The United States is mulling further intervention in Iraq as government forces flee Al Qaeda-linked insurgents and the country appears teetering on chaos. While the Administration is not ready to commit boots on the grounds, we may be moving toward a further influx of hundreds of millions or billions in military aid and even air strikes. As ISIS insurgents are seizing U.S. weaponry, the U.S. has already started to flood the country a new massive shipment of new free weapons.
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant or ISIS is on a roll and nearing the capital. It is an al-qaeda linked terrorist group following the Wahhabi movement, the extreme religious view advanced by our ally Saudi Arabia.
So let’s take stock. We replaced a dictator based on lies in a massive invasion ordered by George W. Bush. We then spent over $2 trillion (the cost is over $4 trillion when you include Afghanistan). Both President Bush and President Obama continued to pour hundreds of billions of dollars in the country despite massive corruption and billions that simply disappeared. At the same time we have been cutting back on our own educational, environmental, scientific, and social programs due to a lack of money. Consider what $4 trillion would have done.
More importantly, we have lost some 4,486 U.S. service members between 2003 and 2012. Thousands have been wounded, many with lifelong disabilities. Our leaders continued to pour troops into the country because no one wanted to admit that the war was a mistake or that we were losing to Islamic insurgents. We continued to lose people and spend trillions in the belief that we could reverse centuries of sectarian and social strife.
In the meantime, we became increasingly hated by many Iraqis and we opened the country not to Saddamists but Al Qaeda forces who moved into the area as an opportunity to fight America and take over large parts of the country. They are now seizing advanced US weaponry so we are again arming extremists. Now to make our disaster complete we not only have Al Qaeda taking control of areas but Iran has now reportedly sent in troops to fuel the Shiite/Sunni violence. It is offering as many as 10,000 Iranian troops.
It is another example of the economic principle of “path dependence”: we have so much invested that we cannot change course. So once again, we will open up our coffers until the last helicopter leaves from the roof from the Green Zone.
BFM, It is that snarky way she delivers almost every sentence. It appeals to elitist liberals who talk that way. She certainly doesn’t appeal to mainstream Dems. Just the “look down your nose” type.
Neither Obama or Bush would’ve agreed to the SOFA. It was the correct decision to leave.
The proper response to Iraq is to seat grand juries to probe matters of war crimes and hold the decision-makers accountable. GWB admitted he gave the orders to torture and would do so again.
11/15/1999, Dick Cheney, CEO of Halliburton (later, Vice President)
“Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies, even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow.” (at the London Institute of Petroleum)
11/14/2002, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
“I’m glad you asked. It has nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil.”
9/9/2008, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve through 2005. (from The Age of Turbulence, p.463)
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
03/22/2003, General Tommy Franks
“There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.”
03/27/2003, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary
“There’s a lot of money to pay for this … the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”
03/30/2003, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
“We know where they are [Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction]. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.”
10/29/2001, Michael Leeden, American Enterprise Institute
“Just wage a total war against these tyrants; I think we will do very well and our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”
02/13/2002, Kenneth Adelman, a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board
“Liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.”
01/10/2003, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
“… something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.”
This seems like a good time to be working hard to make ourselves independent of this powder keg region and build that pipeline.
“Rachel Maddow has a poor ratings show on a 2 bit network.”
She would be pretty amusing if she were not so redundant, making every point three different ways to give her dim bulb viewers plenty of time to absorb what she is saying.
That and going into excruciating detail on bits of popular culture and politics as though she is explaining some fascinating research topic rather than a bit of common knowledge.
Paul C. Schulte wrote “There was no lying going on”
Maybe not flat-out lying, but definitely misrepresentation. Remember Curveball? It was monumentally foolish to base one’s intelligence upon one person’s opinions. There were people in the Bush administration who desperately wanted to “finish” Iraq, e.g. Paul Wolfowitz, so they did.
“Saddam tripped a series of UN resolutions”
The war was not sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
“The stupidist thing was taking the Baathists out of power completely”
So true. As I wrote above, Muslims need a dictatorship, whether benevolent or ruthless.
“winning plan and a plan to win. Something we do not have now”
Nor did we have one during Bush the Younger’s terms. Remember Mission Accomplished?
No, not again! We need to stay as far away from these Islamic countries as possible. The entire region is changing and it’s by their own choice. Why do we feel we can insert our democracy into their governments? They have rejected democracy and our social mores time after time. How much more money and lives are we willing to waste there? It was a massive mistake based on lies to invade and now that we have added to the instability of the region by deposing their dictator, we need to go back? There was no Al Queda in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. No going back, no spending more money to send air support. McCain is a war wonger, thank God he didn’t become President.
Nick learned his history from his favorite history teacher: Nick.
BillH, From what I read back @ the time of the negotiations, Obama sabotaged the negotiations w/ Maliki so we could bug out. A classic Machiavellian move. Like you, I don’t want to debate the war, Bush, etc. I am just taking the perspective of the brave men who lost brothers fighting for Mosul and Tikrit. They see it all gone now. MUCH of the blame is on the Iraqi military. They fight like the French, throw down your guns, take off your uniform, and RUN. More that anything else, my feeling is sadness for the men who gave everything and now see it all pissed away. There is plenty of blame to go around. We are paying now, and we will be paying for a long time, for the incompetence of this President.
If only Obummer had not become the decider and decide to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
Oh my goodness Bill H why did you have to ruin this with facts. You should be ashamed of yourself.
“It is another example of the economic principle of “path dependence”: we have so much invested that we cannot change course.”
Too bad they never heard about the accounting model of sunk cost in which what you have already spent provides no guidance regarding future alternatives and what those alternatives cost.
Paul C. We don’t need to have a plan to win. We need to stay out.
Saddam tripped a series of UN resolutions which then gave the United States and others the right to go into Iraq and finish the first Iraq War. There was no lying going on, Prof. Turley. You have to go back to the UN resolutions and the US actions regarding those resolutions.
The stupidist thing was taking the Baathists out of power completely. Had they left some of them in, they could have kept some control in the country. Since the border is porous, terrorists can cross at anytime to be added to the number of people fighting. Again, you need to have a winning plan and a plan to win. Something we do not have now.
@Nick Spinelli: for better or worse, the decision to withdraw all troops from Iraq was not made by Obama. It was made by George W. Bush, and formalized in an agreement with Nuri al Maliki in 2008. Obama allowed that agreement to be carried out because he had no choice.
He tried for two years to negotiate a new agreement which would allow us to saty longer, and falied to accomplish his wishes to prolong our presence there. None of this is pro-Obama, anti-Obama, pro-Bush or anti-Bush, it is merely historical fact.
Nick Spinelli “This administration is a disaster”
As was the previous one which started the unnecessary war. And created the Wall Street bailouts.
Muslims can only live under one of two governance structures:
– secular dictatorship (including royalty), or
– Islamic dictatorship.
This is because Muslims strongly desire to live under sharia, which is really #2. Bush the Younger destroyed the #1 Iraq had, so it will eventually either turn into #2 or a new military dictator will arise.
This is what happened in Iran. Eisenhower and the CIA eliminated the democratically elected government in 1953 and installed the ruthless Shah. And when Islamic radicals overthrew him in 1979, our government was (stupidly) shocked.
The same is true of Syria. It is terrible, simply terrible, that civilians are dying in that civil war. But there are three groups involved: government, Islamic radicals, and democratic rebels. However, the rebels have no chance of winning because they are not ruthless. If we assist any of the opposition, we will end up with another Iran.
To paraphrase from the Princess Bride, never get involved in Islamic wars.
Rachel Maddow has a poor ratings show on a 2 bit network. She offers a false choice, her or McCain.
We left Iraq like we had a cab waiting for us w/ the meter running. Our leaving was based on nothing but fulfilling a campaign promise. People who know Iraq told Obama we needed to leave some people there. This administration is a disaster.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/rachel-maddow-iraq-attack_n_5491463.html “On her Thursday show, Rachel Maddow cautioned against any renewed American military action in Iraq, warning that the people who “most aggressively argued that we ought to start the Iraq War in 2003” should not be trusted when calling for intervention now.
Pressure is building on the Obama administration to back the Iraqi government with airstrikes to fight against militants who are capturing great swaths of the country.
Maddow noted that people like John McCain and Kenneth Pollack, the “liberal hawk” who wrote an infamous book backing the 2003 invasion, have popped up again to call for a new military commitment to Iraq. But she pointed to the Vietnam War as proof that such open-ended commitments usually fail:
“Right now the people who thought it would be easy and a great idea and cheap to invade Iraq under George W. Bush, they want us to restart that war again. Frankly, if you press them, they’ll tell you they wish it had never ended in the first place….we have been here before as a country in a big way and we know how this goes.” “