Do You Believe The United States Was Just To Go To War With Iraq?

[Stealth Hunter]

No. Although Saddam was a horrible person, and his sons were no better, he had nothing to do with terrorism. In fact, he kept them out with all his might. He hated terrorists. Then when he was removed, the terrorists began to flood into the country since border protection was at a cease point towards the "end" of operations by the American military. This new weak government they have has shown incompetence, might I add, time and time again at dealing with the terrorist problem (not to mention, securing their country's border). Plus, American military operations there seem to have disturbed the Middle-East's vibe and have displayed negative effects on the civilians living in Iraq (mainly being the high levels of collateral damage that were taking place at one point, including the large number of civilian and enforcer casualties).

[Skybird]

No. All that was given as justification for the war, were no reasons that held their ground, but changing excuses afterwards.

Also, there have been voiced "reasons" that decribed official war goals, and reasons that lied under the surface and were the real reasons. But none of these given mission objectives were achieved, not the idealistic ones and not the selfish ones. That'S what files as a lost war, no matter how the engagement plays out in the forseeable future: objective achieved or not - this is what defines success or failure. Instead, the strategical situation of the Us has been massively damaged, and beyond recover. It is not feared anymore, the war is not autonomously supported by the american taxpayer, the war has casued follow-up costs to the american society that are calculated in the range between 3 and 5 trillion dollars, which is a very high mortgage for the young generation having to live with it and for foreign creditors, and most important, any historian will agree with me: the nimbus of being undefeatable, by which whole empires lasted for centuries ebentually, is gone.Vietnam was only a loss of face, without further damage to the strategical position. But Iraq is a massive loss of strategic positon and power. Iraq is multiple times worse as Vietnam. One swallow does not make a summer. One battle won does not win you a war.

"You, Hannibal, know how to gain a victory; you do not know how to use it." (Maharbal)

[Sailor Steve]

No. I thought from the start that we should have focused on Afghanistan and Bin Laden.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

No. I thought from the start that we should have focused on Afghanistan and Bin Laden.

My talking. But Afghanistan was a war of need, Iraq was a long preplanned war of choice, so...

[Jimbuna]

After what happened in Kuwait, I don't think the US had much choice. There must have been enormous pressure applied for years after by the Saudis for a visible sign of American committment towards their protection.

The Gulf is such an important part of the world to the west because of it's oil, I always thought it would be Iran who was attacked/invaded.

What is dubious is the reasons/trigger behind the invasion. I never believed they had WMD......and who would/could have foreseen the massive cost being paid now, so long after Saddams downfall.

[GlobalExplorer]

No. Though Saddam was a dictator the US did not justify their action and rushed the decision. In the end it is not even clear what the aim was.

Secondly they payed no heed to the complexities of the region - they still dream of a democratic Iraq when it looks rather as if the post state will disintegrate without Saddam, very much like Yugoslavia did after Tito.

To the defense of the US it must be said that most similar post-WWI constructs eventually disintegrated (Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, even the USSR), so it is maybe unavoidable.

Even Belgium (which is post-Napoleonic artificial construct) is on the brink of falling apart.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

...and who would/could have foreseen the massive cost being paid now, so long after Saddams downfall.

Not only was it forseen by many, many people to whom the WH did not payed any attention, I would even say its unavoidable complications in the aftermath of the field battle summer 2003 were so obvious that it all had to be forseen. By rejecting these considerations, the WH did only illustrate it'S incompetence and lacking understanding of the situation it messed around with, which may come as part of the tradition that the Us foreign policy regarding the ME since a very long time is a mess and tumbles around blindly without any realistic orientation. Even here in the forum the situation you got in Iraq was pretty much and en detail predicted by people - by me, but not only by me but others as well. What they got in return was aggressive attack, lies and offendings of being accused of even desiring by heart and mind that there would be american failure. but seeing evil developing is not the same like wishing it to develope. It is more about realistic perception of a given situation. and the WH was megalomaniac, it was insane, and it was drunk of it'S own self-declared power that it shamelessly exaggerated.

It could have been known in advance. But the WH did not wish to know it in advance, and so ignored all the warnings, for it really wanted this war. As it turned out, the WH was totaly wrong, and the "doomsday prophets", the "sky-is-falling-callers", the "socialists" and "anti-americans", the "unpatriotic lefties", the "whiners" and the "hypercautious cowards" were right with their projections.

what we will see at some point after the presidential elections end of this year is that all those people I just mentioned above will be declared to be responsible for having turned Iraq into a failure. That will mean the climax of this absurd grotesquerie.

Well, everybody knows what happened to Kassandra warning of the doom coming. She was murdered by those she warned. What was coming next was the Greek armada - end of story.

[Von Tonner]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

After what happened in Kuwait, I don't think the US had much choice. There must have been enormous pressure applied for years after by the Saudis for a visible sign of American committment towards their protection.

I have to agree. We all know now that there were no WMD. But, and this is the point, Saddam was a major threat to the stability in the region. He had attacked every single neighbour he had including ethnic groups WITHIN his own country. Therefore, after Kuwait one could not simply leave things be.

Maybe the first big mistake was not to take out Saddam in the first Gulf War with the least amount of collateral damage to the country and its citizens. Not having achieved that but merely pushing him back accross the border it was always going to be a festering wound needing lancing at some later stage and at a much larger cost.

[Skybird]

I have to agree. We all know now that there were no WMD. But, and this is the point, Saddam was a major threat to the stability in the region. He had attacked every single neighbour he had including ethnic groups WITHIN his own country. Therefore, after Kuwait one could not simply leave things be.

At the time of 2003, Saddam was a beast with all his teeth already having been pulled. He was no thread beyond the borders of Iraq.

Maybe the first big mistake was not to take out Saddam in the first Gulf War with the least amount of collateral damage to the country and its citizens. Not having achieved that but merely pushing him back accross the border it was always going to be a festering wound needing lancing at some later stage and at a much larger cost.

On this I agree, 1991 was a job not finished - but intentionally not finished. But again, between 1991 and 2003 Saddam had been limited to be a teethles beast, or better: an irritation. He could roar, but he could not bite. Considering the massive cost in money, in lives being claimed, instability spread, growing of Iranian influence, weakening of amweria'S strategic psotion, removing him was not worth it - not at these ridiculously high costs. And why removing this dicatator, if america happily made business and supported so many other tryranies to it's intersts in South america, Africa and Asia in the years since WWII? Becasue "he may have been a bloddy bastard, but his doom was that he no longer was our bloody bastard?"

So far there has been no compensation and no payoff for America for Iraq 2003-2005. Even the desired control of the oil flow has only partially been acchieved, and does not compare to the orioginal intentions. Not to mention that the war helped to decrease global security and has motivated the breeding of more terrorists than would be there today without the Iraq war.

The truthfulness of leaders in war is judged by wether they were successful or not, and by their reasons they gave in advance for going to war. Bush scores a perfect, huge, shining Zero by these standards.

and I think America cannot start thinking about a healing process for itself, and about learning from this desaster and leaving it behind, as long as it does not accept ultimate and total responsibility for the mess that was created without need, and parts of its people still waste time with wishing to see something positive from it and trying to avoid this grim respnsibility to accept. The events in Somalia 1993 have formed the future military doctri´ne of the army, by having become more cuatuous and hesitent, quick in quick out patterns, the way the Afghanistan war was fought in 2001 was a direct rrsult from trying to avoid losses being created in the way they took place in Somalia. Vietnam also led to a total reconstruction of the army, and major parts of the doctrines. And iraq will be a massive burden for the future face of the army as well. It already is to be seen: the army starts to run low on captains which form a very vtial rank in the hierarchy, after having been sent on the same mission several times, many have started to turn their back on the army in frustration, and now use their leadership skills in private business, for their own benefit. This will have an impact in some years, when these ranks would have been expected to have risen to high command ranks - these ranks then will have to be filled with other personell, obviously. The costs of the war, the costs of wear and tear, also massively affect the military budget plannings for the next years to come. Other projects had to step back, or were even cancelled. It is difficult to overestimate the longterm consequences of Iraq for the armed forces. It also will affect how future wars are being fought, which is a mixed bag: it could lead to needed aggressiveness not being an option,l but it also could lead to a US leadership being less gung-ho to launch another stupid war. but I think the negative consequences outweighs the positive.

[DeepIron]

No. Though Saddam was a dictator the US did not justify their action and rushed the decision. In the end it is not even clear what the aim was.

Secondly they payed no heed to the complexities of the region - they still dream of a democratic Iraq when it looks rather as if the post state will disintegrate without Saddam, very much like Yugoslavia did after Tito.

Thats pretty much how I feel about it. For his crimes against the Kurds, Hussein and Company deserved to be brought to accountability.

As for the rest... As has been pointed out, there has been scant, if any, supportive evidence. After the failure of "shock and awe", the goals became confused and without Saddam holding the various factions in check, civil war has been the result, IMO.

[August]

Yes. Saddam was a boil that needed lancing and while perhaps we should just have done that and walked away I can't fault our country for at least trying to clean up the resulting mess.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Von Tonner

I have to agree. We all know now that there were no WMD. But, and this is the point, Saddam was a major threat to the stability in the region. He had attacked every single neighbour he had including ethnic groups WITHIN his own country. Therefore, after Kuwait one could not simply leave things be.

But was Saddam a threat in the 21st century?

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".

In July 2001 , Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 – CHENEY ACKNOWLEDGES IRAQ IS CONTAINED: Vice President Dick Cheney said that "Saddam Hussein is bottled up" – a confirmation of the intelligence he had received. [Source: Meet the Press, 9/16/2001]

OCTOBER 8, 1997 – IAEA SAYS IRAQ FREE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS: "As reported in detail in the progress report dated 8 October 1997 and based on all credible information available to date, the IAEA's verification activities in Iraq, have resulted in the evolution of a technically coherent picture of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme. These verification activities have revealed no indications that Iraq had achieved its programme objective of producing nuclear weapons or that Iraq had produced more than a few grams of weapon-usable nuclear material or had clandestinely acquired such material. Furthermore, there are no indications that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for t he production of weapon-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." [Source: IAEA Report, 10/8/98]

SEPTEMBER, 2002 – DIA TELLS WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS: "An unclassified excerpt of a 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency study on Iraq's chemical warfare program in which it stated that there is ‘no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or where Iraq has - or will - establish its chemical warfare agent production facilities.’" The report also said, "A substantial amount of Iraq's chemical warfare agents, precursors, munitions, and production equipment were destroyed between 1991 and 1998 as a result of Operation Desert Storm and UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission) actions." [Source: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 6/13/03; DIA report, 2002]

Seems like a lot of people were saying that Iraq did no pose a significant military threat.

Yet somehow the administration claims that "EVERYONE told them that Saddam was a threat"

Everyone? Or just neocom warmongers?

[Brag]

All it takes is to read the Neocon manifesto to see why when they took over the U.S. government, they immediately started preparing for war. Those people are imperialist crazies who thing the destiny of the U.S. is to rule the world. They see the U.S. as the new Roman Empire. Nutz!

[STEED]

Iraq had WMD's which there neighbors probably have now, but don't get me wrong I don't believe they were what we call the big stuff more like limited and low grade weapons/technology. I don't believe going into Iraq was just far from it, a fairly stable country has now been made unstable and no one seems to know what to really do. Western view point on a Eastern country was bound to end in trouble which as we all know this has now happen.

Now America and us in the UK are stuck with a money draining problem to our country's which our politicians can not or will not try and do something about it. Iraq war II was a blunder in the dark, let's go in and...........

Well we're think about the it afterwords. Todays politicians can not be trusted in my opinion.

So I vote no.

PS: I felt something was wrong about it all back in 2003 seems to like I was right.

[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by Brag

All it takes is to read the Neocon manifesto to see why when they took over the U.S. government, they immediately started preparing for war. Those people are imperialist crazies who thing the destiny of the U.S. is to rule the world. They see the U.S. as the new Roman Empire. Nutz!

This is very interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project...erican_Century