Posted on 07/06/2021 4:59:28 AM PDT by RandFan
... But when it comes to the Iraq War, it must be said that Rumsfeld made a host of bad decisions. Instead of planning for the worst, he almost seemed to plan for the best — a quick war with as few troops as possible.
The worst decision — the one that gave rise to others — was to go to war in the first place, though he was just one of several people atop the George W. Bush administration and in its orbit, starting with the president, who made that blunder.
The decision was based on the assumption — and that’s all it was — that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s president, wanted the world — and those who threatened his power internally — to believe that he possessed them, when he did not. He fooled us all.
In retrospect, it is stunning that it happened. We see now that the emperor had no clothes. Why did we not see it then?
We — and I mean, first off, we in the press — were blinded by post-9/11 anger and groupthink. We were awed by the gravitas of those making the false claims. Every Western intelligence agency says it’s true, so it must be, right?
The claims might not have been lies, in those cases when those who uttered them believed them to be true. But top U.S. officials, including Rumsfeld, knew that the evidence they touted as certain was really just an educated guess.
For example, a 2002 report by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that Rumsfeld read but never shared outside the Pentagon said of Iraq’s WMD: “We’ve struggled to estimate the unknowns... We range from 0% to about 75% knowledge on various aspects of their program.”
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
“An estimated 151,000 to 1,033,000 Iraqis were killed in the first three to five years of conflict. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
You post lies even Wikipedia won't support. “Millions?” Really?
Syria's Chemical Weapons Came From Saddam's Iraq
Pentagon announces 500 tons of Uranium shipped from Iraq to Canada
Oh, I’m so sorry. Since it’s only up to a million, that’s really not a concern. As Stalin said - that’s just a statistic.
Of course, that Wikipedia entry ends in 2011 and doesn’t count the destabilized region and subsequent rise of ISIS, the ensuing slaughter and refugee crisis, knock-on effects in Syria, etc. that led to considerably more deaths (maybe even a million, but if not, meh).
But again, just statistics - statistics don’t suffer at all, right?
Thank you for that.
We have a bunch of idiots here on Free Republic. These people can’t remember history, because they have joyfully supplanted it with MSNBC/CNN’s radical liberal lies.
These are truly sick people.
Our troops were officially withdrawn in 2011, according to Wikipedia.
Even estimates can only get to 151,000 from the war.
Do you not believe people within a country have the “liberty” to determine what and how they handle themselves? What they chose to do, especially after 2011, was entirely up to them if here in the US after the war with England, our country’s independent colonies became states within a loosely defined republic. For Iraq, it chose to go back to warlords and insurgents. That probably says more about Muslim ways than anything else. After all, look at the evolution of Turkey to today.
Bush couldn't find Bin Laden, and the military industrial complex needed $$$, so the WMD predicate was used to throw us into a middle east quagmire for going on 20 years (hint - we're still pulling triggers in Iraq and Syria to this day). WMD, "War on Terror", "Support Our Troops", "Fight them over there, not over here" - all are tropes used to incite support for a really stupid war.
Full Disclosure - I personally supported it at the time. That was for the first 5-6 years. But we beat the Japanese and the Nazis in 4 years. Once we passed that mark, reality set in - we're not playing to win. Ten years in, I started asking "who benefits?" Now almost twenty years in, only a fool would not see the grim truth that money and power in the region (pipelines, oil fields, etc.) drives everything and our men and women in the military are ground up and spit out for no other reason than that.
Don't be a fool...
I think that comment could be substantiated by the power point presentation that then General Colin Powell gave which included satellite photographs of those very truck convoys heading out of Iraq........
As a caveat, the decisions made by the Bush administration and approved by the Senate were all based on US and foreign intelligence reports.
“The invasion ended the war in progress for 10 years and removed a dangerous threat to the region.”
Saddam kept Iran in it’s place.
We should have signed an alliance with Saddam and come to an agreement.
Lol, removed a dangerous threat to Iran, or at least one that held Iran in check.
Our beef with Saddam was legitimate, by signed cease-fire accord. Getting Bin Laden was a reasonable issue, too, as he was responsible for the Twin Towers attack.
Things beyond capturing either man and killing as many easily found bad people is bordering into either “nation-building” or “leadership vacuum remodeling,” which people on both sides said was better than to immediately leave.
When Saddam's armies reached the Kuwait-Saudi border, we should have resupplied them, provided air cover, and said, "See you in Riyadh".
You do know one of the reasons Saddam invaded Kuwait was because he discovered that Kuwait was “drinking his milkshake”, they were side-drilling into Iraqi oil fields.
If you think Saudi Arabia is an "ally" of the United States, there's really not a whole lot to discuss.
And what, exactly, is our interest in protecting that region?
Lie! We went to war because George W Bush wanted Saddam dead after Saddam tried to have W father killed. W put family business ahead of the nation's business. W has and is a low IQ uneducated scum bag.
"Western democracy" is a catastrophic dead end, destroying our nation even as we speak.
Why would any nation in its right mind not already saddled with it want to have it?
How about I ask this question - was the Iraq War worth it in hindsight and if so, what tangible benefit do we (USA) have to offset the cost in US lives, US suffering (disabled vets, mourning families), and US treasure?
Asking it this way to take the hapless and unmourned Iraqi civilians off the table for consideration, whether ten, ten thousand, or a million.
Um hum. Why was Trump still trying to withdraw them?
Re: 13 - Agreed.
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