Irvine511 said:
and ... the possibility for discussion fails. we can all cut-and-paste, too, STING, but a discussion it does not promote. there's no way into your post since it has nothing to do with anything but hearing yourself talk and spouting numbers and the poor conclusions you draw from them, lacking any sort of nuance or grasping of the complexity of the situation, the fact that one thing accomplished does not negate the things that have failed, and the fact that there were many ways to go about addressing a situation far different than an all-out unilateral invasion.
two elections, while certainly accomplishments in and of themselves, do not negate the 3 massive mistakes made by this administration that extend well beyond the streets of Iraq and will haunt us in the future:
1. the overestimation the competence of this particular government in very complex areas like WMD intelligence, and the bullying and fear instilled into the CIA by Cheney and Libby (who visited the Pentagon every single week in 2002) forced errors into a deeply fallible system. when doubts were raised, they were swiftly and arrogantly dismissed. thus, the WMD debacle, something has done far, far more damage to the war's legitimacy and fate than you have yet absorbed
2. the second error was the American narcissism so beautifully expressed in your posts. it's very simple: hegemony always provokes resentment, only now said resentments are as deep among our global friends as among our enemies, making alliances as hard as they are important. a case can be made of occasional unilateral action, but that makes it all the more imperative that we get things right. and the Bush Administration got it all wrong. too few troops, nothing resembling postinvasion planning, a deaf ear to criticism even from within the military. and, finally, they totally abdicated the moral high ground by enabling the abuse and torture of military detainees.
3. a total disregard for the importance of culture that thinly masked a deadly naiveté when it comes to complex, tribal, sectarian cultures.
now, tens of thousands, if not more, innocent Iraqis are dead. thousands of Americans are dead. tens of thousands of Americans have been greviously wounded, and the final result of this war might be the rise of Iran. yes, something resembling a democracy might come about in Iraq, but we also need to ask ourselves if this is a best-case scenario? is democracy at any cost worth it? is a democratically elected theocracy that murders gays, puts women behind the veil and strips them of rights, and maintains religious bloodlust for the destruction of Israel really all that preferable to the weakened regime of Saddam Hussein? even if it were, is it worth the costs in lives and dollars that have already been incurred?
and let's talk about Iran for a moment ... if anyone hated Hussein more than a Bush brother, it is the Iranians due to their losses in the Gulf War. however, after Desert Storm 1, the Iranians were fairly certain that Iraq was too weak to attack them, so they've spent their time covertly increasing their influence in southern Iraq.
the main chance that Iran saw to destroy their enemy Hussein was getting the Americans to invade Iraq. it is too simple to say that the Iranians led the Americans to invade, but they used their excellent intelligence network in Iraq to smooth the way for the American decision to invade proving the neocons all too easy to manipulate.
the Iranians led the Bushies to believe three things:
1. that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction programs.
2. that the Iraqis would not resist U.S. operations and would greet the Americans as liberators.
3. that there would be no post-war resistance in Iraq.
Iran wanted the US to defeat Hussein and then bear the burden (an enmity) of pacifying the Sunni regions of Iraq. they knew U.S. forces would bog down in Iraq so that, in due course, the
Americans would withdraw -- but only after the Sunnis were broken -- leaving behind a Shiite government ripe for heavy influence from Tehran.
credit must be given to Iraqi Shia for moving away from the Iranians just a bit, but the jihadists have now launched an anti-Shiite rampage in order to force a civil war in Iraq and drive the Sunnis back into an alliance with Iran.
so what will happen? we will see Iraq turn into the Finland of the Middle East. during the Cold War, the
Soviets did not turn Finland into a satellite, but they did have the right to veto members of its government, to influence the military and to require a neutral foreign policy. the Iranians want more, but they will keep the worst of the Baathists out of the government and exert control over Iraq's international behavior.
so what about the US? we will be in the region permanently, imagine 40,000 troops stationed in Iraq for the next 50 years next to a nuclearized Iran with a far greater sphere of influence over the entire region.
Far more than one thing has been accomplished as I mentioned above, and the invasion was not unilateral. It was authorized by the United Nations in resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. The occupation was then approved by the UN Security Council in resolution 1483. The United Nations would never approve of an occupation brought about through "illegal" means. Look at what the UN did when Saddam invaded Kuwait and there you have a perfect example of the UN's reaction to an illegal invasion.
But regardless of what one thinks about the UN and the legal points, the initial invasion was conducted by 3 countries not one, so to say that the invasion was unilateral is false. Several dozen countries have been involved in the occupation.
Now on to the "3 massive mistakes" of the administration.
1. WMD intelligence: back in the late 1980s and just prior to the Gulf War, most intelligence sources suggested Saddam was over a decade away from developing nuclear weapons. Right after the Gulf War UN inspectors went in and found this not to be the case. They found that Saddam was within one year of getting a nuclear weapon. This would be the first of many discoveries. There would be more assessments about Saddam's capabilities and the UN inspectors success and verifying that such capabilities were being removed, only then to find out that the assessments were wrong.
UN security Council resolutions called for Saddam to Verifiably disarm of all WMD, because it was necessary for the security of the region and the world given Saddam's past actions. When UN inspectors were forced to withdraw from Iraq in 1998, just prior to massive bombing by the coalition, they listed all kinds of items for which Saddam had failed to verifiably disarm of. 4 years and no inspections in Iraq and Saddam's failure to resolve any of the problems from 1998 with the new inspections meant that invasion and removal was the only way to bring about compliance with the resolutsion which was necessary for the security of the region and the world.
The fact that WMD was not found under building x, or that Saddam's unaccounted for stocks of WMD were not found is irrelevant to the need for the invasion. To qoute Collin Powell on the issue in 2002, "It is not incumbent upon the United States to prove that Iraq has Weapons of Mass Destruction, it is incumbent upon Iraq to prove that they do not". Those were the terms that Saddam signed on to with the 1991 Gulf War Ceacefire agreement.
Intelligence on WMD, knowing specifically where a country hides such things, is probably the most difficult form of intelligence to get. That is why security "in the absense of Saddam's removal" was dependent upon Saddam's verifiable disarmament and not whether country a's intelligence on whether WMD c was located under building h. There has never been accurate intelligence on the location and type of such WMD which can easily be hidden. Detection of Nuclear WMD potential is easier, but with Iran, we already have to admit that a bombing raid may not destroy what we intend it to, because the intelligence can determine if we actually know where all the nuclear facilities are, or if in fact the ones we assume are nuclear facilities are in fact decoys.
Every intelligence organization around the world believed that Saddam had WMD in March 2003. But regardless of what they believed, the necessity for invasion was because Saddam was not going to verifiably disarm of the WMD, whether he had destroyed it in private years ago, or still had large intact cache of such materials. There were of course many other supporting factors for the need for invasion including the fact that containment had fallen apart with the erosion of sanctions and the weapons embargo as well as Saddam's black market smuggling which went into the Billions annually.
The system of intelligence has never been perfect and in fact often wrong when it came to estimating another countries WMD. It is not a failure in the sense that many people describe in regards to the Iraq war. It is very important to improve the intelligence capability, but to many people have this star wars fantasy expectations about what the United States should be able to know about another countries WMD program. To others, the failure to find WMD is a politically convenient tool to attack the policy in Iraq, but an understand of the WMD situation in Iraq that goes beyond the past 4 years is important to understanding the reasons and need for the use of military force against Saddam in 2003. The timeline of events starts 15 years ago, not 4 years ago.
2. The conflict in Iraq has nothing to do with United States Hegemony. The security situation in the persian gulf impacts every country on the planet. It is vital to the global economy that the entire planet depends on. Because Germany and France were not involved in the Iraqi invasion does not make the invasion a unilateral action. No alliances have been broken up because of the invasion. All these countries still fully cooperate on matters of terrorism as well as operations in Afghanistan. Harsh words on a particular issue as well as the non-involvement of a few countries does not constitute the end or the ruin of the several alliances this country is apart of.
The initial invasion of Iraq had plenty of troops as the results show. The Iraqi military was defeated in 3 weeks of combat. The post invasion plans have brought us to an Iraq that has had democratic elections and is on the verge of forming a permanent government. The torture issue was an isolated incident and could likely happen again regardless of what rules are in place. The only real serious mistake comes from what to do with the Iraqi military at the end of the war as well as attending to the concerns of Sunni's in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's removal. Disbanding the Iraqi military and debathication were indeed mistakes.
3. The tribal situation in Iraq which is actually more important that the religious distinctions in some ways, was definitely understood by the military prior to the invasion. Key guides helped defuse potentially explosive situations as the invasion proceded with specific groups.
Since the invasion it is true that there are thousands of Iraqi's who have been killed primarily by insurgents and terrorist. But the losses are a fraction of the number of people who were killed while Saddam was in power. There are 2,397 US troops who have been killed in the conflict as well as a few hundred coalition soldiers. But the number of seriously wounded troops is NOT in the tens of thousands! This is grossly inaccurate! A total of 17,762 US troops have been wounded. Of those, 9,625 were returned to full combat duty in less than 72 hours! The other 8,137 are the ones that have required various levels of medical care and did not return to combat in under 72 hours. For some its a few days longer or a few weeks months. For others, the injury's are far more serious. But the numbers are NOT in the tens of thousands.
It was necessary to remove Saddam regardless of what one thinks of the current post war situation. The first thing to consider is the safety and security of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Gulf States. The energy produced from this region is vital to the survival of the global economy currently. The threats one must think of first are foreign forces with potential capabilities like Saddam had to sieze and sabotage Persian Gulf energy supply in these countries. There are no Iraqi forces in Iraq that currently have that capability. The new Iraqi military is being built for a force structure that emphisizes defense and internal security, not ones that emphisizes large scale and deep offensive maneuvers and other things found in Soviet military doctrine like Saddam's military practiced.
More important than the military capabilities is the political development of the country into a democracy. It has been historically found that Democracies are less likely to go to war with their neighbors than non-democratic countries. Saddam's invasion and unprovoked attacks on four independent countries over a few years was unique and dangerous. The replacement of Saddam was necessary, even if it meant replacing it with a non-democratic regime. But the chances of stability over the long-run in terms of interstate war, would be better with a democracy than a dictatorship.
As far as Israel goes, no other country supports the removal of Saddam than Israel does. They understand the region better than anyone in the world, especially from a security prespective. The last country to directly attack Israel was Saddam's Iraq. Considering what Saddam did in the past, his ambitions, and capabilities, Saddam was a huge threat who's removal has benefited Israely security.
In regards to whether its worth the cost, try considering the cost of not removing Saddam! Take a look at what Saddam had done over the past 24 years, and what he could likely do in the future. Those cost dwarf anything we have seen over the past 3 years. In addition, what Saddam could potentially do to the global economy could result in the worst global economic depression the planet has ever seen with a range of incaculable consequences. The United States even with Iraq and Afganistan, currently spends less on defense than it did in the 1980s peacetime as a percentage of GDP. The killed and wounded numbers are obviously a lot higher than anything the United States has been involved in since Vietnam, but they are also a tiny fraction of most of the war's that the United States has fought in, in its history. Think of the cost of fighting Saddam 10 years from now as opposed to 3 years ago. The transfer of technology and new weapons under Saddam's control could have potentially made and invasion and occupation far more dangerous than it has been.
In 1991 after Saddam's defeat in the first Gulf War, Iran was still suffering from its defeat in its war with Saddam. Saddam still had nearly 3,000 tanks, the Iranians only had 700. A far worse ratio of combat strength than existed in 1980 when Saddam invaded. Iran spent much of the 1990s trying to rearm itself so it could defend itself from Saddam. Several hundred new Russian made tanks were purchased as well as other Russian military supplies. Iran during the Iran/Iraq war relied on its military equipment from the days of the Shah which included a lot of American and British equipment. By 1991, much of this equipment that survived the war was inoperable because of a lack of spare parts and an inability to get them from the United States or United Kingdom.
Iran had always operated special units in Iraq to try and undermine Saddam. This was nothing new. Iran indeed was happy with Saddam's removal and obviously wants to take advantage of the political situation in Iraq. But Iran does not control every Shia Tribe that is in Iraq. Some of them bitterly hate Iran for what it did in the war to Southern Iraq. It is indeed a complex situation.
Iran had no involvement in the invasion of Iraq by the coalition, although they have tried to influence the political situation there. Every major intelligence agency on the planet believed that Saddam had WMD at the time of the invasion, and the fact that none have been found is not proof that there weren't any.
Most of Iraq has not resisted the coalition occupation. Resistence is mainly found in 4 of the 18 provinces of the country. Regardless of what you think about the religious Shia party, it does not have a majority of the seats in the parliment and must negotiate with the other political parties in order to form a government. The Iraqi Shia are Arabs and they have not spent their history in the hopes that one day Persians would invade the country and rule them or control them through other means. The majority of the Iraqi's who fought and died against Iran in the Iran/Iraq war were Shia. That does not mean that Iran does not have any influence in southern Iraq, but it does mean that many of the situations that people describe are exxagerated.
I would take an Finland like Iraq any day over Saddam's Iraq. Iranian influence does not equal a democratic Iraq suddenly launching and invasion of their gulf neighbors like Saddam did. Influence also does not equal control.
The United States will likely be in the region, either on land or close by on ships, because of the vital importance of the regions energy to the global economy. Until that changes, you can expect a US presense indefintely somewhere in the region, but not necessarily Iraq. Kuwait would probably be more likely.
Iran's conservative leaders now face growing democracies on two borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. Successful democracies in both countries will eventually destabilize the strength of Iran's theocracy. Iran already has an opposition movement and the government is not controled by one dictator. The grip that the Iranian regime has on the people is not nearly as great as Saddam's grip on Iraq was. Successful democracies in both Iraq and Afghanistan could very well mean that Iran's theocracy's days are numbered. Such an outcome was not a reason for Invading Iraq, but it may in fact happen.
even more.
