History-like hindsight-is supposed to be 20:20, but the deliberate partisan, political divide regarding the invasion of Iraq makes that hard.
It’s not a new phenomenon. Long ago it was said that the true story of a war can’t be told until the last of its veterans has passed away, and only a few months ago did the last World War One veteran go to his great reward. For decades after the Civil War (and some would argue even today) the debate raged on, and the healing of Southern Reconstruction didn’t really start culturally until the unity of the Spanish-American War turned foes into brothers-in-arms.
Conspiracy theories-often fueled by politics-still rage over the 911 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, whether or not Roosevelt deliberately allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to happen, whether or not the U.S. Navy knew the U.S.S. Maine had a boiler explosion and wasn’t sunk by a mine. People still think that the Lusitania was set on a suicide mission to get the United States into World War One. These myths will always remain, and it’s good that they do because they spark investigation and a search for understanding of these world changing events. The relationship between the 911 attacks and the invasion of Iraq is interesting in that both have a long list of conspiracy theories attacked to each, and yet the abstract, more indirect relationship between the two events is dismissed out of hand. To that end, even if one believes the relationship between Iraq War and 911 attacks is a conspiracy theory, it’s worthwhile to examine if for no other reason than harvesting a better understanding. Read the rest of this entry »
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has positively identified remains recovered in Iraq as those of Captain Michael Scott Speicher. Captain Speicher was shot down flying a combat mission in an F/A-18 Hornet over west-central Iraq on January 17th, 1991 during Operation Desert Storm.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Captain Speicher’s family for the ultimate sacrifice he made for his country,” said Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy. “I am also extremely grateful to all those who have worked so tirelessly over the last 18 years to bring Captain Speicher home.”
“Our Navy will never give up looking for a shipmate, regardless of how long or how difficult that search may be,” said Admiral Gary Roughead, Chief of Naval Operations. “We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Captain Speicher and his family for the sacrifice they have made for our nation and the example of strength they have set for all of us.”
The statement goes on to recount the details of how Capt. Speicher’s remains were found, and the likelihood that he died on impact. I am so glad that the remains have been identified, and the mystery solved. Read the rest of this entry »
LONDON (Reuters) – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be asked to testify to a panel investigating the Iraq war, the head of the inquiry said Thursday.
Former civil servant John Chilcot said the inquiry, set up by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, would look at British involvement in the war, covering the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July this year.
“The people we invite to give evidence will be those we judge … are best placed to supply the information we need to conduct our task thoroughly,” the inquiry chairman told a news conference.
Blair’s decision to send 45,000 troops to join the U.S.-led invasion to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein six years ago provoked massive anti-war protests in London and the resignations of ministers.
No Truth Commissions here in the US (though if Obama’s poll numbers take another hit, and Healthcare fails…it’s a good bet there’ll be more dancing & calling for one from the distraction driven Dems.
Call me Tony. I’m happy to help w the timeline & pics
This is one of those articles that I really REALLY hope people will read before just commenting on the headline or the quoted sections. In fact, I think it’s one of the best articles I’ve seen on this subject in half a decade. Yes, it’s long, detailed, and forces many readers to question their previously held beliefs about regime ties to the Al Queda terrorist network, but it’s not the typical anti-Bush/anti-war piece or a woohoo-Bush-was-right piece either. It is EXACTLY why: members of the 911 Commission, Sen Intel Com, as well as others (and why every investigation into the subject of regime ties) have called for MORE investigation (while specifically saying the matter should not be closed). Mark’s done a fantastic piece of work here, and it deserves reading.
-Scott
During a series of email and telephone exchanges Matthew Degn relayed to www.regimeofterror.com… his vast array of experiences working with intelligence issues relating to the current and former situation in Iraq. Among his responsibilities during his years in Iraq Degn worked as a civilian interrogator attached to the U.S. Army in Iraq before working as a Senior Policy/Intelligence Adviser to Deputy General Kamal and other top intelligence officials with the Iraq’s Ministry of Interior. Degn, currently working on a book about his experiences in Iraq (personal website here), continues to argue against those that feel there was no link between terrorism and Saddam Hussein’s regime based on his involvement with hundreds of interrogations in Iraq and his involvement with many of the Iraqi Intelligence officials with the Ministry of Interior. Degn says that much of the public perception about Saddam Hussein’s regime and terrorism are incorrect.
Degn is currently the Director of the Intelligence Studies Program and a professor at American Military University currently a professor at American Military University whose testimony about events in Iraq has been cited by NPR, ABC News, the Washington Post and elsewhere.
~~~
Another reason for conflicting reports that Degn pointed out is both the chain of command in the U.S. government’s many agencies and compartmentalization of information (”need to know”). Degn said he saw firsthand how these two factors led to vital wartime information being “watered down” before it mades its way to official reports and investigations.
Propaganda is described in many ways, but one of those has got to be the kneejerk reliance and subsequent marketing of half quotes as whole truths. A half quote is a half truth, and this poor excuse for honest, factually accurate information is no doubt why newspapers are failing, and why their writers are fleeing to the Obama Administration for PR employment as spinmeisters. Take for example this article:
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s defense Thursday of the Bush administration’s policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.
In his address to the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy organization in Washington, Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that’s considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were “legal” and produced information that “prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.”
[NOTE President Bush’s Sept 6, 2006 address on this topic listed specific examples of this. Also, recently declassified CIA documents show that Congress was briefed on the “actionable intelligence” that the EIT program yielded. A partial list of thwarted attacks is available here.] Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe now that President Obama’s in charge of the war in Iraq, and there’s no need to lie, distort, or half quote truths to oppose the war (can’t oppose it if it’s run by a Democrat)…maybe now people will realize:
1) the matter was never closed by any investigation
2) there’s hundreds of times more information demonstrating ties than there is dismissing them
BAGHDAD — The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki said Al Qaida worked closely with former operatives in Saddam Hussein regime.
Officials said leading members of the Al Qaida network have coordinated operations with Saddam aides since 2003. They said Al Qaida and Saddam forces attacked Shi’ites in an effort to spark a civil war in Iraq.
The Al Qaida-Saddam link, asserted by then-U.S. President George Bush in 2002, came in wake of the reported capture of a leading Al Qaida commander in Iraq.
At the very least, it’s 100% clear (hindsight is 20-20) that yes, Saddam’s regime and the Al Queda network did have operational ties in 2003, and that means the invasion of Iraq HAS ALWAYS BEEN PART OF THE WAR ON TERROR. ht regimeofterror
Mark Eichenlaub
The war in Iraq is no longer a good political football for Democrats (they opposed it in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and in 2009 got power/responsibility so they support it now). Apparently that makes it ok for even the New York Times to admit that YES, Saddam’s regime (albeit in exile) is working directly, cooperationally, operationally with Al Queda groups-groups that even Democrats admit were in Iraq before the invasion.
“In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday, Mr. Maliki said all of the recent attacks had resulted from coordination between Qaeda militants and elements of Mr. Hussein’s Baathists.
Of course, other Iraqi PMs have said this as well. They’ve even claimed to have documents and captured regime members who trained Al Queda musclemen to take the planes on 911, BUT that was all moot and bs before. Now that a D is in the White House, and Democrats have complete, unchecked, unstoppable power…now it’s PC to admit the obvious; to admit what soldiers, Marines, and spooks have been telling us for years.
BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton assured Iraqis on Saturday that the Obama administration would not abandon their country even as it presses ahead with plans to withdraw American troops amid a recent surge in violence.
…
“Let me assure you and repeat what President Obama said, we are committed to Iraq, we want to see a stable, sovereign, self-reliant Iraq,” she told a nervous but receptive crowd at a town hall meeting at the U.S. Embassy in the capital.
“We are very committed, but the nature of our commitment may look somewhat different because we are going to be withdrawing our combat troops over the next couple of years,” Clinton said.
Earlier this week an article by Jonathan Landay was published by the failing McClatchy Newspapers. The article asserted that innumerable people had been tortured with the intent and purpose of proving a tie between Saddam Hussein’s regime and the Al Queda network of terrorist groups. The article asserted that there never were any ties between the two, and that the torturing of captured Al Queda terrorists was done largely to create a fictional narrative that would support the case for invading Iraq (let’s ignore that the alleged “torture” happened AFTER the invasion of Iraq-just as was done in the article).
I attempted to contact Jonathan Landay to nicely and politely inform him that the issue of regime ties had never been closed. He responded nicely, pointed me in the direction of a few reports, then categorically declared that no ties existed and that the intelligence community had known this all along, but the Bush Administration “cherry-picked” intelligence to make its case for war.
After that initial email, Jonathon refused to respond to further attempts at educating him. SO, here we go… Read the rest of this entry »
WOW! Great idea: spend your entire life posturing to run for President, then spend your Senate career being a professional Presidential candidate instead of a senator, and when you finally get the job…
THEN READ UP ON IT
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled that Senator Obama is finally getting national security briefings, reading up on the dangers in the world by reading 4yr old books about 20yr old subjects. I’m really thrilled. I’d of course prefer he read MY BOOKS, but maybe he’ll get around to it. More than anything, I really would have loved-I MEAN LOVED(!!!!) to have been a fly on the wall at the first NatSec briefing of his cabinet appointees. Oh MAN that had to be a conundrum!
“We have to leave Iraq 18 months from now per the campaign pledge, but the DoD says they can’t do it logistically. Hillary Clinton at State says it’d ’cause chaos and force a third invasion of Iraq (OUCH, tough sell to the DNC base!). Intel guys are saying that 1) AQ was in Iraq before the invasion, 2) AQ chose to make Iraq the central front in the gwot (not Bush), 3) AQ is being decimated by Bush’s Surge so leaving now let’s AQ revive in an oil-rich/money rich country. They also tell me that Iran’s gonna be making 40+nukes a month starting in January, India is moving troops to border w Pakistan & both sides are on their bi-annual brink-of-nuclear-war escapade. Oh, and despite the speech in Germany…ain’t nobody in the world gonna stop the anarchy in Africa or SE Asia.”
WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!
Suggestion: Appoint Dennis Kucinich to form a Dept of Peace and abolish the DoD. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
Poor Obama. He honestly had no clue & actually believed the leftist rhetoric. He followed Kos and Huffpo instead of the Milblogs and Flopping Aces. If he HAD been reading FA, then he wouldn’t need to be such a “voracious” reader of dated books. I’m only shocked he’s not skipping to the Cliff’s Notes.
Four and a half years prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom a major air strike was launched against Iraq.
President Bill Clinton on December 16, 1998:
Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors. He will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. Because we’re acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.
The air strikes lasted more than three days. While the Pentagon did not say how many cruise missiles were used, they did admit that more cruise missiles were used in the first two days of this campaign than the 290 that were fired at Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. Read the rest of this entry »
supporters who keyed on the language of ending the war might be forgiven if they thought that would mean bringing home all of the troops.
For years now Senator Obama has promised to bring home all the American combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, and to end the war in Iraq. Now that he’s been elected…well, he didn’t really mean “END” And he didn’t really mean bring home all the “combat troops” as much as just rename them as training, support, security, etc. Tens of thousands of American troops will remain in Iraq for years-at least until 2011, and perhaps indefinitely as there is no longer the promised Democratic TIMELINE FOR WITHDRAWAL from Iraq.
I think this is important, and so do the hundreds of millions of people around the world who opposed Pres Bush’s effort to train the Iraqi security forces, to secure Iraq, to fight Al Queda in Iraq, to leave Iraq only when it’s secure enough to prevent the need for a 3rd invasion, and who demanded a TIMELINE FOR WITHDRAWAL from President Bush. Those hundreds of millions of people around the world saw HOPE and CHANGE in the face of Pres-elect Obama. Instead, Americans are literally getting the Bush plan for Iraq run by Pres-elect Obama.
Does this matter? Nope. The left is as silent as Muslim community after a jihadi bombing. They don’t care. One would do well to wonder, however, if the silence & support for the Bush policy under Pres Obama is yet more evidence that opposition to the war in Iraq was more about opposing Pres Bush than it was about patriotic dissent against a war? 2 Men put out the same policy w the same excuses, but one is opposed, and the other fully supported. There can be no other conclusion than the opposition is against the man not the issue.
Demonstrators hang an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush during a rally at the al-Firdous square in Baghdad November 21, 2008.
REUTERS/Thaier al-Sudani
Yesterday, many conservative bloggers joined in to dare to declare November 22nd, Victory in Iraq Day. Based on the above photo, I’d say declaration of victory is premature…
Eclipsed by the election campaignining, this story slipped under the radar. Much has been said about the invasion of Iraq. Often there are claims that there were no weapons of mass destruction and no ties to Al Queda. In fact, most of the WMD claims that were made before the invasion turned out to be true. Iraq was not clean and innocent in regards to WMD, and the ties to Al Queda were wrongly dismissed.
One of those ties regard Saddam’s involvement with Al Queda groups like Ansar al Islam which no one disputes was present and active in the northern section of Saddam’s Iraq. Opponents of the war dismiss that tie by saying that if they weren’t in the part of Iraq that Saddam controlled, then they weren’t under his control. That’s a nice piece of rhetoric, and it’s good spin, but it’s ignorant of the fact that Ansar was the ONLY means of influence Saddam had in the North (that, and the threat of invading the north). He used Ansar as his proxy guerrilla force to attack his Kurdish enemies and impose his will in the North.
The point remains, Ansar and other Al Queda groups were inside Iraq in 2002, and the CIA knew it. They knew it because they sent extremely brave people there-into Iraq, and those people monitored the Al Queda until the Pentagon blew the opportunity to destroy the camps.
Charles “Sam” Faddis, who led a CIA team into northern Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, says the Pentagon’s “endless planning and delays” foiled a chance to wipe out a band of al Qaeda leaders who were fleeing American bombs in Afghanistan. Read the rest of this entry »
