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There really wasn't a plan in the first place with Iraq. Bremer did things like he was going to remake Iraq, while most of the Pentagon and White House people just wanted to be out in a few months. Why Bremer wasn't taken out back and shot for what he did is beyond me.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:10
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Cat Mattress posted:Because the Bush administration would have went for the simplest, sanest, least "we are an empire and recreate reality" approach? Are you trying to argue that the Bush administration was reasonable and competent? This is where everyone dives into the hippy crackhole and fucks it up. The WMD and terrorism things weren't bullshit. They were inaccurate in a few critical aspects, but there is still to this day a lot of evidence that lead to the invasion that has held up. The biggest reason people think it was all a fabrication was because no WMD's were found, but they don't bother to read any further than that. They all cite the Duelfer report and say AHA! NO WMD'S. Nevermind the fact that David Kay, the leader of the Iraq Survey Group that created the report, said that what they did discover made Iraq look like even more of a dangerous place than it was thought to be prior to the post-war investigation! He said that Saddam fully intended to restart the weapons program as soon as outside sanctions were lifted/subverted. Duelfer said that Saddam only complied with UN inspections as a tactic, and his strategy was to reconstruct his arms program. Military spending also increased 40 times in Iraq between the early 90's and early 2000's. The views of these people that investigated Saddam, and found nothing, unanimously still concluded that he was a looming threat with terrible intentions and a seething hatred for the United States. Duelfer went so far as to say "Saddam was a reminder that darkness exists." Generally the kind of sentiment you'd expect to hear about a report of the inner workings of a regime responsible for the largest chemical weapons attack on a civilian populace in human history. Saddam's own records state that he thought his power was growing, and that other regional nations did not possess the ruthlessness and ability that his did, and in the long term, he would be able to break out of his constraints and intimidate his foes (remember Kuwait or no?). His colleagues supported these as the beliefs Saddam held, and their opinions were right in line with Kay and Duelfer's. Re: terrorism. Same story. No links to 9/11 or operational ties to al-Qaeda! Gotcha! Well for starters, lets get refreshed with the 1993 assassination attempt on former United States President George H. W. Bush by the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The mukhabarat who assassinated Iraqi political dissidents in Iraq and abroad. The regime itself acted as a terrorist group that posed a threat to the US. Secondly, the big CIA report was supposed to prove that Saddam had links to al-Qaeda, and possibly to 9/11. It was considered that all the claims the Bush adminstration made were false based on the fact that smoking gun was not there. However, ties with al-Qaeda were still greater than what they were previously thought to be, and they were still less than Saddam's ties with other terrorist groups. Saddam's policies throughout the 90's, and captured documents, show that his relationship with these groups was based on opportunism, similar to Assad's. They worked with them as much as they thought was beneficial to the regime. They basically used each other to get ahead. As such, groups had offices in Baghdad, and there were ten fronts that the regime were shown to have worked with the terrorist groups on, including safe haven and training. They were in Baghdad during 9/11, and they cheered the attacks, which had a massive impact on senior members of the Bush administration. So the idea that the entire concept of Iraq involvement in terrorism was a complete fantasy is a joke. To wrap this up, yes, the Bush administration stretched the truth, and even lied in some cases. They also poked peoples sensibilities about 9/11. They did everything they could to gain support for an Iraqi invasion. They certainly hosed up literally every goddamn aspect of the invasion and occupation that could possibly be hosed up. But in no way is that inconsistent with the fact that the administration truly believed that Saddam posed a threat to the United States. There was no ulterior motive. The were not abiding by the demands of their illuminati oil and gas lobby masters. Seriously, the Israeli lobby isn't powerful enough to get the US to approve Israel's entry into the visa-waiver program. The finance lobby wasn't powerful enough to stop Dodd-Frank. But the oil and gas lobby was powerful enough to get strong bipartisan support and massive public support for an enormous invasion that lasted a decade and killed thousands of Americans. loving really. Writing off the Iraq War as based on that requires the same mental gymnastics and reliance on lies and half truths that you see from people who think the Civil War was about states rights. It's also the same understanding that ISIS supporters have of the conflict, so you're in good company when it comes to not-crazy conspiracy theory minded folks. It's babby's first middle east theory, and it will never not be. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 16:12
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Phlegmish posted:It's a powerful nation that influences the rest of the world in myriad ways while at the same time having a very inward-looking culture. It's not just the right either, the Tumblr left (there is no other kind in the US) is at least as Americentric. If you're only capable of framing things through the narrow ideological lens of your own culture's definitions and preconceptions, you are doomed to foreign policy failure as you will never understand what exactly motivates the various local actors. Would you mind explaining to me what a tumblr left is?
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Aug 16, 2014 16:15
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Omelette du Fromage posted:Would you mind explaining to me what a tumblr left is? I'm a marxkin, and Engels is my headmate. Also, wow, why am I not at all surprised to see Volkerball defending the evidence for the invasion of Iraq? You're not zero for three, you're zero for four.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:23
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Michael Corleone posted:Just a question I have been trying to find an answer for, if anyone here can advise it would be super cool! I know that when Assad was getting ready to face intervention, he told everyone that anything the US did would be purely cosmetic. They would just have to outlast the strikes while the US showed off, and everything would be fine, and they'd be stronger for it. They began putting all their critical equipment in the basements of schools and apartment buildings in dense population centers to make it more difficult for the US to maintain support, and said loving bring it. I'd imagine ISIS was in a similar boat. They've already fought the US and won in their eyes once, and it's not exactly secret knowledge that people in the west are totally over wars in the Middle East. They probably just did their thing, established contingency plans, and wished a mother fucker would intervene. They would've gotten (well, will get) tremendous PR for that, especially when the US ran out of juice and left, and there was still an Islamic State.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:24
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We must intervene in Syria! Libya was a great idea! Also Al-Sisi! By the way, the evidence for Iraq wasn't that bad! I'm definitely not from Htrae!
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Aug 16, 2014 16:27
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illrepute posted:We must intervene in Syria! Libya was a great idea! Also Al-Sisi! By the way, the evidence for Iraq wasn't that bad! I'm definitely not from Htrae! I believe there's a few set criteria that should be met when it comes to deciding whether to intervene against a government. One is that a situation has to have hit "critical mass," where there is massive dissent and it's become clear that the government has lost and will not regain the faith of its people. Iraq didn't meet that criteria (yet), and as such, I didn't support intervening there. There was a very little to support there. We had to create it from scratch when the intent became the complete annihilation of the regime. It also seemed like it wasn't exactly the worst offender in the world at the time from a human rights standpoint. However, to say that Iraq posed no threat to the region or to the United States is just partisan hindsight that handwaves away its loving despicable nature.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:31
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illrepute posted:I'm a marxkin, and Engels is my headmate. I didn't see him justifying the evidence, I saw him tearing into the "they did it for the oil" argument. The reality surrounding Hussein did not justify an invasion, so the Bush administration made a bunch of stuff up and convinced themselves it was true. At no point did anyone think they were doing it for the oil, as far as I can see.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:33
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What does the fact that a regime is despicable or not have to do with whether it's a threat to the US? Because Jesus gently caress, Iraq wasn't any kind of threat to the region let alone the US. The place was a half-starved shithole no matter what power fantasies Saddam might have entertained.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:34
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Volkerball posted:I believe there's a few set criteria that should be met when it comes to deciding whether to intervene against a government. One is that a situation has to have hit "critical mass," where there is massive dissent and it's become clear that the government has lost and will not regain the faith of its people. Iraq didn't meet that criteria (yet), and as such, I didn't support intervening there. There was a very little to support there. We had to create it from scratch when the intent became the complete annihilation of the regime. It also seemed like it wasn't exactly the worst offender in the world at the time from a human rights standpoint. However, to say that Iraq posed no threat to the region or to the United States is just partisan hindsight that handwaves away its loving despicable nature. Iraq under Saddam was absolutely an authoritarian mess, I agree with you. I don't see how a sanction-devastated post-Kuwait Iraq could possibly have posed a threat to the U.S. considering the absolute buttstomping the U.S. meted out in the first week of the invasion. That Saddam may have intended to restart his nuclear weapons program later does not, I feel indicate he was a threat to America. Volkerball posted:It doesn't. I elaborated on the threat part in that big effort post. The people starved, the regime was well fed. Part of the reason sanctions against them were appalling. 500,000 kids died and the regime barely weakened. Way to go Bush 1. Ugh yeah, what a nightmare.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:36
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Cerebral Bore posted:What does the fact that a regime is despicable or not have to do with whether it's a threat to the US? It doesn't. I elaborated on the threat part in that big effort post. The people starved, the regime was well fed. Part of the reason sanctions against them were appalling. 500,000 kids died and the regime barely weakened. Way to go Bush 1.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:37
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Panzeh posted:There really wasn't a plan in the first place with Iraq. Bremer did things like he was going to remake Iraq, while most of the Pentagon and White House people just wanted to be out in a few months. Why Bremer wasn't taken out back and shot for what he did is beyond me. probably because the US is not stalinist russia
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Aug 16, 2014 16:38
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illrepute posted:Iraq under Saddam was absolutely an authoritarian mess, I agree with you. I don't see how a sanction-devastated post-Kuwait Iraq could possibly have posed a threat to the U.S. considering the absolute buttstomping the U.S. meted out in the first week of the invasion. That Saddam may have intended to restart his nuclear weapons program later does not, I feel indicate he was a threat to America. And that's a totally fair debate to have. I'm honestly divided on that. But the point is that when there's people in the government who did feel that, combined with the other things I listed, presented a real threat, it's not such a farfetch'd, unreasonable position that it demands there be an alternate reason behind that position, like ~oil~
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Aug 16, 2014 16:40
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Volkerball posted:It's also the same understanding that ISIS supporters have of the conflict, so you're in good company when it comes to not-crazy conspiracy theory minded folks. Oh yeah, man, "not a crazy conspiracy-minded person" is totally the vibe your post projects, you really nailed it there buddy! take your meds Frankly your post is all over the board. The reason used to sell the Iraq War was WMDs and that turned out to be a total lie. Half of your post is basically pre-crimes that level accusations of things that never happened, the rest is generic bad stuff that is done by pretty much any tinpot strongman, including the ones we support right up to the present day like the Egyptian General whose rise to power you cheerled. George Washington University compiled a timeline from NSC sources. The Bush Administration had been planning to depose Saddam since day 1 ("February 1, 2001: NSC principals meet to discuss 'A Post Saddam Iraq'). Who cares what propaganda they used to sell their little operation to the public? I really can't believe that there are people willing to get behind the push to invade Iraq in the year of the lord 2014, even as the country is finally disintegrating and violent head-chopping insurgents have taken half the country. You're like a bizarro-world GuyInCognito. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 16:42
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PleasingFungus posted:probably because the US is not stalinist russia Well it would have discouraged further Paul Bremers.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:45
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Paul MaudDib posted:The Bush Administration had been planning to depose Saddam since day 1 And this is incompatible with them thinking Saddam was a threat...how? As for the rest of that, I wish you best of luck in your attempts at literacy. You'll get it some day if you keep working hard and listen to your trainers. Quitting that paint-eating habit would probably help too.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:50
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I can't see how Saddam would have been seen as a threat by any rational person. Its obvious that was not the real motive unless you think Bush was even more incompetent than people currently think. Also sweet we have time traveled to 2002, better warn them about ISIS!
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Aug 16, 2014 16:51
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illrepute posted:I'm a marxkin, and Engels is my headmate. All of which to say, I agree with Phlegmish view of the US as an inward looking country using itself as a model for interaction with the outside world, across the whole political spectrum.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:54
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Volkerball posted:And that's a totally fair debate to have. I'm honestly divided on that. But the point is that when there's people in the government who did feel that, combined with the other things I listed, presented a real threat, it's not such a farfetch'd, unreasonable position that it demands there be an alternate reason behind that position, like ~oil~ If you really think that we invaded Iraq because it posed an actual threat to the US, I must conclude that you live in some sort of bizarro reality and are hopelessly naive. The possible existence of WMDs was a fabricated lie that provided an excuse for a lengthy and costly invasion and occupation, which in turn generated astronomical profits for the military-industrial complex. Oil may not have been the primary reason for the war but you can be drat sure that it was factored into the cost-benefit analysis as a top three item under the benefits column.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:55
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Just come out and embrace the face that you're a neocon Volkerball.
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Aug 16, 2014 16:59
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enraged_camel posted:The possible existence of WMDs was a fabricated lie that provided an excuse for a lengthy and costly invasion and occupation, which in turn generated astronomical profits for the military-industrial complex. Oil may not have been the primary reason for the war but you can be drat sure that it was factored into the cost-benefit analysis as a top three item under the benefits column. If thinking this post looks like it should be written in crayon makes me a neocon in this forum, then yes, I'm a neocon. VVVV Not always! Volkerball fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 17:01
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^^ Maybe not a neocon, but definitely a smug shitheadA Buttery Pastry posted:I think the Tumblr left as Phlegmish perceives it is distinctly liberal, with an extreme focus on identity politics, largely racial and sexual, not socialists with a focus on class. They might adopt some socialist vocabulary at times, much like they sometimes misuse the words of feminism and anti-racism for their own purposes, but that is very different from actually believing in the ideals behind those words. It's essentially the liberal version of American reactionaries, both sides having been distracted from the issue of workers' rights by hot button issues, all of which are seen nearly exclusively through the lens of American society. That's not to say other countries don't have similar distractions (or that real racial/sexual rights are not important), but it seems far more powerful in the US. So then Phlegmish would be saying that there are no actual socialists in America, a country of 300 million people? Interesting.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:01
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Volkerball posted:If thinking this post looks like it should be written in crayon makes me a neocon in this forum, then yes, I'm a neocon. Good! Acceptance of yourself is a good first step. 
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Aug 16, 2014 17:03
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Volkerball posted:And this is incompatible with them thinking Saddam was a threat...how? As for the rest of that, I wish you best of luck in your attempts at literacy. You'll get it some day if you keep working hard and listen to your trainers. Quitting that paint-eating habit would probably help too. Sick burns brah, my condolances on your arguments. If you bothered to read the source documents you could see their specific interests in deposing Saddam. quote:February 1, 2001 – The NSC principals meet to discuss Iraq including its economy, a “Post-Saddam Iraq,” and Defense and CIA plans for “possible regime change, war crimes initiatives, dealing with the Kurds, coalition military posture and redlines.” Rumsfeld cuts Secretary of State Colin Powell off when he tries to discuss a new sanctions strategy. quote:February 3, 2001 -- A high-level NSC official writes a top secret document directing NSC staff to cooperate with Cheney’s newly formed Energy Task Force as it considers “melding” two areas of policy: “operational policies towards rogue states,” (such as Iraq), and “the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.” quote:February 5,2001 – At a principals committee meeting chaired by Condoleezza Rice the heads of agencies discuss Iraq options and are instructed to focus on increasing intelligence collection on Iraq’s suspected weapons of mass destruction programs. Another meeting on the topic is held on February 7. quote:April 2001 -- The report of the Cheney task force on American energy needs predicts that use of foreign oil will rise by 50 percent over the next few decades and says the main U.S. goal should be to protect “free oil markets.” Saddam Hussein is the main obstacle to U.S. interests, because Iraq adjusts production levels “in its strategic interest....Iraq remains a destabilizing influence to U.S. allies in the Middle East, as well as to regional and global order, and to the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East.” The report calls for anti-Iraq policies, including a possible “need for military intervention.” So no, WMDs and the "threat" posed by Iraq are very much manufactured justifications. The actual justifications are:
e: Volkerball posted:If thinking this post looks like it should be written in crayon makes me a neocon in this forum, then yes, I'm a neocon. Ouch, what a zinger! Truly it's everyone else in the forum who is a crazy person, that's exactly right! Seriously though you're defending the runup to invading Iraq, even after it turned out to be a total lie and the reasoning was retconned, after the country turned to poo poo twice, and after it's begun to disintigrate. You supported neocon policy during the Arab Spring and the Syrian Civil War. Ignore the negative connotation of the word and look at your policy stances, you're a neocon. Then start looking at destruction implementing those stances has brought and maybe start to see where the negative connotation comes from. Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 17:04
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Paul MaudDib posted:Sick burns brah, my condolances on your arguments. If you had bothered to respond to my post instead of beating up strawmen, you would have gotten a better response. quote:If you bothered to read the source documents you could see their specific interests in deposing Saddam. Yeah, we needed to protect free oil markets. And we accomplished that by spending billions on a war and then letting China have all the oil contracts. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/27/187100/iraqi-oil-once-seen-as-us-boon.html
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Aug 16, 2014 17:10
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No one has accused them of being competent. Just not that incompetent.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:12
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Volkerball posted:This is where everyone dives into the hippy crackhole and fucks it up. The WMD and terrorism things weren't bullshit. But after the 1991 Gulf War, the plants had been destroyed, and the remaining chemical weapons had been spent on Kurdish civilians in the West's complete indifference. Anybody with two braincells to rub knew that Iraq no longer had any usable WMD. There were UN inspectors on the ground, even back then they said there was no way Saddam was producing anything. US propaganda went full gear on claiming UN was corrupt/inefficient/blind/useless/fascist/all at once. Volkerball posted:in the long term, he would be able to break out of his constraints and intimidate his foes (remember Kuwait or no?) Volkerball posted:Re: terrorism. Same story. No links to 9/11 or operational ties to al-Qaeda! Gotcha! Volkerball posted:Well for starters, lets get refreshed with the 1993 assassination attempt on former United States President George H. W. Bush by the Iraqi Intelligence Service. The mukhabarat who assassinated Iraqi political dissidents in Iraq and abroad. The regime itself acted as a terrorist group that posed a threat to the US. Volkerball posted:There was no ulterior motive. The were not abiding by the demands of their illuminati oil and gas lobby masters. And it's not just the USA. Oh, look! Seriously, attempting to wallpaper the oil link behind it as unsubstantiated paranoid ramblings is ridiculous. There's no illuminati conspiracy here: it's plain as day. In broad daylight. Volkerball posted:Seriously, the Israeli lobby isn't powerful enough to get the US to approve Israel's entry into the visa-waiver program.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:14
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Volkerball posted:Yeah, we needed to protect free oil markets. And we accomplished that by spending billions on a war and then letting China have all the oil contracts. Weren't you accusing people of believing that the Bush admin was staffed with clever people who skillfully navigated hidden agendas or something like that not two pages ago?
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Aug 16, 2014 17:14
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Cerebral Bore posted:Weren't you accusing people of dumb for believing that the Bush admin was staffed with clever people who skillfully navigated hidden agendas or something like that not two pages ago? The best thing about neocons is that they unironically contradict themselves within the span of few minutes. Occurs more often if you get them to start frothing at the mouth, as demonstrated here.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:17
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Cerebral Bore posted:Weren't you accusing people of believing that the Bush admin was staffed with clever people who skillfully navigated hidden agendas or something like that not two pages ago? The post you quoted was clearly sarcasm.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:21
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Volkerball posted:The post you quoted was clearly sarcasm. I would hope Cerebral got that or his post makes no sense.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:22
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It isn't surprising that Saddam had schemes to reassert himself in the region if sanctions were lifted. Invading Iraq wasn't a decision in the American national interest - it was to open the country up for commercial multinationals while taking Saddam out of the way. It reinvigorated the 'real' economy by opening up a new fuel source and stimulating demand for American industrial goods.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:24
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Volkerball posted:Yeah, we needed to protect free oil markets. And we accomplished that by spending billions on a war and then letting China have all the oil contracts. The article doesn't say that the US wasn't interested in going into Iraq over oil. This is the actual thesis of the piece: quote:Iraq remains highly unstable in terms of security, infrastructure and politics. Chinese state-owned oil companies appear more willing to put up with that than Americans are. Actually it goes on to point out that Cheney's company came out with a fat wad of cash from the whole invasion: quote:Iraq hasn’t become the bonanza for big Western international oil companies that some might have expected when the U.S. invaded 10 years ago. They go also on to discuss the reason American companies haven't been doing very well, which largely comes down to the US invasion being a delusional shitshow and the country proceeding to turn into a warzone that is too unstable to work in. The Chinese, in particular, are working in Iraq because they have no other choices in terms of available oil fields. quote:While the industry’s improvement in Iraq since 2009 has been substantial, according to analysts, the country remains a tough place to work. Huge problems remain with infrastructure, security and logistics. Regardless, none of this actually discusses the motivations of the US in going into Iraq. These aren't pre-invasion documents from the National Security Archives like the ones in the timeline I cited. This is an assessment of how those ambitions played out. Because the invasion was run by delusional neocons who thought the war would be over in a month, they played out pretty poorly.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:28
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Volkerball posted:The post you quoted was clearly sarcasm. Yes, that's kinda why I wrote what I did.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:33
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enraged_camel posted:If you really think that we invaded Iraq because it posed an actual threat to the US, I must conclude that you live in some sort of bizarro reality and are hopelessly naive. Is he saying the US invaded because Iraq WAS a threat, or because it PERCEIVED Iraq as a threat? His post read as more the latter to me, with all those evidence points being presented as things that the government saw as supporting their conclusion, not as things that lead Volkerball to the same conclusion. This is a serious question; I might have missed a sentence or two.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:36
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Is he saying the US invaded because Iraq WAS a threat, or because it PERCEIVED Iraq as a threat? His post read as more the latter to me, with all those evidence points being presented as things that the government saw as supporting their conclusion, not as things that lead Volkerball to the same conclusion. Eh they are the same thing really. You can't honestly say that Iraq was a credible threat in a perceived or actual sense. I mean Iraq's army already was shown to not really be able to do much against the US and WMDs really only have a limited uses and obvious range issues. The meat though is that Iraq is just to far away to be anything of a threat to the US proper. Its like the Russian's doing a Red Dawn type scenario, it just isn't really possible and is just wankry to suggest otherwise.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:40
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Is he saying the US invaded because Iraq WAS a threat, or because it PERCEIVED Iraq as a threat? His post read as more the latter to me, with all those evidence points being presented as things that the government saw as supporting their conclusion, not as things that lead Volkerball to the same conclusion. Personally I don't buy for a moment that the Bush admin precieved Iraq as a threat. These were the same people who we know were legit convinced that america was invincible and that they could just go into Iraq and effortlessly change the entire country to siut their vision. How exactly does it make sense that these people were seeing Saddam and shambles of an armed forces as a legit threat?
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Aug 16, 2014 17:41
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CharlestheHammer posted:Eh they are the same thing really. You can't honestly say that Iraq was a credible threat in a perceived or actual sense. I mean Iraq's army already was shown to not really be able to do much against the US and WMDs really only have a limited uses and obvious range issues. The meat though is that Iraq is just to far away to be anything of a threat to the US proper. Only way Iraq could be seen as a threat to the USA was if you were a neocon hegemonist. quote:Saddam Hussein is the main obstacle to U.S. interests, because Iraq adjusts production levels in its strategic interest. And then people wonder why anti-Americanism becomes so widespread, especially in poor countries with valuable natural resources.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:46
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CharlestheHammer posted:Eh they are the same thing really. You can't honestly say that Iraq was a credible threat in a perceived or actual sense. I mean Iraq's army already was shown to not really be able to do much against the US and WMDs really only have a limited uses and obvious range issues. The meat though is that Iraq is just to far away to be anything of a threat to the US proper. They're not the same because only one really supports Volkerball being some kind of neocon, which seems like a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. The other is a statement of the Bush administration's perceptions, not of actual reality. Cerebral Bore posted:... If I were worth a drat this is where I'd dig up that quote about how it's a cornerstone of fascism to claim your enemies are terrible threats at your gates while simultaneously and paradoxically declaring them pathetic sub-people who could be easily crushed by our might. VVV I had indeed forgotten about that. God what a trainwreck.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:48
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I would just like to point out that re: Iraq being a serious threat, Operation Desert Fox in late 1998 involved launching about 400 missiles into Iraq targeting various strategic sites and weapons facilities, in response to Saddam being a shithead about weapons inspectors. All of our intelligence, and intelligence of other ME countries, suggested this destabilized the regime to the point that some were worried about collapse, and were asking what the US would do if Saddam went. It revealed the regime to be even weaker than people had previously thought. It's not as though the Bush administration was not aware of this. If there were people who genuinely believed Iraq was a threat- and I think people like Wolfowitz really may have- they did so incredibly irrationally and in the face of lots of military and intelligence folk telling them they were wrong.
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Aug 16, 2014 17:48
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