Why Stay in Iraq?

[johnc]

Thanks Heavy! Some thought behind an arguement!

 

I agree that the WMD justification has turned out to be a non-sequitor. Although Franch, Russia, Britian, and our own CIA (Tennant's "Slam Dunk" statement) all said there were WMDs in Iraq, it turns out the they never existed or have been moved. You'll probably see some contrition from GWB on this topic soon. You're already seeing it from Tony Blair:

 

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2004/story/0,14991,1312954,00.html

 

With the Iraq Survey Group about to announce that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the war began, Blair is now prepared to express some contrition about the way the conflict was sold to the public.

 

'I have been very happy to take full responsibility for information that has turned out to be wrong,' he says. 'It's absolutely right that, as we've already done, we've apologised to people for the information that was given being wrong.'

 

But, he does make a good point:

 

'Obviously there will be people who have never been convinced about the original decision. But the fundamentals of the situation in Iraq are absolutely clear. You have a government supported by the United Nations. You have got massive reconstruction. You've got an attempt to bring democracy to the country and you've got these people trying to stop it. I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war, but what ever that disagreement, surely now it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequences of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost. By contrast, if we succeed and defeat these people and help the Iraqis to get what the Iraqis want, then global terrorism will suffer a defeat.'

 

He goes on: 'If the violence and terror stopped, Iraq would very swiftly - because it's rich in resources, it's people are intelligent - would make progress. So my point to people is: which side should we be on now? You might have disagreed about the conflict, but there is only one side to be on now, and that's the side of people who are trying to bring democracy and hope to the country, not trying to plunge it into terror and chaos.'

 

So, given that statement and the original point of this thread, do you (any of you) think we should stay in Iraq or should we pull out?

[johnc]

FYI... these are two Iraqi blogs I read to get an idea of what's happening in that country:

 

http://hammorabi.blogspot.com

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com

[Guest Z-rific]

Wow, I didn't realize that...

 

1) I couldn't have an opinion on Iraq if I've never been there, and

 

2) My arguements are unworthy without having a newspaper clipping to quote.

 

I reread my last post a few times and believe that there are completely legitimate questions and concerns there.

 

I get my information from a variety of sources. I try to form an opinion based on the sum of information available. I watch programs that approach issues from both left and right. I see politicians on all sides "spin" their way through interviews and mislead and misrepresent facts. My opinion is based on trying to fight through all the BS and make some sense out of the issue.

 

I must admit, I have argued why we shouldn't have invaded and not whether or not we should stay there, as the topic asks.

 

We made a mess there and obviously have to be responsible for cleaning it up. Unfortunately, I fear it's a catch 22 situation. I think as long as we are there, insurgents will grow and fight the sytstem; and I believe when we leave, all Hell's gonna break loose.

 

We won't get help from the UN as most members believe we went in there "illegally." Kerry claims he can rally UN support, but I think that's just election year rhetoric. Bush may never get support from the UN for anything ever again.

 

I predict that whoever gets elected, will deal with Iraq until the next election. Iraq will gobble up billions, cost lives and keep our military committed for years to come.

 

By the way, the whole Blair arguement of "whether or not you think it was right to invade Iraq we need to move on", is not exactly "taking responsibility". Accountability is apparently something that doesn't exist in western politics any more.

[Pop N Wood]

To keep things off topic just a tad longer.

 

First I am not sure where the argument that invading Iraq took resources away from the Al Qaeda fight (how ever it is spelled) came from. There is only so much 200,000 extra troops could do in Afghanistan anyway. I am sure there were localized shortages at the troop level, but is anyone aware of any military commanders saying they couldn’t do what they needed to because of a lack of commitment? The brunt of the terrorist fight is going to be borne by groups like the NSA, FBI and CIA.

 

Second, as far as the US is concerned “UN assistance†is more for moral support than material. We usually end up footing the overwhelming majority of the coalition expenses in any of these campaigns. Examine the UN budget and compare the troop commitments to the various police actions to see what I mean. In Kosovo, we ended up with the majority of the missions because most NATO countries have equipment that is so out of date as to be tactically incompatible with ours. For example, we were the only people with GPS guided bombs and stealth aircraft. In many cases the radios and IFF gear were incompatible.

 

Finally, I believe it is difficult to distinguish the insurgency from the near state of civil war that exists in Iraq. There is a massive power struggle going on. If you look at the history of Iraq, they remind me to a certain extent of the former Yugoslavia. A bunch of historically combative people held in check by an authoritarian regime. Have to expect problems when a power void is created.

 

Back on topic, I don’t think there are many people arguing that we should abandon Iraq now that we have upset it. Kerry is making campaign promises that I believe he has no intention of fulfilling. What we should use as exit criteria is probably a better topic of discussion.

[Dan Baldwin]

Point is, it was FOOKING STUPID to go in there in the first place, and NOTHING can be done to fix that. So we have to REMOVE the STUPID FOOKS who put us there before they do something ELSE even MORE, well, you know...

 

IMHO

[Guest Phil1934]

I was totally against the occupation, but we have to stay until basic utilities are restored. They will probably elect a fundamentalist government before the last plane is out of sight, but that's not our concern.

[Heavy Z]

I'm glad you appreciated it, John.

 

Although Franch, Russia, Britian, and our own CIA (Tennant's "Slam Dunk" statement) all said there were WMDs in Iraq, it turns out the they never existed or have been moved.

 

I agree with that some intel from Britain did wholeheartedly agree with the WMD threat, there was also dissent. As for the other countries you mention, they all took more of the Scott Ritter/UN weapons team position that most of Iraq's weapons were disposed of by '98 and the remaining germ agents would be long since expired. So in a broad sense, yes they thought he may have had some remnants, which is why they wanted to allow more time for inspections to continue. But they didn't think he posed nearly the threat we made him out to be, and without including that info we distort their position on Iraqi WMDs.

 

As for the point about them being moved, in the same Blix article I included in my last post quoted him as saying there was no intelligence to support that WMDs had been moved to Syria or elsewhere. Not to say it had't happened, as one never knows, but not according to what we knew to that point. Even so, radiation would've left a signature we could detect had any atomic testing been underway. The mobil weapons labs supported the idea that WMDs were on the move, but turned out to be weather balloon trucks sold to Iraq by the UK not more than a week after the story broke.

 

As for Pop's ideas on troop numbers. He's got a point about whether 217,000 would do any better than 17,000 in Afghanistan, as it's hard to sneak up and do precision work on anyone when they can hear your tanks coming from a distance. Which brings me to this:

 

The brunt of the terrorist fight is going to be borne by groups like the NSA, FBI and CIA.

 

I agree. The way you get people planning a terrorist attack is by using good intelligence work, not rumbling an army up the the town where they live and going door to door. You end up pissing too many people off and get the mess we've got now. Your quote is another way of saying 'terrorism is mostly a police action', a point minimized by the admin as we ramped up to invade Iraq.

 

As for what we should do now, maybe it's a good time to follow through with rebuilding Afghanistan, make it an example of our kindness, and hopefully divert attention off Iraq. From the looks of this article last week, military brass is getting fed up:

 

General Odom remarked that the tension between the Bush administration and the senior military officers over Iraqi was worse than any he has ever seen with any previous government, including Vietnam. "I've never seen it so bad between the office of the secretary of defence and the military. There's a significant majority believing this is a disaster."

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1305360,00.html

[Heavy Z]

Along the lines of the two blogs John posted and Phil's talk of rebuilding utilities, this journalist visits several Iraqi utilities and gives insight into why delays are rampant. What he uncovers is embarassing but easily correctable:

 

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040830&s=parenti

[johnc]

I could have sworn that a bi-partisan commission concluded that there were NO ties between Saddam, Iraq and 9/11, which is what this is all based upon.

 

I'm probably one of only 5 people that have actually read the 9/11 Commission Report and I just finally finshed reading the NOTES section. In there I found the following:

 

Note 55 - Discusses an Afghanistan meeting in May 1996 between Osama Bin Laden (OBM) and the head of the Iraqi intelligence service and an Iraqi intelligence service bomb making expert. The bomb making expert supposedly remained behind until September 1996 at OBL's request to train Al-Queda operatives. There is some concern about the authenticity of these reports but these concerns weren't aired until May 2003.

 

Notes 74, 75: Both note intelligence reports about OBL's efforts to gaint he support of Iraq and Iraq's efforts to provide support to Al-Queda. Nothing is said regarding the veracity of these reports and they are no efforts to discredit them.

 

Note 76: Discusses 1999 intelligence reports that tie Ansar al-Islam (Zarquari) to Al Queda traiing camps in Northeastern Iraq. These reports were refuted in March 2003 and recanted by the intelligence sources under additional interrogation in February 2004. Two captured senior Al Queda sources (KSM and Zubaydah) denied in late 2003 that there was any connection between Al Queda and Iraq.

 

So, in hindsight, it looks like the connection between Iraq and Al Queda didn't really exist. But, if you look at the intelligence as of February 2003, there's a lot of information that indicates contacts between Al Queda and Iraq.

 

I have to still stick with the decision that was made in early 2003. Based on the information that was available at that time the connections between Iraq and Al Queda appeared to exist and were a valid justification for going to war.