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Iraq War a Mistake

We rattled our sabers and demanded that Iraq allow UN weapons inspections. Saddam eventually let the UN weapons inspectors look where they wanted to look. The inspections confirmed that there were no WMDs.

The mistake was that we invaded anyway.
 
16.5 said:
Of course, it depends what you consider evidence, skeptic.

Gas attack on the Kurds?
UN resolutions?
Legislative history of the regime change act?
Operation desert fox Intel?

Not quite to the level of Rachel Maddox, of course.

I mean Rachel Maddox, that **** breaks the case right the hell open.
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You call that evidence? Seriously?

The gas attack on the Kurds: nothing new, known about for years, no way a threat to the US.

UN resolutions: Talk to Hans Blix about that. Some of us actually listened to him at the time.
"Legislative history of the regime change act?" and "Operation desert fox Intel"? Really? That's the security blanket you are clinging to?

OMG! Get over it 16.5, you were lied to. Everyone with a brain knows that now. Are you that incapable of looking at your mistakes?
 
Bogative said:
Iraq Liberation Act



Clinton's reason for signing and supporting the act:
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Encouraging regime change is not the same thing as invading you should realize.

Now sure that policy looks somewhat suspect with what we know now but it was a rather different level of suspect than " How could it possibly take more troops to secure a nation than conquer it?"
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Well Bogative, and everyone else, finally! Rachel Maddow covers the truth, the intel was a product of Bush/Cheney et al.

Madow plays the Daily Show interview with Judith Miller where Stewart calls her on the fact the data was rigged. Miller sticks with the party line, it was an intelligence failure. I suppose she cannot face the fact she played a role in the worst policy disaster this country's Presidency has made since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
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Of course it was an intelligence failure, none of the people listening to the spy's had the intelligence to try to look into any disconfirming data. That is what you get when you put a bunch of yes men there.
 
Does anyone here think this will put a damper on any new military adventures?:rolleyes:

The Irak war were after all a huge succes from a profit standpoint.
 
Toke said:
Does anyone here think this will put a damper on any new military adventures?:rolleyes:

The Irak war were after all a huge succes from a profit standpoint.
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I would say it has, there would have been a lot more public support for removing Bashar al-Assad after his use of chemical weapons if not for the public reluctance to get involved in more sectarian disputes.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
UN resolutions: Talk to Hans Blix about that. Some of us actually listened to him at the time.
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No, you didn't. You just went to an article in which Hans Blix engaged in a bit of revisionist history and posted it because it fits the narrative you want to push. Here's what he said to the UN Security Council less than two weeks before the invasion began. Remember, this is a few months after the UN passed resolution 1441, itself a last-ditch effort to force Iraq into immediate cooperation with inspectors after refusing to allow them in country for several years:

It is obvious that while the numerous initiatives which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some longstanding, open disarmament issues can be seen as active or even proactive, these initiatives three to four months into the new resolution cannot be said to constitute immediate cooperation. Nor do they necessarily cover all areas of relevance. They are, nevertheless, welcome. And UNMOVIC is responding to them in the hope of solving presently unresolved disarmament issues.
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The CNN article you linked earlier has a link to a report made by a journalist embedded with the weapons inspectors prior to the invasion. He says the same thing Hans Blix did in March 2003. That I Iraqi officials "obfuscated" weapons inspectors regularly during the lead up to the invasion.

You can choose to believe Hans Blix 10 years after the fact or you can believe what he said two weeks before the invasion along with what journalist reported at the time, that's up to you.

There is no need to keep going over information that has been done to death on this board. I just wanted to point out that people are sadly mistaken when they call it "Bush's war." Democrats are up to their eyeballs in it as well.
 
ponderingturtle said:
Encouraging regime change is not the same thing as invading you should realize.
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I do. I was just pointing out that some Democrats supported regime change long before Bush was president, and that they and their supporters don't get to point fingers at Republicans only.
 
Bikewer said:
I don't know how many hours of analysis of the whole Iraq thing I listened to on various NPR programs, as well as interviews with Bush-administration defectors.

Still seems to me that the underlying motivation was the so-called "Neo-Con agenda" with the "taking down a dangerous dictator" as the pretext. (and of course, the conflation of that dictator with 9/11)

That was the notion that Iraq was ready and waiting to be freed of Saddam, and since they were essentially a "secular" country, there would be a brief spate of dancing in the streets...Followed by the rapid formation of a nice, US-friendly democracy which would be a shining example of same to the whole region. (and presumably, over years, that democratic model would be exported to other problematic countries)

That sounds great..... Alas that no one paid any attention whatever to the warnings from people who did in fact know better. I recall listening to an interview with Madelaine Albright pre-invasion. She rather neatly ticked off the problems that we would encounter.
Iraq was only "secular" in that Saddam had suppressed the warring religious factions, much as the Soviets had suppressed the factions in the Balkans.
Iraq had no sense of nationality; it was an artificially-constructed nation incorporating a number of different religious and tribal powers that all hated each other.

It's not that this information was not available; it was merely ignored, or in some cases shouted down. Same with the "intelligence". The administration was warned that some of their "sources" were self-serving individuals with an eye on taking power in a post-Saddam Iraq.... Again, largely ignored.

A great deal is now being accepted under the general category of "faulty intelligence", but from all the stuff I listened to it was much more...."We are going to war, find us some excuses."
I seem to recall that Bush made war-intention statements shortly after being elected.
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The Project for the New American Century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

It seems, to me (and I'm sure to others) those involved with Reagan's and Bush the First's administrations, those who created the PNAC, had a desire for an Iraq invasion, then when Bush the 2nd took office, those involved in the PNAC who were now in Bush the 2nd's administration, cooked the intel to justify it.

Do I have evidence of this?
At my finger tips, no.

Is there a direct chain of evidence?
Probably not.

Is there enough dots which could be connected to raise eyebrows?
In my opinion, yes.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
You call that evidence? Seriously?

The gas attack on the Kurds: nothing new, known about for years, no way a threat to the US.

UN resolutions: Talk to Hans Blix about that. Some of us actually listened to him at the time.
"Legislative history of the regime change act?" and "Operation desert fox Intel"? Really? That's the security blanket you are clinging to?

OMG! Get over it 16.5, you were lied to. Everyone with a brain knows that now. Are you that incapable of looking at your mistakes?
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Not often that you see such an overwhelming example of argument from incredulity, and rarely seen in connection with genocide like the gas attack on the Kurds outside out holocaust denial boards.

"and "Operation desert fox Intel"? Really? That's the security blanket you are clinging to?" Do they still have the Stundies?

"OMG!" Enough said....

:rolleyes:
 
16.5 said:
Of course, it depends what you consider evidence, skeptic.

Gas attack on the Kurds?
UN resolutions?
Legislative history of the regime change act?
Operation desert fox Intel?

Not quite to the level of Rachel Maddox, of course.

I mean Rachel Maddox, that **** breaks the case right the hell open.
Click to expand...

Which attack, the one in 1988?

Are you suggesting that since SH/Iraq had chemical weapons in 1988, those were the WMDs Bush the 2nd was after?
 
Bogative said:
I do. I was just pointing out that some Democrats supported regime change long before Bush was president, and that they and their supporters don't get to point fingers at Republicans only.
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I was not entirely against kicking Saddam out, because he was a brutal dictator, of course I also wasn't against nation building like was repeatedly said in the 2000 campaign. I still found their case less than convincing, and remember hearing at the time that some people figured that the authorization was more of a ploy to get UN inspectors back in.

Turns out that 2000 Bush was right about nation building being a bad idea, I really wish President Bush listened more to Candidate Bush, but that was pre etch a sketch.
 
C_Felix said:
Which attack, the one in 1988?

Are you suggesting that since SH/Iraq had chemical weapons in 1988, those were the WMDs Bush the 2nd was after?
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Why would we go after our ally for using chemical weapons? We wanted him to have them after all.
 
16.5 said:
No way! Rachel Maddow. Damn, when conservatives start losing staunch conservatives like Rachel Maddow, all is lost!

And suckers like us are posting stuff like Operation Desert Fox.

Solid post "skeptic" ginger!
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Ad hominem poisoning the well. Straw man. SG's post isn't appealing to Maddow. It's appealing to her arguments and data.

Care to address that?
 
Toke said:
Does anyone here think this will put a damper on any new military adventures?:rolleyes:

The Irak war were after all a huge succes from a profit standpoint.
Click to expand...

ponderingturtle said:
I would say it has, there would have been a lot more public support for removing Bashar al-Assad after his use of chemical weapons if not for the public reluctance to get involved in more sectarian disputes.
Click to expand...

Also certain politicians are pushing for military action against Iran and Americans are consistently very, very wary of doing that now.
 
Travis said:
I still think the idea of taking down a horrible tyrant was a good one. The execution was terrible and on the whole the world would be better if we hadn't tried to do something I think was good in intention.
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How could they possibly have well-executed it ? They'd have to leave with a very strong government in place, nothing short of a military dictatorship, to keep the sectarian feuds in check.
 
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