1.)Biden's proposal was a federal system, with a weak central government. Not a partition, but federalism.
Which in the case of Iraq would essentially be partition. Even the Iraq study group rejected this idea. Much of the progress over the past few years has been do to the strengthening of the central grovernment. It is precisely the weakeness of the central grovernment years ago that contributed to so much of the instability of Iraq. Biden's plan would have only reinforced that.
2.)What has worked in stabilizing Iraq(at least relative to 2004 violence levels) is de facto exactly what Biden's plan sought to do: give local control and assure Sunnis and Kurds that the Shiite majority had no designs on running their affairs from Iran via Baghdad. This was what precipitated the formation of the Sunni awakening council, long before the surge. Our buying them off helped too. We probably paid some of the same people that hung Americans from a bridge in Fallujah in 2004.
Sorry, but no one in either the Bush or Obama administration has seriously considered the Biden plan. The military was forced years ago to often work with locals rather than the central government because the central government was so weak at that time and incapable really of accomplishing much outside of Baghdad. But today that has dramatically changed and most of the country now supports and wants the central government to work.
The United States began to offer Sunni tribes and insurgence money to join forces with the US and the central government to help secure their local area's. Unemployment in these area's was extremely high, and insurgents and Al Quada had succeeded in paying people to attack Iraqi and coalition troops. Many of these former insurgents were in fact people who were just looking for money to help feed their families and were not acting for reasons for ideology or politics. In the absence of economic development at the time because of the security situation, this helped to employ people and reduce the influence of insurgents and Al Quada.
But this was started in 2006. The enormous reductions in violence did not occur until there was a 33% increase in the number of US combat brigades on the ground in Iraq. That increase coupled with a new deployment plan that involved widely dispursing the combat units in small groups over a large area to protect the population is what really turned things around in Iraq. It is the exact same plan under way in Afghanistan at the moment. Its classic counterinsurgency tactics. Clear, hold, and build!
The lion share of what was responsible for turning the situation in Iraq around belongs to the SURGE which Obama and most democrats opposed. Even Obama now admits that it worked and that it was a "good thing".
Unfortunately, some of are forum members still refuse to see the truth.
3.)The surge was worth about 30,000 troops, a significant amount, but it has been drawn back dramatically while security gains have been maintained. That shows that it was the political process- the decentralization, the local assurances and the elections that ultimately calmed the fears of the Sunnis who made up the insurgency.
The political process, elections, work at the local level, the Sunni Awakening, all happened prior to the Surge but FAILED to reduce the violence. It was only AFTER increasing US combat forces in Iraq by 33% and the dramatic change in how US forces were deployed across the country that violence levels began to significantly decrease. Thousands of Sunni insurgents were killed and captured in Baghdad and then across the country. The operation took over 15 months and involved some of the most intense fighting of the war. The population was finally isolated and protected from the insurgence and Al Quada which allowed for development at the economic and political level to finally proceed in many of the troubled area's.
In addition, the Iraqi military has rapidly increased its strength and capabilities, and as US troops have been withdrawn, there has now been capable Iraqi military units to REPLACE those withdrawn US forces in order to maintain security.
These people, previously tolerant of Al Qaeda as a buffer against perceived Shiite advancement, then turned on them and kicked them out when they had their assurances of local control.
Most of the people were not concerned about any Shiite advancement. The central government at the time was powerless to help out in Sunni area's like Anbar. Al Quada and Sunni insurgents were able to harras control and manipulate the population in these area's because of the lack of security. The Surge brought with it more troops and different strategy that involved US troops clearing and staying and living with Iraqi's in their communities instead of coming into them on a random patrol and then going back to a large secure base. The 24 hour, 7 days a week of staying out in the field with the population helped to clear insurgents from the area and prevent their return. It helped to win the support of the population and create an environment in which people were not afraid to work with the United States and the Iraqi central government to develop and protect their communities.
Plus, AQ only made up, at the height of its influence, 5% of the resistance in Iraq. Will this progress lead to sustainable stability? The jury is still out- it is moving in that direction, but lets remember, Iraq has a long way to go. There are still frequent bombings, still not much government capacity to deliver services, etc.
That is not the case in 2010. The murder rate in Iraq today is about the same as that in the United States. Instead of 3,000 or 4,000 people being murdered in a month, there are only hundred or so. Its been like that for a long time now. Iraqi military units and police are now doing nearly all of the security work through out the country. 6 years ago, there were only 700 people in the actual Iraqi military! There has been a massive change in the country.
Iraq's standard of living is now ahead of a country like Morocco. Iraq has the 15th FASTEST growing economy in the world right now! Iraq's vastly improved political, economic, and security situation points to a bright future. While their could be more setbacks, as long as the United States and other countries maintain their support, Iraq will succeed in developing into a relatively prosperous and stable country!
4.)We are the best military in the history of the world. Of course we can build a foundation for security somewhere with 30,000 of our troops on top of 130,000. All the people calling it successful only look at the military side of it, which no opponents ever denied would be successful. If anyone wants to challenge this, I have a long video of Biden talking about this in 2007 before the surge.
LOL well, I have a little video for you. Watch and listen carefully:
YouTube - Obama Says The Surge Will Fail, We Will Fail.
Obama says in the video:
"We can send, 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, ah I don't know any expert on the region, or any military officer that I have spoken to privately that believes that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground"
What the people attacking Obama/Biden's opposition to the surge miss was the STATED GOAL OF THE SURGE AS EXPRESSED BY PRESIDENT BUSH:TO BUY TIME FOR THE IRAQIS TO PURSUE A POLITICAL SOLUTION. That was the stated goal.
Well, guess what, the Iraqi's have gone well beyond that stated goal.
By that metric, has it worked?
Here is your metric as provided by
icasulaties.org.
Iraqi civilian deaths in the last full month available 01/2010:
118
Iraqi military and police deaths in the last full month available01/2010:
17
Now compare that with the situation at the start of the surge in February 2007:
Iraqi civilian deaths during February 2007:
2864
Iraqi military and police deaths during February 2007:
150
Lets look at United States combat deaths in Iraq in February 2007:
71
Now lets look at United States combat deaths in Iraq in January 2010:
2
The change is incredible and its thanks to the SURGE which OBAMA and BIDEN OPPOSED! Again, even Obama now admits that the SURGE was a "good thing"!
Is Iraq as stable as say, Oman or Kuwait or Egypt or Jordan? Absolutely not. Will it be? The jury is very much still out.
Well, the murder rate in Iraq in January was about the same as the murder rate in the United States! That is indeed progress, almost unbelievable progress actually in this amount of time. No one ever claimed that the Surge would end all violence in Iraq or that there would not still be political challenges or hurdles afterwards. Your holding the SURGE to a standard that no major operation has ever met before, 100% perfection, which is absurd.
5.)No one can say that the surge has worked by the stated goal of its architect, George W Bush, as of yet without committing an absurdity. We'll have to check back in about 5 or 10 years and see if Iraq as a reasonably democratic government is as stable as it was in 2003 before we invaded to answer the question.
The surge has worked when you look at nearly every reasonable metric you could use. General Patreus, General Ray Ordiano, Ryan Crocker, Admiral Mike Mullen, say the surge has worked. Even President Obama was qouted as saying that "IT WAS A GOOD THING". Now Obama is conducting a similar strategy in Afghanistan and we won't have to wait 5 or 10 years to claim that it has worked.
I would not call Iraq a source of stability in the Persian Gulf before the US invasion. LOL LOL LOL
But yes, lets make that comparison 10 years from now, Iraq in 2020 compared to Iraq in 2003 under Saddam. Will the most stallwart oponents of removing Saddam and opposing the surge in Iraq finally admit they were wrong? We will see.
6.)Biden is one of the very few people who could take a significant amount of credit for Iraq becoming stable should it materialize, as his outline of decentralization first proposed in 2005 has in fact been implemented by Iraqis and made a great deal of progress. If we use our residual forces to effectively train Iraqis and shift our diplomatic focus toward supporting Iraqi governmental institutions, all while withdrawing our combat troops and not leaving chaos behind, then Obama will have done a much better job than Bush.
No one in Iraq, US central command, or in fact even Obama, is following Biden's plan from 2005. Iraq has continued along the path planned for it by the Bush administration. Obama adopted all of Bush's policies on Iraq when he became President. The power of the central Iraqi government is increasing, not decreasing. The United States has been training and building the Iraqi military force for years now.
It was Bush who stated in 2004:
"as they stand up, we'll stand down"
Obama was against that. In January 2007, he wanted to withdraw all US combat forces from Iraq by March 31, 2008 which would have been a disaster. Biden was also in favor of that as well. It was the opposite of the surge strategy and would have led to chaos in Iraq and the region.
All the key decisions on Iraq that have brought us to the point were at today were made DURING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. The only credit Obama and Biden will get will be for continuing Bush administration policy in Iraq!
7.)I doubt Obama will take credit, but Bush plunged us into a military adventure in a country that posed no threat to us
Really, well lets see what President Clinton said about Saddam in December 1998 in regards to whether he was a threat or not:
YouTube - President Clinton attacks Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction
The hard fact is, that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that THREAT, once and for all, is with a new Iraqi government. A government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.
got 4000plus troops killed in the process(at one of the fastest rates during the surge) and destroyed a country to the point where all governance had to be built up from scratch again.
The same thing had to be done with Germany, Japan, and is being done in Afghanistan. The Surge helped to reduce US casualties to extremely low levels. It massively reduced civilian casualties in Iraq. Casualties that would have greatly increased if Obama had succeeded in withdrawing all US combat forces by March 31, 2008!
Oh, and he caused a shitload of the deficit that the right blames on Obama by doing this. People defending the war on grounds other than WMD(which Bush/Cheney never did by the way) need to ask themselves: was it worth all of this? Missing Bin Laden? 100K dead Iraqis? A reconstruction we have to fund?
People who are still against the removal of Saddam in 2003 need to ask themselves what the CONSEQUENCES of leaving Saddam in power could have been for the world? What would it have cost the Iraqi people, the Persian Gulf, and the rest of the world, based on what Saddam had cost these groups in his previous 24 years in power.
Again, you can't properly assess this unless you have a firm and knowledgable understanding of the security importance of countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to the United States and the history of Saddam's behavior, the wars he started, and how this threatened the United States in the decades before he was finally removed from power.
The number of people willing to defend keeping Saddam in power in 2003 gets less every day.
8.)Anyone who uses "Iraq in violation of UN resolutions" as a justification is wrong. Sure, they were in violation of a bunch of general resolutions that every country, Israel included violates.
Sorry, wrong again. All 17 UN Security Council Resolutions passed against Saddam were passed UNDER CHAPTER VII RULES OF THE UNITED NATIONS. Chapter VII rules allow for the use of military force to bring about COMPLIANCE! All resolutions that have been passed against Israel were passed under CHAPTER VI rules which DO NOT ALLOW the use of military force to bring about compliance.
The specific violations, which Bush alleged, were related to WEAPONS IRAQ WAS PROVEN NOT TO HAVE, WEAPONS CONDI RICE AND COLIN POWELL SAID THEY DID NOT HAVE IN 2001 AND WERE ALSO BASED ON FALSE ALLEGATIONS THAT IRAQ WAS NON COMPLIANT WITH THE INSPECTORS. THE EXACT OPPOSITE WAS TRUE, THEY WERE COMPLYING AND ABOUT TO COME UP CLEAN, SO BUSH PULLED THE INSPECTORS AND SAID "LETS GO!"
UN security council resolution 1441 specifically states that Iraq was in violation of multiple UN resolutions and must come into compliance or face SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES! UN Security Council resolution 1441 also recalls UN security council resolution 678 which authorized the use of military force to bring Iraq into Compliance in regards to any violations. The Clinton administration sited resolution 678 every time it used military force against Saddam in the 1990s!
SADDAM NEVER COMPLIED WITH THE UN INSPECTORS. To do so they would have had to account for 500 pounds of sarin gas, 1,000 liters of anthrax, 500 pounds of mustard gas, 20,000 Bio-Chem capable shells all of which remained unaccounted for at the start of the invasion!!!!!!
Just as important, PROGRAMS related to production of WMD that violated UN resolutions were found after the US overthrew Saddam. Clear proof that Saddam was decieving the international community, just as he had done for 12 years since the 1991 Gulf War.
Always remember that Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy secretary of Defense and one of the chief architects of the Iraq war said that they merely settled on weapons of mass destruction for "bureaucratic reasons." .
Thats only because there were numerous reasons why Saddam had to be removed, and weapons of mass destruction was obviously the most convincing reason with the general public.
There is so much evidence out there it's not even funny attesting to the fact that the people pushing this war knew Saddam had no WMD's in 2003. NONE.
The majority of the intelligence communities in various countries around the world had evidence that Saddam either had WMD or that they simply could not tell whether he did or not. NO ONE, had factual evidence to prove that Saddam had NO WMD in 2003.
Its also irrelevant. The issue here is SADDAM, his behavior, and willingness to comply with UN resolutions passed after the 1991 Gulf War. THE ISSUE IS VERIFIABLE DISARMAMENT, and preventing Saddam from being able to rearm again.
By the year 2000, the sanctions and weapons embargo designed to keep Saddam from getting new conventional weapons and WMD components from abroad had nearly collapsed. Iraq was selling BILLIONS of dollars worth of oil on the black market. Syria was no longer complying with sanctions or the embargo along its entire border with Iraq. France and Russia were both openly violating the sanctions. China was installing new communications for Iraq's airdefense system which would allow Iraq better capability in shooting down coalition aircraft patrolling the no fly zones.
These factors would allow Saddam the chance to rebuild and rearm much of his weapons industry, and the attempts to prevent the erosion of this vital key element of containment had been rebuffed by countries such as Russia, Syria, Jordon, Iran, France and China, all key in maintaining the sanctions and weapons embargo. Containing Saddam into the future would be impossible without fool proof sanctions and weapons embargo, so regardless of what you think Saddam's capabilliites were or were not in 2003, removing him before he could aquire new capababilities do to the erosion of the key component of containment, was a necessity!
No amount of posting on this board will ever change the fact that Iraq was not a threat to the US and not even a regional threat in 2003.
Its a fact that in 2003, Saddam's Iraq military had the following:
An army of 400,000 troops, over 3,000 tanks, over 2,000 armored personal carriers, over 2,000 artillery pieces, and over 300 combat aircraft. Even the most uninformed person on political/military issues would understand that such conventional military forces in possesion of a man like Saddam was indeed a threat to a country like Kuwait. All US military and CIA assessments showed that Saddam still had the strength to launch a military strike to overrun Kuwait and probably enough strength to strike at the some of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia. This is without considering WMD, or any capabilities Saddam could now get because of the sudden erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo.
Colin Powell, Democratic anylyst such as Michael O Halon, and Kenneth Pollack, many of President Clintons advisors on Iraq, and the vast majority of the United States military as found from the military times polls every year, still to this day feel that Saddam was a threat worth removing from power!
It goes FAR, FAR BEYOND just the intelligence that suggested what was Saddam's WMD capabilities in 2003 and goes into his decades long defiance of UN inspectors, his four invasions and attacks on other countries in the region, his massive use of WMD on the battlefield and against his own people, his attempts to overrun and annex Kuwait cutting the world off and threatening much of the worlds oil supply, and perhaps most important, the erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo which were THE ONLY MEANS SHORT OF REGIME REMOVAL of insuring that he could not threaten and harm the region as he did in 1990/1991.