Posted on 12/07/2016 8:59:17 AM PST by Lorianne
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense called the 2003 invasion of Iraq a “mistake,” according to a recording obtained by The Intercept.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Mattis said, “we will probably look back on the invasion of Iraq as a mistake — as a strategic mistake.”
Mattis was one of the Iraq campaign’s most important ground commanders. He led the 1st Marine Division during the invasion and later oversaw the bloody retaking of Fallujah from insurgents in 2004.
As for the Pentagon’s view on the Iraq invasion at the time, Mattis said this: “I think people were pretty much aware that the U.S. military didn’t think it was a very wise idea. But we give a cheery ‘Aye aye, sir.’ Because when you elect someone commander in chief — we give our advice. We generally give it in private.”
Mattis’s comments came during a question-and-answer session after a keynote delivered last year at ASIS International, a conference for “global security professionals” held in Anaheim, California. A conference participant provided an audio recording of Mattis’s speech exclusively to The Intercept.
(Excerpt) Read more at theintercept.com ...
Wow...OK...that is very cogent and would be a strategy of sorts, however it would also be an easily countered strategy if that was it (which it wasn’t). The terrorists would simply have to stop being drawn into the killing zone to defeat that strategy. Go to Somalia, or Iran, or Yemen, or Germany, or France...anywhere except where we were set up to kill them. That’s a pretty bad strategy if that’s what it was.
But it wasn’t. The American people were most demonstrably sold that it was weapons of mass destruction and bringing Western democracy to Islam. And quickly they stopped buying. The Bush and Clinton globalists screwed the pooch...so much so that when Obama and Clinton went back to make some money from the Saudis, they had to play under cover, use subterfuge and misdirection to get in the game in Egypt, Libya and Syria...and Iraq.
correct. finally, we got someone who knows what he’s talking about.
The gift of freedom!?!!
Are you kidding??!
They didn’t ASK for the gift of “freedom”.
Who the #### are we to decide someone needs liberating?
Let’s do some more nation building.
THE TRUTH IS THAT ####SUCKER BUSH WAS IN BED WITH THE SAUDIS AND ATTACKED IRAQ AS THE BOOGEYMAN AND DIVERSION.
Never try to give savages the gift of freedom? I’m at a loss for words.
That was NEVER bush’s intention.
Just like he didn’t vote or trump, because he’s a ONE WORLD govt piece of ####.
The full-scale warfare of World War II isn't used anymore because it completely defeats the purpose of the military campaigns we've had since then.
We don't fight wars to destroy enemies anymore. We fight wars to build a global empire, and destroying people and infrastructure in the places that are supposed to be part of the empire defeats the whole purpose of being there.
“NOW we are having to go BACK Iraq (with the addition of Syria) a third time to exterminate the terrorists that should of been killed in 2011-2012 when we had them on the ropes.”
Exactly. No one seems to realize we have thousands of troops in Iraq and Syria continuing the ‘Iraq war’ et al.
We are currently in phase IV of the Iraq war and will transition to phase V soon.
The US never completely left Iraq. The numbers, types of units and levels of support simply shifted in reaction to budgeting and political circumstance.
Why do we need to be there? Simple, its location, proximity to Islamic extremists and the fact it has the 2nd largest oil supply in the world.
What will work? A federated Iraq with a weak central government which provides local control over oil deposits with a federal tax to support the minimal federal operations. Iraqis are way to diverse, tribalistic and corrupt for a civil, central government to work.
Good to hear him speaking the truth.
No. It was a mistake because WTF were we doing in Iraq when the Sauds were behind the whole ####ing thing????
He let the sauds off the hook to invade some 2 cent dictatorship that was our foil to Iran.
Bush ####ed everything up. obama made it 10x worse when he pulled out the troops.
Good men died for that worthless 2 cent piece of #### country while the Sauds are still making a bundle off of us even after financing the death of 3000 Americans.
Too many idiots in the general public and on this forum think that the Marshall Plan was not a situationally possible innovation but an appropriate model for the aftermath of wars in general.
Having invested themselves in that utter stupidity they find it hard to swallow their pride and admit that not only were they terribly wrong, they were wrong in a way that wasted thousands of lives for no possibility of gain.
2. Do we even know what our "national intentions" were when a government lies to its citizens as a matter of course?
A lot of back and forth here on this, but in my view, yes it was a mistake, but the more important question is why did we make that mistake. I think it’s the false assumption that it’s possible for us to have “friendly” relations with Arab-Muslims in that region. It’s not ever going to happen. They will either fight us honorably like ISIS, or they will make us think that they are our friends, and then stab us in the back, like Saudi Arabia. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we will be able to formulate a rational foreign policy.
Don’t agree. The public doesn’t know how much NBC was recovered and either destroyed or neutralized.
There is no such thing as weapons that are old or abandoned and still can kill. The NY Times admitted they were there. Here’s an NCO that was involved:
“Jarrod L. Taylor, a former Army sergeant on hand for the destruction of mustard shells that burned two soldiers in his infantry company, joked of “wounds that never happened” from “that stuff that didn’t exist.” The public, he said, was misled for a decade. “I love it when I hear, ‘Oh there weren’t any chemical weapons in Iraq,’ ” he said. “There were plenty.”
This second article displays that when the US was unable to secure these known weapons, and the insurgents got to them, it painted two pictures, one, Iraq knew they were there, and they used them.
The first was munitions that had been sealed in bunkers at Iraq’s Al Muthanna weapons complex by U.N. inspectors during the 1990s. The inspectors destroyed enormous quantities of chemical weapons at Al Muthanna between 1992 and 1994, including 480,000 litres of live chemical weapons agent, but some could not be incinerated because it was too dangerous to move it. The U.N. and U.S. knew these chemical weapons were there, Saddam Hussein knew they knew, and there was no way for the Iraqi military to access them without the world immediately finding out. But after the invasion the U.S. failed to secure the site, and insurgents broke into the bunkers to retrieve some of the munitions. This is well-known to anyone who follows this issue closely.
I am almost amused at the inability, or dishonesty, of the media that can’t put two and two together. But they can understand the gullibility of a public that hasn’t figured out either’s stupidity.
red
They should have replaced Saddam with a new strongman.
I hope you don’t think that we disagree. #;^)
Let’s say we gave them an opportunity and they wasted it. They are Savages who practice a savage Religion and Pray to a savage God, so the outcome is no surprise.
Remember, in Post 9/11 America the Iraq War was very popular. We should have just gone in, done the deed and gotten out IMHO.
We could have taken care of the Iraq problem in 1991, but we didn’t. Thank you Colin Powell and RINO Bush 41.
I knew when they sent some underlings to sign the Surrender (or was it a cease fire) rather than Saddam it sent a message. The message, we are weak. Saddam should have been there groveling for all the World to see. It would have ended him.
Again, just my humble Opinion. Your Mileage may vary.
Occupying Iraq and continuing to prop Kuwait up were mistakes.
The correct to learn was to quit promising to prop the Arab states up in exchange for them not arming.
Had we pulled out at that time much of the fighting now would be between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and there would be no flood of rapefugees inundating Europe. Muslim wars have a different tenor when Mecca and Marina are prizes.
Iraq was a mistake. So was Kuwait.
No, we couldn't have. See Post #12.
As far back as 1992-94, Dick Cheney was offering very cogent and rational explanations for why an invasion and occupation of Iraq would have been disastrous. The things he predicted in that hypothetical scenario back then turned out to be exactly what happened in the mid-2000s, so clearly none of this was a "mistake."
“That’s the BEST thing you can say about him.”
No, you could also say he was a well meaning man of honor.
Which did not make up for being an inept moron.
Exactly- The misinformation was almsot criminal-
a few points for why he needed to be taken out- He was a modern day hitler- plain and simple- except he was murdering his own people en mass-
You bring up good military reasons- there werre also moral reasons to add to the mix-
saddam would light peopel on fire, hang them from meat hooks and skin them alive- he put peopel through giant shredders alive- feet5 first- threw people off buildings, burned peopel with acid in the face- lit their breads on fire so they suffocated, He used chemicals on his own people- He had MASS GRAVES dug to bury the dead he had killed- ETC ETC ETC
Saddam repeatedly broke international laws and fired upon our military repeatedly-
His sons woudl go to grade schools and order the teachers to bring out several young girls so that they could rape them- They put an olympic athelete in a box and left him there to die because he didn’t medal- ETC ETC ETC
Mistake General? No- there was no mistake-
It's kind of pathetic how it's sometimes so hard for us to see the obvious.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.