq if we had done so . What an alternate timeline that would be* , I am sure things would be vastly different now .

I was active duty first time around , reserves second time around , now closing in on my 22 year mark and waiting for an end to this whole mess I don't see coming anytime soon . I just want my friends and family who deploy/have deployed to come home safely .



*Anyone care to take a stab at how elections would have turned out from that point til present ?

[Lissa]

For a subject like this, I'll break my silence.

"Iraq is the goal, although I'm damned if I can figure just why."

Well, the reason you find yourself in so many wars, is that wars are good for your economy. But the most important reason for the invasion in Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s decision to accept the Euro as valid currency to buy oil, on November 6, 2000. See http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex71374.htm

"So, was the Iraq war worth it?"

Assuming you mean the so-called cost in dollars, yes ofcourse. In fact, you should praise and thank Mr.Bush for saving your precious economy.

Look up "Policy for a New American Century", you'll see it was all telegraphed back in '97 or there abouts.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Haven't seen you for a while, welcome back:)

I think we should have finished in 1991 , . . .

We did. And Bush senior did an excellent job of explaining why we stopped when we did and what the consequences of invading Iraq would have been (basically he predicted the mess we're in now) in one of his many books -- unfortunately, I don't remember which.

. . . maybe by now we would have finished all the "rebuilding" of Iraq if we had done so .

Doubt it. With luck and hard work, you might get a significant change in a culture in three generations. And that is if they want to change (or at least the first generation gives lip service to that change). Nothing short of a significant cultural change will enable the Arab states to become true democracies, or even really understand the concept.

What an alternate timeline that would be* , I am sure things would be vastly different now .

Kinda doubt that. Desert Storm wasn't enough to get Bush re-elected ("It's the economy, stupid."). An occupation is seldom popular, so that probably would not have swung the pendulum. Clinton most likely would have been elected in '02 and might have stayed in, probably would be stuck with it. Garrison troops in Iraq would have gotten about as much press as they did and do in Europe, Japan, S. Korea, Gitmo, and bunches of other places we're 'defending'. Which is to say, none.

I was active duty first time around , reserves second time around , now closing in on my 22 year mark and waiting for an end to this whole mess I don't see coming anytime soon . I just want my friends and family who deploy/have deployed to come home safely .

Got back from Nam in '66. Waited for the end of that mess. It wasn't pretty. Don't want to see it again. And don't tell me, tell the Russians how a third world country cannot drive out a superpower's invasion force (and contribute to that superpower's downfall, something else I don't want to see).

--Pete

[Zenda]

"you'll see it was all telegraphed back in '97 or there abouts"

I never said the attack on the petrodollar was the only, or the oldest reason.

[--Pete]

Hi,

"you'll see it was all telegraphed back in '97 or there abouts"

I never said the attack on the petrodollar was the only, or the oldest reason.

True. You did say "the most important reason", and I doubt that level of importance, but have nothing to back that doubt. I'll fully grant you that, to people already looking for a reason to invade, it would have been an agreeable addition to their arguments.

--Pete

[Zenda]

"Most important" is hard to prove and somewhat subjective, I'll admit that. But it's nothing to underestimate.

Here is another (American) source: http://peakoil.com/static/editorial/Oil_Cu...Geopolitics.htm



"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860