Now consider, just consider, he was trying to bluff not only the U.S., but Iran too. I just keep thinking that the old Shi'ite/Sunni rivalry was at play over who controlled the Strait of Hormuz for oil shipping to the Persian Gulf.
Thoughts?
Posted on 05/10/2008 5:02:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
In trying to understand news about the conflicts in Iraq, I work to keep in mind the difference between what we know now about decision making in World War II and what most Americans knew at the time. From the memoirs and documents published after the war, we've learned how leaders made critical judgments. But at the time, even well-informed journalists only could guess at what was going on behind the scenes.
Today we're only beginning to learn about what went on behind the scenes in regard to Iraq. One important new source is the recently published "War and Decision" by Douglas Feith, the No. 3 civilian at the Pentagon from 2001 to 2005. Feith quotes extensively from unpublished documents and contemporary memorandums, just as in the late 1940s Robert Sherwood did in "Roosevelt and Hopkins" and Winston Churchill did in his World War II histories. The picture Feith paints is at considerable variance from the narratives with which we've become familiar.
One such narrative is, "Bush lied; people died." The claim is that "neocons," including Feith, politicized intelligence to show that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction. Not so, as the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Silberman-Robb Commission have concluded already. Every intelligence agency believed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, and the post-invasion Duelfer report concluded that he maintained the capability to produce them on short notice. There was abundant evidence of contacts between Saddam's regime and al-Qaida and other terrorist groups. Given Saddam's hostility to the United States and his stonewalling of the United Nations, American leaders had every reason to believe he posed a grave threat. Removing him removed that threat.
Unfortunately -- and here Feith is critical of his ultimate boss, George W. Bush -- the administration allowed its critics to frame the issue around the fact that stockpiles of weapons weren't found. Here we see at work the liberal fallacy, apparent in debates on gun control, that weapons are the problem rather than the people with the capability and will to use them to kill others. The fact that millions of law-abiding Americans have guns is not a problem; the problem is that criminals can get them and have the will to kill others. Similarly, the fact that France has WMDs is not a problem; the fact that Saddam Hussein had the capability to produce WMDs and the will to use them against us was.
Feith identifies as our central mistake the decision not to create an Iraqi Interim Authority to take over some sovereign functions soon after the overthrow of Saddam. Bush ordered the creation of such an authority March 10, 2003. But it was resisted by State Department and CIA leaders, who argued that Iraqis would not trust "externals" -- those in exile -- and who were especially determined to keep the Iraqi National Congress' Ahmed Chalabi from power. As head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Paul Bremer took the State-CIA view and, without much supervision from Washington, decided that the U.S. occupation would continue for as long as two years. Only deft negotiation by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld produced a June 30, 2004, deadline for returning authority to Iraqis. The January 2005 elections placed many of the "externals," including Chalabi, in high office.
Feith admits he made mistakes and misjudgments. He criticizes Bush for not defending the main rationale for invasion -- protecting Americans from a genuine threat -- and instead emphasizing the subsidiary and iffy goal of establishing democracy. He says little about military operations, beyond noting that Bremer and the military leaders had no common approach to combating disorder.
There's still much to be learned about our decisions, good and bad, in Iraq. But Feith's book is a step forward, as were those of Sherwood and Churchill 60 years ago.
Indeed it does
Funny... the book’s been out for a few weeks now. And, other than a few interviews on conservative talk radio, I haven’t seen or heard a peep about it.
I actually still get into arguments with people who don’t believe me when I tell them EVERY intelligence agency around the world was in agreement that Saddam did have WMD. There was, no “lie”.
There were legal questions brought up about invading a country that was not an imminent danger to America. The WMD charge was the end run around that. Nobody was certain that ready WMD existed but the chance was used as legal justification to invade. This war needed to happen so I don’t care but using this end run in the future probably won’t work again.
I bought the book last Wednesday. Can’t put it down.
The left in America has been one of the biggest allies of American enemies in Iraq. The narrative that would be in an unbiased press is: The left lied, Americans died.
Sigh..... even here. :-(
No one is EVER "certain" in the intelligence business. But, there clearly was 'consensus' that a stockpile existed. The Russians even warned us to expect them to be used against us if we invaded. Even as the US was closing in on Bagdad, Saddam was threatening to USE what he did not have.
It just kills me how people conveniently forget what they don't want to remember.
Correct... and, here's another little fact you won't here repeated often: There were actually MORE (in numbers) countries involved in the second "coalition of the willing" than there were in the first. Because France and Germany (who were being paid off by Saddam) didn't join the second venture, the Left declared it a "unilateral" decision.
[There was abundant evidence of contacts between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.]
Barone has got it right, Bush failed not because he went to war with Iraq, but because of the way he let the liberal left, allies of all fascist regimes worldwide, control him and he said nothing while the left turned lies into truths that more than half of America now believes.
Bush was a fool because he did not do what a good conservative would do, Fight all enemies of America both forign and DOMESTIC.
He failed when he could have succeeded and that is a shame, you can not be a conservative and make deals with the liars and fools and neo nazi left wing fascists that destroy everything they touch.
[It just kills me how people conveniently forget what they don’t want to remember.]
A sad fact of the human estate is that we are all blind sheep led by blind sheep, which proves there is a God in heaven who ultimately brings His will to pass, I saw this in America’s birth and , Praise Jesus Christ, in Israel , the reborn nation that will be the nation the Lord Jesus will rule from for 1000 years after the coming 7 year tribulation wrath of God to bring in His Kingdom on the earth.
” . . .Paul Bremer took the State-CIA view and, without much supervision from Washington, decided that the U.S. occupation would continue for as long as two years . . .”
He should have been given the administration’s viewpoint and directed to follow only that point of view. Failing to do so he should have been fired.
The other distinguishable character is arrogance. Maybe not totally purposeful but subtle.
I'm not disagreeing with him but Bush Sr. wanted war and tricked Saddam into thinking he could have Kuwait. Before the invasion Bush had his diplomat tell Saddam that the dispute with Kuwait was considered a border dispute that the US had no interest in. The US reaction after Saddam's invasion was a complete surprise to him.
I remember when Bush Sr. pulled his punches and did not march into Iraq to get Saddam the Democrats let him have it, saying the military should have continued on and finished the job. If the president is a Republican then no matter what decision he makes the Democrats will take the opposing point of view. If GW Bush suddenly came out for nationalizing the health care industry the Democrats would suddenly be vehemently against it.
It's worth remembering that a large part of the Democratic Party wanted to do nothing in response to that, except sanctions. The great Al Gore decided which side to support based on who could offer him a prime time speaking slot when the debate over using force was televised.
Before Saddam went into hiding he was adamantly shouting that he had no WMDs. He didn't threaten to use nuclear weapons against the US military and in fact the reverse was true. He was told by diplomats just before the invasion commenced that if he used poison gas or anything the USA would totally nuke Iraq into a sheet of glass.
I'm generally a proponent of war. Some people just need killing. Just don't confuse the war sales pitch with the history of what actually went down. The truth is much more interesting.
I’m sorry.. you’re facts are incomplete. Do you not recall the threat that if we crossed the line into Bagdad that chemical weapons would be used?
I know that Saddam was claiming, before the war, to not have WMD. I also know most intel agencies did not believe Iraq had much of a nuclear program. Mostly, he was believed to have stockpiles of chemical weapons... and, it was suspected that he was working on biologicals.
Given Saddam’s constant interference with UN inspectors, there was really no way for the world to know, with certainty, what he really had or didn’t have.
Don’t get me wrong: I never thought the WMD argument was the strongest justification for the war. I was happy with “regime change” and “enforcement of the UN resolutions and peace terms”. But, the facts were: MOST intel agencies around the world believed WMD were there... and, after the realities of 9/11, I believe it would have been an unacceptable risk to assume Saddam would not give them to shadow terrorist groups.
ping
Now consider, just consider, he was trying to bluff not only the U.S., but Iran too. I just keep thinking that the old Shi'ite/Sunni rivalry was at play over who controlled the Strait of Hormuz for oil shipping to the Persian Gulf.
Thoughts?
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