Dubya "Very Pleased" with Iraq outcome.

[hgc]

The greatest problem coming out of the Iraq War is for Blair, who made the catastrophic mistake of stating only days before the invasion that Saddam could remain in power if he gave up his WMD's. As far as I recall, Bush made no such statement.

I'm pondering your claim, and it just doesn't grok. On the scale of all Blair's troubles arising from the Iraq war, how does this incident rate as catastrophic? It's not like the lack of WMD* found at all post hoc would have been less troublesome if Blair hadn't spoken out of school slightly before the invasion.

* I'd like to add: the whole "weapons of mass destruction" construct was part of the scam that launched this war. The claim that chemical weapons are an imminent threat to the wider world is absurd, so they're lumped together with nukes in order to broaden the casus belli.

 

[JihadJane]

I'm pondering your claim, and it just doesn't grok. On the scale of all Blair's troubles arising from the Iraq war, how does this incident rate as catastrophic?

I know what you mean but this was an unusually crass lie even for Blair and it is strange that his lawyerly instincts allowed him to say it.

 

[interwaff]

That's it... pout your way to a better world.

Libs.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Had Iraq been eventually turned over to Usay or Qusay then the people of Iraq would have thought Saddam was Mother Teresa. I mean really, if Usay and Qusay were left to run things the women they plucked off the street to rape would literally jam the plastic shredders they used to dispose of thier bodies.

The plastic shredders seem to have been a propaganda story - I believe no such shredders were ever found, nor was there any reliable testimony of their use. Stories about them are still racketing around in the freeper echo chamber, where evidence is unwelcome, but not in the evidence-based world.

As far as Hussein's sons go, I doubt anyone thinks the world is a worse place for their demises. However there's a limit to how many civilians we should be willing to kill in order to get at a handful of psychopaths. If you count the deaths caused by the post-GW1 sanctions as well as the deaths caused by GW2 and the ensuing social breakdown we're talking about well over a million deaths, mostly of women and children. I'm not sure what kind of maths gets you to the conclusion that we should focus on the Hussein sons' crimes as the most important single part of the picture.

The important comparison should be between the world (including Iraq) as it is today, and the world (including Iraq) as it would have been had the USA not conquered the place, thoroughly mismanaged the occupation, and trashed its own economy funding the debacle. By those standards I don't see how anyone can defend the position that Bush is entitled to be "very pleased" about the outcome.

 

[Darth Rotor]

It was never their day though, it was intended to provide those photo's, and it succeeded.

It might have come back to haunt the people who planned it, but on the whole it had nothing to do with the crew at all.

Stop talking out of your backside. Ray was there. You weren't. I will believe him before I'll buy your attempt at analysis.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

What is a strategic victory in your opinion?

Do you achieve the political aim you set out to achieve?

Is there a limit on the amount of suffering that can be permitted in the short term in order for a long term solution to be achieved?

The cost in suffering is not the issue of setting victory conditions. The general aim is to keep it as low as practicable. See August of 1914. They didn't set out to fight a four year war. They set out to achieve ends X, Y, and Z. The costs/suffering aren't what determines victory. The French achieved the return of Alsace and Lorraine. The Germans achieved some of their aims in Russia/Poland for about a year. The British achieved the aim of Belgium remaining sovereign. The Sick man of Europe, Turkey, was despoiled, also a general pre-war aim.

DR

 

[Darth Rotor]

If you count the deaths caused by the post-GW1 sanctions as well as the deaths caused by GW2 and the ensuing social breakdown we're talking about well over a million deaths, mostly of women and children. I'm not sure what kind of maths gets you to the conclusion that we should focus on the Hussein sons' crimes as the most important single part of the picture.

Blockades and embargoes are UN approved sanctions against member states.* See also Haiti. Embargoes and other such sanctions are considered as lesser coercive measures than war, to get a nation to conform to "all that is right and good" in the eyes of the UNSC. When it can agree on anything. That these procedures don't do much damage to governments who care less about their people says something about both autocrats and the UN. It says alot about imbedded assumptions that are weak. See also: about two decades for the varying and increasingly penal trade sanctions to bring about the change in South Africa. Maybe that is a good metric: put in sanctions if you have the sack to do it for two decades. All that was needed, maybe, was eight more years and Iraq cracks from sanctions, not an invasion.

Then what?

Iraq cracks.

Next step, civil war in the power vacuum that opened, as variously happened in India and Yugoslavia.

... important comparison should be between the world (including Iraq) as it is today, and the world (including Iraq) as it would have been had the USA not conquered the place, thoroughly mismanaged the occupation, and trashed its own economy funding the debacle. By those standards I don't see how anyone can defend the position that Bush is entitled to be "very pleased" about the outcome.

See above. Given the massive refugee flow out of Iraq, about 1.5 million is the last figures I have any confidence in, and the internal refugee flow/cleansing of about a million, Bush being very pleased seems a curious sentiment.

ETA: * =

Article 41
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.
Article 42
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.

Article 43
All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.

Article 43 fulfillment goes begging, as often as not.

DR

 

[BeAChooser]

It had reduced his ability to do actual harm, (as shown by his total lack of any WMDs, though he had had them earlier)

You can't prove he totally lacked WMD, Tricky. You can only say the government said we didn't find them.

What I still find curious is the total refusal of your side to answer the following questions if you know for a fact there were no WMD or the means to produce them.

What were the contents of those trucks that were observed going to Syria before the war (that a "credible" source told the ISG was WMD related)?

What was the contents of the concrete bunker that was built under the Euphrates in 2002 (that locals said contained WMD) and that was looted before the CIA (in all it's *wisdom*) decided to take a look in 2006?

Why did Iraq selectively sanitize files, computers and facilities thought related to WMD? What were they hiding?

Where did that binary sarin shell that turned up as an IED actually come from and how do you *know* it was the only one?

Why in 2002 did Saddam order "special" materials to be hidden ("special" materials was the way Iraq generally referred to WMD)?

And finally, why do you think invading Iraq was only about finding completed WMD munitions, and not precursors and the means to produce WMD as well?

 

[BeAChooser]

There surely should be some kind of entrance exam before people are allowed to vote?

I'm all for that. Because if there were, it would spell the end of the democrat party.

 

[davefoc]

You can't prove he totally lacked WMD, Tricky. You can only say the government said we didn't find them.

What I still find curious is the total refusal of your side to answer the following questions if you know for a fact there were no WMD or the means to produce them.

What were the contents of those trucks that were observed going to Syria before the war (that a "credible" source told the ISG was WMD related)?

What was the contents of the concrete bunker that was built under the Euphrates in 2002 (that locals said contained WMD) and that was looted before the CIA (in all it's *wisdom*) decided to take a look in 2006?

Why did Iraq selectively sanitize files, computers and facilities thought related to WMD? What were they hiding?

Where did that binary sarin shell that turned up as an IED actually come from and how do you *know* it was the only one?

Why in 2002 did Saddam order "special" materials to be hidden ("special" materials was the way Iraq generally referred to WMD)?

And finally, why do you think invading Iraq was only about finding completed WMD munitions, and not precursors and the means to produce WMD as well?

How about Mugabe. Does he have WMD. He might. Unless the US acts right now Zimbabwe might terrorize the world with WMD. The US better get going to head this off.

Or how about all the ex Soviet countries. They actually have various nuclear resources floating around. They might be used to make terrorist weapons. The US better get going on this right away to head off another terrorist attack.

How about Venezuela, How about Canada for that matter.

This was never a question where absolute certainty was going to be possible. About five years ago somebody posted that only time will tell about the wisdom to invade Iraq. What I said then was that time would not tell. Most of the people that strongly felt it was a good idea to invade then would still feel like it was a good idea to invade, no matter what happened. It would always be possible to say that if the US hadn't invaded something really bad might have happened. And that is exactly what those people would be saying in five years.

And they are right. Something bad might have happened if the US hadn't invaded Iraq.

What we know is that millions of Iraqis have been displaced, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, thousands of Americans have been killed, there is wide spread enmity in the Arab world against the US exactly because of the invasion, the Afghanistan occupation seems to have been harmed because of the American Iraq occupation, US international influence has declined precipitously partially because of the fact that the US is tied down in Iraq, partially because of the cost of the war in Iraq and partially because of the hyperspend Bush administration policies in general. And the Iraq situation is still very tenous with Iran, Syria, Turkey, fundamentalist Shiites, fundamentalist Sunnis, Kurds, and miscellaneous terrorist wackos all churning around in a horribly difficult situation.

But things could certainly be worse. Nobody can know, but I think the evidence is pretty strong that the invasion was a horrible mistake. And weird crap from right wing blogs about stuff that the Bush administration has found to have insufficient credibility to push is not going to change any of that.

 

[gumboot]

However there's a limit to how many civilians we should be willing to kill in order to get at a handful of psychopaths. If you count the deaths caused by the post-GW1 sanctions as well as the deaths caused by GW2 and the ensuing social breakdown we're talking about well over a million deaths, mostly of women and children.

I find the bolded piece curious. Just how, exactly, did the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Persian Gulf War cause civilian deaths?

 

[BeAChooser]

What we know is that millions of Iraqis have been displaced

Millions of Iraqis were displaced before we ever invaded. By Saddam. Essentially driven into internal exile. Or driven out of the country in fear.

hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed

Millions of Iraqis died before we ever invaded. Because of the actions of Saddam. And according to sources that the left promoted in the years just prior to invasion, innocent Iraqis were still dying at the rate of many thousands every month ... due directly to the actions of Saddam. And since the invasion, most of those claimed hundreds of thousands have died at the hands of terrorists and leftovers from Saddam regime. And currently, the dying is far below what it was even pre-war. The invasion has saved lives and will save many more in the future.

thousands of Americans have been killed

Thousands of Americans soldiers would have been killed no matter where we had to fight the many thousand of terrorists that existed even before we invaded Iraq. Plus, it is quite possible that had we not invaded, Iraq would have been the source of many thousands of American civilians killed by terrorist attacks staged from that country (either with or without the help of the regime). Even before the invasion there was a terrorist attack in the works that was launched with a meeting of terrorists in Baghdad that were it successful would have killed everyone in the US embassy in Amman and tens of thousands of innocent Jordanians. A good case can be made that the reason that plot failed (and others weren't started) is that the invasion put the mastermind behind that plot on the run constantly for fear of his life. We eventually did kill him.

the Arab world against the US exactly because of the invasion

Most of the Arab world was against the US before the invasion. Certainly the folks who were most motivated to actually attack us were. Let's not forget that Saddam openly applauded the 9/11 attack and celebrated the hijackers. The ISG concluded that Iraq's regime still considered itself to be in a state of war with the US and was looking for ways to hurt us. And look at the Arab world today. Iraq is now an ally. Just signed a military cooperation agreement with us. Jordan is friendly. Kuwait is still friendly. Pakistan is cooperating against al-Qaeda. Saudi Arabia is cooperating against al-Qaeda. Libya disbanded its WMD efforts and has tried to cooperate with the west. As to the rest, they were openly against us before the invasion. So really, things have improved as a result of the invasion. Especially if you consider the impact a democracy in the Arab world is going to have on its Arab neighbors.

the Afghanistan occupation seems to have been harmed because of the American Iraq occupation,

Nonsense. That's not what our military leaders say. Many of them have in fact stated that more troops would only have made matters worse in Afghanistan. And you'll notice that they aren't rushing to add more even now with violence way down in Iraq. The truth is that the Afghan war is being fought in a different manner than the Iraq war. And fought quite effectively. We have decimated al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership in the last few years. They now have their backs to the wall in Pakistan. We are killing their leaders almost weekly with predator strikes and surgical use of special forces. With Obama in office you are not going to see more than one or two combat brigades (if even that) sent to Afghanistan ... unless he decides to invade Pakistan like he suggested he'd do during the election.

US international influence has declined precipitously

Nonsense again. Who is the world relying on in order to fight terrorism? The US. Who are they turning to to counter Putin and a resurgent Russia? The US. Whose economic engine still seems to drive the health of the world's economies? The US. Where do the enslaved still look for help? The US. You can't rationally believe that if we become more like France we will have more international influence.

partially because of the fact that the US is tied down in Iraq

Nonsense yet again. The US isn't "tied down" but mopping up a very successful operation. We've won the war. A war we would have lost had we done what Obama proposed back in January of 2007 in a bill he authored in Congress. Instead we did what McCain had suggested from near the beginning of the war. Good for Bush. And now the enemy has either been soundly defeated or has decided to participate in the democratic process. Relatively little fighting continues. Iraq's economy is finally growing. Iraqis are helping our fight against islamo-fundamentalist terror. Furthermore, saying we are "tied down" in Iraq implies there's something better to do with our forces. Well I ask you what that is, Dave?

partially because of the cost of the war in Iraq

Yes, the war was expensive. But so would not invading have been expensive. A trio of Chicago economists estimated years ago that had we not invaded, the cost of containment in a terrorist environment, the expected costs of terrorist attacks over a decade or so due to activities in Iraq, the cost of fighting terrorists elsewhere, the cost of lost economic growth in Iraq and the cost in lives, would have easily equaled what we have spent to reach the successful outcome noted above.

and partially because of the hyperspend Bush administration policies in general.

ROTFLOL! If you think Obama and the democrat controlled House and Senate are going to spend at a lesser rate than Bush and the Republicans in the next 4 years, you are in for a HUGE shock.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Stop talking out of your backside. Ray was there. You weren't. I will believe him before I'll buy your attempt at analysis.

DR

Why is it so amazing that a president would turn such an event into a photo op?

That is what they do.

 

[mikeyx]

Yes, he does. If he is pleased, I guess he isn't hard to please. His team, and thus he, made a series of awful policy decisions in pursuit of that war.

As far as I am concerned, removing Saddam wasn't that bad of an idea. It was the gross failure to look at Bosnia, learn the political lessons there, and apply the understanding of what it takes to remake a country that fractures (Iraq fractured internally when Saddam was taken out) that created a strategic win for Iran, the real problem for US policy in the Persian Gulf. Bush tried to do it on the cheap. As I've said before, if you can't afford a Cadillac, don't try to buy one at Yugo prices.

Most people, including most people I discuss such matters with on this forum, refuse to think strategically, and won't look beyond the short term. One of the ways to look at the decision to break Iraq down to parade rest is to look at Yugoslavia, and watch what an internal fracture does to a nation cobbled together badly. Tito went down, then the wall went down, and internal corrosion finally broke Yugoslavia. (Yugoslavia and Iraq were both cobbled together by The Powers after The Great War.)

If you look mid to long term in 2002, Saddam had held the place together. It does not take a rocket scientist to foresee that if and when he falls out of the picture (for the moment assuming no intervention nor invasion) that Iraq will likely fall apart as Yugoslavia did, possibly more dramatically, thanks to the slightly different power balance.

Then what? Civil war. Something like Rwanda plays out in Iraq. Heck, there was (is??) a civil war of varying intensity for five years even with the presence of the US and its allies trying, albeit with little success, to prevent one. Nobody in the region wants that, it disrupts their regional balance. It creates mass refugee flows out of Iraq. Hmm. Guess what? That happened anyway.

There are times that I wonder if the decision to go into Iraq wasn't underwritten by the strategic idea of trying to control the change of Iraq when Saddam fell, because he was going to leave office eventually, and not willingly. That framework was certainly not how the war was marketed. The political problem is to take a strategic concern, like the one I sketch out above, and package it as rational to act on a preventative basis. The idea is similar to preventative maintenance being done on a car: fix it before it breaks down. That, while possibly a rational idea, was not marketable. Or, if it was, the wrong sales team was trying to sell the product. The only organ that probably has the capacity to act in such a way is the UN, maybe, if the entire UNSC can be lead in a particular direction and agree on "x" as a sound policy, and then put the resources to that policy.

For the time and place, and likely for the foreseeable future, the UN was not the team to do it either.

DR

worst
president
ever

anyone thinking otherwise must be French....

 

[Darth Rotor]

worst
president
ever

What has that pigeon dropping got to do with my post, the post you replied to?

anyone thinking otherwise must be French....

Raise your game.

Please.

As to worst ever, he may be in the running. Let's see, five years from now, what the wreckage in his wake looks like.

DR

 

[JihadJane]

The cost in suffering is not the issue of setting victory conditions.

Yanks go home!

 

[Darth Rotor]

Yanks go home!

Whose victory condition is that?

 

[JihadJane]

Whose victory condition is that?

Not the Yanks'!

 

[Darth Rotor]

Not the Yanks'!

That's funny, the Yanks in the anti war movement have had that as their objective since before the war started. Yanks in Yank land have been, since 2005, urging the head Yank to bring the boys home. What Yanks are you talking about.

Likewise, the Yanks recent agreement to get out is beginning to make "Yanks Go Home" a Yank victory objective. Funny enough, it always was. Here is a little secret I will share with you. The original Op Plan for OIF included a "go home phase" (see also redeployment phase) before the LD was ever crossed into Iraq in 2003.

In the words of General Honore, you appear to be "stuck on stupid" due to attempting to argue with bumper stickers.

Raise the game, eh?

DR

 

[JihadJane]

That's funny, the Yanks in the anti war movement have had that as their objective since before the war started. Yanks in Yank land have been, since 2005, urging the head Yank to bring the boys home. What Yanks are you talking about.

Likewise, the Yanks recent agreement to get out is beginning to make "Yanks Go Home" a Yank victory objective. Funny enough, it always was. Here is a little secret I will share with you. The original Op Plan for OIF included a "go home phase" (see also redeployment phase) before the LD was ever crossed into Iraq in 2003.

In the words of General Honore, you appear to be "stuck on stupid" due to attempting to argue with bumper stickers.

Raise the game, eh?

DR

You know exactly who I mean.

We are the screaming victims of war that you bury with your pretty abstractions.

Get out of the Middle East and don't come back! The Middle East belongs to the people living there. Go home and send us damage reparations when you get there.

The US has no intentions of leaving the Middle East. It has implanted its tentacles in almost every part of it.

Go home!