Iraq: Bush Jr's toxic legacy or Obama's rebuilding failure?

[Zebo]

Still waiting

Keep waiting. Obama said we need to put it all behind them. Bankers, MiC, and other war profiteers who gave him billions to be president told him to.

 

[MongGrel]

Still waiting

That would be the day

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again - Live 1978



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htz9CS-Zmms

 

[Zebo]

Damn good song.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I don't see where Bush can be blamed going off the intelligence available at the time. If you have intelligence like that, there's not much alternative other than to act on it. With Obama, however, the outcome was pretty foreseeable.

Bush was told that the yellowcake fear was baseless. He was told that the aluminum tubes weren't suitable for centrifugation. Not by inept parties, but by people as expert as exist. Given that he made speeches saying the opposite with this knowledge he can certainly be blamed. We paid Chalabi, a convicted bank fraud escaped from Jordan, to provide us "insight" or better, make up things, which forwarded the agenda of Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz with the bumbling assistance of Bush. The intelligence agencies were restructured to give just what the administration wanted and if you didn't do so, well you could ask Plame about that. An Army War College professor provided a list of concerns about how the occupation was being handled. It was spot on and a Pentagon representative laughed when questioned about it. "If it doesn't go along with the President's agenda it won't be on anyones short reading list". No indeed it was not. Blame? Hell, yeah there's a whole lot of that which can be left at the feet of those scoundrels.

 

[Bitek]

Holy fuck...

Iraq didn't help plan the 9/11 attacks. Yet you think we should have invaded Iraq?

By that bizzaro-world logic, why not Saudi Arabia as well since a large number of those 9/11 hijackers happened to be from there?


....

I can't believe people like that are still around. It's like he just woke from a 10 year coma

 

[Bitek]

Premise fail.

I dont think Obama said he would rebuild anything. He had a mandate from American People to GTFO and it's actually one promise he kept.

Bush failed at rebuilding. Let museums get raided. Destroyed all stable Iraqi institutions such as .mil, .gov. .corps. cleansing them of perceived enemies. So most graft billions missing. Nothing rebuilt and essentially 2 Trillion going into his buddies coffers.

Let me reword it for you
Iraq: Bush Jr's toxic legacy and rebuilding failure!

Dont worry though Obama has his Libya he fucked up good.

+1

 

[Matt1970]

I can't blame much of anything that happen in Iraq on Obama.

 

[nageov3t]

obviously, had GWB never invaded Iraq they wouldn't be in this situation now (though, the Kurds would probably still be a lot worse off)

but I don't think there's anything Obama could have done to avoid this short of committing troops to staying in Iraq indefinitely, which wasn't and isn't an option.

 

[Victorian Gray]

So, only having splinters of a terrorist organization present in a country does not indicate that the terrorist organization exists in the country, and no AQ members were in Iraq prior to the Iraq War. Magically only after we invaded, AQ just appeared in Iraq out of thin air from having no influence or inroads whatsoever. Clearly, I am the one trolling or willfully ignorant of the truth.

Pretty much. Thanks for admitting it.

 

[bradley]

Fiat currency of the plutocracy.

 

[Jhhnn]

The notion that Obama "failed" in any way wrt Iraq is the worst sort of denial & revisionist history. That's because it attempts to justify the invasion in the first place, and the lame-ass "plan" to turn socialist Iraq into a Neocon capitalist wet dream. Either this is what they wanted or they miscalculated horribly in that arrogant way that only Neocons can manage.

It's like starting an avalanche & blaming somebody else because they couldn't stop it.

 

[DrPizza]

I think the right move if a country is harboring radicals that kamikaze planes into buildings filled with civilians is to take immediate action based on intelligence available at the time instead of sitting around for an indeterminable amount of time trying to get confirmation.

Anyways, you guys are beyond stupid.

Perhaps if we explain, you'll stop making yourself look like an idiot. Might there have been Al Qaida members in Iraq? Sure, maybe. There were Al Quaida members in the US as well. Remember where those hijackers got their training?

However, it's naive to believe that Saddam would have been on friendly terms with Al Quaida. Remember, Saddam's government was a secular government; not an Islamic government, and certainly not a radical Islamic government. Suggesting that Al Quaida was operating out of Iraq with Saddam's blessings, is like suggesting that the Jews were complicit with helping the German's invade Poland. Or maybe more like saying that the Jews were complicit with helping Japan invade China.

 

[HomerJS]

The notion that Obama "failed" in any way wrt Iraq is the worst sort of denial & revisionist history. That's because it attempts to justify the invasion in the first place, and the lame-ass "plan" to turn socialist Iraq into a Neocon capitalist wet dream. Either this is what they wanted or they miscalculated horribly in that arrogant way that only Neocons can manage.

It's like starting an avalanche & blaming somebody else because they couldn't stop it.

Fox News will give it a go

 

[mrjminer]

Perhaps if we explain, you'll stop making yourself look like an idiot. Might there have been Al Qaida members in Iraq? Sure, maybe. There were Al Quaida members in the US as well. Remember where those hijackers got their training?

However, it's naive to believe that Saddam would have been on friendly terms with Al Quaida. Remember, Saddam's government was a secular government; not an Islamic government, and certainly not a radical Islamic government. Suggesting that Al Quaida was operating out of Iraq with Saddam's blessings, is like suggesting that the Jews were complicit with helping the German's invade Poland. Or maybe more like saying that the Jews were complicit with helping Japan invade China.

Oh I try to explain, many times over, but it falls on deaf ears from people that fail to read then make assumptions about my statements, then start swinging the conversations whatever direction they choose while making up their own false claims and attributing them to me. For instance, your quote assuming I spoke of AQ, when I stated radicals. However, AQ is what you what you magically choose to assume. That's additionally what others magically assume, then steer the conversation towards. Radicals fly planes into buildings. Radicals form terrorist organizations. Radicals stone people to death based on zealotry. I've already said that I never made the claim that Saddam was in bed with AQ, because I never did -- yet that hasn't stopped 5 or 6 people in their little circle jerking clique of stupidity from jumping on the making shit up and attributing it to me bandwagon. Of course, that's what happens when people choose to make things up and attribute them to others, then run with them: a never-ending chain of stupidity based on the stupidity of others, based on the stupidity of those before.

The laughable arguments then made on their created from fiction attributed claims were then entirely inaccurate or false. Frankly, it's not my fault you guys are unable to read, unable to comprehend, unable to think, unable to be honest, and decide to throw all logic out the window anytime someone presents facts that don't align with stupid and baseless opinions. Such as Mongrel the dumbass's claim it's one vs. all. Well, it doesn't really bother me when everyone else is completely wrong because all they can do is fiction up some statements to try to make it sound like someone else is incorrect, especially when they've offered nothing except their support for a guy they are rubbing off in two threads (Engineer), who was wrong in both of them.

Further, for instance, Eskimo claims there was no NIE -- when there was. It was simply classified at the time and the CIA gave a summarization (IIRC), which was used to justify the war and later analyzed to have identified the threat of WMD correctly from the information contained within the NIE, but had not correctly characterized the level of the thread. In other words, from the intelligence at the time, the NIE concluded that it was likely Saddam was working towards or had WMD and the information was just presented in a political manner to a bunch of politicians (shocking, I know). We can go ahead and just ignore the little inconvenient details, though, because that's the P&N way.

Sort of like the blanket statement that there were no AQ in Iraq. Not my fault the facts are inconvenient for some; perhaps Garfield should pick up a book once in a while, or, at least, use Google since he claims that there's all of this factual information supporting his entirely factually incorrect blanket statements (#1 and #4 on his list, since #2 and #3 were just relating to fictional arguments attributed to me). Learning how to not make blanket statements then not comprehending how the responses to them point out the obvious errors in said blanket statements would also be a good start. The fallback that people are "birthers" when you get proven wrong and can't support anything should always be plan "A" in P&N, which is the real travesty of his posts, however.

Additionally, some people in the thread act as though having hindsight now magically makes the facts present at the time not the facts present at the time, which is what the content of my original post, which has of course bastardized by about 10 people, yourself included, entailed. Sure, it's pretty easy to go back now that you have all of this additional intelligence that simply was not available at the time and say the war was a mistake. Pretty convenient to just ignore that the dates of the various documents other than the ones available at the time war was declared are later than the declaration of war. Not to mention, the public support of the war initially -- in multiple countries, including Iraq.

Anything to shift the blame off of Obama, or to blame Bush, whichever suits the fancy of some. I mean, there's definitely no reason for us to have remained in Iraq, so there's definitely no reason for Obama to have even attempted to negotiate for us to remain. That's what leaders are supposed to do: just stick to blanket timelines and ignore anything that is a contributing factor that may influence the timeline. There's a pretty stable government now after we erroneously toppled the one that was in place, which is, of course, supported by tens of thousands of troops retreating against less than a thousand combatants, soldiers who surrender then are summarily executed being broadcast, the loss of hundreds of millions in currency and equipment, and the rehash of radical religious leaders calling militias of religious groups to arms while various factions carve out their own piece of a country, and various others send their own troops in. For sure, getting them to permit something as minimal as 1000 troops there or nearby would have clearly had no effect on the outcome of their third largest city being taken by less than a thousand people.

Seriously, though, at this point, I think it would be foolish to go back into Iraq and further waste money on them after we've already pulled out, which I said in my OP; they've shunned our assistance, and basically just threw the equivalent, or large portion thereof, of assistance we gave them into the hands of a faction their military outnumbered over 30:1. However, the decision to initially invade based on the intelligence available at the time, not to mention past dealings with Hussein and growing terrorist cells, I think was the right decision to make. If the appropriate adjustments would have been made and supported enough, what's going on right now probably wouldn't be going on.

Perhaps that's explanation enough for you, perhaps not. I couldn't really give a fuck, though, because I'm right. At some point, I decide that the overwhelming stupidity isn't worth wasting my time further, and other times, like now, I'm desperately trying to avoid doing something else and don't mind wasting my breath.

 

[Jhhnn]

Puh-leeze. The run-up to the invasion of Iraq was the most magnificent display of war mongering fear based propaganda & lies ever seen in this country. Months before 9/11 GWB reportedly told his cabinet to find a way to invade Iraq. 9/11 was the way, along with every trumped up accusation they could find or fabricate. They got well documented complicity from the UK govt & cheerleading from the Israelis.

They moved heaven & earth to charge right in, and have lied as much after the fact as before. We were even presented with Dick Cheney lying on national TV after the invasion about a lie he made on national TV before the invasion.

The fact that otherwise intelligent people defend them is tribute to the power of lies.

 

[Thebobo]

Perhaps that's explanation enough for you, perhaps not. I couldn't really give a fuck, though, because I'm right. At some point, I decide that the overwhelming stupidity isn't worth wasting my time further, and other times, like now, I'm desperately trying to avoid doing something else and don't mind wasting my breath.

Calling a rock water no matter how many times you call rock water does not make rock water. And no you are wrong. Sorry you wasted your time.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I can't believe people like that are still around. It's like he just woke from a 10 year coma

What's interesting is that so many still buy the "he couldn't have known", or "the intelligence shows". Nonsense. A cursory search would show that there were repeated lies. Sandia labs told the administration that the aluminum tubes weren't for centrifuges.

Chock full of tidbits right here.

Anyone who reads the article who is critical of Wiki can follow the links which show that the Administration misrepresented the situation, end of story. It takes little effort to find non-classified statements which support this. "Well, it seemed like it should have been" isn't good enough for a shooting war. Ever.

 

[phillyTIM]

a little of both.
Obama had 6yrs to rebuild Iraq. he failed.
he failed to set up a stable system in place.

but I still blame Bush Jr more for getting us in that mess in the 1st place

The United States FINISHED the job in Iraq; we left it a stable state in 2011, as stable as Iraq could possibly be, that is. We all knew Iraq was being balanced on sticks and plates, because that's just the nature of Iraq. It was always destined to revert back into warring factions, once we artificially put Humpty Dumpty (Iraq) back together again. This is a big reason why it was wrong for Bush to invade Iraq in the first place; the occupation could never end because the can of worms that is Iraq would be opened. The basic fact is that some countries just can't handle democracy, let alone having a puppet government.

 

[alzan]

< snip wall 'o' Bush apologist text >

ProfJohn, is that you?

 

[Orignal Earl]

The United States FINISHED the job in Iraq; we left it a stable state in 2011, as stable as Iraq could possibly be, that is.

Final report of Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: "Not a single project, which was built by the United States was completed."

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population."

G.O.

 

[fskimospy]

I didn't say there was no NIE, I said the Bush administration never requested one. It took congress asking the IC for one in the fall of 2002 before it was produced, long after war preparations were underway.

The implications of that should be clear to everyone. They weren't "acting on the best intelligence available", they didn't even care what that intelligence was. If they had, they would have asked.

 

[phillyTIM]

Final report of Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction: "Not a single project, which was built by the United States was completed."

G.O.

That's NOT TRUE. Bush & Cheney (whose Halliburton firm "earned" over $40 billion) built & finished the world's largest military base and largest embassy in Iraq.

Anything else obviously was just icing on the cake to those fleecers of American taxpayers.

 

[bshole]

It's batting practice everybody. Everyone a dinger! Just too friggin easy.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Pinning this on Obama is quite the stretch.

Lets work backwards.

Obama was heavily criticized for not pulling out the troops fast enough. So, no one expected Obama to to salvage/rebuild anything. Why is he being held accountable now all of a sudden? Because Iraq is going to shit and his critics want to hold him accountable, as just another thing to bitch and moan about Barry.

Bush declared early victory (Mission Accomplished) and then sat back grinning like a mongoloid as American men and women were being picked off by "insurgents". Countries backed out. Blackwater contracts surged. And the military industrialists turned into bloated pigs, oozing cash.

We paid for it; in bodies, lives, reputation, morale and lots of money.

This is all on Bush - period.

 

[bshole]

Bush declared early victory (Mission Accomplished) and then sat back grinning like a mongoloid as......

ROFLMFAO!!!! Dude that is the best one liner I have seen here. I blew Diet Dew out of nose when I read it!