[Calbeck]

Zipperfish wrote:

Well, actually he was more than just an official, he was the Secretary-General of the UN--so let's be clear about that; the head of the UN said that the invasion was illegal.

Which has exactly as much bearing on law as if the President of the United States said that the Russian invasion of Chechnya was unlawful. Being AN authority figure does not make one THE authority. The simple fact is that the UN never declared the invasion illegal.

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Whether it was actually illegal or not will be for scholars to decide, since there is no court for international law applicable to the US.

Not correct: the UN General Assembly has the authority to declare if the UN Charter has been violated by any member, and no move to make such a declaration has been made.

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I'm not playing 20/20 hindsight games. I am simply saying "There were no stockpiles of WMD in Iraq."

Which has no bearing on whether or not the invasion was launched improperly, unless one is making the claim that the US (or anyone else) "should have known". The fact is no intelligence agency, not even the weapons inspectors, were saying in March 2003 that Iraq had no WMDs.

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A relationship need not be "operational" to be a "substantial link". Sorry. That would not merely be a "link", but an "alliance".

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Well, it seems that you're just engaging in semantics here.

Must I point out that you were the one quibbling over whether the relationship was "operational"?

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Substantive means of considerable amount or quantity, possessing substance; having practical importance, value, or effect.

Had Iraq remained under Hussein after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, there is every reason to consider the practical import and value of a "safe haven" offer having already been made to Al Qaeda.

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The exact words of the 9/11 Commission were that there was no "collaborative relationship."

Which is quite a bit different from saying "no links" or even "no substantial links". A collaborative relationship is otherwise generally known as an alliance.

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The US Senate Report on pre-war intelligence concluded: "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of Al Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from Al Qaeda to provide material or operational support."

And nonetheless offered safe haven to Al Qaeda. I'll also note the obvious point that alliances of convenience have a long history of existing between groups that are otherwise diametrically opposed. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a proverb that originated in the Middle East.

[Calbeck]

Zipperfish wrote:

And I say the reason the US "needs them now" is because they intend to be there for a while--even though there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq, no substantive links between Saddam and Al Qadeda adn Saddam has been out of power for five years now.

The main reason the US is there now is because of an insurgency, primarily composed of Sunni militants which lost their domination over the military, economy and society of Iraq with the fall of Hussein. Said insurgency would exist whether or not the US remains, because its ultimate goal is to destabilize the government of Iraq in favor of another Sunni-dominant society. Failing that, it seeks at the very least to undermine and destroy any Shia hold on power that it can.

Such an insurgency requires a strong security presence to prevent it from obtaining its goals, which the Iraqi government is not currently able to provide and is not likely to in the near future. Hence, military bases and a prolonged US presence are a necessity to lay the groundwork for national stability. The reducing levels of violence, coupled with the gradual turning away of Sunni leaders from supporting the insurgents, gives credence the the notion that a long-term presence is indeed beneficial.

Iraq also happens to have a neighbor with which it has a bad history of conflict, which has already been implicated in supporting the insurgency. It is extremely unlikely that Iraq could provide itself with any significant defense against any concerted attempt at annexation, and again, is not likely to be able to at any point in the near future.

[CanadianJeff]

Playing a bit of devil's advocate here.

This is what gets me though.

Why in the world do we possibly think we can stop a conflict now that has been raging for centuries in that part of the world.

We don't even speak the same laungage or have the same religious past that these people do and now we think that we can just come in with some guns and a good will and somehow nulify centuries of fighting?

Even if we went away after a few decades and military attacks decreased what's to prevent them from flaring up again the moment we leave? How on earth could we possibly claim to solve the problem when we can't even sit down and make a speach in the middle of a public square without armed guards all around?

Basically I'm asking this. What on earth makes us think we can solve this?

[Zipperfish]

Well, I can't match your posts for length or content, so I'll just point out a couple of things...

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This, like the "Why invade Iraq at all?" argument, is a criticism of opportunity. You dislike the situation in Iraq, so you criticize every element of it's planning and execution. But if the same planning or execution is used in a situation you think is justified, you don't mind. This is because you don't actually care about the planning and execution details you criticize. It's just a convenient argument against some random part when even you aren't entirely sure which part you actually oppose.

I feel bad about using an argument from the same post where you compliment me to form a personal, psychological argument against you, but I feel a deeper loyalty to truth than to even a noble adversary. I hope you're not offended. It's not intended as an attack on your character or credibility, but merely an observed pattern of behavior.

Well, we're all moral beings at heart, and rationality is more of an applied afterthought, in my philosphy. To that end you are correct--as stated earlier I have a visceral and abiding loathing of the war in Iraq that surprises me sometimes, and it biases my judegment in seeing any good that could come of the war. In most other matters, my views are much more sanguine.

But that loathing has roots, and that root is that the Bush and Blair administrations deceived the world in order to justify an invasion, and then did precious little as Iraq descended to predicatble chaos resulting in the suffering of millions of Iraqis. As well, I have a hard time respecting a leader who supports torture, arbitrary detention and war as George W. Bush does. Another thing that really bothered me was the petty, viscious and arrogant attitude of the American public towards anyone who stoood against them, which was most people, according to opinion polls at the time. Remember the Freedom Fries? And burned in my mind are the Abu Ghraib images where the so-called liberators were dressing up some unlucky schmuks in women's underwear and sicking attack dogs on them.

As a matter of fact this purity of will, this absolute morality, this categorical superiority that characterizes so many US foriegn policy forays, and which you seem to support at least to some extent, is a bigger threat to world peace than Saddam's Iraq ever was. It's an ideology, in my opinion, that seeks to dominate, not to liberate.

But you are correct, I think my bias, based on my morals and feelings on the issue, discount the good aspects, such as the removal of Saddam.

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The idea of an Iraqi war for oil is pretty ridiculous. Has the USA seen any oil from Iraq? If we have, it hasn't been much. It certainly isn't more than a few percentage points as much as we've used in the war itself. If you mean "getting oil into the open market" rather than "stealing oil as the spoils of war", it's still rather silly. More oil was reaching the market through the Oil For Food program than through the war zone. Oil is at $100/barrel, gasoline at $4/gallon. In what way have we gotten any oil? Who has claimed that was their goal, their justification, or their motivation? I don't know of any good reason to believe oil motivated the war other than some vague economic indicators and Bush's vague ties to Big Oil. It's conspiracy thinking at it's best.

I don't think it's conspiracy thinking at all. As a matter of fact the policy was proclaimed by Carter in 1980. The Carter Doctrine--it's posted above somehwere. Further Alan Greenspan, former head of the Federal Reserve --not a man given to conspiracy theories -- said as much also. The ideological basis for the invasion and occuation of Iraq was spelled out by the think-tank Project for A New American Century in a letter to Bill Clinton, where it bases its case on "American interests" in the Persian Gulf.

To be clear, I don't try to demean the war by saying it is based on oil. To me, that actually makes a lot more sense than the ideological drivel that is regularly regurgitated by the White House. The economy of the world is based on oil. Without oil from the Persian Gulf, the world would certainly be thrown in choas that would result in the suffering of millions. It's rational not to want to leave all the power in the hands of groups inimical to our interests. At least Carter had the balls to state the Carter Doctrine, as opposed to the moralistic niceties spouted by Bush and company.


Cheers

[Zipperfish]

Calbeck wrote:

Which has exactly as much bearing on law as if the President of the United States said that the Russian invasion of Chechnya was unlawful. Being AN authority figure does not make one THE authority. The simple fact is that the UN never declared the invasion illegal.

Conceded. It was Secretary-General Kofi Annan that declared the invasion illegal in his personal, which does not necesarily reflect the position of teh UN. However, your analogy is not apt. There was no relationship between Russia and the US similar to the relationship between the US and the UN. Specfically, the US decalres itself a member of the UN and voluntarily submits to its Charter.

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Not correct: the UN General Assembly has the authority to declare if the UN Charter has been violated by any member, and no move to make such a declaration has been made.

I'll have to defer to your knowledge on this one. It wasn't quite my understanding of the issue (that being that such a matter as the legality of a war would be decided by the Security Council, not the General Assembly).

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Which has no bearing on whether or not the invasion was launched improperly, unless one is making the claim that the US (or anyone else) "should have known". The fact is no intelligence agency, not even the weapons inspectors, were saying in March 2003 that Iraq had no WMDs.

Great. So were agreed that there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Now we can move on to the "should have known" discussion.

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Which is quite a bit different from saying "no links" or even "no substantial links". A collaborative relationship is otherwise generally known as an alliance.

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

From the 1993 WTC Investigations:

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We looked at that rather extensively," he told CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen. "There were no ties to the Iraqi government."

From the 1998 NSC Exercise:

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In 1998, Daniel Benjamin, who headed the National Security Council's counterterrorism division, led an exercise aimed at a critical analysis of the CIA's contention that Iraq and al Qaeda would not team up. "This was a red-team effort," he said. "We looked at this as an opportunity to disprove the conventional wisdom, and basically we came to the conclusion that the CIA had this one right."

The 2001-2 Atta in Prague investigation:

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After the allegation surfaced that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta was seen in Prague in 2001 meeting with an Iraqi diplomat, a number of investigations looked into the possibility that this had occurred. All of them concluded that all known evidence suggested that such a meeting was unlikely at best.

2002 Defence Intelligence Agency Report

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Saddam’s regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control

2002 British Intelligence Report:

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We have no intelligence of current cooperation between Iraq and al Qaeda and do not believe that al Qaeda plans to conduct terrorist attacks under Iraqi direction.

All of the above are from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations#cite_note-1122nj1.htm-26. There are about a dozen or so, all tolled. They use all different kind of language and terminology. They all conclude more or less the same thing.

The most recent addition ist he 2008 Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

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Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa'ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa'ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence." The report concluded that "Statements ... regarding Iraq's contacts with al-Qa'ida were substantiated by intelligence information. However, policymakers' statements did not accurately convey the intelligence assessments of the nature of these contacts, and left the impression that the contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation or support of al-Qa'ida."

Hey--the Senate committee actually used my word: "substantive" !!!

[Psudo]

Zipperfish wrote:

Great. So were agreed that there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Now we can move on to the "should have known" discussion.

Okay. Should we have?

[Pseudonym]

Yes, intelligence failures should not occur, but are an unfortunate reality.

[Psudo]

Virtually any form or amount of evidence can lead to a false conclusion. That's why duplication is important in areas concerned with truth, like law and science.

How many intelligence agencies, based on their own evidence, came to the same conclusion, that the weapons were hidden and waiting? I don't know the exact number, but it was a lot of duplication. More duplication than any methodology for estimating Iraqi civilian casualties, for example.

The weapons inspectors couldn't find them. They were also being impeded and distracted. We still know he had weapons for which no record or sign remains. We still can't say what happened to them. What reason did we have to believe but that he had hidden and armed? We certainly knew it was possible: the cold war was a decades-long competition in hiding WMDs.

In the 80s we ignored Iraq until they attacked our ally in the early 90s, initiating the first gulf war. We ignored al-Qaeda for decades until they attacked us on our own soil. We kept seeing evidence that ignoring loose ends in Middle Eastern foreign policy resulted in dead Americans and allies. What motivation did we have to continue ignoring the loose ends in Iraq?

I pointed out our unique relationship with Saddam's Iraq earlier in the thread. They had long been a danger and a threat to us. Since a lack of evidence isn't evidence at all, all the evidence that was suggested Saddam was biding his time until some inevitable future attack.

There is no lie or intellectual failure in trusting reproduced evidence opposed by nothing but sentiment and speculation. At best, it's a spiritual failure: if there is any truthsense or enlightenment to be had from God or ritual, we certainly didn't hear it reject an Iraqi invasion. That's the most rational criticism of the choice to invade Iraq there can be. Zipperfish's wish is granted; the neo-con God-hawks are spiritually discredited by their lack of miraculous success via divine intervention. But it was empirical rationality that made the choice to invade, not religious conviction.

[Zipperfish]

Psudo wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

Great. So were agreed that there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq. Now we can move on to the "should have known" discussion.

Okay. Should we have?

Yes, I do.

Scott Ritter, Chief Weapons Inspector, Iraq, 1991 to 1998 on CNN, July 17, 2002:

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No one has substantiated the allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction or is attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction. And of course that is the reason we have been given for going to war against Iraq -- because of the threat posed by these weapons. It has been nothing but rhetorically laced speculation, not hard facts, that have been presented by either the United States or Great Britain to back this up, and until they provide hard facts, there is no case for war.

I think that his opinion on the matter is particularly notable, because of his position adn access to information, because he had rung alarm bells earlier about the potential for Saddam to build WMD.

The UNITED NATIONS WEAPONS INSPECTORS REPORT TO SECURITY COUNCIL ON PROGRESS IN DISARMAMENT OF IRAQ cast serious doubts on any nuclear program Iraq might have. Dr. Hans Blix disagreed wiht Bush's assessment of WMD in Iraq. He indicated that Iraq was not being cooperative enough, and that was the justification that the US needed. Blix wanted more time.

Statement by Vladamir Putin, President, Russia:

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Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we have not received any such information from our partners as yet

Jacques Chirac, President, France:

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As far as France is concerned, we are ready to envisage everything that can be done under UNSCR 1441. ... But I repeat that every possibility offered by the present resolution must be explored, that there are a lot of them and they still leave us with a lot of leeway when it comes to ways of achieving the objective of eliminating any weapons of mass destruction which may exist in Iraq. I'd like nevertheless to note that, as things stand at the moment, I have, to my knowledge, no indisputable proof in this sphere

This is just stuff from before the war started, since the question posed is one of foresight, not hindsight. Certainly there was no shortage of critics after WMDs stockpiles failed to materialize. But I think the above comments demonstrate that the unanimity of opinion on WMD often professed by those that supported the invasion. The US and Britain should have given the inspectors the time they asked for and not invaded without a security council resolution. The old adage "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is not true. More inspections coming up absent would have provided more evidence of absence.

The irony of it all is that all this time the Bush administration was cozying up to Musharaff's regime in Pakistan. Here was a country that actually had weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons, had a large Al Qaeda contingent and had sold its nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea, if memory serves correct. The same way Rumsfeld cozied up to Saddam in the 80s. And the band played on.

[Zipperfish]

I found a great paper on the US intelligence leading to the Iraq invasion in Foreign Affairs magazine. (http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85202-p0/paul-r-pillar/intelligence-policy-and-the-war-in-iraq.html)

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Summary: During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.

PAUL R. PILLAR is on the faculty of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. Concluding a long career in the Central Intelligence Agency, he served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.