Iraq War: 20 Years On

[ABNAK]

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.

[Sam]

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.

[B52U]

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.

[SteyrAUG]

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.

[Todd.K]

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.

[Rob96]

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.

[SteyrAUG]

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.

[yoni]

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.

[Hank6046]

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

[WillBrink]

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.