Not worth responding to.
First of all I disagree that “all countries” have secret labs building WMDs.
But even if that were true, Iraq was in a unique category. They not only had WMDs (at one point, not when we invaded) but they had used them on their own people.
I can’t prove a negative, so I don’t have a cite for you. But can you provide some cites of people on the left claiming that Iraq would be an easy victory militarily to conquer but having a prolonged insurgency that would cost thousands of lives? To my memory, no one predicted this.
As I said, the warnings from anti-war people usually focused on how difficult and costly it would be to take Baghdad. This was the “quagmire” and “second Vietnam” that people were afraid of.
It was too late by then. Sure, I agree that Saddam starting cooperating once it was clear we were about to invade any day. But it was too little too late.
I’ll ask you as well. Do you have any examples of posters on this board, or anti-war voices who predicted the insurgency? It surprised everyone.
We only lost 139 US troops during the invasion. No one predicted how easy the country fell. But then the insurgency shocked everyone as well with Iraqi and foreign fighters bringing the death toll into the thousands.
Not worth responding to.
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Ah, one of the old favorites of the Right when presented with the truth; “You aren’t worthy of debating me!”
You got a cite?
Agreed on this point. It was silly to claim that the costs would be low or that the Iraq oil money would pay for the rebuilding as the Bush administration claimed. I recognized this for the lie that it was even though I was in favor of the war and a Bush supporter.
However, I file that under the same category of all politicians. John Kerry claimed the Big Dig would be “a bargain”. Obama claimed that Obamacare wouldn’t add to the deficit. Politicians can be expected to lie about the costs of their proposals.
The invasion went well. How was that screwed up? 139 deaths. Ground war that caught Saddam completely by surprise. Oil wells taken intact. Huge parts of the Iraqi army being bribed to surrender. The only major blunder I can think of is the looting of ordinance later used by the insurgency. However, since no one predicted that would happen I’m not surprised.
Here is one cite that addresses some of your points: USATODAY.com - Army chief: Force to occupy Iraq massive
Note that the concern is not about the invasion, but rather the occupation.
Key quote: "The Army’s top general said Tuesday a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers. Iraq is “a piece of geography that’s fairly significant,” Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems.”
The article later follows with quotes from Sen. Levin that shows this testimony was also weighing on his mind.
I’ll try to dig up some more cites if you like.
OK. Prove me wrong.
Got a cite for this:
“Anyone who wasn’t a fool knew from the start that Bush and friends were lying.”
Since about 90% of the US population was in favor of the war at the beginning, it’s safe to assume they didn’t think Bush was lying about WMDs. So, they’re all fools, is that it?
You are a bit off on the “support” number. Prior to the war only 54% supported it if the UN was not backing it. It was supported 2-to-1 if the UN did back it.
Cite: USATODAY.com - Poll: Most back war, but want U.N. support
The only concern mentioned in that article is the two things you mention. The size of Iraq and the ethnic tensions in Iraq leading to problems maintaining safety.
There’s no mention of an insurgency that would be actively fighting the American forces for years after the surrender of the government.
Sure I agree that people did predict that maintaining law and order and getting a functioning government built would be a lot of work that would take large numbers of troops. The American people would have been patient if it took 100,000 plus troops for years to maintain order while the country got back on it’s feet.
That’s quite different than the insurgency we ended up facing, which almost no one predicted.
No one in America predicted it then. That was all I ever heard about on UK and other TV. They speicifcally said that an insurgency was likely. As it was it took until late 2006 for the US to even accept that it even was facing an insurgency.
I was going from memory with the 90% number, but if I recall correctly the support went way up once the fighting started. That might be the number I’m thinking of.
I remember going ten rounds on this board with some posters over what the number was and I’m trying to find that thread because we had lots of cites on it. Basically, it depended a lot on exactly when you were pulling the numbers.
If you say so: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/politics/28intel.html?_r=0
Agreed. The support number always goes way up once our soldiers are getting shot at (as it should, IMO). That doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what “everybody thought” prior to the invasion.
To bring it back to anecdote, I will never forget sitting around the table with my family and making predictions about what seemed to be an imminent invasion. I distinctly remember most of my family taking the “a few months, no big deal” line being pitched by Cheney and Co., and the one person claiming it might take 3-5 years of occupation being laughed at (it wasn’t me, I was a cautious supporter back in my more Neoconnish days).
The quote cited in OP is a simplification (as is everything else in a history textbook) but it is factually true.
Not sure where you got the 90% figure but it’s not very difficult to convince the general population of anything.
Remember all of the major news networks showing us those snazzy graphics of what suitcase nukes look like and their corresponding blast radii?
Remember when all talk radio was discussing were mushroom clouds potentially appearing over US cities?
Remember in 2003 when “Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe it is likely that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 attacks”
The inspectors in 2003 had been to a country that had not been inspected in four years. They spent three weeks in Iraq and could not find evidence of WMDs, all that means is that there were none in the sites they looked at. Saying a three week tour means it is absolutely certain that there were no WMDs or WMD programs is just absurd.
Iraq was known to have stockpiles of chemical weapons in the 1990s because they had used them to kill tens of thousands of people. Inspectors from the UN had not been cooperated with. Sanctions had been on the Iraq economy for the ten years previous to the war. If Iraq would have cooperated with inspections the sanctions would have gone away. There was no evidence that the previously known stockpiles had been destroyed. All intelligence is ambigous because of the nature of the regime. Iraq had invaded two countries and used WMD twice. Therefore an interpretation of the intelligence that assumes Iraqi belligerance is the rational one to take.
The Iraqi regime wanted its opponents both internal and external to believe that they had stockpiles of chemical weapons and were developing a nuclear weapon. Because the first gulf war had depleted the Iraqi army, the regime used its WMDs as a deterrent. It turned out that the Iraq regime did too good a job convincing the world of its WMDs, to say this was obvious at the time is just revisionism plain and simple.
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You can never completely prove you don’t have something. The Bush administration was never going to be satisfied
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We were Iraq’s **ally **the first time they invaded a country and used “WMDs”. Nevermind the fact that if a chemical weapon like sarin gas is a WMD, then pretty much every country in the world has WMDs.
First of all it’s usually considered good form to quote the part of the article you think proves your point, not just a link with nothing.
Secondly, that article is from Sept 28th, 2004. That’s over a year after the invasion when the insurgency was already under way. 20-20 hindsight.
(Yes, I know it refers to a report that predated the war, but with a government the size of ours you can retroactively find anything after the fact. We’ve got thousands of reports from random groups like this saying all sorts of things.)
Show me someone. Anyone. Saying before the war began that there was going to be an easy invasion and then a fierce insurgency.
No one predicted that. It’s funny how people forget.
I agree with your point about the number going up once the fighting starts.
I’ll walk back my 90% estimate. I can’t find the earlier thread where we discussed this, which is unfortunate. But it definitely was a high number. That’s the point.
As to your anecdote: I don’t recall Bush and Cheney ever claiming it would be a “few months” of occupation. They certainly didn’t say it would be “no big deal” and in fact always emphasized how difficult it was going to be during their speeches on the subject.
No I got his point. I was making a play on words. It’s tangential to the topic at hand.
It is a liberal adventure, though. GWB ran for president opposed to nation building. That is conservative. As president he invaded Iraq and attempted to “spread democracy”. You are saying that this was conservative as well. Either he ran as a liberal and became conservative on this issue or vice versa. You can’t have it both ways. Conservative ideas don’t change with the whims of GWB.