Posted on Jan 27, 2015
Do you agree that the Bush administration created a fiasco in Iraq?
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Senior officials of the Bush Administration were at best criminally incompetent in their actions after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
"Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tommy Franks spent most of their time and energy on the least demanding task - defeating Saddam's weakened conventional forces - and the least amount on the most demanding - rehabilitation of and security for the new Iraq. The result was a surprising contradiction. The United States did not have nearly enough troops to secure the hundreds of suspected WMD sites that had supposedly been identified in Iraq or to secure the nation's long, porous borders. Had the Iraqis possessed WMD and terrorist groups been prevalent in Iraq as the Bush administration so loudly asserted, U.S. forces might well have failed to prevent the WMD from being spirited out of the country and falling into the hands of the dark forces the administration had declared war against."
(Michael R. Gordon & Gen. Bernard Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 503-504)
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/
Jim Webb, in September, 2002, wrote an Op-Ed in The Washington Post vehemently arguing against the invasion of Iraq. It is striking just how right Webb was about virtually everything he said, and it is worth quoting at length to underscore what "serious, responsible national security" viewpoints actually look like:
"Other than the flippant criticisms of our "failure" to take Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, one sees little discussion of an occupation of Iraq, but it is the key element of the current debate. The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years. Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade and stay. . . ."
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/jim-webb-marty-peretz-and-our-serious.html
Jim Webb should be our next president.
To stay on point, anyone who makes even a cursory examination of the record will find that Bush 43 was the worst president in our history.
Walt
"Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tommy Franks spent most of their time and energy on the least demanding task - defeating Saddam's weakened conventional forces - and the least amount on the most demanding - rehabilitation of and security for the new Iraq. The result was a surprising contradiction. The United States did not have nearly enough troops to secure the hundreds of suspected WMD sites that had supposedly been identified in Iraq or to secure the nation's long, porous borders. Had the Iraqis possessed WMD and terrorist groups been prevalent in Iraq as the Bush administration so loudly asserted, U.S. forces might well have failed to prevent the WMD from being spirited out of the country and falling into the hands of the dark forces the administration had declared war against."
(Michael R. Gordon & Gen. Bernard Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 503-504)
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB214/
Jim Webb, in September, 2002, wrote an Op-Ed in The Washington Post vehemently arguing against the invasion of Iraq. It is striking just how right Webb was about virtually everything he said, and it is worth quoting at length to underscore what "serious, responsible national security" viewpoints actually look like:
"Other than the flippant criticisms of our "failure" to take Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War, one sees little discussion of an occupation of Iraq, but it is the key element of the current debate. The issue before us is not simply whether the United States should end the regime of Saddam Hussein, but whether we as a nation are prepared to physically occupy territory in the Middle East for the next 30 to 50 years. Those who are pushing for a unilateral war in Iraq know full well that there is no exit strategy if we invade and stay. . . ."
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/jim-webb-marty-peretz-and-our-serious.html
Jim Webb should be our next president.
To stay on point, anyone who makes even a cursory examination of the record will find that Bush 43 was the worst president in our history.
Walt
Military science
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)
Iraq
George W. Bush
Edited 10 y ago
Posted 10 y ago
Responses: 103
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No. They were not criminally incompetent. They made some possibly bad decisions; all based on the best information available. The decision to invade will be a debate topic for years. I believe there were WMDs there, and they were moved before 19 March 2003. I also believe we made some bad decisions after we invaded, all with the best intentions I am sure. But, I don't believe anyone is criminally negligent... that is stretch. Is Bill Clinton also criminally negligent? He pulled us out of Somalia rapidly, after 3 Oct 1993, which I am convinced telegraphed to the world, again, that we were weak, and had not stomach for fighting. Things deteriorated for us, and accelerated after the Mog. and his decision to cut and run.
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Capt Walter Miller
They -were- criminally incompetent. The CENTCOM plan posited 300K troops to subdue/pacify Iraq. They invaded Iraq with 140K troops. That is criminally incompetent -- or maybe treason. That is why my header statement says, "at best..."
Further, the best information available said there were no WMD in Iraq. And secondly, invading Iraq without UN approval was waging aggressive war.
And people say, “well who cares about the bleeping UN?”
Everyone should care.
1. The UN charter was written to benefit the United States. And we bought and paid for that right in blood.
2. The UN Charter was written to maintain the status quo, a status quo that very much favored us.
Violating the UN Charter set a very bad precedent. People want to rail against Rogue nations. Invading Iraq made the US a rogue nation.
Walt
Further, the best information available said there were no WMD in Iraq. And secondly, invading Iraq without UN approval was waging aggressive war.
And people say, “well who cares about the bleeping UN?”
Everyone should care.
1. The UN charter was written to benefit the United States. And we bought and paid for that right in blood.
2. The UN Charter was written to maintain the status quo, a status quo that very much favored us.
Violating the UN Charter set a very bad precedent. People want to rail against Rogue nations. Invading Iraq made the US a rogue nation.
Walt
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Yes, #43 was the worst ever. There is even an assertion among some theorists that Bush was responsible for 9/11 from WITHIN the U.S. so he would have a reason to invade Iraq. But I probably have more insight into the Middle East mindset than Dubya and if he wasn't advised to be prepared to stay in Iraq for 50 years don't even go. All of the WMD had been transferred to Syria long before we got their so Bush also has blood on his hands from all of the Syrian deaths at the hands of Assad.
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No one from Iraq bomb the Twin Towers/Pentagon or hijack any airplanes. So yes the Bush administration created a fiasco in Iraq.
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Capt Walter Miller
Bush had to make comments like that so Fox News could provide them to the half-awake drones that think he was anything but a disaster as president.
Walt
Walt
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"Each and every one of the dangers about which Webb warned has come to fruition. But thoughtful, sophisticated, rational and -- as it turns out -- prescient analysis like this was haughtily dismissed away by the tough-guy political and pundit classes as unserious and wimpy, even when coming from combat heroes. Instead, those who were deemed to be the serious, responsible, and strong national security leaders -- and who still are deemed as such -- were the ones shrilly warning about Iraqi mushroom clouds over our cities; handing out playing cards -- playing cards -- with pictures of the Bad People underneath their comic book nicknames; and making predictions about Iraq which the most basic working knowledge of that country should have precluded."
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SPC Luis Mendez
The phony thing about some of them like Chenney, is that back in the days of their youth they were Draft Dodgers, afterward they became ALL SO hawkish for wars or as Jesse Ventura calls them chicken-hawks.
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Suspended Profile
Nope
Capt Walter Miller
'Fiasco', by Tom Ricks:
"The book alleges that the planning of the Iraq war was mismanaged by both the Bush administration as well as the U.S. Army. Ricks then goes on to outline the infighting between the senior policy advisers such as Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and the Army. Ricks includes quotes from former generals of the Iraq war, former Army generals, and several top level officials, both working for the Bush administration and Douglas Feith's planning contingent. Moving into the war, Ricks alleges various miscommunication and mismanagement of the Army's combat tactics as well as criticizing the overall strategy. Ricks also heavily criticizes the actions of L. Paul Bremer and explores his impact as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority."
"The definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.
The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.
As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated."
http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/159420103X
"The book alleges that the planning of the Iraq war was mismanaged by both the Bush administration as well as the U.S. Army. Ricks then goes on to outline the infighting between the senior policy advisers such as Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and the Army. Ricks includes quotes from former generals of the Iraq war, former Army generals, and several top level officials, both working for the Bush administration and Douglas Feith's planning contingent. Moving into the war, Ricks alleges various miscommunication and mismanagement of the Army's combat tactics as well as criticizing the overall strategy. Ricks also heavily criticizes the actions of L. Paul Bremer and explores his impact as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority."
"The definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.
The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.
As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated."
http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/159420103X
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Capt Walter Miller
"As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. "
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The worst president we have ever had currently resides in the White House.
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SSG (Join to see)
Now, that is a new one, scandal free Obama presidency. I guess it is all good that DOJ sold weapons to make a moot point in fast and furious, that the president, without getting any intel, talks badly about a very local police situation in Boston, and says the police acted stupidly because the arrested was a dear friend of his, or the day the ambassador gets killed, he jumps into a plane, paid for by all of us, and goes to vegas for fundraiser, sends no one or even a call to the family to the first General KIA in decades, but is willing to sit down in an interview with a nasty cheerio milk bathing woman, He is ok on having the government spending billions on failed green corporations, or to send the IRS on a political crusade against his opponents.
The vacuum he created by living Iraq, in addition to not confronting Russia and the others seeing us week, with president selfie at the helm, has not made it safer for us.
Welcome to the age of Obama, where everything is racial, division, SM's have enemies willing to kill us in the US, and if they do, the government will give you a big screw you, but making it work place violence incident.
No, but thanks, at minimum, GWB showed more class and was more present on the servicemembers around the world, for him, we were respected, and not used to hold an umbrella because there is "too much sun", or making everything so much worse.
I figure we already know someone who has Hillary on their heart
The vacuum he created by living Iraq, in addition to not confronting Russia and the others seeing us week, with president selfie at the helm, has not made it safer for us.
Welcome to the age of Obama, where everything is racial, division, SM's have enemies willing to kill us in the US, and if they do, the government will give you a big screw you, but making it work place violence incident.
No, but thanks, at minimum, GWB showed more class and was more present on the servicemembers around the world, for him, we were respected, and not used to hold an umbrella because there is "too much sun", or making everything so much worse.
I figure we already know someone who has Hillary on their heart
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As a Vet from both campaigns, what annoys me is how the Bush administration didn't invest resources into Afghanistan like they did in Iraq. That's where I fault them from a strategic view. Their priorities were questionable.
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MAJ James Woods
Have to disagree. Afghanistan was in response to 9/11 targeting Al Qaeda and removing Taliban from power in the process. Changing priorities to Iraq without stabilizing Afghanistan was awful decision. I do agree Iraq was political if it was to please Israel but it also allowed Iran to assume more control in the region. Again a strategic blunder.
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MAJ James Woods
I don't agree with that and I definitely believe Israel would disagree with that. Iran isn't an ally. Just a Mid East power we have to negotiate with but not ally that would back us up in a fight.
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MAJ James Woods
I used Israel as an example of one of our allies in the Middle East and that U.S. And Israel work together on limiting Iran's influence in the region. And of course we didn't go to war in Iraq for Israel. If any MidEast country supported the Iraq invasion it would've been Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
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