Iraq: All Down To Dodgy Intelligence. Yeah, RIGHT!

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Slowly but surely the noose is tightening on Bush and B.Liar. They might now be desperately trying to blame the war on faulty intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, but it's just the same old smokescreen. A totally transparent attempt to shift the blame for the illegal and immoral war in Iraq on the spies who they coerced into dredging up the flimsiest of 'evidence' of WMD.

Jack Straw now being dragged into doubts over the legality of the war, and politicians squeling like pigs that they were duped into voting for the invasion of Iraq against the wishes of the electorate, churches of all denominations and the United Nations. Bush and B.Liar's number is well and truly up.

Regime change? Bring it ON!

 

[scarby]

this is a new subject, and your point is......................................

 

[Beach Hut]

I think Bush clearly wanted to finish what his Dad should have done earlier.

WMD - my arse

 

[spidey]

Bit heavy for this time of night

 

[Zebedee]

But at least we got rid of Saddam. The Iraqi people are most definitely better off without him.

 

[scarby]

exactly, look at the bigger picture!

 

[clapham_gull]

In defence of America (can't believe I'm saying that..) many of their political establishment are now opening their eyes to the fact that the war was a mistake, in a way that has yet to happen here.

I've just read Richard Clarkes Against All Enemies (He was the security advisor to Bush)

Bush and his cronies had decided to invade Iraq well before the Twin Towers disaster and were pushing the CIA for evidence that obviously wasn't there. They were willing to "believe" (or use) anything and under pressure the CIA were willing to give it them.

I believe that the "evidence" was supplied, but it came from Iraqi opposition movements with their own agenda and was obviously flawed. That doesn't excuse America, they had an agenda and were willing to use any evidence whether they believed it to be true or not. We weill probably never know, whether they really believed it.

I don't see Bush an as evil man, just very thick and easily manipulated by the American right wing. Which is why he's President.

I honestly don't believe Blair had any other motive to invade other than the fact that he fell for the American line. For that reason alone Blair should resign.

Saddam is gone, but the fall out from this war far outweighs the danger from a tin pot Arab dictator.

What really annoys me is how the whole Saddam issue has been mixed up fears about Muslim fundamentalism. It was his Arab identity that drove him rather than his religion and he murdered thousands of Muslims. To try to link Al Queda with Saddam is frankly laughable.

As for looking at the bigger picture, I think the world is a far less safer place now this war has taken place. It will drive more terrorist attacks.

Read some history, Bin Laden was originally driven by the fact that American forces were resident in Saudia Arabia after the original Iraqi war.

 

[scarby]

fair point, but do you just turn your back, because its not in your back yard?

 

[Beach Hut]

I think what has happened has definitely made the world we live in worse.

Will it ever be safer again - never unless a deal is agreed with Osa Bin Laden and the Taleban

 

[scarby]

are you saying from 9/11, or the invasion of iraq?

 

[Beach Hut]

Good question - I suppose 09/11

 

[clapham_gull]

fair point, but do you just turn your back, because its not in your back yard?

This country and America hasn't exactly ignored Iraq because it isn't in its back yard.

This makes me sound like a bleeding heart liberal, but I'm not. I just try to read about why situations are created and the history behind them and I try to steer clear of extreme views from both sides.

I tend to lean towards the cock up theory on most things, rather than the conspiracy....

America, us and other European countries gave support to Iraq during its war with Iran because the later was perceived as the greater threat. The Weapons inspectors are searching in part for technology that WE SOLD HIM.

Just to really confuse things the Americans also supported Iran, when Saddam was seen to be getting the upper hand.

Iraq has a very valid claim to Kuwait, which was lobbed off by the British under colonial rule (Historians correct me if I've wrong).

Saddam by any definition is an evil tyrant, but one which has been actively supported by the West. It is alledged he was placed into power with CIA help.

The Americans were worried that after invading Kuwait, Saddam would continue into Saudi Arabia and take control of their oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia allowed American troops into its country on the understanding they would leave after the first Gulf War. They didn't, they increased their presence and this pissed off Bin Laden (a Saudi) who saw them as an invading imperialist force.

Just to confuse things, Bin Laden was trained and equipped by Americans in his fight alongside the Afghans against the Russian invasion. The Afghans would never have forced a Russian withdrawal without American help.

Bin Laden saw that a terrorist force could bring a super power to it's knees (albeit with another super powers help)

After the civil war that resulted in Afghanistan, an extreme fundamentalist movement took force, that harboured the American trained fundamentalist Bin Laden.

It is the American obsession with communism and reliance on oil that has created this sorry mess. Throw in the often ill directed influence of Israel in the American establishment and there you have it.

Apart from World War II, they seem to f*ck up where ever they go. A lot of comentators said that after the Twin Towers disaster, America would become a more closed and inward looking nation - we wish...................


Shall I go into how America gave the impression that they could help the iraqis overthrow Saddam after the first Gulf war but then pulled out, leading to thousands of iraqis starting a rebellion only to be left to be slaughtered by Saddam ?

This will go down as one of the greatest betrayals in modern history.

.. wonder why they arent happy to see the Americans back ?

I'll shut up now, but I've long stopped believing that the Americans with all their money and technology know what the f*ck they are doing. There is no great conspiracy, but in terms of foreign policy they are muppets.

 

[Raphael Meade]

I think what has happened has definitely made the world we live in worse.

Will it ever be safer again - never unless a deal is agreed with Osa Bin Laden and the Taleban

yes. because the taleban are a huge threat to world peace aren' they?!!

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I was interested to hear Lib Dem politician Menzies Campbell float the idea that it was Saddam Hussein who wanted everyone to believe that he had WMDs, even though he didn't.

The logic is that Saddam was a believer in the old US doctrine of deterrence. Israel has WMDs aimed at strategic Arab targets. The best way to prevent Israel from using them is to convince the Israelis that any attack would be followed by major retaliation on Israeli cities. That needs everyone to believe that Iraq has that capability. Therefore Saddam talks up Iraq's capabilities, even convincing the US and the UN.

The MAD doctrine - Mutually Assured Destruction - always was mad and dangerous. Here we see the consequences. The American intelligence community were taken in by it - hardly surprising, since the US thought up the doctrine in the first place. Saddam's genius was that he did it on the cheap (ie without actually bothering to spend the money on the weapons in the first place).

I've got no idea whether there is any basis in Campbell's theory. It just seems to fit the facts rather better than Blair's version ("Saddam must have hidden the WMDs").

 

[London Irish]

It's a nice idea, and may well apply to a lot of Saddam's long time in charge, but it certainly doesn't in the period leading up the war and Menzies Campbell shouldn't be coming out with such tosh that can only be a let-off for the warmongers.

Saddam and his henchman clearly told everyone who was prepared to listen that Iraq had no WMDs. We now know he was telling some approximation of the truth and it was Bush and Powell who were desperately hyping up threadbare evidence to the UN, ie. LYING.

The problem was, of course, that Saddam couldn't provide the paper trail to prove his claims beyond a reasonable doubt to Blix and the UN.

The warmongers seized on this small window of opportunity to launch a war that has boosted the small lunatic forces of fundamentalist anti-Western terrorism a thousandfold - Iraq, previously of course hostile territory for Al Quada because Saddam's secret police would just simply round them up and execute them, is now officially the world's biggest Al Quada training camp. Great job Dubya!

It is a small intriguing detail of history why Saddam did not provide the paper trail to Blix, it could have been incompetence, it could have been that his regime was so clueless that it never kept records of its disposal activies, it could indeed have been Saddam's last bit of dumb-ass conceited defiance of world opinion.

But it is a matter of supreme irrelevance, the WMDs issue was only ever a PRETEXT for invasion, Bush would simply have found another convenient excuse off the peg to satisfy the slavish US fan club now known as the "coalition of the willing".

We know this because we just have to look at the stated published reasoning of the ghouls that have been advising Bush for years even before his election as president, the whole "Project for the New American Century" crowd, the neo-Conservative fanatics like Wolfowitz and Perle.

Their reasoning has never been about terrorism (which nobody really gave a stuff about before 9-11) or WMDs, which barely got a mention back then either.

Bush came into office in 2001 with the clear plan of invading Iraq not for any of these trumped-up pretexts but purely for STRATEGIC geo-political reasons, to re-establish US power and dominance throughout the Middle East, ie. Getting rid of former clients like Saddam who didn't follow orders any more with the aim of frightening other regimes in the region into submission too.

Toppling Saddam was first on the list because he was the easiest, being utterly crippled by the first Gulf war and a pariah in the world community of nations. Next on the shopping list were places like Syria and Iran, and then Far East countries like North Korea. All these countries are a more live threat to US national interests as defined by the neo-cons (ie. the interests of Halliburton shareholders), but are all tougher nuts to crack, so have to be left alone for now.

The one comforting thing is that the invasion of Iraq has been such a nightmarish fiasco (the latest is that Bush has now even had to once more legalise Saddam's Ba'ath party in increasingly desperate attempts to appease and buy off internal opposition), and that countries like France, Russia and Germany have played such a brave role in opposing this US madness, that similar invasions of other countries are now very unlikely.

But, of course, who knows what a second Bush election victory would do for the confidence of these rightwing US Republican idiots and what crazy shit they would come up with while getting drunk at Bush victory parties, so we can't take anything for granted.

Kerry/Edwards are just the same bunch of pro-big business sell-out machine politicians regularly produced by the US Democrats, but at least they will not launch mad wars across the planet at the behest of US neoconservative fanatics, so let's just f***ing hope they win in November or we face four more years of Al Quada multiplying another thousand-fold under the blundering attacks of Bush.

 

[dougdeep]

American Intelligence? Thats a c.i.t. isn't it.