Iran trying to take over Southern Iraq?

[SUBMAN1]

I guess they are an opportunistic type country.

A very interesting read - shows the Iraqi army is now a force to be reckoned with. This op was Iraqi from beginning to end without US involvement, and they put 30K troops on the ground without problem to do the op. They even fielded aircraft of their own. This wouldn't have happened last year. Maybe it is getting close to a time when the US can pull out of Iraq.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04102008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/irans_busted_iraq_bid_105852.htm?page=0

-S

[bradclark1]

Good for them but they still let the bad guys walk after though.

[SUBMAN1]

Good for them but they still let the bad guys walk after though.SOunds to me like 1600 to 1700 of them weren't doing so hot!

-S

[PeriscopeDepth]

They are not trying to take it over...yet. They are doing the same thing we would be doing if someone we considered not so friendly had taken over Canada.

PD

[SUBMAN1]

They are not trying to take it over...yet. They are doing the same thing we would be doing if someone we considered not so friendly had taken over Canada.

PDHardly. I'd guess you would have a whole army crossing the border to liberate the Canadians!

[Brag]

I wonder what this guy was smoking while he wrote the article :huh:

[SUBMAN1]

I wonder what this guy was smoking while he wrote the article :huh:Elaborate please? Iran's involvement of troops can be found in multiple articles right now, so I believe him. Here is an example about speed boats in the gulf, and at the bottom, they mention Iran's involvent in Basra again - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080411173322.9r2gtvnm&show_article=1

Seems to be an internationally known thing.

-S

[Brag]

I wonder what this guy was smoking while he wrote the article :huh:Elaborate please? Iran's involvement of troops can be found in multiple articles right now, so I believe him. Here is an example about speed boats in the gulf, and at the bottom, they mention Iran's involvent in Basra again - http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080411173322.9r2gtvnm&show_article=1

Seems to be an internationally known thing.

-S

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.

[SUBMAN1]

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.I guess you also believe that the World Trade Center thing was a conspiracy. I'd probably add in there that you probably think the Holocaust was a lie, and I bet you think the US never landed on the moon either, huh? :D

That's about the jist of what I get from your post.

-S

[PeriscopeDepth]

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.I guess you also believe that the World Trade Center thing was a conspiracy. I'd probably add in there that you probably think the Holocaust was a lie, and I bet you think the US never landed on the moon either, huh? :D

That's about the jist of what I get from your post.

-S

Are you kidding? He sounds pretty reasonable to me.

PD

[mrbeast]

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.I guess you also believe that the World Trade Center thing was a conspiracy. I'd probably add in there that you probably think the Holocaust was a lie, and I bet you think the US never landed on the moon either, huh? :D

That's about the jist of what I get from your post.

-S

Think its more a case of what were you smoking when you wrote that post?

How do you get that jist from Brag's post? Seemed pretty thoughtful and reasoned to me.

[Stealth Hunter]

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.I guess you also believe that the World Trade Center thing was a conspiracy. I'd probably add in there that you probably think the Holocaust was a lie, and I bet you think the US never landed on the moon either, huh? :D

That's about the jist of what I get from your post.

-S

Actually Subman, given your previous rants and posts, he seems more reasonable than you.

You go for too many assumptions. You were ready to pounce the minute you read the name "Iran". You seem to be the opportunistic one here. Brag brings up several good points. I especially like the one about the WMD's. Bush has made too many wild claims about these people. He told us Saddam had WMD's. No WMD's to be found. He told us Iran was making nuclear weapons. Nuclear program has been offline since 2003. He told us Iran was training insurgents. Really? Did the same sources on the last two things give you this story, too? All the more reason why we should follow you without question like the good little patriotic citizens we are...:roll: :rotfl:

He's just looking for war, and so was Cheney, though Cheney always wanted a Middle-Eastern conflict since Old Man Bush took power (though OMB has more sense than his son; Cheney moved in on Bush, Jr. and played him like a violin).

[Wreford-Brown]

[quote=Stealth Hunter]He told us Saddam had WMD's. No WMD's to be found.[quote]

If you want to kill a million people with conventional weapons you need a huge armoury to hide them in. If you want to kill a million people with WMDs you may only need a few barrels, and there's a lot of desert to hide a few barrels in.

If Saddam had WMDs then we may never find them, and in 50 years when the barrels have deteriorated enough to start leaking, no-one in the West is likely to care about a few dead bedouin, even if we find out.

[Trex]

Without getting into the US administration's desires for war, or lack of them, there are some curiously overlooked facts.

1. Saddam did have a huge WMD programme pre-Gulf One. Chemical, nukes, biologicals - the works. He spent untold billions developing the abilty to spread mass death around his region.

2. He had repeated;y used them both in war and in crushing internal dissent. This was not a man reluctant to use a last-ditch weapon.

3. His cooperation with agencies such as the IAEA was, let us say, less than forthcoming. He lied, he hid, he insisted that his people had to be questioned with his secret police present, he seized discovered documents and returned them with chunks cut out. Inspectors were denied access to huge facilities across the country under the excuse that they were 'presidential palaces'.

4. Although it appears that the Iraqis did in fact destroy their WMD stock, they were far less than forthcoming WRT providing proof of this.

5. The Iraqis had definitely continued to work on long-range missiles, specifically banned under the Gulf One treaty and which, given their high CEP, were best suited for delivery of WMD.

All in all, a reasonable man might take Saddam's behaviour as that of a man trying very hard to hide something.

The irony of Saddam's fall is that he could have - at any time up to the day before the USA moved in - stopped the whole thing by simply saying, "OK, we have changed our minds. Sorry for the previous problems. Come on in now and look for yourselves. Your inspectors can go anywhere. We will provide the records you want. You can have unrestricted access to our scientists. We have nothing to hide and are willing to prove it. How can we help you?" Faced with that (and of course real subsequent cooperation), the legs would have been cut out from under even the most rabid Saddam-hater in Washington. Instead, he stonewalled, dodged, lied - and died.

Not much sympathy for Saddam from this end. He was a vampire and deserved everything he got. It's just a pity Washington didn't do much thinking about what had to happen post-Saddam before they launched. Another Marshall Plan and Iraq could have been an R&R choice for tired Yank troops. And it would have cost far less than the war.

[Tchocky]

The irony of Saddam's fall is that he could have - at any time up to the day before the USA moved in - stopped the whole thing by simply saying, "OK, we have changed our minds. Sorry for the previous problems. Come on in now and look for yourselves. Your inspectors can go anywhere. We will provide the records you want. You can have unrestricted access to our scientists. We have nothing to hide and are willing to prove it. How can we help you?" Faced with that (and of course real subsequent cooperation), the legs would have been cut out from under even the most rabid Saddam-hater in Washington. Instead, he stonewalled, dodged, lied - and died.
I'm not sure on this one.
What we've found out about the coercive intelligence regime in Washington leading up to the war leads me to believe that it was going to happen one way or the other.
Also, the amount of people in the run-up to the war saying there ain't any weapons, tells me that the whole idea of WMD was a pretext, an excuse. You can't go to war without public support, so you run around keeping the same couple of phrases really close together, "saddam....9/11.....al-qaeda". Overt stating isn't required.

[mrbeast]

Saddam's strategy was a gamble. By keeping the world guessing about his WMD capabilities; by obstructing the inspectors, wheeling out the odd Al Hussain(?) missile infront of the cameras every now and then; he managed to keep his main opponant Iran in check. As Iraq's military was fatally weakened by the Gulf War, WMD capapbilities were all that was preventing Iranian domination. Saddam calculated that the US and her allies would not be stupid enough to remove him as this would hand Iran control of the gulf on a plate.

Unfortunately for Saddam, he had no idea who he was dealing with. G W Bush and the neocon agenda were not like the elder Bush he'd dealt with before.

If the inspectors had been able to visit and see everything they wanted I suspect that they would have discovered the cupboard was bare afterall.

[bradclark1]

It's just a pity Washington didn't do much thinking about what had to happen post-Saddam before they launched. Another Marshall Plan and Iraq could have been an R&R choice for tired Yank troops. And it would have cost far less than the war.
Are you sure about that? Yes we sure as hell could have done a lot better than nothing after post Saddam but what we have today would have happened anyway. Our stupid inability to think ahead and the arrogant assumption that we would be seen as heroes by all Iraqi's just accelerated the problem. We just put a blindlfold on and jumped in with one foot. Jumping blind and one footed will always hurt when you land and fall.

[Trex]

I'm not sure on this one.
What we've found out about the coercive intelligence regime in Washington leading up to the war leads me to believe that it was going to happen one way or the other.
Also, the amount of people in the run-up to the war saying there ain't any weapons, tells me that the whole idea of WMD was a pretext, an excuse. You can't go to war without public support, so you run around keeping the same couple of phrases really close together, "saddam....9/11.....al-qaeda". Overt stating isn't required.
That is however my point. Regardless of what spin was or was not happening inside Washington, had Saddam or his UN ambassador publicly announced (and followed through on) an open-door policy for the inpections, public support for the invasion would have been lower than whale poop. The best defence against darkness is light, after all. Even the hottest hawks could not have surmounted that one, I suspect.

mrbeast has a good point. Saddam, not for the first time, but just about for the last time, misjudged the consequences of his actions. Of course, any tyranny has to keep an iron grip on its own people or risk a coup or revolution; the open-door policy might have been seen as a sign of weakness.

Bottom line - good riddance to him.

[Trex]

It's just a pity Washington didn't do much thinking about what had to happen post-Saddam before they launched. Another Marshall Plan and Iraq could have been an R&R choice for tired Yank troops. And it would have cost far less than the war.
Are you sure about that? Yes we sure as hell could have done a lot better than nothing after post Saddam but what we have today would have happened anyway. Our stupid inability to think ahead and the arrogant assumption that we would be seen as heroes by all Iraqi's just accelerated the problem. We just put a blindlfold on and jumped in with one foot. Jumping blind and one footed will always hurt when you land and fall.
When it comes to winning conventional wars, nobody can match the USA. That is a given. But afterwards? My admiration drops off rather steeply, sorry.

It was clear as the fighting ceased that there was in most circles in Iraq a lot of relief that the monster was gone. People can accept a lot of short-term hardship in return for freedom, but the masses forget pretty quickly. From what I have read (and I will admit that I was not there), public opinion started dropping when it became clear that their lives were not going to improve anytime soon. Had the coalition moved immediately (with a plan as detailed as the invasion op plan) to get power back on, rebuild bridges, restore communications, restock hospitals, provide school supplies, etc, the average Iraqi would have been able to draw a good conclusion about the foreign invaders. Had there been a simple, clearly-stated roadmap, with firm deadlines, for the foreign troops to leave, it would have done much to diffuse the feeling that the USA were only there to seize Iraq's oil. Had the requirement for substantial security forces in Iraq to deal with the inevitable chaos been agreed to by the politicians (the generals seem to have seen it), then either there would have been far more coalition troops to keep intial order or else segments of the existing Iraqi army might have been maintained. Had funding been provided to the various minority churches for refurbishing their temples and shines, it would have brought enormous good will.

This sort of thing is not rocket science. I and a friend discussed it as the war was just starting. Truman's Marshall Plan kept Europe from going communist after WW2; a repeat would have done much to prevent the problems we see now. There are of course never any guarantees, but it was the best card in their hand - and they did not play it.

But then governments rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

[August]

This sort of thing is not rocket science. I and a friend discussed it as the war was just starting. Truman's Marshall Plan kept Europe from going communist after WW2; a repeat would have done much to prevent the problems we see now. There are of course never any guarantees, but it was the best card in their hand - and they did not play it.
"Trumans" Marshall plan? :lol:

IIRC it took George Marshall three entire years after the end of WW2 to finally get Truman to agree to that plan and then only after thousands had frozen to death in their own homes due to lack of fuel.

But I believe you're right. Once it got off the ground the Marshall plan did help a lot, however it also depended on the citizens of those countries recieving aid, especially Germany, to step up and do most of the recovery themselves. This didn't happen all that much in Iraq where in spite of similar aid programs the population as far as i can tell basically sat back and expected it all to be done for them while they engaged in settling old scores with their neighbors.

IMO what was needed in immediate post war Iraq was not a Marshall plan but rather
a period of martial law backed up by a huge military presence comparable to the Allied armies total and complete occupation of Germany in the first three years after the war ended.

[Skybird]

It's just a pity Washington didn't do much thinking about what had to happen post-Saddam before they launched. Another Marshall Plan and Iraq could have been an R&R choice for tired Yank troops. And it would have cost far less than the war.
Are you sure about that? Yes we sure as hell could have done a lot better than nothing after post Saddam but what we have today would have happened anyway. Our stupid inability to think ahead and the arrogant assumption that we would be seen as heroes by all Iraqi's just accelerated the problem. We just put a blindlfold on and jumped in with one foot. Jumping blind and one footed will always hurt when you land and fall.
When it comes to winning conventional wars, nobody can match the USA. That is a given. But afterwards? My admiration drops off rather steeply, sorry.

It was clear as the fighting ceased that there was in most circles in Iraq a lot of relief that the monster was gone. People can accept a lot of short-term hardship in return for freedom, but the masses forget pretty quickly. From what I have read (and I will admit that I was not there), public opinion started dropping when it became clear that their lives were not going to improve anytime soon. Had the coalition moved immediately (with a plan as detailed as the invasion op plan) to get power back on, rebuild bridges, restore communications, restock hospitals, provide school supplies, etc, the average Iraqi would have been able to draw a good conclusion about the foreign invaders. Had there been a simple, clearly-stated roadmap, with firm deadlines, for the foreign troops to leave, it would have done much to diffuse the feeling that the USA were only there to seize Iraq's oil. Had the requirement for substantial security forces in Iraq to deal with the inevitable chaos been agreed to by the politicians (the generals seem to have seen it), then either there would have been far more coalition troops to keep intial order or else segments of the existing Iraqi army might have been maintained. Had funding been provided to the various minority churches for refurbishing their temples and shines, it would have brought enormous good will.

This sort of thing is not rocket science. I and a friend discussed it as the war was just starting. Truman's Marshall Plan kept Europe from going communist after WW2; a repeat would have done much to prevent the problems we see now. There are of course never any guarantees, but it was the best card in their hand - and they did not play it.

But then governments rarely miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Careful with Marshal plan comparisons Europe vs middle East. when the US had won in Europe, they nevertheless had to deal with people a.) being totally down to the ground and defeated and depleted of any will to carry on, and b.) having grown up in a very similiar cultural society and history - after all, America shares more with Europe than with any other part of the world. In Japan, it was condition a.) fulfilled. but in Iraq, neither there was a people that was totally flattened on the ground, nor was raised in a cultural context that was close and familiar to that of the West. And after all, neither the US nor the West are seen as the guardians of the holy grail in the middle East anyway.

You can cream them with sugar and gold from head to toe, and you will still be considered to be a foreigner, a stranger, an outsider, and often: an infidel, because it is a Westerner creaming them. Not to mention that you (American, l I assume) are a close ally and supporter of Israel.

Comparison between Iraq and postwar-Germany, -europe and - Japan do not work and did not work from the beginning.

[bradclark1]

IMO what was needed in immediate post war Iraq was not a Marshall plan but rather a period of martial law backed up by a huge military presence comparable to the Allied armies total and complete occupation of Germany in the first three years after the war ended.
Yep! That would have been the right way if we were going to do it. :yep:

[Stealth Hunter]

[quote=Stealth Hunter]He told us Saddam had WMD's. No WMD's to be found.[quote]

If you want to kill a million people with conventional weapons you need a huge armoury to hide them in. If you want to kill a million people with WMDs you may only need a few barrels, and there's a lot of desert to hide a few barrels in.

If Saddam had WMDs then we may never find them, and in 50 years when the barrels have deteriorated enough to start leaking, no-one in the West is likely to care about a few dead bedouin, even if we find out.

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.

[SUBMAN1]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S

[August]

Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.

Right. All those dead Kurds in Halajba died of natural causes as did several thousand of your countrymen during the Iran/Iraq war? You know that once a regime like that gets WMD they always have the capability to create more whenever they need it. Know-how is everything, especially in chemical weapons where building up stockpiles can be as easy as raiding a pool cleaner supply house.

Coupled with Saddam himself pushing the idea there's nobody that can honestly say that those "WMD's never existed" even today, but most importantly before the war without the advantages of hindsight.

[Wreford-Brown]

There's also a deep seated misunderstanding of the Iraqi ethos. Iraq is not a country, it's a group of tribes who do not understand the Western meaning of democracy. If you tell an average Iraqi that he can vote, he'll go to his tribal leader and ask who he should vote for. This is not democracy as we understand it in the West.

The closest analogy I've been able to come up with is a group of football supporters. Everyone support their own team (tribe) and will fight anyone who supports another tribe to increase the strength of their own. If another tribe tries to muscle in on your territory, you combine with your nearest neighbour (that you were fighting yesterday!) to kick out the interloper. The main difference is that these tribes are fighting with modern automatic weapons and mortars. In order to bring together the tribes you need either a very strong, charismatic leader or a brutal one. Saddam was one of the latter. The tribes don't care about the 'nation' of Iraq, all they want is to improve their own tribal power.

The tribes also don't care about national boundaries. There are tribes that are split across all Iraqi borders and they get free passage across the borders. It should therefore come as no surprise that other 'nations' are also allegedly fighting in Iraq. In fact, there's a border post 3km inside Iraq near Al-Amarah. It's an Iranian border post. It always has been Iranian, the Iraqis know it's Iranian and the Iranian know it's Iranian - the only reason that it's inside Iraq is because of some arbitrary border drawn on a US produced map, much as the old colonial powers tried to do in Africa.

The Vietnam war was started due to the fear of a 'Domino Effect' of communism through the Far East. Looking at this from the other side, should they be worried about a Domino Effect of democracy through the Middle East?

[Platapus]

Iran maintains contacts with all factions in Iraq including the Greenzoners. They are the ones who negotiated the cease fire in Basra. To which Maliki reps traveled to Qum for the talks.

This guy sounds like a White House spinner.

When it comes to patrol boats, Iran constantly patrols along it's coastline and right up to the middle of the Straits of Hormuz. You can't navigate through the area without seeing them on a daily basis.

We have seen an enourmous ammount of exageration about Iran by the present administration and a few camp followers. These are the same people who invented the WMD in Iraq -- their credibility is totally bankrupt.I guess you also believe that the World Trade Center thing was a conspiracy. I'd probably add in there that you probably think the Holocaust was a lie, and I bet you think the US never landed on the moon either, huh? :D

That's about the jist of what I get from your post.

-S

Then I respectfully think you need to work on your reading comprehension.

It is ok for you to have a different opinion, but so does he.

[Platapus]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S


I believe it was Herr Rumsfield, Minister of Propaganda, who said "we know where they are". Not bush.

[Brag]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S


I believe it was Herr Rumsfield, Minister of Propaganda, who said "we know where they are". Not bush.

If it wasn't so tragic, it all belongs in a comedy :88)

[Trex]

Skybird, August,

There are indeed different versions of whose idea the Plan was. From my readings, I lean towards Truman, but I acknowledge others differ. In any case, it was my intent to mean the Marshall Plan which took place during the Truman administration.

Regardless of the differences between 1945 and now, there are still many similarities. The Iraqi infrastructure had been systematically targeted by air strikes, leaving a large slice of the population without clean water, electricity, a satisfactory transport net, telephones, etc. By some accounts the hospitals and medical system had been crippled by a long embargo (again, I wasn’t there and there is little doubt that this last was at least in part due to Saddam himself, but the important point is that there were problems). All in all, the basics of life had been pretty seriously degraded. By some accounts, this situation has not even yet been completely resolved. It’s pretty hard to be enthusiastic about anything when you are shivering in the dark.

I think that spending a relatively minor amount (compared to the cost of the war to date), in a timely fashion, starting right now, to get the electrical grid up and running, restore bridges and roads, fix water and sewage treatment plants, get hospitals operating as they should – these things would have been perceived by the Iraqis as positive. The message should have been that: 1) We came here to get rid of Saddam. We did that and we are now going to leave as soon as possible to allow you to get on with your lives in whatever manner you decide. 2) We are, before we leave, going to make Iraq a better place in which to live buy getting the country back on its feet. 3) Even after we are gone, we hope to remain friends of the Iraqi people.

Such a move, despite all the cultural differences, would have made a big difference in how the average Iraqi saw the coalition and its presence.

There is no argument whatever that there should have been far more attention paid to keeping the peace in liberated areas, but that is but one piece of the puzzle. Rebuilding the country was critical, and the coalition muffed it.

[joegrundman]

Rebuilding the country was critical, and the coalition muffed it.

And that, i'm afraid, is the unforgiveable nub of the matter.

For some the reasons and the rationals were critical, fair enough. For me it was too opaque, and unclear wether it was intrinsically right or wrong. It was never all about the WMD. It was obvious at the time that when we said we have "proof" we meant we had "an educated guess". (And it is logically provable that it was only a guess)

When Scott Ritter said the inspections had dismantled the systems he was laughed at and subjected to a campaign to discredit him. When the Iraqis ponied up the full description of the elimination of the weapons program a couple of weeks before the attack, it was also laughed at and dismissed because of course the whole thing was not really all about the WMD, so why would we stop, or even pause the timetable because of that?

So it was a gamble on Bush's part (the buck stops there, right?). When you gamble and lose, a man pays his debt. I expect had the WMD been there to find, he would have claimed all the rewards he could.

But I don't care about all that. For me the proof of the pudding was in the eating. Was Iraq going to be better, was the middle east going to be better? Was Britain going to be associated with foresight and competence, and thereby have an improved standing in the world?

When it became completely obvious that all post-war planning had been consigned to the department of wishful thinking, we really showed the world who we are (I'm British and this goes triple for Americans), and you Americans really showed everyone what it means to tie your fate to the success of American military adventurism circa early twentyfirst century.

And on this matter, I'm deeply, deeply p!$$ed off. I incurred lots of stress among my friends and family for my pro-war stance, and here we are 5 years later with every cycle of relative promise being loudly and constantly hoorayed by resident right-wingers before they turn around and start blaming the Iranians (yes, blaming your publicly announced enemy!) for their own lack of success. Boy, times must be bad when that represents your best argumentative line of defense.

My God! The American leaders are the guys that sit in the same chairs as those who led the Free World in WW2 and then led the incredible reconstruction after that awesome cataclysm - and look at them. A bunch of incompetent lightweights, snivellers who exploit weasel words and a highly partisan fanbase to try at any cost to portray folly as brilliance.

And do you know what really ticks me off the most?

I have been left with the impression that the war on terror has been since 2002 a single front in the real war against the American left, like i should give a cr4p about that.

And this is what i supported British involvment in back in 2003, apparently. Can't say i'll encourage us to do anything like it again, anytime soon.

[Trex]

We never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity...

[Stealth Hunter]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S

Then I'm afraid your argument is pointless. No proof shoots your argument down right there. Just you trying to defend the President and his reign of incompetence.

Right. All those dead Kurds in Halajba died of natural causes as did several thousand of your countrymen during the Iran/Iraq war?

Fifteen to twenty-five years ago, yes. They existed. Five years ago, there's no evidence that they did. Quite possible, but given the fact that none were ever found, there's no evidence that Saddam made any more. That's my argument here: there's no concrete evidence that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing WMD's around the time the United States declared war on his country and there's no proof that he had any, either.

Until I am shown evidence of WMD's in Saddam's possession five years ago (when Bush said he had them and when we went to war), then they don't exist and our President tacks yet another lie up on his wall.

[Stealth Hunter]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S


I believe it was Herr Rumsfield, Minister of Propaganda, who said "we know where they are". Not bush.

Thank you, Platapus. Bit of a brain-fart on my part.

[XabbaRus]

We never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity...
to attack the knowns, the known knowns, some known unknowns as well as the unknown knowns. The big problem are the unknown unknowns.

[nikimcbee]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S


I believe it was Herr Rumsfield, Minister of Propaganda, who said "we know where they are". Not bush.

If it wasn't so tragic, it all belongs in a comedy :88)

I think we'll turn it into a musical set to the music of ABBA or something.:up:

[nikimcbee]

I seem to recall that Bush knew their exact location, and expressed it in his speech about going to war with Iraq. Until we find proof, these WMD's never existed.You recall wrong. I never heard that. Maybe in your dreams you heard that! :D All the speeches are on youtube somewhere, so listen to them. I remeber Bush saying that they will find them, but its going to take time to search. Well, the damn Israelies got to it first and destroyed the party in Syria last year.

-S


I believe it was Herr Rumsfield, Minister of Propaganda, who said "we know where they are". Not bush.

The thing that makes me mad, is all of the petty internal fighting at the beginning of the war, the "I'm going to be incharge syndrome."

[AkbarGulag]

I think we'll turn it into a musical set to the music of ABBA or something.:up:

Our officers used to play that full noise to get us out of our cots at 5am in -15c temperatures, worked every time :D

I would not believe ANYTHING put forward by the current US administration. Iran does this, Iran does that blah blah. George W only wanted to get rid of Sadam so he was the sole tyrant :p

So when are the Nuclear Inspectors going in to Israel to verify their atomic programme for dismantling? Also, what forces will the US use to impose sanctions on Israel, or what plans for 'Regime' change is there?

Sorry if this sounds fairly blinkered, but with the amount of dis-information around these days, coupled with the blatant application of values to suit,I fear I may have come down with some sort of propoganda fatigue.

My parents once told me the story of 'The boy who cried wolf'. I'm sure there was a message in there somewhere.

[Trex]

AkbarGulag - How in H did you manage to twist this around to bring in Israel again?

[SUBMAN1]

Then I'm afraid your argument is pointless. No proof shoots your argument down right there. Just you trying to defend the President and his reign of incompetence.

The news on this one is not over yet - http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1207486215610&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

-S

[Stealth Hunter]

And that really doesn't prove a lot given the fact that the Syrians agreed to testify that he'd transferred them there. Their word is meaningless. For all we know, they could have been paid to say it to make Bush's legacy improve by a bit. Hell, after all he's done in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if he got them to agree to testify this point.

[August]

Fifteen to twenty-five years ago, yes. They existed. Five years ago, there's no evidence that they did. Quite possible, but given the fact that none were ever found, there's no evidence that Saddam made any more. That's my argument here: there's no concrete evidence that Saddam Hussein was manufacturing WMD's around the time the United States declared war on his country and there's no proof that he had any, either.

Until I am shown evidence of WMD's in Saddam's possession five years ago (when Bush said he had them and when we went to war), then they don't exist and our President tacks yet another lie up on his wall.

Whatever SH. I understand that you hate teh Bush enough to let it cloud your judgement, otherwise you'd at least admit there's a difference between lying and being mistaken.

Remember Bush didn't say anything that his predecessors and members of Congress hadn't also been saying for over a decade. What makes his words a lie and theirs just being wrong?

The bottom line here is that 5 years ago Saddam still had the experience, the facilities and the experts to turn out WMD. Whether he was and in what quantities is immaterial. He'd already proved that he would use them against both neighboring countries as well as his own people, for the previous decade he'd gone out of his way to make the world think he still had them, and it was quite reasonable to assume that he'd take revenge on the US for his drubbing in Kuwait when the chance presented itself.

That was and is good enough for me. As bad of a mess as Iraq might be now it is still preferable to having left Saddam in power.

[Stealth Hunter]

I do hate Bush, and I will admit that it has clouded my judgement in the past, but you still fail to have shown me any proof. The end.

[SUBMAN1]

I do hate Bush, and I will admit that it has clouded my judgement in the past, but you still fail to have shown me any proof. The end.And still is clouding your judegment obviously. Not too fond of the man myself, but I could care less what he says, WMD's existed in Iraq whether the gov tells me or not. And, they just didn't disappear.

What is this about Syria anyway? They have been trying to hide this fact for years, so have you heard something?

Last but not least, check out the Scooter Libby trial. Some declassified docs for that trial will tell you that Bush actually believed the Negerian story and why. What you do know is Saddam was trying to trade something there, we know that for sure. If you analyze Nigeria, what is the only thing they have to trade that anyone wants? Figure it out. You don't need the CIA to tell you this one.

-S

[Trex]

What Nigeria has that everybody wants is oil and lots of it - sweet crude so pure that some of it can be burned in diesel engines right out of the ground. Nigeria is one of the world's leading oil producers.

As to 'proof', there is very rarely complete, solid, undeniable, concrete 'proof' in intelligence. In the real world, you are faced with probabilities, indicators, suggestions and interpretations. Much judgement is required to put it all together to make this info into useful data. Much conflicting information is present, some of it coincidental, some of it mistaken, some of it deliberately false. Errors are easy and, worse, tend to perpetuate one another, ie one error leads to more, each of which leads to still more...

The analogy I like best is one of being before a huge table, poorly lit, that is covered with hundreds and hundred of jigsaw puzzles dumped on it and mixed together. The boxes are gone, so you don't know what the puzzles are supposed to look like. To make matters more interesting, many of the pieces have been duplicated and many more are missing or out of sight. From that, you are expected to produce - in timely fashion - comprehensible pictures.

[SUBMAN1]

Nigeria may have oil, but since Saddam had plenty of his own, what else is there? Oil is definitely not what Saddam was after.

-S

[Trex]

Subman - good question. We had people talking about Nigeria and the only thing there is oil. The claim made by the US and Britain was that Iraq was buying yellowcake from Niger, which is a totally different country.

[SUBMAN1]

I could have my countries wrong. Let me find that Libby case. It opens up some previously classified docs.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

It was Niger. Here are the declassified docs from Scooter Libby's trial:

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/6956/n1jj3.gif
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/4559/n2kh7.gif

Full transcript here:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan23/DX71.pdf

Basically, Bush wasn't lying.

-S

[joegrundman]

IIRC, that intel came from Britain.

Sure why wouldn't Bush want to believe it? As if he were a little boy, it reinforced what he wanted to believe. But the CIA advised him strongly against using it as part of his formal causus beli because of deep misgivings about the validity of the intelligence.

These misgivings were deep enough that Britain also dropped the allegations from our list of complaints.

But nevermind, in the document you cite, it comes no further than alleging that an Iraqi delegation was wanting to ask about the possibliity of trade, possibly involving getting yellowcake from Niger - and failing to even get a hearing.

Which is to confirm that the pariah status, weapons inspections and sanctions were doing their job and had rendered Iraq's ability to pursue WMD impossible.

My conclusion: This is yet another pathetic and unmanly attempt by Bush and his groupies at damage limitation, and an attempt to present lies, foolhardiness and wishful thinking as fact, responsibility and determination. Frankly I'm amazed you right wing fanboys are still buying this stuff, but my suspicion is this little charade is for you anyway, most other people long ago stopped taking anything that comes out of these people's mouths as credible.

[Platapus]

Technically I have to agree with Subman.

Bush did not lie. Of course this depends on your definition of lying.

The Bush administration selectively "cherry-picked" intel that supported his agenda

The Bush administration selectively excluded intel that refuted his agenda

The Bush administration represented inferences that supported his agenda with a level of credibility and confidence that it did not deserve (there is a big difference between we believe he has WMD and "we know where they are")

The Bush administration did not offer up opposing hypotheses for consideration. (there was in fact considerable dissent in not only the US intel but in the UK intel. The argument that "all the intelligence agencies agreed" is not correct)

The Bush administration spun their agenda to both the congress and the American people and both were too stupid and lazy to read the open source documents. ( I can excuse the American public as they have a long history of ignorance concerning international policy, but I still can not forgive congress. It was their job to academically and intellectually challenge the Bush administrations assertions.) My opinion: Congress betrayed the American citizens and our country by not challenging and verifying the assertions of the Executive Branch of the government before rendering a decision. That's the whole purpose of the checks and balances concept of our government.

The Bush administration constructed very carefully created speeches designed to lead the audience into making their own inferences. (Bush never said that Iraq was linked to 911, but he sure did imply that by linking them together in his speeches). This is a well known technique of manipulation called Association.

So did Bush lie? Probably not if you define lying as the total fabrication of information.

Did Bush tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Probably not.

We have to remember that the Bush administration are not analysts, they are politicians. They had an agenda they wanted to implement. As George Tenant said, selling this to the American people would be a "slam dunk".

And it was. :nope:

[Tchocky]

The Bush administration spun their agenda to both the congress and the American people and both were too stupid and lazy to read the open source documents. ( I can excuse the American public as they have a long history of ignorance concerning international policy, but I still can not forgive congress. It was their job to academically and intellectually challenge the Bush administrations assertions.) My opinion: Congress betrayed the American citizens and our country by not challenging and verifying the assertions of the Executive Branch of the government before rendering a decision. That's the whole purpose of the checks and balances concept of our government.
That can be blamed on a combination of political anxiety on the part of COngress and threatening posturing on the part of the Executive.
Linking Al-Qaeda and Iraq was part of a larger PR effort that cast any dissent, be it public or political, as anti-American, and, haeven forfend, unwilling to stand up for those who died on 9/11. No politician then or today would go against a populace whipped up by belligerent patriotism and crippling fear.

I wouldnt say that Bush lied per se, it's too hard to to pin down to a disconnect. Bull**** works so much better.

[bradclark1]

I wouldnt say that Bush lied per se, it's too hard to to pin down to a disconnect. Bull**** works so much better.

white lie

NOUN:
An often trivial, diplomatic or well-intentioned untruth.

[Zayphod]

The irony of Saddam's fall is that he could have - at any time up to the day before the USA moved in - stopped the whole thing by simply saying, "OK, we have changed our minds. Sorry for the previous problems. Come on in now and look for yourselves. Your inspectors can go anywhere. We will provide the records you want. You can have unrestricted access to our scientists. We have nothing to hide and are willing to prove it. How can we help you?" Faced with that (and of course real subsequent cooperation), the legs would have been cut out from under even the most rabid Saddam-hater in Washington. Instead, he stonewalled, dodged, lied - and died.

As I put it earlier, he was playing poker with a guy bent on upsetting the card table and call his bluff with a hail of gunfire.

He just didn't know when to fold.

[Tchocky]

When thinking about those days in February/March 2003, I like to read over Baudrillard.
Tough & gnarly, but I think his analysis, written less than a fortnight before the war, has been borne out in practice.

"Evil" is what arrives without prevention, and therefore without the possibility of prevention. It is, of course, the case with September 11. It is precisely that event that is radically opposed to the nonevent of the war. September 11 is an impossible and unimaginable event. It is carried out even before being itself possible (even disaster films did not anticipate it; on the contrary, they exhausted the imaginary possibility of such an event). It is about the extreme unforeseeable (where one finds a paradox according to which a thing does not become possible until only after it has taken place).
The difference is complete with the current war, which, by contrast, has been envisaged, programmed, and anticipated so much that it does not even need to take place. And even if it takes place in "reality," it will already have virtually taken place and thus it will not be an event. Here, reality is a virtual horizon. This take-over by the virtual is further reinforced by the fact that the announced war is like the double, the clone of the first Gulf war (just like Bush is his father's clone). The crucial event has thus been bracketed by two cloned events.
One can understand better from this perspective how this current war is a substitute event, a ghost event, and a puppet [fantoche] event bearing the image of Saddam. This is an immense mystification -- for the Americans themselves. With September 11 a gigantic task of contraception developed at the same time as a process of mourning. The idea was to ensure that September 11 had, in fact, not taken place, using the same principle of prevention, but this time retrospectively. An endeavor without hope or end.


http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=494

[Trex]

The key problem is that there is a real, present and serious danger to the western world and our belief that the state is subservient to, and owned by, the individual. There are people out there who hate us and our way of living not because of anything we have done, but simply because we exist and who will do anything and everything possible to kill us and destroy our society. Sadly, this fact has been hidden in rhetoric, lost in political bafflegab and used by senior people - who should bloody well have known better! - to serve their own shabby political ends. We are so lost in the posturing, the 'isms' and the politics that we have lost sight of what is looming in the darkness outside.

It was Gibbon, I think, that concluded that Rome did not fall because of a shortage of people willing to die for the Empire. Even in the last desperate days there was never a shortage of men willing to do that. No, he concluded, Rome fell in the end because of a lack of people willing to live for Rome - and that takes an entirely different order of courage.

In the end, we shall get our just desserts.