# Withdrawl from Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 27, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001 "2005-01-27T22:52:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/41 "2005-01-29T10:59:27Z")
**Wake up call** is right in that those bases aren’t getting nearly enough attention in the debate. However, I don’t see why a new Iraqi government in the future (not necessarily the next one) can’t eventually (or quickly) kick out those bases. The Saudis did it. The Iraqis can do it. > **[US debate focuses on plan B - to stay on or to go?](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/29/iraq.usa)** > > On the eve of the Iraqi elections, a debate has begun in Washington over what America's 'plan B' should be if the vote does not bring the stability the Bush administration is hoping for. > [@](#): > > A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that “half a dozen” “enduring bases” were being constructed, but added they were intended for use by the new Iraqi army. That’s relatively good news. Best so far. Although that article immediately follows with the opposing view, that is, the well-known (months-old) [Globalsecurity.org](http://Globalsecurity.org) analysis. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/42 "2005-01-29T11:17:37Z")
Even if we take the idea of permanent bases as true… there purpose isn’t “police work” or “peacekeeping”. Only defending the status quo of any friendly Iraqi government or menacing neighbors. You can’t do much if your soldiers are in patrol being shot at every day. So if you prefer to think the US wants permanent presence… they still need to hand over to Iraqis “police” work. That would still require an “exit strategy” of sorts. US troops would be like an “Iraqi Army” in the wider sense of security and would be located out of the insurgent ridden urban areas. > [@elucidator](#): > > I don’t know if that necessarily follows. Boneheaded fuckups don’t reveal all that much about intentions. I think it reveals a lot actually… especially if you see the reasons for the fuckups. The Bushie gang always said they were not going to engage in nation building… and then invade and dismantle the power structure in Iraq. The caos was quite predicatable. To me it seems a case of lack of interest in putting the effort and thought to what would happen post invasion. It clearly shows a “belief” system about Freedom happening like magic. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/43 "2005-01-29T12:24:23Z")
> [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > Can I have a cite for the idea that the invasion and occupation have resulted in “hundreds of thousands” of casualties please? [Surprised you hadn’t heard of it.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7967-2004Oct28.html) Lancet’s estimate is in excess of 100,000. > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting that peace through totalitarian brutality is preferable to the tumult of a fledgling democracy? Are you suggesting that death is better than life? > [@](#): > > Would it be preferable if the US kept the peace through widespread torture and murder? Neither of those is a hypothetical, sadly. > [@Kimstu](#): > > I still can’t believe that there will be a full-blown civil war, but I’m getting more nervous as so many other things I didn’t really believe possible have happened. The civil war may not be “full-blown”, as it doesn’t appear that any of the factions has wide support among enough of the country to consider trying to take over all of it. There do seem to be a number of groups that each control an area of varying sizes, and it may well be that the civil war will turn into an exercise in firming up the internal borders once their common enemy is driven out. > [@](#): > > How could we have screwed this up so badly? “WE” didn’t. Only some of us did. How could anyone have screwed this up so badly? The strength of the human capacity for self-deception. Barbara Tuchman’s _The March of Folly_ is a wonderful illustration of many other such episodes. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/44 "2005-01-29T13:59:09Z")
> [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > Can I have a cite for the idea that the invasion and occupation have resulted in “hundreds of thousands” of casualties please? Elvis just beat me to it, but [here.](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/29/international/europe/29casualties.html?ex=1107147600&en=384c5949a4560efd&ei=5070) > [@](#): > > “Making conservative assumptions, about 100,000 excess deaths have happened … Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths,” said Les Roberts of the Baltimore institution. The researchers excluded Fallujah, the most violent area of Iraq, from their results, which would have made the toll higher. But the finding that air strikes caused the highest casualties casts doubt on US claims that air attacks allow pinpoint precision. Even more disturbing is the [use of napalm in Fallujah.](http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=iraq_war&Number=293141254) > [@](#): > > Residents in Fallujah reported that innocent civilians have been killed by napalm attacks, a poisonous cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel which makes the human body melt. This, more than concerns about safety, is what kept the US from allowing the Red Crescent into Fallujah after the battle. > [@manhattan](#): > > You know, Kennedys used to say things like “(W)e shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” To Ted, though, it’s enough that the nations of the middle east are “independent,” without regard to whether they are “independent” under genocidal despots who invade their neighbors and fund terrorists. JFK of course could make a poetic statement like this on one hand while on the other hand was orchestrating the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem. Hussein was certainly a despot but no worse than many others, and his ties to terrorism are tenuous at best. If the Republicans are truly concerned about genocide, where were they for the black Sudanese? Or Rwanda? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/45 "2005-01-29T17:17:33Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > I read about the murdered poll workers, about the candidates who remain anonymous, about the bombed polling places. That’s all Zarqawi? Bullshit. The terrorists know that successful elections will be a severe blow to them and that a successful democracy will mean an end to them. It would help if you used conventional nomenclature. For whatever reasons, the media have been using “terrorists” to refer to the international kind - bin Laden, Zarqawi, and their buddies and fellow travelers. And they’ve been using ‘insurgents’ to describe the Iraqi homegrown variety of terrorist. The distinction is important due to all the time and energy the Bushies put into convincing us that resistance to our occupation was coming primarily from foreign terrorists such as Zarqawi. Even though that’s now been exposed as a fable (Aesop, look out - you’ve got competition), I expect there are some wingnut dead-enders still pushing the idea. So distinct terminology is helpful. A “successful democracy” would certainly mean failure for the Sunni insurgency. But exactly what makes you think they’re on the road to one of those? Even after the vote, the Sunnis aren’t going to honor the outcome. And they’re much better armed and organized than any of the Shi’ite militia, and they know what they’re doing. A successful democracy would be great, but an election doesn’t mean shit. It’s just the formal beginning of the civil war that everybody’s been positioning themselves for. > [@](#): > > You know, Kennedys used to say things like “(W)e shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” To Ted, though… OK, let’s pay any price, bear any burden, then. Except that we already know we’re not going to do that: the draft’s a dead letter, and how else can we get a half-million troops over there? No, Teddy is part of the reality-based community; he knows that’s not going to happen, so the remaining alternatives are (1) talking big but trying to do it on the cheap, which has been working real well so far; or (2) packing up and going home. I really don’t see any rush of volunteers from the Fighting 101st Keyboard Division here. Those who are for this war - _they_ are not ready to pay real coin to achieve America’s aims, whatever the hell they are. Personally, I believe this war was about one thing, and one thing only: domestic political power. And it’s worked. GWB got his second term, and ever since, he’s looked and sounded like Zaphod Beeblebrox after the Total Perspective Vortex. Even after hearing that 31 Marines had died in a helicopter crash, he was looking and sounding like a man sitting on top of the world. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/46 "2005-01-29T18:32:42Z")
> [@Age Quod Agis](#): > > Are you suggesting that peace through totalitarian brutality is preferable to the tumult of a fledgling democracy? Is that what this is, the “tumult of a fledgling democracy”? Are there reasons to believe it’s that, rather than a slide into a civil war without front lines? By pretty much any metric you care to name, things have steadily gotten worse over there during our 21-month occupation. And that’s the problem when we talk about staying until we have finished the job: the longer we stay, the more fucked up Iraq is, and the further we (or they) are from achieving stability. Whoever wins tomorrow’s elections will be in the difficult spot of being perceived as ‘collaborators’ if they keep us around to help them with the security situation (not that we’re likely to be any more effective this spring than we were last fall), and not having the firepower to fend off the Sunni insurgency if they don’t. (I’m assuming the Shi’ites will come out ahead in the voting, seeing as how they’re the majority and the Sunnis are boycotting.) I expect that if we stay, the winners of the first election under the new Constitution will face more or less the same dilemma, only worse. I can’t see any reason to believe things will get better while we stay. ---
**Author:** ![Wake\_up\_call](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dec6dc/32.png) [@Wake\_up\_call](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wake_up_call)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/47 "2005-01-30T00:29:30Z")
> [@Reeder](#): > > Bushco is asking for 80 billion more which contains 1.5 billion for a new embassy. > > 1.5 billion for a building? Oh well, at least we don’t have to pay for demolition of the old US Embassy, as it was conveniently demolished today. Now, we really need to build a new one at $1.5 billion – to last 20+ years? Requirement justified. Check. Next. To: US Taxpayer – Pay for it. Check. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/48 "2005-01-30T00:35:28Z")
Sorry haven’t gotten back to this thread…I’ve been away out of town and too busy to get on the board at all. Looks like its winding down here, but wanted to make a few parting comments. > [@BobLibDem](#): > > Elvis just beat me to it, but here. > [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Surprised you hadn’t heard of it. Lancet’s estimate is in excess of 100,000. And yet [IBC](http://www.iraqbodycount.net/) estimates civilian deaths at 15563 - 17789. And according to this [BBC article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/4217413.stm), the Iraqi Health Ministry estimates: > [@](#): > > 3,274 people in Iraq were killed and 12, 657 injured in conflict related violence > 2,041 of these deaths were the result of “military operations”, in which 8,542 people were injured > 1,233 deaths were the result of “terrorist operations” Which says to me that A) the IHM figures are wildly wrong, or B) That Lancet is WAY off and even IBC is inflated, or C) Things have gotten a lot better in Iraq in the last 6 months compared to the previous 6 months ( :dubious: ). Though I didn’t state my position in the OP, I think that it would be a mistake for the US give a firm (and arbitrary IMO) timetable at this point for withdrawl. Withdrawl should be tied to the request of the new Iraqi government and some kind of tangable goals achieved…and go hand in hand with the ramping up of the Iraqi military and ability to defend itself. Until those things start to firm up I don’t see HOW we could come up with a realistic withdrawl timetable. I think Sen. Kennedy was grandstanding…playing to the left/Dems and attacking the Administration without actually offering anything tangable as an alternative…i.e. he said nothing of real substance, but it sure sounded good to his base. On the eve of the elections its WAY too soon to even be talking about that as there is no way to judge what effect (if any) these elections are going to have on the situation in Iraq. It could have a profound effect or no effect at all…or something inbetween. We just don’t know and talking out your ass about setting a “specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces” before the situation, which has the potential to change radically, is just that…talking out your ass and pandering to your base. And this all could be moot (though I don’t think it will be)…after all, the new Iraqi government COULD just tell us to take a hike, or set a timetable for us to be gone of their own. Thats why I say its too early…we don’t know whats going to happen as a result of these election. Sorry if this is a repeat of others points…I didn’t read through the whole thread yet…I had a few min. and just wanted to respond. I plan on going through the thread and several others I’m in tomorrow, my hangover and time permitting. -XT ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2005, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/49 "2005-01-30T00:38:37Z")
Crap…the BBC report by the IHM was for the past 6 months, not the entire conflict, if it wasn’t appearent from what I was saying (its in the cite, but some might not have opened it). The point being of course that if there were 3,200 dead in the past 6 months then there would have had to be a lot more in the previous 6 months (to say the least, especially about Lancet) to make the totals come out right…IF the IHM figures are even close to accurate. Again, I have no idea and only tossed this out as something to think about. -XT ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/50 "2005-01-31T09:47:03Z")
To clarify, the Lancet figures were a statistical study attempting to monitor overall death rates in Iraq from _any_ cause compared to before the invasion: it did not tag 100,000 dead bodies, it merely estimated, with appropriate error bars, how many _more people had died_ in the same period before and after the invasion. The Iraq Body Count figure is actual _confirmed and identified bodies_ **directly** associated with military action, rather than people dying from treatable conditions because the health service is FUBAR. The Iraq Health Ministry’s figures are confirmed and identified bodies dying only from actual bullets and bombs. The equivalents in, say, the tsunami death toll might be: number killed who would otherwise be alive (Lancet), number of identified bodies (BodyCount), number of identified bodies whose cause of death was exclusively “drowning on Boxing Day” (Health Ministry). ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/51 "2005-01-31T16:50:49Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > **How** could we have screwed this up so badly? Aside from the political miscalculation of the Bush administration regarding WMD, for which it gets a frequent and deserved bashing, the U.S. and its allies made three major mistakes in Iraq. The first was humanitarian in nature – to be blunt, the military killed or captured about 25,000 too few people during the first stage of the occupation. I guess the thought was that if they retreated and melted into the cities they wouldn’t be able to regroup (or just wouldn’t, without regard to ability) with the intensity they have. The other, for which I can think of no good explanation, is that the military did a piss-poor job of guarding the borders. I recognize that guarding borders in Iraq is different from doing it in other places, but still. Those two groups, the escaped soldiers and the infiltrators, provide most of the manpower and the vast majority of the non-manpower resources of the insurgency. We needed more troops on day one. Finally, we underestimated the fear many Iraqis would have that we’d leave. That fear has reduced cooperation in finding the bad guys from the first two mistakes. Since, as many war opponents never tire of pointing out as if U.S. foreign policy hasn’t changed recently, we previously abandoned revolutionary movements in that very country and sat around while other dictators have done their thing, we should have anticipated that fear and tried to find some way to overcome it. Instead, those very same opponents have been the source of some of the fear. That said, things are not as bad as they’ve been made out to be. I think if someone had predicted, say, 2,000 U.S. deaths, ~20,000 Iraqi deaths (including bad guys and civilians) and nationwide elections within 24 months they’d have been seen as optimistic by many. The trouble in Iraq is not over by any measure. But the elections prove that the Iraqi people deserve our help AND need our further assistance. We’ll be working on withdrawal dates over the next year or so with the new government, not with any BS timetable by appeasionists and towel-thrower-inners like Kennedy. The demand by him and others for an accelerated pullout are aiding the terrorists by giving them hope that they can knock our committment and by increasing fear among regular Iraqis that we will use the election as an excuse to cut and run, abandoning them to the terrorists. His speech would be bad for both American interests and Iraqi interests if anybody took him seriously anymore. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/52 "2005-01-31T18:00:46Z")
Oh, dear, we’re singing that old song again, are we, **Manny**? “Appreasionists”? Not about to break into a chorus of “aid and comfort to the enemy”, are you? One hopes not. Even we who don’t measure up to your unstinting standards of unquestioning loyalty can only swallow so much. The elections prove little, they have no divine mandate, no supernatural powers. To what extent were the elections free? Was there a “Fuck the US, Get Out!” party? I hadn’t heard of any such option, had you? Is such a sentiment non-existent in Iraq? Surely not. My problem is the same as yours, **Manny** : I cannot trust any of the sources of information, they all have apparent agendas. You declare your willingness to trust one source, the Bushiviks, even as you admit they have lied to you before. This is a faith that surpasseth all understanding. Is an election a good thing, as is the absence of Saddam? Clearly. Would I have sacrificed my son for it? Not on your life. Would you? As long as your about it, why don’t you outline what would be the limit of your Job-like patience? At what point do you shout “Hold! Enough!”? If ever? ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/53 "2005-02-01T02:56:37Z")
> [@](#): > > originally posted by **manhattan** > > The trouble in Iraq is not over by any measure. But the elections prove that the Iraqi people deserve our help AND need our further assistance. We’ll be working on withdrawal dates over the next year or so with the new government, not with any BS timetable by appeasionists and towel-thrower-inners like Kennedy. Ya gotta love this kind of ignorant nonsense. First off, the elections were not at all favored by the US, initially. For those who so quickly forget, a quick lesson in remembrance from [Juan Cole:](http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/mixed-story-im-just-appalled-by.html) > [@](#): > > …the Bush administration opposed one-person, one-vote elections of this sort. First they were going to turn Iraq over to Chalabi within six months. Then Bremer was going to be MacArthur in Baghdad for years. Then on November 15, 2003, Bremer announced a plan to have council-based elections in May of 2004. The US and the UK had somehow massaged into being provincial and municipal governing councils, the members of which were pro-American. Bremer was going to restrict the electorate to this small, elite group. > Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani immediately gave a fatwa denouncing this plan and demanding free elections mandated by a UN Security Council resolution. Bush was reportedly “extremely offended” at these two demands and opposed Sistani. Bremer got his appointed Interim Governing Council to go along in fighting Sistani. Sistani then brought thousands of protesters into the streets in January of 2004, demanding free elections. Soon thereafter, Bush caved and gave the ayatollah everything he demanded. Except that he was apparently afraid that open, non-manipulated elections in Iraq might become a factor in the US presidential campaign, so he got the elections postponed to January 2005. This enormous delay allowed the country to fall into much worse chaos, and Sistani is still bitter that the Americans didn’t hold the elections last May. **The US objected that they couldn’t use UN food ration cards for registration, as Sistani suggested. But in the end that is exactly what they did.** > So if it had been up to Bush, Iraq would have been a soft dictatorship under Chalabi, or would have had stage-managed elections with an electorate consisting of a handful of pro-American notables. It was Sistani and the major Shiite parties that demanded free and open elections and a UNSC resolution. They did their job and got what they wanted. The US has no freakin’ idea the gift they’ve been handed by Sistani. To quote further from an article cited by the above Juan Cole, from [The Guardian:](http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1402161,00.html) > [@](#): > > For centuries the Shias, 60% of modern Iraq’s population, were subservient to the minority Sunnis. In 1920 the Shias rose against the British but lost and the Sunnis, with British backing, continued lording it over them. Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime aggravated that marginalisation and so in 1991, in the wake of the first Gulf war, the Shias rose again, only to again be crushed. > Resolving not to repeat those mistakes, Ayatollah al-Sistani has cooperated with the US, calmed his supporters after they were targeted by Sunni bombs, and lobbied for elections, knowing the outcome will be a Shia-dominated government, albeit in coalition with Kurds and Sunni groups. > This time it is the Sunnis who have rebelled and it is their turn to be marginalised, much to the unease of Sunni-led governments in other Arab countries. “Sistani has played it brilliantly,” said one western diplomat. “By reining in his radicals and going for elections, power is falling into the Shia lap.” The US needs to realize who the powers are in Iraq at the moment, especially as a result of this election. Their sabre-rattling towards Iran, where Sistani was born, and where he still holds his citizenship, contradicts their support for these Sistani-supported elections. The USG needs to decide what side it’s on. Otherwise, more soldiers’ lives will be lost for no good reason. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/54 "2005-02-01T03:52:50Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > Ya gotta love this kind of ignorant nonsense. > First off, the elections were not at all favored by the US, initially. For those who so quickly forget, a quick lesson in remembrance from [Juan Cole:](http://www.juancole.com/2005/01/mixed-story-im-just-appalled-by.html) Bahahahaha! Is that what the left is, uh, left with? That minor quibbles over timing and process somehow equals the US not having wanted elections? And that consulting with Iraqi spiritual leaders and listening to their counsel is bad and not good? Yeah, you guys run with that one. Good luck with that. > [@](#): > > The US needs to realize who the powers are in Iraq at the moment, especially as a result of this election. Their sabre-rattling towards Iran, where Sistani was born, and where he still holds his citizenship, contradicts their support for these Sistani-supported elections. > The USG needs to decide what side it’s on. Otherwise, more soldiers’ lives will be lost for no good reason. We’re on the side of freedom. I know the naysayers, appeasonists, towel-thrower-inners and pro-terrorists on this site deride that, but it’s the truth. A free Iraq run by secular Shi’ites, if it can happen, will be the biggest possible blow to the fascist mullahs in Tehran and the biggest possible succor to the Shi’ia majority there who know what a mistake they made when they allowed the mullahs to take power in ‘79. Who knows? With a little luck it might even be enough to overcome the prior US mistakes which led the Iranian Shi’ias to make the mistake of their own way back then and Bush’ mistake of the “axis of evil.” Sorry, **pantom** , I don’t give two shits how Cole wants to spin it. This is a wonderful, hopeful, joyful day for the world. And oh yeah – I added a signature for the first time in a long time, just for **elucidator**. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/55 "2005-02-01T03:54:00Z")
And here it is. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/56 "2005-02-01T04:03:12Z")
A statue of Dubya in the middle of Baghdad? I can think of no tribute more appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/57 "2005-02-01T04:07:58Z")
Do Iraqis walk their dogs? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/58 "2005-02-01T04:29:27Z")
Of course, Prague erected a statue to Frank Zappa. Now thats brutal cool! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/59 "2005-02-01T04:34:17Z")
Thanks, **Manny!**. I know you didn’t _mean_ to make my day. But you did. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001/60 "2005-02-01T18:13:54Z")
> [@manhattan](#): > > Aside from the political miscalculation of the Bush administration regarding WMD, for which it gets a frequent and deserved bashing Ah, yes - “lying to the American people to get us into a war” gets knocked down to “political miscalculation.” Great. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > the U.S. and its allies made three major mistakes in Iraq. The first was humanitarian in nature – to be blunt, the military killed or captured about 25,000 too few people during the first stage of the occupation. Was that the same “first stage” when we were already stuffing people into Abu Ghraib based on sweeps and hearsay? > [@](#): > > The other, for which I can think of no good explanation, is that the military did a piss-poor job of guarding the borders. I recognize that guarding borders in Iraq is different from doing it in other places, but still. Those two groups, the escaped soldiers and the infiltrators, provide most of the manpower and the vast majority of the non-manpower resources of the insurgency. We needed more troops on day one. Geez, **manny** , you start off saying “no good explanation” and then you provide it in that last sentence. Has anyone yet managed to demonstrate that Zarqawi and other infiltrators have made that big a difference overall? Yes, Zarqawi’s killed people on TV, so he can get the media splash, but if he didn’t make videos, would he be anything but a bit player? > [@](#): > > Finally, we underestimated the fear many Iraqis would have that we’d leave. That fear has reduced cooperation in finding the bad guys from the first two mistakes. Since, as many war opponents never tire of pointing out as if U.S. foreign policy hasn’t changed recently, we previously abandoned revolutionary movements in that very country and sat around while other dictators have done their thing, we should have anticipated that fear and tried to find some way to overcome it. _I know -_ we could have waited another year to invade Iraq (if we were going to do so at all), while we built up some cred for our staying power in Afghanistan. Instead, we bounced from one to the other like a nation with ADD. I think you’re overrating that fear, though. By the time we captured Saddam, which should have eased a lot of concerns, it looks as if the Iraqis were far more worried that we _wouldn’t_ leave. > [@](#): > > Instead, those very same opponents have been the source of some of the fear. Shame on us for pointing out the difference between the Administration’s words and its deeds! That must’ve made the Iraqis very afraid. Except that they were learning about all this even before we lefties were. > [@](#): > > That said, things are not as bad as they’ve been made out to be. I think if someone had predicted, say, 2,000 U.S. deaths, ~20,000 Iraqi deaths (including bad guys and civilians) and nationwide elections within 24 months they’d have been seen as optimistic by many. It’s less what the costs have been than (a) whether we were told about both the risks and the goals upfront, so our democratic process could arrive at a decision honestly, and (b) whether we’ve actually gotten anything worthwhile as a result of all those deaths. I wouldn’t have guessed anywhere near that many American deaths by now, since I expected an easy-in, easy-out for us, with the country gradually degenerating into civil war after our departure. (Now I expect a rapid degeneration into civil war after we go, if we ever do.) But I wouldn’t have expected that elections would have waited this long. > [@](#): > > The trouble in Iraq is not over by any measure. But the elections prove that the Iraqi people deserve our help AND need our further assistance. I think our track record thus far justifies the old saw, “We’re from the U.S. government and we’re here to help you.” > [@](#): > > We’ll be working on withdrawal dates over the next year or so with the new government, not with any BS timetable by appeasionists and towel-thrower-inners like Kennedy. We can’t afford to take that long to ‘work on withdrawal dates’. In three months, the new government will be regarded as collaborationists if they haven’t started demonstrably easing us towards the door. And in six months, they’d have the termendous nationwide support that the Allawi government has today. > [@](#): > > The demand by him and others for an accelerated pullout are aiding the terrorists by giving them hope that they can knock our committment and by increasing fear among regular Iraqis that we will use the election as an excuse to cut and run, abandoning them to the terrorists. His speech would be bad for both American interests and Iraqi interests if anybody took him seriously anymore. The problem with that logic is, the Sunni insurgency is doing better all the time, even with us in country. Sounds like they’ve got plenty of hope, no matter what happens. At some point, the Iraqi government will have to be self-sustaining. That includes being able to handle their security responsibilities. We’ve now had a few iterations of training Iraqi police and troops too fast but not very well, then watching them fall apart, or just plain disappear, under pressure. We really need to set a schedule if for no other reason than to stop this idiocy, do it slowly, and do it right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/withdrawl-from-iraq/287001.md?page=4)