I asked tritnow in an earlier thread, but I never got an answer. If stockpiles of chemical or biological WMD had been found in Iraq two odd years ago, how would this affect your opinion of the Iraq effort today?
I will start it off by saying that I never considered WMD to be the most important reason to go into Iraq, or even a particularly important reason.
Not finding WMD there was disappointing, but not substantive directly. Obviously, it does say troubling things about our Intel, but that is another thread entirely.
WMD was never the most important reason to invade. It was simply the easiest reason to sell the invasion to those who were otherwise opposed.
You know, I often forget that we’re “at war”. I mean, usually it’s a big deal. Maybe it is this time, too, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it to me. Why are we even at war?
As Bush has pointed out many times in his speeches, we are at war to change the world in general, and the dysfunctional governance structures of the Arab world in particular that allow it to be the source of terrorism in the world.
If this were a war about WMD, we would have trucked into Iraq, picked them all up, destroyed them and their production capability, and headed home. That was never the plan because this was never a war about WMD, no matter how people chose or choose to think about it.
If this were a war about WMD, we would have trucked into Iraq, picked them all up, destroyed them and their production capability, and headed home. That was never the plan because this was never a war about WMD, no matter how people chose or choose to think about it.
But Art, it was sold as a war about WMD. You admit that. If it was sold as a war to bring democracy to the middle east it would have died on day 1. Large wars between countries ended in the last century and the new war is against small terrorist cells acting independantly. The next time the American people and the congress are asked to support a military operation in this age of terrorism they are going to be a lot less trusting.
To answer your question, if WMD had been found I would have felt the same now as I did when I supported my president and had total faith that my government had reasonably certain intelligence of the existance of WMD and their location. In fact I expected the 101st and the 82nd Airborne to land right on top of them. Knowing now that my president rushed to war without positive intelligence, and knowing the people and information that was relied on to assert that Iraq possessed WMD, I am appalled and I am convinced Bush has made the war on terrorism much harder to fight and the likelihood of another major strike in the next 10 years is much greater. It’s one of the greatest presidential blunders in our history. Show me one worse. If Kennedy had followed the recommandation of the joints chief, the US would likely have been in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Instead, he showed leadership and good judgment and peacefully resolved the Cuban missile crisis. Contrast that with Bush’s actions.
Well we have one person now opposed to the war in Iraq who complains about the failure to find WMD and cites that failure as causing a change in his opinions.
This is a completely consistent, logical and defensible position.
So why is it tootall is the only war opponent to speak up on this point? Could it be that all the others whine about WMD when they couldn’t care less about WMD, but would oppose the war anyway?
Though I disagree with you tootall, you are an honest man. Thanks for answering my question.
The biggest mistake was a lack of a really effective contingency plan to be carried out once we had reached the capital. A lot more organization and troops should have been allotted to that end.
But it’s too late to cry over spilt milk. Like Sir General Rupert Smith (recent former Deputy Supreme Commander NATO) says you can’t get half pregnant and it’s not a good idea to have an abortion after 6 months into pregnancy. The question that needs to be addressed quick smart is what is needed now to finish what has been started to achieve the main objective ( the big pic) that was identified at the beginning?
Get it done or else, lives lost for nought, money wasted, effort wasted and Iraq, the Middle East will be worse off and USA and the World in general will be under a boosted increasing threat from this Islamic based terrorist element.
To clarify in case I have not made it clear: I do not support an immediate pullout from Iraq. We have to get the job done. The only way to make our current situation worse would be to pull out and let Iraq descend into a civil war. Iraq may eventually be divided into 3 parts but we can’t allow our enemies to think that we can be forced to cut and run.
I don’t support the war because it was launched under false pretenses. I do support the troops and the mission now that we are in it up to our necks.
I would feel better today if we had found WMD several years ago. No doubt about it.
However, I felt that our invasion of Iraq was a farce evan back then. Our own inspectors were telling us that no WMD existed. So even back then, there were a lot of evidence that no WMD existed. I also believed then that the invasion had more to do with finishing a job that Bush’s father never finished, than actually making us safer.
I also would not feel better about or so-called war on terror. I fully supported Afghanistan and thought that apprehending Osama was the most important thing to do. Instead we let him slip.
I post on these kind of threads reluctantly and often without much follow up, but I did want to ask you about your statement that the US inspectors saying that there was no WMD. I can’t believe that is accurate. We knew that there was WMD in Iraq. They were used against Iran as well as the Kurds. What our inspectors couldn’t do was locate them. But it is important to remember that the inspector’s misson was not to play hide and seek with Saddam’s WMD. Saddam was in violation of numerous NATO agreements by not documenting and verifying that his WMD were destroyed.
Scott Ritter, the UN weapons inspector (7 years spent inspecting Iraq) claimed before the start of the war the Iraq did not have WMD. Did Iraq have WMD at one point - yes, approximnately 10-11 years before we invaded. Please also note that a congressional investigation also confirmed that no WMD existed in Iraq when we invaded.
I could quote from the Congressional report, but instead here are some excerpts from one of many many articles.
While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq’s proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament (By Scott Ritter in 2002 - this was proved to be 100% two years later during the congressional investigations). This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.
*With the exception of mustard agent, all chemical agent produced by Iraq prior to 1990 would have degraded within five years (the jury is still out regarding Iraq’s VX nerve agent program - while inspectors have accounted for the laboratories, production equipment and most of the agent produced from 1990-91, major discrepancies in the Iraqi accounting preclude any final disposition at this time.) *
*The same holds true for biological agent, which would have been neutralized through natural processes within three years of manufacture. Effective monitoring inspections, fully implemented from 1994-1998 without any significant obstruction from Iraq, never once detected any evidence of retained proscribed activity or effort by Iraq to reconstitute that capability which had been eliminated through inspections. *
Our own military troops have been unable to discover any WMD during the last three years of occupation. I think the theory that they hid them or buried them somewhere just is not reality.
So not sure which inspectors you are referring to.
Tritnow, how come you didn’t include in your description of Scott Ritter the fact that he wound up on Saddam Hussein’s payroll after he left as a weapons inspector by way of $400,000 he received to put together some pro Hussein propaganda film?
Ritter left as weapons inspector long before the start of the war in protest that he wasn’t able to effectively inspect.
I never saw anyone do such a 180. I suppose you can argue that his 180 had nothing to do with the $400,000.
Whether Scott Ritter or the extensive congressional investigation, there is no doubt that Iraq did not have WMD at the time we invaded, and probably did not for several years before the invasion. This is a non-discussion point. Even the most hard core supporters agree that Iraq did not have WMD. The entire issue now is how much the Administration exaggerated the information they had to justify the invasion.
So in post 10 you explain how the presence of WMD in Iraq would make no difference in your lack of support for the war, though you admit it would make you feel better.
Then the next two posts you whine about WMD anyway.
So just who is it that is using WMD as smokescreen to help sell their predetermined policy?
“It was simply the easiest reason to sell the invasion to those who were otherwise opposed.”
So in other words, you’re saying that our administration believes it’s ok to lie to the people if that’s what it takes to gain their backing. I agree with you. I don’t see how you can have this opinion and still believe the administration received “bad intel”, thereby absolving - in their minds - them of any culpability. “Bad intel” just seems like the easiest scapegoat for their massive fuckup.
Why don’t you just answer my question? So far, two opposed to the war have answered. One was very logical and consistent. The other seemingly acknowledges that the lack of WMD don’t affect his opinions of the effort. At least I think he acknowledges that, but he doesn’t say precisely that. Then he goes on to whine about WMD anyway.
Why are we even talking about whether or not Iraq had WMD? They did not. That’s not even an issue anymore. Our own military stopped looking for them in Iraq 2 years ago. This is like discussing if my opinion would be different is Iraq actually had ties with Al Qaeda, which it did not.
Ok, I’ll “step up and be number 3”. Fuck yeah. Is this some sort of initiation?
Yes, I would have supported the war more than I do now had we found stockpiles of WMD in Iraq. Keep in mind that going from 0% to 1% support is technically more.
Now, I’m sure you’ve some profound and damaging inference to the logic in my my answer, so go for it. But remember, it will be “your words, not mine.”
The bigger question is “Now that we know Iraq did not have WMD and that we relied on people like curveball and Chalabi for our information regarding WMD, why hasn’t your position regarding the validity of the war changed?”
Or “Why the hell did you vote for Bush in 2004?” Let’s see: Moral values versus wasting hundreds of billions and killing tens of thousands of people. At least the majority of my fellow citizens are starting to see the light.