# Why we went into Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 6, 2007, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013 "2007-04-06T18:16:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/41 "2007-04-07T10:02:43Z")
@ **Sam Stone** I think that is a pretty good exposition of NeoCon thinking. On the Thursday before the invasion I was having lunch with a pair of well connected Americans in London. They said _we need to establish a permanent base in the area, from which we can reach out and get those terrorists_. I was distinctly alarmed, and pointed out that the Saudis would not exactly appreciate us reaching out and swatting their malcontents, and that Osama and Saddam hated each other more than anyone else. Also that the top Saudis had more to fear from Fundamentalist ‘terrorists’ than the USA. Your analysis ties up perfectly. However the facts are that nobody could give a toss about the ME unless there is oil there, WMD were very unlikely, the Israelis fixed his nuclear game and nobbled his supergun, and despite the Palestinian support, Saddam was the opposite of an Islamist. I would say now, as I said then, that the NeoCons had no idea of the real situation, were suffering from lousy intelligence and were naive about the inevitable outcome. However that does not mean that they did not believe your exposition, it just means that they were disasterously wrong. For others, my reading of Sam’s post is not that they believed Saddam necessarily had WMD, rather that they believed that without intervention some irresponsible government in the area would allow/help terrorists get their hands on WMD. In my view there is an element of truth in that, but it was also obvious that intervention would **increase** the chance of that happening. Bush, Cheyney et al may have had other motives, but that does not mean that they and many others did not believe Sam’s exposition. That ties up nicely, ignorance, incompetence and wishful thinking, make a much more plausible reason than a malign conspiracy. ---
**Author:** ![Elsie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b2d939/32.png) [@Elsie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elsie)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/42 "2007-04-07T10:05:18Z")
[QUOTE=casdave] Quite a number of interested parties saw opportunities. [/QUOTE] Yep, this is always a point worth making, it was predominently about oil and empire for Bush/Cheney/PNAC, but it was about a bunch of other stuff for, say Blair, or Israel/Israeli lobby, corporate supporters - inc. media, campaign funders, the military-industrail complex - Iraq was a piece of action everyone could see an angle in, so they all hopped on Cheney’s bandwagon. ---
**Author:** ![FRDE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e68b1a/32.png) [@FRDE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FRDE)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/43 "2007-04-07T10:20:49Z")
[QUOTE=Elsie] Yep, this is always a point worth making, it was predominently about oil and empire for Bush/Cheney/PNAC, but it was about a bunch of other stuff for, say Blair, or Israel/Israeli lobby, corporate supporters - inc. media, campaign funders, the military-industrail complex - Iraq was a piece of action everyone could see an angle in, so they all hopped on Cheney’s bandwagon. [/QUOTE] The really interesting question is: Did they believe their own/the spin ? Wanting sixpence and believing in the tooth fairy are two discrete things. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/44 "2007-04-07T15:43:33Z")
Yes, I think they did, despite how it flys in the face of reason. We Merkins have a strong tendency to believe in the unity of enmity, that everyone who doesn’t like us are unified in a single malign conspiracy. Witness Cold War history, when the Sino-Soviet fissures became more and more obvious, many on the Goon Right tried to foster the notion that it was all a show, that the Soviets and the Chinese were merely pretending to be pissed at each other in order to lull us into false security, which might lead to the fatal mistake of underfunding General Dynamics, Lockheed, and the other coroporate palladins of our security. Of course Saddam and Osama are in cahoots, they both hate _us_! You want AlQ in Iraq destroyed? Leave. As soon as those pesky CNN cameras are elsewhere deployed, the Shia will tear through AlQ toot damn sweet,with a savagery that only arises when the savage is assured of the approval of the Almighty. If God is dead, it was suicide born of despair. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/45 "2007-04-07T15:57:47Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] I don’t know whether you guys have forgotten, or whether you never paid attention in the first place, but the stated reasons for going into Iraq are no mystery. [/quote] Sure seemed _at the time_ that all you wanted to tell us about was WMD’s. Now? Not even a mention. What happened to you? But yes, it was indeed all about neocon delusions, the idea that reality must be made to conform to an ideology, and if they didn’t, that’s all somebody else’s fault. It was also about the eagerness of the ideologically-minded to join the crusade, and denounce those who insisted on being bound by mere, petty fact. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/46 "2007-04-07T16:16:33Z")
Yeah, for someone who fought so long and hard about the existence of Iraqi WMDs, it sure seems that Sam’s quite blasé about said threat today. And please, saying that oil didn’t factor into the equation, is akin to trying to cover the sun with your thumb – it can be done, but the sun’s still there for everyone to see. Remember this? Anyone? [Bush ‘plotted Iraq war from start’](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3387941.stm) > [@](#): > > A top official sacked from the US Government has accused President Bush of planning for an invasion of Iraq within days of coming to office. > > Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said Mr Bush was looking for an excuse to oust Saddam Hussein. > > As a member of the president’s National Security team he said he never saw any evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. > > \ > > In his interview, Mr O’Neill said the Bush administration appeared to have assumed the right to act as it wished abroad. > > “For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap,” he said. > > \ > > The author of the new book, Ron Suskind, told CBS that he had received documents from Mr O’Neill and others which showed that during Mr Bush’s first 100 days in office his officials were already looking at military options to remove Saddam from power. > > Officials were looking into post-war contingencies such as peacekeeping troops, war crimes tribunals **and the future of Iraq’s oil, according to the documents.** > > Mr Suskind referred to a memo entitled “Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq”. - highlights mine. People can prevaricate all they want 9especially the ones who supported this disaster) but the stark reality remains the same: Empire and oil. Period. End story. Do go on though…it’s rather entertaining to read all the backpedaling and the assortment of ‘justifications’. Saddam being part of the terrorist network is particularly amusing. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/47 "2007-04-07T16:47:55Z")
I think there’s a lot of truth in **Sam** ’s description of events and motivations. But I think we seriously misunderstood the culture of the middle east in two ways. First, we overestimated Iraqis’ willingness to make the sacrifices necessary for western-style democracy to be put in place. Middle east culture has a whole different take on self-determinism than we do. And second, we overestimated the willingness of a secular dictator to share his weapons with religious fanatics, and the consequent threat therefrom. (It would be a little like a middle-easterner thinking that Jerry Falwell and Larry Flynt are in cahoots – hey, they’re Americans, from the same part of the country, and ascribe to the same Christian denomination). While I think decision makers’ ignorance of Muslim culture was a big cause of this, I think **elucidator** has a point about the Cold War still influencing such attitudes. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/48 "2007-04-07T17:09:49Z")
That last point deserves more exploration. The Cold Warrior mentality is (not was) simple Manicheanism - there’s Us, by definition the Good Guys, and Them, the Bad Guys, nobody else who mattered, except for the wishy-washies who simply hadn’t made up their minds yet which side they want to be on. The existence of Us as the Good Guys \*requires \* the existence of Bad Guys, or else there’s nothing to define us as the Good Guys anymore. Anything we did had to be Good, and that included supporting a lot of torturing dictators who’d decided they’d be better off declaring themselves Anti-Communist (and getting our money and arms) than Pro-Communist (and getting less of the USSR’s money and arms). Pro-democracy movements in such places were labeled Communist, i.e. part of the Bad Guy Monolith, no matter the discordance with our own founding principles. The end of the USSR simply meant that a new Evil, Monolithic Enemy had to be found. When this administration came into office, complete with a full set of Cold Warriors who’d emerged blinking into the sunlight and decided they liked their old caves better, that was the first order of business. Remember the Red Menace, the buildup of the Chinese military, that the **Sam** ’s of the board beat the drum so hard about, all the way through the Hainan incident? Didn’t work. It was understood too quickly that we needed them as a business partner too much to simply declare them the new Bad Guy Empire. North Korea came next, but wasn’t credible enough, not yet having nukes as a result of years of realist diplomacy in earlier administrations. But 9/11 provided the opening to identfy, credibly this time, the new Bad Guys that the old Cold Warriors could use to restore their own self-identity. But they’re still wandering the same House of Mirrors that they always were before. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/49 "2007-04-07T17:30:06Z")
[QUOTE=Sam Stone] Oil had nothing to do with it. I know ‘oil!’ is a rallying cry for lefty conspiratorialists, but people who understand economics know better. Oil is fungible. The Middle Eastern countries have to sell their oil to keep their economies propped up. There was exactly zero possibility that Iraq could somehow cut off oil to the U.S in a way that would meaningfully impact oil supplies. And there was no way that the U.S. could ‘take over’ Iraq’s oil anyway. In fact, a pet plan of the Neocons was the notion of an ‘oil trust’, in which Iraqi oil revenue would be turned directly over to the people and used to help them build up their economy and create an instant middle class. There were never any designs on Iraq’s oil money. Ever. [/QUOTE] Lefty _and_ neocon… I think your assertion that oil had “nothing” to do with it is reaching a bit. > [@PNAC](#): > > It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard. > [@Robert Kagan](#): > > The Wolfowitz plan calls for the establishment of a “liberated zone” in southern Iraq… Control of the southern zone would give Saddam’s opponents a staging area to which discontented Iraqi army units could defect, as well as access to the country’s largest oil field. > [@William Kristol](#): > > …removing Saddam Hussein’s regime from power in Baghdad will reduce the Saudis’ leverage even more – returning Iraqi oil fully to market can only reduce the Saudis’ ability to set oil prices, and make the U.S. bases there superfluous. [Etc. etc. etc.](http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hs=ZKE&q=site%3Anewamericancentury.org+oil+iraq&btnG=Search&meta=) ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/50 "2007-04-07T18:34:59Z")
**Sam** - thanks. I think that is a pretty credible explanation. But I think it is a little harsh to criticize people for expressing confusion as to the “reason” for this action, because I don’t think our government ever set this out as clearly as you have. Instead, I remember hearing things about ties to Al-Quaeda, WMD, UN resolutions, and maybe human rights violations. And I recall express denials of any interest in “nation building.” That was why I specified that people could answer either as to what they understand the stated reasons OR the actual reasons to be. And I think that gets to an element of what Helen Thomas was saying. If our country wants to go to war, to ask our army to kill others for one reason or another, it should be aboveboard and clear as to the reasons they are doing so. Yeah, I’m an unabashed liberal on this - as well as most matters. And I do not believe it is legitimate for us to invade and overthrow another country - even a hostile one - simply because we would prefer it to be governed in another manner. Other folks can certainly disagree. That is fine. But I would find it easier to understand the other side better if they were straightforward as to their reasons, rather than tossing up - um - pretty transparent facades. **operation ripper** - you really are crapping on this thread, in no way responding in the manner the OP requested. I’m not sure why you needed to post twice commenting on the appropriateness of the forum, only to post in the manner you did once it got moved. I would welcome you to start another thread should you desire to continue pursuing whatever it is you wish to say. Of course, I am not a mod, so should you choose to continue crapping on this thread the best I can do is ignore your deposits, and urge others to do the same and not allow you to derail the intended discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/51 "2007-04-07T18:54:58Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] **Sam** - thanks. I think that is a pretty credible explanation. But I think it is a little harsh to criticize people for expressing confusion as to the “reason” for this action, because I don’t think our government ever set this out as clearly as you have. Instead, I remember hearing things about ties to Al-Quaeda, WMD… [/QUOTE] There’s a reason you heard those things. [Wolfowitz in 2003:](http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-05-30-wolfowitz-iraq_x.htm) > [@](#): > > “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason,” Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/52 "2007-04-07T19:09:29Z")
**Pro-War Psychology** According to the NASD study, fraud victims are more likely than the rest of the population to have experienced a “negative life event” (such as the death of a loved one, a layoff or a divorce) in the previous _ **three to five years** _. “When something bad happens in your life, it chews up your cognitive abilities and your coping skills,” says University of California-Santa Cruz psychology professor Anthony Pratkanis, who worked on the study. (Source URL: [4 scams: How to avoid them | 2 | Money Magazine](http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/moneymag/scam/2.html)) The lure of the big score is well known to Stanford University psychology professor Brian Knutson. His research has shown that the parts of the brain that anticipate reward are markedly more sensitive to the amount of potential gain than to the probability of earning it. In other words, we’re wired to ask, “How big?” not “How likely?” (Source URL: [4 scams: How to avoid them | 4 | Money Magazine](http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/moneymag/scam/4.html)) According to research done by Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns, when we go along with peers, activity in a part of the brain that thinks analytically may decrease, presumably reducing our skepticism. And when we go against consensus, there’s a reaction in the part of the brain usually triggered by fear. So we’re afraid to go against the crowd, _ **even when confronted with plain evidence** _. (Source URL: [4 scams: How to avoid them | 1 | Money Magazine](http://money.cnn.com/popups/2006/moneymag/scam/index.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/53 "2007-04-07T20:44:17Z")
During my deployment to Iraq, we had a wonderful joke theme about our “quest for oil” that liberals proclaim. “I’m gonna hit the showers” “Can’t. The water pump’s broke.” “Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to go bathe in all that oil we have now.” I fail to see the logic of the oil=war camp. What did the US do that is even a step toward conquering and using the oil? When was the last time you saw an american flag flying over an Iraqi oil pump? We went becaues they looked like a threat. We thought they had weapons and thought they were helped Al Qaeda. We’re still there becaues AQ now IS in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/54 "2007-04-07T20:48:23Z")
[QUOTE=IntelSoldier] What did the US do that is even a step toward conquering and using the oil? [/quote] Invade. > [@](#): > > When was the last time you saw an american flag flying over an Iraqi oil pump? See above. Thing is, the whole ‘Iraqis will greet us with flowers’ thing didn’t quite go well. > [@](#): > > We went becaues they looked like a threat. We thought they had weapons and thought they were helped Al Qaeda. We’re still there becaues AQ now IS in Iraq. Which they never were and still would not be were Saddam still in power. And perhaps you and your peers thought they looked like a threat and maybe you and your peers thought they had weapons, but plenty of evidence existed that neither was true. But that evidence was inconvenient for Dub’s plans, which were all laid out many years before on a website and are still there to be read. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/55 "2007-04-07T20:52:39Z")
[Is there any truth to ‘the enemy would follow us here?’](http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17038910.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation) > [@](#): > > In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that “this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here.” > > The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California’s Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on American streets. > > But is it true? > > Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn’t. > … > U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic experts in Bush’s own government say the violence in Iraq is primarily a struggle for power between Shiite and Sunni Muslim Iraqis seeking to dominate their society, not a crusade by radical Sunni jihadists bent on carrying the battle to the United States. > > Foreign-born jihadists are present in Iraq, but they’re believed to number only between 4 percent and 10 percent of the estimated 30,000 insurgent fighters - 1,200 to 3,000 terrorists - according to the Defense Intelligence Agency and a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right research center. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/56 "2007-04-07T21:04:39Z")
[QUOTE=IntelSoldier] During my deployment to Iraq, we had a wonderful joke theme about our “quest for oil” that liberals proclaim. “I’m gonna hit the showers” “Can’t. The water pump’s broke.” “Ah well. I guess I’ll just have to go bathe in all that oil we have now.” I fail to see the logic of the oil=war camp. What did the US do that is even a step toward conquering and using the oil? When was the last time you saw an american flag flying over an Iraqi oil pump? We went becaues they looked like a threat. We thought they had weapons and thought they were helped Al Qaeda. We’re still there becaues AQ now IS in Iraq. [/QUOTE] [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/30/1514255](http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/30/1514255) > [@](#): > > The report points out that the May 2003 U.N. resolution giving the C.P.A. the right to spend Iraqi oil revenue required the creation of an international oversight board, which would appoint an auditor to ensure that the funds were spent to benefit the Iraqi people. > > Instead, the U.S. stalled, and the auditor didn’t begin work until April 2004. Even then, according to an interim report, it faced “resistance from C.P.A. staff.” And now, with the audit still unpublished, the C.P.A. has been dissolved. > > New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes: “Think of it this way: given the Arab world’s suspicion that we came to steal Iraq’s oil, the occupation authorities had every incentive to expedite an independent audit that would clear Halliburton and other U.S. corporations of charges that they were profiteering at Iraq’s expense. Unless, that is, the charges are true.” And looking more recently, it seems this remains an issue! [http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2744.cfm](http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2744.cfm) > [@](#): > > Fix the oil meters so that Iraq’s oil exports don’t get stolen—this is ludicrous for a country whose entire economy depends on one resource. Halliburton hasn’t done this simple job, so find someone who can. That last article BTW is one of the more sympathetic ones to the US! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/57 "2007-04-07T21:18:31Z")
[QUOTE=IntelSoldier] I fail to see the logic of the oil=war camp. What did the US do that is even a step toward conquering and using the oil? When was the last time you saw an american flag flying over an Iraqi oil pump? [/quote] By occupying Iraq and throwing it into chaos, we’ve taken most Iraqi oil off the market for a long time, raising the price for oil and increasing the profits of Bush’s oil buddies. Also, our forces rather notoriously bypassed just about everything, including armories full of weapons that the Iraqi militias and so forth are now using on us and each other, in order to capture the Oil Ministry. Plus, before the war you have PNAC _saying_ they wanted the oil, you have the original name of the Iraq campaign being Operation Iraqi Liberation - O.I.L. -, and you have Cheney’s “energy task force” studying maps of of Iraqi oil fields. [QUOTE=IntelSoldier] We went becaues they looked like a threat. We thought they had weapons and thought they were helped Al Qaeda. We’re still there becaues AQ now IS in Iraq. [/QUOTE] Nonsense. They were never a threat, Saddam hated Al Qaeda, and we are there because the neocons and war profiteers do not want us to leave, ever. And us being there _helps_ Al Qaeda. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/58 "2007-04-07T21:25:15Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Sure seemed at the time that all you wanted to tell us about was WMD’s. Now? Not even a mention. What happened to you? Not even a mention? > [@Sam Stone](#): > > That’s what Saddam was doing - a secularist himself, in the previous few years he had been making increasingly bold overtures to Islamic extremists, joining their cause, funding suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories, providing safe harbor to people like al-Zarqawi, and **the biggest worry was that he had huge arsenals of weapons of mass destruction**. It was felt that it was only a matter of time before those weapons landed in the hands of terrorists. > > The Neocons argued that so long as the status quo in the middle east remained unchanged, terrorism would continue, and be encouraged, funded, and provided weapons by other states. That meant a cycle of increasingly violent attacks as terrorists gained access to more deadly weapons. **At some point, they’d get their hands on a nuke, or on some powerful chemical or biological weapons.** I’m not sure what happened to me, but somewhere along the way you apparently lost the ability to read. And BTW, would you please take your personal vendetta to the pit? Every time I try and post anything, even a recitation of facts, you have to pop up and try to make it personal. I’m guessing that I’m not the only one who’s really tired of it. [QUOTE=Dinsdale] **Sam** - thanks. I think that is a pretty credible explanation. But I think it is a little harsh to criticize people for expressing confusion as to the “reason” for this action, because I don’t think our government ever set this out as clearly as you have. Instead, I remember hearing things about ties to Al-Quaeda, WMD, UN resolutions, and maybe human rights violations. And I recall express denials of any interest in “nation building.” [/QUOTE] Actually, the Bush Administration did start talking about all these things - especially about fostering Democracy as a solution to terrorism. The problem they had is that they continually got attacked in the media for being ‘all over the map’. Like it or not, complex, nuanced arguments are difficult to sell in today’s ‘sound bite’ media. So one day a Bush spokesman would talk about building democracy in the middle east. The next day one would talk about the no-fly zones. Then someone would write an editorial basically saying, “Make up your damned mind. Is it democracy? Or no fly zones? Or WMD?” The impression left with people was that the Bush administration was frantically throwning justifications against the wall to see which ones would stick, rather than seeing that there was a web of complex reasons leading up to the decision to go to war - and make no mistake, WMD was part of it - for some, the major part, for others, not so much. What happened was probably that the Bush communications team sat down and said, “Look, we need to have a ‘message’. We need to pick the strongest argument and go with it. We can’t keep throwing out different justifications like we have. We need a sound bite.” They called in George Tenet, and Bush asked him directly if the WMD argument was credible, and Tenet responded that it was a ‘slam dunk’. So it was felt that it was the strongest case to make, and the one that directly led to a cassus belli that would be acceptable to the world. But go back and read the earliest press releases and articles from Neocons about why Saddam needed to go, and you’ll find it was a lot more complex than ‘WMD’. I actually forgot to mention a major justification for the war. It goes like this: Saddam’s relentless pursuit of WMD and his apparent willingness to attack his neighbors gave justification to the countries surrounding Iraq to maintain their own big militaries. Iran in particular looked ripe for internal revolution if the threat of Saddam was gone and a thriving democracy was on its doorstep with a Shiite population to act as an example for other Shiites in Iran. Take away the Saddam threat, show Iranian Shiites that their religion will fit fine in a functioning democracy, and you can change Iran as well. With Iran and Iraq brought over from the dark side, the rest would be just a matter of time. Of course, in hindsight it looks like the opposite was equally likely - with a vacuum left in Iraq in Saddam’s place, Iran would have an opportunity to turn the Shiites to _their_ side and create another hostile regime in the region and give the fundamentalists in Iran even more power. But the Neocons had people like Chalabi swearing up and down that this wouldn’t happen. None of this was new. This whole ‘remake the middle east and save the people there from their despots while enhancing our security’ project had been around since the early 1990’s. It took the WTC attacks to convince the people in power that something needed to be done, and this plan bubbled up to the surface again. On a personal note, I believed quite a bit of this - enough that I supported the invasion of Iraq. I was skeptical about ‘nation building’ - at the time I even said things on this board like, “I’m a libertarian, and believe that the government isn’t competant to run OUR economy. So why would I believe that they can go into another country and build one there?” But I still felt it was the best shot we had at making the kind of major changes required. Another major reason why I supported the war was because I thought the opposite strategy was fundamentally incoherent. Even opponents of the war supported the military buildup in the Gulf as a way to ‘pressure’ Saddam. Unfortunately, once there were 75,000 soldiers sitting in ships off the coast and camped out in Kuwait, the only way I saw to avoid war was for Saddam to capitulate, which he did not do. I couldn’t see any way, given Saddam’s behaviour, for the U.S. to withdraw all those troops and go home without boosting Saddam’s stature immensely and feeding into Bin Laden’s ‘strong horse’ plan to recruite even more terrorists. I felt and still believe that the terrorists felt they could ‘win’ primarily because we had been letting them ‘win’ for a long time with a series of completely ineffectual responses to major aggressions. Bombing of the WTC in 1993, the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole attack, etc. All met with indifference or at best symbolic retaliation. This gave people like Bin Laden the belief that the west was weak, no longer had the stomach for a fight, and therefore would be ripe for destabilization through a campaign of fear and intimidation. Pulling all the troops back out of the Middle East while Saddam stayed in power would have made that situation much worse. So the way I saw it, we would either fight then, or pull out and watch the sanctions crumble against Iraq, the no-fly zones become increasingly non-viable politically, and eventually Saddam would have his way and build up his WMD arsenals more and eventually get nukes. Then we’d wind up fighting him ANYWAY, possibly right around now, only this time with the stakes an order of magnitude higher. And I still think that is correct. I saw no way to have a peaceful future with Saddam in power. It was a question of showing strength and fighting him then, or withdrawing, letting him get much stronger, giving terror networks a chance to grow and arm with increasingly devastating weapons, then fight him later on much less favorable terms. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/59 "2007-04-07T21:39:31Z")
Not correct still **Sam**. [http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=229](http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=229) > [@](#): > > Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East. > > In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: “He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.” > > This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public. > > Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of “containment” that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to “build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction” for “the last 10 years”. America, he said, had been successful in keeping him “in a box”. > > Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. “Saddam does not control the northern part of the country,” she said. “We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” So 9/11 changed everything? As the invasion and the evidence showed, Iraq did not. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013/60 "2007-04-07T21:41:36Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] By occupying Iraq and throwing it into chaos, we’ve taken most Iraqi oil off the market for a long time, raising the price for oil and increasing the profits of Bush’s oil buddies. [/quote] Half the conspiratorialists say that the U.S. attacked Iraq to increase the flow of oil. The other half say they attacked to stop it. Could you please make up your mind? > [@](#): > > Also, our forces rather notoriously bypassed just about everything, including armories full of weapons that the Iraqi militias and so forth are now using on us and each other, in order to capture the Oil Ministry. There was a good reason for protecting the oil ministry - it was the major source of funding for the regime, and therefore the documentation there would have the best chance of describing what was purchased and where. There’s also another reason - Iraq was suspected of buying UN favor by selling oil credits, and evidence of that was important to capture. And it turns out to be the case, you know. The documentation in the oil ministry fingered high government officials and industry leaders around the world as having been on the payroll of Saddam. There’s a better argument you should use to maintain your belief that the U.S. knew there were no WMD - the apparent lack of emphasis on finding those stockpiles and securing them. This bothers me - it indicates that either the planners knew they weren’t there all along, or that the planning for the war was grossly incompetent. Because if they WERE there, the way the war was carried out would have guaranteed that they all landed in the hands of the bad guys. > [@](#): > > Plus, before the war you have PNAC _saying_ they wanted the oil But you just said they wanted to make sure it stayed in the ground. You could at least try to stay on message within the same post… And anyway, PNAC never said they wanted the oil - they said they wanted to make sure that the flow of oil out of the middle east wasn’t disrupted, as that could lead to a global recession or even a depression. It wasn’t about their personal gain - most of the PNAC types have nothing to do with the oil business. They’re mostly intellectuals. > [@](#): > > the original name of the Iraq campaign being Operation Iraqi Liberation - O.I.L. By God, you’ve caught them! Because we all know the evil overlords like to give names to their plans with acronyms that give away their true intentions. Good sleuthing, Holmes! More likely, they came up with the original plan name, and at some point someone chuckled and said, “Uh guys… did you see the acronym for this? The conpiracy mongers will have a field day with it.” > [@](#): > > and you have Cheney’s “energy task force” studying maps of of Iraqi oil fields. And why shoudn’t they? Would you want them to go to war WITHOUT having studied the oil fields? Especially since it was feared that Saddam would set those fields ablaze? This level of conpiracy mongering belongs up there with, “the CIA actually attacked the WTC”, and “That wasn’t an airplane that hit the Pentagon”. It’s one level below moon-landing hoax conspiracies. > [@](#): > > Nonsense. They were never a threat, Saddam hated Al Qaeda, and we are there because the neocons and war profiteers do not want us to leave, ever. And us being there _helps_ Al Qaeda. Right. Because enemies with little in common have never formed pacts before. Stalin and Hitler had little in common, but that didn’t stop them from signing a non-agression treaty. North Korea has little in common with Iran, but that doesn’t stop them from sharing missile technology. Saddam was willing to work with anyone who was willing to to help hurt America. It was his overriding passion. He had a vendetta against the U.S. As for al-Qaida being ‘helped’, I’m not so sure about that. Iraq has been a meat-grinder for foreign terrorists. The population has largely turned against them, including the Sunnis who were once working with them. Al-Qaida’s leadership has been decimated, and the capture of key Al-Qaida people in Iraq has led to intelligence coups that have dismantled some networks. After the Iraq war, support for Bin Laden plummeted in the Middle East. I would actually count the effect on al-Qaida as one of the few successes of the war. However, al-Qaida isn’t the only game in town, and the war has certainly fanned the flames of extremism elsewhere - especially in Europe. So I woudn’t say it’s helped the war on terror in general, but it’s certainly hurt the al-Qaida organization. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-we-went-into-iraq/399013.md?page=4)