Iraq War: 20 Years On

[yoni]

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.

[JediGuy]

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.

[SteyrAUG]

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.archi...ade/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.

[ZGXtreme]

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

[eric0311]

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.

[SteyrAUG]

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.

[yoni]

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.archi...ade/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.

[ABNAK]

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.

[WillBrink]

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.

[WillBrink]

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.