E.g, the US, France and England could have attacked Hitler in 1935 or 1936 or 1937, etc. The important thing is: We didn’t attack at all. Any of those alternatives would have saved tens of millions of lives.
UN approval would have been helpful. Bush did everything possible to get it. France blocked it.
I think the war was necessary for our security. YMMV.
The whole world knew were were going to attack. More delay would have given Saddam more time to plan defence.
I know that’s today’s talking point, but I doubt that more time would have helped. It’s hard to make an effective post-war plan when one doesn’t know what post-war conditions will be like.
We didn’t hurry.
In fact we still don’t know whether WMDs were trucked out to Syria. It’s not like we had all of Iraq’s borders fully guarded.
Would the UN do a better job of running post-war Iran? Their record doesn’t support that judgment.
No he did not. Bush wanted his war rubber stamped by the UN. He did not supply any credible evidence and still hasn’t to verify a immediate threat to any country. France wouldn’t endorse the war without actual evidence. They never got it.
I’m sure you can explain how that analogy applies, Mr. Godwin
Short of actually listening to them, considering their views, and accepting the result, and then only after being coerced into going there by Powell. Nothing would have changed what he did.
As you well know, there is no basis in fact for that statement. Why do you believe it anyway?
And prepare those alleged weapons for the actual use that they were intended?
But they didn’t make any. Any at all. There was no attempt to even consider the question.
Two more weeks of inspections would have allowed the UN to make a real decision, and get the entire civilized world into line. If not, the truth would have been known, eh?
Nor is there any factual basis for believing that they were.
Cite?
What do you think about the situation that actually is derived from fact? Anything?
This is very true. The Pentagon should’ve used the expertise of our existing agencies instead of relying on the Office of Special Plans. There were plans and and studies developed by State that the Pentagon chose to ignore.
december, do you know what the official reason was for putting the Pentagon in charge of the reconstruction of Iraq instead of the State dept?
This is not Godwin’s Law. I’m not accusing anyone of being a Nazi or comparing anyone to a Nazi. I’m drawing an analogy to show that preventive war can be vitally important.
I don’t see how two more weeks would have exposed the full truth about Iraq’s WMDs and WMDs programs.
Other anti-war posters said there were no post war plans. Now you say there were several sets of them, but Bush chose to follow the less accurate ones.
Plans and projections are a dime a dozen. I’ve made a million Plans myself, as a company executive. You might be surprised to find out how inaccurate most of these projections turned out, even though we were dealing with our own company and our own personnel in a business that we fully understood. Imagine how much less accurate projections are when the planners are dealing with an alien culture and a foreign language in a place where they have never lived. They didn’t know when the war would end, what the condition of the infrastructure would be, what degree of resistance and terrorism would remain, what degree of cooperation would exist from the Iraqis, or how much help they could expect from other countries. It was inevitable that actions would have to be flexible – adjusted to conditions as they arose. It’s just wishful thinking to imagine that masterful advance planning could have made post-war Iraq immediately run like clockwork.
No. However, I think the Pentagon is a better choice. State doesn’t have the expertise to head post-war Iraq. IIRC the military was in charge of post-war Japan and Germany.
You think France was right to block UN action. But, I think you do agree with my statement that there was nothing more Bush could have done that would have gotten UN approval to overthrow Saddam.
He could have gone along with the proposals of other countries to continue to let Blix do his job anbd he could have refrained from mobilizing his troops and shippingf them to the Middle East even before he had requested a second action by the Security Council, an action that clearly signaled that he was goint to act unilaterally, demanding that they merely rubberstamp his desires.
So, no, I do not agree that there was nothing more that Bush could have done. He could have simply chosen to act responsibly rather than rashly.
They did, they did.
They just planned on an Iraq where the Americans were received with flowers and we could reduce our troop commitment to 30,000 by September 2003.
Chalabi blew a bunch of smoke up the ass of the Office of Special Plans who blew the same smoke up the ass of Rumsfeld who had Bush bend over so Rumsfeld could blow it up Bush’s ass too, Bush blew it up the ass of the American electorate who was already bent over.
Of course Rumsfeld formed the OSP specifically so’s he could find some smoke to blow into the electorate et al.
I said the they chose to follow the ones that were more politically palarable.
All the more reason to go with the experts.
Both the CIA and the DIA warned about things that Wolfowitz et al said were hard to imagine. Apparently the CIA and DIA imagined them and advised being prepared for them. The Pentagon chose to go with a set of plans that involved a rosier picture rather than a worst case scenario.
This is needless to say. Who would challenge that? The point is that the best that’s available should be used in matters of grave imprtance, even if they aren’t exactly what you want to hear.
You still haven’t come up with a reason that the plans of an ad hoc committee of political appointees should’ve been valued over the assessments of our established agencies.
The point is, anti-war folks have been bitching about just about everything Bush did, or didn’t do, with regard to Iraq. Most of the complaints turned out to be utterly wrong. E.g.,
– We have too few troops to win the war
– The war in Iraq will be a quagmire
– There will be widespread starvation
– There will be huge numbers of civilian casualties
– There will be huge numbers of coalition casualties
– The hospitals don’t have adequate supplies
– Tens of thousand of museum exhibits were looted
– There will be uprisings throughout the Arab world
Today, we have a new set of complaints, some of which aren’t even consistent. Since you have made specific claims about various Plans for post-war Iraq, let me ask you for cites to show that:
– What was in each of of the three Plans you mentioned?
– How do you know to what degree we are following any of these Plans?
– What were the qualifications of the authors of each of the Plans?
– What’s your evidence that Bush & Rumsfeld had an ulterior motive in choosing the Plan they chose? One would think that they’d have chosen the Plan they thought most likely to succeed, since a failure in post-war Iraq will be blamed on them.
Depends on what you’re preventing and how likely it is, doesn’t it? What was that in this case? I did ask you how that analogy applies.
Wasn’t intended to, as you well know. The story we were being fed was that they not only existed, but were in quantities and conditions and states of control that represented an imminent threat to US security. The 45-minute figure was bandied about. The full truth of that was certainly verifiable, and has been verified.
No comment.
That is exactly why you make contingency plans, allocate ample assets, provide high flexibility to adjust to reality quickly as it becomes exposed, and always stay humble about what you know. None of that happened for those guys - they fed each other the same self-reinforcing fantasies.
And Donnie’s boys are doing such a swell job instead, aren’t they?
You’re wrong about that, too. If the story Bush & Co. had turned out to be true once the inspectors had completed their work, and if some the other shit he had Powell throw against the wall had stuck, there is no reason to believe the UN would have reacted with simple obstinance instead of facing reality. But they did face reality and act accordingly.
I did ask you which of your views of the Iraq situation are, in fact, derived from fact. You’re ducking that - which is an answer itself.
Which is the question I answered. Had he actually engaged the UN insted of making it clear that he only wanted a rubber stamp and that he was willing to lie to get it, he had a much better chance of getting the UN to join him in removing Hussein.
There is no reason to believe that the UN would have refused to do anything about Hussein if they had been presented legitimate evidence that there was a need for them to act.
(And please do not repeat the lie that Chirac said he would “never” support an aasault. His actual interview has been posted and quoted on this very board and his actual use of the word never was in the context of the two-week deadline that Bush had demanded, supported by lies. Chirac stated that it might be necessary for the UN to remove Iraq, he was simply not going to be stampeded into action by lies.)
Preventing Iraq from developing WMDs. Preventing Iraq from using WMDs to attack or to threaten the US or our allies. Preventing Iraq from providing WMDs to terrorists or to other countries.
I think the Pentagon has shown considerable flexibility in their post-war approach.
Here are some facts, which you know as well as I do:
– Iraq had developed large stores of WMDs
– Iraq had used poison gas against its own people
– Saddam had murdered, tortured and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of people for political purposes
– The Ba’ath Regime was a cruel, despotic government
– Iraq had been seeking nuclear weapons for decades
– Iraq’s oil gave it the resources to purchase WMD-related material from other countries.
– Iraq was failing to fulfill its commitments of 1991 and numerous UN resolutions
– Iraq had made unprovoked attacks against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel
– Iraq had supported terrorists operating in the Middle East
– Saddam declared himself an enemy of the US and celebrated 9/11
Do you ever wonder why people think the Bush administration is beholden to the oil and construction industry, and that it hopes the US voters will assume that Saddam was responsible for 9/11?
Which brings up my personal favorite highlight of this saga of leadership…
Even though it was clear that France would veto, Fearless Misleader jutted out his chin defiantly and firmly stated that he would absitively, posolutely insist, insist!, on a vote anyway, so that everybody’s “cards would be on the table.” Yessiree, Bob, gotta love than Trumanesque, straighforward candor.
Then somebody crunched the numbers and when he realized he was about to be internationally humiliated…
He cut and run and blamed in all on the French. Move over, Metternich, tell Von Bismarck the news!
A few days ago I posted a link to a picture of an Iraqi billboard that celebrated the destruction of the WTC. Obviously it could only have been erected with the approval of Saddam
Seems like all that was being “prevented” already, doesn’t it?
A matter of opinion at best, and effectively concedes that they had no plans or contingencies in mind before committing people to die because of it. The body count is still rising, nearly every day, mind you.
Damn, glee beat me to it. Now, what contradictory facts among the many that have been shoved in your face for the last year have you also seriously considered? Is your fact filter so strong that you’re not even aware it exists?
I’ll accept your concession on the other things you haven’t answered.