# Best case scenarios for Iraq **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418 "2003-09-18T17:41:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/21 "2003-09-20T22:29:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > And what was this nonsense about Germany in WWII? After all, it was JAPAN that attacked Pearl Harbor. Why did we ever go after those nice Germans? Maybe because Germany declared war on the US? :rolleyes: You guys really need to get your analogies in order. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2003, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/22 "2003-09-20T22:42:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gorsnak \* > \*\*Maybe because Germany declared war on the US? :rolleyes: You guys really need to get your analogies in order. \*\* In all fairness, we were ‘at war’ with the Germans well before they declared war on us. Providing supplies to Great Britian (and France, for a while…), and guarding said supplies for part of their journey over the Atlantic. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/23 "2003-09-21T01:30:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > \*\* You can only attack “countries” or “the guys who did or planned the bombing.” \*\* Umm, yeah, that’s the purpose of pursuiong AQ operatives in Afghanistan. Invading Iraq was about a potential threat. Al Qaeda is a current threat. It seems to me taht a current threat should be dealt with before potential ones that haven’t developed yet. We’re still not done in Afghanistan. ---
**Author:** ![FoamChomsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8dc957/32.png) [@FoamChomsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoamChomsky)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/24 "2003-09-21T02:02:00Z")
Fine, but I think that one of the problems that’s sort of hovered over all our heads was that Al Qaeda, or more specifically bin Laden and his minions, however they then designated themselves, were allowed to become “current threats” precisely because they weren’t interdicted while still in the “potential threat” stage. The Clinton White House was talking about him in 1995, when (apart from the 1993 WTC bombing, to which he was later linked) OBL and his people were still largely in “potential threat” stage. I know the Sudan (among others) offered him to us on the proverbial silver platter at or about that time, an offer we spurned. Hindsight is of course 20-20. Nonetheless I must confess I do not see the point of devoting all our resources toi Afghanistan at this point a country which, while it has had some resurgency of the Taliban of late, still has undergone a metamorphosis. They brought their accounts current with the World Bank a little while back and I believe their economic growth rate figure for the last year was in the area of 28%. We may not be done in Afghanistan, but in all honesty it does not seem to be the real powderkeg on the planet at this point. If anything, Al Qaeda people have slipped into (back into?) Iraq, where it seems they feel they can exploit the fluid situation and occasion mayhem on Shi’a and Westerners alike. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/25 "2003-09-21T07:51:56Z")
Good lord, what is this crap? The Bush administration was given detailed briefings about Osama and did absolutely fucking nothing. > [@](#): > > [Truth / Too little of it on Iraq](http://www.startribune.com/stories/561/4101486.html) > Cheney repeated the mantra that the nation ignored the terrorism threat before Sept. 11. In fact, President Bill Clinton and his counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, took the threat very seriously, especially after the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. By December, Clarke had prepared plans for a military operation to attack Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, go after terrorist financing and work with police officials around the world to take down the terrorist network. > > Because Clinton was to leave office in a few weeks, he decided against handing Bush a war in progress as he worked to put a new administration together. > > Instead, Clarke briefed national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Cheney and others. He emphasized that time was short and action was urgent. The Bush administration sat on the report for months and months. The first high-level discussion took place on Sept. 4, 2001, just a week before the attacks. The actions taken by the Bush administration following Sept. 11 closely parallel actions recommended in Clarke’s nine-month-old plan. Who ignored the threat? And please produce some real numbers regarding Afghanistan’s economic health. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/26 "2003-09-21T11:09:28Z")
Both ignored the threat. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/27 "2003-09-21T11:17:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by adaher \* > \*\*Both ignored the threat. \*\* Neither of them dealt effectively with the threat. Only one of them actually _ignored_ it. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/28 "2003-09-21T11:31:03Z")
And only one of them responded with appopriate force when an attack happened on their watch. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/29 "2003-09-21T11:46:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by adaher \* > \*\*And only one of them responded with appopriate force when an attack happened on their watch. \*\* I assume that you’re talking about Clinton now. Coz how could spending a few hundred billion invading a country that had nothing to do with the attack be considered **appopriate**? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/30 "2003-09-21T11:55:40Z")
Bush did invade Afghanistan. Bush has arrested many Al Qaeda leaders. Clinton did neither. ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/31 "2003-09-21T12:10:39Z")
**adaher** , you’ve gone from “both ignored it”, which was patently false, to something like “Bush did stuff, Clinton didn’t”, which is also patently false. Al Qaeda people were arrested during Clinton’s time. Afghanistan was attacked but not invaded during Clinton’s time. Your one-line responses are both idiotic and wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/32 "2003-09-21T12:21:11Z")
This is going anywhere… anyone that thinks that invading countries that MIGHT be involved… that MIGHT be a threat and that MIGHT become a democracy (big MIGHT here) and that MIGHT become shining examples… and that MIGHT change the Middle East into something better and MIGHT stop Terrorism… ``` If you call that a SOLID policy of changing the ME and world terrorism... I MIGHT have to call you a fool. MIGHT there be other options than wasting 200 billion and killing thousands and pissing hundreds of countries ? Contrary to what you say... you CAN attack nebolous Terrorists organizations. You CAN work with other countries... you CAN stop supporting Noriega, Bin Ladens and Dictators. You CAN work out better commericial and international trade rules to create less discontent worldwide... you CAN try diplomacy before war. You CAN use that money for something better and you sure CAN VOTE for someone that isnt being controlled by big oil companies interests. Fighting terrrorism isnt easy. So if your happy your president is trying to take the easy way out and faking a fight against terrorism good for you. Vietnam was lost not in the battlefield... Algeria (France) was not lost in the battlefield. To win militarily is not to win in the end. This in fact is not a War in a sense either. ``` ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/33 "2003-09-21T14:17:38Z")
General reply to several of you: If GHWB had “finished off” Saddam in 1991, we’d have had pretty much the same situation we have now, just 12 years earlier. That, as nonrevisionists will note, is _why he decided not to do it_. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > I must confess to some impatience with those who decry our rather astonishing recent efforts in the ME by harping about the fact that OBL may still be alive. Good god, if he is, he’s in WAZIRISTAN, with US planes flying over his head and spooks of various nations trying to bribe locals into coughing him up. > > Dead or alive, let him stay there. He was there already, under not-too-dissimilar circumstances, when he _led the 9-11 attacks_. While alive, he’s a danger, wherever he is. Gotta get him, and Saddam, and the anthrax killer too, and that’s before considerations of justice or even revenge enter into it - Bush is 0 for 3 so far, you’ll note. > [@](#): > > Iraq’s not going to turn into Sweden overnight-- granted. But they’ve already been given a governing council in which the Sunni AND the Shi’a are represented. There’s a council, but what makes you think it’s “governing”? Or that it will become so? Looks more like window-dressing as long as the real authority is with the occupying power(s), which it is. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/34 "2003-09-21T14:41:31Z")
The Iraq council is widely seen as a US stooge too… so no legitimacy or representative power there. If the US leaves today that council will be the first thing the iraqi will get rid of. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/35 "2003-09-21T15:45:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > \*\* > Fine, but I think that one of the problems that’s sort of hovered over all our heads was that Al Qaeda, or more specifically bin Laden and his minions, however they then designated themselves, were allowed to become “current threats” precisely because they weren’t interdicted while still in the “potential threat” stage. \*\* Reagan and Bush the father should share some of the responsibility for arming, funding and training UbL and many other AQ operatives. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > \*\* > Nonetheless I must confess I do not see the point of devoting all our resources toi Afghanistan at this point a country which, while it has had some resurgency of the Taliban of late, still has undergone a metamorphosis. > \*\* Last I heard, the US gov was saying that AQ was still one of the gravest threats facing the American people. This leads me to believe that we’ren’t done. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > \*\* > If anything, Al Qaeda people have slipped into (back into?) Iraq, where it seems they feel they can exploit the fluid situation and occasion mayhem on Shi’a and Westerners alike. \*\* And the situation in Iraq is what it is in no small part because of the invasion of Iraq. I have it on good authority that the invasion had a major impact on the conditions in the country. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/36 "2003-09-21T15:50:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Rashak Mani \* > \*\*The Iraq council is widely seen as a US stooge too… so no legitimacy or representative power there. If the US leaves today that council will be the first thing the iraqi will get rid of. \*\* TO be fair, the IGC has made great strides toward legitimacy. They have a non-voting seat in the Arab League and are allowed to attend OPEC meetings on Iraq’s behalf. They’re still not legitimate enough to be seena s an authority that can be negotiated with for big money oil companies though. ---
**Author:** ![FoamChomsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8dc957/32.png) [@FoamChomsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoamChomsky)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/37 "2003-09-22T10:35:19Z")
Can we stop putting words into the Iraqis’ mouths and at least let them speak for themselves? [http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/979368/posts](http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/979368/posts) ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/38 "2003-09-22T11:42:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by FoamChomsky \* > \*\*Can we stop putting words into the Iraqis’ mouths and at least let them speak for themselves? > > [http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/979368/posts](http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/979368/posts) \*\* Out of curiosity, what words do you think have been put in the mouths of Iraqis in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![FoamChomsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8dc957/32.png) [@FoamChomsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoamChomsky)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/39 "2003-09-22T11:54:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Iraq is far from a sucess story in “creating” anything. Even if one year from now we have a so called democracy in Iraq it will be a shitty one and voters will be questioning the blood and dollars spilt for it. > [@](#): > > And the situation in Iraq is what it is in no small part because of the invasion of Iraq. I have it on good authority that the invasion had a major impact on the conditions in the country. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2003, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418/40 "2003-09-22T12:08:01Z")
So, you think that someone was saying that these two quotes: "Iraq is far from a sucess story in “creating” anything. Even if one year from now we have a so called democracy in Iraq it will be a shitty one and voters will be questioning the blood and dollars spilt for it. " AND “And the situation in Iraq is what it is in no small part because of the invasion of Iraq. I have it on good authority that the invasion had a major impact on the conditions in the country.” were coming from the Iraqis? The first quote seems to be dealing with _American_ voters, not Iraqis and their opinions. The second quote is my own and I can tell you, it is definitively not meant to expressing the opinion of the Iraqis. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-case-scenarios-for-iraq/202418.md?page=3)