State of Iraq

[Armistead]

Seems the US can't learn that you can't replace cultures with war. It's impossible to change a mindset that's been around 1000 years with war, it can't be done.

Bush Sr knew better, his son didn't. He lied, he is a criminal and should be charged as one, but we can't do that, somehow it would dishonor the servicemen, so it's just a lie we all live with.

[Bubblehead1980]

I am glad we went.I think the cause was just even though we did not find WMD's and tired of this crap about Bush lied etc.Believe they followed their intel and used the faulty intel.We do know Sadam had the WMD's at one time, perhaps while we were beating the war drum for months ahead and he had a deadline, he got rid of them or sent them elsewhere, very plausible scenario.

The war was mismanaged, going in fairly light with not enough troops for the shock and awe instead of a full scale war with the numbers they really needed.They tried to do it the easy way going on the assumption once Iraqi Army was gone there would be no real resistance.They failed to plan for an insurgency and it cost many more lives than it should have.

I believe one day Iraq will be the "shining city on the hill" in the middle east.The war was worth it, mismanaged most of the time, absolutely but the surge worked and things are better.Worth it? Absolutely.

very plausible scenario

Ducimus, that politician you mentioned.
When he was selling that obvious bull that practicly got him laughed out the chamber didn't he describe it as the worst point of his career and the biggest stain on his reputation.
Do you think he would describe it as a "very plausible scenario"?

The war was worth it, mismanaged most of the time, absolutely but the surge worked and things are better.Worth it? Absolutely.

Worth it? The recently installed government was finally put together after some of the most virulently anti-american terrorists in the region sat down together and agreed which Iranian backed group would take the key positions in government?
Absolutely???????
Worth it? yeah for Iran.

[CaptainHaplo]

Never ceases to amaze me how people ignore the realities just because its not front page news.

Weapons of mass destruction didn't exist, huh?

Declassified docs as of 2006:
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/...classified.pdf

enough Sarin and Mustard gas to kill about 7 Million. In a degraded state, figure about half that. 3.5 Million dead isn't mass destruction? What is then?

Don't like that example? Fair enough - how about the love of the left - wikileaks? Would you rather them tell you? Turns out that one recent dump discussed this very thing....

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010...ising-results/

Not the quantity that was sold to the public by Bush, but thats an intelligence apparatus failure. The reality is they existed.

But wait - there is more... Everyone knows that Saddam wasn't after nukes, right? He had given up on all that, right? Of course, the 550 metric tons of yellow cake uranium he had - that even MSNBC calls " seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment " doesn't mean he actually had a nuclear program, right? I am sure he was just trying to figure out how to power the palace lights with the stuff so he could, uhm - you know - get off the grid.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25546334...east/n_africa/

Of course - this material was located at the Tuwaitha Special Weapons research / nuclear complex. The name might ring a bell, since it was the location of the Iraqi nuclear research programme when Israel bombed it. The IAEA wanted to inspect the material - but Saddam would not allow them to do so, in violation of treaty. In fact, this refusal to allow the IAEA to inspect the uranium was a major cause of war, since whether or not the uranium was being used to enrich fuel for a weapon or not, it created the APPEARANCE that it was.

Add in the 2004 actions of removing material sufficiently enriched as to be useful in the making of "dirty bombs", as reported by USA Today.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...-uranium_x.htm

1.6 tons of enriched uranium, 6.6 lbs of "low enriched" uranium and about 1000 "highly radioactive" items - where "highly radioactive" is defined as suitable for weapon use (but not weapons grade)- aka enriched to 20%.

@ Armistead - Bush lied? About what? Every intelligence report at the time, not only from the US but from multiple allies, indicated that WMD existed on a large scale under Saddam. Is a man a liar if he works from the best information he has?

As far as a criminal, I can only assume you are talking about Bush starting a "war of aggression". To that I can only state that there was nothing illegal about the war. Take WMD's entirely out of the equation - even without them, the war itself was legal due to the violation of the ceasefire by Iraq. Iraq, on multiple occasions, fired upon US and Allied aircraft and violated the ceasefire they agreed to. These acts were not precipitated by them being fired upon, but rather were acts of war by a belligerant in violation of the agreement in place. As such, the moment they fired the first time, any invasion by any signatory of the cease fire became legal.

I don't like Bush much. Its ok for you to not like him too. Did he mismanage the war? You bet he did. However, to call him a liar or a criminal over the war is untrue. WMD's existed that violated the notification and destruction clauses. A clandestine nuclear program MAY have existed (we will likely never know for certain to what extent it may or may not have). Intelligence from almost every source said major programs of NBC warfare existed. The government refused to allow inspections of materials that would support part of those programs - violating treaty. They violated a ceasefire by firing on forces engaged in legitimate, legally defined (and agreed to) patrols without provocation, throwing the cease fire in the trash.

The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been horribly carried out. No argument here. But that was because we had no idea what to do after the regime's fell.

To be correct, we really should stop calling them wars - for they are not. They are conflict and construction zones. We got into nation building while we get shot at, because the people there don't want to do the heavy lifting.

Liberty and freedom come with a cost, and the biggest error that Bush made was that we cannot free a country. Liberty and freedom are bought with the blood of patriots - not foreigners. Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other places in the world will never have true reform until they pay the price for it themselves.

If only every leader of nations understood that.........

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

1.6 tons of enriched uranium, 6.6 lbs of "low enriched" uranium and about 1000 "highly radioactive" items - where "highly radioactive" is defined as suitable for weapon use (but not weapons grade)- aka enriched to 20%.

You can't use 20% 235U to make a weapon. You can, however, use 20% 235U to fuel a nuclear reactor.

And "highly radioactive items" can't be used to make any sort of fission weapon. The worst you can do is use them for an RDD.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by Platapus

You can't use 20% 235U to make a weapon. You can, however, use 20% 235U to fuel a nuclear reactor.

And "highly radioactive items" can't be used to make any sort of fission weapon. The worst you can do is use them for an RDD.

Platypus - you read well from Wiki - but you needed to read a bit further.

Reactors usually use 235U enriched 3%-5%. Anything under 20% is considered low enriched uranium (leu).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriche...nium_.28LEU.29

Anything at 20% or above is considered weapon usable. Anything at 85% or higher is considered "weapons grade". Weapon usable is - as you say - for an RDD (aka dirty bomb).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enriche...nium_.28HEU.29

Now - in Juneof 2004 we removed 2 tons of LEU and 1000 HEU devices - or 1000 sources of fuel for dirty bombs. See USA today link from previous.

In 2008, we removed the 550 tons of yellowcake that the IAEA knew about. The problem - the IAEA did NOT know about the 2 tons of LEU or the 1000 HEU devices prior to the invasion. In other words, Iraq prior to the invasion had nuclear fuel - both LEU and HEU, that was undeclared. The HEU could have been used by terrorists to create bombs if they got a hold of them.... the LEU was not even supposed to exist!

Atomic bombs can also be built using less uranium, down to around 15 to 25 kgs of material, according to experts.

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5...ke-atomic-bomb

However - that is based on weapons grade stuff. According to the ever so handy Nuclear Weapons FAQ, 245kg would be needed using a berelium neutron absorbtion sphere. FYI - berelium is common enough to be easily acquirable....

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfa...ml#Nfaq4.1.7.1

So - 245kgs of 20% enriched U235 - out of 2 tons of the stuff? I don't know how much is needed for specific enrichment (as it varies with technique and Iraq had previously used more than one). It may not have been enough for a bomb.... but it would have been enough for part of one.....

Yes - Uranium at 20% can be used to make a fissionable weapon. And 1000 dirty bombs would kill people too......

1000 HEU devices - or 1000 sources of fuel for dirty bombs

Wow did they raid a hospital?

[mookiemookie]

This country has had multi-generational financial harm inflicted upon it because of these idiotic and mad quests for WMD's that didn't exist. Haplo's link says it all:

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq.

Billions and billions of dollars and thousands of American and Iraqi lives wasted over trivial amounts of chemical weapons. To say that members of the administration were victims of bad intel and not overt liars is wrong and has been proven wrong by revelations from Wikileaks.

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are traitors to this nation and should be hung as such.

[Armistead]

All evidence pointed to no WMD's, so Bush fabricated fiction. Why did Bush sell out a covert CIA operative putting all her clients lives around the world in peril, because her husband told the truth about no WMD's. All the real players knew WMD's didn't exist, so did Bush. He was given plenty of facts WMD's they didn't exist. Me made up lies.


90% of casualties were civilians in Iraq, we didn't win hearts and minds there, we buried them.

We're now trying to install a puppet government that will be tossed out.

As others stated, it was worth it for Iran.

I'm rather moderate, even voted for Bush once. Now I would vote for a swift trial and swifter execution. He got what he wanted...billions in profits for his friends in the war business selling out over a million dead human beings...."Praise God, I'm a Christian" says Bush.

Worse President in history.

[breadcatcher101]

I didn't know Iraq was a state, is this one of the 57 or 8 states Obama spoke of ?

I don't think we should have gone in the first place. Now here we are rebuilding a country we laid waste to.

Iraq had nothing to do w/9/11.

We will be there always until the day comes when we decide to just leave.

You can't use 20% 235U to make a weapon. You can, however, use 20% 235U to fuel a nuclear reactor.

Don't get technical, Haplo still wants to believe the lies.

Just look at the crap "in a degraded state figure about half that"...... figure its good for nothing.
Yellowcake?????bloody hell that was one of the biggest jokes in the claims, documented, sealed and monitored by the weapons inspectors for over a decade before the invasion.
Old corroded leaking 6 inch shells left over from when Saddam was a good friend.
So corroded and degraded that it took repeat tests before they could even get any positive result for the chemicals at all.

As they say down it Texas or is it Taiwan, "fool me once shame on me fool me again long after the facts are well established and the topic has been done to death please pity me as I have difficulty facing reality, if I try to fool you too due to my difficulties please don't laugh too much"

[CaptainHaplo]

Mookie - your link talks about the internal sunni/shia feud that took place in 2006. It has nothing to do with the topic - being the start/cause of war.

Now lets look at the article. The Samarra bombing took place on 22 February. The article claims by link that Gen. Casey lies about sectarian violence. However, in the article it links to - this is stated clearly:

The general acknowledged that Iraq is facing sectarian tension and sectarian violence, but said it's "focused primarily in the center of the country around Baghdad." Even there, the situation is not as dire as media reports suggest, Casey said.

The article is dated March 19th, and states General Casey "recently" toured Baghdad. Even if he had visited the area 2 weeks prior to the article, on 5 March, the sectarian violence was mostly over by 27 Feb.
To claim that Casey somehow should have "seen" firsthand the bodies in the streets during days when he wasn't present is idiocy.

On to Rumsfeld - you state he lied.

The October 2010 Iraqi War documents leak shed new light on the events of February–March 2006. In particular, the logs reveal that U.S. soldiers immediately reported an "explosion of retaliatory killings, kidnappings, tortures, mosque attacks, and open street fighting," even as U.S. commanders including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were downplaying media reports of a surge in killings. The previous "official" death toll for post-bombing sectarian fighting, of 3-400, was based on information from the Shiite-led government and the Sadr-run Health Ministry, which was directly involved in atrocities according to the logs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_al...WikiLeaks_data

So Rumsfeld based his view not on the info from the grunts (which he can't interview em all ya know), but on official information from the Iraqi Health ministry. Did he lie? Or did he in good faith repeat information that he was given from an official Iraqi source? Given the date of his statement - there is no way that the on the ground data would have been confirmed and then forwarded up the chain to his level by then. So what is the man to go on?

Then you state Bush and Cheney as well are "traitors to the nation and should be hung as such". Funny - nothing in your article related to either of them. Nor have you provided anything that shows they knew ahead of time that the intel they were given was false, nor what they would gain by stating falsehoods. How did they commit treason?

Everyone here gets that some folks on here don't like those in the previous administration. Some of us don't like the folks in this one. That is fine. But if your going to make accusations, try at least to back them up with something reasonable.

Also - can you pick a less left leaning source than the Daily Beast? I mean, their causes are the environmental impact of oil drilling and plastics, immigrant and gay rights. That's like half of the left's agenda right there. I was suprised I didn't find more anti-capitalism stuff to go with it.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Mookie - your link talks about the internal sunni/shia feud that took place in 2006. It has nothing to do with the topic - being the start/cause of war.

So what. They still lied. One documented example of a history of lies.

Now lets look at the article. The Samarra bombing took place on 22 February. The article claims by link that Gen. Casey lies about sectarian violence. However, in the article it links to - this is stated clearly:



The article is dated March 19th, and states General Casey "recently" toured Baghdad. Even if he had visited the area 2 weeks prior to the article, on 5 March, the sectarian violence was mostly over by 27 Feb.
To claim that Casey somehow should have "seen" firsthand the bodies in the streets during days when he wasn't present is idiocy.

Defending these treasonous bastards is idiocy.

On to Rumsfeld - you state he lied.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_al...WikiLeaks_data

So Rumsfeld based his view not on the info from the grunts (which he can't interview em all ya know), but on official information from the Iraqi Health ministry. Did he lie? Or did he in good faith repeat information that he was given from an official Iraqi source? Given the date of his statement - there is no way that the on the ground data would have been confirmed and then forwarded up the chain to his level by then. So what is the man to go on?

Again, one example in a track record of lies.

Then you state Bush and Cheney as well are "traitors to the nation and should be hung as such". Funny - nothing in your article related to either of them. Nor have you provided anything that shows they knew ahead of time that the intel they were given was false, nor what they would gain by stating falsehoods. How did they commit treason?

Because screw them, that's why. These things happened on their watch, and source after source has shown that it was with their knowledge and complicitness. If you have to ask that question at this point, you're either willfully blind or a partisan. Either way, it's not worth wasting time rehashing now.

Also - can you pick a less left leaning source than the Daily Beast? I mean, their causes are the environmental impact of oil drilling and plastics, immigrant and gay rights. That's like half of the left's agenda right there. I was suprised I didn't find more anti-capitalism stuff to go with it.

Don't attack the source. Attack the statement.

Actually, don't. You're not changing my mind on this, and it's clear I'm not changing yours.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Bubblehead1980

I am glad we went.

Man, do you have any idea how hallow those words are?
I have to ask, Did you go Iraq? Did you serve in the military? Where you there when the **** was hitting the fan? Where where you stationed at?

Don't ever use the word, "We" in that context if you didn't participate in something like that. When it comes to Iraq or Afghanistan, *I* sure as hell won't be saying, "im glad we went". I have no right to.

There's ONE Thing that has really peeved me off with the general public every since i got out of the military. The whole, "We're gonna kick their ass!" or, "I'm glad we went!" mentality. REALLY?!!?? What do you mean, WE? Where where you again? Like the whole thing is a god damn football game, as they sit on their asses, watching CNN, and waving the American flag around like its a set of cheer leaders pom poms.

Another big FAD i always get a kick out of, is the "I support our troops" yellow ribbons some jerkoffs place next to their gas caps on their vehicles. You support our troops eh? REALLY? HOW? By buying a bumper sticker on amazon? Displaying your do nothing flag waving patrotism to assuage some guilt? Way to support the troops there......


You'll have to excuse me, I've had that sentiment bottled up in me for about 14 years now. As an aside, its my opinion that anyone who supports a war (any war) should be made to serve in it.

[Armistead]

Cheny's worth in Haliburton went from $241,498 to over $8,000,000.

Mission accomplished.