If Bush's flaws are so blindingly obvious... why is he even in the running?

[Abe]

Who framed Roger Rabbit?? Nice argument, not at all equivocatory or dodging…

@Scylla

I am not an apologist. We have nothing to apologize for. We should be proud of what we did, and what we are doing.

Yes, I suppose my leader right or wrong, America uber alles, we are right no matter the contrary evidence, etc.? You’re apologizing right there! How? Thus:

I (not to mention others) have provided thoroughly documented arguments in response to the assertion that Bush’s flaws (and, more to the point, the flaws of his administration) are obvious, and that actions as regards Iraq have been frequently misguided and counterproductive, but also undemocratic (ably explained in the non-partisan The Economist extracts – in fact, if anything the publication leans more Republican than Democrat, but let’s leave that aside).

What you have done is essentially communicate “no, we are right, whatever we did was generally correct and at most you can criticize a few minor details, but in general the nay-sayers are just whining without good cause, and the reams of evidence you have provided are of no consequence even though I offer absolutely nothing in opposition”. If you had other messages, I’m afraid they seem to have got lost.

Your response is patently untrue, as a review of existing arguments (not to mention this thread) sans equivocation and apology should demonstrate.

For the past… three years? I guess it’s been that long, mostly what I’ve heard from the left about the wars whether they be in Iraq or Afghanistan has been pessismism. This is going to be a quagmire, that is going to be a disaster. We can’t do this. We can’t do the other. We’re gonna fail. We’re stupid. etc. etc. etc.

This is not an argument, but an emotional response to what you perceive to be coming out of… I don’t know, the left in general? Democrats? People who recognize Bush and co for the drooling, corrupt morons that they are? People (including Republicans and others directly involved) who have criticisms about the stream of mistakes that could easily have been avoided had the ample warnings been heeded?

I believe in a healthy skepticism, Abe. I really do. I beleive these things need to be questioned. But Jesus Christ, man! Every single little thing, any minor setback is pounced upon. We could never take Afghanistan, we didn’t have enough troops to take Iraq. We would never be able to make a Democracy work. We should cut and run… and on and on…

I don’t see a real argument here, nor have I seen any indication that you believe in healthy scepticism as regards these particular matters. Mind you, I never said “cut and run”, that would be a cowardly disaster now that the eggbasket has been thoroughly shaken and trampled. What a number of us have been saying, put in very simple language, is do things properly if you’re going to do them. That means at the very least listen to experts and your own military leadership if you’re going to take on a challenge the magnitude of which you obviously can’t appreciate. Instead the common response was to muffle criticisms and punish key figures to make an example out of them, as already detailed in my cites.

My position has not changed in years: 1) attacking Iraq is the wrong thing to do without better evidence at this time, this time being a couple years ago, and since then the evidence has not improved one iota; 2) heed advice instead of doing something the stubborn way, if you really have to do it.

If I read you correctly you are contesting, with practically no support, point 1, and are flatly denying that point 2 would have been of help.

I sit here, and I wonder; do they realize what this looks like? These constant pronouncements of doom and pessimism? I think they do hurt our efforts, you know? Not that you don’t have the right to make them, and should make them if you feel you must, but are you aware?

This is similar to the classic Ashcroft claim that political disagreement and criticisms are unpatriotic (and is similarly completely off-topic, a convenient way to dodge the real issues). If what you see are merely pronouncements of doom and gloom you’re not reading hard enough. The “pronouncements” made (or linked) here are not magical knee-jerk prognostications, rather analyses of the present situation and the way it has evolved. I myself have provided no fortune telling. Some of my cites – including Larry Diamond that Tokyo kindly brought up – do indeed offer a number of negative forecasts, and with good, documented reason. Extrapolations of the present situation are not that good, and the exit plan is shaky – something that comes as news mainly to terminal deniers, eternal optimists, perpetual partisans, and professional obfuscators.

Is Kennedy’s famous speech pessimistic doom and gloom? It is a fair estimate of the repercussions of the reckless actions and policies of the last few years. It’s negative, obviously, but it’s not Schadenfreude. Its message wasn’t even exaggerated, as many people of differing ideologies claimed shrilly at the time.

So, is this set of “doom and gloom” analyses pessimism, or realism? Given that what was predicted has largely come to pass, I would say it is, thus far, realism. Whatever it is, there is little reason to be optimistic regarding the current situation, just as there was little reason to be optimistic upon hearing US plans to invade Iraq no matter what the conditions and sentiments. Today Iraq is, indeed, a quagmire with stuttering progress and no lack of retrograde motion. And yet we can still summon the energy to discuss what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future, and, just as importantly, how to fix the present problems (start with security, as I already said and as Larry Diamond explains, which requires more and better trained troops).

That’s realism. Optimism, it would seem, consists of ignoring the very real problems facing Iraq, MENA, and the US and world; it consists of ignoring or glossing over the open hostility to the US (and Israel to a lesser extent) that has risen in almost every single country I am aware of, including in the so-called coalition of the willing. These are not items to be optimistic about.

Are you aware how the left today seems to be tying itself to failure, depending on it? Failure in Iraq, failure economically, failure in te global community? The more failure, the worse things get, the better it is for Kerry, the better it is for the left?

I don’t really care what the left says; I prefer the facts accompanied by intelligent examination. And I don’t want predigested pap from the White House talking about how great things are when any honest grade school review of the evidence indicates otherwise. I don’t want propaganda from the White House talking about what great leadership we have at the moment, when in fact the leadership is demonstrably inept and dishonest. I don’t want endless varieties of demonizations from Kerry campaigners who are obviously too dumb to latch on to the numerous very real issues one may take Dubya to task for, rather than grasp at anything and everything that comes in reach.

I’ll tell you what I believe, pure and simple. We did the right thing.

How, in the face of the lengthy arguments already provided here and elsehwere, are subterfuge, deceit, uninformed decisions in direct opposition to expert advice, hidden agendas, propaganda in stead of facts, unfounded wars of aggression, destabilization, terrorism recruitment drives, etc. “the right thing”?

Yours is not just belief, it is faith. That’s fine, but it is advisable to discuss at least some facts in a debate, opinion and faith will only take you as far as stating what you believe.

We’re making the world safer.

How? because all the evidence points the precise opposite way. Wasting years, lives, goodwill, and a lot of money going after an internationally harmless old secular dictator when there is the threat of Al Qaeda and countless affiliated organizations to stamp out is not making the world safer. It is engaging in a diversion of epic proportions, it is failing to focus on the top priority.

Of course, what with all the idiot propaganda coming out conflating Iraq with 9/11 and al Qaeda, we know why the general public remains embarrassingly misled on these counts; readers of these boards and those with a few particles of critical thinking skills don’t have that excuse.

I wonder if the Spanish feel safer after their first major al Qaeda attack? It was brought on by Aznar’s obtuse and uninformed support of Bush in Iraq, which was in direct opposition to the wishes of 90% of Spain’s population, but was politically convenient (much the same situation took place from Italy to Iceland). Do Australians feel safer? Do Americans abroad feel safer? Do Italians? Hell, even the detested French feel less safe.

Those countries that opposed us, did so for cynical economic and geopolitical reasons, not because we were wrong.

Ah yes, the famous, glaring double standard. It’s all right to accuse “other” countries of “cynical economic and geopolitical reasons”, yet it is somehow unpatriotic and unacceptable to point out that (after the evidence used to drive the war into gear is repeatedly shown to be false and in several instances fabricated or dishonestly manipulated) Bush and co must be pursuing their own secret little agenda involving oil, money, or whatever. The above objection you state would be inapplicable even if it hadn’t already been shown to be irrelevant countless times, since the reasons offered by countries opposed to the war were shown to be valid quite independently from any “cynical economic and geopolitical reasons”.

France and Germany had huge financial interest in the then current regime.

Ah… and what if not economic interests are represented by US actions in Iraq, since neither terrorism nor WMDs were or are in evidence? First, Bush and co wanted to get their greedy little hands on oil (remember the “cheap oil” argument?), then they awarded major reconstruction contracts to US companies – in the case of Haliburton, most embarrasingly so. Eventually they agreed that companies from countries that had supported the war could join in the fun too… But let’s not dwell on this stuff – I bring it up merely to illustrate the double standards at work here, not to make a point or defend these accusations.

The point is that even if France and Germany did have financial interest in Saddam’s regime, the rather solid arguments they provided against the war have yet to be dented by such silly pronouncements as you have repeated. Have you missed out on the SDMB GD the last few years? We have covered this ground time and time again, and I’ve seen you take part in those discssions, including this old one, where a few of us beat back the forces of propaganda right as all this cagal was hitting the fan. You could do a search for such discussions, where similar unfounded and poorly supported points of view as those you are currently expressing have been routinely demolished.

Oil for food was corrupt.

It seems it was, to some extent, but find me a charity that is not to some degree corrupt. And then find me a corrupt charity program that absolutely requires going to war against a toothless tyrant, as opposed to reforming the program or, you know, waiting for those weapons inspections to finish (I dread the advent of the inevitable half-wit who will blithely claim that the “inspections weren’t working anyway” – to you, half-wit, I say read the thread I just linked and then do a search on the subject for plenty more discussions).

We stood up, and we did the right thing in a difficult situation, and we can fucking make it work. It’s a stupid cliche, but it’s a cliche because it’s true. Pessimism doesn’t accomplish shit.

Nor does blind optimism. And I am certainly not pessimistic, that is a term I reject. I much prefer realist, since I do my best to base my views on available evidence rather than political affiliation, sympathies, foolish patriotism, or uninformed emotional reactions.

And please, what exactly does “we stood up, and we did the right thing” mean? Assuming this is not more self-validating Bushspeak, do you have any arguments and cites to support such a one-size-fits-all assertion? Because morality is one subject where it *is possible to spin and equivocate to a heart’s content.

[Abe]

@Scylla

Just consider the possibility that Saddam was a very bad man,

Yeah, but hardly the only one or the worst, to require such urgent attention. And --much more to the point – he was not shown to be armed and dangerous, unlike several other candidates. Even assuming Saddam was a real threat – and there is no real indication that he was – he had been contained since 1991 and was in the process of undergoing very rigorous weapons inspections to strip him of any eventual armaments…

consider the fact that for us, the war on terrorism is the war on militant fundamentalist Islam,

That is far too convenient and deceptively simple. Militant fundamentalist Islam is a vector for anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, not necessarily the cause.

More importantly, this particular point has very little to do with Saddam’s Iraq. Saddam was the only major leader in the entire region who was openly secular and brutally repressed any number of fundamentalists on his soil. Egypt tried the same for decades, failing to achieve even a fraction of Saddam’s success, which is why al Qaeda has significant Egyptian membership but – previously to the Iraq war at any rate – almost no Iraqi. What Saddam was doing actually worked, for a while, and he steered clear of number one enemy al Qaeda – unlike so many of our allies! As I already mentioned, but you ignored, Saddam acted for years as the Western shield against Islamic fundamentalism; plus, anyone who hates Ayatollah Khomeini’s guts can’t be all that bad??

and that Saddam on top of being genocidal tyrant,

Saddam a genocidal tyrant? Yes, that is the line of propaganda that has proved popular, but really, his offences are pretty minor when compared to, say, China, or several African nations. If you want to insist on this point you should point out what genocide Saddam is definitely known to be guilty of, quite aside oft-repeated propaganda, and see how he stacks up with other leaders sand renegades. Otherwise it is too easy and too convenient to brand someone by propaganda and hideously inflate the magnitude of his evil regime until all who hear his name tremble in righteous indignation.

was our self-professed enemy.

He was toothless and he was a secular revolutionary socialist anti-fundamentalist. I wish all enemies we have in MENA were like Saddam!

Consider that we have been at war with Iraq in a very real way since the inspectors left.

Already considered, this is not even an argument. For what it’s worth, I believe it is addressed in my posts and several cites in this thread.

What we did was we finished that war.

Cowboy speak without political sense or real discernible content. It is possible you may develop this into an argument, but I am afraid it would require rather more work.

Consider the possibility that we can win a peace, with a free Iraq.

This is the item on which one can be hopeful, though indications at present don’t suggest this will go one way or another – it’s still undecided and may yield unpleasant surprises as easily as good ones. The difference is that the good surprises will take years, whereas the unpleasant ones could develop in rather less. And, frankly, though the idea is a fair one, the execution has been very poor, which is really the meat of this discussion. A good starting point to implement such ostensibly noble ideas might have been not attempting to mislead the entire world and the UN with false evidence, etc.

We will make mistakes, we have made them. We’ll make more. We’ll win though because we simply won’t accept any other alternative. Unless of course we start beleiving the pessimists and just give up.

More apologies, mixed in with some dismissals of “pessimists”, who according to you would seem to be those who actually study a less than perfect situation and provide an honest analysis.

Please observe the following exchange:

SimonX said:
Not all mistakes were in spite of the US’s best efforts. There’s been a steady string of ignored warnings from the CIA, State Dept and Pentagon-commissioned outside experts.

Scylla said:
Yes, that’s true, but hardly troubling. In an undertaking such as this, no matter what course you take, you are going to have well-informed, responsible, but strong dissent. Had we chosen another course in the reconstruction (and I’d love to hear good ideas,) doubtless that would have not worked perfectly either and those that disagreed would be casting blame, too. Simply saying “This isn’t going well,” may or may not be true, but it is certainly not constructive unless an alternative course is offered that can be judged. Without the alternative, it’s really just whining.

Abe said:
The above is apolospinning of available information. SimonX was talking about several explicit warnings from a number of experts and government agencies directly involved in the Iraq affair before and after invasion, as well as consultants, academics, experts, etc., some of whom were hastily muffled or threatened by the administration. It’s difficult to spin this one effectively, Scylla, and it’s pretty much impossible to deny unless you resort to the proverbial fingers in the ears and loud singing.

Scylla concluded:
What’s there to explain. There are all always doomsayers. There always will be.

Can you at least make the attempt to carry on an argument in good faith, or will you dumb down in such hand-waving manner all points and objections that you have difficulties responding to?

Oh shit! “Criticized.” We’re in trouble now. Can’t have criticism. Better just give up. Sorry Iraq. You’re on your own now. We’re being criticized.

Please, Scylla, your endless attempts to equivocate and distract attention from the substantial issues are painful enough, let’s not descend into utter silliness like this. The critics were providing good, solid, valuable, rational arguments supported by common sense, evidence, and in most cases considerable expertise, something that is quite lacking from the administration on this subject.

When your own generals and brass at the State Department point out that a small invasion and occupation force is not a good idea and is bound to prove problematic, would you punish them publicly and muffle their objections? I don’t know, I do know however that you seek to deride valid criticisms and objections with your sarcasm. That is a tactic that adds nothing to the discussion and does little to support your point of view.

That naive reasoning, which you seem to be trying to defend, which clearly failed to work, and which took into consideration precious little of Iraqi reality, has been strongly and consistently criticized from the very beginning by multiple agencies and parties as well as outside counsel.

Yeah, there’s criticism. Other people supported it. Other people thought it was a good idea.

Ah, an application of a tired Creationist argument. You are giving the impression that one side must be as good as the other, and that critics and dissidents simply deserve to be dismissed out of hand in this matter. Even assuming both or either of these are true --and they are not-- this is when debate becomes especially important in politics and planning, although on such matters it ought to have been a very fast process indeed given the weakness of the position you are trying to defend. Instead we had decisions made by a handful of people despite the very real objections raised, even by top level people directly involed. Stop apolospinning for goodness’ sake!

Other people thought it might work. Other people still do.

Will “what” work? In the long run there is a chance Iraq may come out of this for the better. There is also the very real possibility of an Iranian backed theocracy coming into power, not to mention other problems. I don’t give a putrid fig what “people” might “think” will happen, I want facts and analyses thereof, not feel-good platitudes (or doomsday scenarios either, to be fair).

Other people think, that on balance, we’re doing pretty damn good.

Again, I invite you to read the analyses already provided for a rather more realistic interpretation. Then I invite you to actually tackle the argument instead of making these bland, unsupported assertions.

I have no doubt that there will be a contingent that tells us how we’re screwing up and how we’re gonna fail right up until we win. After we win they’ll tell us how it wasn’t worth it, or how it would have happened anyway if we had done nothing. There are always such people.

Yes, and there will always be great equivocators, trying to defuse threatening issues with inane non-arguments, seeking to distract attention from the real issues with petty complaints about the spoilsports who refuse to play along.

Yeah, I remember how the entire community was gonna rise up and fight us, how Saudi Arabia would become our enemy, how Syria and all these other countries we’re going to take the opportunity to charge in, and what a hopeless mess it would be.

You are selecting the very worst of the negative forecasts in order to try to discredit all opposition to almighty Go- er, president. As I argued before, it would seem that as much as 49% of Saudi Arabia is our enemy, given that they support the philosophy of bin Laden (clearly polls vary, particularly those released by Saudi authorities). Communities in Iraq have risen up to fight, and, even worse, there has been an influx of foreign fighters eager to fight and die, boosting the very fundamentalism that Saddam had repressed. Renegade clerics show up with militias and hold towns. There used to be no terrorism in Iraq, now there are regular suicide bombs, car bombs, civilian attacks, etc.

Oh, I forgot, according to Rumsfeld “This is what freedom looks like”.

Staying with the same non-partisan analysis here (since my other non-partisan mentions such as The Economist seem to have little impact on Scylla) back in early 2003, Larry Diamond warned against a repeat of the “engagement with Afghanistan, which has been ad hoc, haphazard, inadequately funded, tardy in reconstruction, and utterly unwilling to deploy and utilize the military force necessary to secure the new political order.” There was no blind spot in this situation, and, while it is obvious that hindsight is 20/20, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that foresight in the Iraq affair was pretty sharp too.

It all sucks. We’re screwing up. We’re gonna fail. This is your argument.

Don’t put words in my mouth, particularly simplistic rhetorical nonsense intended only to mock other posters’ points through distortion and misrepresentation. And, if I may make the suggestion, practice your reading, ideally in this very thread. This is not about what is going to happen, but about what is happening, and about the glaring errors that were committed in spite of ample warnings. The bulk of what we are discussing here has already happened, so stop providing falsely exaggerated negative forecasts that none of us here brought up. And if I see more of that spinning in response to honest analyses, I may become seriously dizzy and fall over.

[PatriotX]

@Scylla

At the same time I hope you see mine, which is that as time goes on one would expect the insurgents to become better organized and get better at what they are doing, while naturally we are first catching the easiest, and most incompetant ones. one expects the remaining insurgents to learn and become more effective. Ideally this bell curve tops out somewhere and the total effectiveness begins to go down. You may argue that we should have already crested the hill. I would argue that that it is still reasonably expected to be further down the road. We come to a matter of opinion.

Sure, sure. But note that as well that US estimates as to the size of the insurgency havce grown as well.

@Scylla

While this fact in the green zone is indeed troubling, it is not clear that it represents a net destabilization effect or a flare up.

True, true, but it is just one part of a larger picture that leads one to the water of such a copnclusion.

@Scylla

It implies that we, the US are responsible for the insurgency. I believe this stance of yours is undemonstrated no matter how you phrase it.

Are you implying that the actions of the US have only lessened the growth of the insurgency?
Surely, you’d admit that dissolving the Iraqi army had some impact on the availability of warm bodies to hear entreaties for recuitment into insugent groups.

@Scylla

(and I’d love to hear good ideas,)

They abound, so I guess you’re happy.

@Scylla

Had we chosen another course in the reconstruction…doubtless that would have not worked perfectly either and those that disagreed would be casting blame, too.

The complaints are not that things aren’t working perfectly. No reasonable person would expectthings to go perfectly. AFAICT, no one here has suggested that things were expected to go perfectly. Rather, the charge is that things are very far from perfect and that this distance is the resulted from a lack of due diligence on the part of Team Bush.

@Scylla

Simply saying “This isn’t going well,” may or may not be true, but it is certainly not constructive unless an alternative course is offered that can be judged. Without the alternative, it’s really just whining.

Characterize it as it pleases you; but, the first step is admitting that you have a problem.

@Scylla

I don’t think I ever heard the “Candy and flowers cakewalk” scenario argued by anybody in the administration.

The comments of a member of the presidentially appointed Defense Policy Board were previously provided in this thread.

[PatriotX]

@pervert

One could very well believe that the principles did the best they could and yet the results were not the best possible.

Exactly -the incompetence I mentioned earlier.

@pervert

We only know about them because Shinseki and the Democrats choose to make them public.

IIRC, they were a part of public testimony before Congress.

@pervert

But this is were we get into more murky territory. Can you point to a request from any Generals on the ground which were ignored?

I didn’t mention generals. There’s at least one Pentagon commissioned study I can think of w/o having to Google:
http://www.csis.org/isp/pcr/IraqTrip.pdf
overview of executive summary

@pervert

I said I never got the impression that the war would be easy or short.

at the moment, I’ve neither the time nor inclination to begin a googlefest. Rather I’ll just note a situation that’s could be analguous.
The Bush Admin only occasionally used the words imminent, threat and Iraq together; however at one point 9 out of 10 Americans (87% IIRC) got the impression that Team Bush was making the case that Iraq presented an imminent threat to the US. Also, Team Bush repeatedly used the term ‘preemptive’ which actually means an attack in response to an imminent threat.

[pervert]

@SimonX

@pervert

One could very well believe that the principles did the best they could and yet the results were not the best possible.

Exactly -the incompetence I mentioned earlier.

That is your definition of incompetence? That the results are not the best? Really?

I get this: *lack of physical or intellectual ability or qualifications * or perhaps this: inability of a part or organ to function properly. Notice lack and inability. Not simply failure. Some times bad things happen regardless of the competence of the principles involved.

IIRC, they were a part of public testimony before Congress.

Exactly.

I didn’t mention generals. There’s at least one Pentagon commissioned study I can think of w/o having to Google:
http://www.csis.org/isp/pcr/IraqTrip.pdf
overview of executive summary

Yes, commisioned by Rumsfeld. It was ignored? Can you cite that part?

at the moment, I’ve neither the time nor inclination to begin a googlefest.
Rather I’ll just note a situation that’s could be analguous.
The Bush Admin only occasionally used the words imminent, threat and Iraq together; however at one point 9 out of 10 Americans (87% IIRC) got the impression that Team Bush was making the case that Iraq presented an imminent threat to the US. Also, Team Bush repeatedly used the term ‘preemptive’ which actually means an attack in response to an imminent threat.

Yes, and a large number of americans believe in god, alien abductions, angels, and any number of unusual things. It seems to me inapropriate evidence of the administration position to look at polls of the American people and extrapolate bacwards. Unless you are ready to prove some sort of super human ability on the part of this administration to get its message out. But of course that would seem to require the the opposite of that message not be present in the administration’s speeches.

I agree that I am not inclined to begin a google fest. I am really not trying to prove that the administration always and in every sense conveyed the difficulties ahead. I am simply trying to put to death the myth that they spoke nothing but roses and candy.

Again, my purpose in these debates has become an effort to return them to a debate. The rhetoric about lies, illegalities, quagmires, flip flops, apeasement and the general trend of demonizing the other side is doing great harm IMHO to the country. Important issues of national security, the economy and the nature of our republic are going un discussed. Meanwhile we talk about 7 minutes in a classroom and the actions of a swiftboat on a southeast asian river 30 years ago.

So, I’m not trying to say that you are wrong as much as I’m trying to say some of your characterizations may go a bit too far. To tie this back to the begining of the post, I’d say you make a very good case that the Bush administration made several big mistakes. Your insistence on calling this incompetence goes too far.

I hope that made sense. I’ll let you have the last word.

[PatriotX]

@pervert

I’ll let you have the last word.

Like you, my interest is waning.

Respectfully,
SimonX

[jshore]

@pervert

I strongly disagree. Throughout this whole thing Bush has always been careful to stress about how far we have to go, and the difficulties to be faced. His optimism is more along the lines of “we are resolved, and will win.” I don’t think I ever heard the “Candy and flowers cakewalk” scenario argued by anybody in the administration. But, if you have a link to somebody in the administration saying how easy they expected the reconstruction to be, I’d love to see it.

Well, if this were the case, I would say that the whole dress-up in the flight suit with the “Mission Accomplished” banner was a little bit over the top, was it not? I haven’t been able to find any pre-war administration talk on what it would be like, but here are some discussions about pre-war estimates of the costs and how oil revenues would flow afterward:

Former White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey also came under fire last year when he estimated a war with Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion. Mitch Daniels, then Bush’s budget chief, discounted the estimate as “very, very high,” and the issue was cited as one of the reasons why Lindsey resigned in December.

…

Other guesses by administration officials have been well off the mark.

Wolfowitz told a House panel in March that Iraqi oil revenues could be between $50 billion and $100 billion in the next two years.

Current Pentagon estimates say that Iraq’s oil revenue will be about $12 billion to $15 billion next year and around $19 billion in 2005 - a fraction of Wolfowitz’ pre-war boast.

[pervert]

@jshore

I haven’t been able to find any pre-war administration talk on what it would be like…

Then you did not read the links I posted earlier in this thread. You can find your own by going to Whitehouse.gov and searching for Iraq or Iraq war. In the archives you will find many speeches press conferences and press releases fromt he administration. They all* contain language expressing the fact that Iraq will be a struggle and take a long time.

*Ok, I have not read them all. Sometimes you have to use hyperbolic language to get your point accross.

[jshore]

@pervert

Then you did not read the links I posted earlier in this thread. You can find your own by going to Whitehouse.gov and searching for Iraq or Iraq war. In the archives you will find many speeches press conferences and press releases fromt he administration. They all* contain language expressing the fact that Iraq will be a struggle and take a long time.

Well, perhaps you would be so kind as to direct me to the particular post you speak of. However, to be honest, I am not particularly impressed by vague statements about how this will not be easy, blah, blah, blah. What I provided you with were specific facts…the Administration poo-poohing costs estimates of the war as being “very, very high” when they turn out in fact to be right on the mark…and that is assuming that we seriously reduce our presence very soon. And, I gave you examples of their estimates of oil revenues. [It is worth noting that they are woefully off in their revenue estimates despite the fact that the price per barrel of oil on the world market is almost surely more than what they would have used in such an estimate!]

[pervert]

@jshore

Well, perhaps you would be so kind as to direct me to the particular post you speak of.

I’m sorry. I did it again. I was speaking of this post. It was in another thread on almost this exact same topic. I got confused. My bad.

From your cite "“The problem is, the administration didn’t ever publicly come up with how many troops they thought would be there, or how long they would be there,” which you interpret as they thought vastly fewer troops would be needed. the problem, of course is that every one of the speeches I found mention quite clearly that the war would be costly and take a long time. So, while I am not able to give you the actual number of troops the administrations thought it would need at any time in the past, I am not claimig that this absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

[Abe]

On the troops/money, here is a contemporary account from the NYT (the others I cited were not contemporary):

*from Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size *

In a contentious exchange over the costs of war with Iraq, the Pentagon’s second-ranking official today disparaged a top Army general’s assessment of the number of troops needed to secure postwar Iraq. House Democrats then accused the Pentagon official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, of concealing internal administration estimates on the cost of fighting and rebuilding the country.

Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, “wildly off the mark.” Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war’s duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward.

“We have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground,” Mr. Wolfowitz said at a hearing of the House Budget Committee. “Every time we get a briefing on the war plan, it immediately goes down six different branches to see what the scenarios look like. If we costed each and every one, the costs would range from $10 billion to $100 billion.” Mr. Wolfowitz’s refusal to be pinned down on the costs of war and peace in Iraq infuriated some committee Democrats, who noted that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the budget director, had briefed President Bush on just such estimates on Tuesday.

@pervert

Yes, and a large number of americans believe in god, alien abductions, angels, and any number of unusual things. It seems to me inapropriate evidence of the administration position to look at polls of the American people and extrapolate bacwards. Unless you are ready to prove some sort of super human ability on the part of this administration to get its message out. But of course that would seem to require the the opposite of that message not be present in the administration’s speeches.

The superhuman ability is simply propaganda. It directly influences popular opinion, and it’s not necessary to extrapolate backwards from poll results, one can get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Propaganda is the very reason the Iraq affair could happen, and why we have people still trying to justify or rationalize a range of actions that relied on dishonesty and incompetence to achieve what seems to be a predetermined goal in spite of evolving circumstances and emerging information. Note that this does not mean the same thing as the fuzzier “justifying” the war, which could take into account several more variables (such as what happens five years from now).

I am simply trying to put to death the myth that they spoke nothing but roses and candy.

Apart from, as Jshore said, “vague statements about how this will not be easy, blah, blah, blah” (which I would consider standard-issue management of expectations) I do not think there was an honest and open consideration by the administration of just how difficult this would be, and, what’s more, there appear to have been at least some denials and/or misdirections. Here’s a pro-war take on some of the problems involved, with added emphasis:

The Iraq War One Year Later

many of those who initially supported the war – witness several of the current Democratic presidential candidates – have changed their tune as that first flush of freedom gave way to the grim campaigns against insurgency and to Iraq’s complex new ethnic politics of Shiites and Sunni and Kurds.

Could it have been different? Possibly, if the Pentagon’s top officials had not been so intent on fighting turf wars in Washington that they point-blank refused to consider the 14 volumes of postwar planning prepared by the State Department’s Future of Iraq project. Its key recommendations were that the Iraqi army (never fully trusted by Saddam, which is why he depended on the Republican Guard) should not be fully disbanded and the Ba’athist party should not be indiscriminately purged. Sending home hundreds of thousands of trained troops to unemployment and poverty was unwise, and the reconstruction effort sorely needed the skills of the often-apolitical engineers and teachers and administrators who were required to join the Ba’athist Party.

But we now know from retired Gen. Jay Garner, the first civilian administrator of Iraq, that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told him to ignore the findings of the Iraq Project, and then told him to sack the project’s director, the State Department’s Tom Warrick. Garner himself was ousted within a month of victory, to be replaced by L. Paul Bremer, and the Iraqi army was forthwith disbanded and the Ba’athists purged.

The postwar problem, which persists on several different levels, is that neither the White House nor the Pentagon (the faults of the State Department and the CIA are less clear) seems particularly well informed about Iraq in particular, nor about the Middle East in general.

<snip>

Politically, the reliance on the Iraqi exiles led by Ahmed Chalabi, and the acceptance of their biased advice to purge all known Ba’athists and dismantle the Iraqi army, has put formidable obstacles in the path of postwar stabilization. The failure (or perhaps refusal) of the Pentagon to make use of the State Department’s impressive multivolume plan for postwar reconstruction was at best ill-informed, but it was just one element in an evident breach of understanding between these two grand institutions of the American state for which the president and his national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, bear the ultimate responsibility. Throw in the bureaucratic civil war over intelligence between the CIA and the Pentagon and there were times, before and after the war, when the Bush administration appeared seriously and alarmingly dysfunctional. The final intelligence failure was to underestimate the potential for postwar resistance.

Nothing new there that hasn’t already been posted from other sources. While not all the problems were the fault of Bush and his immediate circle, it is he and they who are ultimately responsible.

@Pervert

Again, my purpose in these debates has become an effort to return them to a debate. The rhetoric about lies, illegalities, quagmires, flip flops, apeasement and the general trend of demonizing the other side is doing great harm IMHO to the country. Important issues of national security, the economy and the nature of our republic are going un discussed. Meanwhile we talk about 7 minutes in a classroom and the actions of a swiftboat on a southeast asian river 30 years ago.

This is all very true, it is pointless to bicker about matters of such little import except to score petty points in the propaganda wars. No disagreement there. The problem is this thread has not been demonizing, as I said in my response to another poster. Highly critical yes, possibly even insulting, but no one has been demonized and in particular the source selection throughout the thread does not support your assertion. Rather than return these debates to a debate you seem to be attempting to obfuscate certain items and gloss over some points you do not appear to support.

So, I’m not trying to say that you are wrong as much as I’m trying to say some of your characterizations may go a bit too far. To tie this back to the begining of the post, I’d say you make a very good case that the Bush administration made several big mistakes. Your insistence on calling this incompetence goes too far.

I do not think that is true, and I would further say you are trying to spin this. I (for one, and not alone) have written several thousand words on this topic and cited several thousand more in support of arguments that you would generally appear to agree with. So it would seem to be largely a matter of the terminology applied: incompetence is lack of competence, or skill; it is the state of not being able to perform particular tasks or functions. Those who are incompetent in certain tasks but choose to tackle them anyway end up making… “several big mistakes”, as opposed to few or none. If incompetent is too absolute a word, then inept (in the sense of clumsy and unskillful) will do as well, or perhaps inadequate. Generally, I do not think we have launched arguments based primarily on the automatic premise of ineptitude, tempting as that is; rather Bushite ineptitude has emerged as a result of the situation and analysis, as it has in many previous debates.

[sup]I know I tend to refer to Bush and co. as cretins and drooling fools, etc., but (aside from the fact that it’s true!) I write long posts and need to spice them up somehow. [/sup]

[jshore]

@pervert

I’m sorry. I did it again. I was speaking of this post. It was in another thread on almost this exact same topic. I got confused. My bad.

Thanks. Let’s take the “Mission Accomplished” speech as an example:

"We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq."

So, sure, he says it will be tough but there is nothing in there that I would read as implying, for example, that there would continue to be major fighting even close to a year and a half later and that the number of American deaths that had occurred so far would be only a small fraction of the total that will occur. (There were 138 American deaths at the time of "Mission Accomplished according to this CNN story, so that means less than 14% of the total so far had occurred.)

From your cite "“The problem is, the administration didn’t ever publicly come up with how many troops they thought would be there, or how long they would be there,” which you interpret as they thought vastly fewer troops would be needed. the problem, of course is that every one of the speeches I found mention quite clearly that the war would be costly and take a long time. So, while I am not able to give you the actual number of troops the administrations thought it would need at any time in the past, I am not claimig that this absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

It seems like you are changing the subject on me here. I never even talked about number of troops. I mentioned the cost of the war and the estimated revenues from the oil. On the first of these (cost of the war), the administration refused to give its own estimates but was happy to denigrate other estimates that turned out to be, at best, right on and, at worst (by the time all is said an done), low. On the second of these (oil revenues), the administration did give an estimate and it has turned out to be very high relative to more recent estimates (which, for all I know, may themselves be quite high…It will be interesting to see where the number comes out).

[pervert]

@Abe

On the troops/money, here is a contemporary account from the NYT (the others I cited were not contemporary):

Rather than go over this point by point, let me just say that Shinseki claimed severl hundred thousand would be needed. Wolfowitz said the total would be closer to 100,000. If you are now claiming that Shinseki was right you must be claiming that Iraq needs a couple hundred thousand more troops. Yes? In which case you don’t think such a massive increase in American presence would lead to as many problems as it solves. Yes?

Also, note that Wolfowitz’s comments clearly show that Shinseki’s number was considered. Ok, perhaps it was not given the wieght you and Shinseki think it deserved. But it is simply disengenuous to say that it was ignored.

For the record, all of you colorful language is demonizing and based on the premise that there is no viable alternative viewpoint to your own. The word incompetence means a lack of competence. Not simply a bad result. Are you saying that a bad result is in and of itself proof of a lack of competence?

@jshore

So, sure, he says it will be tough but there is nothing in there that I would read as implying, for example, that there would continue to be major fighting even close to a year and a half later…

Except maybe this part “We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous.” Or perhaps even this “The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort.”

It seems like you are changing the subject on me here. I never even talked about number of troops.

No, I’m not. Go back and read your cite. It says that the main reason that cost estimates were difficult to make was that the administration was not public enough about its troop number estimates. The two things are directly related.

[pervert]

@pervert

For the record, all of you colorful language is demonizing and based on the premise that there is no viable alternative viewpoint to your own.

Abe, allow me to appologize for this sentence. It is not a proper characterization of your posts which I have read. Precisely the thing I have been on about recently. I’m sorry.

[jshore]

@pervert

Except maybe this part “We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous.” Or perhaps even this “The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort.”

Oh, you’re right! How could I not read that to mean that the number of casualties suffered is only a small fraction of the total number of casualties we’ll have sufferred by the time this is all over? My bad! :rolleyes:

I mean, come on, this administration is nothing if not astute politically and that “Mission Accomplished” thing was a stupid thing to do politically if they knew that by far the worst is yet to come. Actually, I think that Kerry ought to be using that footage in his campaign commercials along with the tag: “Number of soldiers killed at the time that our “mission [was] accomplished”…138. Number killed since…862 and counting.”

No, I’m not. Go back and read your cite. It says that the main reason that cost estimates were difficult to make was that the administration was not public enough about its troop number estimates. The two things are directly related.

And, this is relevant to my point how exactly? The fact that the Administration pooh-poohed cost estimates that ended up to be dead-on (or, perhaps by the end of this mess, quite low) holds true independent of what troop strengths the Administration was considering sending in and the fact that the administration was being completely unforthcoming about this number. (So what else is new?) And, I know you are smart enough to realize this, so when you bring things up like this it makes it look like you are pretty desperate to grab onto anything to defend the administration.

[pervert]

@jshore

Oh, you’re right! How could I not read that to mean that the number of casualties suffered is only a small fraction of the total number of casualties we’ll have sufferred by the time this is all over? My bad! :rolleyes:

Well, they don’t express the idea as strongly as you might like, perhaps. But they certainly express the idea the much dangerous work is still ahead. Clearly a derth of hiding the possibility.

I mean, come on, this administration is nothing if not astute politically and that “Mission Accomplished” thing was a stupid thing to do politically if they knew that by far the worst is yet to come.

True. Just as the I voted for it before I voted against it liine was politically stupid if not entirely explainable.

Actually, I think that Kerry ought to be using that footage in his campaign commercials along with the tag: “Number of soldiers killed at the time that our “mission [was] accomplished”…138. Number killed since…862 and counting.”

I agree. Well, I don’t, obviously, but I think it would be an effective ad.

And, this is relevant to my point how exactly?

Sigh.

@jshore

It seems like you are changing the subject on me here. I never even talked about number of troops.

@pervert

No, I’m not. Go back and read your cite. It says that the main reason that cost estimates were difficult to make was that the administration was not public enough about its troop number estimates. The two things are directly related.

The fact that the Administration pooh-poohed cost estimates that ended up to be dead-on (or, perhaps by the end of this mess, quite low) holds true independent of what troop strengths the Administration was considering sending in and the fact that the administration was being completely unforthcoming about this number.

Yes, but it calls into question several pooints about those earlier estimates. Did the estimates you talked about include the reconstruction, or were they focused on the war itself? IT seems to me that some of them wanted to claim that the war itself could cost 200 billion while the CBO says that is only true for the reconstruction over the next 10 years.

"On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating the total cost to occupy Iraq from 2004 through 2013 at between $85 billion and $200 billion, depending on how many American soldiers are needed and how soon they can leave Iraq."

And, I know you are smart enough to realize this, so when you bring things up like this it makes it look like you are pretty desperate to grab onto anything to defend the administration.

Again, all I was trying to say was that your own source hinted at complex issues with less than candor about some of the ranges for those estimates. Clearly if you compare the most optimistic estimates from the administration with the most pessimistic estimates from others you will see a divergence.

I don’t think it is true that the pessimists have been born out while the adminsitration has been proven to have lied. The adminsitration asked congress for 160 billion dollars over the last 2 years. “mostly for Iraq” yes, but that was the total for the War on Terror. Clearly you cannot say that this is close to the estimates of 200 billion for the war in Iraq alone. I suppose its within an order of magnitude, but surely this is not what you meant.

Also they characterized Shinseki’s troop estimate as "over 200,000. What he said was several hundreds of thousands. Meanwhile the administrationsaid the number would be closer to 100,000. They were both talking about American forces, not American’s plus allies. The article suggests that the 244,000 troops now under arms bears out Shinseki while proving the administration incorrect. This is not the case.

I understand that the administration is not exactly publishing cost estimates on the web. But I really think it is a stretch to say that they are hiding or falsely glossing over costs either.

[elucidator]

Optimism? You want wildly unfounded optimism?

“…A year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush…”

Richard Perle
AEI Keynote speech
September 22, 2003

(With thanks to Josh M’s Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to remain informed…)

[jshore]

Well, there is a whole section of Baghdad that is at least informally named after al-Sadr (“Al-Sadr City”), is that close enough?

[pervert]

George Bush is Al Sadr? :eek:

[jshore]

@pervert

Well, they don’t express the idea as strongly as you might like, perhaps. But they certainly express the idea the much dangerous work is still ahead. Clearly a derth of hiding the possibility.

…

True. Just as the I voted for it before I voted against it liine was politically stupid if not entirely explainable.

Well, to be honest, I don’t think we can make further progress arguing this point. If you want to believe that the administration’s statements and the whole “Mission Accomplished” thing are not at all incompatible with a belief that they had and expressed that 16 months later, the number of dead American servicemen and women would be more than 7 times what it was at that time, I am happy to let other people consider that and let it live or die on its merits.

@pervert

Yes, but it calls into question several pooints about those earlier estimates. Did the estimates you talked about include the reconstruction, or were they focused on the war itself? IT seems to me that some of them wanted to claim that the war itself could cost 200 billion while the CBO says that is only true for the reconstruction over the next 10 years.

…

I don’t think it is true that the pessimists have been born out while the adminsitration has been proven to have lied. The adminsitration asked congress for 160 billion dollars over the last 2 years. “mostly for Iraq” yes, but that was the total for the War on Terror. Clearly you cannot say that this is close to the estimates of 200 billion for the war in Iraq alone. I suppose its within an order of magnitude, but surely this is not what you meant.

Okay, let’s get the facts straight here:

(1) I never said that the Administration “lied” about the costs although they were clearly wrong about them…And, I would say that there was likely some deception, either self-deception or not, involved.

(2) The cost estimate for the Iraq war that Bush’s budget chief labeled as “very, very high” was not $200 billion but was “between $100 and 200 billion”.

(3) It seems sort of deceptive to me if the administration wanted estimates of the cost of the war not to include any of the reconstruction. At any rate, I think that the administration line was actually that the reconstruction could be financed out of oil revenues so that we wouldn’t pick up the tab. Since this does not turn out to be true, I don’t think we just get to neglect this cost.

(4) Here are the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office by way of FactCheck.org:

In a report sent to Congress at the request of Democrats, CBO put the total cost of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” at $93.7 billion.

However, that figure is too low because it doesn’t count the cost of reconstructing Iraq, which should be included in any accounting of the total cost of the war. In an estimate released in June the Office of Management and Budget put the total cost of the war – including reconstruction and costs of supporting coalition forces – at $119 billion through the end of this month.

So, what we have is that through the end of FY2004 (which is the end of this month), the cost of operations alone is already nearly up to the low end of the estimate that the Bush Administration labeled as “very, very high” and the cost including reconstruction are already above the low end. Furthermore, Bush has already requested an additional $25 billion for FY2005 to be used in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and a look at relative spend rates suggests that the vast majority will go to Iraq). And, CBO estimates that an additional $56 billion will be required in FY2005 on top of this for various things lumped together in the “global war on terrorism” of which somewhere between $34 and $47 will be spent in Iraq. And, of course, that only takes us through next September.

By the way, two notes on the CBO estimates for 2004 through 2013 that you quoted: These costs apparently do not include reconstruction; they only include the costs of the occupation. And, they obviously do not include costs incurred in 2003 (which are an additional $42 billion if you follow the link to the CBO report from the factcheck.org webpage). And, actually, if you go to the CBO report itself, you will see there are 3 possible scenarios (including two that lead to no costs at all after 2008) and that they lead to cost estimates of $52 billion to $233 billion for Operation Iraqi Freedom from FY2005 to FY2014.

So, in summary, even not counting reconstruction costs, we get a cost estimate for the Iraq War out to 2014 from CBO that is between $146 and $327 billion. That is to be compared to the statement by Bush’s budget chief before the war that an estimate by others of “between $100 to $200 billion” was "very, very high."