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The Spectacle Blog
President Obama, and spokesmen for his administration, are claiming that the withdrawal from Iraq is all going according to plan. Josh Rogin punctures that claim in a must-read report that details how the administration tried to negotiate an agreement for troops to stay in Iraq longer, and sheds light on why they failed.
Meanwhile, Eli Lake reports on the military trainers and contractors who will be sticking around in Iraq. Fred Kagan makes the case that “[t]his retreat will have great costs for the United States.” Marc Lynch makes the counterargument; he writes that “either a fatally flawed deal or one which had not won Iraqi political consent… were the only other plausible outcomes,” but Rogin’s reporting on how the negotiations foundered make that premise seem questionable.
View all comments (61) | Leave a comment
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hook| 10.21.11 @ 8:15PM
I promise that the media is playing this as a great victory for Obama.
Red Phillips | 10.21.11 @ 11:05PM
When discussing Iraq, never quote a Kagan. :-)
Jack in Wi.| 10.22.11 @ 1:05AM
6000 dead, 60,000 wounded, millions of Iraqi's killed wounded and displaced and trillions wasted. All this just so we could give the Shia friends of Iran control of Iraq. The neocons like Kagan , Pohoretz and Kristol are just such brilliant people.
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 10:16AM
Actually, Jack...
It was 4500 killed, 32,000 wounded, 100,000 Iraqis combined killed and wounded (most of which done by insurgents-not American forces) and a total of $803 Billion. In 10 years.
To put that in perspective....we lost over 10,000 KIA in 3 weeks taking Iwo Jima. 32000 wounded.
The civilian toll in WWII was over 10 million.
And....Obamy's "Porkulus" bill was $800 billion in ONE YEAR and did nothing.
And ...if anyone is 'giving' Iraq over to Iran, it's the Iraq war detractors (like you) in combination with the radical left animating the Obama Administration.
Oh...and Kagan, Podhoritz and Kristol had nothing to do with it. They offered opinions--just like you offer yours. They didn't and couldn't make any decisions on the country's behalf.
moreno| 10.21.11 @ 11:59PM
Anyone ask: How can the US Army, Marines, USAF and Navy assets disengage from Iraq with only 10 weeks remaining in the year?
It's not possible.
Even if this were the best case plan for all concerned (it is not) and everybody worked like busybees who never needed sleep 24/7 from now until Dececember 31st, it is just not possible.
You'll lose equipment, you'll fail to secure data on all kinds of IT equipment, you'll leave things in the hands of the untrustworthy Iraqis that they should not possess (they'll sell 'em to the highest bidder -- our enemies -- the moment you're over the horizon), airfield equipment, construction equipment, strategic comms, that we need time and resources to remove from theater....
Unless there has been a stealth withdrawal on a grand scale in the first half of this year, this is impossible.
How can any journalist, military pundit, Pentagon flunkie not fess up to this? A CinC cannot snap his fingers and wish this to be on such a short timetable.
Kingofthenet| 10.22.11 @ 12:40PM
Most of the hardware in any war is given to the new Govt. That is how the military-Industrial complex works, say it's 'used up' and order NEW stuff, money in the pockets for Military Contractors.
moreno| 10.22.11 @ 12:09AM
This is also blindly stupid.
Everyone knows we have to 1) monitor Iran like a hawk, 2) we will have a military confrontation with Iran.
A military fight with Iran is inevitable.
So why would any thinking president or member of the Pentagon brass or CENTCOM in Tampa freely give up airbase assets in Iraq? Runway done. Long enough for ALL aircraft, big enough. Hangars. Maintenance facilities. Security fences, security positions, towers. Billets. Chow. Medical clinic. ADA positions set. Comms hardwired.
All of it already bought and paid for by the US taxpayers since 2003 (to include many very expensive renovations).
We give up multi-billion dollar airfields paid for in American blood ..... just like that. Just cuz.
We're stooopid. Once more.
Our military leadership brass has no balls -- to look a CinC in the eye on camera before the nation and tell him he is a fool.
Herb Tarlek| 10.22.11 @ 12:45AM
When you're broke you're broke & we just can't afford any of this anymore. We are not responsible for the middle east anymore. It's just the way it is.
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 10:17AM
We were never responsible for the Middle East, Herb, and I don't recall anyone suggesting otherwise.
We were responsible for our own national security. This is what brought us there to Iraq. Later, we were responsible for destroying their country. We broke it and we attempted to fix it.
Let's hope we fixed it well enough or we may one day soon have to go back and shed more blood and treasure to re-take ground already won.
Red Phillips | 10.22.11 @ 10:58AM
Solo, invading Iraq had NOTHING to do with our national security. It had to do with the fantasies of crazed neocon ideologues who wanted to remake the Middle East in our image.
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 11:50AM
Red....the invasion of Iraq had everything to do with our security. If not at that particular moment, it would have come very soon as Saddam was well prepared (as is well documented) to re-start his WMD programs in very short order.
Moreover....your characterization of "Neocon ideologues" is factually incorrect and only reflective of the left's (and the drooling RuPaul conspiracy loons) anti-republican narrative.
There is no such thing as "neoconservative foreign policy". That is a boogeyman constructed out of whole cloth to place a sinister connotation on what has always been a legitimate national defense posture. Just read up on "The Monroe Doctrine" as but one obvious example.
We didn't go there to "re-make the Middle East". We went there on the heels of a massive terrorist attack against a nation all too vulnerable because of our very freedoms, to disarm a lunatic tyrant cozy with terrorist causes and hell bent on acquiring weapons of unthinkable destruction to use against his "enemies"--one of which...was us.
Your characterization of the motivations for our campaign in Iraq is pure paranoid fiction concocted in the fever swamps of radical leftists and marinated in the bowels of the conspiracy kooks who frequent the Alex Jones Show.
Kingofthenet| 10.22.11 @ 12:43PM
Would have been nice if Bush would have said that instead of all the lies that made him look like a fool.Of Course I am not sure he could have gotten Congressional Authorization to 'Disarm a Tyrant'
Goldwater girl| 10.22.11 @ 1:52PM
So Bush couldn't get permission to remove a tyrant, yet Obammy is taking them out one at a time. At least the Bush admin had the discipline to allow the legal process to take it's course. The hypocrisy on the left is stunning. You even have Hildabeast spiking the ball after Ghaddafi's killing, while hiding behind NATO. I don't mourn the removal of any of these assholes but double standard is disturbing. What else will the dem's and the sycophant media tolerate? How far will they go to retain power?
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 2:16PM
"Would have been nice if Bush would have said that instead of all the lies that made him look like a fool.Of Course I am not sure he could have gotten Congressional Authorization to 'Disarm a Tyrant'"
"Lies"...? What "Lies"?
Bush went there on the best information available at the time. What is he supposed to base his decisions upon; wishful thinking?
Oh...and we didn't go there to JUST 'disarm a tyrant'. This was a particularly concerning tyrant and one with questionable mental stability with a desire, resources, motivation and a history of pursuing WMD's.
Not a good combination, and particularly so in the wake of the 9-1-1 attacks.
What if the intelligence information being circulated by every intelligence agency in the world had actually been correct? What then?
What if they had been correct and Bush decided to do nothing?
Would that have been viewed as irresponsible, in lieu of recent events?
I think so! And I'll be you, and those of a similar mindset, would have been the first to criticize him for it!
Neat how that works out, huh?
os| 10.22.11 @ 4:17PM
Saddam, armed with WMD's or not, was never a threat to our security, and he certainly didn't harbor al-Qaeda terrorist -- OBL would have been a threat to his regime.
You're also simply out of touch with reality and history if you think anti-interventionism is a product of the left. It's painfully obvious that you -- and people like you -- are ignorant of the conservative movement and it's history. Only in your world would Robert Taft be considered some kind of wacky leftist and Woodrow Wilson a great conservative.
And it's just laughable that you use the Monroe Doctrine to justify the very radical and very un-conservative hyper-interventionism of the Bush administration.
You need to step back, take a deep breath, and realize that your brand of 'conservatism' is dying in a country with a $15 trillion debt.
tinker| 10.22.11 @ 7:35PM
os,
I disagree. Whether Sadaam had WMD or not, he was pursuing it (certainly chemical and biological) and he sure brazenly/stupidly asserted his drive for regional dominance with a military and weaponry so he could dominate.
Just the verbal sparring or boasting that "I want it, we're developing it, and we'll dominate!" opens one up to all kinds of illicit offers from Russia, China, and North Korea, no? (opens Pandora's box)
Everyone does recall the events of 1990, right? His move on Kuwait was a move on Saudi Arabia, thus hegemony on the MidEast. Remember his famed Scuds of that time that, yes, could not range to the US but could to Israel. And did, in fact during the Gulf War in 1991.
We weren't certain what comprised those SCUD warheads. Could have been anything.
Either way, if he provokes or outright launches a larger Middle East conflict, using the usual "Rally around me, fellow countries, because I am going to take down Israel!"
Maybe that is just more Sadam hot air, maybe some of that is real. After all, idiot that he is, Sadam does not think he'll die in any confrontations, that is for his soldiers to do.
Shift focus right now. A complete shift in this topic: Why all the hand-wringing over Greece? Why exactly? A tiny nation of nice islands and 10 million people. 10 million people is nothing. Who cares if they go under? Or if Iceland did?
Yet every little uptick or downtick in all the major European centers of business and trading and here in the US/New York seem to hinge every day on what Merkel and Sarkozy do next to "save" Greece in round III or IV or V (one loses count) to "SAVE GREECE!"
So back to our topic: If we're further plunging -- just this weekend -- northern European taxpayers into another 19 billion Euro worth of debt over "saving Greece," because this stabilizes markets, keeps people working, keeps the wheels of societies turning and staves off financial collapse for all, how would it be if Israel nearly collapses except for 11th hour US military intervention, with Jordan, Syria, Egypt and getting in on the conflagration in 1991? Or any year thereafter that we let Sadam stay in power?
If Lebanon, Jordan, large parts of Syria, part of Iraq, and part of Egypt (with a terribly fragile, flimsy peace accord with Israel) were decimated in a 6 - 8 week all-out military conflict because Sadaam bombed Tel Aviv back in 1991 or any of the years since, what would your world look like?
Four planes crashed on September 11, 2001 and for how many months and years was every problem in our land (and in the modern world, certainly Europe too) blamed upon those events in just 6 hours one weekday morning?
And I'm not just talking about your financial portfolio, airline procedures, cockpit security, more concrete barriers around any important buildings, all the handwringing in NYC over the Freedom Tower, the advent of DHS, TSA rules and legions of employees.
The list of how things have changed due to 16 men and four planes is L - O - N - G and always getting longer.
Complete changes in banking rules due to 9/11!! If you've started a simple checking account any time in the last 3 years, you know the impact that the Patriot Act has had on everyday, local banking.
Aparently we live in a world fragile beyond belief. A small wound in a small corner of just the 10's of thousands of corners of our earth sends "life as we know it" into death spirals.
So Sadaam and his bellicose ways had to go. All as part of a plan, hope, dream, maybe transformation of a Middle East that just might turn the corner and become part of the world family in the new millenium.
Pie in the sky, you say? Maybe.
Capitalism, wealth, ownership, trading, excesses, construction, housing, world's tallet buidings, superb privately owned automobiles sure seems to be gaining lots of Middle Eastern followers in Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, and the three largest cities in Saudi Arabia. Just look at Doha's incredible transformation in just the last 8 years. Abu Dhabi?
That stuff can be alluring, addictive, enticing.
(and it works)
I don't know a kid over the age of 12 that doesn't want a cell phone in Cairo or Alexandria. Do you?
And now it is the same in Baghdad, Basra, Tekrit, and all the others.
The Middle East and North Africa have been horrid cesspools for all of recent memory history. There are those who -- rightly -- dream to alter this. We don't need North African nations like Libya or Algeria that cozy up to the IRA and allow training camps there for -- yes, terrorism. We don't need Iraq, Iran, and Syria openly wheeling & dealing in mass weaponry (so much of it from Russia present and past) and then destabilizing other parts of the region like the failed states in Ethiopia and Somalia.
Have you noticed how world bodies like the soccer kingdom called FIFA in Switzerland now bestow big tournaments on host cities in the Middle East? The soccer World Cup is to be hosted by Qatar in June 2022. Yes, it is obvious that oil money and sheiks have helped bribe a good bit to make these things occur.
And money talks. But these sporting and cultural events world bodies are not totally idiotic. Like Formula 1 races now hosted. UCI events. Track and Field World Championships coming to Doha. These world bodies like FIFA, F1, the IOC know the tradeoffs: Money, fan safety, event security, world media attention....and also the chance to open new markets.
This does not happen with the megalomaniacs like Sadaam in seats of power. The region would still be shunned. Do you see Iran getting any of these world sporting, trade, expo, and cultural events? No, and the Iranian people don't either. YET: This is what the PEOPLE of Iran want. They want to be proud to field over 80 Iranian athletes with world class skills to compete with the world's best at a summer Olympics. They want to be part of world happenings....
So....
Exploit the changing times. Exploit the free trade of information via the internet in just tiny hand-held phones. Exploit the natural desire to own and drive your own car. Exploit fashion (Saudi women crave the products they see in the fashion magazines, Victoria Secret catalogs --- the Chinese women definitely do).
You can wish for our soldiers -- who doesn't? -- that we'll never have to send them in harms way into the Middle East, but that is folly. We can either do it on our planned timetables with our organized, slow, plodding goals forefront, or in desperate 82d Airborne rescue mission, band-aid style.
The fact that we as a nation are terribly indebted has nothing to do with the hugely expensive military we have and the true corruption, mismanagement of funds that will forever be part of any cash-cow mega bureacracy like the DOD. Our debt and overspending woes have far more to do with gross mismanagement at all levels of government from your county clerk's office to your state legislature to the desk of the Oval Office.
Better to be in debt and trying to wriggle out while knocking fool U.S. politicans heads together to solve it THAN to be living in the world the Chinese, Russians, and islam will give you.
If you want the latter, just have your prayer rug at the ready. Or be prepared to die at the sword, infidel.
os| 10.22.11 @ 8:41PM
I'm contending that it wound not have matter if he had them. We we know for sure he had them in the '80's, he was our ally then. Saddam, with or without WMD's, was never a threat to the U.S.
As for the Western style materialism they want to engage in, well, that's their problem to figure out. We're broke!
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 7:48AM
"os" wrote:
"And it's just laughable that you use the Monroe Doctrine to justify the very radical and very un-conservative hyper-interventionism of the Bush administration."
os...I suggest you try reading history rather than inventing it.
The Monroe Doctrine was purely about the projection of power abroad in order to protect our interests at home.
And I'm sick and damned tired of you PaulBots attempting to lay sole claim to the conservative mantle based on your reflexive isolationist tendencies.
We can disagree about the wisdom of going into Iraq but burying our heads in "Bunker America" is no wisdom at all. It's suicide.
Occam's Tool| 10.23.11 @ 10:18PM
Red, just promise me when the first nuke attack from Iran on US soil hits, that you will volunteer to clean up the mess. Without protective gear.
Les Nesman| 10.23.11 @ 10:53PM
"The smoking gun will come as a mushroom cloud" - yes we've heard it all before. You guys need some new material. This WMD stuff just isn't scary anymore. Where's your imagination? If you're going to lie us into another cooked up middle east quagmire you owe us a new storyline.
Mike W| 10.22.11 @ 9:04AM
We were incredibly, incredibly stupid for getting in there in 2003. That argument is closed.
Because Iraq was a debacle and becasue we are broke, there will be no sequel in Iran.
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 10:21AM
Mike, the only thing "closed" in that argument is, apparently, your mind.
The final history of our engagement in Iraq has yet to be written. It probably won't be written or "closed" in our lifetimes.
You might try letting history play itself out first before attempting to write it to suit your prejudices (and the justifications behind them).
Bob K.| 10.22.11 @ 7:12PM
We are either getting out because the mission was accomplished or getting out because it was a mistake. But it appears that we are getting out whatever the reason.
Unless there is a change of plans before the end of the year.
Historians will work out the real reason in due time.
E. Thinking| 10.22.11 @ 7:54PM
We're getting out because this will be only the second campaign promise that Barrack Obama has fulfilled -- since his 'swooning' speeches and 55 state campaign stops in year 2008.
The president is also aware of the date - mid October 2011. The calendar does not give him much more time. He's aware that he has to "make good" on about 8 or 10 more of those 2008 campaign promises/assertions.
He's also bowing once more -- as he did on his world travels in year 2009.
Exiting Iraq is not about what is good for our nation, the safety of our people, U.S. global leadership, fiscal responsibilities, or the welfare of our countrymen in the Armed Forces.
Mike W| 10.23.11 @ 10:01AM
Knowing what we know now, let's put the Iraq war to a vote of rational educated people. Where do you think that vote would land?
There is simply no argument to be made that the benefits of the war outweigh the cost.
RND| 10.24.11 @ 8:36AM
Why do people insist on calling it a war when it is everything a war is not.
The war ended the 3d week of April 2003.
It has been an occupation, stabilization, and train-up the Iraqis mission ever since.
It has been a: We will do what we can to permit normalcy here so that these backward, illiterate, subjugated, no confidence, brutalized Iraqi people might just stand on their own two feet and join the world.
A war? C'mon. Where'd you get your brain?
Bullets flying on occasion to repel a suicide bomber truck, F16 or F18 overflights with dropping some ordnance -- sure. But that is not a war.
When's the last time a US M1 Abrams tank fired just one round? One of our US Army Field Artillery guns? When's the last time an Apache helicopter has slammed a rocket into an enemy?
This is a more dicey, delicate, and awkward set of missions all sewn together because it comes under the rubric as "Operations other than war."
It is far more difficult to do than war. This is why it agonizes us all because it proceeds so slowly.
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 10:37AM
Good post, RND!
Yes....it was an occupation and train up of the Iraqi people and forces so that they might stand on their own.
Some say that's not our job and that is a legitimate argument, albeit somewhat short-sighted, imo.
The alternative would have been to over-power the Iraqi military, depose Saddam, eliminate any weapons found and go home. And....in a year...some other tin-pot dictator would have been in the driver's seat and up to the same stuff as Saddam was. Then what?
The only chance for a lasting solution was to set up a system which would allow the Iraqi people to represent themselves in their government. And...to give them the resources and training to support and protect themselves.
Contrary to the drooling conspiratorial machinations of the PaulBots, we didn't go there for the purpose of establishing democracy.
We went there to remove a threat that we COULD do something about.
There was going to be some form of government in charge once we left, or shortly thereafter. OF all the possibilities....if not democracy, then which would be in our long term best interests?
C Bowen | 10.22.11 @ 7:39AM
What a complete waste of blood and treasure, all because neocons working with Iranian agent Chalabi convinced soccer moms that Saddam was scary.
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 10:29AM
Apparently....they did a pretty good job of convincing every intelligence agency in the world of the threat. Most convincing, perhaps, was the fact that Saddam DID have a WMD program, had used WMD's against his own people and the Iranians and was at a loss to explain the whereabouts of significant portions of his previously declared stockpiles to U.N. weapons inspectors.
Oh..not to mention his repeated violations of the Cease Fire Agreement and refusal to comply with no less than 17 U.N. Resolutions regarding his weapons programs.
But hey....don't let the facts get in the way of your carefully constructed historical revisionism.
Maybe Saddam was working in cahoots with the "NeoCons", huh?
Kingofthenet| 10.22.11 @ 12:46PM
You know you CAN do something 'good' (Removing a Tyrant)and it can STILL be a white elephant. For Example you 'Could' make a nice dog house out of Gold Bars, it would never rot, and be easy to clean, but hardly 'worth it', see what I am saying?
Solo| 10.22.11 @ 2:18PM
I think that we could agree that "worth it" is a purely subjective term.
See what I'm saying?
Kingofthenet| 10.22.11 @ 4:19PM
I agree with that,I guess we will know in 100 years, whether it was 'worth it'. No matter how many people believe a lie, in the end it's still a lie.
C Bowen | 10.22.11 @ 2:19PM
LOL--MI6 knew it was a lie, so did the French.
The Italians agreed to cook up anything DC needed--just like old Cold War times.
And that's nice that you think violating a UN resolution is a reason for an American War, but this is suppose to be a conservative site.
Go to one of the Soros sites already.
Were you scared of Saddam Solo?
Kingofthenet| 10.22.11 @ 4:26PM
Not only that anyone in the Intelligence community will tell you, that IF a Principal (President, Executive Branch et al) makes it clear they want info that ONLY points in one direction, they will get it, no matter how unreliable.
C Bowen | 10.22.11 @ 6:17PM
Indeed.
But one has to mention that Kerry-Gore-Clinton went on about the threat Iraq's WMDs posed in the 90s, and then when Bush won, 9/11 happened, and so on, the Kerry-Gore-Clinton people kept on saying Iraq was a threat with WMDs, and then the Bushies started doing it too.
It was obviously a lie cooked up by Tenet for his boss in the previous administration, but then it became a re-election theme, and the neocons were just so happy to get involved and right the story line for the drugged masses.
One thing I wonder, how is the investigation into who forged the Nigeria Uranium documents going? I think the whole Libby thing was a misdirect to quietly put that treasonous act (if it came from American intelligence or coordinated by Americans) in the memory hole.
Les Nesman| 10.22.11 @ 9:29PM
"Bush won" he says. That's funny. He was selected by the Supreme Court. Nobody won that election. Especially the US sheeple.
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 9:07AM
"(S)elected by the Supreme Court"?
More revisionist history! The Supreme court put a stop to the incessant re-counts (Bush was ahead in all of them and at no time was he ever behind) and allowed the Florida Secretary Of State to finally certify the election results....as required by Florida Law.
Subsequent local as well as State-wide recounts conducted by the Miami Herald and a University (I don't recall which one) using several methods, not only confirmed but expanded Bush's lead in the vote totals.
Oh...and by the way,
It was the Gore campaign who originally requested the Florida Supreme Court's intervention in allowing the re-counts to continue beyond the parameters allowed under Florida Law.
IN short....the Bush team didn't "steal" the election. They prevented Gore from stealing it.
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 8:16AM
"C Bowen" wrote:
"LOL--MI6 knew it was a lie, so did the French."
"Knew it...", you say? How pray tell did they know that? No one "knew" anything about what was or wasn't in Iraq. That was the problem.
What we did know was that a significant portion of Saddam's DECLARED WMD's were unaccounted for. We knew that he was playing "cat & mouse" with weapons inspectors.
We knew that he was in open defiance of U.N. Resolutions.
We knew that he had designs on being a regional hegemon.
We knew that he had attacked his neighbors in the past.
We knew that he considered the U.S. a mortal enemy.
We knew that he was supportive of various terrorist organizations.
IN short...what we "Knew" about Saddam in combination with what we didn't know (and couldn't know without his full cooperation) was the reason he presented a threat---a threat, unlike some others, that we could do something about.
You see...the problem with your argument (and the typical PaulBot conspiracism) is that you attempt to claim history as foreknowledge.
Knowing at the time what we know now...I seriously doubt that Saddam would have been considered an immediate threat. But...that doesn't translate into a "lie" or some vast "Neocon conspiracy" to rule the world.
C Bowen| 10.24.11 @ 10:44AM
So it depends on what the meaning of lie is?
We get it--you were scared of Saddam. Chalabi's and Curveball's lies had been debunked by German Intelligence during the Clinton Administration. Even though Gore--Kerry--Kennedy--Clinton kept talking about Iraq's WMDs, the Germans reported shock that the Bushies picked up the theme.
And then comes the real question--who manufactured the fake Nigerian Yellow Cake documents? Who committed treason or what nation duped us into pursuing their agenda?
LOL--scared of Saddam.
Clint| 10.22.11 @ 5:36PM
"LONDON — An Iraqi defector who went by the codename “Curveball” has publicly admitted for the first time that he made up stories about mobile bioweapons trucks and secret factories to try to bring down Saddam Hussein’s regime.
"I had a problem with the Saddam regime," Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, who fled Iraq in 1995, told The Guardian newspaper. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."
Al-Janabi’s information was used in part by the U.S. as justification for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003."
Mike W| 10.23.11 @ 10:04AM
Saddam had WMDs at one time. Google the infamous Don Rumsfeld picture with Saddam in the 1980s when we were providing him the technology to make them. Could he threaten us with them? No.
C Bowen | 10.23.11 @ 1:55PM
That depends if one can call World War One era, gas capable artillery shells a "WMD." I'd argue WMD means something like a nuclear weapon, not artillery. It's like calling a pump action shotgun an 'assault weapon.'
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 9:21AM
Really? Tell that to the Kurds. No wait....you can't. Those particular Kurds are all dead as a result of a nerve agent sprayed over them by Saddam's thugs.
By the way...there are nuclear warheads on artillary shells. They're called "tactical Nukes".
And...our troops DID find the reference strains for "Congo-Crimean Hemoragic Fever" hidden in the freezer of one of Saddam's top bio-weapons scientists.
All it would have taken to get THAT into the U.S. population is an infected Iraqi and a plane ticket.
C Bowen| 10.24.11 @ 10:49AM
We get it, solo--you think an artillery shell meets the definition of a WMD. I guess you also think a pump action shotgun is an assault weapon, or do you just pick and choose when to accept newspeak?
LOL--you were so scared of Iraq flying someone over on a plane so a trillion dollar debt financed invasion seemed like the prudent course?
It's obvious this crap from central screenwriting was written for soccer moms.
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 9:33AM
Oh..they had a picture taken together, huh? Well...that "proves" everything.
We did not give Iraq chemical weapons technology!
They acquired insecticides (a 'precurser' to nerve agent) from American as well as French private companies prior to commercial sanctions against Iraq.
The "Technology" for turning that into weapons is hardly a leap for any 1st year chemistry major. All it requires is the right hardware. Hardware which, as was previously mentioned, has been around since WWI.
C Bowen| 10.24.11 @ 10:50AM
Solo;
You are posting on a website that did groundbreaking reporting in the 90s on just that--how the US sold Iraq the technology. (Whatever Happened to Iraqgate? Ken Timmerman.)
Herb Tarlek| 10.22.11 @ 9:18PM
It is clear that Iraq was never a threat to the US, WMD or not. You want to invade for WND, invade North Korea. There you have a serious fruitcake with proven technology. Not yellowcake, not aluminum tubes, but a verifiable explosion. For Iraq we had all these intelligence agencies, but they weren't good enough to convince our friends the Canadians who went all in in Afghanistan.
Serious question. Back in the day I heard a report that George Bush told some European that God told him to invade Iraq. True or False.
Kingofthenet| 10.23.11 @ 12:08AM
Yeah He did, BUT he didn't listen to GOD....He listened to Cheney instead...
Solo| 10.24.11 @ 9:43AM
I'd like to see that Bush quote.
He didn't say that God told him to invade Iraq.
I believe what he said was that he prayed for wisdom and guidance in making his decision.
I don't find it particularly disconcerting that the Leader of the free world believes that his decisions might have to be accounted for before a higher power than a democrat legislature.
How about you?
Les Nesman| 10.24.11 @ 9:12PM
I don't have the quote at my fingertips but as I recollect he stated that God told him to invade Iraq in so many words. I find that VERY disconcerting if true.
Another thing, we keep hearing about how Iran might get the bomb & little Suzie in Chicago needs to be all scared because Al-dinnerjacket is nuts. Why don't you guys who are red hot or Iran focus on a country with a verifiable nuclear explosion & a leader who is obviously nuts & probably terminally ill. The same country that test fired a missile at Hawaii. Why are we not taking about invading North Korea?
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