View Full Version : Iraq War: 20 Years On
A good but unsatisfying article from NYT. I think it lets the Bush II admin off too easy, and the NeoCons took advantage of a totally feckless Clinton admin, so a lose lose there. We should have focused on Afg and nothing else and going to Iraq took away much needed resources and cost US lives and staggering $:
"...neoconservatives portrayed Iraq as a proving ground for their larger mission. A pro-American democracy would, they argued, naturally arise in Mr. Hussein’s place, and other countries in the Middle East would quickly follow, transforming the region."
How do you get to their position and understand that little about the ME?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/world/middleeast/iraq-war-reason.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes
FromMyColdDeadHand
03-19-23, 17:54
By believing in humanity and for people to act rationally.
The oddest thing is young people think that Bush and the US 'broke' the ME. Like it was this awesome place circa 1999. We gave them the opportunity to cast off the 7th for the 21st century and they bit the hand.
F'em. As said in The Godfather "They are animals, let them lose their souls".
Maybe they'll finally get it in the next century, or the next millenia.
Everybody forgets.
Saddam had chemical weapons, ask the Kurds.
9-11 demonstrated he didn't need a missile system to deliver them to us, just had to give them to bad guys and he knew a few. Saddam was behind the Iranian Embassy hostage crisis so he's not above working with terrorists.
Our choices were: Wait until a chemical weapons attack happens in LA OR personally determine Iraq's current NBC capacity because the UN sure as shit isn't able to accomplish anything definitive.
So we did the right thing.
The PROBLEM was, after we determined any chemical weapon capacity or neutralized any terrorist plan to deliver said weapons to the US we should have CONCLUDED our operations, gone down the list of senior people in charge, picked somebody and said "You are now President...do NOT make us come back and do this crap again."
Instead Bush 43 (because he is pretty much the D student everyone claims he was) decided he could "fix" Iraq and the resulting democracy would be so grateful they'd build statues of him and sell us oil really cheap. He didn't seem to understand if they really wanted democracy in Iraq, they would already have it and true to form when given the vote, the result was another Islamic government.
Saddam already presided over the closest thing to a secular democracy in the region, Bush 41 screwed the pooch when he sided with Kuwait over allegations of oil theft (another time the UN failed to find a resolution to a problem that ended in war) and rat****ed an alliance Reagan took years to build.
In 2023 Iraq is more viable than Afghanistan, so there's that.
Cannot believe it’s been 20 years since we crossed the LOD. So much pain and loss since that day and it’s passed so quickly.
In 2023 Iraq is more viable than Afghanistan, so there's that.I'm an OIF vet (2004-2005) and always felt I was in the wrong place and that the "right" war was over in Afghanistan. I also had a bunch of pessimism about the iraqi forces we were training.
When ISIS rolled over Mosul I figured I was right, but when they finally rallied and took back their lands it was a surprise. I knew the Kurds were rockstars and would do good work but the arabs finally getting some balls and turning things around was a big deal.
Afghanistan collapsing first while Iraq clung onto their fledgling democracy which we helped establish at gunpoint was unimaginable to me back then. The world takes strange turns sometimes.
Kinda funny story.
20 years ago I was a young Private fresh out of Basic. Graduated highschool about 9 months prior. We had been training in Kuwait since January. My platoon sergeant was a crusty old SFC that had been in the first Gulf War.
March 18th/19th we were all lined up in the desert just south of the border with Iraq. My platoon sergeant was adamant that we were about to invade. Everyone else thought it was a bunch of saber rattling. He said "watch. When they tell us to put on the MOPP gear, we will be in Iraq within 12 hours". The orders come down to put on the MOPP gear. I remember thinking "that's a lot of money for bluffing". Right around the time we finishing putting on the gear I hear a low rumble. Someone yelled "what the **** is that" and points up in the air. We all look up and see a missile flying through the air. It took us all about a second or two to realize that it was flying south. We all ran to our vehicles as the Patriot systems further south started launching.
We all get in our Bradleys and adrenaline was pumping. A few minutes later there was a pounding on the back hatch. We open the door and my platoon sergeant sticks his head in. "Welcome to war boys! Now lets get some!" and slammed the door. Shit was like a movie.
Our first mission of the war was to take Tallil Airfield in Nasiriyah. The fighting was pretty light for most of us. A few platoons were sent to help with the main attack force into the city itself. They had a hard fight there.
This picture was taken of my platoon by our imbedded Time reporter and featured in the book "21 Days to Baghdad". Im the guy on the right.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52758137222_b0622ca183_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f8y)FB_IMG_1679235106524 (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f8y) by chase (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
This is a picture of my company before we left Nasiriyah.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52758137157_005a887976_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f7r)FB_IMG_1679279056384 (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f7r) by chase (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
This picture is again from the Time reporter. We were sent to this factory to check it as it was a suspected chemical weapons factory. As we fought our way to it the Iraqis demo'd the factory. There were huge pools of this liquid that were flowing around the factory and on fire. The fire was a bright purple in color. The guy in the picture is our NBC guy who tested it and found it to be some sort of chlorine concoction.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52759085530_34097385ec_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oo972G)FB_IMG_1679279092143 (https://flic.kr/p/2oo972G) by chase (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
The last picture was taken during the battle for Baghdad. We had been fighting block by block all day and were hunkering down for the night. We chose this house as a central command for the area we were covering. I found a case of glass bottled Pepsis in the house. We stopped for a soda break. Im second from the left.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52758137152_925197b7df_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f7m)FB_IMG_1679279044753 (https://flic.kr/p/2oo4f7m) by chase (https://www.flickr.com/photos/157376915@N07/), on Flickr
Everybody forgets.
...
So we did the right thing.
...
This is probably the most realistic and honest assessment I’ve seen.
We will never know how much the CIA exaggerated to get us into a war vs CYA of troubling but poorly verified intel. I think it is probably some combination of both.
Pacific5th
03-20-23, 14:53
I was a 21 year old Lance Corporal, I drove a Hummve through the Berm right behind the grunts with the rest of Echo Battery 2/11 on a very dark night not made any better from the dust. It was crazy to think what we were doing. The only thing that really scarred me was the thought of getting gassed. I have to many memories and story’s of the next few months but I’m proud of what I did and what the rest of the troops did regardless of the questionable reasons we went in. I’m just glad at this point Iraq is still somewhat of a stable country that I think has a chance.
Cannot believe it’s been 20 years since we crossed the LOD. So much pain and loss since that day and it’s passed so quickly.
The older you get the faster it goes brother!
I was a 21 year old Lance Corporal, I drove a Hummve through the Berm right behind the grunts with the rest of Echo Battery 2/11 on a very dark night not made any better from the dust. It was crazy to think what we were doing. The only thing that really scarred me was the thought of getting gassed. I have to many memories and story’s of the next few months but I’m proud of what I did and what the rest of the troops did regardless of the questionable reasons we went in. I’m just glad at this point Iraq is still somewhat of a stable country that I think has a chance.
Iraq did have WMD's, just not the motherload Wal Mart warehouse we thought we'd find. If Saddam didn't have any then he would have cooperated with the UN inspectors.....instead he thumbed his nose at them, and the rest is history. I think we were right, both in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. In one case our "nation building" somewhat succeeded, in the other it didn't in the long run.
Did you know that today 3/20 is the Iranian New Year day?
I thought it was Sig day (get it? 320), hehe.
I walked into a very large Belgium owned chemical/polymer research facility today and the new security person (chunky, low center of gravity, might be female) invited me to take a cookie or two while I was waiting for my host. I said no thanks, it's not good for my belt line LOL. She/it proceeded to tell me about how they (corporate) celebrate all of their world wide employees national new years day. I said "hmm". I had to sit there and watch a 15 minute safety video because my old safety briefing had expired.
I chuckled as I wait for the 15 minute video to end, knowing that just by sitting there I broke 3 of their rules.
I just googled, it is also Iraqi's new year.
Did you know that today 3/20 is the Iranian New Year day?
I thought it was Sig day (get it? 320), hehe.
I walked into a very large Belgium owned chemical/polymer research facility today and the new security person (chunky, low center of gravity, might be female) invited me to take a cookie or two while I was waiting for my host. I said no thanks, it's not good for my belt line LOL. She/it proceeded to tell me about how they (corporate) celebrate all of their world wide employees national new years day. I said "hmm". I had to sit there and watch a 15 minute safety video because my old safety briefing had expired.
I chuckled as I wait for the 15 minute video to end, knowing that just by sitting there I broke 3 of their rules.
I just googled, it is also Iraqi's new year.Yes it's the celebration of Newroz based on the Zoroastrian calendar. The OG of world religions.
In Kurdistan, all the babes get dressed up in super colorful dresses and everyone links arm for some seriously repetitive jumping/hopping style line dancing. Also the men jump over giant bon fires.
This is probably the most realistic and honest assessment I’ve seen.
We will never know how much the CIA exaggerated to get us into a war vs CYA of troubling but poorly verified intel. I think it is probably some combination of both.
We had more reliable intel for a possible chem weapon attack with Iraqi weapons used against us than any of the warnings that existed for 9-11 and we learned a hard lesson that day about how intel can be very incomplete but the threat still very real.
Of course had the UN been capable of actually doing the job that is the entire purpose of existing, we wouldn't have had to do it.
And if Saddam had simply cooperated with UN inspectors and / or not continuously F'ed around with the US military, we wouldn't have had to do it.
What it came down to was Saddam was a bad bet as a guy who would show restraint. Our real failing was, once again attempting nation building rather than just neutralizing a threat. It pains me to think about all the guys we lost taking places like Mosul and Fallujah only to see them lost to ISIS because we weakened Iraq to the point that it could no longer defend itself and the incompetence of a president who let serious weapon systems fall into the hands of a terrorist group like ISIS.
The sad part is how predictable and preventable all of these things were.
We had more reliable intel for a possible chem weapon attack with Iraqi weapons used against us than any of the warnings that existed for 9-11 and we learned a hard lesson that day about how intel can be very incomplete but the threat still very real.
And it wouldn’t take a fully deployed military sized WMD program either.
I was in Baghdad when the SF team got wiped out hitting a chemical plant. I never heard if they determined for sure if it was booby trapped to hide evidence or just unsafe storage set off by breaching.
We found a residential house completely full of what the NBC team said was dual use chemicals near a different plant that was being searched.
Most people don’t even know there was an EOD tech who was poisoned by nerve agent residue in an empty chem shell some idiot tried to use in an IED.
It was easier for the administration to say that it wasn't there like they thought rather than insist it was. One theory that is not talked about much are the night time convoys prior to us going in. It has been said that many convoys went from Iraq into Syria. Plausible considering both were ruled by the Baath Party.
And it wouldn’t take a fully deployed military sized WMD program either.
I was in Baghdad when the SF team got wiped out hitting a chemical plant. I never heard if they determined for sure if it was booby trapped to hide evidence or just unsafe storage set off by breaching.
We found a residential house completely full of what the NBC team said was dual use chemicals near a different plant that was being searched.
Most people don’t even know there was an EOD tech who was poisoned by nerve agent residue in an empty chem shell some idiot tried to use in an IED.
ALL of that and then some. And that SF team had training and an expectation to find.
Imagine if chemical IEDs simply started popping off willy nilly in LA for a month. All we'd have heard about is how Bush (43) had all the warning in the world, even the Kurds knew...and he did NOTHING. The true morons would go on about how he KNEW and ALLOWED it because it would assist him in passing crap like the Patriot Act.
And there would be no telling anyone anything different because how much more heads up did you NEED after 9-11.
Yes Iraq had chemical weapons, so what?
Never in a million years would Saddam, give those to terrorist to attack the USA.
So Bush called Sharon and informed him that the USA was going to invade Iraq.
Sharon asked why?
Bush said they have chemical weapons and he has used them on his own people.
Sharon answered, doesn't seem to be an American problem, are you going to invade every country that has chemical weapons or abuses their population?
Bush responded, but He give money to the family of terrorist that act against Israel.
A pause happens , then Sharon congratulated Bush on getting the best job in the world, that of Prime Minister of Israel.
Bottom line the war was short sighted and failed to understand the ME, once again. The threat in the ME to the world was not Iraq, but in fact it is Iran.
Saddam was a buffer on Iran, they never would have gotten to the point they are in obtaining nukes if Saddam was still in power.
I have friends that were injured in the war, I honor the suffering.
But Bush and team are idiots when it comes to the ME.
In 2023 Iraq is more viable than Afghanistan, so there's that.
Probably because we still have a presence there, granted its only about 3-4K troops
Yes Iraq had chemical weapons, so what?
Never in a million years would Saddam, give those to terrorist to attack the USA.
So Bush called Sharon and informed him that the USA was going to invade Iraq.
Sharon asked why?
Bush said they have chemical weapons and he has used them on his own people.
Sharon answered, doesn't seem to be an American problem, are you going to invade every country that has chemical weapons or abuses their population?
Bush responded, but He give money to the family of terrorist that act against Israel.
A pause happens , then Sharon congratulated Bush on getting the best job in the world, that of Prime Minister of Israel.
Bottom line the war was short sighted and failed to understand the ME, once again. The threat in the ME to the world was not Iraq, but in fact it is Iran.
Saddam was a buffer on Iran, they never would have gotten to the point they are in obtaining nukes if Saddam was still in power.
I have friends that were injured in the war, I honor the suffering.
But Bush and team are idiots when it comes to the ME.
I agree with all of that. Of course they had chemical weapons. Every nation in the region does. It was a fabricated BS reason to invade and excuse for the clueless neocons, Bush's handlers, to attempt to shape the ME in their fantasy view. It also took away much needed resources from Afg, and that cost US lives and 'tarded amounts of $. They also tried to connect Saddam to 9/11, and he was approached by al-Qaida at one point, and strongly rejected by Saddam. That connection was invented by the handful of neocons, and even the CIA and DOD said then, and later, no such connections existed. But the country where the spice and the $ flowed from who did have a connection and should have had cruise missiles taking out their mil, intel, and a few palaces for good measure on 9/12? Crickets...
If we wanted Saddam out, should have done the deed via usual CIA routes, and the fact lost over and over and over to those not understanding of the ME is, none of those backward chit holes can hold together without some dictator type keeping it stable, the next one often worse then the last one.
That was convinced we didn't need a large force to topple Saddam because the population would embrace the US, was a f-ing joke and he's a POS. Gen Shinseki, knew the truth, told them they'd need half a million people to not just win the war, but stabilize the place after that, and was fired for it.
Thanks to Rumsfeld, we went with a fraction of what what needed, and as expected by anyone with two working neurons, it went to chit shortly there after.
One of the worst failures in US history, and per usual, our mil paid the price, while a handful of people and companies got rich.
Never in a million years would Saddam, give those to terrorist to attack the USA.
I don't think everyone shares your confidence on that one.
And it wouldn’t take a fully deployed military sized WMD program either.
I was in Baghdad when the SF team got wiped out hitting a chemical plant. I never heard if they determined for sure if it was booby trapped to hide evidence or just unsafe storage set off by breaching.
We found a residential house completely full of what the NBC team said was dual use chemicals near a different plant that was being searched.
Most people don’t even know there was an EOD tech who was poisoned by nerve agent residue in an empty chem shell some idiot tried to use in an IED.
A number of years ago I did a sleep study on a retiring senior NCO from the Army. He told me that it was his unit that got hit by an IED that used a chem round. He didn't think the insurgents actually knew what they had used but enough of the agents were dispersed by the blast that a couple of his guys started doing the "funky chicken" (his words). Fortunately this was early enough in the war that they still had NBC kits with the injectors in their vehicles and used them. The guys survived and were medivacked out. Wonder if there were any long-term effects on those soldiers?
I don't think everyone shares your confidence on that one.
Whether accurate or not, he had no involvement with 9/11, and no direct ties to al-Qaida, and that's all that matters as far as what Bush admin claimed at the time. There was better evidence the Saudi's, or at least factions within the Saudi's intel services, etc, had connections, and all we did about that was suppress any discussions at all about it, and flew OSB family members to safety on US protected jets. Every single one of them should have been detained until we were satisfied they had no idea where their leader was ( I will never believe no one in that family knew where he was hiding after leaving Afg) and used as leverage with the Saudis. Two, on 9/12 a fleet of cruise missiles should have taken out the Saudi intel service locations, key mil locations, and the palaces of key players known and suspected. We all know why that didn't happen.
Personally, Saddam was just one of various dictators in the region, not even close to the worst, who got his hand slapped down for invading his neighbor, and an intentional side show to the nation actually more responsible for 9/11 and fabricated excuse by neocons to build the ME in fantasy scenarios.
Finally, I suspect Yoni's handle on the realities and nature of those in the region exceeds those of anyone posting on this forum.
Whether accurate or not, he had no involvement with 9/11, and no direct ties to al-Qaida, and that's all that matters as far as what Bush admin claimed at the time. There was better evidence the Saudi's, or at least factions within the Saudi's intel services, etc, had connections, and all we did about that was suppress any discussions at all about it, and flew OSB family members to safety on US protected jets. Every single one of them should have been detained until we were satisfied they had no idea where their leader was ( I will never believe no one in that family knew where he was hiding after leaving Afg) and used as leverage with the Saudis. Two, on 9/12 a fleet of cruise missiles should have taken out the Saudi intel service locations, key mil locations, and the palaces of key players known and suspected. We all know why that didn't happen.
Personally, Saddam was just one of various dictators in the region, not even close to the worst, who got his hand slapped down for invading his neighbor, and an intentional side show to the nation actually more responsible for 9/11 and fabricated excuse by neocons to build the ME in fantasy scenarios.
Finally, I suspect Yoni's handle on the realities and nature of those in the region exceeds those of anyone posting on this forum.
I think hindsight and time allows us to see with so much clarity.
At the time: we knew he had WMD. We knew he played with bad actors. AQ just effed us. We did not know if there were linked networks with big plans. Unsecured WMD was a growing issue before 9/11.
Also at the time: we had Saddam in a pretty good place. He was an a**hole, but we was a known constant. He kept Iran off our backs.
The post-mortem is complicated, and revelatory. There's a whole laundry list of things we could have done so much different, mainly starting by not invading. Our entire intel apparatus was effed up, and remains so even though we completely streamlined and rebuilt it.
A lot of what we did we could have done with either minimal on-the-ground involvement, or even none.
Can't forget the attempted assassination of Bush Sr.
Jr. Couldn't let that go unpunished.
I think hindsight and time allows us to see with so much clarity.
At the time: we knew he had WMD. We knew he played with bad actors. AQ just effed us. We did not know if there were linked networks with big plans. Unsecured WMD was a growing issue before 9/11.
Also at the time: we had Saddam in a pretty good place. He was an a**hole, but we was a known constant. He kept Iran off our backs.
The post-mortem is complicated, and revelatory. There's a whole laundry list of things we could have done so much different, mainly starting by not invading. Our entire intel apparatus was effed up, and remains so even though we completely streamlined and rebuilt it.
A lot of what we did we could have done with either minimal on-the-ground involvement, or even none.
To be sure, but to be clear, I felt that way at the time too. The Bush admin had the intent first, wagged the dog to achieve it using 9/11 as the tail of the dog, and that became apparent quickly. That the Saudi's were never held accountable burns my a$$ and always will.
A few weeks before I was to go home on my two weeks, a Blackhawk flew thru the dust cloud from an IED blast on route Irish near BIAP, everyone aboard experienced difficulty breathing and were taken to the clinic, they had been exposed to mustard gas. Because of this, I was forced to take my pro-mask home with me. This was April of 2007.
Whether accurate or not, he had no involvement with 9/11
I meant with respect that he'd never provide chemical weapons to terrorists.
Put me in the didn’t trust Saddam category. Now I understand he was probably more worried about the fundamentalists being a threat to his own power than being a friend to the enemies of the US.
Plus everybody knew he was going to start another war in the ME. Another war that would threaten the Worlds oil supply was absolutely a legitimate threat to US national security.
I think hindsight and time allows us to see with so much clarity.
Reality is ALWAYS some shade of gray rather then the purely black or white we try to make everything in hindsight.
Just because our intel was flawed and then our strategy was flawed, doesn’t mean our choice at that time with what we knew then was so wrong.
And one more thing, every action we take or decline to take also has second and third order consequences. Isolationist, interventionist, pacifist, they all have consequences beyond the easily seen.
A few weeks before I was to go home on my two weeks, a Blackhawk flew thru the dust cloud from an IED blast on route Irish near BIAP, everyone aboard experienced difficulty breathing and were taken to the clinic, they had been exposed to mustard gas. Because of this, I was forced to take my pro-mask home with me. This was April of 2007.
I remember it. I was mid tour running a convoy security team out of Fallujah and they made us start taking our masks with us on every mission. They stayed in our vics till we left in October 2007.
I don't think everyone shares your confidence on that one.
I am sure everyone in certain places in Israel were very confident, that Saddam had no intent on the USA. When it comes to ME, I don't think the USA is as plugged in as Israel.
Can't forget the attempted assassination of Bush Sr.
Jr. Couldn't let that go unpunished.
I always come back to this. It’s kind of a big deal.
I am sure everyone in certain places in Israel were very confident, that Saddam had no intent on the USA. When it comes to ME, I don't think the USA is as plugged in as Israel.
Saddam plotted to kill Bush (41)? Do you really think loaning some stuff to terrorist groups he was KNOWN to support is some kind of lower order threat?
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html
In 1993, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) directed and pursued an attempt to assassinate, through the use of a powerful car bomb, former U.S. President George Bush and the Emir of Kuwait. Kuwaiti authorities thwarted the terrorist plot and arrested 16 suspects, led by two Iraqi nationals.
Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.
Iraq shelters several prominent Palestinian terrorist organizations in Baghdad, including the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), which is known for aerial attacks against Israel and is headed by Abu Abbas, who carried out the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer.
Iraq shelters the Abu Nidal Organization, an international terrorist organization that has carried out terrorist attacks in twenty countries, killing or injuring almost 900 people. Targets have included the United States and several other Western nations. Each of these groups have offices in Baghdad and receive training, logistical assistance, and financial aid from the government of Iraq.
In April 2002, Saddam Hussein increased from $10,000 to $25,000 the money offered to families of Palestinian suicide/homicide bombers. The rules for rewarding suicide/homicide bombers are strict and insist that only someone who blows himself up with a belt of explosives gets the full payment. Payments are made on a strict scale, with different amounts for wounds, disablement, death as a "martyr" and $25,000 for a suicide bomber. Mahmoud Besharat, a representative on the West Bank who is handing out to families the money from Saddam, said, "You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue."
Former Iraqi military officers have described a highly secret terrorist training facility in Iraq known as Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs receive training on hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage, and assassinations.
The older you get the faster it goes brother!
That’s no lie.
As to my thoughts having crossed into the country before the official war began.
Am I glad Saddam is gone and we took him out? Yes. Witnessing the brutality of the regime I know at least we (at the u it level) were in the right.
Did he had chemical weapons? Well I have a pic of me in Baghdad sitting atop a mobile missle designed for them so I in my Marine Grunt level of knowledge believe so.
That fact is they should’ve just been honest. We wanted to fight someone post 9/11 and having gotten two CARs before my first anniversary in the Corps we’d been okay with the truth.*
* at least among my 1/5 brothers
For the warriors at the time… the time and place didn’t matter…we weren’t concerned with the politics. We knew what Saddam had done, and was capable of doing.
Keeping it simple in our minds made doing the things 99.999% of our populace pretend to know/and or fantasize about. We did our jobs, just like the Marines who fill the ranks will do for generations to come. Anything more is conjecture.
Am I glad Saddam is gone and we took him out? Yes. Witnessing the brutality of the regime I know at least we (at the u it level) were in the right.
Sad as it is, Islamic culture isn't based upon democracy and it's pretty incompatible.
In that region you have your choice of an Ayatollah or an Assahollah. Even the Shah was essentially a brutal dictator with huge human rights abuses, because if you aren't willing to do "these things" that culture permits somebody who is stronger to come along and replace you.
It's horrible and the innocent and the weak are fed into the meat grinder daily, but Islam is a pretty horrible belief system built on complete submission to religious authorities and the complete hatred of anyone who thinks they are somehow exempt from it's commands which includes anyone with the audacity to wish to be "free."
And until THEY decide to have their own renaissance and voluntarily abandon their Islamic dark age, it will be the way of things. Western democracy has existed in some form or other for about 2,000 years. If they wanted it, they'd already have it. If you give it to them, they will simply vote for an Islamic government.
Saddam plotted to kill Bush (41)? Do you really think loaning some stuff to terrorist groups he was KNOWN to support is some kind of lower order threat?
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html
In 1993, the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) directed and pursued an attempt to assassinate, through the use of a powerful car bomb, former U.S. President George Bush and the Emir of Kuwait. Kuwaiti authorities thwarted the terrorist plot and arrested 16 suspects, led by two Iraqi nationals.
Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.
Iraq shelters several prominent Palestinian terrorist organizations in Baghdad, including the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), which is known for aerial attacks against Israel and is headed by Abu Abbas, who carried out the 1985 hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer.
Iraq shelters the Abu Nidal Organization, an international terrorist organization that has carried out terrorist attacks in twenty countries, killing or injuring almost 900 people. Targets have included the United States and several other Western nations. Each of these groups have offices in Baghdad and receive training, logistical assistance, and financial aid from the government of Iraq.
In April 2002, Saddam Hussein increased from $10,000 to $25,000 the money offered to families of Palestinian suicide/homicide bombers. The rules for rewarding suicide/homicide bombers are strict and insist that only someone who blows himself up with a belt of explosives gets the full payment. Payments are made on a strict scale, with different amounts for wounds, disablement, death as a "martyr" and $25,000 for a suicide bomber. Mahmoud Besharat, a representative on the West Bank who is handing out to families the money from Saddam, said, "You would have to ask President Saddam why he is being so generous. But he is a revolutionary and he wants this distinguished struggle, the intifada, to continue."
Former Iraqi military officers have described a highly secret terrorist training facility in Iraq known as Salman Pak, where both Iraqis and non-Iraqi Arabs receive training on hijacking planes and trains, planting explosives in cities, sabotage, and assassinations.
Of course he plotted to kill Bush the first. He felt he had been suckered into invading Kuwait and felt he was the victim of American aggression .
But Bush the first was not killed. So Bush the second wants to show off for daddy and get Saddam. Kind of a stupid reason to go to war.
Regarding terrorist in Iraq, so what. The same thing holds true for every Arab country and even 2 non Arab countries in the region. You going to go to war with all of them?
Saddam paying the families of suicide bombers in Israel is an Israeli problem not an American one.
Bush took a country that was a shit hole lead by a mad man and he broke it even more. Bush made the world a thousand times more dangerous by removing Saddam, for Saddam was the buffer against Iran. Iran would never have gotten so far with their pursuit of the bomb, if they still had Saddam to worry about.
By not following the advice of Sun Tzu, the USA went to war in A-stan and Iraq and tried to change the cultures in places the people didn't want the culture changed.
In A-stan after the horse soldiers helped defeat the taliban which was about 14 months or so into the war. That was the point to go home.
I don't know if it is big army, or lust for glory by Presidents, but A-stan should have been an operators war for about that 14 month figure. I also believe if Viet Nam had been an operators war like the British did in Malaysia, the out come might have been different both for the war and internal domestically for the USA.
Not every war has to be fought by big army.
I don't know if it is big army, or lust for glory by Presidents, but A-stan should have been an operators war for about that 14 month figure. I also believe if Viet Nam had been an operators war like the British did in Malaysia, the out come might have been different both for the war and internal domestically for the USA.
Not every war has to be fought by big army.
I wouldn't necessarily argue Afghanistan couldn't have been done in an SF-ish type of way, but not Vietnam. In neither Afghanistan nor Malaysia was there the equivalent of the NVA, which was a conventional force that ultimately toppled South Vietnam once we had left. Another conventional force that fought in BN or smaller-sized operations in a jungled environment was what was needed to fight a force like the NVA; snake-eaters alone wouldn't cut it. The VC were not able to handle the influx of American troops so the NVA began getting involved more heavily to the point it ultimately became their show, not the VC's.
Vietnam wasn't the best example of COIN.....early on, yes, but as the war progressed it evolved into a small-unit conventional war against a standing army.
I meant with respect that he'd never provide chemical weapons to terrorists.
If that's the metric, than we should invade Iran tomorrow, and of course the country all the D heads who flew the plane into those buildings came from. It was nothing but an excuse for the neocons in the Bush admin to invade that country based on their fantasy of changing the ME.
For the warriors at the time… the time and place didn’t matter…we weren’t concerned with the politics. We knew what Saddam had done, and was capable of doing.
Keeping it simple in our minds made doing the things 99.999% on this forum pretend to know/and or fantasize about. We did our jobs, just like the Marines who fill the ranks will do for generations to come. Anything more is conjecture.
If you bothered to read the thread, you'd see a good portion, if not most, of those responding were in Iraq and or Afg, and I don't recall a single person here claiming the mil did not do their jobs and do it it well given the circumstances, ROE, etc.
It may not be the job of he mil to question where they get sent to do ugly things, it sure as hell is the job of the civilian population to question every bit of it so the lives lost are justified as to national security short term or long.
Afghanistan, the mission was to find, fix, and destroy the booger-eaters. I think we could have done that mission with SOF-heavy units, some conventional for support, and air. Let the goat herders herd goats. Mission creep set in and all of a sudden goals for AQ become goals for Taliban, women need to vote, let's overthrow the Taliban.
Iraq was purely overthrow Saddam, find, fix, destroy, WMDs, and oh, by the way, let's make Iraq a democracy. The goals and objectives were changing by the day, the same mission creep in Afghanistan, but 100 time more and faster. I was fine kicking in doors and taking care of the booger-eaters, but it was disconcerting that for every one of those, 10 more would popup in his place; and the reason we were going after those guys kept changing: "he builds IEDs....and his is a Baathist...and his dad is the 9 of clubs...and they don't own a dog, or whatever." That alone told me things were hinky.
It was nothing but an excuse for the neocons in the Bush admin to invade that country based on their fantasy of changing the ME.
Let’s be honest about our own culpability here, Americans overwhelmingly saw Saddam as a unique threat at that time, not just the warmongers at the top.
Let’s be honest about our own culpability here, Americans overwhelmingly saw Saddam as a unique threat at that time, not just the warmongers at the top.
That was due to usual psy ops and media manipulations. Throwing Powell under the bus at the UN, pretending he had direct connections to 9/11, etc is why always easy to manipulate Americans thought he was a direct threat to the US. Most of it was fabricated BS. At that point he was barley even a threat to his neighbors much less the US. If the goal was to remove Saddam, and we where willing to take the heat, convert him to pink mist via targeted air strikes, or better yet, a friendly visit from CAG. Personally, I have little doubt the CIA or NSA etc knew exactly where he was at that time.
That was due to usual psy ops and media manipulations.
Some of that after 9/11 is true for sure.
But lots of people thought that long before 9/11, and there were plenty of obvious reasons that didn’t need to be made up.
I think you give our intelligence services way too much credit that they have never earned. I think they are mostly risk adverse, midwit bureaucrats who think their super smarts will get the answer rather than working hard to learn and understand things.
Some of that after 9/11 is true for sure.
Which parts? What lead up to 9/11 is a long and drawn out topic, 9/11 itself was pretty straight forward.
But lots of people thought that long before 9/11, and there were plenty of obvious reasons that didn’t need to be made up.
I don't really see the parallels there other then pysops is always part, large or small, of generating support for a mil action.
I think you give our intelligence services way too much credit that they have never earned. I think they are mostly risk adverse, midwit bureaucrats who think their super smarts will get the answer rather than working hard to learn and understand things.
They may be all that, but I'm not clear on the connection there. They knew where OSB was all time until the POS NYC exposed how, and along with the useless missile strike approved by Clinton that had OSB go to ground*, I have no doubt Saddam's locations where known and tracked until the invasion started.
* = fairly well supported story is, a group of face shooters where inbound to visit OSB at his camp and deal with him old school, and Clinton lost his nerve and turned them back last minute and decided to send the missiles. That tipped off OSB we knew where he was and where actively targeting him, and the NYT told him how we where tracking him.
Afghanistan, the mission was to find, fix, and destroy the booger-eaters. I think we could have done that mission with SOF-heavy units, some conventional for support, and air. Let the goat herders herd goats. Mission creep set in and all of a sudden goals for AQ become goals for Taliban, women need to vote, let's overthrow the Taliban.
Iraq was purely overthrow Saddam, find, fix, destroy, WMDs, and oh, by the way, let's make Iraq a democracy. The goals and objectives were changing by the day, the same mission creep in Afghanistan, but 100 time more and faster. I was fine kicking in doors and taking care of the booger-eaters, but it was disconcerting that for every one of those, 10 more would popup in his place; and the reason we were going after those guys kept changing: "he builds IEDs....and his is a Baathist...and his dad is the 9 of clubs...and they don't own a dog, or whatever." That alone told me things were hinky.
It's sometimes rare for the guys on the ground to have the entire big picture, but you have the entire big picture.
Which parts? What lead up to 9/11 is a long and drawn out topic, 9/11 itself was pretty straight forward.
Most of the justification that was pushed was WMDs post 9/11, and you could certainly say it was a psyop on us to support a war.
But there were plenty of things before 9/11 that made it obvious Saddam was going to continue to be a problem. Unless you are claiming starting a war with Iran, invading Kuwait, gassing civilians, planning to assassinate a US President, and not allowing UN inspectors into places… was all some psyop?
Averageman
03-22-23, 16:51
Most of the justification that was pushed was WMDs post 9/11, and you could certainly say it was a psyop on us to support a war.
But there were plenty of things before 9/11 that made it obvious Saddam was going to continue to be a problem. Unless you are claiming starting a war with Iran, invading Kuwait, gassing civilians, planning to assassinate a US President, and not allowing UN inspectors into places… was all some psyop?
Even after taking a beating in the Gulf War he refused to abide by the rules he was given. Lots of "No Fly Zone" crossings, so many we got tired of fighting it.
Even after taking a beating in the Gulf War he refused to abide by the rules he was given. Lots of "No Fly Zone" crossings, so many we got tired of fighting it.
People forget that shit too. How many times did we ramp up and stand ready to actually deploy for him to back down at the last second? I think it was at least 5 times, and I'm not talking about simply putting carriers in the gulf. He knew how to F with us and make us spend money.
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