What Was Gained By Invading Iraq?

excellent. i am coming to conclusion that it just takes folks longer to process reality than one would like. the wedge was the last remaining alternative after 9/11 and it is in fact an overwhelming success. i dare say had it taken 10 years to bear fruit, it would equally have been a success…..

Are you people serious? We gained nothing by invading Iraq, neither in the short term or the future. We got attacked on 9/11 then rightfully invaded Afghanistan, and all the sudden we are engrossed in a quagmire in Iraq that had nothing to do with the events on 9/11. What America did by invading Iraq is just prove how dumb and ignorant we are to the rest of the world. What if we were attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor in 1941, then FDR saw fit to invade China, because it was “in the general area” as our aggressors in Japan? If you take a step back and look at what Bush and his cronies did it’s almost laughable, and the sad part is we “the American people” bought the line they fed us hook, sinker and all. Did we ever find WMD’s in Iraq? NO. Did we ever find a concrete link between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al Queda, despite the CIA trying it’s hardest to make the Iraq/ Al Queda link appear to be something that it wasn’t? NO. You let the right wing media convince you the roadside bombings on American soldiers was the work of Al Queda or “insurgents”, when in actuality all those poor Iraqis that have been killed in the unjust war should be labeled patriots for defending their homeland. If a foreign power invaded the USA and walked down Main Street in middle America I’m sure all you red blooded Americans would be dong the same thing the Iraqis are doing AND DEFEND YOUR HOMELAND. The audacity of some of us Americans is hilarious at times, what are they not supposed to defend what is rightfully there homeland? Not to mention that most of the Iraqis can probably trace there roots back in the region between the Tigris and Euphrates River’s back hundreds if not thousands of years. Can’t the say the same for 95% of us Americans, and on top of all that if you really think the delusional sociopath we called Sadam Hussein really posed a threat to the good ol shores of the USA, you probably also believe that the Bush Administration had nothing to do with 9/11.

I can agree with the “Saddam is dead” part. The rest is either too simplistic, or flat-out wrong. (A government that “does not sponsor terrorism”? The Shiites in the government have condoned or even aided ethnic cleansing!!)

And you’ve forgotten the more than one million Iraqi dead (by scientific consensus), the 4 to 5 million refugees, internal and external, the fact that Turkey is bombing the Kurds in the north and factions are fighting over Kirkuk, among many other problems.

Add that to the fact that we don’t matter nearly as much as we’d like to think (our troops function as police; how effective do you think police who don’t know the local language and culture can be?), and that with a record-setting deficit looming, we can’t AFFORD to stay if the country is not a direct threat, and the arguments for staying in Iraq in force look pretty weak.

Iraq was brilliant. Knocking out the largest Arab amy in history in 20 days – no less. On a WMD guess provided cold rolled steel bona fides that Great Satan is crazy and unpredictable after 911 and sent a very cool message to intolerant, militias, illegitimate, murderous, courpt regimes that she is down right scary and lethal. “Dumb and ignorant’ Kemmet? Actually, that phrase fits enemies of fun and free choice like Ba’Athists, Sadrists and Khomeinists (and inappropriate, weak and boring handwringers like Great Satan’s critics).

Turning Iraq into a giant sucker trap for wanna be jihadis’, Saudi rejects, Iranian minions and Syrian agents accomplished quite a bit before surge slammed the trap shut and turned Iraq into a giant killing machine – grinding up wanna be jihadis’, Saudi rejects, Iranian minions and Syrian agents.

Like proving caliphating totally sucks – your choice – the AQ chaotic way or the new school Iranian style. Iraqis’ rejected it, giving the entire ME the chance to see it, touch it and say ‘no thanks.’

Iraq was a sweet harbinger that proves America unbound is liable to act out anytime anywhere.

my bad, Foreign Affairs, do a search on realclearpolitics – its called Rethinking National Interest

What if we were attacked by the Japanese in Pearl Harbor in 1941, then FDR saw fit to invade China, because it was “in the general area” as our aggressors in Japan?

Kemmet Aziz… you’re an idiot. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill and Roosevelt had the strategy to defeat Germany first. They weren’t the ones who bombed us, if you’ll remember.

Our troops went first to North Africa… not Japan, nor Germany. Rommel was sent their early 1941. And we had no troop presence in Europe at that time.

A global war strategy – as this is against stateless Islamic jihad operating world wide – focuses not just on the original offending nation, but the entire theatre.

Pick up a dang history book, would ya?

Did we ever find WMD’s in Iraq? NO. Did we ever find a concrete link between the regime of Saddam Hussein and Al Queda, despite the CIA trying it’s hardest to make the Iraq/ Al Queda link appear to be something that it wasn’t? NO.

I guess you consider Saddam’s dealings with Zawahiri as both EIJ and AQ since 1993 “no link”, eh? See the Harmony/IIS documents for the proof you haven’t bothered to read and get with the times.

Can’t the say the same for 95% of us Americans, and on top of all that if you really think the delusional sociopath we called Sadam Hussein really posed a threat to the good ol shores of the USA, you probably also believe that the Bush Administration had nothing to do with 9/11.

Well that says it all…. Credibility? You have none. You’re a piss poor excuse for an American citizen… if you are at all.

I take it we won Vietnam also. This post is meaningless. The answer to your question is nothing has been gained from this war. People like you want to justify it by the measure of dead and wounded soldiers. Iraq is not a democracy a won’t be one for a very long time, and if it ever becomes one it will not be because of us. Shame on you and all people that subscribe to this neocon policy.

Jake – who got us into Vietnam? who got us into Somalia? who couldn’t give the order to provide air support in Cuba? who crumbled when the Ayatollah took down our embassy in Tehran? who lost Berlin? who pretends that Chavez isn’t just a thug with oil money? who acted like the FSLN wasn’t just a band of marxists with guns? who has a poster of Che Guevara (one of histories most inept guerrillas) in their campaign HQs? who masters the head-in-the-sand position time and time again? the next time you see one of those Never Forget epitaphs, remember why we haven’t seen any jet liners flying into US assets since the invasion. run back to Nancy Pelosi and her band of we-are-saving-the-planet types but at least Neocons ground themselves in reality, however unpleasant and necessary it may be at times.

…Had he remained in power, we would likely still believe he had WMD.

And I still wouldn’t care (much). I fall into the camp of people who believed that Saddam had (some) WMD and thought it was totally irrelevant to US national security.

He would have been sitting on an oil bonanza priced at $140 a barrel.

Not at all clear what oil prices would have been without the Iraq war. But whatever, they probably would still have been high.

He would almost certainly have broken free from an already crumbling sanctions regime.

How? Why? This makes no sense. Maybe he would have continued to smuggle out oil, but how would he have ‘broken free’ of anything? He was militarily very weak.

The U.S. would be faced with not one, but two, major adversaries in the Persian Gulf.

Or, like, zero, if we chose not to be in the Persian Gulf in the first place. For that matter, if we wanted to play realpolitik games we could probably have reprised our strategy of the 1980s and played Iraq and Iran against each other. Further, describing Iraq (or Iran) as a ‘major’ adversary given its military and economy is silly. The USSR, Germany in WWII, Red China – those were ‘major’ adversaries. Iran and Iraq are not.

Iraqis would be living under a regime that, in an average year, was at least as murderous as the sectarian violence that followed its collapse.

If you only count violent deaths, the Iraqis are better off. Of course there are other metrics by which things haven’t looked so good, depending on whose excess mortality figures you believe (and how about those millions of refugees?).

And the U.S. would have seemed powerless to shape events.

Because our massive, globe-spanning military would suddenly have become invisible? What the author seems to be trying to say is that we might have appeared slightly less than omnipotent. This seems to me to be a more polite formulation of something Ledeen once wrote about the need to ‘pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business’.

Instead, we now have a government that does not threaten its neighbors, does not sponsor terrorism, and is unlikely to again seek WMD. We have a democratic government, a first for the Arab world, and one that is increasingly capable of defending its people and asserting its interests.

These are good things (with caveats that I’m not going to go into now). I don’t approve of the enormous cost required to achieve them.

We have a defeat for al Qaeda. Critics carp that had there been no invasion, there never would have been al Qaeda in Iraq. Maybe.

A more trenchant criticism is that devoting more resources to al Qaeda in other locations (Afghanistan) would have been even more crippling for the organization.

As it is, thousands of jihadists are dead, al Qaeda has been defeated on its self-declared “central battlefield,” and the movement is largely discredited on the Arab street and even within Islamist circles.

Yes. One thing I wonder about: did al Qaeda lose its popularity because it was seen to lose, or did it become unpopular because of its insanely bloodthirsty tactics? Obviously the two may be related (al Qaeda resorted to more attacks on civilians because it couldn’t face American military power). Basically I’m curious whether they would still be popular in the Arab world if they only murdered Americans instead of also bombing other Muslims, even if they had still suffered the same battlefield losses.

We also have — if still only prospectively — an Arab bulwark against Iran’s encroachments in the region. But that depends on whether we simply withdraw from Iraq, or join it in a lasting security partnership.

lol, more politesse. I gather the author wants us to keep 100,000 troops stationed there indefinitely, so that Maliki’s talk of friendship with Iran remains nothing more than talk. Withdrawing would probably result in Iraq becoming way too cozy with Iran for our liking. Funny how getting involved in middle eastern politics leads to these neverending commitments.

Courtney, you do your younger generation of women proud, girl. Delightful to have you and your creative turn of phrase and perspective here on FA.

Kewl blog you have, as well.

Hi Mata. Thanks for the kind words.

About Iraq though – anyone who understands how Great Satan busted out of her cocoon in 1990 – uniquely powerful – (the only one of her kind!) and knows their history and current events realises that America has a penchant for stirring things up globally since she was born and she doesn’t really have much of a prob going anywhere and doing anything to protect and project the sexyful appeals of democrazy.

Creative destruction is Great Satan’s middle name. It is a natural function, for she is the one truly revolutionary country in the world for more than 2 centuries. She does it automatically, and that is precisely why the tyrants and myriad intolerants hate her guts, and are driven to attack her. An enormous advantage, control freaks fear her, and oppressed peoples want what she offers: freedom.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is kinda like the Marine Corps Eagle, Globe and Anchor – a wonderful reminder to friends, frienemies and enemies that Great Satan built the modern world.

And She knows Her way around.

Neophytes only want to wage war where there is nothing to gain

Well, I’m basing my statement the escape of Bin Laden and the current requests (from those on the ground there) for more troops that will not be forthcoming for some time. But my point was not so much to advocate for a specific alternate policy as to point out that there are opportunity costs to our success against al Qaeda in Iraq, and that you can’t ignore them if you want to argue that our victories against them there are an unmitigated good.

Neocons believe in waging war only where there is something at stake

Actually, no. See the quote from Ledeen above, also commenter courtney ‘…provided cold rolled steel bona fides that Great Satan is crazy and unpredictable after 911 and sent a very cool message’ (and let’s not forget Nixon, who had similar ideas cf. his madman strategy). Neocons believe in waging war just for the sake of credibility – which I guess counts as ’something at stake’ if you place a high value on having a reputation as an aggressive, unpredictable nation. But that doesn’t seem to be what you’re saying.

but then again, your ’s’ in criticizm does give you away now, ole’ chap

Try harder. Criticize vs criticise is a legitimate American/English difference, but criticism is spelled the same way on both sides of the pond – and I’m from Pittsburgh.

But here, you’re attributing non-existent words and intents to Scott …. not acceptable.

Which is why I used ‘I gather’ to indicate that this was my personal interpretation of what he was saying. In any case, I admit I was being hyperbolic. Nonetheless the overall logic is the same as for the drug war or really any government program:
-if things aren’t going well, we need more money to fix the problem
-if things are going well, we need to continue spending money to protect what we’ve achieved

Actually stopping (either because of success or failure) never seems to be an option.

Hi Fred. Am reliably informed that I’m a Straussian Purist. Specifically Strauss’ really cool quiz “Which one of these is not like the other?”

That quiz tends to point out that relativism (and realism as realpolitik too) shared a dangerously retarded “easy going belief that all points of view are equal (hence none really worth passionate argument, deep analysis or stalwart defense) and then into the strident belief that anyone who argues for the superiority of a distictive moral insight, way of life, or human type is somehow elitist or antidemocratic and hence immoral.”

In Diplopolitical speak “Frienemies’ refers to autocrazies like Commonwealth Russia and Red China – not quite open enemies and not quite Best Friends Forever either. The potential exists for swinging either way.

Fred,

I didn’t discuss any issues in my post. My criticism was directed at your post and your attitude and I thought it was right on point in that regard.

As far as the similarity in names, that’s been asked before here on this blog. I’d be glad to be that David Noble. It just happens that I’m not. Let’s see, you used a purported British spelling on bbart’s post as an excuse to rant about Europe and now you use the similarity of my name to someone else’s to talk about how Barrack Obama’s campaign is in trouble. Are you that hard up for a seque?

“[h]e (Barrack Obama) believes that our democracy will be stronger if more people participate in politics and voting.” I agree.

Kemmet Aziz…

…is either a propagandist, or just some poor schmuck who’s had his head stuffed so full of Islamist excrement that he doesn’t know any better, but either way he is wrong about everything, dead wrong!

He, like the typical American Leftist, completely misunderstands the reasons we went to war, and against whom we are fighting there.

As to the success of the war, consider that if all we did was shut down Saddam’s WMD technology market place, that alone would be cause for celebration. But we did more, by freeing the Iraqis from an evil tyrant, and by killing so very many of Al Qaeda’s most valuable fighters.

All in all it’s been a victory so far. It’s not over, but more success should follow if O’Bummer is not elected. If he is, then we can expect the situation to deteriorate not only there, but everywhere.

Yon,

I wil step over your snark to address the misunderstanding you express in the post above.

“by killing so very many of Al Qaeda’s most valuable fighters.”

Two problems with that: First, there are not a fixed number of AQ fighters. They are continually replaced through recruiting (aided by an American invasion of a Muslim country). Further, the battlefield is a Darwinian environment where the less vauable fighters are weeded out and the best fighters survive. Iraq, like Afghanistan in the 80’s, is an ideal training camp for jihadists.

Dave Noble

You display a lack of understanding of the flow. The ‘foreign fighters’ who have been captured continually describe a pattern where they are used as suicide bombers, even being drugged to accomplish their missions. The foreign fighters also describe being indoctrinated by clerics in their home country to go join the jihad, wherever it might be. At the very heart of this drive is the meme that dying while in jihad assures a quick trip to paradise. Telling susceptible young Arabs this meme is necessary to perpetuate the jihad myth. Whether Arab land is being occupied or attacked, the recruitment goes on. Examine the Mahdi army under Muqtadr al Sadr, he uses the jihad/paradise meme, as does every cleric from Qom to Cairo. It is like the sacrament of Islam. Every cleric who sends a jihadi to death believes that it somehow enhances his prestige or power, especially since that is what he tells the families of the fallen jihadis.

You may or may not be aware that the vast majority of Muslims killed anywhere, not just Iraq or Afghanistan, are killed by fellow Muslims. They were killed in pursuit of the personal interpretation of jihad assumed by their murderers. It is far easier and safer to kill unarmed fellow Arabs than it is to stand up to an armed and trained military force. Even without the presence of the military force the killing goes on, throughout the Muslims world, and especially on the fringes of the Muslim world.

There is nothing Darwinian about the battle field. Not the current Islamic jihad battlefield or any other in history. More likely it is blind luck, circumstance, stupidity, random chance, and clever intelligence maybe; but Darwinian, not a chance. Darwin works much slower and more deliberately.

Finally, I don’t think you quite understand that jihadis are intent on dying for Islam. It is their goal and their opportunity for paradise. You can try to explain it a thousand ways, but it always gets reduced to the nihilist bent in Islam. The only encouragement to be gained from any of that is that no suicidal army has ever prevailed. The numbers just are not slanted that way.

Now a bit of snark on my part. If you took a vast population of people who traditionally marry first and second cousins you will end up with a certain subset of that population who have the usual mental defects. Taking advantage of someone with particular mental defects to convince them to commit suicide in pursuit of your particular power play is probably the lowest act a person can commit. Yet it is apparently being plied on a daily basis in the Islamic world. I consider that the most damning of the attributes of the Muslim clerics who send jihadis to battle.

Moody,

You overgeneralize the suicide bomber to make him the paradigmatic jihadist. That is a misrepresentation. Suicide bombers do not attack convoys, plant IEDs and EFPs, or set up ambushes.

Assuming for the sake of argument that all the jihadists in Iraq were suicide bombers, AQ can always find new recruits by the methods you describe. Finally, I was responding to Yon who spoke of killing valuable AQ fighters. You don’t have to kill a suicide bomber, as Scott points out, they kill themselves. And they are not valuable – they are cannon fodder. The valuable AQ fighters, and their numbers are not negligible, are the battle-hardened veterans of Iraq. Again, the same thing happened in Afghanistan during the insurgency against the Soviets.

Tell our troops that survival on the battlefield is a largely a matter of blind luck, circumstance, stupidity and random chance and see what reaction you get. That argument, if it were anything more than a partial explanation of survival on the battlefield, would obviate the efficacy of training. To the extent survival is a function of stupidity or clever intelligence, you make my point. The intelligent jihadi combatant learns and lives to fight again. The stupid jihadi combatant dies. Further, you deliberately misinterpret my use of the term “Darwinian.” I simply meant survival of the fittest through the learning that occurs on the battlefield, not the slow course of biological evolution based on chance mutation.

From the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html:

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of “professionalized” terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the *National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank.*

Iraq provides terrorists with “a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills,” said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. “There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries.”

Scott,

You piggyback on Moody and make the same mistake.

Dave,

Moody makes a good point in calling you on the “Darwinian” comment. Luck does factor in a great deal. Of course, you make a valid point as well, in talking about training and battle-hardened experience as means to surviving war.

But unlike, say, a prize fight or MMA competition, the fittest, savviest, and most well-seasoned soldier can still be killed just as easily as the next guy. The variables in real life as opposed to a squared circle or the Octagon where rules and a referee apply,are so vast, anything can happen; and even the best warrior can be “sucker-punched” by a well-hidden sniper. All the best hand-to-hand combat training, marksmanship, and special ops skills isn’t going to save an al Qaeda fighter targeted by a Predator’s hellfire missile if he happens to be sitting in a truck at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

al Qaeda Footsoldiers are a dime-a-dozen. But what is harder to replace is when their leadership is killed or captured- and that’s been happening a lot in the GWOT.

The intelligent jihadi combatant learns and lives to fight again. The stupid jihadi combatant dies.

Don’t the “true” jihadis seek martyrdom? I recall from Lawrence Wright, a reporter or someone asking some mujahadeen who came to Afghanistan from Saudi Arabia, why they were camping out in the open, under white tents (something to that effect). They were told that they were easy, open targets for the Soviets. The “holy” warriors responded that they came to Afghanistan to die. Now, one could say they were stupid “combatants”; but were they not fulfilling themselves as “good jihadi”?

THEY NEVER LEARN!

“by killing so very many of Al Qaeda’s most valuable fighters.” [...and plenty of regulars, as well]

“Two problems with that: First, there are not a fixed number of AQ fighters. They are continually replaced through recruiting (aided by an American invasion of a Muslim country). Further, the battlefield is a Darwinian environment where the less vauable fighters are weeded out and the best fighters survive. Iraq, like Afghanistan in the 80’s, is an ideal training camp for jihadists.” — Dave The Ignoble

(1) – “there are not a fixed number of AQ fighters.”
RIGHT! There are 6,000 fewer now in Iraq alone, since the war began.

(2a) – “They are continually replaced through recruiting ( . . . .)”
they always were, DUH! And, we’ve done a little “recruiting” ourselves.

(2b) – ” . . . . . (aided by an American invasion of a Muslim country)
but Al Qaeda is not replaced in THAT Muslim country [Iraq], because they [Iraqis now] KNOW better.”

(3) – ” the battlefield is a Darwinian environment where the less vauable fighters are weeded out and the best fighters survive.
Tell it to AL-ZARQAWI).” There’s nothing “Darwinian” about the loss of high value targets with no one to replace them but cadets. Besides DARWIN GOT IT WRONG! Perhaps you never got the memo?

Do you want to know what your problem is, Dave? Well, I’m gonna tell ya anyway, because you owe me for wasting my time answering your stupid drivel. You haven’t a clue what your problem is, nor have you any interest in knowing because even if you did know, you wouldn’t want to fix it. That, and you are a malicious idiot.

EVERYTNHING THEY KNOW IS WRONG, AND THEY LOVE IT

They take pride in rolling around in their mental fecal material, like pigs in a sty. In fact, that’s the root of the problem with them and their pathological interaction with society. Instead of contributing, they only take, and not only that but they enjoy getting in the way of those who are productive, kind of a low-grade anti-social personality disorder.

Answering them so they will learn is a waste of time. The only reason to expose them is because otherwise they might mislead the naive into believing they are right. Otherwise, answering them is just a huge waste of time.

Problem is they all want to die and we want to live. Seems we need a new warfare paradigm here. So we advertise that we have invaded some crappy little Arab nation, Iraq will do, Then we stage the latest, most sophisticated military in the world there with all sorts of hunter killer types, from the best trained troops to the best, most modern equipment and include some robotic forces, and we invite them all out to play. Give them have what they want and we get to test and improve our troops, equipment, tactics and so on while they volunteer to be targets. When the jihadis get tired of that, let’s all go somewhere else where there is a similar lack of respect for life and lots of open territory and repeat the experiment. If Darwin was right there will eventually be a very limited bunch of self destructive targets and we can mop this crap all up.

Better we do it in some wide open theater of operations on foreign soil rather than within our borders, the environmental impact statement stateside alone would make such operations prohibitive. Besides that, the politicians would get really pissed if we got the American population involved in such a demonstration of American firepower.

Once you put it in that frame of mind it just doesn’t sound so bad, now does it?

I mean except for the liberals getting all pissy about it not being the way they want it to be and all. But then I just can’t remember a time when everybody was happy about kicking the crap out of our mortal enemies, and the liberals are not at all happy about that situation now. What ever can we do to make the liberals happy except claim defeat and run home to wait for the jihadis to come over here to play.

The liberals would really scream when their precious lives and families are being scraped up off the streets along with some suicidal jihadi. Just no pleasing some people.

Scott,

The article appeared in WaPo. It quotes a CIA report. Sorry, I’m not on the CIA distro list.

With all the talk of victory on the horizon, there are still 200 attacks per week. Yes, that’s down from 1200 per week a year ago, but somebody is still fighting us in Iraq.

Dc

Meat jello – I like that. Unfortunately, far too many of our troops are also meat jello or vegetables with traumatic brain injuries. See above for current attacks per week. Again, somebody is still fighting us. Stop beating your chest and waiving the giant foam rubber finger for a minute and think about it.

Moody,

Not so deep thinking there, bro. You’ve seen “I Robot” a few too many times. And by the way, although I know you don’t give a rat’s ass, that “crappy little Arab country” comment is part of our problem. The people in the Middle East know far too many people in the US think like that.
Does that explain jihad, no, but it does explain why we have so much trouble getting diplomatic traction in that part of the world.

STILL STUCK ON STOOOPID

“Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation” — DN

As usual, the MSM cherry picks the NIS (or equivalent) and Dave gobbles it up.

And during WWII the Pacific Theater was the “training ground” for the next generation of Japanese fighters, and the European Theater was the “training ground” for the next generation of German and Italian fighters, etc., etc.

I guess we shouldn’t have fought that war, either?

But, guess what! Iraq is ALSO the training ground for the next generation of American fighters. And they are getting REALLY efficient at taking the foreign enemies that the ignoble ones want us to fear, and turning them into “puppy chow.”

No, Yon, there are a lot of reasons we shouldn’t have fought this war. That it is a training ground for AQ is just one of the negative byproducts of that mistake.

Dc – If it was a training ground for AQ in 2005, does the effect of that training disappear in a puff of smoke? If it was a training ground in 2005, wasn’t it also a training ground in the bloody years that followed? Logic, Dc, logic.

You radically and blithely underestimate the consequences of this war. Meanwhile, you mouth the Bush mantra of declaring victory. When is AQ really going to be “on the run?” We heard that from VP Cheney years ago. 200 attacks per week in an occupation and you call that victory. That’s like the guy who use to smoke 3 packs a day and now is down to a half a pack a day saying he’s won his battle over smoking. You know what? Bush is a lame duck. If you want to convince yourself that it was all worth it, enjoy yourself. Whup it up. We”ll see what history does to the Bush legacy. What I care about is that we start withdrawing our troops, carefully and intelligently.

Scott,

“(albeit with the sympathy/concurrance of US political opponents here in the US in the case of the latter).”

That AQ uses Iraq as an “excuse” for recruitment and that I, or other opponents of the war, or the CIA, acknowledges that fact does not in any way mean we sympathize or concur with AQ.

You mistake empirical observation for moral approval. It’s a much-used rhetorical sleight of hand. Only dumb people buy it. And I don’t think you’re dumb, so I’m wondering who your audience is.

If we don’t fight the Al Qaeda monsters in Iraq “they won’t get the combat training there.” So what?! They’ll just go to afghanistan, or wherever else the fighting is to get it there. Or, if there’s no fighting, they”ll just skip the training and move to Manhatten. Muckmudd Ata was trained for the evil he did in Florida, remember.

Scott, excellent elucidation of what their “points” are, and where they get them.

Dc

Remember it’s the smart terrorists who benefited from the training. They don’t die. They survive to fight another day,

And you really ought to stop the “meat jello” crap. Unless you’ve personally been in combat, a possibility I don’t discount, that’s a pretty heartless stateside machoism.

I don’t deny the progress we’ve made. I think you overemphasize it and prematurely declare victory.

Re: Afghanistan. That was a war that made sense like WWII. Pls note my response to Yon.

REPOST OF TWO TO ANOTHER WEBSITE (TheSpectator – in resp., to an article by Melanie Phillips)

I put these up a while ago, but they are just as relevant now as they were then.

(A)

As John at Powerline says, “Over the last five years, we have witnessed something remarkable: our principal news media outlets have fabricated an alternative reality around the Iraq war by simply misreporting the facts. They have done this in order to advance their own political agenda.” —
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/03/020111.php

But despite the fact that the lies against Bush can be shown to be false, most Lefties everywhere keep repeating them. Apparently they cannot think for themselves, nor are they abel to follow any arguments that contrast the lies with the truth. Very sad.

To his credit, David Kay did not lie for them, which is probably why they didn’t bother following up on his first hand accounts but rather went with the lies concocted by the Left.
(B)

[TB:=Tom Brokaw]
[DK:=David Kay]

TB: The president described Iraq as a gathering threat — a gathering danger. Was that an accurate description? ___

DK: I think that’s a very accurate description. ___

TB: But an imminent threat to the United States? ___ Mr. Bush NEVER used the term “imminent threat,” but others, among them John Edwards, DID.

DK: Tom, an imminent threat is a political judgment. It’s not a technical judgment. I think Baghdad was actually becoming more dangerous in the last two years than even we realized. [so, if invasion was justifed by what we thought, and it turned out to be WORSE than we thought, ...(do the math, genius!)] Saddam was not controlling the society any longer. In the marketplace of terrorism and of WMD, Iraq well could have been that supplier if the war had not intervened. ___
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4066462/ ___
And, yes, David Kay even says that some WMD may have been shipped out and/or even hidden in Iraq, and that the intent was to reconstitute the WMD programs as soon as it was possible. ___
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/02/kay.report/ ___
. . . .

1. the only reasons people think the Iraq war wasn’t necessary are that they believe the lies they’ve been told by the Left, including the Leftist media, and they refuse to abandon those lies when they are shown to be false.

2. The World IS a safer place today because Saddam is gone.

Scott,

AQ “did work *extensively* with the regime, and were planning attacks on the west.”

Substantiate that please. Who suggests that AQ was working “extensively” with Saddam’s regime.

Here’s what the Harmony Project actually says:

“But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found *no “smoking gun”* (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks.”

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9352

I asked you who your audience was for your statement that opponents of the war sympathize and concur with AQ and you tell me your audience is those same people.
That simply makes no sense. If they are so benighted as to sympathize with AQ, why bother to talk to them? Let me put it simply. I oppose the war. I neither sympathize nor concur with AQ. I merely recognize that our presence in Iraq serves as a recruiting tool for them.

Yon,

Here’s what David Kay really said:

“Information found to date suggests that Iraq’s large-scale capability to develop, produce, and fill new CW munitions was reduced — *if not entirely destroyed* — during Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, 13 years of UN sanctions and UN inspections. We are carefully examining dual-use, commercial chemical facilities to determine whether these were used or planned as alternative production sites. “

From your site: http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/10/02/kay.report/

And further if WMD were moved to Syria, we failed in our effort to secure WMD within Iraq subsequent to our invasion.

Re: Your AQ Therapist Fantasy

Your first source addressed terrorists leaders killed in Iraq, assuming the veracity of the source. The leader in your second source was not killed in the “central front of the war on terrorism” in Iraq. He was killed in Pakistan – our “strong ally” who was harboring him and thus according to President Bush’s own definition is our enemy. Please also listen carefully to the report’s reference to Pakistan as a “safe haven” for AQ and to the observation that this being the first AQ leader to be killed in two years “speaks volumes about Al Queada’s ability to operate with *near impunity* in Pakistan’s tribal areas.”

Dc,

I am sorry for your trauma on 9/11. I watched the towers come down from across the river. I share your rage. But I respectfully suggest you have been sold a bill of goods, my friend. Saddam is gone, but Ossama Bin Laden is alive and well (though “Wanted Dead or Alive”) somewhere in Pakistan, our “strong ally” in the GWOT.

Dave Noble #67

You’re using the McClatchy version of reporting on the Iraq Perspectives Report… i.e. pulling the favorite liberal paragraph out because it’s the only one that softens the blow of his deep dealings with jihad terrorist groups. It also enhances the fatal flaw liberal progressives have INRE the global battle with jihad movements… they think the enemy only goes by the name Al Qaeda.

Thus you’re trying to play the “gotcha” word game of al Qaeda and Saddam. The undisputable link between the two is Saddam’s long term relationship with al Zawahiri… back to his EIJ days.

So for the more pertinent language to “substantiate that claim”, get past the preface and into the nitty gritty of the report. And you reference only a Cato news analysis of the original 94 page document. From pg 62:

Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-Iraqi non-state actors was
spread across a wide variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. For years, Saddam maintained training camps for foreign “fighters” drawn from these diverse groups. In some cases, particularly for Palestinians, Saddam was also a strong financial supporter. Saddam supported groups that either associated directly with al Qaeda (such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led at one time by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri) or that generally shared al Qaeda’s stated goals and 97

From the conclusion:

One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United States, the answer is yes. Extract 34.

Zawahiri merged his EIJ… which worked directly with Saddam… with OBL’s AQ by 1998, when they issued the World Islamic Front Statement of 1998. Did Zawahiri have a massive change of heart and drop his goal of returning Egypt to an Islamic state because of merging with AQ? No. Did he develop a new taste of jihad by joining AQ? Again no. The man who merged EIJ with AQ in the late 90s is the same man Saddam had been dealing with since he came to power in the EIJ in 1993.

This brings to mind two questions. Do you believe that just because Zawahiri merged with AQ, Saddam instantly found him unworthy as a business partner? And is dealing extensively with Zawahiri the same as dealing extensively with AQ in your eyes? Or is that EIJ badge Zawahiri was wearing in the early days getting in the way of your analysis?

That’s one of the “gotcha” games people so like to play. Here’s the other one.

Saddam supported groups that he knew either “associated directly with” or “generally shared” AQ’s stated goals. If he provides them with finances or weaponry, knowing they can and will work with AQ in achieving the same goals, is that supporting AQ?

Not technically, no. He didn’t write out the palace check to AQ, or ship to the AQ arsenal warehouse. But then that’s generally absurd. If I buy an HP printer from Best Buy, write my check to Best Buy but know full well they are giving money to HP, am I also doing business with HP?

Now it comes down to what is more important to you… playing gotcha word games by semantics in order to support a hatred for the Bush administration. Or recognizing that the intel we couldn’t prove then – that so many say is wrong – was actually correct and proven so thru the Harmony/ISG documents found post OIF.

The WMD is the media and Congressional campaign rallying cry. When the AUMF was signed, there was something like 23 “whereas” reasons for using force. Only 7-8 of them had to do with WMD. It became the centerplate because it was the most logical to solicit the int’l community in the UNSC. We should, of course, know the lack of will of the “int’l community” by now.

But this brings me to your terribly absurd statement:

And further if WMD were moved to Syria, we failed in our effort to secure WMD within Iraq subsequent to our invasion.

UNMOVIC and satellite images documented the movement and stripping clean of monitored facilities *before* OIL and coalition troops entered Iraq. Pray tell, how can we fail to secure WMD when we were not yet there. The man had about 3 months to do house cleaning with the warnings…

Mike typed:

‘P.S. Jake: We lost Vietnam because DEMOCRATS forced us to abandon the fight just as we are winning’

One of the great myths driving Republican politics these past thirty odd years.

We last in Vietnam because we backed the wrong side in the wrong war.

Dave… first I didn’t call CATO, which I well know is a libertarian think tank, a liberal organization. Where do you get that??

In fact, what I said was you are using the McClatcy liberal reporting tricks by singling out a paragragh that, when read alone, totally misrepresents the entire report. I blogged on McClatchy’s prerelease BS reports on this study just prior to my FA author days…

There are actually a series of Iraq Perspective reports… this was is labeled “Vol 1″ and they refer to other volumes in it. I have the original 94 pg PDF archived on my computer because the ABC link – which I provided in my response to you – download takes so dang much time.

However your link is just to a CATO op-ed talking about the report with a few excerpts. It’s an entirely different matter reading the entire 94 page report.

I’m going to assume from your sticking to your guns on the “unequivocal quote” of “no smoking gun” that Saddam’s dealings with Zawahiri for a decade means nothing to you. Nor his known association with terrorist organizations that deal with AQ.

So again you bring up Pakistan as an example. This truly is getting old, Dave.

Pakistan PRIOR to 911 was no Muslim ally. That happened under GWB and after 911. Who knows what tact would have been taken if, post 911, they did not agree to cooperate. But they did, and the US does not invade countries who’s governments formally take a stand to aid the US in intel and the GWOT.

And that is, quite simply, the difference between Pakistan and Iraq. Pakistan turned in a Muslim ally, Iraq remained defiant in the fact of 17 UN resolutions. Add to that Clinton’s regime change policy in the Iraqi Freedom Act in the mid 90s, the the pieces fall quite logically into place.

Which brings me to my purportedly terribly absurd statement:

The issue isn’t timing, you’re attacking a strawman again. Whether they were moved before, during, or after the invasion – we missed them. And if they were moved before the invasion – Why the hell did we invade?

If they were moved by Saddam, they were moved to places where we would not find them, and that he could recover them.

If you want to know *why* the Congressional majority signed the AUMF and thereby “why the hell did we invade”, I suggest you reread the resolution yourself, Dave. You err in depending upon the news soundbytes to dictate the reasoning for regime change, whittling it down to one convenient three letter expression. In reality, it was for many reasons. That the news didn’t inform you of all, or made it seem it was a revolving door of reasons, does not excuse you for knowing all the specifics. So you may want to refresh your memory.

And try not to give the DNC Congress a pass when they say “I didn’t vote for war” when the damn thing was named “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution 2002″. If they didn’t read the “whereas” clauses included, there’s no excuse for not reading the name of the resolution.

You want more David Kay? Ah, an old subject from my Sea2Sea archives. His report was fall 2003. Here’s some excerpts from an exclusive interview with the London Telegraph in Jan 2004:

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year’s war to overthrow Saddam.

“We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons,” he said. “But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam’s WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved.”

What WMD programme? I thought he didn’t *have* a WMD programme? DOH!

From another famous “no WMD” proponent, Charles Duelfer in his testimony April 2004:

What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of the use of force and had experience that demonstrated the utility of WMD. He was making progress in eroding sanctions and, had it not been for the events of 9-11-2001, things would have taken a different course for the Regime. Most senior members of the Regime and scientists assumed that the programs would begin in earnest when sanctions ended—and sanctions were eroding.

All of which leaves me wondering just what you want me to say about WMD.

1: You can not point definitively to facts proving that he did *not* possess proscribed weapons and a reconstitutable (and will to do so) WMD program.

2: Duelfer and Kay dance with many words… “unable to rule out the possibility”, “based on the evidence *available*”, “unable to rule out unofficial movement”… all language in amendments with Duelfer’s 92 page addendum in March 2005 to his testimony and report. None of which says he did not possess a workable and reconstitutable WMD program. It merely says they can’t find enough evidence to fulfill your smoking gun wish.

While, on the other hand, we can point to:

1: documents and facts that proves Saddam had acquired proscribed weapons after 1998, and abandoned them in a Netherlands junkyard just prior to OIF.

2: We also have even the above naysayers stating he was busy eroding sanctions, and had the will to reconstitute his CW/BW – all WMD programs.

3: Harmony/ISG documents his relationship with terrorists as an unofficial state weapon.

The difference between you and I is you read the above and see “not enuf reason”, and I look at the above and see “can’t take the chance post 911″. That disparity between you and I will never change. It is the very foundation of our disagreement.

So do I think we were correct to remove the Saddam regime and allow Iraq to put in their own Arab democracy? You bet. Because I can read between the lines, and do not wait for a smoking gun to see the potential.

You say you oppose the war “I merely recognize that our presence in Iraq serves as a recruiting tool for them. “. That’s explains your opposition today. And why did you oppose it at the start? Because you didn’t believe, or feel there was enough proof for the single rally cry of WMD?

History has proven the intel and gut feelings the Admin had were correct. Saddam was doing business with jihad terrorists. Saddam was attempting to reconstitute his WMD/CW/BW programmes and actively working to thwart sanctions. Those two alone… despite the rest of the whereas reasons, were quite enough.

Mata,

“The difference between you and I is you read the above and see “not enuf reason”, and I look at the above and see “can’t take the chance post 911″. That disparity between you and I will never change. It is the very foundation of our disagreement.”

That’s it in a nutshell, Mata.

That is so succinct, insightful, and accurate, I will close our discussion for now.

Dave Noble #67:

Scott,

AQ “did work *extensively* with the regime, and were planning attacks on the west.”

Substantiate that please. Who suggests that AQ was working “extensively” with Saddam’s regime.

Here’s what the Harmony Project actually says:

“But the relationships between Iraq and the groups advocating radical pan-Islamic doctrines are much more complex. This study found *no “smoking gun”* (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda. Saddam’s interest in, and support for, non-state actors was spread across a variety of revolutionary, liberation, nationalist, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks.”

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9352

Dave,

Unlike the McClatchy Reporter who never bothered to actually read the five-volume Iraqi Perspectives Project when he wrote his piece, let alone the exclusive summary as the report hadn’t even been released yet, and he received leaked portions from a Pentagon official, Scott actually went through all 1600 pages of the study, after USJFCOM decided to release all five volumes, when reporters were getting it wrong. Please go through and read:

Pentagon Report Confirms Saddam’s Regime Supported al Qaida

No Ties Between Saddam and Al Queda Network of Terrorist Groups

Saddam’s files show terror plots but raise new questions about some media claims

Scott’s written extensively on this, and I might have missed a few of his posts. He’s also researched extensively on such links, in general. As has Mark Eichenlaub

Your Cato link charges neoconservatives with “cherry-picking” from the study; yet that’s exactly what the Cato article did, even as it conceded a few points of argument.

The boundaries between one terror group from another becomes blurred, and really we should be calling them “al Qaeda network” or “al Qaeda and affiliates“. There are cross-overs, with shared funding and training, and shared common interests and objectives. “Ansar al Islam” is not the same name as “al Qaeda”, yet according to one of its captured operatives, it’s essentially bin Laden’s group. So really, when speaking of Ansar al Islam, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda, is there really much of a distinction?

The whole statement, “there were no (operational) ties between Saddam and al Qaeda” obfuscates Administration claims to begin with, shifting the goal posts. Please note the following:

“Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
-President Bush in an address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington D.C., September 20, 2001.

Dave Noble writes #70:

Finally, I didn’t know there were different versions of official Pentagon reports.

There aren’t. But as in the case of the final Senate Select Committee on Intell’s phase II report, it’s was largely misrepresented by a lazy media who piggybacks upon an established narrative of “Bush lied”.

It seems to me that the quote was pretty definitive and unequivocal – “No smoking gun.” Seems to me that you should have a smoking gun to go to war and not the convoluted reasoning you are forced to employ.

Please point me to the quote where President Bush said there was an operational link between Iraq and al Qaeda, as well as the one where President Bush said Saddam had anything to do with the planning of the events of 9/11. Where was that pushed as an official justification, in one of the major speeches, for war by this President?

Finally….what MH said