Precisely when did you know Iraq was a mistake?

The BBQ Pit
1

First let me say (again) that I was always totally against going to war with Iraq simply because 18 of the terrorists that hijacked the planes that went into the World Trade Center were said to be Saudi citizens. So if anything, we should have bombed them instead of Iraq.

The other thing was that Bush totally rushed into the thing. It would just make sense that if you’ve got intelligence that Iraq had WMD, you’d check it at least a couple of dozen times before creating so much hell for so many people, plants and animals.

Another thing is, I like being consistent (though I’m not saying I’m perfect in that regard), and so why doesn’t Bush and all of his other aides and geopolitical “experts” hash it over and go after fill in the blank for their potential harm to this country?

And you’ll recall that after Bush said we’re going to war with Iraq, him and his generals set a specific date in which we could all count on American bombs falling. And so what happened? The bombs and missiles struck a couple of days sooner than planned because, they said, “We had intelligence that Saddam was at that location.”

Of course, as it turned out, they’d made a “mistake” with their so-called intelligence! And THAT little miscalculation was what cemented it for me, as I’d thought from the get-go that this thing, this war venture with Iraq, had Vietnam written all over it.

Now it’s reported in the news that 3 of our soldiers are missing. Great!!

The last time this sort of thing happened, two of our troops were found dead with signs that they’d been horribly tortured! And good old Bush – our “commander and cheif” – actually showed what an in control type of guy he was by making lame jokes about his tie while hosting some foriegn dignitary at the white house, as the awful news of the day was still very much on everyone’s minds!

Again, at what point did you know that this whole Iraq war was a lot of BS?

2

I opposed the invasion from the first moment I heard of it, even if Sadam actually DID have WMDs, which I thought he probably did.

3

Moving thread from IMHO, skipping past Great Debates, and going straight to The BBQ Pit.

4

When troops were sent marching up the Iraqi freeways behaving like there weren’t any chemical/bioweapons they should be worried about

5

I was also opposed to the war from the beginning, but I felt that if the US was going to do it, it had better do it right. I first went to Iraq in the summer of 2003 and the attitude of the populace was not entirely hostile. I thought maybe I had been wrong in my opposition.

And then I saw the unchecked looting, the army was disbanded, and the government was de-Baathified. It was immediately clear to anyone who wasn’t buttoned up in the Green Zone that these were catastrophic decisions. It was so obviously the wrong choice that Iraqis would ask me “why do Americans want Iraq to fail?” They thought it was some grand plan.

To sum up, I thought it was a mistake from the beginning. I went to Iraq and confirmed it wasn’t just a mistake but a disaster and I watched the train wreck from Baghdad for over two years.

6

Before Bush invaded, when he was sabre-rattling. It was obvious the 9/11 connection was bogus. People who actually study international affairs were against it. The weapons inspectors were against it, as were the UN and NATO. That Bush was willing to go against the weight of expert opinion made him look like the idiot he is.

7

I was against it from the moment the Administration started dropping little hints in their speeches that they planned to start a war with Iraq, right after invading Afghanistan. WMDs had nothing to do with it – I would not have been shocked if it turned out Saddam had old some chemical weapons, but given the fact that he was a secular dictator who cared about maintaining power more than anything else, I didn’t believed he was a threat to us at all. I found the idea of him handing over WMDs to religious fanatics beyond unlikely. If anything, the fact that we were invading without first sitting back and making sure we knew the precise location of every cache of WMDs and high explosives seemed to be the surest way to get WMDs in the hands of Islamic terrorists. Luckily, I didn’t think he had much of anything, so that wasn’t a huge concern to me.

My biggest concern was actually exactly what is happening right now (from this thread):

Every Middle Eastern expert I read about or heard on NPR talked about the deep ethnic rifts in Iraq. That, coupled with the fact that we had been sanctioning food and medicine for years after the first Gulf war, made me think we were in for a lot more resistance in setting up a pro-U.S. government than the hawks wanted us to believe.

8

The psychological damage is going to reverberate for generations as people don’t just heal over night with a little counseling.

I knew a fellow that fought in the Korean war and his head was still realing from it all the last time I saw him.

9

Yep, I always thought it was a really bad idea. I didn’t care if SH had WMDs out the wazoo. We had him in a box, and if I was a terrorist, Iraq would be about the last place in the world I’d go to get me some of them thar WMDs. What amazes me is that so many of my friends still think it was a good idea. I don’t see how anyone could actually think that now.

10

I supported the invasion when it happened. The President of the United States of America looked me in the eye and said Saddam Hussein had WMD’s and I believed him. I know there were a lot of people who were saying he was mistaken but he said he had irrefutable evidence, so I figured he’s the President - he must have access to secret intelligence reports that most of us never see so he has the evidence even if other people don’t. So I believed him and I also believed that Saddam Hussein having WMD’s was a clear and imminent danger that justified military action.

So we invaded. And the WMD’s didn’t exist. I can’t say what precise moment it was when I realized they had never been there but when I did I realized Bush had lied. Again. Because I knew he had lied many times before but I hadn’t realized he would lie about something like this.

11

Never thought the invasion of Iraq was a good idea.

12

Bout four to six months before the Republican Convention of '04, I was convinced. Took me a while. Mostly the horrible prosecution of said war is what did it.

13

I have to admit I thought it was a good idea at first. The WMD thing seemed weak at best, but Saddam needed killing. (Of course it is another issue if the Americans needed to do it.)

When did I change mind? No one moment. I was shocked by the poor generalin’ from the git-go, but after a year I was pretty well looking for a way to back out. After Abu Grhaib, and the lack of executions of those soldiers, it was all over.

14

I opposed this stupid war from the first time they shifted focus from AQ in Afghanistan to Saddam in Iraq. And you can look up the many postings I made on the subject between Sept. 2002 (when I joined this board) and March 2003.

15

From the start. I saw invading Iraq as completely irrelevant to taking on Osama (which I was in favor of) and went on record here at SDMB as being opposed before the war officially began.

Even here at SDMB, a lot of the refusers to back the war took heat for that stance from other posters.

16

From the beginning. As soon as they starting talking about Iraq and WMDs it was obvious to me that they were just looking for an excuse, any excuse, to invade. I’ll never understand how so much of the U.S. population was taken in by this.

17

Going to war in Iraq is hereditary. Passed down from Bush father to Bush son without passing thru the minds of either.

18

Some time after we won the war but were still there and didn’t seem to be making any progress with the reconstruction.

Still think it was a good idea, but the timing was wrong (one war at a time!) and we needed someone with more sense than god gave canned cling peaches running the thing (and the country, for that matter). It would have been nice to have the international community involved, as well.

19

I never thought it was a mistake, and still don’t; more like ego, malice, religious fanaticism, bloodlust and greed all wrapped into one and implemented incompetently. They knew what they were doing; that’s evil, not error. Clumsily done evil, but evil.

There was no pragmatic reason to go there. I knew better than to believe Bush or anyone associated with him without a 3rd party ( non-US ally ) confirming it. I knew better than to believe that a Republican in a position of power was well meaning; the modern Republican party is the Party of Evil for all intents and purposes. And I knew Bush was a fool, and scum, and irrational, and a man who ruins everything he touches. So I knew from the beginning it was a bad idea both morally and practically, and that even if it wasn’t that it would be done poorly. Bush and his friends would never do the right thing, except by accident or unless they had no choice; the fact that they wanted to invade Iraq was enoguh by itself to tell me we shouldn’t.

20

Oh, but we did. Don’t you remember the “coalition of the willing”? (That was sarcasm, if anybody doesn’t realize.)