Bush's mistake in Iraq

[CCS]

Conservatives like me were angry that congress voted down funding for a surge and armor when our troops were already in Iraq. We felt the democrats want Iraq to go down big just so they could get the white house back, while our troops died over there.

Well, I still think that, but there blame to go around. Congress lost it's republican majority in 2002, and bush invaded in 2003. He invaded when he did not have the support of congress, or the rest of the world. He spend 6 months trying to drum up support for the coming invasion, but never got it. All he got was a detailed excuse to give them so they could not call him a war criminal. He had good reasons to invade, but was very unwise to invade when he did not have any support.

Basically, because Bush invaded without support, that is why he did not get funding for the surge at first. He attacked first, and hoped he would get funding later, which he did not get til much later. So I blame the democrats and the bush equally on the Iraq war.

I hope that Obama gets the full support of congress and several other countries before invading any country. A president and his "war powers act of 1973" can only do so much, and usually that is to just get us in trouble.

 

[die_hard]

mistake in Iraq?


There has never been such a loud cry for an "s".

 

[goata007]

I'd say going to Iraq was THE mistake.

 

[HughJass]

He had good reasons to invade

Actually, he had terrible reasons to invade, all cooked up by the Office of Special Plans which had to be created when no other intelligence agency was willing to play ball.

 

[ITNEVERRAINS]

Letting Cheney talk him into it. Cheney makes all the money from the war, no one cares about a VP's approval rating. By the time this mess is over, he'll be at his pad in Dubai and a billionaire.

 

[blueshard]

Lol, this sh*t is hilarious.

People are so obsessed with figuring out who did what. The left and right are the same damn thing.

 

[JayBear]

Conservatives like me were angry that congress voted down funding for a surge and armor when our troops were already in Iraq. We felt the democrats want Iraq to go down big just so they could get the white house back, while our troops died over there.

Well, I still think that, but there blame to go around. Congress lost it's republican majority in 2002, and bush invaded in 2003. He invaded when he did not have the support of congress, or the rest of the world. He spend 6 months trying to drum up support for the coming invasion, but never got it. All he got was a detailed excuse to give them so they could not call him a war criminal. He had good reasons to invade, but was very unwise to invade when he did not have any support.

Basically, because Bush invaded without support, that is why he did not get funding for the surge at first. He attacked first, and hoped he would get funding later, which he did not get til much later. So I blame the democrats and the bush equally on the Iraq war.

I hope that Obama gets the full support of congress and several other countries before invading any country. A president and his "war powers act of 1973" can only do so much, and usually that is to just get us in trouble.

I don't know why I keep bothering, but here goes. First of all, the democrats did not vote against funding troops. If you watched the debates, this issue was addressed ad nauseum. Both the democrats and the republicans voted against the same bill, the democrats when there was no timetable for withdrawal, the republicans when there was. If anything, we wanted to bring the troops home sooner, so less of them would die. Your assertion is not only offensive, but wrong.

Second, congress lost its republican majority in 2006, not 2002. Bush had more than enough support from the republican majority to go to war. The war was approved and funded by an act of congress. This approval was based on faulty information that he was aware of. He had no good reason to go to war.

I would love to know where your information is coming from.

 

[Bryan]

Second, congress lost its republican majority in 2006, not 2002. Bush had more than enough support from the republican majority to go to war. The war was approved and funded by an act of congress. This approval was based on faulty information that he was aware of. He had no good reason to go to war.

Well...your last two sentences are highly debatable, of course.

 

[HughJass]

Well...your last two sentences are highly debatable, of course.

UNSCOM says no.

 

[Anthony83]

he never should have gone there in the first place. he should have focused in Afghanistan first and then move on if you feel other places are threats. never fight 2 wars at once.

 

[JayBear]

Second, congress lost its republican majority in 2006, not 2002. Bush had more than enough support from the republican majority to go to war. The war was approved and funded by an act of congress. This approval was based on faulty information that he was aware of. He had no good reason to go to war.

Well...your last two sentences are highly debatable, of course.

I might have agreed with you in the past. More and more, however, there is no significant debate going on about this. At least not where I am. Now, I do work in a highly partisan area of government, also I don't really work where these things are debated. I know a lot of people who do, though, and by and large the debate raging is how best do deal with the increasingly negative ramifications of the war. I can tell you that many people in all significant levels of government consider the war to have been an explicit deception on the part of the president.

 

[Bryan]

An EXPLICIT deception?? Those are mighty strong words, especially considering that it was inevitable that the truth would eventually come out after the invasion!

 

[JayBear]

I'm not sure what your issue with my statement is. The truth did come out after the invasion. At best, he was misled by his intelligence community and, at worst, lied to the American people. My point is that opinion has increasingly shifted toward the latter as time goes on.

 

[Bryan]

I'm not sure what your issue with my statement is. The truth did come out after the invasion.

???

You really don't understand the point I'm making?? My point is that you're claiming that he DELIBERATELY and EXPLICITLY lied, in spite of the fact that he obviously knew the truth would eventually come out, if we invaded Iraq. It's far-fetched that he would have done that.

At best, he was misled by his intelligence community and, at worst, lied to the American people. My point is that opinion has increasingly shifted toward the latter as time goes on.

I hope you saw that material from my sister which I posted several months ago on that same issue. She says that Bush really did believe in WMDs in Iraq, as did several foreign intelligence services.

 

[The Gardener]

For me, the "lie" is not the issue of whether or not Hussein had WMDs. The "lie" is that Hussein's posession of WMDs was the honest rationale for initiating an invasion.

So what if Hussein had or did not have WMDs? Even if he did have them, he's had them for decades. And over the course of these past decades, nobody at the Pentagon nor at Foggy Bottom seemed to be very alarmed about it back then. In fact, I think many in Washington appreciated the Hussein regime because it served as a bulwark against Iran.

We were presented with this "Iraq is the nexus of terrorism and WMD" rationale which is complete baloney. Hussein was a secular dictator who PERSECUTED Al Qaeda types. Hunted them down and killed them... which is why the Al Qaeda representative in Iraq was based in the Kurdish region, the region given autonomy and protected at the time by the no fly zone enforced by Allied air power. Hussein had NO interests in collaborating with Al Qaeda, primarily because the Hussein regime is the perfect example of a secular dictatorship that Al Qaeda was seeking to OVERTHROW, and secondarily because any WMD delivered to Al Qaeda and then used on US soil would have an obvious "return address" in Baghdad... both points being utterly suicidal.

A few months into the invasion, the Administration smoothly shifted the rationale from WMDs to "regime change". Once again, complete baloney and another lie. If the US truly had qualms with the Hussein regime, why were we collaborating WITH Hussein over the past two decades?

The rationale used to justify this war was a lie. Period. If they wanted to be absolutely truthful, they should have said "as a result of 9/11, we need to occupy Afghanistan, then we need to establish a new footprint presence in the region because its too politically untenable for us to continue to operate from Saudi Arabia. Iraq has a somewhat Westernish infrastructure and would make a nice base for operations instead of Saudi Arabia. It's next to Iran, which would work quite nicely as a base from which we can attempt to destabilize Iran, and Iraq is also sitting on a lot of oil that is being extracted at below-capacity rates... so making it a client state delivers us a seat at OPEC, and a lever on a big spigot in global oil production. Lastly, we have somewhat of a plausible rationale for invasion... we can "be the hero" for ridding the nation of a dictator."

 

[Bryan]

For me, the "lie" is not the issue of whether or not Hussein had WMDs. The "lie" is that Hussein's posession of WMDs was the honest rationale for initiating an invasion.

That's not much of a "lie", if at all. It's pretty small potatoes, actually. It definitely was a factor in the Iraq invasion, even if there were also other considerations in their strategy which favored going to war.

So what if Hussein had or did not have WMDs? Even if he did have them, he's had them for decades. And over the course of these past decades, nobody at the Pentagon nor at Foggy Bottom seemed to be very alarmed about it back then. In fact, I think many in Washington appreciated the Hussein regime because it served as a bulwark against Iran.

Oh come on, Gardener!! :nono: Don't be like the other posters here who have cried out against American "hypocrisy", like those who love to post that picture of Hussein shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld several years ago.

We have to pick and choose our battles carefully, we can't just go in and turn every dictatorship in the world into a Norman Rockwell-esque copy of America. Saddam Hussein gradually forfeited his right to exist when he demonstrated in a step-wise fashion what he was capable of doing and willing to do, which included gassing the Kurds, brutally invading Kuwait, and deliberately setting fire to their oil fields after he was expelled.

A few months into the invasion, the Administration smoothly shifted the rationale from WMDs to "regime change". Once again, complete baloney and another lie.

LOL!! You think it was a "lie" that the US wanted regime change in Iraq?? :mrgreen:

If the US truly had qualms with the Hussein regime, why were we collaborating WITH Hussein over the past two decades?

See above.

The rationale used to justify this war was a lie. Period.

It was NOT a lie. It may not have been the best judgement or the best choice to make, but it wasn't a lie. Period.

 

[HughJass]

That's not much of a "lie", if at all. It's pretty small potatoes, actually.

I'd say it's a whopper seeing as it motivated people to support the invasion. They could never have done it without that cover story.

It was NOT a lie. It may not have been the best judgement or the best choice to make, but it wasn't a lie. Period.

The 'intel' came from a single source that was contradicted by countless more sources. Even a monger like Bush could see what a bunch of bull it was, you're kidding yourself if you think he didn't.

They used other people's lies and that was no different to lying. They bent the facts to fit their conclusions. What else is that if not a lie?

 

[optimus prime]

Even a monger like Bush could see what a bunch of bull it was, you're kidding yourself if you think he didn't.

Bush didn't make the decision alone. You must be nuts if you think a massive country like America would let one man make a decision alone like that. This isn't a movie. He would have advisors and military experts who would make the decision for him. They would have told him what to say to the media and when to say it.

If Obama had been elected president in 2000 then you would have still gone to war with Iraq and so would have Britain.

 

[HughJass]

If Obama had been elected president in 2000 then you would have still gone to war with Iraq and so would have Britain.

How can you be so certain?


It required an administration of lunatics headed by a man determined from day one to be a war president, to be able to embark upon a war that was based on the most laughable information.

Obama is not perfect but he's not in the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Pearle league by any stretch of the imagination. He just isn't that reckless and arrogant, there's no reason to suggest he would of definetley bought into all the bull. At the very least there would have been more emphasis on weapons inspections.

 

[Bryan]

Yeah, and how about those weapons inspections, and the fact that Hussein kicked-out the weapons inspectors? But OH NO.....that didn't make anybody suspicious that maybe he was LYING about not having WMDs, did it?