WMDs and Bush - Lie or mistake?

[andyfox]

I would have accepted the "spun" reasons for going to war if the administration had a plan to win the peace. But they didn't. There were government and private studies about the perils of disbanding the army; about the likelihood of looting; about the problems with infrastructure; about the likelihood of insurgency; about the possibility of civil war; about the influx of terrorists that an American occupation would bring; about the difficulties of culling a democracy from the melange of Iraqi religious and ethnic groups. But Rumsfeld wouldn't even let his people attend the meetings and the potential of these problems were swept under the rug, the beter to deflect potential criticism of the pending invasion.

Inexcusable and unacceptable. I said in another post in this thread that the Iraqi people deserve better. This is precisely what our policy was in Vietnam. Run in like a bul in a china shop and don't plan for the well-being of the people we're supposed to be defending.

[mackthefork]

I voted lied, in my opinion it was their only option to make this war politically acceptable, WMD was not the reason for war. The fact that there may have been various other good reasons for the war, and that they can just suggest that they always used them and people would swallow it is a good reason to believe that they lied and didn't care that it would be found out.

Mack

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My experience with intel, human and electronic, has been that it's not always conclusive. Interpretations are made. Disagreements abound. Consensus is frequently marginal.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wish more people understood this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think people do, that's why they don't like us making important (life/death) decisions based on intelligence when it seems close.

Regards Mack

[twowords]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Getting rid of Saddam was in my view a good and moral undertaking on every count, even if we went about it less than ideal propriety:

1) depose a brutal tyrant; give potentrial hope to the Iraqi people for the first time in decades

2) hopefully initiate and spread democracy in the Middle East

3) preempt any possibility of Saddam at later date supplying WMD to terrorists, or threatening his neighbors

4) whether or not he actually had WMD at the moment was largely irrelevant in my opinion: he had had them previously; he greatly desired and eventually would have acquired them again; he was our mortal enemy. Good enough reason right there to take him out.

5) he financially supported suicide bombers attacking Israel; he routinely fired on our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone; he was intransigent as hell and extremely disinclined to honor the terms of the cease-fire which he signed

5) We need a major military outpost in the region from which to be able to counter Iran, and from which to have the option of exerting pressure on all manner of terrorist groups and their state supporting actors

6) We need a major military outpost in the region to be able to ensure the free passage of oil to world markets

7) We also need that same outpost in case we have to take out Iran's accelerating nuclear program before it reaches the point of no return

[/ QUOTE ]




Your utilitarian reasons are not "good enough" for me to go to war or ask other Americans to do so in my place.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. We'll never agree on this, then. I personally think that attempting to relieve a country from brutal totalitarian tyranny and slaughter is a very good reason to contemplate war. I take it you must have been against the military intervention in Kosovo and the region, then, under Clinton?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh please M, that was one point out of your seven, and most definately the least important reason we went to war. Andy has sufficiently explained how the liberation is clearly a bonus and not a high priority or reason to go to Iraq. If it were a primary reason, there are many other worse places we could liberate and we are not doing so.
[ QUOTE ]

I also think our potential future security concerns are very important indeed. You must weight the security-related points I listed as being of far less importance or seriousness than I do.


[/ QUOTE ]

They are of utmost importance. However, I don't agree with your neo-conservative security prescriptions. Obviously neither does America, since the administration had to resort to exagerating and misrepresenting WMD evidence to gain support for the war. Why not just lay out the case like you did? See previous post also.

[vulturesrow]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
I Also there is a strong feeling by many out there that Syria may have been the beneficiary of WMD largesse from Saddam.

[/ QUOTE ]

It has come to this? A "strong feeling"? Is this the same "many out there" that have "a strong feeling" that "intelligent design"/creationism should be taught instead of evolution?

[/ QUOTE ]

Dont be an ass. Let me put it to you a little more definitively. I think there is a very large chance that WMD were transported to Syria. Many people I know think this as well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Consider me extremely depressed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Any particular reason you think this isnt the case? There is enough evidence to at least leave it open as a possibility.

[Felix_Nietsche]

1. Iraq used mustard gas on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War.
2. Iraq used Chemical/Bio weapons against the Kurds.
3. Israel takes out the Iraq nuclear facilty.

Then after the first Gulf War Saddam kicks out all the weapon inspectors and claims that he MAGICALLY got rid of all his WMD....without showing any proof that he did so. Sorry, but excuse me if I don't take Saddam's word for it. Assuming that Iraq had stockpiles of Chem/BIO weapons was a reasonable conclusion and every other intelligence service in the world agreed upon.

My personal belief is Iraq destroyed their remaining stockpiles (which wasn't much) and put their WMD in hibernation mode with the plan to resurect their WMD program after the sanctions were lifted. The second Gulf War screwed up their plans....

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Wow. We'll never agree on this, then. I personally think that attempting to relieve a country from brutal totalitarian tyranny and slaughter is a very good reason to contemplate war. I take it you must have been against the military intervention in Kosovo and the region, then, under Clinton?


[/ QUOTE ]


Oh please M, that was one point out of your seven, and most definately the least important reason we went to war. Andy has sufficiently explained how the liberation is clearly a bonus and not a high priority or reason to go to Iraq. If it were a primary reason, there are many other worse places we could liberate and we are not doing so.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where it ranks on our list of personal objectives has no impact on whether or not is was a good cause in the real world. Deposing ANY brutal dictartor who is tyrannizing 20 million+ people is in my view a worthy cause--REGARDLESS of of whether it is our main purpose or not. And of the candidate places for costly intervention, since costs are not a non-factor, it is pragmatic to take into consideration as well the potential benefits to ourselves (an indirect method of offsetting costs).

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I also think our potential future security concerns are very important indeed. You must weight the security-related points I listed as being of far less importance or seriousness than I do.

[/ QUOTE ]

They are of utmost importance. However, I don't agree with your neo-conservative security prescriptions. Obviously neither does America, since the administration had to resort to exagerating and misrepresenting WMD evidence to gain support for the war. Why not just lay out the case like you did? See previous post also.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have always disagreed somewhat with the way the case was laid out--and even more so in hindsight. Yet however poorly you sell a good thing, it is still remains a good thing--your bumbling salesmanship efforts have little to no impact on the merits of the thing itself. And the Iraq war had merits in many ways.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see how the invasion can be considered a moral undertaking when the undertakers (no pun intended) were neither truthful with their explanation about why we did it, nor careful with American lives in the execution (no pun intended).

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is where we may differ philosophically. In my view, if it's a good thing in overall thrust, it's still a good thing even if the motives and methods for achieving it were impure. Of course it remains to be seen just how good the long-term effects might be.


I would have liked to have seen the war sold better, and without spin, and with more emphasis on the plain goodness of removing a brutal tyrant and installing democracy. It wasn't sold that way. That's a shame. But that in no way mitigates the fact that overall the war serves a very good purpose (actually, multiple very good purposes).

[andyfox]

There's merit in your point that bumbling salesmanship might well have nothing to do with the quality, or lack thereof, of the product itself. I see the salesmanship as misrepresentation, not bumbling. And I see the product as a disaster for the Iraqi people, largely because of poor planning of our part:

"Why should I care? Nothing has changed since we have elected this government: no security, no electricity, no water," said Saad Ibrahim, a Shiite resident of Baghdad's Karrada district. "The constitution will not change that. The main issue is not getting this constitution passed, but how to stop terrorism."

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I would have accepted the "spun" reasons for going to war if the administration had a plan to win the peace. But they didn't. There were government and private studies about the perils of disbanding the army; about the likelihood of looting; about the problems with infrastructure; about the likelihood of insurgency; about the possibility of civil war; about the influx of terrorists that an American occupation would bring; about the difficulties of culling a democracy from the melange of Iraqi religious and ethnic groups. But Rumsfeld wouldn't even let his people attend the meetings and the potential of these problems were swept under the rug, the beter to deflect potential criticism of the pending invasion.

[/ QUOTE ]

So your real beef seems more about the selling and prosecution of the war rather than whether or not a war was merited in the first place. Fair enough and I definitely share some of those concerns. That however doesn't set me against the entire undertaking, nor does it change my view that the real-world reasons for war were valid.

If a poor car salesman sells you a really good used car, it's still a good car even if he misrepresented it a bit and even if the dealership performs poor service later. I think the Iraq war was fundamentally a good car which was poorly sold and serviced. We apparently paid too much for those reasons, but the car was special enough that it merited being bought in the first place.